Many things have happened in April, many nameless and unknowable things like the melting of snow and then the crashing down of more, because Spring is not snowless in Denver. Spring is not truly Spring. It is the taunting suggestion that Winter might be breaking and that a threshold might be crossed and then running backwards in time just as fast as it crashes forward. It was Equinox not that long ago, and presently it is Beltane and it does not seem like the sweetness of first summer day, when the pyres are built high, and straight-sided, and tall and also stacked with sweet herbs and wildflowers. It is brisk again, and there is the threat of snow again looming in the week to come and this place is madness all over again.
Few of the lesser holidays call to Arianna like Beltane, though she is infinitely tight-lipped and noncomittal about why. It is a day to be out of doors, however unsummery it is beyond the walls of her house and the streets of her neighborhood -- ownership which is still too new to seem onerous. When Nicholas called and suggested an outing she had to bite her tongue and work so very hard at sounding ambivalent before ultimately jumping at the chance. It is an adventure! On a thresholding holiday! In the out of doors! With friends!
And snacks.
And a picnic blanket, because the ground is still so muddy, Nick, after all that snow; it is still so muddy and I will not, cannot, shall not, please don't make me sit in all that mess. Not even for a swig of wine, or, maybe... what type of wine is it?
So they have found a place, out past the usual winding ways of the park. Out past the people, mostly, where the connection to the endless sky as it runs into the mountains is more complete and the smell of growing grass is not entirely thwarted by the snow and coldness of this Denver-spring, which is not spring, and there is wine, and slices of apple -- there must be apple; it is Beltane -- to dip in honey, and a crumble of spices and cookies to dip them further, and other small delights. And Arianna, who is possessed of this unreasonable inclination to wear white, or grey, or silver in the least practical of places, reflects the afternoon sun like the moon does her evening light, and she is Luminous without having Worked at all, and she is asking him, leaned in and oh-so-very curious like:
"Do you celebrate the cross-quarters?" Oh, so Hermetic. A little frown. "In your Praxis, I mean, do you mark the seasons?" Oh, look, a little better. There is a flourish with a halfmoon of apple, draped in but not dripping honey. All of these things touched by superstition and yet oh so coincidental. "Are they holy to you, or somehow more resonant..."
Nicholas HydeThis place is madness: it is Beltane and the snow threatens. Nicholas, who is now used to winter enough that he no longer wilts in it like a delicate desert flower, has nonetheless remained burrowed beneath blankets in his study for most of April, which by now should have been proper Spring. Still, it is Beltane and so they are outside.
There is a bite in the wind today, icy fingers that tangle and twist themselves in Nick's hair and leave it tousled, coarse curls tumbling down over his forehead and ears like Bacchus. He is on the blanket (which he did not argue with Ari over - he might not be averse to mud but he hates heavy laundering) and seated leaned back on his arms. There is indeed a jug of wine, cleverly concealed because Nick is unsure of how Denver looks upon public drinking, in spite of its liberal stance toward a certain herb.
He takes one of the apple slices, without honey, and crunches it in the pocket of his cheek. "I do," he says. "I marked them before, as I was learning as a Disparate. I more formally marked them once I was initiated."
This glance slides over to Ari now, and she has been tight-lipped and noncommittal but see her cabalmate, he tends to have these things that he intuits about other people. And there's this little smile, this thing sharp as a crow's beak. "Do you mark them too, or is this the first Beltane that you've had plans?"
Arianna Giametti[Answering without answering.... Mantip + sub, spec: Cunning]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 6 ) Re-rolls: 1
Nicholas Hyde[Hmmm. You are clever, Ari, but am I Astute enough?]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 5 ) [Doubling Tens]
Margot TraversBeltane.
It wasn't a holiday that Margot ever celebrated before now. It was her first year observing the holiday in any way beyond the academic alone-- because of course she's read about it before, the brainy little bookworm she was (is, still, but now in a different way-- reading about spells and rituals and gods of dark and light instead of learning about ocean currents and how they've been changing over the past fifteen years due to global warming [hello thesis paper]). She knew that she needed to get outside and see the sky, breathe the air so fresh and brisk and wet and clean, smelling of wet grass clippings and leaves and mud and pavement. If she spent another day hiding out in the closet that Ned called an apartment or keeping on the move across campus so as to not be hovering in any one spot for long...
Well, people have gone mad in such circumstances before.
She shared a similar mind to Nicholas and Arianna, wanting to come where grass and trees and flowers were easily accessible in the park, but wanting to be where fewer people were lingering. Away from basketball courts and playgrounds and attractions. This shared sentiment and perhaps even a magnetic draw of mutual magickal cores brought the three converging upon the same part of the park.
Margot would appear walking along a path that cut within eyeshot of the pair and their picnic blanket, dressed in a heavy black hoodie and snug gray jeans, with a plum colored beanie on her head to help keep the chill away. Her hands were in her pockets, her eyes on the path in front of her. She didn't get the chance to notice Nick and Arianna, for just a couple yards into view she stopped and pulled her phone from her pocket, responding to some kind of text or other update push. Even from a distance they could see the heavy scowl on her face as she read what the screen had to share.
Arianna GiamettiThe halfmoon is savaged. First a bite is taken, removing any threat of dripping honey, and it is sweet and crunchy and the envy of all the Shining Ones in audience. Both honeyed sweet and five-flowered sacred. And then, as he asks her about Beltanes past, she tucks the remaining piece into her cheek and glances at him across the bridge of her nose and the green in her eyes is something grey-slicked and shifting, and the corner of her mouth curls in amusement.
Crunch.
Swallow.
"This isn't my first," she says, and there is a note underscoring the words that lilt them in un-innocent ways, but before that can rise to any sort of entrendre, she continues. "Many of us mark the Quarters and Cross-Quarters in their studies. I think," wry tone, half-smirk, "It may be only so that we do not become decoupled with the turning wheel from so long spent in our studies, backs bent over books, eyesight dimming through the years."
She licks a drip of honey off the edge of her thumb before adding, as a particularly serious caveat:
"Not that I have always been so much of an indoor Hermetic--" This said, as if it were something that she might follow up on with even more words, words and Words, but something moving at the edge of her vision draws her attention away from him for a moment. She can just make out who Margot is, and the general shape of that scowl. When she looks back to Nick, it is with eyebrows raised in inquiry and a tip of her head toward the Apprentice who often tasted of blood.
A fitting meeting for the date.
Nicholas HydeNicholas and Ari have a back-and-forth that they embody, a game that they play wherein neither of them ever fully knows what's in the other's heart though they look. The thing about luminosity is that it can conceal, that glow can blind or draw the eye so that it is blind to other things, and she is better at it than he is: and so it's a sort of dance. He may have his guesses, and they may indeed be accurate, but all he can see is the smile that curls up at the end like a shard of wood in flame.
He takes a pull from the jug of wine and then extends it to her. Then, wistful, "We should have talked Pen into a bonfire. I suppose there's always next year." Where they are from, there were celebrations sometimes, May Day festivals closely tied in with the diaspora: not so here. People are farther removed from those roots, or they have other roots.
Easing back on his elbows, Nick tilts his head back so that he can more easily regard his friend, the mossy green of her eyes. He's garbed in a thick green hoodie today, and chinos and boots: usual Nick attire, plain, things that do not readily draw the eye. He is unlike his wife in this. "I always wondered why we didn't see more members of the Order at celebrations. I know some of you do keep the Old Ways."
His gaze is easily drawn toward Margot, whom he hasn't seen since...well, it has been a while. He marks that scowl. And before long he lifts a hand and calls, "Margot!"
A languid wave. It isn't quite an invitation, but they both do look comfortable there on the blanket, don't they? And they have food.
Margot TraversHer name ringing from the semi-distance appeared to startle Margot a little more severely than it should a normal person; her shoulders and spine hitched and stiffened and she fumbled with her phone, nearly dropped it but managed to save it at the last moment. Wide half-wild eyes hopped up and darted about, and soon landed upon Nick and Arianna.
Relief washed over her tiny frame, posture visibly relaxing, then she tucked her head down and (though they ceartainly couldn't hear it) cursed quietly under her breath.
Be cool, Margot, stop acting like the boogeyman's out to get you.
A hand raised into the air over her head and waved back. She didn't look like somebody who had much of an agenda, and felt it was rude to pass by somebody kind enough to petsit for you without saying hello at least. So she altered course and approached. When she was near enough to speak without shouting over the park's lawn:
"Hey, funny running into you two. How's Yorick been behaving himself?"
[Charisma 2 + Subterfuge 2: I'm not bothered or super stressed or on edge or anything, look at how chill I am.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 6, 10) ( success x 2 )
Nicholas Hyde[Psh. I do not believe you. Perception + Empathy.]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 5, 8, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 6 ) [Doubling Tens]
Arianna Giametti[OMG Empathy! I ... like. Care about other people. Too. Not as much as Nick, but I try.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 9, 9) ( success x 2 )
Arianna GiamettiFew things are more natural than accepting the jug of wine from Nick. It is part of the back and forth they dance. It is even more fitting now, on this day, with his head crowned in Pan-curls and her smile slipped slighted to the left. It is easy to mistake the sense of something sacred that puddles around him, and the slip of dark ringlets over his ears, and the fullness of the jug of wine for a different sort of worship than they hold in fellowship. Just as it is easy to be misled by the wickedness of her smile, and she carries the jug with such a long-held association and familiarity, and the laze to her amusement.
Though there are manners to attend to. She waves to Margot before she drinks. It is more an invitation than Nicholas's wave.
And then there is wine. Wine and honey and apples and whatever passes as Spring. When Nick laments the presence of a bonfire, Ari's smirk turns a little wistful. "Someday..."
It is left as the insinuation that someday she too would be able to conjure bonfires. Or perhaps someday, they would all celebrate around one. Thane likely was responsible for these things when they were all together before; and Ari was a surprisingly willing assistant. Fire and the out of doors and starlight were all among her favorite things.
"We have our own dreadfully boring parties and painstakingly calculated pyres," Ari is saying, with full sarcasm in her tone, when Margot approaches. "'Lo, Margot," comes the greeting, and Ari is fond enough of the Apprentice to tuck her feet up under her and make room for the girl on the blanket.
"Join us," she says, aloud, as if the imperative would somehow seem a question. Ari is adept at blending these margins into something pleasant, and the shift of her hold on the bottle implies the apprentice will be granted repast as well. She misses the elevated state of distress; Margot is always a little on the prickly side, until she is welcomed into conversation, in Ari's experience at least.
And then. For tempting, she adds: "I have Madelines." Because everyone likes cake as cookies. And also because this is a surprise, she has not told Nick about them. And also, because, cake.
Nicholas Hyde"Yorick is a very good rabbit," Nick says, and there is this creeping fondness in his tone that perhaps belies any lingering concern Margot might have that the rabbit was not being cuddled adequately, or played with often enough. Nick, see: he's been working on coaxing Pen into a dog or a cat. Yorick has added fuel to the fire.
It isn't necessary, but he too scoots aside to make room for the apprentice on their blanket. In that instant maybe Margot can take note of this quiet appraisal, the way in which Nick's sometimes-hazel-sometimes-amber eyes soak in her fear, her sadness. Maybe she can take note of it because Nick so easily experiences echoes of these things in himself, when he sees them in others, because he reflects like the moon, or like a shallow pool in a deep forest glen, the sort of place people might once have gone to worship and seek truth.
He does not remark upon it immediately. Margot is a private creature, and he tries to be discreet, see? He tries to protect the things others hold deep within (sacred).
Instead there is this flash of a glance to Ari, and his hand shoots upward to clutch at his chest. Betrayal! "You didn't tell me about the Madelines," he says. And then, "Come and sit, Margot. We were just talking about Beltane, and how much more fun it is to celebrate when you aren't a Hermetic."
Margot TraversThe invitation to sit was considered and waffled upon. Also-hazel eyes lingered on Nick a bit longer-- something in his eyebrows and the set of his mouth had her worried. She knew his profession, she'd confided in him before. She worried that he saw right through her (and he would see that worry too, because apparently he could just read people like open large-print books).
But Arianna didn't seem to be appraising her with concern or sympathy, and instead offered madeline cookies. Something softened up in Margot's expression, friendly company and acceptance from other Mages, this Cabal in particular, brushed up against a soft spot in her soul. So sit she did.
"Thank you," she said, for the invitation and the offer all alike. When the cookies were revealed and offered up Margot took one from the package with delicate fingertips and held it for a moment. She sat cross-legged with her knees out and close to the ground instead of up in the air. Glanced anxiously to Nick real quick-like once more, then down to her cookie. Broke a piece of it off as she spoke.
"This is my first Beltane, I suppose. Thought I'd get out for a walk. Not exactly a prayer at an alter or a fire dance in the sunrise, but I've had enough homework, Netflix and work for a bit."
Arianna GiamettiNick is doing that thing, where he looks at other people and their deepest darkest secrets come spilling out. Sadly for Margot, his attempts at reading between Ari's lines have been frustrated so far this evening and so all that pent up Astuteness -- because this is totally how Astuteness works, right? -- lands on the Apprentice whilst Arianna is finding the Madelines in the pocket of her coat or possibly what passes as a picnic basket.
Nick clutches his heart; she affably rolls her eyes in mock-impatience. "Nick, lovely, we have been over this: then it would not have been a surprise!"
But she does pass a cookie first to Margot, which is the only nod given to the seriousness in Nick's eyes or the heaviness with which the apprentice settles into their small circle. As a rule, she does not make a habit of extending concern or sympathy to people. It gets messy quickly. They form expectations. Cookies are relatively discrete units of sympathy. Take this: two madelines. Do not call me in the morning.
Then Nick gets cookies. Then Ari, herself, keeps the bent and broken ones, which taste the same but are not as worthy of chiminage between friends. "Fires are between at sundown, in my experience," she shares, indelicately, around a mouthful of lightly orange-scented cake, which is only barely made socially acceptable by the hand she raises to cover her mouth as she speaks.
She swallows, then adds: "But we have wine, too, so perhaps you'll forgive us the lack of dancing and revelry." There's a flash then, of something far more mischievous in her eyes than in Nick's and it is clear that Beltane bonfires Arianna has attended are divergent from the Order-approved ones she has described.
Finally: "Who's Yorick?"
Arianna Giametti((Edit: Fires are *better at sundown, in my experience....))
Nicholas Hyde"Yorick is Margot's adorable rabbit," Nick says. A beat. "Dowsing bunny? You called him a dowsing bunny, but I don't know what he's dowsing." There is this brief tilt of concern there, seen in his eyebrows: dowsing, see, it's such a vague word, and he does like the rabbit.
He takes a few of the cookies without regard for whether they are bent or broken or whole, because a cookie is a cookie and Nick doesn't believe in broken things. He's said this before. As Ari mentions the wine, he takes his free hand (the hand not containing cookies) and sets the jug down in front of Margot. He isn't sure whether she's technically of age, but, well: these things always work a little differently in Awakened circles, don't they? Hasn't she bled and fought and faced otherworldy things the same as them? No child, Margot.
He breaks a piece of cookie and pops it into his mouth, flicking a glance between the other two while he listens to them. "You should go to a Beltane fire someday, if you have the chance. I used to go to the festivals the Verbena held when I was still a Disparate. It was how I met a lot of people up there, back before I was part of a chantry."
Whatever sympathy Margot first glimpsed in him has faded, subsided, taken on the cast of mischief that's evident in his cabalmate. Any concerns she might have had that he would air her fears here, in the open, evidently are just anxieties.
It's for later.
Margot Travers, .A piece of cookie had been popped into Margot's mouth. The wine set in front of her was looked at for a moment, then she nodded her head and hiked one shoulder up and down in a small why not shrug. She accepted the offer and sought a cup to pour some into. If no cup was to be found, red solo or otherwise, then she'd follow their lead and take a careful drink from the jug as well.
"He dowses spirits, mostly. I follow him and he leads the way. Or I can peek between his ears to actually see them. Tried that at a cemetary once to make sure it worked." She shook her head. Not something that she'd recommend.
"I'm sure I'll get my chance to celebrate Beltane as a proper Verbena. Maybe even next year. I was thinking about reaching out to Thane, but this week wound up being pretty... busy. Didn't really get the chance, I kind of woke up this morning and realized what day it was only after I had my coffee, you know?" She smiled because this was the place in the conversation where she was supposed to do so. Popped more cookie into her mouth and glanced over one of her shoulders, making sure nobody was approaching them from her back.
Arianna Giametti"Like a familiar?" Arianna's interest piques a little further, and she looks between them to confirm. Even if they don't confirm, no, Yorick is not a familiar, he is simple a spirit-sight gifted bunny and/or focus, then she will still be duely impressed. When Margot passes back the wine, Ari steals another sip before handing it on to Nick.
Pre-drinking for another party? Maybe. Catching up after a dry month of no outings with Andres? Possibly. Most likely of all, though, is just that she enjoys the company of this particular pair of mages. Enough to drink in their midst; enough to note the glance over Margot's shoulder as if she were concerned at being followed.
This, then, garners a subtle look between cabalmates and a shift in Arianna's posture that is difficult to read without long acquaintance. Nick is certain that she has her wand at the ready, but concealed, and with the nuanced placement she adopts now Nick and Arianna together can see the whole of their periphery in their combined line of sights. It is a thing disguised by how she hands off the wine to him, or how she resettles herself more comfortably seated on ground that is still hard and still cold.
"It is like that for me, sometimes, too, and I am not as bound to the Old Ways." Lies. Lies and half-truths. Lies and half-truths and truths-of-a-sort. Arianna is bound beyond what she is letting on, but the specifics are murky, the tethers are unclear. "I look up and a quarter year has passed and it is cresting into Summer and I am not certain what I have done with Spring." She phrases this as sympathy, but it is an easy-going sort. "I appreciate the attention that other Traditions give to the turn and passage of time. I am doubly-glad that I am not responsible for it, or we would all be ever-late or sprung forward or in some such state of disarray."
She offers this with smile, to perhaps ease the burden of whatever anxiousness is about Margot, and it is words upon words but with a comfortable cadence and with a touch of camaraderie and inclusiveness.
"Thane was good at keeping us honest with the seasons," she says. This is the closest they have come to Truth in her expression: she misses Thane; she misses the broader circle of their togetherness. For Nick, then, and only Nick to notice: she misses Kestrel. "Maybe you will be good at it, too, Margot. You can keep me honest, then."
The smirk returns at the verbal gauntlet thrown. Because keeping Ari honest is a great white whale of a undertaking.
Nicholas Hyde"I didn't realize you were exploring spirit work," Nick says, and there is this second appraisal of Margot. Different somehow, this time: it's a more professional interest, no sympathy there only curiosity and perhaps this tinge of excitement and interest, too. Magi who work within the spirit world are rare, see, and Nick doesn't meet many people who understand what the fuck he is talking about.
Listening to him as he wonders, as he exalts, is not the same as sharing the experience.
"Marking with ceremony is important. It's like being able to use the hands on a clock to reference," he says to Ari. Mention of Thane causes this little point to appear between his brows, this furrow, and as they talk his gaze wanders off to somewhere nonspecific, across the fields that have not yet had their first greening because Denver is as far as he is concerned a winter wasteland.
"It's hard to be an apprentice and be in school at the same time," he says to Margot, and here the sympathy is back, though there's camaraderie in this, a co-misery, commiseration. "I Awoke when I was in grad school. Thane is helpful to talk to, though. Have your lessons with him been going well so far?"
Margot Travers"No, not a familiar." Margot shook her head while passing the wine off to Ari. "But Andraste used a rabbit to predict the future. I figured I'd try, and worse comes to worst I'd just have a pet. Turns out I can focus through him, so he's a useful pet."
The cabalmates were subtle in their repositioning, and though Margot was learning to pick up on such nuances she was a little distracted at the moment. Not searching them or their motives. She trusted them (enough).
More cookie was nibbled, and she grinned a small bit to the Italian woman that she shared picnic space with. "Thane mentioned how cycles are important, and the passing of time is too. I don't really see the importance of the seasons just yet, but I probably will. I just thought observing the marked holidays and switching away from the Christian calendar would be a good start, if nothing more."
Then, to Nick: "It is... Difficult, that is. Switching between academics and rituals for my studies is... tiring." Cookie nibble. "We haven't really been doing lessons, per say. I met up with him once and we had a good conversation. Planned to meet up another time but that chance didn't come. He's gonna be putting me in touch with someone more local, though."
Arianna GiamettiThere are so many subsets of conversation here that she cannot relate to: Primals and their marking of seasons, Sleeper schooling of any kind, Awakening as a first introduction to a magickal reality, Spirit Work of any kind, being Lost to one's Tradition and finding it by happenstance and braille. If Ari were a different kind of Hermetic, she would study her nails and tune them out. Instead she leans in a little and listens intently.
For awhile. She is missing a few too many reference points to grasp the nuances of the commiseration between Nick and Margot, and she is forever trying to layer assumptions and understandings atop one another to craft some semblence of understanding. It is bothersome. There are too many gaps for her to be compelling in her inclusion, so she falls quiet. It is a rare passage of no-Words from the Hermetic in their midst. Instead she lets her attention wander a bit and takes in the cant of the sun, and its distance from the horizon, and the rake of the wind.
Because she cannot relate to the Primals, see? And she does not mark her world in any of the same ways as they do, you know?
Nicholas Hyde"I mark the seasons as part of my understanding of the Wheel," Nick says. "It's not the same as receiving instruction from one of the Verbenae, but if you're interested in talking about it sometime let me know." Perhaps Margot could wonder if this offer is made with some intent to trap; she's a wary thing, isn't she? But his eyes meet hers and it appears genuine, sincere, and without guile.
He has taken the wine from Ari and a long swallow from the jug. "You should talk to Kiara, too, if you have a chance."
And perhaps he has noticed that Ari's attention is wandering, because they've had this talk about river rocks and he remembers how she reacted. The memory of that tension still lingers. They may have sought to construct a bridge to understanding, but there's still that divide isn't there.
"Ari basically went to magickal school with a lot of other Hermetics," he offers then, with a glance to Margot and this little smile that is many things: affection for his friend, maybe wonder at her experiences, maybe a little conspiratorial too. "Did they make you practice ritual at the same time as your studies, Ari? Tell us about Hermetic school."
Margot TraversNick knew Margot well enough to anticipate the wariness. It was there in how she glanced at his face, searched it and his eyes after he set up the offer to discuss the seasons with her. Really? The seasons? And that's all you wanted to discuss, is it?
A more interesting tidbit of information caught the Apprentice's attention, and it swung over to Arianna instead.
"School? Is it like college-- you go when you Awaken? Or did you go as a child and Awoke later?"
Arianna GiamettiTo be fair, Arianna has given an undue amount of thought to river rocks and their selected merits and their ritual purposes and the potential of them for servicable vessels of ... okay, that last was a far less successful line of inquiry, but the point here is that she has spent a wholly unreasonable amount of time thinking about rocks since the conversation in question.
And they were still rocks. Exquisitely well considered rocks. Rocks elevated to a meditative awareness. And yet. Still stone. Still compressed mud. Still hardened bits of Earth, and in being Earth akin to coins and pentacles and in this, perhaps returned to circles and also sometimes being imperfectly round in and of themselves but, at the core, at their heart-of-hearts, still stone.
Stone-hearted.
Rocks.
She has given it very much thought, indeed. Maybe rocks are again what she is considering when she hears Nick say something she very much hopes she has imagined, about her attending Academy, about it being 'magickal school', and so her attention sweeps back over them to take in the color of his eyes, and the fascination in Margot's and how they are both looking to her and how there is an expectation of something marvelous to be said and shared and, damn, now she is on the spot to deliver.
"Oh, yes," she says, with a little shrug, as she reaches back to plant her hands behind her so she can lean back a little, nonchalantly, as if this were not great and exciting news at all. To her it isn't, and her companions have the good graces not to ask her about Hogwarts itself, so, she supposes, this is normal discourse. "It is like school, I suppose. We had coursework and exams and recitations and practicum, though the subjects were not the same as in sleeper schools. We studied gematria beside geometry, and focused more on languages and various esoterica. I grew up in Europe, mainly, where the linguistic expectations are higher -- "
Did you see how polite that was, Nick? She did not say anything derisive AT ALL about the monolinguistic pig-headedness of the English-speaking American esablishment.
"But in Academy it is not uncommon to study four or five tongues concurrently. Even as a Consor. Awakened Apprentices study rote, but even Consors study ritual. In my A-level year I lectured on symbology and ritual myself."
She glances between them to see if this will sate their curiosity. Or merely whet it.
Margot TraversTo her credit, Margot listened raptly. Rapt enough that her voice was still a bit hushed when she asked:
"What's a Consor?"
Arianna GiamettiThis is a fair question, and Ari answers it plainly.
"Because Hermetics train their students even before Awakening, there is a population of un-Awakened but knowing members of the Order. They cannot work magic, but neither do they believe so steadfastly in its improbability. Some never Awaken, in fact. We call these people Consors. Because I Awakened later than expected, I served as a Consor to my mother's practice for several years after Academy."
This last is not something she had explicitly told Nick before. What follows next is also improbably candid and unfamiliar to his ears.
"Because a Consor does not have an Awakened Will, they are not affored the same rank, authority or protections as an Apprentice or higher within the Order. Some Magi are unkind or even abusive to their Consors and those who are in the service of others."
Margot Travers"Oh," was the answer that Margot gave in turn to the information offered up. Then, again quiet, she added: "That's terrible..."
But a lot in the world was terrible. She would comment that much and then let it lie. Not like she could change Hermetic culture and tradition anyways.
Nicholas HydeImagining that Nick's curiosity could ever be sated is perhaps wishful thinking. When Ari looks over at him she will find his eyes bright and sharp, amber in the shadow of the nearby tree and as the sun falls behind them now, sinking toward the horizon line. He is cinder wrapped in ash and smoke, sometimes, like now.
Linguistic expectations are higher, she says, and he smiles. They've perhaps had conversations about this before, how Nick is envious of the command of languages she and Penelope both have, how he knows little more than what he remembers of the street Spanish he learned growing up from his relatives and classmates. "I feel like I've gained the benefits of your experience lecturing on symbology."
He listens, sharp-eyed sharp-eared, to their exchange regarding consors. There is a noise he makes at Ari's candid admission. It's a muddled thing, thoughtful (but there are traces of approval too: mark this.) And he says to Margot, "All Traditions have their laypeople who are not Awakened but understand how to apply certain types of ritual or use certain tools. They're often very helpful to us, and I think underappreciated even in Traditions that are structured differently from the Order of Hermes. I know someone who works at a morgue in town who is affiliated with the Chakravanti. You don't always know who they are, either, because they don't carry the same kind of resonance we do."
He tilts his head back again so he can regard Ari, and then he says, "What was it like, being a Consor?"
Arianna Giametti[It. Was. Awesome! Let me distract you with cool stories. Manip + Subter, spec cunning (misdirecting!)]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 3, 7, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 4 ) Re-rolls: 1
Nicholas Hyde[Ooo. Are you lying, Ari?]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 6 ) [Doubling Tens]
Margot Travers[Fat chance on picking up on this, Marge.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 7, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Arianna Giametti[NO TIES! right button clicked this time]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 4, 7, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 7 ) [Doubling Tens]
Margot Travers[Alright toots that's all you]
Arianna GiamettiNicholas regards her and mark this, she is regal. She is the daughter of a House whose prominence reaches back into time immemorial. There is a litany of names that trails behind her and Arianna, even as a Consor, was never quite as low as those whose names did not precede and follow them. And still, there is a shade of something distant and darkly remembered to the corner of her eyes which are shaped like laughter but are not touched with merriment.
"It was exciting at times," she says, and the cadence of the words are correct but their lilt is not. "To stand so closely to that sort of wonder and working. I got to experience things that I would not yet be invited to, at my Rank, were it not for my specific skills and education. And it was also infinitely frustrating to feel it was always just beyond my fingertips, or on the tip of my tongue and yet unspeakable."
There is wine, readily at hand, and Arianna takes a sip of it, and the shape of the jug in her hand seems fitting and well-mated, and the cant of her shoulders is inclusive and she seems almost complete in her fellowship but there are broad strokes that she omits and the absence is noticeable to her cabalmate if not to Margot.
"But there was also this: we all began Academy together. Even in the Order it is rare to Awaken as a child. And then someone Awakens and they are removed, split off to follow a higher path. And then another. And another. Until more are Awake than remain sleeping, until the paths are no longer divergent but fully separate and there are assumptions then about what you will or will not amount to. Being a Consor in my early teens was great exposure, but no matter how great a Consor is, they are still only a helpmate. And exposure is not the same as experience."
Margot TraversFurther still, Margot sat quietly and listened. While Arianna spoke of Hermetic school and how it was to be a Consor instead of Awakened through that experience, the Apprentice did nothing more than absorb and quietly finish her cookie. Another sip of the communal wine was taken somewhere in the mix as well.
She didn't pick up on anything under the surface of the story. Margot was perhaps too busy being distracted by the very idea of wizarding school, commiserating with the frustration of witnessing and feeling something but being just unable to grasp it all the same, and whatever it was that had her glancing over her shoulder earlier, that Nick had picked up on so easily but Arianna had missed the details of (much as was the situation now, but with the female roles reversed).
Her phone buzzed again in her pocket, and Margot's eyebrows hopped up on her face a little in reaction to it. A hand clasped over the phone's shape through the fabric of her hoodie pocket, like that would still the buzzing. She didn't check it, but instead looked somewhere in the near distance between the couple of Mages she sat with and took a slow, deep, quiet inhale of breath. Easy. Don't read it.
"That was my alarm," she lied, and started getting to her feet. "I need to get going."
Arianna GiamettiThey are talking about a time in Arianna's past that she does not readily mention, or when she does it is only in characature. And were Nick another Hermetic, and not her cabalmate and friend who was once Disparate and therefore subject to separate expectations of conduct, his question would be unspeakably rude. It is like asking: What was it like, being less than a person?
There was an explicit line between her and Kestrel, drawn around this topic, sectioning it out and rendering it off limits and even in his brutal pushing of her buttons this word, Consor, did not come up. This is how negatively Arianna feels about the time in her past, and there are certainly stories-- though not picnic stories -- to illuminate the exact shade of resentment behind the careful mask she presents to Margot.
He can guess at the shape of them from what she has said so far.
Nicholas HydeSee here: Nicholas is an insightful man, but there are things he still doesn't know about other Traditions and their inner workings. There are things he cannot possibly understand because he wasn't there. But he is an insightful man, and we have said before that it is difficult to be insightful.
Ari's tells are subtle: her eyes shape like laughter but there's no laughter inside them. Witness that. He doesn't miss it.
His own are subtle too. He shifts where he is sitting, leans forward and back, slides a hand across his stomach as though to soothe the flutter in the pit of it, to quell some secret shame and sympathy and anger that coils there. Sometimes he asks too many questions. Sometimes he forgets that he asks too many questions. He blinks once, as he has his head tilted back, and then he rights it again. "I think experiences like that are always worthwhile, in the end. Most of the world still Sleeps, and it reminds us of how to use our power appropriately."
Then, Margot is standing up, she needs to get going, and he watches her for a second more. "Thanks for sitting with us," he says. "I'd like to talk with you again soon, when you have the time." He lifts the container of cookies toward her. "Here, for the road."
