The Court

[Verity]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 9, 9, 10, 10

[Verity] There are things Morgan does, when she wants to break through something - she pushes herself through barriers, to beat things she hasn't yet surpassed. She learns sign language in an intense two day crash course, and keeps practicing and practicing to get better. She pushes her runs longer, or faster, or both. She studies something she hasn't yet, something of which she's only starting to get glimmers of understanding, until those glimmers burst into incandescence and light up new ideas, new thoughts, new plans, new potential.

New glimmers to chase until they light up the world more, and on.

Which is to say, Morgan Quests. She is always looking for something else, something more, and it drives her. Ashley said once, in conversation, that Morgan didn't strike her as the sort to seek out conflict and did, in fact, seem rather the opposite . . . but not all (or even most) conflict is external.

Now, it's books. Solomon hasn't been home in goodness knows how long, and she's tired of things gathering dust, and once she's ignored his mandate that she leave his books alone, she may as well read them. She has her own texts, mundane and pre-law, as well as some delving into rather complex theory on policy and history, and she has his - older, and significantly less mundane - that she pours through for things about magical law, policy and theory. There are things she wants to know, needs to understand, and so she chases through pages of tomes, taking notes as she goes, highlighting sections of her own books, copying out sections of Solomon's.

And she works, chasing glimmers. Chasing [blindness - Justice] glimmers.

[Verity] [Int + Invest]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 5, 8, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Verity] [Int + Invest]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 3, 8, 10 (Failure at target 9)

[Verity] [Int + Invest, +WP]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 4, 6, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 10)

[the court] It isn't easy for Morgan to study the arcane texts -- mainstays of her Tradition -- because she just doesn't have the knowledge yet. Language is more important for a Hermetic than it is for many other Magi (as if those others count [as if they aren't just all savages: chasing dawn down in the shadows; looking up at the stars. The Order of Hermes allows you to name the stars and command them. Prepares you to. Allowances aren't just made: they're taken]). There are a lot of promising books she just can't read. There are a lot of books Ashley's given her that she can only falteringly translate. Maybe, soon, she'll progress enough to do more than conjugate verbs.

That isn't (just) now.

And it is frustrating, but Morgan is nothing if not diligent; is little if not determined: relentlessly focused, narrowly driven. And she keeps on, looking for some hint, for the way. She finds a couple of personal essays in English which mention Seekings, but only in the vaguest of terms. One of these was written by a member of House Bonisagus and is difficult to understand, although it is written in English: so dense with Esoterica. The other is written by a member of House Flambeau, who seems to have stumbled on Seeking by accident, and to be pretty pleased with himself or herself. Destiny is mentioned. The gender is not clear.

And then,

Morgan discovers in a book with old binding that looks almost new [no moths, no snakes, no bookworms here; the glue is firm, the thread is firmer; the leather was quartered and drawn when the sun was high and red], although not even spells can keep away the wear and tear of time. The book isn't very important, and it contains a number of advanced-beginner rotes and rituals: easy things, tried and true and the preparation thereof; it is just at her level.

The language is archaic, but it is written in both Ancient Greek and English [the diction is 1890s, see], and speaks of conversing with one's Avatar, speaks of calling it forth, of using physical symbols to make the speaking easier, speaks of three circles each drawn with one of the Tria Prima. Sulfur, to connect High and Low; Mercury, to summon Life; Salt, because Salt is base, Salt is the base, Salt is the physical.

Outside the outermost circle: scatter earth or stone;
Between the outermost circle and the middle circle: water, or fire: repesent it somehow.
Between the middle circle and the internal circle: fire, or water: represent it somehow.
Within the inner circle: air

And self.

[Verity] She's thoughtful, reading this book (and so very pleased), and marks the page carefully, neatly, with a bit of ribbon while she considers. Earth or stone is simple, in a way; there's some taken carefully for the one orchid she's allowed herself since leaving her father's home as she hums to it. Fire or water . . . there's thought, and then water is represented in the circle between the outermost and middle with a cup of warm water and sugar livening yeast. Fire goes between the middle and the inner, closer to herself, represented by a piece of bread (from raw ingredients worked into dough by her own hands, transformed into something else by fire).

This, all done, is somewhere around dawn; the sky's shifted from night-dark to purple to something between it and the stunning pink and orange that means morning. And then, in the center, there's air.

And self.

[the court] The book had an invocation: a simple thing, to activate the circles and the elements: to draw it all together and focus it on Morgan. And when she has taken her position in the center of the innermost circle, when she has taken her position there, and has said words that are as smooth as stones on her tongue, drenched in river-water, slicked with gleam and shine, she just has to wait. And wait she does, for a long, long time, and her focus doesn't waver, and it all comes to black eventually.

Her vision blacks, you see. Her head fills. Her head swims. And then,

it feels as if she's just woken up. As if she's not standing in the middle of three circles, bound by sulfer and salt and mercury. As if she's in her bed, and her throat is full of fire. Morgan smells fire: burning wood, burning paper; it's a specific kind of burning smell. Flesh? No. Yes? It's hot enough that her skin feels as if it's ascending out've fever, that it's candescing into immolation: that soon, soon, she'll be nothing but melted, gone-away, fire, fire, fire. The house is burning, and she remembers what her mother told her: what to do when your room is full of smoke; how to get out.

What to do.

Knows that she has to do it herself.

Again.

[Verity] Cover your mouth and nose with something, anything handy, preferably wet. Get low to the ground. Test the door - wood and knob both - with the back of your hand. Open the door carefully, in case there's fire on the other side. Always know where alternate exits are, in case the main way is blocked.

Morgan is a good girl - she knows the rules, even (usually) follows them, at least in the case of personal safety. These are the things she does now, so carefully and quickly at the same time.

Don't try to save things. Things can be replaced. She grabs the book and a picture of herself, her parents and her favorite teddy bear, and goes. Most things can be replaced. Some things cannot. While the house is full of irreplaceable books, Morgan knows better to think she can save them all - she simply grabs what she can, and gets out.

[Verity] [Wits!]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 3, 4 (Botch x 1 at target 6)

[Verity] [WP]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 5, 6, 6, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[the court] The door opens, and the outside is clouded with smoke. The door opens, and she could be a maiden who's just invited the manifestation of darkness [demon lover] in to kiss her. That's how quick the smoke is sucked into her room. Morgan thought that she had ducked down enough; that her mouth was covered, that she could breathe; that these things, these objects she cradles in her arms like a talisman, were important. And because she thinks that, perhaps it's true; what is true is certainly this: the smoke is sucked into the room she is standing within [does she worry about leaving the circles? She didn't see them on the floor. Different time, different place. It must've worked.] and then it begins to dissipate (to dissolve [to diminish]).

And Morgan is left with fire -- with flame. The air feels thick and still warm. Her skin wants to boil, become tender, become pink; stick a fork in her and her flesh'd slough off've her bones. The air rushes around her, and her hair lifts, lifts, lifts, waves in the air for a moment [water], and now she is blinded not by smoke but by fire.

Fire: how it glints -- sinouous; how it gleams, how it moves: all gold, all orange, all dusk; the colour of grease -- the topmost layer; translucent, emphasis on lucent. How it moves: how it swarms: dense, thick, swims out at her, hints of white, and all Morgan can see is fire seething just in front of her.

And it takes her a minute to process this. And in that minute, the picture of her parents, its edges blacken it curls in on itself like a rollypolly, then begins to dissolve. Its edges are laced in gold, and a spark wanders past her, back into her room, which is black. Morgan gets the distinct feeling that if she were to step backward, there would be nothing there. Death, maybe. He waits.

It's only through strength of will, raw, unadulterated, that Morgan manages to stifle [instinctual] panic.

To realize that she isn't burning.

[Verity] She's hot, but doesn't burn - it takes a moment to realize that in panic-thickened thoughts, so focused on the rules (perhaps so there is focus at all). Behind her there is nothing and ahead there's only fire, white hot, terri(fying)ble, consuming, annihilating (pure). Behind her, maybe, there is death. The picture, rather than allowing it to disintegrate and be completely destroyed, is left to drift back into nothing, in hopes that it will survive. It's important to her, that picture.

There's nothing behind her.

Morgan steps forward.

[the court] Morgan lets the picture go: it floats upward. Morgan steps forward: there's nothing behind her. The fire doesn't want to move; she comes in contact with it almost right away. Doesn't want to move: but isn't unyielding. As Morgan walks forward [and it could be purity; it could be cleansing away of impurities] she realizes the flames break apart when she presses against them. And then she realizes that they're not flames at all: she is walking through a forest of koi fish. There are more than she has likely ever seen; they're not just drifting: some of are swimming -- sinuous, balletic circles; lazy, sensuous things -- fluid, graceful. They glint and wink like a road of gold and burning, and funnel around her head. But she can walk through them: the cluster of them, they get less dense, the further she goes on. They feel soft against her arms when they brush there.

And she is underwater. There is no difficulty breathing, and her hair drifts around her like a cloud -- like a sheet of silk, caught in a wind, and slowed, slowed. She feels no resistance, beyond the koi, when she moves forward though. And then, why: then she is standing in the mud, water-weeds around her feet, and if she looks up, well, there are a few koi, here and there, jade-white, milk-white, bewhiskered things, and there is the opacity of night seen from the underside of water. Something luminous, lancing through the surface. Two figures.

Then two fingers: combing through the water. A girl's.

[Verity] A girl's fingers combing through the water, and Morgan hasn't looked at koi the same since last Halloween when she dove into the rabbit hole head first (no Alice-who-fell, she). Curious, she reaches up. touches those fingers to see what they will do, to whom they belong. She wants to know, you see.

It's just touch at first, and barely even that - but then her fingers twine around them and she doesn't pull them towards her, but instead pushes up, towards the surface, the better to see something other than koi.

It's strange, this waking-dream-thing, surreal. It's an interesting world in which to find herself.

[the court] [ignore this.]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 6, 7 (Success x 5 at target 3)

[Verity] [Stamina]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 3, 6 (Failure at target 6)

[the court] The fingers startle out've the water when Morgan touches them. Then: luminous, shadowed -- a couple of faces are peering down into the water Morgan's trying to rise out've. And not managing to. The surface is high; is too high. Although she is in water, although her hair moves as if she is in water, although there are koi-fish, swimming around her, flakes of fire, ancient, the color of ghosts, her weight works as if she's in air, and she has to jump for her head to skim the surface. The people looking down at her seem to only see the red of her hair: just another, albeit larger, koi. She can hear,

"...that one looks like Enid."
"No it doesn't. That's mean."
"But it does. The white markings are like her face and-"
"We really shouldn't be doing this."
"It's a cute fish. We're not doing anything."
"We're not. We aren't."
"We're really not."
"...Bry, this is stupid."
"..... Yeah. Let's just go back inside."
"I'm really sorry about your application."
"Me too."
"I'm ... really,"

And then no noise at all. The two shapes have pulled together. A hand touches the other's cheek, and then it's just natural for two flames to kindle together and become one. They're kissing, and maybe that's how it happened. Maybe that's not how it happened. This happens, though:

Morgan breaks through the surface.

She sees herself, younger. No: not herself. Enid. Enid Geraint. She sees herself stopping on the path, seeing Bryan and Val. And she sees Bryan and Val stopping, and seeing her. Their startled expressions. Bryan, reaching out a hand. "Enid, hey, wait..." Although of course Enid hadn't taken a step away.

She's probably not seen such a raw expression of betrayal, not on anyone.

She's probably not seen how quickly such a thing can be replaced by fury.

She doesn't remember any of this.
[maybe it isn't true.]

She doesn't remember the grass dying at her feet. She doesn't remember her friends, looking frightened -- for themselves, but also for Enid, hey Enid, get off've the grass. She doesn't remember them fumbling for each other's hands, and she certainly doesn't remember flying at them, screaming at them things that sound {witch} incoherent, doesn't remember the Dying spreading out, how luminous she herself was, a pale moon, doesn't rememebr touching them, slapping Val, and their life just shriveling, just draining, doesn't remember the koi fish going belly-up one by one by one and the waterweeds dying and her just holding her friends ....

withering them, utterly.

While this goes on, Morgan's gravity is taken from her. She floats to the top like a fish, although not belly up. She's human. She can move. But only just: she Felt it, too. Felt the impossibility of someone reaching into her belly, drawing her life out've her blood, sucking it away: the vertigo, the crushing, unwavering dessication, weakness, weakness, and she is weak, when it ends, when she's floating near the rim, when suddenly the pool isn't that deep after all, and she's left staring at

Enid Geraint

looking down at Val and Bryan, then up at Morgan Lake.

[Verity] Koi always make her think of that day - she can't stand them, really, despite their pretty uselessness, or maybe because of it. She hates them for being there, for being weak enough to die. She also kind of hates decorative grass, equally useless, equally weak. And there she is, looking at dead friends, at --

Enid Geraint

-- herself. She doesn't remember tears on her face, causing her mascara to run. She doesn't remember the fear she sees written there, or the absent, obsessive wiping of her hands on the paving stones under her feet [grounding]. She remembers seeing Bryan and Val, and she remembers how she felt - a dim, hazy version of how she felt - but until now, that was all.

(Maybe it isn't true.)

Bryan and Val, once so dear and now so empty, get a moment's look, get sadness and pain, but it's Enid there - so young and afraid, so completely uncomprehending of what she's done, of what happened, who gets the bulk of her attention. She's not sure what to say to her younger self, or what said younger self is seeing looking up at her - she doesn't remember any of this. All she remembers is

"Tell Daddy you love him, and hug him every time you get a chance."

seeing Bryan and Val kissing, and then waking up at home, on the couch, and everything that happened after that. She wants to give her younger self words of wisdom, but doesn't know what this is. It could just be the ghost of Enids past.

[Corr + Mind - what am I looking at here? +WP for dice hate.]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4 (Success x 2 at target 3) [WP]

[the court] [Past!Enid.]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 6, 6, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 6 at target 5) [WP]

[Verity] [Per + Aware!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 3, 5, 5, 10 (Failure at target 6)

[Verity] [Stamina!]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 8, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Verity] [Current WP!]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 3, 3 (Botch x 1 at target 6)

[the court] Morgan tries to quantify what is happening in front of her. Morgan remembers, after all, that she is trying to communicate with her Avatar; there must be something She wants Morgan to see here. There must be something to learn. There must be something illuminating in the knowledge of what happened here. Her Will reaches out and tells her that the girl she is looking at is Enid. And empty, and thoughtless. And no longer human. And her Will reaches out, and there is no other Mind at play here. There is noone else in the garden. There are other Minds, other Wills, in the house. There are other Minds, other Wills, near the pool. But Morgan is alone, with Enid. And it is liking touching her own thoughts. It's like fortifying her own Mind. They're separate: but not really -- siamese twinned, carnivale.

Enid stares at Morgan. Her hair is long and her eyes are blank, but she still looks like a good girl. Her lines are just so, her jewelry is understated and glint-y, a necklace that Bryan gave her for their last anniversary, something with the word forever [did she actually wear that?], and Enid reaches up to close her hand around it.

"Did you know about this?" she says, her voice raw, and somehow Wrong. She steps toward Morgan. "Did you know about this the whole time?" A pause. Wrong, wrong, wrong, and Morgan can feel herself getting wearier, and wearier, and wearier, lacking in energy, fading, diminishing.

[Verity] It's an echo of the way Morgan reaches for the ring on her chain - the only piece of jewelery she wears now, though she still has the necklace from Bryan in a box with the one from Austin. She doesn't know what this ring is, can't access what's in it, but it still provides the comfort of history, of family even when she's not near them. (Never mind that the ring is from her mother's side - it's her father she thinks of when she holds it, her father who argued with her mother that of course Morgan - Enid - should be allowed to have the ring left to her by her great-grandmother, that it was Enid's, not Kaye's.) She holds it, closes her hand around it tight enough that the rings edges bite into skin, and she fights the temptation to step back from this younger [more innocent, in a way] version of herself.

"Bryan and Val? It doesn't look like they knew, if this is true. Or if you mean us . . . me, whatever . . . I don't know. I remember not wanting to go out that night, and letting myself being talked into it. I remember thinking I must be getting sick because everything looked weird. Maybe I should have known."

Not that there was a way to, really, but still - Morgan feels guilty, always so guilty. If she'd done something different. If she hadn't done anything at all.

"Did you know?"

Now that they are two, she keeps herself so separate from Enid-That-Was; most of the time, it's hard to glimpse that pretty, popular girl who was driven, yes, and who had passion for what she would swear she was meant to do, but who wasn't like Morgan-That-Is, who didn't drown herself in words and knowledge, who didn't do half a semester's work before the semester even started.

Siamese twinned, carnivale.

[the court] "They knew!" Enid's voice rises. "They knew all over each other! Didn't you see them Knowing! Or don't you Know after all? What do you think you Know? What do you think you just saw?" Enid doesn't stop walking, either. Enid doesn't stop walking, deliberately, over the dead grass, over the outflung hand of Bryan, and there had to be a reason the police even considered Enid was at fault, way back before, there had to be some evidence potentially admissable in a Sleeper court, and maybe Morgan is watching that evidence now. There are half-moon nail marks on Val's cheek. Morgan can see them, if she looks at her once-friend. "What do you think you should've known? I don't know what you think is happening here."

It doesn't stop. The closer Enid comes, the wearier Morgan feels. It isn't a pleasant sensation. It's actually a very frightening sensation. It's something, being ripped from her -- no. It's something that is Hers being turned into dust. It's hard for Morgan to speak, the closer Enid comes. It's difficult for her to shape words, and she forgets

- yes -

she forgets that she is Seeking. She doesn't remember how she got here. Strange things happen in Chicago, and now she is facing herself. Maybe she actually went back in Time. Maybe there was a loophole [Not a wormhole - let us stick to lawyerly diction, please].

[Verity] Strange things happen in Chicago. All the time, strange things - zombies by warehouses on the water, mothers who kidnap their daughters (That was Shanghai, not Chicago . . .), girls watching themselves kill their best friends. "You're . . . stop it. Taking me isn't going to help you any - you'll . . . we'll, I'll, whatever . . . still have killed them."

She doesn't remember how she got here, but she does know that she's talking to herself - her reflection, refraction (dropping like lakelight from her hems).

Now, she steps back. Distance, distance is important. Don't touch, don't be touched, because the life can be sucked out of you, or whoever you're touching. Everything turns to dust. It all crumbles, dies. (It's my fault.) "One of them kissed the other. Bryan didn't get in somewhere, so Val was being Val. I don't look like a fish." This furrows her brow, brings a scowl, and she know it doesn't matter. Doesn't stop her from being a bit petulant about it, doesn't make it easier to focus when she's concentrating on staying out of her own reach. When she's concentrating on breathing, and on not being hollowed. "I think . . . I think I'm back, somehow, for some reason. I think . . ."

She always thinks.

"You need to stop that. I do."

Center. Calm. This is not really what's happening.

[Mind + Prime, I am we and we are all together, extended, not practiced]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3 (Failure at target 4)

[Verity] [Again, +1, HAIL KAHSEENO]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 9 (Success x 1 at target 5)

[Verity] [extensioning rolls. Until Jess tells me to stop.]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 2 (Failure at target 6)

[Verity]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1 (Botch x 1 at target 6)

[Verity]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 2 (Failure at target 6)

[Verity]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 7 (Success x 1 at target 7)

[Verity]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 7 (Failure at target 8)

[Verity]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3 (Failure at target 9)

[Verity] [BY THE POWER OF GREYSKULL!!!!!]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 8 (Failure at target 10)

[the court] Morgan steps back, and that brings her flush against the edge of the pond with all the dead fish [and why wasn't her Mom around right after this happened? Why didn't Kaye know? What was so important that she couldn't see her own daughter was in trouble?] floating on the top. Morgan is trying to do a Working, trying to mend what she feels as a split between Enid-then and Morgan-now, and it doesn't work, although she tries very hard, although she is still trying when this happens: Enid doesn't stop, because isn't that obvious now? This is Enid, without control, with hair brighter than blood, with cheeks that are wet with tears, anguished, but empty.

"I don't care," she says, and reaches out to grab Morgan's arms. To take her shoulders. This is exactly what's happening. There must be a reason she doesn't remember what happened when she Awoke; it can't just be the killing, the utter rage - the passion - that drove her to suck life away: to take it: to diminish it. Maybe it's this. Maybe this happened, and she's going to die now. Because it feels a lot like that: like death. "You think that I don't know what I'm doing. I know what I'm doing," and she hiccups, crying a little, "I know exactly what I'm doing."

And Morgan blacks out.

And then she wakes up, again. And she's on a kingsroad, and it leads into a forest. And it's night. And the forest is very, very dark. And very, very vast: Arden. Her entire body aches.

[Verity] She's on a kingsroad that leads to a forest, but where is she? This . . . must be a dream. Has to be a dream. (Did I know, really? Was I trying to fill . . . something? I didn't know . . .) Her entire body aches and it's natural, instinctive to curl up for a moment, to take internal assessment. Bumps, bruises, hurts.

And the desire to lay here and cry.

After a moment, she's up on her feet, listening, testing, debating which way to go. There are tricks to finding one's way, of course - follow the tracks of the sun or moon, navigate by the stars (the only one she remembers is the north star, there in the handle of the big dipper), but to figure out where she wants to go, first she has to know where she is.

[Corr 1, whereami, practiced, coincidental, focused, please Kahseeno don't hate.]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 10 (Success x 1 at target 3)

[the court] Here, then - a traitorous thought. Of course it's just a dream. Wake up. And the traitorous thought sounds a lot like her mother's voice. Detached, and cool; so alienated from her daughter that she didn't even know what's happening. Shouldn't Enid think about it?

Her sense of direction is unerring, although that doesn't help her very much. This is east and this is south and this is north and this is west. This is where she is right now, and that is where she came from [Nowhere]. If she looks over her shoulder, she sees just more road, winding over fields which lilt and roll and billow until they're swallowed up by more wood. There's a tower, too. Burned out. Echoes of Hunger, gone. Echoes of life, no longer. Drained, withered. There's ivy around the tower, and that's withered, too. That's what Morgan feels.

Ahead of her, the shadows are Mysterious. The road looks well-used. There are deep ruts, and there's a pile of horse crap not old enough to blow-away into grass-and-dust.

[Verity] First, there is this: her mother's voice in her head - self projected (she hopes) but loved and hated and wanted and feared and more gets an automatic shriek out loud and a raising of walls - small, weak walls they are, but walls none the less. It starts out inarticulate, this shriek, but lasts long enough to shift into "Go to HELL, Mama, and leave me alone!" before stilling, echoing across the empty road.

She is guarded, then.

[Mind 1, STAY THE FUCK OUT, coincidental, practiced, focused]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 6 (Success x 1 at target 3)

[Verity] With that accomplished, it's mystery that draws her, and the answers inherent. The well used road is [precedent] well used and not terribly interesting in and of itself, but for the base it sets for the rest, how it twists and twines through it all. Horse crap is, of course, a thing to be avoided. Shadows, though, are things to be studied just as much as light, and so of course she follows the track into the forest. Of course she steps off of it now and then, too, if there's a particularly interesting shadow or bit of Mystery.

[the court] Morgan is motivated by passion. Yells, and shields her Mind from interference. Yet still, she hears this - fainter, another diminished thing - echoing in her head. Her mother's voice: Isn't that just like you. Shutting me out. Refusing to listen, just because I'm the one who said it.

The forest smells of smoke, of a distant forest fire, of something burning. Something manmade. Something made by man. This is good, because the woods are also very dark indeed. Morgan finds herself unable to do more than just barely make the track out in front've her. It's a glimmer, like a stain of milk, dribbled on the floor. If she listens closely, she can hear voices raised [more passion, more anger, exacting, unexacting, furious] in argument, although she'll need to leave the path to investigate.

It might be easier, if she could see.

[Verity] It might, indeed, be easier if she could see - and there are ways, really. She knows them, she's used them, if not as often as she has the things that come to her automatically when pressed - she has to think before recalling what it is to do, what to say, the patterns to sketch (etch) into the air. She takes time for this, so that she can see and hear, so that she knows what's going on.

[First! Seein' in the dark, Life 1, coincidental, unpracticed]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 7 (Success x 1 at target 4)

[Verity] [and then heightened senses! Life + Mind, coincidental, unpracticed]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 2 (Failure at target 4)

[Verity] [and we'll retry the latter]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 7 (Success x 1 at target 5)

[the court] Morgan shapes a sigil in the air, and she is no longer quite so blind. There is still darkness, as wet as ink; as dark as lake water, smothering all shapes. But it is a darkness Morgan is familiar with, and she can now see the trees, now see where branches have fallen, where a circle of stones worn down to just nubs and all moss-cloaked, moss-choked, spring out've the loam. Morgan can see the siftless, sifting honey of a mushroom ring, can see a broken wheel, lying half-hidden by dirt. And Morgan shapes another sigil, and feels resistance. The air thicks all around her, clots in her throat. A moment, and she can't breathe. The moment passes when her ears pop: and suddenly, the argumentative voices are that much louder -- closer; too close.

But she recognizes some of those voices. Ashley McGowen. Eric Geraint. Zeke. Uncle Steve. Kage. And then some other voice, bossier, metallic - a female voice, sounds red all in Morgan's head, and says -

"What you're failing to take into account is not her intent, but whether or not intent even matters here."

And Zeke replies, "I'm not sure about - about this superstitious nonsense." He sounds deeply doubting. "But in this case, intent certainly matters. We can build on intent ..."

[Verity] Ashley, Kage, they bring . . . not quite relief or comfort, but something near enough that Morgan doesn't know what else to call it. Uncle Zeke's voice, and her dad's? They bring a longing so strong it takes her breath away, so strong she doesn't realize she's spoken their names until her lips close around them, leaving her heightened senses echoing with what she knows was little more than a whisper. Steve . . . Uncle Steve is dead. Even in this dream or nightmare or whatever it is, she knows that, but she also knows this: being dead doesn't always stop one from bothering the living.

The metallic voice tastes of wind and weight to her, of thought, and it has a point. She has a point. (You think I don't know what I'm doing. I know exactly what I'm doing.) They're too close, those voices, and too far - she wants to reach out and touch her father (just a Sleeper, how is he here?) and Zeke (he helped lock me up helped break me helped Mama and Steve's dead and he helped us out too), wants to lean on Ashley, wants to speak in riddles and halfquestionanswers with Kage. What she does is step forward quietly with shoulders back and head high, proud but not haughty - pale, but resolved.

"You're missing an important piece of the case you're building, aren't you?"

So carefully calm, so distant. Hardly a hitch.

[the court] They all look at Morgan when she steps into the midst of their little circle. They aren't sitting in the dark. Morgan realizes this now. When Morgan steps forward, it almost blinds her; almost dazzles her dark-dizzy eyes. Then they adjust again. There is light coming from a few burning lanterns. Ashley McGowen has her chin held by her thumb and forefinger, and she gives Morgan a sidelong look when she wanders in. Ashley McGowen is also in a robe: deep, as red as a heart. A stone-statue Zane is curled up at her feet, unmoving, and she is holding a red ribbon that runs from her hand to the statue and disappears, also stone.

Beside Ashley, Zeke is perched, his sleeves rolled up, his forearms wet, his expression hang-dog, unhappy, uneasy. He has a pair of [mirror shades] glasses pushed back into his hair. His hands are clean, but there is something dripping from one of his sleeves: something viscuous, uncertain. Next to Zeke, Eric Geraint. Blonde, handsome, and distracted: such a professor, so Mythic. He is wearing a torc. He is also wearing a ring, and the ring glints red. The kind've red that'll break somebody's mind look at it too long.

Beside Eric Geraint, Uncle Steve. He looks like a photograph: he flickers out - bzzt; when Morgan looks at him. And of course, he gives her a sour look for her trouble. His arm is broken. There is bone, visible. And blood - red, red, red. And next to Uncle Steve is Kage, who lights a cigarette when Morgan steps into the circle. There is a half-mask, teetering on the ground next to her, and three daggers thrust into the loam. The flame is red, red, red, as red as the voice, and she takes a long drag of her cigarette.

There is no sign of whoever was speaking with that red, red voice, though. Zeke says, "Enid. Don't make this pointless. Turn around and run. Go! Just go. Don't stop, because we won't stop. Don't ask: just go."

And then he says, and his voice isn'this own -- his voice is that red voice: "You're partially correct. We're missing the piece, but we have all the others. We can see what was there by looking at the shape of what isn't there."

[Verity] [Wits + Enigmas]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 6, 6 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Verity] "But Uncle Zeke . . ."

She hates the break in her voice, hates how young she sounds, hates how much she wants to run to him (or her dad, or Ashley, or Kage, or . . .) and have him wrap his arms around her, tell her things are going to be alright. Uncle Zeke has, in fact, never told her that - very few people have, in fact. Instead, most people in her life ask her what she's going to do to make things better if she doesn't like them.

Then, though, then! Then there's that red voice (and the red ring, and the redredred robe and the red flames, and photograph-Steve, and . . .) --

Morgan scowls, glares.

-- it's saying that they can see her just fine without her. "Bullshit," she says, and then, looking right at Uncle Zeke who . . . may or may not be, "even I can't run forever. And you know I have to ask: don't make what pointless? And if you mean you won't stop . . ."

Here, a bitter snort.

"Never mind. Question stands."

[Truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you god: Mind 1, boosting Per + Aware-as-Empathy]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 8 (Success x 1 at target 3)

[Verity] [Per + Aware, +1 for rote]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 7, 7, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[the court] Zeke means this: don't stay here, and be caught; don't stay here, and be imprisoned; don't stay here, and make worthless the horrible things that happened to him, the betrayal of his dearest, deepest friends, his colleagues, men and woman who've stayed by him and stood at his shoulder, who'd bolstered him up against impossible odds, against careless, callous monsters - monsters of the sort Enid has allied herself with. Don't stay here, and imprison yourself. He doesn't want to be erased and made over into Nothing for -- nothing.

But there is something else, occupying Zeke. Actually: Enid can sense its presence all around; can sense it all of the people in this little circle. Can see it, dwelling in the red, red, red of whatever they've got that's red. Zeke reaches up and pulls his mirrorshades down, and Enid's hair is very red in the reflection. She can't see his woeful, determined gaze. And she can feel a push against her own mind, a shove: RUN, RUN, RUN.

Ashley makes an impatient sound.

And it's her father who answers, Eric Geraint, in a deep, resonant voice -- the kind of voice that commands the dreamy attention of his students: possibly the voice that first drew Kaye to him, back when they were (maybe) in love. "If you think it's an important piece..."

[Verity] [ignore this!]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 5, 6, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Verity] He presses against her and first, there's a step back; Morgan - Enid - is a good girl, she does what she's told (except when she doesn't) if it seems there's reason to, or if she's given explanation. Or she used to, anyway, and Uncle Zeke, in that voice . . . but there's the glasses, and that touch on her mind and again, there's that instant reaction (the one Ashley knows she'll need to be broken of) of shutting off, down, of slamming up doors and walls and everything she can think of to make it stop, to make it go away, to get the feeling of someone else's thoughts in her head out. She doesn't realize when her arms cross in front of her, protective, making her smaller, curled in on herself and more difficult to see.

Then, though, there's her father's voice and the automatic inhale, gasping, trying to breathe that voice into her, to memorize it. It's been . . . way too long since she heard it, she thinks. It draws her head up, her shoulders back, but her arms remain crossed in front of her, and that frail, fragile wall still raised between herself and Uncle Zeke.

"Don't do that," she says to the latter, just before that gasping, that heart breaking. "Daddy . . ." Because of course he was the one she never shut out, even when Kaye lamented that Morgan ignored things just because they came from her mother's mouth. It takes a moment to gather herself after that, and she carefully stays out of reach, and tries not to stare at too much red.

(Red is her favorite color. It's harder than one might imagine.)

"If you're attempting to determine my innocence or guilt, or my intent, of course my testimony is an important piece. Particularly in the case of the latter." Not that she knows what her intent was - she just knows how empty (hurt, betrayed, angry) Enid-that-was felt, how empty Morgan-that-is sometimes feels. "Character witness only goes so far."

[the court] Uncle Steve answers. He says, "We've already judged you."

And Eric Geraint looks at Enid Geraint who no longer exists, who is erasing herself, and his expression is full of sorrow. He is losing his hair, at long last. He won't look like a knight for very long. He says, "Baby. Prove that it's an important piece. Tell us why it's so important. Tell us why you matter."

Uncle Steve again. "The verdict is: guilty."

And then: that red voice -- that voice as red as blood: copper, iron; it fills Morgan's mouth. But who's using it? Not Zeke, this time. Uncle Steve. Seems like Uncle Steve: "Does intent mean anything?"

[Verity] Of course she's guilty. She's killed two people, stood by while another was killed in attempt to help her. She's the cause of one being wiped clean, rewritten, and a fifth moving across the country. Morgan is guilty of an awful lot, and it weighs on her. But she's no more guilty than anyone else here, really, except for maybe her father; he's a Sleeper, a professor. He's never hurt anyone, let alone killed anyone, as far as she knows - but then, he's her daddy, and elevated near to godhood by that status.

"Intent means a lot. It pushes and drives, but doesn't always end up with what you think you meant by it. Intent is . . ." She thinks, and wants to move closer to her father, to Ashley, but also wants to stay out of reach, untouched. "Intent is Will, and one has to learn to direct it just the same. I matter because . . ."

This takes more thought, and a longer pause. She's not sure why she matters, honestly, unless it's that Will alone that makes her.

"I matter because I am, and because I'm unbroken. Battered and bruised a bit, maybe - not the same shiny whole some of you knew - but still here, still fighting and studying and learning and growing. I matter because I've taken what each of you has given me, good and bad, and become something different than the sum of its parts - more and less both, depending on the day. I matter because I want to know the Truth, and because I'm not afraid to seek it. Most of the time."

Sometimes, she's terrified. She does it anyway, as much as she can.

"I matter because each of you thinks I do, on some level. But mostly, I matter because I think I do."

[the court] "Taht eveileb ot tnaw tsuj ouy od ro, taht eveileb uoy od? Rettam uoy kniht ouy fi rettam ti seod yhw?" Kage says, and then, "Look around you. Why are you standing here?" Her voice may or may not have been that red voice; that red voice is starting to blossom out've Kage's normal voice. The smoke from her cigarette spirals lazily upwards, and she rests her foot on her half-mask. It teeters, gently. It makes a sound like ceramics on tile.

Uncle Steve snorts. He flickers: in and out -- just a movie dream. He says: "Even as a little girl you could never just pick something you wanted to bake. It always had to be maybe this, and maybe this, and maybe this tomorrow, but this right now." His voice is red. "What use is that, as a defense?"

[Verity] [Wits!]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 2, 8 (Failure at target 6)

[Verity] There could be many reasons she's standing here, in the woods off of a kingsroad, around a fire with people who only know parts of the whole - Steve knows Eric and vice versa, Eric and Ashley have met, Ashley knows Kage and has met Steve in passing (she knows who these people are, thinks she knows why they're the ones here, for the most part). It takes a moment to puzzle out Kage's first couple of sentences but not terribly long. What takes longer is figuring out why here, but there is no real answer for that. She suspects it could be anywhere.

"I'm standing here because I want to know. Why it's you, what precedent was set for this, how it effects what comes next. I'm standing here because I'm able, and because thinking it through, putting in the pieces, determines the next step. Why are you all red by turns?"

This is curious, thoughtful; she may think she understands why them (except for Kage, who makes 'one of these things is not like the others' run through her head), but the Other Voice is troublesome. Maybe it's Her. Or maybe . . . Her brow furrows, and she scowls at Steve. Being dead hasn't saved him from that particular expression, apparently.

"When I was little, there was a process. Bread dough has to rise, and it takes time. Baking days meant making more than one thing - bread, cookies, cakes, pies. You never complained when you were one of the beneficiaries."

[the court] "We're asking the questions here," Steve says, in Just That Tone. That quelling tone of voice that has -- although Enid never knew it; although Morgan knows it, now -- been the last thing a lot of strongwilled men and women've heard, before breaking down: before confessing [a witch, a witch (whatever you want me to be, remake me)]. He'd quell her if he could. Not because Steve didn't love Kaye's little girl. He did. He was her Uncle Steve, harsh, but just.

"You should think about that," Kage says, and she picks up her mask: "You should consider, carefully, the subject of where you are. Do you really think you're standing in a place with a name? You should think about tahw ti snaem ot be der. Tahw ti si taht si der taht si der." Then, that red, red voice -- ripening: "Objection. Leading the -"

Ashley, in her blood, bloodred robe, has been inattentive. Has rocked back, and looked up at the sky a little. Maybe she's looking wistfully toward that tower. When she brings her attention to bear on Morgan again, she says, a touch impatiently, "So you think you matter because you've taken things from us and made them into something greater. Okay. You think you matter because you're looking for the Truth just like anybody, everybody, else is," and maybe Ashley's voice is rust; maybe Ashley's voice is rimmed in Otherness, maybe there's a grim little smile there - "You think you matter because you're Unbroken."

A beat. "Prove it."

And then - the crushing sensation of sheer Hunger, of ravening, slathering, foam-flecked drool-flicking jaws coming right for Morgan, coiling right around her Thoughts, Devouring its way into her mind, wanting to Swallow, Swallow, Swallow.

[Verity] There are very few things of which Morgan is truly intolerant or afraid, which isn't to say she doesn't have fears and intolerances, just that most of them don't rule her, drive her. She has a healthy dose of competitive spirit, a dash of desire to learn, a pinch of Head of the Class. It's an interesting recipe, hers, if she thinks about it, but then there's Kage asking about what it means to be red, and her automatic answer (hand up as fast as Hermione's, waving around, desperate to be called upon).

"Red's hot and strong and conflict and opposites in one, instead of at opposing ends. Love and hate are both represented by red. In studies, it's been shown that it raises heart and respiratory rates along with blood pressure. It's power and danger and urgency and in some cultures - Chinese, for one - it's purity and joy."

Morgan has a lot of answers. And they're all right, or pieces of right. Pieces of Truth.

Prove it. Ashley is known, loved, but so was Steve - so is her mother, and Uncle Dan, and a great many other people who have stepped into her mind this way, thinking to . . . to what? Oh, Morgan hates this. She wants to cry, wants to stop what she's doing and yank up her pitiful defense against this sort of attack. She's quiet and very, very pale for a moment, shaking. The grinding of her teeth is audible, just then, and her well cared for nails dig into the fleshy part of her palms.

Her eyes close.
She takes a deep breath.
Continues.

(Quietly. Shaken. Terrified.) "Red is . . ." Throat cleared, and oh, she wants to fight back, wants to hit and scratch and bite. "Red is life and prosperity. Stop it, Ashley."

Beat. Beat. "Please."

[the court] Morgan accepts (rebels [against]) the alien intelligence in her mind without trying to put up barriers, to put up borders, boundaries, fences, without trying to summon a rote she knows from a book she's read and studied. That was something Morgan found comforting: the scholarship of the Order of Hermes; that things could be learned from books, from studious application of her time. And she accepts Ashley, the touch of Ashley's thoughts, of Ashley's curiousity, with its aura of the moon and the sun I will swallow them and all the stars too and they'll all milky-shine in my belly and then I'll swallow the dark and I've swallowed you too you're being swallowed forever now. Ashley doesn't start to dig through Morgan's mind. She's just there, reading it, laying it bare. She's just there. And she's not stopping. Morgan says please, and Ashley thinks

Are you changing 'Verity' to 'Please'? Is that your final verdict [truth]? 'Stop it, please.'

And Zeke, at the same time, his voice so red the sun's rising and setting in it at once -- so red it is slicked back; dark; Zeke says: "Most of us can't follow you if you run away. It's okay to run. I'll help you again, even if it is for nothing."

And Morgan's dad -- no. Enid's dad, he says -- "Baby, think about your name."

And Kage says -- "We've talked about this before. All these definitions. But what's binding them together, right here? Think about that. Or, I'm sorry, I think you're going to -- "

"Fail," Steve says, harsh-Uncle, his eyes narrowing. The light by now has changed, and Morgan, with her dark-piercing, darkness-shaping glance, can see the texture of the shadows, gathering together, thrown by unseen light, bulking up, up, at her feet like the beginning of a dust storm. "Are you truly whole, underneath all those cracks?"

Zeke - "Ashley? Is she?"

[Verity] "Shut up I'm not going to run again." It's a different sort of red, that, and there it is (the rote - defense strengthened by anger, by fear); she'd held out longer than she thought she could without defense, and now she's shoving as hard as she can. (Quiet bzzzzt of a button and cold reason, so much the opposite of red, so black and white and this is how it is, Enid, this is how it should be and [Get out, Uncle Dan, that's MINE] it doesn't matter that Hunger is so very different than Automatic) "And I'm not changing anything. Or rather, I am changing and growing and I will not fail. It's not okay to run, don't say that, don't you ever say that. I should have made you come with us, should have tried harder."

That's for Zeke, of course - Zeke of the pool-water-ruined laptop when she was nine or ten, Zeke of the puzzles and games, Zeke who likes his cookies best in dough form, Zeke who she'd expected to always be her best friend and strongest ally. Zeke who she still loves, who she cries for nearly as often as she does her father, when no one's looking or listening, despite his having shot Austin, who killed Steve, who . . .

"Enid, from the Welsh eneit meaning purity, or more literally, soul. From the base 'ane', to breathe. I remember that." Not much else of any other language than her own, excepting her fluent Chinese (and growing sign). "Or Morgan, also likely Welsh from morcant which is of uncertain meaning."

In her head, she can hear Kaye lamenting her retention of such meaningless things out of legend, out of fiction, when she can't remember a simple conjugation in the language of the week. Can hear her mother telling Eric (who smells of leather and paper and ink and glue, who is a library of arguably useless and ultimately entertaining, very specialized knowledge) that their daughter's intelligence should be put to more important things, more practical things.

"Right here, right now, I'm the lowest common denominator. You're all part of my reality. All fragments. All . . ."

Everything you experience, Enid, everything you come across, is a piece. It makes you who you are. It creates impressions and perceptions and ultimately leads to truth. Pieces of you. Pieces of me. Pieces of . . .

"None of us are. I'm not whole, but that doesn't mean I'm broken. It means I don't have all the pieces yet - and I will. And this will be one of them."

[the court] Morgan (Enid, once upon a time: damsel in distress; damosel) shoves hard against Ashley's will, and of course, people can shove hard against the Empire State building too, just for kicks. That's about as much good as the shoving does, but perhaps it's just the trying that counts. Perhaps it's just the pitting herself against, the inclination to define. However. Beneath the Hunger, there's something else: raw, potential; power, maybe -- something that is also red, and white, and black; something like a riddle, clean, sharp, something like -- see, there. For a second: or does she? Does she focus? There are other questions. There are other things to pay attention to. Still, there is this -- a question that simmers against Morgan's desire to push away, to stand tall on her own, and it is -- Then who are you talking to? Who are you, talking?

[Verity] ".....I'm talking to myself."

She's not sure if she wants this to be the case or not. Some part of her longs to go to Eric or Zeke for the love and hugs and acceptance she's always found there (though she's pretty sure she wouldn't find so much acceptance in the latter, these days), or to ask Steve for help with her math homework, or to curl into a chair between Kage and Ashley for some coffee or tea and talking. (The last is the most likely to happen, when all is said and done.)

"And I am Verity."

[the court] The shadows -- those bulking, sifting things; they've begun to drift up, higher, higher -- and Morgan can't feel them, Morgan can't feel a weight, but the way they move, their mutability -- it's like stage-play water, a trick done with light -- up to her knees, up to her thighs. They continue dancing upward, faerylights, faeryshades, until they're over her head, they're shifting, shiftless, undulating, dancing, and even with her enhanced sight, everything is gloom, as if seen through a thick layer of glass, something that lends opacity to an element not best known for its opacity. There is no color at all.

And the people, they ebb away. Ashley, in her bloodred robe, Kage, with the half-mask and cigarette, Steve, grim, just flickers out with a fzzt, a fizzle, turns to negative, static electricity, and Zeke sadly leans back, and disappears, and her Father stands up, turns around, and walks away, and he doesn't look back even once. And then,

The voice, see. The voice is like metal: like cutting oneself on metal; like it could cut glass, cleanly; a voice to separate water from air -- one swift slice. The sort of voice that can weigh a feather against a heart. The voice belongs to Someone, and here she is, looking at Morgan. She: an impossibly, impossibly tall woman with hair as red as her voice and a perfectly symmetrical face and a bandage wrapped around her eyes and knotted. There are red stones at her temples, and she is burning, and burning, and white as radiance can't ever actually be, and her shadow has an interesting property insofar as it is not there. There is no shadow at all to the woman who Looks at Morgan from her high place.

She is exactly Morgan's height.

And she says - And who am I? And what do I want?

[Verity] "You are Justice," Morgan says, and is awed to see her so (exactly her height, and so far above) - after resisting the urge to call after her father, Zeke, Steve Ashley, Kage . . . all respected, all honored, gone to leave her with this woman, cold and brilliant and red --

We are red. We are white. We are pink. And only we know how to truly worship the Great Goddess Justice.

-- and of such familiar (but not comforting, no, never that) symbolism to the young judge before her. It's a hard voice, a sharp voice, and so very red (like the rest of her, though there's no color at all) that Morgan swims with it, in it, of it. She is not the only one who is red.

"You want security and striving. A basis for all things, and people reaching always to achieve it."

[the court] Then -- this.

Morgan returns to consciousness, her lips dry, and cracked, and her muscles sore, a line of blood tracing from the corner of her mouth to her jaw, her shoulder torced, stretched out flat on the floor in the middle of the circles that she's made. The room she's in has long since passed into darkness, and she feels like this: egg-shell fragile, emptied out inside; scooped-clean, purified: salt-scrubbed, new-shining -- she feels like she is in a lot of pain; she feels like it's too much effort to stand up on her own two legs; she feels as if every time she moves, or thinks, or tries to do anything at all, her energy just withers away into Nothingness.

But she also feels Different.
[This, then -- this. This is what it feels like --]
More connected.
[To be a sword. To be a thing that is True. To twin Justice --]
Consciously Awake.
[With Verity.]

[Verity] ".....ow."

It's small, that sound, and it does feel like too much bother to move. It [she] feels different, cleaner, brighter, and lays where she is for a long moment, during which she only adjusts position enough to wipe the tickling trickle of blood from her lip, chin. It's slow, the progress that is getting up from where she finds herself lying there, in the midst of her circles. It's moving to sitting, first, and even that requires time to recover from wiping her mouth. Then to kneeling, to standing.

There are things to be done. Books to read, precedent to study (and to set). People to call. Achievements to be reached. Striving, always reaching.

There's also, more pragmatically, a mess to clean up and lips that need chapstick and a shower that needs to be taken. Sometimes, the starting steps are small.

[the court] [roll credits]