Dreams and Teaching Moments

[Morgan Lake] She's back on Ashley's couch, and oddly it feels more like home than her part of Solomon's house. The poor girl wants little more than to be back in her own bed at her dad's apartment, but that . . . well, it hardly seems to be in the cards. Goodness only knows what he thinks of the lack of contact by now, though that's neither here nor there for the moment.

Enid [not any more, it's Morgan now] dreams vividly, though she rarely remembers them upon waking. She dreams in bright colors and can read in said dreams, but come morning, it's usually gone. Now, on Ashley's couch tucked into one of Ashley's blankets, she's dreaming again.

[Fall Into Me] ...the dream...

...she can hear a piano...hear the melodic keys vibrating the melody. Its splendid, beautiful music that fills the soul. Its heart aching, the rapture pulling at the ears.

She can feel it calling to her, trying to bring her towards it through the fog of the dreamscape...

[Morgan Lake] And, being low on anything that would inhibit the urge, Enid follows the music. It's pretty, and she was a musician once . . . if nowhere near as good of one as Ashley. She focuses as much as she can, given that she's sleeping; even here and now, she realizes this is different, somehow. That something strange is going on.

[Fall Into Me] ...coming through the fog, she finds a bowed figured pressing the keys..disheveled hair hanging down the face...fingers pressing along the keys.

Mentally, she could even recognize the tune as it began to form...to become more comprehensive...

And then the pianist sang...

~I've got sunshineeeeee....on a cloudy day....~

The voice cuts through, the voice that had almost tried to make her cry that night....had drawn them all into a brief moment of madness...

[Morgan Lake] ".....when it's cold outside, I've got the month of may," she sings back - a better voice in her dreams than she has in real life, a clear second soprano (and she's probably better looking in her dreams too, but as she's not looking at herself, that's neither here nor there. Everything is an idealized interpretation in dreams, some part of her more logical brain is trying to point out, even as it's saying that this kid - Autumn - is here because of the night's earlier traumatic events.

"You're Autumn," she says, clarifying. ".....what . . . you're . . ." So she's not that much more eloquent here than in real life, unfortunately. There are too many questions.

[Fall Into Me] The fingers pause and he looks over to her. There's no trauma....no signs of the gun that had exploded from Kaya's mistake. His hand was there, clear as day. More, there were no lines of mascara or his hair teased...instead, it was just a young boy...maybe only a couple of years younger then her. Looking at him now, she could see how pretty he was...without all the attempts to fit a mold...his face was eloquent...his eyes were....haunting...a blue deep as an ocean.

~....I guess.....you'd say....what can make me feel this way....~

He stands, arm spreading wide almost Temptation style as his voice hits a pitch that made the knees weak...

~My Girllllllllll.....~

He smiled, stopping the song as his hands hooked into the pockets of the low-riding jeans.

[Morgan Lake] The song is clearly at an end, so she doesn't answer with the next phrase - just sticks her own hands in the pockets of the pj pants (flannel covered with the University of Chicago logo, and paired with a plain tank top) that she fell asleep in. She's not close enough to touch, certainly, but she's close enough for comfortable conversation.

If this weren't a dream, she'd be far more weirded out than she is - as it stands, she's simply curious.

"What're you doing here?"

[Fall Into Me] Autumn moves over to the bench and sits down, fingers sliding from the pockets to smooth hair from his face, working the loose bangs behind his ears.

"...got nowhere else to go for now....you were the only one that really well..tried to stop me. Or at least seemed to care."

He speaks as if knowing full well what had happened, though he hardly looked the part of a tormented ghost or spirit.

"And well...I wanted to ask a question.....why?"

[Morgan Lake] ".....why did I care? That's what people do," she says with a shrug. "And I've had some rough times, and people were - and are - always there for me. It didn't feel right not to try." There's a sigh, and hair tucked behind her ear. "I . . . some bad stuff happened, and I got partly called on it. I was reminded about things that were always important to me before. And."

This is amused, and there's an endearlingly crooked quirk of her lips.

"Suicide's stupid. I don't let people be stupid if I can help it, and everyone needs a tutor sometimes."

[Fall Into Me] "Mmm...you might be right. I don't know though...I feel happy enough...for me it was...release. I'm free now..."

He leaned his chin to his hands as he rested his bony elbows on his knees, arching a brow at her.

"Though...if I'm meant to be a ghost...I don't really feel like one. For that matter, so far, you're the only thing...person I've seen. Its like...I didn't really feel here until well...just a moment ago."

[Morgan Lake] ".....I'm asleep on A . . . my friend's couch," she says, her brow furrowed, puzzled. "I . . . think? I'm pretty sure I was, anyway. So, are you dreamwalking like in a bad horror story written before we were born, or are - were - you Awakened, or did the . . . whatever you made a deal with do something to you?"

[Fall Into Me] "...mmm....don't know what you would call this. If its your dream, I can't argue. And the deal? Yeah...I made an agreement of some sort....all it did was give me what I wanted though."

He shrugged some.

[Morgan Lake] "I need more details on this deal. What did you make it with? What did you want? How did you know how to make it?" The questions are rapidfire, and spoken as a defending attorney might question her client, as if she might be able to get him out of . . . whatever it is. "And obviously you're not free, or you wouldn't be here."

This, clearly, is more upsetting to her than . . . well, than a lot of things. It doesn't work, doesn't fit. "When you're dead, you're dead. This should be a nightmare about parts of you exploding all over me, not a rational questioning like you're a client or something. I don't even . . . where did you think you were? Before I got here, I mean."

[Fall Into Me] "...limbo maybe? As far as what I had wanted...I didn't want to die alone."

He pulled a knee up to his chest, wrapping his arms around it, cocking his head to the side.

"I...had been thinking about it for the last month...I don't want to talk about why....just that I did. But I didn't want to do it alone...I've always been alone. Well....I had a dream....and it offered me a chance to do that. You saw the church...how people couldn't help but sit down and listen? That was what it gave me...I could keep people around me. Last night....that's when I decided I would do it. I had done some gatherings here and there...but that was the night...most of the kids I knew from school...friends...I had a good sized crowd."

Once again fingers moved hair behind the ear that had gotten loose as he grinned at her.

"...I don't know if this is a nightmare....doesn't seem like one to me. More like..."

He glanced around some and then back to her.

"...a dream...a vision....maybe even a fantasy."

[Morgan Lake] ".....it's not exactly my fantasy, to be talking to a dead emokid - though really, you look a lot better without all the eye gunk, seriously - in the middle of the night."

Though, there's certainly a resonance to what he says - to wanting something that much. Enid wants her family back. Not necessarily her family as it had been when she was a kid, but what she'd had with her mom and the uncles (and aunt) before the China trip. What she'd had with her dad before then, too. She doesn't think, though, that she'd trade . . . well, her soul or whatever for it.

"You do realize that you're not helping yourself any in my eyes," she finally says, her voice cool and edged. "Traumatizing a room full of high school kids - or bringing them down with you - is hardly a defensible course of action."

[Fall Into Me] "You assume that to some degree they would be scarred by it. Let me speak as a former member of my generation....we're desensitized. In a few years, they'll remember it as that kid...they won't remember my name. At most, a few will still have nightmares about it...but for the most part, I will be forgotten. People start to lose the images of the people close to them as well...faces get harder to remember...the image is not as distinct. Names are forgotten. I'm a statistic for the most part. A blot on a page and a news story."

The emo kid says, seeming more then a pretty face...seeming as just as capable of discourse and arguing with her. Or was that her own mind doing this all?

"Would you like to die alone, hrmm? How much do you like that idea of being alone and no one there by your side? No one to say last words to...no one to miss you, even for a moment?"

[Morgan Lake] ".....dude, I'm seventeen. I'm a still-living member of your generation, and I'll remember. Don't be a jackass."

There's a pause, then, and despite the harshness of her words she takes the time to seriously, honestly consider the question; it - he, maybe - deserves that.

"No, I don't think I'd like it really. But it might happen, and I can accept that. But what you did . . . it wasn't even real. People were there because you - or whatever you made a deal with - compelled them to be, because they were forced to think and feel things the wouldn't necessarily have thought or felt otherwise, and I hate that shit." The last is hissed, passionate, intense.

[Fall Into Me] Autumn shrugs some.

"...maybe so. I know its selfish. But we're all selfish in some way. I'd say I'm sorry, but that wouldn't be true, now would it?"

He finally slid off the bench...standing again as he moved a little closer, giving a soft smile.

"But I am sorry if you hate me for what I did..."

[Morgan Lake] "I don't hate you, I just also don't feel sorry for you. I think it was stupid, as I said, and selfish, as you said. And also weak. Sure, we're all all of those things, sometimes at once and sometimes by turns, but isn't the point of living kind of to . . . I don't know, try to be better than that? To rise above it?"

Clearly, she's little patience for what he's done, but equally clearly it's not hate, but more curiosity. She studies him as a scientist might study a bug under a microscope.

"So now you're dead, and you got what you want - there were people there to witness it. And you're . . . what, haunting people's dreams while you wait for whatever you believe is next? Don't most Christians say that suicides go to hell?"

[Fall Into Me] "Mmm...I don't know..but I do know...what I think this dream is..."

He leans close and gives a grin.

"...I think...its a fantasy..."

Its at that point that the 'ghost', the image of Autumn, leans in...and kisses her...its then..that she wakes up, very much on Ashley's couch...

[Morgan Lake] It's a surprise, but it's only a fraction of a second before she's moving to push the kid away . . .

. . . and finds herself awake, just where she thought she'd been the whole time, still in position to push someone away. ".....Ashley!"

[Ashley McGowen] Ashley is a light sleeper. This wasn't always the case. For the first three weeks she was in college, it was a source of amusement for new friends, who would prod, pick up her arm and drop it, play video games and instruments, and do whatever they could get away with. Brain injury and years spent in (all told, rather dangerous) Awakened life have changed that, and when Enid yells it doesn't take her long to appear, rumpled.

"You okay?" she asks, poking her head out of the bedroom first. The rest of her then follows, approaching so she can get a look at the girl on her couch.

[Morgan Lake] "That . . . the kid . . ."

By the time Ashley comes out, Enid's sitting up, knees pulled to her chest and arms wrapped around them, small, with her hair tucked behind her ears. The blush has since faded away, and there's hesitation now - more uncertainty than she'd felt in the dream - or whatever - certainly.

".....I think maybe you should scan." This is reluctant, displeased. "He was . . . I dunno, in my head. In my dream. Stupid emokid kissed me."

There's a scrunched up face, then, and if that was some manifestation of subconscious desire, the desire is very, very subconscious, indeed.

[Ashley McGowen] Ashley is sleepy and irritable enough, nearly, to berate Enid for waking her up because, of all things, she was -scared by a sex dream.- Nearly. Something in the girl's expression and how disturbed she was by it seems to slow Ashley's temper. "I...yeah," she says, reaching up to rub an eye with the heel of her hand. "Hang on."

She keeps the chain links on her even while sleeping, apparently; she tugs the necklace from beneath her shirt seconds later. Still blinking sleep from her eyes (it takes a while to wake up when you're sleep deprived to begin with) she hooks her finger through the iron link.

Then there is the (unfortunately, now familiar) sensation of rushing hunger, the relentless press of jaws closing around Enid's own Mind as though to hold her in place while the other presence digs through her thoughts.

[Mind 3, -1 for focus, -1 for practiced rote.]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 6, 10 (Success x 2 at target 4)

[Ashley McGowen] [Extending!]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 7, 10 (Success x 1 at target 4)

[Morgan Lake] It's disturbing, this feeling - Enid doesn't like things in her head. Hadn't liked the idea even before she knew why, and now is rather unsettled by the whole thing, even when it comes at her suggestion, when she's prepared for it. This time, it was her idea - this time, she doesn't try to shield.

She does, however, tense to near quivering as long as it goes on. It doesn't matter that she suggested it, that she knows Ashley wouldn't hurt her.

"It wasn't . . . most people have nightmares about stuff like that, don't they?" She's puzzled by this, and as disturbed as she is, she also wants to put together the puzzle. "So why is Emokid playing piano and singing motown at me, and then kissing me and disappearing in my dream?"

[Ashley McGowen] She's still focused on that narrow window of consciousness, on digging through Enid's thoughts and trying to detect any leavings, other resonances or foreign presence. "Most people would have nightmares if they saw someone's head blown open in front of them," she tells Enid.

"And sometimes you have dreams that don't make a lot of sense. People like us get really vivid dreams, and sometimes it's helpful and pertinent to the situation and sometimes you have to really dig to figure out why you had it." She looks sidelong at the girl on her couch, still focused, able to filter through the entire dream and see the (dead) boy.

"I've never had one like that. Not one that didn't have my Avatar in it," Ashley says.

[Morgan Lake] Not a sex dream, obviously, but one that left Enid shaken enough for a scan regardless - had it been a sex dream, it's more likely the girl would have kept her mouth shut. And the bit about heads being blown open gets a slightly paler face and a shudder - denial and repression work for Enid, at least for a while.

"So I should be having nightmares. Or Avatar dreams." She frowns, and wonders if there's some sort of permanent record, some report card on which she's getting low marks because of all of this. "I just don't . . . emokid said he thought it was a fantasy. But I don't fantasize about that kind of thing."

[Ashley McGowen] "Maybe it was his," Ashley says. A statement which is unlikely to be comforting - probably quite the opposite, to the girl. "But it doesn't look like he left any kind of mental imprint or anything on you. So it was either a dream or he's gone now."

There's a partially amused look in the girl's direction. Partially amused and sympathetic. "Sometimes your head goes to places you wouldn't expect, after something like that happens. I wouldn't give it too much thought."

[Morgan Lake] ".....but he's dead. So how is he drawing me into his fantasies?" It is, indeed, quite the opposite of comforting; Enid looks at Ashley wide eyed and bothered. "How is he . . . I mean, sure, he had something or he wouldn't have been able to be making deals. But when you're dead, you're dead."

There's a pause then, and she's still looking at Ashley that way - so young. Sometimes, it's not as obvious as others.

"Right?"

[Ashley McGowen] "Wrong," Ashley says, still with that faint air of wry amusement. "Ghosts exist. So do spirits. Demons. You just had Technocratic propaganda stuffed down your throat for the majority of your upbringing. But they're as real as magic."

She leans her hip on the back of the couch, looking down at the girl. "Remember how we talked about Words of power? They have that power because there's an Elsewhere in which they exist and have a form and shape. Spirits. People have those Words too - like you'll choose your Word and how it will shape you and your path toward Ascension. When you die, the part of you that's formed around that Word and that ideal is left behind. So maybe that's what you saw."

[Morgan Lake] ".....okay, that . . ." again, her brow furrows and she has that 'puzzling something out' look. "So spirits and ghosts are anthropomorphized ideas, essentially, and the resonance attached to them? I guess that makes sense - you go into a place, or talk to a person, and it all has a certain feel. But . . . then . . . how long does it last?"

This is confusing to Enid, who grew up not only filled with Technocratic propaganda, but as an atheist; sure, she may have started to believe there must be something, but that's an emotional thing. It doesn't help her on an intellectual level, in the place where she needs to know things.

[Ashley McGowen] "It's always there," Ashley says. "Until the idea is forgotten and no records of it exist. That's why it's important to leave a legacy of yourself and your Will behind." She looks sidelong at Enid, catching the tail end of her confusion, and frowns, raising herself up on tiptoe so she can sit at least partially on the edge of the back of the couch.

"It's not even an 'anthropomorphized' idea, really. The physical world doesn't exist. Neither do the laws governing it, and that's why they can be broken. When you dream or go Elsewhere, you're operating wholly on the plane of thought and concept. Pure reality."

[Morgan Lake] "Alright." This perks her up a bit - leaving a legacy, she understands. It's why she intends to go into law and policy, after all, why she'll one day (oh, yes, she's still insisting upon it) be a judge, or perhaps higher. If she learns politics as well as law, who knows how far she'll go? There could be a Hermetic senator, or even president some day.

"Is that where the various gods and whatever are, too? Because I guess that makes them really real. They're ideas, and goodness knows they've left a legacy if we're still talking and teaching about ones that were around when humankind was brand new."

[Ashley McGowen] Ashley nods. "Exactly. Gods, legends and ghosts all exist in that area. That's why it's important to learn the Ars Mentis, really...without learning it, you only have power over what you can see around you here. Which -is- useful, but all it ultimately is is power over an illusion. Mentis governs the raw ability you have over rival Wills, and later you can branch into moving into the planes of thought and concept. With the Ars Spirituum you can affect those concepts directly."

There's another look toward Morgan to make sure she's following; this is a lot to absorb, and they're heavy concepts for a seventeen year old to try to grasp. She's probably never, for example, had the philosophical readings many college freshmen and sophomores are beginning to delve into. "So what you have to remember when dealing with both the Mentis and spirits is that any power they have over you is power you -allow- them to have."

[Morgan Lake] The girl isn't following all of it, but she has a surprisingly good grasp - perhaps this is what comes of having a mythology professor for a father. "Mama always told Daddy it was nonsense, his mythology stuff. That it was the bastard child of history and religion, and that gods in general, be they of a modern accepted religion or not, were simply the ignorants' way of explaining things that seem outside of their grasp."

Of course, her mama is the reason she's had so much Technocratic dogma shoved down her throat, so now she knows (academically) to take it with a grain of salt. But emotionally? It still came from her mother, and that sort of thing takes a while to shed. And then there's talk of the spheres; Ars Mentis, though she'd asked to be taught it at least enough to defend against its use on her, just barely escapes a pulled face [fear.uncertainty.doubt], but Ars Spirituum, she's finding intriguing.

"I want to know more about it - Ars Spirituum. I mean, I should if there are going to be dead boys coming to bother me in my sleep, shouldn't I?" And never mind the bit about power over her - if Enid could arrange it, no one would have that, ever.

[Ashley McGowen] Morgan tells Ashley what her mother used to tell her father his mythology was, and the Hermetic's face instantly cracks into a grin. It becomes a laugh as she continues. "You've seen fire come from my hands and you've seen ghosts - and zombies, by your own admission, and you've seen what I can do with the Ars Mentis. They're blinding themselves to -their- ability to do that because it doesn't fall within the realm of science. With all of those things in mind, who strikes you as ignorant here?"

Still grinning when the girl asks about the Ars Spirituum, she shakes her head. "I can't teach you that, but it would be useful for you to learn. Me too, eventually, once I have time. But given some time and reading into it, you can start trying to look into the spirit world. I'd suggest you experiment."

[Morgan Lake] ".....Wharil can," Enid says, musing and thoughtful. "And Anna's Dreamspeaker, so maybe she could, if I asked her about it. I'd want to get to know her better first, obviously." Kaya doesn't even get mentioned though Enid knows she'd been able to do stuff as related to Spirit, or at least had said she could. No, no. Enid has no desire to try to speak with Kaya, let alone to try to learn something from her.

"Zombies, though, are a proven possibility, even by mundane paradigm. So it's not that much of a stretch to see them, or think I have. The rest . . ." The rest, she's working on. And quickly, she hopes - she doesn't like being 'behind'.

[Ashley McGowen] "Gregor, too," Ashley says after a moment. Though she can barely make sense out of things her cabalmate says at times, and she imagines Morgan would have similar difficulties. If not even more of them, given that her view of Awakened magic is still too new and she does not have Will to temper what he would tell her.

"Let's work on Mentis first so that you're protected if something like that happens again. Then we'll move on." Ashley looks sidelong toward the girl. "I'm going to be attempting to break in until you can push me out. Are you ready to start doing that?"

It's a courtesy she would not offer to anyone else, asking if they're ready. It's a mark of - something, something she wouldn't be able to articulate and that is not entirely clear - that she offers Morgan a chance to tell her that no, she needs more time to gather herself. She's not compassionate or demonstrative, is in fact quite the opposite of those things most of the time, but those bits of humanity that she has seem to be largely reserved for her apprentice.

[Morgan Lake] There's a deep breath in and let out slow, and a subtle rising of tension, but Enid nods. "Now's as good a time to start as any." Her arms wrap tighter around her legs, and for this? For this, Enid is very small. She doesn't like the idea of Ars Mentis, let alone it being used on her, even when she knows it's coming.

She appreciates the courtesy, really she does, and that she's never seen Ashley act the same way with anyone else as the older Hermetic does with her. It's just a difficult thing to deal with, Mind is, all told.

[Ashley McGowen] Morgan suggests that they start now, and a corner of Ashley's mouth quirks into a smile as she looks down at herself, still clad in a T-shirt and pajama pants, barefoot. "We'll only try it once for now," she says, "but I'll be doing it...throughout the day, usually. The idea is that you'll be able to learn to do it and recognize what's happening even when you're focused on other things."

"There are other things you can do with it," she continues, as she reaches up to the iron link at her collar. She's speaking casually, relaxed. "Once you understand that your Will governs yourself and your own mind, you can push yourself through problems, remember things you've forgotten, do things you shouldn't be able to do. Having a command over the core of yourself is the beginning to understanding that all limits are self-imposed."

There's barely a beat between those final words and the mental assault that comes forward, as brutal and overpowering as it has ever been, with the full force of her Will behind it.

[Mind 3, -1 for practiced rote, -1 for focus, spending WP.]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 4, 6, 8 (Success x 4 at target 4) [WP]

[Morgan Lake] There's a stubbornness in Enid's face, a need to be able to do this - and yes, there's a realization that Ars Mentis could be quite useful in other areas of her life as well, given what she intends to study and do.

That doesn't mean she likes it - but at least she tries.
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4 (Success x 1 at target 6) [WP]

[Ashley McGowen] Enid makes an effort, and given her age and what she's up against, it's even an admirable one. But it's like putting concrete barriers in the path of storm surge: eventually, it all runs over, and it barely slows the coming assault.

Ashley doesn't stop there, though. There are jaws closing, constricting, and then she can feel that presence going through her thoughts, bringing up memories she thought she'd buried. Reaching into the full account of just what happened with her mother, perhaps, or the memories she has of Bryan and Val in the times before.

The implication is clear, perhaps driven across in Ashley's manner or perhaps gleaned from the connection they now share : an enemy wouldn't stop and neither will I. Push me out.

[Morgan Lake] ".....that's mine," she says . . . or maybe thinks, she isn't really sure. And yes, of course she's doing her best - to dig in her heels, to at least stem that surging tide. And then, of course, comes the attempt to push back. It's clumsy and childish at best, this effort, but it's there.

Like a five year old trying to beat up her older sister.
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Morgan Lake] extending.
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1 (Botch x 1 at target 6)

[Morgan Lake] .....and it breaks. Snaps. Not only what little wall she'd been able to manage shatters, and takes some of her more natural barriers with it. Ashley finds herself in a memory - not that old of one, from the looks of the people around, but given how solitary Enid's been in the time they've known each other, it has to be before they met, at least. This is a [memory] part of her mind that even the younger Hermetic doesn't access.

It's a party - standard as these things go. Late teens and early twenty somethings, plastic cups of beer, spiked punch, rum and coke, whatever happens to be around. There are two other people there, clearly with then-Enid. Bryan - because who else could it be, with an arm around Enid's shoulders that way? - is laughing about something, as is the girl with the mane of wildly curly auburn [too brown to be red] hair, darker skin than Enid's or the aforementioned Bryan's, no freckles. Enid is rolling her eyes but smiling, amused - a tolerant, indulgent look that Ashley's only really seen in reaction to the Uncles [and Aunt] until this moment. It's some ridiculous crack about another student at school, a teammate, and Enid's shaking her head.

"Snark's for the other team, isn't it? We're working together. Behave, you two."
"Aww, Enid, snark's for everyone. We're equal opportunity snarkers! It's only fair," proclaims the other girl (Val, of course) as she wraps an arm around Enid's waist while liberating a full cup of beer to hand over to the redhead. "Lighten up! We're not at mock trial, not at a meet. We're here to have a good time. You're graduating soon and leaving Bryan and me behind for a whole semester to go to China, for goodness' sake. With your mom and the Uncles-n-Aunt there, watching you all the time. How're you gonna have fun then?"
".....who says drinking barely passable beer with a bunch of people I don't pay attention to at school is a good time? I could be studying, you know. Or writing the roster for the next meet."
"Enid." It's Bryan this time, leaning in and a bit down to murmur against her ear, blow across the sensitive bit of skin just above her neck. "Relax. You don't have to drink if you don't want to, but please?"
Oblivious to the look shot between her boyfriend and best friend, Enid sighs lightly, and nods. "Alright, I'll try. But if any of the football jerks puke on me, I'm out."

They get separated, of course, the three musketeers do; Enid gets cornered into talking to one of the girls in her civics class about an upcoming test, and keeping in mind what she'd said, she does try to relax. She sips slowly, nursing at the beer Val'd given her as it slowly gets warm, and accepts a slice of obviously spiked watermelon as it passes by - never mind that she's bound to have a hangover in the morning if she mixes willy-nilly like this.

Eventually, the conversation resolves and Enid wanders - nothing sticks out as important - looking for Bryan and Val. Sure, she knows a lot of people here. There are teammates and classmates and people who graduated before her that she knows, but she's hardly the sort for random mingling, not alone anyway. She doesn't have the patience for it if there's no purpose, and there's a different sort of energy about her tonight, something that wants to grow, to climb out of her skin. She's not sure what the deal is, but everything's brighter, sharper. The soft filter's been taken off, and the glowing edges added in a way that's beyond disconcerting.

A quiet place is found to sit, to try some more of this relaxation thing, but it doesn't last for long - some loud group comes into the music room and the host of the party comes in to shoo them all out before damage is done to an expensive piano or any number of other musical things. Sighing, Enid moves along with the rest and again wanders - not quite aimlessly, but not quite purposefully either. Everything is getting under her skin, everything is irritating her, and she just wants to find Bryan and Val and see if they're ready to go yet, or if she should call a cab.

Feeling off balance, she finally asks someone - a guy she knows from a math class, or maybe from volunteering, or National Honor Society, or something - if he's seen Bryan and Val anywhere, and someone laughs. Whispers ripple out and Enid, being who she is, mostly ignores what's being said. She watches the reactions instead, and her irritability ratchets up a notch. Her fingers tense, tap out a rhythm on the counter as she allows someone to refill her beer - this one is disposed of far more quickly. There's something bad coming, she [knows the odds, the probability, the fate] can feel it. But like so many people with similar feelings, she writes it off as not feeling particularly well and being stuck in an environment in which she doesn't particularly want to be. She doesn't notice the way people (or plants, or the dog and two cats that live in the house) are reacting to her, to what's seeping [oozing] off of her.

".....outside, in the garden. You sure . . ."
"Yeah, you already poured the shots, I'll do my share. And then I'm going home, whether they want to come or not. What're you all looking at me like that for?"

And so the short game goes - five shots later, and unbalanced in a more real way, Enid heads out to the garden, wanders through decorative grasses and rocks and shrubbery all brown and a bit past when they should have been trimmed for the fall. She doesn't notice that things are getting greener, standing straighter as she passes, or that she's fairly certain what she's going to find, or that she knows exactly where Bryan and Val are in relation to herself, to each other. She's tipsy, or maybe truly drunk and

"I want to go home."

There they are.
And she knew what she was going to find.

That doesn't stop ice water from running through her veins, doesn't stop her cheeks from flushing, doesn't stop her fists from clenching when she sees her boyfriend and best friend together on a bench in the gazebo that's surrounded by a koi pond. It doesn't mean she wasn't in denial, that she didn't firmly believe they'd just be sitting there talking, that they wouldn't break apart guiltily when she spoke, that Val wouldn't have to adjust her shirt and Bryan wouldn't have to adjust [do back up] his pants. They try for subtlety, her friends do, but it's not enough . . . and it kind of makes it worse.

"You couldn't have waited until I was gone?" That's asked of both of them, and then her eyes move to Bryan. "You couldn't have broken up with me first?"

Her voice sounds hollow in her ears, and behind her, the grasses bend, blacken as she sucks into herself, as she wraps tight around the anger and hurt and sadness that she doesn't want to feel. In front of her, koi start floating to the surface, and Bryan and Val both shiver as she moves closer, as the walking death that comes with her makes itself felt.

Val shivers, pulls her sweatshirt tighter around herself as the corners of her lips pull down.
Bryan pales, and feels every injury he's ever gotten coming back to haunt him.

"It just happened," Bryan-and-Val say in unison, and Enid's head rushes. Her eyes narrow, and in the pockets of her own sweatshirt [Your Honor] her hands fist, twist, and she can feel it, see it draining from them, the want for each other, the life that sparked it.

She tries to stop, eyes widening, afraid when her friends fall into each other, when wounds open up in them.

"I . . . Bryan, Val . . ."

It's too late, too much, and she can't stop it. She stands there, watches her friends die, and know she's [doing] done it . . . somehow, that it's something in her that ate them up, that wasted them away, that turned them into empty husks.

She doesn't go back into the house, but instead makes her way through the backyard of the house behind it (withering everything in her path) to the next street over before calling for a cab and making her way home, where she collapses into a fetal position on her father's couch and falls asleep, not to wake up until she feels him looking down at her and opens her eyes to see him standing there, phone in hand.

".....stop it, get out, please, I don't want . . . I didn't . . ." So young, she sounds, and small.

[Ashley McGowen] [Relent?]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 4, 6, 6, 7, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Ashley McGowen] Ashley is not sure what she did, how this memory came to her unbidden. Enid had a shield, and then it just...breaks, collapses. Perhaps it could be attributed to the strain the girl has been through tonight, perhaps it could be her own fears coming back to haunt her, perhaps it is the force of the Will shoving against her own.

Though Ashley has certainly done things in the past that hurt Morgan - the scan after she returned from China comes to mind - this might be the first time (but probably not the last) that she will strike the girl as something fierce and unrelenting. Monstrous, some might say. Her mind latches on to every last detail, and she doesn't pull away or spare the girl; Morgan can feel the memory almost being ripped from her and stored away.

The elder Hermetic is surrounded with color and sensation, is following Enid, is watching as the girl who will become her apprentice Wills her friends to die. Feels all the passion and rage and has to exert control over herself in order to keep from getting carried away in it, and suppress her own emotional responses before the girl can get a sense of them (disgust, pride to see a new mind Awakening, pity: it's mixed of course.)

And once they're done, once she hears that weak plea at the end, she does consider withdrawing. That bit of sympathy, of shared suffering, nearly pushes her to do so.

Then she reminds herself that to do so would be a disservice to the girl - an enemy would not pull away. She can't either. So she presses onward, continues to prod and pry and push through, seeking out other details. Utterly impervious to Morgan's words. Silent.

[Mind 3, -1 for focus, -1 for practiced rote, -1 for being aligned with resonance Static: Relentless.]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 4, 9 (Success x 2 at target 4)

[Morgan Lake]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 6 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Morgan Lake] There it is, a little better, a little more coming into herself - it's not enough [too little, too late], but it's a start. That memory fades away, and gets locked back . . . somewhere, though not as deep as it was. Enid had to face it at some point, and perhaps she'd known it. That doesn't mean she has any intention of doing so ever again, if she can help it, or of letting anyone else see it ever again. That is, as she said, hers.

She's curled up smaller now, tighter, and her eyes are squinched closed [I can't see you, I'm invisible.] and she focuses everything she has on getting Ashley out, or at least not letting her any further in.

[Ashley McGowen] Enid has summoned up that small barrier once more. It's a good start, though not enough to push Ashley out; the chances of Enid being able to do that are rather slim, though, especially given her very limited knowledge. She is just an apprentice, after all, and it says something that she was willing to get back up and try again even after unintentionally projecting the memory.

She feels the pressure lift as Ashley withdraws, letting her hand fall away from the chain at her throat. She looks, once, at the girl curled up on her couch and says, quietly, "I'm sorry."

But she doesn't allow either of them to dwell on it long. "That was a good start. I'm experienced with this - at your level of understanding it isn't likely that you could push me back at all. But it'll get better with time and practice and as your understanding increases."

[Morgan Lake] There's [relief] a shudder when Ashley pulls back and Enid finds herself alone in her head again; this sort of thing certainly doesn't make her feel better about Ars Mentis, but she knows that Ashley's right - that she, as mentor, as friend, will pull back where an enemy wouldn't. Where her own mother and uncles mightn't have, if they'd gotten that far.

".....thank you," she says quietly about the praise of her effort [not enough, must get better], and it's not that Ashley did it that she's dwelling on; it's not even that she'd broken. It stands to reason that the elder mage, the more experienced Hermetic would beat her in this sort of thing. But it's a small, hollow, absent thing, that thanks, in the face of things she now knows even on the surface, things she'd likely suspected before, but hadn't wanted to be true (hadn't wanted to know).

There's quiet for a moment, and it's unclear until she speaks, sniffs, that she's crying and trying to keep it to herself. "I . . . oh god, Ashley, I didn't really mean it, but I must have . . ." But she doesn't really want to talk about it. Already, she's trying to shove it further back, away, to un-remember.

[Ashley McGowen] She's never sure whether she should move to comfort the girl when she begins crying like this - Enid [Morgan] certainly has reason to. She's a seventeen year old girl and the world is moving fast and she's mourning lost innocence, among many other things. Ashley never received that kind of treatment from her mentor, was forced to learn to self-soothe. Perhaps that has helped her, in many ways. She's never been sure.

I wish someone had been there for me can move a person to bitterness, to deciding that what was good enough for her should be good enough for her student. She's often at a crossroads. In the end she chooses the other option.

"You didn't know what you were capable of at the time," Ashley says, leaning over the back of the couch to look at Morgan. To offer a presence close by, if she wants it. "Sometimes you hurt people you don't mean to hurt, but that doesn't mean you have to spend the rest of your life punishing yourself for it. You'll just have to learn better control so it doesn't happen again. That's part of the point of learning Mind like this, learning to control those parts of yourself. So that only the things you -really- want to happen are the ones that do."

[Morgan Lake] "Alright. I get it." She doesn't like it. It still disgusts her more than anything else but what she'd done to Bryan and Val, but she understands the purpose behind learning it, the uses it can be put to . . . or at least some of them. And she's already imagining others, and how useful they have the potential of being in the courtroom, or any number of other places.

Ashley leans over the back of the couch to look at her, and Enid's eyes stay closed, but she tilts slightly where she is, the better to lean against her mentor-friend, to offer and take support and strength. But it's late, and they're both in pajamas, and tired, and she sighs before sitting back upright, before opening her eyes and looking at Ashley out of the corner of them, trying to read what's on her face to be read.

It doesn't last long, that look, before she yawns. "I . . . we should both go back to sleep. 'm sorry for waking you." And then for making her work in the middle of the night, of course.

[Ashley McGowen] Ashley's face is usually not very readable - not because she has any real desire to mask how she feels, but because there always seems to be so much going on there, just beneath the surface. Right now, she looks tired, a little frayed around the edges. But that is not so unusual a thing these days. There is no disdain. A quiet sort of wistfulness, perhaps: the emotions of others are easy for her to shut out, most of the time, but they are not nearly so easy to ignore once she's experienced them for herself, once she's connected with them.

Morgan goes to lean against her and there's a hug in response, brief, and then she reaches up and ruffles the girl's hair before she straightens. One of those almost-brusque gestures of affection. "We needed to start on this sooner or later anyway. Wake me up in the morning and we'll go get breakfast."

[Morgan Lake] [FIN]