Old Time is Still A-Flying

[Molly Quincannon] Molly hasn't brought up the fact that she's been taking Henri's shifts on sentry duty. Henri apparently can't be bothered and thinks the entire lot of them can go fuck themselves. Atlas is supposed to be talking to her about it, but Atlas has other things on his mind. So does Molly, but still she takes up Henri's duty until someone can talk some sense into her. Molly has tried. Molly has failed. It seems that Henri took up the position within Stormwatch the way the average teen takes up drama club and then sulks because she is actually expected to act and learn lines and stuff. Since Molly hasn't got time or patience for yet more arguments, she just takes the shifts and keeps her mouth shut until her actual mentor can deal with it.

Molly has her own apprentice, after all.

So Molly can be found at the Chantry today, sitting at the kitchen table with her laptop open, doing bits of her day job and multi-tasking with some readme files that were sent her way that she now isn't sure how to react to. She has to gut the damnable things to make them usable, the bits of code described. Now, of course, she knows why, and the only reason she hasn't purged her hard drive of the whole mess is because she's not going to blame a good idea for its origins. She can make it better.

There's also strong coffee and an apple pie, still warm, with one piece missing.

[Ashley McGowen] Sometimes after you've lost someone (or several someones) recently, the holidays are the hardest time. Absences are marked in a way that they aren't during day to day life, and just because someone wasn't around long enough to have memories of last year doesn't necessarily make it easier - more room for what ifs, could have beens. Kage's presence kept things from being as subdued as they could have been, but last week was still long.

She and the Orphan arrived back in Chicago late last night; it was a seventeen hour drive from Boston and by the time it was through they were fighting like sisters crammed in the back seat during the first big family trip to Disney World. She didn't sleep last night as long as she might have wanted, and later she'll probably go home and nap before her home is invaded by the resident Verbena.

Regardless, if anyone could identify with Molly's cabal woes it would be Ashley, who trudges in to the chantry house like a telemarketer to the office on a Monday. She has a tendency to layer her shirts during the winter, evident when she pulls off the black wool coat she wears and hangs it over the knob on the banister inside the door: a dark gray sweater, a scarlet buttondown beneath and a light gray T-shirt beneath that, and she still seems a little cold when she makes her way into the kitchen with her hands shoved in her pockets.

"Hey, Molly," she says, leaning in the doorway once she arrives at the threshold. She hadn't been sure whose chantry duty it was today (Not Hers.) "What're you doing?"

[Molly Quincannon] Molly spends a minute absorbed in her task - she's one of those people that sometimes needs a smack upside the head to pull her out from under a project - but thankfully, she hits a natural hiatus in things in enough time to pull the question out of short-term memory. "Oh, hi, Ashley. Um ... debugging yet another email security programme for my gibbon-bosses and trying to find a way to make this damnable Mind-code make some kind of sense that's not sterile. I mean, the mind is not a sterile place! This thing reads like a clean room, I swear. AI, my ass."

Only then does she look up, with a harried sort of smile. "Also sentry duty. And there's pie. It looks a bit smushed but it tastes pretty good, if I say so myself. So help yourself, if you want any; it's still warm. So how're you doing?" There's more, clearly, but Molly likes to see how full people's plates are without dumping more on the said plate. And there's a lot to dump.

[Ashley McGowen] Molly doesn't answer her at first and this is actually a source of confusion for Ashley until the response is finally made; there are many times when she notices a certain reaction without having the empathic capabilities to understand why it is taking place, and there could be any number of reasons for why she is being ignored. But then when Molly speaks and greets her she moves from where she is in the doorway, first leaning against the table facing Molly and then pushing herself up onto it so that she's sitting on the edge near the laptop, feet swinging a good ways away from the ground.

"Is it a VDept code?" she asks, with a glance toward what Molly is working on, though she can't see the screen at this angle. It probably wouldn't make much sense to her even if she could. Her tone suggests that she and Molly are in agreement: the mind is not sterile, and magic shouldn't be either.

A beat and then, "I'm fine. I got in from Boston late last night." The offer of pie makes her eyes slide toward it, and then there's a lingering look as though she were deciding whether to allow herself to be tempted - but with Ashley, this sort of decision always ends one way. So she pushes herself off the table again and goes to get a plate and a fork. "Did you stick around here?"

[Molly Quincannon] "Um ... pretty much?" It's an odd sort of lack of surety, the response to the question about the VDept code. "I mean, it started out that way. It's had ... a few different views on it taken since its inception, though. And yeah, I did. Israel threw this kind of a Thanksgiving shindig and that was fun, though I'm not sure what Ellie made of the whole thing. She's my housemate, by the way; another apprentice ... though not mine. One's enough, though to be fair, Ellie's probably learning as much as Isabel is, one way and another." She shrugs. "At least she's got someone, y'know? She was living on the streets. Now she's looking at community colleges and the SATs. It's a good feeling, y'know?"

Then, after running her hands through her hair, saving her work and shutting her laptop, she frowns and says, "So ... spoken to Israel much lately? It's just ... there's something kind of up; she knows about it, but I don't know what or even if she told you and ... it's the kind of thing you ought to know." Again the hesitation; empathy or not, it's about the same tone Molly was using when she spilled the beans about the Lara thing, only this goes deeper, somehow.

[Ashley McGowen] She's heard Ellie's name before - the potential Verbena Molly mentioned to her a few months ago. There's the light of recognition in her eyes, and a nod. Ashley's attempted to get a hold of the young woman, but it's a busy schedule she has; for whatever reason the times they've been available simply haven't coincided. It makes her frown momentarily; she knows Jarod wouldn't take on an apprentice (she's spoken to him about it) but between the two of them...

"I guess," she says, though without any particular enthusiasm for helping someone improve their lot. "At least she isn't running around unaccounted for."

Which is, apparently, what Ashley is worried about - and an entirely valid concern for someone in her position, if pragmatic. Ashley cuts off a chunk of the pie and manages to wiggle it onto the plate without it breaking apart too badly, and then pushes herself back up on the table. The first forkful never finds her mouth, though, the moment the words there's something kind of up pass Molly's lips. "Is this about the Technocrats who attacked Israel, or the Asylum? She told me about those," Ashley says.

The pie is transferred to her mouth then, before her brows can furrow. Food is an excellent distraction sometimes.

[Molly Quincannon] Molly shakes her head. "No; I heard about that, and that's what catalysed what I found out. It's not ... we haven't got a mole or anything like that, I'll start there. I'm not big on in medias res but right now is not really the time for storytelling and dramatic tension. Okay, over the last little while, I've started having ... questions. About Chuck. I never called him on it - we weren't looking at Technocrat involvement at the time and I was getting way more information just picking up details in passing than I ever did with straight questions. But he talked about ... things that concerned me. CIA-style training. A certain ... style to what he was doing as I got deeper into studying how he did things that rang a few alarm bells. So when Israel told me about the asylum thing, I told her everything I knew so that someone'd know in case pushing got me in trouble, and then I asked him point blank what the hell was going on. He's on their radar in a very big way, Ashley. He's been on their radar since he was maybe thirteen. He was at least affiliated with a Technocracy-sponsored think tank and turned down their offer of recruitment. So they showed him sniper-scope shots of his family and then burned his house down as an object lesson. He's impossible to not-notice and he stands out, so if they're here and they spot him and run him through a database, he and anyone affiliated with him are screwed. What's worse, they still have a bead on his family, which means they have leverage on him and I don't know how he'd react if they knew he was here and decided to use that leverage. Worse, he's been poking through Tech databases as recently as a year ago, though he says he hasn't since he moved to Chicago. So he's on radar, he's in a position to be used, and he's very, very close to trouble." She sighs. "He's going to hate that I said anything about this, but I never promised silence and ... hell with it. You needed to know."

[Ashley McGowen] [Oh man. I love it when people hide things from me. Current WP.]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 7, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Ashley McGowen] Molly wasn't there when Israel told Ashley about what Molly had discovered, back when Lara's problems first surfaced. Actually, around Molly Ashley has always been rather controlled, if a bit clipped at times: sometimes it's easy to forget that she has a temper. Ashley doesn't continue to eat when Molly begins to explain, which will probably end up being a good thing. She sets the plate aside and looks attentively at the Cultist.

About Chuck, she begins, and Ashley's brows furrow. She used to see more of him last spring; as it is, he's spoken with her about how he didn't leave the house until he got busted (when he was thirteen...huh), how he used to be socially awkward and shy.

Ashley doesn't explode. But Molly can tell that this is not something she wants to hear. Her jaw is getting progressively tighter, the muscles in the hinge bunching, her hands collecting themselves into small fists. "You're fucking right I needed to know. Why the hell did he think it was okay to not tell anybody else about this?" She's not angry at Molly herself. But with Ashley, sometimes it's easy to make the wrong conclusions.

[Molly Quincannon] "Because he thought it would make us and him safer." Molly, too, is angry. Molly is not as good at hiding it, but there's so much else mixed into it - hurt, disappointment, betrayal, a whole host of other things that are writ large on her face and in her voice - that it's hard to pick one particular emotional reaction out of the whole mess. Thus she's not assuming that Ashley's mad at her. She's mad for the same damn reasons. "Never mind that they have his resonance on file, he's entirely impossible to miss and any registry of those traits of his on a database would have him identified in nothing flat. He also seems to have forgotten that we live in the information age and that databases are now global. He's barely even changed his online handle, eff-eff-ess! And yet he thinks that if anyone knows about his past, it's that that will let the Techs identify him, not the really obvious stuff. I told him that it was shit we needed to know because if nothing else, it'll let us take precautions, but he got pissy about it. Well, as much so as he ever gets. But no, despite the fact that he agreed that Lara shouldn't have been keeping those secrets, he seems to think that he's okay to keep secrets that are, if anything, more dangerous. I don't want a witch hunt, but eff-eff-ess, we need to at least know to be cautious! And when I'm the one talking about a need to be careful, you know things have gone to hell." She throws her hands in the air, exasperated. "This I find out about someone I've let into my life in a very personal way. Probably closer than most here, but still ... he gives off that 'everyone's best friend' vibe. What a crock."

[Ashley McGowen] "Once when we were drinking he told me he was busted when he was thirteen, hacking, and didn't mention any of this, which means that he deliberately - " Ashley cuts herself off then, letting out a sound through her teeth that is not quite a snarl and not quite a snort. She's pushed herself up off the table and has started pacing, though slowly, moving from one end of the kitchen and then turning around when she reaches the stove, making a slow circuit around the kitchen island with her arms folded, head bowed.

"I should just pry into everyone's heads before I let them access the damn house. Maybe that would stop this bullshit," Ashley says. Whether it's her anger talking or said in seriousness is hard to say. "There are people here who fought in the Ascension War. At the very least they should know, so they can take their own precautions," she says. "I mean, if he didn't really come here that's one thing, but he's here on patrol regularly, he has access to the library and the node...fuck."

Ashley reaches both hands up and locks them behind her head, pushing them forward over her scalp as though to squeeze tension away. "I'm going to talk to him later and let him know how fucking unhappy I am about this. In the meantime, I want you to let people know that they should be watching themselves. Don't panic them, but if they know they can't be as open as they have been, that'll help until we can get more information and take a more decisive course of action."

[Molly Quincannon] Molly winces when Ashley says that she's going to talk to him. She knows it's necessary, knows it's the right thing to do - knows, in fact, that she has done the right thing, but there's that wince. But she's opened the can of worms and now she's going to have to live with the consequences. Chuck is going to be pissed.

Still, after that wince, she nods and says, "I've already made some inroads on that. I told Israel, and she's letting the Guardians know. Atlas, Henri, Nat, Wren, Ellie and Isabel know. I don't know if he planned to talk to Emily and the rest of the Leaves, but I guess I should pass it along to Emily at least anyway. I don't..." She hates saying it, but she has to, so she does. "...I don't know if I can trust him to do the right thing here, even if he has to know that if I know, and think it's something that needs to be widely known, there's no way it's not doing the rounds. I think you talk to Thomas more than I do, but either way, I'll get out the Rolodex and make the requisite calls and emails. Highly encrypted, obviously. And I've had enough practice at this to know how to say it without panicking people. Having Israel as a test audience helps a lot."

Then she sighs and does a sort of the reverse of Ashley's gesture; buries her hands in the hair at her temples and sweeps it back so that her fingers lock at the back of her head. "I know I set up my cabal to deal with this kind of info-dump, but when it comes to doing it with our own ... it really sucks."

[Ashley McGowen] Ashley's only manner of commiserating is a quiet snort when Molly says that it really sucks. She's stilled for the moment, arms still folded, leaning her ribs into the kitchen island (her hip won't reach.) "Mm. Well, people are always going to look out for their own interests first. Some are just more cowardly about it than others," she says. It's an odd statement, depending on how a person looks at it.

"I think we sort of keep different circles," she says after a moment, "with the exception of the Guardians. So I'll get a hold of the ones I know. I don't think Emily knows about this, or she would have told me." Which is worrisome in and of itself, that he hid it from the other girl he used to date, the one who he's been in a cabal with since early last year.

Ashley is not panicking. In fact, she doesn't even seem to be afraid, beneath all that anger. There's just hunger and resolve: it's obvious that there's a fight coming to them in one way or another.

[Molly Quincannon] Molly nods. "I don't know if you'd be better to tell Emily or if I would; on the one hand, I'm the horse's mouth, but on the other ... well, it's always awkward when there's exes involved, so I don't even know. I guess we both get hold of who we can and if someone hears it twice ... well, better than not at all."

Then she frowns a little, going on one of her classic tangents-but-not-really. "Ashley ... I know that with an Initiate level of Mind can mask their resonance. If someone's better at Mind than Initiate level ... can they mask someone else's? Without ... altering their actual thoughts?"

[Ashley McGowen] "I'll tell Emily. She and I are..." Ashley pauses, because in truth, things have been awkward between herself and Emily of late. But she isn't the sort to bring up her own personal life under normal circumstances, and it is even less relevant right now. "We're friends, I talk to her a lot." She doesn't know whether Emily is back in the States yet. Disaster tends to welcome people home to Chicago; that's just the way of things.

Molly's question draws the other woman's glance toward her, and Ashley is quiet for a moment. The study of Mind is her primary one, but she's still very much in the process of learning what she's able to do since her own abilities expanded.

"I could mask someone else's," she says, "the same way I could shield them. But I wasn't able to do it for other people before now, because it's...it's a lot harder to put up a wall around someone else's thoughts, you know? I have a strong Will but it takes a lot to extend that to others. You can blur the tells they give off of their Word the same way, without altering thoughts." A beat. "If you're asking me whether I could mask Chuck's, then yes, in theory, I could. But I don't want to be a crutch for him. He should learn to take precautions on his own."

[Molly Quincannon] After a nod of acquiescence about the Emily thing, Molly listens to Ashley's response and then shakes her head. "No, that's not what I meant at all. He's at Initiate level anyway. I was asking for me. Not as a crutch, because I've almost cracked it, but I have a feeling that time is becoming a factor here and I had an idea. I've been hacking through the information that Israel gave me about the asylum incident and the recent attack, but I'm hitting dead ends and I get the feeling that I might not be looking in the right places. That means I have to try to look at some more esoteric sources. I've got the Entropy and Time magics I need to scry forward; to see what they're most likely to be doing here, which'll give me a starting point for some more mundane things, and Israel can provide me with the information I need to get a lock. But I don't want my resonance out there for anyone to read when I start prying. Not..." She sighs; this is hard. Molly admitting that she can't do something, or that she needs to even take precautions before she can try, goes against her nature in some way. But times change, and though it stabs at her, she continues. "Not with all this going on, and with a housemate and an apprentice and Chantry access and all. No point in taking chances. I could wait and do it when I can mask my own resonance, but ... I don't think that waiting would be such a good idea, the way things are right now. We'd all be able to at least do something if we had some idea why they've suddenly descended on Chicago. So ... that's why I was asking. To know if you could resonance-mask me while I try to find out what the hell those ... those people are doing here." Then she shrugs, sheepish. "I guess part of the hurry is Israel. She's done a lot for me. And if I can do something to get her out from under, or even help that in some way ... I have to try. But she'd hate it if I did it while taking risks, so..."

[Molly Quincannon] After she trails off there, she gives a slightly derisive snort and adds, "Besides, Chuck doesn't plan on masking his resonance very often anyway. Says it's too resource-intensive."

[Ashley McGowen] Masking resonance is not an easy thing to do; Ashley has done it before, on occasion, and generally refrains from doing so unless she must. "It is," she says, "and it's...I don't know. I don't like the idea of hiding, myself, or of pretending that I'm not something that I am. But sometimes it's just smart to do." And she's a pragmatist above most other concerns.

She did listen to Molly's explanation, though, and briefly her eyebrows knit together as she raises a hand to tug at her lower lip with her thumb and forefinger. "I'll mask you. But only if I know you're going to be careful. No more rescue attempts."

Some might consider it a low blow, bringing this back to Molly's attention, particularly since Ashley wasn't even in town during the time of her kidnapping. She'd been away in Boston with Temple for a few weeks, and oh, there'd been plenty of information to sort through upon her return. Too much. But regardless, it doesn't sound as though she's trying to needle Molly with it; her voice is just firm. An insensitive reminder, but one nonetheless.

[Molly Quincannon] To her credit, Molly doesn't take it personally, though it clearly stings. (And, to be fair, more than stings - she's a lot better, is Molly, but direct reminders of that type when she wasn't expecting them still bring on the shudders and a deliberate pushing away of the memories. No more flashbacks if she can help it.) She closes her eyes for a second, takes a breath and then looks at Ashley. "If I wasn't going to be careful," she says - calm, dignified, but with no venom or chill to her voice, "I would have tried to do it already, without my resonance masked. But I did have some idea that if I tried it, my resonance would have been all over it and that would have brought down all manner of problems that ... well, I'm seeing the results of that. I'd rather not live them." Then she smiles a little and adds, "All that to say that I will be. Thank you. At your convenience, obviously, but the sooner the better. I planned," she goes on, "to do the whole thing under a Correspondence ward as well, but since I know that wards can be breached, I thought double layers of protection would be a thing."

[Ashley McGowen] That she's chiding Molly about recklessness at all - well, it's a little rich coming from Ashley. Molly hasn't been there for the occasions in which the Hermetic's bravery outweighed her sense, but there have been plenty, and the city's disciples have not let her forget them. Maybe it's hypocrisy - people are subject to it sometimes, even mages - or maybe it's just that she gets it. If there's an understanding, though, it's hard to discern from Hermetic's expression.

"I'll get what I need together," she says. "I've never tried it on somebody else before, so it'll probably be easiest if we do it in my study." Ashley doesn't say just in case she fucks up; Ashley never allows herself to think that she's going to fuck up. There isn't really much room in a Hermetic's life for doubt, and she has been indoctrinated in this since she was an apprentice.

There's a beat and then she adds, "Are you okay?"

[Molly Quincannon] Molly looks a little surprised at the question, then actually searches for the answer. A heartbeat later, she nods. "Yeah, overall." She doesn't really ponder what to say next; it's not Molly's way. She says what she thinks need saying, even and especially when it pertains to herself. "It's not something I can afford to forget, but it's not something I can let hold me back either. It's a balance. It's just a twinge, anyway."

Then she frowns. "You sure you want to do it here, though? I mean, if we're talking due precautions ... we've got the awesome, sure, but I'd rather do it somewhere that it wouldn't be so ... um ... devastating if they have more awesome than we do."

[Ashley McGowen] This is a logical way to think, and highly sensible, and most people would be persuaded by it. Unfortunately Molly is just about to run up against Ashley's own tendency toward daring: it would be hard not for her to have it to some extent, with her hunger. She likes to fight, and she likes to win (and she's been taught to measure herself by how she does both, even if it's not the thing from which she would derive satisfaction [not that there's much satisfaction for her to derive]).

"We'd have the home advantage," she says. "Besides, my place isn't very easy to find. Neither am I." Whether she exudes Hunger or not, Hermetics have a manner of obscuring who they are, of cloaking themselves in darkness. It's probably another thing that's a little surprising, given that one would be hard pressed to find a mage who seems more blunt than Ashley.

There's a beat, and if there's hesitation it's only because she remembers Kage and Morgan. "I guess we could try to set up somewhere outside the city, if you think there's a chance they could trace you. I can set up bans somewhere else."

[Molly Quincannon] Molly blinks, a little surprised. "What, me? Oh, great Google, no. They don't know me from a hole in a wall. Only time I ran with people who ran against the Mirrorshades directly, I was just an apprentice, all watch and learn, y'know? No chance they got a whiff of my resonance because I never used what little I had against them." Because of course she'd have warned Ashley and the others if she was even remotely on Technocracy databases anywhere. That's the sort of person she is - free with the important information, even if it might make her a pariah. "So ... seriously, I'll be guided by you here. If you're cool with hereabouts..." She pats her little Eee-PC. "Have laptop, will travel. I'd have used the whiteboard and squeaky-markers, but hauling them here'd take too long."

[Ashley McGowen] "When my old cabalmates and I used to run up against the mirrorshades the two of them never left anyone alive, so this is kind of outside my range of expertise too," she says, and then her brows knit together again. She glances, once, toward the still-uneaten piece of pie and sighs a little.

"Swing by my apartment later this week and we'll get started, then." And a moment later she realizes that Molly does not, in fact, know where her apartment is at all. From one of her pockets she pulls forth a small notebook, no bigger than her palm, and writes down the address, assuming Molly will Google it. She rips the bit of paper free and extends it toward the Cultist.

"I meant if you were okay with the Chuck thing, by the way," she says, clicking her pen shut and returning it and the little notebook to her pocket. She somehow manages to keep an assortment of things contained in them.

[Molly Quincannon] Molly raises eyebrows, impressed rather than judgemental. "Wasn't my crew's area of expertise," she says, "though I wouldn't have put it past one or two. They more slagged databases, gathered game plans, spotted hideouts ... passed that info on to the people who did the more direct strikes. They always used to tell me," she says, with a sad, slightly nostalgic little smile, "that I'd do well on the strike teams, and tried to make me into a good all-'rounder. Hence the Forces."

She takes the paper with a nod and a "Thanks. I'll call ahead before I turn up on your doorstep, promise." She glances at the paper, nods and tucks it absently in a pocket. It's all she really needs to do. It's stored in that memory of hers now, and yes, she will Google it, though she thinks she's seen the street before. She's walked around a lot of Chicago.

When Ashley clarifies about what she meant about being okay, Molly blinks again. Of all the people to be the only one to ask that particular question, Ashley would not have been the person Molly expected it to be. It's not that Molly minds Ashley's lack of empathy, or judges her for it - it's just that she's become used to it, and the apparent reaching out surprises her into a blunt answer. "No," she says. "No, I'm not alright with the Chuck thing. I'm not alright with Chuck. I've put up with a lot from that man. I've put up with him telling me that he'd rather double- and triple-check every little fact to make sure that the plan being enacted was the safest, least contact-based one available than stop a bunch of Nephandi from getting a deeper and deeper toe-hold in this city, and that's not even taking into account the personal level I could take that one too. I've put up with him giving me dirty looks for taking down the mundane security systems at that charity building so that the strike teams didn't have the mundane law to deal with while they actually did something about a major fucking problem. I've put up with a lot and now he's lied to me and keeps defending the fact that he lied to me despite the fact that his swanning into and out of my house and my life has not only put me in danger - I could handle that, if I knew about it - but also my apprentice, my housemate, my cabal ... everyone I care about. No apology for lying to me ... I touch the Divine on that man with a semi-regular basis and I only found out his real name last week! So no. No, I am not alright with it. But the fact remains that he's a colleague at minimum. I don't know what the hell else he is, but he's a colleague. His situation needs to be widely known but I'm still going to try to keep his ass out of the fire if I can. I also hate still loving him despite the abuse of trust and ... everything else, but I do and it's stupid and I hate it but that's the situation."

She takes a deep breath, closes her eyes, lets it out slowly and says, "I am not okay with it or him. I feel sad and angry and betrayed and confused and I want to punch walls. But punching walls is not constructive. This is. Channelling all that into something that might help us figure out what's going on and let us deal with it accordingly will be better for us, him, and my fists." Then she gives a sheepish smile and says, "Sorry. But you did ask."

[Ashley McGowen] "We did a lot of traveling in eastern Europe," Ashley says, "like places that used to be back behind the Iron Curtain when the Technocracy had a lot of sway over there. They still had some bases in the more remote areas that were really lightly staffed, so we'd go through and knock them out. They were Flambeau," she adds, as though this explains everything.

And then she falls quiet rather than walk down memory lane, because Molly, as it turns out, has a lot to say. People are always surprised when Ashley asks questions like this - but if there's one thing Ashley has learned, it's that she doesn't have to empathize well or really put herself out there to ask whether somebody's all right, and usually that question alone results in an outpouring. Just like this. And in her experience, it has always helped them piece themselves together in the end.

She's not a bad listener. She moves back over in Molly's direction when the Cultist begins to speak, and perches up on the table again, watching. To all of it, her only question is, "Have you told him any of that? That you aren't happy?"

When Molly apologizes, she merely shrugs it off. "I wouldn't have asked if I didn't want to hear the answer."

[Molly Quincannon] The question about talking to Chuck gets a sigh. Clearly it's occurred to her before, because her answer is fairly prompt; "I've tried, or at least the subject has come up. Thing is, every time I come close to saying it outright, he starts coming out with these little borderline passive-aggressive jabs about how old girlfriends have accused him of not doing enough or caring enough or something ... it's like he knows but wants to let me know without actually saying it outright that he is as he is and I can either accept it or throw in the towel but he's not going to do a damn thing about it. Progressive, my ass; and his idea of 'security' is apparently to set three layers of concrete over his way of thinking and not progressing anywhere unless it's in the direction he's already decided to go. So I could tell him point blank that I'm not happy and then he'd ask, all calm and rational and passionless, what I'm still doing in the relationship if that's the case - or so I imagine, anyway - and then there goes the whole thing. I probably deserve better than this, but I've got way too much on right now to have one of those long, stressful conversations where everyone knows the outcome but it still takes hours to say 'We're not compatible, we tried, it didn't work, you're dumped'. And I certainly haven't got the time to be depressed over it either. It's being sidelined for later, is all. He's easy to avoid. I don't think he cares enough to pursue." She gives a sideways smile, all bitter. "Says a lot, doesn't it?"

[Ashley McGowen] There was, point in fact, a time when Chuck had shown interest in Ashley. It hadn't gone any further than that - her preferences are for a specific type, and he isn't it - but she seems to, at the very least, understand what Molly is saying. It's probably because she can imagine her feelings about the situation would be similar even if she'd probably react to it differently.

"I would rather have done with it than waste my time," Ashley says. "You should be making something out of it when you have a lot to deal with - making it into something that gives you meaning. If you're stuck in something you don't think is going anywhere, you don't have a chance to do that." She's blunt, but it doesn't sound like a judgment.

[Molly Quincannon] Molly sighs and covers her face with her hands, withdrawing them only long enough to slip her fingers under the lenses of her glasses. It's too slow to be covering tears, even if the mood wasn't wrong; it's just tired. She rubs her eyes and says, "I know. I don't think I can make anything of this but rubble, though. Which I guess would be better than dodging someone and being stuck in a relationship that isn't giving anything but stress. Still, I don't want to be tripping over yet more rubble, emotionally speaking. But I guess that's better than knowing it's there, the structure of a shabbily-built relationship on a crumbling foundation, just knowing that it's only still standing because I'm holding my breath to keep it up and he's so detached that he doesn't stir the air when he moves." She grumbles. "And then while I'm at it, I'll tell Atlas to get some kind of sense of responsibility into Henri so I don't have to cover her shifts anymore - or at least get her to stop giving me the finger when I remind her that she signed on to the responsibility of a cabal, not just a social club. And then maybe I'll ask Nathan out to dinner. And while we're dreaming, I'd like a pony."

She's been grumbling this in a 'thinking aloud' sort of voice, but after the pony bit, she stops. Blinks. And suddenly looks purely horrified. This is not the sort of thing she normally admits. One part more than others, perhaps, but still. "Oh ... balls."

[Ashley McGowen] Oddly, Ashley is used to people admitting all sorts of things to her. She isn't a caring person, it isn't really in who she is to reach out in kindness - and yet for some reason, people tend to spill around her. Maybe they trust her authority, or maybe they trust that she's honest, or maybe her hunger pulls it out of them, or maybe it's something else.

Whatever it is, she doesn't even seem to notice that she does it (which, in the end, probably proves to be fortunate.) If Molly made an unusual admission, Ashley doesn't seem to realize that it's strange and finds fault with it even less. "Do all of it," she says. "Life is short. People aren't around for as long as you think they're going to be." It's hard to know which of those things, specifically, she's saying that to, or if it's all of them. "And neither are you."

A beat. "But I cover a ton of Wharil's shifts, if it makes you feel better."

[Molly Quincannon] Molly actually considers that, all of it, and then answers the last bit first. "Sort of, but not really, as I can't see Wharil giving you the finger, telling you that you and the whole Chantry can go collectively fuck itself or sic a robot armadillo on you. Still ... is Wharil okay? I haven't seen him recently but when I did, he seemed kind of ... preoccupied."

Then ... well, she giggles. She really can't help it. It's not laughing at Ashley, though; it's at herself. "Oh great Google. Someone's having to tell a Cultist to live for the moment. I may die of irony. Man, my old crew would laugh themselves unconscious." Then, after her little outburst of mirth, she gives a quieter sort of smile and says, "Thank you, though. For the advice and for the listening. I know you've got enough on your plate, so the fact that you took the time ... I appreciate it, is all."

[Ashley McGowen] There's a smug sort of smile in response to what Molly says about Wharil. "I don't think anybody would do that to me." Because she'd make them reap the whirlwind if they did, in all likelihood, or at least that's the impression she works to cultivate. "But Henri's a kid. More of a kid than the other kids I know." Which has many drawbacks; after all, they can't just let her run around on her own, but if she's part of a group they get...this.

Ashley wouldn't have made a bad Cultist, if the truth be told, for as much as she's disdained both them and their methods (other than Molly, there haven't been representatives in Chicago that might even have a slight chance of swaying her admittedly prejudicial opinion.) But her life didn't go that way, and as it is, she seems to find as much irony in the situation as Molly now that it's been mentioned, and the smirk remains in place. "I'm telling you not to be afraid," she says. "I think it happens in the Cult as much as anywhere," and that's a little generous, and Molly can catch a hint of that generosity in her tone, because Ashley thinks they are more prone to cowardice than most (not many examples, remember.) "But you're welcome."

[Ashley McGowen] [Tag into the first paragraph!:] That Wharil's preoccupied - well, that's not news to her. Her last conversation of any real length with her cabalmate was a soul-baring affair, painful for both of them, and so for a moment she isn't sure of what to say. "He had a bad summer and it...was bad when Daiyu died," Ashley says. "But he's...well, he's working through it." She thinks.

[Molly Quincannon] "Henri would do that to you, I think," Molly says. "She'd regret it, but she would." The thought brings a smile, if a complicated one; she doesn't want to see anyone she likes get verbally reamed by Ashley, and doesn't want to see Ashley insulted that way, but ... man, she could sell tickets to that. Then she sighs. "Yeah, she is. I repeat; when I'm the one in the pairing preaching caution and forethought ... be afraid."

The bit about Wharil gets a concerned look and a nod. "Well, if you see him before I do, send him my best. You know ... in general. I don't see him as often as I'd like." And she's worried, but she's not going to say that. There's really no need. She does actually care, even if she doesn't know Wharil as well as she wants to. With that, she just moves on.

The comment about fear and the Cult of Ecstasy gets a yet more wry and rueful look. "It's not supposed to, though," she says. "It's part of the Code. Not ... that we're not supposed to be afraid, exactly, but not to let it rule our lives. 'A fool feels no fear'," she says, obviously quoting. "'A Sleeper is shackled by it. A Cultist transcends it, yet recalls its wisdom. It is good to be afraid; it is folly to bow to terror'. Or," she adds, with a tiny grin, "in the words of surfer dudes, 'feel the fear and do it anyway'. Though in my case, it's been less fear than a total lack of time. And, in at least one case, making sure that I wasn't mistaking one thing for another. All the same, best to do these things while one can. 'Gather ye rosebuds while ye may' and everything. Though why rosebuds? I wonder if they were running with the thorns metaphor; bittersweetness and all that. I really need to shut up now."

[Ashley McGowen] In regard to Henri, Ashley just shakes her head; there was a time when Henri didn't quite give her the finger, but there was yelling in a bookstore. And flying books, and the end result was Ashley being walked to the emergency room with a broken nose. No...she'll just refrain from commenting on that, thank you.

"He's here pretty often," Ashley says. "It might be good for him to have people drop in on him. He kind of...I don't know. Gets obsessive when he's upset." Ashley has known the Euthanatos for a year and a half now, and even though they've had many in depth conversations they aren't particularly close. Not for her lack of trying. They all have their frustrations, and it shows in how her brows furrow.

She listens to Molly quote the Code of Ananda, just raising her eyebrows when Molly offers it forth. Taking it in and digesting. She knows very little about the Code of Ananda, or what it says; she's never bothered to learn. But it doesn't sound like something she'd laugh at based on that little bit, and maybe she finds that worrisome. "It's from 'To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time,'" Ashley says, of rosebuds. "'Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old time is still a-flying: and this same flower that smiles today tomorrow will be dying." She waves a hand, that smirk barely pulling at a corner of her mouth again. "So, apt metaphor, regardless."

[Molly Quincannon] Molly gives consideration to the idea of dropping in on Wharil and nods. She doesn't know a lot about the Euthanatos in general and Wharil in particular, but there'd been a comment she'd made one day that had taken him by surprise, that she wanted to follow up on. Besides, he's fun to talk to when one gets him in the right mood. But she leaves it at that, though the furrow of Ashley's brow gets a curious look. She might ask ... but the people she respects get certain consideration of boundaries, so she doesn't ask.

Instead, she moves on to the comment about the poem, which gets a nod. "Yeah, I remember from English class, back in high school," she says. "We just didn't really go into it all that much and when I tried to ask my English teacher that, he said something about how that wasn't going to show up on the test and not to worry my pretty little head over it. I liked it, though I think I liked Frost better. 'Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both and be one traveller'... Etcetera etcetera. The difference between just being able to quote poetry and actually take something beyond the surface meaning from it did not occur in my hometown, is all." She shrugs, then frowns, more curiosity. "If you had to pick a favourite poem, what would it be? I don't mean for all time; that's generally impossible." Like picking a favourite song, she might say to anyone else, but not Ashley. "I mean ... for right now."

[Ashley McGowen] Ashley has a lot of favorite poems, so it is, perhaps, lucky that Molly specified and suggested that she pick her favorite one of the moment. It's something she reads avidly, seeks out from different time periods and countries - she'd been reading Soviet era Russian this summer when Daiyu asked her to read something, translated Mandarin last winter when she ran into Jarod in the bookstore, and she and Kage have long made a game of sharing their favorites. Molly has the right of it, in a sense: she consumes it much the same way she used to consume music.

"I've liked 'Monet Refuses the Operation' by Lisel Mueller for a while now," she says. A wry smile then. "But I haven't memorized it." And, finally, she moves her hand around to pick up the slice of pie that was set aside some time ago now. It isn't warm any more. "I can show you my library when you come by to do your...whatever you're doing, with hacking."

She's more technologically savvy than many of magi in (either of) her Tradition(s), but she is still what she is.

[Molly Quincannon] Molly blinks, then shakes her head. "Not hacking. Not this time. I can't hack the timestream yet. This is ... calculations. There's going to be a lot of abstract mathematics and calculating odds and then monkeying around with the clock on my computer and then more numbers until 'here' and 'now' goes away and the math stuff I've been working will nudge my overfocused brain into the most likely 'later' as it pertains to the variables representing a particular resonance field. It's ... like high ritual, but with imaginary numbers and wingdings."

The poem - its title, certainly, gets a blink. "Don't think I've ever heard of that one. Not surprising, being a comp sci major, but still, it sounds interesting. I'll have to look it up. And I'd love to see your library, if you don't mind. I'll reciprocate if you want, though mostly right now it's robotics, AI, various coding language bits and pieces, a lot of urban horror - I like the irony - and Ellie's books on herbal remedies and aromatherapy. And a whole lot of readme files, but that I'd email. And most of that's my old tutorials from when I was an apprentice, and I imagine you have a lot of that down."

[Ashley McGowen] Imaginary numbers and wingdings, says Molly, and Ashley tries to look like she followed everything the Cultist was saying. She's an abstract thinker, though, something between an artist and a philosopher, and almost anything with numbers goes entirely over her head. So does Time magic, for the most part; it's simply not something she's ever really been able to wrap her head around. So she just nods, a cheek full of pie. "Whatever works, I guess," she says.

"I'd read the urban horror." She isn't sure whether Molly is offering up her arcane library - Ashley's offer, after all, had only extended to the mundane one, which is still quite sizable. The other isn't one she usually shares out with others, even on the rare occasion they're permitted inside her sanctum. "The other stuff probably wouldn't make much sense to a humanities person like me."

The pie is finished rather quickly, and Ashley gets up to take it over to the sink, pausing to flick a crumb off the front of her sweater. "I should probably get going. Let me know what day this week works for you, though," she says.

[Molly Quincannon] Molly gives a long, protracted stretch and then shrugs. "I dunno. I think you'd do well with the Time stuff. It's less abstract mathematics and more ... visceral, at least at root. I've built it into the mathematical from there, but at root, it's all about the pulse-beat and ... well. It's there if you ever want to have a look, anyway." While Ashley may not share out her arcane library, Molly comes from a couple of schools of thought on the learning thing, and both dictate 'pass it on' - hence the readme files and PDFs that get emailed, and tips ganked from message board posts, rather than fragile tomes.

To the declaration that Ashley is rambling on, Molly gives another nod and says, "Will do. Hope the rest of your day goes okay." With that and a little salute - oddly respectful teasing - she flips her laptop open again and prods the screen with one last little Ashley-related thought before she goes back to her (over)work: Mental note: bring baked goods for scrying thing. Something with chocolate? Hmm. Think on that. But first...

The rattle of high-speed typing follows Ashley out of the kitchen.