This Is a Game

[Ashley] This is a game.

Like all games, it has its practical purpose. Since civilization, the purpose of games has always been to train for war, to use skills that would be useful during a conflict. To compete without the consequences.

When they drove out here, Ashley's purpose wasn't precisely clear. She'd just wanted to go out to the woods. Maybe to hike. It's possible that Morgan wasn't all that happy about it: she may run, but running and getting sweaty and dirty in the middle of nature are two different things. Whether she's happy about it or not, they're here.

She followed Ashley off the path. The elder Hermetic didn't say where they were going.

And at some point, when Morgan was no longer sure where they were, Ashley stopped, reached beneath the collar of her shirt...and vanished. Leaving Morgan standing there alone beneath the boughs of an ash tree.

[Morgan] There are some things that one does automatically when someone disappears right in front of one. First, one becomes very still, and listens, looks - one strains, attempting to discern more than is readily available to one's senses, be they the usual mundane ones, or those less so.

Morgan does not call out, nor is she particularly adverse to being here; she's mentioned camping trips with her father, ones where she bonded with him as her mother spent the trip on the phone with some branch of the corporation, or simply didn't come at all. Some of those had been in a camper, but most had involved tents, and campfires and s'mores and the like.

So, there Morgan stands, quietly reaching, testing - sensing.

[First! Alert, for sounds and smells and things to give clues.]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 8, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Morgan] [And Aware, because!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 6, 6, 7, 8 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Ashley] [You don't need those. Corr 2, Apportation, diff 6 for vulgar without witnesses. -1 for focus, -2 for applicable resonance Entropic: Hungry x2.]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 3)

[Ashley] The woods are quiet. It's late afternoon, and there's a sort of hazy silence hanging over them right now: it's a little after the heat of the day, when most animals are hiding or sleeping, waiting for darkness and waiting for cool night air. Once in a while she can hear something small rustle through the foliage, which isn't very high: just ferns and may apples and other small plants around her feet. Occasionally she can see a trillium flower.

A little of Ashley's resonance still lingers from her Willworking, left there in that spot where she disappeared.

Seconds later, she feels another spike of hunger, though it is unspecific: geared strictly toward something she has. Something it wants, and something that it gets. One thing she's aware of now: her car keys are no longer in her pocket. They've gone somewhere Else.

Whatever Ashley has in mind, Morgan is not getting home without her keys. Ashley can: she can probably Stride her way home. And leave Morgan lost in the woods if she so desires.

[Morgan] Morgan does not so desire (nor does she particularly think Ashley does). It's been awhile since she went camping with her dad, and some things still linger with or without magic - knowledge of which way is north, ways to tell which way the wind is coming from, a knowledge of a handful of animal tracks (she remembers deer and raccoon, but not much more), natural signifiers of impending weather. These things help, and as she had been paying attention to which way the path was going, she has at least a general idea (if not a very specific one) of which way they'd gone when they headed off path.

It helps.

Without much thought, she pulls the wand that's almost always with her, but for when she's running, from where she'd threaded it through the belt loops at her back. There are a few things to find out, even as frustrating as things have been with certain false skills stripped away (and now, she wishes so hard she'd listened better when Ashley'd advised against using them).

[First things first - did you hide all of you, or just disappear? Mind + Corr, find Ashley! Coincidental, -1 focus]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 6 (Success x 1 at target 3)

[Ashley] [Not relevant yet! Diff 5, -1.]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 6, 6, 8, 8 (Success x 4 at target 4)

[Ashley] Morgan, as yet, is not skilled enough to look for Ashley specifically. What she can do is extend her awareness around her immediate vicinity: she can look to see whether there is a Mind like the one she recognizes. Perhaps she isn't even sure precisely how she does it, just yet. Perhaps she isn't quite sure of how she works her Will in order to just see.

She knows that her magic was successful, but she can't sense Ashley anywhere nearby. Either Ashley strode too far away for her to sense the Tytalan, or Ashley is well and truly hidden, her Mind obscured.

Morgan knows another thing: she knows that without Ashley's True Name, it will be much more difficult for her were she to attempt to scry out the older Hermetic, even if she were skilled enough to do a true scrying. This is the purpose of True Names: it is to obscure the Willworker, to hide her in darkness, to simultaneously define and conceal her true nature. Name a thing, and you possess that thing, and Ashley refuses to be kept.

The woods are still and silent around Morgan, and even those tendrils of hunger that hung in the Tellurian nearby are beginning to fade.

[Morgan] She can't find exactly what she's looking for, but that doesn't stop her from trying, from pushing, from constantly trying to expand her knowledge of the world around her, to find the Truth amongst all the bits and pieces of reality. She knows a lot of things, but a thing being difficult has seldom stopped her. Marathons and triathalons are difficult, too, as is working a new recipe to mouthwatering perfection.

There's another thing, then, when she can't do what she wants. There are odds and likelihoods that can be explored, that can help her find where her mentor may have gone with her keys, without which Morgan will only be getting home if she calls a cab.

There's also the (theoretically) simpler bit of figuring out exactly where she is, and where her car is in relation.

[easy stuff first! Straight corr, whereami, coincidental, -1 focus]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 10 (Success x 1 at target 3)

[Ashley] Morgan can easily find where her car is. There is Truth: the world is laid out in a certain way, distance can be measured, and there is a certain distance at which she parked her car, and unless someone forcibly alters that Truth it will always be so. She knows where she is. She knows how to get out of the woods.

So there's a redhead walking alone through the woods (no wolves here, fortunately.)

And after she has walked for a little while, the thought suddenly occurs to her that maybe she is wrong, and the car is that way, and she ought to turn around and go the other way. Toward her car. Which is not the way she is going. The urge is, in fact, rather strong. It's not a command, it's just there, just a niggling doubt.

[Morgan] The plan was not, actually, to go to her car - said car is useless without keys. It was to make sure she knows where she is, and where it is, just in case - to be prepared, as it were. So when that doubt hits her, the perhaps expected reaction is stopping dead in her tracks and slamming up as sound a wall as she can construct (which is, granted, not very sound) around her mind. That thought is not in her, of her; she knows where her car is. So obviously, that thought has to come from somewhere else.

She trusts Ashley. Loves her, even. But her rather extensive vocabulary fails when she tries to describe even to herself how much she hates her mind being touched by others.

Once that's done, though, why not go the other way? Morgan knows where she is and where she'll want to eventually end up, and she's keeping tabs on both. But there might be something interesting over there.

[Mind 1, coincidental, -1 practiced, +WP]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1 (Failure at target 3) [WP]

[Morgan] [Let's try that again at +1.

[Morgan] VERY VERY IMPORTANT!]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 8 (Success x 1 at target 4)

[Ashley] Morgan has that moment of fear, of revulsion, when she realizes her mind is being touched. It's something she's going to have to get over eventually: it's a button to push, a very effective one, and she doesn't conceal it very well. Ashley knows that she'll have to inure herself to it, and that the process will not be pleasant, and it will likely involve a breakdown or two on Morgan's part first.

She could do it now. And contemplates it.

But in the end, this is supposed to be a lighthearted game in the woods. So she doesn't do anything of the sort. But there's a someday. There will have to be.

Morgan does go the other way, but thus far, she's lacking a direction. She could wander a while before happening upon Ashley. In fact, she does: fifteen minutes later, she is still wandering the woods, largely without aim.

[Morgan] Wandering without aim is not such a bad thing to do, really, not when she's keeping track of where she is in relation to her car as much as she possibly can, not when she's listening to everything around her (because surely there will be clues if Ashley's close - a snap of a fallen branch, a branch whipping back into place), not when she's sniffing for resonance . . .

Not when she's pausing, again toying with her wand, murmuring a few words she's read somewhere, that resound through her.

[Corr + Prime, watching the weaving, -1 focus, extend!]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4 (Success x 1 at target 3)

[Ashley] Morgan pulls out her wand, and now she begins to hunt for resonance. And now she can get a sense of where Ashley is, can follow a trail of hunger. The Hermetic has shielded her mind, and perhaps could have hidden this away too, but did not desire to: perhaps she wanted to see what Morgan would try. She didn't want to make the game impossible.

An apprentice against an adept is a little unfair, after all.

Ashley is not very far away, though Morgan will certainly have to backtrack. And when Morgan comes across her mentor, or the area where her mentor should be, she'll have to look around for a few seconds. Because Ashley is sprawled across the large, leafy branch of an old oak, reading a book. "Hi, Morgan," she says, tipping her head back and upside down so that she can see the girl. She has a widow's peak, a fact which is not immediately evident with the dark fringe that usually hangs over her face. She is grinning.

[Morgan] "Hi, Ashley. Comfy?"

It's teasing, that, and she's smiling despite the hint of obvious reserve that always lingers after her mind is touched; after the day by the lake with James, Morgan had needed a full day or two of not being touched - not just mentally, but physically - to be alright again. It's a very effective button to push indeed, and has her isolating herself as much as she can possibly manage if it's anyone other than Ashley doing it. If it's only Ashley, there's this - the separation that's only visible in a darkness of her eyes, or maybe in the posture that's a bit too straight.

[Ashley] "Very," Ashley says, flipping a page in the book and pulling her head back up, letting it rest against the branch. It's striking, how small she looks when she's up there lying against a branch that is as big around as she is. She doesn't seem inclined to climb down yet - or did she teleport up?

Whatever it was, she doubtlessly has a splitting headache. Perhaps she just doesn't feel up to doing it yet.

Then, almost brightly, "I think I lost your keys, though."

[Morgan] ".....seriously? Shit."

She's a modern girl, a product of modern school systems - of course she swears on occasion, if not often. And this, her keys being lost somewhere in the woods? It's going to take her longer to think of a way to find them, and to actually do the thing. She hasn't gotten that great with inanimate objects yet, but she knows the pattern of her skin. She knows her own reality of self, as well as what she puts forth for others, but more importantly? She knows the pattern of her skin. It takes more concentration, this, and is clearly not anywhere near as practiced as some other things Ashley's seen her do? But there it is, more fiddling. This time, it's a tiny knife, not the wand, and a bit of skin shaved from the tip of a finger, and such firm concentration.

[Corr + Life, where are things with bits of me on them? -1 focus, +1 for absolute lack of practice, +WP]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 6 (Success x 2 at target 4) [WP]

[Ashley] It takes Morgan a little while, but she does think of a solution for finding her keys. Ashley appears quite unconcerned, and continues to read in the tree while Morgan thinks. She doesn't apologize when Morgan swears, when she starts to wonder how they're going to get home. (Ashley has a way to get home, after all.) Of course, Morgan might suspect, based on her nonchalance, that she hid them.

A suspicion which is confirmed when she reaches out, uses that bit of skin to call forth an object that has her fingerprints, pieces of her, on it. Property of hers that has been imprinted through daily use, through time. There is life all around her, and it makes doing this a little disorienting: the trees are healthy, flush with summer, and above her in the tree is a relaxed human body, at rest, perfectly comfortable. (She can see, too, places where her ribs don't quite hold together, places where Ashley was shot, places where her body was broken; the left side of her head and the wreck it is, the crumpled bit of brain and the crushed nerves, fully visible in a way it is not unless one is really Looking. With modern medicine it is not unbelievable that she is alive: but that her mind is as quick and sharp as it is, that she is so articulate, so in control, that she uses words so effectively. That is unbelievable.)

Morgan, after she adjusts to this deluge of information, can indeed find her keys. About fifty feet away, there's a cluster of dead elms: they're hollowed out, have holes in them, and the holes have been methodically stuffed with grass and plants. There are also holes that someone dug in the ground and filled back in. Small. Enough to hide a key.

But she's undeterred. She knows exactly which knothole her keys are hidden in, and after she pulls away the grass stopping up the hole, she has her keys in hand.

[Morgan] Thankfully, Ashley was not cruel - in her place, Morgan may well have been, putting each key in a different hole. She's relieved, though, to find them all in one place, and still on the ring that holds them; once they're finally in her hand, she gives a jingle. She's grinning, amused, and it's the closest to happy, or pleased with herself, her mentor's seen her in awhile.

"Found 'em. What're you reading?"

She doesn't climb up the tree to sit next to her mentor, though she could. Instead, she leans against said tree down at its base, and contemplates what she saw and how it made her sway on her feet for a second, as unaccustomed to using that sense as she is. (There are reasons for this, of course - it's not the fear and revulsion that comes when someone else touches her mind, but an unease that comes from remembering exactly what she can do with this, some day. What she has done already, and whose bodies have been donated for the furthering of science because of her.) This musing eventually leads to the conclusion that to use it responsibly, to learn what she did and how, of course she's going to have to practice.

[Ashley] "Robin Robertson. He's a Scottish poet Kage told me about when she and I came out here last month." Ashley devours books; she typically goes through several in a week, even if she tries to draw them out. Poetry, she always tries to make last longer, to get as much out of it as she can. She rereads them and brings the poems out with her so that she can read them one by one and absorb them that way instead of all at once.

When she sees Morgan sitting there at the base of the tree, she lets her head drop off the branch again, eyes the girl upside down and then contemplates how she's going to get back to the ground. Contemplates the distance and whether she could fall without hurting herself.

In the end, she's still rather sore, so she stays up in the tree a while longer. "That was smart, the way you found the keys," she says. This is typically the most praise Ashley ever gives.

[Morgan] "I'll have to check him out," Morgan answers the first easily, almost lazily now that she knows where both Ashley and her keys are. "It's been awhile since I read just to read."

Ashley knows how hard Morgan studies, how she buries herself in magical work, university work and employment work obsessively, how she's gone from pretty, popular girl with a bit of the spoiled brat attitude that a girl of her age and status is unlikely to avoid having to this - serious, studious, distant but from those she trusts implicitly. She also knows that Morgan is beyond intent upon improving her understanding of nearly everything, and how much time and effort she puts into that; it's hardly difficult to see how or why reading for enjoyment's sake might have fallen by the wayside.

And then there's the compliment, and even without looking down to check, Ashley can practically feel her apprentice beaming. "Thanks," is all she says, and then there's companionable quiet until they're both ready to head back home.