Room for grace

[Emily Littleton] It has been cold enough, today, to threaten thoughts of snowfall. The weather required her to break out a heavier coat than she's worn since last winter, to wind a scarf around her neck for more than show. Emily still has no gloves, there's still a small part of her that has not conceded yet that she lives here, she dwells here, but that too would pass. Water under a stubbornly standing bridge.

She does not approach the house as a sentry today, but it's hard to say that any of them are ever truly off-duty when they are present in the Chantry. The Singer girl is learning to mount the front steps without naked trepidation, or the flicker-memory of the macabre decorations this house has worn in the past year. She does not glance aside to the place where Daiyu fell, but rather fumbles in her pockets for her keys.

She raps twice on the door, just so, then tests it. Opens it. She stamps her shoes on the welcome mat and steps inside. Today there are no business-worthy slacks. Just dark jeans and dark shoes. A soft sweater in a heathered amethyst hue. Her scarf is pale pink. She unworks the buttons of her coat once she's stepped inside. Her messenger bag is with her. Anyone who has frequented this house of late recognizes the Emissary of the House of Leaves. They know that the sweep of her footsteps takes her immediately to the kitchen, to put on the kettle to warm as she searches out the message board and catches up on the small things that have happened to the clubhouse while she was away.

[Emily Littleton] [Aware: Anyone out there?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 6, 7 (Failure at target 6)

[Bran Summers] [Eh?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 7, 7, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Emily Littleton] [Uh... no... I said, go-go-magical spidey sense. +1, re-rolling]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 3, 5, 6, 9 (Success x 1 at target 7)

[Bran Summers] Whoever is present in the chantry today walks its halls blissfully unaware of its dark corners. He didn't walk inside it to see it blood soaked and covered in waste and viscera last winter, he didn't see a friend-lover-cabalmate-fellow Traditionalist die on the grass outside, and he is only mildly aware of just how many times Nephandi have been present inside this house. Whoever he is, though, he's unfamiliar to Emily.

He doesn't recognize the footsteps upstairs. It doesn't really matter to him right at this juncture, though. He has work that he's doing, and hollowing out a new room isn't an easy thing, even for someone who is experienced with the Ars Materiae. Even for someone who has been using it since he woke up almost fifteen years ago.

It's warm in the house, in spite of how large the place is and its hardwood floors and the fact that it's hard to keep it heated as well as they would all like. None of them are wealthy, after all, and of all the things the chantry needs, it probably could use a rich uncle the most. It doesn't have one. It's populated by grad students and journalists, by nonprofit workers and freelancers. This is one of the significant advantages the Technocracy has over the Traditions: money. A steady supply of money that flows in from their fronts. But today it seems to be well heated, pleasant to walk into. It feels like a breath of summer, like the sun's rays hitting a person's face just right so that they don't leech energy but give it instead, so that it stays inside them charged and humming and full of potential.

It feels strongest near the basement door.

[Emily Littleton] [Prime 1: Base dif 4, practiced, unique focus]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 1, 9 (Failure at target 3)

[Emily Littleton] [Prime 1, take two: AHEM, Kahseeno, I know who writes your code! Behave!]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 4, 10 (Success x 2 at target 3)

[Emily Littleton] Emily does not recognize the seep of resonance from the basement. That realization draws her shoulders back a little, makes her snap off the burner below the kettle and cross, once more, to check the roster for unfamiliar names. Of everyone on the full membership list, she knows Gregor least, but she has met him enough at meetings to remember the general tone about him.

This was not Gregor communing with the node spirit. It was not Atlas at work.

In an established Chantry, they would have protocols for this. Someone to call, immediately -- and in truth, that was likely Solomon, but Emily did not relish calling her Traditional Elder with little to no information other than something is amiss -- or a set of precautions to take. The extent of Emily's precautions were to gather up her god-father's prayer beads and draw her awareness of the quintessential world to her.

Surely, somewhere on the premises there is a firearm she could bring with her, but that does not (yet) cross the girl's mind as an appropriate countermeasure. Down she heads into the basement of the Chantry, down the slick stairs that require some attention to navigate safely, through the narrowing passage toward the Node, and surely, now, the flare of her resonance, the press of that Grace, precedes her through the darkness.

It is not as strong as the surge of the Resonance of the person she is heading down to meet, and on some level that quietly terrifies her.

[Bran Summers] Bran knew that there was someone knew upstairs. He didn't think much of it, because while he'd like to meet a few people around the chantry - other Willworkers are always, always useful to know, even if the use isn't immediately apparent - but he has work to do down here. For as relaxed as his demeanor can be and as much as he and Ashley butt heads, there isn't a job he undertakes that he doesn't desire to do to the best of his ability. That includes favors from exes that occasionally rouse the famed and feared Flambeau temper.

He did pause in his work, if only because it was a little like a game, trying to guess the person's Tradition and picture them just by their resonance. He had a picture of Emily forming in his mind before he heard her footsteps on the stairs, and when she'll get to the bottom, he'll find that he actually wasn't all that far off. Though he'd expected her to be smaller. That note of the unrelenting there makes him think of Ashley.

The basement looks a bit different right now. There's a hallway neatly squared out of the stone that leads back into somewhere Emily can't quite see yet; it looks dark, and the only thing that is currently lighting it is a torch that is guttering there on the floor. Something perpetual, something that won't go out until the mage who Willed it into being relinquishes his hold.

Emily can see the traces of his Will splashed on things down here. She can see the light welling up from the center of the floor where the node is, and perhaps to her it looks like some kind of fountain, just light, there and radiant and lending reverence to everything it touches. Maybe she sees something else. But she also sees Bran as he is and Bran the Willworker, and she can immediately tell that he's the source of that warmth, that charged energy. There's another quality about him too, and maybe it's just in his bearing: something that could call to mind a warrior, bravery, except that warmth bleeds over into it. It's chivalrous, almost. Valiant.

The man himself is only a little taller than average, and thin; there are a pair of wire-rimmed glasses adorning his straight nose. He's dressed casually, in jeans and a checkered black and blue hooded sweatshirt that's only been partially zipped. He glances at her and watches her descend, and even in the dim light of the basement his blond hair is shot through with so much red it looks like the very beginning of a sunset.

"Hello," he says, his tone almost cheerful when he sees Emily make her way downstairs. And perhaps he notices almost immediately that she's nervous because he adds, "I'm Bran. Ashley just went out for some air."

Translation: Ashley went out so she wouldn't throw something at him.

[Emily Littleton] Let's not mince words: It has been a couple months since the Node was directly attacked, visited by Angels and Demons, or partially subverted by a dastardly duo of Nephandi. They were due for some form of mischief. And Emily was not so naive to believe the Mischief would always come in the ready guise of Things To Be Immediately Abhorred.

There is a new aperature fashioned into the Node room, leading away from the slumbering and diminshed heart of the Chantry, or leading toward it -- a more terrifying thought, yet. Catherine has not yet fully mended; they are all drawn thin, tight like drumskins over thin and brittle bones. Emily takes this all in with a quick sweep of shrewdly intelligent eyes. She studies him for a moment, and there is indeed something Unrelenting in the dark blue of her eyes, and how unafraid they seem to find and hold his for a moment.

But that passes. She does not relent, but she does recant enough to smile. She is a Diplomat's Daughter, and not every situation is won over by force or friction alone. His bearing is mirrored in hers, calling up echoes of the Knight she would one day become. These nuances are there, now, colored by the Old World mannerisms, and they appear to cover that nervousness entirely.

He mentions Ashley. There is a flicker of recognition, and then a little knowing nod.

"You must be one of her associates from Boston," she says, and if she happens to look for the same notes of recognition or other cues as to whether he is being entirely forth-right, then perhaps he would forgive her. "It's a pleasure to meet you," she says, extending a still-chill hand to him in greeting.

"I'm Emily."

There's a little pause here, and then she offers: "I was just going to put the kettle on. Would you like to come up for tea?"

Translation: Please exit the Node Room until I vet your credentials.

[Bran Summers] Mincing words also happens to be a talent of Bran Summers. Ashley has spoken of the man to only a few of the magi of Chicago, and few have heard more detail than his name or that he used to be a cabalmate of hers. Some of the trusted ones know that Ashley admired his abilities with people, that he could move and inspire them and make them believe. They know that she admired the leader he was and doesn't think of her own abilities highly in this regard, because she's always measuring herself against him.

She's open about this. As open as Ashley is about anything.

"I am," he says. "She used to be a cabalmate of mine." At which point he steps forward so that he can clasp her extended hand in his, and unlike hers his are quite warm. Emily is, by now, getting acquainted with a certain feel that Life mages give off. In their own way, they're usually vibrant, healthy, comfortable even in this damp basement.

She offers her name, and he smiles then and says, "Oh, Ashley's mentioned you. It's a pleasure, Emily."

He gestures toward the little tunnel, and maybe he's explaining himself away because he's noticed that Emily is nervous, but if he is, he doesn't seem to be. His voice is confident and warm and friendly, like he's just being open about his affairs, like he's just making conversation with her. "You probably know about it already, but Ashley told me you don't have anyone skilled with Matter - " and he uses this term rather than the Hermetic one, purposely - "and she wanted a hall for the fallen. I'd like to get finished up here before it gets too late, but you're welcome to stay and watch me work, if you'd like."

And he smiles again. Really, he hasn't stopped.

[Emily Littleton] There is a list, upstairs, on the message board, of people who are allowed access to this space. Just access. Not even the requisite credentials to modify the Node Room without Council consent. Bran's name is not on that list, for all that it is familiar to Emily. And yes, the pieces of information he offers her fit well enough that she does not insist in rude or forcible fashion that he immediately vacate the well but the watchfulness in her does not recede.

You've probably heard about it already he says, and Emily nods as if she has, indeed, heard Ashley speak of this in some detail. He certainly has not caught her off guard with the effect of his visit, not at least that the younger mage telegraphs in any way.

"We do, have remarkably few experts at that Art," she agrees, finding a mid-point between the Hermetic terminology and more common Traditional parlance. "I, myself, don't even have a passing knowledge of it." There is regret to this, as if she genuinely wishes she could more readily appreciate his handiwork.

It was a far cry from seeing Henri turn a door lock to chocolate, which was the most of what she'd seen done with the Sphere.

"If you don't mind the company," she says, as if she were really giving him a choice in the matter, "I'd love to observe."

Translation: You're not leaving my sight until Ashley gets back.

"Oh," as if it were a thing just remembered, Emily adds: "Do you know where Ashley stepped out to? I need to speak to her about a mutual friend. I was away over the weekend," she explains, with a small gesture.

She's surely not asking so that she can mark the time until the Deacon returns, sharply, or gauge whether stepping up to place a quick phone call for reinforcements would be wise. That would be silly.

Or prudent.

And yes, she recognized that sort of warmth and vitality. Being an Initiate of Life, herself, and having not yet achieved it, it only confirms her suspicions about their comparative abilities and training. If this bothers her, in the slightest, it's occulted by now.

[Bran Summers] Emily comments on the Ars Materiae, and Bran's smile widens in a manner that appears to be utterly genuine. "That's a shame," he says. "It's been my favorite Art to study. It's one of the more undervalued ones," he adds, with a look back toward the corridor. He speaks with enthusiasm, and without any of the hesitance or shyness Ashley usually shows in speaking of a favorite thing, even a subject of study. He speaks of it without the pragmatism. Perhaps it isn't a thing common to all Hermetics.

The light in the basement has a habit of flickering now and again, of blinking. It always gives the basement an eerie air, as if the damp and the chill and the bare stone weren't enough; it's not flickering anymore. Perhaps Bran got impatient with it.

"Feel free to pull a chair over," he says, gesturing Emily toward the corridor, as though she were really giving him a choice in the matter. As though he were unaware that she's suspicious of him and is keeping a close eye. If Bran is put off by this, if he's wondering why the hell the magi of Chicago all seem so paranoid, it doesn't show.

When he steps back toward the carved stone, he reaches under the collar of his sweatshirt and pulls forth a chain, the links composed of different metals. Emily has seen one quite like it (though not identical to it) many times before. Maybe it says something that they both still wear it. Maybe it's just too damned hard to replace an instrument like that.

When she asks about Ashley, Bran's eyebrows furrow and he laughs at the same time. A touch wry, a touch rueful. "Ashley went out for a walk, I think," he says. "She always had a temper, but man, I don't know who pissed in her Cheerios this morning or what. I wouldn't call her right now, if I were you," he says. Maybe it's genuine advice.

He looks over his shoulder at Emily, then, and grins, and his interest is seemingly sincere when he asks, "Where'd you go over the weekend? Halloween party or something?"

[Emily Littleton] It will take more than flickering torch light and the threat of utter darkness to alarm Emily in this space. She is relatively sure that Bran is not a visiting Umbrood, nor is he a Nephandus come to corrupt the Node, nor is he some far-flung spy. There are too many hallmarks of long association with Ashley for him to be a faked presence and so utterly calm under scrutiny as to invite it in.

Bran mentions Ashley's temper and Emily's gaze slants to the side, and then upward to the heavens.

"Ah, yes. Well remembered, and thank you," there's a foreignness to her wordshapes that he's undoubtedly picked up on by now, a sense of Other than pervades her cadence and tone. She seems heedless of it. His own accent doesn't tug hers away from its characteristic muddledness. If he had an ear for such things, it would be possible for Bran Summers to recognize her accent anywhere now. It wasn't likely to be duplicated in anyone else.

There's a wryness, too, to the set of her mouth at mention of this infamous temper. Perhaps Emily, herself, had been the one to set it off. She and Ashley were dissimilar enough that it could happen; similar enough that it had happened at least once, or twice, in the past.

"A friend of mine took his daughter and her friend out of town for her birthday, North of here a bit to see family and go trick-or-treating. I was the second responsible adult," she says, lilting the words just a bit so that Bran could laugh at the insinuation that Emily was anything approaching responsible.

She hadn't hauled him out by his ear, yet, so she wasn't that rulebound. Emily's hands slid into her pockets. Her posture rounded a bit. She seemed less impressively tall, less at-the-ready.

"Why's it your favorite, this Ars?" Look at Emily playing nice. Now if she could only remember the Hermetic name for it, surely Ashley had used it around her at least once. Materia? Well, better to not speak than to speak incorrectly. "I've focused recently on Prime and Life, almost to the exclusion of more patterned interests."

She offers enough to keep up conversation. Partly because it helps her better gauge him, and also because she finds herself enjoying the conversation. Bran does not make her work for it; there's a familiar ebb and flow, a little given yields a reasonable return. This is not what talking to the bulk of Chicago's mages is like for Emily. It's a welcome reprieve, even if he's not supposed to be in the Node Room, creating new rooms, without some sort of paperwork or phone tree moment.

[Bran Summers] Bran does, indeed, laugh at the insinuation that Emily is a responsible adult. It's not a condescending or cutting laugh, there's nothing of mockery in it, nothing to suggest that he's laughing at Emily. It's just that entirely appropriate, wry sort of laughter, a little self-deprecating, as though he indeed remembers trying to be a 'responsible adult' at twenty-two. "I'm sure they were in good hands," he says, tilting his head to grin at her as the corridor's darkness begins to encroach, as night begins to creep in and dull the color of his hair. "You seem like the responsible sort."

As though, indeed, it were responsible of her to stay down here and keep an eye on him (rather than dragging him upstairs and throwing him out as procedure would dictate.) If that is indeed procedure, Bran doesn't call attention to it whatsoever. He seems happy to praise what she's already done.

When he focuses, he doesn't place his fingers or thumb through the link the way that Ashley tends to with her own chain. It seems enough for him to have it out and at the ready, for him to remember that it's there, and there's a calm sort of self-assurance in what he does without actually needing that physical reminder. It's enough for it to be a channel.

"It's just kind of fun," he says, as though this is an admission. As though it's a little mischievous, actually daring to enjoy what he does rather than submit to the cut-and-dry Hermetic manner of doing things. Who knows, maybe it actually is. "It's kind of like playing with mud. Or Play-do. I don't think guys ever really grow out of it." He grins again, a touch self-deprecating. "There's alchemy, which I do, but it doesn't really stop being fun to just kind of...squish things around and shape them into something else," and he gestures with his hands as though he were indeed doing just that.

"What do you like about your Ars?" he asks, picking up on the fact that she'd used their language and returning in kind. "You're a...no, wait, I've got this, Ashley told me. A Singer, right?"

[Emily Littleton] This is warm banter. It appears to be an easy thing between them. Bran's self-assured nature bleeds into her own, quieter surety. She borrows on it and reflects. But neither of them would mistake the other for a known presence, just yet. Each call and response tests at something.

He explains his fascination with the Art, and even motions as if he were reshaping something just now. Emily's eyes brighten a little bit, there's a touch of laughter to them.

"Oh, now that I understand, completely," she says. Her field is dominated by people who like to build and rebuild and reshape things. It's also dominated by men. Emily is a far outlier to the rest of her department. "I like to build things," she says, and there are nuanced layers beneath that should he choose to read into it.

He names her Tradition, which she confirms, with a nod and a broadening smile. "Ah, yes. That I am. Though I feel more defined, of late, by my seat on the Chantry Council than my Tradition." Here it is her turn to be artfully self-deprecating, to shrug a little as if it were a thing that could not be helped: politics. Unavoidable like death and taxes and doom on Tuesdays.

"Should I worry that Ashley's told you so much of me?" she asks, with an easy edge of conspiracy and intrigue. There's a nice arch to the query, but the set of her mouth remains wryly unconcerned. Whatever nervousness she felt at first coming down here has seemed to fade.

Perhaps Bran's charm and good-will has set her at ease. Not likely.

[Bran Summers] Bran has always had a way with people. It isn't only something that came to him when he Awoke, it wasn't something that Hannibal trained into him or that he picked up on through quiet observation of his mentor, how the man's voice could be silk soft and shadow one moment and a crack of lightning the next. Hannibal honed it. But it was always there. In high school he got used to girls telling him that he wasn't like the other boys, he got used to the other boys thinking he was just like each one of them, he got used to teachers and parents thinking he was some shining golden boy full of potential.

But one thing Bran has learned is that Awakened are stubborn and Willful people, and they aren't so easy to win over. Many of them - at least half, he would say - are suspicious people by nature, and this natural banter, it isn't the kind of thing that makes them drop their guard. They're wary of anyone who makes them want to self-disclose.

He's used to that, too. And here's another truth about Bran Summers: he's a very, very patient man.

"Quite a coincidence, Miss Littleton," he says, a touch solemn, using her last name even though she didn't give it to him, "I also like to build things." There are nuanced layers to be read into that, too. They're both Knights, in their way, and they are both Architects. He seems to have recognized this on some level; perhaps it's what Ashley told him. Perhaps he's just that uncannily perceptive, or maybe it's a combination of both.

He laughs, once, when Ashley's name comes up again. "Well, I can tell you that your name didn't come up among a litany of curses," he says, "and Ashley only mentions people to me if they fit in one of two categories, so I think you're good."

He looks back at her again. It's harder to see him now; he's brightened the light that he has in the corridor so that she can make out his shape, can make out the end of the little hall he's built, can see the glint off his hair and his face and the rims of his glasses. He's crouching down, sketching what appear to be runes out with a piece of chalk. "You should be proud of yourself, actually, being on the Council. It's pretty rare that a young magus is admitted to sit, even in a city where the political structure is still forming. If they didn't want you there they'd find a way to shuffle you off."

[Emily Littleton] She must strike a balance here, between picking fights well above her paygrade and protecting that which she's been charged with. Emily knows there is little she could do to force Bran out of the Node Room. She's relatively certain that mistreating Ashley's friend in the name of rules-following would not win her any favors. Especially as Emily, herself, has bent a bit of Chantry litany toward her favor. She rests, just now, heavily on the work of other magi.

So she wanders a little closer to the opening of that hall when he disappears into it, but she makes no outward effort to hinder his work. It's all noted, the sigils -- which remind her more of Solomon than Ashley -- the thoughtful way he brightens the light for her.

He compliments her, and Emily smiles a bit more genuinely for a moment. "Thank you, though, if you knew my cabalmates I think you'd see it was more a case of necessity than a welcoming."

One of her cabalmates was the bleeding-heart liberal to Emily's moderately conservative political alignment. One was newer yet than she, and now also gone. The last, and possibly the best choice by experience, was a man who strung five words into a sentence and considered it too verbose.

"You asked, what it is I like about my Ars?" She doubles back a bit, to explain, as he had. Conversations did not have to run in one direction alone. Emily was comfortable enough to backtrack without leaving an awkward junction. "I think it's the intimacy to them. They're very vibrant, organic. It's not at all like my studies; I'm an engineer by education. There's also a lot you can learn about a person, or a thing, through its life patterns or resonance. There's room for grace.

"It hasn't been an easy year for any of us," she says, and drops her chin just enough to shade her eyes from him for a moment. This, paired with her sense of Reverence, belies her Tradition as much as anything Ashley has told her. Emily has found her home in the Chorus, clearly. "They give me hope, as odd as that may sound, and a means to help rebuild when troubles come."

[Bran Summers] Emily mentions her cabalmates, she mentions necessity, and Bran laughs again. "Oh, believe me, I sympathize," he says. "Justine's an observer and when Ashley was an apprentice she'd stutter stringing a sentence together in front of people. But you shouldn't let necessity downplay your own accomplishments." Bran certainly hasn't let it downplay his.

His runes are careful, measured things, each in their place: reminiscent of Solomon, indeed. This is the sort of man who would get along and work well with the Chorus, one would suspect, even though he's never officially affiliated himself with a Singer. The man who is like a brother to his mentor is one, Justine's fiance is one, and there's a sort of reverence in what he does. Not as though he's calling something higher, but as though he's mindful of it at all times (Man is the Perfect Form.)

When Emily begins to speak of the Spheres she is learning, the part of them that resounds in her the most deeply, Bran looks up from his work so that he can look at her while she talks. So that he can make eye contact while she talks about how they're vibrant and organic and the grace they lend, even after she shades her eyes.

"I don't think it sounds odd at all," he says, leaning down so that he can resume his chalking. "Whenever I've had bad weeks - or months, or years - it always helps me to remember that the first stage of a Great Work is disintegration. It's once things are reduced to their most basic elements that they can be reshaped and molded into something else." He pauses a moment. "I think it's good when you can draw hope from your work. It'll carry you far. Especially if others can see it in you."

[Emily Littleton] Emily knows that some people are naturally charismatic, and that most of them have found ways to turn that charisma into fast ties to the people around them. She knows, rationally, that she has little reason to feel warmth toward this friend-of-a-friend who is chalking out runes on the floor of the node room's newest annex. She knows that it is a confluence of social graces, and the right bits of information being offered up whilst others are withheld. There's no real reason for her to smile, like that, in a more genuine and heart-felt way, when Bran Summers compliments her, save that she wants to, this once, believe the best in the people around her.

Owen has Faith in mankind. Lisa has Faith in Humanity. Israel has Hope for these things. Emily finds Faith in individual people to be a trying experience, and a fallable logic, but she is not above believing that together they, as a community, can be more than the sum of their individual parts.

So this is how she'll justify her lapse in skepticism and self-protection: Their community is not bounded by individual faiths or drives, nor should it be bounded by anything as artificial as political territory; should Ashley's friend from another Chantry and State choose to add his gifts and talents to the whole of their community, elevate it and enrich it, for however long he may choose to stay, then who is Emily to question that good will?

She watches the shape his hand moves through as he draws the symbols. It is an unfamiliar script. She recognizes the shapes of many languages she cannot read; not because she has tried to learn them, but because they are associated with place she has lived among her travels.

"Which language is that?" she asks, when he reaches a pause or sits back to inspect the perfection of the symbols. There's a slight furrow to her brow, but it's thoughtfulness not concern. Solomon works with sigils; Israel works with Hebrew characters; she has seen Ashley draw strange letters; Emily knows some of the symbols of the Chorus.

There is no sense to her question or her carriage that she suspects it might be a Tradition secret, or a thing not to share. Emily has heard that there are glass ceilings in learning from other Traditions, but she's mostly received warmth and help in her studies thus far.

"I don't recognize it," she adds, but with a slight confusion in her tone. As if she had somehow expected to know it.

[Bran Summers] Of all Traditions, the Hermetics are one of the ones that is the most infamous for the sort of glass ceiling Emily is thinking of. Hermetics are taught that their Order is difficult to get into, that only the best are admitted, that they are the Worthy; they also like their secrets, and they like their knowledge to remain among the ones they've selected. It's for this reason that most are aghast and offended on the rare occasion they learn that the tongue of the archangels has been extended to other Traditions.

There's none of that guardedness in Bran, though, when Emily asks about the sigils he is placing down. Quite the contrary. He looks up at her with the same openness he has shown thus far, and then beckons her forward with a flick of his fingers.

"Enochian," he says. "It's the language of magic or Words of power. Supposedly one of the archangels taught it to one of the Order's earlier members, and it's been passed down and kept among us since then." He doesn't speak with the sort of skepticism with which she's heard Ashley speak of the same. Bran is still in a cabal with Justine, will soon be cabaled with another Singer, and both of them have Faith; Bran either does himself or he's highly receptive to the idea of faith in others.

"The structure is very interesting, actually," he says. "It's a bit like...hm. Han'gul is probably the closest parallel I can draw, even though it's still pretty different. You have a single, central Word, and upon it you layer a bunch of smaller symbols and Words to add complexity and nuance, so that the single Word coming together takes on multiple meanings. You can construct very complex sentences that way, or just use the Word on its own."

And should she come closer, he'll point to the symbols he's already sketched down so that he can show her. He doesn't tell her what the Words mean, but she'll get an idea of what he's talking about; each symbol is incredibly intricate, a tiny work in and of itself, and laying it down the way he is takes patience and time both. "Most Hermetic Willworkers use it in their magic."

[Emily Littleton] She does move closer, and her hands come out of her pockets. Emily shows no reticence in crouching down beside him to study the symbols he's laid out. She's an eager student, polite and respectful. She's sharp enough, too, to have not overly frayed Ashley's patience (well, at least not on magical things).

The Singer is quiet while he explains. Her gaze traces each Word, studies it, and moves on to the next as he indicates them. She doesn't understand the Words themselves, but there is definitely recognition for this concept, and open appreciate for its delicacy and intricacy.

"I've seen something like this before," she says, quietly as there's no need for her voice to carry across the room just now. "Though not this intricate, and not verbal, so you'll have to forgive the imperfect analogy. It reminds me of eastern Mandala, and how they're built around a central image or theme, with everything radiating out from that. They're also very intricate, but almost entirely visual symbols not... literary ones?" She fumbles for the correct word, that momentary doubt colors her tone.

"It's a bit like poetry, isn't it?" she asks, studying the unfamiliar words rather than his features just now. If that supposition was correct, then it would explain a bit more of why Ashley was so focused on Words as the seat of everything; a viewpoint Emily could appreciate but didn't quite share.

[Bran Summers] Bran stays crouched where he is, folding his hands together between his knees with the piece of chalk clasped between them. Inside the hall he's carved, Emily can see how far back it extends: so far he's managed to hollow out a small chamber. Chances are it won't need to be too much bigger. The edges of both the hallway and the small room are rough hewn so far, moreso as they go back, as though they'd been chewed out of the rock. One would assume he will go back and smooth them out later, perfect them.

When she draws the analogy to Mandala, he smiles once, briefly. "Yes, it's a bit like that. I remember Ashley saying the same thing, actually, when she was first learning it." It was what she'd had exposure to, the easiest thing for her to grasp.

"And...yes, it is like poetry in that you can use it to convey a lot of nuanced meaning. It can more or less be as artistic or as technical as you want it to be, though I think the majority of my Tradition settles on the technical approach." Ashley isn't one of them. He doesn't need to say that. Bran isn't really one of them either, though he certainly operates from a more detail-oriented perspective, a less intuitive one, than his once-cabalmate.

"But anyway. It's useful in the process of transmutation and alchemy because you're able to align something with its Word and push the impurities out of it, so to speak. You can make it into something perfectly ordered."

[Emily Littleton] Emily has begun to understand what it is that Bran is here to do. Between his sigils and his Will and his love of mashing things up and remaking them, he's hollowing out a section of the ground under the Chantry toward a very specific use. She's not seen anyone work on this level before, remaking the bedrock of a foundation, though transmutation is familiar. Henri's chocolate lock comes to mind, but as a very, very different sort of Art.

More like modern, belligerent, performance art. The way Shakespeare's plays performed on roller skates would be art, if unsatisfying in many ways to a rigorous student of the Bard.

"Something perfectly ordered," the Singer repeats, casting his words into her own accent, painting them with a blush of admiration. This appeals, deeply enough to let Emily lose thoughts of the inevitable ingress of Entropy for just a moment.

"That's a thought, isn't it?" she adds, with a measure of Reverence in-line with her resonance. It's easy to see why she's trended toward that since she first woke up.

"You have some very interesting things to say, Bran," Emily tells him, and there is acknowledgment, respect and appreciation all caught together in the way she says it. He's given her plenty to think on for quite some time. But Emily does not push. He has not offered her the words of any of these symbols, and she doesn't intently focus on any as if to memorize it and steal away their secret language for her own.

[Bran Summers] Perhaps Bran catches that reverence in her tone, the admiration for the words he uttered, because he looks over at her and smiles again, once, nodding. Perhaps the thought of Entropy does not bother him, because he doesn't point it out; in Bran's mind, that entropy is necessary for anything to be reordered in the first place. He doesn't use it, it frustrates him to come so close only to have it come apart again, but he sees its usefulness.

There was a time when he was an initiate that a clever disciple commented on the two young women he'd chosen to cabal with. That how they operated together as a triad fit perfectly in line with how he saw things, how he'd chosen to Work: that he'd find a target for Ashley's hunger so that he and Justine could sweep in and stabilize and rebuild later. It hadn't been wrong, though whether Bran is conscious of these things in his approach is never clear.

"It is a thought," he says, "and it's one I think it's good for Traditionalists who think the way we do to keep in mind. The Technocracy is seeking a similar thing but they take the meaning and the value and the wonder out of it. It helps me keep in mind what I'm here to do."

There's no vehemence in his words. A quiet passion, perhaps, underlying, but he seems to sense that Emily would not respond well to anger. To fanaticism.

He grins, then, at her acknowledgment. "Thank you. It's nice that someone appreciates them," he says, with a laugh. "And it reassures me knowing that there's a level, structured head here in the city with the rest."

[Emily Littleton] "That's a problem with Science," she concedes easily, without any sense that she's selling her mortal endeavors short. Emily, a longstanding technophile, has had to reconcile her resurgence of Faith and the welling up of magic everywhere in the world around with a very clear-cut, rational and pragmatic pursuit. She has no qualms with it; she doesn't see it as all that hard.

"Knowledge alone is an empty thing. Science, on its own, pursues these Truths sometimes to unreasonable ends, but it doesn't become meaningful until those Truths are woven back into our lives. That's why I study technology over pure physics -- I think that what we do, study, build should improve or elevate the human condition, not just explain increasingly esoteric things."

She chuckles a little and lifts herself out of the crouch. Emily's hands slide back into her pockets as she rises.

"But even in Science, there's room for wonder. There's people of Faith. Crick said, What we lose in mystery, we gain in awe. I try to keep that perspective, both in magic and mundane things. It's a shame the Technocracy has lost sight of something that even Sleepers seem to know."

She does not respond to fanaticism, and the Technocracy is not something Emily has first-hand experience with. But she understands the particular expression Ashley wears when they come up; and she recognizes the shattering that took place in Enid when she was in China. She doesn't rise to zealotry, just yet, but Emily has the capacity for that within her. And passion is something she can see in other people, and echo.

"I don't know about that level-head thing," she tells him, pulling her tone away from serious and contemplative long enough to offer him a cheeky grin. "But I'll take structured as a compliment." She chuckles a little, quietly. "And cheers."

[Bran Summers] Bran seems satisfied with her answer, and with what she tells him. He's not a man with an aversion to the pursuit of knowledge, or with the scientific approach: indeed, alchemy was considered the height of science at one point. He creates his own explosives, weaves all of these things into his magic, and does it without any qualms or without wondering whether or not he's giving them power. Whatever Bran's reasons for continuing the War on his own front, they're quite personal.

"It's a good perspective," he tells Emily, as he passes the chalk from his palm back to the tips of his fingers and leans himself forward again. He's balanced easily, his weight distributed evenly between his toes and the balls of his feet, and none of the dust or mud in the basement or the corridor itself has found its way to his clothing.

When Emily chuckles and bids her farewell, Bran's head lifts again and he grins, once. "Cheers," he says. "It was nice to meet you."

He bends back to his work by torchlight, and if he feels any smugness at getting around chantry rules or his Will holding its own in a territory that is far from being his, he manages to contain it until after she's left.