Project Hope [Heather ST]

Project Hope
It took a little digging to get the loction of this prticular meeting. The original location  had been a Catholic church in Colorado Springs, which was then moved to an Episcopal church, which then went quiet for several months while their locations were renovated. Overall, the whereabouts of Project Hope had been at once incredibly mundane and incredibly difficult to track down.

By the time the renovations were done, the space was taken over by an Alcoholics Anonymous group and a prenatal yoga course (both of which were completely open to having new members, just in  case anyone was wondering about that.)

No, once it resurfaced it would seem that the observers were in luck- they wouldn't have to drive forever and a day to get to their location it was, instead, being held in the faculty lounge area in the psychology department at DU. The door was lockable, the windows blockable, and on the outside there was a sign, neatly printed in pretty block handwriting: meeting in progress, please knock. Given that the door wasn't closed yet, it would appear that they were preempting anyone who might decide they needed to swing by a faculty member's office or two.

In the hallways on the way to the group, there were classes taking place, but the population was sparse. Night courses, nontraditional students- nobody would bat an eye at people coming and going of all walks of life.

Grace
Grace has been... guarded throughout the time Nick has seen her today. Out of the blue, after months of avoidance, here she is inviting him to group therapy (or whatever this is). Strange as that might seem, she did explain.

This group has hosted Ginny and Garrett Murray. It's got Wiley as a recurring guest speaker. There's links here. And if it hasn't been obvious yet, Grace has basically no skills at talking people out of information. She could go by herself, but no. The offer, as she said, was open.

And, dangerous. There's an agent for the other side on this case too -- a guy with the alias Philip Wright. One of the murdered people was a mole for the Technocracy, and they're a little pissed off about that. There's no way to say he's going to be here tonight, but it's a possibility.

At least it's in a public place. Lots of Sleepers around to make things interesting, right?

Grace fidgets with her (red, sharp) coat as she walks up to the building, gives a little look around.

"What do you think, man? You heard anything about this group yourself?"

Nicholas
It's been months since Nick has heard from Grace, and out of the blue here she is.  The past two months have been a series of holidays and most people are visiting far-flung family and friends, shopping for gifts and cooking, and this too is what Nick and his wife have been doing, and so: he does not seem surprised to hear from Grace, when he does.

Well, dangerous perhaps, but he's game.  He says so, anyway.

He tells his wife exactly where he'll be before he goes.  She knows how to find him anywhere with a lock of his hair and a flick of her wand or a whispered word, but it's still reassuring, see.

Nick arrives dressed in a gray peacoat, a blue cap hugging his dark curls close to his head.  He is not fidgeting when he sees Grace and makes his way over to her.  "I haven't," he says, "but I haven't really been looking, either."

Project Hope
Nick's been to these types of meetings before, or at least he's familiar with them in his profession. Coming to the meeting place itself, there are the halmarks of a support group meeting. There are chairs arranged all nice and neat around the waiting room area. There's a desk by one of the offices that has a coffee machine on top of it and off-brand sandwich cookies that insist that they aren't oreos but aren't fooling anyone.

The other table, however, the one that's away from the eyeshot of the door, is more interesting. There's a basket for cell phones (three phones already in the basket) and another basked that is distinctly larger. There is a sign that reads For the comfort and privacy of our members, the following items are not permitted on your person during meetings: cellular phones, electronic equipment, recording devices, weaponry including but not limited to knives of any kind, handguns, mace, brass knuckles, and tasers.

The room already has a few people in it. A girl who looks like she couldn't be any older than a high school student- bleached hair and too much foundation. A middle-aged man who looks almost longingly at the blackberry in the basket. A goth couple who seem to be pretty engaged in conversation, one of which looks up when they catch notice of the two newcomers.

"Oh, hey," the male of the couple says, stands up and makes his way over to the newcomers, "is this your first meeting?"

Grace
[Awareness!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 4, 9) ( success x 1 )

Nicholas
[Awareness?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Grace
Grace raises a brow at the sign. Bah. "Yeah, because I always take my brass knuckles to support groups," she says, under her breath.

She also doesn't move to deposit her phone in the basket.

There's a guy coming up to say hi, and Grace gives him a looking over.

"Yeah."

Short on words, she looks to Nick to explain further.

Project Hope
There is a sort of feeling in here that something is definitely not mundane. He can recognize the feeling of Grace, yes, but Nick also notices a feeling that is resolved. Resolved and a little cold, not in demeanor but certainly in sheer temperature from the person who had greeted them.

Nicholas
Nick glances once at the sign and pulls his phone from his pocket so that he can deposit it in one of the baskets.  No raised brows; standard procedure here, perhaps, or simple professional respect for how another chooses to run a group.

He turns to the man approaching them, in the process of tugging off his hat and raking his fingers back through his hair to unflatten it.  "Oh," he says, and then after a pause, "sort of."  A beat.  "Well, yes.  This is the first time either of us have been here.  Are you still open to new people?"

Project Hope
"Of course we're still open," he said, "meeting might be a little full tonight- it's... It's been a rough week. Who referred you to Project Hope?" the man asks. He's a calm and confident sort, maybe in his late twenties- old enough that the dark hair and the dark clothes and the almost antiquated attire was less of a phase and more of a lifestyle.

"It's not the Project Hope that does addiction recovery services, that's across town. I just want to be sure you're aware."

Nicholas
Nick shakes his head.  "We're not addicts.  We just needed help."  A pause as he lifts his eyes and makes eye contact with the man, shortly after a cursory sweep of his dark hair dark clothes and oh they belie his bright words.  Nick has a sense of who this man is, or at least a suspicion, doesn't he?

It was only a matter of time before he met another therapist like himself but not: different perspectives, though who can say whether the goals are similar or not.  It's a miracle really that it's taken this long, working in a hospital like he does.  "I don't remember the name of the guy who referred us.  Youngish guy, kind of brown hair.  I guess he might have been a former member or something."

Grace
"It was, uh..." Grace says, eyes darting to the ceiling like she's trying to remember something. Geez. What does she say? Wiley has bright blonde hair. No idea what Garrett's hair is like. She can't come up with anything. There were a few people talking about it in emails, but they were all women. "Yeah."

"Why is it a rough week?"

Grace looks like she's had a rough week, what with all the discomfort on display here.

Project Hope
[Per+aware, are you cool?]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 7, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Nicholas
[Manip + Subterfuge.  Totally cool.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 6, 8, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 6 ) [WP]

Grace
[Manip + Subt. HE'S NOT TOTALLY LYING, I SWARE]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )

Project Hope
The man seems to regard them for a moment, dark eyes met dark eyes and there is a quiet dawning realization who he is talking to. Brows raise and there is a dawning oh! on his face. He nods and takes a step to the side. Young guy, brownish hair-

"Oh! Garrett! It's good that some of his friends are finally coming, it's always hard to finally embrace change. I'm really glad you're here," he said. "Just go ahead and have a seat, we'll start once Bethany finishes up."

Nicholas
There is a light that springs to Nick's eyes once the name is mentioned, a smile that intimates at one corner of his mouth.  "Yeah, Garrett," he says, with a nod of confirmation.

And he says nothing more, for now.  The less said when lying through one's teeth, the better.  He does murmur his thanks though - that never hurts.

He glances once to Grace and then wanders over toward the waiting chairs, lifting a hand to unbutton his coat one-handed and shrug out of it.  He folds it and his hat over one arm and then into his lap as he seats himself.

Grace
Garrett. The man says that name, and Grace perks up a bit. She wants to ask him more, but no... That's Nick's job. Nick, who walks over to a chair and slips out of his coat, so...

When in Rome.

She follows after, gives the greeter guy a weird smile behind her back when she remembers she ought to be friendly.

Her coat gets hung over the back of a seat, claiming some temporary territory next to Nick's chair before she sits.

Today, she's not wearing some snarky humorous geek t-shirt. It's just basic black.

Project Hope
There is a woman that comes through the door after that. Sharp suit. Shit-kicking boots. Short-cropped hair and a posture that is straight and somewhat guarded. She catches the door behind her and strides to the back table.

"Hey, Bethany, are you ready for tonight?" the goth man asks the suited woman. She's busy following the procedures listed out (cell phone goes into the basket. Handgun goes into the other basket. Jacket goes under the table).
"Yeah," she said, "I always get nervous talking at these things."
"Well, it's a good thing you're not armed then," the group leader laughed. It made the woman laugh, release a little bit of tension there. "I got the clocks and insulation, did you get everything else?"
"Yeah, we should be good."

The woman took a seat next to the teenager, who shot the authoritative woman an awkward smile.

There is a sort of pressure in the air, a difference in feeling where that resolve seems thick and present, but stuck between the chill of winter personified and the hope that things would get better. The air feels like a waiting room in a hospital, the kind of waiting room where you're waiting for your doctor to tell you you're cancer free. Expectant of the worst, hopeful for the best.

"Okay, everybody," the man said, "This is our first open meeting in awhile and we have some new members. So... I'd like for everyone to go around and introduce themseslves. My name's Jack."

"I'm Nora," said the goth woman (alto. Drawn out. Like a sigh)

"Richard," the older man who looks like an investment banker. (Bass. Smoker)

"Kayla," said the teenager (small voice. Soprano)

"My name is Bethany," said the authoritarian (she sounds young. Even voice. Doesn't breathe deeply)




Nicholas
Clocks and insulation.  Handguns.  Nick is staring off at nothing specific: a whiteboard lingering toward the back of the room, the folds of the blinds that obscure the window and thereby all of them from whoever might be outside and wanting to look in.  He is still listening.

He'd be a fool not to be concerned.

"I'm Rob," Nick says, and this the first name that pops into his mind.  Robin Anton, perhaps the only person he has ever known to whom the word "frenemy" could be truly applied - he probably wouldn't be happy about the casual use of his name, would he.  No matter.  "Hi, everyone."  And oh, he can personify a newcomer's nervous excitement.  He's seen it enough times.

Grace
Grace is pondering things as people begin to go over their names, and by the time the round gets to her, spends a second trying to figure out why everyone is looking her way. "Oh... Grace."

It's easy for her to portray the newcomer's nervousness -- because she actually is.

Why did they go on about clocks?

Project Hope
There is the little bit of waving, the little bit of chatter before the authoritarian woman drew in a shaky breath and starts-

""Uh... okay, so for those of you that don't know me- I have a job. It's... a really complicated job. It's a really dangerous job. And... uh... really, that's why I'm here. I'm here because of my job, because... you see things and you've all seen some things. If you're here, there's a reason and... it's hard to really wrap your head around."

A beat.

"When I had my- I don't know, I guess the best thing you could call it-"

"The inciting incident?" Jack offered.

"Yeah... the inciting incident. I thought I had all of the answers, I thought that I could explain away everything- we'd patch up the literal hole but it would just show up again. And, I mean, I always thought this was the kind of thing that happened to other people. Science can't explain curses, but-" she catches a sharp breath. Resolute. "That's what I'm here to talk about. My point. I feel like we come to these meetings expecting someone here to say anything that will make our worlds make sense again. And I wanted to ask people, in spite of whatever they've experienced, have you been able to find that meaning?"

Nicholas
Nick listens, leaned over his lap, his coat providing a convenient pillow of sorts for his elbows, a space under which he can tuck his hands.  People living in more northward climates always seem content to keep the indoor temperature much colder than he prefers.

There is the occasional movement.  A flick of his eyes toward Jack when he offers words and terms - and the words and terms he uses tell Nick something.  It's what he was hoping for.  "I think I'm still kind of looking for meaning, myself," he says, "and that's why I'm here.  Everything is so dangerous, and so brutal.  It's hard to know what will make me feel safe again."

Grace
Grace opens her mouth when Bethany starts talking about science and curses, then abruptly closes it again. This isn't the Chantry, Grace. Don't go on talking about curses and shit.

She listens instead. Getting a bit more intent as the woman speaks.

And then, a meaningful glance at Nick. Not just a support group, huh?

"Brutal, mmm," she says, lifting a hand to her mouth and starting to gnaw on her fingernails.

Project Hope
"You're friends with Garrett and Ginny. You must've lived through some weird stuff," Kayla said.

"I think you'd benefit most from revisiting things that used to make you feel safe," Jack started, "there are two realities that most people operate under- the reality where they feel that the world is a safe place and the world where they feel it is not. The actuality of it all is that we exist somewhere in the middle."

"Sometimes, fear is a good thing. Fear keeps us safe. Too much fear keeps us paralyzed," Richard says, "my wife used to say that. Fear being sacred, like wonder or rage or lust. We're a bunch of people with a dead passion here."

It is, at that juncture, that the reference may click for some who spent some time around Ecstatics. Richard's remarks about passions, his talk about his wife (ex-wife?), Bethany's mention of curses.

"It's okay, I don't feel safe either," Kayla offers to Grace and Nick.

Nick
Nick's eyes fall on Jack as he speaks, and there is a wondering there in the darkness of their depths even as he leans forward again on his elbows.  There is a nod, albeit more of a contemplative one than one of any real recognition, as Richard talks about dead passions.

A smile to Kayla, a thing that is soft around the edges.  "Thanks," he says.  "That's nice to hear."

Then, "I guess what I don't know and what I've been wondering is where do you even go from here.  Like where should we want to end up?  How does this all end well?"

Grace
"Well. Feeling like you're able to do those safe, normal things without having a panic attack maybe would be nice," Grace says, eyes twisting away from the group.

"But like... I don't know any of you. Don't any of you feel like, I don't know, talking about this stuff... What if the wrong person found out what we've gone through?"

She doesn't smile at anyone. Smiling at people used to be quite hard. Now that she's gotten the gist of what this group is all about, she's channeling a person who used to be -- a Grace who was afraid of the monstrous nature of reality.

Project Hope
"I have that problem at work," Bethany piped up, directing her answer towards Nick, "we all see it and nobody talks about it. I guess we're all afraid of getting canned if we act like this stuff bothers us. My end goal coming here is to be able to feel like I have control over my life again, and I'm getting there by accepting that I can't change the past."

"When Melissa and James ran the group," Jack assures Grace, "they put a lot of security measures in place. It's why we have the no electronics and weaponry policy, on top of the additional security measures."

"There's always the chance that the wrong person could find out, but don't you think the prospect of recovery is better than living a stagnant life?" Nora finally spoke up, voice still the sort of relaxed and slow that one would think of when imagining a person waking up from their nap, "you only know who the wrong person is when looking in hindsight. I choose to be vulnerable so that I can grow."

Nick
Nicholas nods as each person speaks in turn.  His gaze is no longer on Jack, or on anyone for that matter; it is soft and unfocused and somehow inward.  "So where do you all want to end up, then?  Like what does it look like, when people get better?"

Grace
No electronics and no weaponry. Grace gives the wall a wry smirk at that remark. But then, she looks toward Bethany.

"Why don't you just quit your job then? I mean, find something else and then quit. I would. Sounds stressful as fuck."

There's a huff of a laugh. Darkest of humors.

Project Hope
"I want to start dating again," Richard told them.

"Stop trying to pick up chicks at a support group, Dick," Nora prodded with a grin. The group laughed, and so did Richard.

"I'm serious! I was married to a woman for twenty-three years who could do anything, and you think that it would exempt her from death but the world moves, wheels turn- I want to turn, too. I tried buying a sports car but it didn't hack it. For me, getting better is letting go of the past without forgetting it."

---

"I want to go to college," Kayla said, still a small voice; always a small voice, "and not end up like that art student that disappeared. Or like my friends... Getting better is being able to go to parties again, flirt with cute guys... be normal."

"But you're not normal, you're extraordinary," Nora told the blonde.

"Stop trying to pick up chicks at a support group, Nora," Richard prodded.

---

Bethany shrugged, regarding Grace, "I like what I do. It's hard work. It's dangerous, but I feel good about what I do and how I can make things better. I stay because I know I can make a difference."

Nick
The jokes make Nick smile in spite of himself.

In spite of himself, because he still can't quite figure out just what the hell this group is for.  Not exactly.  "It sounds like you all just want lives outside of what we experience," Nick says.  "So why not go after all of that?"

Grace
Everyone's joking. Grace isn't laughing. She's listening, but by all perception she isn't. Looks lost in daydreams the way her eyes canvas the place while skipping over faces.

She's putting two and two together, herself.

"Probably because looking at a plate of spaghetti brings flashbacks, dude. Why not just turn the sea purple..." She snaps her fingers. "Just, be better. That's what everyone wants you to do."

Project Hope
"It's not that easy," Kayla replies, defensive, "we're trying."

"It's a process," Jack chimes in, "some weeks we meet and talk about what happened. Some weeks we work on life skills, but people move towards their goals in their own time and we're here to give them those resources to get there again."

"I'm pretty happy about where I am," Nora told Nick, "but it took a long time to get here. I think you'll get there too."

"Can you tell us about your stuff?" Kayla asked the two newcomers.

Nick
"I think I would..."  And here Nick hesitates, and he takes in the defensiveness (expected, accounted for, see) and the responses.  The turning back of the questions on the two of them.  "I think I would feel a little better if we heard your stories first.  Do you...have all of you been here for very long?"

Grace
Grace ponders Nick for a second. "Agreed there."

"Sorry. I have a hard enough time talking about it to someone I really trust, you know?"

Project Hope
"I was a wreck when I first came... and that was at least five... six years ago. I'm one of the old timers," Richard said with a laugh, "my wife was, for lack of better wording, a witch. A real, honest-to-goodness witch. We didn't have any kids, but that was okay. We lived this very rock-and-roll lifestyle before we settled out here to getting old...

"She was always a little out-of-touch with reality. She told me that, sometimes, when you push too hard the universe pushes back. There were months where she would be fine and coherent, and... I don't know what happened to her, but one day her bad days started becoming all of her days. The walls bled, things crawled out of the floor- Hell, I'm pretty sure even gravity stopped working for a minute, I thought that I was the one losing my mind.

"I learned later, when I came to this group, that my wife had become what people called a Marauder. Which... I guess is what happens when witchcraft and reality fight too hard and reality gets bent out of shape. It was a mess, but... that's why I ended up coming here. I had to sober up before I could come to these meetings, I was...." he sighs, sounds nostalgic and a little sad, "I was a real mess."

"But I got to know Melissa and James, who used to lead. I got involved. I brought Ginny and Garrett- gah, those poor kids. I don't know what they'd be like if they didn't start coming with us."

---

"I started coming when I started dating Jack in grad school," Nora said. "So that was a few years ago. I was kidnapped three years ago by faeries."

"Don't laugh," she said, "I know it sounds completely stupid, but in those old school fairy tales those things are brutal."

--

"I don't want to talk about it today, sorry," Kayla offered an apologetic smile.

---

"I started coming almost a year ago," Bethany said, "my boss recommended the group to me. I... uh... well, I wake up every morning with a giant bleeding stomach wound. I'm cursed."

Nick
Nicholas listens.  He's a good listener - everyone says so.  His brows are lightly furrowed, see, and they knit together even further as Richard describes his wife.  Nick knew, before he started talking: wheels turn, that was what Richard had said.  So he'd known.

He's heard stories like this before.  He's seen them play out.

He shakes his head, once, at Kayla's apology, a reassuring gesture.

"I don't know Garrett very well at all," he says.  "But a lot of weird stuff started happening to me a while ago, like seeing a lot of strange things and not knowing what they were, and I heard about coming here.  I've never met Melissa or James."

Grace
It might be a testament to how in-the-know Grace is by how none of those stories affect her. She doesn't smile at the idea of being kidnapped by fairies. Doesn't scoff at the mention of such things as curses.

She doesn't listen attentively, let's put it that way. Doesn't listen with warmth or concern or that soft-spoken skill of the truly talented at listening. She listens like a tape recorder. Takes it all in, gives little back, except perhaps a souring of mood.

When it's her turn, she looks at the floor, crowds her eyebrows together. "Ah, you know that scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark where the Nazis open the Ark of the Covenant, and they... yeah."

"I think that's kind of been the worst."

She shrugs, like they can all put the rest together themselves.

Project Hope
"Melissa and James used to be some of the big wigs out in Colorado Springs before they died. Garrett and Ginny's mom stepped up to take care of things," Richard said, "they were really great people, though. The wife and I used to go to parties with them out in Morrison- I used to have to fish my wife out of the hotsprings. We didn't have anything like that in our neck of the woods, but Evelyn was always trying to figure out how to do it on her own."

--

"That had to be horrible," Bethany offers, "I'm so sorry." She sounds sincere, less severe than she normally would be. Her mouth pressed into a line.

"Do you ever feel like you could have done something about it?" Kayla asked.

Nick
"Who's Evelyn?" Nick asks, and there is still interest there for Richard.  A nod when he mentions his wife, a faint smile or two.  It's tinged with some private sadness that Nicholas does not name.

He glances, once, toward Grace as Kayla asks her a question.

Grace
"Evelyn's Garrett and Ginny's mom, I guess. The 'bigwig'." Grace volunteers. It might help persuade the group that yeah, they definitely know about this place through proper channels.

But then, she's being asked other questions. Questions about the melting...

"Done something? About... that?" Grace looks around, faking amusement. "Like what? There isn't anything I could have done."

Project Hope
"She's not really big on meetings," Bethany said as she rolled her eyes, "Richard had to lie and say he was taking Ginny and Garrett to tutoring to get them here."

"Grace, is it horror at what happened? What's the primary feeling there?" Nora cocked her head to the side. Kayla, for her part, shut her mouth and nodded.

Nick
"What would she have against this place?" Nick asks, with a frown pulling at one corner of his mouth.  He glances here from Bethany to Richard and back again.

Grace
"Well, I guess, yeah. Look, can we..."

She fidgets. That one thing Richard said. It bugs her.

"Talk about something else? You said... Evelyn was trying to make a hot spring? That sounds kinda cool. Not like, you know. Bodies."

Project Hope
"She wanted to make something established, a place of power, like what Denver had. She wants to make a retreat, but Hell if I know how she's going to do it. The kind of real estate she's looking for is rare."

Project Hope
[Richard: per+empathy, how in-the-know are you guys?]

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

Nick
[As in the know as I need to be.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )

Grace
[Manip + Subt = I'm just your average traumatized newbie!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 10) ( success x 1 )

Nick
"Weird," Nick says, with a furrow of his brows.  "I don't know a lot about that, but how would she...I mean, what are the ways she could even do that?  Wouldn't it require some sort of big thing?"

Grace
Maybe the faking is coming across. As much as Grace tries to be herself of years ago, there's just so much that she's hearing without reacting to very much.

It could just be the 'trauma', right? But Richard probably gets the idea that she's not being as open as she could be.

She just looks at Nick while he talks, and then nods, appearing to address the same question to the group.

Project Hope
"I think that falls into the category of things man was never meant to know," Richard says.

"I've got a library," Kayla offered, "you could look it up there. I don't mind."

Richard does take a second regards Grace for a moment. He inhales slowly, "hey, we're getting off topic. Talk to me after?"

Nick
Nick makes an interested noise when Kayla mentions that she has a library.  His eyes fall to Richard then, and through willpower alone he does not look back at Grace and implicate her further.  "Sure," he says.  "If you have the time.  I was just curious."

Grace
Grace shrugs, noncommittal. Whatever, dude.

"Back to the topic, then. And the topic is?"

Project Hope
"Yeah, it's no problem," Richard said.

"We try to answer each other's questions here. A crowd shooting in the dark is better than one person right?" Nora told them.

Jack takes a quick look at his watch (which doesn't actually seem to be working, but it's enough to seem to jog his memory). He shoots a look to Bethany and she nods. He offers an apologetic look, "we're actually going to have to cut this meeting tonight. Security measures were a little harder to put together. Same time next week, same location. We'll be meeting at DU until our usual spot opens up again from the prenatal yoga course."

Nick
"That's okay," Nick says, albeit with a trace of disappointment in his voice.  "Thanks for being so welcoming to us, everyone."

Grace
"Yeah, uh... Same here. I'll try to come next week, if I can," Grace says, standing, stretching.

She retrieves her coat from the back of the chair and slips it on with a look of satisfaction. She, too, thinks people in Colorado are bizarre with their temperature settings, especially in the winter. It feels better to be bundled up, even inside.

Project Hope
"We look forward to seeing you," Jack replies.

It is all a dance at that point, something old and practiced. Bethany goes to get the door and open it back up while other people are milling about to get their things. Richard is the first to go and grab his phone, putting it back into his coat pocket.

People are milling about and getting their things. The first person to leave, though, was Bethany. She gathered her coat, gun, phone, and was out the door with a little wave and not a lot of talking. She moved through the university like she belonged there, which seemed to be fine.

Nora started her conversing with Jack, and Kayla had her phone out to text some people.

Richard eventually approached the pair, offering a business card to Grace and Nick both. "If you need anything, let me know. I look forward to next week."

The people who stayed behind stayed long enough to be asked questions, but eventually the feelings of magick and coldness dissipated into normalcy.

All of the things that shine

senobnaws
a saturday and Nick's wife is gone on mysterious errands and Nick is at his leisure to work in the garden dying now autumn not dying but preparing to be fallow there is a wild brown rabbit which nibbles and nibbles and Nick is at his leisure to go on errands there is a pop-up market not too far from their home hosted in the courtyard of a derelict building empty store fronts except for a church a smoke shop a record store with questionable hours and a breakfast place which seems to be rarely open but enjoys a bustling hipster surgence come sundays there's that nice courtyard with a little creek over stones and the pop-up market has all sorts of knick-knacks and then of course there's their perferred grocery store and a nearby park too the park is very nice and it has water and the water sings songs like come to me come to me come to me and the only thing which is certain besides death and taxes whoever said that didn't know but the third thing which is certain is that Nick's keys have been filched are missing not where he put them and though after a protracted search he'll find them sticking out of the garbage disposal.

crow
It's autumn now and so the time for gardening is drawing to a close.  Nick has just finished turning the compost heap, which has yet to produce any real compost but will by the spring.  He is pruning the mums and the ivy which has burst over the backyard, ground cover will hold the soil in place during the bitter winter and looks nice besides.  They're coming up on their first year here in the house, aren't they?

Nonetheless, he eventually finishes what he is doing in the garden and goes upstairs to shower and prepares to go on errands because maybe there's something he can find Pen in that little pop up market.  He is dressed and his hair drying by the time he begins looking for his keys, which are nowhere to be found.  Not for lack of looking: he searches the little keyhook by the front door first, and then he looks around the shoe rack in case they may have fallen.  He searches under the end table and in its drawers.  He searches his coat pockets even though he cannot recall having worn his jacket just yet.  He looks in their bedroom, rifles through the pockets of yesterday's pants and the soil-stained carpenter jeans he was wearing while working outside.  He flattens himself out on the floor and looks under their bed and finds only a lone dust bunny.

Eventually his search does indeed lead him to the kitchen, where the keys are: there, sticking out of the garbage disposal.  Nick blinks at them for a moment as he stands at the sink, and then reaches to grab the tip of one of the keys and flip them up into his hand.

crow
[Alertness?]

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

senobnaws
and the key is cold when he pinches it between his fingers and as he flips them up into his hand it appears that somehow someway some mechanism some trick some uncanny knack of ill-luck the garbage disposal catches and turns on and grinds his key chain not the keys chomping it an unholy groan of a noise until look there's the switch for the garbage disposal still switched to off but a switch on and off again will turn the garbage disposal into silence and hush-a-bye and go on put your fingers in there Nick check to see if it's broken why don't you

crow
Check to see if it's broken.  Nick's face screws up in to displeasure, and later puzzlement, at the unholy scream of the disposal against his keychain and he is quick to flick the switch and shut it off on off again.  It must be broken.

Best not to stick his fingers in if it's catching; Nick crouches down and opens the cabinet below the sink and peers in at the underside of the disposal, at its motor, as though that would possibly tell him anything.

senobnaws
the motor looks very much like a motor and it does not turn on again at its own whim although there are bits of key chain fluff if nick's key chain was fluffy if it is metal there is nothing it is fine and it is good and he has his keys and the house is safe and silent and something is dripping upstairs drip drop drip-drip drop drop drip

crow
Nick's brow is furrowed as he inspects the underside; he had a metal keychain and so there is nothing, it appears to be fine.  He raises himself and winces as his knee pops, and he gives his leg a shake before -

oh.  There is a noise upstairs, something drip drip dripping.  The ridges and valleys across his forehead deepen, a tectonic shifting, as he pads his way up the stairs to go and investigate.

senobnaws
He will remember of course that time his wife fell asleep while reading and the entire hall was flooded; this is not that bad. But the drip drop, drip drip drip drop drop, drop drip, that sound it is coming from the bathroom, and when he looks inside he will see the sink is full of silver-light water so full that the water trembles above the edge of the sink and each drop sends another two or three or four-five-six drops splishing over the side running to the floor where there s another tiny puddle and it seems as if the faucet just wasn't turned off enough and then look somebody pulled the tab so the sink wouldn't drain oops.

crow
There are tiny puddles and there is a noise of dismay from him, here; Pen is not home to banish all the water away.  He doesn't know how the sink got clogged; he is too dismayed at first to do anything but question how the hell two things could go wrong at once.  Terrible luck, isn't it?

Even for magi sometimes the mundane is so ingrained in them, is so human, that they don't examine such things straightaway.  Instead he only strides over to the sink and lifts up the tab so that the sink will drain all the water away before it becomes a flood.

senobnaws
There is a truly terrifying slurp as the drain is lifted as it gapes a vortex mouth slurps on the water a drowning gasp sound and if Nick doesn't hold the tab the entire time the drain will keep closing so nothing drains but turning off the faucet would stop the drip for now anyway and where did Nick put his keys is he still holding them are they in his pocket they are not in his pocket where are they?

crow
Nick doesn't think to turn off the tap just yet; after a moment he does, after he realizes the tab is sliding closed again.  He turns the faucet off; he holds the tab closed long enough to allow the water to drain.  His keys are in his pocket except - where are they?  Once the sink has closed and he reaches for them he realizes they are gone.

He breathes a curse and there is still damp on his fingers and he is standing in water and so it is easy because this is a gate a door:

[Spirit 1, diff 4, -1 for instrument.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (3, 4, 9) ( success x 3 )

senobnaws
Nick on a gate at a door Nick on a threshold Nick in the water river-dark Banshee's young gentleman Nick looks through and sideways and he can still see the bathroom but the bathroom has that cast it gets when he is looking at the spirit world (one day he'll show it to Pen, right?) that lick of vibrance here and there while other things are faded and more wan especially in a building and sometimes there are eerie shades those who should be gone and utterly gone wheeled away and sometimes there are mischievous spirits gamboling interesting grotesqueries phantasms and right now the room Nick is in it is empty, it is utterly empty, right maybe right?

crow
[Alertness?]

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

crow
Right now the room appears to be utterly empty.  There is an uneasiness that stirs in his stomach as he slides his hand again into his pocket, balls it up around what should be his keys but there are no keys there.  He looks around the bathroom, which because it is their home always carries a certain vibrance for him, looks brighter, the towels fluffier and the shower curtain carries a certain romantic gauziness, a glow.  It is not an eerie place to him, and nevertheless he cannot help but feel very alone just now.

senobnaws
There are things he notices, sharp-eyed, bright-eyed, he notices three shadows bird-shadows winged-shadows that are not in themselves a spirit but an echo echo of presence and intention slipping still slow and delayed out of the room across his shoes the tiles the water and one of them has something dangling they might be keys and he can hear this human sound, this childish laughter, this laughter that might be mistaken for a child's, coming from: oh, somewhere - downstairs; downstairs, he thinks, then no: the bed room.

crow
He notices: bird-shadows, dark wings, and his uneasiness carries down into his legs which stir him away from the water.  They carry him to the bedroom, and he is reaching beneath his shirt out of habit and finding that he left his bags in their bedroom as he often does when he is only running to the store or otherwise about some non-magick business.  He is not Pen, who carries her weapons on her.

"Hello?"

senobnaws
[stealthy stealth]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 4, 5, 9) ( success x 1 )

crow
[Alertness!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

senobnaws
he definitely sees the stealthsome creature which is creeping up on him he sees its winged shadows whisking eddying around his feet like leaves pale flags he sees also the mischief they have done unlatching one of the curtains the pole looks like it will crash should anyone tweak the curtains which are askew and it would indeed fall if anybody did do that fall right on their head and the creature well this is what it looks like a handsome man's face where a bird's face should be the handsome man's face being somewhat grecian clay figure fine in mien and nick might recognize his own eyebrows and its body is that of a mockingbird iridescent blue feathers and darkness and a star at its breast and instead of clawed talons it is walking on human arms and around the left is a little bracelet of something resembling coke tabs and its wings are very long and very pretty and it is stealthily creeping up on him walking on those hands about to launch itself and fly at his hair as it leaves the room entirely it does not think it can be seen he does not think he can be seen

crow
Nick does recognize his own eyebrows in this creature of air and darkness, sees something of himself in the sweep of its wings.  His mouth is a thin line as he notices the curtains, and he lets out a hard sigh through his nostrils.  And the creature does not think it can be seen.  He is frustrated and weary enough from the disposal and the sink to nearly call after it, to let it know that he knows it's there; at the last moment he bites his tongue.

Rather than follow it right away, Nick walks down the stairs; he opens the garage and reaches in to retrieve a watering can.  As he closes the door, he listens.

senobnaws
He can hear that same sound; distant, muted laughing - this time it is coming from the kitchen again; it is followed by the sound of the garbage disposal, catching on something metal, like keys.

crow
It is laughing and he can hear that his keys have probably gone back down into the garbage disposal; perhaps it is inclined to repeat its tricks.  Nick wanders into the half bathroom downstairs and begins to fill the watering can, glancing out every now and again toward the kitchen.

senobnaws
The garbage disposal gives one truly terrible grind-sound of suffering and then noise stops; this probably means the garbage disposal is broken.

The spirit does not reappear, and the laughter has faded. There is another little spirit in the shadow corner of the house: something like a snail, but not; instead of a snail's tail it has a spider's many-segmented legs and it pushes itself forward in quick bursts, rolls over, explodes into a little spray of fur and runs out away from the light and the water.

crow
The laughter has faded, and Nick's brows are one long line so tightly are they pulled together as he steps into the kitchen to look at the poor garbage disposal.  There is a full watering can in his hand, and he cannot tell where the thing has gone cannot tell what else it was in the house.  He glances down into the disposal to see if he can tell where his keys have gone.

senobnaws
His keys are down, caught up and mangled in the blades; he can certainly see the glint of them. There is no spirit. The kitchen is empty. There is no drip drip, drop drip, drip drip drip drop drip-drip drop. There is no laughter; there is only silence; the weight of the watering can in his hand. Maybe there is a drip, drop; but it only comes from the can itself.

crow
There are a few spare drips from the can, though they fell on the floorboards on the pathway from the bathroom to here; Nick glances 'round the kitchen.  And he sees nothing.

There is a sigh and then he sets the watering can down on the kitchen counter and retrieves a pair of tongs from one of the drawers.  He leans down over the disposal, and he can see the glint of his keys there.  He reaches down into the disposal for them, passing the tongs close to the blades almost gingerly.

senobnaws
The keys are, unfortunately, quite caught in the mangle of blades, and do not seem to want to pull free with any ease; it is an arduous, fifteen-or-so minute piece of work to get them out just using tongs, but it is possible. They do not look great, the keys, but they are still keys; they hold their essential shape.

crow
The keys are still keys, though it is somewhat likely that he will have to get them remade: keys are delicate things, see, and a burr where there isn't supposed to be a burr, an errant nick, can make them much harder to turn in the lock.  He has to work and wiggle them about to free them from the disposal, and as he holds them up he lets out a little sigh and tucks them back into his pocket.

Nick leans against the counter and watches, and listens.  Perhaps it's gone.

crow
[Are you gone, spirit?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )

senobnaws
He is alone in the kitchen.

It is possible the spirit, having had its fun, having laid its pranks, having messed up this and that, has had enough and has flitted elsewhere; it is also possible it is in another room, waiting, sleeping: when something like this decides to take residence, it can be difficult to uproot.

crow
It can indeed be difficult to uproot, and he has no idea what might have drawn it here.  Nick sighs and wanders back up toward their bedroom so that he can fix the curtains, before Pen ends up bringing the rod down on her head later tonight.  He texts his wife as he ascends the staircase:

New friend in the house, pulling some pranks.  Text when you get home before you come in.

senobnaws
But does he look where he's going as he ascends the staircase? There is a sense of air currents, moving; a sense, too, a back-of-throat tickle an impending cold a sense of what is it: some Thing. There is no other sign of the spirit; there is, however, one of Pen's necklaces on the floor, a glittering bit of dazzle, easy to trip on; go falling, head-long, heedless.

Pen texts back:

?

Bad friend?

Do you need me to come home?

crow
[Do I notice it?  +1, distracted.]

Dice: 5 d10 TN7 (1, 2, 3, 5, 8) ( success x 1 )

crow
Pen's necklace, with its dazzling workmanship, is on the stair and it would be easy to trip, to have it roll underfoot and send him pitching back down the stairs from whence he came.  It is only the stirring air currents that draw Nick's eyes away from his phone and to the necklace.  He stops, and he lowers his phone and for a moment absorbs this, what's in front of him.

Then he leans down and carefully hooks the necklace through a finger and lifts it off the ground, carrying it with him back upstairs.  When he texts Pen back he stops and leans against the wall in order to do so.

Not a good friend.  Not sure if it's bad necessarily.  I'm okay.

senobnaws
There's a wire loose in the necklace; if he is not careful, it will prick him; draw blood. The wire has never been loose before; Nicholas has taken this necklace from Pen's neck before; has clasped it, too; it knows his hand. This is the first time it has betrayed it.

Once again there is no sign of the spirit. Perhaps that was its last mischief, truly: that necklace, left as it went on its way - elsewhere? Or nearby.

Pen's text reads:

Should I come home?

crow
Nick is not easily fooled into thinking it is gone; he has to hold the necklace carefully, and after a moment moves the necklace around so that he will be less likely to snag his skin on the wire.  He texts back one-handed, tapping out buttons with his thumb.

Maybe.  You won't be able to see it though.

senobnaws
Her text is concise:

Ugh.

And there is no sound from below, no sudden re-animation of the garbage disposal, no garage door opening, no regular door slamming, no flood from a faucet, no car turned on. Only the usual house sounds.

And wind outside, wind howling: hard.

crow
Nick's return text, too, is concise: a frowning emoji.  And then he tucks his phone away in his pocket because the house is gone quiet again, without any sound other than the occasional creak of floorboards or the shifting of an old house as it settles.

Save the wind.  And now he is not really planning to go out on his errands, after all.  The day's plans have changed.  He isn't even really sure precisely what it is he's dealing with, yet.

senobnaws
He has seen it; that's something. He's seen it and he's seen its shadows and he knows that it can manipulate things on this side of the gauntlet; he does not know where it is. How pleasant their house is; it has a certain smell, their house, in autumn; when his wife goes on cooking baking binges of lonely homesickness; it has a smell, anyway; outside one of the neighbors honks very rudely which must mean both sets of neighbors happened to want to go somewhere at the same time.

crow
He has seen the Irvings and the Kidds both at the end of their respective driveways, honking at each other when they are each trying to turn in a separate direction.  Old roads are often also narrow ones.  Nick likes the Irvings and he likes the Kidds; he likes them both separately.  Very much separately.

Nick walks to the spare bedroom which overlooks the front of the house and glances out the window, expecting to see the wind tearing at the branches and also Paul Irving's mustache bristling in range.  He pauses with a hand on the windowsill and peers out.  The necklace he still keeps hanging from a finger, as it has not yet occurred to him to walk into their bedroom to put it away again.

senobnaws
the necklace glimmers and gleams, luminous and milky in its radiance, and outside the wind is bending trees back has sent a sign or three skidding across the cul de sac it has sent a wash of brown leaves ragged leaves whisking through the gutters it is making wind chimes clamor one against the other it is

well outside nicholas can see a shadow a shade a ghost a mourning woman a woman all in white faceless with three little shadows clustered at her ankles a matryoshka line of possible children and each of them bearing some hideous mark one with a noose the other dripping blood which doesn't ever pool in a larger pool than just behind its ankle the other one leaving ash soot flecks of it as if it were burned the other trailing water and a final one difficult to tell it seems sleepy maybe drifting and the mourning woman tall tall tall she has blood drenching her robes wet and they are walking and walking and of course nobody sees them and what else can he see he can see a frog spirit bright eyed and cold somnolent autumn's coming and frog song is at its peak and he can see little moth spirits white diaphanous coming together creating a shape the shape might almost be a rune he can see the spirit of a house that was burned down superimposed over another house and he can see raven hanging out further down the road because raven hangs out quite often doesn't he and

of course the irvings and the kidds peeling away and he can see a dog with a leash running away from its owner its owner being a ten year old kid who is chasing the dog down while his parents stroll behind unconcerned in spite of the traffic

crow
Nicholas can see a mourning woman of the sort that would have left him wide-eyed and nightmarish during his first few months awake, the first few months when he kept his visions to himself.  These were the things that sent him chasing after anti-psychotics, after alcohol, and in his darker moments after a noose; in the end he took none of them, but he thought about them more than he likes to think about now.

Nick can see a lot of things when he looks out the window.  He breathes out, a slow exhale, and then begins to walk back to his study.  Midway his feet carry him to their bedroom instead so that he can set the necklace there on the dresser, each of the stones arrayed out like dewdrops.

He moves to his study next, and he kicks up the corner of the rug that lies over the ring scribed in the wood below: and of course without any idea of what the creature is it will be difficult to call to it, won't it?  Far more difficult to summon it.  He could ask Raven, he could, and he might pay for the answer even if they are friends.  He lights candles with a long wick.  It will grow dark soon enough and and inside his study it looks like a temple, like a churchyard.

crow
[Spirit 1 + Corr 2 - can we find our friend anywhere around the house that I can't see?  Base diff 5, -1 for instrument, -1 taking time.  WP.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (7, 8, 8) ( success x 4 ) [WP]

senobnaws
He can find the mockingbird with a man's Grecian face a man's muscled arms instead of talons he can find it indeed nestled in Pen's jewelry box one of her jewelry boxes folded up with his three shadows under a pall a mystery a secret no spirit here not doing anything nope but of course Nick is a magick-wielder he can find it he finds it he sees it.

crow
He can find the spirit there; unfortunately, figuring out what to do with the spirit once it is there is more difficult.  There is no way to trap it, see: he lacks the knowledge of how to do such a thing, how to bind pattern to circle so that nothing can move through.  He lacks the knowledge of how to target this creature specifically.

He could ask another spirit to eat it.  More bargains, more borrowing.  He discards the idea as he moves back toward the bedroom and leans on the dresser next to the jewelry box.  "Hello there."

crow
[Charisma + Empathy?  Trying not to spook you, yo.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )

senobnaws
the creature goes very still when it becomes evident that nick can see it is seeing it and look it cranes its head up his head up stares at nick but just in case doesn't move maybe nick is just testing the silence sometimes humans do that sometimes even shamans do that and it is funny it doesn't mean anything anyway nick finds himself examined, sharply, shrewdly, though its eyes wander to the glittering necklace

crow
Nick can see its eyes wandering to the necklace; Nick's hand moves in that direction too, and he hooks it again around his finger (carefully, see; he remembers the barb.)  "If you're going to wear peoples' necklaces you ought to put them back where you found them," Nick tells it.  The stones glint in the light of the bedroom; now the smell of warm beeswax is beginning to join the other smells mingling in the house.

senobnaws
"you can see me so you must give me your eyes," the spirit says, testingly, because it wants to see whether nick can hear it too; it lifts itself flies up and flies closer and closer to his face and it doesn't have a beak with that man's face instead but a man's mouth can still bite out an eye

crow
Nick is quick to draw his face back, and most of his body in fact, and so the necklace recoils along with him too.  "It seems maybe you ought to just get better at hiding," he says.  "What will you give me, for the use of my home?"

senobnaws
"I won't eat your eyes when you are sleeping," the spirit says, tries. It circles Nick's head once, and twice, and three times, and its three bird-winged shadows lazily follow; then it flits behind him and lands atop the tall mirror Pen sometimes draws out and looks down at Nicholas.

crow
"I would hope not.  You've already been a very poor mannered guest," Nick says, gesturing with the hand that is holding the necklace.  "Why should you want my eyes?"

senobnaws
"Because they see me," the spirit says. "Maybe you are the guest. This is my home now, and these things are going to be mine. I will have them all."

crow
"Mmm," Nick says, and his eyes sweep up to the spirit perched on top of the mirror with something akin to amusement.  "And how are you going to accomplish that?"

senobnaws
"I'm going to nest in them, and frustrate you, and when enough things go wrong you witches will move and I will have everything," the spirit explains, patiently.

crow
"Do you not have a house of your own, that you should want mine?"  Nick, too, seems patient; innocent, even.  "Are you not concerned that we might be dangerous to you?"

senobnaws
"Things are less dangerous when I take their eyes out," the spirit says, feathers fluffing up and out, and see, its fingers tighten on the mirror. A crack does not quite appear, but there's a sound which resonates on both sides of the gauntlet of some thing bending. "I will take yours out and hers and you will not be dangerous. I will have this house."

crow
"I may still be dangerous without my eyes," Nick says.  "She and I are both witches, like you said.  Raven is nearby, and Owl.  I could ask them to take your wings and give them to me as payment for my eyes, even if I were blind.  Wouldn't you rather have a house that was less dangerous for you?"

senobnaws
"I would take your tongue, too," the spirit says. "I would take your tongue and leave its meat in your eye holes, and then you would talk when you tried to see," and it cracks up, highly amused by this image.

crow
The spirit cracks up and Nick, despite the stomach churning image, cannot help but smile because he shares mirth with other things.  "That doesn't sound like it would be very helpful in making me less threatening.  But we don't need our eyes.  I knew you were here, without my eyes.  I could trap you in a box, or if you took everything from us maybe our skins could come and find you while you rested.  They could wrap around you and make you soft and human.  I don't know what you would do then."

senobnaws
"I'd eat your skins," it says, and clicks its teeth together, soft. "But you want to make a deal with me, I can tell you do. You want me to go away and have nothing."

crow
"I want you to go away and leave my house in peace, yes," Nick says.  "But I don't see a reason why we couldn't find you another house instead."

senobnaws
"I want this house."

crow
"What would it take for you to want a different house, then?"

senobnaws
"This house to be less what I want," the spirit says, and it laughs again. "Or you could give me something better than a house."

crow
"What would be better to you than a house?"

senobnaws
It yawns; it yawns very big. "I can't tell you everything. You either know or you don't and I stay forever and I get all of the things that shine and all of the fire too; it is all mine."

crow
Nick sighs and pulls his phone back out of his pocket: and here, taps out another text to Pen.

It's not leaving.  It says it wants the house.

"I suppose we'll just have to live here with you, then," he says.

senobnaws
"Eventually you will leave," the spirit says, confidently, although with an air of melancholy. "They all leave. Do you agree if you don't know I stay forever and get all of the things that shine and all of the fire too that it is all mine?"

crow
"I don't agree," Nick says.  "But it sounds like you've been in other houses before, so how can you stay forever?"

crow
[Wits + Alertness]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )

senobnaws
His phone vibrates or buzzes or dings. Pen's response: Too bad. :(

The spirit, meanwhile, takes this moment to go slicing through the air, tearing through it right at Nicholas's head. If he thinks it is going to crash into him, he would be forgiven; it does not crash into him. It veers past and flies into another room, its three shadows weaving together.

"Forever will tell us when we get there," it says, over its wing. Now it is preening on one of the light fixtures. "Do you agree you must give me a house of things I ask for if you keep your eyes?"

crow
For a moment Nick does think that the spirit will crash into him; he swings his head away and to the side, out of its path.  It is too much like the Owl that tried to claw at him once, might have done him harm if it hadn't been weaker than he.  "That depends on what you ask for," Nick says, once he has turned to face it once more.  "I think if you meant to take my eyes, you might have taken them already."

senobnaws
"Then I can take them?"

Nick
"You may not."  Nick folds his arms, watching the spirit preen from where it roosts.  Then he glances back down to his phone.

Heard of a creature with a man's head and a bird's body?  Hands and arms instead of claws?

senobnaws
"I don't want a different house; offer me something better."

The phone rings, or whatever ring tone Nick has set for Pen sings out, in Nick's hand. The sound of it startles the spirit creature; he looks sharp and intent toward the phone, serene mask, unreal.

Nick
His eyes on the spirit, Nick answers the phone.  "Hello?"  A beat.  "Our friend is here with me."

senobnaws
He's probably very smart to keep his eyes on the spirit. The spirit begins to creep closer. Its three-shadow birds sift up, a sound like autumn leaves re-settling.

"Is it doing anything dangerous to you, or to the house? I could certainly list off incidences of bird-creatures with human characteristics, but I'm not certain how helpful that would be. Perhaps you should take a trip to the ranch house?"

Nick
"It wants to drive us out," Nick says, and as the spirit begins to creep closer he takes a step back.  "It's been playing malicious pranks and threatening me a lot."

senobnaws
The spirit's eyes brighten up, like silver coins given a good polish. They have a malicious glint.

"I see. Can it do that much?"

Nick
[Wits + Alertness]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )

Nick
"I'm not sure, and I'm not sure if I want to find out," Nick says, and with another half a step back now that he has noticed the glint in the creature's eyes.

senobnaws
The creature rushes Nicholas: wings out-stretched, lovely; dripping iridescence which shivers in the air after it like a strange photo-realistic effect, a flaw in the computing software -

[Dex + Brawl. Not that it can, like, touch him, but still.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5, 6, 6, 6) ( success x 3 )

senobnaws
[Shadow 1]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 10, 10) ( success x 2 )

senobnaws
[Shadow 2]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )

senobnaws
[Shadow 3]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (4) ( fail )

senobnaws
And for Nick, it looks like all three birdish shadows are clawing at his legs, too, are clambering up his skin and enfolding him, though one of the shadows doesn't seem to be able to get any blows in.

Nick
From the other side of the phone Pen can hear a sharp oath, faint as Nick jerks the phone away from his face and flails his arms to jump away and to the side.  It takes him a moment to realize that the shadows are not doing him harm, that they are climbing up and over him.  He is sure Pen can hear his heart hammering when he finally lifts his phone back to his face.  "I don't think it can come across the Veil," he tells her.  His voice is a little reedy, still.

senobnaws
"What are you going to do?" Pen asks.

The spirit: is no longer in evidence. It whooshed through him, its shadows clawed at him, and then they went that-a-way.

Nick
"I'm not sure," Nick says, twisting his head this way and that to try to tell where the spirit has gone.  "It keeps telling me to offer it something it'll like more than the house."  He takes a tentative step toward the door, then a few more and peers out into the hallway.

senobnaws
"Ah. It wants a bribe; can you catch it and take it elsewhere?"

The spirit is not in the hallway. There is a gurgling sound coming from downstairs, from the kitchen.

Nick
"Probably not," Nick says, though there is a note of doubt there.  "I thought about trying to trap it in something, but I don't really have the strength to bind it."  He starts down the stairs, back to the kitchen.  "Unless I were to try to trap it, physically speaking, which I could do, but that might be kind of dangerous."

senobnaws
"So your options are to physically trap it, but that might be dangerous, to offer it a bribe to leave, to ignore it and hope it goes away, or to find the nearest library and see if you can't find what it is. What - "

And then! His phone beeps, its battery suddenly drained. Hark, is that a bird shadow? It is indeed.

Nick
Nick hadn't been aware of how low the battery was, and he hisses in annoyance and lowers the phone away just to - ah.  He spies the shadow there, and slips the phone back into his pocket.  Then he makes his way the rest of the way down to the kitchen.

senobnaws
All is as it should be in the kitchen, all is as he has left it.

Except the faucet is on, and the drain is plugged up.

Glug, glug. Can he spy the spirit?

Nick
Nick looks for the spirit, peers down into the sink as he steps over to it to turn off the faucet.  The furrow at his brows is a sign that his good humor is beginning to evaporate.

[Wits + Alertness]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )

senobnaws
Twisting the faucet's knob does not seem to have a noticeable effect on the water pouring from the faucet. The sink is slowly filling, and the spirit: he can see its reflection in some of the glass containers of rice and grain etcetera they have out; he can see its reflection in the coffee press. There it is: wedged by a cookie jar, watching with its eyes half-lidded, and small: smaller than it has seemed before. He might wonder if this is a second one.

Nick
Nick does indeed wonder if this is a second one, as he glances at it wedged in there by the cookie jar.  "All right," he finally says, "what do you want in order to leave?"

senobnaws
"Your heart on Tuesdays," it says, helpfully, "and a bowl of new cream every day that no leaf ever touches and a handful of gold."

Nick
"I would be happy to give you a bowl of cream every day," he says.  "I will not give you my heart, now or on Tuesdays.  Do you want gold coins?"

senobnaws
"I want gold." The spirit sounds petulant. "I want all the gold in the sun and all the silver in your hair. I want the gold in the other witch's hair. I want hearts. What will you give me besides a bowl of cream?"

Nick
"If we can give you a necklace of gold spun fine as hair to wear around your neck and keep with you, and a bowl of cream, will you agree to leave our house and not return?"

senobnaws
"No. I will leave for one moon for those things. More. Another thing. Three."

Nick
Nick pauses, and the point between his brows reappears as he looks back at the creature.  "I can tell you a story of whatever kind you desire, each moon, until I've found a suitable new home for you," he says.

senobnaws
"Plus the cream, plus the necklace, and I say what is suitable?" the spirit says, and see, look at its avaricious little eyes, how bright they are; how perfect is the curl of its lip, clearly pleased at pulling one over on this sucker.

Nick
"I will find a home for you and we will both agree on whether it is suitable.  And you will not return to this house so long as she or I lay claim to it."

senobnaws
"Plus the cream and the necklace," the spirit insists, bright-eyed.

crow
The spirit's tone, its hopefulness, gives rise to a little smile in spite of Nick's frustration with the creature.  "All right," he says.  "So you'll leave the house now never to return while she and I hold it, and I will leave a bowl of cream for you daily.  In addition we will leave a necklace out for you with the cream before the moon is out.  Each moon I will tell you a story of whatever kind you desire until I have found a new home for you, and both of us will decide upon its suitability together."

senobnaws
"No you will find a home we both agree and then I will leave this house. Where will I go without a home?" And see its feathers go floof, fluff, flister, and it scowls at him like a little Caesar.

crow
"Where were you before you came here?"  It is scowling at him, and his smile is suppressed now, thin.  "If you don't agree to leave today I will agree to nothing."

senobnaws
"If you agree to nothing, I will break your pipes and steal fire," the spirit says, scowling even further. "I was in a nest before I was here. I was there. There."

crow
"So you left your nest and came straight to my house?  What brought you to my house?"

senobnaws
"My wings."

crow
"If you don't tell me what kind of house you would find to be suitable, how am I to look?"

senobnaws
"I want it to be bright and have breaking things that make noise, and people's hair to steal."

crow
Nick makes a noise low in his throat.  "What if I could get you into the metal and glass tower near the river?"

senobnaws
"I can get into metal and glass towers by rivers without you. I am bored. I like this house."

crow
"It's full of people there who wouldn't know to expect you, though," he says.  "And full of vials you could shatter, and computers and pipes and lab equipment.  It's much larger than this house."

senobnaws
"Lab equipment is boring. Why do you want me to go to the glass tower? Is it a trap?" And see, the spirit narrows its eyes, suspiciously, and picks up one hand balancing more precariously on the other and it picks at itself, scratching in a manner that is vaguely although unintentionally obscene.

crow
"I don't think I'm clever enough to trap you," Nick says.  "You've almost gotten me a few times now.  I thought it might be a place where you could have a lot of fun, since we probably won't fall for your tricks here.  We both know how to find you now."

crow
[Manipulation + Expression]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 8, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 5 )

senobnaws
"You fell for many of them," it says, in a lofty and imperious tone. "Where is your flat electronic computer now?" And it smiles, and Caligula must have looked sweet, sometimes, and so does the spirit, and it ruffles its feathers again and says, "Okay well I can go test the home but if I don't like it I'm coming back."

crow
"All right," Nick says, and leans his hip against the counter as he watches that sweet smile and perhaps he feels a little sorry for the Union members he has just loosed the thing on.  Then again: they took Alex, and they tortured him, so he doesn't feel that sorry.  "I'll be here."

senobnaws
"I will probably not like it. And I will come back for my cream. I will go back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and get lots of cream," and the spirit: dive-bombs right for Nicholas, making a bird-screech of a sound: ca-caw -

[an intimidation roll for the road!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 5, 6, 6) ( success x 2 )

crow
Perhaps to its satisfaction, Nicholas cannot keep himself from trying to duck away from it as it dives toward him, even if he knows that it cannot touch him.  It leaves him with a furrowed brow, annoyed and wondering why he cannot sometimes be more like his wife.

senobnaws
And so the spirit leaves, for now. But not without circling back one more time with Nick's keys, which it drops back in the garbage disposal. How does it leave the house? With aplomb, and a promise to return.

His phone has trouble holding a charge for the rest of the day and seems to need to be plugged in to work at all.

crow
It leaves, for now.  Nick sighs and has to use the tongs to retrieve his keys back out of the disposal, and then he fixes the mesh strainer firmly in place.  At least they don't have kids: such pranks could have been decidedly more dangerous.

And for the rest of the day he leaves his phone plugged in, and he waits, trying all the while not to seem too anxious.

Adoption Day

Caleb
Someone was having an adoption event at the 16th street mall. It was three shops down from a starbucks in front of a place that looked like it used to be an army recruiting station that was turned into a high end sandwich shop. It was flanked by a book store and a place that sold bikinis all year 'round.

Or, at least, Caleb was pretty sure those were bikinis. He wasn't completely familiar with the ins and outs of women's underwear but, frankly, very few people understood the nuance of fancy undergarments. His creator had never bothered to actually explain what the purpose of a bra was in that he would never actually have to wear one and the likelihood of encountering one within his lifetime was remarkably slim. So! No time to really think about underthings and, instead, it was time for people to either loiter or avoid the hoard of cocker spaniels and chihuahuas and pit mixes that were there.

The place smelled like dog food and coffee. Lots and lots of coffee as wave after wave of people toting pumpkin spiced everything came through. The pedestrian traffic was slowing down and then speeding up and going with their own little flow of the universe.

He'd picked up his things at the PO box, held a stack of applications in hand and stood, awkward, at the edge of the mass of barking, wiggly, dog-smelling dog things there.

Olive
[awareness, ho!]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 6) ( success x 1 )

Olive
Across the street from the pet salon is a clock, towering atop its verdigris pole, and beneath the clock is a flimsy metal table with flimsy metal chairs. At this table sits a girl. More about the girl and less about the clock.

She, like so many of the youths trawling the place as they kill time between brunch and going out, is dressed in a manner that either oozes effortless cool or homelessness depending upon the age and temperament of the observer. Knee-high shit-kicker boots and striped board shorts that look like men's boxers from a distance, a plaid shirt underneath an old leather jacket and braids for days. Eyes behind sunglasses in spite of the cloudiness of the afternoon. She's reading a battered paperback when along comes the boy from the bookstore.

At least, it feels like him. Hard to pinpoint which one is him when there are so many dogs and coffee drinks around but Olive kicks her boots off the opposite chair and pockets her paperback and moseys across the street to investigate anyway.

Caleb
[Awareness?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )

Caleb
He's got an application from that bookstore. It's printed out on marbled paper because the staff had just run out of copy paper when they had a massive staff turnover and really never ran out of copies. Two years later, they were down to the green marbling instead of the creme paper.

He's got a beat up, olive-drab jacket. Tennis shoes that have walked quite a ways but at least the jeans and the polo are clean. He's wearing a belt. He's wearing glasses. He looks like a chemical engineering major- pleasant but awkward and probably a bit like a nerd but not in the way that was chic. No, he looked more like an employee at Best Buy than someone who was chic.

But something does catch his attention and he's trying to shrug the backpack off his shoulders and put the papers away. Caleb begins meandering in the direction that he feels something. Heart not pounding in naticipation but, instead, approaching with the steady calmness that comes from the area around them. He finally manages to get the backpack off and put the papers away.

Olive
With the boots' help, the young woman is boosted up to average height. Without them she would stand as tall as the average American eighth grader. It's no wonder she has chosen thick-soled shoes for today's outing. As calm as the aura surrounding her, she still carries herself like she would not hesitate to throw a fist if the throwing were necessary.

It is not necessary now, and she seems like the sort of person who doesn't give a shit about much outside of now.

She moseys up alongside Caleb and cranes her neck, stands on tiptoe, to get a load of what's got so many people crowding the dog salon.

"That is the smallest dog I've ever seen in my life," she says as she returns her heels to the pavement.

Nick
There's a sucker born every minute, or so they say.

One sucker has found the only three-legged pit bull mix at the entire adoption event of among the horde of unwanted dogs and the scattering of senior cats and kittens.  The dog, tan and black brindle, a floppy-eared obvious coward, keeps trying to lick his chin.

He's dressed in a light blue T-shirt and chinos the color of a stormcloud and nearby there is a cream and brown heavy perl knit sweater that he set aside so as not to get dog hair all over it.  He is crouched next to the dog with his arm around it, and is in the process of taking a picture with his phone.  He does not think the picture will melt his wife's heart as she has made her dislike of pets clear, but one can hope.

Nick
[Feel free to post around me for a bit if you guys want!]

Caleb
"Do you think they're naturally that small? Or did someone grow them specifically to be that small?" he looks from Olive, who is small in her own right but not terribly so, to the dog in question. There's a long haired chihuahua who looks to be about the size of a volleyball that seems pretty damned tiny.

Caleb dumps his backpack down beside him, standing a rather unimpressive five feet eight inches tall- he's shorter than the average american male, but not by much. He reaches down to pick it up and inspect more carefully, only to realize-

"... how do I pick this up?"

Olive
"I think you're supposed to let it smell your hand first, so it knows you're not here to start a fight."

Spoken like an individual with little to no experience with domesticated animals. Her voice is mellow, the sort of deadpan typically heard in potheads and retail workers, and she does not seem like a retail worker. Pothead, then. Or millennial. That word has become so loaded.

As she stands off to the side, she finds her attention tugged towards the fellow in the blue shirt. One corner of her mouth tugs in amusement.

Caleb
He nods like what she's saying makes perfect sense. Yes, you do not want to start a fight with the small animals. They're cute, and he has a definite desire to not anger the tiny adorable thing that he is looking at. His attention moves down the way to the man in the blue shirt and-

"Oh, hey Nick! Have you seen this?"

He looks at the pit bull, notices the three legs, "huh, that one's different."

Nick
The sound of his name, and spoken by an unfamiliar voice, jerks his gaze up and away from his phone.  Whatever he'd been reading there had brought a crinkle to the skin around the corners of his eyes, some mixture of amusement and rue.

His eyes meet Caleb's, and his smile is slow to fade because that's the sort of man he is, and seconds later it re-emerges.  "Oh, hey, Caleb," he says, with only a second's hesitation before he speaks the man's name.  The diversion is all the pit bull needs in order to seize upon the chance to lick his chin, and the eye on that side squinches shut and he is quick to close his mouth.

He pats the dog's head, gently pulling it away from his face.  "I know," he says, with obvious enthusiasm for the dog's differences.  "He seems like a good dog."  A glance to Olive.  "Who's your friend?"

Olive
That one corner sneaks its buddy in and the two of them create a full-fledged grin at the phrasing of the question. Though they just met five seconds ago she does not correct him. She lifts her eyebrows and looks over to the young man whose name she does not yet know.

As much fun as playing with puppies is, she seems to be having just as much fun watching other people play with the puppies.

"Olive," she says with the ease of passing a joint, then lifts a hand to wave. "Nice to meet you... Nick?"

Caleb
"Are you adopting a dog?" he asks Nick

He seems to log this away for future reference- that this woman is named Olive and some dogs have three legs. He wonders what else has three legs, or if three legged dogs were just uncommon, kind of like people with green eyes.

"Oh! I'm Caleb, by the way," he offers a hand, confident like he had finally figured out this handshake thing.

Nick
"Nick," he confirms, when Olive asks his name.  He reaches up and strokes the dog's broad head, which seems to go a ways toward keeping it from targeting his chin.  "Nice to meet you, Olive."

He watches the two of them shake hands, and there is a little furrow that appears, momentarily, at his brows: apparently they too have just met.  Caleb seems to be meeting a lot of new people.  Caleb seems like he's new in town, in fact.

"I'd like to adopt a dog, but I don't think my wife would go for it," he says, with a pat on the animal's muscular shoulder.  "Eventually I'll wear her down."

Margot
[May as well join the club, aware + percep]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 6, 8, 8) ( success x 4 )

Olive
And shake they do, Olive's grin suppressing itself, sublimating into a close-lipped smile that even the sunglasses do nothing to dampen. Her grip is firm, her skin dry and warm, the rings on her fingers cool. Her fingernails are all painted black, but the polish is chipping.

"Hey hey," she says in receipt of Caleb's name, and when the handshake is over she pockets both hands.

To the matter of Nick's wife and her resistance:

"What's she got against dogs?"

Margot
Margot wasn't here for an adoption event, Margot was here for a pair of new shoes and a sweater that wasn't a hoodie from a university she was sitting it out from this semester (probably indefinitely, if she were to be honest with herself).  When she'd first noticed the adoption event she already had her bounty jammed into a nylon tote bag carried over one shoulder; on the way out.

She bore no interest in stopping for dogs, but could not deny the intangible wall of disturbance into which she'd suddenly walked, nor the impression and pulls-prickles-tingles-alarms in some joined place between gut-heart-brain that it caused.  Her step didn't faltered but she slowed to a stop like a car whose engine suddenly cut while going uphill.  Her head turned toward the pop-up crates and table for impulse dog adoptions, and it didn't take long at all to find the people responsible for the strange... otherworldliness, almost, that hung here.  Eyebrows hopped up when she recognized two faces in particular, hunkered down some in cautious curiosity when realizing the third person was a total stranger.

One hand on her tote bag, the other raised to gesture a small greeting as she approached.

"Hey."  Graceful as a bullfrog in her social execution, Margot looked between the three before settling upon Caleb.  "You're making friends fast," she observed, and it was hard to tell exactly how she felt about that.

Caleb
He's not too bad at this hand shaking thing. his hands are warm, once up, then down, then up and down one more time before letting go and drawing his attention back to the chihuahua. He observes it for a moment before putting his hand in. He concludes that it is safe to pick the dog up and does so.

The chihuahua vibrates, as chihuahuas are want to do, and he holds the dog much like he's holding a very large, very delicate eggplant. Both hands and a little confused.

Margot comes by and he smiles, bright and decidedly less confused. He gestures with the dog at the people, "That's Olive aaaand that's Nick and... this is a tiny dog."

Nods. Definite. He's covered all of his bases.

Nick
There is obvious pleasure, a warmth that suffuses Nick's face when he sees Margot pass into the area.  If it is also tinged with surprise, well, one never does quite get used to their kind's tendency to attract like to like when in public, which is the same no matter which city one lives in.

He straightens, though he keeps a hand on the dog's head.  It presses in against one of his legs, leans hard.  "Hi, Margot," he says.

Then, to Olive, "I don't think she has anything against them, exactly.  She just doesn't get the warm fuzzy feeling most people get around pets."  And a shrug, here: some people are just that way.  "I've never had a pet and I've always kind of wanted one, though."

Olive
"It looks like the feeling's mutual," she says, of the three-legged mutt seeking to siphon what affection it can from him.

As strange as the confluence of bodies in a public space can be, Olive seems unfazed by it. But then, Olive does not seem fazed by anything. She's swaying back and forth, like her bones prefer dancing to stillness, but her feet are planted and her attention is firm.

"Margot... is that with or without a T?"

Margot
Caleb and Nick both appeared pretty pleased to see her, and where Margot's anxious general demeanor relaxed back some in response.  She was young and nervous, couldn't be older than twenty, and was perhaps five feet tall if you gave or took an inch.  She was dressed in brown boots that laced up the ankles but didn't have terribly thick soles to offer up lift.  She wore a red-and-white checkered tunic of a dress with a chunky brown wool cardigan overtop.  Dark brown hair was worn down to her shoulders, and when she tucked it back behind her right ear it showed a glimmer of ruby streaked from the temples.

"That is a tiny dog," Margot agreed, and lifted a hand to hold a couple fingers out in front of the small canine's nose to smell.  She glanced over to Olive next and blinked big hazel eyes once before answering.  "With.  Hi Olive, nice to meet you."

And, finally, she glanced to Nick's face and down his arm to the dog whose head he'd been touching since she had spied him.  "She was nice enough to not cook Yorick."

Caleb
[skip me!]

Nick
"Maybe someone else will see him being friendly and they'll want him," Nick says, with a glance down at the dog.  There is a little furrow to his brows here: he does genuinely hope the animal finds a home, it would seem.

"She threatened to use him in some kind of ritual once," Nick says, and his voice is touched with humor as he glances over to Margot.  Then, to Olive, "I haven't seen you around before.  Did you get in recently?"

Olive
"Yeah," she says. "From Vegas. I haven't seen you around before either."

A light joke. She stops her swaying in favor of taking a few steps forward, crouching down to let the three-legged dog sniff the back of her hand.

"If I said I was looking for a place to crash, what would you guys say?"

Margot
The chihuahua trembled and sniffed at her fingertips then gave them a small nervous couple of licks.  Margot smiled and tipped her head a little as she moved her fingers to rub behind the little guy's ears instead.  Pen supposedly made empty threats about using the pet rabbit in a ritual, but Margot knew better than to believe that any such comments to be too entirely sincere.  Sure, Pen probably would use arabbit in a ritual, but not a friend's pet.

When Olive commented on needing a place to crash it drew the little bloodwitch's attention.  She looked at the woman a little more carefully now, her boots and jacket and hair and face.  There was an impression of a preacher, almost.  She gave the impression of someone who would guide an exodus across a broad body of water on faith and calm words.

What would she say?  Margot opened her mouth but closed it straight away.  She wasn't certain about sharing any acknowledgement of the chantry with someone she met five minutes ago based on a resonance.

Finally:  "I'd ask who you knew."

Caleb
"Why wouldn't somebody want him?" brows knit together, and he looks at Nick like... like something. It's a complicated emotion, the likes of which Caleb can't seem to adequately articulate for himself. Someone may not want the dog in question- the one with the three legs. THe one who was affectionate but couldn't go home with Nick because, well, reasons.

He's still holding the chihuahua, who seemed to be pretty chill once he's concluded nobody is going to drop him but is still set on vibrate because it's a chihuauha and that is just their natural state- they're either trembling or they're sleeping.

"Don't sleep at the botanical gardens," he tells Olive, "I've been informed that you are not allowed to do that."

Exasperated by that, it would seem. How dare people not let him sleep in public parks!

Nick
Caleb's question, an innocent thing, brings a little smile to Nick's face.  He can read whatever complicated emotion is there on Caleb's face, writ for him to see: Caleb might not be able to articulate it for himself, but Nick might well have been able to do so for him, were he so inclined.  "Some people are more likely to go for puppies or for the flashier dogs," he says.

"There's a place that's willing to let you crash for as long as you need," Nick says.  "It's kind of a drive, though.  A little ways out of the city.  Do you have a car?"

Another look, now, to Caleb.  "Are you...did you try sleeping in the botanical gardens?"

Margot's statement is a wise one, or was, and Nick catches her eyes now and there is a little point that has appeared between his brows.

Olive
Do you have a car?

"Nah," she says, like it's no big deal. "I have a bike."

She scritches the mutt under the chin and behind an ear, then braces herself on her knees in order to stand.

"I don't know anyone yet. It's cool." A shrug. "Soon, I will."

Margot
The answer from Olive was innocuous and caused a small stitch between Margot's heavy eyebrows.  She glanced aside to Nick, who had mentioned the 'place' outside the city, held his eye for a moment when they met, then shrugged and looked over to Caleb next.  She made a face at his comment about the botannical gardens, but didn't appear too surprised.

"They caught you, huh?"  She asked him with a small shake of her head and took her hand from the small dog he was holding, switched her posture so it was more open to the group as opposed to standing facing Caleb's front for the sake of dog-pets.

"It's a bit of a haul on a.. bike."  She almost said 'fixie', don't be so judgy Margot not everyone dressed oddly was a hipster.  She scowled, caught between a social wall and the hard place that was Paranoia, and there was muted reluctance in her voice (read: duty) when she said:  "If you need a ride I could probably help out...  I know where it is."

Boy, did she know.  It was beamed directly into her brain not so long ago.

Caleb
"Yeah, it's unfortunate because it's really beautiful and peaceful, and if you couldn't sleep by a pond with a water fall and smelling some amazing flowers, wouldn't you?" he answers both Nick and Margot's question easily enough. Listens to the rest and manages to offer some reply to them all.

Olive says she doesn't know anyone yet, so it's cool.

"Annie dropped me off out here- it's her house? But she has a hot spring and a gigantic library and-" he stops because he seems to remember that he needs to leave something out "-and she has a weird love of buying groceries."

Margot can attest. Or probably can attest. The chantry seems to have an obscenely well stocked pantry now.

Nick
"I would definitely sleep in a botanical garden if no one were going to chase me off," Nick agrees easily.  He absently gives the dog's jaws a rub at the hinge, where the heavy muscles bunch.

"Oh, so you know Annie already."

There's a glance to Olive, now, who only has her bike.  "I can drive you out there if you'd like.  It sounds like Caleb has already been."

Olive
No hesitation in her answer, no paranoia. She is quite a few years older than Margot but she can remember being nineteen. Does not know Margot is nineteen, but her youth persists in spite of the red shot through her hair, the furrow dug between her brows.

"It does," she says in agreement. "I would like that, if you're sure it's no trouble."

Margot
Botanical gardens did sound like a nice place to live, but Margot figured herself content enough where she was.  Sure, the basement and library still held some mysteries and probable hazards, and there were probably subterranean chambers that she'd yet to even discover.  But she liked the clawfoot tub in the little tile bathroom, and the muted calm colors of the old faded wallpaper in the room she'd claimed as her own.  A waterfall sounded nice, but a bed and roof and kitchen with a coffee maker were even more luxurious.

She pulled her phone from a pocket previously lost to the bulk of her cardigan and glanced down at it, checking the time and date both and figuring in future plans.

"It's not that far out by car," she assured Olive, and locked the screen on her phone before dropping it back into the pocket from whence it came.  "By bike would be another story.  Plus not so safe."

There was a pause where she looked blankly at the woman in the board-shorts-that-she-could-have-sworn-were-mens-underwear, and then realized after a beat that the conversational ball was in the middle of the fooseball table.  Her version of bumping the table was to jerk a thumb over her shoulder and blink.  "Did you, uh, mean from here?  Or another time?"

Caleb
"Oh, yeah, she's really nice she-" he looks back at the dog with the three legs, who seems to be incredibly friendly and seems to also be getting a little more love than he had been before.

"We should go. We can all talk and it won't be weird and we can show you the hot spring," he gestures from one side to the other, which makes the chihuahua look a little confused before he puts it back into a comfortable position near his chest.

"What's it like having a bike?" he asks Olive as he nonchalantly puts the chihuahua in an inside pocket.

Nick
Margot appears to be rising to the occasion, helping the newcomers find their way to the chantry.  Nick is looking down at the dog, and if he is smiling to himself, well, who doesn't like to see apprentices come into their own as experienced members of mage society?

"Are you living out there with Annie?" he asks Caleb, with a glance up to the other man.

Olive
What did she mean:

"Either. Both."

Olive makes an attempt at smothering a laugh when Caleb tucks the little dog into his jacket pocket. A fist pushed against her teeth and her teeth latched onto her lower lip, nothing so obvious as to glance to make sure no one is looking at them. Maybe people are looking at them. It doesn't matter. They are a group but there are other groups just as large as theirs, louder. It's a Sunday. Sundays bring out groups.

What's it like having a bike:

"Like being able to fly. It's amazing."

Margot
"Caleb, did you need a ride back?"  Margot glanced back over to him.  If Nick was humored or proud of how the bug-eyed little apprentice was now corralling newcomers and seeing them someplace safe, the witch-girl missed it.  The last (and first) time she'd met Caleb he was still mastering an understanding of the handshake and was happy to share that he came out of a bunker in Moab and didn't know much about the real world.  The exasperation mingled with concern was akin to watching someone puppysit for the first time.  Responsibility and how it could straddle the line so closely with guilt was not an unfamiliar concept overall, but new when directly applied to the world of Magick.

They could all go, and Margot shrugged one shoulder.  "I don't mind, I suppose, but I wasn't--," whatever she wasn't was put on hold for a moment, as she was interrupted by a chirping ringtone on her phone.  She tugged it free from its pocket again to glance at the screen before finishing her sentence.  "--planning on sticking around.  I gotta take this, but--"  She glanced to Caleb and Olive both, to Nick questioningly as well, and raised the phone to gesture out toward the double doors up the way that spilled into a parking lot.

"I'll meet you guys over there, huh?"

She smiled and waved if there were any declines-- most likely Nick, less likely Caleb, then put her phone to her ear as she turned and walked away.  They'd hear the "Hello?" of greeting, but everything else was washed away by distance, mall chatter, and a yapping dog.

Margot
[I gotta see my way out now.  Thanks for the scene guys!]

Caleb
"Don't worry, Margot, I can get a ride," he assures her, like this should put her at ease over all of this. Caleb continues on with his thought.

"Yeah, I put most of my stuff there and she has some extra rooms. I'm trying to get a job, so I don't think I should live there forever? But it's nice to have windows."

He carefully stays away from the pocket that currently has a chihuahua in it. Caleb starts to make his way back over to his backpack, eyeing the pit bull, then his backpack as if he was trying to do some math. He thinks better of it and slings it on his shoulders.

"So having a bike... it's like running? If you go fast enough it feels like you're flying, but if you let go it just stops...."

Nick
There is a wave to Margot as she makes her way away from them on her phone.  When she invites him out to the chantry he only shrugs: apparently he will be the one offering Caleb and Olive a ride if they desire to head back out that way.  He does not seem upset at the prospect.

He glances every now and again at Caleb, who - well, he's an odd one, isn't he.  Nick is skilled at interpreting context, and it's hard to tell just now what he makes of Caleb.

"Have you never ridden a bike before?  I bet someone would be willing to teach you," he says.

Olive
"How much?" she asks, with a flick of her eyebrows. She's joking. That would be a sucker's bet. Swaying a bit, like to build up the momentum to turn from one fellow to the other, she says to Caleb, "Once you get the hang of it, it's the easiest thing in the world. There's that saying, 'Like riding a bike'? ... I think that's more for picking up a skill after you haven't used it for a while, actually."

Caleb
"I think that, unless you are sitting on something, navigating, and pushing pedals, very few things are actually like riding a bike," he asserts.

Caleb starts to make the quiet getaway with the chihuahua in his pocket, "but no, I've never ridden a bicycle. There wasn't really enough space, or a real need to. I haven't been on a plane, either."

Nick
He watches Caleb begin to drift away, and he rubs the pit bull's ear for a moment.  "If you're taking off, Caleb, I'll see you around," he says.  Then, to Olive, "I can give you a ride though if you want.  I have a few hours before I was planning to be back home."

Olive
[COMMERCIAL BREAK]