Far too Many Baked Goods

[Morgan Lake] There is this: a young redhead sitting, just so, at a table in a coffee shop not on the mile, where she usually goes, but tucked away on Northwestern's campus where she's almost certain she won't run into her father or the professors, or anyone from her old life. She has a web-enabled cell phone, which is the closest she has to on the go computing power right now, and she's browsing with it. Before her, there's a cup of latte, sweetened only with raw sugar - no mocha tonight, no tea, just espresso and steamed milk with a lovely little design crafted in the bit of froth on top.

She could be any other student really, except that she's not.

[Kage] [We'll start with Perception + Awareness. Just because that's important!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 2, 4, 6, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Morgan Lake] Why yes, that would be a certain young apprentice of Kage's acquaintance, or someone who feels very much like her. There are traces of residual magic around her, but nothing currently active, and no oddity about her resonance.
to Kage

[Kage] The weather has been as uncertain as a new lover, as if it doesn't quite know how to treat yet with this year: should it bluster, should it be fair? Should it be cold and distant or wet and clingy? How should it kiss Her, the Year? How should it be, this Spring? And most mortals are slaves to the (or at least, affected by) Year's Great Passion.

Witness, Kage.

The young woman is in a coat left unbuttoned, her throat open to the (amorous) touch of the air, her hair twisted up in a couple of [otaku] buns, tendrils of red hair fly-awaying. Beneath the coat, just one layer, a teeshirt and then a pair of comfortable jeans. There's a bracelet on her wrist, but no other jewelry; she is unadorned and unlovely, plain, disappear. There is another sweater in the backseat of her truck, an umbrella and an extra pair of socks, if it really comes down to it, but that's all the way in her truck, which is parked all the way in guest parking, all the way over way over there (and through the woods).

Enid who isn't Enid any longer (who is Enid, always: can't shuck that so easily) isn't difficult to find, even in the crowd of twentysomethings and older who are a constant state of flux in and through the coffee shop, and the red-haired Orphan (still) approaches directly, bootfalls soft (gentled), rather than veering to order a drink or a snack.

"Hey, you. How are?"

[Morgan Lake] It's a familiar voice, but one not-Enid (but yes, Enid-always) hasn't heard in some time - since Before. When the girl starts slightly, looks up from the white Blackberry in her hand, her eyes are guarded, careful, and it takes a moment for her lips to curve up. The pleasure, when it arrives, is genuine enough - she'd enjoyed Kage's company when they'd talked and spent time together before [Before].

She nods at the chair across from her, nudges it out with one tennis shoe clad foot to indicate that the older mage is welcome to join, should she so desire.

"Hey. I'm okay." (Liar [it takes one to know one]) "How're you?"

Jeans, long sleeved black button down shirt, hair down and free (tucked behind her ears) tonight, she really does blend reasonably well - as a first year, perhaps.

"It's been awhile."

[Kage] The chair scrapes against the pavement (protest or welcome in a language that can only be abrasive) when Enid's sneaker nudges it. Kage, her delicate features serious, but not grave, not full of bad news or impending solemnity, pulls it the rest of the way out. The front two rungs go into the air, cast a shadow; they don't screech this time, although they give a wordless gasp when she does sit. Kage looks as if she could (should be) still attend university.

"I know," she says, and for a moment -- just a second -- there's a sea-shadow, passes across her dark eyes. They're not brown, but they're always of a colour difficult to discern, especially in the late afternoon, when the sun's gilding gold through the stormclouds, through the promise-banded spring rain. She likely means that she knows Enid's not okay, or that she knows just why it's been so long, that she knows Enid's no longer Enid, that she's now taken the name of some other Arthurian figure (you'll still be close to them that way [adhering to their wishes]).

"I'm sorry. Longer than I wanted. You want to talk about your adventures and just who you are right now?"

[Morgan Lake] ".....did you talk to Ashley, Austin or Emily?"

That will affect what Kage already knows, of course; Austin'd left before the new name had been finalized, Emily's been as supportive as can be, given her own life and issues, and Ashley . . . is Ashley, and more human with not-Enid than she is with most, but that's not always saying much. She, though, still knows the most about the After, the Now, than either of the others.

"And what would you like to know? I'm finishing up a year off between high school and starting college, with plans to go to Northwestern for pre-law." Which is, all told, not that different from her original plan. It just involved some creative scholarship and grant applications, and making sure her newly acquired identity was sound enough to hold up to any scrutiny from the various boards and committees. Her actual transcripts had been taken and altered to show a different school - a public one, likely, and thus less prestigious, but she'd done well enough that that sort of thing doesn't have the same affect as it might otherwise.

But of course she doesn't want to talk about her adventures - that story is told in the way she deftly steps around that part of the question, in the way she sips her latte as if she's answered everything there is to answer.

[Kage] "The girls," Kage replies, cupping her chin in her palm. "Just after you came home. And then again, after you moved in with Quicksilver. How is that working out, anyway?" Her eyebrows rise (evidence: question), and there's nothing at all suggestive, although maybe she's concerned at the idea of pretty little Enid all in alone in big bad Solomon Blackstone Quicksilver's invisible monstrosity of a house. "And, you know. How's it feel to be following in the footsteps of the great Hermetics?" How's it feel to be a Traditionalist?

"I want to know everything, Enid," she says, and this might be the last time Morgan Lake hears Kage R. Jakes ever say the name she was born with. Her voice is low, an easy, controlled thing; cautious, though; a shadow, private, a cloister (sh). "But it's what you want to talk about that's the important thing here. I would appreciate the answer to at least one of my questions, though." A pause, and she considers making that two, because Enid's got something hanging around her, something that tickles at the back of Kage's neck, something she's dimly aware of and wants to investigate (not yet, this ifrst),

"My kitchen was destroyed, and I want to re-Christen her with good food. The kind that is baked. By bakers who are skilled. Which means, bakers who are not necessarily myself."

[Morgan Lake] "It's not so bad, I suppose, living with Solomon. The house is big, so we mostly miss each other." She says, as if she doesn't miss the boy (younger than she, as far as she can tell, and more advanced which makes her envious) at all. "I study, and practice, and I have free reign in the kitchen." She also makes sure the place is clean to her standards, which are very different than that of most teenaged males, particularly those living on their own, but that's just because she needs it to be so, not for any other reason.

The second question actually gets the first hint at a smile - one corner of the girl's lips curls up uncertainly, as if it's half forgotten how and might get a sprain int he process. "It feels a lot like school, with some practice thrown in. I like it, and it suits me." Of course, she's only an apprentice as yet - she hasn't been subjected to the politics and pomp in person, so this comes easily, what she says. Who knows how she'll feel if and when that changes.

"If you'd like someone to come fill your house with far too many baked goods, I'd be more than willing to oblige. Just let me know when."

[Kage] [spirits, spirits, everywhere? What's that tangling in Enid's hair? 3+1-1[practicedrote]-1[foci 'cept can't minus another one, but you know]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 4, 10 (Success x 2 at target 3)

[Morgan Lake] [PAUSE!]