The Boy Who Never Had A Chance [Past]

P. Mercury
"But hold on hold on - "

The air is warm: ruddy, a fire burning somewhere. The walls are painted a warm color or at least a color that soaks up the fire's warmth and kindles it into some nostalgia rich color. The walls are wainscotting the wood is warm, too: but with some pitch-black threads in the grain. The room is an old room in an old house in a house that has withstood a number of tests put to it by time although it has also failed a couple and needed to be patched up. The air is also warm because it is full of ardency, right? Of enthusiasm, of laughter: let's pan out.

Penelope Mercury Mars is straddling the arm of a large arm chair. The toe of her right foot is on the ground for balance and her left foot is on the arm chair itself and she has a tumbler of good scotch in her left hand and this is also the hand she is gesturing with. Her right hand is braced on her thigh and she is leaning forward and her balance has gone somewhat precarious.

Pen's arm chair not right next to the fire place. Next to the fire place is a love seat and a table upon which are a heap of evergreen boughs and pinecones and holly branches red berry sprays winter life-springs-up foliage orange dried rinds anything and everything one might need to make wreaths and garlands by hand to celebrate the season. It's Christmas Eve, and there is usually a chest which acts as a table in the empty space between love seat Pen's arm chair and another couple of chairs but right now there's nothing except crafting space and a couple of beers or bottles of scotch and a plate of cookies especial note taken of a plate of ninjabread cookies. The air smells of fire yes but it also smells of evergreen of winter air.

This is a study or a rec room and beyond the little sitting area near the fireplace there is a pool table and beyond the pool table a small (well-stocked) bar beside an even-better-stocked old fashioned heavy-won't-ever-leave-this-room desk. Sitting behind the desk, his feet up on said desk, his fingers steepled, is Robin Anton Kestrel Melchior. Like his Tradition mate, he is dressed sharply. (Penelope Mercury Mars is always dressed sharply.) He has his eyebrows raised like he just can't see the problem here.

"Ye-es?"

"What would you do with an army of animate gingerbread men? It's hokey. It's inelegant. It's "

(At the same time.)
"Unexpected - " / " - just ridicul - " / " - just when you thought - " / "ous. Let's be serious. Let's - hush up!" / " - the Spanish Inquisition couldn't. Hold on, Pen!" / "Don't tell me to - " / "Don't tell me to - "

Brief stare between the woman straddling the arm chair and the man behind the desk.

"Let's - " Pen says, and Robin says, "You just - "

They both stop and eye one another again.


N. Hyde
The other room, not too far away: there's snow piling up outside the windows, the kind that makes people double check to make sure they've pulled their boots and hats and scarves and gloves out of storage.  It hushes the world, hallows it (how appropriate for Christmas Eve), and belies the chaos and steaming, sticky summer heat of the kitchen.  Nicholas Hyde, curly-headed, his eyes conveying just a little world-weariness, looks like he belongs out there, and yet he is here, ushering in some of that stillness like a draft.

From the fireplace: there's a clatter, but not of hooves or the iron wrought treads of a sleigh.  Instead: a yelp, a ringing of what is unmistakably metal against metal, and then - "Oh FUCK - no, Nick, get those, they're going to burn!"

A man's voice, resonant tenor - "We have enough cookies, what about - "

Then, "My arm is fine!  Get those!"

Another, quieter clang as the pan is placed on another surface, a stovetop perhaps.  Running water.  "There.  How bad is the burn?"  Pause.  "Here.  Go sit down."

Liz, this happens to a lot.  The calm acceptance [resignation] on her face as she wanders out into the main room, a wet cloth held to her forearm, a wisp of blonde hair stuck to her face, says as much.  She pauses midstep, "Oh, I forgot my drink," which perhaps is telling for those who can put two and two together, and wanders back into the kitchen.  Moments later, she emerges, a mug in hand, steam redolent with the scent of spiced cider (oh, and that other scent - rum), in enough time to witness the exchange.  She is not sharply dressed - this is part of her well-meaning charm.  "Count me in favor of the gingerbread army."

Nick's hair precedes him only slightly as he looks around the doorframe into the room.  "You should probably put some ointment on that."

P. Mercury
[Why not? Pen, how good is your Don't-You-Even glare? Charisma + Intimidation.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7) ( success x 3 )

P. Mercury
[But Tytalans aren't intimidated by nuffink willpower!]

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

P. Mercury
Both Hermetics break off their engagement long enough to look Liz over when she returns to the main room. Robin Anton has one eyebrow raised. He goes back to eyeing Pen. Pen is checking out the Chorister's hand or arm. She's quicker than Robin Anton, and is magnanimously willing to ignore the gingerbread army comment made by the Chorister, so she says, "Are you all right? More rum?" And she flicks her dark eyebrows toward some of the bottles which are on the ground instead of behind the bar where they should be.

Robin Anton, however, is not done winning an argument. It's all about timing, and he can wait for it.

He waits until Liz has answered or chosen a seat.

He waits. Robin Anton lets his head tip back so he can better see the doorway when Nicholas pokes his head around the door. This is difficult when he is still engaged eyeing his Tradition mate but he manages with sparse grace. Taps his fingers together -- gently. He has on one ring, of onyx on silver, and it does not reflect light. "There's a medical kit behind the bar. That's the Chorus with me, then." Stay focused, Pen. That's Robin Anton's needling tone.

Because: You should put an ointment on that & There's a medical kit behind the bar found P. Mercury Mars engaging less in an argument and more in smiling at the owner of dark curly hair in this particular way, see, which has less to do with actual muscle control and more to do with the sudden leap of spirit and adrenaline, flesh a bare veil. Witness the next moment when -

Robin, goading: "Who are you going to get?"

- Pen skewers Robin a cool but portentfull look. Clash! Clang! They're bright in their way, the Magicians, and a creature lesser than a Tytalan might have quailed. Robin Anton manages to be skewered and smile, batting his long lashes. The cool but portentfull look heats proportionally.

Then Pen says, gallantly: "Why, sweet little Robin! Tweety boy! I am serene in the knowledge that I can take you, your animate gingerbread army, and Liz (sorry, Liz!) at her most on key, and others need not join up with the war. I can do it alone, and with my wand."

Pen balances her scotch glass on her knee (this is precarious; she decides to balance it on the seat of the arm chair, instead, which is still precarious but less so), and pulls her wand out of her boot.

Does the Flambeau intend on setting the plate of gingerbread men on fire to prove a point against the Tytalan? Is such a proper use of Magick and is it worth the risk of Paradox?

N. Hyde
Magi that know other worlds like they know this one, beings who are Other the way that  they know people: many of them have this quality about them, that Otherness that can't quite help but bleed over.  There's something a little eerie about them.  Nick is the same.  He frequently seems to look past, which is often the same as looking through, which is often something that might set others around him a little on edge.  He softens it; he does quite well at that.  And yet.

A smile, only a little wry in nature, finds Pen when her gaze breaks just long enough from Robin to look across the room.  Nick ducks back into the kitchen then, because Liz (with only a little eye-rolling) is occupied finding the medical kit behind the bar.

She whirls, nearly sending hot cider flying, when the wand comes out.  "Ohmigosh, you two!  Can't we have a Christmas without setting something on fire?"

She sets her mug down long enough to smear ointment on her arm, where a rising welt is visible where she pressed her arm against the top of the oven.  It's done quickly, with the obvious impatience of someone who is frustrated by the limitations of a fleshy body, who'd just erase the burn from existence if she didn't care to avoid the Paradox.  "I think she does have a point about the gingerbread army's major failing, though, Rob."

Nick emerges then, hazel eyes wandering to take in the scene, a glass of whiskey held lightly between his fingertips, and he might have contributed a word, except -

"Did any of the cookies make it?"

"Burnt to a man.  God rest their souls."  Nick delivers this with the appropriate gravitas, raising his glass to Liz and taking a sip as he takes a seat on the arm of the loveseat next to Pen.

P. Mercury
[Welp! Goaded. Let's set the gingerbread men on fire, too! Forces 2 + Matter 2 + Corr 1. We'll give this rote a cool Hermetic-y name at some point, but basically the Matter at Hand [cookie men] become very attractive to the Forces being waved in their direction [Fireplace] and FWOOM. Diff: Highest Sphere 2 + Vulgar 4. -1 for personalized instrument (wand). We'll willpower it because goaded!]

Dice: 2 d10 TN5 (3, 7) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

P. Mercury
[Tytalan's Awareness.]

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

N. Hyde
[Nick's Awareness]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )

N. Hyde
[Liz's Awareness]

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

P. Mercury
[P's Init b/c R is really being a dick and can be countermagick fast enough. +7.]

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

P. Mercury
[R's init b/c he really wants to be a dick and can he countermagick fast enough. +5]

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

P. Mercury
"Pfah," Rob says to Liz, of Pen and points and gingerbread men, when suddenly the gingerbread men who are not animate find themselves in the hot seat.

Let's take a moment to appreciate Pen, wand in hand. The wand is a good wand, made of a mystically appropriate wood which was harvested under a full moon and seasoned in a place of salt and stone and water, and fitting the tip with appropriate metal accoutrements was one of her first forgeries after. The wand is a good wand; it was made under the eye of her master, Horace Lysander Notos Gladstone, and is there anything more dashing than a wand? Not the way Pen wields hers; all casual aplomb, all nonchalant élan - a certain toss of her head, a practiced and graceful dip, and they can all feel the moment that it is quite as if the tip of the wand has hooked onto some invisible force slipped beneath it hooked tugged by a weight and then transformation [Ardent means the green fuse that drives the flower, see, Ardent means passionate, means fervent as a first kiss and the second and third fourth fifth Ardent means also here braided with Daring, which is a way to say reckless, certainly, which is a way to say Why Not, which is a way to say Icarus - ] and the fire in the fireplace flares up liquid sheet of gold and the gingerbread men catch a-smoulder. Easy to imagine the gesture of her wand did the whole damned thing, instead of the will behind the sword-gray eyes.

This is not a party for cookies.

The lift and flare of flame catches in Pen's whisky glass and shivers gold; the scotch is already a-quaver. Pen swings her foot and holds the wand still for a moment, as if the fire might try to escape: and it might, mightn't it?

Then she, rather neatly, reaches down for the scotch and takes another sip. "Traditions are important, Liz. If ours is setting things on fire come the holidays, so be it."

"Ugh. You're such a Flambeau," Robin Anton says, in tones of disgust. He'd sat up sharp when he felt Penelope's resonance flowering in the air burning just so licking just so and he'd spread his hands on the desk and begun to focus but he wasn't quite quick enough. Now he studiously ignores the gingerbread men's smoldery destruction much in the way a cat ignores another cat when the two cats just began to fight for no reason and broke apart to lick their fur pretty again. "Well here are some more cookies down, Nick. Let's hear a fitting eulogy."

P. Mercury
Rob adds, and it's a thing of wonder, how serene he can be when he's at his most obnoxiously goading, "Let's fain have the famous eloquence that would drag angels from their rest."

N. Hyde
As the gingerbread men begin to blacken and crisp in the wandering flames, Liz's hands fly up and she releases a wordless squeal of sympathy for each of their little plights.  "Pen - !"  But they are gone, carbon and sweet-smelling smoke all that remains, and Liz stomps a foot, the picture of tiny, impotent rage.  "Really, you two?"

Well-timed, her phone tweets for her attention; shaking her head, Liz wanders back into the kitchen.

If Pen and Rob are two cats spitting, Nick could very well be a third watching from the windowsill, tail twitching.  He doesn't react as the cookies go up in flames.  He takes a sip of his whiskey and crosses his legs at the ankles.  There's frequently something a little distant about him, Nick - something not entirely there.  His is the air of a deserted church or silent glade, a burnt mound once the fire's gone: t's often mistaken for being empty, dispassionate.

So, too, could the gaze he levels at Rob be misinterpreted in that way.  His hazel eyes are cool in the seconds before they are touched with good humor.  "It's Christmas Eve.  Better to let the angels get their rest, don't you think?"

P. Mercury
"I do not think," Rob says, not prepared to let Nick escape so easily. "They should be marshaling. C'mon, Nick. Marshal 'em."

Liz probably says you two quite a lot. Rob looks after Liz when she leaves, as if he's considering asking her to bring something in from the kitchen. He still hasn't moved a great deal -- when he leaned forward and put his hands on the desk, ready to dispel a rote but not quite ready, it was the most movement he'd made in a while and he's slipping back into sheathed stillness.

At the same time Rob is trying to get Nicholas Hyde to wax eloquent on the fate of cookies, Miss Mercury decides to leave off straddling the arm of her arm chair in favor of sitting on the love seat beside the love seat arm Nicholas is perched upon. There isn't a lot of grace in the move, but she is economical: one clean motion will do it, and serve to loop an arm under or around Nick's knee as well.

In catcam terms, a luxurious body rub or head bump.

"Liz, there are brownies in the refrigerator!" Pen calls toward the kitchen, by way of making up. "Curry brownies and raspberry balsamic! I bear no responsibility for the existence of either flavor, though I brought them."

"Curry?" Robert says, in the exact tone he says 'Ugh, you're such a Flambeau.'

N. Hyde
[Does Nick find the silence suspicious?  Let's see.]

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

N. Hyde
"I'm pleased that you think that's within my power," Nick says, with a friendly quirk of the mouth and without a hint of irony.  He hasn't broken eye contact with Rob, though there's Pen, making a neat slide around over to the other side of the loveseat.  He breaks eye contact then to smile and glance down as her arm loops under his knee, letting his hand fall to lightly rest behind her shoulder.

"A shame you weren't a little faster, perhaps we wouldn't have needed the eulogy," is the slightly regretful comment that follows.  Nick glances at Rob again with a faint smile, resting his whiskey glass on his unoccupied knee.  His hair is a dark halo, limned from behind by the warm firelight of the room: see how innocent.

From the kitchen, there is silence; perhaps Liz has gone to investigate the brownies, despite Rob's skepticism.   Perhaps she's discovered the pull of the raspberry balsalmic and is finding a way to pair these things together; vanilla ice cream perhaps.

Yet Liz is generally not silent for long; briefly, Nick's eyes lift toward the kitchen.  Only briefly.

P. Mercury
I'm pleased that you think that's within my power.

"I have it on authority," Rob says, as if surprised that Nick would ever doubt Rob's faith in his eloquence, and his voice is not devoid of a hint of irony; but that's Rob. He is calm -- he is often still waters, deep and dark; but his kind impulses are few and far between. This scimitar of a slender smile; it encompasses Nicholas and Penelope and hardens in the face of innocence. Tytalans are too good to huff. Especially Robin Anton.

"Ach, well." 'Humble,' our Rob. "I can't defeat Mars every time; wouldn't be Mars without the occasional victory."

"I have noticed, Robin," Penelope says, "that you only deign to call me Mars when you're plotting something I won't like or you're about to be what you think is sneaky. I am alert and ready for your skullduggery, sir. Just wait until he has a proper nickname for you, Nick."

"Nicky is a tough nut to crack, but he knows that. I already promised not to call him Jekyll," Robin says. "I promised it solemnly. Saint Nick is seasonally appropriate, but hardly any fun. Sainted Nick, perhaps. Casper the Friendly Ghost? Patience? Hmm. I'm satisfied with my names for Liz - " He pauses, raises his voice: "Hey, Cookie! Do bring in the cheese plate, will you?"

N. Hyde
This is all well meant, the banter - at least, on Nick's part it is.  Perhaps for Rob as well; goading is in his nature (but what would he do with a man who can't be goaded?)  And yet.  There is, perhaps, in the shadow of Nick's smile, something that likes to see great men torn down, arrogance humbled: even if in microcosm.  This is why he likes Rob; this is why he sometimes doesn't.
"I'm partial to Casper," he says, "though I suspect that for you, it's much less fun if I agree."
'Cookie,' also perhaps somewhat seasonally appropriate, often provokes a roll of the eyes; perhaps Robin Anton can see it in his mind's eye, visualize the frustration of a woman who is often dismissed as 'cute' or 'sweet.'  It is debatable whether this is calculated on Liz's part, or whether she has merely learned to use it because she has had to live with it, or whether she simply hates it; regardless, she rebels.
As Rob calls in the direction of the kitchen, Nick's eyes drift that way as well.  "Do you need help with anything, Liz?"
When Liz reappears, it's with a scurry; there's a cheese plate in hand, certainly, which she drops almost abruptly next to Rob.  Liz, she's not known for her grace (Chorister or not.)  "I think I need to go, guys.  Sorry.  I'll be back later."
P. Mercury
Robin Anton is startled by the abruptness of cheese platter attainment and he swipes the plate off the desk so he can assure himself it hasn't been scratched, then sets it down again.
He is also pragmatic, disinterested.
"Bring more drinks when you return. The cherry brandy's about all we'll have left by midnight, unless Thane provides. I'll give you my card."
Pen is interested, and not pragmatic. The Flambeau who looks like she's crawled out of a Tennyson poem feels like she belongs in a David Bowie song looks like a piece of art gathers herself to stand, and her expression is one of dismay: "What? Oh, don't leave me alone with these two."
As if it isn't Pen and Rob who are more likely to be the 'these two' spoken of in such tones. She hooks her thumb at Nick, and impulse given voice out-of-the-way, the more considered, "But they don't call me Mercury for nothing, hey? Do you need some quickness?"
N. Hyde
Nick: debatably pragmatic, but difficult to say.  He is interested, too; the gaze he levels at Liz is a thoughtful one, though he hides it behind the rim of his glass as he sips.  He is never so quick to react as Pen, for better or for worse.  He adds, "Take her along, Liz.  Robin and I can bond."  A beat.  There are times, occasionally, when it is difficult to tell whether or not Nick is serious.  "Where is Thane, anyway?"
Liz looks up at Pen out of the corner of her eye as she's wiggling her feet into her boots.  The process is not going very smoothly, likely because she has not unzipped them, and yet she persists.  "Oh, I don't - I don't want to trouble you," she says, with a grunt of frustration as she reaches down and tugs one boot on, stubbornly yanking it over the ball of her heel and all the way up.
"I can bring drinks.  I'm just going to run home for a minute."
The other boot awaits.  A blonde hair flops over Liz's forehead as she looks at it in dismay, and then finally gives in and tugs the zipper down.  "The dog.  You know."
[She's not a great liar.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
N. Hyde
Or, perhaps, she is.
P. Mercury
[Oo, oo. Pen's Perception + Empathy, first.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 6, 6, 9) ( success x 3 )
P. Mercury
[Robin's next.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 3, 9, 9) ( success x 2 )
N. Hyde
[Nick's Perception + Empathy]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )
N. Hyde
[Tiebreaker!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )
P. Mercury
[Pen: HAH, I win, Rob!
Rob: Whatever. You have to tie-break.
Pen: But regardless I won over you. I was better, man. Admit it.
Rob: You're a lot more gregarious in OOC than you should be oh jesus even the fucking Chakravanti --
Pen: Hah! Ah, the glory of the shrewdest of houses, the most calculating and insightful when it comes to the workings of the minds of other people, how low it has fallen! How rot and ruin have --
Rob: shut up.
Pen: (beams)
Pen's Tie-breaker!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 4, 10) ( success x 1 )
N. Hyde
[But can I beat Robin?]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 6, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )
N. Hyde
[Ziiiiiiiiing]
N. Hyde
[Nick - hmm.]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 5, 5, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )
N. Hyde
[REALLY?]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )
N. Hyde
[Liz - ]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (5, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
P. Mercury
The Chorister may not usually be a great liar, but Christmas Eve is a time for miracles. Robin Anton doesn't notice anything, but then he's disinterested; occasionally, there are prices to pay for such distance.
He has found his card, a black heavy opaque credit card for some wealthy person's bank most other people have never heard of, and he slides it toward Liz.
"I'm quite untroubled!" Pen says, and sets what remains of her scotch down on the floor (clink) and then stands -- misleading languor and simplicity in the movement. Liz is struggling with her boots. Pen doesn't struggle with hers, but perhaps Lysander made her practice again and again putting boots on quickly just in case the call came. There's always a call to be ready for, and it's tough to live always readied --
it takes work.
Her silk house slippers come off (they're mermaid green and silver and look vaguely Turkish) and by the fireplace limned in orange she pulls on damp socks and winter boots again. By the time Liz tugs the zipper down, she is quite ready and has, obviously, determined that yes she is going with Liz. "I want to try the new tires out on ice anyway."
"Hurry back," Robin says. Then, decisions made and case closed, moves on to say, "Thane is getting more forest to bring into my study." He doesn't sound aggrieved; rather, amused. "Because these aren't enough for the wreaths or garlands or whatever it is he wants us to make. What do you think of his coracle idea, Caspar?"
Testing the nickname, thoughtfully.
N. Hyde
There are prices to pay for drinking alcohol, too, even among a gathering of friends.  Pen is the only person who seems to have picked up on Liz and her frazzled emotional state; Nick, for his part, seems to have accepted "the dog" as the explanation (there's nothing that will destroy a home quite like a puppy, after all).  He is staring into his glass, perhaps hoping that they bring back more whiskey.  He reaches for a piece of cheese, popping it into his mouth as he slides down the arm rest into the proper cushion of the loveseat.
Pen has her boots on before Liz does, in spite of starting after Liz finally got the first boot on.  Liz finally triumphs over the faded leather, yanking the zipper up over her fuzzy long red-and-green Christmas socks.  Pen is also likely the only one who notices that her face crumples a bit, and finally she says, "Okay, Pen.  I've been drinking anyway."
So has Pen, but nevermind.
Then Liz begins pulling on her scarf, gloves, coat, hat.  This is an affair that proceeds thankfully much quicker than the boots (it helps that she unzips the coat first.)  "Try not to give me a heart attack, okay?"
Nick glances toward the heaped evergreen through a few twists of hair, which he absently shakes out of his eyes.  "It must be something like that.  I can't imagine what else he would want us to make with all of this.  Effigies?  A log cabin?"
P. Mercury
"In my study, I should hope not," Robin Anton says to the idea of a log cabin. He seems thoughtful. "But perhaps you're on to something there.
Meanwhile, "I will try," Pen says to Liz, seriously and with contrition for past heart attacks thoughtlessly incurred by reckless driving. She doesn't put on gloves or a jacket or a scarf or a hat, as those things are hanging by the door on the way out. While Robin Anton is still saying but perhaps you're on to something there, Pen's left hand has found Nick's hair and she pulls tenderly on a curl, then pushes the whole dark mess away from Nick's brow. "But I will not swear it," she is saying.
The Hermetics often talk over one another or at the same time. It can be distracting to people not used to them. They're the Hermetics of their own Hermetics-only cabal that decided to stay caballed together. Go figure.
Robin Anton. "He's been talking about green places and hills. Maybe we're meant to make a club house?"
"It's meant to be for a long dark night of the soul," Pen says, "Crowns and masks. He talked about this when he dropped off the greens, Song-robin." It looks like Liz is ready so she leaves the fire place and the love seat and Nick and swipes up Robin Anton's credit card, pocketing it deftly. "See you soon."
Exit a Liz and a Pen. Enter, bonding.
N. Hyde
A long dark night of the soul.  "He did say that, didn't he," Nick says, picking up a sprig of evergreen and running his thumb over the needles.  He smiles at Pen as she goes to leave.  "You're spoiling the supposition.  Watch out for ice!"  It is unlikely that Pen will take much care to watch out for ice,  at least not as carefully as Nick would like, but hope springs eternal.
"Thane hasn't done this any year before, then?" he asks Robin.  Nick is still relatively a newcomer to the cabal, newer even than Liz; it is still a surprise to his sisters that he joined a Tradition, much less a group of other magi.
As they move toward the car into the long dark, Liz fretfully spins one of the tassels on her hat.  "You remember the way you get to my house, right Pen?"  Of course she does.
Liz looks as though she might say more, but she instead puts her head down into the wind and trudges through the snow toward the car.  "Maybe we should get the drinks first.  That cherry brandy isn't going to last - I can't believe how much you all drank already.  You could have at least saved some for Thane."  Querulous at times, Liz.
P. Mercury
"No. Last year he brought mistletoe and wore evergreen in his buttonhole, but before that," Robin Anton shrugs. This multi-Tradition cabal is relatively new to him, too. "He must be coming out of his shell."
The eyebrow cock which accompanies coming out of his shell is so pointed as to be deliberately hilarious, Mister Casper-the-Friendly-Ghost.
--
The flurries of snow are lovely even and in spite of the cold, and they're light flurries too, whipping up so as to resemble so much downy feathers. The wind is the knife hidden behind the feathers; Pen's bangs are instantly ruffled and she adjusts the wind of her scarf accordingly, then puts her hands into her pockets.
A nod. "Rob and Nick will be fine, and Thane too when he shows up. Probably with drinks. Something's just ruffled Song-robin's feathers the wrong way tonight; he likes it."
Beep as the car is unlocked.
N. Hyde
To Robin's deliberately pointed brow, cool amusement.  Nick stretches one leg toward the fire, nudging Pen's slippers aside and out of the way of the heat in a manner so casual it could be an afterthought.  Nick does not give the impression of a person who does anything thoughtlessly, however; heat can damage silk, after all.  "Just what are you implying?"
Were Nick and Robin to know each other for years upon years, it's feasible that they could settle into a sort of familiar back-and-forth dance after a time: they're alike and yet not alike just enough, alternately perceptive and cagey just enough.  "You and Pen are lively tonight.  We'll have to tell Thane he missed the excitement."
--
Liz climbs into the car, pulling her scarf up around her mouth and nose just a fraction too late to really make a difference; the car will be warm shortly enough, after all.  "He is a little sharp tonight, isn't he."
Liz buckles her seatbelt (oh yes, she does - she remembers the last time she drove with Pen) and clasps her mittened hands together.  "So, um, there's someone staying at my house.  You might not see him.  But, you know, just in case he makes an appearance, so it's not weird.  But I'll be right in and out."
P. Mercury
"If you think I'm implying something, well you have perceptive eyes."
Robin Anton smiles, warmly. "We're always lively, but I'll try to keep some excitement on ice for Thane."
And like that he decides to leave his chair behind the desk, strolling to take a seat in an arm chair across from the love seat instead. First he pokes the fire with a poker, not willing to risk the displeasure of paradox just to make a point. Second he moves the platter of burnt gingerbread. Third he picks up a sprig of evergreen. Then he composes himself, comfortable.
"What do you think of it, then?"
--
 Vroom vroom. Pen drives.
Carefully, more or less. The tires won't get their test until she hits a certain speed and she opens the glove compartment, taking the turn out onto the street one-handed while she searches for the amulet she wants.
"Oh? A sleeper or a friend who'd like to come over to the Manor for drinks?" The Manor is the nickname for Rob's house, with its luxurious pretensions.
N. Hyde
Nick shifts his stretched leg to make room to accommodate Robin, draping a languid arm over the armrest Pen had been seated on earlier that evening.  His energy easily falls into the background in groups of people, in chaos; now in that absence it more easily comes to the forefront, a hushed glow that seems ensconced in the fire and reflected on the walls.
He smiles, holding up his sprig of evergreen in front of him as though to put it alongside Robin in his line of sight.  "Wondering if you're more of a crown or a mask man."  A beat.  "What do I think of what, specifically?  I enjoy listening to you and Pen.  It's like watching a play unfold.  With the bonus thrill I always get from being uncomfortably aware of my mortality."
---
A sleeper, or a friend.  Liz is not sure the visitor is either; perhaps it shows.  "Ha, I 've always wondered whether it's Rob who started calling it the Manor, or someone in his family," Liz says.  She's a person who talks as she thinks, and thinks as she talks.
"Well, so...okay, so don't be mad at me, Pen.  He's, um...well, his energy is a little off.  You'll notice," Liz says, extra emphasis on notice, the word itself big enough that it could overshadow the explanation of whatever might be there to be noticed.  "He's just here with me until we figure out where he can go."
This is Liz: there are times when sympathy for the devil isn't just an old turn of phrase.
P. Mercury
That garners a laugh from Robin Anton, lines springing into sharp relief around his eyes and mouth. Elbows on his knees, fingers steepled but pointed downward.
"This," he says. He nods toward the heap of evergreen boughs or toward the collection of seats and glasses and plates, all the signs of life and liveliness -- their cabal.
--
Pen glances at Liz sidelong, but a loud honk honk from an oncoming car (a truck) causes her gaze to snap back to the road. The oncoming truck belongs to Thane, and he waves from behind the wheel. There look to be a heap of trees in the back of the truck.
"His energy is a little off," Pen repeats. Her voice is winter brightness, curious and lucent and invested: "Who is this guy, Lizzy? Did he text about the puppy?"

N. Hyde
[Reposting last post]

Their cabal.  Nick is a relative newcomer - though aren't they all, really.  Pen and Robin know each other from sometime before, when Nick was still a wary Orphan and all of them were merely people he Knew Of.  The rest, they've come as they've come.  "We're an odd little collection," Nick says, and his smile is warm at the edges.  "Before I was initiated I got the impression that different Traditions didn't band together as much as we have."

It's perhaps an odd statement for Nick, who was born minutes apart from his sisters - an Orphan and a Hermetic.  Yet perhaps the fact that he is here with Pen (the fact that he'd much rather be with Pen aside) instead of with them on Christmas Eve is telling.  "I think we fit together."

And the ardent heat and cool evergreen, the hallow that has settled through and throughout the place, that sense of Chosenness, security [belovedness] - perhaps they do, at that.  "Was the old cabal you and Pen had like this?"

--------------

Liz, in spite of the way her fingers were twisting together seconds before, still finds a smile for Thane as he drives past, her arm waving with all the enthusiasm of a hitchhiker flagging down a truck in the desert.  "I don't know where Rob is going to put all of those trees," she says.  And indeed.  Where will Robin put all the trees.

The question preoccupies her for a moment, but not Pen, and this is one reason she makes a terrible liar: she gets wrapped up in the deception.  Such as now.  Until Pen asks who this guy is, she might have convinced herself until arriving at the house that there is no cause for concern.  "Oh, I made that up," she says, of the puppy.  "He did text me though.  Um, he - showed up a few weeks ago while I was volunteering.  I don't think he's been Awake for so long."

There is a break in Liz's words, and for once, words she does not say linger in the space like ghosts.  Then, "I can't always tell if he's completely out of it or totally sane.  But he needs help, Pen, and they're not likely to help him at the chantry."

P. Mercury
Robin Anton snorts through his nose. That means he's laughing, but doesn't mean to laugh completely, so the laugh comes back in on itself. Robin Anton is good at laughing, or chuckling, or smirking, but this is a different beast.

"No, not really. Our old cabal's goals were school goals, which is part of why we divided once the school goals were (mostly) met. We came together by choice, but the choice wasn't entirely ours. I don't know how much Penny has told you about Rich, Zelda, and Evelyn." He pronounces 'Evelyn' like Eeev-uhlin.

"How long were you on your own before you were initiated anyway?"

They don't hear it, but a truck pulls into the drive way. It's less of a drive way and more of a carriage road, which arcs behind 'The Manor,' stopping at some distance from the sliding doors which let one out into the backyard where the fire pit and the guest house are.

---

This doesn't sound particularly encouraging.

Pen is steady-eyed when she wants to be. A level gaze, gray and shadowed by some bright impulse.

"I see. What kind of help? What does he think you're doing for him? I mean... what did he text you to make you bunny hop away from our gathering?"

N. Hyde
Rich, Zelda, Evelyn: there's no surprise in Nick's expression as Robin names them, so it can perhaps be assumed that he knows enough, or as much as Pen has cared to tell.  "Some," he says.  "Mostly that you all were in the cabal together, in school.  Though," again, the somewhat wry amusement, "I'm still not totally sure what Hermetic school entails.  Or whether you'd have to kill me if you told me."

Perhaps Nick imagines it, as many Sleepers and other non-Hermetics do, as a sort of more cutthroat Harry Potter.  He doesn't say this, if he does.  He knows better.

"A little over two years," he says, of his tenure as an Orphan.  "Which I hear is unusual."

---

"Just that he'd woken up," she says, quickly, once she notices that intent look from Pen.  Her tone says that she knows precisely how all of this sounds.  "He's been having a lot of nightmares.  He says that they started a few months ago, and I don't think he really understood what was happening."

A beat.  "I didn't understand so much either, for a bit.  He says he's - well."  Liz hesitates, that abrupt start-and-stop and pause telling in and of itself.  "I think he's hoping he won't act out his nightmares?  So I've been trying to help with that.  I know how that sounds, Pen, but..."

She stops then.  Perhaps she is hoping that Pen will tell her that it does not sound how it sounds.

P. Mercury
"There was a time when it was very unusual. These days, it is less unusual than it was. The unusual thing is you didn't find yourself in trouble and burn out, and that you eventually found a Tradition. After a time, Disparates and Orphans just stay separate."

"As for killing," a gracious smile. Beatific. "Wouldn't stick, would it? Not to a Death Mage." Poke, poke. Rile, rile? Experimental. "I'm still not entirely sure what a Chakravanti's apprenticeship entails."

Nicholas gets a text. His phone vibrates or ding!s.

--

Pen makes an abortive gesture with one hand when Liz says I know how this sounds. "It sounds," she says, "like a problem, but not an insurmountable problem."

Pen pauses; frowning, as if she wants to say something else. The something else is a light behind her skin. Of course her gaze is touched by distance, for one moment wander-away starry-comet elsewhere, back beyond in the whenever. Her gaze flickers more present.

N. Hyde
A Death Mage: ah, yes.  The name rankles many Chakravanti, apt though it may be.  Nick, though, he's still too new to hear that as anything other than someone calling it like he sees it.  "You die," he says, "though death is more subjective to most of us than most people think."

He might have said more, or perhaps he's rethinking the Harry Potter comparison, but then his phone chimes.  Nick leans back in the seat, straightening one leg to wrest the phone from his pocket.  "That must be Thane," he says, just before he peers at the text.

---

The relief Liz feels as Pen says this problem is not insurmountable: it's a palpable thing.  There are magi (perhaps their other cabal mates, even) who would not have been so generous, either in describing the problem or in the lack of criticism.

She takes in a breath, audible, bracing.  "Well, okay then," she says.  Then, "I kind of wish I told you sooner now.  I've been feeling kind of like I'm in over my head."

P. Mercury
"Ah?" Robin Anton flicks his eyebrows, like to say go on.

And it is Thane, under whatever name that Nicholas has him under in his phone. The text message says

Need some brawn guys come out.

--

Pen isn't a very good liar. She has a sense of subterfuge, yes, but her ability to manipulate it for her own gain, or to even manipulate her face to hide something -- well. Most people who are perceptive can see through her, and she doesn't really try to lie.

She's honest, Pen is. Honesty right now means Liz can likely tell from Pen's face that she also thinks Liz should have told her sooner, and that feeling like she's in over one's head is what happens when one keeps secrets for no reason at all. Darn it.

"You should have told me. Or someone, at least," she says. See? Honest. "So what have you tried to do so far? And has anything had an effect?"

N. Hyde
Nick hesitates a moment after he reads the text, then says, "He says he 'needs some brawn.'"  A sentence that would fill anyone with foreboding, given that the Verbena left into the woods to get...something.

"Maybe he picked up a tree."  Nick pushes himself to his feet, pausing only a second to steady himself.  A lot of whiskey, very little cheese.

---

Liz bites the inside of her cheek.  She's not making eye contact at the moment; she knows all of this.  Recognizes even the danger, perhaps.  Liz isn't a very good liar either, and this is an unusual situation she's found herself in.  Perhaps that's how it got away from her so easily.

(Then again, there are people [creatures?] out there who thrive on secrets.)

"Soothing effects, mostly," she says.  "It worked to calm him down for a little while, but I'm pretty sure that's not the actual problem.  His soul is...just kind of twisted up.  I don't know how it happened, or if he was just born like that.  If you look at him, you can see."


P. Mercury
Robin Anton looks disapproving. "I don't have any brawn to spare," but he taps his steepled fingers together in a cascade of fingertips touching, one-two-three-four, and then he sighs and stands up.

While Nick is getting his bearings, Robin heads into the kitchen and out into the night. Perhaps Nicholas hears Rob saying, "No," before he sees what Rob is saying no to.

Thane has his truck parked on the grass, has let its back down. The truck is piled with trees, mostly evergreens. How many? One for each cabal-mate, at least, but likely more. Likely seven. They look very tall and very big and very, very much something that requires a lot of brawn.

Thane looks pleased with himself. "Hey Rob hey Nick take a whiff of these why don't you aren't they great that's life ladies and gentlemen that's real life."

--

Pen cannot help but think about Heath. Heath who should've been the one to wake up. Heath who she could've been able to help, perhaps, if she'd been awake - fully awake, not just on the edge of sleep, aware without understanding - before They got to him. The truth is she still burns when anger and embarrassment when she thinks about them coming to her, her coming to them, in the course of their investigation; thinks about it, sometimes, when she is following up on some thread of mystery.

This doesn't have to be like that. It just sounds like it might be. The Flambeau looks grave as a pit in the dirt, but her serenity might as well be some learned trait (Robin's doing, maybe).

"Well why don't you introduce me?"

N. Hyde
Neither of them have brawn to spare, in all likelihood: Nick, too, has chosen to focus his efforts in other areas throughout his life.  He starts to follow Robin out into the kitchen, hearing the "No," spoken and quickening his step without thinking, alacrity borne only partly of curiosity.  He arrives at the door and halts.

Thane is so pleased with himself that Nick is tactful with his words.  "Thane?  Those are beautiful trees," he says, a little as though he is trying to get his mouth around the words.  Then, "Are they going to...go inside?  In Robin's study?"

----

Why don't you introduce me?

Liz is not serene, and has not been throughout this conversation.  She has alternated between twisting her mittens in her hands to yanking them back on and over her fingertips, to adjusting herself in her seat.  Now she sighs and reaches for the door's handle, tugging it and letting some of the warm air inside the car leak out into the night.

"Come on inside," she says.  Her boots crunch-squeak as she steps onto the packed snow in the drive outside her apartment, an old Victorian that has been chopped into flats.  The house is silent, without lights: no one's home.  Its entrance is on the side of the home, and Liz heads toward it, moving at a slight shuffle as the snow has been slicked down all the way to the door.  She reaches it and fumbles for her keys.

And there's...a smell.  Not generally one that's around Liz's place.  A dry, unpleasant, rotting sort of smell that is difficult to place.  It only becomes noticeable as one nears the door.

P. Mercury
"Yeah!" "No."

"Yeah Rob they'll fit don't worry and your maid'll vacuum em up or Pen can practice setting the needles on fire - " "No" " - or you can I don't think I ever seen you set anything on fire don't you know how anyway bro the maid'll vacuum the needles up not the trees," Thane laughs at himself, "and it'll be great. We'll just put em up in a circle sort of around the fireplace and then just wait until after it'll be so good it'll be like starlight, brothers, and Liz'll swoon from the glory it'll be the cutest dang thing well come on. Brawn needed we gotta make the hall of evergreen. Fuck, just smell it?"

"Are you high?" Robin asks, suspiciously. His phone vibrates back on the desk inside.

"No," Thane says, with a grin.

A second later, so does Nicholas's, where ever it is. When  Nick checks it, lo, a text from Pen.

--

"I'll be right there," Pen says, and starts to put her gloves back on. Pauses, and instead takes out her phone and sends off a quick text.

Cold outside, snow in her fiery hair, fairy tale. She sends another text, looking down, and almost slips. Grace is an illusion; it's always an illusion. While Liz is fumbling her keys, Pen grips a rail or something at the stairs to give herself leverage, and pulls her wand out of her boots, slips it up her sleeve instead.

If Liz says anything or gives her a horrified look, Pen isn't going to lie. Deception isn't something she's good at, and it isn't something she usually tries.

(The text to Rob is one thing.

Nicholas's phone reads: some trouble at L's if dont hear from us in half an hour maybe check it out).

"Yech," Pen says, standing behind Liz.  "Smells Bad." Ludo impression, of course.

N. Hyde
Nick, trying to follow Thane's thought process, merely stands in the door, his expression perfectly neutral.  He, in following Robin outside, forgot to put on a pair of boots.  As a blast of wind hits him and cuts through his thick winter socks to his toes, he shifts from foot to foot.  "What's going to happen after the trees are in a circle?" he asks, in spite of himself.

And, lo, a text from Pen.  Nick pulls the phone from his pocket with a slight smile, his brow furrowing immediately after he's read it.  His curls catch drifting snowflakes, and they settle there as though he were part of the landscape.  Nick hesitates because - well, Pen is Pen; he does not believe she needs a rescuer.  And yet.

"Pen says there's trouble at Liz's," he says.

---

Liz has not noticed Pen pulling out her wand.  Liz: not the most observant of them (that prize, perhaps, goes to Nick).  Though at the moment she could perhaps be forgiven this, given that she seems preoccupied.

"Yeah, that's from him," Liz says, perhaps deciding that there is little benefit to lying or minimizing at this point.

The door unlocks with the sort of weighted click-clock common to older deadbolts.  Liz's head is through the door before the rest of her.  "Elliot?  Are you here?"

Elliot, whoever he may be, does not answer; however, within moments there is a small spaniel hopping on its hind legs, poking its muzzle through the crack in the door.  "Hi, Charlie," Liz says - whispers, almost - and reaches a hand through to gently nudge the dog out of the way.  She steps through, and far enough into the foyer to allow Pen in after her.  Charlie immediately stops hopping and pawing at Liz's leg, choosing instead to favor Pen.  "Elliot?"

P. Mercury
[Am I aware?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 6, 6, 9) ( success x 3 )

N. Hyde
Pen is aware: the other presence is not a strong one, but definitely there, rooted in the dark spaces in and throughout the house.  It is not healthy.  That whiff of dry rot - it's some echo of this, withering, something wasting away in the darkness.  Something losing its shape, its Self, as it transforms.

P. Mercury
"We're going to d - "

But Pen says there's trouble at Liz's, so Thane shuts up and Robin looks at Nicholas speculatively. He reaches for his pocket, but finds no phone there. When he frowns, it's just the shadow of a frown.

"Do they need us?"

--

What would Lysander do, Pen wonders. Pen knows what Lysander would do, and her throat clicks as she swallows. She is not a dog person, but she favors Charlie with a tolerant glance and a brisk pat on the skull. There there. Now go away.

She doesn't say anything about the resonance to Liz, just closes the door behind herself and waits for Liz's houseguest to reveal himself to her eyes rather than her nose and sixth sense.

N. Hyde
Nick slides his phone back into his pocket and straightens in the doorway, taking a half a step back to the other side of the threshold.  Perhaps he considers this, a way to reach into another Elsewhere - though much good it'll do him now, when he can't Step the whole way through.  (Not yet, not even years later: he's not there yet.)  Again, he hesitates.

"She says give it a half hour.  What do you think?"

This is a concession to Robin: Robin knows this side of Pen, the Hermetic, better than Nick does.  He knows, perhaps, whether give it a half hour really means shit is about to go down.

---

Elliot does not look sick, or crazy, or any of the other words that might be ascribed to such a man (creature?) without seeing him first.  He steps through a doorway into the hall: he is young, as so many newly Awake are, at the cusp of adulthood and adolescence.  His hair is ash blond.  His mouth is chapped and dry, flakes of skin obviously having been gnawed at and ripped away: it looks sore.

He halts there, just outside the room's exit, when he sees Pen.  "Who is this?"  His voice is calm, but it's deceptive - note the quiver there, on the end.

"This is Pen.  She's a friend," Liz tells him.  "Do you want to go in and sit down for a bit?"

"I've been sitting for hours here in the dark."  Elliot's voice isn't sharp; it has a dry quality that has its edges all the same.  "And the dog wouldn't stop barking.  Where were you?"  His eyes flick toward Pen again, gauging.  He stops.  Starts again, before Liz can insert herself into that empty space.  "I'm sorry.  I'm under a lot of stress."  He says it to Pen, perhaps moreso than Liz.

P. Mercury
Robin Anton frowns and reaches out to take Nicholas's phone from him. "Is that exactly what she said?" Second's resistance; then Nick hands it over Robin has the phone and is reading the last text, the frown still a shadow between his eyebrows. Robin holds it back toward Nick. "Enh, half an hour isn't that much time. We might as well get our stuff together, and leave these trees for another time." His tone says: that time will be a cold day in Hell.

Thane sighs, expansively.

--

"No need to apologize to me. A barking dog will make anybody snap," Pen says. The (ardent and daring, now) young woman is keeping her reserve about her, such as it is. She has been drinking, though, and even when she is reserved she is not cold. There is a scrunch to her forehead, a downward turn to her mouth, watching the motions Elliot is going through. Looking here. Looking there. Choosing to address this person instead of that, addressing this person in that way, the waver.

"Especially if you're already under pressure. I hope I'm not out of line, but what's going on?"

N. Hyde
There are many times when Nick could be read as passive, as weak.  One day Pen may observe about him that there is very little Nick does without intention, without planning, without some level of awareness of how other people will see it.  (With, too, some understanding that not everyone will read it the same way: he knows this, relies on it to some extent.)

He knows that Robin grabs at his phone this way in a bid for control.  Not necessarily over Nick, though it could be that too.  Nick chooses to see, in this gesture, that he cares about Pen.  That control, even when it's about other people, is still about the self.

Nick sees his vulnerability.  So he yields.

"Let's do that," he agrees, and doesn't hesitate in wheeling around so that he can go and retrieve his boots.  "Come on, Thane.  It sounds like Robin said we could leave the trees for when we all get back."

---

There is wariness in the way Elliot regards Pen, now.  He is balanced on the edge of a knife; a word, a gesture, a glance in the wrong direction, could send him over to either side.  The whites of his eyes are visible and he leaves his arms at his sides, a mimicry of relaxation.  (The muscles in his forearms cord and bulge: he is fooling no one.)

"You think I'm some kind of schizo, don't you?"  This, to Pen.

"Nobody thinks that," Liz says.  "I think Pen can tell you're stressed out.  Don't you want to -"

"No.  I don't want," and this could sound as though he'd interrupted himself, constricted off further words, yet it's a sort of dictum in and of itself.  His eyes flash, whip quick, toward Pen.  "I want to know why you're here."

P. Mercury
"I know it sounded that way man but I also know that ain't is not what he meant," Thane says, companionably. He is happy to refer to someone as if they aren't right there. His brow furrows, and he says, "Liz n' Pen'll be fine. What trouble could Lizzy have at her place anyway? Hey if we're taking my truck someone's gonna have to sit on someone's lap or someone's gonna hafta be a squirrel and get in with all the trees and stay low so no cops notice." That last is said to both of them, he's walking backwards into Robin's house, following Nicholas.

Robin says, coldly, "I still don't have a car."

He usually has a driver. Not today.

--

Pen tries to be diplomatic, but she often doesn't succeed. She is not adept enough at saying the right thing at the right moment to the right kind of person. She can sway people, or inspire people; she can beguile them by her presence, by her words -- if she tries and sometimes when she doesn't try. She can be clear, but she's not very good at pretending, and often she disdains to pretend. Yes: disdains. It throws a wrench in the works, sometimes.

"I suppose I'm here because Liz lied about checking up on her dog, when she really meant she's worried about you. I just came along to buy more scotch, but once we got here I noticed how fucked up the air in here is. You feel that too, right?"

N. Hyde
"I think that's absolutely what he meant," Nick says, in the most good natured tone he can muster as he pulls his boots on.  They're heavy things, a solid foundation: Nick's not spinning off his feet because he encountered some stray patch of ice.  He leans down to tie them, double knotting the laces, and looks up at the two of them through a few of the thick kinks of hair that have once more fallen over his forehead.

"I can be the squirrel."  It was that or joke about the smaller Robin perching on his lap, but Robin is on edge enough.  Should they end up needing one another a half hour from now, Nick prefers not to push it.  Then, to the doubts Thane had expressed earlier: "I don't think Pen would send me a text like that unless she thought she might actually need the help."

---

"Of course I fucking feel it," and saying these words, it seems as though it takes work, as though he's drying out from within and his breath and his Will are being sucked from him.  "You know what's fucked up is you both shoving me in here until I snap.  You'd snap too if you were stuck in the dark all day."

"Elliot, we just want to help you."  Liz's voice, beseeching.  She has taken a few steps toward the young man, ill advisedly perhaps.

"Suck my dick."  Childish, but he can't be more than eighteen or nineteen.  He cuts the air, sharp, with the side of his hand.  "Don't patronize me.  I didn't do anything to deserve this."  His eyes dart back to Pen.  He is worrying at his bottom lip with his front teeth.  "Of course I feel it," he says again.

Liz looks toward Pen then, from where she's standing halfway between the two of them.  "He can't help it," she says to Pen, "but there must be something we can do.  He still hasn't told me what happened."

P. Mercury
There's nothing Thane needs to get from Robin's house. He might've taken a drink or a cookie if it didn't sound like they might be doing business in a few minutes, and all he needs for business is the knife he has right now in his glove compartment. He should keep it on his person, often has it in his boot the way Pen has her wand in her boots if she's wearing them, but he doesn't always remember to. "Okay," Thane says, equanimous, sweet-natured Verbena, and then, "So really what kind of trouble might be at Lizzy's. I just saw their car on my way here. Do you guys have any idea at all?"

Robin shrugs. "Something got into Liz's dog, maybe some hunger spirit. Nick?" A glance Nicholas's way, and it is not a bone thrown; he respects Nicholas's thoughts on this realm.

--

Pen lifts her hands and crosses them at the wrist on her top of her head. This means her fingers are inside her sleeve, the one with the wand. But it is also an easy, loose gesture; lets her rock back on her heels like she's trying to show Elliot she's harmless or something. She wants to tell Liz to get behind her, but she doesn't.

"Sure he can help it," Pen says, to Liz. Her eyes are on Elliot, though. Don't absolve anybody of their actions. "Some of it," she amends.

"Have you felt it for a long time?" Pen asks, and she does care -- what's ardency without caring; what's passion without genuine interest. But with that wrong widderslainte feel to him - "Bad dreams; or have you stopped sleeping yet?"

N. Hyde
[What've you got in there?]

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

N. Hyde
"I think Liz's dog may already be a manifest hunger spirit," Nick says, bleached bone-dry.  He has straightened, walked to the closet for his coat and scarf.  He is pensive as his fingers loop buttons through their holes; Pen's text gave very little away.  He has no more idea than either of them what could await them.

"I think it's better not to speculate.  It could be anything, including nothing."  His scarf, a rich touch of purple, winds around his neck and is tucked into the gap between his throat and collar.

---

"Touch whatever you've got in there and I'll peel you like a goddamn apple."  Elliot's voice is a series of stick-cracks; perhaps the threat would sound ridiculous but for that.  "I'm told they used to do that in the old days."

The violence of his speech has thrown Liz, as though it is occurring to her that he could do the things he is threatening to do.  She is not behind Penelope, but she allows the Hermetic to speak.  Liz has tried all of this already.

There is a part of her that knows; there is a part of her that hates the injustice.  These things are contagious.

Elliot is still again.  More relaxed, or trying.  "A while now," he says.  Then, "You're smarter than she is.  You can't help me."

P. Mercury
"Hmm," is Rob's response.

Rob doesn't just stand outside, looking at the trees. He comes back inside too, closing the door behind him. He checks his own phone when he sees it has a light, and frowns down at it. If Pen's message to him was different, he doesn't share this. He opens up a drawer on his desk that nobody else ever opens (Warded [Secure]), and pulls out a couple of amulets, which drops around his head.

"I can read the bones on the way over, if Nick'll help." Thane smiles at Nicholas. The smile reaches his eyes. He seems relaxed but alert.

--

You can't help me.

Pen shrugs to that sentiment, not willing to commit to agreeing but not willing to lie and say of course she can. "It's just a wand," she says, fingers on said wand; she keeps her dark-lake eyes on Elliot. "I knew someone else who didn't do anything to deserve... This, or something like it."

"What kind of help do you want that you can't have?"

P. Mercury
ooc: whoop, forgotten c&ped last line,

"Who told you they used to do that?"

N. Hyde
"Did she text you too?" Nick asks.  His curiosity could be misinterpreted, and yet - of their cabal, he is perhaps the least experienced, the most recently initiated into a Tradition, perhaps even the most recently Awake.  Pen trusts Robin, and he knows this, and he knows that she may have chosen to share something different with him too.

There is a nod in the affirmative to Thane.  Nick puts his hands in his coat pockets, observing that Robin gathers his amulets.  "Can't be too prepared, I suppose," he says, which is the same as asking: what are we walking into?

---

"I just woke up one day and knew," Elliot says.  He hesitates, bites again at his lip, and when his lip springs back out of his mouth again there's another strip of dry skin that's been torn away.  "Then I started reading more.  I wanted it to make sense, like...there had to be a reason why people did this stuff.  I keep having nightmares about it."

"I keep trying to explain things to him," Liz says.  She leaves off unsaid: It's difficult to explain to someone that they never had a chance.  Particularly for Liz.

Elliot's smile is quick, smoke dark, difficult to see through, but for a moment it's easy to imagine him as any number of troubled young men who feel themselves misunderstood, who bury their insecurities by playing devil's advocate.  (The devil has advocates enough: that's where they lose.)  "I'd like it if you could make the nightmares stop, or make all of this make sense.  Can you do that?  Poor Liz here keeps trying."

P. Mercury
"Yeah," Rob says. "Just 'Weirdness.'" He smiles at Nicholas, catching the undercurrent. "We," the Hermetics, "try not to do anything too brash."

It's kind of a lie. The Flambeau, after all, did just set some gingerbread men on fire for no reason at all.

He doesn't have to put on his boots or doesn't choose to put on his boots. Amulets on hand, he grabs his bag, a leather satchel good for books and for looking like an appealing hipster.

"Ready?" Thane scratches the side of his neck, and Rob at least nods assent.

Then it's to the truck. Rob says, "You don't have to sit in the trees. We can scrunch up front."

"There is not that much room, bro," Thane says, regretfully. Rob may be somewhat slight, ditto Nick, but it's not an old-fashioned truck which allows for a lot of leg room.

--

"You keep letting her," Pen says. Then: stirred, or stirring - "That's really good, actually." Brief pause; it is as slender as a sword. Her gaze is very steady, and there is a furrow between her eyebrows; a shadow on her fair brow.

"I can make the nightmares stop. But I don't know how long."

The widderslainte will just be reborn; isn't that how it works? Release the soul, find it again; die and die and die again. If he is widderslainte. If it isn't just perceptions being skewed by something unsainly.

"Maybe poor Liz can go outside, and I can take a look at you."



N. Hyde
Nick could point out the senseless gingerbread massacre.  He chooses not to; this is not the time.  He strides out toward the truck, quickening his pace as he reaches it.  There is a glance toward the cab to verify - yes, there really is not that much room, yes, he probably does in fact have to ride in the back.  Nick easily mounts a foot up on the wheel well and boots himself up into the bed of the truck, amongst the trees.

Very quickly lost in the trees, as it turns out.  "Ready when you are, Thane," he says, even as he tries to position himself so that he won't slide around and get crushed by a wayward tree trunk when Thane turns a corner.  Or won't end up with a thousand tiny needle scratches before the ride is done.

---

"Poor Liz can run outside, like a little bitch."  That smile again.  It makes it difficult to tell whether Elliot appreciates Liz, likes her, whether he merely has a skewed sense of humor and propriety.

Liz, though, does not take well to this, if her expression is any evidence.  Still, she swallows it.  Liz, she doesn't always assert herself; there are some things that should come easy to a mage that don't, all the same.  Elliot scents this, somehow, like a bloodhound - "Go on outside, poor Liz."

The Chorister's jaw is tight.  With a lingering look toward Pen, she snaps her fingers at the dog and shoves her way out the door.  It hammers once, twice, against the frame and then is still.

Elliot watches her go.  His hands are still tensed, and now that Liz has gone one of the moves toward his back pocket.  "What sort of looking did you have in mind?"

P. Mercury
[The Look. Is it doomy? Do basilisks wish they could glare so good? Or do cats yawn? Char + Intim.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )

P. Mercury
In the back of the truck it is cold, but it smells: ah, like life in the middle of winter - like some place which should be hallowed, and full of ghosts; of flakes, drifting slow, and starlight and dark spaces. It smells like something kindling. The needles hurt; so do the branches, when they jab, scratch-scratching, and it is icy cold, snow turning to snowmelt under the warmth Nicholas provides. He can't hear the conversation that Rob and Thane are having inside, although they're clearly having one. Thane is gesticulating, and Rob is looking out the window.

Liz's isn't that far away.

--

One might expect that a furious and glaring Pen would be all quick and all fire all flare-up and turn-to-ash, all brightness and gold. But it is not so. Not right now, at least.

The Look that Elliot's behavior sparks is tempered, and deliberate, a sluice of terrible clear-sightedness; I see you. I saw that. Wish-It-Were-Not-So. It's a Look of restrained anger. And anger can be Awe-full, can't it, when it has such a still heart. He should be turning to stone, not reaching for whatever he has in his pocket; the wolves will be on him immediately if he does.

"She really wants to help you; it isn't fitting to treat her with such contempt, even if you do believe yourself beyond help. The universe is not compassed by your mind." Beat. "Never mind. The sort of looking that I can do from over here." Wand comes out. "I won't touch you. Ready?"

She is. For him to be trouble.

N. Hyde
The back of the truck is cold, and the needles scratch, though fortunately (unfortunately?) the only part of Nick that's left vulnerable to needles and wind and stinging snow is his face.  He breathes in deeply: this is not only because salt and pine and the wild quicken his heart, but also because he is unshielded in a truck bed.  A sharp corner could throw him out onto the road.

Yes.  He will breathe (in, out, in) and watches, wondering, the conversation the two inside the truck seem to be having.

Liz isn't that far away.

---

Elliot, he is perhaps Pen's equal in whatever he calls Enlightenment, but that doesn't mean that the Look she gives him doesn't make something inside him quail.  The woman feels like a song and looks like a painting that harkens back to some old ideal of beauty, something classic.  She feels like, in that moment, something he can't touch.

He doesn't like that.  It's on his face, plain to see.  His jaw is angled down, giving him the cast of some fey creature.  His hand is still resting on his back pocket; he has not retrieved whatever he meant to retrieve.  "What are you, her fairy godmother?"  This, said as she retrieves her wand.

She asks whether he's ready.  "Are you?" he asks, because the rest - he has nothing to say.  Liz is indeed trying to help, but he knows this already.  Perhaps there's a part of him that hates her for it, and it's hard to say whether that part of him is the more human or the less.

P. Mercury
Thane is a safe driver, or as safe as any driver can be on the ice. He isn't driving quickly and he isn't taking any corners sharp, and the needles sway around Nicholas. He blends right in.

--

"Until I'm not," Pen says, wryly; and then she says something else, a word she needs to scrape carefully off her tongue: a word that is from one of the angelic languages; it could drip radiance. Enochian for: clear-sight, layered over Enochian for fate forward and backward ending on a bastardized name for the Angel of Thursday. Thothsday. Smithsday. Day of metal. It is accompanied by a carefully delineated movement with her right hand. The one not holding the wand.

[Let's see what you're made of, kid. Cool Hermetic Name For this Enochian Spell Forthcoming. Basic scan using Prime, Matter, and Entropy. Highest Sphere (1) + Coincidental (3). And let's say willpower, because get it right the first time.]

Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (7, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

N. Hyde
Nick keeps his head down.  He shields his face, once, with a mittened hand as the needles sway a little too close to the corner of an eye.  But he's grateful that Thane exercises some awareness of him in the back of the truck.

---

These words, they're in a language that strikes a chord somewhere deep inside Elliot.  There are things he knows that he has no explanation for, old memories that aren't his memories, and this sense that the Words that Pen is speaking come from a place that is beyond him now.

He says nothing.  He lets her see whatever it is she wants to see.  He draws a knife, small and broad and leaf-bladed, from his back pocket where it would have been partially hidden from view (had anyone been behind him.)  This, Pen can tell: his soul has been irrevocably twisted back upon itself.  She can't see what his Avatar might have been back before this happened, and who knows how long ago that was.

This again - that feel of withering, of drying up in the sun, dry dessication.  The wrongness she felt before, there beyond a shadow of a doubt.  Sometimes the first impression is the correct one.

P. Mercury
They're at the street Liz's house is on now. It didn't take very long for Liz and Pen to drive there, and it doesn't take long for Thane and the Boys to drive there either. Thane is a friendly lumberjack if he's anything, especially with the rattle of trees. The truck does skid when it hits a patch of particularly slippery ice, and Rob peers over his shoulder through the truck's back window to see if the Chakravanti is still safely nestled.

Thane will park a couple houses down. It hasn't been half an hour yet after all. Thane opens the door as soon as he's parked and hops down. Rob does not have his alacrity.

--

"I have good news and I have bad news," Pen says, in English. "I can put an end to the nightmares, this time."

The end to the nightmares she says and (be quick be quick) this time the wand is used; she scribes - or begins to scribe - a quick sign with its point in the air, directed downward. The wand is an elegant instrument. Elegant enough that she forgives every Harry Potter joke she has ever suffered under.

N. Hyde
Safely nestled, but perhaps a little too aware of how fragile skin and bone, and not for the first (or last) time tonight.  Nick's eyes meet Robin's and his are a little wide, he is holding tightly to one of the tree trunks.  But then the truck rights itself once more and Nick settles his eyes on Liz's house at the end of the road, there at the not-quite-dead-end just before the road curves around and becomes another.

After Thane parks, Nick carefully picks his way over the trees and lowers himself down out of the truck bed.  He is a little wobbly, but not for long; he starts toward Liz's house even before he has properly recovered.

---

This time.  Elliot's mouth twitches, because one of the things he shouldn't know is this: this time means that there will be another time, and another and another, ad infinitum.  It won't end until everything ends.

"You won't," he says, and that knife flicks up and rights itself in his hand, quick as though he'd been born to it (he was.)  There's a symbol it sketches out in the air, the way that fencers are taught to draw alphabets to quicken their fingers.  Bastardized Enochian?  Perhaps.

[Initiative - who casts first?!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

N. Hyde
[Oops.  Init?  +6]

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

P. Mercury
[Pen Inits: +7!]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (9) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

P. Mercury
[minus the willpower]

P. Mercury
"Hey man," Thane is a golden retriever, loping (mostly without any slip and slide; he's agile, that Thane) around back the truck to help Nick out -- or that's what he meant to do. Nick is out before he is, direction-orientated before Thane is. "You good? No sticks lodged up your hinter, henh?"

N. Hyde
"No," Nick says, and his smile is a little wan (his sister was right about that).  "Though the ice patch had me remembering my Hail Marys, a little.  Not your fault."

P. Mercury
[Ahem! CAST CAST CAST. Cool Hermetic Name For: TELEPORT THE BAD KNIFE for starters forthcoming. Corr/Matter 2. Vulgar as heck. 2 + 4. -1 Personalized Instrument. -1 Quint. We'll WP again.]

Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (7, 7) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

P. Mercury
"One day I'll move to California," Thane says, misty-eyed. Then smiles, a half-scimitar smile. "Though I'd come back immediately. I like having seasons." And indeed, he does. His breath is visible but he doesn't seem to care. His cheeks are ruddy, around the beard, and he likes it.

Robin has left the warmth of the truck to join Nick and Thane. Milling about, aren't they. Or heading toward Liz's, yes: heading toward Liz's.

"I do too," Robin says. "But I like this one when it is outside."

--

Meanwhile, inside Liz's foyer: Pen's just a little bit faster, and the squiggle of her wand is swashbuckling sorcerer's hiss -- an ardent nip-tuck Change of reality sizzle Dare Me Again, and the Bad Knife is no longer in Elliot's hand. A vacation: true sense of the word; the knife clatters instead by Pen's boot.

For our next trick -

[WE GO AGAIN.

For the record, Paradox Accumulated: 2.]

N. Hyde
[Nick: Awareness]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 6, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

N. Hyde
[Liz: Awareness]

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

P. Mercury
[Rob.]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 3, 3, 4) ( fail )

P. Mercury
[SHAME ON YOU.]

P. Mercury
[Thane.]

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

N. Hyde
Nick, an Arizona native, may have had something to say about the presence of seasons.  He regarded the first large New England snowfall he encountered with some mixture of wonder and horror, something he had up until then only heard about or read about or seen in movies made manifest.  He has adjusted, but has not grown accustomed to.

He would have joined the banter, but resplendence blooms behind his eyes, ardence springs the hairs along his arms on end, and -

Nick sprints toward the house, clumps of snow flying up behind him as his boots tear them free from the ground.  He sees Liz outside, and she seems to have noticed it too, because she has seen them now and her expression is somewhere between shame and relief.  She is opening the door to allow Nick inside, and presumably the others too.

---

The knife spins from his hand before he can finish forming whatever Word he was writing in the air, and that leaves Elliot unarmed, without his usual instrument.  He remembers, somehow, a time from Before when he was closer to beast than man, and no sooner is the knife out of his hand than he darts after it.

It's right by Pen's foot, and he can reach it easily, bring it back up into his hand, and now he's within striking distance.

P. Mercury
Robin Anton is the only one of the cabal not to taste the familiar Daring and Ardent resonance in the back of his throat, behind his eyes, prickling along his skin - but Nick, suddenly sprinting ahead, and Thane a moment taking a half-lope after, then instead going back to the truck to grab his darned athame - eh, well. Robin Anton doesn't need to be as clever as he is to accept his cabal's reaction as a sign that Something Is Happening, so he hurries (albeit more cautiously, picking his way slowly over the ice, wind in his hair and face) after Nicholas. Frowns, at the expression on Liz's face.

"What - ?" says Robin Anton.

Thane slip slides slip slides scissor sliding over ice but manages to use the momentum to galomph forward rather than backward.

--

Speaking of momentum, Elliot is sure using it to dart forward, isn't he?

Penelope, no time to be taken (but it is exhilarating, isn't it? A thrill to try and fence with Reality), rushes a phrase: Dissolve, Transform, Coalesce, Become.

[Casting, again. Vulgar, again. Prime 2/Matter 2. No, no knife for you; it is Quintessence now now, which you are hopefully not good at absorbing. >.> Same diff, same modifiers, same WP burning.]



Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (2, 2) ( success x 1 ) [WP]

N. Hyde
There is normally never a circumstance in which Nick would push Liz out of the way; however, this is one of those rarities.  He shoulders past her and into the door, into the room.  Nick doesn't know what he will do once he is in the room - he hasn't thought that far ahead.  So here's what he sees: Pen, wand in hand, feet from a strange man (bloody-lipped, raw, withering) with a knife in hand.

It's not long before he's in the fight too.

Liz has no words for Robin Anton.  She'll have to explain it all later.  For now, she shakes her head and follows Nick back into the house, leaving poor Charlie tied up on his lead outside.

---

Elliot, all he needs is some bloodshed.  As he rises, he brings the knife upward in a spinning arc: he intends to make that happen.

[Dex + Melee]

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

N. Hyde
[Damage]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 6, 6, 6) ( success x 3 )

N. Hyde
[Nick Init!  +5!]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (5) ( fail )

N. Hyde
[Liz init!  +4!]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (5) ( fail )

P. Mercury
[Rob init! +5]

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

P. Mercury
[Thane init! +6]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )

P. Mercury
Thane Declare:

"Whoa!" Get in the door, stay back and begin Cursing Knife Guy. Taking time for this effect!

N. Hyde
Liz Declare:

"Pen!  Elliot!  Just drop your weapons!"  Still trying to make this turn out okay.  Using Mind.

N. Hyde
Nick Declare:

Oh man.  What's around here?  Friendly spirits?  Yeah?  Let's talk.  Taking time for the effect.

P. Mercury
Rob Declare:

Hey. I'm a Tytalan. I came prepared. I'm going to give that guy a burst of crippling fox frenzy Fear, and also draw my gun. Yeah, that's right. Gun.

N. Hyde
Elliot Declare:

Oh man, now there are more people.  Well, stabbing has worked for me so far.

P. Mercury
Pen Declare:

Yooooooooooooooou dick. I know my end-game is killing you, but still.

Extending Effect. Since she's been using ze Enochian, rolling the ability to help ze magick this time around! Don't be sloppy, Pen. Charisma-since-Vocalization + Esoterica (Enochian). Diff 7, doublin' tens b/c specialty. I think.



Dice: 8 d10 TN7 (1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 9, 10) ( success x 3 ) [Doubling Tens]

P. Mercury
[Casting. Diff 7, -3. Plus WP.]

Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (1, 9) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

P. Mercury
[Paradox counter: 4.]

N. Hyde
[Elliot: Rollin'.  Dex + Melee.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 5, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )

N. Hyde
[Damage]

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

N. Hyde
Elliot:  Ignore that.  Oh shit.  Well, I'm going to arrange for the probability that Pen's next rote goes horribly wrong and botches.  Disasterously.

N. Hyde
[Rolling Entropy 2 - 5 dice needed.  +1 for changing action, +1 for fast casting, -1 using a personalized instrument (bloodshed), spending Quintessence -1) [WP]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (2, 4) ( success x 1 ) [WP]

P. Mercury
Rob.

FEAR, FEAR, FEAR, TERROR. :) VULGAR.

Mind 2, baby. Diff 6. -1 diff, personalized instrument. -2 quint. +1 opposed resonance (serene is not OMFG FEAR), +1 distracted. WP, too!

Dice: 2 d10 TN5 (2, 3) ( success x 1 ) [WP]

N. Hyde
Nick.

Hey hey Raven we are buddies want to help and send some scary birds?  I AM TOTALLY USEFUL IN THIS SCENARIO.  Vulgar.

[Spirit 2.  Spending time (extend another turn) - 1, standing in a doorway! -1, distracted +1.  WP.]

Dice: 2 d10 TN5 (7, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

N. Hyde
Liz.

Guys.  Stop fighting.  Please?

[Mind 2.  Fast casting +1, Distracted +1, using unnecessary instrument -1, WP.]

Dice: 2 d10 TN7 (4, 5) ( success x 1 ) [WP]

P. Mercury
Thane:

CURSE CURSE KNIFE GUY. I'm gonna say it's Vulgar as Hell. Entropy 3 + 4. Diff 7. -1 Personalized Instrument, -1 Unique Instrument, -1 Quint, +WP.

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (6, 6, 9) ( success x 4 ) [WP]
N. Hyde
The knife slices a bright arc as Elliot rises from the ground, up and through; flesh yields and parts before it with surprisingly little resistance.  It's sharp.  It was made for this.  And at first, it doesn't hurt: skin takes a while to realize it's been cut.

Then, chaos.

Pen, she's a soldier.  And yet somehow, the word almost doesn't fit her poise, her artistry as she speaks a Word, and she wields her wand as quick as any sabreist on the battlefield.  Before Elliot's knife can flip around in his hand and make its descent, it shatters apart into light, coalescing around Elliot's hands, and mere seconds after this happens the light becomes harsh, pulsing, and seems to diminish even as it's reabsorbed.

Pen's blood has literally spattered onto his hands, and it congeals and smokes as he speaks a Word in response to hers, some curse.

They are all Working, in some state of transition.  Robin's gun materializes, and despite the air of Serenity that hangs about him, he becomes Fear as he strides through the door like a gunslinger of old.  Liz pleads with Pen and Elliot to stop, the picture of pathos, and who knows - perhaps they will.

Likely not.

Nick, perhaps surprisingly, takes a step back into the doorway.  Many of the others will not have seen him Work before, at least not like this.  Nick gives the impression of being Not All There at the best of times, and as he steps into the doorway, there is a way in which his edges become less defined, his voice ethereal, as the house and the area beyond the Veil blur.

And Thane...

P. Mercury
The Verbena was one of the last ones in, and doesn't have Rob's instinct to get nearer and summon terror; the Verbena stays back near the door, too, moving to the left perhaps the wall behind him or a coat rack let's say a coat rack so he looks racked himself staggish. He remembered to grab his athame and he spits on its blade then uses the point of it to prick the base of his throat. Blood and spit and the athame scribes a circle around the man Pen is fighting and most of them are talking, aren't they, Thane's talking but not to tell them to stop, saying something in Welsh and Thane is Enchanting. Hah! Enchanting. But Thane is Hearty, more than anything else, and it's a Hearty Enchantment spell-work Witch-work which begins to fall around Elliot's shoulder and tighten.

And then:

P. Mercury
[Thane: Oh man. Did Pen get stabbed? WTF is even happening? Extend Rote for a more badass curse!]

N. Hyde
Liz Declare:

I am so sad :((((( Extending rote.

N. Hyde
Nick Declare:

Oh hell no.  Ravens.  Extending rote.

P. Mercury
Rob Declare:

Urgh, but Magick. But Tactics, but urgh. But MAGICK, urgh.

Wait. I'm a Hermetic. Totally fucking Magick. Extending Be Too Terrified rote.

Gonna try and aim at the same time, too, w/ that gun.

N. Hyde
Elliot Declare:

Gonna tryyyyyy to finish this rote.

P. Mercury
Pen: IT IS A SCRATCH, dick. SONICBOOMINYOURFACE-I-hope-you-FALL. Forces 2 Rote. Vulgar. Everything here is Vulgar. Who cares about paradox?!

Difficulty: 6! -1 Personalized Instrument, -2 Quintessence, +1 Fast Casting. WP, obviously.

Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (2, 4) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

N. Hyde
Elliot: You are terrible.  Everything is terrible.  God is dead.  [Rolling Entropy 2 - 4 dice needed.  +1 for changing action, +1 for fast casting, -1 using a personalized instrument (bloodshed), spending Quintessence -1) [WP]

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

P. Mercury
Rob: >:| At least since our Xmas eve party is ruined, no frolicking through trees IN MY STUDY.

Extend! Be afraaaaid. +1 for extension, +1 for distraction. -1 Quint, -1 Personalized Instrument. WP.



Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (1, 10) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

N. Hyde
Nick: Peck out his eyes for me, yo.  I'll trade you secrets or scrap metal or whatever.  Extending.  [Spirit 2.  Spending time -1, standing in a doorway! -1, distracted +1.  WP.]

Dice: 2 d10 TN5 (4, 8) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

N. Hyde
Liz: Guyyyyyyyyyys *flail* Extending.   [Mind 2.  Distracted +1, using unnecessary instrument -1, WP.]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (9, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

P. Mercury
Thane: Curse, curse. Diff: 8. -1 personalized, -1 unique. -1 quint. More WP.

Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (5, 6, 9) ( success x 4 ) [WP]

N. Hyde
Here's a thing about Hermetics: They believe, utterly, irrevocably, that it is the human Will that shapes reality.  Pen tells herself that the long gash of the knife is a papercut, and, well, it's not quite enough to seal the cut; no, that would require a knowledge of Ars Vitae.  But she ignores it.  And the sonic boom she shapes the air into, it's a thing that is felt before it's heard (and oh, Elliot feels it): it rolls through the house, a thunderclap in miniature, and rattles the door in its frame.

Elliot's face has morphed into something terrible.  One could be tempted to call it barely human, to call Elliot barely human (but it ignores this: human beings are equally capable of Descent.)  Reality has settled in and he knows he hasn't got a chance.  He persists, screaming his Word a second time even as it's drowned out by the boom.

The Tytalan has channeled his frustration at their interrupted Christmas Eve party into his Work.  Mind magic never looks particularly impressive, because it's subtle even when it's not.  There are no sparks, no flares, no grand gestures or knifework or cutting: this is the Art in which the Will itself becomes a weapon.  Elliot's head snaps toward the other Hermetic, as though only just realizing he's there, and his pupils become pinpricks, and his concentration is gone.  He has to steel himself; he hasn't got much fight left in him, though.  That's apparent.

From the doorway, there's a harsh whisper: wings, though it may take a few seconds to dawn on everyone who isn't Nick.  The ravens, a small flock of them, appear out of nowhere, and without a sound they descend on Elliot as though he were a scarecrow in a barren field.

"Will you both STOP!"  Liz's voice is raw, and there are tears in her eyes: look, and even for Elliot it's going to stir something, it's going to make it almost impossible for him to spit his next Word.  (That is, if he weren't about to be terrifed, cursed, and pecked to death by a flock of recently-corporeal birds.)

Then Thane.  A bright droplet rolls from the pinprick in his throat and down to his collar, and the curse has snaked itself round Elliot's shoulders and chest and wrapped tight, cuts his strings, and like that his hands fall useless in front of him.  Everything has converged at once, and it leaves him drained, a victim of his own withering energy, and utterly without the will to continue.

P. Mercury
[Thane: Well... Elliot seems in hand, so why don't I ready myself to do some Life Scans. Taking time!]

N. Hyde
Liz Declare: "Whose fucking birds are - look, he's done!  Can we stop now?"

N. Hyde
Nick Declare: Nope.  I am merciless.  Brought you here for a reason, birds.

P. Mercury
Rob Declare:

Shoot the crow-mobbed scarecrow guy!

N. Hyde
Elliot: O_O

P. Mercury
Pen Declare:

Ack, Mind Magick! Wand dropped, and is Rob shooting?! Back away from Elliot.

P. Mercury
Rob: Dex + Firearms.

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 7, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )

P. Mercury
[Damage! Pew, pew.]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )

N. Hyde
[Ravens!  Brawl + Dex.]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )

N. Hyde
[Damage]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )

P. Mercury
[Thane. Doo-dee-doo. Life scan begin! -1 taking time.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (1, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )

P. Mercury
The Chorister gets into Penelope's head and, against her Will, in spite of her Will, she drops her wand: wood chased with metal, metal forged under Lysander's eye, wood smoothed and varnished at the appropriate conjunction of planets and stars, set with no hair of unicorn or feather of phoenix but - it is a rough work of art and she would never fucking drop it but she

"Whose fucking birds are - "

(drops it. Backing up a step, two.)

Elliot's vision is obscured by the ravens, shaped out of shadow and ephemera not so ephemeral as he knows; he can only see a slash of imagine between their wings and their talons and their bright bright eyes and their sharp sharp beaks and they are on him, aren't they, just like the eye of a gun,(and the wand rolls.)

(" - look, he's done! Can we - ")

Rob's gun. The Tytalan keeps his eyes on the puppet-strings cut young man as he drops to his knees, as the dark-wings descend on him and obscure his face, a cloud of whisper-soft feathers an insinuation of shape more than anything else, and he is careful and serene and he shoots the young man.

Nicholas on the threshold can see his handiwork working; in their wake, that eerie sense of emptiness, of a stone circle at night - hallowed, hallowing; the opposite of profane, the opposite of the young man - he bids the ravens on, and they do as he says.

Thane. Thane gives a quick shake of his head, as if to clear it; holds his athame to his heart focuses on the sound of his heartbeat and chants (Enchanting, get it? See?) to an aspect of the Goddess and the Moon.

N. Hyde
As though they'd spun through a tunnel, as though there were windows positioned in front of Nick and just behind Pen and Elliot, the small flock of ravens vanishes.  One smooth black feather, limned at the edges with ephemera, is still drifting its way to the ground in front of Pen's feet.  It settles there, next to her wand, a sort of spiritual calling card.

All of this has happened in perhaps 90 seconds.  Less time than it takes to even play through one of the short tracks of most pop artists.  There are television commercials that are longer.

In that time, a young man went from upright, blade in hand, to dying on the floor at Pen's feet.  The gory scene in The Birds, the one where a man's eyes have been pecked out and he's been shredded by the flock: this is worse, because those holes where Elliot's eyes used to be, it's clear that they weren't plucked away clean.  He is still breathing, but Rob's bullet found his guts, and he won't be for long unless someone is inclined to stabilize him.

Nick is not, even were it within his power.  He moves from the doorway to Pen in a few quick strides.  "Pen, are you all right?"  This is not asked because he doesn't know: Pen, it has been said, is a soldier.  No.  This is Nick's fear and anxiety that makes him ask now, it's there laced around the edges of the words he speaks.

Liz says nothing, at first.  She stands with her arms folded, her hand clasped over her mouth.  "Oh God Pen, I am so sorry."

P. Mercury
Moving parts. Many.

Nick strides over to Pen's side. Elliot is eyeless a gory gun-shot ruin on the ground. Robin rocks forward on his heels a small betrayal of intention leashed and then he circles toward Elliot prepared to shoot him again if he has to, his attention halved. He thinks he'll need to calm Liz down and as a Chorister she is fair game. "What the Hell happened?" he asks, though it's unlikely the principles are going to be answering him immediately. Thane finishes the chaunt his voice an enchantment itself a solid earthy low rasp something of the seasons see and reads the story of Elliot's physical body and Pen's. The Goddess lets him see where damage has been done and what he'd need to do to mend things.


Pen has no will to restrain her temper, and without that leveling effect the pain of the knife's blow and some injured pride transfigure into fury and there is a tremor to her hand as she snatches her wand up and if her wide eyes snag on Nicholas's for a moment a glancing blow like his are velcro and hers are some fabric that would stick if it weren't torn free leave behind bits of itself well that is just a moment because Pen

is absolutely

furious. ("Oh God") "IF YOU - " (Pen, I am so) " - EVER DARE AGAIN. If you ever, ever dare force me to UNHAND MY INSTRUMENT OF DEFENSE AND PROTECTION AND GUARDIANSHIP when I am facing - no! regardless of what I am facing," fierce, "unless I am about to slay myself because some other unprincipled willfully blind jackass has forced themselves in my head to, if you ever dare influence me in that way - " Pen's voice quavers. Wavers. Her cheeks are flushed and her eyes are bright and her skin is otherwise pale. She is not planning on ceasing yelling at Liz but she is deeply upset.


N. Hyde
Liz's hand slides from her mouth up to her eyes, (ever dare again) and does not look at Pen while she quavers and rants.  There is no hint that she is weeping, though it would not be unfair to assume so.  Still, the gesture communicates shame, remorse, sorrow, all of these.  She does not speak a word in her defense.

And Nick.  There are people who misunderstand inaction, see it as a sign of indecision or of weakness.  That can be true.  There are times, though, when a person makes  a conscious decision to do nothing, as they may choose to sit in silence to allow another a time to gather their thoughts and speak.  Where another person might try to interrupt Pen, to minimize her fury (or, perhaps, the sense that she has been deeply violated), or where another person might try to comfort Liz or to immediately make things right between the two of them, Nick does not.  Pen needs to say these things: he respects this.  Perhaps Liz needs to hear these things: he is less sure of that.

"Pen," he says again, when she has almost stopped, as her voice begins to waver.  It is not a warning and carries no admonishment; more, in some ways, a grounding.  Also unsure are the fingertips that he rests on the back of her arm.  Perhaps one day he will know her well enough to know whether this is appropriate, whether it will comfort her or simply enrage her further; as of right now, he does not.

"I didn't want either of you to kill each other," Liz says, finally, and she has thrown her hands away from her eyes and hers too are bright with fury.  Not at Pen.  Liz's rage is less specific; either it has no target, or it is afraid to target the only thing it might.  "Just shut up and don't let him suffer, okay?"

P. Mercury
This is when Robin crouches by the young man, grimacing with a shudder at the sight of his, er, new sightlessness. He assesses. He Looks, and perhaps they can feel his resonance kick up: serenity, reflection.

Give a fire no fuel and it will die. Perhaps that is how Penelope's temper might work, flaring up as it is now; the shape of her name on Nicholas's tongue causes her eyes to flash from Liz's face to his. Otherwise, Pen is rather still. Economy.

...Until the Chorister stirs up the ashes and she echoes, "Just shut up and don't let him suffer, okay?" And she (temper, temper!) reaches jerkily for her knife, tucked in her boot the one not for sheathing wands. A sorcerer-maid has to be prepared - an Enchantress who has signed up for fighting needs to have options.

"No, stop that," Thane says. He strides over now, reaching for Pen's arm and shoulder. "I need to see your injury Miz Mercury and if I'm going to do my thing and you want me to do my thing because you're going to have to get stitches otherwise at very least you need to - "

Assessment complete, the Tytalan shoots Elliot in the head. There's a brief pause; Thane picks up,

" - go to the emergency room the infection so just stop that and be still while I don't worry Liz suffering can be good, cleansing right?" Thane gives Liz what is actually an anxious look, puppy dog pleading, and then he is peeling Pen's bloody coat and bloodier shirt back to get at the skin and she doesn't have the wherewithal to resist him.

N. Hyde
Nick withdraws as Thane moves forward to let the Verbena treat her wounds.  The knife was perhaps Primed with some Qlippothic enchantment; this is in his thoughts but he does not voice them.  Should that be the case, well, Thane, whatever Thane can do, will be best.  His brows draw together, anxious; this is before Liz's words (Just shut up and don't let him suffer, okay?) seem to rattle something in him.

There is a reason many Chakravanti do not choose the path Nick has chosen.  The Vrata is a terrible responsibility, and there are things the human heart will, if given a chance, put before the Vrata.  (Nick is a more selfish man than many of his brethren.  This is his secret.)  He leans down to reach for his own boot, his knife, but this is before -

The sound of the pistol is incredibly loud in this closed space, somehow louder than Pen's sonic boom had been.  Nick straightens.

There are seconds in which Liz looks as though she might cut into Pen as quickly as Elliot's knife had done, where she looks as though she might make some rejoinder.  The breath she sucks in sounds wet, the only indicator of how close to tears she actually is.  "...I'm going to go get Charlie," she says, and spins around to walk out the door to retrieve the dog.

Nick steps to stand over the body, then leans down to seize Elliot's feet; his eyes drift up to meet Rob's.  "We'll need to burn him.  Better done outside," he says.

P. Mercury
[Thane: Heal, heal. Vulgar. -Quint. -Personal. -Resonance. Will extend.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (2, 3, 9) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

P. Mercury
Rob puts the safety, very carefully, back on his pistol, then puts it back in the interior pocket of his jacket. He's just a rich kid, right? His hair is in some disarray, but is hare's long face is sardonic and interested and present. His eyes, though. He is perhaps too carefully projecting brisk competence. "Yeah. Back yard. Think Liz will mind if we use a towel?" Faint grim smile.

Pen doesn't say a thing, or look at anybody in particular when Thane begins with the laying on of hands, pressing his palm close across her ribs. The cut was a shallow one, all things considered; it could have been a lot worse. Slowed her down, but didn't take her out. The Verbena puts his other arm around Pen's shoulders and supplicates his gods. Bloody messes.

N. Hyde
[Oh Rob.  Are you going to need debriefed?]

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

P. Mercury
[Yes, newb?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 6, 8, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 5 )

P. Mercury
[That was his Manip + Subt, obviously!]

N. Hyde
[Contesting.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (1, 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )

P. Mercury
[Die-tie-die.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5, 5, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

N. Hyde
[I think you are a liar.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (1, 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 3 ) [Doubling Tens]

P. Mercury
[NO TIES.]

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

N. Hyde
[No, but for real.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 7, 7) ( success x 2 ) [Doubling Tens]

P. Mercury
[Tytalan: :D]

N. Hyde
There is a moment - a long moment - where Nick contemplates the Tytalan's somewhat studied manner, that there are no jokes, that his words are short.  This is a new side to Rob.  Nick is seeing all kinds of new sides to his new friends, and were he less aware of the people around him, of how very young they all are, really, he might have taken Rob at face value.  He is not sure if Rob has killed anyone before, and he knows what kind of marks it can leave on anyone who isn't a sociopath.

Rob, though, Rob's house is known for teaching its apprentices and initiates to hide weakness, in some cases to the point of abuse.  Rob is unwavering, he'd make his house proud.  Nick considers, and then Nick looks down at the feet in his hands.  "Better to ask forgiveness than permission in this case, I think."

Rob goes to get the towel.  Nick spares a look up at Pen, as Thane presses a hand across the cut.  It wasn't as deep as Nick had feared.  "I know you didn't need us, but I'm glad you told us there was something going on," he says, finally.

P. Mercury
[Doo-dee-doo extend.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (3, 6, 7) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

P. Mercury
Pen has to unclench her jaw if she is going to say anything. She inhales through her nose, grey-dark eyes still fire-bright and their focus on nobody in particular, which is a lie. Pen is not a very good liar, is too honest to have learned much skill. Deliberate manipulation does not come naturally to her.

Rob is washing his hands in a bathroom, rummaging around for a ratty towel. Why do Liz's towels all seem to be nice? Damn it.

He peeks outside the bathroom's narrow window, to see if he can see Liz and her dog outside anyway.

Pen finally loosens her jaw. Thane's fingers are still bloody, but the Hermetic's body skin and flesh beneath his touch is healing: clean and nice and fresh and life is amazing, life is resilient, life is hearty.

"I did need you," Pen says, and she tries tries tries to be remotely cool about it, and Thane says: "Awwww." "He didn't have any chance; I looked." "Ooh," Thane says, because this statement is much less awww-worthy.

N. Hyde
Pen says she did need them, and Nick's smile may be a watered down version of the usual (he still has a dead man's ankles clenched in his hands), but present.  His head turns, briefly, toward the bathroom to seek out Rob (perhaps he needed a moment), though only briefly in order to give equal weight to Pen.  Nick still has it in his mind that he can be perfectly balanced, you see.

"You did what you had to do," he says to Pen, because he knows that sometimes people just need to hear this.  His eyes settle on Elliot's face, or what's left of it; he does not look away.  "Liz thought she could save him?"  His tone implies that he already knows the answer, and without judgment.

Rob can see Liz and Charlie outside the window.  Or, well, only Liz at first.  She has the small dog clutched against her chest, and her back against the wood stacked in a neat triangle at the corner of the house.  Fortunately Charlie is the sort of breed that takes to this, that was bred to more or less be a rag doll for rich women.

P. Mercury
You did what you had

"You did, too." Pen cuts over Nicholas's words (because sometimes people just need to hear this); her voice isn't sharp, but her eyes are clear. Pen looks down and touches her - oh, she is still holding the knife she'd drawn in disbelief, in impulsive anger, and she moves it to one hand and with her other touches where Elliot's knife had gone in.

Thane's arm is still around her shoulders and she gives the Verbena a hug, which of course he happily returns. Thane likes hugs more than he likes anything else except for perhaps sex and caramel marshmallow Girl Scout cookie crumble with pomegranate seeds and balsamic vinegar on ice cream. And trees. He likes trees a lot, too. And the night sky. But he really likes hugs, and he smiles into the crook of Pen's shoulder.

Okay. Pen sheaths her knife and uses the wand to ravel up her hair or sticks it through her braid. "She did," she says. She tries not to let her voice be tight; it is. "And I don't think he liked what he was. He wanted something else, so it was probably easy to want to try. I imagine it felt right." Slender pause. "It's a wrong." Pen's voice has loosened again, and she sounds pensive and sad. It's a wrong, like the wrong is a wound and blood will well.

Enter Robin, with towels. He'd looked out the window for a little while, watching the Chorister against the stack of wood. "I'll be right back," he says, tossing the towels Thane's way. "Don't miss any spot; what do you think, Penny, should I call the clean-up crew?"

"It's Christmas Eve," Pen says. "Let's see whether we can do it ourselves first."

"Right," Rob says, and he's out the door. Nicholas might still have Elliot's ankles. Thane and Pen both look at the body. Neither looks away from the ruin, though neither lingers on the ruined pieces either. Then Thane tosses Pen a towel.

P. Mercury
[Thane's Paradox!]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (8, 9) ( success x 2 )

P. Mercury
[Soak.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )

P. Mercury
[Suck it, reality.]

N. Hyde
Pen imagines it felt right, but it's a wrong.  Nick nods, having turned back to the body, but his eyes are elsewhere, and unlike Pen a short time ago he truly is focused on nothing.  One reason Chakravanti embrace the Good Death: one can rely on the fact that somewhere, somewhile, when the Wheel turns back around that person will get another chance.  Widderslainte don't get another chance.  They won't, no matter how many times they are slain and sent back and back and back; they are paying for a choice their souls made when they were young.

To him, too, it is senseless.  He struggles with it less than Liz will, because the Wheel rights itself (it would even without its tenders) and he has hope that eventually so will those souls turned inside out and back upon themselves.

He does indeed still have Elliot's ankles.  But Rob is going out to see Liz, and that rights Nick's personal world a little bit.  He waits until Pen and Thane are able to help him, until Elliot is wrapped into a few ragged towels (a poor excuse for a shroud) and lifts.

P. Mercury
"This is very obviously a body," Pen says, once Elliot is lifted and wrapped. "Anybody got something to make it look less like a body?"

"Uhh.." Thane says. He adjusts his grip. He's helping out with the 'middle.' "Yeah, I'll try and make sure nobody looks our way."

"Okay," Pen says, looks across Elliot to Nicholas, past Nicholas to the door, and then it's heave-ho through the house to whatever back entrance there is.

--

Rob heads around the corner, unerring and straight to Liz. "Hey, Cookie," he says, evenly. "Found the dog, I see."

P. Mercury
ooc: addendum to Thane's line of dialogue. "Wanna try and help, Nick?"

P. Mercury
[Pen's Paradox.]

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

P. Mercury
[Soak.]

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

N. Hyde
Elliot was not a heavy man; this was fortunate.  He was still young, barely out of adolescence, and his body is still a slender boy's body in many ways.  He is easily borne between the three of them.  "I can try," Nick says; this sort of Working is not a strength of his.  "It helps that it's dark.  I don't think many people are going to be looking outside."

Remote, too; it's unlikely that they'll traumatize any children who happen to be looking for Santa.  "The woods aren't too far."

---

Liz looks up at Rob, and quickly wipes at her eyes with the heels of her hands.  Her hands are covered with a pair of mittens, and the end result leaves her eyelids and eyes red and irritated.  "Yeah.  He didn't go very far, which I guess was lucky," Liz says, and this is a small blessing.

She exhales in a long puff.  "I really didn't think all of that was going to happen."

P. Mercury
Thane smiles. "Yeah." The same kind of smile somebody else might get when their lover's name is mentioned. The same kind of smile Pen might have, one day, if she doesn't already, when somebody mentions: Oh, Nicholas this or Nick that. Dopey smile. The Woods.

Pen doesn't say anything, but she shoulders open the door after unlatching it with one hand.

--

"What did you think was going to happen?" Rob says.

N. Hyde
[Nick's Paradox.]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (3, 5) ( fail )

N. Hyde
[That's right.]

N. Hyde
Nick, too, moves in silence as their little procession winds through Liz's backyard.  This time of year, only a few days after Midwinter, it becomes difficult to tell what time it is after sundown: it is midnight dark anytime after six onward.  Still, one can surmise that it is late; the homes sparsely scattered down the street have all turned out their lights, and only the soft glow of Christmas trees in their windows hints at their presence.

He looks, once or twice, at Pen.  His brows are still drawn together, but for now, he has tabled his concern.

The woods are only an acre or so away.  Liz, she lives a suburban life only in the very loosest sense, never too far from the wild.  They reach it, before long.

---

Liz's sigh comes again, deeper and rougher this time, and the pitch of her voice lifts: "I don't know, Rob.  He didn't want to be what he was.  He was fighting it."  Pause.  "What kind of person would I have been, if I didn't believe he could?"

P. Mercury
[Thane with a let's say Entropy (+Mind?) Effect for Nope People Not Around By Good Luck. Help if you can, Nick! Coincidental, I think. WP.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (2, 3, 8) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

N. Hyde
[Nick, helpin' out!  Entropy 1, Mind 1.  WP.]

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

P. Mercury
The blood-Mage Verbena makes sure that Pen has Elliot before he releases the boy and takes his athame out again; uses it to scribe some symbol over Elliot's chest; uses it to call down (invoke [sing down: Bard]) a blessing on their endeavours. Let eyes slide away. Be as smart prey in the grass. Be unnoticed by the owl, be unnoticed by the moon; be the dark side of the moon. And when Nicholas helps, Nicholas helps. The whisk of their Magick flurries up. Their resonance is strong; hallowed, hearty (enchanting), and the night is full of it. And snow. Glittering and cold. And wind, sharp and biting.

Here are the woods. Difficult going, but the snow is mostly powder.

--

"Come here," Rob says. Maybe she doesn't want to be touched, but he holds out an arm. It's not an answer. He knows it's not an answer.

N. Hyde
Thane's magic is more primal, more visceral, than Nick's, but the help still comes easily: Thane calls down a blessing, draws a symbol, and Nick takes that into himself.  Nick honors those aspects of Creation that will be useful to him now, seeks to become them; clever prey in the grass, the dark side of the moon, and in this he pays them homage.

They shuffle through the snow, which parts before them in thick clouds.  This isn't a deep wood, but it's secluded enough: once out of sight of the houses and the road, the trees absorb the sounds of the outside world.  It might as well be two hundred years ago, or five hundred, or a thousand.

---

There's a long moment in which Liz just looks at Rob, but she, like Thane, likes hugs (perhaps more than she likes sex or the woods, though perhaps not pomegranate seeds and basalmic vinegar over ice cream.)  She nestles into the crook of Rob's shoulder.

Charlie is very excited by this.  Annoyingly so.

P. Mercury
Eventually they come to a hollow, stones beneath it and heavy black branches a fallen tree upon which the snow has come to sit.

A lattice tangle of black and white, and it's as good a spot as any out in the cold snowy wet to burn a body down to ash and nothing else.

--

Rob rubs her back and shh there there. He ignores Charlie. Until Charlie licks his face, and then he wrinkles his nose and turns his head and says, "Calm down, puppy," rather sternly.

And then he says, "And as for what kind of person, a person with experience. A widderslainte might not mean to be wicked, but they can't help it any more than a cat can help killing moths, or water can help not being air when somebody breathes it in."

N. Hyde
They come to a tree, lying in a small clearing like a fallen king: the other trees seem to have moved away, given it berth, even as the magi move in.  Nick slowly lowers the body to the ground within the hollow.  It's good that the ground is wet, that so much is surrounded by snow; there is less risk of the fire spreading.

As he straightens, he looks over toward Pen, taking a moment to arrange something under his coat, beneath his shirt (perhaps she knows that he carries several small bags and pouches within his shirt; bones and ash, coins and whatever small offerings he has gathered or found that may be of use in bartering with the Others beyond the veil.)  "What do you need?"

---

Charlie perhaps has at least some sense of propriety; when chided he merely settles for wagging his tail like a little fan, swish swish swish.  Liz ignores him.  She has gotten rather practiced at it.

Liz absorbs this.  She says, "Some of us can make water into air, and people tell us we shouldn't be able to do that too."  This is stubborn, childish even; she knows this.  Her expression says so.  Then she says, "How do you think I can make it up to Pen?"

P. Mercury
Thane puts a hand on the bark of the wood, soon as they've arrived. That smile again, and he bows his forehead.

Pen considers for a moment. Then she offers Nick and Thane a curling smile, quick and bright. "A gallon of gasoline and a match!" A beat. Reflective, internalizing: "I'm dry; I need something to start the fire. A lighter, something."

Pen usually has a lighter on hand, but she didn't grab her back to go to Liz's and then alcohol-shopping. Just Rob's credit card.

--

"Water still can't help it," Rob says. "You know it. As for Pendragon..."

Because he has his arm around her, she can feel the quick-jerk flinch of a shrug which would otherwise be too barely there too subtle to be easily noticed. "I don't know. Are you worried she's going to stay mad at you? She won't."

N. Hyde
Pen's smile is bright, and it would be difficult for anyone to resist smiling back - especially Nick.  He has started to smile even before he has heard what she's going to say, the quick little quip.  Pen says she needs a lighter, and Nick's second reflex is to reach into the pocket of his coat, even though he isn't a smoker.  Doesn't know much in the way of shaping elements, either.

He glances in Thane's direction.  "Do you have one?  I guess that was kind of an oversight."

---

Liz does notice the quick flinch, and shifts herself taller - again, a movement that would be too subtle to be noticed, were his arm not around her.  The look she gives him is surprised, concerned, but she answers his question first.  "I am kind of worried about that.  She seemed...really mad."  Liz has seen Pen angry before, but this is likely the first time it's ever been directed at her.

"Are you okay, Rob?"

P. Mercury
"Naw but I can go get one, or like - doesn't Liz have that little cooking torch? For créme brulee?"

Pen blinks; her expression is the expression of someone who is imagining explaining this to her master, telling him all the very competent steps she took after getting stabbed by the weak-ass widderslainte including dragging the body into the wet woods to set afire with a creme brulee torch. "...Sure. Anything with some flame, and maybe ..." She drags her lower lip under her teeth. "Some ... salt. Fuck, no, just the fire."

" - yeah! I can totally get that or all of that or something I'll help break the body down too just you two wait here I'll be right back."

Thane goes tromping away.

--

"I am not exactly doing somersaults for joy," Robin Anton says, rather dryly. "But I will be fine, if I get your solemn promise that you will not -- actually, I don't know what promise to ask for. What the Hell happened? Was he hiding in your house?"

N. Hyde
[Pen, would you rather be distracted at the moment or do you want to talk about what the hell happened?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 4 ) [Doubling Tens]

P. Mercury
[Past!Pen: But I can be difficult to read, right?]

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

N. Hyde
[Well...no, not really.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7) ( success x 3 ) [Doubling Tens]

P. Mercury
[Miss Mercury does not know herself whether she'd rather be distracted at the moment or talk about what the hell happened. This is partly because she has not begun to think about what she wants, or what she desires re: the events wot just occurred. Nick can probably tell that she is beginning to be more thoughtful; it's tough to be unflinching, but that's the only thing to do. She's still very upset and very angry, but now that the adrenaline has worn off she's - well! Coming down from REACTION!FOCUS!GOAL! And she's just concerned, so it could go either way. ]

N. Hyde
Thane proposes using the creme brulee torch, and Nick, too, blinks; his expression is the expression of a person wondering how to tell Liz that they used her creme brulee torch to burn the body of the widderslainte she was hiding in her house, in the woods out back.  He glances down at the ravaged body, only half covered in one of Liz's towels.  His face shrouded, at the very least.

Thane tromps off through the snow, back to the Chorister's house.  Nick is quiet for a moment, drawing in a long breath and filling his lungs with cold air and the wet, distinctive scent of fresh snow.  He reaches out and takes one of Pen's hands in his own.  "Thane's pretty hard to dampen, isn't he."

---

More questions about Elliot, and Liz is a swirl of guilt and regret and grief and anger [and this too: self-righteousness, this feeling that she could not have acted any other way.]  These are things she will sort out in time, perhaps.  Or perhaps she won't, depending on one's perspective.  This is what can be believed about her at the time.

What wouldn't be believed is that in one or two short years Liz will be dead, that she will not have ever finished answering the questions that are simmering half-formed as yet.  Believe it.

Liz sighs, and then finally leans down to let Charlie hop to the ground.  He promptly wanders over to the side of the house and begins sniffing, his tail still wagging hard enough to break legs, if he were bigger.  "Well, yeah.  I was hiding him there until I could figure out how to help him.  They weren't going to help him at the chantry."

P. Mercury
Thane tromptromptromp slipslip catch self on tree slide.

--

"He is an ebullient golden retriever," Pen says, and she gives Nicholas's hand a squeeze, which turns into a tug to draw him nearer. Glancing after the sound of Thane through the woods has caused her gaze to snag on the body again. "Or was, in another life. I wish you guys hadn't ..." But the poet in her has to trail away to find the right words.

--

TROMP TROMP TROMP skiiiiiiiiiiid SLAM into house. Fuck, the door is locked.

Tromp tromp tromp around toward the front and a certain wood pile.

--

"Well gee, how were you planning on helping him if they couldn't help him at the chantry, all by your lonesome?"

The emphasis is important.

N. Hyde
Pen tugs Nick nearer and so he steps closer, embracing her from behind and tucking his chin in against the back of her shoulder.  It's about as close to a full-body hug as a person can accomplish.  The front of her shirt and jacket is still sliced open, slightly damp and stiffening into a ruddy brown sheet.  This should not bother Nick, and  yet he shifts one of his hands an inch or two away.  Subtle gestures: the theme of the night.

"Hadn't?" he prompts, but only after a moment has passed.

---

Thane tromps closer to the wood pile, and Charlie charges toward him.  The snow is taller than the little dog, so he has to leap, leap, leap, furry ears flapping up and down as though they would help him take flight.

Liz is used to this, but at least he comes when called.  The look she gives Rob is a little hurt, a little pointed.  "It's not that they couldn't, it's that no one was going to try.  They were just going to accept that they couldn't."

P. Mercury
"Hadn't." Pen repeats the word, but more decisively; as if it were a metal clasp on a sword belt, just-clicked into place. The hand he moves an inch or two away from the blood she places her hand atop; holding it to her side. Otherwise, she leans. A couple of deep lungfuls of air.

Pen is no good at meditation, and she will not be any good at meditation in a few years, and perhaps in a decade she will still be terrible at meditation if she isn't dead by then. "Had to summon terror-crows, for one. Hadn't had to do whatever it is Rob did, and Thane's curse; hadn't brought Liz back in to - " But no, she goes tense just thinking about Liz. "I feel terrible about him."

--

TROMP TROMP TROMP snow goes puffing in Thane's wake, clouds; he smiles bright and his ears go up and he is very present as he reaches down to catch Liz's silly little floofy lapdog or at least ruffle its hair and oh nope he falls head over heels loses the beanie and maybe his scarf and blinks in some disarray, when

"They," Rob says. "You. Us?" But his eye is pulled away after that pointed 'us' because Thane is a child and has just fallen head over heels and it's distracting.

He pokes his snow-covered head up and pants, "Need to get inside. Door locked."

N. Hyde
If he were a stereotype, Nick would have been a hot-blooded young teenager who settled and became more meditative when he Awakened and found the guidance of the Chakravanti.  Awakening would have wizened him, perhaps as he became aware of the enormity of life and creation and the cycle, as he realized that he himself is only one iteration of many, that he has died and been reborn many times.  This is not that story, though.  He has always been reflective, a little spaced out, a little detached.  He contemplates.

"He was suffering," Nick says.  "I regret that it wasn't cleaner."  His terror-crows ripping out a man's eyes, and Rob's bullets: that wasn't mercy, even if it was the best he could do.  "I would do it again."

Hesitance.  Then, "You wish it hadn't needed to be done."  This is a question, even though it doesn't sound like one.  It's a prompt, one that offers to let Pen correct him if he's wrong (and talk more if he's right.)

---

Charlie only just avoids barreling into Thane as he falls, sending up a small poof of powdery snow around them.  It has settled all over Charlie, who at this point, with clumps of snow clinging to his legs and his belly and the hairs around his muzzle, is starting to look as though a child had shaped him to stand alongside a snowman.

Liz, before she can answer Rob, has her eyes pulled away as well.  What might ordinarily have been a giggle at Thane comes out instead as a short, somewhat amused squeak.  "Here," she says, pulling her keys from her pocket and wandering away from Rob over to the door so that she can unlock it for the Verbena.

P. Mercury
He'd do it again. Pen tilts her head toward his. Bump. You wish it hadn't needed to be done.

Quick: "No." Just as quick: "Yes." Brief pause. "No! I feel terrible because he - or not he, exactly, but it - it is just going to happen again. This sending him on; it's only a temporary relief, and I," now. Pen has thought a lot about this kind of thing, since she understood what happened (sort of) with Heath, before she was fully Awake. Pen has thought a lot about this kind of thing as Lysander and her studies have revealed layer upon layer of things to defend the world and its people from. Pen thought about it before the Order of Hermes beguiled her into its byzantine structure, when she was just Elaine Siddal on her own, figuring out how the world works. She is impulsive, but that doesn't mean she doesn't have a mind too.

"I do not want it to be true, but it is true. I just wish I'd been able to handle it more quickly, and with better grace. How do you feel?"

--

The Tytalan, left behind and outside (for he isn't going to move, not immediately; he's going to stand in the snow, solitary and apart and as much like Batman as a rich New England kid who's also a magician who wields power as a matter of course can look, when he's not in costume), crosses his arms over his chest. His expression is grim, and his jaw tight. A vein pulses in his temple, see.

"Thaaaaaank yoooooou," Thane sing-songs, tromping by Rob and clapping him on the shoulder, "Oh-do-you-have-a-lighter?" Thane adds, spinning to put his back to the door and look at Rob, holding out his hands.

Rob does have a lighter. It is a very nice lighter. It is in his pocket and he pulls it out and tosses it toward Thane, who catches it with aplomb, and then drops it in the snow. Rob sighs, again. Thane finds the lighter and hopefully by then the door is open and Thane says "Okay-thanks" and disappears inside, heading right for the kitchen.

N. Hyde
Nick, too, has thought about this a lot.  For anyone with an ounce of compassion or sense of justice, the plight of someone like Elliot seems horribly unfair: he did not choose to be what he was, and whoever he becomes next won't choose, either.  He has thought about it.  But he has reached a sort of acceptance, because this is a far easier thing for Nick to do than it would be to get angry about it.

Pen burns, and even when she's not at her brightest she is still alight with her passions; she is daring, ardent.  In the seconds it takes Nick to answer, there is a truth: it is much harder for him to identify how he feels than it is for him to know how someone else is feeling.  "I wish we had been able to get there sooner," he says.  Another few seconds before he says, "I wish I had killed him, and not Rob.  It was my responsibility."

---

Liz: she's by far not the most perceptive or aware of her cabal mates.  She does not deduce the reason Thane would need the lighter; she left them all inside with the body, she didn't see them carry it out.  Perhaps Thane needs to smoke to relax.  She doesn't spend many thoughts on it; she is too preoccupied with what has happened.  Charlie trots along at Thane's heels as he walks inside, scattering an entire snowdrift through the door along with him.

She walks back toward Rob, who has handed off his very nice lighter only to have it dropped in the snow.  She looks at Rob for a moment, her brow furrowed, clearly trying to recall the specific words that had been said before Thane came tromping through.  Finally she simply sighs and says, "It was really stupid.  And I should have told you guys.  But I..."  Liz hesitates, and here she has to breathe in a few times more, because sometimes there are words that feel too large to get out of your mouth, that get stuck somewhere in transit instead.  She settles for, "I guess Christmas is just going to be weird now."

P. Mercury
"No. It was my responsibility, because I found it and I engaged it first," Pen says, then laughs: this quiet laugh; let the snow take it. "Why was it your responsibility over mine?"

--

"Where do you think the creme brulee torch is Charlie? Chazzy? Where do you think the oh do you think she has gasoline in a tank somewhere Do you Charlie? Show me something flammable Charlie! Cmon. Cmon. Goodboy. Goodboy."

Thane keeps up a running commentary as he, rather efficiently now that he is in a kitchen, and one he has no doubt messed around in before, locates the things that he will need. He does look for some gasoline or lamp oil or something to make it easier, every now and then stopping to fluff the dog's ears.

--

Rob broods in Liz's general direction, but does another flinch-shrug, small tiny thing that maybe she does miss now that he's not holding her.

"Why would it be weird?" He grins. "Thane's turning my study into a forest so we can hold hands and frolic around. I will be participating in my mind, while reading."

N. Hyde
There is a crinkling of Nick's nose and eyes; amusement, perhaps he understands that quiet laugh, or he's simply amused at the absurdity of the discussion on his own.  She can't see it, but it's there.  "To see him on his way in the right way," Nick says.  Then, because it's an and sort of statement, not an or, "So Rob didn't have to do it."

---

Liz does not appear to have gasoline or lamp oil lying around the house.  Charlie cocks his head at Thane, still wagging his tail and apparently just content to be spoken to.

Thane does find cleaning products, all known to be highly flammable.  Tucked under a utility sink in the mud room near the kitchen's back door, Thane also finds a propane tank, unused since it was pulled out of the grill last summer.  Whether he wants to lug the propane tank back through the woods, that's another matter.

---

"You won't frolic with us?  What kind of song-Robin would you be?" Liz asks, and even though her nose is still stuffy and her eyes are still red she teases him with the name Pen uses; Rob is easy to tease.  She did miss him flinching - it was a small thing, after all, and if Rob is troubled Liz wouldn't know it.

P. Mercury
"Rob chose to do it. And it's probably good for him to have to get his hands dirty every now and then, instead of just calculating and scheming all the time," Pen says, and then covers her face with her hands, dragging them down. The Flambeau sounds abashed next, and muffled because her hands are over her mouth. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that you, or that he - it's just - " Stop, start. New statement. "Rob will be better. Like a river, after thaw. How it gets more rivery."

Her pocket vibrates.

A number of times.

--

"Ooooh look at this Chaz this looks useful but also heavy. I am very strong and virile but I-don't-know-if-I-have-the-wherewithal-to-carry-it-all-the-way-over-ice since I do keep falling, hmm hmm hmm, oh maybe Pen can long distance make it swoosh hold that thought puppy," and he takes out his phone and texts Pen the following:

hi can you long distance make this tank go swoosh

i mean this propane tank

so that it flows like in that way u do

wait doesnt liz have sleds

i will bring a sled

ty

And he

--

Code Black. Code Black. Brooding Levels Reaching Maximum Output. He tolerates Songrobin from Pen only because he has never been able to get her to quit it, and it is a very easy way to tease him. He gives Liz a Look, and harrumfs.

"An intelligent one." He pauses. "If you find somebody like that again, you're not to do the same thing. You won't?"

N. Hyde
"I know what you meant," Nick says, and kisses the side of her head, just above her ear.  He listens as she says Rob will be better, and he nods.  He does not seem necessarily certain of this, nor doubtful: Nick has seen people be better.  Nick also went with his mentor when his mentor went to find someone who didn't get better.

This, however, is not the time.  "Someone is talking at you," he says, and reaches into her pocket to grab her phone and hand it up toward her. "Maybe Thane couldn't find matches."

---

Charlie holds his thought.  Charlie holds all thoughts.  Charlie exists in a perpetual state of thought-holding, because he is a small dog whose large eyes doubtlessly take up whatever head space his brain might have used.

---

Liz gives Rob a watery smile when he harrumphs, reaching up to dab at the corner of her eye with her glove.  "I won't," she says.  "But if all of us together find one, I can't promise I won't try to save them.  But I won't...I'll tell you."

P. Mercury
Pen stares at her phone with a look. Nicholas can feel the look more than see it, but it is a look of bemused tenderness. Thane tends to bring that out in people. She shows Nick the screen.

And then says, carefully, "But how do you feel about it being your responsibility?"

--

"Heeeeeeere it is! Chazzy you are so helpful I should just scoop you up bring you up but I don't think Rex would like it very much and Rex is a very particular horse; would you like to ride a horse with me Charlie? Okay come on help me get everything packed up. Do you want to help burn the bad man?" Verbena do believe in animal sacrifice, but Charlie probably doesn't have to worry about that right now. "Do you want to help cleanse everything?"

Thane with sled and propane tank and creme brulee torch clomp clomp slide whoosh. And dog? Out the back door! Into adventure!

--

"You can't just 'try to save them' without a plan," Robin says. He is still careful. "I'm happy - I really am - that you'll tell us if you find something on your own now, but if we happen to find one together, all of us, and Nick goes in for the kill - what are you going to do?"

N. Hyde
Nick looks at the string of texts, a question, clarification, and the solution all provided in one little not-so-tidy thread.  He laughs.  It's not scornful, not at Thane's expense: this is the way people laugh at a kitten when it does something cute.  It is likely Thane also brings this out of people.

His mirth fades back again into thoughtfulness as Pen asks him this question.  His voice, too, is careful, though it is more out of a sense of wanting to give Pen's question the thought and consideration it deserves than reluctance to answer.  "I don't...know if I feel anything about it.  It just is.  I swore the Vrata.  I..."  A pause.  Further consideration.  "Guilt, maybe.  That I was more worried about you than making sure he died the right way.  Rob wasn't wrong and he didn't do anything wrong, but that...wasn't even a thought I had.  That he might do things wrong, and it would be my fault."

It's rare for him to speak at this length, uninterrupted and without turning the question back around.  His discomfort shows.

---

Charlie is scooped.  His tail thump-thump-thumps against Thane's side as the Verbena brings him back out into the wide world, and onward toward a burning.

---

Liz furrows her brow at this talk of plans; she is impulsive too, in her way.  "Why Nick?  You did it this time," she says, and then stops, shakes her head, realizing that this was petty.  "I guess...maybe we could find out more.  I don't feel like I know enough to plan right now.  I don't understand why it happens the way it happens.  How someone could make one choice once, and then...their soul is just like that, forever.  I don't understand how anyone could let that happen."

P. Mercury
[ROB's manip subt]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 4, 6, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

P. Mercury
[Aw man, if only a specialty worked. *wistful at sight of tens*]

N. Hyde
[Liz: Perception + Empathy.  Totally going to work.]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 6, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )

P. Mercury
TROMP WHOOSH TROMP WHOOSH careful skid aaaaaalmost fall PICK UP hah! tromp tromp shit sleds won't go that way this way then: the adventures of Thane.

--

Pen turns so she is facing Nick; slips her arms under his jacket, if she has to unzip it to do so, and around his waist. Is not conscious of the drying, dried, blood on her own jacket or her shirt. A detail.

"'Died the right way'? How could anybody kill something like that in the wrong way?" There is something, perhaps, underlying her tone; an undercurrent, which she does wish to keep hidden.

--

You did it this time. Robin's jaw does not set and he waves his hand with lazy, aristocratic grace - all dismissal. "You don't understand because you don't have enough empathy with wicked things; probably for the best. You understand why if someone was stabbed in the eye that's usually not reversible too, right? The eye is gone. Or the brain. Or both."

"As for why Nick," because dismissal or not, he's not going to just let that one slide. "Because he's a Death Mage, so it's probably going to be him if it isn't Pen or Thane. I just swoop in to clean up if the muscle isn't working out."

P. Mercury
[And Pen hide hide hide things!]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )

N. Hyde
[Nope.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4) ( botch x 1 ) [Doubling Tens]

P. Mercury
[Nicholas certainly does not see past Pen's carefully maintained façade.

Perhaps he detects a note of distance, and knows it means Pen's decided to distance herself from what she has read as his arrogance -

or he knows Pen thinks he doesn't trust any of them now, that he believes he has to be the one to take care of things, and of course she is hurt by this but also angry. Good thing she can control herself.

Or maybe he thinks she thinks he's speaking from experience, and the distance is hesitation - like she doesn't think she should ask, but - ]

N. Hyde
Pen does have to unzip his coat, but he doesn't object; if he is conscious of the drying blood, it does not seem to bother him either.  He is not nearly so well versed in blood's use in magic as Thane, but its presence is no longer something that rattles him.

Nick catches that undercurrent, and his brows bow together in that manner that means he is processing what she said, verbally or nonverbally.  There is distance in Pen's voice when she asks him these questions, and here - Nick tends to be very good at reading into what's not said, sometimes understanding things about other people that they don't even understand about themselves yet.  But he has his insecurities too: they misdirect.

"Killing in ways that create more suffering," he says, finally.  His tone softens, pitches just a little higher - it's a subtle thing, the shift in affect, as he becomes instead someone who is seeking to be understood.  "I'm not trying to say that I know better than you, or Rob.  This is just...it's my role.  I don't want to fuck it up."

---

Robin waves his hand, dismisses what Liz had said; it is her turn to give Robin a look and harrumpf.  "Of course I understand that!  But it is reversible, with magic.  That's exactly what I'm saying.  Why an eye or a brain, but not a soul?  Why would God give you the power to do one, and not..."

She stops.  Shakes her head.  Accepts his explanation for why Nick, because the person who does it isn't particularly a concern of hers.

P. Mercury
"Why did you choose it? Before, when you were Disparate, was there anybody who...?"

The question is soft; reflective. Pen is brash and daring, audacious and ardent (the resplendence will come later: after certamen, after she has lost her library and everything in it, not long before she tells Nick that she wants to move to Denver for a while), but daring can be quiet too.

--

THANE. TROMP TROMP TROMP. He puts Charlie down and Nick and Pen can hear, in the not-very distance, Thane saying

"Go on boy get em go get em find the way."

--

Rob rolls his eyes. He's a difficult man in many respects. Difficult to be friends with, difficult to be lovers with, difficult to mentor and certainly (in time) difficult to be an apprentice to. He can be mercurial and grumpy and sharp, disdainful and impatient and right now he is just impatient.

"Yes yes and what I'm saying is if someone were to stab me in the eye right now and I died you wouldn't save my body somewhere forever just because you might be able to learn enough Ars Tempus or [Hermetic Word for Life too lazy to look it up] or whatever else you'd need to fix the fact that I was dead. You don't find a widderslainte and keep it around in the vague hope that you will be able to untwist its soul and undo its history. My body would rot, and its soul just leaks rot all over the place. It's unhealthy."

N. Hyde
Nick did not swear the Vrata so long ago; half a year, perhaps.  Less than a quarter of the time that he was Awake and Disparate.  Pen's question is soft, and there are many ways this question could go: did anyone specific bring Nick into the Tradition?  Did anyone try to bring Nick to the Hermetics?  (Oh, April tried, plenty of times.)  Did anyone try to convince him to remain Disparate?  (Anna tried that.  He is forever the baby brother, if only by a few minutes.)

"Anybody who?" Nick echoes, a slight lilt at the end urging her to continue.  His expression is gently bemused.  He turns his head then; he can hear Thane, using his outdoor voice, yelling at - ah.  He brought Liz's dog.  His gaze meets Pen's again and he half smiles, tightens his arm around her briefly (not quite a squeeze) and says, "Choosing it is kind of a long story.  Later tonight?  We should make sure Liz's dog doesn't get eaten by a black bear."

It's a joke.  Kind of.  Nick is pretty sure there are bears in the woods in New England, right?

---

Rob rolls his eyes, and Liz looks hurt, which for her is a little the same as looking angry.  They blur.  "Fine, Rob.  You're right.  Is that what you want to hear?  I already said it was dumb."

P. Mercury
"You said it, but you said it argumentatively," Rob says, and one can see what kind of sibling he would have been, had he any siblings. He does not.

Pause. He adds: "I'm just worried. Everybody needs to be on the same page about this kind of thing." Beat. "Let's find the others."

--

"He's too fast," Pen says, with another curl of a smile. "Hi Thane!" over Nick's shoulder. "Found propane? Good; douse him."

She peels away from Nicholas, phone going back in her pocket and a shiver for reacquaintance with the cold. Thane beams at Pen, then beams at Nicholas, huffing a little as the sled catches on a root hidden by snow.

"Yeah ok. I don't mean to be insensitive but I really hope we eat some fucking burgers after this I could really go for some meat something really fine though damn Christmas eve hard to find places with really fine burgers open but I bet we could. I could, and maybe Nick you could help, use fate to try and," he wiggles his fingers, letting the sled go - it slides away from him, toward a ravine, "boom we find the perfect lively meal. Gotta give thanks that we're here and good right."
N. Hyde
She said it argumentatively, which is true; she scowls at Robin nonetheless.  She lets the comment pass though, and when Robin suggests that they go find the others, Liz nods.  There is a moment in which she glances from side to side, first into the house and then into the (very dark) area surrounding.  "Where did they even go?  Did you see them?"

---

As Pen moves away from him and Thane draws closer to them with the sled, Nick moves to assist the Verbena in lifting the sled over the root and bringing it closer.  It slides down a ravine; Nick chases it, catching hold of the string (his foot slips from under him, but he manages to stop his boot against a sapling) and begins to tug it back up.  In this, he nearly misses Thane's talk of his hopes for burgers.

"I don't think I could do that," he says, "but a hunger spirit or a dog spirit might know where we can find them.  Or," his brows touched with gentle humor, "the Sloppy Eagle is open.  We could just go there."

The sled arrives in front of the tree, and Nick leans down to grab the propane tank, sucking in a breath and hefting it over to the body.

P. Mercury
"No." Robin puts his hands in the pocket of his coat. His expensive, rich-kid coat. He looks down the street, off and away from the woods; he is considering things, because it is good for a Tytalan to do so after a skirmish. Liz can take point on finding the others.

--

"No," Thane says, disappointed. "Fate's burgers. Ask fate. Flip a coin or something, like some of you guys do."

He helps Nick with the tank; it's not a difficult help. Thane is quite strong, perhaps in the best physical shape of anyone in this cabal - and no wonder. Hearty.

"The torch is in my back pocket," Thane says, turning a butt cheek towards the Hermetic, who hooks a finger under the wire and pulls the creme brulee torch out.

Okay. Okay. Now that Pen has the torch, she feels around one of her pockets until - there it is. Pinch of salt, sprinkle it. A match book (whoops) with one sad little match, too. Dips the tip of her wand in the salt and the dirt, then sketches a symbol on the towel-face of the dead body, and then - the boys are back now, right? - turns on the torch.

[Doo-dee-doo, Enochian, halp!]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 5, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 3 ) [Doubling Tens]

P. Mercury
[Fire, be flared/fwooshed! Vulgar, but -3 diff, thanks Enochian!]

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (1, 2, 8) ( success x 1 )

P. Mercury
[Er, wait, no, this is the past]

Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (8, 9) ( success x 2 )

P. Mercury
[*squint*]

N. Hyde
Liz wanders a helpless circuit around the house for a moment, nearly circumnavigating the entire thing (she started at the wrong end) before she happens upon the trail of footprints, as well as the sled that Thane used to drag the propane tank.  It's too dark to see where the trail goes, but Liz tromps off through the snow alongside it.  It occurs to her only then that they've gone off to burn the body.  "They must have gone off without us," she says, unnecessarily.

She then glances sidelong at Rob.  "Thanks for coming out and talking with me, Rob.  You're a good guy."

---

The boys bring the tank over to where Pen is waiting with the torch, and Nick pulls the pin as they stand over the body, bending his knees slightly to tip the tank over toward Elliot, where his body has long since begun to stiffen and grow cold.

Nothing comes out of the end of the tank, despite how heavy it was.  Nick's brow furrows.  "The tank must be empty."

P. Mercury
Thane hooks an arm around Nick's neck, which is sudden intimacy and invasion of personal space, and not exactly a hug - he hauls Nick back, saying at the same time, "Ok now we stand back because,"

--

Rob and Liz have found the trail in the fresh-fallen snow and can follow it to its conclusion; they won't want to look in that direction, not with Thane's spell hanging over the three, but Rob and Liz are awakened. They aren't likely looking in the right direction when the snow muffles a fwoompf as gas and dry towels and moist body and creme brulee torch and Hermetic control ignite; Thane will help, too. He is the most advanced magically in the cabal, but he often forgets to focus on how to use his magic: situations get away from him.

--

It's not a perfect clean-up job, but it'll do until they can come back with more materials to make sure everything's gone/there are no traces of the Boy Who Never Had a Chance.

Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (2, 3) ( fail )

P. Mercury
[???]

Dice: 2 d10 TN5 (2, 6) ( success x 1 )

P. Mercury
[That's right, arete!]

N. Hyde
Nick is surprised to find Thane's arm around his neck, looks up through a few hanks of the hair corkscrewing over his forehead to question just before he's pulled back.  The tank drops and rolls into the hollow alongside the body, stopping as it hits a hard pack of snow.

This he does not question; Thane, he knows, had a good reason for pulling him back, so he holds his arms out to Charlie, who is sniffing at a nearby bush.  He scoops up the little dog and holds him tightly to his chest, taking a few steps back and away from the other two.

Pen and Thane do not have to work hard to get the propane to ignite.  The gas lights up in a brilliant, slender column that vaporizes the snow sitting on the tree branches above, and leaves a small fire burning in its wake.  Nick's surprise at the sudden flash of heat comes as a shout, and now he is quite glad that Thane pulled him back.

---

Rob and Liz see this, even if they don't especially want to look in that direction.  Elliot's bones will take a long time to burn down, hours even, unless Pen and Thane are able to accelerate the process.  Perhaps they'll return to do that later though.

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 The forest at night is appropriate to the somber task: all they have to do there is watch the body burn and blacken in the flames.  (Perhaps they will find some haunting parallels in the fate of the gingerbread men earlier that night.)  But, should the hour not be too late and should Liz be coaxed into coming along, later that night will find them getting burgers in a pub, as Nick and Thane had suggested.