Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cures All?

[Ashley] [We are exploring and curious! +1 diff 'cause this is still new, even if I have a focus and whatnot.]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 4)

[Ashley] Even with more hands to assist with patrol days at the chantry, Ashley finds herself there a lot. She finds herself covering Wharil's shifts when he forgets (and contrary to what most people would expect, she never even mentions it to him) and going there to make sure there hasn't been some new disaster. With the new information she's come by and with Henri Bean (Ether Queen) having full chantry access, it's extra likely.

Today is one of her patrol days though, and Kage knows this if only because Zane is never at the chantry otherwise. There's a dusting of snow covering the lawn, not enough to conceal the blades of grass that poke up through it like the heads of a collection of spears, all that's left of an army after an avalanche, and when she draws closer to the white fence house she can hear the bark of a dog's greeting carrying from around back. Ashley let him outside there - evidently she still won't go near the front lawn.

The kitchen is the frequent gathering place for magi who come to visit the house, but Ashley is not there today. Whenever one learns a new Art, there are always new details to be noticed about familiar places. It's something Ashley hasn't experienced in a long time; she Woke with a knowledge of the ones she has now.

This kind of behavior is most often seen in those who are high. There's a houseplant that has always been in the main room, something ordinary looking with broad leaves; right now she's absorbed in a very, very intent study of said leaves. Breathing on them, bending them, watching the reaction of the Pattern that would be lost to most people, while she is draped over the arm of the chair that stands just next to the plant, one arm dangling while the other hand investigates.

[K. R. Jakes] [Awaaareness.]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 5, 8, 8 (Failure at target 6)

[K. R. Jakes] [oh, wait, actually - ?]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[K. R. Jakes] Kage never (or, rarely - once, to clean up bodies) parks in front of the White Fence House. Kage always parks on another street and walks a few blocks to the White Fence House, and in this weather, it might be an inconvenience if she wanted to come to the House of Doom and Darkness very often. But she doesn't. Kage keeps in touch, and the Orphan's presence is rarely felt (rarely dreamed [no dreams here]). This isn't to say never.

By the time she reaches the front porch, her cheeks are ruddy, her colour high, her nose bright and her breath taking the form of righteous seraphim. The door shuts quietly, and she hears Zane before she sees him. When he comes to investigate, she crouches and kisses the top of his head, giving him more of a hug than she is normally likely to (warmth). "Hello, Zane. Will you make me hot chocolate?"

She gives behind-his ears a scritch, scritch, taking off one of her gloves (--an elegant gesture) to do so properly before she stands and: truth, the kitchen is her goal. But there's the main room first, and Ashley, staring at a plant. Kage gives her a sidelong look and a raaaaaised eyebrow. "Good conversation?"

[Ashley] Ashley has not been here with the plant for very long. There are all manner of things one can see when one has attuned to the Life patterns around - things she would never have thought to look for, before - and she's spent quite some time absorbed in tracking them down throughout the house.

Plants, if it must be said, are still a bit of a mystery that she is trying to piece together. Ashley understands Will, and she understands instinct (blood): that which binds her to other living forms, the desire to thrive, Hunger. She understands that it is an outward manifestation of a Word, but ultimately what she sees is a current, how sap runs and connects the leaves to the stalk and how the flow can be altered, points where it is imperfect, points where conflict has left its mark. This is a new understanding, and it's complicated enough that she's still figuring all of it out; it's likely that she will be for some time.

"We're not talking," she says, apparently completely missing the fact that Kage's words were a touch sardonic. "Ars Animae. What'd you come by for? Just to drop in?" She leaves herself absorbed in study for just a few more seconds, and then lifts her head so she can regard Kage instead.

And then stops, because to Look at Kage hadn't been her intention, but, well. She's curious.

[K. R. Jakes] [Wait, you're using Magick RIGHT NOW? Awareness again!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8 (Success x 2 at target 7)

[K. R. Jakes] [Hey, stamina! Make my decision for me!]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 3, 5 (Botch x 1 at target 6)

[K. R. Jakes] "Don't the Verbena have their own word for the Sphere?" Kage says, inquisitive. And then she frowns, slightly, the outter edge of a shadow expression, when it's not really clear where the hard edge really is of shadow, see? She pulls her other glove off, but leaves her coat on for now. The sweep of it is graceful, and makes her look taller than she is; warmer than she is, too. She undoes the top button and says, "If you are looking at me with X-Ray eyes, I'd appreciate it if you turned them off. And 'X-Ray eyes' was a metaphor for 'ask before you scan my bones, my blood, etcetera.' I might have secrets, you know."

And she doesn't know how to counter (why can't I just learn? why doesn't it work?) the sort of touch Ashley is gracing her with. Ashley, who sees in currents, imperfections, in life-flowing-this-way, in marks-left-that-a-way, who sees

an old fracture, in the bone; a clot, near the shoulder, a place where there's more density; besmirchment in the lungs, dark-webs, teetering toward something that could one day develop into something bad, but Kage's pattern (life) burns bright (vital), even if there are other imperfections, blossoming across her hip, her calf, scar-tissue where it's never been visible to Miss Ashley McGowan, a rallying against a cloud a clot that is not rallying in the throat, falling back, see.

What it all means? Hell.

[Ashley] That chiding makes her remember her manners, so to speak; in her early days, Ashley used to go around reading people, often with the Ars Mentis, without much of a thought for whether they would want it. It wasn't a disregard of their feelings, per se: it just didn't occur to her to take them into consideration, and she was curious and hungry and fascinated with the power she suddenly had.

That is the case now, and the moment Kage tells her to ask, there's a frown that sketches itself over her brows and at the corner of her mouth, and she lets the sight fade away. Even though she's already seen much of what there is to see, or gotten a glimpse, things she can guess at.

"Sorry," she says, brief, but her apologies are rare enough things and she doesn't linger on it. "You should stop smoking, though," Ashley says, pushing herself up off the arm of the chair, into a sitting position. After a moment she pushes herself up from that too, standing, and reaching up to right the collar of the buttondown shirt that's poking up from beneath her sweater. A beat. "Do you want tea?"

[K. R. Jakes] "Should, schmoud," Kage says, and this time her expression isn't the outer edge of a shadow. This time her smirk is sharp; easy, the underside of a fire or a thorn. Kage, sharp, is easy with sharpness; she wields it with an understated nonchalance. As if she's heard that many, many times before. And she has, generally from self-righteous nonsmokers: Kage rarely smokes. She's a rare creature: that social smoker. Except, well: lately. She's finished half a pack this week, enough to usually last her all season.

"Is there tea?" Kage half-turns toward the kitchen, although she keeps her gaze on Ashley. The body language is so, coming into the kitchen with me, then. "Because," she sniffs, "Yes, I'd like some." A beat. And, a smile touching her gaze, "You didn't answer my first question. Do they?"

[Ashley] Ashley, of all people, probably should not be lecturing others on their bad habits. If her drinking hasn't caused her any problems yet, it very well might someday (unless she simply gets good enough with Life to ignore the consequences, which she might very well do.) But she frowns at Kage for a moment and waves a hand roughly about the area of her own chest, a vague gesture, and says, "No, you've got...your blood gets thick, there."

When Kage half-turns toward the kitchen Ashley starts toward it herself, easy, and Kage hasn't been around Ashley as much for the past couple of months so it would be easy to let it go unseen, that movement comes a bit more easily to her than it did (than it has, for the past ten years or so after she let her physical aptitudes taper away.) It's not grace, exactly, just a quickness, a cunning, as though she's managed to bring her physical form into line with those things which her mind is capable, finally.

"They just call it Life," Ashley says, "but I'm not a Verbena yet." She doesn't think. "I haven't really been initiated or anything."

[Molly Quincannon] All told, the Chantry house should be the last place Molly wants to be just now, given how much time she spends there. She's not even on shift. However, she did happen to notice that a few things needed restocking and feels particularly restless this afternoon, so she makes a point of dropping by. It also helps to be out of the house once in awhile. While she hasn't entirely taken recent bits of advice, there's no sense in hiding behind a computer monitor or a workbench. You never know who might be around, and she's felt a little limited in her personal interactions of late.

So enter Molly, with a couple of grocery bags as well as her usual laptop bag, bundled into a duffel coat and a hat that looks like the top of Kermit the Frog's head, complete with googly eyes (it goes oddly with the classy red striped scarf with the rising phoenixes embroidered on it, but it's quintessentially Molly). She takes a glance at the bulletin board even as she calls out to the place in general, "Hello, The House!"

[K. R. Jakes] "Next time I go to the doctor I'll get it checked out," she says, offhanded. It's not a lie, but it's probably not the truth either. It's one of those comments, a nothingness.

Kage looks a touch uneasy when Ashley makes that vague gesture toward her own chest. Lifts her hand, and undoes another button: they're brass, like the Harvest Moon, dipped in the Underworld, reflected in a Shadow. Undoes another, and the coat is free-and-loose, and they're in the kitchen now. "Yes, well. But you're learning how to use it according to their traditions, no, and still hoping to join? Shouldn't you then just call it Life?"

There's no real criticism. Her curiousity sounds purely academic. Kage, judging the Traditions from the outside looking in. An anthropological perspective. The red-haired Disciple (ardent, withering [burning, shining] draining, immanent) opens the refrigerator, scoping out the stock. In the back of the egg compartment, cunningly hidden behind a jar-on-its-side-of-pickles, is some old Tollhouse cookie dough, which she pulls out. Hello, House, Molly calls,

and Kage glances in that direction. She'd call out, but her throat hurts.

[Ashley] Next time she goes to the doctor, says Kage, and Ashley frowns. She's pretty sure that Kage probably doesn't go to the doctor that often. How often do most people their age really go, anyway? They're not even out of their twenties yet, both of them rather healthy given the givens (and if one overlooks the bumps and scratches, the way stress gnaws at the edges of their vitality, Ashley's brain damage.) She frowns, but she doesn't insist any more: she might be training to be a Verbena, but she isn't the Life Pattern police. It's the frown of a (sometimes [that's generous] possessive) friend.

"I don't know," Ashley says, of the terminology she should be using. "I mean, I don't plan on adapting the words I use to refer to the other Arts. I guess it'll...probably just depend on who I'm talking to." Or maybe she should dispense with the Hermetic terminology altogether, if she isn't around other Hermetics. It isn't as though it matters here in Chicago, really. Ashley bites the inside of her cheek. "The methods I'm using are somewhere in between both, I guess. Jarod and Kae have been more interested in helping me figure it out for myself than try to make me see things the way they do, anyway."

Which is fortunate; she would have dug in her heels if they had. The frown that has been threatening to crest over her features - hard to tell why, just yet - lifts when she notices Kage take out the cookie dough. She rests her elbows on the kitchen island and watches.

"Hey Molly! We're back here!" she calls, once the Cultist's voice reaches her ear.

[Molly Quincannon] Neither of them will see it, but Molly smiles when she hears Ashley call out; Molly's always respected Ashley, but of late, that's grown into something a lot more like fondness than Molly ever expected it to when they first met. So she heads for the kitchen (and small surprise that Ashley will be found there, comes the thought, more generous and amused than any kind of dig; it is what it is, yo) and starts talking before she reaches the doorway. "Hi, Ashley! I have things to stock the fridge with and questions about what, if anything, we do for holiday decorations over here; don't want to offend anyone but even in times of potential crisis, I really figure the place needs a bit of -- Kage!"

That last exclamatory and delighted; she may be having her own problems right now, but never let it be said that Molly can't appreciate the good things that happen, and apparently she believes Kage's appearance to be one of those good things. "Man, I haven't seen you in ages! How are you?"

[K. R. Jakes] "It's what I do," Kage says, a touch cheerfully, of terminology depending on who she's talking to. And, more neutrally, more carefully, "Certainly what others I've known to be dual traditionalists do... well, more or less." Ashley's gaze leavens when she sees the cookie dough and Kage hauls herself onto the kitchen counter, prodding the dough, checking its flexibility, with her fingers. Cool, but not frozen. She twists the package around until she finds the expiration date, and then says, "Well, what do you say, ladies? Do we like it raw or do we like it hot?"

Which is to say, hello, Molly. Have some cookie dough. Unless we're baking cookies. "On the topic of holiday decorations, today is the first day of Channukah. If either of you were looking for an excuse to get Israel a gift," and she doesn't trail away, but she doesn't complete the thought, either. Now's the time.

The perceptive might note a particular glint that comes into Kage's eyes at the mention of Israel and gift. It's the glint of mischief, rakish and remembered. It's a glint she'd probably deny the presence of. Although -- a pause, and then: "Nice hat. Reminds me of something I've seen someone else wear. Huh."

[Ashley] Ashley raises her eyebrows, because Kage said others, and perhaps she wonders if Kage knows more of them than Simon. She'd assumed it would be a rare thing, and she's never heard of anyone else in the Order of Hermes doing what she is doing - particularly not with one of the more primal Traditions. "I'd eat it raw," she says, even though she'd certainly do the same if they were to transform the dough into cookies; Ashley isn't picky. She just has slight preferences sometimes.

"I don't really celebrate," she tells Molly, "but I don't mind if you put something up." Of Israel and gifts: Ashley typically doesn't do a lot of gift giving. Not for holidays and birthdays and the like, when people tell her she should feel obligated; she does nice things for people when she feels like it. She doesn't express such sentiments, though.

She might have, had she gotten the chance. But Kage mentions the hat, and it gets a Look from the Hermetic(Verbena-to-be). "I'll fucking burn that hat if I find out where it is," Ashley says.

[Molly Quincannon] The comment about cookie dough versus cookies is, "The only reason to buy ready-made cookie dough is the convenience of eating it raw. And awesome! I promise it will be tasteful. Tree. Lights. Y'know, stuff. And yeah, Israel is difficult to shop for, but I think I managed. You're all difficult to shop for but it's a challenge!" It doesn't take a lot to look at Molly and realise that this plus her holiday decorating scheme will involve a tree under which presents will appear.

Then ... well, then comes the comment about the hat. Hazel eyes widen behind emo-chick glasses and she quickly pulls the hat off her head and hides it behind her back, looking confused and worried and kind of like a six-year-old who's brought in something deemed disgusting by the household adults. "...pleasedon'tburnmyhat..." She's probably playing it up for comedy. Maybe.

[K. R. Jakes] Kage peels the corner of the (yellow, as bright as a cab) cookie dough open. It rips easily, anxious to spill its guts and be devoured. The dough isn't fancy. Just chocolate chip, with little 'squares' impressed on the dough, for ease of pulling if one is inclined to cook with Girl Scouts or people who like to have their cookie (brownie?) sizes pre-suggested. She tears two squares off, then passes the package to whoever takes it first, crossing her ankles and pointing her toes downward.

I'll fucking burn that hat if I found out where it is and pleasedon'tburnmyhat come as she takes her first (delicate) nibble, and Kage? Kage laughs. Kage doesn't laugh often, understand. She'll smile with amusement, or grin, or chuckle, but it's really quite rare to hear her laugh, and she laughs now, light touching her features with a fleeting sort've gorgeousness, and of course

she chokes on her cookie dough, throat clotting, and winds up hunched, forehead pressing against her knees, hack, cough.

[Ashley] Ashley takes two of the little squares too, popping it into her mouth and passing it into her cheek. It makes her smirk when Molly hides her hat behind her back, because while Ashley's threat hadn't been entirely in jest (she was pretty annoyed about the hat), she can take pranking in stride, she can take things for the joke they're meant to be. It's as good natured as irritation gets, in other words. "Your hat is fine," Ashley says.

But she says no more, lest she give too much away, at which point Kage would probably be tempted to show around a certain picture, and Ashley doesn't really want to go there.

Kage, coughing, gets a concerned look but no back pat, as Ashley swallows the first chunk of cookie dough and passes the other into her mouth. "I told you," she says. "Doctor." Beat. "You okay?"

[Molly Quincannon] There'll be time to have relief over the matter of her hat being okay (and curiosity about whose hat isn't, obviously) when Kage isn't sounding like she requires the Heimlich. "What she asked, except ... y'know, more excitable. I mean, doctor-worthy tends to be bad." Then she blinks. "But ... not gonna be pushy. So long as you're okay. At least sort of."

After which she takes a deep breath (in part to encourage Kage to try one of her own, perhaps) and tries to settle down. "Sorry. Apparently my frantic freak-out tendencies are closer to the surface this week." But she's still watching Kage, pulling up the information she gleaned from old high school posters about the Heimlich manoeuvre. Just in case.

[K. R. Jakes] Kage takes a deep breath (her shoulders rise like bird-wings, sharp; her back works against her coat, the shape of her spine a nuanced shadow of a thing), and then coughs once more, lifts her head with her eyes water-bright, liquid gathered at the corners of her eyes. "Ha," and her voice is clotted smoke, hazy, fog in Los Angeles: soft. "You guys. I'm fine. I think I might be coming down with something," she clears her throat, a side-glance, towards Ashley. "Nothing serious. How've you been, Molly? Did I hear you say 'times of potential crisis' earlier? I'm not going to say should I know about etcetera, but, uh. I'm all ears."

A pause, and then, a touch wistful, "I've always liked decorating trees." And the nibbling on her cookie dough? Commences.

[Ashley] Ashley reaches over to take another few squares once Kage is done coughing. She meets that side-glance as she pulls back with a handful, something skeptical in her own gaze, but does not argue further. At any rate - she'll be an Adept of Life someday, and that day might not be nearly as far off as she'd imagined a year ago. She doesn't need a doctor (fuck Technocratic medicine) to protect her friends.

Ashley pushes herself up on one of the stools near the kitchen island, bracing her back against the corner of the counter top and tilting so that she's facing the two of them. Her legs are only just long enough for the tips of her toes to rest, light, on the bottom rung. She eats one of the squares in tiny bites.

Up until Kage revisits potential crises, and Ashley lets out a sigh. "Israel was shot on the street a couple weeks ago. It's looking like we might start to have a heavy Technocratic presence," she says. "Not that I'm surprised, after the shit that went down this summer. But there's that and we have some people who've pissed them off in the past who they might want to get a hold of, so we've been advising people to take precautions."

[Molly Quincannon] [[So ... can Molly keep her mouth shut? Was the prodigious swearing at Emily's enough?]]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Molly Quincannon] [[She can keep her mouth shut. Can she keep That Look off her face? Subterfuge]]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 5, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[K. R. Jakes] [Oh, shit. Should I be rolling something percept-y?]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 4, 7, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[K. R. Jakes] [ >.>
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 7)
to Molly Quincannon

[K. R. Jakes] [Er, there should be a, IS THAT ALL YOU GOT? after the face.

*shifty eyes*]
to Molly Quincannon

[K. R. Jakes] [And a +1. And. Stupid Kahseeno. *dies*]
to Molly Quincannon

[Molly Quincannon] Once Kage is done coughing, Molly also relaxes, smiles a little ... and puts the Kermit-hat onto Kage's head. "It complements your hair colour," she says before nabbing her first square of cookie dough and goes to start putting away the bits and pieces she picked up for the House.

...And then Kage asks about the 'times of potential crisis', and ... well, her head's in the refrigerator, so her facial expression is difficult to gauge. Still, her voice is certainly calm enough when she says, "What Ashley said, at least as far as the 'times of potential crisis' thing goes." She doesn't say anything about the 'people' Ashley mentioned or her part in bringing that mess out into the open - a little unusual, but she knows the reasons for keeping things as vague as possible. So she leaves it at, "It's not an ideal thing, but at least we know to be cautious, at least a bit."

Then she looks up and shrugs. "And I'm..." Molly is a fundamentally honest person, but she's sworn enough for one week. "...not great, but I've been worse. Which, admittedly, isn't saying a whole lot, but..." She shrugs and goes back to putting things away.

[K. R. Jakes] The kermit hat goes plop and Kage wrinkles her nose, mouth lilting to the side; a crooked half-smirk half-smile. "I shall wear it with as much aplomb as possible," and with that, she tilts it at a rakish angle, and commences wearing the kermit hat with aplomb. She waggles her eyebrows at Ashley.

Damn her anyway.

Kage snags another square or two herself, if only to hoard against Ashley's ravenous hunger. Kage sets the chocolate chip cookiedough package beside her on the counter, closer to the refrigerator and Molly. These things are subtle. These things are not: Kage's eyebrows draw together, and she says, neutral, "It isn't as if they haven't been around. Perhaps they're the ones who swallowed Kaya whole. Although it seems as likely she swallowed herself. Still, who doesn't take precautions?"

A beat. And then Kage says, to Molly, pensive: "Very succinct, Miss Quincannon. Have more cookie dough." Perhaps it's Kage's way of saying do you need a doctor.

[Ashley] "They'll be around more, probably," Ashley says. "Unless they're so good we just haven't seen them." Which is a possibility, and one that many people who aren't Ashley might admit to. "But I guess if they got Kaya, maybe I owe them a favor." Which is not the world's nicest thing to say, even about someone she didn't like much, but Ashley isn't the world's nicest person, as has been observed.

She's been eying Kage sitting there in the Kermit hat, wearing it dashingly, tilted at that angle. And frowning a little because similar revenge would be ineffective. But she still pulls her Blackberry out of her pocket, after a minute, and then snaps a picture of Kage sitting in the hat.

"Anyway, what was a problem isn't that we saw them. What was a problem is that they hurt Israel, seemingly without her instigating anything, because they thought she was tied to what they were investigating. That's more aggressive than they've usually been since the end of the War."

[K. R. Jakes] [Oh oh--Charisma+Performance!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Molly Quincannon] The bit about Kaya gets raised eyebrows, but Molly doesn't make any comment about it; all Molly knows about Kaya, she knows from Chuck - because when someone blunders into your apartment through the Umbra, it tends to get mentioned at least in passing. But she does not want to talk about that. Instead, she responds to the last bit of Ashley's bits. "Which means they're about as smart as a sack of hammers. Israel, Nathan and Thomas came out of that as badly as they did. Maybe they've just got more paranoid, I dunno. But we're going to be figuring out what they're up to around here so maybe we can ... well, decide what to do about it when we find out what it is. How's your schedule looking, Ashley?"

Noooooo, she's not talking about how 'succinct' she's being, though there's a blush. There's also an eyeing of the cookie dough. "Is that ... like, everyone's cure for ... personal issues?" It's not angry, this question; it's genuine curiosity. "I mean, I know there has to be a reason for the stereotype, but ... does chocolate chip cookie dough really cure all ills?"

[K. R. Jakes] ooc: Hey, skip me, guys - I'm hobbling to the kitchen for some (I hope) sustenance. BRB!

[Ashley] Ashley has gone a touch quiet; she's still sitting there, taking small bites, but her gaze has wandered off to some indeterminate point in the kitchen, fixated on nothing that is particularly important. Perhaps some of her mood can be attributed to the fact that nothing particularly horrible has happened in Chicago lately, no new disaster. They're about due.

The Hermetic draws one leg up against her chest, her heel against the top of the stool, and looks toward Molly when asked about her schedule. "Free," she says. "I like to keep things flexible for stuff like this." And her mundane obligations are not what they used to be. She just doesn't have the time or space in her life, anymore, to keep up with all of it. Though some Hermetics manage; perhaps she should ask Hannibal how he does.

"It doesn't cure all ills," Ashley says, "but it's my most G-rated option at the moment." Another bite.

[Molly Quincannon] Molly nods to the flexibility and starts going over her schedule in her head. "I've got a deadline to hit tomorrow on that stupid encryption system project or my boss'll have my hide, and then there's class, and I promised Ellie I'd go over the basics of pizza dough, and I've got a tutorial with Isabel tomorrow, followed by actually having to go into the office for the afternoon and..." She winces. "I'll ... find a slot somewhere along the way. Would the weekend be okay? It's the only time I can think of for Big Block of Free Time."

Then, the bit about G-rated options gets a slow, surprised-but-delighted sort of smile. "Oh, really. Are we at least allowed to hear the PG-13-rated options? I mean, we're all adults here. Even if we don't act like them. Or dress like them." She has, for the record, removed her coat to reveal a pair of jeans and a T-shirt upon which Count von Count proclaims, "I AM THE COUNT, AND I LOVE TO COUNT, AH-AH-AH-AH!"

[Ashley] "Weekend's fine," Ashley says, and it's followed by a somewhat wary glance at Molly. These are not things that one says to a Cultist, in her experience, and she hadn't expected to be asked to expand. She just reaches up and plucks at the hair at the back of her neck for a few moments, saying, "There's been too much drama at my bar lately. I'm avoiding it for a couple of days."

She says this, but without any indication that she might want to go into great length with an explanation, elaborate overmuch. Ashley isn't a person who copes with things via Let's Talk About It.

Molly's T-shirt earns a twitch of the corner of her mouth as she finishes off one of the little squares in her hand. "Anyway, I was also wondering how many contacts you have in the online community. I have the feeling we're going to end up doing a lot of counter-intel if the Technocracy finally decides they want to get their shit together and be prominent here."

[K. R. Jakes] Let it be noted. When Ashley lifts her phone to snap a photograph of Kage, Kage smiles big and poses, dashingly. It'll wind up being a cute photo.

And she listens, quietly. Pensively. No comment on Molly's blush (she already made the comment [that's all for now]) and no comment on cookie dough (yet [it cures a hellofa lot]). Kage doesn't think the Technocratic Union is particularly evil. Kage doesn't think they're (too) much worse than the Traditionalists she knows. Kage believes, although she tries not to wear it on her sleeve (sometimes, those threads reveal a heart, howsoever much she is not consciousof it), that people are people, no matter what they are.

Finally, she says, "If I'm feeling beset by ills, personally I avoid food. But cookie dough certainly lifts a normal day into the realms of the exalted. Or it can, anyway," and it's offered offhandedly enough that she isn't going to derail the conversation from online contacts and Technocratic oh noesing.

[Molly Quincannon] Molly wrinkles her nose at that, a little confused. "You have a bar? Not like Nathan had a bar, right? Or ... we're talking about the Hung, Drawn and Quartered, maybe? Man, I so cannot imagine that place seeing drama. Though Wren and I were drinking in there once and ... well, that's not so much drama as getting dubya-tee-eff looks. But she was in a cowboy hat and I was dressed in tweed and bow tie a la Matt Smith so ... no one knows what I'm talking about right now, never mind."

Ashley doesn't want to go into explanations, though, and she's asked a question that Molly can answer. "Well, I've got a few directly and they've got a few and it all branches out into a Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon sort of thing, so it's really easiest to tell you the areas I've got the contacts. I've got a friend who works the Tribune - their admin offices, so they tend to get the buzz on anything going in and out and I've got some pretty good intel from her since I got here. There's someone I know from my bright college days who's my go-to for legal stuff... Nathan's probably got closer acquisitions contacts than I do but I know a guy in Texas who can get you anything ... and then there's my bud in DC, where I get all my political insider stuff. That of any help? I mean, obviously there's limits to what I can ask someone to do when I mostly know them as an online persona but so long as it's mostly intel assets I'm mining, they shouldn't have too much trouble with filling me in when and if they can."

[Ashley] "I don't own it," she says. "But yeah. I meant the Hung Drawn and Quartered." As to the drama, Ashley just rolls her eyes after a second, but she apparently sees no need to elaborate.

Kage, who did indeed look quite dashing in the photo, got a grumpy expression because the picture is in fact quite cute. She holds up the phone so that Kage can see it before she slides it away into her pocket again without comment. Only to turn an intent pair of eyes toward Molly, watchful, hungry, while she digests what the Cultist tells her.

"Good," she says. "It'll wind up being useful." Though she doesn't know precisely for what, yet. Still in the formulating stage, all of this.

[K. R. Jakes] "How do you know they targeted Israel because they thought she was related to something they were investigating?" Kage asks, pulling another square of cookie dough apart. She doesn't look smug when Ashley shows her the photo. She just nods, as if it is to be expected. Kage is an arrogant creature, sometimes -- she'd have to be, a Willworker who's reached Disciplehood on her own (no support [echoes]). "Did anybody actually talk to them afterward?"

[Molly Quincannon] "They had a description of her relating to issues at a derelict building," Molly says in response to Kage. "Basically, there was a freak-out at the site of an old insane asylum - and it's actually easy to see why; place was built on a freakin' node and the node apparently sucked up about ten different shades of nasty from the shit the staff at this supposed psychiatric institute were pulling - I have old news articles and reports and it was sick, I'm telling you. Anyway, so then when they went after Israel, they said to her - or so she tells me - that they were claiming that she was wanted for questioning in relation to an incident at the site, which could mean damn near anything at this point. If I had the same backdoors into the FBI that I do in the Chicago PD - their firewalls aren't for shit, by the way, CPD - I'd be doing some serious checking, but I've held off because I don't want to make matters worse for her if something goes wrong."

After all that, she turns a bit of a wry grin Kage's way. But if by 'they' you mean the FBI bods in question? Not that I know about. But there'll be some looking into that too. Just ... at least starting from a place where it'd be harder for them to shoot at us. When the law enforcement bods are as happy to shoot at you as look at you," she says, from very up-close-and-personal experience, "it's probably just as well not to take them at their word anyway."

[Ashley] When Molly begins explaining the incident at the Asylum, and then what the Technocrats said regarding the investigation, to Kage, Ashley remains quiet. Molly does get a lot of information, after all, and Ashley sometimes has the very Akashic tendency to pare down her speech to the necessities. It's what comes of having one for a father. Besides, there's still cookie dough.

"I have no intention of trying to speak with them," Ashley says. "It's not really a tactic that's worked well for us in the past." Kage has always had ambivalent feelings about 'us,' particularly, it seems, when it's Ashley using it; nevertheless, it's clear that Kage is meant to be grouped in with them, there. She's at their chantry, after all, not a Technocratic lab. And they'd classify her as a reality deviant all the same. "If they aren't inclined to talk to us, I don't see why I should go out of my way to keep from giving them what they're asking for."

[K. R. Jakes] The Orphan leans back. Her shoulder-blades kiss the wall. Her spine is a C. The slouch is the height of casuality. She crosses her legs, and her left foot tap, taptaps. If there's one thing that's changed about Kage in the whole year prior, it's this: she doesn't deliberately change another person's sentence around when they group her in with them (not usually, although it's still blue-moon rare to hear her say 'us' herself). She lofts her eyebrows quite high as she listens to Molly, Information Girl, and then says,

"Huh. Near Chicago? Because - " a pause; a frown waits in the wings, but hasn't heard it's entrance line yet. " - aw, Hell. I should learn more about the way Nodes work, the theory of their being, etcetera." A pause, and then - here it is; the frown. "I'm sorry, but I think I missed something, then - what are they asking for? If the goal is not co-existence, defense and protection, then what is the goal?"

[Wharil Choc] 'Hot damn!' comes the whisper from the door, more of a hissed exclamation really, and more of a strange sort of interruption throughout the house as it mingles with the sound of the front door slides open and, almost immediately, slams shut again. There's someone at the door. Someone who feels comfortable enough simply walking in. Someone who's obviously brave enough to push past all the mental wards to escape the cold outside.

And yet, by now, that hissing voice might sound kind of...strange. Familiar, yet...not.

He makes his way through the house and toward the kitchen. Its definitely a he. The three in the kitchen can tell based soley on the trounce of feet, the trudging gate, the heavy-voiced sigh that acompanies it all. Its either a man or a particularly graceless woman. But, most of them, might be expecting the dark suit, the wook coat, the shoulder length hair that the man who apears at the kitchen door previously wore like a uniform. Instead, Kage and Molly might turn to see a decidedly strange looking, ruddy skinned man, about the hight and shape of Wharil Choc, but dressed in clothes too casual and hair too close to the scalp to actually bbe Wharil Choc. Ashley has seen it before. She's seen his hair even lowwer, in fact. His hair has already started growing back, and is more of an encompassing fuzz over his scalp.

He stops, apparently not expecting to see them there. he smells of clean, cold air, and hints of bar. Cigarettes and booze. There's even a paper bag that he holds in his arms, with the tops of a six pack sticking out of it.

"Oh. Hey. Did I...interrupts something?"

He looks tired. Less tired, less drawn, than the last time Ashley saw him, but still noticeable enough for the others. He sounds cold. Normal. Just this side of cheery. But cold.

[Molly Quincannon] "That," Molly says with a shrug, "is part of what I'm going to be trying to find out this weekend. The mundane ways of digging up what they want have met dead ends so far, so I'm going to try looking the other way ... with a view to the odds." Time and Entropy, then, and she grins a little at Ashley. "With a lot of help to make sure I'm not a really big beacon of 'SHOOT HERE'. But if I had to guess what they want? I figure they want the makings of a base of operations - though I don't think 'co-existence' is what they have in mind. Fact is, so far they're not outright asking for anything except for ... well, we're kind of translating bullets into a request to 'plzdie; kthnx'."

Yes, Molly can speak LOL.

Then she frowns a little into the middle distance, which is the closest Molly comes to checking a watch when she's not doing active Time magic. "Oop. I should actually start packing up and heading out. It's shopping night. When did I get to be a responsible adult? Did I blink and miss it? Any last questions I can field before I go? And can I please have my hat back?"

[Molly Quincannon] [[Added for Wharil-arrival.]]

Then there's the query from the doorway, and Wharil gets a beaming smile and, if he doesn't move fast enough, a hug. That's two people that she's wanted to check in with in the same day. Life can be awesome. Except... "You couldn't have come in fifteen minutes ago? Now I have to hug and run! But hi, Wharil! Glad to see you, and ... yay beer?"

[Ashley] "I can give you information on the Ars Vis," Ashley tells Kage, but the pointed edge to the grin she flashes in the Orphan's direction suggests that she doesn't expect to be taken up on it. Which is all well and good - she can't imagine going to Kage for magical studies either, and not just because she's an Orphan (Ashley, after all, has proven that she is willing to go outside the Order of Hermes for theory, now.)

"I don't know what the goal is," Ashley says. "But...yeah, Molly's right. We're mostly just translating the message they've already given, and it doesn't sound like one of peaceful co-existence to me." Not that she would really give it much thought if it was, really. The Technocracy is bigger than her, the most open challenge she could get to her own Will: Ashley would not let it exist on its own for long anyway.

Wharil's appearance makes her eyebrows raise. There's a moment where her eyes skim her cabalmate, take in his appearance. He doesn't look quite as bad as when she last saw him, but then again, Ashley isn't exactly a caregiver; gauging these things is not her specialty. She's about to say something to him when Molly gets up and...hugs him. Abruptly. Ashley isn't sure if they're well acquainted, but she's already sliding back into her seat on the stool, almost curling up, as though fearing she's next.

"Hey, Wharil," she says, belatedly. "And no, you didn't. We just got wind of the Technocracy stepping up a little while ago and Molly and I were telling Kage about it."

[K. R. Jakes] [ Ahem. Charisma + Performance again. Can I mimic this person?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 6, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[K. R. Jakes] Enter, Wharil. Kage stares at him for a heartbeat. His presence: an unexpected thing, a surprise. And " - your hair," she says, "is gone." That's surprise, too. After she is done expressing the surprise this hungry-looking Wharil brings, this Wharil without dark hair and a white flash of a smile, this Wharil, well - after that, she pulls the kermit hat from her head and hands it wordlessly to Molly. "Hello, Wharil," and here, the lilt of a smile (easy as moonshine, easy as shadow).

I can give you information on the Ars Vis, Ashley says, and Kage gives her a glance. Unbenownst to Wharil and Molly (well, if it is benownst, it's unbenownst to Kage that it's benownst), Kage once upon a time spent a lot of her time around magi of the Order of Hermes. Then she sits up, and practically transforms into another person: it's the way she holds herself, as if she were a cup, full up on arrogance, as if she were shadow-soft, as if she were IMMENSE, as if she DOMINATED a room simply by existing and it was no big thang, and her smile is soft, too, although it edges into the realm of caricature,

"Ah, Ashley. How quaint. I'm sure you believe your little theories on the 'way things work' are ... interesting, and I'm sure they make sense to you, barring a little more thought."

And it's pretty clear that she's mocking the pompousity of some Mages, specifically Order of Hermes. Good thing there's no representative but Ashley around?

[Wharil Choc] "Uh." Is all he manages to say to Molly. The bottles clink and she can feel other groceries in the rest of the bag. He accepts the hug but it all comes a little late and too fast to return the sentiment. Still, it does something strange to him, something few have been able to do in the past few months. it makes him smile. Light and confused, but clearly a smile.

It wanes as it gets handed around to the others,. It all but fades at the mention of the technocracy. He shakes it off. He visibly shakes his head as if trying to get the thought off his trail, and moves toward the refrigerator.

Beer.
Milk
Eggs
Bacon.
A bag of frozen peas and carrots.

They all go into the fridge and the freezer. Was he living here? Was this even out of the ordinary? How many of them had actually been to Wharil's house. Seen where he lived. Where he slept. How much did they actually know about him.

"So uh...What's the latest?" He asks, turning from the fridge with a beer in his left hand, and another in his right being offered inquisitively to the two that weren't leaving. If they didn't want one, he'd simply put the right hand baeer back into the fridge

[Molly Quincannon] She lets Wharil go and looks him over, then looks back at Kage and Ashley, and with a bit of a grin she says, "I'm going to miss some fairly awesome conversation; I can just tell. Short answer, Wharil - they've been shooting at Israel and now we're going to find out what the hell they want here. Ashley has details, but I'm just a phone call away anyway. Actually," she adds, looking him over again, "just come and have dinner sometime. My lasagne's getting pretty awesome, if I say so myself." And you need feeding, clearly goes unsaid, but she turns to Kage and Ashley and says, "That goes for you two also, 'kay? Ashley, I'll call about esoteric ritual math future scry thing. Kage, you have to come meet the ferrets. And thanks," she adds, sticking her Kermit hat back on. "Oh, and Ashley, could you send me a copy of that picture you took of Kage? I want it for the Wall."

With a random thinking-out-loud comment of, "Right. Must remember to order the zombie-Santa wrapping paper before it sells out this year...", Molly's out the door.