[Lughnasadh] Sunday has arrived, and it is just that: a sunny day, all lambent and shining: a Sun day: summer's crown, golden, witheringly hot. Hot and humid. The air is heavy, almost shimmering, almost suffocating. The afternoon is thick enough to cut with a knife and there is the hum of summer bugs and the smell of summer trees and the blush of summer blooms and everywhere, everywhere is unrepentant heat. Boston is like this in the summer, and the nearness of the sea does little to wick away the heat. It lingers, hangs like sluicing canopy over even the evenings.
Those who reckon the eight holidays, holy days, once holy, once resonant; they, these Keepers of the Old Ways; They, these Children of the Wyck; They know the meaning of this sunset. They know the dance of John Barleycorn, and Long Hand of Lugh, and the mysteries of the first harvest. They know. They feel the suntides down deep in their bones, and on a day like this they look to the sky, to the white-blue white-hot of the summer heavens, and they think "Not just yet" and they whisper "But soon."
Soon.
It is late afternoon when Kaeley Ohmer texts Ashley to say she has stepped off the train and found herself in Boston. There is no intimation that she requires assistance in this, in this Finding of Herself, or Finding Herself in Boston. It's a courtesy, an I'm here, an Oh, by the way... because there are Others in Boston as well. The city, in Kaeley's mind, is Capitalized, the way you Capitalize Things, Important Things, or every Noun in some foreign Languages. Things to be noted: Boston. Yes. Underscored once for effect. With that sort of haughty PERIOD at the end of the word as if to say Boston. Yes. Boston. Is. A. Place. Of. Import.
And don't you forget it.
You see, there are Hermetics here. Those of William's House and others -- see, House, another Word with Import and Capitals all out of Place -- and while the Flambeau could make jokes -- hah, see, the do have senses of humor, now and again -- about her being a Firestarter, or quite the little Elementalist, the other Houses -- important H again -- were less witty.
Or, perhaps, she should say, were possessed of less Wit.
Her hair is short these days, cropped up so that it barely tucks behind her ears, and the dampness of the summer makes it curl and sway; it lends her a softness she hadn't had in the Winter. (And there, at last, is a Properly capitalized Noun. A Season, which is entitled to a little self-aggrandizement in its own.) Fewer layers, too, leaving less to hinting at her form and the sway of her skirt and the tuck of her blouse show off a trim, tight, feminine figure that does not stray toward words like Voluptuous yet is not afraid of Sensuousness. That might have been Their problem all along, the Hermetics; that she, as a Verbena, was not properly Terrified of Sensuousness and other alarming Words.
To seek out a meeting point, then, with a small embroidered satchel and an upward tilt of her chin and that sense of Anticipation building around her, subtly at first but then growing with its own momentum. Unless Ashley has other plans or designs, her wandering leads her to the water front, and somewhere with ice cold lemonade, and comfortable seats. (Life, it turns out, is too short for crappy patio furniture.)
[Hunger] Now these Holy Days are a thing Ashley has never really observed. They don't feel particularly resonant to her any more than the summer already does; Ashley has never been the sort to mark Days that other people felt were important. The Solstice is of import to her because of what it means of Catherine, because she can feel the energy and the shift in life around her. She marks days because they have personal import. To her, that is what is Holy.
But maybe all that will have to change, though perhaps not in the sort of way that anyone else suspects it will.
Ashley received Kae's invitation with as much good cheer as can ever be expected from Ashley. She might not be as dour as her father but it's still rather unlike her to exhibit any sort of real enthusiasm when it comes to meeting other people, though whether that's by happenstance or design could always be debated. Truth be told she's a little surprised that Kae has come out here to this place she regards as Home. She's a little unsure of what to do with her or whether she should bring her to meet Gwenna Lake and his ilk.
She's supposed to see Rowan over Lughnasadh and she says as much, that she's made a commitment to another Verbena here but that she wants to see Kae and she wants to see her while she's here in Boston. So she's quite receptive to that meeting point on the shore, not least because Kae has lemonade and comfortable seats.
Ashley looks as though she's been made harder in Boston. Her face and her frame are both lean and a little more wiry than they were; there's a quickness to her movements now, something more at ease with her physical form, with the extension of her Word into the world. Her hair is short and dark and jagged, and much of the softness that length had lent it last fall has been cut away.
Still, she has a smile and eyes the color of the sky's reflection in the shore, and when she sees Kae she makes her way over with a swiftness that isn't just due to a desire to get out of the sun. "Hi, Kae. Good to see you." It's not just politeness.
[Lughnasadh] There's a part of Kaeley that is a amused to hear the Hermetic-cum-Verbena speak a word that turns so much more daintily on her own tongue, to hear it in lieu (oh, no pun intended) of Lammas, or loaf-mass, or the first of August. That Hunger wraps her teeth around a far more ancient word pleases the Wyck-born, like a tithe, like a dandy, or a pearl wrenched from an oyster. It touches a thing inside her that is more Autumn and less Leonid.
An umbrella shades Kae's table further from the overhead glow, but the horizon behind her is touched already with ruddy hues. No moon rises over the water; her face is hidden this weekend. There is a little breeze, but it's not enough to cool the exterior patio and most of the people who are dallying here for a late snack or early dinner are safe ensconced inside. A coincidental rote, hardly an anything, just a little buzz-burr to the Awareness as Ashley draws near, happens to keep the insect life away from her table even though the citronella candle hasn't yet been lit.
There are a couple appetizers, and two large glasses of lemonade, sweating against the summer heat, tumbled full of ice cubes, threatening to well over if left too long to melt. There's a dried out starfish, a tiny thing, fits in the palm of your hand, and a little dish of sea salt, and spray or two of dried wheat husk. All little things spread out on the table, like nothing in particular was afoot. Kaeley is draped into her chair, relaxed and loose like a rag doll, not a care in the world, when Ashley approaches, and it is the sound of her footfalls that causes the Verbena's head to tilt slightly at first, before the warm weight of her gaze sliiiiiides over to begin their helloes.
By the time the Ashley arrives fully, and that's a short by-the-by with the way the Hermetic is traveling, Kae's on her (bare) feet, waving a magnanimous make yourself comfortable and smiling broadly. "It's good to see you again, too," she says, and her voice is still tempered and touched through with something lyrical -- not for Ashley's ears, yet, but for others (she sings).
"I know you're busy," she says, with a crimp of the corner of her mouth that expression her bemusement and approval all at once, "So I appreciate the time." She almost sounds formal, but not quite.
There is an edge (more of a give), too, to Kaeley in this city. For all that she's unfettered by obvious wary, she is a little less solid. Less certain and self-possessed. Or maybe it's only that she's sweltering; or maybe it's that she's radiant, Summer's Child, golden, and it's hard to have an ice-cold certainty about oneself in the midst of all of that.
[Hunger] There's no real formality to Ashley's manner. Ashley tends not to be overly formal even when the situation actually would call for it; it's a manner of hers that is decidedly out of keeping with Hermetic tradition. But it's just not really in her personality or in how she was raised and her demeanor is usually standoffish enough without any chill to add to it.
Ashley's eyes light first upon the dried out starfish and her fingertips stretch to trip over the little bumps and crannies along its surface, an idle exploration. Then she too takes a seat in one of the chairs. She doesn't reach for one of the glasses or the food immediately; she waits to be invited to partake of it. In some ways human beings are very like animals. In some ways they show themselves to be the animals that they are, if one looks.
Jarod has never been wrong about that, after all.
"I met a couple of the local Verbena," she says by way of explanation, as Kae comments that she's busy. "Though we haven't had much of a chance to talk at length yet. I think he's still deciding what he thinks of me." Reasonably. Ashley's allies and close friends, after all, are enemies of his. There aren't many who would do what Rowan has agreed to do.
[Lughnasadh] The Witch is familiar with Cad Goddeu, and that cannot come as any surprise to Ashley. There are far too few Disciples and higher in this realm, and Kaeley is burgeoning on Higher in an over-ripe and soon-to-Harvest sort of way. The reticence she shows in not yet pushing onward is a deeply personal thing, a struggle for which she needs others like herself, a coven, a cabal, a Circle, a something. She could go to these people of her own Tradition in this town, and likely be welcomed. She could, but she doesn't, and she doesn't go in such a natural and seamless way that Ashley may think she has yet to consider it.
Of Rowan, then: "He is the Green Man's Hand," she says, as if the words carry a certain meaning, an understanding, and an acceptance with them. "He's wise enough to take your measure," she adds, and there's a sort of ritual here that Kaeley does not explain. These words are more-and-less, meaningful-and-lost-noise. "And you his."
She shifts then, and in that same movement reaches out to nudge a plate a little in Ashley's direction. A turn of the wrist and this becomes the invitation Hunger has been waiting on.
"Have you been well?" she asks. This is no simple formality. Kaeley picks up her lemonade and smooths the condensation into a slick on her palm, and this goes against the back of her neck to slake the press of Summer against her skin. It's been awhile...
[Hunger] It has indeed been a while, and Kae wasn't there to witness many of the events that led up to Ashley's leaving. She was there shortly after Ashley lost Daiyu but not for the loss of the apartment, her identity, parts of her library. She didn't see her stripped of title and the position of power in Chicago that she felt, rightly or not, were hers.
"The Green Man's Hand?" she asks, raising both eyebrows at Kae.
There is no second invitation needed. The plate is nudged in her direction and Ashley reaches out a hand to scoop up whatever is there in her fingertips and transfer it to her mouth. She'll make short work of it, the whole thing, if she isn't stopped. Ashley has never quite known when to stop: all in the world's there to be devoured until it's gone or until she's too exhausted to pursue it further.
"Well enough," is her answer to Kae's question. "My friend Kage and I formed a cabal officially. We've had work to do and I've had things to do here apart from studying. I miss..." And here Ashley hesitates. There are people she misses and particularly people that she feels she probably can't have back. "Chicago, sometimes. But not always. I think if I'm going to have a mundane life at all I'll have to do it outside of the city."
[Lughnasadh] The chairs here are well-padded and large enough for Kae to shift her weight, loop her foot around a nearby chair leg and haul it close enough to rest her feet on its padded seat. Nautical stripes of navy and crisp-white, bare toes with the stripe of a flip-flops tan, ahhhh Summer.
Ashley's eyebrows go up, Kaeley's smile turns knowing and only slightly telling. "He serves a notable master," she says, lending no additional weight to the title. And they move past it, like a marker or a milestone or a little bump on the spines of the starfish.
"If you miss Chicago, sometimes, then maybe you should have Chicago, sometimes. Some times, but not others. It seems like a place that would swallow the Sun, if it only had a chance," she observes, and sips from her lemonade. Kaeley lets Hunger eat, and she lets Hunger speak. If there is a lesson, here, it's not forced to the fore yet.
[Hunger] Gwenna Lake is a powerful man, an Adept who is far more established and comfortable in his position than Ashley can hope to be yet. She came so far so quickly, and she's still so young, and she's only been Awakened for ten years. It probably shouldn't surprise her that this woman who is from nowhere near Boston seems to know the man's name and know of Rowan's association with him. But it does, a little.
Perhaps it even makes a part of her feel inadequate. She's no Temple, no Lake, no Virtue. Ashley's name is a common one, smacking less of mysticism than those Willworkers who should technically be her equals, and perhaps she isn't going to go down in the annals of Awakened history save as Ashley, the Child Adept.
"That's what I'm thinking," Ashley agrees. "There's too much for me to do to stay shut away in one city anyway." After all she has a cabalmate now who is practically a Sister, a cabalmate who will travel with her wherever she goes. It's proven: Kage came here with her to Boston.
Ashley hesitates a moment and then adds, "I'm focusing on what will make me happy. What I want. I couldn't do that there, so maybe when I go back." She doesn't finish that thought, but leaves it as a statement unto itself. "And here, I'm learning. How are you?"
[Lughnasadh] She anticipates that when the time comes for her to stand in the same Circle as Gwenna Lake, if it indeed ever comes, that she will call him Green Man and he might call her... what? Storm Child? She is less and less a Child now. Storm Crow, then? Have her Crone years come forward so quickly? Will he call her what the others did, this summer, with their paper-thin skins and the thrum of their lifesblood weakening: Breaking Storm. Will she be a Moment, now, in name. A Happening, rather than an Omen?
This is how it is, at the cusp of a great thing, at the mouth of a chasm she could never hope to cross but Must. Needs to. Will somehow transcend. These struggles are quiet things, now, in the weight of the summer's golden light. In the hope for a rainstorm to come and muddle up the earth-damp scent, and push away a little of the humidity, and bring with it a brightness and a chill -- a maybe chill? No. It's too soon for Autumn hopes and chill breezes. So there will be no chill, only more of this same swelter.
"I have been busy, too," she says, but with that sort of quiet hush that means she has been busy turning a different spoke of the wheel. One that is about endings more than beginnings. One that is out of place in this season, and yet has a place in all times. "This year is all out of sorts for me. Things happen outside of their seasons. It feels like a tumult, but it's really just change that I'm not too fond of some days."
She smiles. There's no unneeded weight to it.
"I've been thinking about you a lot lately. That's most of why I've come up this way. I wanted to see you before September."
[Hunger] Ashley knows a lot about endings and about changes she isn't too fond of. Things happen outside their seasons - indeed, sometimes it seems as though the seasons take years to cycle past. One can spend a half of a lifetime famished, in darkness, only to have spring appear suddenly on the horizon. Ashley can't quite tell that this is how it is for Kae, though. These are things she isn't always good at perceiving about others.
Kae says that she's been thinking about her a lot and Ashley just quirks a little smile. Flattered, perhaps, that she is thought of, and not just in the way that other people think of her when they need her for something else. As though she's a person, as though there is a place of Belonging.
"Why?" she asks. "What happens in September?" A beat. "The full year, isn't it."
That last, not a question. She knows well when she met Kae because she knows what the end of this month is going to mean for her. Then she says, "I still haven't been properly initiated yet, really. I'm never sure whether I'm ready."
[Lughnasadh] Why? asks Hunger. And then, almost immediately on its heels: The full year, isn't it.
Kae's mouth works into the shape of bemusement again, and this time with a fondness, with an echo of friendship. Her eyes are warm, softened and inviting. She is accommodating; she is supportive; she is encouraging. Ashley says something about Initiations and Kaeley drinks from her lemonade. It's half empty now, and she sets it back on the table, running her hand down the sides of the glass against so she can place the cool damp against the side of her neck this time.
"Well, yes," she cedes. "There's that. But mostly, I've been thinking about you because it's Harvest. And I think of you a little like a Barley King. Like you died, a little, at the end of last summer. Like you were plowed under last Fall, buried in the Winter. I don't know who planted you out in the Spring, or why you're growing in Boston -- except that it's safe, and that there's nourishment and friendship here -- but it's Harvest again."
She pauses, and her smile broadens somewhat, but with a note of something incredulous and pleased that makes her seem younger, for a moment, still full of awe at a thing reborn.
"And you speak of being Happy like it's a thing you're allowed to hold again. To want. To have. Which is a pretty good Harvest," she says, with a roll of her shoulder, as if she were challenging Ashley to contest that assessment.
[Hunger] There's something in Ashley that is pleased to be likened to a Barley King. Autumn has always been a drawing down for her, a time of loss, a time to cast herself down and hang amid bare branches. It was autumn, after all, when she lost music for the first time, and autumn when she truly left Boston for a new city.
She's a little unsure of herself in the rebirth, yet. She's struggled past much of what sought to destroy her and make her a mindless wanting Thing, but Ashley has never really had a true summer, not since she was eighteen. She talks of being Happy like she suspects it's a thing she could be allowed to Have, but she's not yet comfortable in the having. She hasn't quite figured out how it works yet, even.
Ashley doesn't challenge Kae's assessment. There's just a flicker of a smile, a shy thing that retreats as quickly as it appeared, and she says, "I guess. If you want to think of it that way. But I guess I don't...observe the seasons the way other Verbena I know seem to." Other Verbena, she says, because perhaps she now counts herself as one of them even if they observe things differently, even without the full initiation.
Jarod told her once that she was one if she felt it. Perhaps she finally does.
[Lughnasadh] "Of course you don't," Kaeley says, nodding her agreement and understanding. "You mark them how You do. Which is ultimately what matters. You can get caught up in the How and Why and What of it if you really want," and Kaeley supposes that Ashley does want to, somewhat, as she has strong Hermetic roots.
"But what you said is enough: You are Verbena. There are no true veils and mysteries and secret handshakes. You are what you are, and it is enough, and it is right." Kaeley speaks with a sort of certainty that is so well worn and smooth that it hardly sounds like any sort of revelation or acceptance.
She reaches into her satchel and pulls out a small bag pieced of little bits of reds and blacks and golds. Fabrics with rich textures, or patterns just clear enough to hint at what they might have been. Inside is something hard and mostly round, with a puddle of something else near the seam of the little bag. It is closed up with a gold-spun pull thread.
"I've been meaning to bring this to you, but time keeps getting away from me. My cousin has some gifts in Carpentry," she explains, handing it over to Ashley.
[Lughnasadh] The circlet is small, meaning it just fits within the bounds of Ashley's palm. This is not a thing to wear around one's neck, but perhaps to hang against a wall somewhere, and the puddled chain suggests just that: a bronze open link hanging cord, not a necklace.
The outer Ring is the Ouroboros, because at some point in the Year they had spoken about the Hunger that dwelled within her, or maybe Kaeley had sensed it in her. The serpent is finely crafted, with sharp glossy scales whittled down to points that would catch in clothing like burrs or draw blood if pressed to quickly or tightly. So intricate that it seems to move, to cycle somehow, to watch.
It wraps around a small, thin disk of wood, into which has been carved and stained a single furthark rune: Raidho. A journey. A change. Fluidity. Travel. Becoming. Evolution.
This thing carries with it a bit of Kaeley's resonance, as it is blessed and imbued. It is Anticipation, a thing of building purpose. It also has a timelessness and power to it beyond the Disciple herself. The wood grain is deep sienna, almost dark enough to seem red-hued, almost reminiscent of blood. The wood, no doubt, is from her Family Tree, a thing that Kaeley spoke to Ashley about at some point over the year.
to Hunger
[Hunger] It doesn't sound like any great revelation, the way that Kaeley says it. Kaeley is like that though: she has a manner of expressing things so that they get across even to someone like Ashley, who has no great skill in interpreting the emotions of others. For Ashley people like this are refreshing; it's one of the things that she liked almost immediately about Rowan. The people she's close with are often difficult people to gauge and understand.
The simplicity of it all, the lack of secret handshakes and words and ritual, is perhaps a bit of a relief to her. The ritual is lived, after all, in a way that Hermetic ritual is not: the Year has been her initiation. Blood and strife and the Apple Book have been her initiation.
Ashley stuffs a cheek full of whatever was, formerly, on the plate, watching as Kae draws forth the bag. Her gaze takes on something curious as she swallows and reaches out to accept it, letting it drop into the palm of her hand and settle there like an apple resting between the roots of a great tree. "Thank you," she says, pre-emptively. And then carefully she tugs the string away.
Ashley has seen the Family Tree; she stood in front of it and witnessed the strength in its roots and trunk. She can tell what the Ouroboros is carved from, and memories of that day are suddenly freed, unleashed, and they spiral through her mind for a moment as she runs her fingertips over the wood. It's not to be worn but to be hung elsewhere. In a sanctum perhaps.
Ashley's eyes are solemn, as they often are when she receives gifts. Perhaps it continues to strike her as strange from time to time that people give things to her freely, and with no small frequency, even though she has to be just as aware of her resonance as everyone else is. "Thank you," she says again, quietly. "You have a gifted cousin."
[Lughnasadh] Kaeley, in fact, has two gifted cousins. This carpenter, and another who Sings and works metals so fluidly it is as if they were honed by his White God's hand. She has music wherever she goes, and she can piece together scraps of just about anything into a skirt, or a blanket, or even Art that gives the illusion of more. They are gifted, Craftsmen and Will-workers alike, and no two of them the same.
There is familial pride and warmth in the way her smile tugs upward in agreement. "That I do," she confirms. "I have many gifted friends," she adds, and there's an easy grace to that which assume Ashley into that circle.
"Your year is over," she tells Ashley, and it may be the last time her tone strays toward that of a mentor/teacher, and not that of a friend. "But I set a Dumb Supper at Mabon, to welcome in those who have passed. You can join us if you have people to remember, or if you have no other plans."
There's a bit of finality in this. The transition. How she is released and welcomed back, like the ebb and flow of some unseen current, all in the space of the same breath. Cast out, pulled back. Just so. No fireworks. Nothing to so much as draw the locals' attention.
[Hunger] The mentors that Ashley has had among the Verbena have been decidedly kinder to her than her mentors among the Hermetics were. Victoria Kurtz and Hannibal Caspian Temple both sought to dominate the world around them and Ashley by extension - by fighting back she strengthened her own Will rather than be a mere tool for someone else. She'd expected something similar from the Verbena, truth be told.
But no, it hasn't quite worked out that way. There's been a sort of solidarity with them in a way there isn't in the Order of Hermes. It isn't precisely that there's now room for Wills other than her own, that she feels as though she's part of some all-inclusive group, because she doesn't. But in some ways this has been more about the bonds that have been forged.
The little smile broadens into something bright and full, suddenly, when Kae says her year is over, and then that too is gone. Partly because these things don't linger and partly because Kae mentions Mabon and remembrance, and Ashley does indeed have people to remember. There are the fleeting ones; there was Daiyu. There are people she should have known better but whose passing has left an emptiness all the same - her mother and Dylan. But that's all right. That's what the holiday is for.
"I'd like to join you," she says, and then takes a long swallow from her glass. There's a beat and then, almost sheepish, "Thanks for taking me on."
[Lughnasadh] Kae laughs, a little, at this last. It crinkles the corners of her eyes where crow's feet are starting to just barely show. And she shakes her head, slowly, as if at last she can let Ashley in on some big secret, this running joke, which isn't all that funny at the last but is this:
"To tell you the truth, I don't think I had much of a choice. Sometimes people come along when you need them. You're not the only one who's grown."
At this, though, Kae slips her feet off the neighboring chair and tucks them back into her sandals. She reaches for her bag to draw up into her lap.
"It's almost sundown," she says, lifting her chin to the Western horizon. "I think we both have some place to be," she adds, but this parting is no resounding goodbye. It's more of a So Long, or a Til Then.
"I'll be in town for a few days," she says, pausing thoughtfully before adding. "Give my regards to the Green Man, if by chance you two should meet."
The lemonades and foodstuffs had been paid for before Ashley arrived. And a tip, too, paid to the waitstaff to not come about and ask after their dinner. Kae has found, at times, the the best way to ensure a happy coincidence was to bluntly engineer it.
