[Emily Littleton] There's no moon in the sky tonight, though Emily knows that it hangs, fish hook slender and elusive as sin, behind the heavy cloud cover that shed fine white flakes into the last November evening. The air has gone past cold enough to see your own breath and into the sort of stillness that true winter brings. It has not been snowing long, so it is something of a novelty still. The ground hasn't frozen hard enough for snow to stick. It blurs the lines her eyes study, breaks up the heat of her frustration. It tangles up in her lashes, makes her blink. When she exhales, she can see the eddies her breath makes in the night without magic.
This is a kind of magic.
When she'd left the apartment, Emily had been walking a lot faster. Every footfall beat down some of her frustration, tamped it into hard-packed anger, smooshed and shaped it into something manageable. By now, that flame is just a flicker, a pilot light, nothing volatile and dangerous. Not now.
There's a light stiffness in one of her legs. You can hardly tell it from the way she walks, but anyone as in tune with Life patterns as Bran is might notice. Her hair is down, and falls in dark waves. She's wearing a dark jacket, jeans, boots. Her sweater is a pale lavender, when the light of a passing lamp catches it enough to cast color from it. Otherwise it appears grey. Her scarf a pale cream, otherwise appears white.
The Singer is a bright spot on an otherwise drab and quiet tableau. The snow falls, bringing a hush to everything, even her anger. The snow falls, and for the first time, Emily considers that Winter has come and her birthday is imminent.
The snow falls.
The Singer breathes out.
And somewhere, somewhere, there is some peace of mind for her to find, squirrel away, borrow on and make her own this evening.
The dark water sloshes against the shoreline. Fathomless. Opaque. She stops walking and stands still, looking out over it, wishing it was another other-named sea. The water swells and recedes, time and again, finding its own sort of heartbeat, pattern, current. She stands in a circle of lamplight and keeps quiet. Keeps still. Keeping still is harder than keeping quiet. Emily needs practice in both, just now.
[Bran Summers] Bran, too, is a bright point in winter, a bush with bright red foliage amid a sea of bare branches or a bonfire lit up on desolate tundra, pulling things into the light (and the heat - don't get too close.) These are the things he brings to mind, walking the drab lakeshore that is enough like Home to help him calm himself down, his strawberry blond hair reflecting the light of the moon.
Bran isn't familiar with the way magi have a tendency to gravitate to each other in Chicago. It happens in other places, but the pull is especially strong here; needless to say, he isn't expecting to run into someone else he knows.
He's just watching the waves, listening to them whisper against the shore as they crest it. He likes water: things gravitate toward their opposites. Any alchemist is aware of that.
He has his hands tucked in the pockets of his coat, and the snow has powdered on his shoulders. His anger has been dampened now that he's had a walk and some time to cool his head, but it still flares back up whenever he remembers the conversation and whenever he thinks about its implications. Like Emily, he feels betrayed and he feels hurt, but unlike her he isn't fully sure why yet. There was no violation the way there was for her, and so his particular situation is not so easy to sort out.
His breath comes out in a slow puff and mists around him as he stops and looks at the waves.
And then he sees Emily. Bran is a friendly man, and he likes to talk to people when he feels upset. He doesn't have to talk about what's bothering him; just being around someone else is sometimes enough. So he lifts a hand in a wave and then he starts over, smiling and watching her to see whether his approach is indeed welcome.
[Emily Littleton] It is hard for someone like Emily to deny the presence of a man like Bran, he who comes like a burning bush in the desert, who is a beacon on the shore. She is more a solid place in the storm, though Emily is still learning to rise about the troubled seas. To turn the push in her that is Unrelenting toward surety, toward an Unyielding bulwark. She is young, and her emotions some times run off course, off tether. But in this coldness it is easier for find repose. In this Winter, she can come back to her own Reverence.
She was the child who breathed in Winter and out Wonder. Somewhere, inside, she still is.
This city pulls them together and forces them apart like marbles in a spinning drum. It does not surprise her when they group together, and neither do the quiet weeks when she hears next to nothing of her Awakened brethren. She wishes, some times, for a more even pace; it never comes.
She is a little ways away, but they are close enough to make out each other's defining features, to compare that to one another's resonances. He waves. Her smile broadens and she steps back a little, opening her body language, welcoming without taking her hands out of her pockets.
When he draws nearer, she says, "I didn't realize you were still in town." It's warm; Bran brings out a warmer note in Emily than most of the Chicago mages. She owes him nothing, maybe that's why. It's unencumbered, and even a chance meeting can be respite from her responsibilities. "It's good to see you again. Did you have a nice Thanksgiving?" she asks, even though she likely didn't celebrate it.
[Bran Summers] Sometimes asking other magi about their holidays can be inviting tension into the conversation; many of them are Orphans. Many of them are driven, lonely people who don't have anyone to spend the holidays with, or who have suffered losses - family or friends - and notice it. But while Bran has had plenty of his own travails this year, because being Awakened isn't easy, it's been nothing like that.
He smiles at the question, coming to stand next to Emily beneath the lamp post. He's only a little taller than she is, and he stands straight-backed with his hands still comfortably tucked away in his pockets.
"I did, thank you for asking," he says. "I invited my mother over to celebrate with myself and Justine and her fiance Adam." Ashley wasn't there on the day of, the way she has been in prior years. Even last year. But things run their course, and the separation has been a long, slow process, like watching a firework and then seeing the smoke and embers drift off through the air and fade away in darkness.
"I'm not in town for very long," he says. "I have some business up in Rockford so I stopped to see Ashley and check up on my work at the chantry house while I was in town for the day."
A look toward her, something simultaneously friendly and inquisitive. "Did you spend the holiday with anyone here? Or have you been here long enough that American traditions have ceased to be novel?"
[Emily Littleton] "How could anyone with good sense eschew a holiday about good food and gratefulness?" she asks, looking (mock) offended that he would suggest she didn't like the holiday. It's an easy affectation, one that fades away once its meaning is taken, and is replaced by a little shake of her head.
"We had the week off from Uni, so I went home for a Christening. It's good to see family," she says, and it's a nod toward his holiday as well. Bran manages a companionable conversation without overmuch expectation; that's something Chicago has taught her not to expect in the Awakened world. "It's also good to come back."
She's been here several years, now, but Chicago is not home. It is still not home. Perhaps winter settling in has reminded her of that. Emily's gaze slips back out over the water.
"I was just at the Chantry a couple nights ago, down by the well. I got a chance to see your finished work; it's impressive." This is not exaggeration. Emily is not in the mood for exaggerating to bolster anyone else's ego. There's a sincerity that comes with that bluntness. She's offering a genuine compliment.
[Bran Summers] Emily mentioned the last (and first) time they spoke that she liked to build things; it does not surprise Bran to hear her compliment his work as such. He turns another smile in her direction. There's almost always the hint of one lighting about his eyebrows and cheeks, and all it takes is a slight twitch of his muscles to get it to actualize.
"Thank you," he says. "I thought it was a good thing, building it to remember the fallen. Some chantries don't honor them that way, and I'm always glad to hear of the ones that do." He's a soldier, like most Flambeau, and he's seen allies and friends fall in the course of a War most members of the Traditions think they've lost. He knows he himself probably won't reach old age - maybe not even middle age. He's accepted that.
"You struck me as the sort who'd have interest in Matter, as a subject of study." He doesn't know Emily is an engineering student, of course, but he indeed got a sense for what she likes, her preferences when he spoke about perfect order. There's the understanding there of a fellow architect.
There's a moment where he looks back out at the lake, leans his back against the lamp post behind him. His posture is still very straight, but there's an easiness to it; it isn't rigid. Just proud. "What made you join the Singers, out of curiosity?" And then he pauses, looks over at her and adds, with another smile, "My mentor keeps company with a member of the Chorus and Adam is a Singer too. It's always interesting to hear about it. Everyone seems to have such different reasons."
[Emily Littleton] He asks after her Tradition, and Emily's smile pulls in a little at the corner, carefully amused. Her chin ducks just slightly; it changes the angle of the lamplight in her eyes and they are once again merely dark, not blue-grey.
They are both Architects, and they are both socially aware. This is not a conversation by lamplight at the lake, not solely. Emily knows this, but for a moment she can pretend it is. She glances up, at him, just long enough to take away the lines of his face and the set of his smile, to commit them to fleeting memory, before she looks out over the water again.
This is not a simple thing you ask, says that look, and yet she attempts to answer.
"I grew up outside of the Church," she tells him. It is more or less true. "I visited, at holidays, or when I was home with my godfather and grandmother, but it wasn't foundational for me the way it seems to have been for many Singers."
She glances over at him, but doesn't let this small pause linger.
"We traveled, for the whole of my life, and one of the things that gave me was an appreciation for the experiences that transcend cultural and geographical divides; the things that make us human, wherever we are. There's War, and Love, all manner of sufferings and happinesses, but there is also profound Faith. If not in God, then in something greater than the sum of all our individual self-aware human parts, or even in Humanity itself.
"The Chorus lets me honor that and elevate myself as an instrument without it becoming heresy. There are others who, like me, believe our gifts impart a responsibility, are a call to action if not arms."
She shrugs, a little. This answer has been refined, honed, made more resonant over the past months. Bran asking her, tonight, on the cusp of all of her anger, is a good thing. It makes Emily remember, raises the words of her Oaths to the forefront of her mind.
"It called me Home." She smiles, it's softer and less social. This is a small moment of honesty, of vulnerability entrusted to the friend of a friend.
She turns now, to face him, hands still in her pockets. She lets her eyes find Bran's, clear and calm and intelligent. She's offered, and now she asks: "What called you to the Order?"
It's deliberate phrasing, though it sounds simple and unobtrusive on her tongue. There is a chivalry about him, an old and knowing thing.
[Bran Summers] Bran listens, and it's with true interest. He isn't the sort who wants to figure people out, gather pieces to them and slowly assemble it together into a picture: he just seems to genuinely like them. (Or maybe he did, once, and now he's gotten good enough at the Seeming to have fooled himself as much as everyone else around him.)
But Emily's answer is a good one, and it seems to please him as he listens; there's a thoughtfulness that hangs about the corner of his mouth, that smile still in place while he watches the waves and the flakes of snow settle into his hair like they've been called there to melt.
"It's wise, knowing that Awakening's a responsibility," he says. "It took me longer than you to figure that out. There's too much that's broken in the world for us to just sit back and do nothing with the power we've been given."
Been given, he says, and while Bran has never said he is a person of faith, he is caballed with someone who is, and he's considering inviting a Singer in with the two of them. He's at the very least open to the idea, even if he is not a Singer himself. He could have been one, though, perhaps.
"The Order recognizes what's divine in us...what's been set to flame by a Will greater than our own, most likely," he says. "For a reason. I joined the Order because it taught me how to structure my magic and shape it into something more. I thought," he says, after he's had a second to reflect, "that it would be the Tradition that would let me reach my fullest potential and help me bring out the potential of the people I knew."
He draws his hands out of his pockets after a moment and folds his arms, his shoulders still relaxed. "When I was still orphaned, I had a friend the Technocracy killed. And I've always thought that there has to be a better way than the fate that met him and the complacency that's settled over the world. The Order of Hermes has always held the other Traditions together and pushed them toward something higher. It seemed like the best way, to me, to build that."
[Emily Littleton] She listens, and the whole of Emily's attention tonight is not so weighty and cumbersome to bear. It does not drag him down. Perhaps, tonight, in recognizing what is sacred and strong within one another, they will elevate each other. Lift each other up out of whatever anger or frustration has found them. It is possible for Emily to do these things; once she was quite good at them. She could be again.
"Sometimes I think your Order is a very different thing than Ashley's," she says. She can say this without any disrespect, because Bran knows Hunger, knows her better even than Emily does. There is no malice or judgment in the Singer's words, but a quiet distinction drawn. She does not see them as two halves of the same whole, or even two hands working toward the same whole.
"When I was orphaned," she tells him, mirroring his structure. Call and response. It is a familiar thing to her, as one of the faithful. "Ashley encouraged me to speak with the Singers. I may have considered the Order more strongly if someone like you had been here," she tells him.
"I think we fight for similar things. I hope to become a Guardian, rather than a Theologian. There is too much work to be done in the world for me to sit idle, minding my books and my God." She says this, too, without judgment for those who choose a different path. It takes all kinds, but Emily is not one to sit idle. She does not know how to keep still.
"Do you feel the things you do, with your Will and your hands, effect change?" she asks, with direct interest. This comment of his calls up something Molly had said not long before. It reminds her of the ember burning at the pit of her stomach, the quiet outrage. "Can any manner of pushing against complacency and apathy really shift people's awareness and drives? I want to believe that it can, but it's been a hard day for believing."
She says this with a meaningful pause, a thing that rolls under the current of their conversation easily. Emily has her suspicions at why he might be out for a walk beside the freezing lake, during snowfall. They can't run too far cross-purpose to hers.
[Bran Summers] [Oh boy. +2, girl has already gotten on my nerves tonight.]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8)
[Bran Summers] [And I'm not angry.]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 6, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Emily Littleton] [Aware as Empathy: Cuz I'm pretty sure there's something going on, else you wouldn't be out here freezing your ass off. Am I right?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 7, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Emily Littleton] [Really? +1]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 7, 10 (Success x 1 at target 7)
[Bran Summers] Bran does not want to say anything kind right now about Ashley McGowen, nor does he want to have to defend her to Emily, defend her view of the Order. But Ashley is a Tradition mate, and whether he likes it or not, Ashley is an Adept and he isn't and she's a major figure in Chicago. She's an old friend (right) and a political tool; she's both of those things.
The way his smile shifts looks convincing, though there's something pensive about it, something a little sad, though whether that's for Ashley or because she doesn't quite share his vision, it's hard to say. It might be both - then again, Bran doesn't seem like the sort of man who pities. There's no anger, none that Emily can see. "Ashley and I were mentored very differently," he says. "She does have a very different outlook on the Order, but that's something that it's good to remember about people, I think. Things have to be torn down before they can be built up again, sometimes, and it's people who have a knack for that who find the flaws in a system so they can be corrected. She did a lot to help me and Justine affect change. Sometimes all a person needs is a little guidance."
Guidance that she is no longer getting here, but that's neither here nor there.
"I'm sorry that you got the wrong impression, though. Ashley's always been a little cynical." He flexes one of his hands, perhaps because there's a chill coming into it, and then they return to his pockets.
Emily's question to him, the burning ember that he's suddenly aware of, draws his eyes back to her. They're a little inscrutable behind the glare that appears over the glass that shades them, cast by the lamp. She says it's been a hard day for believing, and he grins suddenly and reaches over to give her shoulder a squeeze. It's friendly, nothing that lingers, meant to reassure because she's amused him somehow - not in a way that seems cruel. He probably sympathizes, in fact; this man has probably had days like that.
"I've always felt like I effect change," he says. "I've spent my Awakened life trying to get people to remember that we stand for change. A lot of them have forgotten, but sometimes all it takes is reawakening hope. We have to fight the apathy in the Awakened community before we can turn to the Sleepers, I think, because we're as guilty of it as anyone."
[Emily Littleton] Bran doesn't want to say anything kind about Ashley McGowen just now and Emily imagines that she, wherever she is tonight, would not want him to defend her. Ashley doesn't take well to such White Knighting. It reads too much like help.
"I didn't mean to belittle her paradigm or goals," she says, and Emily's hands come out of her pockets (empty [nothing to hide]). She rubs them together, blows into them for warmth. "Just that a lot of people seem to pick their Tradition for social as well as political reasons. And, at times, it's as much the medium through which an idea is presented as the idea itself that becomes resonant with a person -- I think you might have made the Order Sing for me, the way you talk about it.
"That's all I meant."
So there's that, an acknowledgment, a clarification. It's also a small warning that Emily knows what his sort of charisma, clarity of purpose and word, and drive can mean. She can name him as a Leader of Men; she can appreciate it in him without necessarily falling in step beside him.
Her hands go back in her pockets, but she smiles over at him when he grasps her shoulder. She lifts her chin a bit in acknowledgment. It's pleased, and she's centered enough today that there's no startle behind being touched. She's been getting better.
"So, really," she asks, eying him with an awareness of the way that people work that is not strong enough tonight to divine his mental state without asking. And as they are not close enough comrades to read each other effortlessly, she is reduced to words, and to whatever he will offer her. "What brings you out to the waterfront in the middle of the night? If you're just visiting from Boston, you can hardly miss the cold just yet."
It's gentle, this question. It's broad enough to leave him many outs. But there's a pull to her asking, something inviting and genuine. She wants to know, but does not need it. There's nothing invested here, however he answers. It's a freedom he might not have with other people; its a dangerous sort of charisma that Emily keeps. They have enough in common for her to seem familiar, and she's solid enough in her own personality to remain staunchly this side of sycophantic, even with how he pulls at people, even if he's the flame and she might be a moth.
[Bran Summers] ((Gah, sorry, AIM disconnected without me knowing it and I didn't see the new post.))
to Emily Littleton
[Emily Littleton] ((AIM's being pretty buggy just now. No worries about the delay!))
to Bran Summers
[Bran Summers] Men like Bran usually do not have the luxury of being open with people. The Awakened community is really not that large, after all, and one never knows who they'll meet down the line later who might remember something said offhand, some slip up that didn't really seem important at the time. (Ashley learned this: Kage has never forgotten the impression that Ashley's views of God left on her. Kage has also not forgotten things Bran said at that same meeting, and it's likely that Bran will have to contend with that view he left her with, should they speak again.)
This is the lot of a politician. Bran gets along with and likes many people, but he can only be open with very few of them. There are ways in which his Order and Ashley's aren't so different after all.
"Oh, I understand that," he says, of Ashley. "I didn't think you were belittling her. I'm just used to the idea of the Order she presents to people, by now." And there's a little smile there, rueful. It's a look of a patient man who realizes a close friend of his means well but doesn't always communicate properly; one might imagine he's had to sweep up the mess many a time. (That is, in fact, exactly what he does, and in some ways it's why they were effective as a team.)
It is a little cold, and there's a flush to his cheeks that's not embarrassment or anger; the wind is just toying with them, burning along the edges of his jaw like a dull razor. "I wanted a walk," he says, but his tone isn't really closed. He's recognized that invitation, and it's clear that he wants to take it; it's also clear that he's hesitating.
"Did you know that Ashley is studying with the Verbena? Did she mention that to you?" It's a leading question. He's aware that it seems to come out of nowhere. But he waits for her to respond, first.
[Emily Littleton] [I am totally not surprised by this at all. (Evasion!)]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Bran Summers] [You aren't? +WP 'cause I really wanna know.]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 4, 5, 7, 7 (Success x 3 at target 6) [WP]
[Emily Littleton] She knows the hesitance, and it isn't in Emily to push against it in another politician. She knows what favors their silences buy them, and why so few questions are answered directly. Like the one that he asks her, that raises her eyebrow in a subtle mark of surprise, but nothing more.
Emily shrugs a little.
"No, though I can't say it surprises me," she says, evenly. "There's a Disciple in town, and they seem to be friends." Emily leaves whatever speculation she has on that friendship aside. There's been enough strangeness between her and Jarod and Ashley this Fall to leave her wondering if there wasn't something more at play. After this conversation, she'd have to be a little more watchful.
"She lost family and a cabal-mate this summer. I can understand wanting to learn Life, after that. I'd be lying if I said it was a dissimilar motivation to my own." Emily breathes out memories into the night air. She hopes the cold carries them away. "But I didn't know he'd decided to teach her, or that she'd even asked."
It raised questions for Emily, who was cognizant of Jarod's methods. It left her chewing on the inside of her lip, even if she didn't elaborate on the things she kept quiet.
[Bran Summers] [Hm. Empathy?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 5, 6, 6, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Bran Summers] Bran releases a breath; it doesn't make a sound, but Emily can tell how deep the sigh was by the vapor that suddenly clouds the air in front of him and swirls away into the night. "Yeah, I met him, I think," he says. But he offers no further opinion on Jarod because Jarod mentioned Emily; it isn't smart, knocking a person in front of someone who might be his friend.
The last thing Bran wants to bring about or deal with tonight is more White Knighting. He is an outsider here, and no matter how quick his smile or well-placed his words, he knows that. They will defend each other before they will side with him. He can tell that there's something complicating the matter; if he thought a little harder about it, he could guess at what it is. And he does have the thought, briefly: because that particular complication would be useful, if he were so inclined - but Emily doesn't seem angry about it, precisely, and there's also the certainty that even if he were to use it, Ashley would find other avenues, if she hasn't already.
And he isn't going to do it just out of spite, not when it wouldn't do any good in the end. He's not cruel, at least.
"I'm just a little surprised that she didn't ask me," he says. "I've always been skilled with Life and she knows that. Hell, I came out and helped her forge her instrument for it and she didn't tell me what it was for." A pause. He might have said more - but Emily, from what she said, seems to him to back cross-Tradition training. It wouldn't be wise to say more. So he doesn't.
[Emily Littleton] It is complicated, but Emily isn't upset. It's an odd sort of detachment: she cares, to some extent, but feels no ownership over his actions. The girl exhales whatever frustrations that brings up into the night. The float away. They're weightless. Her eyes close for a moment, lashes kiss her cheeks. Don't mistake this for repose: it's only quiet.
"Maybe that's why," Emily offers. She shrugs a bit, and reaches up to run the fingertips of one hand through her curls, to loosen the places that the wind has knit together, to shake out the dampness of fallen and melted snow. "She has always had you as an example. She knows, more or less, your viewpoint. She respects you enough to have your Will shape her focus -- think on that for a moment," she points this out, because it's resonant. Because his magic will always have an echo in hers. She is mindful, this Emily, for all she is new to this world.
"I'm not going to pretend to understand your friendship, most days I don't understand my own with hers, but sometimes Ashley seems to need to surmount something. To climb right over the top of it and claim it. Going to another Tradition for their viewpoint isn't a bad thing, necessarily. Our differences can enlighten one another and if she's really so very certain in her beliefs as she seems to be, then she'll return validated and galvanized."
Her lips purse a little. She's not justifying what Ashley's done, just offering up reasons not to be overly upset about it. Though, the Singer suspects there may be more jealousy here than anything else at play. That's a suspicion she keeps to herself.
"I've studied with him. Life was the first Art I learned after waking up. I was still orphaned and had no intention of joining the Verbena. What he's shown me surely influenced how I practice magic, but it hasn't changed what I fundamentally believe."
There's nothing in Emily's tone or cadence that suggests approval over Jarod, either. There's no sweetness or nostalgia. This is simple conversation.
"Of course that may not be how you feel about it, and I can understand that. The Chorus isn't too happy about learning outside of its bounds either."
[Bran Summers] Simple jealousy may indeed be all there is to it; Emily hasn't really spoken to any Hermetics at length except for Ashley, and now Bran (who is not about to rant to her about his views on primal magic. Not after what she's just told him.) She might have the sense that there's something deeper at play here, but it's hard to tell what it is, if it's there at all.
But Emily tells him: think on that, she respected him, and he does seem to genuinely consider that. And he nods. But what he does say is, "I'm concerned about a person's ability - anyone, not just Ashley's - to belong to one Tradition, study at length with another, and be able to keep the two separate. There's that trite line about a man serving two masters that applies here."
Which is, in fact, the real core of his worries. And if he worries about it, he knows that others are going to; he knows that they were associated quite closely with each other for a very, very long time. Emily isn't the only one at the moment who is worried about a web of interpersonal complications; Bran just has a reputation at stake with his. And his cause depends on how well he can get people to back him.
There's another smile that he turns in Emily's direction after a moment, amused and wry. "It sounds like you understand how she thinks, at least. You're right. I'm going to hope that's all it really is."
[Emily Littleton] "It's a valid concern," she tells him, agreeing with his assessment. Emily nods a little, solemnly. These are heavy things to consider. "But ultimately, we all fight the same battles. She's talking with a Verbena. While he can be an ass," she concedes, "It's not like he's Mad or Fallen."
Emily suspects that Jarod might just have been his charming self, given and opportunity to upset the balance of power in an established friendship. The thought gnaws at her temple a bit, threatens to blossom into a headache.
This is complicated, for both of them. Emily doesn't have a reputation to worry about, just yet, but she might some day soon. She understands what that means, and implies. One of the reasons she has been so angry with Chuck is based on a similar pattern of implication and implicit consent. Only one. There were so many reasons to be mad at Chuck just now.
"I'd be interested in your thoughts on the sphere, some day, if you happen to be in town again. I'd be happy to offer you mine, which are not Jarod's, but between the two of us we may be able to find some common ground or common concerns." She shrugs, a bit. Emily likes discussing magic, and paradigms, and the way their viewpoints conflict and complement one another. She finds it, as an academic study, intriguing. Pragmatically, it gives her better footing for collaborating with people outside of her Faith. There's little to lose, until it devolves into disrespectful argument.
"Or," better yet, her tone seems to say, "Maybe we'll just grab a pint and ignore both of them. It beats getting frost bite." Her smile is warmer, now. Echoes his wry amusement. She wears it well.
[Bran Summers] Bran has not yet given hints that he would disrespectfully argue with Emily; Singers, after all, are a group he's worked closely with. He has some measure of respect for them, even if he finds the Order to be a better choice with a magical practice he respects more. No: there's just a dislike of Verbena that is becoming more and more ingrained. Sometimes one or two bad experiences can ruin a group of people for a person.
Emily suggests a pint and ignoring them then, and Bran laughs. "Sure. I'd be glad to. I ended up leaving most of my glass at the pub with Ashley." He also left Ashley (or perhaps Jarod) to foot the bill. He doesn't feel bad about that.
"I'll certainly share the insights that I have on the Ars Vitae, if you're interested in hearing them," he says. "I don't have occasion to come out this way often, but I'll give you a call if I'm anywhere close by. Or you can call me if you have need of anything out here that Ashley can't cover." Any Hermetic issues, he means. He doesn't insinuate this as though he'd want her to go behind Ashley's back, just: the offer is there.
Bran steps away from the lamp after a moment, giving a quick shake of his head to let the snow fall out of his hair and drift to his shoulders. His hair still looks like the color of dawn in the lamplight.
"Lead the way. But not the Hung Drawn and Quartered, please."
30 November 2010
Cake or death?
[Emily Littleton] [An: Dex+Ath! Go go go]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 6, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Emily Littleton] [Emily: Dex + Ath! No you don't!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 5, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Emily Littleton] Emily's flat is warm. It is comfortable. Despite the broad expanses of wood floor, there was not chill to bite into toes so long as visitors wore their socks. She kept it comfortable because she had a kitten to mind, and that was an excuse to keep the hearth burning when she was home. An was less likely to traipse through the soot and leave black paw prints everywhere if the fireplace was ablaze.
They were learning to cohabitate. Just now, An was busily stalking the trailing end of Emily's scarf, where it hung out of Owen's rocking chair. The little fringe swayed just slightly on the air currents in the flat, making it seem a worthy quarry. And whenever she batted and her claws caught, it pulled the rocking chair into a back and forth sway. The kitten leaped back, surprised at her prey's agility--The throw pillow had never fought back so dancingly!--and rounded the couch to stalk-peer-observe from a safe distance.
From Emily's vantagepoint, the rocking chair started oscillating all on its own. There was a quiet scurry of paws on hard floor, and then the chair wound down to almost a standstill before it all began again. She shook her head, chuckled, and was patiently amused.
When Molly arrived, the knock startled An into a new stance of watchfulness. She climbed up on the couch and peeked over its back cushions, then scaled higher until she was standing on the back itself. Tall as tall could be. When the door opens, she charges! The kitten is fast, just a little too fast for Emily. She slips past the Singer's best grab for her and twines between Molly's legs purring resonantly and happily. Big blue eyes look up, up, up at the Cultist.
Emily shakes her head.
"C'mon in."
[Molly Quincannon] Molly's got ferrets. One of these ferrets is a total spaz. Thus, An's sudden arrival and purr-twining gets giggles, and Molly gives Em a smile - tired, a little rueful, but neither of those things are directed at Emily, per se; for Emily, there's warmth threaded through the whole thing - as she scoops up the kitten and to allow her to take up a position on her back and shoulder as she removes her boots. "Thanks. I see someone hasn't forgotten me. Hi, Em and An. Or maybe An and Em? Both of you, anyway."
Then she straightens, transferring An from shoulder to arm as her boots are off and her hands are free. "How're you doing?" It's a question of many layers, that one - the surface is Molly's usual curiosity, but ... well, Ashley said she'd tell Emily about Molly's recent info-bomb. Ashley isn't the sort to waste time when threats to the Chantry might be involved. And there was the text message. Still, sometimes it's nice to have a quiet lead-in to these things. So says someone who hacks databases (though not the Technocracy, oddly enough) for shits and giggles.
[Emily Littleton] The kitten has no concept of holding still just now. Molly picks her up, and she wiggles and wanders and scales the Cultist like a climbing structure, happily purring all the while. She's thrilled, you see, to have people back. Chuck was supposed to make sure the kitten didn't expire while Em was gone, but he wasn't really a pet person. An had been like this since Emily got back, save for when she was curled up in the rocking chair asleep, guarding it, lest Emily follow through on her unspoken threat to give the chair away.
"I was home for a week, for a Christening. It was a nice break. I had a really good time," she says, and there's warmth underlying that response that's only slightly broken by the topic they both know is going to break soon enough.
"Do you want some tea? I've got a licorice ginger black already made up, but I can put together something else if you like."
There are customs to keep, if only obliquely, and Emily sees to them before they dive into the meat of her message.
"Or chicken stew? I made some yesterday. It's Ashley-approved." She smirks.
[Molly Quincannon] The clambering of the kitten just gets more giggles (see the previous about ferrets; there are days when Neal and Hardison use her as a climbing frame, getting all her tickly spots and sometimes ending up tucked into a shirt sleeve), but eventually, after giving the kitten a few pettings and ear-and-neck scritches, she puts An down and wanders in after Emily. Her eyebrows go up with interest about liquorice ginger black tea - "Something I have never tried, and so it must be tried. Thanks. And of course anything you make is Ashley-approved; I strive to be as awesome as you are in the kitchen. Everything I make is edible and usually even tasty - like I said about black forest cake--" She pats her messenger bag for emphasis "--but you even make it look good. I'm in constant awe. All that to say, yes, that sounds awesome. Besides chicken and veggies and stuff, I hope you'll tell me what's in it. I like to expand my repertoire."
Then, about the christening, "Oh, cool! Glad you had a good time. How'd you find the airport security? The buzz about the TSA people getting handsy on the enhanced pat-downs and insulting and harrassment-ish about the X-ray machines is unbelievable! I haven't had the chance to ask anyone who's been through it - not first-hand, anyway."
Yes, she knows that there are things to discuss, but her curiosity is piqued in all manner of directions just now. The questions come fast mainly because of that Frantic nature about her; she wants answers to sate her curiosity about the little matters as fast as she can get them, before they are overridden by anything serious.
[Emily Littleton] "I'll jot you down some notes," she says, to the recipe. "But stew's pretty forgiving. Some veggies, some meat, some broth, and a whole lot of time. Pretty much anything'll come together right if you're patient enough."
She brings Molly some tea, first, and then sets some of the soup on the stove to reheat. Emily doesn't have a microwave, and doesn't seem to miss it much. At home there is the Aga, which is always on, and always warm. She'd spent her mornings cuddled around it, waiting until her coffee water and hands thawed out. Kitchen towels hung on the Aga's doors were always warm. If she ever settled down enough to have a house of her own, she'd have to see about getting one imported.
On airport security then: "Ah, I don't really worry about it much. I have a trusted traveler card--preferred traveler? I don't even remember what it's called anymore--for getting through customs, and customs has always been more strict than than the TSA." She says this like airport security was the least of her worries on a quick jaunt between the UK and the US. And, in truth, it was. There were many other countries that had heavy firearms at border checkpoints, who observed your every move with one hand on a machine gun and trained military personnel at every imaginable exit.
Emily thought this Fourth Amendment fuss was overmuch whinging. She also thought it was highly inappropriate for anyone to pat her down without permission. Being a diplomat's daughter gave her the social toolbox for navigating these indignities with grace. Being a young twenty-something gave her all the motivation in the world to make a stink. Thankfully being a mage tipped the balance toward discretion, again, and she was polite and unaffected by the security milieu.
"I don't think it's as big a deal as people make it out to be. Most of the people complaining don't travel often, and the people who travel often are already used to inconvenience, brusque officials, and long, long lines."
[Molly Quincannon] Molly considers what's said about patience and smiles a little - wry and self-teasing. Patience is not, after all, the first adjective most would use to describe her. Not that she's entirely without it, but other adjectives apply first and foremost, and they seem to counteract 'patience' as a virtue.
The bit about the TSA gets a bit of a snort. "Eh, could be. I've never actually been on a plane, so I guess I wouldn't be used to it at all. I'll have to give it a try sometime and see how it goes, and how much I ought to protest the whole mess. I always figured that just letting that kind of thing go while saying 'it's not a big deal' and 'if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear' and brushing aside the indignities that claim to be offering safety while really just curtailing liberty is just off, y'know? It's a bit why my bunch say that actually, apathy won the Ascension War, rather than either side."
Which, of course, opens The Subject. And, based on the text message she got, there's really only one not-quite-a-question. "You and Ashley talked."
[Emily Littleton] "I rather think it's like going to the DMV and expecting not to wait in lines, the idea that air travel between nations is going to be any less regulated and invasive than the Visa processing paperwork is a fool's errand, to me." She shrugs. Emily can't speak to flying within US borders. She's considered a foreign national almost every time she flies. There's passports and visas and all manner of things to check. Since she was a young child, she'd been required to present her Papers whenever she traveled.
Freedom of movement isn't something she expects. Emily, for all her father's heritage is hers, doesn't often think like an American.
"But to each their own. Some will stand and fight, and some will be civilly disobediant and some of us will continue trying to pick the shortest line and praying no one has a stroller in security."
She shrugs. Once Molly's soup is warmed, she pours it into a bowl and brings it to the table. Emily slides into a chair, only slightly favoring one of her legs. It's hardly noticeable, now, that the bruises under her jeans have begun to fade.
"We talked," she confirms. There's a firmity to those words that still sounds a bit like anger, even a day later. "And you and I should. I don't want you to read this as me trying to get between you and Chuck, but there's something you should know about why Chuck and I ultimately split ways. It could affect you too."
She pauses here, and waits on Molly's approval to go ahead.
[Molly Quincannon] [[Perc + Alertness - for my own edification, does Molly notice the leg-favouring?]]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Molly Quincannon] Molly leaves the travel bit alone, as 'each to their own' really sums it up as far as she's concerned. Emily's bliss is not her bliss, Emily's views are not hers, and as long as she's not completely advocating an increase in Orwellian security processes, that's just fine with her. Especially right now. She's had arguments about this sort of thing before, and on top of everything else, one more would probably drain her past her limits.
The slight favouring of one leg gets a bit of a frown, though - if there's one thing Molly recognises well, it's injured people. "You okay?" Not that she could do much about it - no Life magic, no particular skill with first aid, but she does have a few tips and tricks about muscle aches, garnered from trial, error and Google searches when she started martial arts classes. It's mostly just concern, though - she does care, after all.
The bit about that they should talk gets a raised eyebrow - she knows that from the text, but it's the 'what about' that has her curious. As Emily goes on, there's a slightly surprised blink, and then a very weary look. "First of all, don't worry too much about getting between me and Chuck. He's been doing an awesome job of putting himself between us, for various reasons that I'll talk about if you're interested, though they're not really connected to this whole mess. So if you think I need to know, go for it." She looks not nervous but wary and guarded in the way that suggests that she's already preparing her emotional barricades so when the blow hits, she won't just blow up all willy-nilly.
[Emily Littleton] For what it's worth, Emily isn't advocating anything Big Brother is up to, she's just overly cognizant of how criticism sounds when its issued forth in her accent with her general ennui for the woes of the beleaguered travelers. She lacks a requisite nationalism to get all hot and bothered over Constitutional matters. Genuine human rights infractions bother her, but this, in the scope of humanity's ills in other venues, really doesn't get under her skin.
It's a matter of scale. She was a young girl in China during a time when almost all of her peers were boys, because the culture had participated in gender-based genocide with a blind eye cast toward its future viability. She's lived, briefly, in homes without running water. She's help feed children who would likely never have a chance at an education. These things anger her; medical grade x-rays and overly friendly pat downs? The latter comes close to a very bad memory in her life, but she knows that anyone who attempts to actually fondle or rape her in a governmental setting would have the full force of her father's office on their head in hours.
But that? That's all shrouded subtext. That's just the sort of rant and argument they're avoiding just now. Emily doesn't know why her player spent two paragraphs on it, just to get around to:
"I did a little favor for a friend," she says, about the leg. "And our dear friend Paradox reminded me that no good deed goes unpunished." There's a dry mirth to this, good-natured. Emily doesn't mind the bruises, or the sound trouncing Reality had given her, if it means that Nico will heal a little faster.
She exhales though, and places her hands flat on the table. "So, about Chuck." It leads into the conversation, uneasily. Emily hates this part. She doesn't like sharing, to begin with, and there's going to be a lot of sharing for them all to put this particular indiscretion right. Damn him, she mentally shakes a fist in his general direction. And damn Owen for not being around, to do the face punching for Emily.
"Early this year, when Chuck was curious about my International Driver's License, and passport stamps, and mysterious," she waggles her fingers sarcastically, "Past, he convinced himself that it'd be a good idea to go digging for whatever he could find out about me. So, with the help of the Great Google, he amassed pretty much my whole life's documentable history on a thumb drive, and gave it to me like it was a present. Now I don't know if it's his usual modus operandi or if he was actually convince my father's a spy, and thus overly curious, but he might have done the same to you. And if he's been on the radar as long as you've said, and if he's managed to get his system compromised and traced, well then, my friend, we're pretty much fucked."
Emily doesn't usually cuss, but she's not really sure there's another word in the English language that succinctly sums up the situation. So 'fucked' it is.
[Molly Quincannon] Molly was going to offer muscle-and-bruise-easing advice. Really, she was. And she will. However, when Emily speaks about Chuck compiling a dossier on Emily's entire life in one neat little package - and 'took it upon himself' sounds a lot like 'didn't ask permission first' to her, thank you very much - tips on how to deal with aches and pains take a firm backseat. She stares at Emily, and there's no mistaking the look on her face; it's sheer disbelieving horror. "He ... he did what? I ... I mean, I ... when I asked why the travelling, you ... you just told me! I mean, what did he think he was doing? Just... Gah!"
She stands up, then, because that frantic energy is now just a little much to be contained in a chair. She paces up and down a couple of times, five steps per pace, behind the chair she vacated. Her lips are tightly pressed together, and her hands are up at about the level of her shoulders, hooked into a grasping sort of pose as if itching to throttle or claw. She looks, frankly, like she's going to explode.
And then she does. The profanity that ensues is ... 'impressive' is a word. Emily may or may not be familiar with Warren Ellis, but there are a few phrases and concepts thrown in there that stem more or less from that particularly twisted mind, tailored to fit the situation. Something about 'platypus-fisting, goat-blowing hypocrite' pokes out of the effing and blinding. It's not particularly loud, the swearing; there's just a lot of it. It makes her barrage of "Fuckity-fuck-fuck-fuuuuck" when all her stuff got stolen out of the back of her U-Haul look very, very tame.
It stops as abruptly as it started, with a final, "sonuvabitch!", and she drops back into her chair again, taking deep, potentially calming breaths. Then, she says, "Okay. Better. Sort of. Did he give a reason for this blatant invasion of privacy and abuse of trust?"
[Emily Littleton] [WP.Emily!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Emily Littleton] [WP.An!]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Emily Littleton] Emily's cat does not much like this outburst. She had started following Molly through her paces, but breaks away after the profanity and emphatic noise begins. Instead she makes a beeline for her chair, sending it careening into a rocking motion once she alights.
"Some people have issues with boundaries and privacy," Emily says, when Molly asks her how, and why, and what. There's an edge to it. This indiscretion bothers her more than anything the government is doing. "And he thought he was helping."
"I think."
"Maybe."
Then comes the explosion. Emily listens, but doesn't join in. And it goes, for awhile; Molly is a bit more creative with her impolite vocabulary than Emily is, and not for want of practice. Just that she hasn't encountered so very many ways to swear in English.
"My thoughts, exactly," she adds, drolly, to the end of Molly's verbal excess. It's unamused, irritated, and dry. "He thought that pulling it all down to one place, and hiding what he could of out it out there, on the web, would limit my exposure to, well, frankly to people like us. Not that I'm at your level, or Chuck's, but I can hold my own and I know how to find illicit information if needs be. Needs rarely are that dire, though, so I doubt I would have landed on anyone's radar -- beyond possible recruitment due to my projects at University -- without help.
"Now," she says, with a distinctly displeased burr, "I don't know. I was angry, then, because he'd done it all, and because he'd found newspaper microfiche prints from Prague, and it upset me. Now, I'm livid."
Emily says livid in that pristinely perfect Northern accent of hers and it could cut right though glass. She appeared calm and collected though, beyond the clench to her jaw and the way her hands stay flat against the table top.
[Molly Quincannon] Molly sighs and prods at her stew. She's not really that hungry anymore, and goes for the tea instead, taking a sip and taking a moment to savour it - perhaps another aid to calm. Then she takes another deep breath and says, "I don't blame you. Though in all fairness to Chuck, his firewalls are pretty solid. I've seen them tested, and done a bit of testing at his request myself, and I don't think they've wormed their way into his system. I'd be more worried about the leverage they have on him via his family. I mean, I just wonder what he'd give if someone threatened to put a bullet to his sister, parents, nephew..."
So that's one question answered - she's worried about Chuck's family, sure, but she's more worried about how easily they could be used as leverage by someone who wanted more intel on the Chicago magi but didn't necessarily see a need or opportunity to use brute force to get it.
Then she shakes her head. "I don't like this, Emily. Well, obviously," she adds with a bit of a snort, waving a hand to where she had been pacing, and swearing, and generally exploding. "For someone who demands that his boundaries be respected at all times, he sure doesn't have any qualms about busting through other people's, does he? And with that Sword of Damocles he's got hanging over his head... Oh, he thought he was helping; fucking wonderful. When it's safe and convenient and some kind of challenge that he can deal with, he wants to help and tucks information in a nice, neat, easy-to-read bolus of data ... about his girlfriend, no less! I swear if he's racked up a dossier on me I am going to apply a Forces-enhanced steel-toe to portions of his anatomy that I don't think I ever want touching me again. And no," she adds with a small, wan smile, "it's not entirely to do with this. This is just the icing on that particular cake. He's ... said and done a lot that I find ... repugnant. This is just the last damn straw."
[Emily Littleton] [Please, Dice Roller, I'll sacrifice and bunch of code to you if you stop harassing Emily!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 5, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Emily Littleton] "I'm probably not the person you want offering sympathy, just now, but I can listen. And understand. I'm sorry it's gotten to that point between you two," Emily says, and there's an undercurrent of warmth and compassion in her voice that telegraphs clearly, even through the red haze of ire and indignity at the table. She rests her hand, for a moment, on Molly's.
There's a shadow, then, of the Knight she will be that steps forward to guide them past that rough and sometimes awkward place. They both have a lot of emotion in this, but Emily's calm is something Molly can borrow on. And Molly can explode for the both of them. They complement without mirroring.
"Chuck folds when his people are threatened. I like him enough as a friend, and he's a decent cabal-mate," that much is said with open reservation just now; it hardly rings sincere. "The safest thing for us to imagine is that he will cave, if pressure is applied to his family. Or to you, or me. No matter how angry you may be with him, and rightfully so, we're both still leverage over him. Riley would be if he stayed. Family is reserved for the most overt threats, and usually escalation. Harassing one of us, especially if they think we're only Sleepers, would be where I'd start."
She says, so bluntly and easily. Like she'd given it some thought.
"Rough up the college girl with a dark history, get her emotional and off-edge? It's a good introit to less polite negotiations." Her nails click against the table top now. This is something she didn't want to discuss with Ashley, but she and Molly were in a similar boat. They needed each other to be aware of the dangers.
"Not that either of us are push overs or would stand quietly for that sort of business, just that you could stir up quite the hornet's nest with little to no effort along that route. We're all vulnerable, like Ashley said, and we need to get vigilant."
[Molly Quincannon] Molly meets Emily's eyes briefly, when there's the warmth and compassion and the touch of a hand. It's not sympathy she's after, at this point, and her eyes telegraph this. It's more that they need to know exactly the sort of person they're dealing with, particularly given the thing about the circumstances under which Chuck folds. "...Not me. If they threatened me, he would do nothing." She speaks as if she knows, and there's pain in it. She demonstrates how she knows when she goes on: "He ... was very much against the rescue mission at the art gallery. Said he would have waited until all the data was double- and triple-checked. Said it didn't matter how long it took to check to make sure that the plan was infallible and, if possible, involved no contact. No, it did not matter that there were people in there, locked into dead flesh and suffering. Nor did it matter what they were doing to me. What happened to them ... and to me ... did not matter. Or at least, not more than doing things the 'right' way did. So I wouldn't worry about what he'd do if they ever started harrassing me. I'm more worried about what they could get out of me if they ever did. So ... yeah. Caution and vigilance." Not for my sake, is the clear subtext, but for yours. All of yours.
[Emily Littleton] [WP: +1 personal issues, +1 more since I've already rolled a WP check on this matter in the LAST FIVE MINUTES, damnit, Chuck.]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 6, 6, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 8)
[Emily Littleton] "Well, I wouldn't have waited," she says, around her teeth, and the words are a little less forgiving than they might have been. "I still wish the Guardians had given the rest of us more of a heads up, so we could help, but that's neither here nor there. You're back, and they sorted it and Chuck..."
Her mouth purses. Emily has yet to rise to any sort of epithet for him beyond a clenched jaw and the sharpness in her eyes, but it's there. Believe, Molly, the anger and ire is there. It's a good thing that Emily is not a Forces mage. She breathes in the smell of tea and soup, and breathes out fire-laced thoughts that could ignite, mid-air, if they had any sense of self-aware purpose.
"Chuck... has no place even thinking that around you, not after what you've been through." This isn't sympathy, mind. Her fingers still against the table, no more clicking. Her fingers curl into fists, then relax. "What insensitive fuckery was that?"
Emily was very much in the No Man Left Behind camp, when it came to warfare. There were triage decision that could circumvent that but, all things being equal, you saved the friendlies right after the innocents.
"I..."
Her mouth opened, and then closed.
"I have no idea how to trust him, or what I should trust him with, if he truly felt that way about what happened to you. If he's kept this from us both, and Ashley, for this long. She doesn't want to make a Pariah out of him, but he's my cabal-mate. He's my thin red line against Madness, if it comes. Without Owen, Chuck's it, and I don't think that's much support, at all, after this."
[Molly Quincannon] Molly sighs. "I don't want to make a pariah out of him either. That's why that ... 'insensitive fuckery' ... is something that only a few people really know about. Or at least, a part of why." The rest, fairly clearly, is that she stayed with him after all of that. She kept looking for some way to trust. She hates that about herself, a little. "I mean, Israel says that when we make a pariah out of someone, we're doing the Mirrorshades' job for them. You know, with the witch-hunting and something that looks like McCarthy going after Communists in the fifties. Man, McCarthy was a dick. Anyway, point is that I don't want to make him hated, but I sure as hell don't trust his methods most of the time. So on a personal level, I don't know what to do about it. On a magely level ... I leave him out of things. He knows there are Technocrats in the area and he knows I'm poking around but he is distinctly Not Invited to that particular info-gathering party. And before you ask, yes, I'm being careful. I haven't done anything illegal, I haven't hacked anything so I can't be traced that way, and my esoteric next-step is going to be with Ashley masking my resonance, which'll do until I manage to crack doing it myself." She grins a little, mocking herself slightly - at least she's self-aware when it comes to her flaws.
The rest gets a frown. "Cabals are tricky things. I've been taking Henri's shifts at the Chantry for sentry rota as well as my own because every time I bring it up with her, she gives me the finger and says the entire bunch of them can go fuck themselves. Which ... y'know, I did explain to her what being in a cabal means, but she seems to have gone into it just so she can say she's in one or something, I don't know. Point is, though, that there's support outside a cabal, always. I mean, we're not cabalmates, and this whole vent/not-vent thing is support, sort of. And there are other cabals, if it really comes to that. I mean, if the Leaves fell apart tomorrow and you wanted in, Stormwatch'd have you with open arms. Just ... remember that whatever happens, there's always going to be someone to be your line against ... the Madness, okay?"
[Emily Littleton] It's a lot to pull together and process. It's been a big day for Emily, and last night was filled with not a few angry internal rants. Of all the Celestial gifts that might have been visited upon Emily, Temperance was one she had to work at, unceasingly. It wasn't her best quality, but nothing gave her a chance for improvement like challenges.
This was quite the challenge.
"I don't want to ostracize him, but being caballed says that I have a certain implicity or condone his methods, which I don't. There's supposed to be some unity, I would imagine, and with Riley gone that's fallen apart. I study with other mages, I work with other mages, I fight with other mages, and Chuck isn't there. We don't stand together in anything but the Chantry roster these days. It's been a long time coming, but this feels like one hell of a push to disband -- if I could only find Owen for a vote."
No, the last is not self-pity. It is frustration.
Emily waves her hand at the question of whether Molly's being careful or not. "First thing, you wouldn't be this upset with Chuck unless you were being careful. Secondly, I somewhat assume you've gotten a bit more cautious after this summer. Third, if you want help, let me know. I'm not V-dept, but I know my way around the net. I'm a good second string, putting pieces together and refining queries, that sort of thing, but I usually eschew poking around in restricted playgrounds."
The rest gets a frown, indeed. One of sympathy when Henri comes up. "I rather expected Henri to disparage the thought of sentry rota she had to keep herself, not through bots or widgets," Emily sympathizes. "I'm sorry to hear you're picking up her slack."
There was a lot of that that happened quietly in Emily's cabal and Molly's. Good times.
[Molly Quincannon] The bit about Owen gets a slightly worried frown from Molly. Frustration is never a good emotion, and besides, magi going missing never ends well, particularly given the whole Jhor-suspicion thing that got mentioned awhile back. But all the same, all Molly can really say is, "Well, there are two choices about Owen. Either you track him by whatever means necessary just so you know he's not waist-deep in crap and sinking, or ... well, make the decision and if he has a problem with it, tell him he has no right to complain because he wasn't there. Or both, I guess. I suppose I'd want to know where he was just on general principles, things going as they are. Though I guess we know where the road paved with good intentions takes us, with everything that's going on right now. Thing is ... you're the Emissary. At some point, if there's no one else you can trust to give a vote ... I guess you have to man up and make the choice. Not that it's easy; believe me, I know. Nat's spending most of her time bouncing the bedsprings with Lara these days, and Henri's ... well, Henri. It's actually only Atlas these days who's pulling their weight, and they all know about the Technocrat shit. Hell, I'm getting more support out of the apprentice sharing my living space than I am from my actual cabal. We just do with what we've got, I guess." The sympathy gets a smile too. "Thanks, but frankly, if all I have to deal with is a couple of no-shows and a change in setting for the never-ending day job, the study and the teaching - Isabel and Ellie both, some days; man, I hope I'm doing right by them - I think I haven't got a lot to complain about, comparatively."
To the offer of help, Molly smiles. "Oh, I'm not going through the 'Net for this one. But if you're in any way skilled with Time and Entropy, and if Ashley can mask us both - or you can mask yourself - I wouldn't mind a little more push there. Basically, I've been going carefully through what Israel told me about her encounter at the asylum, and I keep hitting dead ends. Bar hacking the DoD, which ... well, I could and I will as a last resort, but I honestly think I'm barking up the wrong tree. So if I want to know what they're up to - and believe me, I do, if for no other reason than to nip this in the bud before they take another shot at Israel, because I will not let her be hunted like this; she's done too much for me to not do everything I can to help - I'm just going to have to scry out the most likely scenario of what they want to do. Hence, Time and Entropy. They didn't used to call my Trad the Seers of Chronos for nothing, y'know." She grins a bit, then shrugs. "If I think it can be risked - and I'll be asking for Ashley's opinion on that one - might even try to find where they've set up their base-op."
[Emily Littleton] "Just rudimentary Entropy, and no Time," she tells Molly, with an apologetic tinge. The anger has bled out of her by now, or at least abated to a reasonable thrum.
It piques a little when Israel's brought up again. "Though you will let me know if there's anything I can do to help," Emily assures Molly. It isn't a question. "I owe Israel too much, myself, to see any harm visited upon her. If you find something we can act upon, count me in."
And that is how it goes, this transition from Apprentice to Knight that is well on its way. Few would mark Emily as militant, but she's had quite that martial year. She gets up from the table to fix herself some tea. It's lukewarm now and needs to be reheated, but she doesn't bother.
"I'll handle the Leaves, somehow. But I wonder if it's worth it. I've Owen's key; I suppose I can leave a message on his fridge if nothing else works." There's a small smile, but it's just for show here. Emily hasn't set foot in his flat since she last saw him. They're... having their differences just now.
[Molly Quincannon] Molly nods and tells her, "I'll get the info, and you'll know everything I do as soon as I can get a report to you and the other cabal spokesbods. Then we can look at our resource pool and decide, together, what we can do with that info." Her mouth twists and purse into a rueful, slightly bitter smile as she adds, "I don't know what our resource pool is going to look like by that time, mind you, but knowing is something." She sighs and shakes her head. "I can teach you Time, if you want. It doesn't seem to be something a lot of the magi around here have, but it's got serious usefulness if you want to find out what happened, or what might. Plus looking a step ahead to see what the guy trying to attack you is going to do so you can not be where the blow's supposed to land is awesome. Mind helps with that, too."
To the bit about the Leaves, and Owen, she tilts her head and looks at Emily for a quiet moment. Emily and Owen; Molly and Chuck. 'Having their differences', even if those differences are ... well, different. "Like I said, only you can make that call. But Ashley said something the other day, about how basically life's too short to go around letting situations that aren't getting any better sit around and be a drain. Either you can fix it or, because of its inherent instability or just a lack of the other parties involved being willing or able to work with you, it can't. Not telling you your business or anything; just a thought. And yeah, I know it's harder than it looks, so I'm not trying to be a hypocrite. Just ... be careful not to let the whole thing drive you bugnuts, I guess is all I'm saying." Whether she's talking about Owen in specific or the Leaves in general ... the world may never know.
Then she eyes her stew and says, "It smells great, but y'know what? I think we both need chocolate. It's not really conventional to have dessert first, but convention be damned; I'm breaking out the black forest cake. Want any?" She's already rummaging in her laptop bag. She certainly intends to have some, at least. "It'll go well with the tea, I think, anyway."
[Emily Littleton] [Sneak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 2, 4, 7, 7, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Emily Littleton] [Pounce!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 4, 6 (Failure at target 6)
[Molly Quincannon] [[Perc + Alert]]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 4, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Emily Littleton] [Per+Alert: The hell are you up to, cat?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Emily Littleton] "I'm always interested in learning new things," she tells Molly, and there's nothing facetious to it. Emily woke up with the rudimentary knowledge of three spheres. Since then she's learned three more, and advanced two to Initiate standing. All in the space of a year, almost to date. She is an avid student of magic and other arts. She's busy, very very busy, on an intellectual level. Time might be a dangerous and interesting pursuit for the Singer.
"That is, if you want to add in another student. I'd be happy to teach in return, if there's anything I know that you'd like to learn. I'm not sure how much our headspaces will match up, but we've got some hobbies in common and I can help translate across them, if needs be, when we're talking magic. If nothing else, it could be mind-broadening."
She was cross-training her way through several Traditions. Life from the Verbena. Mind from the child of an Akashic. Time from a Cultist would fit right in.
"Yes, please," she says, about the cake. Soup can be reheated, or forsaken. Chocolate, on the other hand, sounded perfectly divine.
And let us not forget An, little spirit of the hunt, small ruinous doom of all things tapestry or textile. She has been quiet for far too long now. Emily has lost track of the small bundle of tabby, who is slink stealthing her way along the wood floor on her belly to see what this rummaging about in laptop bags might be. Ah! An opportunity!
An pounces, out of nowhere, on an unsuspecting (?) Molly. But, being a kitten, and occasionally devoid of some key spatial reasoning, goes sailing wide of the laptop bag and into the muffled darkness of under the table. Without so much as a mewl or hiss, she rights herself and takes off at a tear for the chair once more.
Foiled.
Harumph.
I think I'll eat this pillow instead. Nom. Nom. Nom.
Emily rolls her eyes at the cat.
[Molly Quincannon] "Oh, I'm working with Isabel on Time right now, and Ellie sits in on lessons sometimes," Molly assures Emily. "One more shouldn't be a hassle, and it's good practice. I'm refining skills like whoa, with all the teaching. And speaking of, anything you've got that I haven't would be awesome; I like new perspectives. Let's see ... I've got an Initiate level grasp of Time, Entropy, Forces and Correspondence, and nearly that in Mind. That and Prime I've only got rudimentary, though, for practical purposes. I think it's going to be Life or Matter next; haven't decided yet. So--"
As it happens, An was probably going for the blue stripey bath towel that is, for whatever reasons Molly has for such a thing, hanging a little ways out of her laptop bag. Maybe Molly noticed just a little, as An came in for the pounce; enough to let her track the progress of the kitten's miss and skid and dash for the chair. She'd looked a bit sad, noticing the towel, but kittens being cute make all things better, so she just gives a quiet chuckle and smile at the cat's antics and sets the Tupperware container of cake on the table as if there hadn't been a feline ballistic missile. Though she does say, as she opens the Tupperware to reveal a battered-looking cake and a nice smell of chocolate and cream, "She meant to miss, of course. Hey, it's like being logged onto I Can Haz Cheezburger twenty-four-seven, am I right?"
[Emily Littleton] "I've got rudimentary grasps of Forces, Correspondence, Mind and Entropy, and Initiate level understandings of Prime and Life. The Verbena that taught me Life is in town, again, and it would amuse him to no end if I were teaching. Much less a Cultist." Molly had met Jarod, so she'd likely get a little kick out of the connection.
"I think she meant to hit you, actually, and she just requires a few more months of calibration to become a proper furry death machine," Emily says, with more than mild amusement touching her voice. She brings them forks and small plates to share out the cake.
"Yeah. She's my very own LOL-Cat." There's affection to that, for all she isn't a pet person. Their talk turns to lighter things, and lessons to learn (in a far more optimistic manner), and cake and tea no doubt. It's a tasty cake, and Emily tells her so. An relents on her antics for awhile, and falls into a twitchy sleep, legs all akimbo and tail switching back and forth to imagined stimuli.
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 6, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Emily Littleton] [Emily: Dex + Ath! No you don't!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 5, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Emily Littleton] Emily's flat is warm. It is comfortable. Despite the broad expanses of wood floor, there was not chill to bite into toes so long as visitors wore their socks. She kept it comfortable because she had a kitten to mind, and that was an excuse to keep the hearth burning when she was home. An was less likely to traipse through the soot and leave black paw prints everywhere if the fireplace was ablaze.
They were learning to cohabitate. Just now, An was busily stalking the trailing end of Emily's scarf, where it hung out of Owen's rocking chair. The little fringe swayed just slightly on the air currents in the flat, making it seem a worthy quarry. And whenever she batted and her claws caught, it pulled the rocking chair into a back and forth sway. The kitten leaped back, surprised at her prey's agility--The throw pillow had never fought back so dancingly!--and rounded the couch to stalk-peer-observe from a safe distance.
From Emily's vantagepoint, the rocking chair started oscillating all on its own. There was a quiet scurry of paws on hard floor, and then the chair wound down to almost a standstill before it all began again. She shook her head, chuckled, and was patiently amused.
When Molly arrived, the knock startled An into a new stance of watchfulness. She climbed up on the couch and peeked over its back cushions, then scaled higher until she was standing on the back itself. Tall as tall could be. When the door opens, she charges! The kitten is fast, just a little too fast for Emily. She slips past the Singer's best grab for her and twines between Molly's legs purring resonantly and happily. Big blue eyes look up, up, up at the Cultist.
Emily shakes her head.
"C'mon in."
[Molly Quincannon] Molly's got ferrets. One of these ferrets is a total spaz. Thus, An's sudden arrival and purr-twining gets giggles, and Molly gives Em a smile - tired, a little rueful, but neither of those things are directed at Emily, per se; for Emily, there's warmth threaded through the whole thing - as she scoops up the kitten and to allow her to take up a position on her back and shoulder as she removes her boots. "Thanks. I see someone hasn't forgotten me. Hi, Em and An. Or maybe An and Em? Both of you, anyway."
Then she straightens, transferring An from shoulder to arm as her boots are off and her hands are free. "How're you doing?" It's a question of many layers, that one - the surface is Molly's usual curiosity, but ... well, Ashley said she'd tell Emily about Molly's recent info-bomb. Ashley isn't the sort to waste time when threats to the Chantry might be involved. And there was the text message. Still, sometimes it's nice to have a quiet lead-in to these things. So says someone who hacks databases (though not the Technocracy, oddly enough) for shits and giggles.
[Emily Littleton] The kitten has no concept of holding still just now. Molly picks her up, and she wiggles and wanders and scales the Cultist like a climbing structure, happily purring all the while. She's thrilled, you see, to have people back. Chuck was supposed to make sure the kitten didn't expire while Em was gone, but he wasn't really a pet person. An had been like this since Emily got back, save for when she was curled up in the rocking chair asleep, guarding it, lest Emily follow through on her unspoken threat to give the chair away.
"I was home for a week, for a Christening. It was a nice break. I had a really good time," she says, and there's warmth underlying that response that's only slightly broken by the topic they both know is going to break soon enough.
"Do you want some tea? I've got a licorice ginger black already made up, but I can put together something else if you like."
There are customs to keep, if only obliquely, and Emily sees to them before they dive into the meat of her message.
"Or chicken stew? I made some yesterday. It's Ashley-approved." She smirks.
[Molly Quincannon] The clambering of the kitten just gets more giggles (see the previous about ferrets; there are days when Neal and Hardison use her as a climbing frame, getting all her tickly spots and sometimes ending up tucked into a shirt sleeve), but eventually, after giving the kitten a few pettings and ear-and-neck scritches, she puts An down and wanders in after Emily. Her eyebrows go up with interest about liquorice ginger black tea - "Something I have never tried, and so it must be tried. Thanks. And of course anything you make is Ashley-approved; I strive to be as awesome as you are in the kitchen. Everything I make is edible and usually even tasty - like I said about black forest cake--" She pats her messenger bag for emphasis "--but you even make it look good. I'm in constant awe. All that to say, yes, that sounds awesome. Besides chicken and veggies and stuff, I hope you'll tell me what's in it. I like to expand my repertoire."
Then, about the christening, "Oh, cool! Glad you had a good time. How'd you find the airport security? The buzz about the TSA people getting handsy on the enhanced pat-downs and insulting and harrassment-ish about the X-ray machines is unbelievable! I haven't had the chance to ask anyone who's been through it - not first-hand, anyway."
Yes, she knows that there are things to discuss, but her curiosity is piqued in all manner of directions just now. The questions come fast mainly because of that Frantic nature about her; she wants answers to sate her curiosity about the little matters as fast as she can get them, before they are overridden by anything serious.
[Emily Littleton] "I'll jot you down some notes," she says, to the recipe. "But stew's pretty forgiving. Some veggies, some meat, some broth, and a whole lot of time. Pretty much anything'll come together right if you're patient enough."
She brings Molly some tea, first, and then sets some of the soup on the stove to reheat. Emily doesn't have a microwave, and doesn't seem to miss it much. At home there is the Aga, which is always on, and always warm. She'd spent her mornings cuddled around it, waiting until her coffee water and hands thawed out. Kitchen towels hung on the Aga's doors were always warm. If she ever settled down enough to have a house of her own, she'd have to see about getting one imported.
On airport security then: "Ah, I don't really worry about it much. I have a trusted traveler card--preferred traveler? I don't even remember what it's called anymore--for getting through customs, and customs has always been more strict than than the TSA." She says this like airport security was the least of her worries on a quick jaunt between the UK and the US. And, in truth, it was. There were many other countries that had heavy firearms at border checkpoints, who observed your every move with one hand on a machine gun and trained military personnel at every imaginable exit.
Emily thought this Fourth Amendment fuss was overmuch whinging. She also thought it was highly inappropriate for anyone to pat her down without permission. Being a diplomat's daughter gave her the social toolbox for navigating these indignities with grace. Being a young twenty-something gave her all the motivation in the world to make a stink. Thankfully being a mage tipped the balance toward discretion, again, and she was polite and unaffected by the security milieu.
"I don't think it's as big a deal as people make it out to be. Most of the people complaining don't travel often, and the people who travel often are already used to inconvenience, brusque officials, and long, long lines."
[Molly Quincannon] Molly considers what's said about patience and smiles a little - wry and self-teasing. Patience is not, after all, the first adjective most would use to describe her. Not that she's entirely without it, but other adjectives apply first and foremost, and they seem to counteract 'patience' as a virtue.
The bit about the TSA gets a bit of a snort. "Eh, could be. I've never actually been on a plane, so I guess I wouldn't be used to it at all. I'll have to give it a try sometime and see how it goes, and how much I ought to protest the whole mess. I always figured that just letting that kind of thing go while saying 'it's not a big deal' and 'if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear' and brushing aside the indignities that claim to be offering safety while really just curtailing liberty is just off, y'know? It's a bit why my bunch say that actually, apathy won the Ascension War, rather than either side."
Which, of course, opens The Subject. And, based on the text message she got, there's really only one not-quite-a-question. "You and Ashley talked."
[Emily Littleton] "I rather think it's like going to the DMV and expecting not to wait in lines, the idea that air travel between nations is going to be any less regulated and invasive than the Visa processing paperwork is a fool's errand, to me." She shrugs. Emily can't speak to flying within US borders. She's considered a foreign national almost every time she flies. There's passports and visas and all manner of things to check. Since she was a young child, she'd been required to present her Papers whenever she traveled.
Freedom of movement isn't something she expects. Emily, for all her father's heritage is hers, doesn't often think like an American.
"But to each their own. Some will stand and fight, and some will be civilly disobediant and some of us will continue trying to pick the shortest line and praying no one has a stroller in security."
She shrugs. Once Molly's soup is warmed, she pours it into a bowl and brings it to the table. Emily slides into a chair, only slightly favoring one of her legs. It's hardly noticeable, now, that the bruises under her jeans have begun to fade.
"We talked," she confirms. There's a firmity to those words that still sounds a bit like anger, even a day later. "And you and I should. I don't want you to read this as me trying to get between you and Chuck, but there's something you should know about why Chuck and I ultimately split ways. It could affect you too."
She pauses here, and waits on Molly's approval to go ahead.
[Molly Quincannon] [[Perc + Alertness - for my own edification, does Molly notice the leg-favouring?]]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Molly Quincannon] Molly leaves the travel bit alone, as 'each to their own' really sums it up as far as she's concerned. Emily's bliss is not her bliss, Emily's views are not hers, and as long as she's not completely advocating an increase in Orwellian security processes, that's just fine with her. Especially right now. She's had arguments about this sort of thing before, and on top of everything else, one more would probably drain her past her limits.
The slight favouring of one leg gets a bit of a frown, though - if there's one thing Molly recognises well, it's injured people. "You okay?" Not that she could do much about it - no Life magic, no particular skill with first aid, but she does have a few tips and tricks about muscle aches, garnered from trial, error and Google searches when she started martial arts classes. It's mostly just concern, though - she does care, after all.
The bit about that they should talk gets a raised eyebrow - she knows that from the text, but it's the 'what about' that has her curious. As Emily goes on, there's a slightly surprised blink, and then a very weary look. "First of all, don't worry too much about getting between me and Chuck. He's been doing an awesome job of putting himself between us, for various reasons that I'll talk about if you're interested, though they're not really connected to this whole mess. So if you think I need to know, go for it." She looks not nervous but wary and guarded in the way that suggests that she's already preparing her emotional barricades so when the blow hits, she won't just blow up all willy-nilly.
[Emily Littleton] For what it's worth, Emily isn't advocating anything Big Brother is up to, she's just overly cognizant of how criticism sounds when its issued forth in her accent with her general ennui for the woes of the beleaguered travelers. She lacks a requisite nationalism to get all hot and bothered over Constitutional matters. Genuine human rights infractions bother her, but this, in the scope of humanity's ills in other venues, really doesn't get under her skin.
It's a matter of scale. She was a young girl in China during a time when almost all of her peers were boys, because the culture had participated in gender-based genocide with a blind eye cast toward its future viability. She's lived, briefly, in homes without running water. She's help feed children who would likely never have a chance at an education. These things anger her; medical grade x-rays and overly friendly pat downs? The latter comes close to a very bad memory in her life, but she knows that anyone who attempts to actually fondle or rape her in a governmental setting would have the full force of her father's office on their head in hours.
But that? That's all shrouded subtext. That's just the sort of rant and argument they're avoiding just now. Emily doesn't know why her player spent two paragraphs on it, just to get around to:
"I did a little favor for a friend," she says, about the leg. "And our dear friend Paradox reminded me that no good deed goes unpunished." There's a dry mirth to this, good-natured. Emily doesn't mind the bruises, or the sound trouncing Reality had given her, if it means that Nico will heal a little faster.
She exhales though, and places her hands flat on the table. "So, about Chuck." It leads into the conversation, uneasily. Emily hates this part. She doesn't like sharing, to begin with, and there's going to be a lot of sharing for them all to put this particular indiscretion right. Damn him, she mentally shakes a fist in his general direction. And damn Owen for not being around, to do the face punching for Emily.
"Early this year, when Chuck was curious about my International Driver's License, and passport stamps, and mysterious," she waggles her fingers sarcastically, "Past, he convinced himself that it'd be a good idea to go digging for whatever he could find out about me. So, with the help of the Great Google, he amassed pretty much my whole life's documentable history on a thumb drive, and gave it to me like it was a present. Now I don't know if it's his usual modus operandi or if he was actually convince my father's a spy, and thus overly curious, but he might have done the same to you. And if he's been on the radar as long as you've said, and if he's managed to get his system compromised and traced, well then, my friend, we're pretty much fucked."
Emily doesn't usually cuss, but she's not really sure there's another word in the English language that succinctly sums up the situation. So 'fucked' it is.
[Molly Quincannon] Molly was going to offer muscle-and-bruise-easing advice. Really, she was. And she will. However, when Emily speaks about Chuck compiling a dossier on Emily's entire life in one neat little package - and 'took it upon himself' sounds a lot like 'didn't ask permission first' to her, thank you very much - tips on how to deal with aches and pains take a firm backseat. She stares at Emily, and there's no mistaking the look on her face; it's sheer disbelieving horror. "He ... he did what? I ... I mean, I ... when I asked why the travelling, you ... you just told me! I mean, what did he think he was doing? Just... Gah!"
She stands up, then, because that frantic energy is now just a little much to be contained in a chair. She paces up and down a couple of times, five steps per pace, behind the chair she vacated. Her lips are tightly pressed together, and her hands are up at about the level of her shoulders, hooked into a grasping sort of pose as if itching to throttle or claw. She looks, frankly, like she's going to explode.
And then she does. The profanity that ensues is ... 'impressive' is a word. Emily may or may not be familiar with Warren Ellis, but there are a few phrases and concepts thrown in there that stem more or less from that particularly twisted mind, tailored to fit the situation. Something about 'platypus-fisting, goat-blowing hypocrite' pokes out of the effing and blinding. It's not particularly loud, the swearing; there's just a lot of it. It makes her barrage of "Fuckity-fuck-fuck-fuuuuck" when all her stuff got stolen out of the back of her U-Haul look very, very tame.
It stops as abruptly as it started, with a final, "sonuvabitch!", and she drops back into her chair again, taking deep, potentially calming breaths. Then, she says, "Okay. Better. Sort of. Did he give a reason for this blatant invasion of privacy and abuse of trust?"
[Emily Littleton] [WP.Emily!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Emily Littleton] [WP.An!]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Emily Littleton] Emily's cat does not much like this outburst. She had started following Molly through her paces, but breaks away after the profanity and emphatic noise begins. Instead she makes a beeline for her chair, sending it careening into a rocking motion once she alights.
"Some people have issues with boundaries and privacy," Emily says, when Molly asks her how, and why, and what. There's an edge to it. This indiscretion bothers her more than anything the government is doing. "And he thought he was helping."
"I think."
"Maybe."
Then comes the explosion. Emily listens, but doesn't join in. And it goes, for awhile; Molly is a bit more creative with her impolite vocabulary than Emily is, and not for want of practice. Just that she hasn't encountered so very many ways to swear in English.
"My thoughts, exactly," she adds, drolly, to the end of Molly's verbal excess. It's unamused, irritated, and dry. "He thought that pulling it all down to one place, and hiding what he could of out it out there, on the web, would limit my exposure to, well, frankly to people like us. Not that I'm at your level, or Chuck's, but I can hold my own and I know how to find illicit information if needs be. Needs rarely are that dire, though, so I doubt I would have landed on anyone's radar -- beyond possible recruitment due to my projects at University -- without help.
"Now," she says, with a distinctly displeased burr, "I don't know. I was angry, then, because he'd done it all, and because he'd found newspaper microfiche prints from Prague, and it upset me. Now, I'm livid."
Emily says livid in that pristinely perfect Northern accent of hers and it could cut right though glass. She appeared calm and collected though, beyond the clench to her jaw and the way her hands stay flat against the table top.
[Molly Quincannon] Molly sighs and prods at her stew. She's not really that hungry anymore, and goes for the tea instead, taking a sip and taking a moment to savour it - perhaps another aid to calm. Then she takes another deep breath and says, "I don't blame you. Though in all fairness to Chuck, his firewalls are pretty solid. I've seen them tested, and done a bit of testing at his request myself, and I don't think they've wormed their way into his system. I'd be more worried about the leverage they have on him via his family. I mean, I just wonder what he'd give if someone threatened to put a bullet to his sister, parents, nephew..."
So that's one question answered - she's worried about Chuck's family, sure, but she's more worried about how easily they could be used as leverage by someone who wanted more intel on the Chicago magi but didn't necessarily see a need or opportunity to use brute force to get it.
Then she shakes her head. "I don't like this, Emily. Well, obviously," she adds with a bit of a snort, waving a hand to where she had been pacing, and swearing, and generally exploding. "For someone who demands that his boundaries be respected at all times, he sure doesn't have any qualms about busting through other people's, does he? And with that Sword of Damocles he's got hanging over his head... Oh, he thought he was helping; fucking wonderful. When it's safe and convenient and some kind of challenge that he can deal with, he wants to help and tucks information in a nice, neat, easy-to-read bolus of data ... about his girlfriend, no less! I swear if he's racked up a dossier on me I am going to apply a Forces-enhanced steel-toe to portions of his anatomy that I don't think I ever want touching me again. And no," she adds with a small, wan smile, "it's not entirely to do with this. This is just the icing on that particular cake. He's ... said and done a lot that I find ... repugnant. This is just the last damn straw."
[Emily Littleton] [Please, Dice Roller, I'll sacrifice and bunch of code to you if you stop harassing Emily!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 5, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Emily Littleton] "I'm probably not the person you want offering sympathy, just now, but I can listen. And understand. I'm sorry it's gotten to that point between you two," Emily says, and there's an undercurrent of warmth and compassion in her voice that telegraphs clearly, even through the red haze of ire and indignity at the table. She rests her hand, for a moment, on Molly's.
There's a shadow, then, of the Knight she will be that steps forward to guide them past that rough and sometimes awkward place. They both have a lot of emotion in this, but Emily's calm is something Molly can borrow on. And Molly can explode for the both of them. They complement without mirroring.
"Chuck folds when his people are threatened. I like him enough as a friend, and he's a decent cabal-mate," that much is said with open reservation just now; it hardly rings sincere. "The safest thing for us to imagine is that he will cave, if pressure is applied to his family. Or to you, or me. No matter how angry you may be with him, and rightfully so, we're both still leverage over him. Riley would be if he stayed. Family is reserved for the most overt threats, and usually escalation. Harassing one of us, especially if they think we're only Sleepers, would be where I'd start."
She says, so bluntly and easily. Like she'd given it some thought.
"Rough up the college girl with a dark history, get her emotional and off-edge? It's a good introit to less polite negotiations." Her nails click against the table top now. This is something she didn't want to discuss with Ashley, but she and Molly were in a similar boat. They needed each other to be aware of the dangers.
"Not that either of us are push overs or would stand quietly for that sort of business, just that you could stir up quite the hornet's nest with little to no effort along that route. We're all vulnerable, like Ashley said, and we need to get vigilant."
[Molly Quincannon] Molly meets Emily's eyes briefly, when there's the warmth and compassion and the touch of a hand. It's not sympathy she's after, at this point, and her eyes telegraph this. It's more that they need to know exactly the sort of person they're dealing with, particularly given the thing about the circumstances under which Chuck folds. "...Not me. If they threatened me, he would do nothing." She speaks as if she knows, and there's pain in it. She demonstrates how she knows when she goes on: "He ... was very much against the rescue mission at the art gallery. Said he would have waited until all the data was double- and triple-checked. Said it didn't matter how long it took to check to make sure that the plan was infallible and, if possible, involved no contact. No, it did not matter that there were people in there, locked into dead flesh and suffering. Nor did it matter what they were doing to me. What happened to them ... and to me ... did not matter. Or at least, not more than doing things the 'right' way did. So I wouldn't worry about what he'd do if they ever started harrassing me. I'm more worried about what they could get out of me if they ever did. So ... yeah. Caution and vigilance." Not for my sake, is the clear subtext, but for yours. All of yours.
[Emily Littleton] [WP: +1 personal issues, +1 more since I've already rolled a WP check on this matter in the LAST FIVE MINUTES, damnit, Chuck.]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 6, 6, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 8)
[Emily Littleton] "Well, I wouldn't have waited," she says, around her teeth, and the words are a little less forgiving than they might have been. "I still wish the Guardians had given the rest of us more of a heads up, so we could help, but that's neither here nor there. You're back, and they sorted it and Chuck..."
Her mouth purses. Emily has yet to rise to any sort of epithet for him beyond a clenched jaw and the sharpness in her eyes, but it's there. Believe, Molly, the anger and ire is there. It's a good thing that Emily is not a Forces mage. She breathes in the smell of tea and soup, and breathes out fire-laced thoughts that could ignite, mid-air, if they had any sense of self-aware purpose.
"Chuck... has no place even thinking that around you, not after what you've been through." This isn't sympathy, mind. Her fingers still against the table, no more clicking. Her fingers curl into fists, then relax. "What insensitive fuckery was that?"
Emily was very much in the No Man Left Behind camp, when it came to warfare. There were triage decision that could circumvent that but, all things being equal, you saved the friendlies right after the innocents.
"I..."
Her mouth opened, and then closed.
"I have no idea how to trust him, or what I should trust him with, if he truly felt that way about what happened to you. If he's kept this from us both, and Ashley, for this long. She doesn't want to make a Pariah out of him, but he's my cabal-mate. He's my thin red line against Madness, if it comes. Without Owen, Chuck's it, and I don't think that's much support, at all, after this."
[Molly Quincannon] Molly sighs. "I don't want to make a pariah out of him either. That's why that ... 'insensitive fuckery' ... is something that only a few people really know about. Or at least, a part of why." The rest, fairly clearly, is that she stayed with him after all of that. She kept looking for some way to trust. She hates that about herself, a little. "I mean, Israel says that when we make a pariah out of someone, we're doing the Mirrorshades' job for them. You know, with the witch-hunting and something that looks like McCarthy going after Communists in the fifties. Man, McCarthy was a dick. Anyway, point is that I don't want to make him hated, but I sure as hell don't trust his methods most of the time. So on a personal level, I don't know what to do about it. On a magely level ... I leave him out of things. He knows there are Technocrats in the area and he knows I'm poking around but he is distinctly Not Invited to that particular info-gathering party. And before you ask, yes, I'm being careful. I haven't done anything illegal, I haven't hacked anything so I can't be traced that way, and my esoteric next-step is going to be with Ashley masking my resonance, which'll do until I manage to crack doing it myself." She grins a little, mocking herself slightly - at least she's self-aware when it comes to her flaws.
The rest gets a frown. "Cabals are tricky things. I've been taking Henri's shifts at the Chantry for sentry rota as well as my own because every time I bring it up with her, she gives me the finger and says the entire bunch of them can go fuck themselves. Which ... y'know, I did explain to her what being in a cabal means, but she seems to have gone into it just so she can say she's in one or something, I don't know. Point is, though, that there's support outside a cabal, always. I mean, we're not cabalmates, and this whole vent/not-vent thing is support, sort of. And there are other cabals, if it really comes to that. I mean, if the Leaves fell apart tomorrow and you wanted in, Stormwatch'd have you with open arms. Just ... remember that whatever happens, there's always going to be someone to be your line against ... the Madness, okay?"
[Emily Littleton] It's a lot to pull together and process. It's been a big day for Emily, and last night was filled with not a few angry internal rants. Of all the Celestial gifts that might have been visited upon Emily, Temperance was one she had to work at, unceasingly. It wasn't her best quality, but nothing gave her a chance for improvement like challenges.
This was quite the challenge.
"I don't want to ostracize him, but being caballed says that I have a certain implicity or condone his methods, which I don't. There's supposed to be some unity, I would imagine, and with Riley gone that's fallen apart. I study with other mages, I work with other mages, I fight with other mages, and Chuck isn't there. We don't stand together in anything but the Chantry roster these days. It's been a long time coming, but this feels like one hell of a push to disband -- if I could only find Owen for a vote."
No, the last is not self-pity. It is frustration.
Emily waves her hand at the question of whether Molly's being careful or not. "First thing, you wouldn't be this upset with Chuck unless you were being careful. Secondly, I somewhat assume you've gotten a bit more cautious after this summer. Third, if you want help, let me know. I'm not V-dept, but I know my way around the net. I'm a good second string, putting pieces together and refining queries, that sort of thing, but I usually eschew poking around in restricted playgrounds."
The rest gets a frown, indeed. One of sympathy when Henri comes up. "I rather expected Henri to disparage the thought of sentry rota she had to keep herself, not through bots or widgets," Emily sympathizes. "I'm sorry to hear you're picking up her slack."
There was a lot of that that happened quietly in Emily's cabal and Molly's. Good times.
[Molly Quincannon] The bit about Owen gets a slightly worried frown from Molly. Frustration is never a good emotion, and besides, magi going missing never ends well, particularly given the whole Jhor-suspicion thing that got mentioned awhile back. But all the same, all Molly can really say is, "Well, there are two choices about Owen. Either you track him by whatever means necessary just so you know he's not waist-deep in crap and sinking, or ... well, make the decision and if he has a problem with it, tell him he has no right to complain because he wasn't there. Or both, I guess. I suppose I'd want to know where he was just on general principles, things going as they are. Though I guess we know where the road paved with good intentions takes us, with everything that's going on right now. Thing is ... you're the Emissary. At some point, if there's no one else you can trust to give a vote ... I guess you have to man up and make the choice. Not that it's easy; believe me, I know. Nat's spending most of her time bouncing the bedsprings with Lara these days, and Henri's ... well, Henri. It's actually only Atlas these days who's pulling their weight, and they all know about the Technocrat shit. Hell, I'm getting more support out of the apprentice sharing my living space than I am from my actual cabal. We just do with what we've got, I guess." The sympathy gets a smile too. "Thanks, but frankly, if all I have to deal with is a couple of no-shows and a change in setting for the never-ending day job, the study and the teaching - Isabel and Ellie both, some days; man, I hope I'm doing right by them - I think I haven't got a lot to complain about, comparatively."
To the offer of help, Molly smiles. "Oh, I'm not going through the 'Net for this one. But if you're in any way skilled with Time and Entropy, and if Ashley can mask us both - or you can mask yourself - I wouldn't mind a little more push there. Basically, I've been going carefully through what Israel told me about her encounter at the asylum, and I keep hitting dead ends. Bar hacking the DoD, which ... well, I could and I will as a last resort, but I honestly think I'm barking up the wrong tree. So if I want to know what they're up to - and believe me, I do, if for no other reason than to nip this in the bud before they take another shot at Israel, because I will not let her be hunted like this; she's done too much for me to not do everything I can to help - I'm just going to have to scry out the most likely scenario of what they want to do. Hence, Time and Entropy. They didn't used to call my Trad the Seers of Chronos for nothing, y'know." She grins a bit, then shrugs. "If I think it can be risked - and I'll be asking for Ashley's opinion on that one - might even try to find where they've set up their base-op."
[Emily Littleton] "Just rudimentary Entropy, and no Time," she tells Molly, with an apologetic tinge. The anger has bled out of her by now, or at least abated to a reasonable thrum.
It piques a little when Israel's brought up again. "Though you will let me know if there's anything I can do to help," Emily assures Molly. It isn't a question. "I owe Israel too much, myself, to see any harm visited upon her. If you find something we can act upon, count me in."
And that is how it goes, this transition from Apprentice to Knight that is well on its way. Few would mark Emily as militant, but she's had quite that martial year. She gets up from the table to fix herself some tea. It's lukewarm now and needs to be reheated, but she doesn't bother.
"I'll handle the Leaves, somehow. But I wonder if it's worth it. I've Owen's key; I suppose I can leave a message on his fridge if nothing else works." There's a small smile, but it's just for show here. Emily hasn't set foot in his flat since she last saw him. They're... having their differences just now.
[Molly Quincannon] Molly nods and tells her, "I'll get the info, and you'll know everything I do as soon as I can get a report to you and the other cabal spokesbods. Then we can look at our resource pool and decide, together, what we can do with that info." Her mouth twists and purse into a rueful, slightly bitter smile as she adds, "I don't know what our resource pool is going to look like by that time, mind you, but knowing is something." She sighs and shakes her head. "I can teach you Time, if you want. It doesn't seem to be something a lot of the magi around here have, but it's got serious usefulness if you want to find out what happened, or what might. Plus looking a step ahead to see what the guy trying to attack you is going to do so you can not be where the blow's supposed to land is awesome. Mind helps with that, too."
To the bit about the Leaves, and Owen, she tilts her head and looks at Emily for a quiet moment. Emily and Owen; Molly and Chuck. 'Having their differences', even if those differences are ... well, different. "Like I said, only you can make that call. But Ashley said something the other day, about how basically life's too short to go around letting situations that aren't getting any better sit around and be a drain. Either you can fix it or, because of its inherent instability or just a lack of the other parties involved being willing or able to work with you, it can't. Not telling you your business or anything; just a thought. And yeah, I know it's harder than it looks, so I'm not trying to be a hypocrite. Just ... be careful not to let the whole thing drive you bugnuts, I guess is all I'm saying." Whether she's talking about Owen in specific or the Leaves in general ... the world may never know.
Then she eyes her stew and says, "It smells great, but y'know what? I think we both need chocolate. It's not really conventional to have dessert first, but convention be damned; I'm breaking out the black forest cake. Want any?" She's already rummaging in her laptop bag. She certainly intends to have some, at least. "It'll go well with the tea, I think, anyway."
[Emily Littleton] [Sneak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 2, 4, 7, 7, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Emily Littleton] [Pounce!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 4, 6 (Failure at target 6)
[Molly Quincannon] [[Perc + Alert]]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 4, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Emily Littleton] [Per+Alert: The hell are you up to, cat?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Emily Littleton] "I'm always interested in learning new things," she tells Molly, and there's nothing facetious to it. Emily woke up with the rudimentary knowledge of three spheres. Since then she's learned three more, and advanced two to Initiate standing. All in the space of a year, almost to date. She is an avid student of magic and other arts. She's busy, very very busy, on an intellectual level. Time might be a dangerous and interesting pursuit for the Singer.
"That is, if you want to add in another student. I'd be happy to teach in return, if there's anything I know that you'd like to learn. I'm not sure how much our headspaces will match up, but we've got some hobbies in common and I can help translate across them, if needs be, when we're talking magic. If nothing else, it could be mind-broadening."
She was cross-training her way through several Traditions. Life from the Verbena. Mind from the child of an Akashic. Time from a Cultist would fit right in.
"Yes, please," she says, about the cake. Soup can be reheated, or forsaken. Chocolate, on the other hand, sounded perfectly divine.
And let us not forget An, little spirit of the hunt, small ruinous doom of all things tapestry or textile. She has been quiet for far too long now. Emily has lost track of the small bundle of tabby, who is slink stealthing her way along the wood floor on her belly to see what this rummaging about in laptop bags might be. Ah! An opportunity!
An pounces, out of nowhere, on an unsuspecting (?) Molly. But, being a kitten, and occasionally devoid of some key spatial reasoning, goes sailing wide of the laptop bag and into the muffled darkness of under the table. Without so much as a mewl or hiss, she rights herself and takes off at a tear for the chair once more.
Foiled.
Harumph.
I think I'll eat this pillow instead. Nom. Nom. Nom.
Emily rolls her eyes at the cat.
[Molly Quincannon] "Oh, I'm working with Isabel on Time right now, and Ellie sits in on lessons sometimes," Molly assures Emily. "One more shouldn't be a hassle, and it's good practice. I'm refining skills like whoa, with all the teaching. And speaking of, anything you've got that I haven't would be awesome; I like new perspectives. Let's see ... I've got an Initiate level grasp of Time, Entropy, Forces and Correspondence, and nearly that in Mind. That and Prime I've only got rudimentary, though, for practical purposes. I think it's going to be Life or Matter next; haven't decided yet. So--"
As it happens, An was probably going for the blue stripey bath towel that is, for whatever reasons Molly has for such a thing, hanging a little ways out of her laptop bag. Maybe Molly noticed just a little, as An came in for the pounce; enough to let her track the progress of the kitten's miss and skid and dash for the chair. She'd looked a bit sad, noticing the towel, but kittens being cute make all things better, so she just gives a quiet chuckle and smile at the cat's antics and sets the Tupperware container of cake on the table as if there hadn't been a feline ballistic missile. Though she does say, as she opens the Tupperware to reveal a battered-looking cake and a nice smell of chocolate and cream, "She meant to miss, of course. Hey, it's like being logged onto I Can Haz Cheezburger twenty-four-seven, am I right?"
[Emily Littleton] "I've got rudimentary grasps of Forces, Correspondence, Mind and Entropy, and Initiate level understandings of Prime and Life. The Verbena that taught me Life is in town, again, and it would amuse him to no end if I were teaching. Much less a Cultist." Molly had met Jarod, so she'd likely get a little kick out of the connection.
"I think she meant to hit you, actually, and she just requires a few more months of calibration to become a proper furry death machine," Emily says, with more than mild amusement touching her voice. She brings them forks and small plates to share out the cake.
"Yeah. She's my very own LOL-Cat." There's affection to that, for all she isn't a pet person. Their talk turns to lighter things, and lessons to learn (in a far more optimistic manner), and cake and tea no doubt. It's a tasty cake, and Emily tells her so. An relents on her antics for awhile, and falls into a twitchy sleep, legs all akimbo and tail switching back and forth to imagined stimuli.
29 November 2010
Welcome home. Have some doom.
[Emily Littleton] A favorite Orphan of theirs used to keep a running tally on the Doom Phone Calls. Emily hasn't reached this refined state of cynicism just yet. She still pretends that her phone rings for things other than doom, gloom and the occasional mixed mayhem, but there are so very many varieties of doom these days that it's hard to keep a positive outlook.
Nevertheless, she is rested and mostly rejuvenated from a week away. In Manchester, doom is of a more familiar variety. It's family dinners, and ambushes with questions about boys and school, and sitting in Father Alden's office reviewing her catechumenate studies for his approval, and running into people who knew her when she was knee-high. Babes wake early in the wee hours, doors open and shut all night, there's no semblence of quiet in a house built to be a community center as well as a home.
She texts Ashley when she gets home from the Chicago Chantry Monday night. It takes until Tuesday for the doom to darken her doorway. By then, Emily has warded against it with a simmering pot of chicken stew and fresh baked rolls. The kitten has run itself in circles and scaled her jeans and made all manner of happy mewlings (Chuck is not the best pet-sitter, it seems) and is now passed out on Emily's scarf in Owen's chair.
Her door is unlocked and stands a littel ajar. Hunger could follow her nose down the hallway to Emily's door. When she knocks, Emily calls for her to Come in!, and then wanders over to the door to help with Ashley's coat. She seems more relaxed than when she left, a little more centered.
"Hey, Ashley. How was your Thanksgiving?"
[Ashley McGowen] Ashley received the text Monday night: it took until Tuesday morning for Emily to get the reply, but she got one nonetheless. Things have been odd between them since early this month, after Emily walked out of the Court and they had the awkward meeting in the park later, where neither of them quite knew what to say to the other.
It's not that Ashley has any expectations that this will be less awkward. It's that she doesn't like avoiding people and she has an official reason to stop by, and that makes her feel a little more comfortable with showing up. (The promise of chicken stew and rolls helps a little, though, let's be honest.)
It's a little warmer today, and Ashley hasn't had to layer her clothing quite as much as she did this time last year (when there was already snow on the ground.) She's wearing a striped blue and gray buttondown shirt over a lighter blue shirt, form-fitting, only two of the buttons together, and she passes Emily her coat after she walks in the door.
"It was okay," she tells Emily. "Kage went with me and we drove out to my dad's together." And if the truth must be said, the holidays were difficult; it is much, much easier to notice absences over the holidays than any other time of year, really. One must suspect that the Orphan's presence helped a bit with that.
She drops her hands into her pockets, a smile pulling at the corner of her mouth when she sees the kitten, who has gotten big in the span of a month. "How was the christening?"
[Emily Littleton] An, the kitten, twitches a little in her sleep. She's generally mild-mannered, and quite unfazed by the magical things that happen in her home. Like that first day in the coffee shop, she could care less which resonance walked through the door so long as no one disturbed her hunter spirit's need to stalk and terrorize textiles with her artfully shredding claws and teeth.
"It was lovely," Emily tells her. Whatever awkwardness they'd kept is swept away, just now. It doesn't color the Singer's tone or how she receives Ashley. There's the same manner of warmth that Emily can always muster up; it's polite and leaning toward friendly for Ashley. It's polite and leaning toward professional for most everyone else. "It was nice to be home, too, though the weight of this year really settles in when I'm around family."
She imagines it's the same for Ashley, so there's an undercurrent of empathy to her words. Emily waves her into the living room and begins dishing Ashley up a bowl of soup. She doesn't ask if the Adept is Hungry. That's like asking whether the sky is blue. There are better things to waste one's words on, like, "Would you like butter with your roll?"
[Ashley McGowen] Ashley, upon seeing the kitten, removes her shoes inside the door and then starts over toward Owen's chair. She doesn't know it's Owen's chair - doesn't know that the Singer still keeps it here for his return - and it thus doesn't receive a second glance while she crouches down in front of it so that she can run her fingertips over the dome of An's skull and around her ears. She's gentle enough to keep her from waking up, in all likelihood.
There's a glance toward Emily when she mentions her family, quick out of the corner of her eye. She only visited her father for Thanksgiving this year; there was no need to make her way to Connecticut or argue with her mother to drive up to Boston to visit her. "I thought you'd stay longer," she says.
She remains where she is for a few moments in spite of being offered food, stroking the kitten's spine and rubbing beneath her chin. Animals have a way of providing a cute and furry distraction, which is something Ashley noticed some time ago after acquiring Zane. She rather likes them.
"Sure," she says, "but not much." And then at that point she rises, starting toward the kitchen. There's a glance about for the furniture. She hasn't been to Emily's new place very much, and it's still rather a relief that it isn't as empty as the old one was. "So, uh. Have you talked much to Chuck lately?"
[Emily Littleton] It's Owen's chair because Owen gave it to her. Because, of all the housewarming gifts she'd gotten on that particular day, Owen had known her well enough to find something that fit into her empty flat and made it feel a bit more like home. It was Owen's chair before she realized that her fondness for the other Singer went any deeper than friendship. And it's Owen's chair, now, in his extended absence. It's a reminder that good things are often only borrowed upon and not held.
Until An claimed it, she'd been considering putting it on a closet or selling it back to Good Will. Now that the kitten loves it even more than Emily used to like it, she can't really part with it. But by the grace of a kitten named Peace was it still part of her living room ensemble.
"About a week is all I can take in one go," she says, but her smile shifts fondly. She has a great deal of warmth for her make-shift siblings and the inherent chaos they bring.
Emily places the soup bowl on a plate, nestles the roll in beside it and tucks a pat of butter close. There's a soup spoon and a knife, too. It's a neat and tidy bundle.
"Not as much as I should. I mean, we keep in touch more or less, and he was working on getting Nico's things and apartment reinstated, but we're not that close anymore. Not since Riley left."
She says this much openly, candidly and without reservation. That's a notable thing for the Singer girl who keeps her secrets close. Emily leans back against the counter, and makes a small grimace as she eases all of her weight onto her right foot. There were bruises under her jeans, up and down her left leg, into the small of her back. Paradox had walloped her soundly the night before. The underlying damage has healed, but the bruises leave a little stiffness, swelling, just enough discomfort to make her favor them slightly.
[Ashley McGowen] [You might be excited about learning Life, but it's rude to use it on your friends without asking!]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Ashley McGowen] Perhaps it says something for Emily, or for the friendship they've built over the past year, that Emily is still willing to feed her when she comes over and is still willing to offer these things up without reservation. Maybe it should be like a sort of olive branch; Ashley isn't sure whether that's how she should see it and doesn't think overlong about it.
Ashley slides into one of the chairs at the table, thanking Emily when she sets the plate and bowl down in front of her. The grimace doesn't go unnoticed. Ashley has been actively trying to pay attention to other people for the past few weeks in order to teach herself how to learn Life magic in the first place, and now that she has, those little things don't escape her notice as much as they once might have, lack of empathy or not. It's just a sort of instinctive alertness - something tells her Emily is hurt, even though she wouldn't be able to put her finger on what it was.
But she doesn't comment on it immediately. What she does have to do is consider whether it would be appropriate to look for herself; she doesn't have a second thought when it comes to Sleepers, or indeed many Awakened, but friends are a different matter.
"I talked to Molly yesterday," Ashley says, "and Israel before that. Israel was almost shot on the street last week by some guys who were affiliated with the Technocracy." She's leaving out a few details - they'd been there to investigate the Asylum - but to Ashley, none of the details really matter. When she heard Technocracy, it meant war, however cold. "And it looks like they're starting to take an interest in the city."
In truth, Ashley is not sure why they haven't done so before now, and so she's hardly surprised - this is an expected thing, and Emily can hear it in her tone. "And, uh. Molly told me that Chuck is...really, really heavily on the radar. They've been watching him for a long time and he's hacked into some of their files and they've threatened him with the well-being of his family in the past. They know who he is and have a huge file on him," beat, a sharp intake of air, "which he apparently didn't see the need to tell any of us. But the two of those things together could be really problematic for the chantry."
[Emily Littleton] [Subterfuge: My cabal-mate is... he... endangered The Chantry?... with Technocrats. ... Suuuuuuure, I totally take this in stride.]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 6, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1
[Emily Littleton] [Touche, Kasheeno, but I've just spent a week around family. Surely my lying skills are well-honed just now and my patience is above reproach? +1 diff]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 1 at target 7)
[Emily Littleton] [... I see. Well, then.]
[Emily Littleton] Riley and Alex are leaving town.
Owen might have Jhor.
Chuck is on the Technocracy's most wanted list, and guess what, Emily: They're coming to town!
Having cabal-mates was a lot like having siblings. They produced similar headaches between Emily's eyes.
She's quiet for a long moment, and her jaw clenches a little. Her cheeks pink, just a little. It's all the response Ashley gets at first, save that the stock silent, still and immoveable repose is an answer in itself. Her eyes are not quiet, they're sharper than they were just a moment. They're not trained on Ashley, or any thing in particular, but they split the distance between the closest chair back and Emily's feet. She's looking into nowhere in particular until she closes her eyes and exhales, heavily.
One hand comes up to pinch the bridge of her nose for a moment. Falls away. Her lips part, like she might just say something. Then they close. They part again, she whets them; her mouth closes. Emily pushes off the countertop and says:
"I'll put the kettle on."
It's calm and rather solid sounding. It is too calm. She doesn't address the news directly, not just yet. She has to parse it first; she has to play back everything she's ever done or that Chuck has ever roped her into and then, oh, and then, Emily stills halfway through filling the kettle. Her head lifts a little, and her eyes track more clearly to things in her apartment. Her mouth purses, and while she says nothing at all, the Hermetic does not have to doubt that it's a good thing Chuck is not here, just now, to hear out Emily's half of the argument they'll undoubtedly have.
See, sometime last year, a particular Chuck Carmichael decided to dig up everything there was to know about one Emily Littleton. He pulled it down to his drive, localized it to a memory stick. He gathered in her name, without her permission. If his rig was compromised, well, then -- this is why she didn't hack things unless she absolutely had to.
She sets the kettle down on the burner with a little more force than is necessary. It settles firmly rather than quietly. She's just a little less careful, that's all; imperfect.
"Is Israel okay?" This is Emily's first question when she -- still gingerly -- settles herself into a chair at the table. "And, to be honest, I don't even have the first clue on where to start with containing this. Or what ground assumptions we should make on whether Chuck's ID or system has been compromised -- like a computer's equivalent of a wiretap. I think, right now, I'm actually happy that Riley's moved somewhere warm and sunny because she was studying with Chuck. Aside from Molly, she's probably gotten the most exposure."
Aside from Molly and Emily, but let's not go there just now.
[Ashley McGowen] Having cabalmates is, indeed, a bit like having siblings: Ashley could attest to this. They often produce headaches, cabalmates do. Wharil is locking himself away in the library, Gregor's been sucked into the Umbra, Rene is leaving without so much as a word or a note. Daiyu is dead. Yes: suffice to say that the two of them have had their share of cabal-related woes. Ashley is not unsympathetic.
Ashley's knuckles are a bit white, and she hasn't started to eat either the stew or the roll yet. When she meets Emily's eyes, it's also clear that Chuck will have to answer to Ashley, too; she is less than pleased with him.
Emily wasn't there for the reaction to what Lara hid from the rest of them; it permanently altered the Hermetic's opinion, it permanently changed how she saw the woman and would relate to her. She, too, has been a bit distant from the VDept since this summer, but it isn't likely that Ashley will trust him again after this. Her trust is one of the only fragile things about her.
"Israel seemed fine when I saw her," Ashley says. "But I'm kind of worried that they've got her name and know what she looks like. I mean, both she and I aren't really inconspicuous." And resonance can be hard to conceal, particularly in the amounts that the two of them have it.
"From what Molly told me, it sounded a lot like Chuck is going to draw their attention once they're here. They haven't had much of a presence here and people have gotten lazy about taking precautions. That's going to have to stop."
[Emily Littleton] Emily runs the tip of her tongue over her eye tooth, feels the scrape of it against her taste buds. It doesn't stop the roar of anger at the back of her head, but she can contain herself better than some. It's not mastery of will, but rather of social conditioning. That does not mean that Emily is anything but seethingly mad just now.
"Okay," she says, but that's just another placeholder for yet another rant she isn't digressing into. That much is clear. "For my sanity's sake, are we talking as Dean and Council Member just now, or as friends? Or as potentially wronged parties? I...
"Fuck me.
"I'm going to kill him."
Ah, there. Her temper got the better of her. But it's said so clearly and calmly in Emily's pristinely Northern accent (the trappings of elsewheres other fall away when she's angry) that it's hard take that threat seriously. Even from another willworker.
[Ashley McGowen] Ashley is not terribly diplomatic, or very good at politics. She's passable - in her Tradition, one is required to be in order to get by without being completely and utterly taken advantage of. But when Emily asks her to draw the distinction between Dean and Council Member, or just as friends, or wronged parties, she just looks at Emily with raised eyebrows.
To her, all these things are one and the same. She doesn't tailor her behavior, or what she says, depending on who she is speaking with.
Some day, that will probably have to change.
"I guess...as friends," Ashley says, after a moment. "I'm pretty pissed too. I was more pissed yesterday. He's probably going to be pissed that I'm telling people, but I don't know how he could fucking hide this with the kind of risk it is to people in the chantry. Molly said he thought he was keeping everybody else safer if he didn't say anything."
She runs a hand back through her hair after a moment, glancing toward the bowl, toward the wisps of smoke that are still curling up out of it. It's rare that she doesn't feel like eating right away, but it will have to wait a few minutes.
[Emily Littleton] "So, obviously, he can't have Chantry access if he's a person of interest. Right? I mean, he can't just walk into the House and bring them right to our doorstep. I won't have it. None of the Council would. So there's that."
She's thinking now. Emily is possessed of a very ordered, task-driven mind. There are lists to make, game theory trees to parse and peruse. There's a whole litany of cause and effect, if-then-else to run through and Emily isn't well enough versed in the Technocracy to even know what ends they might run to. She places her hands flat on the table before her, and it's a very good thing that she is not a Forces mage. Not truly.
"And he's pulled all of my personal data at some point," she says, so calmly, like it's not a point of contention, like it wasn't the turning point that ruined whatever they might have built as a couple. Oh, no, that was all distant history. "So I hope to God that it isn't still on his system, and he's not being traced."
The kettle starts to whistle quietly. Then it starts to build up toward a screetch. Emily rises to snap that off.
"I--damnit," she pulls her hand away from the handle. She'd set it just a little askew and the black plastic had gotten too hot. Emily shakes out her hand a bit, and gets a potholder from the nearby drawer.
She begins again: "I don't know enough to know precisely how angry I should be. This seems like the sort of thing we should sit down and talk through with Fath--Mister Ward and the rest of the Council."
This was the sort of rock, dropped in their quiet and still autumn pond, that was going to leave ripples for a long, long while.
[Ashley McGowen] Ashley bites the inside of her cheek when Emily mentions council business, because this...is something she is not entirely prepared to navigate, something she's not entirely sure of how to handle. "Morgan could technically be considered one too," she says, "and for that matter, me or Solomon or anyone else who's done any fighting against them in the past."
Though Ashley has never been caught - Bran and Justine didn't leave anyone alive - and she suspects Solomon hasn't either. But her apprentice is of concern. Emily knows that.
After a moment she sighs, reaching up and tugging at the hair at the back of her neck. "I don't want you to panic, and if we push him out, that makes it all the more likely that they might pick him up," she says. This sort of pragmatism, in fact, is precisely what fueled Ashley to organize the Chicago magi in the first place, what has made her start to look out for all of them (even the ones she doesn't care about.) It benefits all of them. "Israel already knows. I see no reason why this should be brought immediately to the Council."
There's additional trouble here in that Emily is Chuck's ex-girlfriend; Ashley is aware of that and she's aware that it probably complicates the situation, though she isn't sure how and doesn't have enough empathy to gauge. She knows that there are probably a lot of different feelings here on top of the initial anger and feelings of betrayal.
"Be as angry as you want to be. But the Technocracy gains a lot of its ground against us because we're afraid."
[Emily Littleton] "I'm not panicking," Emily says, and is fully aware of how defensive she sounds as the words cross her lips. It causes her expression to pinch in odd ways. She pours the hot water into the kettle, drops in a more-or-less measured dose of tea, and carries the teapot, two mugs, and a strainer to the table.
"I just..." Emily's arms cross low across her middle when she sits back into her chair. "One of my cabalmates disappears for months and comes back injured and under suspicion for Jhor. Another turns out to be on the Technocracy's short list of people they'd love to sit down for a heart-to-heart. I'm not doing very well at this. And we have no guidance, and no one with experience to oversee us. I don't even know what to do about this, for myself, much less for the Chantry or the community or anyone else that it's compromised.
"I'm failing Owen, and I'm not sure where to begin with Chuck. My cabal, my people are what's bringing us down just now. I don't know how to rein that in."
[Ashley McGowen] Ashley sighs when Emily sits down in the chair, speaks about what's happened to her cabalmates, that she's failing Owen. "Emily, don't start," she says, and her voice sounds a touch tired.
"My cabal's had as many problems. You rein it in by figuring out what to do instead of complaining that you don't know what to do. You're not an apprentice anymore - you're not going to have as much guidance as you used to. That's just the way it is. We don't have the people," Ashley says. Her words are a touch harsh but her voice, while not warm or comforting, at least isn't cold, doesn't have the air of a reprimand.
"There are problems. You'll be stronger in learning to deal with them. Think of it that way." In a way, this is how Ashley sympathizes - she's offering Emily the things that work for her. She wouldn't admit to feeling frightened or unsure or that she wishes, desperately sometimes, that there was guidance to be found, a master or another more experienced adept to tell her what she should be doing. But she does.
[Emily Littleton] Ashley reminds her, and Emily's tongue stills. Her jaw tightens a measure further, but she doesn't complain any more about what she does or doesn't know how to handle.
"Sorry," the Singer says, softly. It's genuine and gentle in the middle of the rest of her frustrations and concerns. It manages to step away from that to remember that she's not been the only one with struggles this year. She manages this without sounding sullen, somehow.
"So if we don't push him out, where's the line? What's reasonable to trust him with, now? How significantly does this change things... if at all?"
She's not sure if these questions will be taken as complaining, or steps away from that. She's trying to be pragmatic, but is missing the scaffolding for framing in better questions, or suggestions. And she's not sure, when she sits down and thinks about this with a little less ire, whether Chuck's indiscretions were all that much worse than Lara's. Both caused her teeth to ache from clenching her jaw, but neither was any more or less forgivable.
Some of the community had forgiven Lara.
[Ashley McGowen] Some of the community has forgiven Lara; Ashley has not. Not really. She hasn't spoken with the woman since she gave her the initial one-week ban from the chantry house, though that has been as much Lara's doing as hers - but Ashley has never gone to seek her out. There are many things she can forgive, but dishonesty is not among them, whatever the reason.
"I'm not sure," she says, and while it doesn't have the air of a confession about it, it is frank. "I guess...part of it will probably depend on what he says to me when I go to talk with him. But I'm pretty fucking angry, still."
No, the Virtual Adept will not have an easy time in explaining what he did and why. He might have had to fight for his chance to do so at all while she railed at him, if she'd gone to him immediately after speaking with Molly.
"What I'm thinking we should do is make people aware of the situation, first and foremost," Ashley says, "so that they know to take precautions. Don't single him out or tell people that he's been hiding this or that they might come get him - that'll turn him into a pariah, and we don't want that." Sometimes it's difficult to take in stride how well Ashley understands people in groups, when she seems so clueless about how to interact with them on a person-to-person basis. But she is a sociology student, after all.
"After that, in speaking with him the smart thing to do would be to see that he actually takes precautions. There are ways for him to hide himself that don't involve cowering in his apartment or not taking action - he just can't do stupid shit like openly hack them. If he won't take precautions, that's a different story."
[Emily Littleton] "So we post something on the Chantry board along the lines of Please be advised, the community has recently come under Technocratic scrutiny; it's in everyone's best interest to exercise caution and discretion at this time and hope it's read and heeded? Talk to the Apprentices and keep better tabs on them, and follow whatever guidelines Solomon wants to set up in the wake of this news?"
If Emily, a relatively recently minted Initiate, is going to be on her own to grow up and handle this, then she assumes the rest of the Initiates will have to as well.
Emily is a Diplomat's daughter, but having dinner with her father recently has not imparted his political aptitude or grace into her skillset just yet. Ashley understands groups better than she does. Emily nods in agreement when Ashley tries to steer them away from courses of action that would render Chuck a pariah -- neither of them want that.
"I know he's already changed his name," Emily says. It's betraying his trust, and she knows it, but there's not much that can be done for that just now. She's angry, hurt, and irritated, but she isn't cruel. "But Chuck's not the sort to exercise caution, overmuch, with hacking. He thinks he won't get caught -- obviously that's not the case. I know he dug into some pretty heavy stuff with Blue Horizon, back when Henri had that pet Goop. Between Chuck and Molly, I'm not really sure who hasn't gotten hacked by one of our black hats this year."
[Ashley McGowen] Emily makes her suggestion for what to post on the board, and Ashley nods after a moment. "Something along those lines, yeah," she agrees. "And follow up to make sure we've got people's attention. And that we get to the people that don't go to the chantry," and she adds this because she knows there are plenty. She adds it because just because they aren't her people doesn't mean they won't become her problem, if the Technocrats should get a hold of one of them or if anything else should happen.
Dylan showed her that.
Ashley finally picks up the spoon and scoops up a bit of the stew, blowing on it before she transfers it to her mouth. It's still a bit warm in spite of all the time they've been talking. When Emily mentions Chuck and Molly's tendencies both, Ashley rolls her eyes. "I know," she says - though really, the Hermetic isn't one who should be lecturing others about recklessness.
"Changing his name is a good start, but I don't know the whole of the situation. Molly seemed to be kind of worried about his family and what they might do to them and...it's a complicated situation," Ashley says. "So I think talking to him will probably give us a better idea of what to do."
[Emily Littleton] "Molly's probably worried about his family because it's easier than worrying about herself," Emily observes. She can be as blunt as Ashley at times. She has more choice about when and how it bubbles to the surface. Emily places the strainer in one cup and pours out some tea. She moves it to the second and pours another glass, then she lifts the teapot's lid and slips the strainer basket into the pot, re-lids it and tries not to think about how imperfectly the pieces match up just now.
She can't be arsed to get a plate to set the strainer on, and she hadn't had hands for it when she brought the tea-marking things to the table.
[Ashley McGowen] That had occurred to Ashley as well - and indeed, Molly had been upset about what it might mean for her. She'd been more upset by the fact that Chuck had lied, by her feelings of betrayal and confusion and God knows what else; the conversation is still quite fresh in Ashley's mind. (She'd given Molly advice on what to do about it, in fact.)
When Emily pours the tea into her cup she reaches to take it and scoot it closer to herself, though she doesn't sip from it yet. Still too hot, and she's eating a little more quickly now.
"Probably," Ashley says. "But she should be. Especially if he looked up files on her like he did on you. I'm glad I never gave the guy my Sleeper name now." Though she isn't sure if he'd go to the lengths with friends that he has with lovers, anyway. At least, she hopes not.
[Emily Littleton] That Chuck had lied wasn't really what upset Emily. To be fair, she expects that most people lie when it serves them or when it's inconvenient to discuss something in present company. Lies, small and large, were a large part of how people moderated the information they gave out to others. Lying was somehow more acceptable than telling someone they hadn't earned your trust or concern enough to answer them.
"Yeah."
There's a deathly quiet pause after that.
"You know that wasn't consensual, right? Chuck got curious, and he thought maybe my dad was a spy, so he went digging to see what he could find. It's not like he had my permission, or would have gotten it if he'd asked."
All these months later, she's still angry about that. This latest news only rekindled that anger.
[Ashley McGowen] When Emily says that it wasn't consensual, uses those words specifically, there's actually a bit of a grimace that crosses the Hermetic's face. It's uncomfortable, and it's perhaps a little more understanding than it might otherwise have been: the use of those words, you see, brings to mind what Emily mentioned about her time in Prague, and if anything, Ashley is skilled at metaphor and symbolism. She can draw lines between one action and the next, assume that one act might have similar feelings as another that way.
"Sorry," she says, because she doesn't know what else to say, what else she could offer. She would still be angry herself, in all likelihood.
And then there's another moment where all's quiet except the quiet sound of her eating as she works through the remainder of the bowl. Finally Ashley lets out a quiet sigh through her nostrils and says, "We'll figure out what to do about it."
[Emily Littleton] It had brought up overtones of what happened to her, so long ago. It had also brought that same memory up in newspaper articles and photographs. Chuck had stood next to her while she paged through the assorted memories of her life that the net held in its digital clutches, Prague included. She'd been too angry to speak, and yet she'd let him hold her for awhile that afternoon.
She wrapped long fingers around her mug and drew it toward her.
"Yes," she says, and there's a sort of unrelenting resolve beneath it. It could be a dangerous thing, if Emily were not usually cautious and collected. "I'm sure we will."
She sipped from her tea and then shifted the topic soundly toward another theme.
"I found a couple more books in the library at home you might like. I had to post them back to myself, though, so they'll take a bit to get here. Customs slows everything down. I was going to wait for Christmas, but I'll bring them over as soon as they arrive."
Because they both needed something to look forward to, and something lighter to focus on tonight.
[Ashley McGowen] It is, perhaps, fortunate that Emily shifts the topic. Ashley was a little unsure of herself in coming over here, and once business looked like it had been discussed, as though it would die away, it left her unsure of what to say. Emily knows how to navigate awkward situations, how to smooth over bumps in a friendship; Ashley does not. Ashley, point in fact, is clueless about how to express to someone that she was hurt by something (not clueless. She just refuses.)
So when Emily mentions the books and waiting for Christmas, Ashley looks up from the bowl, a touch startled. "You didn't have to do that," she says, and she sounds genuinely surprised; it isn't in the manner people sometimes say it in, the mock-protest.
"But, um, sure. I'll look at them when they get here." The bowl cleared, she nudges it out of the way, takes a sip of her tea. "You should tell me what happened at home," she says, and though it has the wording of an interrogation it isn't one. It's supposed to be an invitation, something to let them talk about something that isn't this month's helping of doom and despair.
[Emily Littleton] [Some dice? I don't roll these often, but I have them...]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 10, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Emily Littleton] "They're literally locked in a library at the House, and neither I nor Gregory has time to catalogue and read them," Emily says, when Ashley protests. "Better they find someone who will enjoy them, use them, and maybe take care of them than languish in a dusty case."
Emily is an Architect and a pragmatist. The books do nothing but hold up their shelves if they stay in the Manchester House. If Ashley feels they're overmuch of a burden for her collection, Emily can ferry them home whenever the Hermetic is done with them. The Atlantic is not that wide, it is not an insurmountable distance for a few library members to travel. It's less bother for her than picking them up at a book handler and hand-carrying them through customs.
Their conversation takes them away from Chuck and Chantry matters, toward the things that make up the true core of Emily's life. The people she considers kin, without sharing blood relations. Ashley has met Gregory, so it is easier for Emily to talk about him with her. And tonight, unlike most of the nights they've shared meals or information, Emily is not so tight-lipped and reluctant to speak of home.
She weaves little anecdotes into a convivial and telling pastiche. The sometimes sister character, Rhiannon, builds up as a troublemaker and caregiver, with a heart of gold and wicked sense of humor. Gregory remains steadfast and constant, with sound advice and pointed wit at times. Emily balances them. For all the she is distant, she is the heart of their group. She brings them stories and things from far away places, sleeps in the shadow of their doorways, rocks a babe to sleep -- these things are glossed over, nuances hidden in the waypoints that are focused in on another character, or the details of a place.
The House looms, large and often empty. Full of secrets, wood floors, a stove that's never actually off. There's a warmth, even, to the lamplight cast through windows onto the paver pathway that winds up to the kitchen door. It's home, and she laughs a little when she tells Ashley that the baby sneezed when he was baptised and the Priest's expression was a little disturbed.
Maybe it's an olive branch, telling the Hermetic these things. Maybe it's a response to feeling how narrowed and insular her circle of trusted people has become. Or maybe Emily is just happier, for a moment, underneath the ire, and willing to offer up these memories in the name of friendship.
The night passes. Her apartment is warm, and there's enough soup to sate even Ashley's appetite. Whatever passed between them before she left is tabled, for now. Left squarely in the autumn twilight.
Nevertheless, she is rested and mostly rejuvenated from a week away. In Manchester, doom is of a more familiar variety. It's family dinners, and ambushes with questions about boys and school, and sitting in Father Alden's office reviewing her catechumenate studies for his approval, and running into people who knew her when she was knee-high. Babes wake early in the wee hours, doors open and shut all night, there's no semblence of quiet in a house built to be a community center as well as a home.
She texts Ashley when she gets home from the Chicago Chantry Monday night. It takes until Tuesday for the doom to darken her doorway. By then, Emily has warded against it with a simmering pot of chicken stew and fresh baked rolls. The kitten has run itself in circles and scaled her jeans and made all manner of happy mewlings (Chuck is not the best pet-sitter, it seems) and is now passed out on Emily's scarf in Owen's chair.
Her door is unlocked and stands a littel ajar. Hunger could follow her nose down the hallway to Emily's door. When she knocks, Emily calls for her to Come in!, and then wanders over to the door to help with Ashley's coat. She seems more relaxed than when she left, a little more centered.
"Hey, Ashley. How was your Thanksgiving?"
[Ashley McGowen] Ashley received the text Monday night: it took until Tuesday morning for Emily to get the reply, but she got one nonetheless. Things have been odd between them since early this month, after Emily walked out of the Court and they had the awkward meeting in the park later, where neither of them quite knew what to say to the other.
It's not that Ashley has any expectations that this will be less awkward. It's that she doesn't like avoiding people and she has an official reason to stop by, and that makes her feel a little more comfortable with showing up. (The promise of chicken stew and rolls helps a little, though, let's be honest.)
It's a little warmer today, and Ashley hasn't had to layer her clothing quite as much as she did this time last year (when there was already snow on the ground.) She's wearing a striped blue and gray buttondown shirt over a lighter blue shirt, form-fitting, only two of the buttons together, and she passes Emily her coat after she walks in the door.
"It was okay," she tells Emily. "Kage went with me and we drove out to my dad's together." And if the truth must be said, the holidays were difficult; it is much, much easier to notice absences over the holidays than any other time of year, really. One must suspect that the Orphan's presence helped a bit with that.
She drops her hands into her pockets, a smile pulling at the corner of her mouth when she sees the kitten, who has gotten big in the span of a month. "How was the christening?"
[Emily Littleton] An, the kitten, twitches a little in her sleep. She's generally mild-mannered, and quite unfazed by the magical things that happen in her home. Like that first day in the coffee shop, she could care less which resonance walked through the door so long as no one disturbed her hunter spirit's need to stalk and terrorize textiles with her artfully shredding claws and teeth.
"It was lovely," Emily tells her. Whatever awkwardness they'd kept is swept away, just now. It doesn't color the Singer's tone or how she receives Ashley. There's the same manner of warmth that Emily can always muster up; it's polite and leaning toward friendly for Ashley. It's polite and leaning toward professional for most everyone else. "It was nice to be home, too, though the weight of this year really settles in when I'm around family."
She imagines it's the same for Ashley, so there's an undercurrent of empathy to her words. Emily waves her into the living room and begins dishing Ashley up a bowl of soup. She doesn't ask if the Adept is Hungry. That's like asking whether the sky is blue. There are better things to waste one's words on, like, "Would you like butter with your roll?"
[Ashley McGowen] Ashley, upon seeing the kitten, removes her shoes inside the door and then starts over toward Owen's chair. She doesn't know it's Owen's chair - doesn't know that the Singer still keeps it here for his return - and it thus doesn't receive a second glance while she crouches down in front of it so that she can run her fingertips over the dome of An's skull and around her ears. She's gentle enough to keep her from waking up, in all likelihood.
There's a glance toward Emily when she mentions her family, quick out of the corner of her eye. She only visited her father for Thanksgiving this year; there was no need to make her way to Connecticut or argue with her mother to drive up to Boston to visit her. "I thought you'd stay longer," she says.
She remains where she is for a few moments in spite of being offered food, stroking the kitten's spine and rubbing beneath her chin. Animals have a way of providing a cute and furry distraction, which is something Ashley noticed some time ago after acquiring Zane. She rather likes them.
"Sure," she says, "but not much." And then at that point she rises, starting toward the kitchen. There's a glance about for the furniture. She hasn't been to Emily's new place very much, and it's still rather a relief that it isn't as empty as the old one was. "So, uh. Have you talked much to Chuck lately?"
[Emily Littleton] It's Owen's chair because Owen gave it to her. Because, of all the housewarming gifts she'd gotten on that particular day, Owen had known her well enough to find something that fit into her empty flat and made it feel a bit more like home. It was Owen's chair before she realized that her fondness for the other Singer went any deeper than friendship. And it's Owen's chair, now, in his extended absence. It's a reminder that good things are often only borrowed upon and not held.
Until An claimed it, she'd been considering putting it on a closet or selling it back to Good Will. Now that the kitten loves it even more than Emily used to like it, she can't really part with it. But by the grace of a kitten named Peace was it still part of her living room ensemble.
"About a week is all I can take in one go," she says, but her smile shifts fondly. She has a great deal of warmth for her make-shift siblings and the inherent chaos they bring.
Emily places the soup bowl on a plate, nestles the roll in beside it and tucks a pat of butter close. There's a soup spoon and a knife, too. It's a neat and tidy bundle.
"Not as much as I should. I mean, we keep in touch more or less, and he was working on getting Nico's things and apartment reinstated, but we're not that close anymore. Not since Riley left."
She says this much openly, candidly and without reservation. That's a notable thing for the Singer girl who keeps her secrets close. Emily leans back against the counter, and makes a small grimace as she eases all of her weight onto her right foot. There were bruises under her jeans, up and down her left leg, into the small of her back. Paradox had walloped her soundly the night before. The underlying damage has healed, but the bruises leave a little stiffness, swelling, just enough discomfort to make her favor them slightly.
[Ashley McGowen] [You might be excited about learning Life, but it's rude to use it on your friends without asking!]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Ashley McGowen] Perhaps it says something for Emily, or for the friendship they've built over the past year, that Emily is still willing to feed her when she comes over and is still willing to offer these things up without reservation. Maybe it should be like a sort of olive branch; Ashley isn't sure whether that's how she should see it and doesn't think overlong about it.
Ashley slides into one of the chairs at the table, thanking Emily when she sets the plate and bowl down in front of her. The grimace doesn't go unnoticed. Ashley has been actively trying to pay attention to other people for the past few weeks in order to teach herself how to learn Life magic in the first place, and now that she has, those little things don't escape her notice as much as they once might have, lack of empathy or not. It's just a sort of instinctive alertness - something tells her Emily is hurt, even though she wouldn't be able to put her finger on what it was.
But she doesn't comment on it immediately. What she does have to do is consider whether it would be appropriate to look for herself; she doesn't have a second thought when it comes to Sleepers, or indeed many Awakened, but friends are a different matter.
"I talked to Molly yesterday," Ashley says, "and Israel before that. Israel was almost shot on the street last week by some guys who were affiliated with the Technocracy." She's leaving out a few details - they'd been there to investigate the Asylum - but to Ashley, none of the details really matter. When she heard Technocracy, it meant war, however cold. "And it looks like they're starting to take an interest in the city."
In truth, Ashley is not sure why they haven't done so before now, and so she's hardly surprised - this is an expected thing, and Emily can hear it in her tone. "And, uh. Molly told me that Chuck is...really, really heavily on the radar. They've been watching him for a long time and he's hacked into some of their files and they've threatened him with the well-being of his family in the past. They know who he is and have a huge file on him," beat, a sharp intake of air, "which he apparently didn't see the need to tell any of us. But the two of those things together could be really problematic for the chantry."
[Emily Littleton] [Subterfuge: My cabal-mate is... he... endangered The Chantry?... with Technocrats. ... Suuuuuuure, I totally take this in stride.]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 6, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1
[Emily Littleton] [Touche, Kasheeno, but I've just spent a week around family. Surely my lying skills are well-honed just now and my patience is above reproach? +1 diff]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 1 at target 7)
[Emily Littleton] [... I see. Well, then.]
[Emily Littleton] Riley and Alex are leaving town.
Owen might have Jhor.
Chuck is on the Technocracy's most wanted list, and guess what, Emily: They're coming to town!
Having cabal-mates was a lot like having siblings. They produced similar headaches between Emily's eyes.
She's quiet for a long moment, and her jaw clenches a little. Her cheeks pink, just a little. It's all the response Ashley gets at first, save that the stock silent, still and immoveable repose is an answer in itself. Her eyes are not quiet, they're sharper than they were just a moment. They're not trained on Ashley, or any thing in particular, but they split the distance between the closest chair back and Emily's feet. She's looking into nowhere in particular until she closes her eyes and exhales, heavily.
One hand comes up to pinch the bridge of her nose for a moment. Falls away. Her lips part, like she might just say something. Then they close. They part again, she whets them; her mouth closes. Emily pushes off the countertop and says:
"I'll put the kettle on."
It's calm and rather solid sounding. It is too calm. She doesn't address the news directly, not just yet. She has to parse it first; she has to play back everything she's ever done or that Chuck has ever roped her into and then, oh, and then, Emily stills halfway through filling the kettle. Her head lifts a little, and her eyes track more clearly to things in her apartment. Her mouth purses, and while she says nothing at all, the Hermetic does not have to doubt that it's a good thing Chuck is not here, just now, to hear out Emily's half of the argument they'll undoubtedly have.
See, sometime last year, a particular Chuck Carmichael decided to dig up everything there was to know about one Emily Littleton. He pulled it down to his drive, localized it to a memory stick. He gathered in her name, without her permission. If his rig was compromised, well, then -- this is why she didn't hack things unless she absolutely had to.
She sets the kettle down on the burner with a little more force than is necessary. It settles firmly rather than quietly. She's just a little less careful, that's all; imperfect.
"Is Israel okay?" This is Emily's first question when she -- still gingerly -- settles herself into a chair at the table. "And, to be honest, I don't even have the first clue on where to start with containing this. Or what ground assumptions we should make on whether Chuck's ID or system has been compromised -- like a computer's equivalent of a wiretap. I think, right now, I'm actually happy that Riley's moved somewhere warm and sunny because she was studying with Chuck. Aside from Molly, she's probably gotten the most exposure."
Aside from Molly and Emily, but let's not go there just now.
[Ashley McGowen] Having cabalmates is, indeed, a bit like having siblings: Ashley could attest to this. They often produce headaches, cabalmates do. Wharil is locking himself away in the library, Gregor's been sucked into the Umbra, Rene is leaving without so much as a word or a note. Daiyu is dead. Yes: suffice to say that the two of them have had their share of cabal-related woes. Ashley is not unsympathetic.
Ashley's knuckles are a bit white, and she hasn't started to eat either the stew or the roll yet. When she meets Emily's eyes, it's also clear that Chuck will have to answer to Ashley, too; she is less than pleased with him.
Emily wasn't there for the reaction to what Lara hid from the rest of them; it permanently altered the Hermetic's opinion, it permanently changed how she saw the woman and would relate to her. She, too, has been a bit distant from the VDept since this summer, but it isn't likely that Ashley will trust him again after this. Her trust is one of the only fragile things about her.
"Israel seemed fine when I saw her," Ashley says. "But I'm kind of worried that they've got her name and know what she looks like. I mean, both she and I aren't really inconspicuous." And resonance can be hard to conceal, particularly in the amounts that the two of them have it.
"From what Molly told me, it sounded a lot like Chuck is going to draw their attention once they're here. They haven't had much of a presence here and people have gotten lazy about taking precautions. That's going to have to stop."
[Emily Littleton] Emily runs the tip of her tongue over her eye tooth, feels the scrape of it against her taste buds. It doesn't stop the roar of anger at the back of her head, but she can contain herself better than some. It's not mastery of will, but rather of social conditioning. That does not mean that Emily is anything but seethingly mad just now.
"Okay," she says, but that's just another placeholder for yet another rant she isn't digressing into. That much is clear. "For my sanity's sake, are we talking as Dean and Council Member just now, or as friends? Or as potentially wronged parties? I...
"Fuck me.
"I'm going to kill him."
Ah, there. Her temper got the better of her. But it's said so clearly and calmly in Emily's pristinely Northern accent (the trappings of elsewheres other fall away when she's angry) that it's hard take that threat seriously. Even from another willworker.
[Ashley McGowen] Ashley is not terribly diplomatic, or very good at politics. She's passable - in her Tradition, one is required to be in order to get by without being completely and utterly taken advantage of. But when Emily asks her to draw the distinction between Dean and Council Member, or just as friends, or wronged parties, she just looks at Emily with raised eyebrows.
To her, all these things are one and the same. She doesn't tailor her behavior, or what she says, depending on who she is speaking with.
Some day, that will probably have to change.
"I guess...as friends," Ashley says, after a moment. "I'm pretty pissed too. I was more pissed yesterday. He's probably going to be pissed that I'm telling people, but I don't know how he could fucking hide this with the kind of risk it is to people in the chantry. Molly said he thought he was keeping everybody else safer if he didn't say anything."
She runs a hand back through her hair after a moment, glancing toward the bowl, toward the wisps of smoke that are still curling up out of it. It's rare that she doesn't feel like eating right away, but it will have to wait a few minutes.
[Emily Littleton] "So, obviously, he can't have Chantry access if he's a person of interest. Right? I mean, he can't just walk into the House and bring them right to our doorstep. I won't have it. None of the Council would. So there's that."
She's thinking now. Emily is possessed of a very ordered, task-driven mind. There are lists to make, game theory trees to parse and peruse. There's a whole litany of cause and effect, if-then-else to run through and Emily isn't well enough versed in the Technocracy to even know what ends they might run to. She places her hands flat on the table before her, and it's a very good thing that she is not a Forces mage. Not truly.
"And he's pulled all of my personal data at some point," she says, so calmly, like it's not a point of contention, like it wasn't the turning point that ruined whatever they might have built as a couple. Oh, no, that was all distant history. "So I hope to God that it isn't still on his system, and he's not being traced."
The kettle starts to whistle quietly. Then it starts to build up toward a screetch. Emily rises to snap that off.
"I--damnit," she pulls her hand away from the handle. She'd set it just a little askew and the black plastic had gotten too hot. Emily shakes out her hand a bit, and gets a potholder from the nearby drawer.
She begins again: "I don't know enough to know precisely how angry I should be. This seems like the sort of thing we should sit down and talk through with Fath--Mister Ward and the rest of the Council."
This was the sort of rock, dropped in their quiet and still autumn pond, that was going to leave ripples for a long, long while.
[Ashley McGowen] Ashley bites the inside of her cheek when Emily mentions council business, because this...is something she is not entirely prepared to navigate, something she's not entirely sure of how to handle. "Morgan could technically be considered one too," she says, "and for that matter, me or Solomon or anyone else who's done any fighting against them in the past."
Though Ashley has never been caught - Bran and Justine didn't leave anyone alive - and she suspects Solomon hasn't either. But her apprentice is of concern. Emily knows that.
After a moment she sighs, reaching up and tugging at the hair at the back of her neck. "I don't want you to panic, and if we push him out, that makes it all the more likely that they might pick him up," she says. This sort of pragmatism, in fact, is precisely what fueled Ashley to organize the Chicago magi in the first place, what has made her start to look out for all of them (even the ones she doesn't care about.) It benefits all of them. "Israel already knows. I see no reason why this should be brought immediately to the Council."
There's additional trouble here in that Emily is Chuck's ex-girlfriend; Ashley is aware of that and she's aware that it probably complicates the situation, though she isn't sure how and doesn't have enough empathy to gauge. She knows that there are probably a lot of different feelings here on top of the initial anger and feelings of betrayal.
"Be as angry as you want to be. But the Technocracy gains a lot of its ground against us because we're afraid."
[Emily Littleton] "I'm not panicking," Emily says, and is fully aware of how defensive she sounds as the words cross her lips. It causes her expression to pinch in odd ways. She pours the hot water into the kettle, drops in a more-or-less measured dose of tea, and carries the teapot, two mugs, and a strainer to the table.
"I just..." Emily's arms cross low across her middle when she sits back into her chair. "One of my cabalmates disappears for months and comes back injured and under suspicion for Jhor. Another turns out to be on the Technocracy's short list of people they'd love to sit down for a heart-to-heart. I'm not doing very well at this. And we have no guidance, and no one with experience to oversee us. I don't even know what to do about this, for myself, much less for the Chantry or the community or anyone else that it's compromised.
"I'm failing Owen, and I'm not sure where to begin with Chuck. My cabal, my people are what's bringing us down just now. I don't know how to rein that in."
[Ashley McGowen] Ashley sighs when Emily sits down in the chair, speaks about what's happened to her cabalmates, that she's failing Owen. "Emily, don't start," she says, and her voice sounds a touch tired.
"My cabal's had as many problems. You rein it in by figuring out what to do instead of complaining that you don't know what to do. You're not an apprentice anymore - you're not going to have as much guidance as you used to. That's just the way it is. We don't have the people," Ashley says. Her words are a touch harsh but her voice, while not warm or comforting, at least isn't cold, doesn't have the air of a reprimand.
"There are problems. You'll be stronger in learning to deal with them. Think of it that way." In a way, this is how Ashley sympathizes - she's offering Emily the things that work for her. She wouldn't admit to feeling frightened or unsure or that she wishes, desperately sometimes, that there was guidance to be found, a master or another more experienced adept to tell her what she should be doing. But she does.
[Emily Littleton] Ashley reminds her, and Emily's tongue stills. Her jaw tightens a measure further, but she doesn't complain any more about what she does or doesn't know how to handle.
"Sorry," the Singer says, softly. It's genuine and gentle in the middle of the rest of her frustrations and concerns. It manages to step away from that to remember that she's not been the only one with struggles this year. She manages this without sounding sullen, somehow.
"So if we don't push him out, where's the line? What's reasonable to trust him with, now? How significantly does this change things... if at all?"
She's not sure if these questions will be taken as complaining, or steps away from that. She's trying to be pragmatic, but is missing the scaffolding for framing in better questions, or suggestions. And she's not sure, when she sits down and thinks about this with a little less ire, whether Chuck's indiscretions were all that much worse than Lara's. Both caused her teeth to ache from clenching her jaw, but neither was any more or less forgivable.
Some of the community had forgiven Lara.
[Ashley McGowen] Some of the community has forgiven Lara; Ashley has not. Not really. She hasn't spoken with the woman since she gave her the initial one-week ban from the chantry house, though that has been as much Lara's doing as hers - but Ashley has never gone to seek her out. There are many things she can forgive, but dishonesty is not among them, whatever the reason.
"I'm not sure," she says, and while it doesn't have the air of a confession about it, it is frank. "I guess...part of it will probably depend on what he says to me when I go to talk with him. But I'm pretty fucking angry, still."
No, the Virtual Adept will not have an easy time in explaining what he did and why. He might have had to fight for his chance to do so at all while she railed at him, if she'd gone to him immediately after speaking with Molly.
"What I'm thinking we should do is make people aware of the situation, first and foremost," Ashley says, "so that they know to take precautions. Don't single him out or tell people that he's been hiding this or that they might come get him - that'll turn him into a pariah, and we don't want that." Sometimes it's difficult to take in stride how well Ashley understands people in groups, when she seems so clueless about how to interact with them on a person-to-person basis. But she is a sociology student, after all.
"After that, in speaking with him the smart thing to do would be to see that he actually takes precautions. There are ways for him to hide himself that don't involve cowering in his apartment or not taking action - he just can't do stupid shit like openly hack them. If he won't take precautions, that's a different story."
[Emily Littleton] "So we post something on the Chantry board along the lines of Please be advised, the community has recently come under Technocratic scrutiny; it's in everyone's best interest to exercise caution and discretion at this time and hope it's read and heeded? Talk to the Apprentices and keep better tabs on them, and follow whatever guidelines Solomon wants to set up in the wake of this news?"
If Emily, a relatively recently minted Initiate, is going to be on her own to grow up and handle this, then she assumes the rest of the Initiates will have to as well.
Emily is a Diplomat's daughter, but having dinner with her father recently has not imparted his political aptitude or grace into her skillset just yet. Ashley understands groups better than she does. Emily nods in agreement when Ashley tries to steer them away from courses of action that would render Chuck a pariah -- neither of them want that.
"I know he's already changed his name," Emily says. It's betraying his trust, and she knows it, but there's not much that can be done for that just now. She's angry, hurt, and irritated, but she isn't cruel. "But Chuck's not the sort to exercise caution, overmuch, with hacking. He thinks he won't get caught -- obviously that's not the case. I know he dug into some pretty heavy stuff with Blue Horizon, back when Henri had that pet Goop. Between Chuck and Molly, I'm not really sure who hasn't gotten hacked by one of our black hats this year."
[Ashley McGowen] Emily makes her suggestion for what to post on the board, and Ashley nods after a moment. "Something along those lines, yeah," she agrees. "And follow up to make sure we've got people's attention. And that we get to the people that don't go to the chantry," and she adds this because she knows there are plenty. She adds it because just because they aren't her people doesn't mean they won't become her problem, if the Technocrats should get a hold of one of them or if anything else should happen.
Dylan showed her that.
Ashley finally picks up the spoon and scoops up a bit of the stew, blowing on it before she transfers it to her mouth. It's still a bit warm in spite of all the time they've been talking. When Emily mentions Chuck and Molly's tendencies both, Ashley rolls her eyes. "I know," she says - though really, the Hermetic isn't one who should be lecturing others about recklessness.
"Changing his name is a good start, but I don't know the whole of the situation. Molly seemed to be kind of worried about his family and what they might do to them and...it's a complicated situation," Ashley says. "So I think talking to him will probably give us a better idea of what to do."
[Emily Littleton] "Molly's probably worried about his family because it's easier than worrying about herself," Emily observes. She can be as blunt as Ashley at times. She has more choice about when and how it bubbles to the surface. Emily places the strainer in one cup and pours out some tea. She moves it to the second and pours another glass, then she lifts the teapot's lid and slips the strainer basket into the pot, re-lids it and tries not to think about how imperfectly the pieces match up just now.
She can't be arsed to get a plate to set the strainer on, and she hadn't had hands for it when she brought the tea-marking things to the table.
[Ashley McGowen] That had occurred to Ashley as well - and indeed, Molly had been upset about what it might mean for her. She'd been more upset by the fact that Chuck had lied, by her feelings of betrayal and confusion and God knows what else; the conversation is still quite fresh in Ashley's mind. (She'd given Molly advice on what to do about it, in fact.)
When Emily pours the tea into her cup she reaches to take it and scoot it closer to herself, though she doesn't sip from it yet. Still too hot, and she's eating a little more quickly now.
"Probably," Ashley says. "But she should be. Especially if he looked up files on her like he did on you. I'm glad I never gave the guy my Sleeper name now." Though she isn't sure if he'd go to the lengths with friends that he has with lovers, anyway. At least, she hopes not.
[Emily Littleton] That Chuck had lied wasn't really what upset Emily. To be fair, she expects that most people lie when it serves them or when it's inconvenient to discuss something in present company. Lies, small and large, were a large part of how people moderated the information they gave out to others. Lying was somehow more acceptable than telling someone they hadn't earned your trust or concern enough to answer them.
"Yeah."
There's a deathly quiet pause after that.
"You know that wasn't consensual, right? Chuck got curious, and he thought maybe my dad was a spy, so he went digging to see what he could find. It's not like he had my permission, or would have gotten it if he'd asked."
All these months later, she's still angry about that. This latest news only rekindled that anger.
[Ashley McGowen] When Emily says that it wasn't consensual, uses those words specifically, there's actually a bit of a grimace that crosses the Hermetic's face. It's uncomfortable, and it's perhaps a little more understanding than it might otherwise have been: the use of those words, you see, brings to mind what Emily mentioned about her time in Prague, and if anything, Ashley is skilled at metaphor and symbolism. She can draw lines between one action and the next, assume that one act might have similar feelings as another that way.
"Sorry," she says, because she doesn't know what else to say, what else she could offer. She would still be angry herself, in all likelihood.
And then there's another moment where all's quiet except the quiet sound of her eating as she works through the remainder of the bowl. Finally Ashley lets out a quiet sigh through her nostrils and says, "We'll figure out what to do about it."
[Emily Littleton] It had brought up overtones of what happened to her, so long ago. It had also brought that same memory up in newspaper articles and photographs. Chuck had stood next to her while she paged through the assorted memories of her life that the net held in its digital clutches, Prague included. She'd been too angry to speak, and yet she'd let him hold her for awhile that afternoon.
She wrapped long fingers around her mug and drew it toward her.
"Yes," she says, and there's a sort of unrelenting resolve beneath it. It could be a dangerous thing, if Emily were not usually cautious and collected. "I'm sure we will."
She sipped from her tea and then shifted the topic soundly toward another theme.
"I found a couple more books in the library at home you might like. I had to post them back to myself, though, so they'll take a bit to get here. Customs slows everything down. I was going to wait for Christmas, but I'll bring them over as soon as they arrive."
Because they both needed something to look forward to, and something lighter to focus on tonight.
[Ashley McGowen] It is, perhaps, fortunate that Emily shifts the topic. Ashley was a little unsure of herself in coming over here, and once business looked like it had been discussed, as though it would die away, it left her unsure of what to say. Emily knows how to navigate awkward situations, how to smooth over bumps in a friendship; Ashley does not. Ashley, point in fact, is clueless about how to express to someone that she was hurt by something (not clueless. She just refuses.)
So when Emily mentions the books and waiting for Christmas, Ashley looks up from the bowl, a touch startled. "You didn't have to do that," she says, and she sounds genuinely surprised; it isn't in the manner people sometimes say it in, the mock-protest.
"But, um, sure. I'll look at them when they get here." The bowl cleared, she nudges it out of the way, takes a sip of her tea. "You should tell me what happened at home," she says, and though it has the wording of an interrogation it isn't one. It's supposed to be an invitation, something to let them talk about something that isn't this month's helping of doom and despair.
[Emily Littleton] [Some dice? I don't roll these often, but I have them...]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 10, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Emily Littleton] "They're literally locked in a library at the House, and neither I nor Gregory has time to catalogue and read them," Emily says, when Ashley protests. "Better they find someone who will enjoy them, use them, and maybe take care of them than languish in a dusty case."
Emily is an Architect and a pragmatist. The books do nothing but hold up their shelves if they stay in the Manchester House. If Ashley feels they're overmuch of a burden for her collection, Emily can ferry them home whenever the Hermetic is done with them. The Atlantic is not that wide, it is not an insurmountable distance for a few library members to travel. It's less bother for her than picking them up at a book handler and hand-carrying them through customs.
Their conversation takes them away from Chuck and Chantry matters, toward the things that make up the true core of Emily's life. The people she considers kin, without sharing blood relations. Ashley has met Gregory, so it is easier for Emily to talk about him with her. And tonight, unlike most of the nights they've shared meals or information, Emily is not so tight-lipped and reluctant to speak of home.
She weaves little anecdotes into a convivial and telling pastiche. The sometimes sister character, Rhiannon, builds up as a troublemaker and caregiver, with a heart of gold and wicked sense of humor. Gregory remains steadfast and constant, with sound advice and pointed wit at times. Emily balances them. For all the she is distant, she is the heart of their group. She brings them stories and things from far away places, sleeps in the shadow of their doorways, rocks a babe to sleep -- these things are glossed over, nuances hidden in the waypoints that are focused in on another character, or the details of a place.
The House looms, large and often empty. Full of secrets, wood floors, a stove that's never actually off. There's a warmth, even, to the lamplight cast through windows onto the paver pathway that winds up to the kitchen door. It's home, and she laughs a little when she tells Ashley that the baby sneezed when he was baptised and the Priest's expression was a little disturbed.
Maybe it's an olive branch, telling the Hermetic these things. Maybe it's a response to feeling how narrowed and insular her circle of trusted people has become. Or maybe Emily is just happier, for a moment, underneath the ire, and willing to offer up these memories in the name of friendship.
The night passes. Her apartment is warm, and there's enough soup to sate even Ashley's appetite. Whatever passed between them before she left is tabled, for now. Left squarely in the autumn twilight.
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