(Nov) What's Your Advice?

Kalen Holliday
[Nightmares.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN7 (3, 3, 4, 5, 8) ( success x 1 )

Grace
[Nightmares, yes]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 10) ( success x 2 )

Pan Echeverri­a
These days the priest comes into the kitchen around five o'clock in the evening to throw together dinner. Most days Shoshannah is in there helping him. Not because he is incapable of cooking or feeding himself but because she wants to. And he lets her. Otherwise he's only in the kitchen if he's making tea or coming in from outside.
Today he's managed to fill the kettle with water but he can't figure out how to turn on the burner on the range. The man is reasonably intelligent, a disciple of the Celestial Chorus, and he can't work an electric stove.
Maybe he should pray for guidance.

Grace
[Awareness+Perception!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

Kalen Holliday
[Awareness?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )

Grace
Grace has been out today, back to the apartment to study for finals. Perhaps it's just easier there, to try to mesh her two lives together, without the distraction. But, as usual, she comes back to the Chantry to sleep. Kalen, when he was still frantic, still reeling from his nightmare, got through to her. Sleep where it's safe. Don't let Thakinyan feed.
She doesn't knock, just lets herself in, and she knows that Pan's here (he is always here anymore) and Kalen's here (and that is a bit of comfort). Pan's not a bit of comfort. Pan grates on her a bit with his very essence and his titles, even though he's never actually done anything to merit her apprehension. But hey, give her time. Maybe she'll come around. Maybe.
But she'll always call him Pan. Never father.
She wanders into the living room, wearing jeans, sneakers, and a blue sweater. It's pilling. She doesn't care. It's clothing, you know? Serves its purpose.

Kalen Holliday
Kalen comes into the kitchen and heads toward where the coffeemaker is.  Coffee is his friend right now.  (Some people would say sleep should be his friend right now, but Kalen knows how wrong they are.)  He can sense Grace, so of course he puts on enough coffee for Grace to.  And Pan is there.  In the kitchen.  Like a judgey-judgey beacon of holy light.
"Pan.  Coffee?"  Regardless of the priest's answer, it isn't until he has coffee brewing that he actually turns his attention to Pan, leaning into the counter with one hip.
"You trying to do that with your mind?  It can be done.  But, perhaps best to let the stove do it for you.  You okay?"  Because Kalen lives in a special world where we append our gentle mockery with concern.  Because leading with concern is for...what?  Ecstastics?

Pan Echeverri­a
Pan. Coffee?
Nothing. The button-punching stops and the priest stands still a moment. Continues not to answer as Kalen tells him he can boil water with his mind but it's probably better to let the stove do it.
You okay?
The initiates can both read his resonance and feel assured in the knowledge that the man is not tainted. Has not been working unholy magic. Nothing is riding his bones.
So Kalen speaks and it's as if Pan wasn't even aware of his presence until he spoke and then he puts a hand up to his forehead like he's immediately aware of a crushing headache. Exhales hard and then gives the younger man a wan smile.
"Kalen." His voice is rough. He takes his hand off his forehead. "Hi. Lamento, sorry, I'm okay. I keep telling the girls, teach a man to fish, but..."
He hits the right button that time. The coil turns red and he sets the kettle atop it and turns from the stove.

Grace
She can hear them talking, and wanders over to the kitchen, because... being social. This is a thing. Sometimes nowadays, she has to force it, but still, there is the attempt.
So, she slinks in, just as Pan finds the right button (and isn't that just like an engineer, the second they arrive, everything works). "Hey. I smell coffee."

Kalen Holliday
"Yeah.  You look worse than I do, and I'm only like half a step up from animated corpse.  Sit down.  If I have to catch you the best that can end with is a sort of pathetic hilarity.  And that's if I'm being charitable about how graceful that'll be."
His expression softens, just a little.  "Seriously."  He waves at the table and chairs in the kitchen.  "Before you collapse.  You look like Hell."  It is, of course, only that last part that really sounds concerned, like he realizes on some level that he can't expect to order Pan to do things but can't quite manage the part where maybe he could ask.
"Of course you do, Kit.  When do I not have coffee?"

Pan Echeverria
Kalen could ask Sera how well it went when she tried to catch him when he collapsed. The man was about fifty pounds heavier then and his intestines were falling out of his abdomen and he was bleeding from a bite in his thigh. A blood vessel had just burst inside his skull.
It's no wonder all of them use the word 'alright' to describe things like headaches and insomnia. Headaches and insomnia are better than the things that tried and failed to kill them already.
But the Hermetic does not have to plead hard with the Chorister to get him to sit down. He gives another wan smile to the young man and starts to move towards the table and the chairs.
Grace he glances at but does not greet. It's like he can hear her disdain for his presence.

Grace
"Mmm. I would say when you're asleep, but I know you'd probably find a way," she says to Kalen, trying a bit of humor, though her face is a dull thing. She looks as worn as Kalen does.
Grace catches Pan's glance, and she gives him a little wave, again trying to be social.
"How you guys doing?" And it's a silly question. The three of them look like they've been to Hell and back. She knows what's going on, but there again... trying to act normal, be social, just be.

Kalen Holliday
"What were you doing?" Kalen asks Pan.  "Other than, I would assume, making tea?"
He does not try to immediately shoo Grace into a chair.  Grace has been eating when he brings her food and is doing things like trying to be nice to Pan, so she can determine for herself if she wants to just sit down and wait for Kalen to bring her coffee.  He does smile a little when she asks how they are, like he wasn't just exiling Pan from the arduous task of making tea.
"Peachy," he says to Grace, that smile widening into a grin.  He means it.  The grin.  God (and probably about anyone with eyes) knows he's not peachy.

Pan Echeverri­a
Grace catches Pan looking at her and gives him a wave. He returns the wave. No mockery in it but he does imitate the strength and duration like she's the one setting the parameters for this exchange.
Making tea appears to have been the long and short of what he was doing. Even big badass preachers who intimidate just about everyone in the world with whom they have contact despite the fact that they need a shave and a haircut need time to do something that has no goal orientation.
He just gives Kalen a shrug with a ghost of a smile that says without him having to say anything: Your assumption was correct.
Then Grace asks how they're doing. Kalen is peachy.
"Well," says Pan.

Grace
Grace rolls her eyes at the 'peachy' and the 'well' and maybe a bit at herself for asking such a question in the first place. She goes up to the cabinet where she knows the coffee mugs are, and selects one for herself. She's not going to just sit down and let Kalen do everything for her.
No, she goes and fills her mug, then doctors it with sugar (because who drinks coffee black) and goes to the fridge for cream or milk or whatever it is that they have.
While she busies herself with this, she breaches the lying liars' calm with some of the latest on their quarry. "So, Kalen and I found some stuff out from records at some asylums in Vienna and Atlanta. Turns out Thakky's gone by other names before. Pazuzu and Ira. I mean, the thing must have horror movie on the brain, because he likes The Exorcist too apparently. Fear, rage, and insanity are what it likes, so maybe if we Care Bear Stare at it... Hah. Still no indication that it's coming out of that circle any time soon."

Kalen Holliday
There is a little choking noise from Kalen when Grace uses 'Thakky' in an actual conversation.  And then she says Care Bear Stare and by the time to tea kettle whistles at them Kalen is laughing.  Because that is so completely the sane and rational response.
"Well," he says, dropping back easily into business again as he turns the stove off and pours water into a mug.  "He's been called other Names before, he may or may not have actually gone by them.  It may have been the interpretations of anyone he blessed with his delightful shared waking nightmares."
"Pan.  What kind of tea?"  His tone, all cool distance, changes not at all when he switches from Umbrood spirits that cause waking nightmares to what kind of tea Pan wants.  Because, really, everyone talks about those things like they talk about weather, right?

Pan Echeverri­a
He's sitting very still with his hands knit together and rested on the tabletop as he listens to the apprentice and the initiate discuss the state of things.
What kind of tea?
"The demon has so many mouths," he says, "it's no wonder it has so many names."
Well that's promising.

Grace
Grace looks over at Pan, like that's the weirdest answer to 'what kind of tea' ever. "True. I'm just glad it didn't get a hold on me at that theater, or it would have had a feast," she says. Hydra, making her die over and over again, while seeded with a thing that eats fear? It would have loved that.
"We also came up with the name of someone who seemed to try to do something about it before, in Atlanta. Leonard Holcomb. Although probably that dude was not one of us. He claimed to be from the Georgia Department of Mental Health, and then the victims disappeared after he took them. Probably 'disappeared' if you know what I mean. I don't know. Probably a cover-up."

Kalen Holliday
Kalen just drops a normal bag of tea into the mug for Pan and lets it steep while he fiddles with his coffee.
"Considering the people we know were involved the first time, it wouldn't be a stretch to guess it may have been the Technocracy on both occasions.  Which raises the question of what to do about those who've been affected by Thakinyan.  Considering the kind of resources it will likely take us just to send it flying, I'm not sure what we'll have left for its mundane victims.  We might have enough time to recover and still save them, so it's at least worth considering."
He picks up both his coffee and Pan's tea by the handles of the mugs in one hand and walks over to the table.  He sets down his coffee, then sets Pan's tea in front of him.  And, perhaps because Pan has been so responsive all evening, he squeezes Pan's shoulder.  "Tea.  Give it a minute.  Then drink it."  He's concerned enough now that there isn't anything even a little playful in that, and his hand stays resting on Pan's shoulder while he's talking.

Pan Echeverri­a
Kalen looked as if he was going to fall asleep on the couch looking at maps of Denver yesterday. It looks as if Pan is in a similar state of mental exhaustion. Like he's been pushing himself to learn this thing's Name and its intentions. If he can know it he can find a way to get it gone without being able to drive it out of its hosts.
If they could destroy it he would find that way but thus far nothing he's come up with has felt as proof of the possibility of destroying it.
Beneath the Hermetic's hand the Chorister's shoulder is still muscular but overtop the musculature is loose skin. He nods and drags a hand down his face and does nothing to shrug off the boy's hand.
"How far back do the Atlanta records go?"

Grace
Kalen's behaving toward Pan like he did toward her, that first day back from the hospital. And while she was going to just go on and deliver more information about Atlanta, that has her thinking, for the first time, "Pan, are you all right?"
She stops herself, because okay, of course Pan isn't all right. "I mean, besides what the zombie dogs did to you and whatnot."
She walks up to the table, sits down. Sips coffee like it's still too hot to gulp.

Kalen Holliday
Kalen stops with the hovering with a hand on Pan's shoulder and settles into a chair near him.  There is a flicker of a smile when Grace asks if Pan's alright, and then qualifies it.
"Honestly, Atlanta dates back to before everyone was keeping detailed, accessible online records.  There might be more if we actually sent someone to Atlanta who could get into the paper files, but they were probably mostly grabbed up by the people who did the quarantining.  I could always try to forge some paperwork to get my hands on the files."  And that offer, that offer, spoken like he's offering to go grab a carton of milk.
"But, it was 1975?  We could probably find people to question on that one.  Patient records they may have taken, but everyone connected to those patients...probably not."

Pan Echeverri­a
The zombie dog attack was the root cause of the backlash that nearly killed him. It landed him in the hospital for over a week and he checked himself out against medical advice. If he had not gone to the Verbena's house afterwards he would have died in a matter of days. Quickly decompensated and gone into respiratory arrest and that would have been that.
He's not alright by the strictest definition of the word. He has a headache and he's tired and Kalen walked in on him enjoying an absence seizure just a few minutes ago. So the qualification barring the zombie dog attack makes Pan smile.
But he doesn't answer. Kalen forges ahead with the matter of Atlanta. Which brings them to the matter of forgery.
"Can't hurt to check," he says. "If you do decide to look for people, be careful. If the Technocracy grabbed up them files, they could get tipped off if you dig too deep, huh?"

Grace
Kalen's talking about the paper records that she can't access, and Pan's giving her weird smiles and refusing to answer her.
She's got nothin', in the general parlance.
Grace blows on her coffee. Waits. And then, "I don't know if we have time for trips to Atlanta. It might be a wild goose chase there, anyway. None of what we've uncovered says anything about when it feeds, when it leaves that damn circle, or how to draw it out."

Kalen Holliday
"Well, Kit, we may have simply reached the stage at which we light it on fire or give up.  Given the choice, I vote we light it on fire.  Or, in this particular case, we light its tethers on fire.  Personally, I vote if we can't reach Lucia's cabal we start with her.  Joshua, for all I wouldn't underestimate him, hasn't gone fucking with anyone's minds directly that I know of.  I'm not sure he's even Awakened."
"It'll be alright.  We know about the tethers.  We know what at least two of them probably are, or, rather who.  The film might be a third.  Alyssa said not to expect more than five.  That may be all we need to destroy.  And if we do destroy those things, we may weaken it."
He sips at his coffee and sighs.  "I hope.  I've generally gone after things I could light on fire and dismember and there is a certain elegance in the simplicity of that."  He sets his mug down and pushes Pan's mug toward him and then reaches out, takes Pan's hands, and wraps them around the mug.  He doesn't tell him to drink again.  He will or he won't.  At least now maybe he'll remember the tea is there.

Pan Echeverri­a
Pan blinks several times when Kalen takes his hands but he doesn't fight him. Alright. Tea. It's warm. The warmth feels good on his hands. Kalen can feel how cold his hands are. Cold and meatless and bereft of the callouses he had had from working outside at the church with the people he led.
Okay. He'll drink it. Pan removes the bag from the mug by its tag and displays some amount of manual dexterity by squeezing the excess water out of the bag before finding a place on the table to set it down. He'll wipe up the stain later.
"Demons," he says, "thrive off of attention. The more of it the better." He takes a swallow of his tea and flinches from the heat of it. Takes another swallow and wraps his hands back around it. "If we can't cleanse them, yeah? Montanari and Keller. You're right. We're going to have to do something else to destroy the tethers."
That's two votes for fire.

Grace
It's as if this were a vote? As if Grace were going to go to that circle and attempt to set fire to people? She just shrugs. "It makes sense. If we can't cleanse them, there's no other way. But I don't know if it's my place to say what you guys do, I'm not going."
And Pan? The guy who still looks beaten half to death, he's going? Grace doesn't think that much in the way of words would keep him from doing what he wants to, but it is a thought. What could he do but go out there to die?

Kalen Holliday
"I can still shoot, Kit.  I can do that standing still.  Magic, same thing."  He smiles, gently this time.  "This isn't the kind of fight you retreat from, even if you could.  This is what I was born to do.
"You don't have to be there.  It's alright.  No one here is going to force you into some nightmare you aren't ready for.
"If Lucia's former cabalmates will come for her, maybe we can launch an attempt to exorcise Keller at the same time.  Coordinate.  But, I don't know that I can find them.  Maybe you can talk to Shoshannah.  See if she can send a spirit messenger out to find them."

Grace
"It's not a matter of me being ready for it or not. It's a matter of whether I would be of any use, or just in the way," Grace corrects, gulps some cooled coffee down. "If I thought I could do anything... It might be different."
After all, she'd prepared for an infiltration at the lab. Key cards, specialty programs, and a hacked radio transmitter (for opening doors, for bypassing security, for hacking into their computer systems and shutting down their cameras, whatever she could do). That had all turned out unnecessary, but still, she'd had a reason for going.
"That sounds a bit more fruitful, there. I'll ask Shoshannah. I know she wants so desperately to help."

Kalen Holliday
"Thank you," he says to Grace.
His eyes track back to Pan and he frowns, just slightly.  The man has made it clear he doesn't want anyone scanning him, which Kalen couldn't do if he wanted to.  Kalen knows what Sid said.  He knows how cold Pan's hands were.  There isn't anything to ask, really.  No one thinks Pan is really alright.  Not at the moment at least.  He starts, like he will stand up and then sighs and turns back to Grace.
"You remember, right after you were sick, I did that thing for you?  Would you...ah...?"  Would you go get Pan a blanket because it will take me like ten years to walk all the way to the living room and back Grace?  That would be awesome. If nothing else, it marks the first time he hasn't just stubbornly insisted on getting whatever he wanted for himself.  That's progress, right?

Grace
Grace looks at Kalen like he's speaking in a code she doesn't understand. Talk to Pan about the good things in life? Take him to see Garrett? Her eyes do a bit of a jaunt like she's trying to think of what the hell he's talking about.
She's about to ask Kalen if he means to have her buy Pan a laptop when he mimes 'blanket' to her, and it finally clicks. Right. That makes more sense.
She nods and gets up out of her chair, off to the living room, to pull the quilt off the back of the couch, and she returns shortly with it held out like she's going to throw it over Pan's shoulders, if he lets her.

Pan Echeverri­a
As the two younger Mages talk Pan sits and drinks his tea and does not interject. If he has more to say the words will rear their heads later. They are circling the same idea now and he has already stated that he thinks having fewer people involved in confronting the demon is their best bet.
Four of the women were recently throttled by a virus. One of them was nearly possessed. Another of their allies nearly met the same fate. The strongest of them is wearing himself out pursuing answers that may not exist.
Time was he could ignore his fatigue as it careened towards exhaustion by praying for strength to keep carrying on. He still can. But then the two start talking in half sentences and gesturing to each other and the once-big priest frowns.
Busted. He doesn't get up though. He sits still while Grace gets up and leaves and comes back with the quilt. At the sight of it he laughs a quiet laugh.
"You didn't have to do that," he says. He isn't a horse. He can wrap the quilt around his own dumb shoulders. Pan holds out a hand to accept it from her and tries that again. "Thank you."

Kalen Holliday
Kalen smiles as he watches Pan and Grace.  It's the kind of expression you'd expect to see when people are hanging stockings or about to eat Thanksgiving turkey or toast at a wedding.  Something where people are together.  Open, unguarded.  Grace hasn't really seen him open like that when he isn't lost in trying to explain something fantastic.  It's a completely new thing for Pan.
It doesn't last long before that expression vanishes into distance and Kalen's hands tighten on his mug with enough force it's a good thing coffee mugs are heavy.  Because otherwise there might be glass shards to pick out of his hands.

Grace
Grace just hands Pan the quilt. Whatever he's comfortable with is okay by her. Hell, she understands more than most about boundaries and whatnot.
Afterwards, she slips back into her own chair.  Pan's quiet, except for his thank-you, to which he gets a twitchy "Welcome" in return.
And starts drinking coffee again like it's a lifeline. Kalen does his usual warmth-to-distance thing, which she's been around him enough to know is like a switch. On and off, caring and blank. His coping mechanism. Like her coping mechanism, if she wants to think about it.
He gets like that when he's worried about people.
Everyone is being so quiet. So she talks for them. "It's so weird, you know, trying to care about my finals, with this stuff going on."

Pan Echeverri­a
He's a priest. He has to be used to people telling him things about their personal lives. Confessional booths are built with a grille between the pastor and the strayed member of the flock. Makes it easier for the confessor to unload his sins that the pastor might serve as a faceless voice of God to absolve him.
This isn't his church and these people are not his flock but he wraps the quilt around his shoulders and takes in Kalen's shunted mien and Grace's admission. Someone told him that she was new. Like as-of-last-Wednesday new. He hasn't seen Sera since he came back to Denver.
His resonance is loud even in quiet moments like this. No warmth in it. Maybe the man has tried to be warm in the past and can only be bright. His voice is, at least. If nothing else about him is warm his voice is.
"You want my advice?"

Kalen Holliday
Kalen stays quiet and resumes drinking his coffee.  He could try to lie and say that Grace reminding him about something that isn't chasing monsters or Pan talking again like he's actually present isn't reassuring.  He might, if anyone asked him.  He's not really guarded enough not to watch them out of the corners of his his eyes.

Grace
"Sure. What's your advice?" she asks, and... yeah, she really means that. It's advice, not framed like it's an order. And even then, it's not being told what to do that she hates. Sometimes, people have good reasons for telling you what to do, and it's irrational not to listen. No, it's the idea that they would never listen to you back. Would expect you to follow their command, and never have it go the other direction. Like a father, maybe.
She has her experience too,  has her voice to share. But when it comes to bridging the gap between the two lives, mundane and wildly-not-so? None. There is a question there that's more than just 'should I sign up for class next semester?'

Pan Echeverri­a
Neither of them know anything about his past. It isn't important. Not if they don't believe in understanding from where people have traveled and where they're heading. With the discord among their traditions few would argue that it is not important.
Pan can't bring himself to Work with them because they don't accept the same truth he does but he can still help them.
"I was in prison," he says. "Must've been nineteen, twenty years old when I saw the light. I'd beaten a friend to death because I thought my son's mother was cheating on me with him. I'd dropped out of high school, was working in an auto body shop, got addicted to heroin after the baby was born. Used speed a lot to stay awake. Judge gave me twenty years for it but I'd be eligible for parole after eight. A year in I tied a bed sheet 'round my neck and hung myself in the shower. An angel came to me, told me it wasn't my time, dragged me back."
This is going to be one of those stories.
"When I got out in 'ninety-five, I had a nine-year-old son didn't know his father. Parole officer I had to see. Had to go to Narcotics Anonymous as part of my parole. The woman who showed me the way, Sister Ruth. She was an adept of the Chorus, yeah? Met me my first night at NA. I thought she was full of it. I just done eight and a half years for killing a man. Twenty-seven-year-old Puerto Rican guy with tattoos and a murder conviction? Wasn't nobody gonna forgive me for what I did. What kind of miracles she thought I was gonna be doing?"
This is about the time most folks expect the come to Jesus part of the speech to come to the surface.
"I listened to what she had to tell me though. Didn't put nothing on hold for her or her miracles. War was still going on then. We needed bodies 'cause we was losing, but even then if you wanted to opt out, you could. And I did, sometimes. I had to stay clean. Had to get legitimate work. Had to learn how to be a father. I know it's hard, when you got a life outside of this. Just do what you can, when you can. And if your finals--what are you studying?"

Kalen Holliday
Pan is still present.  Very present, actually, which is a definite relief after having seen him being confused about the stove.  The way he'd reached up to his head.  There are stories Kalen could tell to explain why he panics about every time he emotionally engages with anyone.  Grace has heard them, not in vivid detail, but Grace knows why Kalen shies so violently away from letting people close to him.  They aren't the kind of thing that can help her understand how to balance her life.  All Kalen has for that is telling her that there are great things, beautiful things.
He isn't Catholic.  Not really.  But he believes in angels.  He knows people who have spoken to them.  And, you know, other gods and goddesses and spirits and demons.  Kalen answers to the Order and Pan answers to God, but the worlds they live in are similar enough he can still take some comfort in hearing about angels.  And be mostly unmoved by the news of murder convictions.
He lets Pan take this particular issue with Grace.  He seems to be having more success than the last person Kalen tried to get to help.
And he relaxes.  Slowly.  By degrees.  But Pan keeps talking and Kalen does keep calming down.  He doesn't watch them the same way again, but he calms.

Grace
Pan, well... he's had a life, huh? And still, the killing a man doesn't phase her (because didn't she just try to kill a man herself? Would have, if it wasn't for Sera's intervention?) and the suicide attempt doesn't phase her (because there was all of that wishing to die, knowing she'd do it in a heartbeat if Sid wasn't there providing the hope of a cure). She just listens. Until he asks that question.
And she's fairly certain by now that Pan is the sort of person who might know some of the words she's about to say, and not be able to tell what they mean. But still...
"Computer science. With a focus on simulations," she says, into her coffee.

Pan Echeverri­a
He spent the nineties either in prison or getting his land legs back after coming out of prison. By now he's heard the words 'computer science' and 'simulations' enough to not pull a confused face when he hears them. Grace's certainty holds fast.
"Yeah?" He pauses to see if she looks up from her cup. No lecture other than the one he's already locked into. "If that's where your passion is, you know, if it's important to you, stick to it. Study and get good grades on your finals. And ask folks for help when you need it. 'Cause see, old people don't know nothing about computers and the Inter-what's-it gonna be asking you for help a lot. Goes both ways."

Kalen Holliday
Pan gets a little flash of a grateful smile from Kalen.  Now that he's not being as worried, he looks more tired.  That could change if he got something to focus on, but for now, he's not chasing anything.  He can be drowsily sipping coffee.  That's fine.
And otherwise, he keeps staying out of it.  What is he going to say?  Kalen transitioned from having no real goal other than surviving into hunting monsters.  Beyond being a place where Garrett and Trent keep their offices, college is a complete mystery to him.

Sid
There was a time when a particular resonance, along with its particular owner, were found in the Chantry every weekend like clockwork.  Sometime around five in the evening every Friday a familiar old truck would rumble up the drive, and sometime late Sunday night it would leave.  That presence has been felt a lot less over the last few months, but it's starting to pick up again.  Slowly slowly, Sid has made her way back to the Chantry house.  She has braved running into its occasional visitors, particularly she's risked running into those who shared with her the experience of surviving a deadly virus.  She's even survived chasing a Chorister out onto the back patio.
It being Sunday evening means it's time for her to shuffle out the door.  They hear her first, hear the rustle of cloth, of denim rubbed together with each step, of the vinyl of her bookbag shifting on her shoulder.  Then they see her, a tall pale shadow of her former self, though a shadow that is starting to fade.  Slowly slowly, Sid has begun to relax.  It helps that she sleeps better in the Chantry than almost anywhere else.  Her room has a lock to which she and only one other have a key, and it smells like green growing things and wet earth.  Plus, there are wards that seem to do well enough at keeping this place protected.  She is safe here.  She can relax.
Which is all to say that she looks at least a little better than she had on Friday.  It'll be some while yet before she's filled out again, but her color is better.  As she steps through the door, she looks up at the others gathered there, dark eyes traveling quickly between the trio.

Grace
Pan talks about it as her passion, and really... it is. It's her whole worldview, what led her to the Awakening of her gifts. But then, she went and blew right on past the mundane simulations, and into something else entirely. She's like a toddler who'd just learned multivariable calculus, and people are still trying to teach her how to count.
Sure, there are still things to learn in her classes. That's really the only reason why she's still waging that internal war of stay or go. It's all she'd ever thought she'd do before, is go academia, and just keep learning.
She does look up at Pan like he must be making a joke at her, with that 'inter-what's-it' comment. She gives him a smirk. "Yeah, it does. Go both ways. And it's the inter-blogo-spheres."
She downs coffee, looks around the room. "I've been kind of thinking about dropping out. Like, if this stuff is going to keep happening to me, there's no point, right? But I guess. If you can do it with all that happening around you..." she nods. "I'll keep trying. Still, it's really fucking surreal to have a professor try to impress upon you the dire importance of making it to the test on time, when... well... It just rings a little silly."

Pan Echeverri­a
Were not for the fact that he's listening so intently to what Grace says when Grace picks up her half of the mantle of conversation the priest would have greeted Sid sooner. They'd butted heads a few days ago but they're both grown-ass adults. Even if they did not agree with each other they had sorted each other out enough that they can exist together without treating silences like minefields.
But he is listening. And when she says the professor's priorities ring silly he smiles.
"Yeah," he says. "I'd imagine it would. But do keep trying. You had a big setback with that illness. It's gonna get easier."
There we go. Advice hour over.
"Sid. Hello. Kalen made coffee."

Kalen Holliday
"If you can go back and have a life that isn't just this, Kit, I'd recommend it.  It was...never really an option for me.  It's different for you.  You had one before."  As opposed to what?  Being made from clay?  Stepping from Zeus' head fully formed?
Sid?  It' probably good Pan said something before Kalen had no idea she was there and got all startled about it.  Instead he picks his head back up, glances around until he finds Sid, and waves a little.  There is a smile to accompany that wave, but it is more tired than warm.
"In a coffeemaker, so it's passable coffee.  It wasn't the moment to be paying attention."  He'll let Sid assume that was because he was tired.  Pan isn't staring at a stove in confusion now.  And Sid probably knows more about how he is than Kalen does anyway.

Sid
Kalen and Grace saw when Sid followed Pan out onto the patio to hash something out.  However it had worked itself out, for good or for bad or for a neutral understanding of each other, Sid does not shy away from eye contact with the padre.  Which she makes with a slight dip of her chin of silent greeting.
She looks from him to Grace and then to Kalen.  The corners of her mouth lift a little at his tired wave.  "I'm sure it's fine," she assures him as she sets her bags down just inside the doorway, bookbag first, then messenger bag.  The Orphan is dressed simply in a zipped up grey hoody, slightly too large jeans, and black-and-white Vaans.  Slipping her hands into the pockets of her hoody, she steps further into the room a pace.
The look she has for Grace, who is talking about school, who is talking about maybe quitting, is thoughtful but mostly understanding.  "Or it won't," she says.  "Sometimes the paths we were on before we Awakened have to be let go."  Her mouth curves a little more as her expression shifts to something distant yet fond.  The shift lasts only a moment before she looks up again, at Grace, and she shrugs.  "There are lots of roads to choose from.  Maybe there's one better suited to who you are now."

Grace
"Hey, Sid. We're just talking about fear demons and finals. You know, normal every-day conversation. And coffee, now," so you know, no blood hydras, just demons, as though that were better.
And when Sid talks about changing paths, well... "Maybe. I could always try to fall back on my writing," she says, giggles a bit in an odd way about that one. "Yeah, probably not. Not easy making a living on words."
'Cause really, college is all she knows. All she ever wanted to know. She has talents, but the one people would pay her big for she would have to go underground, in the dark web, trading zero days for millions, so that one company or country can screw over another. Yeah... no. Or she could get a corporate job, working for The Man, which is a similar no.
It was so much simpler before.

Pan Echeverri­a
Now that everyone is in a better mood than they were when they first walked in the room and Kalen isn't quite as concerned about Pan as he was and Sid is giving Grace the perspective of one who has been in her position and understands her struggle almost perfectly: a fixed point in time has arrived.
Pan stands up and folds up the quilt. Drapes it over the back of the chair. Leaves the dregs of his drink in his cup.
"Thank you for the tea," he says. "We'll talk about them tether points more later, yeah?"

Kalen Holliday
Kalen nods to Pan.  "Yeah.  I...."  His voice trails off and he frowns.  It takes him a second to figure out what he's even saying.  "I'll let you know if I figure out anything else.  You're staying here, right?"
Yes...Kalen is so very awake.  Totally.  Wide.  Awake.
He glances between Grace and Sid but doesn't interject.  They both know more about college than he does.  Hell, Pan might know more about college than he does.  And he's about half asleep.

Sid
Normal everyday conversation to Sid, at least among these people and their other Awakened compatriots, is definitely doom and danger and terrible things.  It's...becoming more commonplace for Sid, and thus less jarring as the months tick by.  Her understanding of magic, of Spheres, and of this side of Awakening grows exponentially by the day, and as it does she moves further and further from a life of Before.
Sid wanders over closer to Kalen, something she absolutely would not have done a month ago, even if a month ago she hadn't been holed up in someone's clinic racing against time to fight an unknown virus.  When she's standing beside him, she rests her hand gently on his shoulder.  Immediately, heat sinks in through however many layers the Hermetic may be wearing.  Whether he looks up at her or not, Sid looks at him with an expression of concern, but she doesn't ask.  She probably looks just as weary, or at least as though she's recovering from his level of weariness.
Turning her head, she looks at Grace, her mouth quirking.  "You could."  Write, she means.  She's offered the suggestion of other roads, but what those roads actually are and where they'll lead are all up to Grace.
Only then does she slide her hand from Kalen's shoulder, turning as she does to track the movements of the Chorister.

Grace
Grace gives Kalen the squinty-eyed look. "You should hit the couch. I mean it. You look like you're about to drop."
Pan gets up to leave, and... well... Grace would be lying if she said it wouldn't make her feel a bit more comfortable to have that harsh light somewhere else. But at least he seems to have good advice and isn't Jesusing all over her. Maybe it's one of those things right? The ripples they leave on the world are sometimes uncomfortable ones. Like Alyssa and the blood-on-the-tongue feeling that always makes her want to leave. Not like Alyssa can help it. "Thanks for the advice, Pan."
"I could," she says to Sid, "But I also have to eat sometimes. And rent doesn't grow on short stories. I don't know. I'll give it some thought. It's not like Kalen's going to stop bringing me take out and forcing it down my throat. I don't think I've actually paid for a meal in a while..." She gives Kalen a little smirk, as if to say, 'I'm totally joking, by the way'.

Kalen Holliday
"It isn't as though I couldn't do that indefinitely, but you might get bored.  Unless I also got you a mad science computer lab or something."  Kalen sounds amused.  "And point taken.  I'll go take a nap."  He rises, takes his mug and Pan's mug to the dishwasher (or the sink, or whatever they do with dishes), then swipes the quilt on his way out of the kitchen.
"Good night, both of you.  It was good to see you."

Pan Echeverri­a
[and a pause on the sid/pan brotp no autocorrect i do not mean "broth" fuck off]

Kalen Holliday
[Arg.  Add:]  Kalen drops his head back and gives Sid a quick smile when she rests a hand on his shoulder.  He doesn't move until she moves her hand off of him.

Pizza and Pot

Sid
[everyone be cool, it's cool, everything's fine, but how're we handling things?  WP like but not for nightmares]
Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (5, 5, 6, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Grace Evans
[OHH YEAH Nightmares, yes]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (2, 4, 4, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )

Grace Evans
[Awareness+Perception?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )

Grace Evans
Let's just say that this is just not something that Grace often does. Setting a date, being a hostess... not Grace's bag. But, Sid is special and welcome and damn if Grace hasn't wanted to really say thanks in a while. Pizza hardly covers it, but what can?
It's veggie pizza because Grace doesn't know how Sid's been handling meat, that substance so close to the blood that they all cannot stand anymore. Sometimes, she looks at some food item or another and just can't go there anymore. But veggie pizza sounded safe. Also, breadsticks. And those cinnamon thingies. And lots of cheese and pepper packets. Oh, and extra napkins. Because.
Grace gave Sid directions to an apartment complex just across the street from campus. It was chosen for its utility, perhaps over anything else. And when Grace feels that strange mix of glee and fear rise up inside from Sid's presence, she unlocks the locks on her door, not waiting for the knock.
Inside, Grace's place looks clean and uncluttered. Very uncluttered. There's no pictures on the walls, no rugs on the floor, and it's a tiny thing -- a studio, with a little alcove for a bed, right? Almost like a dorm room, but usually students decorate their rooms, try to make them look homey. The only decoration that Sid would be able to find is a small stuffed lion sitting on her desk. It resonates. Feels like an electric sheen of rain in the midst of all that shifts.

Sid
Night comes quickly in Denver in the winter months, the ridge of the mountains to the west cut the dusk short by several hours.  Tonight, as dark grey clouds promising snow choked out the sky, night came a little earlier still.  When Sid's old truck pulls into the parking lot of Grace's apartment complex the atmosphere is cold and stifling black.  There are no stars beyond the lights of streetlamps, not tonight.
Sometime earlier Sid texted Grace to inquire about soda preferences.  When she climbs out of her truck she reaches back inside to pull out a bag with two two-liter bottles weighing down the plastic.  Grace senses her before she gets to the door, that frantic desperate clawing feeling combined and twined with a feeling of such great happiness, the combination underscored now by something else, a quiet steady bolstering of empowerment.  Sid does not reach out with her senses, she's not sure her mind could take anymore of that today.
At the door, she raises her fists but hesitates a moment when she hears the twist and turn of locks on the other side.  Gently, she taps the knuckle of her index finger against the door before trying the handle.  "Hey," she greets quietly through the opened door, and though no one changes overnight - she's still pale, still tired looking, still too thin - she looks brighter.  If not for those things she would almost seem like something close to her usual self, or who she was before the terror of the virus came.
Stepping inside, she pauses to look around, down first to see where she should remove her shoes.  The place is sparsely decorated, but Grace has seen Sid's room.  She knows that the Orphan has the same decorating scheme.
"How are you?"

Grace Evans
The pizza spread is out on the kitchen counter, Grace's little dining room table not big enough for two people and all those boxes. But it's close by (as everything is close by in her tiny place) so the smell hits as soon as the door is opened.
"Hey," she says back, in similar monosyllabic communication. Grace is in jeans and a sweater and socks, though she doesn't have a 'shoe removal spot' or anything. And it doesn't dawn on her that that may be what Sid's looking for. Instead, she takes the bag with the two-liters, and starts immediately back for the kitchen
The 'how are you' is so much of a question. Sera said it was hard to talk about without bullshit, and she was right. There's the expected answers of 'fine', 'okay', 'good' and the like, but yeah... they're not true. She pauses in unwrapping the sodas, like she's thinking of the right thing to say.
"I am... trying. As for what I'm trying for, I couldn't say. Not going to say I'm better though, or fine, or good, 'cause that's not quite right."

Sid
There is no designated shoe removal spot, but there is a clear enough spot to one side or the other that'll do.  Sid relinquishes her hold on the bag and toes off her Vaans.  She removes a small plastic baggie from her messenger bag before she lifts the thing over her head to be lowered gently atop her shoes.  Then goes her hooded sweatshirt.  She's dressed in a black t-shirt with blocks of the periodic table spelling out across her large chest Ge₃₂ N₇ I₅₃ U₉₂ S₁₆ over a rust colored long sleeved shirt, and jeans, all of which are just a little too large on her.  Her hair is down and a little disheveled, particularly around her shoulders.
Hooking her thumbs into the pockets of her jeans, Sid makes her way over to the kitchen, looking to see if there's anything she can do to assist.  Reaching up to tuck her hair behind her ears, she listens to Grace.  She could try to bullshit, and honestly if she's going to try to bullshit anyone she's sharing airspace with a good person to try it with.  Sid would know, of course she would know.  They were in it together, weren't they?  It's affected them all differently, but it has definitely affected them all.  And besides, Sid overheard Grace talking about quitting school, which could be for different reasons.  Still.  She certainly wouldn't be the one to call Grace on it.
She nods.  "Cups?" she asks, turning away to reach for a cabinet door.  "Is there something you want to try for?"

Grace Evans
"Yeah, that's cups," she responds at the prodding, and Sid will find some plastic cups and plates up there in the cabinet she reaches for. It's not luck really, because there's only two cabinets to choose from.
"Kalen asked me the same question," she says, "I want everything. I want to fix it. Just, you know, fix it all. Save the world. Turn everything back," she gives Sid a little sideways smile, like she's being a little silly.

Sid
Grace may feel like she's being a little silly, but what she says has Sid, who is just turning away from the cabinet with two cups in one hand and two plates in the other, stop.  She gives her this look that's thoughtful as well as a little surprised.
Then she's moving again, separating the plates between her fingers and holding one out.  Her mouth twitches, one corner shifting into an almost smile.
"Me, too."

Grace Evans
"We don't go for small goals," Grace responds, taking a plate and a cup, and going after the pizza box. She gets herself a couple slices, and a couple breadsticks, because eating is important, even if it's junky pizza. She slides her pizza on the small 'dining room' table that's really just a table off to the side of the kitchen. There is no real dining room.
Then comes the soda (Pepsi) which she rarely drinks, but if you're going to go unhealthy food, go all the way right?
"We don't have to talk about all that if you don't want to. Could talk about the stupid finals week coming up, or... snow. Or, I don't know." Grace flounders a bit, like wow, what to say? "But... yeah. Where would I be without you? Wait. No. Don't answer that. It's not good. Um... Thanks. Proper thanks. Infecting the virus with a virophage? That was brilliant."

Sid
Sid tilts her head to the side, her eyes lifting upward.  "It's not..."  She shrugs a shoulder and goes to set her plate down so that she can pour soda (Code Red) into a cup.  The effort is made only a little awkward by the small baggie she still holds in the curled fingers of her right hand.  "For me at least, it's not really a goal, it just.  It feels like it's important."  She shakes her head, which still feels like it's swimming as she rights the bottle and twists the cap back on.  For pizza she only slides a slice onto her plate, no breadsticks, not yet.  Though that may change soon.
She goes to join Grace at the table, setting down her plate and cup before pulling out a chair.  She's quiet while Grace flounders, looking up at the woman while she tries to find something to say.  There was a time when Sid was much, much better at this social thing.  She's been sort of getting there, almost.  At least she doesn't completely lock down when a stranger veers a little too close.  But she lets Grace go, and ends up frowning at her while she verbally stumbles a little on her way to an expression of gratitude.
Sid's expression relaxes, but she still doesn't quite manage a smile.  "Thanks," she says to the compliment, and quickly follows up with, "You're welcome.  I don't think I could have done it without Jim's help."  Grace was pretty out of it toward the end there, but she may have felt the way the Ecstatic's resonance flooded the lab where Sid had worked.  He gave her the boost she needed for a final push toward that virophage.
She sets that plastic bag on the table next to her plate.  Inside is a chocolate brownie too small for its container.  Outside is a now-crinkled sticker for one of the city's medical marijuana dispensaries.  "And it was lucky UCD had a sample."  She's diverting, but only a little.  A very small part of it's habit, but mostly Sid believes credit should go where credit is due.  Luck was very much in her favor, in all of their favor, when she was working for that cure.

Grace Evans
"It is important," she says, returning to her plate and taking a seat.
She listens as Sid diverts attention away from herself, and yeah, that's a familiar thing. Sometimes though, you just have to take a compliment.
"I.. think I remember Jim being there, sometimes. What did he do?" she asks, and stuffs her face with a breadstick.

Sid
Sid reaches into the baggie and breaks off a piece of brownie before holding the bag up to Grace.  "Would you like some?  It's good for anxiety and-" don't say anger don't say anger, anger so white hot it scares her, ruins her sleep, makes her more anxious, "-appetite.  Mine's been..." she trails, finishing the statement with a shake of her head.  No dice, she means, gone, diminished.  Which explains why it's been a month and she's still too thin and too shadowed.
"He..." she pauses, thinking back to that time.  "He shared his mind with me.  And some of his strength.  And took on my symptoms so I could concentrate."

Grace Evans
Oh, magic brownies. Well, probably not magic magic brownies, but yeah. "Sure," she says, but it comes out like 'fhur' because her mouth is still stuffed with that breadstick. Appetite is not her problem, or at least, she's used to stuffing food into her so that Kalen won't complain. It's the reason why she doesn't look nearly as thinned out as Sid.
Anxiety, though. There is some of that.
Sid continues, going on about Jim, and her eyes widen. He took her symptoms on? On purpose? In the waning days, when she was dying and the world turned into Hell, Jim went there for her.
"Wow."
Chew, chew, chew.
"Still, though, I mean, he propped you up. You still did it. I guess I owe him some thanks too, huh."

Sid
Jim would probably think that what he did was the least that he could do for Sid.  When the choices are Watch Sid Waste Away as the Light Goes Out of Her and Remove The Burden of Death So She Can Work, for the Ecstatic it wasn't much of a choice.  There was no question of what he would do.
Whatever may lie in the future for the Orphan and the Cultist, Sid will be forever grateful to him.
She slides the plastic bag closer to Grace, though that's what, a few inches?  The table is small and the apartment is small, close, intimate.  It's the first time these two have had a few moments to themselves to talk about anything.  It may not be a thing that Grace does often or easily, but it's not something Sid would have thought of herself.  She's grateful to the almost Virtual Adept, as well, and is more than willing to share with her what things are at her disposal to ease some of the strain of the last few months.
Grace guesses she owes Jim some thanks, too, and Sid nods.  "He..." she pauses, and now her smile's is almost a proper smile.  "He's pretty great."  Finally, she takes a bite of her own pizza slice.  The magic brownies are hardly instantaneous, but she might as well get started, even though the little knot of her stomach clenches a little tighter at the thought of something being put inside of it.

Grace Evans
There's a thin smile, and she says, "I guess so," in wonder. The people they know, capable of so much, and so willing to give it. It's like a slice of the 'good stuff' that Kalen keeps telling her is out there, somewhere, the beauty to counter the darkness.
"I never really run into him. I need to get him Gingered," she says, and reaches into the plastic bag to take a piece of brownie.
Chocolate, she would bet, is one of those foods that one can eat when one isn't in the mood for food. It's not food, really, it's edible delight. It's a wonder it hasn't been banned by the backward just like the weed inside the brownie, especially since all the commercials for chocolate include orgasmic women. Seems like they'd crack down on that shit hard.
Anyway, the sweet is savored, you could say. Maybe not in orgasmic bliss, surrounded by brown silk, but Sid's here. Be polite.

Sid
Sid's expression turns wry.  "I don't think that's going to happen," she says to Grace's need to get him Gingered.  "He has a phone, but, he gets distracted from it."
Which hasn't been much of a factor to Sid.  Jim has a special ringtone to let him know when she calls or texts, and so she never has much trouble getting hold of him.  When she needs him he comes to her, and so she tries not to abuse his need to make sure that she's okay.
"He was at the Chantry with me earlier.  He's...trying, I think.  To be around more again."

Grace Evans
"Well, give him my number. Tell him if he ever feels the need to be connected, he can find me," she says, and deflates a little. It's important, connection. Especially through data. Something about the universe, something about the connectedness of all things wants us to follow suit, to be made in its image. If anything, Grace is a servant of that will.
"That's good," she says, to the 'being around more' bit. Both for Sid and the others, likely...
Pizza comes after brownie, and she looks up at Sid with her full mouth and squints a little, like she's trying to say 'bite, chew, eat, go on'. It tends to work when Kalen does it, at least.

Sid
It is good that Jim is trying to be around more.  They don't have many they can turn to right now who have such a great understanding of how to bend reality to their will.  Some of them are getting closer to that next step, Sid included, but she's not there yet, and besides.  Better understanding doesn't immediately lead to better knowledge of the spheres of magic.
The corner of her mouth quirks upward a little when Grace makes that face at her.  She's trying to eat, honest, but it's hard when her body is simply so disinterested, at least for now.  When the brownie bite hits her stomach it starts a chain reaction throughout her body.  She gets looser, a litel more relaxed, starting in her belly and working its way out to her limbs.  She takes a drink of soda.
"It's only been a couple days, but."  She lifts the slice of pizza toward her mouth again.  "Have you thought about your shorter term goals?  Are you going to drop out?"  This conversation is a little easier for her than, say, talk of what happened Sunday night, or the dream she and Kalen shared, or that lion over there that feels a little like a storm itself.  Sid takes a bite of her pizza, sets the slice down, and dutifully chews.

Grace Evans
Grace sniffs. "I don't know yet. Maybe, if I get my grades back, and I don't bomb too badly," she says, chewing pizza at the same time. "I just don't know what I'd do if not for... learn. You know."
She takes a sip of Pepsi, and yeah, the 'anxiolytics' are starting to kick in on her end too. It's a subtle thing, the dropping of shoulders, and relaxation in general, that threatens to seep into her more thoroughly. The pizza does seem a bit more appetizing now.
"I always just thought this was my path. Never really considered others. I mean, yeah, there's the writing, but.. I'm not even sure I want to make it all commercial, even. Only sold it the once because this publisher asked me to."

Sid
Sid merely nods, but that simple motion, that little down and up before centering of her head, contains more understanding than she could put into words.  There is a smile, slight and subdued, for that humblebrag.  "That's cool."
She shrugs her shoulder, not dismissively, but more Ah, well.  "Learning to learn isn't bad, though.  If it's things you like.  Or things you don't know.  It could help, you know.  With...magic.  And how you understand it."

Grace Evans
"Learning to learn?" Grace asks, a little eyebrow-raise there. As if after all these years, she hadn't figured out how to learn. "That's like, intelligence. You know how to learn, you can learn yourself anything."
"How do you understand it?" she asks, pizza halfway to her mouth.
"I mean, I sort of see this code, you know? Like, math-y symbol-y code. Like the world is made of data inside this big computer, and I'm all inside, looking at it. Looking at myself." And yeah, the brownie has a kick, no? They're going to go philosophy while high, and there's not even an Ecstatic around. Pity.

Sid
Sid nods once, and then again to the notion that one can learn themselves anything.  She knows that, it's how she got as far as she's gotten with her willworking, but it took a long, long time.  "You haven't learned anything from other Mages?" she asks.  She remembers Gadfly, though she hasn't heard from him since he called Lena "symmetrical."  That was ages ago.  Her expression turns thoughtful.  "It's harder on your own."
She takes another bite of her pizza and it is becoming more appealing.  It's becoming the most delicious thing Sid's had all day, and Sid had all natural ginger ale earlier.  She does not eat with much more gusto (that slice gets set back down after her bite), but it no longer looks like she's forcing it through that hole called her mouth.
Grace asks how she understands it, and Sid realizes she means her paradigm.  It's not a conversation she's had very often, mostly with Luke, sometimes with Jim.  She has to think about it.
And in this moment, with the pot brownie making its way into her brain and making her much more comfortable talking at length, and that mind still swimming with the lesson earlier, it all sort of starts to blend together.
"For me, it's...it's all connected.  We're all connected, and we're connected with everything else."  She lowers her arm, her left arm, pulls up its sleeve to reveal the tattoo there, the two rings with its seven dots, and the words of Carl Sagan, WE ARE MADE OF STARSTUFF.  Sid's mouth curls into a smile as she runs her fingertips over the black markings.  "The universe is in us, and we are in the universe.  It's a living connection, like...a heartbeat.  Or a drum."

Grace Evans
At the question of whether she learns anything from other Mages, Grace sets her pizza down, stops for a bit and licks her lips. She's not going to answer yet, because Sid's still going, and that 'connection' bit strikes a chord enough to get her to smile somewhat distantly. "Yeah. I get that. Everything is one. The data is... not laid out like you'd expect, and it's all interconnected, just... we can't usually see that as being the case.
"I used to talk to Gadfly a lot about how it all works. I think something happened to him," she says. "I know he was being hunted. So."
She swallows, and it's like... this is just another piece on the shit pile, right?
"Either that, or when he comes back, he's going to get an earful about why he's been out of contact."

Sid
What Sid does next would have come as a complete surprise when other Awakened started climbing out of the woodwork around her in April.  It surprised Jim when she did it outside a cabin in the wilderness, on a night full of stars when Pan showed up covered in his own blood and Sera went to clean more of the stuff out of his car and everything seemed so dire and terrible and like nothing would ever be okay again.
Sid sets down her slice of pizza, and she picks up a napkin to wipe off her fingers.  The folded piece of thin paper gets crumpled up in one hand.  The other reaches out to rest across the back of Grace's arm.  Sid's hands are warm in a way unlike most others.  Her extremities are full of a warm primordial energy, a capacity for growth that is not terribly common.  That said, the heat of them is not overwhelming.  It's gentle and calm, like stones left to heat before a comfortable fire.
"I hope he's okay," she says.  She does not say she's sure he's fine, because Sid is not prone to telling bald faced lies, but this she can say.

Grace Evans
Grace always gets a bit uncomfortable when touched, even when she can see it coming. It's partly that she just likes her space, wants to be kept separate, but there's another bit to it too. A tingling in her skin, like the start of numbness, or something.
She just sits there, trying not to look uncomfortable and failing. She knows people touch each other, knows why, in a sense. They do it to comfort. And to say 'no, don't' just feels wrong.
"I do too. I keep thinking he's just going to come back someday, text me a continuation of our conversation like nothing happened. He's kind of spacey, you know? Like, he doesn't really follow the same track of time as the rest of us," she does a sharp little half-grin at that. "I hope for that, so I can yell at him real good, and nobody gets hurt."

Sid
For what it's worth, Sid does not let her touch linger on Grace's arm.  It lasts a moment, that contact, but when she sees that obvious discomfort she lifts her hand quickly up.  Grace can still feel the warmth of Sid's palm lightly against her skin a moment longer before she pulls that hand back to herself, back into her own space.
She tries to offer Grace an encouraging sort of look, but on Sid, who went too many years without filling the role of comforter, it still looks concerned.  She nods, because she understands.  What it's like to know someone who seems just outside their timestream, and what it's like to not want to be touched although she makes no assumptions as to the why.  It's the way she's been around Sid, the way Lena has been, too.  Sometimes there is a catalyst to that behavior, dark and ominous and obvious.  Sometimes it's less noticeable, even to the person.
"So, finals," she says, straightening up, fingers reaching for a pizza slice that is now only crust.  Sid frowns at her plate, and then rises to get herself another slice and one of those breadsticks, and a few of those cheese packets.
And so it goes.  They talk about less important things to the lives they live as Awakened.  There is no mention of Lucia Montanari.  Sid does not tell Grace about the dream she had about her and their other friends.  They tread lightly and they eat pizza.  When eventually it's time for Sid to leave, she gathers her things and offers Grace a small wave, more wiggling of her fingers by way of goodbye as she thanks her for the pizza.  Maybe she takes what's left of the Code Red with her, but the Pepsi is for Grace.  It's the least she can do for her friend.

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."