Four Horsemen : Three _______

[Ashley] Ashley is finding that her office hours keep her much busier this semester than they did before. She's teaching two classes now, and that doesn't seem as though it should be much of a change over one - but it's double the number of students, double the number of papers to read and quizzes to grade, double the number of e-mails from whiny undergrads. She still has her own coursework besides, though she'll be finishing with her master's degree in May.

It's hard for her to believe that it's so close, really. Two years goes quickly.

Today Chicago's weather is disagreeable, and Ashley hopes that it is not a portent of the conversation to follow. It's concerning to her that Emily has things that she might want to discuss, simply because the Horsemen are an unknown and she tends to expect the worst, these days. Besides...Ashley has a few reasons to feel awkward around Emily, these days.

Not that she'll think about it. They're friends, and familiar, and there are much, much more important things to discuss. Ashley is nowhere near as used to the new apartment as she'd been to the old one, and she hasn't been here in a while; there's a beat that follows her running up the stairs toward the door, because she has to actively think about where Emily's door is. Still, she finds herself a little unexpectedly eager to see the Singer. When did that happen? When did all of these people become an integral part of her life?

Well, she's not going to think too long or too hard about that either. Ashley reaches the door, and then she raises a small fist and knocks. She's slightly damp; outside there is freezing rain. Outside there's snow that's just a little too wet. It's the kind of punishment Chicagoans get used to.

[Emily] Emily's apartment is warm. The half of a room she subletted this time last yar was never warm. Emily kept her toes under a blanket whenever she was home, wore socks, kept the window shut tight and hoped against days like this. Freezing rain felt colder than snow, even if it wasn't true in an empirical sense.

Today there's a fire burning low in the hearth that bathes her living room with a low amber light. Today there's a pot of tea and two mugs already on the coffee table, and An is sleeping fitfully in her chair with her throw pill and the tattered remnants of a once-befeathered toy.

Ashley knocks, but she doesn't have to wait long for the Singer to open the door. Emily's wearing jeans and a soft sweater in a charcoal tone. Her hair is down, the broad curls draping loosely over her shoulders. The glint of silver chain ducks quickly under her neckline, obscuring the oval locket from sight but Ashley can feel it there. It's a thin but palpable presence in counterpoint to Emily's own resonance.

"Come on in," she says, as if there's no reason at all for there to be awkwardness or unease between them. Emily's been a bit more poised, more distant, since she came back from holiday but the warmth for Ashley is unabated. It's less complicated, from Emily's side, at the moment. These things ebb and flow.

"I've already made tea, and I've got some leftover brownies -- I hope you don't mind that they're a day or so old." In the past year, Emily has learned than any and all magical news goes over better if you feed Hunger first. It's also an excuse to share around her baked goods and leftovers, rather than letting them waste away in her fridge. At the Choristor's dinner table is a stack of books on complicated engineering principles and her closed laptop, along with a sheaf of papers (print outs of reports she's needed to either read or grade) and a notebook. It's a reminder that Emily's life has not been entirely consumed by magical things, or Faith, or the quest for any one Truth. She's still a student, and an avid devotee of technology, and a thoughtful, analytical young woman. Some things have not changed very much in the last year, after all.

[Ashley] If Ashley were to really think about it, she gets a lot of free food. In fact, many of her snacks and close to a quarter of her meals are probably paid for by someone else. Whenever she visits people or goes out with them, there's often food involved, and much of the time the other person offers to pay (particularly if it's Kage, who for some reason never seems to mind, or Jarod, who has plenty of money and barely notices.) Maybe it's Ashley's resonance demanding to be fed, demanding tribute. Maybe Chicago's other magi are that hospitable with everyone, or maybe it's just that it's something nice they can do for Ashley, who admittedly works hard to keep the city together.

Either way, Emily's offer of food does not strike her as a prelude into bad news to come, because the Singer is usually generous with her this way. Ashley nods when Emily makes the offer of baked goods. "Sure, I don't mind," she says.

There's a curious glance toward the books stacked on the table while she pulls her boots off, leaving them lined up by the door. Her coat is soon to follow. Ashley pauses once her toes are freed, grimacing when the bottoms of her jeans touch her heels (they're wet.) One of the more unpleasant aspects of walking everywhere, particularly in wet weather, particularly in weather that is both wet and cold.

"So what's up?" she asks Emily, moving into the apartment with an appreciative glance toward the fire. She heads for the table, and once there she seats herself in the place that looks like it is the most free of books.

[Emily] There is a coat closet just behind the door. Ashley has been here often enough to know it well -- a designation reserved for a very select few. She also knows that Emily's table chairs are the offensively uncomfortable ones Chuck got her from IKEA and that the hand-me-down couch is the better bet, and closer to the fire, and with a coffee table already set for company and not festooned with homework.

They likely settle there. Emily brings the brownies to the table and An almost inches open one eye to investigate before dropping back into her apparent slumber.

"I ran into an interesting trio -- no, quartet -- at the Hung, Drawn and Quartered last night," she says, as she takes up her end of the couch and pours out tea for them both. It's a rich chai and roobios mixture, and there are small vessels of milk and honey to temper it. Emily is a fan of bold flavors with chocolate, and the faint hint of orange blossoms will not do. She also doesn't shy away from more adventurous teas with Ashley or Kage. Or Jarod, not that they see much of each other any more.

"Their Emissary, for lack of a common function, seems to be a Choristor named Gabriel. They are ostensibly messengers of the Rouge Council. Very difficult to read, and quite political. There are three others: A sharp-tongued and abraisive Cultist," Emily does not seem surprised at all that the Cultist was the most difficult personality. "A Verbena, who seemed quite content to listen and only engage when directed, and a fourth... about whom I remember strikingly little. But I do have an Email address for him, and Gabriel's cell phone number."

She doctors up her tea and then leans back against the couch, draping one arm along the back and pulling her feet up and away from the floor. Emily's body language suggests she's comfortable with Ashley, just now; that they are not in one of their strained and uneasy periods. Also that relaying this information is of no real struggle or strain.

"Gabriel asked permission to drink at the pub, and I cautioned that it was our Deacon's favorite haunt. He mentioned you by name -- I couldn't confirm you'd actually met so I was sure that we all went light on details when answering questions. They're cagey, and smart and better at that game than most of the people I've met here."

She gives Ashley time to process and form her slew of questions, sipping at her tea in the meantime and eyeing the kitten out of the corner of her eye. There's a fondness for that furry invader that Emily would not have predicted she'd grow into. It was nice to be capable of more than she gave herself credit for, now and then.

[Ashley] There is no slew of questions that pops into Ashley's head here. She's already met the cabal; she spoke to them a bit. She knows why they're here and what they're here to pursue. In all likelihood, she will probably end up filling Emily in on much of this.

She adds some of the milk and a little honey into the red and then sets it aside on a coaster to steam while Emily tells her about the Horsemen. Ashley doesn't interrupt her; instead she quiets, listening to see whether Emily noticed the same things she did, or if she noticed new things. Ashley, after all, is more of a big picture person, and sometimes details escape her a bit.

She goes to tuck her feet up onto the couch and then is reminded, the moment that they touch the back of her thigh, that the cuffs of her pants are wet. With a wrinkle of her nose, she lowers her legs again and instead crosses them so she can turn a little toward Emily.

"I did meet them," she confirms, "and those were all of the things I noticed, too. Anya - the Cultist - is fucking unstable. She kept arguing with the leader and Nora and...the ghost, I can't remember his name...both seemed pretty disgruntled with her." One has to imagine that it would be a severe divisiveness in the group, if Ashley noticed it. Picking up on other people this way isn't really a specialty of hers.

A corner of her mouth lifts, just a little, when Emily names her the Deacon. It's probably not a title she should accept or allow others to say, but if they're going to go around calling her that...well, Ashley hardly objects. (It makes her feel a little vindicated, in a way. She'd been a bit hurt this summer, though she would never phrase it as such.) "They're here hunting down a rogue Technocrat. He was working on a drug that was supposed to suppress Awakened abilities, and doesn't work, and I guess the Technocracy just...cut him loose. They're hunting him down. Did they tell you that?"

[Kage] Emily's phone -- it may be far; it may be buried beneath a number of things; it may be star-crossed, canoodling with a book, murmuring sweet nothings about print versus electric, melting against the book's chilly disregard -- receives a text.

A very simple text it is, too. Am almost at your doorstep.
to Emily

[Emily] Emily named Ashley Deacon because she'd been paying fucking attention in that founding meeting. She'd noticed how the term came up time and again, how it was the natural thing to name the Adept's position. She'd noticed, too, the political slight that was downgrading that title to something less recognizable.

The Singer had no need to air their internal dirty laundry with outsiders. Gabriel wouldn't care if Ashley was their Dean or their Deacon. He wouldn't know the hours of teeth-pulling and bickering that settled them on the stupidly unweildy addition of Administrative, which Emily still failed to acknowledge in any formal correspondence. He'd know what a Deacon was, and respond in kind.

She felt her point was well taken, silent and civil disobediance that it was.

When Ashley lowers her legs again, Emily waves her hand in a don't bother, no mind gesture. "I don't mind," she says, as an aside. "It's a hand-me-down anyway. Be comfortable, that's more important."

"We got very little in the way of particulars from them," she admits, but without apology. "But that was largely because we were unwilling to offer up much of anything, and I agree that their group seems uneasy. Fragmented. I spoke most directly with Gabriel, Thom' focused on getting them drunk enough to slip up, and Lara offered to swap shirts with Nora -- unorthodox, but it was easy to see who controls what in that group."

Her opinions are in line with Ashley's so far.

"I didn't want to mention the Asylum before checking their credentials with you, but I don't know who else they've talked to in town. Gabriel seems awfully confident and assured -- he reminds me of your friend, Bran, in some ways. Distantly, but just enough to be --"

Emily's train of thought cuts off as her phone buzzes in her back pocket. She shifts and sets her mug down, then thumbs through her messages and outright beams at what she finds.

"Kage is here!" she tells Ashley in a tone that's almost triumphant. They three did not spend so much time together, but they were a special sort of trio in Emily's mind since the summer, and then the Apple Book. "I'm sure she'll love a good bit of mystery and intrigue," Emily waggles her fingers a bit as she gets up and heads for the door to let in the rowan-haired Other.

By the time she reaches it, doubtless Kage has as well. Their far more urbane paths kiss and the door swings open with a "Hail and well met," and a little flourish.

"There's tea," she says. And then, as if Hunger's presence could not announce itself plainly. "And an Ashley." And then, as if they were of an importance with tea or Ashley, "And brownies." And then Kage was more or less caught up on things.

[Ashley] Ashley hadn't noticed any of Gabriel's similarities to Bran, until Emily mentioned the fact. She didn't talk to the other Singer for very long, and he'd been evangelizing a little - which, fortunately, is something Bran has never done. But now that she has...

Well, Ashley's expression darkens a little. Because she has to wonder just how much else he has in common with Bran Summers, and how much he's willing to sacrifice for his vision.

"I see," she says, after a moment. She's about to say more; she's about to fill Emily in on what else she's learned. What Molly learned. But there will be time later. For right now, Ashley glances toward Emily's pocket when her phone buzzes, and she draws her legs up onto the couch and tucks them underneath her. Her pants are already damp and it doesn't really matter anyway.

Ashley, too, brightens a little when Kage walks into the apartment. Less openly than Emily, but it's there. "Hey, Kage," she says, reaching to pick up her cup of tea.

[Kage] Kage is here. Her hand looks delicate, raised to knock on the door again; her knuckles, sharp. Kage is here, and bundled: muddy-coloured gloves and a muddy-coloured scarf, a moss-coloured coat and moss-coloured tights, muddy-coloured boots and a muddy-coloured skirt (layers, layers [thick, protective]), still blinking snow from her eyelashes. Kage is here, her generous mouth rueful and wry, a half-sardonic lilt to her eyebrows, as if she's just finished puncturing holes in somebody's idiocy (or maybe just finished watching someone's idiocy, while maintaining her own silence; after all, one cannot save the world). Some of that eases when Emily opens the door, and she steps inside, unwinding the scarf and unburdening her shoulder, slipping a very heavy briefcase bag off and away, setting it down near the door but off to the side.

"I've brought a pomegranate," she says. "We can crack it open and eat the seeds with a spoon, scoop them over the brownies," and she smiles at the word brownies, ears lifting noticeably with the gesture; makes her seem younger. "What kind of brownies? Hello, 'ley."

Kage bends to the important task of taking off her curséd boots. "Phew. Today I've been completely beset by people who don't know how to drive," a touch of grumpiness. "How are you two? What did I miss?"

[Emily] Kage has brought a pomegranate, so Emily gets them two bowls and a trio of spoons. The bowls are for the seeds and pith-peels. The spoons are for spooning, for sharing, yes, that's the right word. Emily shows Kage the closet, where wet things can settle, where there is room for her jacket, and Ashley's and more beside. The apartment is warm and the firelight softens everything. In the rocking chair a no-longer-small kitten raises her head, blinks her wide blue eyes, and then goes back to resting. Kage, it seems, is not a matter that alarms An. (Very little is.)

"Pull up a seat," she offers, as she moves back to the kitchen to get Kage a mug for tea. "We're trading notes on some suspicious newcomers. Intrigue. Technocrats. The brownies are just plain -- the usual stuff," she baits Kage, a little, but not unfairly. Emily takes up her tea again as they all settle in.

"There's a cabal, a quartet, that's introducing themselves around as messengers for the Rouge Council," she explains, a bit more fully, so that Kage can fold right into the conversation.

[Kage] Kage, no longer burdened by armor against the onslaught of Chicago January (just another general in Chicago Winter's army, just another captain who'd take your fingers, nose and ears for trophies, if only he could figure out how to take them), is dressed quite nicely today, with the demurity she habitually adopts in dress ratcheted up a knot or three so that it approaches saintliness, get thee to a nunnery. The redhead glances at the kitten on the rocking chair, and regards it with -- perhaps amusingly -- the same amount of interest that it regards her, and does not approach. There is a table, and on the table brownies, and tea, and Emily bringing out things for pomegranate disemboweling, so Kage brings the pomegranate (ripe and ruddy, all the chambers of a heart) over to the table, and lets Emily have first crack at it, while her nose twitches at browniepieces. She clears her throat a little, a cough clotting up the airwaves which she stifles in her fist, and then, after having actually taken a seat, and a brownie, says,

"Suspicious newcomers, intrigue and technocrats - oh my. Technocrats for lions, intrigue for tigers, newcomers for bears - maybe? What's their message?"

[Ashley] "Well, the leader thinks the Rogue Council is God's message," Ashley says to Kage, a touch dry. She has brightened at the sight of the pomegranate - there aren't many foods that Ashley won't perk up at though, if the truth be told - and has taken one of the spoons. There's an easiness to her now, in how she settles back on the couch and soaks in the firelight. She's had the fortune of finding herself in good company rather often, lately.

"They're going after a Technocrat who the Technocracy cut loose because of the risk he presented. He was involved in a project, I guess, to develop a drug that was supposed to suppress Awakened abilities, and he fled here. Molly got a transcript of some of the texts he sent and the ones another mirrorshade sent back to him. They sounded pretty desperate." Molly had been moved to pity for the poor Technocrat; unsurprisingly, there is no trace of such in Ashley's tone. "The cabal is here to kill him. Molly got a little information on their Sleeper backgrounds, but not a lot. I'm still waiting to hear back from some of my contacts about whether they are who they say they are."

[Emily] "They've offered to send some files via email -- and while I realize that doesn't sound like the most secure protocol, I believe their ghost, as you named him, might have quite a knack for hiding things in plain sight. Digitally." Call it a hunch. Emily adds this to the conversation as she carefully peels back the pomegranate skin and tries to knock the first few seeds free without getting ruby juice all over her hands.

Then the fruit is passed on to Ashley.

"I can do some digging, too, but I don't to duplicate work or retrace Molly's steps." There's a tightness to Emily's eyes when she thinks about working with Molly on anything digital. They were decidedly different takes on the 21st Century Digital Girls. Emily liked to temper her information gathering with something called caution.

"I can ask Solomon to check on Gabriel's connections to the Chorus, but I didn't know if you wanted to bring the Guardians into this just yet," Emily says as an aside, mostly to Ashley. "They have a take no prisoners record on taking a leading and running with it. This seems a little more delicate to me."

[Emily] [Taking a leading? Hello? "Taking a lead and running with it", thank you.]

[Kage] "Hm. Let me be certain I have this all dotted i's and crossed t's. There is a cabal of messengers for the R. C., lead by," her mouth curves, "A man called Gabriel - nice - who's a Voice. They've introduced themselves around - " Kage, looking at Ashley then " - and they've stated their business: find this poor disenfranchised Office schlub who was developing a drug that suppressed the ability to flex our muscles and ladeeda with them. And kill him. Why?" A beat, and, "I rather thought being 'cut loose' by the Technocracy was the same as having one's head 'cut loose' from one's neck."

If Kage is somewhat at a loss as to the influx of information (business as usual), than she certainly (again, as usual) doesn't seem so. Self-possession, thy poster-girl is an Orphan Disciple who spends a lot of time in Chicago (even in Winter, when it would be nice if California wanted her to work, but alas, alack). The green-eyed Orphan girl watches the pomegranate make its rounds, while nibbling on her brownie. She is apparently very hungry today, because it is gone before you can say nibbling ten times fast.... Or even five times fast.

"Are they asking for help, hats in their hands, woe-is-me, we're-just-poor-little-Messengers, canst thou spare a crust of bread?"

[Ashley] "They aren't asking for help," Ashley says. "I told them I'd help find him, though. I don't want him hiding here. But I have to wonder if the Technocracy is maybe attempting to use them to silence a leak for them, or if it's a trap, or..." She shrugs after a moment, and then spoons some of the seeds onto the chunk of brownie that she has.

"Just because they cut him off doesn't mean that he's not still a problem for us," she adds. "He has information and they might bring him back in eventually, or he might get picked up by someone else. Or he might just decide to start killing us to show them that they should take him back and that he's still valuable. I'm thinking about attempting contact with him because there's...still a lot I don't know and I'm not comfortable just killing him outright, but the odds aren't really in his favor."

Her tone is flat. Not cold, just pragmatic. The protection of the city's magi comes first, with her. Then she passes on the pomegranate to Kage and adds, "And no. I'd rather not involve the guardians yet. Molly's already involved and it's all I could do to convince her not to go charging off to save the Technocrat until we had more information."

[Emily] "Charging off to save the Technocrat....?"

Emily's features pinch, all skewed up like that, puckered in, like it was the worst bright lights after too much drinking sort of headache that had just caught her. Molly. Running off. Saving people. She sets down her spoon and rubs at her forehead, all very Molly-wearied and says, with a suffering sort of impatience that is trying, so very hard, to grow up into tolerance and good will toward (Molly) men:

"Isn't running off how she got herself kidnapped?"

Beat.

"And tortured?"

Raised eyebrow. Pointed silence. Oh yes, Emily remembers last summer. And if Molly hadn't have run off half cocked, then the Guardians would have been around and maybe, maybe things wouldn't have gone tits up at the Chantry quite so fast that summer afternoon.

"God. Really? It's moments like this that I don't miss the Council at all. Or being all tangled up with Chuck, and through Chuck Molly." She says this as she's reaching for her tea, and a nice hefty chunk of brownie, and there's the spicy-sweetness to complement the crisp, clean tartness on her tongue. And then a richness. And chocolate, oh yes, chocolate. Chocolate rights much of the world's fuckery, really.

"I want to talk to Gabriel, away from the other three. I think, maybe, hah, maybe we can use the Tradition as some sort of common ground and maybe he'll be more willing to open up about their motivations and aims when Lara isn't trying to con his cabalmate's shirt off her. Maybe.

"And while I'm definitely against killing someone just because these other guys said so, I'm not sure saving the Technocrat is the best course of action. All we really know is that we don't have the full story, yet. But I think they're going to go about their business with or without our help, despite this being our city, so diplomacy should come quickly if at all."

She shrugs a bit. It would be really nice to have a cabal she could rely on, but in lieu of that... nothing was clearly the next best option.

[Kage] "He might do any number of things," Kage says, replying to Ashley, her tone of voice mild. "We don't know what fashion of man he is, after all." She has either given up on pointedly not using words like we and us and them, or she hasn't noticed that she's given up, or she no longer thinks it's important, because the Mages of Chicago will include her one way or another, so why not.

And then she listens, watches Ashley speak, watches Emily speak, and she scoops seeds out of the pomegranate, and they're bloody red jewels, liberally spooned over another brownie, and tongued one by one by one -- Kage can be, when her guard is down, or her mind is elsewhere, one of those people who eats with an unconscious sensuousness, something that explains part of her resonance, that explains (perhaps) the shape He takes. Her gaze is a sieve.

And when Emily has concluded, she says, still mild, although she's frowning a little - " - a victim would not be a victim without a crime. The victim's stupidity or silliness isn't necessarily justification for 'they had it coming.' She didn't torture herself." A pause, and - mouth hooking up, slightly: "What's this Gabriel like? And his cabalmates? And as for the Technocracy using them to take care of a loose end, well," a faint smile, which is in no way critical. One might get the impression that this is just how Kage thinks things work. "It isn't as if Traditionalists haven't used The Union to do similar things, right? How'd the cabal find out about him? Does he have a name?"

And if there are other questions, they'll keep until a better point in the conversation.

[Ashley] Ashley offers nothing one way or another on Molly. She, after all, has done plenty of reckless things in her life. She hasn't really learned from them; the sole difference is that she hasn't had to be rescued. But perhaps she's just lucky, there. "His name's Ben," she tells Kage, "but I don't have a last name or anything, yet. He was talking to someone named Tessa in the transcripts Molly got a hold of."

Emily's made good points; she's expressed thoughts that Ashley herself has expressed, to some extent. "I want to save him, if he's worth saving," she says after a thoughtful moment. If being the operative word, there.

She's held off on taking a bite, but now she does, sinking into a contemplative sort of silence while she hugs her knees to her chest with one arm. "I may try to talk to Nora, if you speak with Gabriel," she says. Nora, after all, is almost a Tradition mate at this point, and there was some sort of echo of Ashley in her (Hunger and Famine.) "My meeting with them was pretty brief," she says, "but they all seemed...pretty Traditional, to me. Gabriel's pretty clearly the leader and he's a talker type. Emily just mentioned that he reminded her of Bran, and I have to agree. Which makes me less inclined to trust him, not more."

Emily hasn't heard Ashley speak so bluntly on her former cabalmate before. Kage, of course, has, but Kage knows why. "There's some internal tension. Anya, the Cultist, seems like kind of a loose cannon and it's bothering her cabalmates, but I don't know why or what happened or if she's just like that anyway."

[Emily] Kage warns that Molly didn't choose her fate, and that it was still reprehensible, what happened to her. On this much Emily can agree with the rowan-haired provider of pomegranates and twister of words. But there is a but. A sizeable one. Molly's actions had cost them all dearly, and not six months later she seems poised to repeat them. A for Enthusiasm, Emily supposed.

The Singer picked herself up off the couch and wandered over to the table, keeping her brownie aloft in one hand and somehow, perhaps by the sheer force of her will alone, not even letting one crumb fall to the floorboards. With her free hand, she wrests her notebook and a pencil free of the academic melee. When she flops down on the couch again, with about that much of a nod toward proper manners and polite sittings down (but less force, so that Ashley's tea does not spill everywhere), Emily flips to a clear page and starts writing down notes.

"Lemme jot down what we have so far," she says, setting the brownie down on the coffee table, dangerously near Hunger, so that she can do so. "I'd rather go in with more information than less -- at least we can pretend to make ourselves appear organized and efficient and sharing information. If I say Ben, and Gabriel nods or picks up the attribution, then we're closer to seeing if they've got a consistent story, at the very least."

Their Voice had danced a very careful, political line with Emily. It concerned her. It had drawn her shoulders back and her chin up and pulled on every last easy grace the life as a Diplomat's Daughter had tried to instill and still, still she'd had the feeling she was losing ground in the conversation.

"Mmm and I think something must have happened, fairly recently, with Anya. They're too off-put by her outbursts. Too on edge for it to be something she'd always been -- and there's too much enmity there for it to be a shallow hurt. Only friends, family and lovers can cut that deeply. She threw a shot glass at Gabriel," Emily states, backing up her musings.

"I'd like to talk to Ben," she says, but it's a musing thing. Thoughtful. Not quite fully formed. Emily would like to talk to Ben, to know whether he was irredeemable before they dug into this. She wanted to know that he would live or die on the merits of his actions, not the way they were spun or perceived by these second-hand champions of Chicago, who heard of him through word of mouth, through the well-traveled and oft-trampled grapevine. She wanted to know what they couldn't know going in.

[Kage] "Did you ever plant the apple seeds?" Kage asks, apropos of nothing. The you could be Ashley; the you could be Emily. She doesn't know who kept them, or if they'd been passed along. There is pomegranate juice on her fingers, dripping toward the cracks between; she is debating licking them. She flushes, faintly, as if someone had just turned a faucet in Kage's inner-workings, and a blush that kisses her neck was inevitable, and does NOT lick them, slanting a sidelong glance toward rocking chair and kitten, toward the walls of Emily's apartment.

"What exactly do you mean when you say Traditional, 'ley?" Here, a touch of amusement, or something close-kin. Kage scrunches her nose, and says, "So there's a Gabriel, a Nora, an Anya who is a Cultist and a loose cannon," her tone of voice is extremely bland, one might even say deadpan: what a shock. "Who has outbursts. What sort of outbursts? Why'd she throw a shotglass?"

"These brownies are tasty, Emily. And," this might be wry; might not be, "I would like to talk to Ben. If you two corner him..."

She trails off, raising her eyebrows, almost mischievous.

[Emily] "Fuck you, Gabriel sorts of outbursts," Emily interjects, miming throwing a shot glass with the hand holding fast her pencil. Failing to launch that pencil through air, thankfully. "No explanation, and then storming out," the hand motions in a very and there she goes sort of manner.

[Ashley] "I didn't," Ashley says, of apple seeds, and she looks to Emily. Who, she assumes, is the one that kept them. Emily was going to talk to Jarod about it in fact; doing so has entirely slipped Ashley's memory.

Ashley has somehow managed to avoid pomegranate juice on her hands, mostly through some careful twisting of her hand, tilting so that whatever juice might think about running is immediately sopped up in chocolate sponginess. With Ashley's resonance one might not peg her as a careful or tidy eater, but that assumption would be incorrect. If it's not something she can simply swallow whole, she takes her time.

Kage asks her to expand on her use of the word Traditional, and she smirks for a moment but doesn't reply. The expression is accompanied by a tilt of her brows that seems a little self-conscious; perhaps it was a slip. This is not vocabulary she ever would have used before befriending Kage.

"Molly wanted to talk to him, like I said," Ashley says, "but I'd be glad if you two went along with her. Extra voices." Ashley herself will not be going, and this is implied. Whether she thinks four's too many or whether she doubts her ability to overcome her own hatred of them and what they represent is hard to figure out, precisely. Maybe she's just learned to delegate.

A look up to Emily. "Well, I guess maybe I can talk to her instead of Nora," she says. "But maybe Nora'd be more willing to talk. To me, at least."

[Emily] "Molly's methods and my own are somewhat," how to say this... "Antagonistic. Kage, if you're able to go with her, I think that's a better plan than three of us cornering a stranger in a dark alley, somewhere, and hoping he'll confide in us."

The corner of her mouth twists wryly. Emily slips her pencil into the rings of her binder and gathers her tea to her to drink. She eats less this Winter than last. She's less trying to fill up a void. She wants to taste what she draws in. Kage has a sensuousness to her eating when she is not thinking twice about it. Ashley is particular, tidy about what she cannot swallow whole. Emily can be slow and savouring, appreciative. They make an interesting complement, these three.

She shakes her head when Ashley offers to talk to Anya. "I think," Emily says, pausing here for emphasis, "That we leave their loose cannon alone. Do not needle her. Do not provoke her. If they truly want parley and assistance, then they can police their own. They will expect us to do the same and frankly? We have our hands full with personalities on our own side."

She doesn't need to name names. Likely a few will surface without evocation.

[Emily] [ACK! Not to let this go unanswered for another round...]

The seeds, the seeds. Something about reaching for the pomegranate again tugs Emily back to the lingering question of the apple seeds.

"Oh!" She glances at them both, mid-reach, then continues: "Jarod said to plant them and let them over-winter. So I did. About fifteen paces from the Court. I'll show you where next time we're out there."

[Kage] "What did he do before Fuck you, Gabriel outbursts?" Kage queries, her eyebrows lifted, a napkin or a towel or getting up and going into the kitchen for water and a napkin or a towel happens to her fingers, cleans them of stains [the pomegranate is a human fruit]. "Were all her outbursts directed toward him?" A pause. And then, "Antagonistic, hm? How so? And ... Go with Molly somewhere." The Orphan sounds doubtful -- not least because if she is going to do something silly like talk to an excitable element she does it alone (solo, so long, so long have I been solo). "I was thinking something more along the lines of 'Hello, Ben. This is a message. You need allies. We need allies. Please come parley.'" A brief smile, a faint-thing, thoughtful, turned downard, her gaze on the table; "There's always some common ground."

Hands clean, Kage cups her chin in the palm of her hand, and watchful, sips on her tea. She has slowed down on the devouring of anything edible placed within arm's reach.

[Ashley] Ashley listens to the two of them, to the information being shared, and for a moment she actually wishes...well, no. Nevermind that. She's finished the bit of brownie she was eating and now her other arm has gone around her knees too. The Hermetic's blue eyes keep flicking back and forth between the other two.

"You're probably right, about Anya," she agrees after a moment. "Nora it is. Though I wasn't planning on talking to her for the sake of policing her." If they turn out to be trouble after all, well, knowledge of an internal weakness is a handy thing to have. Really, Ashley seems to have some distaste for the idea of policing at all. This, at least, hasn't changed even if her duties at the chantry have started to necessitate it now and again.

She sighs and tugs at the hair at the back of her neck when Emily and Kage both refuse to go with Molly. Then she says, "Well, Molly's going to go talk to him regardless, in all likelihood. Or she'll make more trouble than it's worth if she doesn't. I'd rather nobody went unaccompanied, doing something like this."

[Emily] Emily doesn't want to go with Molly, mostly because it means going somewhere with Molly and trying to get something done that rests on their very different skillsets. Kage doesn't want to go because... Well, Emily's not sure. Kage usually has reasons. Good ones. If a little difficult to pin down.

Antagonistic, how?

"Ah..." Her brow knits momentarily. "She lacks a certain social subtlty." Yes. That sounds just about right. And explains why it's difficult for Emily to engender any sort of trust, or gently sway a conversation when Molly's around.

"But if she's going, hell or high water, there's no use drawing straws over it. I'll go, if I can catch her. Maybe I can find out some of what she was working on or..." Emily's not particularly fond of this suggestion, "Help her fill in any blanks or loose ends."

"I'd still like to talk to with Gabriel. If I can establish a rapport, and you are able to talk with Nora, then I feel we'll be in a good position for communicating with the Messengers," for lack of a better name to call them, just now.

[Kage] "Well," Kage says, of Molly lacking a certain social subtlety. "I've never seen her in action; only heard. If Molly's going to go talk to him regardless, and that's not ideal," she says, after another sip of tea, after she's looked at the reflection of her eyes in what remains, "Why wait for her to find him first? And," here, a brief pause. Kage is serious-eyed, grave-hearted, buried-hopes, buried-loves, buried things, washing clean into bone and growing-things; that's our Kage, little Orphan girl. "Why not figure out how to fashion a hook, toss it out, reel it in; find a Ben-fish, talk to it. Throw it back, if you want to be kind - or cruel, I suppose, depending on how polluted the waters are. They're definitely muddled with too much forced metaphor, anyway." Kage sounds self-mocking, there. Or as close to self-mocking as Kage ever gets, which truth be told, is not one of her distinguishing features. "The Messengers," a nod, for Emily, in acceptance of the Temporary Name -- Kage is big on Naming things, "Have they asked for access to the White Fence House?"

[Ashley] "No," Ashley says, "and I wouldn't give it to them, even if they had." Not a cabal of strangers, coming in and letting her know they were passing through. Not a group of magi who already know each other well and are allied. Ashley isn't a terribly cautious woman, but there are some lessons she has learned over the past year and a half, thankfully.

"If you want to talk to him first, I suggest you get on it soon," she says, with a sidelong look toward the Orphan girl. It's not an order - it is in fact a suggestion, unlike how many people would drop a comment like that.

To Emily there's only a nod. That plan of action, at least, is clear.

[Emily] "None of us gave up the House either," Emily assures them, speaking for her impromptu coterie of Emily, Thomas and Lara (one of the least likely trios to ever actually cabal up).

Kage suggests that someone go fishing. Fishing for a Ben-fish. Perhaps catch-and-release fishing, if situations warranted such. Ashley suggests, in return, that Kage might want to pre-empt rather than pre-suppose. Emily knows when to stay out of a tendril of conversation, and instead busies herself with refilling their tea cups and nabbing a few pomegranate seeds.

Their sharing of secrets and found things seemed to be coming to an end. Emily had said her piece and made her suggestions. Kage had raised her questions and objections. Ashley had divulged and regrouped and redirected some energies. It was almost as if they worked together, and had in the past, and might in the future.

Maybe that's what falling into an Apple Book will do for you. Maybe more of them should tumble into something surreal, from time to time.

"Anyone want another brownie?" she asks.

[Kage] [Hmmm. Charisma + Performance.]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 4, 6, 6, 6, 7 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Kage] If you want to, I suggest you, Ashley says, and Kage is never really what she seems to be. Right now, she seems to be an avatar of angelic goodness. The red-haired (rowan-haired) Orphan-woman (she'd never call herself that; not and identify her as such) cants her head to the side, tendering a lock of tangled, rumpled hair back behind her ear, fingertips lingering on her pulse, and such is the innocent cast of her cheekbones, of her jaw, of her mouth and the sweep of her eyelashes, the slight widening of her eyes, that ...

... Well, damn. You know she's up to no good. "I'll keep that in mind, 'ley," she says, meekly.

Meekly? Right.

And then, a grin, "Well, Em. You were taking the minutes. Anything else to be said on Important Topics, or is it to be Brownies between us? Would you like to hear about a very silly author, the folk-songs of the Byzantine Border Guards, and how the history of underwear brought these two things together?"

In other words, Kage's work-tales.

[Ashley] Kage's eyelashes sweep her cheekbones, and she looks for all intents and purposes like she's obedient and good, the way all Orphan children should be. If that's sardonic (and it's Kage - it is sardonic), Ashley doesn't even seem to have noticed. Nor does she seem to have taken into account that meek little voice, submissive before the Hermetic's might, before Hunger. Over her head and past, doesn't even skim the hair on her head.

"Maybe in a little bit," Ashley says, with a glance toward said brownies. And then she redirects herself, moves so that she can flop back on the couch cushions with her head somewhere near the middle, and drape her legs over the armrest. She folds an arm beneath to pillow it, folds the other hand over her stomach, and turns her head to watch the two of them. Content and quiet.

"I think Important Topics are done," she says. "So tell us whatever tale of editorial atrocity you're going to spin."

Firelight happens to be perfect for these things.

[Emily] The kitten in the chair seems to recognize a good time to wake from her nap. As the talk turns toward editorial nightmares, recanted with the sort of flourish only Kage could add, An streeeeeeetches and yaaaaaaaaaaawns and the tip of her tiny sandpaper tongue flicks, just so, before she leaves the rocking chair behind to sway, sashay, rock itself slowly to a stop.

An will wind her way through Kage's legs, purr expectantly at Ashley (and if not picked up, then she will scale the couch to deposit herself in the least convenient place on the Adept's lap, or shoulder, or upturned knee).

This is her way of contributing to the conversation.

Meanwhile, Emily confesses that she's "all out of Important Topics," in a tone of voice that isn't very apologetic. She twists a little so she can give Kage more of her attention, so she can draw in the details of his literary woe. Kage tells good stories. The fire's still burning. Her flat (Home) is filled with friends, and starting to feel less like a waypoint and more like... home.

[Kage] [FADE]