Spaghetti with Ginger

Grace
So, in every person's life a little rain must fall. Or blood rain. Or zombies. Or people throwing Raisinette containers at each other's heads in the theater with intent to kill because they are being magically filled with murderous intent.

It's been a bit interesting in Grace's life lately. More interesting than she would like. And instead of trying to seek the comforts of a bookstore or entertainment, or even food, she's been mostly holed up in her apartment trying to seek the comforts of home. At least it feels safer there. Whether that's the truth is yet to be determined.

So, when Whitney sends her a text asking to go back out there unnecessarily, even for pho, Grace responds thusly:

Hey, I'm a little short on funds right now. Want to come over to my place instead? I have food. And I have something to show you.

It's only after the text is sent that she looks around the apartment looking for embarrassing things to hide, or clean, or whatever. But eh, there's not much of that. The place is so small, her belongings so few, it's hard to get messy.

And so, she picks up a little and looks through her cabinet for something to make (spaghetti? Uh... ramen?) because that 'I have food' was technically not a lie, but those are the best kind of lies.

Whitney
The first and last time Grace and Whitney spent any amount of time in each others' presence they did so out in public where they couldn't speak freely. Their conversation was draped in academic euphemisms and drifted into remembrances of pho restaurants past. Easier to talk about legendary bowls of noodle soup than of the limitless potential of the Awakened mind.

Tonight Whitney wasn't ready to head back to the suburbs or else was already out there and was bored. She hasn't started calling it Home yet but the two of them have something in common: they're both short on funds.
Totally. I'll be there in like an hour? Should I bring anything?

But the time gives Grace time to rummage around and tidy up before a near-stranger comes into her place even if it doesn't give her time to whip up a gourmet meal on a student's budget.

Whitney shows up fifty-nine minutes after she sends her response and hits whatever button she needs to hit to let the apprentice know she's arrived.

Grace
[Awareness!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )

Grace
Grace decided on spaghetti. It's easy, it's... well, she had some. And everybody likes spaghetti, right?
There's some cheese involved too. And some crusty bread. So it's not totally bare-bones college-budget food, but close. Better than ramen at any rate.

But from the moment Grace feels the presence of the girl by the sensation of wind blowing through the building and opens the door for her, Whitney can tell Grace is not used to visitors.

For one, the place looks just... blank. It's a studio apartment, small and bare-bones. And instead of decorating, or personalizing the place, its walls are white, its floors bare. Furniture is mismatched and also very plain. It looks almost unlived in, like this isn't a home, just a place to exist.

But Grace herself is warm and smiling at the door, the gust of air from which offers a whiff of the best home-cooking she can offer at the moment.

"Hey, come on in. I made spaghetti if you want any, but I'll just have leftovers if not... "

Whitney
If anyone is in no position to judge another person on their living arrangements it would be the girl who comes to Grace's apartment because she doesn't want to spend a Thursday night hanging out with her aunt and uncle.

And when she does open the door Grace finds her dressed for the weather, her messenger bag slung over her shoulder instead of across her torso. Her hair has been knit into two braids that lie over either shoulder. No sunglasses today. She didn't need them.

"Oh my god," Whitney says as she accepts the unspoken invitation into the unit. "I love spaghetti. I never get to eat it anymore unless I cook it myself, my aunt can't do wheat anything. Not like, because she's on a diet anything, she's got some sort of like intestine thing. It's kind of gross. How are you!"

Grace
"Oh yeah, celiac disease. I'm so glad I don't have that, I would die without bread, I think..."

She just knows the names of random diseases... Yeah, that's Grace. Anyway, she leads the girl into the blank apartment, over to the small table that really only has room for the couple of them anyway.

Grace starts dishing out the spaghetti onto a plate, followed by a breadstick, and covers the whole thing with grated cheese out of a little tub, and while she gathers, she talks. "I'm sorry, I kind of invited you over under false pretenses. Uh... wow, that sounds creepy. Let me start over. It's just, I don't feel really comfortable talking about certain things over text message, you know?"

She plops the plate down at what is obviously her spot, and starts nibbling on the bread, before remembering something...

"Oh! Yeah, just help yourself, sorry, I... I don't really entertain that much, make yourself at home."

Whitney
Whitney slings her bag behind her chair and sits and all but attacks her plate as soon as it's set in front of her. Stops just as soon as Grace starts talking. Just as soon as Grace starts talking she is apologizing.

And stating that what she just said sounds creepy.

Whitney laughs. It's a bell-clear sound without a sign of offense taken and she's young but beams so broad that her eyes crinkle at the corners. She might have never known a day's pain in her life for how easily she laughs. She quiets down in time to hear that Grace wasn't comfortable talking about whatever she wants to talk about over text message.

"A lot of us don't," she says. "It's totally cool. What'd you wanna talk about?"

Grace
"Well, there's been some things going on lately. Weird things." She begins attacking the plate herself, and table manners don't seem to really be Grace's thing, but she tries.

"Like, a month ago, there was a couple of attacks by the walking dead, I kid you not. And now... "

She got up wordlessly, and left the table, returning soon with her phone. It's set to view the gallery, which shows a picture of a blue-gray human-ish monster with clawed hands and fangs being carried away by a tall, bald woman. It's got gunshot wounds, and looks very dead, but in life it must have been terrifying.

"I went to see a movie. This crawled through the screen and made everybody go crazy. It wasn't very fun. I don't mean to scare you, but ignorance is no bliss, you know?"

She starts digging into the spaghetti again. Ahh comfort food.

Whitney
She'd hinted at her Tradition at the bus station but without a map of the world to go off of Grace could only imagine what that meant. Whitney does not threaten to knock down everyone around her with her innate power but she draws enough attention to herself just by entering a room sometimes. Such is the nature of their beings. If she ever gains the sort of power that Eleanor has she will be a presence as likely to awe as she is to frighten.

Nothing really natural about any of them but that's a philosophical debate that has led many a soul to join the Technocracy.

Whitney cannot shove food in her mouth fast enough to keep ahead of Grace's story but she doesn't try. Food wasn't the point of the gathering anyway. Never mind that Whitney had proposed pho before she did anything else.

She sets down her fork and reaches out to cradle the phone in her hand. Does not flinch away from the picture or pull a face. So she talks like she grew up in the Valley and has hair that turns blond in the sunlight. This isn't the weirdest thing she's ever seen. That ought to be a comfort but not for one who was happier never having seen anything like this before.

"I'm not scared," she says easier than she'd proclaimed her love for spaghetti. Hands back the phone. "Like... everybody? Or just Sleepers?"

Grace
"Well, not me. But there was a guy there who was definitely not a Sleeper, and he was affected. Seemed like it did go after them more? I certainly felt it trying to get to me. That also wasn't cool."

She talks with her mouth half full of food, by the way. The name's Grace, but the behavior is not. Alas, the name just doesn't match.

"Anyway, I didn't really bring you here to drag you into all that, but... remember what I said about the texts? I have a solution for that, if you're interested."

She gestures with her unloaded fork as she talks, like its punctuating the words as she goes.

Whitney
For as much as she had effused over the presence of wheat pasta after so long estranged from it the blond girl abandons her plate as soon as something more interesting presents itself. Even with the phone out of her hand Whitney wears the expression of one pondering a challenging but not impossible bit of reading and then the conversation steers back towards what Grace had said about not wanting to discuss all of this via text.

"Totally," she says. "Is it like, a computer thing? I suck at computers. I can barely even turn my phone on."

Grace
"It is a phone thing, and you don't really have to know much to use it. A friend and I took over this place real sneaky-like, so you can call this number, or text it, and it acts as a kind of message repository," she says, and stops eating so she can get this all out.

"It's codenamed Ginger. I install the software on your phone, see, and then you get access. And the thing about it is it's all encrypted, warded, and secret. It just looks like you are calling this number, not everybody in Denver."

Whitney
"That is so cool..."

Whitney's tone takes on one of hushed awe. It isn't just that she doesn't understand technology so anyone possessing such knowledge is like an astronaut or a brain surgeon compared to her. The last time they met Grace was telling her how little she knew about their society or the inner workings of it and yet here she is now. Hijacking interspaces and setting up encrypted relays and warding everything and and and.

"Yeah, like, sign me up. Don't worry about not dragging me into anything, that's like, why we're here and stuff."

Grace
"There's only one problem, really. The number we took over is kinda... sketchy. It's a phone sex line. So if anyone looks at your phone records, it'll look strange. But you know..." she gets a little awkward with her speech, like this is the uncomfortable truth. "It was the best we could come up with."

At that, she resumes filling her face with spaghetti, probably to avoid embarrassment.

Whitney
She really tries to suppress a smile when the older woman flusters with the effort of explaining it's a 900 number that they have to call in order to access the repository. But then she starts shoveling spaghetti into her mouth and Whitney laughs. To her credit she holds up a ring-laden hand to cover the flash of teeth but the jingling sound of her amusement is hardly muffled.

"That's okay," she says when she picks up her own fork again. "Anybody who like, looks at my phone records without asking me first sucks and I don't care if it looks strange."

Grace
There's a bit of true embarrassment now, when Whitney laughs, a bit of awkward that she tries to hide in chewing, and her eyes scan the ceiling instead of the girl.

"Okay, just I didn't want you going into this without knowing everything," she said, mouth half-full.

Whitney
"That's cool. I can see normal people not wanting 1-900-BIG-TITS showing up when their wives open the mail or whatever."

She jokes about normal people and no darkness comes across her countenance. For all the young woman had spoken of not choosing her Tradition and not knowing what she wanted to do with herself now that her mentor was gone Whitney doesn't do a lot of looking back and when she does look back sadness does not come for her.

So she lives in the garage at her aunt and uncle's place and intimidates Sleepers when she goes out in public. Big deal.

Whitney puts a huge forkful of spaghetti into her mouth and chews with gratitude despite the quickness. Looks around at the sparse furnishings. Wasn't going to say anything but what the hell.

"Did you just move in?"

Grace
"Huh? No.. I've lived here for oh... 2 years?" Grace responds, clearly unaware of why the question was asked.

"Yeah, I kind of had to find a place after the dorms weren't an option anymore. I can't stand living with a roommate," she says, making a kind of sour face, like she has weird roommate stories or something.

Whitney
Whitney manages to put away a lot of food in the moments where Grace is fielding the question she didn't see coming. She has the healthy build of one who not only lives an active lifestyle but doesn't pay attention to the nutritive value of the things she puts into her stomach. Spaghetti with red sauce is delicious and hard to mess up.

"Me either," she says. "Roommates are jerks. I mean I've only ever lived with like, my parents, or my mentor, but still. Being able to walk around in your underwear and not worry about some jerk walking in and being all wuhhhh! is awesome."

Grace
"Eeeh, tell me about it," she says, in between bites.

And then her eyes wander again, as her thoughts do. Gadfly used to do that, wandering into her room via wormhole, and there was that paranoia that he'd go and do that when she was in the shower or something. Ugh.

"So... ah... We didn't really get to talk much about stuff before. How are things with you? Your 'academic probation' and such?"

Whitney
"Oh, that."

She's almost finished her spaghetti and slows down here so she'll have something to focus on if she needs to bail out of the conversation in a hurry.

"Yeah, my mentor's missing. Nobody knows where he is. So I was like 'Crap' at first but I met this lady, Eleanor, who's higher up than me and really like, smart and mature and stuff. She said she knows where the Chantry is and would take me there. So it's alright. It would've been alright even if I didn't meet her, but you know how it is. It's hard to learn anything on your own."

Grace
"Eleanor, I've met her. She was at the theater. Blew that monster away, it was kinda... amazing," she says, and there is a bit of respect in her voice.

"She's kinda... well. Intimidating. Yes."

Whitney
"That's what I was telling you, about when you meet a Disciple? How it's just like whoa. Plus she's in my Tradition. First time I met her I felt so stupid. Then I found out she and my uncle work at the same college and I was like wow, can I put my foot more in my mouth? But she's really cool. Once you get over the whole thing where she can probably kill you with her mind."

Grace
"Yeah," is the kind of dreamy, not-really-here response she gives. Kill you with her mind. Well, can't most of the people she's met recently? Not to mention movies? And, honestly, killer movies... Yes, universe, I get it now, you're fucked up and all, now you can tone it down a bit...

"It's just... strange. I mean, I sent her a story because she asked for one, and I was legit scared of how she'd take it. Would she read the wrong thing into it and whatnot."

And that's the thing about power. Something Eleanor must be aware of by now. You so rarely get the truth out of people when you flaunt it.

Whitney
The young Euthanatos gives the other woman space to tell her story. Finishes her spaghetti instead of letting it sit cold in case of an emergency. As she chews she bobs her head in a nod. Understanding how she could be scared of how Eleanor would react to judging something she'd written.

"What was it about?" she asks. "The story, I mean."

Grace
"Immortality," she says simply. A pause, before, "Reincarnation. I wrote it for her."

And there's no telling what Grace got wrong or right in Eleanor's eyes. It was personal, and personally written.

"It's not like what I usually write about, honestly."

Whitney
Prepare yourself, Grace: you're sharing the table with a reader who hasn't ever written a single word. If she has written it's been poetry or diary entries that she will never ever ever show anyone else. Whitney cleans her plate and pushes her hair back behind her ears and leans her chin into the heel of a hand.

"What do you usually write about?"

Grace
It's hard to really pin down what's so different about the story she sent to Eleanor. It was set in the future, check. It revolved around some high technology, check. It was anti-authoritarian, check. But there was something there that hadn't been before.

"The future. And this was pretty well set in the future, I guess, but... Well, usually my protagonist isn't a cop," she says.

Whitney
"That sounds pretty cool, though."

At least she doesn't say she wants to read it. Even if she does want to read it, Grace has already said she wrote it for Eleanor and she was nervous about what she would think.

"Has she finished reading it yet?"

Grace
"That's the bad part, I have no idea! She's probably busy with her classes," she says, grabbing her plate and heading for the sink.

"Anyway. You bring your phone? What am I saying, of course you did. I can set you up now if you like?"

Whitney
"Aw," Whitney says to the matter of the story being in Eleanor's possession without feedback. That sucks, says Whitney's tone.

And then the plate is up and Grace is up and the girl is sitting up again so her chin isn't propped. The sink isn't far away but Whitney doesn't thrust her plate at Grace or leap up to join her. It isn't far away and this isn't a big place. Personal space is a beautiful thing.

"Yeah, sure! Thanks."

Whitney digs through her bag to find her pay-as-you-go phone and holds it out for Grace to take when she's ready.

Grace
"Ahh, its' one of these things," she says, a little under her breath. "Shoshanna has one, so you're in luck, I already have the appropriate patch for these." She takes it, and heads over to her desk, a small wooden thing with nothing on it but a laptop, which she opens.

Sitting down at the desk, the work begins, but it doesn't seem like too much work. Just a few minutes go by of furious typing and arranging and plugging in of cables, and then Grace unattaches the phone and holds it out for Whitney.

"The number's 1-800-FAT-GRLS," she says, and this time, there is no embarrassed hiding. "Go on, try it out. There's some stuff out there already, you should take a look."

Whitney
While Grace works she busies herself taking her sullied plate over to the sink and rinsing and washing it. If there's a dry rack she leaves it there for later and if not she towels it off before guessing where it belongs and putting it there. By the time she comes back out Grace has completed the install and is holding out the phone for her.

The number's 1-800-FAT-GRLS.

"Oh my god," she says to the number and tries not to laugh but fails miserably. Takes back the phone and awakens it and punches in the number. She holds the phone up to her ear and listens to the commands. "Oh! It's doing something. What do I do?"

She's a good student but the command isn't complicated. At Grace's prompting she puts on her game face and says in a faux-sexy voice: "Hello, Ginger."

And away she goes.

Grace
Ginger's voice is that of a phone sex operator, smooth and seductive -- and also a bit choppy and robotic. The voice command menu seems to have been spliced together, and while the attempt was good, the source material wasn't, shall we say, ideal.

Whatever. Gadfly's working on it.

On the inside, there is but one voice message, one from Ginger saying that there are no voice messages. The other menu option, to view text, will get Whitney a lot more.

In which, she can choose to view the pictures she already has of the Ghul, and information relating to the search for L'Ultimo Giorno.

Grace just watches, like a proud parent.

Whitney
Grace watches. Whitney draws up her ankles so she sits on the cheap chair cross-legged and hunches over the cheap cellular phone and punches through the menu options. Her phone could be thrown away and replaced at a moment's notice but it has voice and data options that probably cost more than a plan would cost. Doesn't stop her from bringing up the images of the Ghul or the information Grace has gathered on the Italian film that brought the thing into the world in the first place.

"Whoa," she says more than once.

When she's gotten the hang of the system and seen everything there is to see Whitney unfolds herself from the chair and gets up. Doesn't rush over and hug Grace but the apprentice can see the younger girl is about glowing with happiness. Like she's stood out on her porch in the morning and feeling cold mountain air in her hair.

"This is so cool. Thank you." And then, possibly better than a hug: "I'll, like, get out of your hair now."

Grace
"Oh, okay. Sure," Grace says from her laptop, which she had gone to after Whitney seemed to be taking in the entirety of Ginger. She's tapping away oblivious at this point.

"Oh! You can leave messages too, and of course send texts and whatnot. It'll show up there when you do. If you come across anything weird, just let everybody know."

takkatakkatak... She's out of it already.

Whitney
Nerds...

Whitney picks up her bag and tucks her phone back into it and inches back towards the door. She never went to college and didn't finish high school. Has no idea what the protocol is when dealing with people who don't like to socialize but this is Grace's apartment and she's already aimed her attention back at the glowing box.

"Okay," she says. "I'll, like, see you around, then."

Grace
It's like she's remembering something, then, and Grace turns her head toward the door with the retreating Whitney.

"Yes! Thank you for coming! And you should come over again sometime, it was fun!"

She smiles and waves, strangely hot and cold this one...

Whitney
Whitney waves and says, "Totally."

If she thinks this is strange she has the sense to keep it off her face. Sense, or the knowledge that it wouldn't have translated anyway. She does linger a moment to give Grace the chance to offer to walk her out or at least indicate she's going to lock the door behind her but then the moment passes and Whitney smiles a tight closed-lipped smile and nods to herself.

"Okay. G'night!'

Whereupon she lets go the locks and lets herself out into the hallway. No sign that she was ever there once she's gone.