"Don't Prod at Me ..."

[Enid Geraint] Emily picked them up at the airport. Emily dropped them off . . . with every intention of staying to find out what was going on, what had happened to the younger girl and her boyfriend, who'd been gone for months. The best laid plans, and all that.

Enid has been wearing the same clothes for several days, and looks and smells like it. The same is true for Austin, but for his shirt which was much more recently procured. The latter is helped inside and before she so much as speaks, Enid makes sure he's comfortable on the couch, with water and/or gatorade nearby. Given the injuries he's sustained, and the dehydration . . . well, bio was never one of Enid's strong classes, but she can guess. And the guessing doesn't lead to good conclusions.

She is not doing well, Ashley's apprentice; that much is obvious.

"Hey," she finally says, her voice still somewhat hoarse as she nurses her own water. And needless to say, she doesn't want to talk about her last few days, not really. "How're you? Alright, I hope?" She's looking Ashley over, and that gaze is harder than ever to read, more guarded, distant.

[Ashley McGowen] It's clear to Ashley when the kids arrive that something has happened. When Emily brought Enid and Austin to her door, the Hermetic did not ask questions. Austin is on her couch with the Gatorade nearby; he's a bit better than he was when they left the cell and his wounds are on the mend thanks to Zeke's slap patches, but he's still worn thin, exhausted, and spending nearly a full day either at the airport or on a plane has likely not helped.

When they've gotten Austin situated and Enid is sitting down in one of the brown leather chairs, Ashley takes the other one. Compared to when they last spoke, Ashley has not changed much in some ways; perhaps she's gotten used to the taint, learned to adjust herself. But she is still palpably different from several months ago: she's lost weight, there are still hollows beneath her eyes and she has a manner of staring. She radiates hunger.

Ashley is not paying attention to that, though. She's looking at Enid. "I'm fine," she says. "Enid, what happened? You were supposed to be gone for a couple more months."

[Enid Geraint] She shrugs, settles into the chair, looks like she could well disappear into its depths. "We didn't get along well with Beijing. Emily said things have been tense?"

She knows, more or less, how things were when she left. She's evading, and not doing as well as she might have under more fortuitous circumstances; there are gaps, cracks, and swallows, and a control carefully but barely held. She's wary, and of what isn't clear, though for all that settling, she gets up after a moment to glance out convenient windows, watchful.

"Mostly, we had a great time. The last . . . few days, I think, have been rough."

She's not sure who to trust, what to believe. Just a few days ago, she would have trusted her mother, uncles and aunt with her life. Just a few days ago, she wouldn't have batted an eyelash if someone said Ashley worried about her. Things have happened, since then. She is different, somehow, than she was when she left - and it's not necessarily a good thing.

[Ashley McGowen] And Ashley has worried about Enid. Not to the point of sickness, not the way a mother would worry, but in her idle moments she would wonder how the girl was doing. She would consider the dangerous circumstances in the city, the things she has been weathering here, and wondered how a seventeen-year-old girl could handle those things if she came upon them alone. (Not entirely alone - she does have Austin - but Ashley barely knows the boy, really.)

From time to time there would be a long pause between when they last spoke and Ashley would wonder how she would handle it if something happened to her apprentice.

There is no evidence of that now, however. Ashley leaves Enid sitting there while she gets up, goes to the kitchen, and for a few seconds all Enid can hear is the clatter of plates, the rustle of plastic bags, the popping sound plastic containers make when opened. A microwave humming. Ashley doesn't know when Enid last ate, but given the girl's general state and the peaked, unhealthy look she has, she can guess it's been a while.

A plate is extended toward Enid - leftovers, mostly, what appears to be pasta and some bread - and then Ashley takes her seat back. "Eat, and then have a shower, and we'll talk. Where's your suitcase?"

[Enid Geraint] ".....I need to make you some things. There's a pasta maker . . ."

But her voice cracks on the last, and she stops before she finishes with 'at dad's house'; goodness only knows when, or if, she'll be going back there. Zeke (who shot Austin while he was trying to get out, but Austin killed Steve, but Steve had had a gun, but . . .) had said not to go back, and Enid very much wants her Daddy. She wants her Mama, too, but that's a keening, mourning sort of want that she's not allowing herself to express, that she's trying not to feel. There's so much she'd rather not feel right now . . .

She's perched, when Ashley presents her with the plate, not properly sitting. She looks like she might get up and fly away.

Where's your suitcase? There's a shrug, and she's not completely certain how to answer that. She doesn't know what's been done with it, what's been done with Zeke, what . . . "Back in Beijing." It's a definitive answer, full of certainty she doesn't feel as she holds the plate close. "I . . . um." She swallows hard. "My laptop's lost. And I may need to replace your books."

[Ashley McGowen] [My fucking books, what?!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 6, 7, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Ashley McGowen] Replace your books. It's all Ashley can do to keep a tight rein on her kneejerk reaction and be sensitive. They were valuable, the ones she lent Enid, and the girl had been repeatedly lectured to be very careful with them. Not to lose them.

But all a person has to do to realize it wasn't really under Enid's control is look at her. Look at Austin, lying unconscious on her couch. Smell a few days' grime on both of them. So a flicker of tension appears across her face for a second and then is gone.

"Those can be replaced," are the words she finds to say. "You can't. What happened?"

[Enid Geraint] Enid had been careful - she'd treated the books better than she treats most things, actually, which is saying a lot. Ashley knows how careful Enid tends to be of things, by now, how neat she keeps her room; that shes speaking of the need to replace valuable books is a huge thing. Clearly, something had happened. To make it more clear, Enid's posture is flawlessly straight, not the teenager slump she tends to adopt, and she is tense, tight. She keeps herself removed, as much as she can, in a way she hasn't done in a while.

Or she tries to.

"I . . . Mama . . . Uncle Zeke . . ."

It wants to come tumbling out all at once, and it does - at first, wrapped in tears and delayed panic and fear and betrayal, words trip over themselves, come out in a stream of consciousness. But in the end, the important parts as Enid sees them seem to be, "There was a room, and it was cold and dark, and Uncle Dan did something, and Uncle Steve is dead because of Austin, and I don't know what's going to happen to Uncle Zeke since he shot Austin but then let us go, and my clothes and my laptop and your books . . ."

She looks at the pasta, and looks like she might vomit. The plate gets set aside, and she promptly curls up on herself, smaller than Ashley's ever seen the tall, athletic girl. Younger too, in some ways, and still older.

[Ashley McGowen] The moment Enid mentions her mother and her uncle Ashley begins to bristle, because she -knew- nothing good would come of the girl's association with those people. She'd tolerated it, tried to be understanding because they were Enid's family and Enid loved them. She is already making conclusions, drawing her own (mostly accurate) picture of events even before Enid finishes speaking, and by the time the girl stops, curls up in the chair, every one of her mentor's muscles is taut with Willful rage and injured pride.

At first she is too angry to be moved by the tears, and far too angry to even think about comforting Enid, because of what this is. It's a challenge to her as a mentor, it's a situation that begs for her to go out and exact revenge, because Enid is -her- apprentice, -her- charge.

And when someone harms your apprentice, that's just what you do. It would be a matter of honor, if Ashley thought in such terms.

But all of that? It can wait. There's a crying girl on her couch. "Hey," Ashley says, brusque at first, reaching down to take a hold of Enid's forearm and then tug the girl over toward her so she can hug her, "it's okay. This is probably the safest place you can be right now, so just calm down."

[Enid Geraint] It's always been Enid who initiated physical contact, and Ashley who stiffened before giving in - but now it's the other way around. Now, it's Enid who is tight, quivering [afraid]. Think of what they've done . . . Enid doesn't know what's happened while she was gone, doesn't know what information her mother might have had - because Kaye Geraint always has information from some source or another - to make her say that. But in the end, she's a girl who very much wants a hug, and she allows Ashley to draw her in.

".....Uncle Zeke said not to go back to Daddy's. Said there wasn't time to get things from the apartment. That's why I don't have your books." There's a pause, then, and whatever else? He's still one of the people she's been closest to, for most of her life. "What's going to happen to him?"

[Ashley McGowen] "Don't worry about my books, Enid." Her voice is a little strained, there. As though -she- is trying not to worry about her books, not to think about the fact that they are going to be uncovered in Enid's hotel room, that Hermetic history is in the hands of a bunch of mirrorshades who will probably just burn them along with the rest of the kids' belongings.

The hug persists for as long as Enid wants it to; Ashley neither holds her there nor lets her go. She considers the question about Zeke, and in the end, she doesn't sugar coat it. Enid has been through a lot, but lies won't do her any good. "I don't know. I'm sure they'll punish him. I just don't know what form that takes for them."

She doesn't say: they'll kill him, they'll tear his mind apart. She is not sure of any of these things, though she can guess at them.

[Enid Geraint] "Mama and Uncle Dan . . ." it's strange to call them that, still, but she can't think of anything else to call them - can't drop the honorific from Dan's name, can't call her mother Kaye, or any other thing some stranger might call her. "They poked at me. Not . . ." She pokes lightly, with a finger, at Ashley's arm that she still hasn't pulled out of. Ashley's shirt will likely be when when she finally does. "Not like that. But . . ." She points at her head, taps. Mind, Ars Mentis. She knows the words, has shown distaste for the concept since it came up; that hasn't changed. Has grown worse, in fact. "Austin's too, I think. I . . ."

She hesitates, frowns.

"I need to learn how not to let people do that. As soon as possible, please." She is resolved, for all her tears, for the lack of will to her. It could well change, were she directed in some other way, but she won't forget; it's important, and she knows it.

[Ashley McGowen] "I'll teach you," Ashley agrees. "This won't happen to you again." There's finality in those words, a grim promise. Enid is, as yet, too inexperienced to shield her mind effectively, but perhaps they should have begun her training in the Ars Mentis in the first place.

"Be strong and let this teach you something." There are no I-told-you-sos, no reprimands; Enid can't be faulted for trusting. It will just hopefully teach her the right people to trust.

"I know you aren't going to like this, Enid, but I want to check and make sure they didn't alter anything that you're unaware of, all right? I need to make sure they can't follow you or Austin here."

[Enid Geraint] ".....no."

Or maybe Ashley's shirt won't be wet - now, Enid is moving away, actually scrambling out of the arms she'd welcomed before. Maybe, in time, these happenings will have taught her the right people to trust. But right now, she doesn't trust much of anyone. Not with something like that, not with magic directed her way, at any rate.

"Please . . . please don't."

On some level, she understands the need, the logic and reasoning behind what Ashley wants to do. That doesn't make her any less afraid, doesn't make her look any less likely to bolt. Magic directed her way these last few days has tended to be bad, after all, whatever purpose or intent her mother claimed.

[Ashley McGowen] "I know you don't want me to, Enid, but it's very, very important. They might have changed or altered something about you, and if that happened, I need to find out." She doesn't voice concerns that they might have turned Enid into a plant, that they let her go on purpose.

"I won't hurt you. But I have to look." Her tone says whether you want me to or not, but this is never given voice.

[Enid Geraint] It's for your own good .....
.....whether you want it or not.
"No. Nothing's been done to me, I'm fine."

She can feel her knees buckling, can feel herself sink to the floor against the wall as she tries to put her meagre, inadequate talents (or knowledges, depending on how one looks at it - her spheres, at any rate) into a shield of leamme 'lone!

[I know I can't do this, but I'm sure gonna try. No more poking!]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 2 (Success x 1 at target 6) [WP]

[Ashley McGowen] [Perception + Awareness]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 5, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Ashley McGowen] "...I don't know that," Ashley tells Enid, and seconds later she can feel that flare of resonance. The way it seems to drain, to wither, to sap away at the (somewhat frayed, of late) edges of Will; something that will be potent one day if it's shaped and guided.

"Don't fight me, Enid." A pause, because she is already readying herself to punch through the feeble barriers that have been erected. Because the safety of all three of them, the need to make sure that Enid isn't just being used, is more important than losing the girl's trust - her affection, possibly. Even if it hurts.

"If they did something, it might be harmful to all three of us and to anyone else you know in the city."

[Enid Geraint] Don't fight me, Ashley says, Ashley who's helped Enid, who's been there, who's taught her (think of what they've done, whispers Kaye's voice in her ears), and that puny little attempt at a shield falters, but holds; this is one of the few times (numerable by fingers, no need for toes) that Enid's consciously attempted magic. It's quite possible that, for all it's instinctive to pull in, to protect oneself in the face of a possible threat, the girl doesn't yet know how to let go.

"Don't prod at me . . ." It's pleading, small, that voice is. There's nothing left, no strength behind it.

[Ashley McGowen] "That's a good start at a shield, Enid, nice work. But drop it." Ashley's voice comes out as a sigh. "Because I really don't want to beat it down, and it'll make this much worse." She's attempting to persuade the girl in this tired way - not threatening, not a promise of further pain or a warning, but simply: it will hurt me to do this.

She hooks an index finger through the iron link at her throat and watches Enid, silent now. Waiting for her to agree.

[Enid Geraint] She doesn't know how to let go, but she doesn't have the strength to hold on - it would be a matter of time, really, even if Enid were at her best. It falters again, and there's nothing left of Enid to argue - between suggestion and lack of experience, of Will, the effect does away.

"Don't . . ." Her knees pull up to her chest, her forehead comes to rest on them, and her arms curl up protectively around her head - all she needs is a book and a desk above her to look like one of the natural disaster instruction posters in schools.

[Ashley McGowen] [Mind 3, using a focus, spending WP.]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 5) [WP]

[Ashley McGowen] Ashley looks down at the girl, curled into a tight ball between the arms of the chair, and lets out another sigh. She hadn't really expected another outcome, but it was worth a shot.

This feels markedly different than similar effects did when Uncle Dan did them, or her mother. Dan's felt heavy, procedural, methodical: as though he were following a method of instruction, a set of rules for how the human brain works and how to twist it about to do certain things. Ashley's feels like Enid's mind is being engulfed, swallowed by Ashley's own until a telepathic bond is established: pushing until one of them breaks, and in the end it's Enid.

What she can tell, the thing that Ashley has bothered to let through (though the rest remains carefully guarded) is that Ashley is not happy about this. But she searches, sifting through memory, through the emotional recollection of events, searching for anything foreign. For lasting effects and the blank, glossed over spots that indicate stolen memories.

In the end, she finds nothing, and that makes this leave a bitter taste in her mouth as she withdraws, letting her hand fall away from the chain of different metals.

[Enid Geraint] Since they started talking about the Arts, Enid's been wary at best of Ars Mentis. All the rest she's been curious about, eager to learn, but Mind she's been more than willing to ignore, to move past. That she asked Ashley about learning it is indicative of things that happened to her, not a sudden change in ideals and acceptences. The shaking begins when Ashley's mind touches Enid's own - it doesn't stop when the elder Hermetic pulls back, having satisfied her need to know that all is well with her apprentice, that she has not been turned into something to be used against the Traditionalists of Chicago.

Maybe, on some level, she'd already known at least a little of what her mother and the uncles and aunt could do, even if it had never been turned on her.

"I don't . . . I need to go . . ."

She doesn't know where, she just can't be here. And never mind that she'd be leaving Austin. She'd figure something out, or he would. But having a sapped, suggestible young mage on her own in the streets is hardly a good idea, and there aren't really many places left that Enid could go. She doesn't argue when Ashley no doubt tells her to stay.

She can't.