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! ]