I Called You on the Telephone

[Enid Geraint]
Ring ring, goes the phone, and Enid doesn't even wait for a hello once the phone's picked up. "Hey. Just checking in to let you know everyone's okay, even the scary-crazy guy. Well, he's as okay as scary-crazy guys can be, anyway."

[fate]
The phone is picked up more immediately than before. Kage sounds cautious -- and perhaps relieved; but mostly cautious. "Good. I was going to call you back in another ten minutes. Can you be a little more precise in your definition of 'everyone's okay'?"

[Enid Geraint]
"We're all in one piece and no one's hurt any more than miscellaneous bumps and scrapes? I slipped on some ice." Her shrug is nearly audible. "And Crazy Guy ran off into traffic. What's up with him? That short, creepy lady and Jarod - who is a jerk, by the way, but knows more than I do about these things, at least - both said he's bad."

[fate]
"Hmm. Why did he run into traffic; what did -- why did you slip on ice? Were you running after him?" There is no expression to go with these questions, just a voice, low and controlled. Not quite conversational and pleasant, because she is invested, because she is cautious and relieved. Yes. "And ... He isn't bad. He's just ... not good," a brief pause, "for anybody, least of all himself."

[Enid Geraint]
".....of course not, mom," she says teasingly, but there's just enough pause to indicate that she may well have been. "What did you tell Jarod?"

[fate]
The young woman on the other end of the phone is far too solemn right now to respond well to teasing, so there's a pause. An inhale, and on the exhale, a distracted-sounding chuckle (smoke, where there's). "I just want to know what happened, Enid," she says. "What you did. What Jarod did. What he did. I'm glad you're okay." And then, lo, Enid asks another question, and Kage's response is: "I'll tell you, but ... What do you think I told him? What do you think about what happened?" She sounds genuinely curious.

[Enid Geraint]
"I think," she says quite honestly and with furrowed brow, "that when a guy's trying to kill someone who appears to outclass him, he shouldn't be left alone. Either of them. Because someone needs to know what's going on. Though." This is wry. "It would probably be better if said someone had a clue why it was happening. And a better idea of the what might help, too."

[fate]
She really does laugh, now. "Which guy appeared to outclass which guy? I've never laid eyes on Jarod before."

[Enid Geraint]
"I'm not talking about looks. Jarod belongs in a painting or something, I swear. Maybe a magazine spread. Dude's practically a manikin. But for all he's rude and mean, he's not . . . bad. I thought Dylan might really hurt him for a minute."

[fate]
Kage is quiet, digesting this information. In the background, there's the sound of a door opening and closing. "Hm."

[Enid Geraint]
"He feels wrong, you know. Off. Dylan does."

[fate]
"He is." Another pause, and then a sigh. "Enid?"

[Enid Geraint]
"Yeah?" It's short, this answer, much like the one that preceded it, and there's the brief sound of cracking knuckles.

[fate]
Now, Enid can't see Kage. Enid doesn't know that, right now, Kage has her eyes closed, has her palm pressing down on her forehead. Enid doesn't know that when Kage opens her eyes, they're blank, abstracted, and do not focus on the ceiling of the room she's in. Enid doesn't know that the room is at Kage's sister's apartment. Not the sister with the husband Enid helped Kage shop for, but the other sister, who is out on a date with her girlfriend. She doesn't know that Kage hasn't spent a lot of time at her own apartment since Dylan left it, blown through the Gauntlet and away, since Ashley almost lost her mind inside it, since Wharil nearly died. She doesn't know that Kage is tired, but a tired Kage is a Kage lacking not at all in resolve. She doesn't know that Kage isn't alone, even though there's noone in the room with her, because He is there, in the kitchen, staring with ardent patience beyond his own reflection, drawing burning sigils in the glass which mean absolutely nothing. She doesn't know that Kage is ignoring Him, in favor of this conversation, or that her shoulders are tense.

What Enid knows is how she sounds, which is composed, but nonetheless wary, worried, interested and intent. And maybe a little weary, maybe. In the end, she chooses to deal plainly with Enid.

"I'm really torn. Because ... I want to know what happened after Jarod hung up. What actions were taken, not just ... the final effect. I want to know the causes. And I want to tell you ... To stay the hell away from that man they still call 'Dylan,' but I don't want you to ... To have 'hey, I could stay around' on your mind because I told you to ... Get the heck out of dodge if you see him again. So ... what do you think?"

[Enid Geraint]
"I don't know all the actions taken. I know that I thought Dylan - or whoever, whatever he is now - was going to hurt Jarod, who I kind of hate, but didn't deserve to be . . . I don't know, offed by some psycho in the park. So I stuck around, and tried to help. Didn't really, but nothing bad happened anyway. Except."

She falls quiet for a moment, trying to school her thoughts, to figure out what to say and how before she finally says, "I've heard a lot about bad guys lately. And some of it, a lot of it, really, I don't agree with. I . . . kind of can't, for a few reasons."

There's a pop of tendon, to loud and close to the phone to be a knuckle - her neck then, maybe.

"But that guy feels bad. Like someone walked over your grave, fingernails on a chalkboard, monster in the closet bad. I don't know what or who he was, I'm not invested, and I'm not gonna hang around if I'm alone with someone who can . . . I don't know, melt all the snow around him in a three foot radius just by being there, by some kind of fever that obviously wasn't physical. But I'm not going to let someone else do that either, because if I know, and don't do whatever I can to help - even if it's just acting as witness - that makes me one of the bad guys more than anything I did without knowing what was going on, or that . . . that anything was going on. Not that . . . not that I'm not kind of a monster for that anyway, but I'm not going to make it worse."

[fate]
"When you start hearing about 'bad guys,' it's important to remember who's telling you and why," Kage says, seriously. Then she listens to the rest of what Enid says, with attention. "I told Jarod that the one you were with had lost who he was, that his name was gone, was dead, and he was very dangerous. That unless Jarod knew how to bring back his name," and here, Kage shrugs. This is what Kage is, really: a creature who is as honest as any fey thing. She hadn't once lied to Dylan, and she hadn't once lied to the Tradition Mages when they came by to get him, and she hasn't yet lied to Enid or Emily or any of them. But Enid can't hear the shrug. "That's what I told him. He's really dangerous to people like us in particular, but I'm not going to get into it any further on the phone." Another pause, and then: "You think you're a monster, huh?"

[Enid Geraint]
"I've heard a little," she says about the Marauder situation. "Not a lot, but some." She's not involved, not invested. That, as long as people she cares about aren't getting hurt, isn't really her problem. The other, though . . .

"I . . . wished - willed, whatever, semantics - my two best friends, one of whom was my boyfriend, dead. And it happened." She pauses, and Kage can't see her eyes slip shut, can't see her red-brown lashes rest on freckled cheeks cant see how in this moment, Enid looks less like just-a-kid and more like an adult. More like a mage. "I can't think of anything but a monster that would do something like that."

Enid is, quite thankfully, alone. There's been no sound to indicate anything else.

[fate]
The truth is Kage is not particularly surprised by Enid's confession.

But she looked up the article with Enid's picture after they'd met that first time and she'd reread it. She has noticed Enid's resonance, how it withers, how it sickens and sucks dry, how it feels like a shriveling; like the loss of green in nature.

"Hmm." A pause, and the sound is a placeholder, more than anything else. And followed by, "And you don't want to be a monster?"

[Enid Geraint]
"No, I don't." It's short and simple, that answer.

[fate]
"Thanks for calling me," she says.

[Enid Geraint]
"Yeah, no problem. I didn't want you to worry, or whatever." And there she is, smack dab back in teenager-dom; she'd checked in because it's what her parents would have insisted upon as much as anything else. She hadn't really been sure that Kage would care. "I better go. You sound . . . go to bed or something, yeah? And if there's a way I can help you out, give me a call."

[fate]
"I didn't think -- I thought you'd leave; I'm glad you're okay. I'm worrying, but backwards." That sounded wry, just a little, but nonetheless sincere. "And I'll go to bed soon; I'll see you soon too, okay? The brother-in-law liked his camping stuff, although Julian gave me stabby eyes. He's worried he'll have to go rough it now."

[Enid Geraint]
"Good, I'm glad he liked it. Dad liked his skiing stuff, too. And roughing it isn't so bad, really. Tell Julian that if a seventeen-year-old girl can handle it, he can too." There's a bit of amusement there, and it sounds better - it sounds closer to right. "But yeah, we should get together soon. Ashley says I probably shouldn't have people over for a while, cos . . . well, it's weird. I dunno, maybe I'll explain it next time I see you - we can go to the aquarium or something." She yawns, mostly smothered. "But now, I gotta go."

[fate]
Ashley, Enid says, and she can't see Kage shake her head.

What the Orphan, who will be staying an Orphan, who is not, like Enid and Emily, up for grabs says is this: "There is a whole city. Sleep well, Enid. And if you see that guy again, try to get the hell away. Just being near . . . " A pause. Then: "Good night!"

[Enid Geraint]
"Night!" And both lines go click.