I'll be the knife

Nick Hyde
It's been a little while since Ned went and found Nick in his office on the hospital's third floor.  They haven't had occasion to speak much since then, besides perhaps an occasional text: they are both busy men.  Maybe Ned was waiting for Nick to reach out; maybe Nick was waiting for the same.

Regardless, it's one day around the lunch hour that Ned receives a text from Mr. Hyde.  Hi Ned.  Headed to the river by the hospital after work if you want to meet me there.  

Arrangements: we don't need to know the details.

The river Nick was talking about runs north of downtown, and there are parks on the banks.  Wilder areas than the rest of the city, some of them, left to river reeds and whispering waters and wandering birds.  The distant towers and the rush of cars just at the edge of hearing remind one that they're still in the city: otherwise it would be easy to forget.

It is early evening and so the sun is still relatively high, or would be if the day weren't overcast.  There are soft grey clouds that scud across the sky today, moved along by the winds; their mirror is in the river water (as above, so) below.

Ned finds Nick at the place where they agreed to meet, which is near a stone bench (polished granite: even here there are traces of a more cultivated life) on which the Chakravanti is seated.  He is facing the river, and there is a leatherbound journal in his lap in which he is scribbling with a heavy pen as black as his hair.  The humidity has frayed his curls, made some of them stand nearly on end, as he bends his head over whatever it is he is doing.  There is a bottle of beer next to him on the bench (some places are stricter about open container laws than others), and on the ground at his side a bag.

The air is stagnant, today.  It has silenced even the birds.

Ned
In silence, can be found a bit of the world.

Not by listening, but by accepting what the surroundings are trying to tell you. That these moments are rare, you have your thoughts, all to yourself, so make the most of it.

Ned's approach is not quiet, but it is somewhat subtle. Few have had the chance to explain much about the Arcane 'subtlety' that comes with some Mages, who drift in and of notice, as if memory were trickier to maintain around them. Ned is not so prolific in it as others, barely a scratch really but it makes him easier to dismiss. Easier to forget, even in silence.

His footfalls approach may be abrupt or it may simply be a moment or two before noticing their distance closing.

"Sweating like a pig." His first words. He is dressed in a simple black t-shirt and dark green slacks. His converse are well worn gray probably in need of replacing soon, and his socks are invisible below the pant cuffs. His hair is gelled back, resistant to the humidity. He carries nothing of accessories. No backpack, no book, not even headphones to denote music to drown out the world should it be necessary.

"Quiet out here. Bit of an oddity I've been finding." A pause as he settles onto the bench, facing the same direction, the river, that Nick was. "Had a conversation with-...heh...well, with River, the person about that. The Quiet places. How rare they are." He flicks a half grin, arm draping along the back of the bench away from Nick.

"She'd like it here."

Nick Hyde
Nicholas, too, has something of the subtlety that follows Ned; he passes in and out of notice.  He is not noticed, unless he wants to be, embodies a sort of cultivated ambiguity in his maybe-white-maybe-mixed-maybe-straight-maybe-middle class sort of way.  He exists between worlds; he always has.

He does not notice Ned immediately, but his senses are sharp and so it is not long: Ned is still a little distance away when he turns his head, though not in full.  There is a crest of light along the sharp edge of his cheekbone, the gleam of a dark eye.  He is wearing a checkered shirt of white and light gray, light gray pants: all monochrome and neutral, today.

"I'm glad you met River," are Nick's first words to the new initiate as he tucks his pen away and closes the journal in one hand with a soft snap.  He lets it rest on the top of his thigh, rests a hand over it.  "She would like it out here.  I've been meaning to invite her out hiking sometime."  As it is she has been helping him garden.

Nick glances over at Ned now, takes in his appearance.  He is indeed sweating.  Nick is not sweating as much, or at least seems less affected by it: he is used to the heat; he grew up in it.  "What did you think of her?"

Ned
"Abrupt. Blunt. Child-like without being innocent. Sort of like a doll someone scooped the adult out of and put in a Tradition."

If it sounds harsh, Ned doesn't seem to notice. If anything, there's a hint of...admiration? Appeal? Attraction in his tone? He doesn't glance at Nick during the explanation, nor does he seem put off or put out about explaining. Abrupt was something Ned understood and appreciated. He and River getting along probably wasn't difficult to imagine.

"She bends to the Euthanatos method pretty firmly traditionally. Went into details about several names and differentiating spokes on the Wheel and what they mean...I had to prod her to boil it down a bit but essentially it came out like I expected and like you've hinted at."

He turns to look at Nick, a vague smile on his face.

"She's good. Different, which is also necessary these days. More perspectives I catch the more firm I become."

Nick Hyde
Nick listens to Ned's assessment, quiet and without interruption; there is a smooth arch to his brows as he listens and notes that - admiration? attraction? there.  Nicholas is an insightful man; he does not have to look hard.

"River is very straightforward," he says, and maybe it's an agreement of sorts.  "I think she's more traditional in her beliefs than I am in mine, though, to be honest with you.  She was trained more formally and much sooner than I was, from what I understand.  But it's good to get different perspectives.  There's room for difference even within one Tradition."

Nick drums his fingertips against the top of the journal.  His eyes have wandered out along the river; he absently tucks his feet underneath the bench.  "Have you had any more chance to think on what we talked about?"

Ned
"I've had the chance. I haven't changed my mind, if that's what you're asking."

He turns back to the River, regarding the flow of it, the landscape of the 'Wilderness' that tries to hide the civility of where they genuinely are. It's an inspection, his gaze darting and moving with slow sweeps over the various green, dark puddles and flowing currents.

"There's a certain level of...Hope, necessary to all of this. What we are. Nothing I could comfortably give a point to just...Hope. Possessing it. Torch in the dark. We're losing a fight or lost a War or waging a battle that can't be won and we keep going anyway. The Wheel turns and all that, but the point was never to turn it until it clicked into the right place. Just to ensure it keeps turning, even if we're... Well-" He huffs a laugh, not depressed or somber. Genuine amusement.

"-Keep on going, until you can' anymore and Hope there's someone else to pick it up when you're gone. I like that. Pieces in a puzzle that may never get solved but...it's that maybe that I'm interested in. Because what if-" A glance at Nick, brow arched. "What if, you know?"

Nick Hyde
Hope necessary to it, Ned says, and here Nick draws in a sharp breath: an audible thing, that, a sudden rush of air.  There is still that arch to his brows, a little point that has appeared between them as he considers the words.

"Keep that hope, then, Ned.  You're going to need it."  It is perhaps a more grim thing than Ned will have heard him say before: nonetheless it is delivered with gravity, with only a touch of the wry humor Nick sometimes exhibits.  He lets a hand drop behind him on the bench, leans back on it.

"I think once you begin to work more extensively with the Wheel, if you do, once you begin to work more with balancing life and death, you realize how fine that balance is.  The world is never very far from chaos.  It needs us, in order to keep turning, because there are things that actively work to stop it.  You realize that, after a time."

There is a little sigh, and then Nick straightens again, his hand returned to his lap.  Then he glances back over at Ned.  "So what is it, exactly, that you're hoping to learn from me?"

Ned
"Learn?"

Ned says it with a vague frown, brow creasing inward. It hadn't when Nick had said his part about balance, life and death. That was the party line. The edge that many of the Euthanatos he'd met or heard about seemed to have in common. Learning though.

"I'm not sure, Nick. That's sort of like a Teacher asking a Student what they want to know about?" He pauses, a hand rising to scraped over his chin and cheeks for a moment.

"Mostly I want to know more about the threats to the wheel. Their reasons for threatening it and what you do to stop them. You, personally, and you, the Euthanatos."

Nick Hyde
"Shouldn't teachers ask students what they want to know about?"  A sidelong glance now toward the other men, and there's a crinkling of the skin near his eyes.  Humor, even if there is sincerity there too.  "You must be more broken up about deciding not to go to a university than I thought, if you're after a lecture."

Ned offers more specifics, though, and he wants to know about: threats to the Wheel.

And here it's Nick's turn to furrow his brow again.  "There are as many reasons for threatening the Wheel as there are reasons for maintaining it.  Depending on who you talk to, they might not consider themselves a threat to the Wheel at all."

Ned
"When it comes to something you can't learn on TV, the Internet or through experience. Like this? Hard to decide where to start."

Ned offers little more than a snort at Nick's explanation, head shaking gently.

"This vagueness that suggests everyone has a reason for doing what they do, is endearing and all, but it doesn't answer my questions. I understand the circumstances often demand you be careful about how you handle things but there was a War you old guard keep talking about from way back. Something happened and you went up against some folks who decided you weren't doing the world or reality any services. From the Tradition's standpoint...from your personal standpoint...Who is harming the Wheel and it's progression these days that you want to do something about. Kill, heal or help, doesn't matter."

Ned turns slightly so he's facing Nick, enough that he has to prop one leg up on the bench between them to do so.

"Right now everyone's handed me particular words that don't mean anything. I've squeezed a small amount of info. out of the Doc and Grace about the Technocrats. 1984 meets Men in Black meets 'Human Patriotism' but that's about the gist and mostly sounds like propaganda. Then you have the other things out there that..." Ned mangles a smile, trying to find the words.

"Words like Nephandi. Or Marauder. Terms with definitions that don't do much but paint a text book picture. A Theory. Give me some detail here."

Nick Hyde
Nick laughs, once: it's a sharp sound, and clear.  "I'm not old guard, I was never in the Ascension War.  That was a little before my time.  I think even if I had been, though, it wouldn't have been my war, beyond just trying to survive to make sure I could keep doing the things that matter."

The other questions Ned asks him: well, they're personal, and Nicholas is less comfortable talking about himself than he is with making other people talk.  It shows when one looks, in his subtle shifts of his weight on the bench and how his gaze wanders from here to there.

"The Technocratic Union is full of people, and they're as human as we are," or as human as they're not: these unspoken words.  Ned made his thoughts last time clear enough to Nick, it seems.  "Most are well intended, some aren't.  My understanding of the Ascension War is that it goes back a long time, like most wars do, because they were trying to make the world safer."

A beat, and there is a thoughtful furrow of his brows.  "And maybe they have, for some people.  I wouldn't be happy there, so I'm not there."

There is another soft exhale and he lifts the bottle of beer by the neck and takes a quick swallow.  It's an afterthought, then, but he leans down to reach into the bag next to his foot and retrieve a second, which he extends to Ned with a raised eyebrow.  Then, after Ned takes it or declines, "Marauders are what happens when you...well, you have to make your own rules to some extent, to do magick at all.  Marauders happen when your rules are all you see.  I've never encountered one, that I know of.  What do you know already, about the Fallen?"

Ned
Ned declines. A quick, swift wave of his hand that might be a bit telling in it's abrupt and suddeness. Ned doesn't drink, but he doesn't say anything or frown to suggest offense. Just a hard line.

"Technocrats sound like they have Tunnelvision. They imagine the world in a particular way and expect everyone to follow along, despite the fact...well...not everyone writes Poetry, plays Bach or fucks the same sex..." Ned shrugs apologetically.

"I don't know anything about the Nephandi. The Doc's explained a very straight forward, clear cut avenue about what and who they are and meeting one is apparently like..." He scratches his chin again. "Like if all those old cartoons where the hero meets their exact opposite. Bizarro Superman or Evil Ned...something similar with entirely the wrong moral code and standard. Purposeful evil, even if they don't recognize it." Ned's frowning throughout this explanation, as if he doesn't quite believe the 'cartoonish' quality of it.

"I expect that coming through an Awakening, not everyone is ready for it. Not everyone can handle it and sometimes those who can handle it, aren't the people reality wants handling it, but they do anyway."

Nick Hyde
That swift wave of his hand is indeed telling, and without a word Nick tucks the bottle away again.  He offers no apology (he does not make them when no offense was given), but there is a sort of understanding in the look he gives over; perhaps that is enough.

"I think some of them probably do have tunnel vision.  I think the Technocracy suffers from the same thing most large organizations suffer from.  When you are surrounded only by people who do the same things you do and think the same things, that becomes your normal."  There is a smile there that suggests that the apologetic shrug was not needed, and Nick adds, "I've seen plenty of Hermetics who have only ever worked with other Hermetics act the same way.  And Chakravanti.  It's how people are."

The explanation of Nephandi makes Nick draw in another breath.  His hand comes to light on his journal again, momentarily.  "I think some are obvious that way, or...so far beyond the pale in what they're willing to do that it becomes that way, like dark caricature.  Not always."

A beat, and Nick's jaw firms, relaxes.  "A friend of mine Fell.  An old cabalmate.  Her perspective made a lot of sense, when she explained it to me.  I didn't even realize, until...I don't know when it happened.  It's not always obvious.  But it's not always easy, to stay hopeful, even if you are ready and seem like you can handle it.  Liz was a good Chorister.  She was...if she Fell, anyone can."

Ned
"Falling's not impossible. It's not even difficult. The best comparisons to when I was human, I've found is addiction."

He pauses, turning away from Nick and back to the River agian.

"Margot's Brother was an addict. Drugs, possibly alcohol. Before the whole killing thing, before even Awakening, he was into it. It's how-" Ned shakes his head, moving past the tangent before it has a chance to emerge "Luke was a problem but from his perspective, it's what needed to be done to deal with what he was dealing with. From inside the bubble, you're as good or as bad as you make it and those who agree they are bad and do bad anyway. Sure. Caricature. Twirling mustache and 'I want to see it burn', Joker styles. For most others though, it's just this circumstance they are in that says, I can't be the normal or the beautiful or the fierce or the brave because...Reality says me, specifically me, has to deal with this combination of things in this particular way and I belong to this particular avenue so this is all I can really do. Addiction thin's you down into this moment where..." He chuckles slightly.

"It's an addict wandering into the hostpial with a glass shard, cutting someone they don't know because they're in pain and don't know how else to handle it. The expectation weighs on them that they are responsible for making themselves better and they have the power to do so if only they just..." Ned's hands shake in front of him, emphatic and nebulous. If only they just...what?

"Nephandi sound like the sports team you want to hate because they beat your sports team all the time. As a collective, you just don't want anything to do with them. As individuals, they have jobs, wives, husbands, relationships and all that sort of stuff they are dealing with...they just happen to want what you hate with their own rational in place." Ned's scratching the back of his neck, lips tucked between his teeth for a moment.

"What exactly are you expecting from me if I manage to get into your Club?"

Nick Hyde
"As individuals, their Avatar still shifts and changes.  Becoming a Nephandus isn't just...it isn't just having a different perspective on life.  Your soul becomes saturated with destruction, with destructive tendencies and impulses.  It doesn't come back.  We can't offer them the same blank slate or starting point we can offer other life, when we return them to the Wheel."

Nick's eyes are unfocused as he watches the water make its way over rock and reed, thoughtful and distant.  "Most of them believe - at least, Liz believed and I believe others believe the same - in helping things to their ending.  Some because they believe that's a natural state, and in Liz's case because she believed it was the...that it was God.  That there was purity in Nothingness and it was the only way to attain that purity.  To not have any more questions."

Inhale.  "But she won't...I killed her, and whatever she comes back as, if she Awakens it'll be the same.  If people keep Falling, eventually that is how the world will end because there won't be anything left.  So it isn't enough just to kill as a means of tending the Wheel.  It's balance.  Do you understand?"

Ned
"Yeah. You can't change or get rid of someone who falls, so you do your best to ensure those who haven't fallen? Don't and those who have Fallen? Stick around for as short a time as possible to ensure those who haven't Fallen? Don't."

Ned's roundabout sentence comes across with clarity. At least to him. His hands rise to collect beneath his chin, fingers curling over his mouth and cheeks until the tips are tapping gently under either eye. Elbows to knees and regarding the River, working over some thought like it was gristle between his teeth.

"It isn't easy noticing. You had a friend, a Cabalmate who fell and you didn't realize she had been and was. Are there any warning signs? Indicators? Common ones, that is. Sensory input or particular-" One hand releases his face, snapping his fingers "-the hell did Margot call the- [i]Rotes[/i], rotes that can be used to ferret them out? Or maybe that's too easy."

Nick Hyde
"Yes.  But it applies to more than just the Fallen.  If we're talking on a larger scale, or...a more abstract one, maybe, despair is what makes them alluring.  It gives them power, because it's more believable if it...that kind of perspective that Liz was talking about only makes sense if it has an echo in you, you know?"

There is a flutter of his eyelashes as he realizes he was staring too long at the water, and drawing in another breath he straightens up.  "So I...Pen and I have talked about it, a little.  About fostering what's...what's good in the world.  Nothing else needs the help.  That's what I do for the Chakravanti.  If you were initiated your role could be different.  There are a lot of roles."

There is another glance to Ned, and no confusion there: evidently the roundabout sentence was clear enough to him as well.  It's straightforward, at least.

"There are ways to tell, sometimes.  The feel of their magick changes and warps along with the Avatar.  But all of that can be hidden by someone with sufficient skill.  And sometimes some of us don't feel all that great either.  It's relative."

Ned
"Helpful."

Sarcasm without the bite to make it unpleasant. Just another fact. Ned might have been hopeful there would be an easy way, but hope didn't equal delusion.

"Right now I'm more concerned with those who have active intentions toward flipping the table. Inspiring Despair's a lot harder to do when you can pinpoint those who are pursuing it, for whatever means or ends." Ned's jaw grits and it's the first moment of genuine agitation in this meeting that comes to him.

"I come back to all the folks I've run into. The hospital, since Awakening...Margot's Brother. Everyone of them had some sob story or moment that just handed them over to that feeling and emptiness and ugly. Except, it wasn't just a moment, there were people behind it too. Circumstances from the bullying on the playground that one time, to the shitty boyfriend or girlfriend to that active participant who wanted nothing but to do you harm enough to make a mark. Make it permanent and then...you spiral out on your own, from that one trauma. That one realization they imprinted on."

Ned snaps his fingers.

"I want those people. Those scar-makers. Wounders and harmers. I want those who think it's ok to deliver and hand out pain and think it's easy. Who decided they were monsters...and then went and decided that the best way to be...Not the only way but the best way to be, was to make other monsters too." A pause, his hands settling, dangling between his legs, elbows on knees in a hunched position had him staring at the River.

"Everyone else has a chance, but only when those chances aren't getting snuffed out. Forcefully crushed and broken. Technocrat, Nephandi or otherwise, you don't get a say in the matter if you think your Best is when others are at their worst."

Nick Hyde
Ned's sarcasm is met with another smile, something that is half wry and perhaps tinged with wistfulness.  Sympathy for the desire for an easier answer.  "Things are complicated," he says.

And then he listens.  He is slightly leaned forward, head bowed and his eyes on the ground for the time being; it gives him an intensity.  (More appropriately: it gives the intensity of Ned's words their due.)  "My acarya thinks that way.  One of my mentors.  I think you'd....you'd find a lot of what he has to say to be interesting.  He's someone I would call here, if we decided to have you initiated."

The 'we' is not exclusive to Ned, though it is subtle enough that it could go missed: it is a mutual decision.  Nicholas recognizes that.

"What will you do to keep yourself from Falling, Ned?"

Ned
"Margot. The Doc. My Cabal...even if the Doc's reluctant to call it that."

He lifts a hand, three fingers already shown on it to indicate those three elements he's already named. He hasn't turned to look at Nick, merely regards the water.

"Something to be recognized in knowing there are others like me out there, who don't care that I'm the Supernatural me, just me. They don't care much how I think, beyond pointing out when I'm wrong or right. They don't care that I have agendas or secrets, but will respond when I don't follow through with good things, proper things, correct things, because of those agendas and secrets."

Another finger flicks up.

"Put as many of those who aren't supposed to be here and are ruining it for the rest of us, in the ground."

And a fifth finger goes up.

"Learn what I can about how this new reality we're all in and how it affects us and keep asking questions."

He finally turns toward Nick, a brow arched.

"And hopefully join a Tradition that knows how to put me down if that's not enough."

Nick Hyde
Nick nods, and his head is still bowed, see, his brow still furrowed in thought.  And now he turns his gaze back to Ned: more directly perhaps than he has so far tonight.  "You know that the Chakravanti will do that if it's not enough, right?  I'll do it myself, if it becomes my responsibility to do so.  And I would expect the same from you, if it were me.  I just...I want to make sure you really understand what you're entering into."

Ned
"Nick. Really understanding seems to be the entire point of all this."

He flaps his hands around them, as if the air itself held the answer to what 'this' is.

"I don't get why I have these abilities or you or Margot or the Doc or half the other people out there that do. I don't get why the Wheel turns or how it came to get so complicated. I don't get how finding a bow and arrow or crossing a bridge or seeing Margot during my seeking was meant to make me understand it better but it does. Did....does." A frown. Head shaking. Moving on.

"But the one thing I'm certain of, is if I knew? I'd be where I was supposed to be. That part where Reality says I should be or the Wheel says I'm meant to be or Big Brother just doesn't want me to do. If I knew. But I don't. So I have to start making decisions for myself and by my own measurements of how this life has treated me and I've treated it, to learn more. Get more. Be more and right now, the best parts of me and the bigger parts tell me the Euthanatos is where I belong. Either to do some good or learn how to do good better than I currently am."

Ned
"....And if you or someone else around you falls, I'll be the knife. Plain and simple."

A nod. Firm. Unflinching. Maybe a bit too staunch, but there it is.

Nick Hyde
He listens to the rest of this, and he's looking past Ned then and then turning his head to look back out toward the river.  The sun is sinking low now, lower, and the edge of the horizon has begun to turn pink.  The beginning of a sunset: of a threshold.

Not so long from now he will go Seeking, and he will sit alone at this hour.

But not now.  Nick takes the last swallow from his bottle of beer and then tucks the empty bottle away in the back pocket of his bag, and then braces a hand on his knee to push himself to his feet.  "All right.  We'll have to talk more soon."

He turns his head to glance down the dirt trail that twists along the river's edge.  "Do you walk much?"

Ned
"All the time. Hate driving and biking in the city is a death sentence."

He gets to his feet, hands stuffing in his pockets, regarding the river for a moment, before turning and nodding toward the East.

"After you."

The pair head out into the Parklands, enjoying a bit of the landscape and normalcy.