(In)Humanity

Ned
Ned's arrival at Nick's office was quick. Abrupt. The sort of thing that usually came with a knock on the door to interrupt some pertinent work. Today though, Ned had arrived and Nick hadn't been around. The young orderly was dressed casually, as if he'd gotten off work or had yet to start his shift. Converse, black jeans and a gray t-shirt beneath a red and blue plaid short sleeve. His hair was gel'd, slicked back to affect some semblance of cool while his face carried a faraway sort of calm that suggested Ned was elsewhere than the world around him.

People seemed to pass him by, not offering much in the way of hellos or waves or even notice. If anything it was like Ned wasn't even present and only the cursory drift of carts, doctors and nurses around where he was standing up against the wall, ever seemed to make mention of Ned existing in the same world as they were.

His phone is pulled, the time checked and he's flicking his thumb across the screen to open Candy Crush. That damnable level 75 could be won yet.

Nick
Hospitals are busy places.  On certain floors that's of course the expectation: the emergency department, while not full of rushing gurneys and constant sirens the way TV depicts, still has humming equipment and wandering patients and purposeful staff.  The psych unit is much the same.  The hospice floor is the one people expect to be calmer; after all, the dying don't often do much more than sleep.

There's a smell there that is not found anywhere else, this mixture of decay and chemicals and urine and 409 and the animal tang, beneath it, of blood.  Ned knows it now.  Maybe he knows it now in a way he didn't before.

Regardless, Nicholas is not in his office when Ned comes by.  He's not always seen by patients in his office, see; sometimes he goes to their rooms when they aren't well enough to come to him, which is often, and sometimes he even ventures out into their homes when someone is fortunate enough to have billable insurance.  He is Not Here, but if Ned waits around long enough the Chakravanti will eventually come wandering back.  Maybe by then he's beaten level 75.

Nick's hair has been freshly cut, its coarse black curls swept back and somewhat weighed down with oil.  It makes him look older, a little; more professional, certainly.

His steps slow only slightly as he sees Ned there in front of his door waiting for him, but if the sight of the young man gives him pause it's a brief thing.  "Hello, Ned," he says, and there is a faint note of warmth that can be detected there.  "How are you?  Come on in," and he gestures Ned into his office ahead of him.

Ned
"....Hey Nick."

The warmth is not so much refused as it is left to push the chill of the hospital down. A lot of the orderly staff had this working theory that the AC was so active in the hospital as to lower the chance for bacteria increase, keeping things at a significantly cooler temperature than the outside summer heat might have demanded. Ned never gave into listening to those conversations.

He pushed into Nick's office when the door was opened, head forward and gaze locking on one of the chairs infront of the desk Nick called 'work'. Ned took a seat with a careful sort of settling and turned to glance back at the door and Nick upon entering to ensure the man closed the door behind him. Ned's lips were pressed between his teeth and then he was following Nick's movements around the desk to wherever the man called a seat.

When Nick is finally comfortable, perhaps halfway through or all the way through asking how Ned is doing, the young Mage leans back in his chair hands plucked from his pockets, the phone left in his lap and he stares Nick in the eye with a pinched sort of calm.

"About a week and a bit ago, I killed someone. Horribly broken, drug addict, tried to kill Margot and I and...I put a knife under his chin." He paused, to gauge Nick's immediate and momentary reaction...only to think better on it a second later and push through.

"...He wasn't himself. Had this thing coming out of his shoulder where his arm used to be. All teeth and muscle. Hit me in the chest-" Ned taps where the bulb of teeth and fury had struck him, just below where the heart sat "-broke some ribs. Punctured a lung. Margot and I fought him to a stand still and he started to unravel during the fight. Eventually tried to pull away and I put the knife under his chin and in as far as it would go."

Ned offers this with a steadiness that might suggest shock. Or at least, disassociation. He's regarding Nick or more accurately, the man's reactions, hands folded over the phone in his lap, a slender piece of gauze decorating one of his thumbs.

Nick
Nick does indeed close the door behind him.  There is no particular intent in the gesture; his eyes are distant and unfocused and somewhat directed toward the window behind Ned as he steps into the office, pulling the door closed behind him.  It's a reflex; he sees a lot of people discussing very personal things.

The Chakravat seats himself then behind his desk.  It's a casual posture, the one he adopts, leaned slightly back and slightly slouched with one leg stretched out in front of him.  It isn't affected: he is not playing at calm.  But he's aware of body language, and we know that.

Ned is backlit by the afternoon light filtering in through the window.  It's warmer in here than the rest of the floor; Nick is lucky enough to have a room with a window overlooking the city and the river, and there are a few plants that share space with him in the office.  They have unfurled their leaves to bask in the sunlight, and the slight earthiness of the potting soil (wet, the plants were recently watered) underlies the reek of the hospice floor in here.

Is Nick surprised, when Ned tells him he killed someone a week ago?  Maybe: he lifts a hand and rubs at his mouth a heartbeat after Ned finishes his first few sentences.  "There are times when the circumstances force us to kill," he says.

A beat.  "How is Margot doing?"

Ned
"She seems to be weathering it. First few days were difficult. She stayed at home and poured herself out onto her pillow. I imagine it's going to take her some time to get her head back on properly if fully..."

Ned seems to register Nick's 'matter of fact' interaction as a gauge for something. What that something is, isn't immediately known but Ned's eyes finally drop from Nick to his phone, checking the time again before stuffing the piece of tech back into his pocket with a negligent push from his thumb. His inhale is steadying, as if he'd been braced for something that was no longer necessary and the brittleness that was there, that he wasn't aware he was carrying seemed to shake free.

"I think it ultimately gave her an excuse to start looking at her existence...this existence we're now in as a firm reality. Not some harry potter attempt but a genuine 'no going back' sort of deal. Can't say whether that's a good or bad thing but..." Ned half shrugs. One shoulder shrugs.

"I'm glad you said that though. Sometimes it's necessary. Makes it not as..." And Ned struggles for a word, frowning at the lack of one that presents itself. A hand reaches up to scratch at his brow, gaze falling to the top of Nick's desk while he thinks.

Nick
As Ned tells him about Margot's reaction, Nick's eyes are level and unblinking and steady as the waters of some deep slow river.  Muddy that way too, their pale brown somehow darker in the light that filters through the window.  Ned tells him that, and Nick draws in a breath and glances down and to the side: as though Ned's words were at once a confirmation and a reassurance.

"I think sooner or later, we all hit that point.  Where you see the savagery in this kind of life that exists alongside the beauty and wonder that's there too," Nick says.  It is difficult to say whether he is speaking of Margot, or Ned, or both of them.

Nick has a keen awareness about him, always.  Maybe he's noticed that Ned feels different to him.

Whatever he is, he is patient, and as Ned trails off he only regards him quietly, curling one of his hands around the arm of his chair and then allowing it to relax moments later.  "How are you feeling?"

Ned
"...Was wondering when we'd get there."

He chuckles. It's not forced but it isn't genuine. Somewhere in the realm of 'distant honesty', like the sound didn't matter but made everything seem more normal. An excuse of mirth. Ned settles back into the chair to regard Nick, brow furrowing in that pinched and thoughtful sort of way. He seems ready to answer and then, that same tick of re-consideration has him opting instead for another avenue.

"I'd like you to tell me what I need to do to become part of the Euthanatos." Nick had used the name 'Chakravat' around Ned before so it wans't a mistake. More like...an affirmation of intent. As if Nick represented something in particular about the Tradition and this other name represented....something else.

Nick
[Huh.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )

Ned
(Perception 3 + Subterfuge 2: Don't be cagey now...)

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

Nick
There is this pause that follows, after Ned speaks.  Nick looks at him for a moment: his hand has moved away from his mouth and now he is leaning his jaw on his knuckles instead.  He's thoughtful, see, as though he is considering what indeed Ned would have to do to become part of the Euthanatos.

When his hand falls away it drops back onto the armrest, and he swivels from one side to the other in the chair for a moment.  His curls are oiled enough today to remain stationary.  It's windy outside; maybe this was a calculated decision.

Then, "Ultimately, you need to die."  A beat.  "Do you understand why I asked you how you're feeling?"

Ned
"I understand your need to ask. I understand the quality of the question, maybe. Part of me wants to say because you want to sort out how stable I am."

Ned holds his hand up for Nick to gauge the shake in it, without breaking eye contact.

"Anything more than that and the answer is no. I don't understand."

A pause, his hand falling back into his lap, both now sliding up to settle on either knee, face taking on a frank sort of delivery.

"I was in a car crash when I awakened. Have I told you this already?" A bit of confusion. A frank sort of memory recall that he ultimately dismisses because the story, repeated or not, is relevant to the moment. "Three different eye witnesses said that the Car was more intact than I was. I don't remember much of the crash itself." A pause, tongue clucking. "I was drunk behind the wheel."

He leaned back against the chair, inhaling slowly again.

"I remember waking up and seeing colours. My avatar. I remember babbling at the Doctors about them while they tried to calm me down. I also remember the struggle and my body rejecting several of their attempts to sedate me...which explains why the Alcohol wasn't present in my blood stream when I woke up. Burned right out with whatever I'd done during awakening to put myself back together."

Another pause. This one longer. A thumb rose, plucking on the inside of his mouth at some errant piece of food. Then, abruptly-

"I'm pretty sure I died. If I had access to Mind, I get the feeling going through the memories of that moment would be less than ideal and full of DMT flashes of my life. I died once already." Blinking. "That good enough or do I need something more profound?"

Nick
Ned's confusion is met with another look and a shake of Nick's head.  He's still watching the younger man, see, and it's never easy to tell what he's thinking; there's just an air of quiet reflection.  Maybe of empathy, too: Ned is talking about trauma, regardless of his delivery.

"The initiation is ritualized death.  I was drowned, and if I chose to initiate you I would drown you.  I died too - arguably before my Awakening, or my Awakening happened early.  I'm not sure which.  But the purpose of the ritual is to reach understanding."

He hasn't broken eye contact.  Ordinarily he might, if only so his gaze might wander elsewhere, but Ned has a stare about him, doesn't he?  And Nick meets it.

"I asked you how you're feeling because you're a cerebral person, and talking about it is challenging for you.  But if you're initiated - especially if you're initiated - it's going to be important for you to understand how you feel."

Ned
"Ahhhh. Well then..."

Ned seems to shake off what was, a moment ago. His elbows settle on his knees, which spread just enough to support his weight. His head leans forward and tilts to one side and his attention focuses, a little sharper then before. He catches his upper lip between his teeth, trying to parse away the words that don't fit this particular moment. His eyes flick back up to the ever watchful Nick, lip snapping free of his teeth.

"I feel like this should be a lot worse than it is. Like I should have more of a reaction to the death. Not as intensely as Margot but at least something that wasn't just..."So this happened today". Part of that is me wondering if I lost it somewhere along the way, but that would more suggest you, the Doc and Margot are all a fever dream and I'm imagining all this Willworker stuff. Which, if I've gone that far off the bend? I might as well stay here 'cause you don't come back from that level of clinical."

His cheeks puff out. Absorbing what he's saying as he says it. Something in his expression said that last eventuality was a load of hogwash.

"There's another part of me I've been staring at for the last week, a seciton in my head. I've Life scanned it, Matter scanned it and Forces scanned it and just recently, Entropy scanned it or a combination of several other things and it doesn't show up. I think I need Mind?" Unsure, briefly then pressing onward. "I feels like concern but isn't big enough or....substantial enough to warrant a sensation of grief or upset or displeasure. Mostly just a vague sense of restlessness like there's something to get on with. What that something is though...." He claps, shrugs then leans back onto his knees.

"Makes me think I'm missing the necessary terminology, training or...process." Another pause. Another puff of cheeks.

"Are you qualified enough to be drowning people?"

Nick
Whatever he thinks about what Ned says, perhaps he needs to parse through it.  Enough so that when he replies it's to the easiest question to answer: whether he's qualified.  "No," he says.  "I haven't attained that rank, and I don't have enough skill with Life to help you if your drowning were to go badly.  I would call in some of the other Chakravanti I know."

Here he draws in a breath, lets it swell in his chest and holds it there before letting it out in a measured exhale.  He has broken eye contact at last; his eyes have fallen somewhere across the top of his desk.

"That's not a promise to initiate you.  We're going to need to spend more time together."

Here he lifts his gaze again, and it finds Ned's once more: and his eyes are still muddy, and there is a stitch there just between his brows.  "What do you know about Quiet, Ned?"

Ned
"....The Doc hates it." Before that has a chance to settle in as a possible nod to the actuality of 'Quiet' though-

"-S'why he never stops talking unless he's knee-deep in an experiment."

Ned leans back into his chair, scrubbing a hand across his chin. More Chakravanti meant more mages in his future. More workers, with higher understanding. There was an unease that translated into a vague frown on his face, considering the potential for that...and the problem.

"How many others?"

Nick
"One or two of them.  Both of them were present at my initiation."  Perhaps he noticed the frown; perhaps he is drawing parallels between things that Ned has said earlier and what he knows, or thinks he knows, about the younger man.  "I think it's important for you to meet others anyway, before you really decide if this is something that you want."

There's gravity there in his tone.  Though don't most Traditions think that theirs is selective, that it is demanding of what it requests from its initiates?

"Quiet can take a few forms, depending on the kind of magick you're using and your own disposition.  The kind that comes from death magick - and I mean that in a broader sense, the kind to do with endings or with nothingness or destruction or however you want to think of it - we call Jhor.  Most of us who are part of the Tradition tend to enter it at least once, sometime between initiation and death."  He folds his hands.  Regards them for a moment, and is still thoughtful.

"Being Chakravanti is a responsibility.  We don't do it for power, or to find meaning, or because it gives us joy.  People find those things, sometimes, but they aren't the reason we exist as a Tradition."

Ned
"....Responsibility."

Ned mouths the word once or twice, chuckling in a way that is more genuine than...well anything had been for the last week and a half. He leans back, with a regard for Nick that is both telling of a truth and suggesting there's more.

"I was wondering when someone would mention that word. Everyone I've talked to so far has said 'Ascension' this and 'Enlightenment' that. Vague little flowers I'm meant to pluck and sniff and allow to exist within me. Something I'll 'eventually' get to but for now, remains elusive." He's shaking his head. What few people, the Doc, Penelope, Margot, Grace...each has had a variation on that. Each time he's asked after a purpose. It's been something grand. Something unique and touched with that hint of suggested 'Destiny'.

"Responsibility is being the first one to chase down Crack addicts before they can take a swing at a Nurse. Or picking up spare shifts so Jose can see his kids on the weekends, since I've got nothing better to do. Shit, blood, piss and worse, up to my elbows and I kept coming back because...." And he loses the smile. Abruptly. Staring at...or through Nick for a second. Blinking.

"...Because it felt better than doing nothing at all and I didn't have the sort of things most others thought they needed, weighing me down." He re-focuses, jaw clenched slightly around that bit of a morsel. Something unpleasant veering that he chomps down on.

"So now I'm awakened. This life is promising something but...nothing I can grab or hold or clutch or point me at and you're telling me, being this Tradition is about a Responsibility?"

A half-grin. Head tilting.

"Call the others and tell me what you and I need to talk about to get this done."

A pause. Abruptness, again-

"You think I'm in Quiet- Sorry...in Jhor?" It sounds weird coming out of his mouth. He forms it on his lips and tongue a few more times, mostly to himself just to try and get used to it.

Nick
"So you want to join the Chakravanti because you believe it is going to give you purpose?  You feel purposeless right now, without what we have to offer you?"

His voice is soft, and there is something searching in his eyes as they sweep over Ned's face.  He takes in what he sees there: the half-grin, the start-stop abruptness of Ned's words.  When his jaw clenches.  The way he has to speak around the words as though he is trying to swallow a stone.

And here he hesitates: blunt speech is not a strength of Nick's, but there are times when it is necessary, when personal comfort does not matter.  The Chakravanti know that better than most.  "I don't know whether you're in Quiet or not.  I'd need magick to tell me for sure.  But regardless of whether you are or not, detachment from death and tunnel vision are the two fastest ways I know to make a Jhor episode worse.  That is my biggest concern for you, in thinking about whether to initiate you or not."

Ned
"Purposeless? No, Nick."

Ned's attention focuses in return, narrowing to something sharp.

"The Doc told us that there's someone in Colorado springs taking out Initiates. New workers fresh to the life. Five so far, apparently. A few months ago an apprentice was snatched up by the Technocracy and some of them-..." A pause. "Some of us went in to retrieve him. The Doc had a visitor that tied his hands, literally his hands behind a pipe, at the wrist. Your wife mentioned War and I'd be lying if I said I didn't hear bells and battle standards when she talked."

His hands folded together, brows knitting into a cluster of...something.

"This life has enough purpose in it to choke you, me and this entire city. What I need is information. What I need is knowledge and the means to use it to make sure that sort of thing is safe. For the people I care about the idiots among them who still think 'Enlightenment' is something they can wait for. Responsibility isn't purpose...it's a means of following what you know is already right. Otherwise, it's just a hobby."

"As far as I can tell, we're not human anymore. You, me, Margot, the Doc, Penelope. None of us. That's not to say we don't have feelings or the pressure of humanity weighing inside of us but it's foolish to think things like Money, Shame, Horror or Giving up are..." Ned pulls a face. It isn't quite disgust but there's a genuine layer of something unpleasant in it.

"I'm done pretending that a job is necessary to define this. That there are goods, bads and laws to obey. I don't want chaos. I don't want hatred. I don't want the Dark Side or whatever people are calling it. I want answers so I don't have to keep scrounging around in the dark on my own, coming to half-assed conclusions about how to do this whole new lifestyle and Inhuman interaction properly."

He sucks in a breath. Slightly shaky, a bit perturbed perhaps that the emotion present was as intense as it was. No screaming or flipping desks or tantrums, but the honesty came through like a sledgehammer and he glanced down at his hands. Watched them shake a bit and turned them over into fists.

"....It was her Brother." Still eyeing his hands, waiting for it to subside. "Margot's. He was threatening her over the voicemail. For what she did to him. For getting him put in jail and taking his arm. He was coming here and she was scared."

Nick
"I know who it was," Nick says.

He is not quite impassive while he listens to Ned: it is like casting stones into a lake, how there will be ripples where it is struck while the rest remains undisturbed.  He will occasionally flex his fingers or shift his legs or feet, and otherwise: he is still.

For a moment he says nothing.  He has caught the inside of his lower lip between his teeth, and he is not looking at Ned but somewhere past him, out the window.  When he refocuses his attention it's palpable, is the point: Ned can tell when he leaves and when he returns.  "What if I - or the Chakravanti - can't give you the answers you want?  What then?"

Ned
"Then I think you're not high enough on the Enlightenment scale, you, them or anyone else for me to give up as easily on the answers I will want. People are still going to die. Bodies are still going to decay. Hospitals will still be here..."

Ned's hands have settled. The revelation that Nick knows is in turn not much of a revelation. Ned simply nods to it and the pair share a distant glance away from one another. Lost in their own moment. When he returns, so does Ned, bouncing back into this reality with those words. Then these-

"I do know that when I went to deal with him, with Luke that I didn't even know about the answer that I did find. I knew she wasn't going to be able to do it. Lack of ability. She couldn't even hold a knife properly or swing a bat without breaking her wrists but...well more than that." He pauses, inhaling again. "I thought if I braced myself I'd be able to live with it. Deal with the guilty and the shame and the potential for her hating me. If I was strong enough I could manage it and martyr that moment for the rest of my life."

His pause this time is internal. Going over the events and the moment.

"....When it happened, I figured out...I had planned for the wrong event. Planned for still reacting like humans do. Like every life is precious and deserves to be saved or preserved or defined in the brightest way and that you're scum for deciding otherwise." He stares at Nick again, elbows to knees. "Sometimes the circumstances force us to kill."

"Do you feel that way when you take a life that needs taking? Needs...taking?" Re-emphasizing as if to ensure the proper word was defined between them.

Nick
He has fallen to listen again because Ned is telling him: what it was like for Margot.  That in the end, Ned swallowed his very human feelings and tried to brace himself to kill Margot's brother.  There is something there, some sort of gentle regard that he cannot quite suppress; Nick empathizes with others so readily that he cannot help it.

When Ned reaches his conclusion though, there is a sharp shake of his head.  "Every life is precious.  Every death is precious.  Valuing life doesn't mean that we must force it to endure past its time.  Sometimes it's better that we return things to the Wheel so they can start over again with a blank slate."

And there's a thoughtfulness again in how he regards Ned, here.  He lifts his hand so he can rest his chin on his knuckles once more.

"Most of my work focuses more on helping other people accept death as part of life, so that they can pass on more readily.  When I have returned life to the Wheel, I've done it with the understanding that the pain is temporary and they'll be born again.  I've killed out of mercy on battlefields and I've killed out of self-defense and I've killed to help maintain balance in the Wheel.  I've killed so that others don't have to soil their hands.  But the Wheel isn't just death.  That's why it's a Wheel.  Do you understand what I'm telling you?"

Ned
"Every death is precious."

Ned agrees. Overlaps it onto Nick's own phrasing, but doesn't say more than that. Nick continues, working through a list of his own defined by the various ways and methods in which the common denominator, has come about. Ned nods along with each, seeing inside his own head every moment described could be found.

"I understand that the two sides of it aren't different. That sparing a life in suffering isn't a mercy and that in this existence...There are those who've gone so far beyond that the best way to help them is to ensure the suffering's done." There's a bloom of something in his eyes just then. A moment of clarity.

Scalpel in the tumor. The restlessness settles. He inhales again.

"The wheel you're talking about...it's a puzzle. Pieces fitting into various sections and segments. Angles and shapes and colours-" He scrubs at his face, blinking through the moment "-Except sometimes you have to take the puzzle apart. Re-do it and get a fresh perspective...."

"...I don't know if he was Blank where I sent him..." A frown. A genuine one now. Clenched jaw and working fingers. "...Is there a way to tell?"

Nick
Nick has glanced away again: this time because that little point between his brows has deepened, has pulled them together and down into furrows, the muscles at the corners of his eyes tight.  Pained, or perhaps he is simply troubled by something in what Ned has said to him.

Still, he exhales and he looks up in time to see that moment of clarity, in time to reflect something that stops short of approval but might be pleased nonetheless. "That's another way to think of it.  But it wasn't the whole of what I was trying to get across.  Do you know why the Wheel is conceptualized that way, as a cycle or a circle?"

He exhales again; this is audible where the inhale was not.  The frown, see, he can meet Ned's eyes here and say: "No.  Not now that he's dead.  A blank slate might have been a poor metaphor, though.  People remember, from one life to the next.  But most of the time they'll start over without conscious memory of what came before, and they'll have another chance."

Ned
"....Wheels turn, without a beginning or an end. Continuous and progressive. Life to death and back again. I studied a bit of buddhism..."

There's something in the way Ned's concern has suddenly grown. The description he'd given of Luke had been...rudimentary. A visual explanation at best. There had been something intensely wrong there, something viciously unpleasant. It pushes his fingertips together and his attention firmly. Thoughts roiling over into the other encounters with the dead. How this new existence of theirs is...thoroughly unsimple.

"The puzzle's no different though. You don't solve it. You fit the pieces into place. Everyone's taking part in fitting their own pieces and if you're lucky you have sections that can help others achieve the colour, the angle and the shape they need....and if you're really lucky, you get the chance to take the pieces apart, so someone else or others get a chance to put theirs back together properly. The wheel is easy. Simple. Direct...Very human."

And we all know Ned's current thoughts on being human these days. He stands abruptly. Not sharply, but with something like purpose, eyeing Nick behind his desk.

"I put in my two weeks notice a while ago. Last shift is on Friday. Wanted to say thanks. For your time and the talks. I appreciate you listening and at least considering my request. I need to do some....re-evaluating." A pause, something like reassurance in his next words. "We'll talk again soon."

Nick
"You're welcome," Nick says, and though his foot pushes his rolling chair back a little farther away from his desk he does not move to stand up.  Doing so would feel overly formal: this is his office, and as Ned said they will see each other again soon.

He reaches over to pick up a pad of paper from the corner of his desk and writes down a phone number, and then tearing it away extends it in Ned's direction.  "That's my cell phone.  I don't remember if I gave it to you before or not.  So that you can contact me outside of work."

So that perhaps they can meet somewhere outside of Nick's office.

"Keep thinking about it.  If books are helpful to you, one of my past mentors probably would have a few good recommendations and I can ask him."  Though he can't imagine what Jonas Allard would make of Ned: he truly cannot, and Nick is a perceptive man and knows Jonas well.

He reaches over to turn the knob on his door to let Ned out.  "Give me a call when you're ready to talk more."

He, too, has a lot to consider.

But without the crash part

William
She told him that he needed to wear something noticable, probably a pocketsquare. But something was said in such a fashiobn that it seemed like it should be something made of poetry. It was Pen, Pen said words and they were beautiful and they were movement and she's taught him more than a dozen things and one of those things was teaching him to rise to the occasion. To play to the top of his intelligence.

He might not have been the smartest man in the room, but there was a chance that he was the most perceptive.

It was a nice little niche of a coffee shop next to a place that sold tarot cards and ritual supplies and was run by a lovely young woman with many, many tattoos. After he'd finished flirting with the proprietress of that store, he went to the coffee shop next door to flirt with the proprietor there and to wait for Nick. Pen told him that the man he was waiting for was dark haired and kind. Those were the ways that one could tell Nick was who he was- there is something about him that relays his confidence and his competence and, yes, his capacity for compassion. William thinks highly of Chakravanti, it's an automatic point in his favor.

But he is there with coffee in a mismatched cup-and-saucer. he's waiting and he's got a messenger bag tucked underneath his chair. Sitting by a window, looking out at the street. Slacks and button up shirt and vest and, yes, pocket square. Pink. Makes his eyes look greener than green. Makes the grey of his vest seem intentional. William knows how to dress himself with all the vanities of being a young man not-too-recently out of his teens.

Listens to the sound of the cups being washed in the back.The conversation three tables over. The sound of the glass rattling almost imperceptibly.

Nicholas Hyde
Even if Pen had not told William what to expect from Nicholas, he might have known him when he walks into the coffee shop anyway.  Summer is not Nick's season (ironic, given that his place of birth and residence until twenty-three felt like a distant cousin of Hell or Mars during the too-many summer months, with its blasted red rock and shimmering heat.)  The hallowed hush of him does not sit quite at ease with the thrumming energy of this month.

He steps in and there is a bag slung over his shoulder.  He is dressed more plainly than William, his colors more muted: light gray pants, a pale pink shirt and a tie that is similarly muted.  It brings out the light brown of his skin, the black of his hair.

Nick does not flirt with the proprietress of the coffee shop.  He is polite and pleasant and he orders his coffee black, and then he takes it to the little station to the side of the counter and adds cream and cinnamon.  He has a heavy hand with both; his eyes are on the wall most of the time he is shaking and stirring.  He seems to be paying little mind to the sounds emerging from the back, or maybe he seems unfocused because he hears everything; it's a fine line.

He feels as though he ought to be in a churchyard or a barrow hill, and not here.  Nonetheless, here he is, and now he is searching for a young man with a pocket square.

His eyes don't take very long to light on William, and when they do he smiles, and he takes a few steps over toward the Hermetic, lifting a hand in greeting.  "Hi.  Are you William?"

William
They match, in a way, and when he sees Nick he stands, he smiles, he offers a hand and seems so bright. Around him, there is unrest. There is the feeling in men's hearts before revolution, the feeling of the sea- not the eye of the hurricane but the actual storm itself and all of it wanting to try harder, push harder, to be more than it is right now. He is upheaval searching for some form that it may break and build anew. Constantly seeking a limitation to overcome.

"Hey," bright and pleased. Is he william? Yes, given the pocketsquare and the smile he must be, "do you go by Nicholas or Nick?"

Takes a seat when the other man does. He doesn't seem phased by the heat, is much more uncomfortable with the cold that comse in other months. Summer sunshine Leo creature.

Nicholas Hyde
The offered hand he takes and gives a firm pump or two.  Nick shakes hands often throughout the day: he is practiced at it, just as he is practiced at conveying warmth.

"By Nick, usually," he says, because in truth only his mother and Pen really ever call him Nicholas: and Robin does or used to.  He takes a seat when it becomes apparent that William is waiting for him, setting his coffee down on the table first and then easily sliding into the seat.

Not only is Nick's hair dark but it is also curly, a wild Dionysian mess that tumbles and corkscrews over his forehead and around his ears.  He does not seem to have made any attempt to control it today, though it is evident that he probably just came from work.  "You're the one Pen's been teaching swordplay to, huh?"  And he is amused here but not unkindly so; if anything maybe he has noted William's youth, his eye for color, and how it doesn't seem that hard to imagine him a bravo.

William
There are people in the world who know how to shake hands, as though this is something that was in their DNA. Shaking hands. Shaking hands and being warm deslite the fact that the world around them can be stifling. Nick isn't stifling- not like some he's met at least. Not overwhelming. Not choking on the air like he has with another person he's had meetings with as of late.

There is adventure to be had. There is a push for something- a quest. He seems the type to quest, easy to imagine him a bravo. He's nearly six feet tall and comfortable in his skin, dresses in a way that amkes good on the fact that his frame is all potential and not quite converted to kinetic.

"Yep, I've been stealing your wife away at dawn to semipublicly humiliate myself, builds characters," he grins like he was born to do it. Mischief, this one, "I'm pretty bad at it. Do you... y'know? With the stabbity pokey sword things?"

Nicholas Hyde
Nick takes a sip of his coffee, which is not something done quickly: he raises it to his lower lip first, inhales the steam which is redolent with the scent of cinnamon and in truth of his childhood.  It's one of the few reminders he enjoys, and one of his few concessions to nostalgia if only because it has become so indelibly wrapped up in his present as well.

He does not have time to return the sly smile William gives him because William is asking him whether he stabs things, and his only response for a half a heartbeat is to laugh.  "Me?  No.  That's all Pen," he says.

If William could have been a fly on the wall to watch Pen try to teach Nick how to defend himself when surprised with a grab, he might not have even asked the question.

"I know how to use a gun, barely.  That's really the only weapon I know how to use.  I'm more of a talker, I guess."

William
"Ohhh, then you're doubly dangerous," says like he's completely serious, "well placed words are how countries are made and fall. So, are you a public speaker or a mediator or..?"

what do you do for a living? he says without saying. Curiosity gets the better of him and he knows it's rude, knows it in the pit of his stomach that it is a harmless question and yet it can be so loaded. People feel pressure to answer a certain way and he isn't trying to probe.

Oh lord, Nick has to see how desperately the young man wants to make a good impression

Nicholas Hyde
Nick can indeed see how desperately the young man wants to make a good impression, and see: he finds it endearing, finds that it taps into the well of tenderness in him that is never buried too far below the surface.  Being young and inexperienced is not so far behind him.

"I'm a counselor," Nick says.  It may be a loaded question, but it's a common one to hear from other people once one has attained a certain age: the certain age at which people are expected to have a career that they are working on, that consumes a full half of their waking hours.  "I work in hospice at the main hospital downtown."

The assertion that he is dangerous, well, he'd only smiled at that and it was maybe a little self-conscious and a little wry.  Enough to make it clear that he does not especially think of himself that way.

William
"I keep trying to convince my dad that we need to move my great uncle out here and into hospice up here, but Bonus-Grandpa is pretty entrenched in New Orleans. Didn't even move after the hurricane, just built the house again in the exact same place. Same blueprints and everything," he nods as he picks up his coffee cup. he does not drink it black- it's doubtful that what he has in his cup really even constitutes as coffee anymore given the amount of stuff that is in it.

"It doesn't get so damn hot up here."

a beat.

A moment of horror.

"Oh god, I'm talking about the weather."

Nicholas Hyde
[Am I making you nervous?  Perception + Empathy.]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 6, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 5 ) [Doubling Tens]

William
He is nervous.

He is nervous because he wants to make a good impression because he likes Pen, because he likes Arianna, because he likes their cabal and Nick is nice and William knows whole heartedly that he, personally, is a screw up. And while he might have fooled the Hermetic Order he won't be able to fool Nick for terribly long.

He realizes he's being ridiculous.

He also realizes that he has no idea what to talk about. Pen did not prepare him for this. He knows that Nick likes gardening and that? That is it.

Nicholas Hyde
William's horror, his half-apology and his self-consciousness (and beneath that, shame: isn't that what underlies these things, ultimately?) is met with a sort of warm, wry amusement.  "Your grandpa sounds like a tough old guy.  Are you from New Orleans, originally?"

He takes a swallow from his coffee, which is a pale brown with the cinnamon and cream, and then sets it back down in front of him.  "The weather is a completely acceptable thing to talk about.  It tells you who is thoughtful enough to look for the things they have in common with others.  It's underrated."

William
"I am!" he says, perks up, "we moved to Baton Rouge after Katrina, but I still have family in the area. I moved here to go to college because I figured the scenery change would be nice. It's not nearly as quiet up here as I was expecting, but there's a lot fewer giant reptiles so I'll take it."

The weather, he asserts, is underrated. Safe topic, yes, not abbrasive. Not painful, not something that is going to readily traumatize a stranger. It is the quintessential small talk topic. Will nodes at that.

"Talking about the weather makes me think of old senators campaigning for younger men in white suits before tent revivals."

Nicholas Hyde
Again, that flicker of amusement.  The corners of his eyes crinkle up when he's amused: it's not vocal, but if one looks for his laughter that way it seems to appear far more often than one might expect, when first taking in the somber set to Nick's features.  "It makes me think of trying to talk to my grandmother's friends when we'd visit her place.  I had just enough Spanish."

He gently swirls the coffee in his mug to redistribute the cinnamon, which tends to float to the top if left undisturbed for long enough.  "Pen tells me she's been teaching you to swordfight.  On rooftops."

William
"I finally got to a place with Spanish that I feel like I can have a decent conversation. Honestly, for the longest time when I was little I felt like I had juuuust enough English to be able to get into trouble," he grins, which is just the most appropriate amount of knowing anything, really. Knowing just enough to get into trouble. Knowing just enough that you can understand what you're not supposed to do so that you can do it anyway.

"Where else are you going to learn sword play but rooftops?"

Nicholas Hyde
"I've forgotten most of it, now," Nick says, and again this air of amusement; this is how he meets William's smile.  There's something sly there though if you look: he might know just enough to get himself into trouble too.

"Most of the Hermetics I've known made their apprentices and initiates learn in gymnasiums.  Rooftops sound a lot more interesting."

William
Troublemakers know each other when they see them.

Sure, Nick might seem nice enough. He is charming and he is kind and he is polite but at the end of the day, Nick probably has a streak in him that doesn't sit idly by and play nice all the time. Maybe there is a hint of adventure there. Enough of a hint that William grins, is delighted byt he prospect that the little bit of slyness tells him.

"Most of the hermetics you've known lack a sense of style and adventure, then. Rooftops, I've found, are wonderful for anything. And where's the risk of falling off of a gymnasium- nowhere, that's there."

He takes a drink, "I didn't really have a normal apprenticeship, though."

Nicholas Hyde
"Most of them did," Nick says, and if his tone is carefully couched here well, he can perhaps be forgiven. He is talking to a Hermetic and he is married to a Hermetic and he has been in a cabal with two others in the past: he must like them, even if he's met some that don't impress him.  "I'm pleased to see Pen passing on her flair."

And he is, see.  Then, "What was your apprenticeship like?"

William
"Pen's a blast, I met her in a wardrobe."

Totally a story there.

But, he moves on to the idea, to the question of what his apprenticeship was like, "full of being in near constant trouble and a bit of a minor custody battle before ending up with a legitimate Hermetic mentor. I think I got fast tracked once I met Henry, because we didn't spend half as long as most people do in their apprenticeship, and I feel like if I did we'd be the same rank by the time I got out."

Nicholas Hyde
"In a wardrobe?"  And here he laughs: because if there is a story here it's not one that he heard from Pen, or if he did it was during a rushed phone call when he was exhausted and packing and still in New England and she was here.

That seems like a long time ago, now.

"The initiation process for a few of the Traditions can be pretty long," he agrees: his own is among them.  Ideally.  "Who is Henry?  I don't think I know him."

William
"Henry was here, but he left town a little bit after you and Pen got here. We had our big Tradition meeting, then Henry and this Verbena named Leah went off on some epic quest for an artifact that had to do with who she was way way way long ago in some incarnation past this one," said like he is completely on board with the idea that there are past lives. Said like he knows this for a fact, that there is no real need to convince him.

"You know that turquoise armoir you guys have? I helped her move that because a guy that I was doing a lighting gig with was selling it and she needed help getting it where it needed to go and she wanted to see the thing, so I took her to see it and we're like well, obviously, we need to make sure this isn't a portal to another dimension and everyone knows an armoir is only worth its salt if it can fit two full grown adults in it."

Nicholas Hyde
There is a flicker of recognition there as William mentions Leah: evidently Nick has heard the name before.  This is often the way entering a small community goes, picking up past events in little snatches and stories and piecing it all together.  "So Henry was your mentor, then?"

Here: amusement, again, and maybe a touch of fondness here too.  It is not difficult evidently for him to imagine Pen jumping into a wardrobe to look for Narnia.  "What would you have done if it had been a portal to another dimension?"

William
"He was! And is, technically, we're no longer in the strictest sense of apprentice-and-mentor but I feel like I will always be Henry's apprentice and Henry will always be my mentor. Even if, someday, I become some terrifying archmage he will forever be that person to me. He's grewat, he's an author, little troublemaker of an old man with the best library and a talking fox for a housemate."

As for what he would have done?

"I would have had my first adventure with Pen," he replies with a grin.

Nicholas Hyde
"I heard about the talking fox from Pen," he says, and another smile here.  "She told me much more about the fox than she did about Henry, actually.  I think mentors do stay that way to us, though.  They're like parents."

Even for people who would rather have been taught by someone else: in that, too, they are alike.

He takes another swallow of his coffee.  "So what made you choose the Hermetics, out of curiosity?"

William
"I said I wanted to know everything, and they said we can do that," he said, "what about you? Why turn the wheel aside from it being a natural cosmic calling?"

Nicholas Hyde
Asking a Chakravanti why they decided to become Chakravanti is similar to asking a therapist why they decided to become a therapist: it is, more frequently than not, a loaded question and often asked more lightly than the subject matter the inquirer receives in return.  Nick has been asked both questions with regularity.

He swirls the coffee in his mug again, after another smile cast in William's direction at his reply.  "I fell into an episode of Quiet, and a Chakravanti helped me through it," he says.  "After that, I understood that I had a responsibility.  So I stayed, and she initiated me.  I was a Disparate for about two years before that, though."

William
"Someone who used to be one of my best friends had a few episodes of Quiet while he was here... it was horrible," he said, something about it made him think, made him linger. Made him stop and give way to seriousness. Interest, but understanding the gravity of it.

There are things about himself that he has no idea, has no clue how close he's ridden the line of madness. Has no idea how easily he may slip, or that he may have had episodes in those formative years when magick went awry and he hadn't the first clue as to what was going on. When he didn't know what was real and what wasn't and the world came apart so frequently.

He's still wary for walls, but knows why they talk now.

"I was a disparate for a long time, but I didn't get the whole magick thing until I moved here."

Nicholas Hyde
And here, just like that: the tone of the conversation changes.  Nick is used to having that effect; conversations naturally turn this way when he discusses his work or his Work with other people, or his history.  For many people it is a fearful topic.

"It can be horrible.  It's worse, in some ways, when it's not," Nick says.  Because: he has seen people lost to the siren song before.  He's killed them.

"What do you mean, you didn't get the whole magick thing?  Did you not realize that was what it was?"

William
[This was totally not a terrifying thing for me. Manip + sub]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 4 )

Nicholas Hyde
[Very nice, but...]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 5 ) [Doubling Tens]

William
"I was on my own from sixteenish to... uh.. nineteen? Just about? I turned twenty while I was here and here was the first place I'd met any other awakened people so I spent three years just kinda... you know... thinkin' I was crazy. Apparently, your avatar doesn't like it when you ignore it for three years," shrugs it off. Gives a wave and sounds flippant except-

Except.

There's more to it than that. The ease at which he has that little canned answer of fine-ness that gives way to the fact that, perhaps, that hadn't been as easy or as pleasnt as it seemed. Peopler throw around the word crazy pretty lightly.

Nicholas Hyde
Except.  There's more to it than that, isn't there?  And Nick is aware that sometimes he asks too many questions: he's aware that sometimes people don't want to delve into the deeply personal upon first meeting, or at all.  So there is always some internal debate about whether to ask, and perhaps some restraint.

"It was a little like that for me, too.  Only I was lucky, my sister had Awakened before me and was able to explain after a couple of months."  And here: there is a little furrowing of his brow.  A half-smile, though this is not mirthful: a wistful and knowing thing.

William
"That's a relief," he says with a smile, "I was legitimately starting to think that the people in Baton Rouge were avoiding me and it was like gah, what's the deal, I'm awesome."

Nicholas Hyde
There is a little furrow to Nick's brows there: maybe it is making him recall his own Awakening, or the nudges he was receiving from his Avatar, or whatever they were.  "I didn't tell anyone what was going on.  I was in grad school to become a counselor, so I sort of knew the score and what would happen if I told anyone about it."

William
"I wish you'd been practicing in Baton Rouge, you could have saved me a pretty lengthy inpatient stay. We could have compared notes," he laughed, "have you considered taking on Awakened clientele? I feel like that is a niche."

Nicholas Hyde
William suggests that and Nick laughs.  "It probably is.  I do know some Sleepwalkers who practice.  I've referred people to them before when they need someone who understands but it wouldn't be ethical for me to take them on.  The whole dual relationship thing."  A beat.  "But I am sorry that happened."

William
"Dude, I'm sorry you couldn't talk to anybody for a few months, it sucks being alone and I'm glad you had someone," he sounds genuinely happy for Nick, too. Not at all resentful of his situation. Not at all envious of Nick but, rather, in a state that he isn't as prickly as he would have.

A second.

"Wanna go jump out of an airplane with me this week?"

Nicholas Hyde
Nick's eyebrows pull up into a pair of smooth arches and he laughs, then, because: this is the kind of suggestion he might have expected from Sera.  "Um.  Sure.  I've never jumped out of a plane before, but I suppose it's as good a time as any."

William
"Sounds great. You. Me. Airplane- pewww-" like they're plummeting to the ground "-but obviously without the crash part. More the gentle float part."

Nicholas Hyde
"Have you been before?"  Nick does not sound nervous, not precisely, but: well, the fact that he is suddenly showing a little apprehension is probably a good sign.

William
"Yeah! I went when I was eighteen, so I was pretty much excited to do anything that was on my own so my first response was let's jump out of an airplane. My parents were livid, but it was fantastic. Total rush. Haven't tried recently but I think I'm gravity proof... not going to test it now but at some point I'm going to see if I can fall off a roof because that's important to know."

Nicholas Hyde
Nick laughs this time, though it is a quiet thing, more of a rumble.  "Well, I can probably talk to Pen about gravity proofing us both, just in case.  Unless you think that would ruin the experience."

William
"We'll bounce, it's fine."

He grins, jokingly.

Morbid, yes, but joking.

Nicholas Hyde
Nick smiles once more: no stranger to morbid humor.  "All right.  Just let me know where and when to meet you."

William
He gives a thumbs up, raises his mug of coffee, and is content to continue on with pleasant conversation. He heads out when he needs to, but for the time and for now, he's happy to spend time with the older counselor.

Reminded of a sorrow

Pen
One day when Nicholas comes home from work he comes home to Yorick, gone. He knew this would happen; he knew it was happening today, for Penelope is not cruel-hearted, and would not return their guest to his rightful owner secretly or slyly, and besides: Nick was in on the group-text.

One day when Nicholas comes home from work he comes home to Penelope on a Skype call in her study, but as soon as the door opens and Nicholas is home she abandons her very rarely used computer and her brother Charles. Descends the stairs as if gravity didn't matter or were a thing which she had under her command and she tucks herself into the crook of his shoulder and breathes his name against his skin and also that there is left over Korean BBQ in the refrigerator or she will make him an omelette or go out and get him fresh strawberries or jalapeno-rhubarb pie

Nick
Nick knew that the rabbit was going back today: Pen told him before he went to work, and besides he was in on the group text.  He is not wracked, though he is perhaps a little sad in a way he hasn't vocalized.  The rabbit would sit with him or in his lap on many nights, and definitely did not want for affection while it stayed with them.

When he returns home and Pen tucks herself into the crook of his shoulder, his arms wrap around her: a reflex, almost, and he tucks his chin in against the side of her head.  (He is not quite tall enough to tuck it in over the top, see: they are almost of a height.)  "I'll eat the barbeque, but I wouldn't have any objections to pie or strawberries."  He presses his mouth against her temple, breathes in.  "Are you all right?"

Pen
There is a moment's grace between his question and her somber answer. "Yes."

She is sincere. She means that word, she means that answer. "But I was reminded of a sorrow today, so I feel the coolness of its shadow as if I were already cold."

"What would you rather have, pie or strawberries? I can go and get dessert now."

Nick
He presses his lips to her temple again, and even though she has said she is all right he does not draw away - even if he is hungry.  Pen has this effect on him; once she is there he is often reluctant to part again, even if they eventually must.  "Stay," he says.

"What was the sorrow?"

Pen
Pen doesn't draw away either - she is only hungry for Nicholas, who has been absent from her sight for too long as Pen measures such things. She loops an arm around Nick's neck, but only squeezes gently; the canny will note the restraint there, the effort not to flare-up fierce as flame to kindling and kiss instead of answer.

"Death, family, Heath," Pen says, and he cannot see her face; it is hidden. But in the next moment she breaks to slide her hands down Nick's arms find his hands lace their fingers and pull him toward the kitchen. "Do you know, sometimes I feel as though my heart were a tangle of thread and you hold the end of the thread, and maybe unknowing you are tugging on it, and I just want to follow it through the city until I find you?"

Flirt, flirt. Woo, woo.

Nick
Death, family, Heath.  Anyone carefully flipping through the pages of the lives of Penelope Mercury Mars and Nicholas Hyde would note those themes, here: how they resurface, how they sometimes drive the two of them together or apart and back together again in ways subtle and not so.  He cannot see her face: it is hidden.  But perhaps he can imagine how it looks.

He follows her to the kitchen, and the rumbling of his stomach is entirely involuntary and provokes a somewhat abashed look as he is betrayed by his body.  His body has often been traitorous: extra incentive for him to learn Life, perhaps.  He laughs a moment later, this gentle thing, a little embarrassed.  "It's never unknowing.  I miss you, when I'm not home."

He breathes out a little sigh as they pass the threshold into the kitchen, and he reaches up to unbutton the top button on his collar and loosen his tie.  "Did you eat already?"

Pen
This is not a house where the wife does all the cooking, but Pen likes to cook and her schedule can be more flexible (unless a particular hour or a particular setting of stars in the heavens are a necessary component, in which case Penelope can get quite tense about meals), so more often than not she has some-sort of dinner or dinner plan ready for Nicholas. She goes through phases, too, of being very careful, of cooking things that don't cost very much but provide numerous portions and can be frozen, and cooking things that are extravagant and expensive.

The audible growl of his stomach gets an arch look; eyebrows gone Nouveau smooth; mouth solemn in a way that isn't really, that is sly. The slyness softens; dissolves at his quiet laugh; his response.

She looses his hands in the kitchen and puts the Korean BBQ in all its boxed up glory on the counter. Three boxes, one only consisting of kimchi.

"I ate too recently to be very hungry. Dining room, living room, bedroom?"

Where do you want to eat?

Nick
"I'll eat in the dining room.  We probably don't use it often enough," he says, and there is this rueful little smile, an acknowledgement of how often they eat on the couch or sometimes in bed.  (Nick does not like to imagine what his mother would say to him if she knew about the latter.  Fortunately she is in Arizona and so kept quite in the dark regarding this shameful little corner of his life.)

He gathers up the boxes in his hands, and: his stomach rumbles again.  He is therefore very quick to make toward the dining room.

And here he seats himself with relief.  It is not a house where the wife does all the cooking, but his gratitude at not being forced to choose between cooking at the end of the day or eating cold cereal is always evident.  "Do you want to talk about what happened today?"

Pen
As his chair scrapes back, Pen follows Nick into the room, holding in her hand one chilled bottle of sparkling elderflower juice, the suggestion of frost scraped up and down the long glass neck like the opaque layer of snow atop a frozen lake. In the other hand, a bottle of plain sparkling water, a lemon tucked against the palm of her hand like a golden ball which very much wants to escape and find some froggish pool.

Pen phosphoresces in Nick's wake: sets the two liquids down with an air of ritual, disappears back into the kitchen, returns with two glasses, glass goblets. Her chair scrapes now, and she untwists the cap of the glass bottle and then the plastic.

Her chair is the one not right beside Nick's, or right across from Nick's, but at the corner: so they have both angles covered, so she can, if she wants, play with him beneath the table with an imperfect air of innocence, the position where they can both eat without having to turn to face the other. Right there: at your right hand, and mine.

"Margot asked me not to tell part of it, but," and it occurs to Pen that Margot wasn't very clear. That's not how you bargain with the sorcery; as Pen could tell you, to her sorrow. (If you ask her three times to help you understand.) "I'm sure you can draw conclusions. It seems -- " beat. "What do you think of Ned and Andres? I haven't spoken to Ned. Do you think I should spend more time with him?"

Nick knows Pen well enough to know Pen isn't asking whether Nick thinks she should try to be Ned's friend, necessarily; only that she wonders whether she should try to be witness.

To be more aware.

Nick
His wandering into the dining room is a true wandering: Nick stops partway when they pass a window, when something outside catches his attention.  If she looks there with him she will see that he is looking at the nest of baby birds that is in the pine tree outside, that has been there for the past little while: the baby birds are no longer in it, and all that is there is a sole downy feather.  Perhaps they have finally learned to fly; perhaps a hawk or scavenging fox or coyote ate them one by one.

He starts off again and as he reaches the table he sets all three boxes down, one atop the other, sets his fork down, and then sets them all aside each other before he opens them.  He seats himself then, wiggling to pull his chair up closer to the table.

Pen of course sits there just at his right hand, and his right hand reaches for hers and folds over it even as his left is busy knocking the folded lids aside and breaking up the blocks of food within.  It occurs to him that he would like to kiss her just now, but: the moment passes.  He is hungry.

"Margot has told me a lot about her situation," he says, and he was not sworn to secrecy by Margot but being a counselor swears him to it in a way nonetheless.  He spears food on his fork and brings it to his mouth, careful not to drop a grain of rice.

There is a low noise in his throat when Pen mentions Ned and Andrés.  "I'm still worried about Andrés," he says.  "I think he is well intended, but he's obsessive and...I don't think he reflects on himself very often.  Ned...I wish he'd feel more and think less.  I don't think Andrés has been good for him in that regard."

Pen
Pen pours clumsily; the cold bottle slips against her fingers; the lemon rolls, and lacking a sense of itself as anything but a fairy tale golden ball, misshapen by cruel reality, it rolls toward one of the Styrofoam containers. Counterpoint: the quick fall, the clear and luminous whisper, of elderflower juice with its sap-green suggestions into her glass; she gestures with the bottle's mouth toward the other, and if Nick looks assenting, pours for him as well. No drops spilled when she pours for him; only when she pours, less gracefully, for herself. Nick has taken her other hand; Penelope adjusts their grip so that she might run her thumb along the hills of his knuckles, the veined back of his hand.

"Oh, Nicholas," and here is wickedness: "You should have been a Catholic; what a priest you'd make." Beat; and then, "Margot said Ned killed somebody and that it seemed easy for him. That it was defense; that it needed to be done. But it was easy. I don't know him well enough: I find it concerning."

Pen's mouth quirks. "Sometimes Andres reminds me of some Order of Hermes mages I know; but mostly he just reminds me of himself. I'm less worried about him."

Nick
Nick does indeed look assenting when she begins to pour the elderflower juice.  His eyes have turned toward it, watching the crystal green of it as it tumbles into the goblet, splashing up against the sides before it returns to the center.  He sets down his fork so that he may pick up the lemon in his free hand and offer it back to her, though she will need a free hand to take it.

Her wickedness is met with something akin to dry amusement, saved from edging into the sardonic if only because there is no cynicism there.  His listening ear is not a calculated thing, borne from grasping far and deep for power over other people; perhaps he would have made a good priest.  Or a good Chorister, once upon a time.  He takes his fork back up and heaps food onto it, chewing thoughtfully as his eyes find the back wall.  "I could see Ned finding it easy to kill.  He's...very detached from other people.  Other things.  I don't know if it's trauma, or if it's just what's in him."

He swallows.  "Andrés has just as much potential to be damaging.  He's not malicious or callous, but he can be careless.  It's just easier to forgive."

Pen
Penelope pours seltzer into her cup after the elderflower juice, diluting it; she does the same to Nicholas's cup. Bubbles rise, seed-pearl flurries of them; they leave one element for another, water for air, then go diffuse; there's always the faintest hint, suggestion, of sulphur to carbonated beverages that let you taste it.  She reaches out to take the lemon back from Nicholas; and then she stands. Lets Nick's hand slip from hers, or find her wrist; she moves to stand at his back, slip one arm around his shoulders, bend her bright head over: it's a lingering caress; full-bodied.

"Easier to forgive?" Pen says, skeptical, and also, "Just as much potential to be damaging? I don't know how relevant that is; how do we measure potential, Nickolai?"

"Margot was concerned about how easy it was for him. Ned. Perhaps it wasn't easy; or he is in shock. It's hard to see someone you respect and trust, you laugh with and lean on, kill someone for the first time."

Pen: leaves Nick, then. But only to go into the kitchen, retrieve a knife; come back, then cut the lemon into two halves right there on the kitchen table. She sets the knife aside; there it lies gleaming.

"She's curious about the spirit world. So is William. Did you know, he seems much more interested in what we can do for the dead-but-not-gone than some of the other shamanic goings on I hear about. It's interesting."

Nick
Nicholas releases her hand as she stands up, though he leans back into her as her arm folds around his shoulders and her head bends over him.  He tilts his head back and it nestles into the crook of her shoulder.  "Easier to overlook.  I just want to be fair-minded."

Some could argue that he is too fair-minded, perhaps, though it is only: he evaluates others differently from Pen.  Given the role and responsibilities of his Tradition, he must.

There are things he may need to prepare himself to do, one day.

He glances up at her when she mentions Margot again.  "Was it difficult for you to see when I did it?"  She leaves him then, and he lifts another forkful of meat and rice to his mouth and chews, his eyes vague and unfocused when they come to rest on the center of the table.

"Are there other shamanic goings-on, other than me?"  And here, amusement.  Then, "I liked William, but that wasn't a topic we touched on."

Pen
She squeezes one lemon half into her cup; lets some pulp escape the mangled globe, flee gold for the green liquid; her palm is wet; her fingers, too; she licks them; then reaches for Nick's thigh, and lifts up her cup; it flirts with her mouth by staying near, just so. And over the brim of her cup, her eyes are struck brighter by a sudden lance of good humor; it almost dispels solemnity; the somewhat-haunted look of one who has heard an echo where one didn't expect an echo to be found. Almost.

"I don't understand how. This is hyperbole, of course, but I feel as if nearly every Mage in Denver asks me if I have understanding of the Art of Spiritus; cosmology, certainly: I know the basics. But I refer them all to you. I think there must be something in it -- a longing for an easier way to find another world; one more full of wonder."

Meditative. And how neatly she avoided answering his other question.

But of course Pen will come back to it: she always comes back to questions like that. "I appreciate your fair-mindedness, Crow, but I disagree. That he is easier to overlook. I think he's easier to see. I might well be wrong," and that's generous, too. And easily admitted, without rancor or a shadow.

Pen doesn't like being wrong, and she fears it when it means somebody else will be hurt by it, but she does not fear being wrong for pride's sake. Usually.

Nick
The other half of the lemon finds its way into his hand and he squeezes it over his own cup, careless of pulp and pith alike: both find their way into his glass.  Both are easy to drink around, should one desire, though there are people who enjoy even the pith (an acquired taste, like many things in life.)  Nick does not drink from it yet: he is still eating.

"Almost no one asks me about it," he says, and there is humor in the subtle arc of his brows.  Maybe Nick is aware that most people do not ask him anything; most people do not get the chance to ask him anything because he does not often grant it.  There have only been a handful of such occasions in Denver so far, with anyone who wasn't Ari or Pen herself.  "Most of them don't talk to me about magick."

He lifts his eyes up to her when she disagrees, and here there is a slight shake of his head.  "You might well be right.  It doesn't really matter, anyway.  I'm cautious of them both.  But I...there is a place for people who can kill easily, so long as they're reined in.  The Chakravanti have made use of them before."

So long as they are reined in, and so long as they know that their ultimate role is to die: he does not say this.

Pen
[Let's actually see if she can restrain herself. A willpower roll.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Pen
She traces the subtle arc of his brows. He has an interesting face. She has always thought so. The shapes his expression takes: fascinates her, binds her close as a spell. Her hand slides up his thigh; rests lightly. And she takes a sip of her drink, but her gaze remains direct. For now: important thing, for nows. And Pen is so direct. That expression causes this one: faint quirk of her lips, behind the cup; a deepening of shadows in the eyes; a vibrant answer, see.

And then -- and then: a measure of silence. Her gaze cuts to the side: how lake-light will become mist and fog, come gloaming; be woven into something at once transparent and opaque. Impossible things. Her eyelashes are long; she is a woman who knows what she believes; who believes it, whole of her heart; who used to be quite rash.


She lofts her chin a little: a touch wry, or earnest, both somehow; and then arch at the end, tempting, beguiling, see: she says, "Oh, I am aware." Beat. "I am quite the expert, you know, on the Chakravanti, their habits and what they dream when nobody is watching."


Nick
Pen was reminded of a shadow tonight and where she didn't expect, and so this conversation they are having cannot quite help but brush up against those where they linger.  She was reminded: of Death, and of Heath, and perhaps of all of those who became involved in one way or another.  Nick cannot help but think of them too; he saw all of those people the night that she told him about Heath.

He thinks of Jonas far more often than he speaks of him, and perhaps Miles as well (though in truth perhaps Miles' fate ought to terrify him more, shouldn't it: his dogged loyalty to a doomed companion, that he still has so much humanity left to shed in the name of duty.)

There is a measure of silence, full only of quiet chewing.  Nick finally reaches for his drink, once it is broken.  "Is Margot okay?  Will she be okay?"

Pen
"I think she will be okay," Pen says, her head canted: just so. Her gaze still direct; is she thinking of, or did she think of, Jonas and Miles just now, when she called herself expert? Claimed expertise with a lift of the corner of her mouth; just so? Perhaps. She thinks of Jonas often; she has told them both so, how much he means to her: in his way. Miles she thinks of too: usually when she is irritated with herself; when her mind wants to wander and rest on something shameful. It's strange the way the heart works. "But I don't know; I haven't got the knack of Time quite yet."

"It wasn't difficult to see you kill the first time, Nick. It was different, but not difficult. It was difficult when you killed Liz, or what was left of her. But I wanted to kill her, so."

Nick
He's mastered the skill of eating one-handed, Nicholas Hyde.  His hand finds hers on his thigh and covers it while he spears a dumpling and some vegetables on his fork and brings them to his mouth.  One can sometimes gauge how hungry he is by whether or not he has chosen to eat with chopsticks: they are much slower than forks.

There is a slow exhale when Pen mentions Liz: the Chorister often hangs over him still, a ghostly intrusive presence in his life.  He does not forget, even when he is not thinking of her for a period of time.  "I didn't want to kill her," he says.

A beat.  "I don't...I'm not sure that feeling anything when you kill saves you.  Wanting to do it, or not wanting to do it.  I'm not sure it makes a difference in whether you acquire Jhor, or whether you Fall.  Look at Jonas.  Look at me.  Look at Liz."

Pen
He didn't want to kill her. This isn't when Pen's gaze falls away, lake-light dripping from a sword. The repetition of a theme. That is when all her looks are eloquent, listening. Attentive, ardent. I don't. One of Nick's stop-starts. This isn't when her gaze falls, either, like shadow from an arm raised in warning or salutation or: does it matter, to the shadow falling, and what falls beneath it? He's not sure that feeling anything -- and this is when: her lower lip firms then softens; her chin sets and her gaze falls to rest on his hand over her hand on his thigh, the edge of their table. This, too, is listening. And ardent.

"I do look at Jonas - at you - and at Liz."

Nick
"I do too, but I'm less sure of what the difference is and where," he says.  "Other than that it's there."  He's not looking at her or at the way her mouth has gone soft or at her hand on his thigh with his hand over it.  A piece of broccoli crunches gently in the pocket of his cheek; his eyes have found the wall opposite them.

"Which is to say, I guess, that I'd appreciate your thoughts if you spent more time with Ned.  It might make my heart rest easier."

Pen
"Perhaps I am too sure of myself," no Hermetic said ever, except for Penelope right now, and hopefully they won't hear about it: they might revoke her card. Is what ignorant Traditionalists might say, if they heard her. Or Tytalans. Ignorant Tytalans.

"Especially," a squeeze of his thigh, "given I live with someone who guises about like a trickster in a ragged cloak; especially considering how often you and Ari trick me." The ghost of a dimple; she isn't really smiling, though the pitch of her voice has risen to an easier level: almost teasing; at least a hook.

"Can you imagine me initiating anyone - no one specific, certainly no one in Denver - but anyone to the Order of Hermes?"

Nick
This conversation could move to a more somber place: it has gone there before, has pitched sharply down and taken the both of them with it.  Perhaps it threatens to do so now; it is difficult for Nick to not become troubled when he speaks of Liz.  Because he spoke truly: he did not want to kill her.  He only recognized the necessity, and knew his responsibility.

Pen squeezes his thigh though, and the suggestion of her smile is enough to coax one out of him.  He sets his fork down and leans as though he might kiss her, though he stops now: long enough to laugh once.  "Of course I can imagine that," he says.  "You could convince just about anyone to join the Order, I think."

Pen
He leans; she sways. Magnets have an effect on one another; forces of gravity. "I don't think so," Pen says, gently; but honestly, of course. "But regardless, I didn't ask whether you thought I could lure people into my Tradition; only if you could imagine me initiating anyone. What circumstances can you imagine me doing so, my love?" Her gaze cuts upward; to the side, slant-wise; finds his face. Her head is canted. She grimaces, suddenly. "I am supposed to begin thinking about taking students, actually, now that I've reached the degree of Adept. But ... Bran Summers didn't take students for an ice age after he attained Adepthood, and I think in this I may use him as a model."

Nick
His eyes don't cut over to her; not yet.  "I could see plenty of people wanting to be initiated by you," he says, and now his eyes find hers, now they sweep her face and the noble line of her jaw and hair red as sunset: a threshold, see.  "But I suppose I can't imagine many circumstances under which you would initiate someone."

His fingertips trace over the back of her hand, over the impression created by a small ridge of bone.  "There were rumors about Bran.  You'd be the subject of all sorts of rumors if we ever moved back to a larger city.  Imagine all the scandal."

Pen
"There's no helping rumors; I don't have a care for them," Pen says, off-hand and with casual arrogance and, in this moment, a sense of being perfectly honest, even if it is not exactly a truthful or untruthful statement. "But no, this is wandering away from - " rue, here. "I would initiate someone if they were to be my student; or their teacher had asked me to take part in their initiation. I know it is different in other Traditions; they don't have quite the amount of book-work that we do, but..."

Nick
"I like the way the Order has a more formal apprenticeship," Nick says, and this, thoughtfully.  "I guess it's probably worse if you get someone like Viktor, but it seems like you get to have a lot of guidance most of the time."  Of course: no system is perfect.  "What do you think you would look for in a student, if you took one?"

Pen
"House Tytalus is a cruel House, fond of Man versus stories," Penelope says, and her voice is cool; is the lake-light dripping. "I would look for their wants; why they wanted to choose the Order of Hermes, and House Flambeau; whether they would serve -- be well-served by, too -- the Tradition. I'd think about what they'd be without it; whether that was worse, or better; and whether I was ready to shoulder the burden of being the one to let them in, regardless of their path: if I saw something in them, shining, which would give me certainty even did they Fall after. That's what I'd look for."

Nick
He'd picked up his fork again and he is eating quickly, though he is listening too, glancing over at her from time to time as he chews.  It gives him the furtive sort of look of a cat who is not supposed to be chewing on a houseplant and is nonetheless, unintentionally though: Nick perhaps does feel some residual guilt, always, when anything less than his full attention is on the person who is speaking.

He does set his fork down as she finishes speaking though, and turns to face her more fully.  He is still near enough that she can keep her hand on his thigh and indeed, his hand holds it there.  "You would be very careful, and selective.  That's why it's hard for you to imagine."

Pen
Her hand drifts toward the outside of his thigh; up toward his hip bone. Doesn't drift enough to dislodge his hand; will attempt to find satisfaction where it is held, if he exerts any pressure at all.

"Wouldn't you look for the same things?"

Nick
Rather than continuing to rest on her hand as it moves, Nick's lifts and crosses the narrow divide between them so it can come to rest on her knee.  He traces the knob of bone, his gaze coming to rest somewhere around her midline (no, not there: somewhere inward.)  "I'm not sure.  I...well, I think I'd look for their ability to listen, and learn, and be intentional and thoughtful.  I'd want to know whether they could bear the responsibility of being Chakravanti without it breaking them or making them too cynical."

A beat.  "But I have a hard time imagining myself initiating anyone, either."

Pen
"What if I decided I wished to follow two Traditions, and asked you?" Penelope asks. She is tracing something against his outer thigh; a charm or enchantment, perhaps, to beguile him into: something. Her knee is cool to the touch.

Nick
That coaxes a laugh out of him, and he lifts his eyes to hers then.  They are crinkled at the edges, all gentle amusement.  "Would you want two Traditions?  It strikes me as being like two huge families who don't really get along being stuck at a reunion together."

He brushes his thumb over her kneecap, and now his eyes track its trajectory.  "If you ever were to decide that, I would be there when you were initiated.  But I'm not sure I could teach you everything I would need to teach you, myself."

Pen
"I might, one day," Penelope says, smiling (almost smiling; it's just there, see it? Limning her mouth; suggesting corners, suggestive corners). "You mean you wouldn't teach me yourself; you'd pawn me off on one of your associates? Is it because I haven't learned to measure out Time yet, though I pay you such close mind?"

Nick
"I think Lysander would disapprove," Nick says, and if she didn't know him so well she might think his expression has grown solemn.  (But there, see, how the corners of his mouth waver and he cannot quite banish the humor there in his eyes.)  "I think any struggle you have with Time is more likely to do with my failings as a teacher than your ability as a student.  It would be the same with the Chakravanti."

Pen
"No!" Passionate disavowal: "It only takes a while for me to grasp a new Art; it is nothing against your teaching at all. Do you really believe you'd fail me as a teacher of the Chakravanti way? Why?"

She saw the humor; she leaned closer to catch the glint of it in his eyes. But it is not enough for her to chase this most serious question down.

Nick
The passion there in her voice takes him aback, but only just: his eyebrows loft and form two twin arches before they lower again.  "A lot of the truths the Chakravanti teach would be difficult to teach someone you love."  There is a beat, and: Nick hesitates, but only because this is a serious question, and they had been joking moments ago.  "I think we...on some level most of us are prepared to have to kill each other one day.  That's not something I want to prepare myself to do with you."

Pen
She listens.

She always listens to Nicholas; even back before they were lovers, she listened to him; worked over his words, as if she could feel them in the palm of her hand; listened, with an ardor.

So she listens, and whatever she's drawing takes her fingers from the outer side of Nicholas's thigh down to his knee and then up the inner and then: she straightens, smooths her hand (a fine pressure; a close one) down his leg entirely: leaves him at his knee. She straightens; reaches across herself for her cup of sparkling water.

The sparkle is dim, now.

And even somebody who knows Pen well might be hard put to guess why, precisely, she paled; then flushed; then paled again, dramatically and completely.

"Perhaps it would be more difficult; perhaps not. You won't know until you try it. Are you done eating?"

Nick
Whatever Pen is drawing on the side of his thigh, she stops; her hand is a firm pressure on him before she removes it and takes up her glass of water.  Even somebody who knows Pen well could be hard put to guess at her shifting expression, and Nicholas is indeed hard put to do so.  He can guess, he can intuit: but in the end, that's all it is, isn't it?

"I'm done," he says, with a sidelong glance toward the abandoned cartons.  He managed to do some damage, at least.

He reaches for his own glass and swallows from it before asking, "Did I upset you?"

Pen
Pen gathers up the cartoons, minimizing when possible. Two are emptied, one remains for a midday snack. The metal gray of the fork in her hand is not the metal gray of a sword, or a knife. The clink of cutlery is not the clink of metal on a battlefield: tackle-bits and bridles, spurs and blades in their sheaths.

It's Nick's fork, and to give herself time to think she digs the fork into a clump of rice and forks it into her mouth. Sucks on the fork, turning it so the prongs point into her tongue. The moment passes, see the half-moon dark of her eyelashes against her cheekbones, how she stretches one leg out, the heel beside between Nick's feet. The moment passes, and she touches his shin with her calf; she cuts a gesture with the fork.

"Yes. I'm sorry. It's only, sometimes I wonder whether you think other -- well not other. My. Not my." Pen places the fork in one of the cartons; the weight of it cants toward the other. She circles the goblet glass with her thumb and forefinger, dragging it across the table, nearer her. It leaves behind one ring, two ring, three ring: the rings dissolve one into the other.

"I don't... want you to prepare yourself to kill me. I don't wish you to be in that position I don't wish it Nicholas nor will it and so it won't be. But I'd be a liar if I told you that I didn't think about what I would do, should anything happen to our cabal mates as happened to Liz. Is being aware of a possible danger 'preparing' yourself?"

See how the gray of her eyes can be moon-dark rather than lake-dark sometimes; all witch-shadow and lake-light? Uncertain light: imploring, even: searching.

Nick
"Whether I think other what?"  There are times when, if one put all three of the Hyde siblings aside one another they would look especially alike at certain points: they all acquire a certain sharpness, see, something keen-edged, when their interest has been piqued just so.  It wants answers, and it wants.

Nick reaches again for his water glass but does not drink from it, as Pen speaks further.  He spins it gently, watches the glimmer of water around the edge of the glass, puddled there on the table.

"It's not preparing yourself," he says finally.  "I...prepare myself for things that are likely, not for remote possibilities."  A beat.  "I've thought, too, about what I would do if something like what happened to Liz happened to anyone else.  If I would act differently.  But I don't know what else either of us could have done."

Pen
Pen looks stern; she does not mean to. She looks stern because she is grave, and gravity touches the bones of her face just so; the dramatic pallor, made more stage-craft against the bright cap of her hair; there's a suggestion of sweetness: just out of reach - the highest fruit, well-guarded. The suggestion of sweetness might be there, a hint, a subtle nuance in her looks -- but it is absent from her voice, which is low.

"'Things that are likely, not remote possibilities,'" she says, Echo who spoke Narcissus' words back at him: as he wasted away, as he thinned away like wax; his wick burned too bright; the flame would not blow out.  "That's not how ... I think about it, about what if."

"And I know, my love; I don't know what else we could have done either; nothing, then. It's done. But that's why..."

Pen trails away. Stands. Gathers the cartons and brings them into the kitchen. Two of them get dumped into the recycling; one gets put into the refrigerator. This is the sound of it opening; this is the sound of it shutting. Of water running.

"It's a different conversation," she says, raising her voice; bracing herself on the kitchen counter, like so: water still running. White water. She twists the knob to off. "Liz is. I just..."

"I'm sorry."

Nick
There are, occasionally, times when Nicholas cannot guess at what is beneath the lake-light, when there are depths that shift too many times and too deeply for him to understand for a certainty what is going on.  These times are rare, but they happen.  He sees her gravity: he sees her unease; he sees that while she looks stern there is something beneath that.  It does not tell him everything.

"How do you think about it?" he asks now.  And perhaps there are nuances here, perhaps they are talking past one another: Nick's brow and the way it bends suggests that he wonders this.  "I only...a lot of us, the Chakravanti, we die when other Chakravanti kill us.  That's all I meant."

He does not rise from his chair, though he twists at the hip so that he can face her, or at least hear her more readily.  There is a rasp of the legs of his chair against the floorboards.  "What are you sorry for?"  His tone suggests that there is nothing she should be sorry for: it seeks.

Pen
That's all I meant.

"I know that's what you meant. What I mean is - " a pause. Her back was still to Nick; now she turns; she is leaning against the counter. Her arms are not crossed; her palms are on the counter's edge, her fingers (graceful, deft) curled around; framed, so. There's a stitch between her eyebrows: chiseled; sharp; glass-cut, fine.

"I don't put so fine a boundary on possibility, but perhaps because I am not careful enough or wise enough. I don't think to myself: the Chakravanti fling themselves into curses; their philosophy is a moth against fire, always; they are responsible and the burden of that responsibility drags them through Jhor more often than a Tytalan, or a Verbena, or a Singer in the Chorus, so it is more likely that a Chakravanti I know will - I should keep my eye on them. I don't: do you understand me? I don't think it more likely, I don't -- I suppose if pressed I might express a lack of surprise at learning that another member of House Tytalus has flirted with a demon; but I would be surprised. Even though House Tytalus is a house where the heroes are Viktor. I'm not being clear; I know that. It's only I don't feel -- or I do feel. I feel that -- when our friend Fell, I did not afterward think it wasn't likely another one of us might. I thought it was the same amount of likely, but I made sure to look at it, so if. If."

"And I'm sorry, because it is preparation to me: being aware. It's the first step. And I'm sorry I had such a visceral reaction; and I feel as if I am failing you, somehow - I don't know how."

Nick
Here is Nick when she turns to him: his arm laid across the table, his fingers curled almost into a fist, his brow furrowed the way it will when eyebrows lift in thought (surprise, even) even as they lower.  Maybe something occurs to him here and now.

 He did little today to tame his hair before he left for work (tired from this weekend's past adventure in the hills with Ari, perhaps) and his curls as he tilts his head back to regard her are tousled, framing his head like a dark sun.  "You aren't failing me," he says, and there is some sweetness there, a smile: he believes it.

He is silent then for a moment, mulling and gathering his thoughts.  "I think you...you think the best of people.  I admire that about you."  It is a thing he too achieves in some contexts, but now: well, his Tradition could well be the one that gave fatalism its name.  "I don't...I don't think that we brush against Jhor more often because of a failing in us.  I think it's a risk we take when working with death magick.  That's how I look at it.  And we risk it more often, and so the responsibility for our Traditionmates at the end, that's...that's just what it is."

A beat.  "I believe in being aware.  I also think there are some things that happen to us, that are more likely to happen to us, that will happen to us, regardless, and knowing that is the next step of preparation."

Pen
"It just seems narrow," Pen says. "I believe Jhor ... Hmm." Pen frowns down at her toes; she is a tall woman, and her legs are long. Her closest (most intimate) experience with it is of Nicholas returning to her, Jhor-riddled, under a shadow. She has not experienced Jhor first-hand; she tends toward other manifestations of Quiet. "That will happen, regardless?"

Nick
"Death and loss are both things that are certain," he says.  "Even if we don't always know the manner of it.  I don't mean that...I don't think that dying that way, that Jhor is inescapable, but..."  Nick glances down at his lap, perhaps at his thigh where the imprint of her aborted symbol can still be felt somewhere, and he exhales.  "I just don't like the thought of being responsible in that way for you.  I'm not sure I could do it."

His fingers curl back into his palm; gentle hills of skin and bone rise and fall again as his hand becomes a fist and then relaxes.  "I know I could.  Or would.  Do whatever I need to do, that is.  But I don't like thinking about it."

Pen
"I don't like the thought of anyone else being responsible in that way for you," Penelope says, after a moment. After a long moment. She means it and she doesn't mean it. Both statements would be true. "But I don't believe you'll need -- I don't think you're going to become a walking shroud, this time around; I love you, you see, and I believe you."

"And never fear; I'd fall on my sword." Faint smile; almost: beguiling. "If ever there was a need."

Her gaze flicked up from her toes at some point; touched on Nicholas, instead. She shifted her weight from one hip to the other; her muscles tensed as if she were going to push away from the counter, but she didn't. Doesn't, yet.

Nick
Pen does not need to push herself away from the counter.  Nick moves to his feet, and it is quick and one smooth motion but there is no power behind it, no urgency.  He crosses the room to the threshold, the door, and stops to lean on the frame.  His muscles are tensed as though he would continue walking, would cross the distance to her: but he doesn't, yet.

"Hopefully there will never be a need," he says.  And then, "I think you're right, though.  About me.  I don't think that's going to happen this time around."

It could: of course it could.  But it hasn't yet.

Pen
Her muscles tense again; she does push away from the counter. Doesn't need to, because Nick's come so much nearer; does, anyway. Needs to in order to reach the same door frame; economical. No flourishes. Needs to in order to tweak one of his curls, pinch his chin, tap his collar. There's a sense of ozone in the air; of potential frisson; some left-over tension. Pen has enough personality that, when she is passionately disturbed by something, unsettled, the air itself can reflect it; can shiver with it. Nick, too, though he's described as wan: this is their home.

"I have a need," Penelope says, solemnly. "The riddle is: what is it?"

Nick
Nick obligingly tilts his head toward her so that she can tug at a curl, wind it around her finger and then let it unspool or spring back into place.  He reaches for her and a hand lights on her side, his thumb brushes over the curve of her hip.  He is smiling: not solemn in the slightest, now.  "Do I get a hint?"

Pen
"No."

Nick
Little creases appear at the corners of his eyes, and he straightens away from the doorframe but only so he can circle an arm around her, first one and then the other.  For the moment he is content with this, leaning into her with her leaned into him: though the leftover tension lingers in them both, and so he teases.  "Not this, then?  I suppose I'll have to guess."

She might answer; she might not, she might respond to his teasing in kind.  He kisses her next, and one thing will lead to another, because some things are indeed certain -

and onward, into the evening.