[Emily Littleton] It's been a busy week for Emily's phone. Not any directly busier, necessarily, than other weeks but the topics at hand were weightier. She doesn't look burdened by it, the Singer, who walks through the park with a cup of coffee in a take-away paper cup. This girl who refuses to wear gloves or a hat in eleven degree weather. She's lived in colder; she's known warmer winters.
There's a particular bench in a particular stretch of the park that she's aiming for, but Emily takes her time in getting there. She's not used to worrying about who may be following whom, not overtly, not on US soil. Today she's cautious about how she gets to where she goes, so that she'll find herself at the particular point Elizabeth specified at a particular time, without seeming to be particular about it at all.
She offers a smile that's a little warmer than the first time they'd met. The Singer seems steady, something solid and unshaken by the past week. In truth, she carries a deep worry in her bones, full up against the moonbright there, it tarnishes the blue of her eyes, pulls the slate grey flecks forward, shapes the subtleties of her smile.
[Ellizabeth Zhao] The Asian-American woman has cleaned herself from the events of last week, and doesn't look as traumatized as anyone who had seen her there would have thought. For those who didn't see what went down at that warehouse in the shipping district, Elizabeth looked...different. She's a bit more skittish than Emily might know her...less confident than she normally is. Several times she’s had to rely on the fragments and half-whispers of memories from another life to bring her back to a state of grace in the last few days, and that's resulted in a bit of a patchwork psyche. The results, not a surprise, can be confusing for the Akashic.
As she makes her way through Grant Park though, she seems to be more or less on an even keel. There’s a sense of something much older to her than her twenty-nine years would suggest, and more formality than she's even used to showing off. She walks along the park toward the meeting place, keeping at eye out as she does for anything unusual.
As Emily comes into view, Elizabeth gives her a nod. She comes up, stopping about for feet away, and inclines her head.
"Miss Littleton. Good afternoon."
[Emily Littleton] [Aware as Empathy: Noticing little stuff.]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Emily Littleton] There are subtle things amiss, and subtle things are often the only cues people in Emily's world give one another to their truer motivations. So the Singer notices, if only that there is something afoot here she does not yet understand. And the bow she returns to Elizabeth is a practiced and well-worn formality. Something engrained, as much of her as her accent however much at odds with one another the two might seem.
"Miss Zhao." They stand on a certain formality, a little ritual. It's a comfortable thing that bridges the distance between strangers and acquaintances well.
"I hope you are well," she opens, inviting a genuine response as much as something structured and polite. Emily doesn't ask about the quiet things she feels as much as sees fraying at Elizabeth's careful countenance. She doesn't often ask much of anything. Still the offer to listen holds, held out on the scaffolding of those few words.
She glances from the Akashic to the nearby bench. If Elizabeth moves that way, then Emily will sit. If not, she's perfectly comfortable with standing.
[Ellizabeth Zhao] Emily may also notice, besides the little differences in Elizabeth's tone and body language, her resonance is a shade different. It's the same resonance, but that male/female opposition that is Juxtaposed against itself is a little more balanced toward the masculine, aggressive side than it is the female, passive side. It's a very slight difference, easy to miss, but it is there.
She gives a polite smile and a little shrug. "I am as well as can be. Yourself?"
She gives a nod to the bench and moves to take a seat on it.
[Emily Littleton] Emily would not name the duality in Elizabeth as necessarily male/female, but perhaps that's only because they do not know each other very well yet. Or possibly because she's known someone who has crossed that divide before, and rendered even gender as something more multi-variate and diffuse for the Singer. As it is, she notices the change, but cannot name it.
It is enough to know that something has shifted. The what is not likely to be as important as the why.
"I..." Emily begins, but then chooses out of her usual adept evasiveness for something closer to the truth. "... am getting by."
She settles herself on the bench, resettles her scarf so it isn't trying to strangle her again.
"I'm sorry I couldn't be with you all when you went for the boy," she says. She lays this topic out bluntly, without preamble. Emily suspects it may be part of why they're meeting, and doesn't intend to make Elizabeth draw out introductions. "I heard it did not end well for everyone involved."
There's sympathy and empathy underlying those words, and a gentle note of concern in her eyes but there are notable absences in what she has said. Emily doesn't say what she's heard, precisely, or from whom. She lets Elizabeth fill in these gaps with her own assumptions. It's the easiest sort of half-truth: omission.
[Ellizabeth Zhao] She frowns, reaching up to brush an errant hair back as she nods. "Unfortunately, you heard correctly. It was...not an ideal situation, to say the least." She gets the hair brushed back and then looks at Emily...only to have the hair blow free again. The Akashic gives a look of irritation and lets the hair go.
"I am still attempting to process it all. I have never been..." She pauses, as if not sure what to say. "...I have never experienced such a situation. It will take me some time, I suppose. I am simply pleased to hear that the boy will be okay. Relatively speaking, anyway."
[Emily Littleton] Emily shifts a bit on the bench, so that her upper body is turned toward Elizabeth slightly, so that her posture seems open and echoes the offer her silences extend. It's not as warm and enveloping as some sorts of sympathy might be. She doesn't wrap her arm around the other woman's shoulder, pull her into an embrace. Emily has never been that woman, that warm, which is not to say she's frozen to her quick.
Just that the thaw is slow-coming this year. And that it still hurts.
"Would you like to talk about it?" she asks. Nothing about her question implies that what has happened is beyond Elizabeth's capacity to cope, or handle things herself. She might facilitate, but Emily doesn't enable. It's a thin line. She marches it and seeks Temperance as she goes.
"This city doesn't go easy on anyone. She doesn't pull her punches. If you need a place to be, so that you're not alone while you sort things out, or just an ear, I can help."
Something about her words says: I've been where you are, and I have come out the other side.
[Ellizabeth Zhao] "I can handle the city," she says with a little shrug. "Wearing another person's insides as a mask is a bit more difficult, but I do not believe that there is anything that can be done in that respect short of time and distance, to forget about it."
She reaches up to scratch idly at her brow, as if talking about it brought back the sticky wet tingle of brain-spattered blood dripping down her face. She stops quickly enough and looks back to Elizabeth.
"Are you all right? I mean...I trust that nothing harmful held you back?" A little look around before she looks back to Emily. "I know that the Union seems to be moving on a couple individuals over the last few days, and was concerned that you may have been held up by a similar situation to that."
[Emily Littleton] There's a ripple in Emily's expression at what Elizabeth says. Anyone would be taken aback, at least slightly. The Singer glances away, and down. Her brow furrows. The corners of her mouth tighten.
"Nothing more harmful than University redtape," she assures Elizabeth. "I had to present my research project to the funding committee, and it over-ran. It's not exactly something I can walk out of to help save the world, without drawing attention, given my field."
The early events of this week have cast that in sharp relief for her. Ashley won't be going back to the University, it would be easy to catch her out there. Jim hadn't said as much, but it was clear enough in his silences.
"I may understand how you're feeling. A little less than a year ago, another Singer and I had to carry and bury a baby girl whose mother drowned her in a fountain. We gave her brother over to the Chorus for safekeeping. It was... horrible, but at least we could blame what happened on a clear and knowable evil. This? Isn't as clear cut.
"It takes time."
[Ellizabeth Zhao] Elizabeth gives a little nod as she listens. There is sympathy in her eyes as Emily recounts what she had been through. She is not so far damaged by the event that her abolity to empathize has been shut down, and she nods a little with a frown.
"That would be...very difficult. I can understand how hard that must have been for you." She pauses. "I generally do not believe in clear-cut. when humanity is involved. Yes, there is evil. There are those who used to be human who have been taken over by something worse, given there souls to something dark and then there are true monsters. There was nothing clear-cut about this situation, except to say that there was a significant waste of human life because of it."
A sigh, and she smiles a bit more warmly. "I shall be fine." She pauses. "You have heard about Miss Quincannon and Miss McGowan's homes, then?"
[Emily Littleton] "It was," Emily says.
"It still is," she adds, because things like that are carried along, scored into her bones. They do not leave her when the memory fades. She is not the sieve she pretends to be. She is something more steady, more solid than that.
"But I don't mention it to gather your sympathies. Rather to extend my own. And to underscore the offer I extend: you are welcome in my home, if you need a place to be. It is quiet. Few visit. There's a cat and a fireplace and it is largely a place apart, unlike The House."
She leaves it there, between them, and moves on to the question that Elizabeth asked.
"I have heard. I've spoken with Miss McGowan's father, as well. It seems she was forewarned, about an hour before the raid someone threw a brick through her window with a note tied to it."
This concerns the Singer. Worries at her margins. It is part of what she carries that is just below the surface.
"I have not followed up on Miss Quincannon's message yet, though Molly is resourceful. I am certain she is as well as can be expected."
[Ellizabeth Zhao] "She is." Elizabeth nods a little. "I learned about it when I spoke with her yesterday. She is fine, simply staying under the radar with her ferrets."
The Akashic gives another look around. Mere mention of the Technocracy is enough to make her a little paranoid. Her experiences with the group is limited, but she has heard more than enough to know that when they're on elevated alert, so should she. If she wants to stay alive and not completely screwed, that is.
"Your offer of a place to stay...I may accept it. In the current situation, it is not a wise idea to be living from hotel to hotel. There is simply too much of a paper trail and being isolated is not what we need right now."
[Emily Littleton] "If you're staying in hotels, then I've half a mind to insist," Emily says, lightly, without prodding overmuch. She has more experience with travel than many suspect, and finds most of the reasonably priced accomodations in town somewhat lacking. "But, of course, it's just an offer."
Her smile warms a little bit. They're talking about this as a pragmatic, perfunctory thing. It isn't. Emily does not extend this invitation to everyone, and while her judgment has been lacking in the past Elizabeth sharing space with her raises no red flags in her mind.
"It makes me uncomfortable, that the Union activity is increasing. I can't say I'm the most cautious person in town, but even I feel the need to go to ground. I'm keeping my life simple, pared down and quiet. It's the best I know how to do."
[Ellizabeth Zhao] The Akashic takes a deep breath, nodding. She certainly understands the need to go to ground, and keeping things simple. 'Simple' and 'pared down' pretty much defines how Elizabeth carries on her existence. She nods a little.
"Miss Quincannon said that she doesn't believe this is provoked by the situation involving Benjamin, that it comes from the situation that came up a bit further back with the node within the...asylum." She frowns, rubbing her temple as she talks about that situation. Something about the sentence she just said gives the impression that institutions are not pleasant places for her. It's over quickly though, and she looks to Emily.
"Still, I would rather play it safe as opposed to sorry. If the offer is open, then I accept with gratitude."
[Emily Littleton] "Ah, the Asylum," Emily echoes. There is an echoing tension in her reply. The set of her mouth. That situation, rather than its setting, evokes a strong reaction in her, muffled by layers of social training and innate evasiveness. What surfaces is enough to give the impression that she is still upset, in part, by what happened there.
It's unknown to Emily whether Elizabeth even knows what the Singer was asked to do. What her gifts were turned toward that night. She doesn't like it, even now, even knowing the necessity there.
"I think that's even more worrisome, personally," she says, in her clipped consonants and Manchester vowels.
Elizabeth accepts, and Emily nods just once. "Shall we, then? The flat is warmer than the park, and I think you'll approve of the tea selection, too."
She says these things to help break up the oddity of being swept home with a near stranger. Some strangenesses are part and partial to their world. At least the ascetic would not feel hemmed in by clutter at the Initiate's home. Emily has a spare key, for just these occurrences. A handful of locals have had use of it, from time to time.
[Ellizabeth Zhao] A little smile and she rises from the bench, nodding slightly. While she is certainly not exactly herself at the moment, she is mostly herself. She's always at least mostly herself; it's not split personality, after all. It's simply the influences of her past incarnations along the Akashakarma making their presence known from time to time. Thus, she gives the woman a warm smile, the expression in her eyes grateful.
"Thank you, Miss L...Emily." She transitions to a first name with effort, if only the one time. "Yes, indeed...let us go."
[Emily Littleton] [ Fade and exit stage left! ]
[Ellizabeth Zhao] [[Yay! Thank you for scenes!]]
10 February 2011
Shades of Grey
“The choice in politics isn't usually between black and white. It's between two horrible shades of gray.”
-Lord Thorneycraft
*** *** ***
-Lord Thorneycraft
*** *** ***
Before a cold meeting at a nondescript bench in the Green, before a phone call from Ellie, before one from Ashley's father (Jim Novotny [Shatterer of the Way]), before Monday's dawn even broke resplendent across the Winter sky, painting the snow in silvered hues -- step back to before all of this, to a point in a weekend that was neither restful nor relaxing, back to a community Church in Lake View, to the tiny God's acre where a small girl's body lies under the blanket of snow, under the frozen ground, to a place that all but trembles with the weight of memory.
I don't know why, but it feels like all of these sad things, that they somehow belong here. That this Sanctuary and these stout walls can survive them, carry them up, ferry them away.
Toni and his sister.
Owen.
Gabriel.
That there is shelter for the heart, here, not only the body and soul. It may be a silly hope, something symbolic and ultimately empty, but I don't care anymore. His home is finally my own again; I won't be cast out.
Gabriel's last letter weighs heavily on my mind, prefaced as it was by Evan's own. I haven't told anyone what the Messengers at last confided, and I don't know if I believe any longer that their missive came from a Council, Rogue or otherwise.
I know that I don't care.
I have seen people in this city do worse for lesser motivations. I have killed someone, knowing only where her allegiances lie, not even her name. And that someone had not even hurt me, directly.
These stone hallways and the tiny flames that dance about the votives I light in memory are just reminders of how very human we all are. The building will withstand lifetimes, harbor and shelter hundreds of souls, and this flame is a pin-prick, just brightness, fragile.
It's all shades of grey. It has always been shades of grey.
Step back further, to a bloody apartment, to memories rising at the back of my throat, the taste of copper, the way my steps knowingly avoid the soaked carpet -- not for fear of leaving footprints, though that's there, but because I don't ever want to relive walking through blood-soaked carpet, or the sick sounds of suction releasing my bootheels.
There's a laptop on a table, playing back a gruesome murder, a message left by a madwoman -- except that I know, now, what made her that way and the horror is twofold. She was somebody's sister in arms. Somebody's friend. Someone's daughter. She's not rabid because she chose to be, not entirely. (She's a monster.)
Step back, to a bookstore, to words thrown across the table that is set for tea. To shades of grey that will not resolve in to black or white, simply because they are told to. To absolutes that crumble, not for lack of faith, but because of broader understandings.
Step back, to the same church. To a quiet conversation. To a Monist by my side and burgeoning intimacies and things that went unsaid because of Faith, or love, or duty. To a friendship that might have been.
And now forward, to a cold February afternoon, to the crunch of snow beneath my feet, to its pristine white and shadows, even dirtied by the road muck. We are all dirtied by something, greyed somehow, worn.
It doesn't stop, and the longer it goes, fewer and fewer absolutes seem to hold. I'm falling into my father's world, where it's all about diction, subtlties, and shades of grey.
09 February 2011
Soon you'll have tea
[Emily Littleton] In that quiet moment, when he draws his Will around her, Emily's fingers tangle in the silver chain at her throat. It's a thing she relies on less and less for its original purpose these days, and more for its newfound importance as her focus for Mind. She feels him spread thin her resonance, push it out to all corners, stretch it until it is nothing more than a membrane, a fluid and fleeting phase, a hair's breadth deep.
It's not how she would have thought to do the same thing, but it works. It works better than she would have considered. Reverence overlays the snow, laps against the street, fades in between the bricks of a nearby building. It casts a wide net that does not call out any given point.
He raised the background noise until it conflicts with her signal. Ashley's father is bright, quicker on his feet than most might expect.
He beckons, and she follows. Without hesitation. Without question.
It no longer bothers her that she has to make quick decisions on who to trust and who to shut out. That she's climbing into a strangers car, however tied they are by their association with Ashley. She has asked him for no proof; he could be anyone. Likewise, he must be measuring her identity off only what Ashley has told or shown him. This is a precarious thing; she's not yet jaded enough to demand more of him.
Then again, they don't need to say much. People like Jim and Emily have not predicated their existence or magics on words. It is enough for her to watch him out of the corner of her eye as they climb into the vehicle, that alone is enough for him to realize that she is not entirely trusting or naive. She is following things to their natural conclusions, though. She trusts him, enough, for now.
Hopefully he can say the same.
[Ashley McGowen] If Jim did not trust Emily at least a little, one might suspect that he would not be taking her to where his daughter is hiding at all. Then again, there's this: he is a disciple with thirty years' experience beneath him, and Ashley, however less experienced, is an Adept. Between the two of them they could make short work of her if Ashley's reaction happened to reveal her unwelcome.
The car is warm and the radio is playing quietly (classic rock - the Doors, currently.) He's pushed Emily's resonance out into the surrounding world and as a result it seems as though everything seems to carry a little more Reverence, a little unrelentingness: like heightened contrast in a picture, it seems to both sharpen and soften. It glows. For a little while, maybe it even seems like the world's gray is less, like everything is a little clearer wrapped up as it is in that duality. It's all One.
The two of them are going to drive for a long time. Ashley's new place - it can't rightfully be called a home yet, and maybe it won't ever - is quite some distance away from her old one. It's a long way from the Green, and a long way from Emily and Kage and Jarod.
Things seem to fade the further south they drive. To Bridgeport, specifically, close to Bronzeville and Back-of-the-Yards. It was Irish, once, and then Lithuanian and Czech, and now it's a mishmash of cultures. Like much of the south side, buildings have been abandoned and foreclosed and entire stretches of street stand emptied of purpose and people. It's an urban wasteland. Ashley could disappear here, easily.
The house is an old brick house. From the front, it looks completely innocuous, and that would be because power and heat haven't been activated there yet. It looks like every other empty home on this street. Jim stops in front of it and then gets out, moving up the front steps with a surprising lightness of foot in spite of his size and age.
[Emily Littleton] It's a long drive, and on that drive it becomes apparent that there will be no more just stopping by evenings. It will be less and less likely that her friend will drop by and conveniently sweep up her leftovers in a take away container. That this physical distance between them speaks to a shift in the surrounding atmosphere as well.
Emily watches the streets pass out the window. The music plays softly. They do not talk. She's learning about Ashley's new neighborhood while they drive. She's learning that she will stand out like a sore thumb here even more than she did in the Green.
When they climb out of the car, the Singer's shoulders are squared. Her held is held proudly, without affectation. Her foot falls are clear and evenly meted and she walks as if there is nothing at all wrong with her being here, or the newness of the home they are approaching.
Except that she slows and glances once down the street to her right, and once down the street to her right and takes her bearings noticeably, with her hands in her pockets and the particularness of her gaze leveled at no one and no thing in particular. Seeming nonchalance. Carefully guarded anxiety.
Ashley could disappear here. Emily didn't want her to have to. She exhales, shakes her head quietly, and hastens her step to catch up with him.
So much for this being a cold war, a stand off, a relic of the past. People in her present were struggling. She takes the steps quickly, leveraging her long legs toward hurrying out of the cold. That's all it would seem like, if someone happened to see them.
[Ashley McGowen] Jim knows it is not a relic of the past, and perhaps that fact will be driven home to the magi of Chicago too, shortly. It's not quite like it was in the old days. They're no longer killed just because they were found out for what they are. They're no longer snatched off the streets and sent to some whitewashed room. But make too much noise, wear your colors just a little too brightly, and that's the end of the illusion.
The steps whine under Emily's feet as she ascends them. Part of the porch is sagging in, over in the far corner. It's low on the priority list for repairs; Ashley is far more concerned with the rest of the house.
Inside it's as cold as it is outside. Ashley is a mage well versed in the Ars Essentiae, and rather than risk drawing attention to herself just yet, she's chosen to cover herself and the two animals who are currently sharing space with her, wrap them in warmth. The floors here are hardwood too, though they're worn thin and bare and a little buckled in some places. Perhaps she'll work to restore them; it's one of those situations in which knowing magi well versed in the Ars Materiae comes in handy.
It's bare, in here. Whatever might have been left by the previous occupants has been cleared out, and she and Jim have both obviously been cleaning the place: the rooms are barren but they have been mopped and scrubbed, in the past few days. Candles are along the walls and along the floors, carefully balanced in holders to catch the hot wax. No house fires.
Zane comes to greet Emily when she comes in. Jim gives the dog's head a rough pat and then leads Emily back, back, back through the empty hollow halls and toward one of the side rooms. It's a large house; she'll have a difficult time filling it. Particularly now that her possessions are gone.
Ashley, when she appears, is clothed in a T-shirt and jeans, unbothered by the cold. She looks clean. (Another benefit of Forces - she can move water.) "Emily," she says, a little surprised. A little chagrined.
[Emily Littleton] Let's not pretend that this is the worst living arrangement Emily has seen in her years. Or even that it comes close. There are solid walls, floors that need refurbishment; it's cold in the house and the heat may never get properly turned on. It's certainly not what she wants or expects for her friend.
All of this gives her something steady to hold on to as they move through the house. Of course she stops long enough to crouch and greet Zane, who must be struggling to adjust almost as much as his human counterpart. She doesn't care if Jim thinks this is odd, or assumes she is a pet person. Emily is a Zane person, almost any other pet on the planet can hang (including, some days, her own kitten).
When Ashley appears, some of that steady and removed demeanor breaks. Emily's smile goes from careful and calculated to warmer, and openly relieved.
"Hey," the greeting is utterly informal. That alone says a lot. "I'm glad you're okay." And the Hermetic can be as rumpled as she likes by the insinuation that Emily cares about her and her well being. The Singer isn't offering help, maybe a hug but she knows better than to give handouts.
"Your dad and I had a nice chat on the way over," she says, underlying the comment with a delicately wry twist of her lips, offering Ashley something to play off of to break the moment up a little. The Singer's gaze trips over to Jim, and then back again, including him in the moment without pressing.
[Ashley McGowen] If the way he clings is any way to judge, Zane is certainly having a difficult time adjusting. There are little bowls for the dog and cat and new bags of food that are nearby for each of them; it was one of the first things she had to think of. Everything went up in the fire, almost.
Now that Emily is in the main room she can see where most of Ashley's library went. The shelves are haphazardly placed around: they were transported wholecloth, books and all, because that was the easiest way to do it. On the floor there is a sleeping bag, which is new and at least looks as though it is warm and durable. For now, it works. And other than that, very few things seem to have escaped the apartment with Ashley. There is a photo of smiling faces painted with woad, balanced on one of the shelves. There is a very old stone carving of a serpent devouring its own tail. There is a wooden box, a puzzle box of some sort that looks large enough to contain a small book or journal, on one of the shelves too. And, oddly, there is a violin case that presumably contains a violin and bow, carefully placed up against the wall.
Off to the side there is a doorway to a small room, still dark. Inside it feels like Hunger, though less than Ashley's old study did.
"...I didn't expect you to bring anybody here," she says to her father, with a glance toward Jim. Jim just looks back at his daughter and shrugs.
There's a moment of mirth that passes between Hermetic and Singer when the younger woman comments on her father's talkativeness, or lack thereof. Jim looks at Emily once, grunts, and then disappears to go and work on repairs.
"Thanks for coming," Ashley says after a moment. It could be mistaken for reluctance. "I'm glad I thought to start constructing a backup sanctum and a safehouse last year."
[Emily Littleton] She glances around, of course, but most of her attention is for Ashley and her father. And Zane, who is welcome to cling as much as he needs or wants. Her clothes are washable; Emily knows how to get pet hair off them now, it's become almost rote.
"I'm wishing I hadn't gotten rid of my futon, just about now," she tells her friend. Whatever reluctance Ashley shows is not reflected in Emily's voice or carriage.
"I'm glad you had somewhere to go to. I wouldn't have." This admission is plain, easily spoken but worrisome all the same. She glances in the direction that Ashley's father went, and then back to the Hermetic.
"Who knows you're here?" she asks.
[Ashley McGowen] "I'll have a bed sooner or later," Ashley says, with a glance toward the sleeping bag. She doesn't tell Emily how long that might be, with her TA position and her student loans cut off; all she has at the moment is some of her funding from the Order of Hermes, and that has always been supplemental at best.
Though someday, should the house be restored, it might have its charm. It's an old house, painted the way old houses often are in very bold colors, wall to wall. The main room had a fireplace in it, though the hearth was cold. The stairs lead up to a few bedrooms, or what have the potential to be bedrooms someday. There's an iron stove in the kitchen alongside space for more modern kitchen implements, though those were torn out, presumably when the house was condemned (or whatever happened to it.)
"Janine would've found a place for me, if I hadn't had this. Or I'm sure there would've been people in Boston who would've harbored me." She's glad she didn't have to resort to that, though. Ashley's expression tells Emily all she needs to know in that regard, and she's familiar with Ashley's pride at any rate.
A beat, when Emily asks her question. "Just you, so far," she says. "I contacted a few other people but you're the first person who called Dad. I didn't expect him to bring you back," she says. Perhaps she didn't want anyone to see the place she's staying in now.
[Emily Littleton] "Honestly? I didn't expect him to either."
Which implies that Emily hadn't exactly asked. Not in so many words. Though Ashley would be hard pressed to name a time when the whole of what Emily got other people to tell her, show her, do for her fell down to things she directly asked after.
"I have leftovers calling your name. When it's safe, I'll bring something by," she offers, knowing that this trip is anything but incidental for either of them, and that they would have to establish protocols for how to visit one another and maintain Ashley's safety. Emily's own as well.
Everything is more complicated now. The Singer doesn't seem, outwardly, to mind much.
"Have you heard about Molly's place, then?" she asks, knowing full well that Jim's surprise spoke for both Novotnies on that topic. "She's gone to ground, too, but I don't know where."
[Ashley McGowen] "They got Molly's place too?" That explains a thing or two. Ashley had been wondering how they found her, what happened. Her True Name, at least, affords her some more secrecy than many other magi. But it clearly can't protect her all the time.
Ashley bites her lower lip after a moment, then leans down to scoop up Luka when the cat comes wandering by. He's almost full grown now, has lost much of the gangliness of late kittenhood and certainly the floppiness and clumsiness that had been his when she first brought him home. Ashley brings him up close, resting her cheek along the smooth fur of his side. He doesn't protest.
"I wondered, for a little while, whether someone sold me out," she says, with a glance toward Emily. It wasn't a bad assumption; there are a lot of people who know where Ashley's place was. "But I figure if they got Molly too it must've been because of the Asylum. Or the information the Rogue Council gave us a while back when they did a broad scan and triangulated the position of my bans."
She lets out a sigh against Luka's fur. He settles into her arms. "I'm going to have to quit school."
[Emily Littleton] Emily likes it when offering up a key bit of information makes things clearer, rather than stirring the muck up all over again. That Molly's place was likewise under siege meant something to the Dean. It meant little, in particular, to the Singer.
"From what you father said, you had warning. I don't know if anyone sold you out, or if someone on our side knew ahead of time and gave you warning, but I'm fairly certain that by now Solomon's made things difficult for me at the House and I won't be able to find out much, save for what the periperhy knows.
"Thomas, maybe. Kage, if she hears anything."
Emily doesn't elaborate on what happened, but there's a sharpness under her skin that her smile and calm demeanor can't hide.
"If it's because of the Asylum, you and Israel and I worked together. Molly was involved in some entirely different aspect. I'm not sure I follow the connection there."
[Ashley McGowen] "I mean when Molly did her scrying before you and Israel and I went in," Ashley says with a sigh. "I helped with that and put bans down around her place while she Worked." The Hermetic continues to cuddle Luka, openly and without making any efforts to make it look less like a child hugging a particularly lively but still quite amenable stuffed toy, which perhaps suggests something about her current state even if she isn't saying anything in reference to it.
There's a glance over toward Emily at Solomon's mention. "Israel came to talk to me," she says. "She told me Solomon had spoken with you about not going to him." Ashley doesn't add that Israel blamed her for it. She doesn't feel it necessary to hold Emily accountable for that, even though she's not terribly inclined to claim responsibility for Emily in regard to neglecting that report.
Her brow furrows, after a moment. Perhaps she wants to express sympathy for the fact that it's causing Emily trouble at the house now, but she doesn't.
"I was talking to Thomas," she says after a moment, "and he's almost sold me on splitting away from the chantry myself. It's looking like a better and better idea, after this. It'll be hard for me to go to the house for a while anyway."
[Emily Littleton] "Spoken is a gentle term, but precise, I suppose." Her smile twitches faintly in irritation. "There were words involved, after all," she offers with her usual dry, wry wit. It doesn't directly hint at whatever else transpired, but insinuates that words were not the only things bandied about at that meeting.
No one wants to claim responsibility. Emily will not saddle more than she feels is her share, given the situation. Solomon will not choke down even a morsel, and Ashley has always been clear that other people's bullshit stops at the boundary to her wards, or doorway, or person. There is a lot of blame floating around, and they all look past it and keep right on moving.
The Singer knows it's part of what's wrong with the Chantry. She no longer sees it as her place, or her right, or her duty to fix.
"I'm not going to tell you to step away from something the Society built," Emily tells her, shrugging a bit to emphasize her uncertainty on the topic. "But I do know where I would stand, if the choice ever came between my friendship with you and my loyalty to the house."
Which answers some things that Ashley might be worrying about, at the back of her mind. Emily wouldn't sell her out. Emily hadn't sold her out. And the Singer, what little support she could offer, would stand beside her friend should a schism come.
"And, you know that Kage never liked the house anyway."
[Ashley McGowen] When spoken to, Ashley had defended the younger Singer. She wouldn't mention it to Emily - but she had. It was part of the reason for her quarrel with Israel, and part of the reason that quarrel turned ugly so quickly. Israel had been surprised to receive a call from Jim along with the rest, and she probably should have been; these are things Ashley doesn't forgive easily. Or forget.
The Singer expresses where her loyalties lie, and Ashley's eyes flick up and find hers. There's something warm in them, suddenly. Warm and a little vulnerable, as though she's surprised to hear it, or touched at the very least. It doesn't linger for very long.
"I know," she says. "Kage would never stop making fun of me about it, though, probably." She can almost hear it now, the questions about whether or not this really makes her any different from an Orphan. The slightly smug air. She's come to expect these things from Kage; they fell into 'sister' territory some time ago and the mockery each makes of the other is certainly reminiscent of that dynamic.
She looks around the house after a moment. "I'll start taking care of it once I'm more settled in here, probably."
[Emily Littleton] Word has a way of getting around. The estrangements that are at present hidden behind apathy and closeted circles will come to light, and Emily will know what happened when Israel spoke with Ashley. Perhaps not in so many words. Ashley will know what happened when Solomon confronted her -- though Emily will not tell her, unless it is pulled from her or otherwise tricked forward, that the Templar attempted to use magic to restrain her from leaving.
Because that is the line he crossed with Emily that is irreparable. When cross words turn to more than slammed doors, even the politest threats of violence are unforgivable.
"Kage teases because she adores you. It's how she shows affection," Emily says off-handedly, easily. "It's a wonder to me that she has so many sisters; that's the kind of nonsense you learn from brothers."
Says the only child. Who realizes this juxtaposition and smirks.
"Or so I've been told," she lilts the syllables easily, raising her gaze upward in seeming innocence.
"If she were really cross, she'd say: Ashley..." And it's a serviceable impression, the mannerisms are right, then intonation is right, but it lacks Kage's certain je na sais quois, that ardour and candescence. The tarnish and the moonbright.
Of the house, though, all Emily can say just now is: "It has good bones. You'll make it into something, I'm sure."
[Ashley McGowen] Kage may adore her, but Kage has never said as much. Ashley smiles at that, and small though it is it's genuine, though there's a shadow to it, a tarnish. Uncertainty that can't help but color such pronouncements for her, perhaps. Ashley is never confident in such things, but she hides it well. People forget to notice things like that about her.
"You'd probably know. Gregory and everything," Ashley says. She remembers well the interaction between Emily and her godbrother, which had struck Ashley with a kind of curiosity and longing. She has never had siblings. She just picks up sibling figures.
Another look around the house. "I'll try. I'm just glad I managed to transfer over most of the important stuff from my library. It would've been the worst thing to lose." Many of the books she has are truly priceless, and some of them are very, very rare. She probably wouldn't be able to find others like them - but more than that, they would have been lost. To everyone. Their words wiped out and scrubbed from existence.
There's something painful and tragic about the very thought. "I guess...could you let people know what happened? I don't want to make Dad talk to more people than he has to."
[Emily Littleton] "Of course," Emily says, and it's underlaid with a sort of surety, a certainty that is more solid than bedrock. It's not a problem at all for her to quietly spread the word. It's not a burden; she doesn't want Ashley to think twice about it.
"I trust you just want people to know that you are safe, but not where you are? I'm happy to bring notes or messages to anyone you like, as well." Though likely anything going to the Guardians will be conveniently passed off to Nathan for delivery. A broad network was a useful thing; when Emily needed to cauterize a section of it, for personal reasons, there were always back ways into those sectors that didn't require her to give up much.
"Which makes it sound like business, and not letting your friends know you're okay." She skews her mouth a bit to one side, thoughtfully. Shakes her head a little. "I'm... still getting used to this. If I'm being an insensitive bitch, just kick me," she tells the Hermetic, trusting Ashley not to take her literally.
[Ashley McGowen] "My dad got a hold of my friends," Ashley says, with another look toward Emily. There's something implied here: 'friend' is a term Ashley reserves for very few people, the handful that have come to matter the most. There are few magi in Chicago who can claim that title, and all of them are people that she asked her father to contact. They were all the people she was worried about.
That's not to say there aren't others who should know. Gregor and Wharil, in particular, though she's hardly spoken to either of them in some time. Wharil is...notoriously hard to get a hold of, and Gregor is Gregor.
"I don't want anyone to know where I am. Just you. Maybe Kage and Jarod," she says. And that's really all, for now, though perhaps she will consider extending an invitation to Thomas at some point. Morgan, well. The girl would cluck and fuss and...Ashley just isn't really prepared to handle that. Not while she's still fixing up the house.
"But I figure the Society should know where I am. Dad didn't contact them."
[Emily Littleton] "I am sure I will regret this someday," she says, which is quite the lead in to an offer, "But consider me your messaging service, for now. I'll leave word for the Society, and let them know you're alright."
Which is not the same as telling them where she is, or how to find her. "I'll do the same with Kage and Jarod. Though I imagine they'll push for more details, I've gotten much better at telling people no when they simply don't get to know things yet."
She glances around the house again, rather than back to Ashley just yet and then the Singer proclaims.
"But before any of that, I'll get you a kettle, something that can survive being put over the fire even. And some tea. It's positively uncivilized that you can't take tea here, lovely," Emily says, and if that happens to coincide with her stepping in near enough to loop an arm around Ashley's shoulders in a show of solidarity and friendship, then that is entirely by chance.
Isn't it?
[Ashley McGowen] The truth is, Ashley suspects that her father will make her location known to at least Kage and Jarod no matter what lengths Emily goes to in order to hide the Hermetic's location. Jim Novotny has gotten it into his head that she shouldn't be dealing with things alone, that he shouldn't let her push people away. It's a fine time for him to decide to be a father, as far as Ashley is concerned.
There's a part of her, though, that can't deny that it's nice to have someone here. Particularly when Emily's arm loops around her shoulders. Ashley takes a moment to lean into the embrace, even goes so far as to briefly drop an arm around Emily's waist when she does.
"I'd commit murder for tea right now," Ashley says, with a glance toward the fireplace. "I'd maraud teashops and take their stock. All of it went up when I burned the place down. My liquor cabinet, too." Which is truly a thing to mourn, given that it was as well stocked as her tea cabinet and given that the liquid contained therein was much more expensive than tea generally is.
"If you need to come and find me here, you can. Just...find a way to announce your presence before you try to come in. I'll probably be warding the place in front," she says, with a glance down the poorly lit hallway.
One might imagine she'll be a little on edge for a while.
[Emily Littleton] Emily chuckles when Ashley explains her pillaging intentions toward tea shops in general. The shake of her shoulder and chest translates to Ashley as much as the sound. The Singer's arm tightens a bit, hugging her more soundly, cementing that implied but not directly spoken bond of friendship all the more certainly.
"I think I can manage to bring you a collection without any additional bloodshed," she says, her voice warmer and richer than it usually is. Friendly, in the way Emily could be around Kage. Closer to how she might be with Gregory. It signifies that some of the Singer's tight kept shields are down.
"And why don't we agree on a method of self-identification, so you don't accidentally smash me to bits on the doorstep, thinking I was canvassing for a congressman or something?" she suggests, mildly, thinking of Molly's door.
[Ashley McGowen] "I should set up a door knocker or something," Ashley says, with another look down the hallway. Things like this are generally done with a rhythm, with a song to act as a kind of code, a password. Ashley can't hear those things. Presumably she can't even hear a doorbell, or at least if she could, it would be painful for her to listen to.
"For right now, I'll just try to set up an effect that'll let you pass," she says. "I'll probably have to do something more permanent later." She'll have a lot of time, without going regularly to the chantry and without going to her classes. Without her office hours.
There's a pause when she suddenly remembers. She'd wanted to speak to Emily about something, but in the aftermath of her home being invaded it had (understandably) flown from her mind. "Did anyone talk to you about the Horsemen?"she asks, quietly. "I waited for you, but when you didn't show up there wasn't a lot of time, so we just went."
[Emily Littleton] "I always knock twice," she says, admitting to a habit. "If you want me to, I can just wait five or ten seconds, and knock twice again." It's a simple suggestion that doesn't rely on rhythm as much as discrete pattern matching. Ashley can, no doubt, discern two knocks from one. Followed by a significant pause, and a second set of knocks.
They could choose something more distinctive. More elaborate. More carefully timed, but there were ways around her inabilities that didn't require ruling out the whole of a method or mode. Emily is careful about how she suggests it, though, just in case.
"I had to present my research to the funding committee," she explains, though the tightness in her jaw speaks to her frustrations. "It over-ran, and I couldn't exactly leave. Not with my field, and our friends in town; not to go hunt down a rogue technocrat. I have enough marks against me in the department just now."
She'd gotten tied up in red-tape and University politics. It happened. It never made it less frustrating.
"Evan wrote me, actually. Given his tenses, I'm guessing that Anya and Gabriel died in whatever happened?" It's a question, because Emily is looking for confirmation. There's also a resonant sadness to her voice, as if she had found some sort of deep sympathy for the Messengers that was otherwise unexplained.
Maybe Emily was still soft.
Maybe Emily was still human.
Maybe Gabriel had turned her ear one last time, from across the veil between the living and the dead.
Either which way, she exhales, rolls her lower lip between her teeth, lets it go.
"I'm glad the child is safe."
[Ashley McGowen] Emily mentions university red-tape, and this is something that Ashley could sympathize with until very, very recently. It will no longer be a problem for her, presumably, unless she should choose to continue as a graduate student when and if she constructs a new identity. It's a shame, really, to be so close to her master's. Her thesis was nearly finished.
So it goes.
She runs her hands back through her hair and lets them lock together, strands sticking out between them, when they meet at the back of her skull. Then she lets out a sigh at the mention of Brandon. "I got him to his grandparents on Sunday night," Ashley says. "Which I'm...really glad for. It would've been a lot harder to get him out with me, and to get him to stay here. I wouldn't have been able to look after him."
Though she doesn't say she wouldn't have been willing. Other people may have been surprised that Ashley took the boy at all, but it wasn't that odd for her. Not really.
Her mouth thins for a moment. "Anya went to shoot the kid when Ben went in to talk to her," she says. "And Gabriel Strode in the way of the shot. It killed him. We went in and took Anya down and I knocked her unconscious, and then the fourth guy who they kept around - fuck, I can't even remember his name - shot her and Ben both." Ashley has no difficulty in recounting this. She wasn't personally attached to anyone involved.
[Emily Littleton] Emily didn't think it odd, at all, that Ashley looked after the child. Not for the Ashley that Emily has known. Maybe it seemed at odds with the public persona she projected, but anyone who was truly surprised by this news would earn themselves a long, hard look from the Singer and the subtle suggestion that they were, perhaps, even more stupid than she'd first given them credit for. (The Hermetics did not hold monopoly on condescension, after all.)
"Evan," Emily supplies the name again. He'd sent it to her in an email, unobfuscated. She'd read it over and over and over again across the space of the weekend and the first few days of this week. "His name is Evan."
It's breathed out in the wake of all Ashley said. And Emily's chest threatens to constrict, but she doesn't let it this time.
"Gabriel wrote me, before he died. He wrote a letter, but didn't send it. Evan found it in his outbox and thought it was something I should have. They both explained, and apologized and I'm sure it will be meaningless to just about everyone involved, but I believe them."
"I just --"
It falls away and she shakes her head a bit, conflicted, warding off the wrong words and willing the right ones to coalesce. "I see a lot of us in them, how they were fighting and what they were fighting for. It bothers me that so many people had to die, but it bothers me even more that we would have done the same thing."
[Ashley McGowen] Ashley absorbs what Emily says about this in silence. She still has Luka in her arms, and for a moment they tighten around the cat, who lets out a little huff of air and finally begins to wiggle to get free. Ashley allows him to jump back to the floor and then begins to pick cat hair off of her shirt.
She watches the little strands of white and gray drift toward the floor like shed feathers or ribbons and confetti after the parade has gone by, floating downward to lie cast away in the street. It'll hardly show on the naked floorboards.
"I think the only thing we can do is fight for what we know and what we feel," she says. And then is quiet for a moment, considering her words, before she moves on. "I think Molly thought she was saving the good guy. Ben, I mean. And I know he wasn't any more than...any of them, or any of us. He was just doing what people do." And in this, it is evident that Ashley does not hate Technocrats - she just opposes them. It might explain at least a little of why she doesn't seem interested in violence, at the very least.
"I'm not even sure it's wrong. It just is." She looks up toward the younger woman again, then. Knowing, perhaps, that it probably isn't what Emily wants to hear.
[Emily Littleton] "The more I look for things that are black and white, the more it all turns up shades of grey, Ash," Emily tells her. Ashley's reply hadn't upset her, or touched upon some topic that offended the Singer. Emily would likely never be as zealous as some Choristers, single-mindedly focused on their Right to the exclusion of all others. She was trending, already, toward a more Monistic point of view.
It was how she'd been raised. Politically, religiously, socially, down to aims of humanitarianism and altruism, however little she personally embraced those actions.
"And a lot of war, or politics, or any human conflict comes down to choices between two horrible shades of grey, not an absolute right or wrong."
She looks over at the Hermetic, who is picking cat hair from her shirt. From there she glances around the bare and unfurnished room. Emily sees the nothingness in it, but not futility. This is a new start, another day, and another reason to hope. Perhaps it's overly optimistic, but the lack of one true way and one great evil left a lot of grey areas in which they could lodge themselves, make new homes, wrest out new beginnins.
"I'm glad you're okay," she says, again. "Molly, too. I'll talk to the others. It's gonna get better," she tells the Hermetic, with a surety that's borrowed from a man who walked this path before her, someone Ashley would never meet and Emily would not see again until her eyes closed for the very last time.
"I mean... soon you'll have tea," she adds, with one last wry twist, to give the Hermetic something tangible to hope for and a little levity.
[Ashley McGowen] "Infinite shades of gray, actually," Ashley says. "But I don't think living is about being right." It's a cryptic statement to leave things on, but Ashley does not seem inclined to expand upon it. As far as she is concerned she's already said enough as it is; it's a rather un-Hermetic sentiment to express, in its own way. Or at least it would seem so.
Whatever living is about, well, that's for each of them to guess at.
It's going to get better, says Emily. Ashley's eyes, pale in the dim light, move up and catch Emily's, and for a moment there's a half-smile there on her face. A wistful thing. It says that Ashley would like very much to believe it.
She doesn't.
"I'm glad you came," she says. There is no certainty that Emily will come again; there is no certainty that Ashley will be around for it, and so she does not hope. For now, what she knows is that someone cared enough to seek her out. For now, that's enough.
[Emily Littleton] [ And wrap! Everyone take your bows.... Oh, Okay, Jim, you can just fold your arms over your chest and scowl. ]
It's not how she would have thought to do the same thing, but it works. It works better than she would have considered. Reverence overlays the snow, laps against the street, fades in between the bricks of a nearby building. It casts a wide net that does not call out any given point.
He raised the background noise until it conflicts with her signal. Ashley's father is bright, quicker on his feet than most might expect.
He beckons, and she follows. Without hesitation. Without question.
It no longer bothers her that she has to make quick decisions on who to trust and who to shut out. That she's climbing into a strangers car, however tied they are by their association with Ashley. She has asked him for no proof; he could be anyone. Likewise, he must be measuring her identity off only what Ashley has told or shown him. This is a precarious thing; she's not yet jaded enough to demand more of him.
Then again, they don't need to say much. People like Jim and Emily have not predicated their existence or magics on words. It is enough for her to watch him out of the corner of her eye as they climb into the vehicle, that alone is enough for him to realize that she is not entirely trusting or naive. She is following things to their natural conclusions, though. She trusts him, enough, for now.
Hopefully he can say the same.
[Ashley McGowen] If Jim did not trust Emily at least a little, one might suspect that he would not be taking her to where his daughter is hiding at all. Then again, there's this: he is a disciple with thirty years' experience beneath him, and Ashley, however less experienced, is an Adept. Between the two of them they could make short work of her if Ashley's reaction happened to reveal her unwelcome.
The car is warm and the radio is playing quietly (classic rock - the Doors, currently.) He's pushed Emily's resonance out into the surrounding world and as a result it seems as though everything seems to carry a little more Reverence, a little unrelentingness: like heightened contrast in a picture, it seems to both sharpen and soften. It glows. For a little while, maybe it even seems like the world's gray is less, like everything is a little clearer wrapped up as it is in that duality. It's all One.
The two of them are going to drive for a long time. Ashley's new place - it can't rightfully be called a home yet, and maybe it won't ever - is quite some distance away from her old one. It's a long way from the Green, and a long way from Emily and Kage and Jarod.
Things seem to fade the further south they drive. To Bridgeport, specifically, close to Bronzeville and Back-of-the-Yards. It was Irish, once, and then Lithuanian and Czech, and now it's a mishmash of cultures. Like much of the south side, buildings have been abandoned and foreclosed and entire stretches of street stand emptied of purpose and people. It's an urban wasteland. Ashley could disappear here, easily.
The house is an old brick house. From the front, it looks completely innocuous, and that would be because power and heat haven't been activated there yet. It looks like every other empty home on this street. Jim stops in front of it and then gets out, moving up the front steps with a surprising lightness of foot in spite of his size and age.
[Emily Littleton] It's a long drive, and on that drive it becomes apparent that there will be no more just stopping by evenings. It will be less and less likely that her friend will drop by and conveniently sweep up her leftovers in a take away container. That this physical distance between them speaks to a shift in the surrounding atmosphere as well.
Emily watches the streets pass out the window. The music plays softly. They do not talk. She's learning about Ashley's new neighborhood while they drive. She's learning that she will stand out like a sore thumb here even more than she did in the Green.
When they climb out of the car, the Singer's shoulders are squared. Her held is held proudly, without affectation. Her foot falls are clear and evenly meted and she walks as if there is nothing at all wrong with her being here, or the newness of the home they are approaching.
Except that she slows and glances once down the street to her right, and once down the street to her right and takes her bearings noticeably, with her hands in her pockets and the particularness of her gaze leveled at no one and no thing in particular. Seeming nonchalance. Carefully guarded anxiety.
Ashley could disappear here. Emily didn't want her to have to. She exhales, shakes her head quietly, and hastens her step to catch up with him.
So much for this being a cold war, a stand off, a relic of the past. People in her present were struggling. She takes the steps quickly, leveraging her long legs toward hurrying out of the cold. That's all it would seem like, if someone happened to see them.
[Ashley McGowen] Jim knows it is not a relic of the past, and perhaps that fact will be driven home to the magi of Chicago too, shortly. It's not quite like it was in the old days. They're no longer killed just because they were found out for what they are. They're no longer snatched off the streets and sent to some whitewashed room. But make too much noise, wear your colors just a little too brightly, and that's the end of the illusion.
The steps whine under Emily's feet as she ascends them. Part of the porch is sagging in, over in the far corner. It's low on the priority list for repairs; Ashley is far more concerned with the rest of the house.
Inside it's as cold as it is outside. Ashley is a mage well versed in the Ars Essentiae, and rather than risk drawing attention to herself just yet, she's chosen to cover herself and the two animals who are currently sharing space with her, wrap them in warmth. The floors here are hardwood too, though they're worn thin and bare and a little buckled in some places. Perhaps she'll work to restore them; it's one of those situations in which knowing magi well versed in the Ars Materiae comes in handy.
It's bare, in here. Whatever might have been left by the previous occupants has been cleared out, and she and Jim have both obviously been cleaning the place: the rooms are barren but they have been mopped and scrubbed, in the past few days. Candles are along the walls and along the floors, carefully balanced in holders to catch the hot wax. No house fires.
Zane comes to greet Emily when she comes in. Jim gives the dog's head a rough pat and then leads Emily back, back, back through the empty hollow halls and toward one of the side rooms. It's a large house; she'll have a difficult time filling it. Particularly now that her possessions are gone.
Ashley, when she appears, is clothed in a T-shirt and jeans, unbothered by the cold. She looks clean. (Another benefit of Forces - she can move water.) "Emily," she says, a little surprised. A little chagrined.
[Emily Littleton] Let's not pretend that this is the worst living arrangement Emily has seen in her years. Or even that it comes close. There are solid walls, floors that need refurbishment; it's cold in the house and the heat may never get properly turned on. It's certainly not what she wants or expects for her friend.
All of this gives her something steady to hold on to as they move through the house. Of course she stops long enough to crouch and greet Zane, who must be struggling to adjust almost as much as his human counterpart. She doesn't care if Jim thinks this is odd, or assumes she is a pet person. Emily is a Zane person, almost any other pet on the planet can hang (including, some days, her own kitten).
When Ashley appears, some of that steady and removed demeanor breaks. Emily's smile goes from careful and calculated to warmer, and openly relieved.
"Hey," the greeting is utterly informal. That alone says a lot. "I'm glad you're okay." And the Hermetic can be as rumpled as she likes by the insinuation that Emily cares about her and her well being. The Singer isn't offering help, maybe a hug but she knows better than to give handouts.
"Your dad and I had a nice chat on the way over," she says, underlying the comment with a delicately wry twist of her lips, offering Ashley something to play off of to break the moment up a little. The Singer's gaze trips over to Jim, and then back again, including him in the moment without pressing.
[Ashley McGowen] If the way he clings is any way to judge, Zane is certainly having a difficult time adjusting. There are little bowls for the dog and cat and new bags of food that are nearby for each of them; it was one of the first things she had to think of. Everything went up in the fire, almost.
Now that Emily is in the main room she can see where most of Ashley's library went. The shelves are haphazardly placed around: they were transported wholecloth, books and all, because that was the easiest way to do it. On the floor there is a sleeping bag, which is new and at least looks as though it is warm and durable. For now, it works. And other than that, very few things seem to have escaped the apartment with Ashley. There is a photo of smiling faces painted with woad, balanced on one of the shelves. There is a very old stone carving of a serpent devouring its own tail. There is a wooden box, a puzzle box of some sort that looks large enough to contain a small book or journal, on one of the shelves too. And, oddly, there is a violin case that presumably contains a violin and bow, carefully placed up against the wall.
Off to the side there is a doorway to a small room, still dark. Inside it feels like Hunger, though less than Ashley's old study did.
"...I didn't expect you to bring anybody here," she says to her father, with a glance toward Jim. Jim just looks back at his daughter and shrugs.
There's a moment of mirth that passes between Hermetic and Singer when the younger woman comments on her father's talkativeness, or lack thereof. Jim looks at Emily once, grunts, and then disappears to go and work on repairs.
"Thanks for coming," Ashley says after a moment. It could be mistaken for reluctance. "I'm glad I thought to start constructing a backup sanctum and a safehouse last year."
[Emily Littleton] She glances around, of course, but most of her attention is for Ashley and her father. And Zane, who is welcome to cling as much as he needs or wants. Her clothes are washable; Emily knows how to get pet hair off them now, it's become almost rote.
"I'm wishing I hadn't gotten rid of my futon, just about now," she tells her friend. Whatever reluctance Ashley shows is not reflected in Emily's voice or carriage.
"I'm glad you had somewhere to go to. I wouldn't have." This admission is plain, easily spoken but worrisome all the same. She glances in the direction that Ashley's father went, and then back to the Hermetic.
"Who knows you're here?" she asks.
[Ashley McGowen] "I'll have a bed sooner or later," Ashley says, with a glance toward the sleeping bag. She doesn't tell Emily how long that might be, with her TA position and her student loans cut off; all she has at the moment is some of her funding from the Order of Hermes, and that has always been supplemental at best.
Though someday, should the house be restored, it might have its charm. It's an old house, painted the way old houses often are in very bold colors, wall to wall. The main room had a fireplace in it, though the hearth was cold. The stairs lead up to a few bedrooms, or what have the potential to be bedrooms someday. There's an iron stove in the kitchen alongside space for more modern kitchen implements, though those were torn out, presumably when the house was condemned (or whatever happened to it.)
"Janine would've found a place for me, if I hadn't had this. Or I'm sure there would've been people in Boston who would've harbored me." She's glad she didn't have to resort to that, though. Ashley's expression tells Emily all she needs to know in that regard, and she's familiar with Ashley's pride at any rate.
A beat, when Emily asks her question. "Just you, so far," she says. "I contacted a few other people but you're the first person who called Dad. I didn't expect him to bring you back," she says. Perhaps she didn't want anyone to see the place she's staying in now.
[Emily Littleton] "Honestly? I didn't expect him to either."
Which implies that Emily hadn't exactly asked. Not in so many words. Though Ashley would be hard pressed to name a time when the whole of what Emily got other people to tell her, show her, do for her fell down to things she directly asked after.
"I have leftovers calling your name. When it's safe, I'll bring something by," she offers, knowing that this trip is anything but incidental for either of them, and that they would have to establish protocols for how to visit one another and maintain Ashley's safety. Emily's own as well.
Everything is more complicated now. The Singer doesn't seem, outwardly, to mind much.
"Have you heard about Molly's place, then?" she asks, knowing full well that Jim's surprise spoke for both Novotnies on that topic. "She's gone to ground, too, but I don't know where."
[Ashley McGowen] "They got Molly's place too?" That explains a thing or two. Ashley had been wondering how they found her, what happened. Her True Name, at least, affords her some more secrecy than many other magi. But it clearly can't protect her all the time.
Ashley bites her lower lip after a moment, then leans down to scoop up Luka when the cat comes wandering by. He's almost full grown now, has lost much of the gangliness of late kittenhood and certainly the floppiness and clumsiness that had been his when she first brought him home. Ashley brings him up close, resting her cheek along the smooth fur of his side. He doesn't protest.
"I wondered, for a little while, whether someone sold me out," she says, with a glance toward Emily. It wasn't a bad assumption; there are a lot of people who know where Ashley's place was. "But I figure if they got Molly too it must've been because of the Asylum. Or the information the Rogue Council gave us a while back when they did a broad scan and triangulated the position of my bans."
She lets out a sigh against Luka's fur. He settles into her arms. "I'm going to have to quit school."
[Emily Littleton] Emily likes it when offering up a key bit of information makes things clearer, rather than stirring the muck up all over again. That Molly's place was likewise under siege meant something to the Dean. It meant little, in particular, to the Singer.
"From what you father said, you had warning. I don't know if anyone sold you out, or if someone on our side knew ahead of time and gave you warning, but I'm fairly certain that by now Solomon's made things difficult for me at the House and I won't be able to find out much, save for what the periperhy knows.
"Thomas, maybe. Kage, if she hears anything."
Emily doesn't elaborate on what happened, but there's a sharpness under her skin that her smile and calm demeanor can't hide.
"If it's because of the Asylum, you and Israel and I worked together. Molly was involved in some entirely different aspect. I'm not sure I follow the connection there."
[Ashley McGowen] "I mean when Molly did her scrying before you and Israel and I went in," Ashley says with a sigh. "I helped with that and put bans down around her place while she Worked." The Hermetic continues to cuddle Luka, openly and without making any efforts to make it look less like a child hugging a particularly lively but still quite amenable stuffed toy, which perhaps suggests something about her current state even if she isn't saying anything in reference to it.
There's a glance over toward Emily at Solomon's mention. "Israel came to talk to me," she says. "She told me Solomon had spoken with you about not going to him." Ashley doesn't add that Israel blamed her for it. She doesn't feel it necessary to hold Emily accountable for that, even though she's not terribly inclined to claim responsibility for Emily in regard to neglecting that report.
Her brow furrows, after a moment. Perhaps she wants to express sympathy for the fact that it's causing Emily trouble at the house now, but she doesn't.
"I was talking to Thomas," she says after a moment, "and he's almost sold me on splitting away from the chantry myself. It's looking like a better and better idea, after this. It'll be hard for me to go to the house for a while anyway."
[Emily Littleton] "Spoken is a gentle term, but precise, I suppose." Her smile twitches faintly in irritation. "There were words involved, after all," she offers with her usual dry, wry wit. It doesn't directly hint at whatever else transpired, but insinuates that words were not the only things bandied about at that meeting.
No one wants to claim responsibility. Emily will not saddle more than she feels is her share, given the situation. Solomon will not choke down even a morsel, and Ashley has always been clear that other people's bullshit stops at the boundary to her wards, or doorway, or person. There is a lot of blame floating around, and they all look past it and keep right on moving.
The Singer knows it's part of what's wrong with the Chantry. She no longer sees it as her place, or her right, or her duty to fix.
"I'm not going to tell you to step away from something the Society built," Emily tells her, shrugging a bit to emphasize her uncertainty on the topic. "But I do know where I would stand, if the choice ever came between my friendship with you and my loyalty to the house."
Which answers some things that Ashley might be worrying about, at the back of her mind. Emily wouldn't sell her out. Emily hadn't sold her out. And the Singer, what little support she could offer, would stand beside her friend should a schism come.
"And, you know that Kage never liked the house anyway."
[Ashley McGowen] When spoken to, Ashley had defended the younger Singer. She wouldn't mention it to Emily - but she had. It was part of the reason for her quarrel with Israel, and part of the reason that quarrel turned ugly so quickly. Israel had been surprised to receive a call from Jim along with the rest, and she probably should have been; these are things Ashley doesn't forgive easily. Or forget.
The Singer expresses where her loyalties lie, and Ashley's eyes flick up and find hers. There's something warm in them, suddenly. Warm and a little vulnerable, as though she's surprised to hear it, or touched at the very least. It doesn't linger for very long.
"I know," she says. "Kage would never stop making fun of me about it, though, probably." She can almost hear it now, the questions about whether or not this really makes her any different from an Orphan. The slightly smug air. She's come to expect these things from Kage; they fell into 'sister' territory some time ago and the mockery each makes of the other is certainly reminiscent of that dynamic.
She looks around the house after a moment. "I'll start taking care of it once I'm more settled in here, probably."
[Emily Littleton] Word has a way of getting around. The estrangements that are at present hidden behind apathy and closeted circles will come to light, and Emily will know what happened when Israel spoke with Ashley. Perhaps not in so many words. Ashley will know what happened when Solomon confronted her -- though Emily will not tell her, unless it is pulled from her or otherwise tricked forward, that the Templar attempted to use magic to restrain her from leaving.
Because that is the line he crossed with Emily that is irreparable. When cross words turn to more than slammed doors, even the politest threats of violence are unforgivable.
"Kage teases because she adores you. It's how she shows affection," Emily says off-handedly, easily. "It's a wonder to me that she has so many sisters; that's the kind of nonsense you learn from brothers."
Says the only child. Who realizes this juxtaposition and smirks.
"Or so I've been told," she lilts the syllables easily, raising her gaze upward in seeming innocence.
"If she were really cross, she'd say: Ashley..." And it's a serviceable impression, the mannerisms are right, then intonation is right, but it lacks Kage's certain je na sais quois, that ardour and candescence. The tarnish and the moonbright.
Of the house, though, all Emily can say just now is: "It has good bones. You'll make it into something, I'm sure."
[Ashley McGowen] Kage may adore her, but Kage has never said as much. Ashley smiles at that, and small though it is it's genuine, though there's a shadow to it, a tarnish. Uncertainty that can't help but color such pronouncements for her, perhaps. Ashley is never confident in such things, but she hides it well. People forget to notice things like that about her.
"You'd probably know. Gregory and everything," Ashley says. She remembers well the interaction between Emily and her godbrother, which had struck Ashley with a kind of curiosity and longing. She has never had siblings. She just picks up sibling figures.
Another look around the house. "I'll try. I'm just glad I managed to transfer over most of the important stuff from my library. It would've been the worst thing to lose." Many of the books she has are truly priceless, and some of them are very, very rare. She probably wouldn't be able to find others like them - but more than that, they would have been lost. To everyone. Their words wiped out and scrubbed from existence.
There's something painful and tragic about the very thought. "I guess...could you let people know what happened? I don't want to make Dad talk to more people than he has to."
[Emily Littleton] "Of course," Emily says, and it's underlaid with a sort of surety, a certainty that is more solid than bedrock. It's not a problem at all for her to quietly spread the word. It's not a burden; she doesn't want Ashley to think twice about it.
"I trust you just want people to know that you are safe, but not where you are? I'm happy to bring notes or messages to anyone you like, as well." Though likely anything going to the Guardians will be conveniently passed off to Nathan for delivery. A broad network was a useful thing; when Emily needed to cauterize a section of it, for personal reasons, there were always back ways into those sectors that didn't require her to give up much.
"Which makes it sound like business, and not letting your friends know you're okay." She skews her mouth a bit to one side, thoughtfully. Shakes her head a little. "I'm... still getting used to this. If I'm being an insensitive bitch, just kick me," she tells the Hermetic, trusting Ashley not to take her literally.
[Ashley McGowen] "My dad got a hold of my friends," Ashley says, with another look toward Emily. There's something implied here: 'friend' is a term Ashley reserves for very few people, the handful that have come to matter the most. There are few magi in Chicago who can claim that title, and all of them are people that she asked her father to contact. They were all the people she was worried about.
That's not to say there aren't others who should know. Gregor and Wharil, in particular, though she's hardly spoken to either of them in some time. Wharil is...notoriously hard to get a hold of, and Gregor is Gregor.
"I don't want anyone to know where I am. Just you. Maybe Kage and Jarod," she says. And that's really all, for now, though perhaps she will consider extending an invitation to Thomas at some point. Morgan, well. The girl would cluck and fuss and...Ashley just isn't really prepared to handle that. Not while she's still fixing up the house.
"But I figure the Society should know where I am. Dad didn't contact them."
[Emily Littleton] "I am sure I will regret this someday," she says, which is quite the lead in to an offer, "But consider me your messaging service, for now. I'll leave word for the Society, and let them know you're alright."
Which is not the same as telling them where she is, or how to find her. "I'll do the same with Kage and Jarod. Though I imagine they'll push for more details, I've gotten much better at telling people no when they simply don't get to know things yet."
She glances around the house again, rather than back to Ashley just yet and then the Singer proclaims.
"But before any of that, I'll get you a kettle, something that can survive being put over the fire even. And some tea. It's positively uncivilized that you can't take tea here, lovely," Emily says, and if that happens to coincide with her stepping in near enough to loop an arm around Ashley's shoulders in a show of solidarity and friendship, then that is entirely by chance.
Isn't it?
[Ashley McGowen] The truth is, Ashley suspects that her father will make her location known to at least Kage and Jarod no matter what lengths Emily goes to in order to hide the Hermetic's location. Jim Novotny has gotten it into his head that she shouldn't be dealing with things alone, that he shouldn't let her push people away. It's a fine time for him to decide to be a father, as far as Ashley is concerned.
There's a part of her, though, that can't deny that it's nice to have someone here. Particularly when Emily's arm loops around her shoulders. Ashley takes a moment to lean into the embrace, even goes so far as to briefly drop an arm around Emily's waist when she does.
"I'd commit murder for tea right now," Ashley says, with a glance toward the fireplace. "I'd maraud teashops and take their stock. All of it went up when I burned the place down. My liquor cabinet, too." Which is truly a thing to mourn, given that it was as well stocked as her tea cabinet and given that the liquid contained therein was much more expensive than tea generally is.
"If you need to come and find me here, you can. Just...find a way to announce your presence before you try to come in. I'll probably be warding the place in front," she says, with a glance down the poorly lit hallway.
One might imagine she'll be a little on edge for a while.
[Emily Littleton] Emily chuckles when Ashley explains her pillaging intentions toward tea shops in general. The shake of her shoulder and chest translates to Ashley as much as the sound. The Singer's arm tightens a bit, hugging her more soundly, cementing that implied but not directly spoken bond of friendship all the more certainly.
"I think I can manage to bring you a collection without any additional bloodshed," she says, her voice warmer and richer than it usually is. Friendly, in the way Emily could be around Kage. Closer to how she might be with Gregory. It signifies that some of the Singer's tight kept shields are down.
"And why don't we agree on a method of self-identification, so you don't accidentally smash me to bits on the doorstep, thinking I was canvassing for a congressman or something?" she suggests, mildly, thinking of Molly's door.
[Ashley McGowen] "I should set up a door knocker or something," Ashley says, with another look down the hallway. Things like this are generally done with a rhythm, with a song to act as a kind of code, a password. Ashley can't hear those things. Presumably she can't even hear a doorbell, or at least if she could, it would be painful for her to listen to.
"For right now, I'll just try to set up an effect that'll let you pass," she says. "I'll probably have to do something more permanent later." She'll have a lot of time, without going regularly to the chantry and without going to her classes. Without her office hours.
There's a pause when she suddenly remembers. She'd wanted to speak to Emily about something, but in the aftermath of her home being invaded it had (understandably) flown from her mind. "Did anyone talk to you about the Horsemen?"she asks, quietly. "I waited for you, but when you didn't show up there wasn't a lot of time, so we just went."
[Emily Littleton] "I always knock twice," she says, admitting to a habit. "If you want me to, I can just wait five or ten seconds, and knock twice again." It's a simple suggestion that doesn't rely on rhythm as much as discrete pattern matching. Ashley can, no doubt, discern two knocks from one. Followed by a significant pause, and a second set of knocks.
They could choose something more distinctive. More elaborate. More carefully timed, but there were ways around her inabilities that didn't require ruling out the whole of a method or mode. Emily is careful about how she suggests it, though, just in case.
"I had to present my research to the funding committee," she explains, though the tightness in her jaw speaks to her frustrations. "It over-ran, and I couldn't exactly leave. Not with my field, and our friends in town; not to go hunt down a rogue technocrat. I have enough marks against me in the department just now."
She'd gotten tied up in red-tape and University politics. It happened. It never made it less frustrating.
"Evan wrote me, actually. Given his tenses, I'm guessing that Anya and Gabriel died in whatever happened?" It's a question, because Emily is looking for confirmation. There's also a resonant sadness to her voice, as if she had found some sort of deep sympathy for the Messengers that was otherwise unexplained.
Maybe Emily was still soft.
Maybe Emily was still human.
Maybe Gabriel had turned her ear one last time, from across the veil between the living and the dead.
Either which way, she exhales, rolls her lower lip between her teeth, lets it go.
"I'm glad the child is safe."
[Ashley McGowen] Emily mentions university red-tape, and this is something that Ashley could sympathize with until very, very recently. It will no longer be a problem for her, presumably, unless she should choose to continue as a graduate student when and if she constructs a new identity. It's a shame, really, to be so close to her master's. Her thesis was nearly finished.
So it goes.
She runs her hands back through her hair and lets them lock together, strands sticking out between them, when they meet at the back of her skull. Then she lets out a sigh at the mention of Brandon. "I got him to his grandparents on Sunday night," Ashley says. "Which I'm...really glad for. It would've been a lot harder to get him out with me, and to get him to stay here. I wouldn't have been able to look after him."
Though she doesn't say she wouldn't have been willing. Other people may have been surprised that Ashley took the boy at all, but it wasn't that odd for her. Not really.
Her mouth thins for a moment. "Anya went to shoot the kid when Ben went in to talk to her," she says. "And Gabriel Strode in the way of the shot. It killed him. We went in and took Anya down and I knocked her unconscious, and then the fourth guy who they kept around - fuck, I can't even remember his name - shot her and Ben both." Ashley has no difficulty in recounting this. She wasn't personally attached to anyone involved.
[Emily Littleton] Emily didn't think it odd, at all, that Ashley looked after the child. Not for the Ashley that Emily has known. Maybe it seemed at odds with the public persona she projected, but anyone who was truly surprised by this news would earn themselves a long, hard look from the Singer and the subtle suggestion that they were, perhaps, even more stupid than she'd first given them credit for. (The Hermetics did not hold monopoly on condescension, after all.)
"Evan," Emily supplies the name again. He'd sent it to her in an email, unobfuscated. She'd read it over and over and over again across the space of the weekend and the first few days of this week. "His name is Evan."
It's breathed out in the wake of all Ashley said. And Emily's chest threatens to constrict, but she doesn't let it this time.
"Gabriel wrote me, before he died. He wrote a letter, but didn't send it. Evan found it in his outbox and thought it was something I should have. They both explained, and apologized and I'm sure it will be meaningless to just about everyone involved, but I believe them."
"I just --"
It falls away and she shakes her head a bit, conflicted, warding off the wrong words and willing the right ones to coalesce. "I see a lot of us in them, how they were fighting and what they were fighting for. It bothers me that so many people had to die, but it bothers me even more that we would have done the same thing."
[Ashley McGowen] Ashley absorbs what Emily says about this in silence. She still has Luka in her arms, and for a moment they tighten around the cat, who lets out a little huff of air and finally begins to wiggle to get free. Ashley allows him to jump back to the floor and then begins to pick cat hair off of her shirt.
She watches the little strands of white and gray drift toward the floor like shed feathers or ribbons and confetti after the parade has gone by, floating downward to lie cast away in the street. It'll hardly show on the naked floorboards.
"I think the only thing we can do is fight for what we know and what we feel," she says. And then is quiet for a moment, considering her words, before she moves on. "I think Molly thought she was saving the good guy. Ben, I mean. And I know he wasn't any more than...any of them, or any of us. He was just doing what people do." And in this, it is evident that Ashley does not hate Technocrats - she just opposes them. It might explain at least a little of why she doesn't seem interested in violence, at the very least.
"I'm not even sure it's wrong. It just is." She looks up toward the younger woman again, then. Knowing, perhaps, that it probably isn't what Emily wants to hear.
[Emily Littleton] "The more I look for things that are black and white, the more it all turns up shades of grey, Ash," Emily tells her. Ashley's reply hadn't upset her, or touched upon some topic that offended the Singer. Emily would likely never be as zealous as some Choristers, single-mindedly focused on their Right to the exclusion of all others. She was trending, already, toward a more Monistic point of view.
It was how she'd been raised. Politically, religiously, socially, down to aims of humanitarianism and altruism, however little she personally embraced those actions.
"And a lot of war, or politics, or any human conflict comes down to choices between two horrible shades of grey, not an absolute right or wrong."
She looks over at the Hermetic, who is picking cat hair from her shirt. From there she glances around the bare and unfurnished room. Emily sees the nothingness in it, but not futility. This is a new start, another day, and another reason to hope. Perhaps it's overly optimistic, but the lack of one true way and one great evil left a lot of grey areas in which they could lodge themselves, make new homes, wrest out new beginnins.
"I'm glad you're okay," she says, again. "Molly, too. I'll talk to the others. It's gonna get better," she tells the Hermetic, with a surety that's borrowed from a man who walked this path before her, someone Ashley would never meet and Emily would not see again until her eyes closed for the very last time.
"I mean... soon you'll have tea," she adds, with one last wry twist, to give the Hermetic something tangible to hope for and a little levity.
[Ashley McGowen] "Infinite shades of gray, actually," Ashley says. "But I don't think living is about being right." It's a cryptic statement to leave things on, but Ashley does not seem inclined to expand upon it. As far as she is concerned she's already said enough as it is; it's a rather un-Hermetic sentiment to express, in its own way. Or at least it would seem so.
Whatever living is about, well, that's for each of them to guess at.
It's going to get better, says Emily. Ashley's eyes, pale in the dim light, move up and catch Emily's, and for a moment there's a half-smile there on her face. A wistful thing. It says that Ashley would like very much to believe it.
She doesn't.
"I'm glad you came," she says. There is no certainty that Emily will come again; there is no certainty that Ashley will be around for it, and so she does not hope. For now, what she knows is that someone cared enough to seek her out. For now, that's enough.
[Emily Littleton] [ And wrap! Everyone take your bows.... Oh, Okay, Jim, you can just fold your arms over your chest and scowl. ]
Someone chose to forewarn her
[Ashley McGowen] Jim Novotny, Shatterer of the Way, is what many might politely term a protective father. It's probably understandable: his daughter has been knocked around in her twenty-nine years of life more than many people who have been alive three times as long. Jim doesn't question it anymore when he hears bad news coming from Chicago. And outwardly, he doesn't react much.
He himself probably would've been content to just leave his dealings with Ashley's friends with that brief phone message. Jim doesn't like people very much, and while he does take an interest in who Ashley is hanging around, he's heard Emily's name enough times to feel like she is of sufficient character to be a good friend to Ashley, and that is all he really cares about. He wouldn't tell Emily that. Ashley wouldn't tell Emily that either.
Ashley was of a different mind about how much he told the handful of people she told him to call. She was also of a different mind about whether or not they should be able to come and see her. In the end, she got her way.
James Novotny is a big man. He's in better shape than many men a third his age, tall and wiry, his hair and beard a salt and pepper, his eyes the same bright blue as Ashley's. He's handsome, in a dangerous kind of way. He dominates whatever landscape he takes up in a very physical way that his daughter does not manage. He wears jeans and boots and a heavy black coat, the variety one expects to see on people who spend a lot of time outdoors in the winter (he does. It's a good fishing season.) It would be hard to miss him.
People avoid him.
He waits for her at a bench. There's no contemplative gazing, none of the quietly meditative state one might expect from an Akashic. His gaze roams harsh and intense across the Green.
[Emily Littleton] And Emily is not what most would expect of a Singer. Today her height is aided by a short heel on her boots, putting her near six-foot standing, and her posture has become increasingly erect over the past several months. Almost as if her family could influence her with nary more than a telephone call into owning her heritage as a Diplomat's Daughter, and wearing its trappings proudly. She's wearing neatly pressed slacks and a slate blue button down under her heavy winter coat. Her messenger bag crosses her body at a precise angle.
She seems put together, more like a young professional than a graduate student. Emily can make a very good first impression, when she needs to. There's a clarity to the young woman that hadn't been there in the year before, something resolute behind a politely distance and calculatingly warm smile.
People avoid Jim. They don't go out of their way to side-step Emily. She's even less physically imposing than Ashley. If anything, Emily has a social presence that ought to seem daunting, but none of that is apparent when she strides up to meet him, hands in her pockets, scarf twined about her neck.
"Mr. Novotny?" she asks, when she draws up alongside him. As if he could be anyone other than Ashley's father. As if either of them would have any reason to be in the Green, just now, beyond this rendezvous. When the harshness and directness of his gaze lands on her, Emily gives no ground. She simply waits it out.
[Ashley McGowen] "Jim," he grunts when she asks his name. He stands on ceremony even less than his daughter does - the Order drove into her what little tendency there is toward that - and he takes a moment to look Emily over.
Jim is a man people make assumptions about, between his size and the few words he offers forth. He's used to it. It doesn't bother him, and in fact, it's often advantageous for him, or was in the days when those kinds of things still mattered. Back before he was a veteran of a War his fellow Traditionmates say has ended. He carries himself like a veteran. Like an old warrior who can't quite remember how life was back in the before times, or maybe he's just always been that way.
The look he's giving her isn't the look of a stupid man, though. There's a kind of sharp intelligence there, and it has a chill to it that Ashley has never been able to manage.
"Emily? Chorus?" he asks, after he's had his look over.
[Emily Littleton] "That's me," she confirms easily, rolling her elbows out in a easy little gesture when he looks her over. It's too cold to bring her hands out of her pockets unless they're shaking on introductions. To that aim, Emily bows her head in respect rather than braving the cold with bare hands.
He may be used to people making assumptions about him based on his demeanor and physical presence, and that's only natural. People use categorization and stereotype to forecast social situations, plausible outcomes, Emily is no different. But she doesn't use any of those assumptions as grounds to ignore the sharp intelligence in his eyes, or the palpable chill to his appraisal.
If he expected her to quail, she doesn't. Ashley has been a formidable presence in her Awakened life, and that her father had an equally larger than life presence in person, an extra helping of the magical Otherness they all carry, does not surprise her.
"I hope you are well," she adds, politely, because Emily does often stand on ceremony. Moreso with people of Jim's generation than her own. Most of all with established representatives of other Traditions or cultures. Her accent gives her away as foreign born, and its muddled tinge makes where, precisely, harder to pinpoint.
[Ashley McGowen] Jim's accent - once Emily has heard him talk more - will be easily placed as Bostonian. Stronger than Ashley's by far; he grew up in south Boston, and he's lived in the city for much of his life. It rings of Home.
When she says she hopes he's well, he makes a noncommittal noise in response, low in his throat. It might be some kind of affirmation. It might be some kind of dismissal, some impatience with those sorts of niceties. It's impossible to tell.
"She wanted me to make sure you're safe," he offers, after a moment. Jim's tone suggests that he might be humoring his daughter, a little. That he would never have thought of such a thing otherwise, regardless of whether other magi in the city might be in danger from the Technocracy in a similar manner. He doesn't seem offended that she doesn't want to shake hands; he's used to bows for greeting, Jim, and he inclines his head back to her.
"She burned her apartment when she heard they were coming."
[Emily Littleton] Emily's expression shifts subtly when he tells her that Ashley wanted to make sure she was safe. There's a hint of surprise, and deepening seriousness behind her eyes, which are already a dark hued blue and shadowed by her lashes. The corners of her eyes tense, and Emily glances down for a moment, then back up at him.
"It's all been quiet by me," the Singer reports.
"I'm glad she's safe," Emily adds, but there's enough tension to that to imply that she cares about Jim's daughter as more than a colleague. As a friend. For Emily to admit that, even in subtle shadings of guarded conversations, is a rather sizable thing.
"Did she have much warning?" The concern here is multivariate. Ashley has pets, she has a library, she has things she would not want to leave behind. Emily has a cat. And she's particularly fond of a rocking chair, but it could burn without much distress at this point. She cannot imagine it would be easy for Ashley to walk away from everything she had like that.
[Ashley McGowen] Jim doesn't know that it's unusual for Emily to display that concern, that caring. It isn't lost on him though, even though he doesn't watch her for it and doesn't really seem to have much of a reaction once he notices it's there.
The Singer says it's been quiet, and Jim grunts once. "Good." Fewer worries. Fewer things to distress Ashley.
His gaze hasn't left her face. On a gentler man, it probably wouldn't be considered a stare; it would probably just be polite, good social skills even. Attentiveness, good eye contact. On Jim, it's decidedly more disconcerting. "Somebody threw a brick through her window," he says. "With a note. Saying they were coming in an hour. She cleared most of her library and her violin. Little else."
Which means that what she has is likely of sentimental value. Maybe useless, in Jim's mind. Who knows. "She was building a place to go to ground. That's where she is now."
[Emily Littleton] There's a shift to the cant of her shoulders, the way her hands settle in her pockets, the line of her jaw, the tiny lines at the corners of Emily's eyes and mouth. All of these smaller cues expound upon the crease that furrows her brow.
This isn't because of his direct attention. That she weathers without apparent concern. This is because of what he says.
"Someone chose to forewarn her then," she muses. It's a thoughtful thing. The pieces of the puzzle he's given her do not resolve. There are too many things missing for Emily to begin to gather a larger picture.
"Does she need someone to cover for her on campus?" Emily asks. This is still thoughtful, less resolved. It quickly turns to: "Is there anything I can do to help?"
[Ashley McGowen] "They have her Sleeper name," Jim says. And he might have left it at that, but Emily is young, and he's aware of just how new she is; he remembers Ashley telling him about her, a long time ago. A year ago, back before they really knew much of each other at all, when she was considering whether to push the girl toward the Order of Hermes.
So, after a pause, he adds, "No continuing at the university. They'd find her in days. If that." He is, after all, a veteran. He remembers the days when pursuing higher education at all was a risk for the Awakened population. The Technocracy used to comb such institutions for them.
"I can take you to where she's staying." One might assume the offer is just as much because he doesn't want to have to stick around talking to Emily, as much as for Ashley's own good. It isn't as though he can remain in Chicago forever; she'll have to go back to relying on friends. Or at least go back to maintaining open channels of communication.
To the fact that someone chose to forewarn Ashley, he just gives Emily a long look and says nothing. There's a lot communicated in that, though: he's glad someone else noticed. He's concerned. He doesn't know who it might be any more than she does, though he has his guesses.
[Emily Littleton] Things might have gone better for Emily if Ashley had pushed her toward the Order. It was difficult to say. As it is, Jim doesn't need to know what Emily is about as estranged from her chosen Tradition as one could come in this city without re-earning themselves the auspicious title of Orphan. She'd worn that once; it wouldn't bother her much to take it up again. (At least not outwardly.)
"I'd like that," she says. It stands in for a lot of other sentiments. Emily appreciates his way of saying quite a bit without having to open his mouth. She's often better at talking when she doesn't have to say much at all. It's a special art, weighing out so much meaning in pauses and silences.
After one such weighty silence she adds: "You've heard about Molly's flat, then?"
Oh the question is light enough, easily voiced into the cold air between them, but it carries a sort of deadly implication that the two apartments, Ashley and Molly's, are entwined by their similar fates. She asks, because it may shift his readiness to bring anyone to his daughter's safe house. She asks, because Emily believes he deserves to know before taking her there.
[Ashley McGowen] It is perhaps surprising that Jim seems to spend so much time in nonverbal communication. Ashley herself is often a little lost when it comes to such things: it's part of the reason she has such a difficult time understanding other peoples' emotions. She'd treated it like an incredible revelation a few months ago when she realized that others' bodies could tell her things when they weren't saying them, and for her it probably was.
There's a lot that is understood immediately in what neither of them say. Jim doesn't miss it, even if, looking at his face, one might assume that he had. It's the kind of easy observation one acquires through long, long experience. Through being open to the world. Through being one with it.
His expression also says, immediately, that he had not heard about Molly's flat - because Ashley hadn't heard about it. "No," he says, and the word rumbles a little at the end, somehow, in spite of the shortness of the syllable. "Anyone else?"
Anyone else the Technocracy might be targeting, he means. Jim doesn't precisely look worried, but...well. He's uneasy. "I'll cover you when we go. No chances that way."
[Emily Littleton] Anyone else?
"Not that I know of." Which implies, of course, that Emily is usually fairly well connected to the Awakened pulse in the city, but there's a worried note in her voice that evidences her decaying faith in that implied truth. She is ever more an outsider, having stepped away from the Chantry and having been dressed down and segregated by the ranking Choristor in town. These aren't active worries for the Initiate on most days.
Today is not most days.
He tells her that he'll cover her, and Emily nods. It's a curt, perfunctory thing that serves its purpose without embellishment. The tension to her form is a bit more pronounced than it had been earlier. Most would miss that subtle readiness; she does not expect Ashley's father to.
"I appreciate it," she tells him, though they both know the precaution benefits more than Emily alone.
[Ashley McGowen] [Masking your resonance! Mind 2, -1 for practiced rote, -1 for focus.]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 2, 3 (Success x 2 at target 3) [WP]
[Ashley McGowen] [Hmmm...]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 2, 6 (Failure at target 4)
[Ashley McGowen] [Gahhhh.]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 2, 7 (Success x 1 at target 4) [WP]
[Emily Littleton] [Mind 1: Just Curious. Halping?]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 9, 9 (Success x 2 at target 4)
[Ashley McGowen] It is, one would imagine, a precaution that he is mostly taking for Ashley. Jim doesn't have the kind of selfishness his daughter does, not precisely: it isn't that he doesn't care about Emily. It's that he looks at these things a little differently, after so long. There are no endings.
"Clear yourself," he tells her, and it might be a little hard to tell what he means by that until he closes his own eyes. For...a little longer than he might usually have thought necessary. But this is a process of emptying himself out so that he can let the world in; it's a process of letting go, of turning himself wholly over to the Wheel. In his day to day life, he's accomplished this a little more than many people have, but naturally there are still some parts of himself he holds on to. Things he can't quite get rid of (if he could, he'd be Enlightened already.)
Today he can't quite manage that as well as he usually does. He's absorbed in his concern for his daughter, for her life, and he knows he might be holding on a little too tightly (more than he should), but he is her father after all. It takes him a long time.
Emily's focus helps, though. He becomes aware of everything around him, of her Reverence. And rather than turning it off or snuffing it out or casting a pall over it, he spreads it into the world around her. Dilutes it, however temporarily.
And when he opens his eyes, he beckons to her once and then begins to lead her toward his car, a rented thing, solidly built and efficient as the man himself.
[Ashley McGowen] [pause!]
[Emily Littleton] [ Seconded! ]
He himself probably would've been content to just leave his dealings with Ashley's friends with that brief phone message. Jim doesn't like people very much, and while he does take an interest in who Ashley is hanging around, he's heard Emily's name enough times to feel like she is of sufficient character to be a good friend to Ashley, and that is all he really cares about. He wouldn't tell Emily that. Ashley wouldn't tell Emily that either.
Ashley was of a different mind about how much he told the handful of people she told him to call. She was also of a different mind about whether or not they should be able to come and see her. In the end, she got her way.
James Novotny is a big man. He's in better shape than many men a third his age, tall and wiry, his hair and beard a salt and pepper, his eyes the same bright blue as Ashley's. He's handsome, in a dangerous kind of way. He dominates whatever landscape he takes up in a very physical way that his daughter does not manage. He wears jeans and boots and a heavy black coat, the variety one expects to see on people who spend a lot of time outdoors in the winter (he does. It's a good fishing season.) It would be hard to miss him.
People avoid him.
He waits for her at a bench. There's no contemplative gazing, none of the quietly meditative state one might expect from an Akashic. His gaze roams harsh and intense across the Green.
[Emily Littleton] And Emily is not what most would expect of a Singer. Today her height is aided by a short heel on her boots, putting her near six-foot standing, and her posture has become increasingly erect over the past several months. Almost as if her family could influence her with nary more than a telephone call into owning her heritage as a Diplomat's Daughter, and wearing its trappings proudly. She's wearing neatly pressed slacks and a slate blue button down under her heavy winter coat. Her messenger bag crosses her body at a precise angle.
She seems put together, more like a young professional than a graduate student. Emily can make a very good first impression, when she needs to. There's a clarity to the young woman that hadn't been there in the year before, something resolute behind a politely distance and calculatingly warm smile.
People avoid Jim. They don't go out of their way to side-step Emily. She's even less physically imposing than Ashley. If anything, Emily has a social presence that ought to seem daunting, but none of that is apparent when she strides up to meet him, hands in her pockets, scarf twined about her neck.
"Mr. Novotny?" she asks, when she draws up alongside him. As if he could be anyone other than Ashley's father. As if either of them would have any reason to be in the Green, just now, beyond this rendezvous. When the harshness and directness of his gaze lands on her, Emily gives no ground. She simply waits it out.
[Ashley McGowen] "Jim," he grunts when she asks his name. He stands on ceremony even less than his daughter does - the Order drove into her what little tendency there is toward that - and he takes a moment to look Emily over.
Jim is a man people make assumptions about, between his size and the few words he offers forth. He's used to it. It doesn't bother him, and in fact, it's often advantageous for him, or was in the days when those kinds of things still mattered. Back before he was a veteran of a War his fellow Traditionmates say has ended. He carries himself like a veteran. Like an old warrior who can't quite remember how life was back in the before times, or maybe he's just always been that way.
The look he's giving her isn't the look of a stupid man, though. There's a kind of sharp intelligence there, and it has a chill to it that Ashley has never been able to manage.
"Emily? Chorus?" he asks, after he's had his look over.
[Emily Littleton] "That's me," she confirms easily, rolling her elbows out in a easy little gesture when he looks her over. It's too cold to bring her hands out of her pockets unless they're shaking on introductions. To that aim, Emily bows her head in respect rather than braving the cold with bare hands.
He may be used to people making assumptions about him based on his demeanor and physical presence, and that's only natural. People use categorization and stereotype to forecast social situations, plausible outcomes, Emily is no different. But she doesn't use any of those assumptions as grounds to ignore the sharp intelligence in his eyes, or the palpable chill to his appraisal.
If he expected her to quail, she doesn't. Ashley has been a formidable presence in her Awakened life, and that her father had an equally larger than life presence in person, an extra helping of the magical Otherness they all carry, does not surprise her.
"I hope you are well," she adds, politely, because Emily does often stand on ceremony. Moreso with people of Jim's generation than her own. Most of all with established representatives of other Traditions or cultures. Her accent gives her away as foreign born, and its muddled tinge makes where, precisely, harder to pinpoint.
[Ashley McGowen] Jim's accent - once Emily has heard him talk more - will be easily placed as Bostonian. Stronger than Ashley's by far; he grew up in south Boston, and he's lived in the city for much of his life. It rings of Home.
When she says she hopes he's well, he makes a noncommittal noise in response, low in his throat. It might be some kind of affirmation. It might be some kind of dismissal, some impatience with those sorts of niceties. It's impossible to tell.
"She wanted me to make sure you're safe," he offers, after a moment. Jim's tone suggests that he might be humoring his daughter, a little. That he would never have thought of such a thing otherwise, regardless of whether other magi in the city might be in danger from the Technocracy in a similar manner. He doesn't seem offended that she doesn't want to shake hands; he's used to bows for greeting, Jim, and he inclines his head back to her.
"She burned her apartment when she heard they were coming."
[Emily Littleton] Emily's expression shifts subtly when he tells her that Ashley wanted to make sure she was safe. There's a hint of surprise, and deepening seriousness behind her eyes, which are already a dark hued blue and shadowed by her lashes. The corners of her eyes tense, and Emily glances down for a moment, then back up at him.
"It's all been quiet by me," the Singer reports.
"I'm glad she's safe," Emily adds, but there's enough tension to that to imply that she cares about Jim's daughter as more than a colleague. As a friend. For Emily to admit that, even in subtle shadings of guarded conversations, is a rather sizable thing.
"Did she have much warning?" The concern here is multivariate. Ashley has pets, she has a library, she has things she would not want to leave behind. Emily has a cat. And she's particularly fond of a rocking chair, but it could burn without much distress at this point. She cannot imagine it would be easy for Ashley to walk away from everything she had like that.
[Ashley McGowen] Jim doesn't know that it's unusual for Emily to display that concern, that caring. It isn't lost on him though, even though he doesn't watch her for it and doesn't really seem to have much of a reaction once he notices it's there.
The Singer says it's been quiet, and Jim grunts once. "Good." Fewer worries. Fewer things to distress Ashley.
His gaze hasn't left her face. On a gentler man, it probably wouldn't be considered a stare; it would probably just be polite, good social skills even. Attentiveness, good eye contact. On Jim, it's decidedly more disconcerting. "Somebody threw a brick through her window," he says. "With a note. Saying they were coming in an hour. She cleared most of her library and her violin. Little else."
Which means that what she has is likely of sentimental value. Maybe useless, in Jim's mind. Who knows. "She was building a place to go to ground. That's where she is now."
[Emily Littleton] There's a shift to the cant of her shoulders, the way her hands settle in her pockets, the line of her jaw, the tiny lines at the corners of Emily's eyes and mouth. All of these smaller cues expound upon the crease that furrows her brow.
This isn't because of his direct attention. That she weathers without apparent concern. This is because of what he says.
"Someone chose to forewarn her then," she muses. It's a thoughtful thing. The pieces of the puzzle he's given her do not resolve. There are too many things missing for Emily to begin to gather a larger picture.
"Does she need someone to cover for her on campus?" Emily asks. This is still thoughtful, less resolved. It quickly turns to: "Is there anything I can do to help?"
[Ashley McGowen] "They have her Sleeper name," Jim says. And he might have left it at that, but Emily is young, and he's aware of just how new she is; he remembers Ashley telling him about her, a long time ago. A year ago, back before they really knew much of each other at all, when she was considering whether to push the girl toward the Order of Hermes.
So, after a pause, he adds, "No continuing at the university. They'd find her in days. If that." He is, after all, a veteran. He remembers the days when pursuing higher education at all was a risk for the Awakened population. The Technocracy used to comb such institutions for them.
"I can take you to where she's staying." One might assume the offer is just as much because he doesn't want to have to stick around talking to Emily, as much as for Ashley's own good. It isn't as though he can remain in Chicago forever; she'll have to go back to relying on friends. Or at least go back to maintaining open channels of communication.
To the fact that someone chose to forewarn Ashley, he just gives Emily a long look and says nothing. There's a lot communicated in that, though: he's glad someone else noticed. He's concerned. He doesn't know who it might be any more than she does, though he has his guesses.
[Emily Littleton] Things might have gone better for Emily if Ashley had pushed her toward the Order. It was difficult to say. As it is, Jim doesn't need to know what Emily is about as estranged from her chosen Tradition as one could come in this city without re-earning themselves the auspicious title of Orphan. She'd worn that once; it wouldn't bother her much to take it up again. (At least not outwardly.)
"I'd like that," she says. It stands in for a lot of other sentiments. Emily appreciates his way of saying quite a bit without having to open his mouth. She's often better at talking when she doesn't have to say much at all. It's a special art, weighing out so much meaning in pauses and silences.
After one such weighty silence she adds: "You've heard about Molly's flat, then?"
Oh the question is light enough, easily voiced into the cold air between them, but it carries a sort of deadly implication that the two apartments, Ashley and Molly's, are entwined by their similar fates. She asks, because it may shift his readiness to bring anyone to his daughter's safe house. She asks, because Emily believes he deserves to know before taking her there.
[Ashley McGowen] It is perhaps surprising that Jim seems to spend so much time in nonverbal communication. Ashley herself is often a little lost when it comes to such things: it's part of the reason she has such a difficult time understanding other peoples' emotions. She'd treated it like an incredible revelation a few months ago when she realized that others' bodies could tell her things when they weren't saying them, and for her it probably was.
There's a lot that is understood immediately in what neither of them say. Jim doesn't miss it, even if, looking at his face, one might assume that he had. It's the kind of easy observation one acquires through long, long experience. Through being open to the world. Through being one with it.
His expression also says, immediately, that he had not heard about Molly's flat - because Ashley hadn't heard about it. "No," he says, and the word rumbles a little at the end, somehow, in spite of the shortness of the syllable. "Anyone else?"
Anyone else the Technocracy might be targeting, he means. Jim doesn't precisely look worried, but...well. He's uneasy. "I'll cover you when we go. No chances that way."
[Emily Littleton] Anyone else?
"Not that I know of." Which implies, of course, that Emily is usually fairly well connected to the Awakened pulse in the city, but there's a worried note in her voice that evidences her decaying faith in that implied truth. She is ever more an outsider, having stepped away from the Chantry and having been dressed down and segregated by the ranking Choristor in town. These aren't active worries for the Initiate on most days.
Today is not most days.
He tells her that he'll cover her, and Emily nods. It's a curt, perfunctory thing that serves its purpose without embellishment. The tension to her form is a bit more pronounced than it had been earlier. Most would miss that subtle readiness; she does not expect Ashley's father to.
"I appreciate it," she tells him, though they both know the precaution benefits more than Emily alone.
[Ashley McGowen] [Masking your resonance! Mind 2, -1 for practiced rote, -1 for focus.]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 2, 3 (Success x 2 at target 3) [WP]
[Ashley McGowen] [Hmmm...]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 2, 6 (Failure at target 4)
[Ashley McGowen] [Gahhhh.]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 2, 7 (Success x 1 at target 4) [WP]
[Emily Littleton] [Mind 1: Just Curious. Halping?]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 9, 9 (Success x 2 at target 4)
[Ashley McGowen] It is, one would imagine, a precaution that he is mostly taking for Ashley. Jim doesn't have the kind of selfishness his daughter does, not precisely: it isn't that he doesn't care about Emily. It's that he looks at these things a little differently, after so long. There are no endings.
"Clear yourself," he tells her, and it might be a little hard to tell what he means by that until he closes his own eyes. For...a little longer than he might usually have thought necessary. But this is a process of emptying himself out so that he can let the world in; it's a process of letting go, of turning himself wholly over to the Wheel. In his day to day life, he's accomplished this a little more than many people have, but naturally there are still some parts of himself he holds on to. Things he can't quite get rid of (if he could, he'd be Enlightened already.)
Today he can't quite manage that as well as he usually does. He's absorbed in his concern for his daughter, for her life, and he knows he might be holding on a little too tightly (more than he should), but he is her father after all. It takes him a long time.
Emily's focus helps, though. He becomes aware of everything around him, of her Reverence. And rather than turning it off or snuffing it out or casting a pall over it, he spreads it into the world around her. Dilutes it, however temporarily.
And when he opens his eyes, he beckons to her once and then begins to lead her toward his car, a rented thing, solidly built and efficient as the man himself.
[Ashley McGowen] [pause!]
[Emily Littleton] [ Seconded! ]
02 February 2011
A trail of blood
[Emily Littleton] There is a thick blanket of snow everywhere, everywhere along the lakefront. Thicker than even the winter she'd spent in Kiev. Thicker than any she can think of, ever, in any corner of the globe. It distorts and distends familiar shapes, softening them to mere suggestions, softening those to insinuations, gentling even that to nothingness.
They'd closed Lake Front Drive for the better part of the day. Emily hadn't bothered trying to take the El toward campus, and she knew better than to drive in snow deeper than her knee. But staying cooped up indoors was not in her skill set. Not after the agitation of the week before. Not after her social skirmish with her once-Praecept (another mentor down [oh-for-three, Little]).
Out in the snowy wasteland, it was easier to feel like she was getting somewhere. There was a tangible realness to how her nose froze and her lips chapped. She left footfalls behind her, things that fell darkly and clearly on unbroken snow, marks that filled up with time and snowfall. She was immanent. Real. Tangible.
This upscale neighborhood is not too far from her own. She hasn't gone so far that she cannot find her way back without the conveniences of public transit or taxis. It's not so close that she feels like she's been swallowed up only by familiar signs and places. The snow remakes everything anew. She breathes out, and it eddies in the wake of her exhalation: a testament. I am; I effect.
She pauses on a corner, waiting on the light to change. It's silly, really, as there's no traffic. But Emily is a creature of rules and guidelines. The signs says Don't walk; she doesn't.
[Ellizabeth Zhao] There is no sane reason that Elizabeth should be out. But then, there are many who would say that the Asian-American was far from sane. She spoke of voices in her head after all, and how they were her past lives. And...you know. That whole "magic" thing. But even many of her fellow Awakened would say that she's nuts for baring this weather.
Those Awakened are not her though, so here she is. The woman his bundled up in enough clothes that she is not liable to suffer incidental damage from the weather. That's about all the clothes that she has. But then, she's largely out as a way to test her dedication. Some of the Awakened that she has met in Chicago have questioned asceticism, and they would not be the first. This also would not be the first time that she tested herself thus...just the first time in this extreme of a snowstorm. She walks along the street, careful not to slip as she does. Her footsteps are taking her toward Emily, another instance of paths converging in just such a way.
[Foreboding] It was Wednesday afternoon on the second of February, and mother nature had finally stopped her wintery assault on the Midwest. The city of Chicago had been blanketed by a record-setting 20.2 inches of snow nearly overnight (the third largest snowfall in the city's history,) which the recent heavy winds had whipped into thick drifts that piled themselves high against the sides of buildings and buried the few stray cars that had been foolishly left by their owners on the streets.
The city plows had made their way through Lake View by now, but many of the local businesses were closed, along with the schools. It meant that Emily and Elizabeth were not the only people out braving the winter today. This, after all, was a family neighborhood. Well-maintained brownstones lined the street, and across the way a small outdoor shopping center boasted a couple of shops. One of them was a Starbucks, and unlike the stores surrounding it, there was a lit Open sign in its window. Not surprisingly, a handful of parents and more than a handful of children had flocked to it, crowding the tables inside as they sat sipping hot, sugary drinks.
But that nexus of activity was not where Emily and Elizabeth found themselves. They were passing by the houses, coming from opposite directions down the same sidewalk. Set amidst the brownstones was a more serviceable-looking building with large windows that had been curtained shut. This was a place of business. Like many, it was closed due to the weather. The sign above said: "Kookaburra Exotic Bird Shop" and from inside, the occasional muffled call of one of the parrots within could be detected.
Next to this shop, on the right, stood another slim, two-story brownstone. There were footprints in the snow, leading out from the front door, and one, two, three bright spots of crimson staining the otherwise pristine expanse of white in the yard. The blood was just obvious enough to catch the eye, but not enough so that it would be an obvious concern for people passing by on the street.
[Emily Littleton] [Alertness: I notice stuff. Like Blood. Blood is a very good thing to notice.]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 5, 5, 7, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
to Foreboding
[Emily Littleton] [Awareness: ACK! Having noticed blood, is there anything oogy-boogy going on in my neighborhood? (Who ya gonna call... Ghostbusters! [Or Ashley...]) ]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 5, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
to Foreboding
[Ellizabeth Zhao] [[Go Go Gadget Awareness!]]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 4, 6, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Ellizabeth Zhao] [[Oh, and Alertness too!]]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 5, 6, 6, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Foreboding] Emily notices the blood. Thankfully, at the moment there doesn't seem to be anything else out of the ordinary.
to Emily Littleton
[Foreboding] There is resonance here, but it's faded - a lingering echo of what had been there not long ago. Both Emily and Elizabeth will recognize the dominant presence, because they've felt it before - from a member of a cabal of mages that had swept into town a few weeks ago.
Chaotic, Destructive and Vengeful.
The other was barely felt, but there. It seemed both colder and further away (coming from inside the house.) Where the first had been volatile and unstable, this one was rigid - a pattern. Like numbers. Like code. Organized. Insightful.
to Ellizabeth Zhao, Emily Littleton
[Emily Littleton] There is very little room in Emily Littleton's world for coincidence any longer. She understands that there's a sort of random background noise that occurs in any given system, but more and more it's been converging toward meaningful patterns. There was method to the oddest parts of the madness of general life. So blood on newfallen snow, beside a pair of footsteps, exiting a brownstone, in a part of the city known to harbor a rather high density of fellow Awakened?
No. The Singer girl did not expect it was happenstance alone. She didn't presume any meaning into it, either.
Emily is not dressed overtly for the cold. She has an Initiate's grasp of a sphere that helps her mitigate any undue stress to her vital patterns. She wears her winter coat and beneath it a fine-knit sweater. Her scarf is a soft fabric, supple and sturdy but also fine-spun. What Elizabeth cannot see, but may presume, is that she rarely wanders alone unarmed. That she does not stray without her foci. Her phone.
And that's what comes out of the pocket, just now. Emily thumbs through the keys to find her camera, snaps a quick picture of the blood spots. Captures the building number. These things have a way of slipping her mind... eerily often. The phone's been vetted by a V-dept and her own skills. Maybe it will prove less prone to forgetfulness.
There's a long moment when the Singer looks at her phone and considers calling a not quite familiar face. She holds off, for now, and glances around to see if anyone else has taken undue notice.
[Ellizabeth Zhao] She pauses as she notices the blood, her brow furrowing. The receding presence of the resonance raises the hair on the back of her neck--she missed the Horsemens' resonance when they first met, so she doesn't make the immediate connection. All she knows is that something was wrong here, thanks to the blood, and that there was non-material evidence that someone Awakened had been here.
She drifts closer to the brownstone, looking the building over, before she realizes that she is not alone in noticing it. She sees Emily then, and she turns to the Singer, offering her a little nod.
"Good evening, Miss Littleton." A slight inclination of her head, a greeting and show of respect for the other Awakened. "I am handicapped a bit by my newness to the city, in this incarnation at least...would you, perchance, know if anyone lives here?" She looks at the brownstone for reference, and then back.
[Emily Littleton] "Miss Zhao," the greeting is perfunctory, a little distracted. Then her expression warms as she looks away from the building and over to Elizabeth. She catches herself and corrects: "Oh, forgive me, Elizabeth, it's good to see you."
There's a subtle tension to the greeting, however friendly Emily can seem. Now is not a time for niceties. She's grateful that the Akashic understands that. The Singer whets her lips, glances toward the brownstone and then back over.
"I don't know lives or lived here, but I recognize the resonance. One of them is passingly familiar. It's not a local, but someone passing through. The other I don't know."
She breathes out a little, her expression is tense.
"Should we check this out? I can call Gabriel, but I'd rather have something to tell him when I do." She could also call Solomon, but she doesn't offer. Or Ashley, but that doesn't come up just yet either. Emily's reply is calculated, even if her reasoning is not made immediately clear.
[Ellizabeth Zhao] "Passing through." She's learned enough from her conversation with Ashley and her own brief run-in that she seems to know what that indicates. She leans down as she looks at the blood spots. She is no forensic pathologist or blood spray analyst, so she apparently isn't trying to recreate the crime. She just seems to be studying it to commit the blood pattern to her mind before she looks at Emily.
"I believe checking this out would be a wise decision, yes." She looks around for a moment, then looks to the door. "If nothing else, there may be someone inside who needs our help." She steps forward and reaches for the doorknob.
[Emily Littleton] Emily pulls back the sleeve of her jacket and sweater a little, rucks it up enough that the pulse point at her wrist is easy to get to. She slips the glove off her right hand while Elizabeth concurs.
"I'm going to see what I can learn from this," she tips her head toward the bloodspot. "And then I'll be ready to go."
The Singer, who is not a blood spatter analyst, but who is very good at thinking in and out of the analytical box, lowers herself to a crouch beside the droplets. She doesn't reach out to touch them, but rather lets her bare fingertips rest on the inside of her wrist. She closes her eyes for a moment and focuses on something she'd learned to listen to last year, when the world was likewise sleeping, from someone who had known her heartbeat better than she did then.
There's a rising strum of Reverence, a sense of Grace and and majesty. There is no mistaking her Tradition. It is a simple scan, hopefully it will not delay them too long.
[Life 1: coincidental, -1 rote, -1 Focus, dif 3]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 5, 7 (Success x 2 at target 3)
[Ellizabeth Zhao] She refrains from opening the door when Emily moves to work her Arts on the the blood spot, nodding slightly. She moves to provide some visual cover for the Singer, arms folding behind her and dutifully sets herself to keeping a look out. No need for Sleepers to wonder why they're so interested in blood in the snow.
[Foreboding] Not one but two Awakened members of the population converged on this house at once. Perhaps that was a coincidence. Perhaps not. But they both noticed the blood in the snow, and they both felt the presence that had been there before them.
It felt... troubling.
The house was quiet. It sat still and serene, and aside from the blood on the lawn, there didn't appear to be anything amiss. The windows were covered, which, given the time of day, might lead one to believe that no one was at home. Or... that those who had been there didn't want anyone to see inside.
Neither of these two had the equipment or know-how to gather any detailed information from the blood, but Emily had enough understanding of Life magic to gather what information she could through more miraculous means, and as she focused on the bright spots of red, she channeled her awareness.
[Foreboding] The life force of the blood was delicate and faint compared to that of a full pattern, but it was there nonetheless, and there was basic information that could be garnered this way. First, the blood had come from a healthy body. By all accounts it seemed free of illness or mutation. Second, it was female, but whoever it belonged to, it wasn't someone whose pattern Emily had familiarized herself with before.
to Emily Littleton
[Emily Littleton] She slips her other glove off as she stands, and glances over to Elizabeth. Emily tucks these into a pocket, types a few things into a message on her phone and sends it off. The blackberry gets turned to vibrate and tucked back into the pocket that holds her prayer beads. She'll be able to feel it ring, but no one should hear it.
She nods to Elizabeth. There's little to read in Emily's expression, not outward panic or fear, but the set of her jaw has tightened and the lines around her eyes are more pronounced. She's ready, in a way she wasn't before.
"I have a don't have a very good feeling about this," she says, before looking back up at the brownstone and gesturing for Elizabeth to lead on. The Akashic had made the first grab for the door knob, so Emily expects she means to precede the Singer into the house. Meanwhile, Emily undoes the buttons of her jacket. In case she needs to reach for the firearm in the small of her back.
[Emily Littleton] Message to Gabriel:
[photo: blood on snow]
Female. Lake View.
Call me.
-E.L.
to Foreboding
[Ellizabeth Zhao] "Nor do I." She doesn't know exactly what Emily got from her examination, but she trusts that she'll find out in time. She steps back to the door and turns the doorknob--assuming it's unlocked--and slips inside, holding the door for her fellow mage.
Once inside, she looks around, trying to get a sense of the layout as well as looking for more signs of violence.
[Foreboding] There was a message sent - a picture of blood on the ground, and a brief, urgent text. A response to this did not arrive shortly thereafter, as the Singer probably would have hoped, but that did not necessarily indicate a cause for alarm. Phones could be silenced. People could be distracted.
Regardless, the two magi intended to continue. Elizabeth took the direct approach, reaching for the front door and trying the handle. There were about a dozen reasons why that plan might backfire, but surprisingly... it didn't. In fact, the front door was, indeed, open. So the two of them would be granted access to the brownstone as they made their way inside.
The first thing that both Elizabeth and Emily would notice was the smell. Blood - even fresh blood - had a distinct odor, metallic and salty. And there was more of it visible on the hardwood floor, leading in small droplets and partially smudged footprints down the hallway and to the right, disappearing past an archway that led into the living room.
The house was dim with the curtains drawn. No lights had been left on. And as of yet... no one had come to greet them.
[Ellizabeth Zhao] She frowns deeply as she sees what's inside, stepping further in so that Emily can follow. "And now my bad feeling is worse." She looks around, her body tensed with anticipation. She isn't panicked, merely ready to spring at a moment's notice. There could easily be a threat inside the home.
She looks back to Emily and then begins making her way further in, looking for a light switch. It is a risk, but anyone who is waiting probably knows that they're coming already, and they will have the advantage of knowing the layout. It is not an advantage the Akashic intends to let them exacerbate by keeping the lights low.
[Emily Littleton] Emily doesn't expect an immediate response from Gabriel. It was an FYI, rather than a call to action. If she needed his attention, immediately, she would not have texted him. She would have phoned. Repeatedly. Or better yet, emailed his Spook. Guys like that love unencrypted emails from a proprietary carrier's servers. She'd be on E--whosit's blacklist until the Internet faded away into nothingness in the wake of the net big tech thing.
She follows, one hand reaching back behind her and resting lightly on the firearm at her back. They are both ready. It's a dangerous thing, two will workers keyed to this point.
"The blood outside," Emily explains. "It's female. One of the resonances matches a member of Gabriel's group. Also female." She keeps her voice low. "I sent him a message; hopefully he'll call."
She's careful not to step in and track the blood along with them. Like Elizabeth, Emily's looking for light switches, some what to illuminate this mess short of throwing open the blinds. She's also looking for clues as to who the resident may have been -- titles or themes of books on shelves, decorating cues, level of technology in the house.
"You're aware they've been hunting a Rogue member of the Union?" she asks, keeping the terminology vague, at best."
[Ellizabeth Zhao] "I am aware of that fact, yes." She nods a little bit as she creeps forward. "Someone who worked on a serum of some sort to dampen Awakened abilities." She doesn't seem to much of a fan of the man, despite having never met him or heard about him from more than one person.
"A female member of the group." She looks back to Emily. "Anya, I would assume?" It's not a difficult guess--when Elizabeth had met them, Anya was pounding a man into a near-coma. Or possibly a full-blown coma. She realizes that she never checked on the man and inwardly curses herself for not having done so.
[Emily Littleton] Elizabeth looks back, so Emily only has to nod in agreement. Then, to offer a measure of levity to their abruptly shifted evening, she adds: "For being newly acquainted with the city, you seem to be up on all the latest news."
There's a note of approval to it, something wry that slips toward a warmer note. It humanizes her, for a moment, rather than painting her as so separate or other. A year ago, Emily would not have been this calm, watchful or ready -- a year ago, a bloody mess frightened her to the point of wide-eyed shock and rooted horror.
[Ellizabeth Zhao] "I would not go that far." She smiles, but it is only faint. There's something just a little bit older in the woman than usual, with her being on edge. The habits of Cheng Li are influencing her perhaps a touch more than usual. "I merely had a fortuitous conversation or two about the situation after I had my own encounter with the Horsemen."
[Foreboding] There were light switches to be found in the usual places, just inside the door in the hall, and another on the wall in the living room. Soon enough their way would be lit by the off-white glow of CF bulbs.
As the two women made their way into the living room, they'd see what appeared to be an average upper-middle-class American living space, with all the usual furniture and homey decorative accents. But these were not the things that they would notice. What was much more apparent were the signs of violent struggle: an overturned book case, a shattered glass near the unlit hearth...
Blood. Not just drops anymore. There were more crimson footprints smudged into the beige carpet, smears of it on the back of the sofa, and if they moved in the direction where the majority of it seemed to be focused, they'd notice splatters on the wall and the floor, and then, lying prone on the ground on the opposite side of the couch: a dead woman.
Not just dead. Broken. Torn. Destroyed almost beyond recognition. This was what police might refer to as a "crime of passion." Someone had not just wanted this woman dead. They'd wanted to hurt her. There was rage in this kill, and the lingering echoes of resonance declared likewise. The body was lying atop a large pool of sticky, matted blood. It had dried enough to be tacky and congealed, but was still fairly recent. Her wounds were varied - possibly from multiple sources, though some of them were clearly knife-marks. She may have had blond hair once. It was... difficult to tell.
More blood led into the kitchen from there.
[Foreboding] When the Singer and the Akashic followed the blood into the kitchen, they'd find a second body - this one of a man, slumped over in a chair that had been pulled out from the table. He was bound in place, hands tied behind him, and there was a gaping gunshot wound where a chunk of his skull was supposed to be. A diffuse spray of blood covered the wall behind him, along with some bits of flesh that had stuck to the wallpaper. There was also a small hole where the bullet had lodged into the wall.
This man looked to be somewhere in his 30's (though it was hard to tell,) and like the woman, he wasn't immediately recognizable to either Elizabeth or Emily.
[Ellizabeth Zhao] She looks over the scene, and her eyes narrow a little bit. "Anya's work, I would wager." It's what seems to make the most sense to Elizabeth, considering her encounter with them. She relaxes and then, as an afterthought, moves back out in the hallway to shut the door. This is NOT something they want to be walked in on by nose neighbors.
Once the door is shut, she goes back to the main room and starts looking for any evidence of who the two were. Mail with their names on it, photo albums, restraining orders--you know. That kind of thing.
[Emily Littleton] She swallows down the bile that rises at the back of her throat as the overwhelming sight and smell of blood floods her senses. The blood alone is bad enough, but the other bodily viscera, the slick, humanly grotesque aroma of it was almost too much for Emily to bear. The Singer's first year Awake had been steeped in all manner of violence and bloodshed, but it never stopped bothering her.
Emily glances away from the body. She minds her steps through the living room to follow the blood trail into the kitchen.
Which was, simply put, a mistake. Emily can only stand at the threshold for a moment, before her hand comes up to cover her mouth and nose. She breathes through her mouth, something she'd had to remember at the house last year, and steps away from the threshold. When she has control of her nerves once more, she reaches into her pocket and threads her fingers around her prayer beads.
Reaching out, she watches the weavings around them to look for active magics or lingering threads of effects.
[Prime 1: coincidental, -1 Practiced, -1 focus, dif 3]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 1, 2 (Botch x 1 at target 3)
[Emily Littleton] [Dox: Sonovabitch]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 6, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Emily Littleton] [Soak: Please?]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 4, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Emily Littleton] [Again: +1 diff]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 1, 2 (Botch x 1 at target 4)
[Emily Littleton] [Dox: I told you so.]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Emily Littleton] [Soak: I'm clearly not God's favorite child.]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 5, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Ellizabeth Zhao]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 5, 6, 7 (Success x 3 at target 6) [WP]
[Foreboding] If there were any active rotes to be found here, unfortunately Emily wouldn't be granted the sight that she needed to find them. The first attempt resulted in a flash of pain as reality bent back against her. The second... only made things worse. Sometimes impossible feats went off without a hitch, and sometimes even the safest, most familiar effects could rebound into paradox. Fate was tricky and unfair that way.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth moved through the house and checked the pockets of the murder-victims, looking for some sign of their identities. There were things that she'd notice about the place as she looked around - smaller details that had not been immediately visible upon first glance. Though the house was clean and seemingly well-maintained (recent violence aside,) a thin layer of dust had settled upon all of the surfaces. Most of these were undisturbed. (Perhaps evidence that whoever owned the place had not actually been home in some time.) The cabinets and refrigerator (should they be checked) were nearly empty but for a few non-perishables. Perhaps frustratingly, there was no mail or anything else with a name on it to be found on this level of the house, but the man in the kitchen did have a wallet in his back pocket, and this contained an Illinois driver's license, as well as the usual credit cards, club cards, etc (and a bit of cash.) His name was Michael Stevens. He was 34. Address in Chicago. Lake View. Only a few streets away.
The woman did not have any ID on her.
[Ellizabeth Zhao] She frowns deeply as she searches her way through the place. From the expression on her face, she is liking this less and less by the moment. The Akashic has spoken to people here about her philosophy and how she tries to keep herself balanced, but they have not seen the influence that her more hot-headed previous life can have on her. He was not nearly the ascetic that she is, and if Emily looks to Elizabeth, the Singer could see that is growing quite angry.
When she finally finds the wallet and pulls it out, she stands and looks around. "Why here?" is the only thing she says. Aloud, anyway.
[Emily Littleton] At the first surge of blinding pain, Emily's fingers tightened around the beads in her pocket, the thin thready reminder of her godfather's resonance, the call of something Steadfast [Inspiring]. Though pushing through that failure to try again was a mistake. He had ways of reminding her that she could only do so much at one time, only reach so far.
Her vision tunnels and Emily's hand slips out of her pocket to come pinch the bridge of her nose. She breathes in suddenly, sharply, like someone who has been hit unexpectedly. Pain blooms behind her eyelids, spreads around to the crown of her head, hammers.
Elizabeth is angry, but it's her voice that draws Emily's attention. The Singer blinks her eyes open, forces her hand to fall away from her face. The room is unsteady, still throbbing.
"I don't know," she says, but she doesn't sound any happier. "I can't tell if there's any Workings here." It's an admission of failure, but keeping that failure from Elizabeth would endanger them more. "I don't think we should stay here. Did you find anything?"
[Ellizabeth Zhao] "These two people do not live here." She hands over the license, which has a small blood smear on the corner. It's unlikely anyone could extricate a wallet from that without getting a little blood on her. "Or at least he does not. And no one has been here in some time."
She moves around to the dead woman, looking her over with her arms crossed over her chest. "Which means they were lured here, or dragged here, or were here on their own for some reason. That reason is likely signficant."
[Emily Littleton] There are things the once-Apprentice has learned. One is that her memory, when suffering a Paradox induced migraine, is less than perfect. The other is that Ashley is the worst memory aide ever. So she pulls her phone out and snaps a quick picture of the license. She, of course, commits the name and address to memory, and is very careful not to touch the blood smear on it.
Though, let's face it, it's hard to stay clean in this house.
"I don't recognize the name. It could also be an alias. I'll check it with Ash once we're done here. She might know something more."
Emily hands the license back. Her head was finally starting to clear, to stabilize at a threshold of pain that the Initiate could ignore. "Do you want me to look through the rest of the house?" she asks, and not just because it would get her out of the gore-splattered room and away from the bodies.
At least no one has asked her, yet, to help put them in Ashton's jeep.
[Ellizabeth Zhao] "Yes." She nods, taking the license and pocketing it and the wallet. "There could be more bodies, or more hopefully, an idea of who these people are and why they were brought here." She moves to lead the way, toward the other areas of the house. She's definitely a bit more take-charge, now that whatever it is done pissed her off.
[Emily Littleton] And out they go. Emily isn't really going to question the other woman's lead. In fact, she's somewhat relieved. She follows Elizabeth out into the hallway and they sort up who will go where for clearing the rest of the house. Emily does pull her firearm out at this point, before descending the basement stairs.
[Emily Littleton] [Per + Investigation]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Ellizabeth Zhao] [[Alertness--the three dice will not be so kind to me a second time, I fear]]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 4, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 8)
[Foreboding] The two women split up, taking the upper and lower sections of the house at once. Emily moved carefully down to the basement, readying her gun in case of potential danger. Luckily, what she found was a great deal less intimidating than the horror scene upstairs. The basement in this house was furnished and livable, with a small exercise area on one end and a sofa and chairs on the other. A washer and dryer sat in a small alcove in the corner. There was also a tv, and a desk by the wall. On the desk was a laptop. It was closed, but the power light was blinking.
Meanwhile, upstairs, Elizabeth was finding a similarly ordinary scene. There were no signs of carnage in this section of the house. The rooms looked ordinary - what one would expect to find: a bathroom, a couple of bedrooms, a study (interestingly, lacking a computer or any other means of file-keeping.) Two of the bedrooms had not been used recently, but the third one had - as had the bathroom. There was still water residue in the shower.
In the bedroom, the closet contained women's clothes. The other rooms had contained none, and looked to be furnished very sparsely (guest rooms, maybe.) There was a purse sitting on the dresser.
[Ellizabeth Zhao] She looks curious as she scans her way through the study, paying attention to specific books, a particular topic of interest within the library or so on. She also looks into the purse, opening it up and emptying it out on the bed to go through its contents.
[Emily Littleton] It doesn't take long for her to look over the rest of the room and progress to what will obviously catch her interest. Emily sets her firearm down where it will be immediately within reach, and opens the laptop. She notes the model, brand, and whether it's plugged in. Which of the lights are blinking.
This is no cursory looking over. She's very well acquainted with technology. Hopefully it's a familiar operating system, with an easy override or simple passkey.
[Foreboding] The books in the study were a mix of technical manuals - many of them on electrical engineering - and ordinary fiction books. The latter didn't result in a terribly interesting cache: mostly popular fiction and mystery novels. The former were fairly standard fare for someone who either worked in, or had gone to school for engineering. Some of them actually did appear to be old textbooks.
The purse was more interesting. It contained the usual assortment of purse-items (makeup, a hairbrush, a tiny bottle of hand-lotion, etc) as well as a wallet and a smartphone. If Elizabeth checked the wallet, she'd find a Minnesota State ID that read: Tessa White - age 35. The address was listed in Minneapolis. It had a picture that may or may not have matched the face of the woman downstairs - it was difficult to tell. The phone appeared to be in good working order.
In the basement, Emily went straight for what appeared to be the most useful item in the room: the computer. It was indeed plugged in, and had been left in sleep-mode. The brand was HP - a seventeen inch, one of their newer and faster models. When Emily opened it up, there was no password to input. This might strike her as more than a little surprising, especially if she suspected technocrat involvement. The desktop was a plain windows 7 background. In the middle sat an icon that said: House Security.
[Ellizabeth Zhao] She takes the wallet and the phone, pocketing both of them, and places the rest of the items into the purse which is left on the counter. She makes a last check of the upstairs before moving back down and out to check the back yard.
"Checking out back," she calls down to the basement as she passes by, just to keep Emily in the loop.
[Emily Littleton] "Found a laptop," she calls back. Meanwhile Emily's doing some simple system diagnostics before clicking on what seems to be an awfully shiny red button in the middle of the screen.
In fact... before she does double click, she'll pull the battery. The system should run on the A/C adapter alone, but if anything goes haywire, she should be able to just unplug it and hard-power down the system.
[Wits + Computer: per mystic]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Foreboding] From what Emily can tell, there isn't anything out of the ordinary about this laptop. There are no suspicious documents or programs... nothing of much interest at all, really. (Except for that icon.) It seems like someone's personal computer, and possibly a recent purchase with the lack of clutter. Firefox has been used recently, and the history contains searches for movie showtimes (apparently the owner was interested in seeing the Black Swan) and a couple of restaurants in the Mag Mile area.
One point of interest though - the hard drive is about 80% full, which is rather a lot considering the apparently bare-bones system its running.
to Emily Littleton
[Ellizabeth Zhao] With a raise to her eyebrow, she looks around at the fence, to see if there it is high enough that the yard has a sense of seclusion. Then, carefully, she moves to follow the footprints, placing her own feet inside each print so as not to advertise the presence of someone else like a neon sign to whoever may come next.
[Ellizabeth Zhao] She frowns, then turns around and heads back inside. She doesn't see any reason for there to be in further investigating out back. Instead, she shuts the back door and comes in, giving one last scan of the main room before she joins Emily down in the basement.
[Emily Littleton] There's nothing odd, except that the harddrive is overfull. Which leads Emily to think there's more going on here than what she can immediately tell. Or that someone's got an extensive MP3 collection, or pirated movies. Most people don't use the majority of their storage space for programs anymore.
They use it for --
-- nevermind.
The Singer is cautious with starting up something called "House Security", but curious enough to double-click. If anything untoward kicks off, though, she'll pull the A/C line and the hardware should fault out without power. Should. It was a lovely word in the tech sector. It should be safe.
[Foreboding] It was odd that this was sitting in the middle of the desktop, this icon. Almost as if it was waiting for someone to click on it.
(The blood had been left in the snow. The door had been unlocked...)
It could have been a trap. But it wasn't. It was a message.
When Emily opened the program, a video screen popped up displaying real-time images from all of the rooms in the house, as well as the front and back yards and the garage. It was what it had appeared to be - a security feed. It was a user-friendly program, and given Emily's experience with computers, it wouldn't take her long to figure out how to play back the video from earlier that morning.
...to be continued!
They'd closed Lake Front Drive for the better part of the day. Emily hadn't bothered trying to take the El toward campus, and she knew better than to drive in snow deeper than her knee. But staying cooped up indoors was not in her skill set. Not after the agitation of the week before. Not after her social skirmish with her once-Praecept (another mentor down [oh-for-three, Little]).
Out in the snowy wasteland, it was easier to feel like she was getting somewhere. There was a tangible realness to how her nose froze and her lips chapped. She left footfalls behind her, things that fell darkly and clearly on unbroken snow, marks that filled up with time and snowfall. She was immanent. Real. Tangible.
This upscale neighborhood is not too far from her own. She hasn't gone so far that she cannot find her way back without the conveniences of public transit or taxis. It's not so close that she feels like she's been swallowed up only by familiar signs and places. The snow remakes everything anew. She breathes out, and it eddies in the wake of her exhalation: a testament. I am; I effect.
She pauses on a corner, waiting on the light to change. It's silly, really, as there's no traffic. But Emily is a creature of rules and guidelines. The signs says Don't walk; she doesn't.
[Ellizabeth Zhao] There is no sane reason that Elizabeth should be out. But then, there are many who would say that the Asian-American was far from sane. She spoke of voices in her head after all, and how they were her past lives. And...you know. That whole "magic" thing. But even many of her fellow Awakened would say that she's nuts for baring this weather.
Those Awakened are not her though, so here she is. The woman his bundled up in enough clothes that she is not liable to suffer incidental damage from the weather. That's about all the clothes that she has. But then, she's largely out as a way to test her dedication. Some of the Awakened that she has met in Chicago have questioned asceticism, and they would not be the first. This also would not be the first time that she tested herself thus...just the first time in this extreme of a snowstorm. She walks along the street, careful not to slip as she does. Her footsteps are taking her toward Emily, another instance of paths converging in just such a way.
[Foreboding] It was Wednesday afternoon on the second of February, and mother nature had finally stopped her wintery assault on the Midwest. The city of Chicago had been blanketed by a record-setting 20.2 inches of snow nearly overnight (the third largest snowfall in the city's history,) which the recent heavy winds had whipped into thick drifts that piled themselves high against the sides of buildings and buried the few stray cars that had been foolishly left by their owners on the streets.
The city plows had made their way through Lake View by now, but many of the local businesses were closed, along with the schools. It meant that Emily and Elizabeth were not the only people out braving the winter today. This, after all, was a family neighborhood. Well-maintained brownstones lined the street, and across the way a small outdoor shopping center boasted a couple of shops. One of them was a Starbucks, and unlike the stores surrounding it, there was a lit Open sign in its window. Not surprisingly, a handful of parents and more than a handful of children had flocked to it, crowding the tables inside as they sat sipping hot, sugary drinks.
But that nexus of activity was not where Emily and Elizabeth found themselves. They were passing by the houses, coming from opposite directions down the same sidewalk. Set amidst the brownstones was a more serviceable-looking building with large windows that had been curtained shut. This was a place of business. Like many, it was closed due to the weather. The sign above said: "Kookaburra Exotic Bird Shop" and from inside, the occasional muffled call of one of the parrots within could be detected.
Next to this shop, on the right, stood another slim, two-story brownstone. There were footprints in the snow, leading out from the front door, and one, two, three bright spots of crimson staining the otherwise pristine expanse of white in the yard. The blood was just obvious enough to catch the eye, but not enough so that it would be an obvious concern for people passing by on the street.
[Emily Littleton] [Alertness: I notice stuff. Like Blood. Blood is a very good thing to notice.]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 5, 5, 7, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
to Foreboding
[Emily Littleton] [Awareness: ACK! Having noticed blood, is there anything oogy-boogy going on in my neighborhood? (Who ya gonna call... Ghostbusters! [Or Ashley...]) ]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 5, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
to Foreboding
[Ellizabeth Zhao] [[Go Go Gadget Awareness!]]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 4, 6, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Ellizabeth Zhao] [[Oh, and Alertness too!]]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 5, 6, 6, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Foreboding] Emily notices the blood. Thankfully, at the moment there doesn't seem to be anything else out of the ordinary.
to Emily Littleton
[Foreboding] There is resonance here, but it's faded - a lingering echo of what had been there not long ago. Both Emily and Elizabeth will recognize the dominant presence, because they've felt it before - from a member of a cabal of mages that had swept into town a few weeks ago.
Chaotic, Destructive and Vengeful.
The other was barely felt, but there. It seemed both colder and further away (coming from inside the house.) Where the first had been volatile and unstable, this one was rigid - a pattern. Like numbers. Like code. Organized. Insightful.
to Ellizabeth Zhao, Emily Littleton
[Emily Littleton] There is very little room in Emily Littleton's world for coincidence any longer. She understands that there's a sort of random background noise that occurs in any given system, but more and more it's been converging toward meaningful patterns. There was method to the oddest parts of the madness of general life. So blood on newfallen snow, beside a pair of footsteps, exiting a brownstone, in a part of the city known to harbor a rather high density of fellow Awakened?
No. The Singer girl did not expect it was happenstance alone. She didn't presume any meaning into it, either.
Emily is not dressed overtly for the cold. She has an Initiate's grasp of a sphere that helps her mitigate any undue stress to her vital patterns. She wears her winter coat and beneath it a fine-knit sweater. Her scarf is a soft fabric, supple and sturdy but also fine-spun. What Elizabeth cannot see, but may presume, is that she rarely wanders alone unarmed. That she does not stray without her foci. Her phone.
And that's what comes out of the pocket, just now. Emily thumbs through the keys to find her camera, snaps a quick picture of the blood spots. Captures the building number. These things have a way of slipping her mind... eerily often. The phone's been vetted by a V-dept and her own skills. Maybe it will prove less prone to forgetfulness.
There's a long moment when the Singer looks at her phone and considers calling a not quite familiar face. She holds off, for now, and glances around to see if anyone else has taken undue notice.
[Ellizabeth Zhao] She pauses as she notices the blood, her brow furrowing. The receding presence of the resonance raises the hair on the back of her neck--she missed the Horsemens' resonance when they first met, so she doesn't make the immediate connection. All she knows is that something was wrong here, thanks to the blood, and that there was non-material evidence that someone Awakened had been here.
She drifts closer to the brownstone, looking the building over, before she realizes that she is not alone in noticing it. She sees Emily then, and she turns to the Singer, offering her a little nod.
"Good evening, Miss Littleton." A slight inclination of her head, a greeting and show of respect for the other Awakened. "I am handicapped a bit by my newness to the city, in this incarnation at least...would you, perchance, know if anyone lives here?" She looks at the brownstone for reference, and then back.
[Emily Littleton] "Miss Zhao," the greeting is perfunctory, a little distracted. Then her expression warms as she looks away from the building and over to Elizabeth. She catches herself and corrects: "Oh, forgive me, Elizabeth, it's good to see you."
There's a subtle tension to the greeting, however friendly Emily can seem. Now is not a time for niceties. She's grateful that the Akashic understands that. The Singer whets her lips, glances toward the brownstone and then back over.
"I don't know lives or lived here, but I recognize the resonance. One of them is passingly familiar. It's not a local, but someone passing through. The other I don't know."
She breathes out a little, her expression is tense.
"Should we check this out? I can call Gabriel, but I'd rather have something to tell him when I do." She could also call Solomon, but she doesn't offer. Or Ashley, but that doesn't come up just yet either. Emily's reply is calculated, even if her reasoning is not made immediately clear.
[Ellizabeth Zhao] "Passing through." She's learned enough from her conversation with Ashley and her own brief run-in that she seems to know what that indicates. She leans down as she looks at the blood spots. She is no forensic pathologist or blood spray analyst, so she apparently isn't trying to recreate the crime. She just seems to be studying it to commit the blood pattern to her mind before she looks at Emily.
"I believe checking this out would be a wise decision, yes." She looks around for a moment, then looks to the door. "If nothing else, there may be someone inside who needs our help." She steps forward and reaches for the doorknob.
[Emily Littleton] Emily pulls back the sleeve of her jacket and sweater a little, rucks it up enough that the pulse point at her wrist is easy to get to. She slips the glove off her right hand while Elizabeth concurs.
"I'm going to see what I can learn from this," she tips her head toward the bloodspot. "And then I'll be ready to go."
The Singer, who is not a blood spatter analyst, but who is very good at thinking in and out of the analytical box, lowers herself to a crouch beside the droplets. She doesn't reach out to touch them, but rather lets her bare fingertips rest on the inside of her wrist. She closes her eyes for a moment and focuses on something she'd learned to listen to last year, when the world was likewise sleeping, from someone who had known her heartbeat better than she did then.
There's a rising strum of Reverence, a sense of Grace and and majesty. There is no mistaking her Tradition. It is a simple scan, hopefully it will not delay them too long.
[Life 1: coincidental, -1 rote, -1 Focus, dif 3]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 5, 7 (Success x 2 at target 3)
[Ellizabeth Zhao] She refrains from opening the door when Emily moves to work her Arts on the the blood spot, nodding slightly. She moves to provide some visual cover for the Singer, arms folding behind her and dutifully sets herself to keeping a look out. No need for Sleepers to wonder why they're so interested in blood in the snow.
[Foreboding] Not one but two Awakened members of the population converged on this house at once. Perhaps that was a coincidence. Perhaps not. But they both noticed the blood in the snow, and they both felt the presence that had been there before them.
It felt... troubling.
The house was quiet. It sat still and serene, and aside from the blood on the lawn, there didn't appear to be anything amiss. The windows were covered, which, given the time of day, might lead one to believe that no one was at home. Or... that those who had been there didn't want anyone to see inside.
Neither of these two had the equipment or know-how to gather any detailed information from the blood, but Emily had enough understanding of Life magic to gather what information she could through more miraculous means, and as she focused on the bright spots of red, she channeled her awareness.
[Foreboding] The life force of the blood was delicate and faint compared to that of a full pattern, but it was there nonetheless, and there was basic information that could be garnered this way. First, the blood had come from a healthy body. By all accounts it seemed free of illness or mutation. Second, it was female, but whoever it belonged to, it wasn't someone whose pattern Emily had familiarized herself with before.
to Emily Littleton
[Emily Littleton] She slips her other glove off as she stands, and glances over to Elizabeth. Emily tucks these into a pocket, types a few things into a message on her phone and sends it off. The blackberry gets turned to vibrate and tucked back into the pocket that holds her prayer beads. She'll be able to feel it ring, but no one should hear it.
She nods to Elizabeth. There's little to read in Emily's expression, not outward panic or fear, but the set of her jaw has tightened and the lines around her eyes are more pronounced. She's ready, in a way she wasn't before.
"I have a don't have a very good feeling about this," she says, before looking back up at the brownstone and gesturing for Elizabeth to lead on. The Akashic had made the first grab for the door knob, so Emily expects she means to precede the Singer into the house. Meanwhile, Emily undoes the buttons of her jacket. In case she needs to reach for the firearm in the small of her back.
[Emily Littleton] Message to Gabriel:
[photo: blood on snow]
Female. Lake View.
Call me.
-E.L.
to Foreboding
[Ellizabeth Zhao] "Nor do I." She doesn't know exactly what Emily got from her examination, but she trusts that she'll find out in time. She steps back to the door and turns the doorknob--assuming it's unlocked--and slips inside, holding the door for her fellow mage.
Once inside, she looks around, trying to get a sense of the layout as well as looking for more signs of violence.
[Foreboding] There was a message sent - a picture of blood on the ground, and a brief, urgent text. A response to this did not arrive shortly thereafter, as the Singer probably would have hoped, but that did not necessarily indicate a cause for alarm. Phones could be silenced. People could be distracted.
Regardless, the two magi intended to continue. Elizabeth took the direct approach, reaching for the front door and trying the handle. There were about a dozen reasons why that plan might backfire, but surprisingly... it didn't. In fact, the front door was, indeed, open. So the two of them would be granted access to the brownstone as they made their way inside.
The first thing that both Elizabeth and Emily would notice was the smell. Blood - even fresh blood - had a distinct odor, metallic and salty. And there was more of it visible on the hardwood floor, leading in small droplets and partially smudged footprints down the hallway and to the right, disappearing past an archway that led into the living room.
The house was dim with the curtains drawn. No lights had been left on. And as of yet... no one had come to greet them.
[Ellizabeth Zhao] She frowns deeply as she sees what's inside, stepping further in so that Emily can follow. "And now my bad feeling is worse." She looks around, her body tensed with anticipation. She isn't panicked, merely ready to spring at a moment's notice. There could easily be a threat inside the home.
She looks back to Emily and then begins making her way further in, looking for a light switch. It is a risk, but anyone who is waiting probably knows that they're coming already, and they will have the advantage of knowing the layout. It is not an advantage the Akashic intends to let them exacerbate by keeping the lights low.
[Emily Littleton] Emily doesn't expect an immediate response from Gabriel. It was an FYI, rather than a call to action. If she needed his attention, immediately, she would not have texted him. She would have phoned. Repeatedly. Or better yet, emailed his Spook. Guys like that love unencrypted emails from a proprietary carrier's servers. She'd be on E--whosit's blacklist until the Internet faded away into nothingness in the wake of the net big tech thing.
She follows, one hand reaching back behind her and resting lightly on the firearm at her back. They are both ready. It's a dangerous thing, two will workers keyed to this point.
"The blood outside," Emily explains. "It's female. One of the resonances matches a member of Gabriel's group. Also female." She keeps her voice low. "I sent him a message; hopefully he'll call."
She's careful not to step in and track the blood along with them. Like Elizabeth, Emily's looking for light switches, some what to illuminate this mess short of throwing open the blinds. She's also looking for clues as to who the resident may have been -- titles or themes of books on shelves, decorating cues, level of technology in the house.
"You're aware they've been hunting a Rogue member of the Union?" she asks, keeping the terminology vague, at best."
[Ellizabeth Zhao] "I am aware of that fact, yes." She nods a little bit as she creeps forward. "Someone who worked on a serum of some sort to dampen Awakened abilities." She doesn't seem to much of a fan of the man, despite having never met him or heard about him from more than one person.
"A female member of the group." She looks back to Emily. "Anya, I would assume?" It's not a difficult guess--when Elizabeth had met them, Anya was pounding a man into a near-coma. Or possibly a full-blown coma. She realizes that she never checked on the man and inwardly curses herself for not having done so.
[Emily Littleton] Elizabeth looks back, so Emily only has to nod in agreement. Then, to offer a measure of levity to their abruptly shifted evening, she adds: "For being newly acquainted with the city, you seem to be up on all the latest news."
There's a note of approval to it, something wry that slips toward a warmer note. It humanizes her, for a moment, rather than painting her as so separate or other. A year ago, Emily would not have been this calm, watchful or ready -- a year ago, a bloody mess frightened her to the point of wide-eyed shock and rooted horror.
[Ellizabeth Zhao] "I would not go that far." She smiles, but it is only faint. There's something just a little bit older in the woman than usual, with her being on edge. The habits of Cheng Li are influencing her perhaps a touch more than usual. "I merely had a fortuitous conversation or two about the situation after I had my own encounter with the Horsemen."
[Foreboding] There were light switches to be found in the usual places, just inside the door in the hall, and another on the wall in the living room. Soon enough their way would be lit by the off-white glow of CF bulbs.
As the two women made their way into the living room, they'd see what appeared to be an average upper-middle-class American living space, with all the usual furniture and homey decorative accents. But these were not the things that they would notice. What was much more apparent were the signs of violent struggle: an overturned book case, a shattered glass near the unlit hearth...
Blood. Not just drops anymore. There were more crimson footprints smudged into the beige carpet, smears of it on the back of the sofa, and if they moved in the direction where the majority of it seemed to be focused, they'd notice splatters on the wall and the floor, and then, lying prone on the ground on the opposite side of the couch: a dead woman.
Not just dead. Broken. Torn. Destroyed almost beyond recognition. This was what police might refer to as a "crime of passion." Someone had not just wanted this woman dead. They'd wanted to hurt her. There was rage in this kill, and the lingering echoes of resonance declared likewise. The body was lying atop a large pool of sticky, matted blood. It had dried enough to be tacky and congealed, but was still fairly recent. Her wounds were varied - possibly from multiple sources, though some of them were clearly knife-marks. She may have had blond hair once. It was... difficult to tell.
More blood led into the kitchen from there.
[Foreboding] When the Singer and the Akashic followed the blood into the kitchen, they'd find a second body - this one of a man, slumped over in a chair that had been pulled out from the table. He was bound in place, hands tied behind him, and there was a gaping gunshot wound where a chunk of his skull was supposed to be. A diffuse spray of blood covered the wall behind him, along with some bits of flesh that had stuck to the wallpaper. There was also a small hole where the bullet had lodged into the wall.
This man looked to be somewhere in his 30's (though it was hard to tell,) and like the woman, he wasn't immediately recognizable to either Elizabeth or Emily.
[Ellizabeth Zhao] She looks over the scene, and her eyes narrow a little bit. "Anya's work, I would wager." It's what seems to make the most sense to Elizabeth, considering her encounter with them. She relaxes and then, as an afterthought, moves back out in the hallway to shut the door. This is NOT something they want to be walked in on by nose neighbors.
Once the door is shut, she goes back to the main room and starts looking for any evidence of who the two were. Mail with their names on it, photo albums, restraining orders--you know. That kind of thing.
[Emily Littleton] She swallows down the bile that rises at the back of her throat as the overwhelming sight and smell of blood floods her senses. The blood alone is bad enough, but the other bodily viscera, the slick, humanly grotesque aroma of it was almost too much for Emily to bear. The Singer's first year Awake had been steeped in all manner of violence and bloodshed, but it never stopped bothering her.
Emily glances away from the body. She minds her steps through the living room to follow the blood trail into the kitchen.
Which was, simply put, a mistake. Emily can only stand at the threshold for a moment, before her hand comes up to cover her mouth and nose. She breathes through her mouth, something she'd had to remember at the house last year, and steps away from the threshold. When she has control of her nerves once more, she reaches into her pocket and threads her fingers around her prayer beads.
Reaching out, she watches the weavings around them to look for active magics or lingering threads of effects.
[Prime 1: coincidental, -1 Practiced, -1 focus, dif 3]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 1, 2 (Botch x 1 at target 3)
[Emily Littleton] [Dox: Sonovabitch]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 6, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Emily Littleton] [Soak: Please?]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 4, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Emily Littleton] [Again: +1 diff]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 1, 2 (Botch x 1 at target 4)
[Emily Littleton] [Dox: I told you so.]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Emily Littleton] [Soak: I'm clearly not God's favorite child.]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 5, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Ellizabeth Zhao]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 5, 6, 7 (Success x 3 at target 6) [WP]
[Foreboding] If there were any active rotes to be found here, unfortunately Emily wouldn't be granted the sight that she needed to find them. The first attempt resulted in a flash of pain as reality bent back against her. The second... only made things worse. Sometimes impossible feats went off without a hitch, and sometimes even the safest, most familiar effects could rebound into paradox. Fate was tricky and unfair that way.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth moved through the house and checked the pockets of the murder-victims, looking for some sign of their identities. There were things that she'd notice about the place as she looked around - smaller details that had not been immediately visible upon first glance. Though the house was clean and seemingly well-maintained (recent violence aside,) a thin layer of dust had settled upon all of the surfaces. Most of these were undisturbed. (Perhaps evidence that whoever owned the place had not actually been home in some time.) The cabinets and refrigerator (should they be checked) were nearly empty but for a few non-perishables. Perhaps frustratingly, there was no mail or anything else with a name on it to be found on this level of the house, but the man in the kitchen did have a wallet in his back pocket, and this contained an Illinois driver's license, as well as the usual credit cards, club cards, etc (and a bit of cash.) His name was Michael Stevens. He was 34. Address in Chicago. Lake View. Only a few streets away.
The woman did not have any ID on her.
[Ellizabeth Zhao] She frowns deeply as she searches her way through the place. From the expression on her face, she is liking this less and less by the moment. The Akashic has spoken to people here about her philosophy and how she tries to keep herself balanced, but they have not seen the influence that her more hot-headed previous life can have on her. He was not nearly the ascetic that she is, and if Emily looks to Elizabeth, the Singer could see that is growing quite angry.
When she finally finds the wallet and pulls it out, she stands and looks around. "Why here?" is the only thing she says. Aloud, anyway.
[Emily Littleton] At the first surge of blinding pain, Emily's fingers tightened around the beads in her pocket, the thin thready reminder of her godfather's resonance, the call of something Steadfast [Inspiring]. Though pushing through that failure to try again was a mistake. He had ways of reminding her that she could only do so much at one time, only reach so far.
Her vision tunnels and Emily's hand slips out of her pocket to come pinch the bridge of her nose. She breathes in suddenly, sharply, like someone who has been hit unexpectedly. Pain blooms behind her eyelids, spreads around to the crown of her head, hammers.
Elizabeth is angry, but it's her voice that draws Emily's attention. The Singer blinks her eyes open, forces her hand to fall away from her face. The room is unsteady, still throbbing.
"I don't know," she says, but she doesn't sound any happier. "I can't tell if there's any Workings here." It's an admission of failure, but keeping that failure from Elizabeth would endanger them more. "I don't think we should stay here. Did you find anything?"
[Ellizabeth Zhao] "These two people do not live here." She hands over the license, which has a small blood smear on the corner. It's unlikely anyone could extricate a wallet from that without getting a little blood on her. "Or at least he does not. And no one has been here in some time."
She moves around to the dead woman, looking her over with her arms crossed over her chest. "Which means they were lured here, or dragged here, or were here on their own for some reason. That reason is likely signficant."
[Emily Littleton] There are things the once-Apprentice has learned. One is that her memory, when suffering a Paradox induced migraine, is less than perfect. The other is that Ashley is the worst memory aide ever. So she pulls her phone out and snaps a quick picture of the license. She, of course, commits the name and address to memory, and is very careful not to touch the blood smear on it.
Though, let's face it, it's hard to stay clean in this house.
"I don't recognize the name. It could also be an alias. I'll check it with Ash once we're done here. She might know something more."
Emily hands the license back. Her head was finally starting to clear, to stabilize at a threshold of pain that the Initiate could ignore. "Do you want me to look through the rest of the house?" she asks, and not just because it would get her out of the gore-splattered room and away from the bodies.
At least no one has asked her, yet, to help put them in Ashton's jeep.
[Ellizabeth Zhao] "Yes." She nods, taking the license and pocketing it and the wallet. "There could be more bodies, or more hopefully, an idea of who these people are and why they were brought here." She moves to lead the way, toward the other areas of the house. She's definitely a bit more take-charge, now that whatever it is done pissed her off.
[Emily Littleton] And out they go. Emily isn't really going to question the other woman's lead. In fact, she's somewhat relieved. She follows Elizabeth out into the hallway and they sort up who will go where for clearing the rest of the house. Emily does pull her firearm out at this point, before descending the basement stairs.
[Emily Littleton] [Per + Investigation]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Ellizabeth Zhao] [[Alertness--the three dice will not be so kind to me a second time, I fear]]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 4, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 8)
[Foreboding] The two women split up, taking the upper and lower sections of the house at once. Emily moved carefully down to the basement, readying her gun in case of potential danger. Luckily, what she found was a great deal less intimidating than the horror scene upstairs. The basement in this house was furnished and livable, with a small exercise area on one end and a sofa and chairs on the other. A washer and dryer sat in a small alcove in the corner. There was also a tv, and a desk by the wall. On the desk was a laptop. It was closed, but the power light was blinking.
Meanwhile, upstairs, Elizabeth was finding a similarly ordinary scene. There were no signs of carnage in this section of the house. The rooms looked ordinary - what one would expect to find: a bathroom, a couple of bedrooms, a study (interestingly, lacking a computer or any other means of file-keeping.) Two of the bedrooms had not been used recently, but the third one had - as had the bathroom. There was still water residue in the shower.
In the bedroom, the closet contained women's clothes. The other rooms had contained none, and looked to be furnished very sparsely (guest rooms, maybe.) There was a purse sitting on the dresser.
[Ellizabeth Zhao] She looks curious as she scans her way through the study, paying attention to specific books, a particular topic of interest within the library or so on. She also looks into the purse, opening it up and emptying it out on the bed to go through its contents.
[Emily Littleton] It doesn't take long for her to look over the rest of the room and progress to what will obviously catch her interest. Emily sets her firearm down where it will be immediately within reach, and opens the laptop. She notes the model, brand, and whether it's plugged in. Which of the lights are blinking.
This is no cursory looking over. She's very well acquainted with technology. Hopefully it's a familiar operating system, with an easy override or simple passkey.
[Foreboding] The books in the study were a mix of technical manuals - many of them on electrical engineering - and ordinary fiction books. The latter didn't result in a terribly interesting cache: mostly popular fiction and mystery novels. The former were fairly standard fare for someone who either worked in, or had gone to school for engineering. Some of them actually did appear to be old textbooks.
The purse was more interesting. It contained the usual assortment of purse-items (makeup, a hairbrush, a tiny bottle of hand-lotion, etc) as well as a wallet and a smartphone. If Elizabeth checked the wallet, she'd find a Minnesota State ID that read: Tessa White - age 35. The address was listed in Minneapolis. It had a picture that may or may not have matched the face of the woman downstairs - it was difficult to tell. The phone appeared to be in good working order.
In the basement, Emily went straight for what appeared to be the most useful item in the room: the computer. It was indeed plugged in, and had been left in sleep-mode. The brand was HP - a seventeen inch, one of their newer and faster models. When Emily opened it up, there was no password to input. This might strike her as more than a little surprising, especially if she suspected technocrat involvement. The desktop was a plain windows 7 background. In the middle sat an icon that said: House Security.
[Ellizabeth Zhao] She takes the wallet and the phone, pocketing both of them, and places the rest of the items into the purse which is left on the counter. She makes a last check of the upstairs before moving back down and out to check the back yard.
"Checking out back," she calls down to the basement as she passes by, just to keep Emily in the loop.
[Emily Littleton] "Found a laptop," she calls back. Meanwhile Emily's doing some simple system diagnostics before clicking on what seems to be an awfully shiny red button in the middle of the screen.
In fact... before she does double click, she'll pull the battery. The system should run on the A/C adapter alone, but if anything goes haywire, she should be able to just unplug it and hard-power down the system.
[Wits + Computer: per mystic]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Foreboding] From what Emily can tell, there isn't anything out of the ordinary about this laptop. There are no suspicious documents or programs... nothing of much interest at all, really. (Except for that icon.) It seems like someone's personal computer, and possibly a recent purchase with the lack of clutter. Firefox has been used recently, and the history contains searches for movie showtimes (apparently the owner was interested in seeing the Black Swan) and a couple of restaurants in the Mag Mile area.
One point of interest though - the hard drive is about 80% full, which is rather a lot considering the apparently bare-bones system its running.
to Emily Littleton
[Ellizabeth Zhao] With a raise to her eyebrow, she looks around at the fence, to see if there it is high enough that the yard has a sense of seclusion. Then, carefully, she moves to follow the footprints, placing her own feet inside each print so as not to advertise the presence of someone else like a neon sign to whoever may come next.
[Ellizabeth Zhao] She frowns, then turns around and heads back inside. She doesn't see any reason for there to be in further investigating out back. Instead, she shuts the back door and comes in, giving one last scan of the main room before she joins Emily down in the basement.
[Emily Littleton] There's nothing odd, except that the harddrive is overfull. Which leads Emily to think there's more going on here than what she can immediately tell. Or that someone's got an extensive MP3 collection, or pirated movies. Most people don't use the majority of their storage space for programs anymore.
They use it for --
-- nevermind.
The Singer is cautious with starting up something called "House Security", but curious enough to double-click. If anything untoward kicks off, though, she'll pull the A/C line and the hardware should fault out without power. Should. It was a lovely word in the tech sector. It should be safe.
[Foreboding] It was odd that this was sitting in the middle of the desktop, this icon. Almost as if it was waiting for someone to click on it.
(The blood had been left in the snow. The door had been unlocked...)
It could have been a trap. But it wasn't. It was a message.
When Emily opened the program, a video screen popped up displaying real-time images from all of the rooms in the house, as well as the front and back yards and the garage. It was what it had appeared to be - a security feed. It was a user-friendly program, and given Emily's experience with computers, it wouldn't take her long to figure out how to play back the video from earlier that morning.
...to be continued!
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