Incoherence

Eleanor Yates
[don't forget: waking up is hard to do]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 4, 5, 7, 7) ( success x 2 )

Eleanor Yates
[and awareness]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 9, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 ) Re-rolls: 1

Eleanor Yates
There is a reason they call it 'powder'.  This is not the snow of the East Coast, wet and skin-soaking.  This is not the snow of places so constantly cold and untouched that the surface of the snow freezes into a crackling sheet of lace-like ice.  Even when packed, the snow can disintegrate when you shake it off your boots, slap it off your gloves.  It is perfect for everything that Coloradoans love it for, all the things that they migrate to mountain towns every weekend for.  It has an ethereal, transient quality to it.
Eleanor has grown up with this snow.  She Awoke in this snow, in this frigid cold, and the sense of it has stayed with her.  Outside, when night falls and the stars and slender moon illuminate the landscape with a pale silver-blue, when the sky is such a dark blue that it is resembles ink, and the cold and the powder muffle all noise, hushing the noise of life and living things, when the air is so chilled it feels crystalline as it moves into the nostrils and through the body, Eleanor's resonance almost fades into nature.
Almost.
--
A white SUV, still quite new but tagged now, pulls up to the Chantry.  It's not the first time it's been here, nor the second, nor the dozenth.  But it is the first time in months.  The car is dingy from driving through snow-plowed roads and the tires are stuck with whatever de-icing agent they're using on the roads now.  The woman who gets out of that car is of average height, slender, and possessed of blonde hair that falls to waves like tangles past her shoulderblades.  She wears a beanie beneath her jacket's hood, and waterproof boots lined with faux fur over her jeans.  Her footsteps crunch and creak as she comes to the door.
On the threshold, she pauses.  She unfurls her senses, eyes remaining open, until something comes back to her.  Her breath steams in the air.  She raises her hand
and knocks.

Pan Echeverri­a
[hark! awareness!]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 5, 7, 10) ( success x 2 ) Re-rolls: 1

Pan Echeverria
The younger Mages feel as if they're standing in the presence of an omnipresent entity when they're in the presence of the city's last standing member of the Celestial Chorus. But the Western representation of the Holy Spirit as revealing its holiness and its spirit via bright warm heavenly lights is not what they feel when they stand in the light cast by this man's Work.
Now the entire Chantry feels like that as folks approach it. Like a sentry light meant to banish all shadow has not clicked on with their presence but has been on the entire time and they're willfully walking towards it. The wards and the bans and the shields gone up to replace the ones blasted down by events transpired last weekend all feel intense and loud and thus far that has been enough to keep out Sleepers who don't belong here.
That resonance clings to him as whoever is home and deigning to answer the door does get up and answer the door. The person moves without hurry and pauses at the window before unlocking the door. When he opens it he does not use the door as a shield.
He's tall and used to being much heavier than he is when he and Eleanor first lay eyes on each other. His weight is pushing two hundred pounds. He's well into his forties and his black hair is shot through with silver. The beard he wears is trimmed and mostly white.
All of his clothing is black. He wears cowboy boots and belts his shirt into his jeans and boasts no jewelry besides a modest wristwatch on the right wrist. It's colder than hell outside and he wears short sleeves. His eyes are green and they're quick to search Eleanor's face but they don't go any lower than her chin.
"Hi," he says and then steps back out of the way so she can come in. "I don't think we've met."

Eleanor Yates
The woman at the door is not in her early twenties, or her mid twenties.  She does look young, though, her skin tight and smooth, her eyes unlined by dark circles.  Even layered in winter clothes, it's clear that she's fit.  And he could sense her on the other side of the door when he approached her, and knew before the hinges twisted that he did not know her, and that she was no apprentice.
She feels like being stuck beneath the ice in a frozen lake.  But you have to fear death for that to mean much.
Pan feels like a prophet.  But you have to believe in prophecy for that to mean much.
--
This Chantry used to be held primarily by a handful of her own kind, working with that Hermetic, those Cultists.  It doesn't feel the same, but it also doesn't feel like it did the last time she approached it.  She looks at the window, sees Pan briefly, then turns to the door.  Meets his eyes, when he opens it.
"Good evening," she says, and as he steps back, she goes inside.  There's no hesitation there.  Her hood is pushed back, her beanie removed, and she turns to face him as the door closes behind her.  There's no wariness here, no fear, no uneasiness,
no paranoia.
Removing her gloves, she offers him her right hand.  She wears no jewelry, either.  Not right now, at least.  "Eleanor Yates, Euthanatos.  I was acquainted with the former guardians here."  The dead ones.

Pan Echeverri­a
With all the activity on Ginger the last few months the apprentices and even the initiates are due their paranoia. If they would have hesitated before entering a door answered by one they did not recognize or opening the door to one they did not recognize it would be understandable.
This man does not hesitate before bidding her enter or closing the door behind her. Just standing in his presence Eleanor knows he isn't an apprentice or an initiate. Though he knows the same of her and though his resonance has all the subtlety of an interrogation lamp he does not look at her with judgment in his gaze.
If neither of them are particularly warm or open on first meeting they're at least professional. Eleanor removes her glove and his eyes flick to find her hand before he takes it in his own. A firm grip and two pumps and he releases her again.
His hand was calloused once from manual labor and writing sermons by hand. Used to have dirt under his nails all the time too. She can feel the loss of mass beneath his skin before they step back from each other.
"Francisco Echeverría, Celestial Chorus." Not until he says his own name does a faint accent reveal itself. "You have my condolences."
For the loss, presumably.

Eleanor Yates
So: no fear, no judgement.  Neither would be any more at home between them right now than an automatic warmth.  They have a nice, firm handshake and Eleanor puts her gloves away.  They do not share the titles they have in the Sleeping world: Father.  Professor.  They don't really need to, and they both know that the other is, at least in terms of pure magical strength, an equal.
Eleanor actually smiles at that, though.  It's a thin thing, sort of dry.  "We were not close," but she does not say that with venom.  She may not have been close to them, but nor were they enemies.  "And we will meet again," she adds, not ritualistically, but almost offhand in its certainty, and to one of his background and belief, it likely does not sound strange.
She tips her head.  "Every Awakened face I see is a new one these days," she comments.

Pan Echeverri­a
Wherever he was when Eleanor came to the door it was not out in the living room where the contents of his time could be glimpsed now. The coffee and end tables are empty of books or maps although someone left a pen lying on one of the couch cushions.
Her smile is met with a nod of understanding. The answering one Pan gives to her when she states she'll meet her acquaintances again is wan despite its sincerity. His green eyes are alert above it. He looks tired.
Pan runs his hand over his beard as he considers the changing cast of willworkers in the area and when he smiles this time it reaches his eyes.
"Yeah," he says and plants both hands on his hips. "It's been that way since the springtime and I don't think I've met half the folks who been through here." He indicates the kitchen with a thumb. "Can I offer you a cup of tea or coffee or anything?"

Eleanor Yates
Some people always look tired.
"I met a few when I returned from overseas," Eleanor mentions, shedding her coat and hanging it on a coatrack, gloves in the pockets, hat stuffed into the hood.  "I've been in contact with Sid via Ginger a few times, concerning everything that has come from that incident at the movie theater."
Interjected, as she turns to go with him towards the kitchen: "Tea, please, yes."
And going on: "What do you know of that business?"

Pan Echeverri­a
He waits for her to free herself from her outerwear before putting his hands into his pockets and leading her out of the sunken living room and into the kitchen. This room is warmer than the living room, as if the stove was recently on. It will come on again.
Pan takes the kettle off its back burner and starts to fill it with water as Eleanor asks of what he knows about the movie theater incident. Before he speaks he clears his throat.
"That the theater was showing a movie called L'Ultimo Giorno, and in showing the movie released a ghul. A demon."
He puts the kettle on a front burner and turns the dial that brings the electric coil to glowing and turns to face the Euthanatos. Leans against a joint in the countertops and crosses his arms low and loose over his ribs.
"I know the others've been investigating ShockDrop, Joshua Keller, the Montanari woman, and where the demon comes from. They got a name for it and a few of them been up to Keller's place to check it out. They been talking about connects in Vienna and Atlanta. Shoshannah was nearly possessed when she scried for it a month or so back."

Eleanor Yates
"I was there," she mentions, regarding the showing of the movie, following him into the kitchen.  She wears dark-washed jeans that skim her legs tucked into those above-the-ankle boots -- at least she shook the snow off and wiped her feet before she came in -- and a large, charcoal-colored sweater.  "I killed it.  At least the form it took that night to attack."
Which is true.  Mara struck at it, and others carried its body away, but when it comes right down to it, this is the truth: it stopped killing or trying-to-kill that night because Eleanor was there.  But even she knows that doesn't mean something is dead.
It's very hard to kill something permanently.
Eleanor glances at him.  "Montanari woman?"  This, she asks about.  Then, a bit belatedly for proving that she's got a heart: "Is Shoshannah all right now?"

Pan Echeverri­a
"Forgive me if I got my names mixed up: Lucia Montanari. Umberto Montanari's her grandfather, he was working on permanently trapping the demon when he got caught up in some business with the Technocracy and was executed. Lucia's a, ah, Dreamspeaker, was a Dreamspeaker. Awakened before the War was over, went missing a few years back. Cabalmates think she might've turned. We--"
Well. 'We' has the implication of this being a group effort but he's in the right neighborhood.
"--found out she's out at the same compound Keller's at. They got it protected with sigils and blood magic. She's acting as a tether for this demon. Thakinyan, they're calling it."
As for Shoshannah:
"Eh. It don't look like the demon got too good a hold on her, but now...? Yeah, I think she's all right. As all right as she ever is, anyway."

Eleanor Yates
"She did have a way about her," is all Eleanor says about Shoshannah, regarding how all right she is or isn't.  It's polite enough.  It isn't overly concerned, despite Shoshannah's age or the fact that a fucking demon nearly possessed her recently.
She opens the cupboard where the tea used to be kept.  It is different tea; it is in the same place.  She reaches in, seeming at ease here, familiar, taking out something green.  "What would you like?" she asks of Pan, and takes that out, too.
As the cupboard closes, she stops processing the information he's shared with her against the dim -- very dim -- attention she's paid to Ginger over the past few months.  "Does anyone know why Montanari and Keller might want this thing in the world?  Other than the 'they're Nephandi' theory."
Which would, after all, be explanation enough.

Pan Echeverri­a
This particular servant of the One has been surrounded by people trying to take care of him despite his protestations and the strength of his will since before some of the Chantry's caretakers had learned how to walk. He still persists in trying to make his own tea despite people like Sera and Shoshannah and Kalen, now, fussing over him but that's left him in a state of not knowing how many different types of tea there actually are when he goes to make his own.
"I'll take the one in the orange box, please," he says. Realizes the kettle is about to start shrieking when he hears the water bubbling in the urn and turns to find a couple of mugs. "Thank you."
As for why these two might want to perpetuate this thing:
"No idea. Over the summer someone broke into a vault the Hermetics had this film sealed up in but I don't know if we sorted out who that person was. Might be they didn't have nothing to do with releasing the demon--"
The kettle lets loose its cry and Pan turns off the burner before pouring the water into the mugs.
"Either way it's got a hold on 'em now. Might be if we break its hold on Montanari and Keller that'll weaken it enough to send it back, but I gotta be honest with you, I'm no demon expert."

Eleanor Yates
The one in the orange box.  Eleanor smiles again, that thin smile that is not wan or tired, simply reserved.  But it's genuine, and her amusement isn't a cold, vicious thing.  She gets down the orange box along with the green box, then moves to get mugs.  Again, it's striking how familiar she is with this kitchen.  The cabal that guarded this place and lived within its walls were perhaps not friends, not as Eleanor would label it, but she clearly felt comfortable enough here to make her own tea at times.
She slides the mugs towards Pan, teabags already in place, as he takes the kettle off the burner.
"Neither am I," she admits, as he pours, and steam coils upward.  With only the faintest trace of self-deprecation, she adds: "My role in situations like this has most often been just pulling the trigger.  But as for whether or not that would break a spirit-bond or possession, I have no idea."

Grace Evans
[Nightmares!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (3, 5, 5, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )

Grace Evans
[Awareness+Perception!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )

Pan Echeverri­a
With the bags steeping and the kettle back on the cooled burner Pan picks up his mug and moves to the table. He pulls out a chair for Eleanor before he pulls out his own chair and sits himself down in it.
"Gotta figure if the body's gone the demon won't have nothing to hold onto anymore," he says. Pauses in speaking to dunk the bag a few more times and then wrap his hands around the mug. "I have no idea either. I had an idea, thinking about how dangerous looking for Thakinyan is, but I don't know if anybody in the area's got the power to banish a demon if we were to lure it out of its hiding place."

Grace Evans
It's become a habit now, ever since Kalen's warning, that Grace sleeps in the Chantry. For most of the day today, she's been at UC Denver's computer science lab working and studying for finals, which start Monday.
It's strange, really, trying to bridge worlds like this. After dying so many times, to come back to life, and try to pretend at normal all day to people who would never understand. They understand she was sick. They wouldn't be able to grasp anything else.
The little red Toyota stops in the driveway, and Grace notices a couple things: Pan's wards are still there making the entire place feel like it's under a spotlight (wow has that ever been fun to sleep under), and she suddenly feels as though the chill in the air were more liquid, drowning in cold rather than the warmth of blood.
Well. Of all the combinations. The only thing that would make it even better is if Alyssa showed up, for some good old nauseating blood scent.
She gets out of the car and slams the door against the cold breeze, walks up to the door, and just lets herself in. She's been here enough to consider the place.. homey. But with these people around tonight, it'll be hard to just crash on a couch and relax.

Eleanor Yates
Eleanor, with her green tea to his something-probably-herbal, follows Pan to the table.  She notes the old-fashioned manners, but doesn't mind them.  Doesn't scoff.  Certainly doesn't blush.  She does say: "Thank you," as she sits with her tea, thinking vaguely that this is quite nice, meeting another disciple and simply sitting down for a nice cup of tea,
even if they are talking about demons, possessions, and potentially putting enchanted bullets in the skulls of people conjuring those demons.
"That's if we're lucky enough for the spirit to depart immediately.  It could be grounded somehow, potentially by the possession.  And that's if the demon is clinging to the body or the consciousness, and not the pattern."  He admits he has no idea either.  She sighs faintly, nodding.  "I'm pulling things out of thin air," as she performs the same teabag-dipping ritual as he does.
Banishing Thakinyan.  That would be nice.
"Maybe not," she says.  "But perhaps we can bind it again, at least."
She blows at the surface of her tea, but does not drink yet.  Outside, another car comes up, beside Eleanor's sleek white (currently snow-dingy) SUV, and Eleanor herself glances up and outside at the sound of the engine cutting, the doors closing.  She doesn't arrest, tensing up and suddenly alert.  She just notices, the way anyone would notice, and looks at Pan again.  "Other than Shoshannah, what Dreamspeakers and spirit-workers do we have on our side?"

Pan Echeverria
"And hope it stays bound?"
He doesn't sound skeptical or cynical. That's certainly a less destructive option than conjuring an Umbrood and hoping the person goading it will be able to feint away in time for people with awakened weaponry to strike at it. It takes levels of spirit knowledge well above the skill level of the two disciples to perform a proper banishment.
At the sound of car door slamming Pan's eyes flick towards the front of the house but he does not get up. But Eleanor gets a slow nod to the matter of binding it. That may be as difficult a task as banishing it.
As for spirit-workers in the area:
"I'm afraid I don't know the answer to that," he says. "Shoshannah's the only one I've met."

Grace Evans
First, she takes off her coat, which she hangs up in the hallway. Then, she kicks her shoes off, to avoid tracking in the powdery snow and pads into the kitchen in thick winter socks patterned in white snowflakes on dark blue. Otherwise, she's dressed in jeans and a grey turtleneck that keeps the wind (and other things) out.
Grace herself looks pale and thin compared to the last time Eleanor saw her. Could be the weather, could be the end of the school season taking its toll on her, but this looks like a bit more than just a bit of end-of-year stress.
"Hey Pan. Eleanor," she says, on her way to the cabinets for a glass. It's not an overwhelmingly happy greeting, she sounds tired.

Eleanor Yates
"Nothing lasts forever," says Eleanor easily, regarding whether or not the 'demon' will stay bound for all time.  But Shoshannah is the only Dreamspeaker he knows.  And if Eleanor doubts that a disciple's magic would be enough to hold this thing... well.   Shoshannah is just an initiate.  Binding it may not be any more of an option than banishing it.
"I think Sid and I are going up there," she says, but then Grace comes in.  Grace, who Eleanor has only met twice, but still: her thinness and paleness is noticable.  Eleanor tips her head to the side for a moment, analyzing the other woman, then nods a hello.  "Good evening, Grace."
Everyone sounds tired but Eleanor.
"Do you know any spirit-workers other than Shoshannah?"

Pan Echeverri­a
For his part Pan is looking better than he did when he moved into the Chantry a few weeks ago or even when Grace last saw him in this same chair in this same part of the house. He's pinching excess liquid out of his teabag and setting it atop the table with the intent to pick it up and mop up the mess later same as he did last time.
But he is not a Life Mage. He can perform all manner of miracles to aid the downtrodden and the weary and the lost but he can't do anything for himself if he has a headache or he hasn't been sleeping well other than pray for strength to carry on ignoring things he cannot change.
"Good evening, Grace," he says. It causes an inadvertent duet with Eleanor's greeting but he makes nothing of it. He sits and drinks his tea and waits to hear a response.

Grace Evans
"Spirit workers?" Grace says, pausing with her chosen plastic cup held in the air. "Yeah, there's Alyssa. At least she seems to really know her stuff when it comes to them."
Grace could barely begin to tell you what one is, and she'd get it wrong. So there's that. At least she knows enough about what's being discussed to know who to talk to.
"She told Kalen and I all sorts of stuff about them, but hell if I could understand it." No, at the time, she was trying to avoid choking on Alyssa's resonance. "Might want to look at the Ginger posts from him on that one."
"I don't know of anybody else really. I don't think Kalen knows anybody else either, or he wouldn't have been after Alyssa that badly."
So, now that she's said all that, she recognizes the cup in her hand and what she was about to do with it. Yeah. Thirsty. She goes over to the fridge, pops open the door, and man does Eleanor make everything feel like it's a fridge, and the fridge itself? Shit. She grabs the orange juice that feels like an ice block, and pours herself some.
Why not coffee or tea? Because sleep will be hard enough without caffeine.

Eleanor Yates
"Is Alyssa another Dreamspeaker?" is Eleanor's question.  This is another she has not met -- at least not in this life.  And this is why she is unbothered by strangers, perhaps: nothing lasts forever.  Nothing new is truly new.
All of this has happened before.  And all of this will happen again.
Grace goes to pour herself juice, and Eleanor sips her tea, the bag still inside the liquid.

Kalen Holliday
[Nightmares]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )

Kalen Holliday
[Awareness]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Kalen Holliday
[How panicked are we about Eleanor's resonance today - Willpower]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 4, 5, 8) ( success x 1 )

Kalen Holliday
There is a pause, just after Kalen steps into the chantry and the door closes, before he starts toward where he can sense other Mages.  It is slow, and even the sound of his footsteps is even, half near-silent and half too heavy.  And deliberate, very very deliberate.  He looks, for once, like he got something like enough sleep.
He's still winter-pale, pale skin and pale blonde hair and pale green eyes.  It's most severe before he slips out of his black peacoat and drapes it over a chair, but the dark green sweater underneath is only a marginal decrease in contrast.
"Hey Kit! Hello, Pan.  Eleanor."  Those greetings start out enthusiastic and slip into distance, there is still some warmth, even a smile for Pan, but by the time he's addressing Elanor it's back to all the distance and the face that says nothing at all.  "I hope everyone is well."

Grace Evans
"I think she said she was a Hollow One? I don't know what that means. If it's some sort of Dreamspeaker thing, then yes," Grace says, walking over to the table to sit down, to pretend to be calm and aware and unperturbed. "Also, she was once with the Hermetics, I know that."
She takes a big drink afterwards. It's partly to quench thirst, partly for the liquid calories, partly for the potassium. And it tastes a bit like warm sunshine, to battle the coldness in this room. Between Pan's blinding cold light, and Eleanor's deep dark and cold watery grave, and the winter outside, there's just too much ice.
"You remember her, don't you, Pan? We met her at the supermarket. She knew everything about salt..."
Just then, a storm begins to flow into the room, and there is someone who doesn't feel chilled. Because, Kalen is a desert's rain, a summery storm that makes makes the earth steam and split.
She turns, he walks into the room, and she smiles -- the first time she's done so tonight. He looks good. "Hey Kalen."

Pan Echeverri­a
"She did," Pan says of Alyssa Solomon and her knowledge of salt.
Before they can go on about their adventure to the supermarket and learning of the existence of pink salt the young Hermetic makes his appearance. The Chorister is content to sit and watch the others converse but that means he ends up sitting there watching as Kalen and Grace beam at each other.
They're adorable.
Pan doesn't say anything. He takes a big swallow of the tea that came out of the orange box and says, "Mister Holliday." At this point he just does it because he can get away with it. "You don't look like you fell asleep on the couch last night. Congratulations."

Eleanor Yates
[I have no thoughts on this subject.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )

Pan Echeverri­a
[bullshit]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )

Eleanor Yates
Kalen's lack of warmth doesn't disturb Eleanor -- he has met her for all of two minutes, and the truth is the descending level of warmth in his tone doesn't even ping her notice beyond a suggestion of how well he knows each person in the room.  She is also listening for Grace's answer regarding Alyssa.  A Hollow One.
All Eleanor does is nod.  "A Hollow One is... not quite the same as a Dreamspeaker."  That's putting it mildly.  "But the Order of Hermes, as well-known as it is for their study of Forces, is also full of experts in Spirit.  Is she on Ginger?"
And she sips her tea again.

Kalen Holliday
[Wait?  Who has thoughts?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 10) ( success x 1 )

Kalen Holliday
Kalen settles into one of the chairs, because he is not in a place where he wants all the coffee ever.  Of course, it's Kalen.  Withdrawal would set in what, within an hour of not having coffee?  Just give it time.  Undoubtedly he'll be making coffee before long.
"You know, there was a point, before your started talking, where I missed you," he says to Pan.  "But that's probably just because you couldn't concentrate long enough to put enough words in order to agitate me last time I saw you.  Nice to see you're looking better."
"We are definitely having coffee again," Kalen says to Grace.  "And I am definitely not letting you leave without teaching you to shoot this time."
"Are we talking about Alyssa?"

Grace Evans
[Perception+Subterfuge = What?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 6, 10) ( success x 2 )

Eleanor Yates
[http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7sum8t9B11ruumleo1_400.gif]

Grace Evans
"Yeah," she sighs at Kalen, "I know. It seems to be becoming a bit necessary, huh."
So Eleanor says a Hollow One isn't a Dreamspeaker, okay... jotting that one down in memory. "No, she's not. I will have to set it up for her next time I see her, provided it isn't at a Safeway. Also provided she even wants it."
Kalen then asks whether they're talking about Alyssa, and Grace turns him. "Yeah. Alyssa. Eleanor wants to know all about her for some reason."

Pan Echeverri­a
Okay. Kalen's snark is actually kind of funny. The priest manages to keep from laughing but he does allow a close-lipped smile to sneak across his lips. He flicks his eyebrows in a silent and mock self-satisfied Thank you before taking a drink of his tea.
They're talking about Alyssa. Eleanor wanted to know all about her.
"Well," Pan says, inserting himself back into the conversation without interjecting, "we were discussing binding the demon if we can't find someone who can banish it. If Shoshannah is the only Dreamspeaker anyone can call up on short notice we're gonna have ourselves a minor, ah..."
He blanks on the word. They can all see him search for it and it evade him and him give up chasing it.

Eleanor Yates
So now there are four mages sitting around the table, with tea and orange juice and... well Kalen hasn't gotten anything yet, but if he's sleeping on the couch here he surely knows where to find a beverage if he should want one.
Eleanor finally takes the bag out of her tea, setting it aside next to Pan's, sipping at the now thoroughly green liquid that still steams in the air.  He snarks at the other man, the one he called a name that was not given to Eleanor -- just like in Kit's case.  If she feels left out, if she feels unwanted, it doesn't appear to deter her.  Discussions of salt at supermarkets or social chit-chat don't annoy her, certainly, but that is not what's on her mind right now.
Kalen mentions teaching Grace to shoot.  Eleanor's eyebrows move slightly, but she doesn't say anything about that.  She is focused on Grace, and nods.  "I'll give you my card, either way.  I'd like to get in touch with her."
Eleanor wants to know all about her for some reason.
This time Eleanor's eyebrow-motion isn't slight.  They raise.  "I am still sitting in the room," she reminds Grace coolly, but there's an undercurrent of bemusement to it.  Tolerance.
Pan loses the end of his sentence.  Eleanor fills in:
"Quandary?"

Pan Echeverri­a
"Quandary, yes."
Pan briefly looks to Eleanor to acknowledge her presence and her assistance but doesn't draw out the moment by holding her gaze. Thank you doesn't leave his lips but she can see it in the instant before he looks away again.
This is another word that carries the accentuation of his native tongue even though it translates as something completely different in Spanish.
"A minor quandary."

Kalen Holliday
It isn't that Kalen doesn't like Eleanor.  Really.  It's that if he had to give her a Name at the moment she wouldn't like it.  Pan spared him that by offering him one that others used, and so Kalen adopted that Name, as he did for Sera.  Eleanor would probably not appreciate being Creepy Death Mermaid.  Perhaps he could shorten it to Mermaid.  But then it lost all the connotations that made it hers.
"Considering the situation she's in, I'm sure she has her reasons, Kit."  Kalen smiles a little and his tone, as always. is gentle with Grace.  "You may recall that we showed up at the poor woman's house unannounced and questioned her, and then invited her over for coffee and questioned her more.  Knowing all about people is a thing with us."
And Eleanor gets the first expression with any warmth from Kalen when she gives Pan the word he's looking for without making it anything at all.
"However we stop it, we will stop it.  Temporarily, maybe.  But we will stop it."  His tone is dramatically different from the last tone with Pan.  Not gentle.  Not soothing.  But completely sure that they will stop the thing.

Grace Evans
Grace's face just turns quizzical, like she's certain she's missing something, as she slowly responds to Eleanor. "Yes? You are still here. Um..." her tired eyes then jolt off somewhere else. Was something she said a lie? Does Eleanor not want to know everything about Alyssa? It certainly seemed to be the case. And fuck if Grace could figure out why.
"She seems nice enough, even so, Kalen. I'm sure she wouldn't mind Ginger?" I mean who wouldn't mind the sexy robot secretary who digitally connects you to all of Denver's happening Mages? Grace looks over at Pan and kind of gives a kind of odd smirk.
"I.. um.. have your card already, Eleanor. You're in my phone. I know where you work, remember? I sent you email. Unless... you want me to give her your card, uh..." Geez, Grace, yes, that is what physical media is for. Not everybody just exchanges digital digits like you...

Eleanor Yates
There is always something missing with Eleanor.
People describe and sense her as cold, think of death.  But the more perceptive one's sixth sense is, the more one feels not just the cold of the season outside but that pristine clarity of a world muffled by snow, a sky blackened but pierced with stars, an almost holy solitude of walking alone through a frozen world.  One feels not just the terror of death by drowning but the slow descent into the depth of water, the final acceptance of that water into the lungs, the pressure of the deep, the slow fading of the light, the relief of losing consciousness.
But this is why people only sense the cold, and the death: Eleanor does not feel like a person.  Not a whole one.  Not a complete one.  There is always something missing, and not something as simple as a piece of her being cut away or broken off.  A person who has lost a limb is still the person they were, but changed.  Eleanor feels like a fragment in the universe, something that once was whole and now is shattered, and has not been,
maybe can not be,
restored.
She is tolerant of the coolness she receives, and the distance, and the aloofness, and every other iteration of discomfort.  She is not unfamilar with it, and she understands it.  She has that much in terms of patience and compassion.  She knows what she is, and what she is not.  And she is not a warm blanket on a cold evening.  She is not a friend whose embrace eases some of the pain of the world.  She is not illumination to the dark.
One thing she is, however, is a teacher.  And a very detailed, very specific sort of person in general.
"You were speaking of me to Kalen as though I was not," she says to Grace, her tone one of explanation and not condemnation, but there is something direct about her gaze that is difficult to bear.  "You also spoke definitively, without sufficient information to support a blanket statement.  If you'll remember, what I asked you regarding Alyssa was if she is a Dreamspeaker and if she has access to Ginger.  I am not sure that qualifies for wanting to know 'all about her'.
"Also, yes: I would like you to take another card and give it to Alyssa, should you see her again soon, so that she can contact me at her convenience and so that you are otherwise exempt from playing messenger on my behalf.  I would ask you for her contact information, but I did not want to presume that you had her permission to give it out."
Yup.
She's a lawyer.
Eleanor reaches into her back pocket then, taking out her billfold and removing a card identical to the one she once gave Grace, sliding it over.  "And I would," she says, with a note of sincerity and less of the tone of a lecturer addressing a class, "certainly appreciate your help.  If Alyssa could be helpful in finding a way to remove or contain the ghul without simply killing everyone summoning it, I would very much like to speak with her."

Pan Echeverri­a
A reasonable concern upon learning the man is a Chorister and a priest would be that every other word out of his mouth would have to do with God or Jesus or the One or some other entity that the rest of them don't believe in. That he would speak in proverbs or parables instead of forming his own sentences.
That isn't the case with him. He blesses his own food and he refers to his Work as prayer but other than that it's difficult to tell from interacting with him because clergymen, unlike laypeople, do not need shorthand to remind themselves and others of the strength of their faith. It's internal and it's persistent and it is something he has had since long before he decided to begin staying at the Chantry that he might be near enough to help these young willworkers while they fought off this threat.
Kalen psychs himself up to speak of defeating Thakinyan even if it is only in temporary terms.
Pan takes another swallow of his tea and nods. He looks to Grace as she lives up to her name while negotiating conversation with the Euthanatos but his expression belies his thoughts. He watches until such time as his cup becomes empty and a quiet place reveals itself before he prepares himself to stand.
"You got an extra card, Miss Yates?"
Asks the man who doesn't own a cell phone but could track her down even if she were on the other side of the state.

Kalen Holliday
"When I spoke to her about it," Kalen says.  "She seemed to believe the best solution was to destroy the things that bound it here and let Reality send it back to its Realm.  She seemed to be of the opinion that killing it was basically out of the question and that binding it would be nearly impossible.  Still, if you want to speak with her yourself, it could probably be arranged.
"On the subject of people getting in touch with people, we were hoping to find some of Lucia Montanari's former cabalmates.  Some of them were of your Tradition.  They may be able to help her, and if they could help her then that would also help us."

Grace Evans
Eleanor, oh but she unnerves Grace with her 'correction'. She has to remind herself that this woman saved her life, that she wrote a story to Eleanor to commemorate it, that she wanted to apologize to her for being... what? Disrespectful? Grace is never disrespectful. At least not consciously.
"Look, I'm sorry if I offended you, Eleanor. I'm tired, I've got finals next week, I'm getting over nearly dying and all, I'm just not exactly running on all cylinders here. So yeah," Grace says, then downs her OJ like it's something a lot harder. Maybe she wishes it were. "If I see her, your card is hers. And if I see her, I'll try to set her up with Ginger."

Pan Echeverri­a
[Jamie is lame and can't stay awake any longer :( Thanks for the scene guys, say Pan sees himself out in a relatively gentlemanly fashion and if Eleanor hooks him up with her card he's totally going to call her later.]

Eleanor Yates
"I understand, and I believe you," is what Eleanor says, which is not the same as oh you poor thing or I forgive you -- perhaps because she sees nothing to forgive -- or many other pleasantries she could offer in return.  She understands that Grace isn't at her best.  She believes her when she says she's sorry.  For what it's worth, she even sounds kind when she says it.
She doesn't ask about nearly dying.  But then, she's a Euthanatos.
"I do," she says to Pan, and takes another out of her wallet before putting it away again.  She hands it over, and he sees her name and her titles and where she works and the location of her office within the Sturm College of Law.
Kalen, however, gets her attention.  She drinks more of her tea, focusing on the young man.  "But what are the things binding it here?" she asks, her brow furrowing.  "This is why I should talk to her," she admits, her brow smoothing a second later.  "I know next to nothing about the spirit world."  She shrugs one shoulder, and then Kalen mentions Montanari's former cabal.  Some were Euthanatos.  Her eyebrows lift a touch.
"I can reach out to some contacts and see what they know, see if I can find them," Eleanor says.  "We'd be looking in... Vienna and Atlanta?"

Kalen Holliday
Kalen waves to Pan as he leaves, and for a minute his eyes track Pan's movements.  Not really with concern, for all he does evaluate the man's balance and coordination.  Pan is using entire sentences, which means he passes Kalen's relatively low bar for healthy enough for the moment.
"I don't know where they would be.  Vienna maybe?  I know nothing of where they would be now.  All I know is that they described Lucia as mad with hatred.  They may not be willing to try to help her.  But they might.  If she can be saved from possession and madness I see no reason to to extend her that mercy.
"According to Alyssa, the things binding it here would have special ties to it.  People that it possessed completely or things when had bound it.  So, right now our guesses are Lucia and Keller, who are both possessed by it, and the film that bound it.  Judging by what Pan saw, the thing is draining Keller of his life.  If we want to save him, we may already be too late.  But we may at least not have to fight him.  Of course, if that thing is hungry, it will be after a second victim shortly.  Well, second that we know of to feed on in such a fashion."

Grace Evans
Mmm, now disrespect, disrespect is treating one's heartfelt, personal creative work as though it were electronically thrown in the trash, come to think of it. Grace grimaces into her empty cup. Oh, Eleanor.
But really, it's not important right now. The grown-ups are talking, and she has nothing to impart.

Eleanor Yates
Eleanor looks a little confused as Kalen speaks.  Truth be told, she considers everything with Grace settled, and since she sat down at this table with Pan her focus has been primarily -- though not solely -- on the matter of the ghul and what can be done about it.  If Grace has a problem with her, and Grace isn't saying anything about it, then Eleanor's focus remains squarely where it is.
"Wait, go back -- you said you were hoping to find some of Montanari's former cabal.  You've already been in touch with them?  Do you have their names?"

Kalen Holliday
"No.  I don't have names.  Jenna was able to find that out when she performed her inquiry, but she only found out that that was the general consensus.  I would imagine the people she spoke to had no real concern for the names of Lucia's cabalmates.  We've not been in touch.  I don't even think Jenna was in touch with them."
He rises carefully.  "And, as much as I would love to linger, I should get to the library.  I also have a considerable bit to learn about spirits."
[And I need to nap.....]

Grace Evans
"If we had their names, I could probably have tracked them down by now. No need for any spiritual phone calls or whatever it was I asked Shoshannah to do," Grace says, absently, tired, as if to the air and not to Eleanor.
"Goonight, Kalen. Good luck on your librarying," yeah, verbing nouns and treating English like it's her toy. If anything, Grace is not her name. She is not formal.

Eleanor Yates
Eleanor wants to ask who Jenna is, but she'll find out later perhaps.  She breathes in, exhaling, and nods to Kalen.  "Thank you.  I'll leave one of my cards on the fridge, but you can always contact me through Ginger as well."
A beat.  "Thank you for the warning, after the dream you and Sid had."
She hasn't forgotten that.
Kalen excuses himself, and Eleanor sips at her tea, looking at Grace, who is talking to the air even though it sounds very much like she's talking to a person.  Her brow furrows for a half-second, then: "You seem like you should rest."

Kalen Holliday
"You are, of course, most welcome.  Good night."  Kalen says to Eleanor.  And there, formal.
But then he gives Grace a little finger wave.  "Nighty-night."  And that...not even remotely formal.  Some people are consistent about their level of formality, but Kalen changes tones as easily as shapes shift in clouds.
[Night!  Thank you for scenes!]

Grace Evans
"Should, yeah, probably. It's hard for me anymore," Grace says, not really mentioning the fact that it's also really hard to sleep in a place that feels like it's under constant surveillance from Saint Eye of Sauron. Pan means well. He means to protect them all, and it's probably a very good idea he did. But it does kind of make the Chantry feel like trying to sleep while in the middle of a prison spotlight.
"I wish we knew more about this whole Thakky thing. It's not like Kalen and I haven't been trying. We profiled the thing trying to find a weakness, but it just seems like every time this 'demon' surfaces it has no vulnerable spots. One thing, though, it attracts followers, like mobs of people trying to fight for it, and they don't get better after the fact. Twice before, we think, the Technocracy killed them all. Not all whole lot of help there, but you know. Watch out for a mob of people acting crazed with rage. Like we haven't seen that before...
"It's almost as if this were a trap, Eleanor. I mean, can you think of a better way to get somebody to go raid the castle than sending out that dream? To those people? That's like waving the red flag in front of a bull. And that's got me a little worried. Like, it's not stepping outside its defenses, it's calling in some delivery, and we're the pizza."

Eleanor Yates
Thakky thing gets a brief smile from Eleanor.  Her smiles are dry, thin things, but they are not false, and they are not wan just because they are not exuberant.  Her reservedness has nothing to do with illness or weariness.  At least not today.  At least not obviously.
That smile doesn't live long, with what Grace tells her.  It turns gradually into a slow furrow of her brow, a tightening.  A trap.
"Have you spoken to anyone else about this thought of yours -- that it might just be a trap?"

Grace Evans
"No. I don't really know what to replace the current plan with. Right now, we're still in info-gathering mode. But yeah, like I said, running into walls there. So, even if it is a trap, then what? We wait? We've been doing a lot of that. Not sure that's the right way to go either."
And yeah, let's just come out and say it, Grace hates everything about the 'Thakky thing'. She hates how she can't figure out what to do, hates how her inquiries come up short, hates not knowing, and not being able to know.
Oh yeah, and the fact that it keeps hurting the people she cares about, that too.
"I probably should bring it up. Maybe I'll post it on Ginger. Don't know what good it will do though."

Eleanor Yates
"You should," Eleanor tells her.  "As for what good it will do, what good will not mentioning your concern do?"
She leans back, holding her tea, her legs crossed under the table.  "Just bear in mind that even if it is a trap, the correct approach may still be to walk into it."

Grace Evans
"Or, leap into it, as may be the case for some of our... associates," Grace says, and spins her plastic cup around a finger. "I'll make a post."
"Maybe after I've gotten some sleep. Monday will be here soon."
She gets up out of her chair, and starts off toward the living room, but stops, and turns around. "Oh yeah, did you ever... get my email?"

Eleanor Yates
"Yes," Eleanor says, and it's clear she doesn't share Grace's disdain for that course of action, because all she gives is a simple nod, "sometimes you need to just leap."
She gives another nod as Grace pushes her chair back, hopefully off to get some rest, but Grace pauses, and Eleanor -- who does not seem any less comfortable in this chantry when her companions depart -- looks up.  She gives another of those small smiles.  "I did," she confirms, and there's a brief twitch, a microexpression that doesn't quite make it.  "It was...
"Dark," she finishes quietly, but unflinchingly, her eyebrows now tugged together, almost as though she has a headache coming.

Grace Evans
"I debated whether or not to send it. Just, imagining a world where nobody ever dies, people think it would be grand. Sometimes, a thing has to be dark to show the truth. I thought you'd understand."
Guess not. Not Eleanor's cup of tea, perhaps, and she just wanted to avoid saying anything if she didn't have anything nice to say. Understandable. Grace shrugs, turns around and starts for the stairs. It's a shared secret between she and Kalen that the upstairs office has the best sleeping couch in the place.
"Or maybe I just got everything wrong. Wouldn't be the first time. Don't mind me, it's unimportant," she says, again to air, again tired.

Eleanor Yates
"I did understand, Grace," Eleanor says, firmly.  But the words are hitting Grace's back, and Grace is turning around to walk away and she's talking to air, which is another way of talking to people without admitting it.
If Grace wants or expects Eleanor to react with concern to that, or demand -- or plead -- that Grace come back, or get angry, or so forth, she's disappointed.  Eleanor has met her...three times, including today.  Eleanor has not seen her for three months.  And Eleanor's typical response to people throwing down a Last Word and then walking away is to let them go.  If Grace wanted to hear Eleanor answer her, if Grace really wanted to know what Eleanor thought rather than making her own explanations up, she'd stay.  She chooses not to.
Doesn't mean Eleanor isn't bewildered by her behavior.  She has her eyebrows up, but as Grace heads up the stairs, the Euthanatos just shakes her head, sipping her tea.

Grace Evans
Again, a tired Grace turns around, because... ugh, this is a crazy knot, and Eleanor makes her feel... what? Trapped underwater? "What did you understand? Because, you know, we all bring our own interpretations into stories. Just because I wrote it doesn't mean you got the same thing I did out of it. It's as much yours as mine now.
"I just... I'd like to know I didn't insult you or your Tradition or something. Because that really wasn't the intent. It was to reach out to you and say, you know, I think you're swell, you saved my bacon, so here's my way of saying thanks."

Eleanor Yates
Grace turns and comes back.  Eleanor lifts her eyes, a little more distant than before.  She has a surprising degree of patience for someone who can be so brutal with a handgun.  Even so, it is thinning.
"You didn't insult me, or my Tradition," she says.  "I'm surprised you jumped to that theory from a single adjective."  Her hand moves to rest on the table, lightly.  "Grace, I realize that you're exhausted, and you've clearly been through some kind of harrowing experience or set of experiences, but I'm not sure how to respond to you."  There's a small beat of a pause, a slight frown.  "Your reactions to things seem a little... disproportionate.  And I have no context for them, as I hardly know you.
"I'm not saying this to denigrate or shame you," Eleanor adds, her frown smoothing a bit.  She means it.  "It's just that I can see how you're not -- firing on all cylinders, as you put it before.  And personally, I know what that's like, and we don't always know how we're coming across unless someone says something.  So this is me: saying something.  I'm picking up on some... rawness from you, and I don't understand where it's coming from or why it's coming in my direction."

Grace Evans
Oh, well... There is rawness. Yes.
"I'm not well. You're right, I am raw right now. Your silence in response to my story had me worried a bit about whether I'd insulted you, but then... I got sick, and more important things started happening, and I didn't even care about it until just now.
As for why I'm kind of.. out of it, I got sick, really really sick. Technocratic make-you-die-horribly sick. I must have died at least five times, more than that in my dreams, and always something just... I don't even want to say. I don't want to go there. It was bad. I have trouble sleeping because I'm still dreaming about it. Let's just say, I watched someone die of what I had, and there wasn't anything left of him afterward, and it wasn't..." Grace looks like she's about to be ill again at that point.
"This was... like, a month ago. I'm still having some problems dealing. Sorry. I've been pissing people off more than usual lately. I should just... go sleep. Finals. Monday..."

Eleanor Yates
Your silence.
Eleanor's eyebrows hop up when Grace says that more important things kept her from even caring until she saw Eleanor again.  She huffs a breath out, not quite a laugh.  "Grace," she says, with some of what remains of her patience, "you aren't the only one who has been busy with school and the demands of Awakened life."
Professor.  Right.  Among other things, though, many of which Grace doesn't know about, just as Eleanor knows next to nothing about Grace's life.
She listens to the rest, though.  And she doesn't furrow her brow in concern or worry or disgust or fear.  This, like so much else, does not perturb her.  She is not inured to the suffering of others.  The suffering of the world is why her tradition exists.  But their compassion is not easily seen as such.  Nor is their healing.
She nods to Grace, in the end.  She can't help her.  Not right now, at least.  "Get some sleep, Grace.  It will help."