On Mr. Holliday

Will

It had been a couple of days. Because of the timing of everything William hadn't really had a chance to get anything settled at the intermediary residence. Not that it would have mattered, he didn't seem too keen on doing much in the way of anything beyond cooking. Not that he really ate much of it, but he made enough for an army for the purposes of grazing. He'd made pancakes because crepes were hard. Muffins, or really any kind of breakfast food that he could make with the things on hand or with minimal effort regarding summoning and transfiguration. It was hard to turn flour into bacon, but it did happen once. The bacon ended up chalky, but it was bacon and that was good enough. 

Beyond that he spent most of his time on the back porch. He'd once asked Doc to pop his wrist back into place and then seemed surprised that he'd done it without it actually hurting. Gratitude was given and then it was back to sitting outside and occasionally talking to himself. 

You're outside. It's daytime. Margot and Ned and Sepúlveda are in the house and they're fine. It's Tuesday (it's Wednesday, it's Thursday, it's Thursday? It's Friday.) There's grass in the yard and a hole at the back of the property; this is real.

Sometimes, he named different things that he saw. Grass, birds, squirrels. But always, always ended with this is real.. Somewhere between naming the things outside and making breakfast, he came back in to find Margot. He wasn't entirely clear on the day today, but it was easy when you lose track of time courtesy of reality shaking you like an angry babysitter.

"I need to change clothes," he told her, "can you take me home? I can buy Taco Bell after."

Margot

During the time he'd spent recovering at the house out in Boulder where this weird morbid little cabal lived, Will wouldn't find himself restricted.  It was common sense and courtesy not to go poking around in a Scientist's lab, but beyond that all he'd catch was the occasional hawkish watch of Ned Gaites and a single warning that Margot had offered while rinsing blood from towels in the kitchen sink: "Better to just stay out of the tunnels.  For now, anyway."

This time when Will came inside and found Margot in the kitchen she was sitting on the end of the bench of the breakfast nook.  She had her legs folded up into a pretzel shaped lap and was examining the top of one foot up close.  There was a small pile of abandoned bandages (lightly stained now, as opposed to just the other day when they were bleeding through every six hours), and Margot appeared quite pleased to find that, at long last, the weeping holes at the tops of her feet and palms of her hands (unwrapped as well) had gone away.

"Hm?"  Margot's attention popped up when Will spoke, and big eyes blinked a couple of times while she processed what he was saying about clothes.  Then:  "Oh!  Ah, sure.  Hey, look!"  And, with a grin, she held her hands out to show him the smooth backs.  There was a mug of coffee on the breakfast table with her, and she reached over to take a sip before leaning down to gather up the shed bandages in a wad.

"Are you grabbing up more than just a suitcase?"  She asked with her mind on the several storage tubs that she had stashed in the trunk of her car, figuring she would need to bring them inside before they left if so.  There was another question that was unknowingly laced in with an underlying assumption in what was said, though:  you are coming back to stay, right?

Will

She shows him the back of her hands and he visibly brightened, the first instance of actual delight on his features (or really any kind of emotional response) since he got back. William looks most like himself when he smiled. "Oh Hell yes," he said. "That is awesome. And less gross, but you could totally bottle that so you have ritual blood on hand. Stock up while it's free?"

William looks like someone tried to kill him. The bruising and the scrapes and whatnot wasn't much of a physical problem anymore but he still looked horrible. Blood vessels burst in one , likely a result from what looked like where someone choked him out. Scratches on the wrist that spontaneously dislocated, scraped knees, the telltale signs of what happens when you shoot up wrong littering the inside of one of his forearms, and (the most innocuous) a bruise on his shin that looks like he kicked a coffee table. It hadn't all happened at once, but the culmination of all those incidents remembered courtesy of paradox were awful. 

But! There was a question, he leans carefully against the kitchen counter- very, very careful- and he blinks. Slow, not measured but assuredly distant. He was thinking before he finally nodded and-

"Yeah, I plan on grabbing a couple of suitcases," he half laughed but his heart didn't seem in it, "your couch is way more comfortable than mine. A friend made mine for me and it is still kinda pointie feeling because he literally materialized the couch in my apartment."

Followed by a little 'heh' before something seemed to strike him as awkward (no, uncomfortable. He was uncomfortable) and he retreated to the fridge. 

Margot

During the several days that the pair were confined to the house, recovering from their individual wounds of Paradox, Margot was self-confined to the basement.  The bleeding just would not stop, and though she bandaged her hands for comfort she would still end up making a terrible mess of the living space upstairs.  She had been miserable, cried in frustration and worry at least once a day up until today when the effects had finally come to an end.  During that time they had seen little of each other, each miserable in their own ways, waiting for the storms to pass.

Today was better though; Margot's first genuine grin had provoked Will's, and for a time the clouds had cleared, both figuratively and literally.  Margot had pushed open curtains and opened the windows to let air and light both into the home, wanting as much of it as possible following her stint in the basement.

"No."  Margot shook her head to the notion of collecting the blood, and moved to wash her hands in the sink after tossing the bandages in the garbage.  "That blood was cursed," she said resolutely.  "I don't trust it to behave right for any Work."

Talk of couches and an air of discomfort joined them next, and Margot flexed her brow downward while drying her hands.  She padded across the kitchen tiles on bare feet that still needed the last of the blood washed from them (but it was dry and minimal now at least, largely soaked up by the bandages), scooped up her mug, and discarded it in the sink to fetch herself a to-go thermos instead.  Raised her eyebrows back at him to inquire if he wanted any as well, obliged accordingly.

"You know there's another bedroom upstairs.  It's the door right to the side of the stairs.  It's... I mean, it's small, but it's not the couch, at least."

Will

"Yeeaah, you have a point. You could be inadvertently starting some Steven King level stuff with that kind of blood," he agreed. Followed the point and continued along. There were thermoses to be given, and he did take her up on the offer for having a To-Go drink. He put his hands to his side, only to remember that these shorts don't have pockets and that his bag was still at the train station along with, presumably, his cell phone. Assuming, of course, that nobody stole his things. 

He was lucky in that regard. He wasn't going to have to replace too much, but that was neither here nor there. Pocket watch stayed at home that day. 

"You sure everyone is going to be okay with that?" William was cautious, "the only time Ned's talked to me was when he proceeded to call me a colossal fuckup and threatened to kill me if I didn't join the cabal and I'm pretty sure Sepúlveda can't remember my name without being prompted."

A beat. 

"Does the door lock?"

Margot

"Of course the door locks."  Margot didn't bother locking it when she walked away from the house, though.  While Doc had a day job to hold down and was typically absent during the daytime hours, Ned was in and out of the house as freely and frequently as she could be.  It wasn't long after this that Margot wiped her feet down with a bath rag, dressed them in sandals, and was headed out the house toward the driver's seat of her little easily-overlooked sedan.

"We're a cabal.  I mean, I suppose that doesn't mean cohabitation, but look at what just happened-- we took how long to know something was wrong and you needed help?"

A sip of coffee was pulled before she started the car, backed up down the lengthy driveway and out onto the narrow residential street, then shifted to drive and started back toward the city.

"If Ned didn't care to keep you around he would have seen you killed instead of inviting you into the cabal."  She paused for a beat, frowned softly, and took another drink before adding: "If I were him and wanted that I would've gone straight to Doc and not called the meeting; left me out of the whole affair.  Of course I wasn't going to let that meeting close with the alternative ending.  But he called the meeting instead, didn't he?"

Will

"Ned is very loyal and very committed to your-" he gestures, there is no English equivalent to the plural you, "-well being. I wouldn't blame him if that was what he wanted to do and it's good that he didn't. I don't-" 

There was a hitch there, something that stuck when he was getting into the car and buckling up. William looked at the window and tried to determine whether or not he needed to roll it down. It wasn't small in here, and it wasn't suffocating, and this was real and everything is okay. 

"I'm not mad that it took long. I... I didn't want anyone to get hurt. I didn't want this but-" he inhales slow and deep and it makes his lungs burn when he does if only because it feels bitter, "-but it doesn't matter what my intention is. Good intentions do not negate bad results, and continued things like this? It's... it's a sign of bad judgment."

This is my fault. 

Margot

"We all have bad judgment, Will."

Margot said this in a tone that was patient and old sounding for a voice as small and young and clear as hers.  She glanced to him from the road, momentarily, before looking back through the windshield and minding traffic safety once more.

"That was the point Ned was making when he brought us together.  If you want to look at it in terms of fault I guess you could, and you could say it was yours, but then any number of Bad Things have been the fault of any one of us.  Shoot, the time that Doc got his wrists fused...  Or hauling Ned to the E.R. in the middle of noplace Iowa because of my poor choices and Ned's encouragement of them...  I've.." She trailed off and swallowed, scowling at the hard memories.  They did not cause her paroxysms of terror or the sensation of bad history imminently repeating itself, not any longer, but some things were still very hard to talk about all the same.

She cleared her throat and took another sip from her thermos.

"The cabal's us trying to keep all of Us alive, because the paths we're all walking otherwise would get us killed if we were alone."

Will

I've-

He turned his head and looked at her, studied the side of her face as she cleared her throat and noticed things like how fast they were going and the road signs they were passing and all the things he didn't need to focus on. Tuning out the noise made looking at another person easier, though. Made it more meaningful because it meant you needed to be present. 

"I think... we're putting unrealistic expectations on ourselves. Everyone seems to have their shit together because they fake it better, or maybe because they have support or-" he waved it away, "I'd rather have someone around who is indifferent towards me at best than being alone anymore."

"Aren't you ever afraid people will get sick of you and leave?"

Margot

"You're probably right there," she agreed about the unrealistic expectations.  Put on her blinker, switched lanes to get around a slow SUV hauling a boat.  "But we're unrealistic people.  It makes sense that everything about us, including our expectations, would be that way too."

The question that followed earned him another glance past her right shoulder, this one a little lengthier, but prevented from going on too long by being behind the driver's wheel.  Her expression was a thoughtful one; introspective, as opposed to somewhat hurt/somewhat pitying as it has been in the past.  She reached for her thermos again but held it in the air, paused before drinking so she could answer.

"I was, once.  I never had many people... it was pretty much just my Mom and I for a lot of the time, and I never worried about her leaving.  I..."  A swallow.  A sip from her thermos, and then she continued in a hush of resigned confession.  "I was the one who wound up leaving her.  And when I got out here I suppose I worried people would leave me because of what I'd done, what I can do.  I met Ned and the Doc...."

Her eyes and expression went blank while she analyzed the memories, as opposed to searching them alone.

"....I worried Ned would leave when he found other Mages; we were the first that the other had discovered, y'know.  I worried Doc would leave us both once we were no longer Apprentices; once I became a Verbena.

"But neither of them did.  Ned's still here grinding through books with me and helping teach me to defend myself.  The Doc's still here, teaching us, keeping us safe, giving us a home.  We've given one another all plenty of times and reasons to leave, but no one has.  I don't worry about that anymore.  It takes time, but that worry does die."

Will

"You were afraid he'd leave... like he'd find someone better and leave you since you weren't the world anymore?" William stopped, "... I'm putting words in your mouth."

He had an opportunity, to either ruminate and give background and history. To prattle on about himself and there is that silence when he looks for something to say. There is more silence there than need be, all things considered. She talks about having a friend who stuck with her, having a mentor who decided to keep teaching them and didn't cut ties the minute that there was some sort of divergence. 

"Kalen wasn't like that," William confessed, "he was the first person I met after almost four years of being alone. I thought he was the sun, he gave me that pocket watch I use, and a lot of other things."

He inhaled, shook his head and realized that his gaze had gone distant and that he had lost touch with his reflection. That he had been staring at the faint showing in the side window and that he couldn't quite place the person there. Familiar but not. 

"Coming here sounds like it was really nice... what was it like studying with Doc?"

Margot
Big hazel eyes flitted toward William when he began what sounded like projecting abandonment fears, and the corner of her mouth that faced him turned downward in sympathy when he stopped himself and stated precisely what he was doing-- putting words in her mouth.  To answer that she just rolled a shoulder in a shrug-- maybe, the non-committal answer of the ages.

"Not even that I wasn't the world.  I didn't ever think that I was.  I just used to think he'd find a Tradition and run away to a new land with new people to learn how to be One of Them."  However, as Will had to be aware by now, Ned was traditionless; truly an Orphan, even if he did smack of those who fiddled much with Entropy and Death from time to time.

She grew quiet after that, and in that quiet William spoke up about Kalen, who gave him much but wasn't 'like that'  She kept her eyes forward this time, and kept her quiet as well, though she didn't seem uncomfortable in it.  Just thoughtful, then companionly.  She didn't want to press for details, as the subject seemed tender, and trusted he would offer more clarification if/when he wanted.  After a time, they would instead talk about studying under Doc.  It was around this time that Margot was getting off the freeway to enter Denver and get William back to his belongings.

"Harsh," she answered without hesitation.  "He more or less built out a roadmap and dictionary and then kept us mostly safe while we figured out hard lessons.  He'll bitch at you for asking stupid questions, or sometimes outright forbid them if he's lecturing.  He'll be mean and roll his eyes and groan, but he makes sure that we know what we need to know, and lets us use his books even if we disagree on the fundamentals of how Magick works."

Will

I just used to think he'd find a Tradition and run away to a new land with new people to learn how to be One of Them."

"That he'd join another tribe, so to speak?" like that made more sense to him. The idea of finding your people and learning their dances and becoming One Of Them, or discovering the part of yourself that was there all along. 

The apprenticeship she described was harsh, which made him seem to brighten at the mention. Of something that was informative and interesting and, at that moment, he could hold onto it and be engrossed in the process. "I think cantankerous is a good word for him. Like that old guy that wants you off his lawn, but is going to make sure you don't step in any holes and gives you practical presents because he won't come out and say he likes you."

"I think Sepúlveda likes you."

He continued on, "Kalen... was great for a good two months. He was attentive and interested in having someone there that he could teach but then it just... stopped. The contact, the connections- he was off infatuated by someone or something else. Collecting projects or buying things or some weekly fling. I learned the vast majority of things about the Order from a book instead of him; we're not even members of the same house. 

"I didn't get to ask questions- he wouldn't answer if I asked him and if I asked someone else he'd get mad and say that I wasn't trusting him and that I was shutting him out."

Margot

"Yeah..."  The first time she said this was in agreement about tribes and running off to find them.  She felt hesitation in joining her own Tradition because of that; she'd felt a witch from the very start, and she'd always felt a primal one connected to the earth and the oceans and the blood that would soak the both of them.  When she learned what the Verbena were she knew it was where she belonged, but loathed the thought of leaving her mismatched little cabal behind to learn from a coven someplace far away near the sea.

The second time, though, was after Will concluded his analysis about her mentor, how he must like her.  "Yeah."  A small smile touched her face at the corners of her mouth and eyes. "I know he does."

Following that she listened and learned about Kalen and the kind of mentor/apprentice(/something more?) relationship that existed there.  It had her scowling gently, a set of lines appearing between her eyebrows where they pinched together.  Again, it seemed she didn't quite know what to say, but it could be that she was focused on pulling them into a parking space before the building where Will lived.  She parked the car and hesitated before getting out.  Making up her mind, she reached across Will's legs to tap the latch to the glove box, which fell open to show a neat and typical stack of papers in clear plastic bags (registration, manual, insurance), a number of clean napkins and a to-go package of tissues, and a black zipper pouch; it was the lattermost thing that she snatched up and over into her own lap.

When the pouch was unzipped it wafted the smell of a number of herbs; pine and sage being the strongest smelling.  From the bag she pulled an oblong wooden cylinder about half the size of her small hand, and a miniature sky blue lighter.  The cylinder was revealed to hold a false ceramic cigarette-- a one-hitter for weed, which she packed into the device from where it was stashed within the cylinder's chamber before offering it over to Will along with the lighter.

While he got his hands and mouth situated around taking a hit that was offered apropos of nothing, she spoke at last.

"Obviously I'd never met this Kalen, but it sounds like he was something of a jealous and emotionally abusive shit.  And I'm sorry for that."  When it was her turn to take the hitter back she did, and re-packed it as she continued.

"We're all shits too; me and The Doc and Ned, all of us suck pretty hard in our own ways.  But we're here to learn and grow and survive, and I think we can help you do a better job of it than books and some guy who can't be assed to remember you unless he's feeling slighted."

Will

She retrieved the one hitter-

"Margot, you fucking saint," he laughs, again with something like sincere joy. He took the one hitter and inspected it quietly, rolled ceramic between his fingers for a second before poising the lighter where he needed it to be. He took his drag. 

They were parked in front of a place called Floral and Hardy- it was a florist shop that, once upon a time, people cared about. The neighborhood has since fallen into disrepair and the little door next to the shop that led to the apartment looked like it had been replaced several times. It was an older part of town that had yet to feel the effects of gentrification. The rent was still reasonable, and that was good enough for Will when he was paying for two people. 

He held his breath while listening to her. Nodded once and then twice before handing the one hitter off and exhaling slowly. He didn't hack his lungs out, clearly subscribing to the idea that if you cough you did it wrong, versus being of the camp that you have to cough to get off. Who knew where the truth in the debate actually went. 

"I'd tell people and they'd either deny that he'd act that way and shut it down or say that it was the way he was and I should get over it or that, y'know, I had to have done something to deserve it, right?" William laughed, shrugging his shoulders before unbuckling and getting ready to head up to the apartment, the sound wasn't so much laughter as a release of tension, "he didn't even tell the Order about me... after all that, he never brought me up apparently. I had to convince the representatives that I needed to join."

"I mean, I am a shit, though. And I'm glad to be in similar company. Besides, you're prettier than most books," Will grinned, "have you seen medieval manuscripts? The ones from 1200? Better than a centerfold."

Margot

Margot was of a similar camp as William, and held her smoke within her lungs for a good time before blowing smoothly over her shoulder and into the back seat of her car.  She did cough a little, though, and brought her hand to press a fist to her mouth to muffle the sound.  The coughing bled into a sentence.  "Wh-what--" koff! "What kind of gaslighting community used to live here?"

When the coughing subsided to let her face find its own expressions again, she appeared alarmed and angry both.  The hitter was re-stashed appropriately in the zipper pouch, from there in the glovebox, and the two were climbing out of the car and up onto the sidewalk in front of the floral shop.  Margot didn't carry a purse with her anyplace, just kept her important cards and cash in the wallet folds that were built into her phone case.  This meant she was without any sticks of gum, though she did pat her pockets just to confirm that none was there (it was not).

She stepped around the headlight of the car to join Will's side, and would fall into step with him to lead the way to the apartment he'd been residing within.  When he paid his compliment, proclaiming her prettier than any ancient centerfold, she appeared momentarily taken aback, as though having seen something as unusual as a deer go sprinting across a downtown avenue.  Then she blinked and put a smirk on her face that helped her pretend she didn't feel blush blooming tell-tale in her cheeks like it always did.  "Oh, stop.  It's not the centerfold's fault that it never knew about modern hygiene and fashion."  Said while wearing flip-flops, cut-off denim shorts and a gray v-neck tee that was a little too large and stretched from too many washes on top of that.  Clearly the height of fashion.

"Where did he go?"  This was asked after a few moment's lapse into quiet, clearly kicking the conversational can back to Kalen.  There was a particular note to the question, delving and hinting of threat, that sounded very much like something she'd picked up from either/both of her cablmates... or possibly the Goddess that rode in her bones.  It did seem like the macabre aura that stuck faded and sticky in the air about her rolled comfortable as a tide to shore while she waited for the answer, whatever that may be.

Will

It was a two way security system that, as it turned out, was a really ineffective system. There was supposed to be a passcode lock on the door, but Will shoved his shoulder into it while he opened which jarred it with enough force to actually open the damned thing. It was up the stairs then in a narrow hallway with aging floral carpet covering maple wood stairs. This place had potential- the architecture, the molding, the opportunities again and again to be something truly beautiful if someone had actually cared about it. 

Luckily that disrepair came in handy because in order to get the spare key to his apartment, William jostled a piece of molding that wasn't quite attached as well as it should have. It moved the key out just enough that he could reach the tip and pull it out. he numbers on his apartment door had long since come off. 

"It's true! I'd daresay you even hold a candle to the calligraphic prowess of twelve cloistered monks. You're Book of Kells caliber," he gave her a thumbs up and a playful grin. Seemed more himself when he was playful and poking fun. 

The lock, however, was well cared for. It turned without a sound beyond the resounding click that came when one felt the deadbolt fall into position. He pushed the door and it opened without any real effort. The apartment was beautiful, but one could tell that it hadn't always been that way. The tile in the kitchen still needed to be tended but the exposed brick walls were clean and the ceilings were high. The molding was restored, the plaster was redone in the places that needed it. Fresh paint- it had to have taken time to do, and given the condition of the rest of the building it was clear this unit did not start out in the condition it happened to be in now. 

Upon opening the door there were a set of stairs that led up to a loft with a wrought iron bed that probably cost a small fortune. There were places where there should have been pictures on the walls, but those paintings were taken down and facing the wall. The floors were sanded and pristine, save for the chalk outlines and circles and what-have-you written there. It very clearly used to be an apartment but now felt more like a Workspace with a bed. There was a bedroom off to one side, and a balcony that had a lovely view of a wall. His plants were dying from the lack of waterings they'd received. 

"I've got water and stuff in the fridge, you're welcome to anything that isn't spoiled," he told Margot. Avoided the gaslighting question in favor of being preoccupied with these sorts of things. Like looking around and figuring out where he put his suitcases. 

Where did he go?

William didn't answer that one, instead he went to the bedroom down the way and retrieved a piece of rolling luggage, "Kalen?" Nope, couldn't buy himself any more time there, "He just... left. Left Denver, left the Order of Hermes, packed up his things and flew to South America to live with some priest named Ramon from the Chorus."

"He was one of the big movers-and-shakers when things first seemed to be going down in Denver. He knew all the right people, was in the thick of everything. He was a hub for the city-" he tipped the suitcare over and started to unzip it. A smaller suitcase fell out, which made William look relieved. 

He stopped for a second, that weird moment of reflection, "-and... I was a fuck up who made stupid mistakes very publicly- who kept getting in trouble and meant well but it didn't matter. I made him look bad. I mean... so it made sense. It makes sense, if I was better things would have been different." It had been said in a convicted fashion, like a genuine core belief. Not self-pitying, but rather like he was delivering an undisputed fact to Ms. Travers, "I had it coming."

Margot

In a home not her own-- nay, clearly a Workspace not her own, given the chalk on the ground and the much-cleared space-- Margot did her best to explore with her eyes and not with her hands and feet.  William was pulling suitcases out like nesting dolls and busying himself with his packing, and seeing this as a one-man job that she'd slow more than speed by trying to get involved, she settled herself hovering on a chalk-free spot on the floor near the middle of whatever space Will was in at that time.

She looked down while he spoke, pulling at a stray thread in the hem of her left sleeve and watching it unravel.  Her nose wrinkled when she saw the thread wanted to continue pulling further than she anticipated, so around the time that Will was proclaiming himself a fuck-up the little witch bared her teeth and used them to sever the thread abruptly at its end.  She pulled fibers from the tip of her tongue with her index and thumb finger pads and, still scowling, brushed that on the stunted thigh of her shorts.

"You had something coming," she agreed, now fixing the scowl onto him.  Her arms folded over her narrow chest, uncomfortable but braced (body language betraying what she was convincing her face and voice to go in a different direction from).  "But it wasn't any of that."

Her arms squeezed a little tighter, and the subtle aura ever-present around her, as it was around any of them, seemed taut like a well-controlled pull of a bow string.  It was anger, roiling under the surface at these figures of the past, prickling and pleasing the touches of Andraste that were with her always.

"I mean, yeah, sure we're fuck-ups and we do stupid shit that makes it to a lot of ears, stirs up fires that other people have to come put out.  We're humans<-- fucking kids who are wielding tools to break and make Existence.  That's what happens.  Yes, we should be yelled at and scolded when shit goes awry like that, and we should have our faces turned in the direction of the lesson we need to take away lest the next time kill us.

"But fuck his ego, Will.  And fuck him for thinking that was what was at stake.  I'm glad that you weren't 'better', because it sounds like the way things did turn out is actually 'better' than the kind of 'different' you're probably meaning."

Will

"I wasn't kidding when I told you a few months back that the fastest way to get people to leave is to be human," he said to Margot. Will starts to drag the larger of the two suitcases up to the loft area with the bed and the chest of drawers and implements of living. Whatever he used the bedroom for was questionable at best, and not something he seemed too interested in explaining. 

He threw his shirt over the railing, which was followed by the shorts he had been wearing. There was the sound of wrestling to get clothes back on, "I guess that's what I'm worried about. I keep thinking that you guys are going to figure I'm not worth it or I'll piss you off and I won't be able to fix it."

A pause, then peeking over the railing. He didn't have a shirt on, and he still looked awful but it wasn't as bad as it could have been, "I am probably confusing different with better. You think you will get more enlightened and get over your shit but it just makes you more aware of where you need to get over yourself."

"I wish I hated him. It would be easier."

Margot

"Well....," Margot started and trailed off at first, the argument reeled back as soon as it began to tumble from her mouth.  She analyzed what she was about to say, a habit she's always carried with her that's often given her pause before speech, which was doubtless murder for an impatient soul trying to have a conversation with her.  As always, though, she did continue.

"Well," she began again, and this time continued on. "Who needs the kind of person that would abandon you for being you in the first place?"

She stopped glowering at an intersect of chalk lines on the floor and lifted her gaze to find it meeting Will's over the railing.  She probably would have blushed and flustered some time ago to find him without his shirt, but that was another time, and another Margot who was worried about far smaller things.

Her mouth pressed to a sympathetic line after he spoke next, and her voice was still bothered but trying to be gentler when she replied. "The important lessons are never the easy ones.  But they are good to know, none the less."

She cleared her throat before adding: "Remember, though, we are They Who Make Change: if you really wanna hate him, we could find a way to make that happen.  Hey, can I help gather anything up for you?"

Will

It was the sort of interaction that was born of mindless comforts. That it wasn't a flirtatious gesture to be half clothed and conversing. Anything that started with well was likely to be predicated with something thoughtful. Margot didn't talk like Will- who spoke frequently and thought outloud and looped around and eventually got to a point because he talks when he's nervous and excited and the only time he ever shuts up is when things Are Not Okay, which is really what made this situation stand out because he didn't say more than a hand full of words for the most part. 

"Truth," he replies, nods. And then after a second of thinking.

"Yeah, yeah you're really right. And.. uh.. I think hating him is going to come naturally later... aaaand, can you grab my notebooks? They're... uh... on the kitchen table? Take the notes that are with it."

A beat.

"Or you could help me pick out clothes. I'm totally like a fucked up Barbie right now."

Starlight (ongoing)

Margot
It wasn't often that Margot had to step out into a public library to hunt for books these days; there were more than enough of them left behind in the house she and her Cabal had come to inheret (that's what she called it, at least), and they tended to be more blatently magickal, useful, or outright mystifying in how little sense they made.  She could get (has been) lost in them for hours, easily, before she realized that her eyes ached from the losing the light of day to read in and had to eat some food.

Today, though, she needed chemistry books.  Something specific to do with density, and while she didn't know what book exactly she was hunting for, she had a feeling she'd find what she was looking for when her finger was trailing the spines along the shelves.

That's precisely what she was up to in this moment: trailing along the deserted non-fiction section dedicated to sciences less popular than animal studies and care.  She wore a yellow-check tank top that was loose on her frame, slipping often down one narrow shoulder, with a pair of white denim shorts that rode high on her legs.  Her hair was left down, a mass of dark brown that fell to touch her shoulders these days, tucked back behind her ears and pinned from her face with the help of the sunglasses she'd pushed up onto her crown.  Flip-flops smacked the bottoms of her feet quietly when she stepped away from one shelf and moved on to the other, head tipped to the side while she read along the spines in hunt of something that may be worthwhile.

starlight
Margot Travers's phone doesn't ring Amy Winehouse tunes. Or maybe it does; we don't know her choices, we don't know her life or the things that she likes or dislikes. She might have been a huge fan of the beehive-wearing singer- accursed member of the twenty-seven club. It comes across the nearest piece of audio equipment, started over the PA system. A solid baseline moving to something you could swing your hips to.

Meet you downstairs in the bar and heard
Your rolled up sleeves and your skull t-shirt-

The sound cut off from the PA immediately, but it kept playing on whatever digital device Margot might have had nearby. It was a crackling int he way that second-hand audio always did, sounded like someone had it playing over speaker in whatever end they were playing from.

You say why did you do it with him today?
And sniff me out like I was Tanqueray?

"Aurora, do you copy?" a female voice came from over the music, but the signal was bad. The library was practically dead today, but one had to won der how many people were getting this kind of weird feedback,



starlight


starlight
(test)

Margot
It was around the time that the little witch was contemplating how curious a choice of music Amy Winehouse was for a public library that the sound cut and switched.  First it was over the PA, and next it seemed as though someone had stashed an old two-way someplace nearby, or perhaps even a police scanner.

"Well that's curious...," she murmered to herself, head turned and big hazel-colored eyes searching for wherever the sound was coming from-- skimming along shelves for interruptions in the neat lines where something might be hidden.

Aurora, do you copy?

Margot's spine stiffened with surprise, and wherever her eyes had been at the time they stayed put.  Her ear was sharp on the crackling, straining to find the source.

[Perception 3 + Alertness 2]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 4, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )

starlight
The source, it would appear, was coming from several different places. It died out though as, slowly, wherever the sound was coming from was either shut off or ignored or closed out and considered a fluke.

The source, the nearest and most easily recognizable source, seemed to be with her things.

Margot
After spending a few moments turning her head this way and that in search of a sound that seemed to be coming from more places than one, she finally settled for reaching down to rifle through the dark brown bag she was carrying at her hip, slung across her chest and one shoulder by a thin leather strap.

Her hands searched rather than her eyes, fingers hunting for something unfamiliar in a bag that was (in a surprise to no one) meticulously organized.

Where are you?

starlight
"Repeat, do you copy?

It is, at that moment, that she realizes there isn't a foreign body in her bag. The sound was coming from her phone, and the static on the other end seemed to be coming in more heavily.

"Aurora-" there is a sigh, and the sudden skipping of the Amy Winehouse track.

Margot
Her fingers closed around her phone, feeling the very faint vibration of sound eminating from the speaker in their tips.  It was in that moment that she realized the sound was transmitting from her phone.  She paused for a moment, holding it firmly within her bag, and glanced up and down the library aisle for any company.

Assured there was none, she pulled the phone from her bag and looked upon it with bewieldered eyes.

She checked the screen, of course-- took a screenshot just in case something odd might be detected in the background later, then brought it to her ear to listen more closely, with a hello? hanging just inside her lips, wanting but afraid to come forth.

starlight
"Maybe this is the wrong frequency," the voice half-grumbled. The song in the background changed from whatever was playing before to Back to Black. Again, more Amy Winehouse. The voice was female, but not necessarily feminine. There was no discernable accent or markable features.

"Aurora, this is the LWV Polaris Two, vector seventeen J-Q, requesting permission to breach, do you copy?"

Margot
With the phone held to her ear, Margot blinked.

"Copy."  Her voice was flat and quiet.  She cleared her throat and continued in a low tone, trying to avoid drawing too much attention to her conversation amongst the books.

"Permission granted, go ahead."

starlight
"Good!"

Oh, that person sounded so happy on the other end. There was flipping of switches and the sound of something starting up in the background, "the crew of Polaris Two has taken on heavy casualties post-storm and has merged with the crew of the Voidship Eleanor. This is acting captain Ezra Tate."

"Who should we expect to rendezvous with upon reentry?"

starlight


Margot
"I--.... I, uh..."

Margot blinked and looked around, then promptly untucked the book that she'd been toting about with her from under her armpit and set it back upon the shelf.  Up on top of the other books so that it could be replaced later.  With a quick adjustment of the strap across her chest she turned and started a quick-stepping stride out into the main aisle and toward the front door.

"Re-entry?  Wait, where are you re-entering from?  In what?"

And with a brisk hurry that nobody felt it necessary to interrupt, Margot shoved her way out the heavy sets of doors entering the library and out into the dusk.  The air was still warm from the blazing hot day, but relief came with the shade when the sun tucked behind the jagged mountains.  Her eyes were scanning the parking lot and sidewalks as she listened for the answer.

starlight
"Sending you coordinates now of our current location-"

The sending of the coordinates made Margot's phone make a god awful noise. What precisely got send to that phone is hard to tell, but once it was done making the dying harpy sound, the voice came back on and she had a text message in her inbox (which, if checked, gave coordinates that looked like a GPS location with about seven too many categories of reference in it)

"I don't know if the Polaris Two would hold up to reentry into Earth's atmosphere unless dimensional travel is readily acceptable."

A beat.

"Are you with Control?"

Margot
"Damnit!"  Margot yelped and jerked the phone away from her ear when it started to screech, cringing and twisting her head so her ear tucked close to her shoulder, like that would somehow chase the ache and the ringing away from it.  In a mild panic she stuffed the phone under her armpit to try and stifle the sound it was making, and gave an apologetic and nervous smile to a mother who was walking her young son out of the library and back out to their car.

When the sound stopped, she looked down to her phone screen and checked the text to pull up the coordinates on the map.  After investigating them (and determining whether she should walk or drive to reach them), she started a hesitant plotted path toward the apparent distress call's intended destination.

"Am I with--...," she had brought the phone back up to her ear in time to hear --reentry into Earth's atmosphere, and scowled hard enough that one would get the impression she'd end up with age lines between her heavy eyebrows before anyplace else on her face at this rate.  "Look, Cap'n , I'm not in control of very much down here.  Did you say you're coming back in through the atmosphere?"  That, followed by her craning her neck and twisting about to scan the skies.

starlight
"Oh..."

There's a light in the sky that isn't supposed to be there. Margot knows it's not supposed to be there and it's a tiny, tiny pin of a figure but it is posed over the mountains and the coordinates she could largely suss out seemed to be located somewhere inside of a mountainside.

"... this is going to hurt, isn't it?"

There's a hiss.

"Can we keep this channel open for further communication?"

Margot
The quiet question of impact tugged some kind of a cord in Margot's chest, and she paused in her trek out into the trees.  The library hugged up against a park property whose edge was lined with trees and the gradual slope up a mountain slide.  The witch's flip-flips slipped around under her feet on patches of loose dry dirt and shady grass when she passed beneath trees, but she didn't seem too terribly deterred.

The search of the skies yielded her sight of a pinprick of light that wasn't quite a star, certainly wasn't a plane.  She hissed along with the sound on the phone.

"Yeah," with a hesitant but bracing tone.  "Yeah, it probably will."

Could the channel stay open?  Margot flexed her brow briefly again, then started forward once more by pushing a hand off the trunk of a young tree to get herself in motion.  "Yeah, I... I suppose so."  She didn't figure that this Captain of the Starship Eleanor would have an easy time reconnecting with anything after her impossible (this was a dream right?  was this reality reminding her what the ridiculous was while she slept?) craft endured its apparent collision course with the side of a mountain.

Margot
[TO THE FORUMS]

Vriqiohr

Samir
[aw shit what is going down today]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )

William
They made a pretty decent team when it came to Overwatch. William kept his damned mouth shut unless he needed an assist, he was a good listener, and he followed directions pretty damned well. Honestly, if he could be the kind of person he is when he's playing video games he would probably be an adept by now. But he is not, and he is not.

He is, however, very persuasive. This is how Samir usually ends up in trouble when he hangs out with William. William is like a goddamned duck when it comes to both paradox and trouble, and someday it's going to catch up with him but one could hope that, for once, the fact that all of his friends are Right And Proper Fucked won't catch up with them today.

The blond had conned Samir into coming out because William had requested assistance upgrading the hardware on his PC. Not his laptop, mind you. William had actually broken down and acquired a desktop and had been doing to awkward task of trying to get better at figuring out WTF is going on with it. He hadn't done a terrible job, but he had promised food and the opportunity to mock him mercilessly to Samir if he would help with this one thing.

They were going to meet at Union station and take the same train off to whatever store they were headed to. Save on parking and save on time. Also, William wouldn't have to rive or ride in a car.

Because fuck cars.

Samir
So much time has passed between the last time Sam saw Will and today that he had almost forgotten why he was mad at him in the first place. It isn't as if he has a physical scar, Kiara having healed him beyond what any mundane practitioner of medicine could have done for him. What he does have is the memory of losing yet another huge chunk of time to Quiet. Disappearing into the woods, staying disappeared thanks to Reality's poor job of solidifying him as a person in the world.

But he is a person, and as a person he had grown beyond tired of Will and his thoughtlessness and his appetite for danger. The ease with which he and danger found each other. It was better that the two of them only encountered each other in multiplayer game lounges, only heard from each other when one was giving instructions over the head set or cracking a joke.

He had very much not wanted to answer Will's invitation to meet him downtown and help with his computer ineptitude. He had asked him if Hermetics weren't supposed to be able to learn things in a hurry, why the fuck don't you use your Mind Sphere, dude you're fucking hopeless. But he came. He's here.

Sam steps off the train as one in a sea of dozens, easy to overlook because it is as if he is not there in the first place. It's a million fucking degrees and he's wearing a zip-up sweatshirt, unzipped, over a faded band t-shirt and jeans. Aside from having cut his hair and kept it trimmed, little has changed about him physically. Maybe he's a little taller. His voice sounds the same as he comes up behind Will.

"What's up, Asshole?"

William
"Phfft-fuck!"

He had been drinking a Sprite when Samir came up, didn't notice him when he came up because Samir is forgettable and the next thing he knew there was Sprite coming out of his nose and he was covering his mouth and turning around- "Don't touch me I'm disgusting."

Grant you, there was precisely fuck all of a chance of Samir touching him but it was warning enough that, yes, he was gross and probably didn't need to be touched because, y'know, Sprite and the fact that he was kind of sweaty and wearing shorts. He still looked the same, but maybe a little more tan.

To his credit, though, he felt different. Fearless, dauntless, unafraid to do what he needed to do even if it was terrifying.

Denver
The train station has the standard amount of people. There are couples coming to and fro. Commuters trying to hop back on the train to catch it in time to get back to the office before the boss eats their ass for being late from lunch for the third time in two weeks. You can tell who those people are by the look on their faces.

Oh, and Mormons.

There were a group of Mormons standing about ten yards away from William and Samir. They had pamphlets. Two men and two women.

Samir
That he feels different is not a startling development for Sam. He had progressed a few winters ago, and was happy to stay in his trailer with everything he needed to survive, peeling himself out of his chair a few times a day to inhale the air outside and walk around the warded bit of land he kept up with River. There is nothing he needs from the city or the people in the city, and yet he keeps making exceptions.

Never mind exceptions have almost gotten him killed before. More than once. The young man in front of him now the correlating variable in the two most recent incidents.

"Yes," he says, his hands still in his pockets. "You are."

He spares a glance for the Mormons, if only because holy shit there's like four of them since when do they let the women out of the compound.

Denver
[Mormon 1: Do I notice Sam? -4]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (3, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )

Denver
[Mormon 2: Do I notice Sam? -4]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (4, 7) ( success x 1 )

Denver
[Lady Mormon 1: What about me? -4]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (7, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 4 )

Denver
[Lady Mormon 2: I have to notice something. (Awareness) -4]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 6, 8) ( success x 3 )

Denver
[And alertness]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 10) ( success x 1 )

Denver
[aaaand awareness again]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )

Denver
The first of them- a tall, lanky man with dark hair and the perpetual five o'clock shadow- pointed at the pair of mages standing nearby. There was the subtle nudge to the short redhead next to him but almost in unison the entire group of modestly dressed people swung their attention in their direction.

They were staring, whispered amongst themselves and wore expressions of almost awe before one of them- the small redheaded man, got nudged forward. He started his approach.

"Sir?" he said, quickened his approach and looked at Samir with a look that paralleled hero worship, "oh it is such a blessing to meet you."

Samir
Sam does not even hesitate before taking a deep breath and taking a long-legged step back to come as close to hiding behind Will as he can, considering the fact that Will could hide behind a fucking fence post. There is no hiding behind Will.

"I--heh!" Jesus what is going on. "Why's that?"

William
William has, during the course of their not-meeting-in-person, not puyt on any weight. He's tall, but he's never been a particularly physically imposing guy, but he was more than willing to put himself as far between Samir and Creepy Mormon Dude as he possibly could.

"Heyyy look, this is great and all, but we've already been to the motherland. Read the book, we're good," now please go away, the rest of that statement went.

Denver
The man didn't seem deterred by the fact that there was now a person between him and Samir, and he continued his approach only to stop right before he ran into William.

"You're him, He Who Speaks Midnight. The Scion of Beyond- Vriqiohr," he whispered, and the name coated with honey and all the flies trapped within it.

Samir
[int + occult: that's a mouthful. keen-edged mind spec GO.]

Dice: 5 d10 TN8 (1, 1, 3, 3, 5) ( botch x 2 ) [Doubling Tens]

William
[Int+occult: go go gadget Hermeticism?]

Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (1, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 1 )

William
Dude, Samir. He totally thinks you're the actor from that new web series... something about people acting out a dorky tabletop group's game? Something like that. Felt a little too much like Harmon Quest without the charm]

William
Be flattered, if you roll with this you might be able to get some free shit.

Samir
"... oh."

Given Sam has never heard of either the Scion of Beyond or whatever that new Youtube series that was like Drunk History if the History were Dorky TT Groups' Sessions and also not funny, he doesn't feel the acute need to get them the fuck away from him. They're just overenthusiastic fans dealing with a case of mistaken identity. That happens to people sometimes.

Not to him necessarily, but he's heard of it happening.

"Oh, I... yeah, I get that a lot."

William
William, however, does feel the need to leave right about now. He placed his hands out and began the careful extrication of himself from the man who was literally an inch away from being pressed against his chest. Hands out and caaaarefully moving him away from them.

"We've really got to be going, Mister Midnight talker has... uh... a really busy schedule, don't we?"

Denver
[Redbeard the Mormon: No touchy]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 7, 7, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )

William
[Maybe dodge?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )

Denver
[Just making sure we don't pop his shoulder out of place]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )

William
[Oww?]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )

Denver
Clearly, the redhaired man was not too keen on being removed from Samir's space via the twiggy meat shield that was standing between them. The movement was efficient and brutal. William put his hands out and the man took a grip on his wrist and soon enough had the taller blond turned around his his left arm hiked up somewhere between his shoulder blades in a position that made the would-be bodyguard infinitely more manageable.

"So you've met the others?"


Samir
It isn't the efficiency with which the ginger puts Will into a secure hold that has Sam flinching but the speed. Now that his meat shield is gone Sam starts to step back, not attempting to be polite anymore. If he has to unleash something nasty to resolve this - aka, if he ends up in Quiet because of the idiot who doesn't know self defense or reverse holds even though he loves trouble so much - he doesn't want to be close enough for chunks of viscera to hit him.

"Hey, man," Sam says, his palms out of his pockets and presented to show he's unarmed, "it's cool, we're all cool, I... if you say I'm Vrikor, I'm Vrikor. But I'm not answering any more questions until you let him go."

William
That could have hurt a lot worse than it did, and he inhaled some sharp breath that broadcast the fact that this hurt.

"I got this," but with the sort of forcefulness that says fucking run without coming out and saying it. William knows something, he knows something that he can't come out and say because he's stuck in the kind of hold that would make Israeli special forces golf clap at its execution.



Denver
The grip didn't falter just yet, he didn't seem keen on letting go and at that juncture the rest of his creepy crew was headed their way. This was starting to look more and more like a problem. As though having someone in a police hold wasn't already a problem.

"And then you will come with us, meet the others, yes?"



Samir
[wp: just leave him there man it's what he wants]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 4, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Samir
For the three seconds it takes Samir to make a decision, he has a raging internal debate.

Though all Will can see is empathy and uncertainty, he knows the Virtual Adept. Sam is the sort of player who will allow his character to die if it means the team will gain more points, but has rarely been in that situation. He's an intelligent individual who can predict other people's behavior based on their previous actions. The fact that Will has made it this far behaving the way as he has been behaving ever since Sam first met him is astonishing.

It is not up to Sam to decide whether Will's time is up or not. Some part of him believes that the Hermetic can, in all seriousness, handle four people by himself. That he is in this situation to begin with is fucking bullshit, and plain old-fashioned bad luck. But Will, bless his stupid little heart, is willing to stay behind so Sam can get the hell out of there.

And then you will come with us, meet the others, yes?

"Nah," Sam says. "Fuck that."

And then he turns and books it down the platform.

Denver
[Because I can't find the mechanics of this damned pursuit thing in m20, I think I've figured something out.

Running speed is 5 x Dex = meters traveled on 1 success. You need 1 success to maintain speed and each success thereafter gives you 5 extra meters per turn.

Roll to run is dex+athletics, diff 6 (base, until you hit people and then difficulty will be modified)

example: Nora has Dex 3, so Nora moves 15 meters per round (provided she doesn't fail or botch). Nora rolled 3 successes on her Dex+athletics roll. So, this turn Nora moved 25 meters.

Jake has Dex 4, so he moves 20 meters per success. Jake rolled 3 successes so he moved 30 meters this round and is gaining on Nora.



So, uhhhhh, basically just roll Dex+athletics and I'll do the weird math and shit.



Denver
[Roll initiatives to start the chase!]

Samir
[lol sam is toast +5]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (7) ( success x 1 )

Denver
Tall Mormon: 5+1d10

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (4) ( fail )

Denver
Red: 6+1d10

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (6) ( success x 1 )

Denver
Chick: 5+1d10

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (1) ( botch x 1 )

Denver
Magical Girl Mormon: 7+1d10

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (10) ( success x 1 )

William
Aaaad will. Dex3+wits3+1d10

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )

William
Chick: 
The lady, who wasn't terribly close at that moment, looked around awkwardly before kicking off her sensible heels and picking up her skirt and trying her level best to catch up with Samir-

"Wait!"
[action: begin pursuit, dex 2 +athletics 1]

William
"It's fucking stupid to incur Vriqiohr's wrath. Let. Him. Leave." fists clenched around something, something then muttered under his breath and tried to keep his head together.

[Mind 2: Inspire fear for MGM because she a boss-assed bitch who don't feel like everyone else.]

Tall
The taller man looked around confusedly and then started along with his pursuit.

[Pursuit started! Dex 3 + athletics 2]





Samir
[corr 3: Get Me the Fuck Out of Here. may need to extend this if the dice gods aren't pleased.]

William
Red
Quit. Fucking. Moving you goddamned blond.
[Action: apply pressure and reassert grapple?]

MGM
"I just need to talk, stay," she said and continued her calm pursuit.

[Mind 2: Suggestion "Stay"]




Denver
MGM: Arete 3- Stay the fuck put. Diff 3+ 2 (sphere) +1 (fastcast)

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )

Denver
Red: strength 3 + brawl 3 = 6, diff 6

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 4, 4, 4, 10) ( success x 1 )

Denver
[Ouchies?]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 7) ( success x 1 )

William
[Soak]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 6) ( success x 1 )

Samir
[corr 3: nyeeeh. base diff 8, modifiers are a pain in the dick. -1 for Quint, spending WP.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (2, 3, 10) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Denver
[Tall guy: Maybe?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )

William
[Will: fast casting! Mind 2. Diff 3 + sphere 2 + fast 1 - 2 quint= diff 4]

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (1, 5, 5) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

William
[Short and Skirty: Dex 2+ athletics 1: Iiiiiii'm running!]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 9) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

William
"I just need to talk, stay," she insisted, and there was a push against that shield and it was as though it just bounced off of him like a bullet into a brick wall. Not strong enough to break through but certainly enough to put a dint in the side of the foundation. This was, all the while, when Samir was being pursued by several of the modestly-dressed cultists. The taller one started his run, and was gaining on the stationary Virtual Adept while the woman in her bare feet and longer skirt was doing her best there. There was the effort put in, and written clear about her face that she wanted to be there. That she wanted to meet Him. The One. The glorious Vriqiohr.

The other man reaffirmed his grip on the younger man and reapplied pressure there, but not enough that it really seemed to make much of a difference. The other mage was stuck, but not stuck in such a fashion that he wasn't going to be able to really act or function. He didn't necessarily need to move.

"It's fucking stupid to incur Vriqiohr's wrath. Let. Him. Leave," William barked with the sort of firmness that only came when a Hermetic was dressing someone down, and if there was any doubt in his ability to do so, it was dashed when the other woman- with her red hair and soothing voice and serpentine feel about her- stopped and her expression turned to that of pause, then mortification, then fear. She stopped her pursuit, backing away slowly.

"I-" she stammered, shook her head and put her hands up, "oh, great one forgive me-" she told Samir, stopped in her tracks. The people around the scene seemed... mostly weirded out by all of this. The next train was departing already, and the station was clearing out.

William
It was unfortunate, of course, that they just weren't fast enough, because with little fanfare their glorious god-figure disappeared, leaving the cultists in awe and leaving the rest of the people in the station confused.

And then shrugging it off as though the man who disappeared had never even been there.

Samir
[Heather, you are a marvel. Thank you so much! <3]

William
[Thanks for having me! I had a blast, and thank you for playing!]

Fraaaaaaaands

Ned
There's a quaint little mom and pop coffee shop just on the outskirts of Aurora. It's not the sort of place you pass by and consider for longer than a few seconds. Hipsters drift through on a regular basis looking for that constructed sense of nostalgia. That's why there are a couple of students tucked away in a booth, sipping on their third refill of coffee each, bragging, boasting and displaying their overpriced tuition all over one another. Kant, Hemmingway and Lynch have all made appearances in the conversation.

The rest of the cafe is populated by the elderly. Three of them, in separate corners, attempting to fend off the encroaching depression that comes with old age and isolation. In twenty minutes, one of them is going to get the fearless sense of 'wtf, right?' to walk over to another one and ask about the 70's and where they were during that magical time. The third will get invited over with a wave and a brief moment of hope will erupt and fend back the ugliness of reality.

Then, of course, there's Ned.

The Cabal lived on the outer outskirts of this quiet little town. They populated a house that no one talked about and didn't make any noise or waves for the residents. There was just a humming sense of 'new and gentrifying' wherever they went, mostly because two of them were young and their father was a scientist. ("Father? Really?" "Shut up, it's as good a cover as any").

He is wearing a simple gray t-shirt and a pair of black jeans. His converse are new. Black over red in-line. His hair is a mop of top cut, sides shaved relevance and his face decorated by the threat of a beard. He has youth and a sense of careless regard for his surroundings. The sort that might incite fights in the wrong locations or suggest interest for the lingering they do on seemingly random things.

He is waiting for someone, though. His cup of coffee in too small a mug is sipped on. The BLT he ordered sits untouched on the table, alongside the twenty dollar bill that will no doubt be left behind by way of a significant tip, with a small note on the bill that reads 'Sorry about the kids at Table 4'.

He is waiting for someone. That's all he's here for.

William
William and a friend once broke into the library in Aurora. Disabled the alarm systems and messed with the cameras so they could run around and have an entire library to themselves without the rules and regulations that came with being in the library. They still stayed quiet, and likely continued to read books and file things in the appropriate places because those two wound up becoming Hermetics and you develop a very solid appreciation for libraries when you happen to join that particular Tradition.

He was a recent graduate, but still a hipster. Still had that over-priced education and a degree in French and a minor in anthropology to show for it. His parents have yet to ask the dreaded question of what he was going to do next; he'd hit the point where he could probably spin straw into gold if he wanted but it wasn't necessarily taxable income and therein lie the rub. The respect that brings calamity of such long life. You know, that kind of jazz.

The man walked through the front door (no idea where he parked or if he rode the motorcycle or took an Uber or however he gets places). Pants, button up shirt, and a vest. If he wasn't in something comfortable, there was a vest involved because he needed a place to put his pocketwatch. It had a purpose. The half dozen bracelets around his left wrist had a purpose. Colors and textures and shapes and the myriad of other things he carried along with him in the event there was trouble.

He started a lot of trouble by virtue of breathing. That was neither here nor there.

William noticed who he was supposed to be sitting with, and headed his way over to Ned, "you need a refill on anything?"

Ned
"Nope."

Ned sips his coffee again, nodding slightly toward the opposite side of the table as William arrives. The pair are somewhat opposite in demeanour. William's energy is...well, not palpable but substantial. It delivers with a geared up 'Let's go!!' and carries him like a feather from moment to moment. Place to place. Ned is subdued, recalcitrant. Effort is placed in remaining collected, betrayed every so often by a fidgeting pair of fingers around the handle of his mug or the recognition he's been staring a hole into the other man across the table that sends his eyes bouncing back down to his coffee mug.

"So we have this Cabal. We're a bunch of fuck ups. A lot of the time we fuck up a lot but most of the time, it only really gets ourselves hurt or worse. Sometimes we get better because of it. Kinda stupid, really..." Ned frowns. Then quirks a lopsided grin that fails to unfurrow his brow. He's looking into his half-empty coffee. The waitress, a forty something housewife staring daggers at the kids on the other side of the cafe, who were pouring out sugar onto the table between them, in an attempt to 'define infinity' or 'refine senility' or 'decline insanity', is given a glance and Ned's hand rises to try and wave her down. All the while, he's talking.

"Point us, we're fuck-ups. We fuck-up as one an separately and we fix each other's fuck ups as best we can. Mostly that involves keeping a low profile out here with static spikes of 'Oh noez, I broke reality'. Sort of self-policing, prophecy- I'm getting off track."

Ned shakes his head. Murmuring something under his breath. He sucks a deep one into his lungs, even as the Waitress begins making her way over with the coffee pot. Ned is eyeballing her the entire time. Still talking.

"I think you're a fuck-up. Been wandering around being a fuck-up for way too long and that's gotta end. So I'd like to invite you to join the Cabal."

He nudges his coffee cup away from the waitress when she arrives, motioning toward William with a brief cant of his head. She turns to look at the 'Hipster Hermetic' with a perked brow and no small amount of stored up sass.

William
There is a person typing on their laptop and backspacing to oblivion in the corner. They've written the same paragraph the last three times and there is palpable frustration. There's a group of people discussing authors they know precisely nothing about, and they're pouring sugar on the goddamned table and he can tell the waitress is glaring at them and one of them is smacking their damned gum.

The dishes clink somewhere in the back. Someone puts up a new order. He picks up on all the things except for the person he's focusing on, which is Ned. He can't read Ned's expression, but Ned is subdued; William has been described as a sunflower by someone who was at once derisive and attempting to get into his pants. (It worked, but by god that relationship was short lived and unhealthy. We digress.)

He is, however, focusing on what Ned is saying. Nods along and sits comfortably in his seat. It takes everything he has not to bounce a leg or wiggle in his seat, he is a sense of constant movement. Can't stay somewhere for too long.

"So... you're inviting me to come meet my people and join forces with the Justice League of Fuck Ups?" he quirked a brow, then looked back at the waitress once she came by. He smiled and seemed grateful, "I'd love a coffee. Just regular, no sugar no cream no whatevers."

Once some time had passed, "is that an offer born out of a desire for self-preservation or just- what inspired this decision?"

"I'm not saying no, I'm just curious."

Ned
"You've nearly gotten both my cabal mates killed. Sometimes out of curiosity. Others, out of I don't even know."

He shrug-blinks. Head tilts. Face screwing up into something like concentration, constipation and introspection. His hand slides across the table and the butterknife is suddenly bouncing under fidgeting fingertips.

"...I haven't been able to do much about that. Which is concerning. So yeah. I want to know that if you're gonna kill one of them or...us, really, that at least you're going to be responsible enough to recognize it's one of your own."

A pause. The knife slips into his hand. Like magnetism. Fluid and synchronized. It bounces once over his fingers before dipping into his coffee. Stirring with the blade.

"You join the fuck-ups or I look into trying my best to kill you. Potentially fail at that and then Doc and Margot look into killing you too, because I did something stupid and they're bound to want to set that right." The metal of the knife creeps and creaks against the porcelain of the mug. Ned's staring into the coffee again.

William
"..."

He just kind of stared at Ned at that moment. Not even kind of, he seemed to forget that he was sitting there and instead had to internalize that Ned had very calmly informed him that he was willing to kill him should decide that he didn't want to run with them.

"So, basically... I'm a danger to everyone you love and care about... and you're wanting to take care of that in one way or another."

A beat.

"You're a good guy, Ned,"and he didn't even sound sarcastic, "I appreciate that you're willing to go that far to keep people safe."

Ned
"...Yeah. That's nice."

His smile is slight. Simple. Dismissive.

"You're a threat like I'm a threat like the Doc's a threat. Threats need watching. People need...people." Ned's frowning. Empathy was not his greatest measurement. He shakes it off with a wince, eyes dipping into his coffee again.

"We're a collective threat. We make sure people don't get hurt by us and we make sure people get hurt if they fuck with us. All in all, there's a nice ouroborean feel to it all. Neat little circle, about face."

The knife emerges from the coffee. Ned runs it between his lips, removing the caffeine before setting the utensil back on the table. He picks the mug up and begins sipping again.

"Besides...how many bridges you expect to burn before you can't walk away from the fire?" A pause. Ned blinks over the rim of his cup. "Oh that was a good one. I gotta remember that for the doc sometime." Sip.

William
[Per+empathy: are you trying to be nice and failing?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 6 )

Ned
Ned's sense of nice is probably logical, practical and born out of former traumas. Avoiding one's scars and wounds is easy and can lead to discovering wholly inappropriate options for dealing with future problems. He knows there's no other method or way around this not just because of what he's been through but because of what they are. There were no police. No military. Nothing short of a technocratic lobotomy or something worse in the far cthonic beyond. For an Orphan like Ned, this was the answer. 

...Or he and William were going to shake hands with pistols at dawn. Simple.

William
"I really fucking miss people," he told Ned. It wasn't a big admission, he'd said something similar to Margot once when they'd talked about cabals and being alone. He'd admitted that he didn't like it, that he didn't like the fact that it was, at the end of the day, just him. That the people who cared either left or learned to not care really fast once shit hit the fan.

"Sure Sepúlveda isn't going to castrate me on principle?"

Ned
"Nope. He probably will. Me too for offering because neither he nor Margot know yet."

Ned is nonchalant about that and really, neither he nor William know one another well enough to warrant whether he's winging this and hoping for the best, or whether he's willing to go toe to toe with the Doc about insisting on this matter. Either way, he's sipping his coffee which has got to be down to the dregs by now.

The kids in the corner are being given a stern talking to by the waitress.

"Doesn't change facts though. Doesn't change anything. A fuck up is a fuck up is a cabalmate." Ned drains off the last of the coffee. He makes a face "Bleh, too much sugar" before setting the mug down on top of he twenty dollar bill he's left on the table.

"You drive here? I walked. It was far. "

William
"Where were you when I was new? When I was one of those innocent young maidens you always come to?"

He gets himself a little more comfortable at the table. It didn't change the facts and it didn't change anything- it wasn't a shameful thing and he wasn't being shamed. When Ned talked about fuck up,s he used we as the term of choice.

"Yeah, I drove. I needed a rental for the week," who the fuck doesn't have a real car? Someone who hates driving, that's who. "So, yeah. I will kiss my chances of reproducing goodbye in order to be part of your cabal. That is probably for the best anyway."

Ned
"Well that's step one."

Ned is sliding out of the booth, brow furrowed. He's thinking about step two even as he says it:

"Step two: Convince the other two fuck ups you're not too much of a fuck up to ensure our powers combined don't make a captain end-the-planet." Pause. Face. "That was a bad one. Edit that out of your memory when you get the chance."

Ned waves it off haphazardly, before moving toward the door.

"You're driving." Obviously.

William
"You wanna hear something messed up?"

He was sliding out of the booth, grabbed his things and got ready to make sure he had everything. Keys were there, bag was there, waitress was done with her shit so he was laying a couple bucks on the table too because seriously those kids in the corner were obnoxious.

"This?" he gestured to himself as he made his way to the door, "is an improvement over how I used to be."

Stuck in the Closet

Denver
POP.
That was the sound that came first. It was the end of the day and most people were going home, save for the regulars who were farting around the courthouse at the end of the day. People with late times on their trials and people who had nothing better to do than file their paperwork at the last possible moment or bang the legal clerk who also didn't have anything better to do on a Thursday at the courthouse. (Because why not- it's called networking, thank you very much.) Or sit in on cases because a voice told you to.

But there was the problem of that pop. The problem of that hard, harsh sound followed by the shattering of light bulbs and rattling of windows and a feeling that felt like something grabbing onto your lungs and squeezing too hard, like you're internal organs are a goddamned stress ball. Then? Release, sudden release when all the air came out. The walls shook.

"COME AND TAKE ME," from the next courtroom over, room 7b. Criminal cases could be fun, couldn't they?

Andrés
If asked whether inquests or being called as an expert witness in the afternoon was a bigger pain in the ass, Andrés would not be able to choose between the two. On the one hand, inquests were typically brief affairs but having to stop what he was doing to go to the courthouse and hope the family didn't want to ask him any questions led to an element of unpredictability he found unsavory.
Questioning, like the reason he was here today, tended to be more straightforward. But in this particular case, the defense called him in around two o'clock and kept him up there long enough for the jury to start nodding off and the prosecution wanted to use him as an opportunity to tear a hole in the defense's argument and ay, ay, ay. By the time the cross examinations were over the judge was calling a recess for the day and that is why he's still here this afternoon.

He was on his way back downstairs when that change in pressure - or whatever the hell it was - caused a rain of glass and a booming and a squeezing. As he rested a hand on the wall to steady himself, the damned thing shook.

Then that voice.

Now, Andrés sighs a beleaguered sigh and debates the merits of investigating versus just getting the hell out of there.

William
He didn't care about the case. Didn't care about the damned ghost or the fleeing mortals or any of this, all he really cared about at that juncture was getting smooth the fuck out of that court room and as far away as possible because William knew Damned Good And Well that this kind of display attracted the wrong sort of attention as soon as people knew what it was.

That pop could have been written off as a number of things. The shaking? Easily could have been a bomb and written off as some terrorist attack instead of what was actually happening and William? Darling creature, gave precisely zero fucks about any of these things and, instead, chose to be concerned with the fact that he didn't want to be in the room when the backlash hit from whatever it was that guy was doing.

"Jeezus fucking christ god damn it fucking ghosts I hate-" oh,  look, passing Andrés- "go go go-"

Denver
POP.
The lights flickered. Bulbs shattered. Reality growled in displeasure, but was content to doll out enough rope to let one hang themselves with.

Andrés
[perc + aware: what in the actual fuck]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )

Denver
Resentful. AS though that resentment, that hatred could permeate even the fabric of someone's vital being. That was magick- more than that. This was the type of magick that had been done in advance, held together and prepared for months and ready to be unleashed on an unsuspecting world. There was nothing that could be done about it, no countering with careful manipulations and applications of rationale and scientific ingenuity.

But beyond that, the feeling in the air spoke of a man who could build a damned atom bomb if only to spite an ex-lover. Who would build something volatile and unstable, like a mixture superheated and left on a bunsen burner too damned long when you knew good and well it only needed to be set to a simmer. Volatile. With all the unpredictability that came with it.

This? Was a forced hard reboot of every consciousness within a radius that wasn't sufficiently warded. The tiny (somewhat literal) explosions, the electric feeling, the haywire lighting and glass breaking? That was a secondary effect that came when our practitioner threw a temper tantrum that not everyone was sufficiently impacted by their Work.

Andrés
A moral imperative is no good if the body gets itself killed because the mind has no sense of its own boundaries. And Andrés, for having an ember still glowing in that charred, fist-sized muscle most people call a heart, does not often subscribe to the concept of a moral imperative. Only when will not cause any further harm.

It helps that compared to last year, he has a sense of self-preservation. Passive suicidality is so 2016.
Once it registers that this is not a man-made calamity but the result of some Awakened son of a bitch getting obliterated by paradox, he has to prompt his legs to run. Not towards the problem, but away from.

Then here comes that boy Margot is so fond of. At least he thinks it is. All those tall blue-eyed white boys start to look the same after a while.

"I'M GOING I'M GOING."

And off they go.

William
There were a grand total of five places William knew how to get to when he went to the court house. One was a bathroom (too much glass), two court rooms (one of which was currently being obliterated by a dude mid backlash), a stairwell (other side of the building) and-

"HA!"

Janitor's closet.

he reached for the door knob and skid a little once he did. William had been actively attempting to be less of a complete idiot when it came to doing anything physical, but he still wasn't graceful by any means. Grabbing a doorknob while running opened the door, sure, but it also almost knocked him on his ass.

Andrés
"ARE YOU--"

The Etherite doesn't bother finishing his sentence, just grabs the doorknob while the Hermetic is recovering and puts a hand between his shoulder blades and shoves him into the closet. This isn't the spot he would have chosen to hide while waiting for ground zero to return to safe levels of paradox, but he's not going to bank on his ability to make it to the stairwell before the shockwave overtakes him.

Slamming the door shut behind him, Andrés throws down his briefcase, cracks it open, and removes a clunky PDA-looking device into which he immediately begins punching commands. Without turning on the light. The screen glows green, how much light could a guy want?

[forces/prime 2: FORCEFIELD TIME. base diff 6, -1 for practiced rote. everything else comes out in the wash.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (1, 3, 6) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

William
He didn't even notice the shove, all that happened in William's mind is that one minute he's standing outside and the next minute the door is shut and he's standing inside. William reached for the door knob and had the good sense to actually lock the damned thing.

He's had experience with this particular closet and knows that, yes, you can lock it from the inside. It didn't do very much good because a sufficiently angry person (or HIT mark, or ghost, or sentient toaster) could probably kick it down after awhile.

"Right-"

Sufficiently angry ghost could knock that down. He didn't know what kind of spirits were there but he Did Not Want to Deal With That. So, he went along his merry way to find sidewalk chalk and was content to half talk to himself (Command the universe, thank you) and try and get things going
[Spirit 1: ward the FUCK OUT OF THIS CLOSET]
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (7, 7, 9) ( success x 4 ) [WP]

Andrés
Great. He's stuck in a closet with a crazy person. Margot sure knows how to pick them.
With a sigh that shouldn't be able to inhabit a person of his size, Andrés plops down on the floor cross-legged and ignores whatever the kid is doing with the chalk. He doesn't particularly want to experience another person's backlash. If he's going to do something that results in his getting kicked in the nuts so hard he's flossing with Reality's shoelaces for the rest of the week, he likes to at least plan a head a little.

[EXTENDING. -1 for dropped Quint this time.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (6, 7, 8) ( success x 4 ) [WP]

Denver
(Aaaaaaand damage, -10 for distance, -5 for successes. Rolling up on bashing because also distance)
Dice: 15 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 9 ) [Doubling Tens]
William
[Oww, soak? +5]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )
Andrés
[ o_o SOAK +5 bc of that sick forcefield rote]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5, 5, 7, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 4 )

Denver
What does it feel like when reality is throwing a temper tantrum.

The closet shakes, because everything shakes. The news would callt his event a bomb exploding, as far as anyone knew. Reality was more forgiving for the unawakened, but for this? An example needed to be made. A message given to every living and aware source of will that this would not be accepted. That such grand scale flagrant disregard for the rules of society would be delt with immediately.
It's the first hit that makes it the worst. The first hit that sends cleaning products off the shelf and makesbrooms fall. The light bulb shatters, but luckily it hadn't been on so all it does is rain down glass.

Then? There was screaming. It had started as a sound that was human but morphed into something more, something glass-ridden and corrupted. There was a sound, and that sound came again but was no longer human. Could no longer be called human.

Reality had to set an example, and let the Avatar of this offender know that its ministrations would not be tolerated.

So, darlings, suffer.

Andrés
Although the forcefield manages to absorb a good half of the energy blasting through the concrete walls and the wooden door, Andrés is still knocked onto his ass - literally - by the shockwave that does manage to permeate their little shelter. He feels as if he took a soccer ball to the face, and though he's seeing stars, he's got a small amount of sense to anticipate that that isn't the last of the backlash. So he stays his ass where he landed and allows himself to feel a moment's gratitude that he didn't vomit. Yet.

William
William has, in recent memory, actually had his ass handed to him a couple times. Once was at a bar in New Mexico over something he couldn't actually remember at this particular juncture and another was from a Flambeau who didn't like to be told how incredibly, irrevocably wrong he was. What kept him moving at those moments was being able to keep quiet and take it. Before that it usually came over parties or when backed into a corner that he couldn't charm his way out of.

This? Was a first. There was no charming reality. It didn't give a fuck how clever your words may be. Reality hits hard, and it was enough to make the taller young man double over and cough like he was a freshman taking his first hit of weed. It was not a good cough by any means, and his hand went to his mouth quickly to try and keep the sound down.

He looked up once the hacking fit stopped.

"Are you Doctor Sepúlveda?"

Andrés
"Yep."
That could have been the end of it, but William has the honor of sharing space with someone who has already overexerted the muscle responsible for keeping him from saying something inappropriate into a microphone in front of fifty other people.

"Are you the one who wants to bang my student, or are you the one who keeps getting her into trouble?"

William
"Why not both?"

Andrés
Slow, concussed breathing as he absorbs this information.

"Thank you for reminding me to clean my shotgun."

He has about a dozen other ways to inflict pain and/or sterility upon the young man, but he doesn't need to show his cards right away.

William
"I've developed a full disclosure policy on stupidity, rest assured-" yep, there's coughing again. He took a look at his hand and made a face when he realized he was hacking up a bit of blood, "-Margot is a fully consenting and aware party in my stupidity."

He looks at the door. Can't really say he didn't make a dumb decision before, he's at a fucking courthouse where a guy is having a massive paradox backlash. He could have told that ghost to fuck off and continued eating cereal and ignoring it.

"She thinks you're cool."

Andrés
As the Hermetic whose name Andrés has not only forgotten but shown no interest in recollecting rambles on in an what appears to be an attempt at reassuring the older Awakened that Margot has consented to the past stupidity and knows what she's getting into, Andrés flicks his eyebrows and picks up his device again.

Tapping out instructions means he can't say something awful. It might be mean, but the split attention takes some of the sting off.

"That's great, kid."
[entropy/prime 1 & time 2: what are the odds there's going to be another shitshow rolling through?]
Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (1, 4, 10) ( success x 1 )

Andrés
[come on, buddy. +1 for extending.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 9) ( success x 1 )
Denver
Maybe in a couple more minutes?
Andrés
[... god?]

William
"There's a really fucking pissed off wraith outside on top of this, so... yeah, just a heads up. You got a way to keep from being a meat suit?" Do you need one?

Andrés
Andrés sets down the device and scrubs his face with his hands, muttering, "Madre de dios este día va a terminar nunca..." Deep breath. Hands down. "Do you?"

William
The sound he made was something that was between stifling a laugh and hacking up phlegm. He also was making his happy way through his bag to find a pack of what were probably cigarettes. Or not. He dug one out anyway, "Breathe deep and think about how it's all bullshit anyway."

Andrés
"You talk that way around--" He has to stop himself from saying something else that starts with an 'm'. "--Margot?"

William
[Aaaaand damage. -5 because shield and -10 distance and -5 time]
Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 6, 6, 6, 10) ( success x 5 ) [Doubling Tens]
William
[Jesus fuck COME ON]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 4, 4, 6, 6, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
Andrés
[you gotta be fucking kidding me with this shit]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 8) ( success x 3 )

And, at about that time, the world went dark and the good doctor got dragged around the courthouse whilst unconscious.

Box [STed]

Odessa
Annie and Sasha were on a couple's retreat. That's what it sounded like, anyway. That, or they were going to couple's therapy because things had been quiet on the western front and, occasionally, the chantry door was locked instead of unlocked. Sometimes, there was an uneasy silence that came only when there was amagic afoot and someone had something very personal to say that they didn't want to be said in front of people who might actually know better. Triangles are nothing without their third, and where was Trinity without Leah?
Well, it would appear that Trinity was at couples' counseling.
Which is what made this awkward.
The door was unlocked, there were notes pinned to the fridge (Could someone check the mail this week? - Annie) The television was on and it sounded like the Stanley Cup was playing. Overall, it was a boring day.
Grace
Grace is sprawled out on a couch in the den, one leg hooked over an armrest, reading from her e-ink device. It's not easy to tell what that book is, but it's apparently enthralling. So much so, she's barely touched her mug of coffee since plopping down in her spot.
This couch has a stitched-up hole in the back where a chihuahua puppy was rescued from the inside. It's that kind of couch.
Jeans and a t-shirt are her uniform. Few people have seen her wear anything else. Today, she's wearing her favorite (and thus threadbare) giraffe-wearing-ties tee.
With Annie and Sasha gone, someone's got to just be here. It's not a duty or a requirement or an order. Grace was just around, doesn't have a day job, and thus...
Alex
[God, so long since I did this...  Arete, Spirit 1, Diff 4, -1 for the node, WP and stuff.]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (7, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Alex
Alexander had been a little scarce recently.  Not gone, not again.  Just…  other things had been occupying his time, taking him a little more distant from whatever end-of-the-world antics had been plaguing the local Awakened.  He hadn’t been completely out of touch.  There had been dinners with Kiara, coffee and Pho with Grace, the occasional trip out to the Chantry for dinner with Annie and Sasha.  Recent changes had brought him a little closer to Sasha in some ways.  Alex had moved off the beat and into an office, not so far away from her, as he worked through his probationary period as a squeaky new detective.
Around the back of the Chantry, sat at the patio table not so far from the node, sits Alex now.  Cold, abandoned coffee sits in a cup, various text books lie open with various bookmarks and notes scribbled in them.  (Sorry, lovers of books, he sees nothing wrong with writing in books!)  A mirror, something cheap and easily disposable, is half-buried under a book that had been knocked when Alex had turned to watch…  something elsewhere.
Michael
The last time Mike was in Denver, so much happened that recapping for the sake of expediency would reduce the events to: a Nephandus Adept pissed off the wrong person. Although Alex met the acarya's student, Ihsan, she did not introduce herself as such, nor did she stick around after stirring the embers of the poor Disparate's paranoia.
Sadness upon sadness, Alex and Mike didn't have the pleasure of making each others' acquaintance last year.
This year, this night, Michael parks a different rental car in a different parking lot and steps out, assuring himself that this must be the place before clapping the door shut and locking it with the fob. Up the driveway, pocketing the keys before letting himself in like he was invited.
Surprise, Grace!
Grace
[Perception/Awareness = Oh really? That resonance?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )
Alex
[Per+Awareness]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )
Michael
[awareness! didn't give him a spec bc i'm lazy.]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 7, 7, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )
Odessa
My, now this one is unfamiliar, isn't it?
There is a quiet in the area, over the sound of the Stanley Cup there was the internal silence and quiet that comes from a stillness of the soul, followed by a brightness so bright that it seared its image in the mind's eye and left a feeling on one's skin of dying embers. Yes, it is the feeling of those embers contained that sticks on the mind.
The back door is flung open. There is a small woman in black holding a box. Wooden box. Pandora's box, perhaps?
"Aaaaaaaannie?"
A beat.
"Hallo?"
Odessa
(Something feels like chaos. Pure, beautiful chaos wrapped in an oaken whiskey barrel)
Odessa
That box feels and looks like a massive glitch in the universal code. Feel free to embellish a little.
Odessa
Hi, Mike. Odessa sent you a birthday card this year along with an old sheriff's badge. Sure, she sent you a birthday card on the birthday you had two lifetimes ago, but it's the thought that counts!
Grace
Grace's eyes flit up off of her book when she senses Mike's presence. What? But, the stupid grin that plasters itself on her face soon after says that it's not an unwelcome surprise.
She leaps up as inelegant as a baby zebra. Mike. It's got to be him.
And indeed, there in the entryway he is.
"You little jerk," she says, eyes bright, happy smile. "You didn't tell me you were--"
Just then, the sound and presence of someone else interrupts. She raises a brow. Whispers an aside to Mike: "I don't know who that is."
"Annie's not here!" she yells down the way.
Alex
The weather was warm, not needing much in the way of clothing to guard against a chill.  Asphalt, however, was much less forgiving.  A leather jacket sat on the back of Alex’s chair, protection against random chance that might wish him to fall while riding.  At the initial sense of someone else, someone unfamiliar, approaching, Alex’s attention returns from elsewhere.  A few blinks and the almost mirrored surface to his eyes fades, his gaze and his hands moving to the jacket.  Something fetched and checked before he steps back inside, towards the new presence.
Arm straight, hand masked by the doorframe to the room where Grace sits, there’s a question and a considering glance at the unfamiliar man.  “Grace..?”  She doesn’t seem threatened, though.  More happier than he’d seen her in quite some time.
A slam as the door is opened, a call for Annie, and Alex turns to face the second new arrival.  Pistol aimed at the floor but ready to raise, another question comes on the tail of Grace’s yell.  “And you are?”
Michael
Mike, for reasons both mystical and practical, knew there was a likelihood Grace would be here today. He didn't warn her he was coming. She (and Alex, once he comes close enough) can feel his resonance, that feeling of a strong storm blowing over, the strength of his Arete making his presence feel like a force of nature. It would be unsettling even to Sleepers if he weren't disarmingly charming.
A handsome bastard in a suit and tie, with dark brown hair and a clean-shaven jaw, he barely has the door closed behind him before Grace has sprung to her feet and called him a jerk. He shoots her a grin, unabashed, like Yeah I am a jerk aren't I before the door blasts open and in comes a little woodland witch the Chakravat hasn't seen in God knows how long.
"I think I do," he whispers back.
Annie's not here.
And then here's a tall young man, pointing a pistol at the floor but comfortable enough with it in his grip that Mike, never having met the man before, takes a step forward like to block Grace and holds up both hands to show he isn't currently armed.
Never mind that raising his arms reveals a shoulder holster beneath his suit jacket.
"Odessa!" Mike calls, raising his voice--his voice, without Alice hijacking his voicebox--for the first time in Grace's recent recollection. His palms are still on display and empty. "That you?"
Odessa
The woman, who couldn't have been more than five feet tall and as vast as the ever-expanding cosmos, looked from the pistol to her box and then back to the pistol again. Her mouth quirked upward before falling again. Eyebrows stayed raised.
"Odessa," she replied, "Annie and I share a lineage." She awkwardly held the box for a moment, before extending it to Alexander.
"It's me!" she called back, "and-" she stops, "I think Mike is the only one of you that I know. Who are you all? Will you be here for long?"
Grace
"Oh for..." Grace slaps her forehead with her palm. "Alex, this is Mike. Mike, Alex. Please try not to gun the Chantry down."
She pats Mike on the back. Alex is okay, dude.
And now? To pay attention to Odessa. And that box. "Oh, I'm uh... Grace. And, uh, yeah. I plan on being here. Annie and Sasha are away this week, so I'm...  helping."
"What's in the box?"
Alex
As potential Technocratic invasions of the Chantry went, this wasn’t high up the list of how Alex saw it going.  Although Mike did appear to be armed, he seemed to be more interested in protecting Grace from him.  An eyebrow raises at that, followed by a flash of some recognition at the name.
Mouth open, waiting for words to emerge for a moment, he considers: that he’s the only one waving a weapon around.  A faint click as his mouth closes and his teeth knock together, another faint click as the pistol’s safety goes back on and the weapon is tucked into the back of his trousers.  There’s no apology, but he does toss a glance at Grace:  so shoot me.  It’s not like he didn’t have reasons, after all.
Odessa offers the box, but it’s not taken.  Examined, briefly, but not taken.  He introduces himself, “Alexander,” to both of the unfamiliar individuals.  Sorry, Grace, he still has that stick up his ass about certain things.
Michael
For his part, Mike leaves his pistol in the holster. He never had any intention of removing it. Now that the excitement is more or less over, he lowers his hands, buttons the top button on his jacket, straightens his tie, and tucks his hands into his trouser pockets.
Oh right. There's an object in there he meant to ask Odessa about. His brow flickers into an almost-frown, but he doesn't broach the subject just yet.
For Grace's sake as much as Odessa's, maybe Alex's too, Mike says, "I had business to attend to in Texas. I thought I would swing by on my way back to Los Angeles."
Because Denver is so on the way, Michael.
Odessa
What was in the box, you ask? She looked at the box again. Nobody had taken it from her as of yet, so the witch just stood all black clad and awkward holding onto it. She gingerly made her way into the thick of the place and, instead, found a nearby coffee table to set the box on top of. It was placed on the glass top with a deceptive thud. Heavier than a discussion about cancer, that box.
"I don't know exactly what's in the box," she said, "I've only had it for the last half century and have done a very good job of not opening it myself. The only secret given to me to keep by the Keeper of Secrets."
A beat.
"I was hoping Annie would babysit the box while I go run some errands. Woudl you three mind watching it while I'm out?" She says like she's asking them to watch her dog and not a box that feels like the fundamental upheaval of the universe.
Michael
[int + past lives for shits +/- giggles]
Dice: 5 d10 TN8 (3, 6, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 1 )
Grace
"Aww," Grace says, to Mike's explanation of how he got here. That stupid grin returns to light up her face. She bumps into his side slightly too -- far more physical contact with someone than is normal for her.
But then, Odessa explains. And a suddenly serious Grace asks: "Keeper of Secrets?"
"I've heard that name. Not a fun fucking thing."
Alex
The end of the world at least a few minutes away now, Alex steps back into the kitchen for a moment as Odessa moves to find a table.  The bang of a cupboard and a further sound of a coffee jug being slid back into the filter preceed his reappearance with another mug of coffee.  He doesn’t move to close the distance between himself and the newcomers, contenting himself to lean against the doorframe and watch.
“Why does a box need babysitting?  Is it likely to crew the furniture if you leave it alone?”
Odessa
[The Keeper of Secrets is a spiritual entity that... literally... keeps secrets. With terrible consequences for those who try to steal from them]
Michael
Decorum, Grace. We practice it.
Yet it's obvious Mike wants to smile, himself. The laugh lines around his hazel eyes deepen a bit with the tensing of his jaw, the staving off of a proper reaction. He stands like a statue as the Virtual Adept bumps him, but in doing so he leans back against her for a second.
"The Keeper of Secrets does not abide stealing," he says. "Opening that box would be akin to breaking the bond of trust between the entity and the practitioner." Just a suggestion: "Perhaps it should go downstairs in the library, until Odessa is able to retrieve it."
Odessa
"Tell people who can rewrite the fabric of reality that they can not have something and can not touch it because they will be incapable of comprehending what they've just seen. Mages are petulant children with superpowers."
She nodded, "essentially, I need someone to watch the box because there are individuals who would like very, very much to open said box. People think twice about taking things from witches, but.... my home isn't as secure as it once was."
Grace
"I've heard that name in connection with a... rather cold case. A bunch of dead and missing apprentices in Colorado Springs. A bunch. Like somebody lured them there for that purpose," Grace says, dropping that tidbit into the conversation.
"I'm not at all eager to open that box. I am eager to know a little more about that entity."
Alex
The mug stops in its rise towards Alex’s mouth, eyes watching Odessa and Michael as they discuss what should be done with the box.  “Who are these individuals who are interested in this box of yours?  And what happened to make your home less secure?  Is that something that would be likely to happen here too?”
“I don’t think it’s our decision to make, about whether it should be kept here.  I think it should wait until Annie and Sasha get back.  It’s their home, after all.”
Michael
"Well." There's a solution for that. Michael removes his cell - a flip phone. Don't say anything. "I'll give Sasha a call. Excuse me."
And so he does, the sound of the call dialing loud enough to be heard as he gives Grace's elbow a quick squeeze and steps back out the front door.
[i need to bounce, guys. i've hit the point where i need sleep more than caffeine. mike will be back tho <3]
Odessa
"Well... go ask them. If you have chiminage to offer, the Keeper of Secrets will honor your requests." Odessa continued on, "and my mountain has been purchased. Logging issues, land rights. Petty things. No amount of warding can slow the pace of change and bureaucracy- I haven't existed legally in this lifetime."
Odessa scoffed.
"Annie owns this place, so long as the bank doesn't foreclose on her house nothing should happen to her."
Grace
She smirks at Mike's elbow squeeze, but quickly returns again to the hyper-focus. "Chiminage? What does the Keeper of Secrets like?"
Gold? Blood? Quintessence? Human sacrifice?
"And, I think Alex was more thinking along the lines that the bad people who want to open that box might come here and... I don't know... Shoot down the Chantry?"
She smirks at Alex. It's just a joke.
Alex
Well… go ask them.  Alex glances to the door that Mike had just passed through, presumably to stop his conversation with Sasha from getting in the way of the ongoing conversation, and back to Odessa.  Grace picks up on his other point: that somebody with an interest in the box might, at best, be unconcerned about the disruption they cause to the people living here, or who still use the house as somewhere to meet.  At worst…  Well, the warehouse hadn’t been lost to them so long ago.
He makes a face, as if there was something unpleasant tasting in the mug, before lowering it.  “Pretty much,” he says in reply to Grace.  “I’m sorry, I don’t know you.  Holding onto your box would probably be something best left to people you have some level of mutual trust with.  You have no idea if we’re capable of keeping that thing safe, and we have no idea if you’re literally dropping the end of the world on us.”
Alex pushes up from the doorframe, shrugging.  “Just try not to get this place turned into a crater.  We’re running out of safe places to meet.”   Alex steps back out to the kitchen, shortly followed by the sound of running water from the sink.
Odessa
"Secrets."
Obviously.
"No. They're not technocrats, they're just a cabal of selfish, impetuous children who are very accustomed to the mysteries of the universe being open to them," she laughed, "students don't like being told no, and they don't like listening to their elders."
She let her shoulders rise and fall, and with that she was already headed to the front door, "I will be right back- I understand that you're concerned, but it's here now."
She gave a little wave and kept walking, completely ignoring the fact that the mages in front of her basically told her that they weren't going to watch her box, "I'll be on the other side of the gauntlet if you need me, I'll be right back!"
Grace
Grace shrugs, walks over to the box and hefts it up. Heavier than it looks, really, and oddly vibrating, this box. "I'll take it down to the library. It is really the safest place."
She sighs. "I don't know whether to cheer her on, or hate her for making me babysit a box just when Mike gets here."
Alex
Enough of the conversation made it through the door over the sound of the water.  A voice comes back through the open door, sounding similar in some ways to what Odessa had said.  “…they’re just selfish impetuous children who don’t like being told no… Nope, can’t think of a single person here who sounds like that.”  A sigh follows, after Grace says she’ll take it to the library, and Alex reappears at the door.
“Maybe we should just throw in it the fireplace.  Release all of the evil in the world now and just save time.”
Grace
"Uh, no. Someone told me that Secret Keeper thing was not to be fucked with. I'm not going to," she says, making her way carefully to the stairs leading down to the library.
"I'm no expert on spirit-y business and I probably wouldn't be able to do a damn thing about it. If we do have Pandora's Box, let's not be Pandora, okay?"
Alex
Alex stays by the door, seriously thinking about simply walking away.  But that wouldn’t be fair on Grace, to leave her alone with whatever the hell was in the box and the prospect of a cabal of Odessa-a-likes descending to reclaim it.  He sighs, deeply, again.  Then Alex follows Grace down into the library.  “Can’t say I think much of her ability to keep a secret if she just dumps it on the first people she comes across who don’t move fast enough.
“So what happened with the apprentices?  Was it a recent thing, their going missing?  And what the hell is this keeper thing anyway?”
Grace
"I really wish I knew the answer to that question," she tells Alex. "All of those questions, really."
They walk, they descend, they get to the door.
"Hey, Alex, could you get that for me? Hands are full."
It does say something about the, ahem, secrecy of the situation that Grace hasn't yet found the answers to those questions. She is, usually, so good at that, after all.
Odessa
(Dex roll, please GRace! Diff 6. Dex+athletics)
Grace
[Dex + Ath + WP, because yeah, when you're carrying the end of the world, you should really try to be careful with it]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 4, 5) ( success x 1 ) [WP]
Grace
[lol, thank you WP]
Odessa
My, it really would appear that there was something in that box. The vibration increased, and for a second one could have heard the unspoken oooooooh of something finding a shiny opportunity to jump-

... and immediately be caught by Grace. The box seemed content to try and coincidentally wriggle out of her grasp, but she kept a hold well enough to keep anything terrible from happening. The lid did jostle a little, though.
Alex
“Well, let me know if I can do anything to help.”  This said as Alex turns to slide past Grace, against the wall, to get the door.  He pauses as she seems to almost drop the box, catching it again before it falls and hits the floor.
“Did that thing just move?  If there’s something in there trying to get out, I’m pretty sure there’s some tape up in the garage that we can wrap it up with.”  The door is opened and Alex steps into the library first, finding the light switch.
Grace
"That's really not a bad idea. This thing... is like a... animal or something. It did move," she says, relieved to have kept it up.
She walks into the library, carefully puts the box down on a table, and fixes it with a glare.
"What the Hell did you give us, Odessa?"
Odessa
[aaaaaand willpower diff 4 from everyone]
Alex
[WP]
Dice: 6 d10 TN4 (1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 7) ( success x 4 )
Grace
[WP!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN4 (2, 3, 7, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )
Odessa
There was a feeling that came to the air, one that was brief but purposeful enough that it made the two mages perk and pay attention. They were observant creatures, and aware as well. The box? Was pouting. It very clearly was pouting and pinged on their senses and they were unmoved by its whining.
But let's make it very clear, the box had consciousness enough to make such a gesture.
Alex
Just as he’s about to speak again, that feeling passes over them.  Mouth still open, he looks from Grace to the box and back again.
“Maybe we should get that tape.”
Alex scans the shelves for something first, though.  A book, something large and heavy.  The contents really didn’t matter.  Something suitable found, the book is placed on the lid to weigh it down.
“Or there’s still the setting the whole thing on fire option.”
Grace
When that pouting sensation comes across her, Grace really fixes it with a stare.
"How do we know it isn't made of fire?" she says. "It seems like the flighty type. But yeah, go find some tape, I'll make sure it doesn't actually chew the furniture."
She says that, but then pulls out her phone.
Grace
[Mike gets a text message soon after Grace goes for her phone. It reads: "Box is 'alive', please advise."]
Alex
“I guess…  How about shoving it in the freezer, then?  Good against fire and water, plus air tight.  Why the hell couldn’t she take it with her, anyway?  If it’s to keep it away from spirits, it seems like a really dumb idea to leave it near the node.”
Another sigh, something rapidly becoming a habit when strange Mages passed through town.  With another glance at the box under its heavy book lid, he heads out to find tape.  And possibly ropes.  Or chains.