'Sisters'

[Morgan] Tuesday night and it's been awhile since Ashley heard from Morgan in anything other than the occasional check in call - she's alright, practice is coming along, that sort of thing - though one of those hasn't come since sometime on Saturday. Theoretically, another should have come yesterday, but . . . well, people get busy.

Morgan almost looks normal, standing there at Ashley's door. She's wearing jeans and a girl-shaped polo and her hair is in a neat ponytail; she's clean, as always, though she lacks in the bits of makeup that she usually wears when she's not running. It's not a lot, just lip gloss and a bit of mascara, and noticeable more in its absence than its presence; Morgan is not a particularly vain girl, not about her appearance. But she's a very well put together one, and rocks the preppy-pretty like no one's business . . . usually. This visit is without announcement and, as usual when she shows up at all, let alone without calling first, she comes bearing gifts. Tonight it's tea and home-made muffins roughly the size of the average five-year-old's head, one for each of them. Smell identifies them as apple, and texture gives away their streusel-like inclination.

"Hey. How's everything going?"

[Morgan] [Per + Aware!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 3, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Ashley] It's been a very good few days for Ashley. Almost suspiciously good, in fact: in prior times, this has been a clear sign of impending disaster. When she merged with Catherine, shed her Jhor, heard music again, it was only a week later that her mother died. Happiness is usually a fleeting thing, for Ashley. She's accepted that. She enjoys it while it's here.

It's occurred to her once or twice that it's unusual that she hasn't heard from Morgan much, but truth be told, she's been caught up in her personal life, in making arrangements after becoming an Adept, in politics. These few days have gone by with barely any notice of the shifting hours on her part.

Still, she's pleased to see the girl when Morgan appears at her door. "Hey, kiddo," she says, holding the door open for Morgan. "I'm...really good, actually. How are you?"

And here, Morgan is attuned enough to notice: Hunger, coiling and desirous and sharp, there and always present, relentless, determined to get what it wants. But it's no longer restless. It's no longer tearing her apart, no longer the pain of starvation: it finally seems to have blossomed, into something growing and thriving and wholly, forcefully alive.

[Morgan] "You're . . . different," she says with a smile, automatically moving for plates for the muffins and setting them and tea on the coffee table - as if she lives here, or no, not quite. As if she'd stayed for awhile and is comfortable enough in her relationship with the actual resident to invade her kitchen however briefly, and to feed her. "In a good way. You look awesome - whatever happened agrees with you."

It's the quickest, easiest description she can come up with, and Morgan, too, is a bit different than the last time she was here; she's both heavier and lighter at once, and clearly hasn't slept well in a few days, at least. She does not look so awesome, but she doesn't look terrible, either.

"I'm . . . uh, I'm alright." Morgan almost never stumbles or stutters that way - even when she's not sure of the accuracy of what she's saying, even when she has to pause to gather her thoughts, there are rarely the 'um's and 'uh's that tend to mark one as young as she is. "Better, actually, in a way or two. That spirit-thing? It's gone."

She's quite pleased with this, to have her dreams as her own again, and to not have to worry about dead emokids invading other than as her own way of processing.

[Ashley] "I'm an Adept," Ashley says, and while that's really the least of the things that's happened, in the broad scope of things, it's the thing that's the easiest to show off, the easiest to talk about.

She lets Morgan inside, doesn't seem to mind the familiarity with which the girl handles her kitchen. She follows Morgan in, watches as she takes down plates for the muffins she brought over. She isn't even surprised when Morgan brings food over, these days: it's something the girl does fairly often, and it's always appreciated.

"The..." And here, she blinks. "The spirit? What happened?"

[Morgan] The first? This is where Morgan would normally give Ashley a hug, despite knowing her mentor is not a particularly tactile person. Tonight, though, she does not. "Congratulations! I'm happy for you." It's genuine, though, that happiness - she's as proud of Ashley as she might be of a sister.

Once plates are settled, she kneels on the floor in front of her muffin and tea, and blows over the latter to cool it to drinkable as she considers an answer to the question she's been asked.

"I beat it at its game," she says, and should likely feel more triumphant about it than she does - she, only an apprentice, took care of a problem she barely understands (doesn't, really) by herself, asking for only the occasional bit of advice. She doesn't, though - pain in the ass or not, ugly and potentially evil or not, she's not completely certain she did the right thing. And 'the right thing' means a lot to the future lawyer, future judge. "It wanted me to trade part of myself for Autumn's . . . I don't know, spirit, I guess. I didn't make the trade, but got the kid out anyway. Killed the spirit-thing . . . or, well, no. I couldn't quite - it almost beat me. Then the kid helped, somehow. And I woke up after thinking I was dying with nothing but a migraine."

And a disturbing lack of ability to do things she'd been doing without understanding for weeks, months.

"Everything's . . . back to normal, I guess. Well, as normal as anything's been in awhile, anyway."

[Ashley] "Thanks," Ashley says, a small, smug sort of grin playing about a corner of her mouth, about her eyes. Something self-satisfied, almost content.

She, too, walks over to the coffee table and sits in front of it, taking up one of the muffins and breaking a chunk off of the top with her fingertips. The tea, well, it can wait until it won't burn her mouth.

She listens to what Morgan has to say, and for the first few seconds, she looks...chagrined. It's warring with pride, pride that Morgan managed to handle this on her own, even though she shouldn't have had to. Even though Ashley should have been devoting much more attention to this, to finding someone skilled in the Ars Spirituum who could guide the girl. Gregor had promised: but Gregor was pulled past the Gauntlet. She knows few others.

"That's a lot to have done on your own, Morgan," she says. "That you both resisted it and managed to defeat it."

[Morgan] Morgan doesn't begrudge Ashley the lack of help - she'd been raised to solve her own problems to the best of her ability, asking advice of those around her who might have a better understanding certainly, but by her own power if at all possible, and so that's what she'd done. She hadn't known Gregor enough to depend on him, and she knows well how busy Ashley so often is. She could have - maybe would have - pushed it if she wanted to, demanded attention and help, but she's simply not the sort.

"While the thing was there, I could do things . . . beyond my reach, and still there. I know there are a lot of applications for my current skill set, but this was different - above and beyond. I didn't really . . . understand it, you know? But it was there. And now it's gone." And it's bothersome - not because she'd done the work to earn what she had and then had it taken away, but because . . . well. It's a loss to have that sort of thing ripped away from you, regardless of how or why. "It feels weird, not having it there, not being as connected as I was for awhile."

To her Avatar, she means, of course.

[Ashley] Ashley considers this, what the girl says. She remembers Morgan saying something to the effect: that she felt like she could do more than she actually should be able to, for a while, that she felt especially attuned to her Avatar. She also remembers warning Morgan against using any of the abilities the spirit had granted; that, at least, she'd been able to guide the girl on.

"Well," Ashley says, "maybe now that you have an understanding of what that level of connection feels like, it'll be easier for you to push for it. To understand the next step." A glance in the girl's direction. "You're starting to be ready, I think. You know your Word, and you're starting to have a good understanding of Hermetic magic."

[Morgan] She hadn't showed the discretion she should have with using those abilities, not nearly so - with that sort of temptation at their fingertips, how many truly would be? - and having them gone now is troubling. Without thinking about it, she's tried for those things a time or two since they were taken away, only to find herself hitting a metaphorical brick wall.

"I hope so. Not that apprenticeship isn't lovely, but it'd be great to be a proper initiate. I'll keep pushing for it, and beyond."

There's a pause, then, during which she takes a bite of her muffin - bottom first, so as to save the crumbly cinnamon crunchiness on top for last. "I ran into James, that morning. I went to the drugstore and was going to get breakfast like normal, but didn't do so well. He ended up making me French toast."

[Ashley] That metaphorical brick wall is precisely why Ashley had warned the girl away from using it: it's power she didn't earn, after all. Something she got without working for it, and then it becomes a crutch, something other than her own strength to rely on. She doesn't press the point, though; it's likely that Morgan's already learned her lesson without Ashley making a knife out of it.

"I still need to get a hold of James," Ashley says, a little contemplatively, as she reaches for her mug of tea and takes a sip to wash down the bit of muffin she'd been eating.

[Morgan] "He's nice. And he's going to teach me to sign." It could be a handy skill, some day, knowing that - for working with Malcolm, for communicating with clients as a lawyer, just in general. Learning languages nudges synapses that nothing else does, or so she's heard, and that's what ASL is (even if it likely wasn't on the list Kaye the language expert had considered useful or important for her daughter, which is perhaps why she finds herself interested in it now). This, though, is a sad thing - once, Morgan would have been eager to get to know him better. Even in the time that Ashley's known her, she would have. Now, though, more so than before, the girl is closed off, wary.

Cornered, sort of, but (maybe) less likely to bite.

"Wouldn't be a bad idea to talk to him. He's going it alone right now, could likely benefit from the association, and might well prove useful. Other than in teaching sign language, I mean."

[Ashley] Morgan is wary of others in a way that she never used to be, before the betrayal of her mother and her uncles and aunt. Ashley has noticed this: but she suspects it's something the girl will have to overcome, in time, and will work through at her own pace. People have to defeat their own demons, and no amount of her telling Morgan to trust others will make the girl ready to do it.

That's all her hands-off approach is, sometimes. An acceptance that people will take control of themselves, or they won't.

"Well, if he wants chantry access, I need to talk to him anyway," Ashley says, with a shrug. "And if you're talking to him it might be good for me to get to know him. Daiyu referred him to me too."

[Morgan] "I meant for more than vetting him," she says, wryly amused, but what she'd meant had been both exactly that and more complicated. The biggest problem with relearning to trust other people is she has to relearn to trust herself first - her instincts, her judgments. "He's from Alaska, apparently - he told Molly and me . . . oh, I met a Cultist named Molly, too . . . the first time I met him. His mentor and old cabal are 'gone'. I meant to ask what happened when I first found that out, but then other things came up."

Other topics of conversation, and then the mess on Sunday when she'd tried and failed to function as normal after the previous night's events.

[Ashley] "Well, I try to get to know people aside from vetting them, but it's generally my first priority with the newcomers," Ashley says, with a shrug. She's a busy woman: much as she might like to get to know everyone on a thorough individual basis, it can be difficult for her. Particularly if she wants to make extra time for the people she's closer to.

"And I know Molly. She seems pretty capable." Unspoken: for her Tradition, particularly. Ashley's opinion of the Cult is not very high; she is hardly furtive about this.

[Morgan] Morgan has no real opinion of the Cult - she has never met Lara, and there is Nathan - but one person is not enough upon which to base one's opinion of a decent sized section of the Awakened population. "I only met her," is what she says, in lieu of judgment. "We didn't talk about anything in depth. She seemed . . . odd. But in an interesting way."

She doesn't press the issue of getting to know James, doesn't admit that she trusts Ashley's judgment and instincts better than her own right now (and has for awhile), though the new Adept needn't be particularly empathic to know this.

"Anyway, I mostly came to tell you about the spirit-thing. And to make you try my new recipe - you're my guinea pig way more often than you know. So if you don't like something, tell me." The last is with a grin, the lightest Morgan's been since she got here - it always feels good to talk to Ashley. Or at least it does way, way more often than it doesn't.

[Ashley] "Have you ever known me to keep my opinions to myself about anything?" Ashley asks Morgan, and her tone is a little wry, a little self-deprecating. "I won't turn down food, anyway." That Hunger might have settled itself now, found a focus, but it's certainly still present. It manifests itself in a lot of different ways.

"As for Molly...yeah. I'd like to talk to her a little more. It's impressive to see an initiate who is willing to show a lot of initiative."

[Morgan] "No, I haven't. It's part of what I like best about you." That's with a grin, and yes, so close to normal. It's a good thing, this company - she still feels a little off-kilter and it shows in some moments, but Ashley time is always a good thing. "And I'll let Molly know if I see her, if you want. Apparently, she wants to get to know me better - I hope that's not code for something weird.

The moments when Morgan shows anything close to a sense of humor these days are fairly rare - things to note and be glad for, though she doesn't know it. They're hints that yeah, she's probably going to be okay. "So, you like these? I think maybe a tarter variety of apple, but it's way early yet." The time's come, it seems, for the 'friend talk' that they've been missing for a while, with both women so busy.

[Ashley] For 'something weird,' Morgan says, and her mentor lets out a dry sort of laugh. As though reminded, for a second, of just how young Morgan is, and the things young people are uncomfortable with. Maybe that's what it has to do with.

"I like them," she says. "So...you should tell me about the sign language you've been learning." It's not a topic she knows much about, after all, and Ashley is inherently interested in language, in Words and how they are communicated.

And so the evening will pass.