Strange Things Afoot

[Gregor]
Warp.

A word defined by distortion, discord, aberration. A crafting so obvious and vicious as to tear holes and portions from the flesh of rules and turn them to something unknown. Not something new or different, but wholly unfathomable. Shrouds of black, interspersed amid the wet snows that tumble from above, smith clouds of thick black and gray that shroud all view of the Moon and stars behind them. It was a dismal evening, one among several that the new year had brought with it. Some might consider it portentous while others, daunting and ominous. In truth, it was simply the lousy discomforts of January slashing the Lake's chill winds across the city; from it's most humble of ghettos, to it's staggering skyscrapers.

Frost licked the ground, tidy and even, forcing those who wander to watch their every step while the steady feather of fast fading snow, made of broad flakes of white that melted the moment they touched anything vaguely warmer then themselves, had begun to layer the ground in a blanket of obfuscation, to keep the ice patches, sheets and whole walkways hidden until it was far too late.

Within the streets of Lakeview, where coffee houses made their money on night's like these, sharing wondrous conversation and terribly over priced beverages with the rest of existence and the wealthy stayed inside their Condominiums, a man was out. His dress was that of rags, plucked from some bin of old clothing. A Tattered jacket, long at the waist, dangling in frayed ribbons, crusted with salt stains and damp with the evening's weather, fit over broad shoulders, while the height (6'2) was made all the more implacable by the storm of a Gait in his steps and the broad hood that hung and drooped, damp as well, over most of his features, barring one eye that stared out across the landscapes surrounding. Haunted. Regarding.

(Something broke the Barricade. Something tore the Night. Something reached, Gregor. Something reached and you are not sure why/Never sure why/Shut up!)

His movements were not in vain, senses leaping to the winds, scouring for that crawling sensation that had ratcheted his spine and sent him scurrying into the night hours ago. Hours ago, awash in paranoia and a steadily rising fear, for despite the disturbance and it's thrum of familiarity, the power behind it was something...beyond his ken. Beyond his abilities.

So desperation rose in his movements and something creeped in his wake. A Fear born of the unknown. Both in his goal and in his plan of action.

[Apartment of K. R. Jakes]
There aren't too many who possess the skill to detect the (echo [resonance] punishment [wrong] Working) disturbance that happened once at the apartment building of K. R. Jakes. Gregor is one of those who is capable. More than capable: able. What he's felt Working has drawn him, has called him, has ravelled him all up, and he's followed it, followed it, and now he knows exactly where It Happened. The traces are fading, now, and they'll be gone soon entirely; not yet, however. The way smoke lingers in the air in California during wildfire season and nobody knows if the fire is still on or how long it's been out or when it began. That's how it is, and clear air hasn't yet washed the skies clean -- something like that, perhaps. Subtle and hidden and...

Disturbance. Gregor's speciality.

The street isn't one of the rich streets and it isn't one o the poor streets. Borderland. Twilight of the Gods: that kind've place. It was once affluent, and there is a church [like a cathedral, to the uneducated eye; at least Episcopalian or Anglican if not Catholic] at the crossroads. The apartment buildings were -- for the most part -- once houses. The apartment building is one of the older buildings in Chicago, with all of the problems that may entail, and all of the benefits. It was a house once. There are two towers. There is a weather vane of black iron. There is a small yard, and a small gate, and a low stone wall on the left of the small gate. The 'yard' could be walked across in five steps. The trees outside are wintering, slumber, hushed, quiet, dark.

The door is shut, locked. And one needs a key to get inside, or other skills. That lock is not old. That lock gleams with a new age.

[Emily Littleton]
It is not the wound in the veil between worlds that draws Emily to this place on another cold, damp night. She is still ignorant, still sheltered from the violence their magics can do the the weave and waft of Reality... and the many lesser layers that keep Reality intact. She is unburdened by the heaviness of responsibility, the weight that must cling to Gregor's hyperacute awareness.

Emily's car is parked a little away from the apartment that Kage stays in. She looks down at some piece of paper once more, and then pushes open the door and steps out into the night. She is unaware of the man stalking his way toward the same location, just as she is unaware of why this place would lure him in.

She has tucked her hands into her pockets and bent her head down to keep the snow from her eyes. Emily is a plain girl, somewhat tall, somewhat thin. She pauses long enough to look at the church at the crossroads with something akin to wistfulness. But it is not bittersweet, and it is not fleeting.

She is an unassuming blot on the sidewalk to most. A little out of place, a little foreign-touched. To those with Awakened eyes, she is a somehow more. A bright spot against a bleak horizon. Untouched by a particular resonance but leaning slightly towards Reverence (Grace [Wonder]). She does not belong here, so near the wound in the Veil, at the seat of some deep disturbance. She is not here to investigate.

Emily looks away from the church, crosses the street, and heads for Kage's apartment with a purposeful stride.

[Gregor]
The Front Door:

A Lock shiny and new(ly installed?). A thick portal against intrusion to an aging and archaic structure, worth it's weight in sentimental, fictional and aesthetic appeal. A broad archway, gathers in shadows like comforting mothers and the slight hollow between threshold and the single concrete step that separates the yard from the proverbial 'Welcome Mat', houses a moving figure for Emily and perhaps, Others, to catch sight of upon arrival: His hands are gloved, shrouded in sleeves from an old sweater, long since lost to decades past. His garmentry is mostly tattered and stained by prolonged wear and his demeanour, movements, air and sway are all reeking of one obvious and physical word:

Desperate.

He stands by the door, running gloved hands (something glimmers, reflecting light) over the surface of the door, the border around it. The archway itself, his body turning briefly to catch the edge of the street lamps that cast their light close enough to the yard and door, to illuminate him some (gruff, frazzled features, wane cheeks, quiet age lines, threatened black eyes) before a hand moves out, shades of the 'porch' eclipsing him again, to gather a hand around the door knob. He twists, once, hard, pressuring the knob to move-

Someone, SomeoneSomeoneSOMEONE/Gregor!

He turned sharply, still in the dark, an outline regarding the street across which Emily walks. His hands reach out toward the stone wall that stands to the right, while eyes dart around inside the hood, head following in quick, furtive movements, as if he might gauge just how far it would be to walk/run/leap back into the safety and obscurity of the anonymous (Too late Too LateToolateToolateToolate)

"...Who are you?" Strong. Bold. Cast still in the shadow of the archway, a wraith of solidity rather then a man of desperation. He stares, with unseen (yet) eyes upon the slender form of Emily, regarding her...Grace and...

(Wonders never cease. Never fail. Never fall/Lies/Hush)

Softer. Quieter this time. "Who...are you?"

[Gregor]
(Perception + Awareness: Let's see just how many Resonances we can pick up and separate?)

[Enid Geraint]
[Strange things happen when you're not around (Per+Aware)]

[Emily Littleton]
He is solid, staid and stoic with a booming voice and body placed across her path. He looms like a Gatekeeper, a Warden, and Emily averts her downcast eyes from the pavement to let them slowly sweep up his rag-swaddled frame, to come to rest on the dark unseen space inside his hood where she imagines his eyes were seated.

"Excuse me," she says, politely, and the words are gilded with the promise of far away places. He cannot place the location that has shaped it, because it is muddied and blurred by too many influences. It is a little clipped (worn [weary]) tonight, as she has some place to be, someplace to go that is beyond Gregor.

"Ah... I'm Emily," she offers, without much hesitation. Her eyes are a deep blue, so much so that they are merely dark in the low light of the evening. "Might I get past you?" she asks, pointing to a box behind him, near the door. "I need to ring my friend's flat, to tell her I'm here."

Who are you? He asks, and Emily answers the surface query alone. Perhaps it is impertinence. Perhaps also she is too new to know what the Gatekeeper wants when his shadow looms large across her path.

[Jonathan Kincade]
Jon had arranged to meet up with a prospective client earlier in the evening. Apparently she was having problems with an online shopping site she was developing. So Janet Thomas had found Jon's details for his freelance business and given him a call. He had been quite surprised when he turned up, finding Janet's mailbox position next to another name he new K. Jakes, he made a note to check in later.

He had arrived much earlier in the evening, but now he found himself walking down the hallway to the front door of the apartment complex. Headed to his car to retrieve an extra network cable as Janet didn't have a wireless network setup in her home office.

His hand reaching for the door as he unlocks it from the inside and opens the door to the bleak winter environment outside. Stepping forward he nearly walks straight into a strange man, who was currently looking intently at someone.. perhaps too intently. Something so odd about him it was chilling.

[Per + Awa - 4d6]

[Enid Geraint]
".....I got tickets to see Blue Man Group," she explains as they approach the coffee shop, unreasonably excited about this, but still suddenly distracted; something [wicked this way comes] is going on, and she's looking around. It's enough that she's walked past the door of the deli/cafe for which they were aiming (soup and a sandwich are the perfect dinner for a night like tonight); whatever she'd thought she was aiming for is completely forgotten as she feels a very familiar thrum of home, and way too many other strange things to properly put her finger on. She stops just short of stepping off of the curb into traffic, blinking and shaking her head.

"Um. The theatre's just a few blocks from here. And . . . there's Emily." She glances over at him - they've been walking, and though they're clearly together there's not so much as a held hand between them. Friends, then, or . . . something. Whatever. "Want to say hi?"

[Gregor]
"...What-" A pause.

The figure in the shade, steps forward, the street lights lining the sidewalk illuminating some of his framework, tearing down the wraithly aspects and leaving behind a Man: Tall. Broad still. Sharp features, scruffy with growth. Worn eyes, lines beneath them used to being that way. His hands are gloved, fingerless at the tips and possessing of the strangest of adornments; mirrors, stitched into the tops of the palms, reflecting the world back at itself. An old L.A Raiders sweater and a pair of black jeans, fraying-

"...Which friend-" An odd question, one of a tumbling few in his mind that was not exactly the right one to ask. Interrupted, as the front door of the complex springs open and a man steps forward, to meet Gregor's sudden whirling presence to regard him in the Threshold of the Door. Those eyes and that sudden attentiveness, bloom-

Creeping. Like the indistinct things on the edge of your peripheral, shades, objects indescribable, were inching forward. Never when you looked upon them directly, but always at the corner of the eye. Like some clandestine thing. Forward on the edge of sight. Stop and vanish when you look right, only for something on the left to begin to do it as well Creeping.

He stares at Jon in the doorway-

"-Who-" Then around again toward Emily, leveling a finger at her with a firm sort of "-You're not norm-" And back around at Jon.

"What is this?" Confusion writes itself in the falling snow tonight.

[Austin Conway]
[Per+Aware]

[Emily Littleton]
She took a step back while he whirled in the archway like a dervish, as if he'd been trapped in some mystical alignment of threshholds and passers-by and was now kept, confined, until someone gave way.

"Evening," she says, politely, to the man who is coming out of the door. It is a nice counterpart to the Inquisitor between them. Emily only barely remembers Jon, and it will take more than a half-lit glimpse of his face to rekindle that memory.

When Gregor takes a closer look at her, She Who Is Not Normal, he can feel the steady thrum of something along her skin, pulsing like a second heartbeat. It lives in a small ovoid on a thin chain, a bauble that beats out the comfort, surety of Home. It is hidden now, obscured by her sweater and the winter coat, but its presence is undeniable. It is stronger than the Reverence of her, which is bright but fleeting.

She is not as dismayed as Gregor by the traffic jam in the walkway. To Emily, this is but coincidence with a side of poor timing.

[Austin Conway]
They needed to talk. Lately it seemed as if life just didn't want the two Awakened teenagers to have any alone time. Every time they ran into each other, whether deliberately or by mistake, it seemed there was always distractions. Parents, friends... technocrats. Martial Arts or Chinese lessons. They saw each other, sure, but... it was a little too easy to fall into the habit of normalcy. To talk and behave like every other teenager out there, when the reality was that they were anything but.

Likely this bothered Austin more than it did Enid. He'd been awakened longer. His life turned upside-down enough times to shake him free from any real lingering expectation of a mundane existence. Still, he seemed comfortable enough as he walked down the sidewalk with Enid, listening to the pleasant murmur of her voice as she talked. Of the two of them, she was more prone to being talkative. Austin... was content to absorb.

He blinked and looked up when Enid stopped and redirected their attention across the street, to where two strangers stood. Then he shrugged beneath the layers of his winter clothes and responded good-naturedly, "Sure."

As the two of them changed directions to approach Emily and Gregor, Austin frowned slightly and glanced between them before leaning in to whisper to Enid... "Do you know the other one? They both feel.. awakened, to me."

If anyone bothered to pay close enough attention, they might notice the same about him. His resonance was muted, at the moment. Just a gentle glow of balanced, stable energy. He felt solid. Powerful. Like a soldier on reserve, but ready at any moment to jump into action.

[Jonathan Kincade]
Jonathan raises an eyebrow at the half asked question "Who...?" the strange mans resonance a faint trail that Jon could only just following, that creeping sensation making him ill at ease.

Jonathan remained in the door, dressed professionally. Trousers and a shirt and tie covered by a formal jacket. The man almost screamed refined a man obviously who cared about the image he presented to the world. Neat.. tidy..organised.. professional. But just under the surface there was something else, a sense of a man who aimed to build things to shape and create ...to be constructive

Then a second question "what is what?" as his eyes then switch to Emily, recognising her after a few moments with a polite nod of his head.

[Emily Littleton]
(( ... Fate? Again? My, you throw such interesting parties. Per + Aware, dif 6 ... ))

[Gregor]
"...Are you here to...?"

And his eyes lift, up, up-...stepping aside of the porch to cast a gaze up at the former House's upper floor. Across the windows, over the towers and beyond. His attention is split in so many directions that Austin and Enid's approach bare little to no obvious reaction. Instead, there is simply a distinction between who is before him and what he was originally here to do, which takes sudden precedence.

"Nevermind. Hold-" A quick jump down to look at Jon again. "-Sorry to have interrupted you. I didn't...didn't mean to make a problem." He's moving now, turning his head briefly to snap a quick and apologetic nod toward Emily, before he crosses the front yard of the complex toward the opposite side, where a fence is ready to be scaled (or stepped over). Back turned, he leans forward, breathing hotly over the surface of the mirror on the back of his left hand.

(Spirit 1: Sense Lingering Magics/Spirit Disturbances around or in the House. Foci: Mirror. Diff 4 -1 for Foci.)

[Enid Geraint]
"I know - well, I only really know Emily, and that's more acquaintance than friend. But the younger looking of the old guys is . . . Joe, I think? Something like that, anyway. I bumped into him at a coffee shop a while ago. Emily's nice."

There's waiting, then, for the walk signal, and she bumps his hip lightly with hers. "We'll go somewhere quiet after we say hi."

Then it's their turn to go, and she steps off, headed across the street. When the get close (and my, is Enid a contradiction in terms - she feels most strongly of things automatic and convincing, but there is more. So light, just flickers, of withering and growth. Regardless, there's a girl smiling, even if her eyes aren't quite as cheerful as her lips, her tone.

"Hi, Emily. And . . . Joe? And I don't know you." The last is looking at Gregor, of course. "In the interest of saving time, I'm Enid." Austin, though, she lets introduce himself if he wants to.

[Gregor]
(Addendum...)

...Gregor would offer Enid and Austin a glance, the introduction given a wary, even confused sort of dismissal, before the towering man is moving across the yard, toward the side of the house.

[Emily Littleton]
Wharil had entreated them earlier that same day to use their senses keenly, to be Aware of things that seemed a little less plausible, and so when Emily reached... she found the resonance of the convocation flooding over her in a nauseating play of conflicting flavors. She stepped off the path to the doorway, out of Jon's way, looking faintly unfocused for a moment.

And of course, it is that moment when Enid approaches from the rear, adding her own cacophany of scents, tastes and tactile impressions to the milieu. It is too much for the little Orphan to sort through, but she is keenly Aware that there are Things Afoot. All the more reason to the doorstep and ring Kage's buzzer sooner rather than later. Maybe the angel with the coldfire hair -- as someone had recently described the other Orphan -- could help make sense of this all.

"Enid!" Emily seemed more than slightly surprised to see her there, and she was sluggish to smile warmly in reply. But the warmth got there, eventually, and it was enough to welcome both her and Austin. She doesn't presume him into their circle, doesn't start off with a Well you must be... "Ah, Happy Evening," she says, somewhat at loss for the proper social pleasntries in such a large, unplanned gathering.

[Austin Conway]
On the whole, Austin's focus was trained mostly on Gregor, for the pure and simple fact that Gregor was acting oddly. He turned his head and kept his gaze on the stranger for a long moment as Gregor moved away, before gray eyes flickered back to Emily and Jon, and he nodded once, absently, and smiled in a manner that seemed distracted but honest enough.

"Hey, I'm Austin. It's nice to meet you."

Never say that a good Akashic boy wasn't polite. Still, there were other things on his mind than meet-and-greets, and he asked the group at large, "Does anyone know what's going on? That guy seems... like he's looking for something."

[Gregor]
"...Kage." A harsh whisper.

He'd gotten to the fence leading around to the side of the house, one gloved hand on the top, while the other is hovering infront of him, palm out and the tiny shard of mirror visible on the front, facing toward him. His eyes are wide and slightly wild as the hand drops away to his side again, gaze scanning and darting across the upper floors of the building. Brief, calculating, fierce almost..

...Then he's moving, turning to walk a direct line toward the front door of the apartment, hands gripped into loose fists and jaw clinging to a sort of stern normally reserved for convicts and authority. He side steps broad puddle, frozen over top and looks to not be too concerned with stopping at the door. In, up and up...

[Enid Geraint]
[I can['t] hear a word you're sayin' [Per+Alert])

[Emily Littleton]
(( ... What was that? Per + Alert, dif 6 ... ))

[Emily Littleton]
She had been halfway through a pleasantry with Austin and Enid when Emily stops speaking, her shoulders square slighlty and she turns her attention overtly to Gregor. She doesn't let her gaze linger for long before saying, abruptly, "Excuse me?"

It was a question, but she stepped away from the duo before either answered. Emily fished her cellphone out of her pocket and pressed a few buttons as Gregor entered the building. She was calling the other Orphan, because no one should be surprised by a strange man on their doorstep. Emily looked worried, openly anxious, while she listened to the phone ring.

[Austin Conway]
[Let's get on that bandwagon... Per+Alert]

[Owen]
St James Cathedral isn't so far from where all the action is taking place. As a matter of fact, it's across the street and down some from the little impromptu gathering of folk. One of the oldest and indeed, the original Episcopal Diocese of Chicago it was an impressive structure even now, over a hundred years on. Except that these days, no matter how impressive or old and seeped in history a place was --

it still needed maintenance carried out on it.
It still needed weeding done to the flower beds before they were choked out of existence.

Which might explain the presence of a figure in the Church grounds at such a late hour, wheeling a wheelbarrow around to the front yard, stinking to high heaven [he didn't mean that, it was just a pun you realize] of manure and setting it before cast iron gates; painted green to match the lawn; though the paint was beginning to peel off, licks of it around the gate hinges and handle the most dire in need of aid.

The figure itself was harder to pin-point; it appeared to be masculine, simply from its outline; tall, broad-shouldered, pants and shirt. Whatever Whoever the yard-boy was; he seemed, on occasion to be drawn from his work long enough to approach the gate and stare in the little congregation's direction from time to time.

Not long enough to be truly unnerving [though he was] but enough to make anyone wonder if they were being observed by a member of the Church for some reason beyond curiosity. The attention never lasted long though, before the figure was back, in the blink of an eye, bent on his knees, pulling out weeds from lawn-beds.

[Jonathan Kincade]
Jonathan had been watching Gregor with a curious expression.. intrigued to find out what the man was looking for. But then he is distracted by a greeting, the young face of Enid finding it's way into his vision. "HI Enid.. and it's Jon.. Jonathan actually." a smile on his face shows his isn't that annoyed by the mistake, he's just correcting her.

Turning back to Gregor to see the man heading back inside. Jonathan had no real link to the other mages present..the male with Enid was an unknown to him. So Jon follows shrugs and heads in up behind Gregor the Creepy.

[Owen]
[Sneaking around the Church. Dex + Stealth to counter any Percept + Alert rolls]

[Owen]
[Er, wait. Wrong dice tally there. ^_^]

[Enid Geraint]
(HAI HAI HAI, YOU WANT TO HIDE, HAI [Per+Alert])

[Apartment of K. R. Jakes]
Kage's apartment is up the stairs, not on the first floor. And the door is closed. Jon likely passed it by earlier. The stairs are just as old as everything else is, and they crack, pop, make eerie noises if you don't know where to step. It's just one of those places.

And the door to Kage's apartment? Is closed, locked, not open for business.

And inside Kage's apartment, Kage is in her bedroom, getting dressed to go out with Emily. Her bed is covered in different clothes, although most of them have become heaped in one corner, labelled 'I should do my laundry.' She is also on the phone already. The conversation she is having goes something like this:

"Noooooooooo, Margot. I'm not afraid. I just don't want to go and see it." ... "Oh. I do have a reason; this place is too small for all of my books." ... "Well, I may decide not to break my lease, in the end. We'll see. I may have reacted hastily." ... "Ha, ha. Oh, wait a second. Someone's calling my cell."

Which is when Emily gets a: "Hello?"

[Emily Littleton]
"Kage?" Emily says, and there is a note of urgency in her voice. "It's Emily... Look, I'm downstairs, actually there's a group of us down here, odd, but some strange man just said your name and bounded into the building. I just wanted to warn you."

Emily spoke quickly, and the words tumbled over one another. She hadn't had a chance to think them through. They are tight, given the past few nights, and her concern (worry [fear]) comes through clearly enough.

[Gregor]
Gregor's approach is not a quiet one. He moves through the doorway with an evident boldness, not rushed or even hurried like some struck dumb child. The Age under his eyes and the certainty of the situation, makes him firm as he scales the stairs, hand on rail, creaks, pops and cracks of noise erupting throughout the hallways on the first floor and bouncing into those of the second. It's only as he reaches the eighth in sequence that he hears the flash of another on the stairs behind him.

Paranoia and caution turn his head around and then half his body to regard Jon on the stairs with a furrowed brow and a distracted, if displeased countenance.

"...What are you doing?" It isn't intimidating, but it is not hard to see the ardent nervousness other people might find in him. Disheveled, tall and dark eyed. A directness born of struggle and honesty painted in the careful. A beat and Gregor, recalls, or seems to, eyes flickering into a narrow briefly, before realization dawns.

"Sorry you were...in here before..." (Great/Challenging Wrong/Not Now. Never-/Focus/Focus) And he's scaling the stairs again, slower on his way to the top, turning away from Jon with a troubled sort of grimace on his face, as if he wanted nothing more then to forget that brief pause and moment and continue on his way. Which he does, ascending to the top quickly enough.

[Enid Geraint]
Something moves down the way and Enid, who is on high alert, watches for a moment. It's just shadows (Who screws around on a church's grounds in the freezing cold at night, anyway? [Who stands around outside a random apartment building in the freezing . . .] This is Kage's building?) and so her attention is pulled back to the scene at hand in time to hear Emily speaking to Kage.

"Um . . ." Enid is not worried. She seldom worries for herself, honestly, and the guy she doesn't know moved with ease and confidence. He wasn't trying to sneak. Maybe he knows someone inside, or . . . something. She is, however, quite intrigued. This is the girl who gave up on Agatha Christie at twelve because she could figure out the answers by the end of the third chapter. ".....what's going on?"

[Jonathan Kincade]
Jonathan shrugs "I'm following you and seeing what your upto." taking another step up there stairs "Also I realised earlier this evening an acquaintance of mine actually lives in this apartment complex. I thought I might go drop by now before it got too late." and then the man has turned away from him once more and is heading back up the stairs.

So Jonathan continues what he intended and follows behind him.

[Owen]
It's below freezing outside.

And yet, someone has been busy at work. Even if nobody can be seen to be at work, the garden beds all get slowly weeded free of snow-flecked growth, and the ground, hard as rock in the cold weather is still stubbornly, slowly, turned over as if the perpetrator could only be stopped by force before they were done. It's hard work -- it seems almost work fit for a punishment of some kind, passed down from [nowhere near] on high.

And Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear.

For some, nothing can be great enough.

Enid sees -- what? Her imagination playing tricks on her? A flicker? A moment of doubt that makes her want to squint, or blink or... something. But it passes; the black shadowy blur darts out of sight and its as if nothing at all had taken place.

Don't be silly.

[Apartment of K. R. Jakes]
"A group of ..." Kage's eyebrows draw together, and a shadow passes across her features; her expression distances, even though there's noone there to see it. Aloof, still. That she can manage this while pulling on a sock, disgustedly noting that it is not the sock she meant to pull on, with her landline's phone tucked under one ear and her cellphone held to the other is a feat of magic that has little to do with Will. "Ah. A strange man, of course. Why of course." A brief pause, and then, "Wai - Noooooo, Margot. I am not entertaining a tall, dark, handsome stran -- look, hold on, will you? I need to get dressed." And Kage drops the landline's receiver onto her bed, then pushes it off the bed feelingly. It clatters, but not as loudly as it might have, were it not nested safely in a dress and a sweater. Now her attention is for Emily alone.

Not alone. Her attention is also for -- what the hell is this 'us'? "What did he look like?"

[Gregor]
He freezes at the top of the stairs, inadvertently blocking Jon's own path, turning once more, this time fully, to regard the man, the look on his face a cloud of consideration and displeasure.

"Really think you need to get back to what you were doing but..." And the eyes narrow further. "...What friend?" Suspicion moving to dread clarity.

[Jonathan Kincade]
Jonathan responds to the question, ignoring the mans displeasure for the most part "Oh I will eventually. My friend? my friends name is Kage, why do you know her."a look as he studies the mains fast waiting to see his reaction.

[Jonathan Kincade]
((studies the mans face even))

[Emily Littleton]
"I don't know, Enid," Emily said, while Kage juggled the conversations, socks and dirty laundry in an apartment above the gathering group. Emily is a little short with the other girl, but she doesn't mean to be. It's an efficient sort of short, not a curt or irritated brevity. And Kage, at least, has one other name to add into the us she has just heard about.

Emily describes Gregor, mostly by what he is wearing, also by some generic adjectives like tall and broad. She shies away from saying he feels Creepy, because she does not yet trust her Awareness the way she trusts her physical senses. "Maybe it's nothing," she adds, half heartedly. Though Emily clearly doesn't think of it this way, there is always the chance that she has over-reacted.

Down on the frozen ground, Emily is chewing on her lip and just now turning a portion of her attention back to Enid and Austin. Sorry, she mouths at the younger girl. Austin gets a vaguely apologetic (distracted [anxious]) look. On another night, or in another week, she would have been so happy to meet him. Happy to see him and Enid together. Emily takes a moment and actively tries to let that warmth shine through whatever else is on her mind, but it's fleeting and she looks away to the windows of the apartments above them soonthereafter.

Something is a afoot, and the Orphan is uneasy about it.

[Gregor]
"Yes. I..." A pause. A frown. "...I know her." As if that was as far as he was willing to take it.

Clarity comes and with though, the resolve of the resigned. The displeasure wastes away to leave behind a furrowed brow and a slight shake of his head, slight enough to not be a conscious gesture.

"You're one of her Pennies, then." An odd remark, he moves from the top of the stairs, gaze traveling to the doorway behind which stands his goal, though just what specifically is not an obvious thing. "I stand by my prior statement. You really should just let this go and go on your business. Other business." He stands just off to the right of the door itself, features studying the portal as if it could glean some sort of information in and of itself. Then toward the wall beside it and in front of him. His mouth hangs open slightly, breathing low and shallow.

[Austin Conway]
Enid asked what was going on, and Austin turned to her and shrugged, honestly. "I have no idea. Want to check it out? Maybe you could ask your friend to let us up?"

By this, of course, he meant whoever it was that Emily was on the phone with.

[Enid Geraint]
It's cold outside. Enid is dressed to go from apartment to car to theatre to deli/cafe to car, but not for prolonged stays outside. She shivers, just lightly, then does reach for Austin's hand. It's brief, that touch, and its aim is unclear - but Enid is uncomfortable, off balance, and the bit of contact helps minutely. Then he's asking if Kage will buzz them up.

She shakes her head - negation.
She shrugs - uncertainty.

"We're . . . not that close. I dunno. I guess we'll see what she says to Emily, yeah? I didn't know this was her building until Em called her."

[Apartment of K. R. Jakes]
"I -- hm." A brief pause, because Kage has chosen a shirt and sweater at random and tugged them both over her head, soft, quiet, hushed inside that clothing. Her voice sounds clearer after the deed is done, decisive. "And the strange man was one of 'us', hm?" A final question, from the way Kage phrases it.

[Emily Littleton]
"No," Emily says at first. "I'm standing here with Enid and Austin--they happened by." She looks over at them as she speaks their names, then chews on the inside corner of her lip a little more.

"But he is... Damnit, Kage, I don't even know how to talk about these things. He feels different, like you, Jarod, Enid..." Emily presses her eyes shut and lifts her free hand to pinch the bridge of her nose in frustration. "But I don't know what that means, not really." Emily leaves it at that. Lets it go at that. She is worried for her friend, and unable to express herself clearly enough. And it seems more and more certain that they will not make it out the Court this evening, which is upsetting.

[Apartment of K. R. Jakes]
"It means -- " A pause. Now is not the time to explain the way the world works, Kage. "That I'll be down in a moment. I just need to put on shoes. Thank you for calling to warn me; I'll see you! Tell Enid I say hello." A brief pause. "And Austin, as well. He's the boy?" And then, click.

[Emily Littleton]
Kage hangs up, so Emily hangs up, and she slides the cellphone back into her pocket. It's awkward now, having so abruptly stepped away from the meet and greet to make a tense phone call, but Emily makes her way back to the couple (duo [pair]).

"Sorry about that," she says, as if it were a necessary intrusion. Not just her own anxiety getting the better of her. Not something strange happening here, inconveniently near where Emily had chosen to be. "Kage's on her way down. She says Hello."

She is unsettled, but the smile has tentatively returned. "Where are you two off to?" she asks of Austin and Enid.

[Enid Geraint]
"I got tickets for Blue Man Group." It sounds ridiculous now, when just a bit ago she'd been so pleased - she will be again, but for the moment, concern wars with a Need to Do Something. Kage is on her way down, Emily said, and so Enid shrugs and stays where she is, shoves her hands into her pockets, and shrugs. "And we were going to have dinner at Murches."

She nods at the deli/cafe back across the street. "And then I saw you, so I thought we'd say hi." She doesn't need to say that this is one for her blue Cubs notebook, a match to Emily's red of the same - both girls know that. It's a given, maybe, that when so many mages converge in one place that it's going to get written down in the book - not because of the convergence itself, necessarily, but because other Weird Shit (almost) always happens when they're all together. Cats and dogs sleeping together . . . it's madness. "What about you?"

[Gregor]
Gregor takes a tentative step forward, sliding into place only a few inches from Kage's door, gaze slightly downcast. His breath is still shallow and his attention somewhat scattered. A myriad of thoughts and possibilities, written in the edge of his vision. A quick check over of the framework, dusting down clothes as if they could make a difference in the vague stains of salt, running uneven ribbons around pants and the tattered jacket. A grunt of displeased that wraps itself around his tongue and keeps him from voicing something unpleasant.

A half-step back from the door (Don't crowd) and then his gaze lifts, eyes...lost on something unseen. Something beyond the door-

Knocking. The sound too loud if his vague wince is any indication, the first two a thrum, the third, a gentler something.

"...Kage it's..." A pause, eyes squeezing shut, once more a quiet curse under his breath, inaudible. "...It's Gregor." Defeat and resolve.

[Emily Littleton]
"We were going to grab a bite and ..." Emily's voice hitches slightly, "Catch up. Something quiet," she says, with a raised eyebrow and a faint chuckle (You see how well that turned out.)

"I hope you two enjoy the show," she added. And the warmth returned to Emily's expression slowly, by degrees. "It's nice to meet you, Austin," she said, belatedly. "I hear you're Enid's Tai Chi instructor?"

She splits her attention between waiting on the front door to open, and trying to salvage her social graces. Austin is, naturally, a point of interest. But Emily stops short of anything quite so blantant as telling him how much Enid has talked about him lately.

[Apartment of K. R. Jakes]
K. R. Jakes truly did consider leaving by the back entrance. The apartment building did not have a back entrance, but in a pinch, the window would do. Kage has done it before; it isn't easy. It certainly isn't easy in this kind of weather, where there is frost and ice to worry about, slipping away your footsteps, determining your road into a downward spiral that ends in blood and bone and endings. But she considered it. She considered, at very least, climbing across the way, into Janet's apartment. It isn't because she doesn't love her fellow Willworkers, but rather because she hates it when they show up at her apartment, that she views them as something of bad luck lately, that she can't think of any strange magi who matches Emily's description she would be overjoyed to speak with at the moment, even if they weren't somehow going to cause her trouble. So, the back entrance, then. The cautious option is not the option she decides to take. It rarely is.

So, instead, Gregor. He says his name, and she is opening the door as he does. And there he is. Kage's eyebrows draw together, again, and she looks at him (cautiously [thoughtfully] carefully). "... Hello. Oh." One would think she would relax, a little. She knows Gregor, and that's all right. However: "... How... Do you know I live here? And ...why are you here?"

[Austin Conway]
If Emily had asked Austin whether or not he'd had some strong desire to see Blue Man Group, or even, in fact, if he'd known anything at all about them besides the fact that they painted themselves blue, he'd be forced to admit that he... didn't. But ultimately that didn't matter, because no one had asked, and being around Enid (regardless of what they were doing) was its own kind of reward. She probably didn't realize, entirely... just how much he needed those little moments of relaxed normalcy.

So when Emily told them she hoped they'd enjoy the show, he shrugged noncommittally, but smiled. He had a nice smile. Not the dazzling, beautiful expression that it might be on someone like, say, Jarod Nightingale. But it was warm and honest and very... boy-next-door.

"Yeah, we worked out a swap, of sorts. I teach her martial arts and she teaches me Chinese. I gotta admit, she's a better student than I am, I think."

[Gregor]
How...Do you know I live here-

He doesn't seem to be paying attention. Not at first. His eyes and head have lifted to regard the interior of K(C)age's apartment, the stern, wary drain of his features already waxing toward that desperation that had him clinging to something in his gut. In his mind. In his imaginings (Easy/Fear/I said Easy/Fear, Gregor/Damn it, Stop-/Stronger then you, this Fear, Stronger/-it! Now!).

It takes the you in her sentence to bring Gregor's attention down to Jake's features, brow and face crushing into a grimace as the situation turns toward the awkward. The strange. Potentially Creep(ing)y.

"...I'm..." Not quite sure? Uncertain? Discombobulated? Distracted. "...I followed something. Something that..." His eyes keep flicking up and over her shoulder, the nerves under his skin making themselves honest in his features, twisting the cords of his neck into the tightening of his jaws. All at once he snaps his attention down toward her.

"...Was it you?" Something intense. Almost accusatory, Al...most. "Was it you that-" A gloved hand lifts, limp and stuck for a proper gesture to offer, before falling away impotently "...Did you-...put the Hole there?" Fallen to a whisper now, creased with agitation and- "Can you do that?" - desperation.

[Apartment of K. R. Jakes]
"No."

Kage's expression changes once, twice, three times. Once: disturbed; heated, angry. She was a passionate creature, even if she held herself well, was usually composed. Twice: worried, what, something here now. Thrice: resigned, and we're back to cautious.

"And no, I can't do that. That was someone else." Kage watches the (she thinks) other Orphan for a moment, staying in the doorway, not inviting him in, not inviting eyes in, either. Not that this has worked for her in the past. "Someone dangerous, Gregor, someone who's walking around Chicago now... So you should be careful. And," she is frowning, slightly. "I'm late ... I'm supposed to go out tonight. You should... if you want to talk, you can come in and settle up on the couch, or ..."

She doesn't think he has a phone. "We can meet up in Chinatown again."

[Enid Geraint]
"I spent a long time learning how to be a good student. Some of it only applies to school and books. Some of it doesn't," she says with a shrug, and glances up - not at any specific window, because she doesn't know which one, but just . . . up. And then her attention moves back to Emily, and her stomach rumbles just as she shivers again. "And . . . I didn't dress well for hanging around outside."

She's dressed like all the other teenage girls under her peacoat (quite possibly part of her school uniform, before she'd finished, and worn in and comfortable and flattering enough that she keeps wearing it) - a tunic length cowl neck sweater and a pair of leggings with some nice, very slightly heeled boots do not a comfortable Enid make.

"Are you okay, d'you think, if we head back to the deli? We'll be close, and you have my number if you need it."

[Gregor]
"-Chinatown."

He's looking over her shoulder but...backing away as well, the look on his face telling all Kage needs to know of just what part of her words he Heard: Someone else. Someone dangerous. In Chicago. Walking around..

"-We'll meet again. Yeah." Nodding, dispassionately, unevenly. Lopsided. Disconnected. "...I'll...I'll meet you at the..." A beat, bringing his mind back to the moment for a second. "I'll meet you at the Hot chocolate shop again." Not a mention of time. Not a mention of day. Just...at some point. His brow furrows and his body turns, moving toward the stairwell, a grim scowl on his features, a hurry in his step that wasn't there before. Down the steps. Toward the door. Out, out...away from the waiting bodies who might look and watch. Away from any voices that might be searching him out.

There was something. Someone. Who could do that?

[i]Fear/Fearing now?/Yeah, Yeah I am

[Gregor]
"-Chinatown."

He's looking over her shoulder but...backing away as well, the look on his face telling all Kage needs to know of just what part of her words he Heard: Someone else. Someone dangerous. In Chicago. Walking around..

"-We'll meet again. Yeah." Nodding, dispassionately, unevenly. Lopsided. Disconnected. "...I'll...I'll meet you at the..." A beat, bringing his mind back to the moment for a second. "I'll meet you at the Hot chocolate shop again." Not a mention of time. Not a mention of day. Just...at some point. His brow furrows and his body turns, moving toward the stairwell, a grim scowl on his features, a hurry in his step that wasn't there before. Down the steps. Toward the door. Out, out...away from the waiting bodies who might look and watch. Away from any voices that might be searching him out.

There was something. Someone. Who could do that?

Fear/Fearing now?/Yeah, Yeah I am

[Emily Littleton]
"Have a great dinner," Emily said, nodding a little as Enid started to slip away. She'd put her hands back into her coat pockets and was letting them warm up again. It was cold enough that Emily, in her winter coat, swayed a little to keep the muscles in her legs loose. "And we should go running again sometime. It was nice."

As they made their way toward the deli, Emily glanced back at the door to Kage's apartment building. She chewed on the inside of her lip and wondered if waiting was truly the best course of action at this point. Barging in was definitely not any better, though, so waiting it was. Even if she was starting to feel like an obnoxious lawn gnome or other out-of-place decoration.

[Apartment of K. R. Jakes]
Gregor leaves. Outside, Enid and Austin return to the deli. Jon, well. He's been indecisively in the stairwell for who knows how long. And Kage? Kage takes a step back into her apartment, and shuts the door again. This is only for long enough to ( just move ! put up the damned wards!) put on her boots, to grab her bag. To remember Margot, on the phone, and to remember to hang it up. Then she also leaves -- not via the window, but down the stairs, hood up, hat on, until she's outside where it's cold as clarity, where heat is made elemental, and there is Emily, all alone, chewing her lip.

"I'm sorry about that. Let's go," she says. "I'm famished."

ooc: and I'm posting out, y'all! THANK YOU! Apartment building stays. Do with it what you will! *waves magic hands*

[Austin Conway]
"Oh, you two run together? Maybe I can join you guys some day." Unless, of course, it was a girls-only kind of thing. Women seemed to like their alone time that way, and he wasn't about to make himself a nuisance if he wasn't wanted. "Anyway, we need to take off I guess so... it was nice meeting you."

He smiled one last time and nodded in Emily's direction before turning and following Enid in the direction they'd been headed earlier. At some point, he surreptitiously slid his arm around her own, hooking their elbows together.

[Enid Geraint]
"Of course. We only just started, really - but yeah, give me a call, Em. I run every day but Saturday, mostly at around the same time unless there's something going on. So, I'll see you later. And tell Kage to call me? Or I'll call her, if she doesn't."

To make sure she's okay, of course. Just because Enid doesn't worry about herself doesn't mean she doesn't worry about other people.

And so they're heading away, Austin and Enid are, for their dinner together - to the quiet deli, quieter now than it had been when Enid had been distracted enough to walk right by the door. She steps inside, all confidence and red hair glowing under the incandescent bulbs (no florescents in a place like this) and moves to the counter - it's cafeteria style, with about two dozen different breads to choose from as a start.

[Austin Conway]
Austin gave a final glance back in the direction of Kage's apartment complex, as if he somehow expected something incredibly unpleasant to leap out of the shadows. But ultimately, that never happened, and eventually his demeanor relaxed to the point where he was able to jostle against Enid's side playfully while they walked.

They were going out. As in, a date. (Right? This must be a date. It felt like one.) And as such, Austin had made his very best attempt to wear something that was slightly presentable, though that didn't mean much on his current wages. The jeans he had on were new, instead of faded and torn, and he'd put on a deep red buttoned shirt instead of the usual t-shirt or hoodie underneath his winter coat.

"So um, I never got to thank you, really. For the Christmas present, I mean. I mean, I guess I sortof mentioned it, but your mom and everyone was there and it all happened so fast and it really was a... amazingly, crazily nice thing to offer, so... thank you. But... do you really want me to go with you? It seems a bit... I don't know, crazy. You don't know me that well."

[Enid Geraint]
He jostles against her side and Enid smiles, a small, secret-but-pleased sort of thing, and puts her arm out around his waist. It feels good, really, having this sort of attachment - she hasn't really been without it, since she was old enough to realize that boys were something other than yucky. While she knows that she hardly needs a boy to get by, it's just a thing. It makes lights brighter, and snow whiter.

On the way in, she'd paused long enough to catch a couple flakes on her tongue.

It's after they've collected sandwiches and drinks and moved to sit down in a corner apart that Austin talks, and the smile at this is more obvious, and her brown eyes twinkle. "Well, it would be nicer than traveling alone. And Emily's said we could get together with our laptops and she'd hook me up with some interesting things to see in a lot of different places, not just China and Taiwan. So, it stands to be a lot more interesting than the trip I originally had planned."

Which she mourns, a bit, though she still hasn't decided if she'll take the internship at Marcom or not - she's on their roster, ready to start on their payroll after the fifteenth, but that doesn't mean she's decided. After her mom's visit, with friends in tow, she may not show at the appointed time.

"So, it's up to you. I mean, the voucher has an expiration date, but you can use it whenever you want before then. I just . . . thought if you were that into it, you should get a chance to go."

[Austin Conway]
"Well, you gave it to me so... it seems a little silly to not use it when you do. Besides, I couldn't do that. It would be... awful and selfish." Never did he actually say that he couldn't imagine why he might want to go alone when he could be with her, which was what a good boyfriend (that is, assuming he was, which they hadn't really talked about either) was supposed to say in this sort of situation.

Of course, Austin had never officially dated anyone before, and he was prone to looking first at the morality of a decision before thinking about his own emotional involvement. It just wasn't right to let someone give you a gift like that and not share it with them.

He took of his coat and hung it on the back of his chair before picking up his sandwich and taking a bite. Eating was both foremost on his instincts and something that he did without really thinking. There was food, so he was eating it, important conversation or no.

[Enid Geraint]
This is one thing that Enid isn't pushing to define; there's been kissing on occasion, one imagines, but she hasn't tried to go any further than that. The contact stops just a bit before it might become . . . difficult . . . for either of them to think properly, and the topic gets shifted to something else, something innocent and innocuous.

There's a lot they haven't talked about, really. He knows there was a boyfriend and a best friend, but that they're gone. He knows that she went to a private school and excelled, knows - or at least has met - her parents, but there's more that he doesn't know than he does.

"In which case, I'll hop on the computer when I get home and do some room shuffling - I'll get neighboring rooms if I can, and two fulls or queens instead of one king if I can't. Though it's an apartment in Beijing - my mom's covering it. I don't know what it's like yet." She shrugs apologetically - but one imagines there's a bedroom and a couch, at least, so they can take turns if necessary. "And we leave on the tenth." In just a couple days, then. "We've got five days in Tai Pei - or where ever we want to go in Taiwan, really - and then we're in Beijing."

She falls quiet and blows across her soup before tasting it - she approves, apparently. "I mean, if that's alright with you," she finishes, once the bite is swallowed.

[Austin Conway]
"I..."

If it was possible to be simultaneously excited and uncomfortable, Austin had practically become a poster child for it by now. It seemed like he felt a lot of contradictory emotions around Enid, in general, and this particular subject was a pretty difficult one. The idea of going to another country with someone he'd only just met seemed all at once wonderful and terrifying, and the nagging little voice of responsibility kept prodding him to simply turn her down and hand the ticket back like any rational person would do. He hadn't done that, though.

"Honestly I'm happy to go wherever you think would be best. Although... I've always wanted to visit some of those old buddhist temples. I don't care about the rooms, really. I'm happy sleeping on the floor. Probably be more comfortable than the bed in my apartment." There was some wry humor in that as he grinned and took another bite of food.

[Enid Geraint]
Enid's good at giving people conflicting emotions - especially now, more so than she ever had been before. She is (withering and growth, but subtly, quietly so) an odd mix of study, study, study and let's do this that most people find incomprehensible. It's strange, maybe, that she has the confidence and attitude of a pretty, popular girl, but not one of the ones who was popular because she was pretty. No, Enid was popular because, despite everything, it was difficult not to like her. People wanted to be around her.

Exciting and uncomfortable, indeed.

"I'm all about the sightseeing," she says with a smile. "I mean, the only places I've been outside of Chicago, really, have been ski resorts or school trips. And I like history, so old monuments and temples sound fun." Enid, too, eats at least in part because there's food in front of her, because it's coded into her still growing and changing and also quite active body to do so, but she can get away with less than Austin by . . . well, by whatever virtue. With her bowl of soup, she'd only gotten a half sandwich, which she takes a neat bite of now, to chew thoughtfully before she continues.

".....you may have to sleep on the floor sometimes, or I may. But if worst comes to worst, we'll take turns. And I don't want any of that gentlemanly 'you take the bed' stuff," she says with a grin. "I will sometimes, and you will sometimes. But only if there's no other choice."

[Austin Conway]
"But you paid for it, you should take the bed," Austin protested. There was no mention of this being a matter of chivalry, however. He wasn't quite that foolish. Enid wasn't the sort of girl who liked for people to hold doors for her and order her food at restaurants. Although deep down, he might have found the notion of letting a girl sleep on the floor rather ridiculous, the logical portion of his brain told him not to bring the gender issue into the argument.

Of course, most boys his age with anything resembling sense would have just suggested they share the bed and solved all possible problems in one delightfully self-serving swoop. But the idea of him and Enid in bed together was just a quagmire of complications that he really wasn't ready to contemplate at the moment.

"Honestly, I used to sleep on the floor all the time back at the chantry in San Francisco. It doesn't bother me at all. I'm used to it."

[Enid Geraint]
"I didn't pay for it. Y'see, I don't have a job. If I show up at the Beijing office when I'm supposed to, that'll be the start of my first job ever." There's a rueful smile - she's not one of those kids who makes it obvious how pampered and spoiled she is, but . . . well, she's pampered and spoiled. "I had to pay for half of my car, but that was a Dad thing. This . . . it's not. And so it's covered for me."

Which makes it awfully easy for her in a lot of ways. And potentially very difficult in others, but she'll see what she sees when they get there. She's honestly not thinking of the possible complications, but of how amazing it will be to be there, seeing new things and steeping in a language she's been learning for ages. But then there's a wave of her hand, and a smirky sort of grin. "We'll figure it out if and when we need to. But, just so you know, I go camping in the summer - real camping, not in a camper or whatever. I'm not exactly a wuss about where I sleep."

She's making no suggestion that they sleep in the same bed either - for similar reasons, in part, but also because she's in no hurry for it. If it happens, it happens and she's unlikely to shy away from (anything) it, but if it doesn't? That's okay too. But then his last - or part of it that she'd not particularly paid attention to before - registers, and she blinks.

"What was it like there? At the chantry-thing?" She's new. She's never been to the Chantry here, let alone anywhere else.

[Austin Conway]
He let the matter drop, mostly because it wasn't of immediate concern, and partly because Enid had distracted him by asking an entirely different question. He paused to take a long drink of water (Austin never drank anything carbonated, which Enid may or may not have noticed by now) while he contemplated his response.

"Well, I've never been to the one here. Not yet, anyway. So I can't really compare. That one was run by the Akashics, so it was pretty much what you'd expect from them." (As if this might explain all that much to someone as green as Enid.) "There was a temple, and a library, and a tea room, and a lot of space for training and meditation. Oh, and there was a huge garden out back. I really miss that, actually. It was beautiful. Had a koi pond and everything. But we had to work really hard. There wasn't really any spare time to just... go out and have fun."

The longer Austin spoke, the more his voice started to get soft and wistful. More than that... it ached. And there was something very sad that touched his eyes.

[Enid Geraint]
".....you miss it there." It's not really a question; she doesn't quite understand, what with never having been away from the place to which she's tied by so many strings for long, but she has an idea, at least. Her hand, the one not wrapped around her mug of tea, comes across the table to rest on his briefly, to offer comfort (or maybe just contact). "It sounds gorgeous. Maybe."

And this takes a turn for the shy, where all her planing for a trip across a large ocean and a larger continent hadn't; that had been her thing, something she knew about. If he'd said he wanted to go on his own, she'd have smiled and told him to have a good time, and that she'd call periodically if he wanted her to, or maybe send postcards. (She cares. She wants him to go with her, to be there when they're both experiencing China for the first time. But she knows she'd spoken and acted rashly, and that she might not get exactly what she wants from it.)

But this is different. It's asking to be let in, rather than opening a door.

"Maybe you could show me some day."

[Austin Conway]
Did he miss it there? Of course. Which was why Enid hadn't framed it as a question. Austin's response was to let out a long breath and nod gently. Yes. Yes he missed it there. Yes he missed it dearly and painfully and wanted desperately to go back pretty much every single day. But he couldn't. In the same way that going back to Miami wasn't the same as going home, neither could this ever be, now.

Home didn't exist without the people who made it that way.

"I um..." his voice shook a little. "Honestly I don't think I could. Too many... ghosts." And then there was wetness in his eyes, and he stood up a little awkwardly. His mouth opened, to say something, and then it snapped shut again and he just turned around and walked quickly from their table. Fleeing out the door and into the cold, despite not being properly dressed for it. Hopefully Enid would understand that he intended to come right back. (After all, he wouldn't have left his coat behind otherwise, right?)

[Enid Geraint]
".........."

Hopefully she'll understand. He did leave his coat after all, and thus he can't intend to stay long in the temperatures that haven't hit higher than the lower twenties in days. Still his sudden departure leaves her blinking and confused, uncertain of . . . everything. She's not an insecure girl, not a girl prone to blaming herself for things over which she has no control, but still she wonders if she should have just kept her mouth shut, or kept talking about the trip to China, or moved back to talk about Blue Man Group (for which she'd gotten two tickets, yes, and invited him to join her - but they're on their way to becoming friends-and-maybe-more. She doesn't make assumptions, and if it's not his cup of tea, he's hardly obligated to go.) or . . . something. Anything.

She sits, quietly eats more of her soup and sandwich, and then cups her tea in her hands. She'll give him time, but if it's too long she'll go outside to find him, to give him his coat. It's not been that long since she lost people, after all. She knows from needing a bit of time.

[Austin Conway]
He'd left because he couldn't bring himself to cry in the middle of a crowded restaurant with Enid watching him. It was silly, and he knew it, but there it was. The most basic of teenage male instincts, to avoid embarrassment. Not that things weren't likely to be just as embarrassing when he went back inside all red and splotchy and had to try and explain himself, but Austin hadn't thought things through that far.

He certainly hadn't meant to start crying either. (So much for being stoic and balanced.) Normally he had better control over himself than that, but it had been a long, difficult few months, and spending the holidays alone had made things doubly worse. He felt lost.

Outside, he crumpled against the side of the building and held his face in his hands, trying to get control over himself as tears flowed down his cheeks and the frozen wind bit into his skin. Ultimately, the cold may have actually helped. It numbed him, and caused his body to start sending frantic messages of survival that superseded the desire to simply break down and be miserable. Finally, he seemed to relax, at least a little, and he did his best to wipe away the wetness from his face.

Eventually, he came back inside, though he did look like a bit of a mess when he sat down in front of Enid again and took a deep breath.

"I am... so sorry, about that. Really. You must think... I mean, do you want me to go? Maybe I should just go."

[Enid Geraint]
It took long enough that, upon his return, he found Enid staring at his jacket indecisively . . . as if it might give her answers, or maybe just as if she ought to take it outside to him. He comes back, though, and it doesn't take an in depth study to know that something's up. Now it's he that she stares at, but more briefly.

When she acts, it's impulsive - he doesn't get the same sort of study her books or laptop or even his coat had gotten. No, he gets the un-premeditated (but not completely thoughtless) action that is coming around the table, leaning in and down slightly as she draws his chin up, and a long kiss on the lips. It's relatively chaste as these things go - as all their kisses are - but still, there's no lack of intent. She is strong (amusingly, for a girl who hasn't been Awakened long enough to have the added conviction in herself and ability that most mages have), and she's there for him.

Only when that's done, and when she's blushing slightly, does she return to her seat to speak calmly, easily. "If you think that'd be best. Or we can finish eating and . . . Mom and the others didn't come to Dad's and my place, you know. So, I don't know if that means much, but maybe it's alright? If you want to come over and chill with a video game or just music or something. But, whatever."

Again, it's not that she doesn't care. But this time, there's only so much talking she can do without contradicting herself.

[Austin Conway]
When Enid stood up and moved toward him, Austin watched her as if he wasn't sure if he wanted her to actually get this close. There was hesitance and a guarded expression in his eyes. But when her lips met his, it melted a little of the cold that had settled so forcefully into his skin and heart, and after a brief moment of non-response, he lifted a hand up to touch the side of her face and kissed her back gently. His lips and fingers were icy to the touch, which somehow just didn't seem right, on him. Austin was a summer person. He always felt warm.

And then the kiss ended, and Enid sat back down and asked if he wanted to go back home with her. Austin contemplated this and opened his mouth to tell her no... but ended up saying, instead, "...Okay." Because it was what he wanted. Because she was someone to cling to. To be with. When he had nothing. A compass. "I mean, yeah. If you really don't mind. That would be nice."