Horace Gladstone
Text: I am below; are you readied?
Pen is in her car, the heat blasting, the music also blasting although contained by a Force shield so as not to disturb the neighbors. The music which is blasting is not Christmas music.
N. Hyde
Pen's car is in front of the house that contain's Nick's apartment: a large Victorian with a wraparound porch, the paint and siding looking just this side of weathered. When she arrived, she couldn't make it into the driveway: there are cars piled up there, boxing in Nick's little 2003 Honda Civic in front of the garage. The flat below him appears to be crammed with people, from what she can see inside the windows. There is a tree in the window of that flat, shining red and gold and as resplendent as one day Pen will be herself.
Upstairs is Nick's apartment, and there's a flickering candle just visible through the window that is wicked out seconds after she sends her text, as though overpowered by the Nick-shaped shadow that appears momentarily through the frost that has crept over the glass.
There is a return text: Yes. Be down in a minute.
Nick has a good sense of timing, as only a little more than sixty seconds later he appears from around the back porch, dodging a small child who tears past him chasing another small child; both have shiny new Nerf guns.
He is not wearing a hat, and the observant might notice that this is because it would probably undo whatever he has tried to do to tame his hair somewhat: apparently added oil to lend weight and swept the tuft that usually hangs over his forehead somewhat out of the way. It makes him look older, though not by much. He hurries toward Pen's car and climbs inside before the cold can soak into him, and probably also before he has the chance to be hit by a wayward Nerf missile.
Horace Gladstone
Nicholas can feel the music reverberate in his breastbone the first moment after he gets into the car. The windshield wipers go squeak, squeak but nobody can hear their mousey cry over the more bombastic sound of a Quentin Tarantino soundtrack. Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood.
"What a handsome devil I am bringing to my teacher's get together," she says, affectionate rake of a glance, and of course she turns the stereo down a touch. Peels out of the drive-way like a bat out of Hell on a mission, careful of some of the ice. Pen's hair is loose and in 1940s waves, looks redder and bloodier than usual; it is Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Beatriz-style hair or some 1940s' starlet vamp's hair.
"What's Anna going to be doing?"
N. Hyde
He steps into the car and the guitars hit him: Pen is certainly gearing up to see Lysander, isn't she? This does nothing to soothe Nick's nerves, which have been a little frazzled since this morning when he realized he is about to walk into a party entirely made up of Hermetics, all of whom are older and more experienced than he is, and one of whom is Pen's teacher. He would probably feel more relaxed meeting her parents than her Hermetic mentor.
His look over at her as he settles into the seat and buckles his seatbelt takes in her hair, its vivid crimson, and smiles in a way that is more for himself than to her, one of those moments when his eyes betray him. "There wasn't anywhere to get it cut on Christmas. I'm glad it looks halfway presentable." His expressions of affection are more frequently nonverbal, evidenced as - he can't help but gently catch one of the curls between his fingers and brush it over her shoulder. "I like yours, by the way."
Pen mentions Anna. At this, his hand falls away and he slumps back against the seat, his eyes rolling skyward. "Well, Thane came over and they hit it off. By which I mean Anna basically jumped him and I excused myself to avoid being the third wheel." Pause. "It's just as well. I was worried she'd be bored while I was off with you."
Horace Gladstone
He likes hers, by the way. "Thank you," Pen says, with a smile that seems like a secret though it isn't not really. It's only private, and pleased, and thoughtful.
It's such a wealthy thing for somebody to say, there wasn't anywhere to get it cut on Christmas. Pen is still, and will forever and always be, a little finely tuned to notice such remarks. She can count the number of times she has had her hair cut professionally or by someone who wasn't a parent or sibling or herself on one finger of one hand.
She laughs when he tells her about Anna's reaction to Thane, and Thane's reaction to Anna. "I am most happy to hear that Thane will be having a pleasant Christmas night. You can still cry off, if you want to."
"Robby truly thinks you should."
N. Hyde
There are a lot of brothers who would be far more aggressive toward a likely one night stand than Nick appears to be toward Anna right now. His attitude is one of quiet resignation, and this because Anna has made a regular habit of this while the two of them were growing up, and since then. His sister is an impulsive creature, far more like their father than either Nick or Vivienne, and truth be told he is mainly relieved that Thane is not the sort with whom it is likely to cause additional drama.
That, at least, can be said to have improved over the years. "Me too. I guess it ended up working out."
That Pen has noted his comment, he does not appear to pick up on. Nick, after all, has been working consistently for a year and a half; regardless of his upbringing, though not impoverished like Pen's, it has given him time to pick up his own habits as regards finances.
His glance toward her when she says that Rob thinks he should call off is sidelong, difficult to read. "What do you think?"
Horace Gladstone
"Well I did pick you up, didn't I?" Pen says, flash of a smile and a quick glance away from the street. Where they're going she has to drive; there are Wards, secret words to say, all of that, or else you just don't get through. A fog, a cul de sac, an eternal cul de sac. And then, more seriously:
"But I don't know. I didn't really think about how it might be for you; I just want to be with you," Pen says, simply. "I can't believe how often I want to just be with you; it's getting to be a problem, Hyde."
"If you do want to listen to Robin, well, he does like it when people listen to him."
N. Hyde
It's getting to be a problem, she says, and Nick smiles and turns his eyes away from her, somewhere out the window, and where she's told him before that she wants him and he's turned playful, this - it embarrasses him. Cuts through him in a way, perhaps, evidenced by the way his fingertips touch and spring against each other just to have something to do with his hands. "I'm glad you invited me. I would've...I mean, I thought I was just going to be missing you all day, so I'm glad we..."
His hand has found his hair in the back, has wound into a fistful of curls, which he tugs on thoughtfully. A beat. "I do want to meet Lysander," he says. "I just haven't really been around that many members of the Order before. Especially not prominent ones."
Truth be told, Nick hasn't even been around that many prominent Chakravanti in one place, and while he will meet some of them individually, such a meeting of them together will not happen for years later. He will be in a distant country then, a place he could not imagine himself now. "Rob could stand to be proven wrong on occasion."
Horace Gladstone
Pen is sharp-eyed, but her eyes are also on the road. She is very aware of Nicholas in the passenger seat, the hallowed hush of him; the change in the air pressure of her car, just because he's there. But little signs, she misses. Fidgeting, looking out the window.
Rob could stand to be proven wrong on occasion.
"I could not have a better master," she says. Her voice is particularly kind; light-struck. She adjusts the heat in the car, then switches to another song. Santa Esmeralda, enough of you.
Goodnight Moon, Shivaree. Hello.
"I'm glad you said that." And she is. Also simply, and wholly. Because she wants to be with him, see?
--
The car ride is about a forty minute, hour minute ride without traffic. There isn't a lot of traffic on a snowy, ridiculous Christmas day, the ice gray and the snow mounding up and up. When it begins to snow, it looks like they're driving through stars.
--
Eventually, Pen pulls up to a house. Of course it is a house the way a Greek god is a man or woman. Obviously not a house at all, and yet the shape is somewhat similar. Tudor Revival Mansion right near a mansion belonging to the Vanderbilts, steepled eaves with Renaissance carvings and a vast field behind and a cliff and the sea and stunning vistas and it was unnoticeable until a word was spoken and then oh hey this driveway this long driveway through wrought iron gates with wreathes on Victorian lanterns and a flutter of red.
She parks in front of the house; there are three other visible cars.
N. Hyde
It snows during the drive, and the driving flakes form a tunnel around them, and his eyes are in continual motion throughout the trip: it brings to mind scifi movies, lightspeed, hurtling onward into the black. He comments and shares his observations and questions (always questions) throughout the drive, if only because his reservations about dancing or singing in the car (he can do neither, at least not with any particular talent) have not yet fallen away.
Nick lived in Northampton prior to moving to Connecticut just before the summer. He has been in the northeast for three and a half years, give or take a few months; long enough to have grown accustomed to the change of scenery. This house, though, is the sort of thing he imagined when he imagined moving to New England; this is evident in the way his jaw falls open, just slightly, as they pull into the drive. He has seen mansions before, outside Phoenix, vast and with carefully manicured lawns, but they didn't carry the scent of Old Money the way this place does.
"Does he...live here?"
N. Hyde
[Perception + Awareness!]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 5 )
Horace Gladstone
The silence is impressive once the music is cut. Pen is steeling herself there in the driver's seat, gathering herself to face her mentor and his friends with her Euthanatos boyfriend as a surprise plus one. Hands on the wheel, and she looks up at Horace Lysander Notos Gladstone's house. Does Horace - Lysander - live here?
"Some of the time."
Deep breath, she puffs out her cheeks, takes her hands from the wheel and holds them in the air - then smiles one of her lake-witch smiles, something belonging to somebody who has pulled swords out of water and air and the radiance of morning on fog, a touch of mischief which elevates it from grim. "Grab the wine from the backseat, will you?"
Nicholas's sixth sense is very, very keen right now. Pen leads them right to the front door, then pulls on an old-fashioned bell-pull. And he can feel, in the air, strange resonances. Dauntless (Commanding [Radiant, and Radiant Again, Dawn-soaked Horizon-brimming Radiance]), and Elegant (Complex, Designing). Tenebrous, Inspiring, and Celestial. A pin-wheel of stars, an endless movement: a whiff of candle-smoke and the sense of late afternoon sunlight, slanting. Demanding, and Just. Forceful, Vigorous. Subtle. Almost lost in the rest, that one.
The door is opened by a young man without resonance. He has freckles and glasses and he smiles coldly at Pen and nervously at Nicholas and clearly resists pushing his glasses up his nose.
"Come in, come in. I'll take your coats. Master Gladstone and the others are in the solarium."
N. Hyde
Only sometimes - as though living in a house this huge, this grand, were an option. Which, for Pen's mentor, it sounds as though it is.
Nicholas grabs the wine from the back, and holds it one handed by the neck, his grip loose.
His sixth sense is perhaps keen today purely because he is wide awake, fresh to the new experience; he was not exaggerating when he told Pen that he had never really been around this many powerful magi at once. As a Disparate, Nick frequently avoided other magi in fact, favoring interaction mainly with wandering spirits and whatever he could find in the dead lands (the world encompassing or as below or just past, depending on who you ask.) The mixture of resonances hit him and he is aware of how they've all seeped into this place. There is also: Burnished (a deep glow, brass and gold [it can't stay]), Verdant alongside it, someone who is Incisive enough to remind him of his sister, Malleable, and the heavy-hanging of the Destined.
Nick stares at the young man as though, at first, expecting him to be Lysander. He clearly is not. Still, Nick is polite as he shrugs off and hands over his coat and the knitted green scarf beneath: "Thank you, Mr...?"
Horace Gladstone
"Green. Collin Green."
The freckled young man has bony wrists, which are quickly stifled by Nicholas's coat and green scarf. He does judge Nicholas on his wardrobe. Pen, too. Beneath her coat, Pen has some casually glamourous thing, silver and shining, water-light and gloaming.
"You are, I presume, Mister Hyde bani Chakravanti? Is there anything you need?"
"I know the way; come on, Nick. Seeya, Col."
She slips her arm through Nicholas's elbow and deeper into the belly of the beast. Which is to say, a house that was constructed during the Gilded Age and which, while clearly still influenced by the Gothic Era, maintains shadows of this Gilded Age yet: the paneling, platinum gilt here and there, carved mythic creatures in the wood, marble floors and then hardwood and then stairs and then such doors and such carpets and sound just seems muted here.
There are a number of lit candles; their way, in fact, seems to be lit by a number of burning things. And evergreen boughs, candles (or other starry things) set within, bobbing and dancing.
Horace Gladstone
ooc: ahem, 'and draws him deeper into the belly of the beast.'
N. Hyde
[DO NOT GAPE.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 6, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
N. Hyde
As much as he dislikes giving in to stereotype, Nick feels awkward wearing color. His wardrobe consists of mainly whites and greys and sometimes darker purples or blues, but he has an eye for contrast, and makes use of it. Today: his shirt is the deep purple of the sky at late sunset, buttons light grey as the clouds that pipe across the horizon backlit by the fading light. It's well fitted, but subtle: you could lose him, easily, if you weren't looking for him.
Nick likes it that way.
His expression somehow remains perfectly even as Collin introduces himself. "Nice to meet you, Collin Green," he says, and this sounds genuine enough; when asked what he needs he shakes his head just before being led by Pen farther into the house.
As inwardly awed as he is by the gilding, the unapologetic opulence of the place, he manages to move through as though he belongs there. He was invited here; he does belong here. "If I get in over my head, I am going to give you long blink quick blink long blink. It's very important that you pay attention," and this, said with such gravity that one could believe he is serious.
N. Hyde
[how terrible will this be]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (10) ( success x 1 )
N. Hyde
[Perception + Alertness?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 5, 7, 7, 7) ( success x 3 )
N. Hyde
[more terribleness?]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (1, 6) ( success x 1 )
Horace Gladstone
Collin Green does not follow them. He disappears neatly into the mansion, folds up and away as if he never was. So do their coats, gone to a closet or to a room for coats, where the coats will have their own Christmas Party, gossip about their owners, complain about summer's inevitable tedium. Big houses like these Gilded Age houses like these are replete with hidden passageways for the servants. Unseen but ever present.
Useful, a fire could seem to just conjure itself out of pure air. Useful. One never questions how that pitcher of hot chocolate came to appear on the bedside table, or that note, or that rose, or those sheets, or anything needed or desired. One never needs to think about them as enchantments; they are conveniences, merely. This is an old house. There are old-fashioned furnaces in them: iron monsters, made decorative because they're so large they had to be made decorative or else be an eyesore.
The Solarium is in the back of the house, a relatively short walk from the front door. They have passed a grand staircase to follow that hall with the evergreens and the lights. They pass a number of open rooms, all of them decorated for a Festival of Lights, all of them with one candle burning, sometimes misleadingly looking like two or three or more: mirrors, mostly. Trickery, illusion. Broad fireplaces, marbled with gryphons and other wingéd creatures. Where the eaves are wood and carved and opulent and where there is exposed stone or brick where the mansion looks Tudor, like John Dee should be making an appearance, a young John dee, perhaps there are hidden enigmas in the wood: or perhaps the creator of the house merely thought the craftsmanship was lovely; that it was worth doing, thoroughly, this sort of beautification of a household.
Nicholas was invited here.
He does belong here.
The first time Penelope came to this house she'd already been Horace Lysander Notos Gladstone's student for three months. He had a lesson to teach her. The Minotaur Lesson, she described it to Robin, later. They'd only just met, Rob and Penelope. The Minotaur Lesson. It doesn't involve string, but cleverness!
--
Pen makes an amused noise, and when they meet with Lysander she is giving Nicholas 'The Eyes.' "Like this?" Long close of her eyes fake crash into a pedestal with a marble statue of a nymph on it. Quick blink. Long blink. Beguiling eyelash work, smoulder smoulder.
Horace Lysander opens a door into the hall the cabalmates are walking, and Pen is so wrapped up in being silly and flirtatious that she certainly has not won initiative this time 'round. The Adept Major leans over the threshold, hand on the knob and feet (comfortable loafers the kind with leather soft as butter) still inside the room.
"Pen!" As if he opened the door just then because he expected to find Pen and Nicholas there. Because he did. "Here!" Not there. Don't keep going. Stop. Pen's stop is abrupt because she was wrapped up in aforementioned silly flirtatiousness.
"I'm just grabbing a book for Apollonius. Come in; we'll all return to the party together." He looks to be in his mid-to-late thirties, possibly early forties. Burnished hair, short but it wants to be longer and wild. He has a long face, angular around the jaw without being pointed. A short beard, closer to a seven o' clock shadow than a five o' clock. Five o' clock came and went without a razor.
Pen looses Nicholas's arm after a squeeze. Nicholas can feel Horace Lysander's resonance, of course, but also the vague glint of someone else already in the room. Someone used to being passed over, going unnoticed. A woman with dark hair. Lysander waits until Pen and Nicholas enter; then he closes the door behind them.
The room is round, and also a small library. There are two stone gryphons in the center of it, and a desk with a comfortable chair. The stone gryphons might well come alive and disembowel someone not supposed to be there. The ceiling is painted to represent a celestial skyscape; the floor is parquetry, wood of many kinds. There is a sharp, coppery smell to it -- not quite blood, but ozone.
N. Hyde
This house is labyrinthine: Nick gets the impression as they walk through it that the two of them could turn a corner and things would've moved, that they might wander into one of the rooms of candles and trickery and somehow step through into a too-long hallway or a stair that goes down, down, down. This is a Hermetic manor; that is certainly not outside the realm of possibility. Or probability, even.
Nicholas almost does not notice Lysander when Pen's Hermetic mentor appears. He will ruefully examine, afterward, the first impression he probably makes: flustered, staring at her with some red tinging his cheeks, and his thoughts definitely far away from the room that they are walking through.
He doesn't collide with a statue as Pen pretends to do. This is all to the good.
Lysander appears, and Nick's stop is also abrupt as he takes in the man in front of him. The dark haired woman nearby, who he makes eye contact with, acknowledges the presence of, but doesn't have a chance to linger on because there's this Hermetic here who he desperately wants to make a good impression on.
He is not sure whether he should wait for Pen to introduce him, so instead he walks alongside her past Lysander and into the waiting round room.
Horace Gladstone
The dark haired woman Nicholas acknowledges raises an eyebrow when he acknowledges her; when he meets her eyes. Her own regard is steady, and she is dressed in black: neat black, red mouth, dark eyes.
Door closed, Lysander turns first to his apprentice. He is smiling, and it is a satyr's easy smile; a soldier's easy smile. Do soldiers have easy smiles? When they are brave and they are bold, when they are in a moment between hard moments. A soldier knows what life is for. A general does, too. What lives are for, and where to spend them. Lines around his mouth and lines around his eyes, a life well-lived (and how many lives spent? And where?).
He clasps her hand. "Merry Christmas." He is still clasping her hand when he turns to Nicholas, and he isn't hurrying or speaking quickly but there is something quick(silver) nonetheless about Horace Lysander Notos Gladstone. Deft. "You must be Nicholas Hyde, the Chakravanti lover."
Up go his eyebrows; his smile spreads after a beat, a slow seep. He offers Nicholas his hand. I'm Horace Lysander Notos Gladstone, Adept Major bani Flambeau ordo Hermes, welcome to my home. Glad you could come. This is my associate Diana Antimony Eleonora Lovelace-Donne, bani Fortunae ordo Hermes."
N. Hyde
He had been steeling himself for the inevitable moment that Lysander's attention would turn away from Pen to him. Last night, he secretly rehearsed his introduction, and it always involved the same sort of easy composure and warmth that he manages in the other half of his life, the one lived among Sleepers. See, there, Nick is the only one with the accumulated wisdom of recalled lives, the only one who is guided by something greater than himself, some half-glimpsed distant ideal of Ascension. There has been something healing for him in that.
Here, he is prey in the tall grass. He knows it, in the way clever prey knows that it's prey and knows that it will have to be quick on its feet.
He, too, smiles as he reaches out to take Lysander's hand. His eyes are steady in spite of how he's identified: the Chakravanti lover. "Nick is fine," he says. "It's good to meet you both. I've heard a lot about you from Pen." He doesn't direct this specifically at Lysander (he has heard nothing of Diana), mainly out of politeness, out of the usual desire he has to ensure that voices are not left out of the conversation.
Horace Gladstone
"A pleasure," Diana murmurs. "Sander, if you are distracted by social obligation you will never find the book and we will perish here."
"Right, right," Lysander says. "Forgive my momentary inattention; after I find this book, I'll give you a tour, Nick."
"Hello, Diana," Pen says, carefully. "How are you? How is Evelyn?"
"The boy is doing quite well; as am I, although," a brief pause. Red red mouth becomes a frown; it would probably be just as lovely if it were dipped in blood. But why should it be dipped in blood? "But I promised I would not be boring tonight on the subject of my calculations. Nick, what is your area of interest? Your speciality? Have you made much of a study of past lives?"
N. Hyde
Questions are dangerous. Questions are always dangerous.
Nick knows this; he is a man who asks a lot of questions. He understands their power to control a conversation, to expose vulnerabilities while betraying none.
When he thought of how this party would go last night when Pen first invited him, he imagined himself slipping by beneath everyone else's notice. He imagined lingering in the background while people far more important and powerful than himself talked among themselves, and picking up the occasional bit of useful or interesting information.
He is beginning to understand how very, very wrong he was.
"Not of past lives, specifically," he says. "I've directed the bulk of my work toward understanding spirit realms and the Umbra, and learning how to interact within them." Then, with an air of polite curiosity, "Are you Evelyn's master, then?"
Horace Gladstone
Pen is torn. Her urge is to help Horace find the book, but if she does that, she is leaving Nicholas metaphorically alone with Diana, who she finds rather terrifying; what to do, what to do. Nothing; that is what she does, at first, although she is inadvertently giving the room winsome wide eyes. It was only yesterday they found their cabal-mate hiding a widderslainte in her apartment; killed him; burned the body, purified the ground; it was only last night. Her poise is hard-won tonight, and she is never very good at hiding her feelings anyway. Usually she is just better at keeping them reserved, when she is properly prepared; alas. Alack.
"No," Diana says.
"He is her godson," Pen says, too: inserts it quick before Diana can change the subject, which is indeed what she is going to do. Diana glances from Nicholas to Pen.
And then, "Indeed; I found him before he Awoke. What sort of understanding of spirit realms and the Umbra does one of the Euthanatoi, forgive me, Chakravanti have? To what end, your spirit quests?"
Horace Lysander is listening, of course. He is keeping an ear open, an eye on his guests; but he is mostly looking up at the books. The walls are high; the books are many, and, as evidenced when he snaps his fingers and presses in on -- something -- causing the bookshelf to turn, revealing a different shelf, well. There are more shelves than there at first appear to be.
"Ha," quietly, to himself. He balances on the lowest shelf, reaching up for something high. There's a word scraped out in Enochian; the book drifts into his hand. Voilá.
N. Hyde
Here is something Diana can probably tell about him, because his expression doesn't change or alter when she says Euthanatoi forgive me Chakravanti: Nick is very new, at least to his Tradition. He is too new to understand the baggage the former name now carries, that his Tradition resents being understood only as the Death Tradition.
One day, he will understand this, because he will be in a bloody country and it will occur to him that even though he swore he would remember each person to whom he gave the Good Death, their stories and their faces have blurred together: he cannot recall who and when or even why. It will haunt him until some of that soul sickness bleeds into Quiet, as natural a flow as gangrene to the heart. Then he too will bristle, even if he will do it silently.
Now, he only gives the woman in front of him a careful smile. "Understanding is its own end, isn't it? Appropriate at least for where I'm at."
Horace Gladstone
Diana's expression is the polite and courteous mask of someone waiting for the other person to elaborate. Her hands, she clasps behind her back. Diana was the Moon goddess, the Virgin of the Hunt; but Diana, like most Roman versions of Greek gods, was more multi-faceted, more protective of the homestead and the empire; more imperious. Starry. Diana became the goddess of witches. Follow the traces, read Robert Graves.
"What book is it? Will you let him take it away from here?"
Inquisitiveness will win out. Pen drifts closer to Lysander, although she reaches out to take Nicholas's hand before she does so; enlaces her fingers with his and squeezes. This is not because she needs the support or feels he needs the support, per se, as much as it is because she wants to touch him; wants to be tethered.
Horace smiles. There's hearth-fire warmth in the smile, weathered sickle edge glinting in gold-hay; that's the kind of smile it is, and he runs a hand over his face. Considering: "If Apollonius can figure out for himself how to ask the book to leave with him, he may take it from the house. I suspect he won't - "
Diana is still looking at Nicholas, patiently; spider-unblinking.
" - even try." He hands Pen the book. Its covers are a deep brick-baked red.
N. Hyde
A few beats pass in which it begins to occur to Nick that Diana is not going to save him, that she is not going to offer even another question he can seize on, even if it's not his preference. It is the sort of silence in which it is difficult to even turn the question around, because it is layered with expectation.
Pen's hand finds his. There is a delay before Nick returns the squeeze, even as Pen drifts back toward her mentor.
Chakravanti training has its own demands and trials; quite a few of Nick's, however, centered around ethics and conviction and the celebration of life in a way that complemented his prior training in the Sleeper world. So when he caves, it's with honesty. "We probably have the same understanding, semantics aside, of areas past the Veil. I've visited the dead lands twice, and I've spent a lot of time learning how to contact and communicate with the types of spirits that are likely to linger in areas like this - elementals and animal spirits and the like."
A beat, because her question was two-pronged at best. "I'm a recent initiate and most of my studies of it so far have been with the goal of understanding how each piece interacts with the Wheel, so that it remains balanced. There are some schools of thought that suggest that what's past the Veil is the Wheel, and so understanding how it meshes with the material and how we move between is essential."
A beat. He has spoken of this with other Chakravanti, of course: there is still something absolutely petrifying about speaking of it to a Hermetic. "What do you specialize in?"
Horace Gladstone
"Hmmmm," says Diana, after Nicholas's 'and the like.' But after 'between is essential,' "Now that is interesting," she says, and he might get the impression that there is something approving beneath the still rather rigidly courteous mask. There can be no doubt it is a mask; but what lies beneath? Before Diana can ask him anything else, he turns the question around on her.
What are the Flambeau doing? The Flambeau are looking at the book together, burnished heads bent. Penelope's back is to Nicholas and Diana; a naked back, for the scoop of her silvery dress is low low low. But if Nicholas glances over, he might notice that there is something listening, something aware, about the still slope of Lysander's shoulders.
"You might understand it as Chaldean theology. Mathemancy, numerology; many other -mancies as it would happen. I study fortune and prophecy, the paths they have left and the paths they will forge. Now if what's past the Veil is the 'Wheel,' will you tell me,"
Here, Lysander clears his throat. "Diana, Pen, I want to borrow Nicholas for that tour I mentioned. Di accuses me of keeping us here until we perish, but she's the dangerous one." His eyes crinkle. "She'd keep you talking about your Tradition's opinions on this and that until you had no more breath in your body. Pen, you'll give Apollonius this book from me."
Horace Gladstone
Pen: Perception + Empathy on Nick. Are you, um, okay? Should I try and stay with you?
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 4, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )
Horace Gladstone
Horace Lysander: Manipulation + Subterfuge.
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 5, 5, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )
Horace Gladstone
Diana: Manipulation + Subterfuge.
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 6, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )
N. Hyde
Manipulation + Subterfuge
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 6, 6, 6, 7) ( success x 4 )
N. Hyde
Perception + Empathy
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 4 ) [Doubling Tens]
N. Hyde
Perception + Empathy (Diana)
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 6 )
Horace Gladstone
[Horace. You are confident? Perc + Subt.]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 5, 6, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
Horace Gladstone
[Diana: You are confident?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 4, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
N. Hyde
Yes! Yes I am!
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )
Horace Gladstone
[Really?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 6, 6, 8, 8) ( success x 4 )
N. Hyde
SUCH CONFIDENT.
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Horace Gladstone
[Mm?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
N. Hyde
C'mon man I've held out this long
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 7, 7, 7) ( success x 3 )
Horace Gladstone
[Yes?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 4, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
N. Hyde
But for real though
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 4, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
Horace Gladstone
[But truthfully...]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 6, 6, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 5 )
Horace Gladstone
[Hey, wait, I can totally try to see through Horace and Diana too. Pen: Per + Emp activation for Horace!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 6, 6, 8, 8) ( success x 4 )
Horace Gladstone
[HAH MOTHERFUCKER.]
Horace Gladstone
[For Diana!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Horace Gladstone
[Oh, wait, this is depressing to me.]
Horace Gladstone
[But clearly everything is fine. I can totally hide things, man.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (4, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )
Horace Gladstone
Horace: Mm, student?
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 4, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Horace Gladstone
Diana: Eh?
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 9) ( success x 1 )
N. Hyde
[To Diana and Pen: there is an air of quiet self-assurance about Nick. It never verges on arrogance or bravado, but is rather a sort of stillness, the quietude of a calm heart. Pen knows he is frequently relaxed in social situations and likes other people: he seems to be so now, enjoying the act of sharing and exchanging words with Diana.
Lysander knows that the above is much of who Nick is. It takes a little while, but sooner or later Lysander sees past that: he has chosen to project an aspect of himself that is useful to him right now and utterly obscure the rest. He very much wants Diana and Lysander to like him, because he is stupidly in love with Pen (maybe he doesn't even realize this yet) and wants them to approve. He may also have partially resolved issues with authority and caregiving figures. This situation triggers many of his insecurities.]
Horace Gladstone
And Nicholas has some insight into Horace Lysander's motivations. He wants to seem thoughtless about his command: Pen, Diana, off you go. He even wants to seem affable. He is not really very affable, although Nicholas doesn't quite know what Lysander is beyond desirous of getting Nicholas alone (and perhaps a little warning, to Diana. Be nice). He is much more reserved and watchful than he seems.
Unfortunately for Nicholas, he has a lot of insight into Diana's thoughts. The woman's polite and courteous mask really is a mask: beneath it, she is somewhat disbelieving. Interested when she says she is interested, yes, but in a desperate way: will the Chakravanti say something of note now? Will it be able to discourse intelligently? There is doubt on that front, and some rather resigned (to failure) hope along those lines. Diana does not understand what Lysander's student sees in Nicholas or why she'd bring him tonight. Diana is not a woman who likes many people: she just tolerates Pen and seems to think she is being indulged and spoiled by Lysander.
Pen, meanwhile, first studies Nick carefully, right? He seems fine. He is fine. Okay, then. But Horace and Diana: Pen stifles a frown and a rather martial glint come to her gray-gleam eyes; sheaths stillness behind a straightening spine, the straightening spine behind a natural stretch, half-turn toward the door.
"Certainly. The Solarium, right?"
"Diana will show you the way."
N. Hyde
There are many times when Nick's insight is a sword that was forged lacking a hilt or pommel: a weapon, yes, cutting and sharp, but without a safe way to grasp it. This was driven home time and again as he was growing up, and so too now, where he glimpses a little more than he wants of particularly Diana.
That she doesn't see Pen positively either might have provided some reassurance, except all that springs forth is indignation on her behalf: this he suppresses, melting any chill that might have crept into his smile with compassion for this woman who probably doesn't relate well to...just about anyone.
Lysander, he is now even less sure he wants to be alone with, and the only way he has to politely duck out of the conversation without losing face (Your other guests will be missing you) will be rapidly circumvented. He knows this. "I would like a tour. You have a beautiful house."
Horace Gladstone
Diana breathes in deeply through her nose, red red mouth (bloody mouth; no, no blood) closed, and looks at Lysander for a hard second. And then she says to Nicholas, "I am interested in hearing more about the interaction of the Wheel, as expressed by the worlds beyond the Veil, and the material world. If you like, I would be happy to discuss fortune with you. I have had some edifying conversations with members of your Tradition on the subject before."
But she does not think that Nicholas, with his focus on the spirit world, is likely to add anything of interest on that point. Hope springs eternal, however. Doesn't it? Hmm.
"Perhaps keep the tour shortish; the days folded up in these walls have seemed many-numbered. I wouldn't want to lose you both for the greater part of the night," Pen suggests, parting words, eyes on Nicholas. She thinks he'll be fine, but she wants to be with him: that's why she invited him to come with her.
Horace smiles a reassuring at his student (it's that autumnal warmth again, that burnished something; hearth-fires, wood-fires, dying kings; crowned in gold, sharp and made into a black in white photograph; it will never fade; it is always on the verge of fading), eyes gone pellucid. He has straight eyelashes; they make his eyes look vulnerable. Witness now.
Works with people susceptible to his charms.
Diana and Pen leave.
Horace says, "Pen is correct when she says the days folded up in these walls are many; I will give you a shorter tour than I might otherwise. Are you interested in architecture, history, or living arrangements? Is there anything in a Hermetic's stronghold you would be interested in seeing?"
N. Hyde
"On that subject," Nick says to Diana, his tone amiable, "I am very sure that you know more than I do. But I would enjoy discussing it with you further." Here's another thing: he is aware that etiquette is a sort of social dance, and he is aware of the subtexts that pass between others. He is untrained because he avoids group dynamics as though the merest brush would blister his fingers, but he could be good at it.
If he wanted. Perhaps that's the crux, and perhaps Lysander can tell.
He locks eyes with Pen before she leaves and offers her a smile, warm and just tinged with enthusiasm: he is having fun! See? She brought him here to meet Lysander, and now he is having a conversation with Lysander. Like the Hanged Man, he knows when to surrender himself.
Lysander asks whether there is anything in particular he would like to see. "I..." His hesitation is not feigned, and nor is it because he is interested in none of these things (quite the opposite): he had simply not realized that he would be given options. His gaze is suddenly wandering around the entire place (moreso than earlier, since he had been focused on Pen's beguiling). There is a reason Nick is fascinated by the spirit world: there is a bit of the explorer in him. "I would like to see its architecture. And if you're inclined to share," a pause in which he acknowledges that Lysander might not be, "I'm interested in what sort of Working you've done inside the stronghold."
Their language, too, he adapts to and utilizes easily, once he has heard it once.
Horace Gladstone
"Hmm." There's a lick of brightness in the hmm; like a wire, drawn taut, how it will glint. He is surprised, but not very, at the request; seems made thoughtful by it. "What do you mean, precisely, when you ask what sort of Working?"
He gives Nicholas time to frame his response by beginning the tour, eyebrows lifted as if to say oh go ahead and interrupt me when you're ready, but: "This room we are in now I call the Little Annex. The shelves are Janus shelves; they have two faces."
Horace demonstrates how the turning-of-the-shelves works, and allows Nicholas to get in close to see how they fold up in space. This is not a trick with Correspondence, not exactly, but it is an architect's trick; the shelves are built into the walls this way.
N. Hyde
Nick had asked for architecture, and someone else might have started to tell him about original brick and wainscotting. And it's not that he wouldn't have been interested in those things: he can touch them, he can admire them for their workmanship. Lysander, though, shows him (almost as though he had been granted a flash of insight into the young Chakravanti there with him) exactly what he would have wanted to see.
He watches and admires as the shelves turn, and yes, does get up close to examine and to look for the mechanism that allows the shelves to turn in place. Because he is examining, there is a natural pause, a space before he answers Lysander's question.
"I mean," and another small pause in which he searches for the correct words, "that there are - I mean, I know things like this, these are mundane illusions, that there's a lot of smoke and mirrors in the house from what I saw so far. So there's more I can't see, that maybe that's meant to obscure. I'm sure wards and...you know, things like that would be expected. I'm just interested in how you've blended your Work with the natural structure of the house."
Horace Gladstone
Horace Lysander doesn't hurry Nick along, but gives him all the time he wants to investigate the mechanism. He even shows Nick where to press in order to make it work and allows him to try it.
"I see; that is a bold thing to ask after, but sure - I'll show you a Working or two which take advantage from the structure of the house. Do you know how to watch the weaving, or," a shade of irony; it seems good-natured, "is it just the weaver that catches your eye?"
N. Hyde
Nick does, indeed, press the mechanism to try it himself, and then sooner or later leaves off, ready to move on to the rest of the house. He is mindful, after all, that the tour was supposed to be short, and mindful of the temerity of his request. Some of this might impress; too much of it and he is likely to wear out whatever welcome he might have had.
Lysander's question, good natured though it is, draws a somewhat guilty look from Nick: he senses he has been found out. "I've been studying the Tellurian, but no, I don't know how to look for that yet," he admits. The rest of the comment he breezes past: this is for the better.
Horace Gladstone
"If you allow it, I will share my perceptions with you."
He'd use Mind on Nicholas to make this happen. Who knows what else he might do? Horace Lysander Notos Gladstone. He seems affable, but Nicholas knows he is so much more reserved (vigilant [watchful]) than appearances would seem to say. He opens the door to the Little Annex, and gestures Nicholas out into the evergreen hall. He follows and closes the door behind him, then it is onward and upward. Horace chooses a direction and it is not the direction that Pen was bringing Nick earlier.
He heads back toward the front: talks a little bit about the architecture in more mundane terms; how old this part of the house is, mentions fire damage done to the room with silver cutlery set out. He points out a wooden mouse carved to resemble Robin Hood and explains how rabbit's blood was used in the glue for some of the gilded parts of the house. That room there was imported from France in 1872 and put together according to careful specifications.
With a thoughtful chuckle, "It's a ridiculous house to live in, especially if one happens to be alone."
N. Hyde
Nick hesitates in giving permission, if only briefly: who knows, indeed, what else Lysander might do. Then again, he is Pen's mentor, and Pen trusts him; and so he nods. "I'd like to see," and maybe it will help him, too, in unraveling more of how this works so that he may begin to perceive it on his own. Nick has focused far more on being able to perceive altered reality than he has on trying to alter it himself, and within a few years this will not have changed much.
"No one lives in the house with you?" This does surprise him; Nick would have expected servants or consors at the very least, things he has heard the Order of Hermes makes heavy use of, at least in this part of the country.
Horace Gladstone
"Not with me. It is often closed. A seasonal house, or a house if there is need for a house of its kind. I prefer my apartment."
He'll no doubt warn Nick before he layers his own perception of matters over Nicholas's. He isn't doing that yet. They're going upstairs now. Graceful sweep of stair's balustrade, something which would be awful nice to slide down. Ari would slide down the stair rail in a heartbeat. She probably has.
"Sometimes there are students and servants around, but they're temporary fixtures. Pen stayed here for a little. How are you at the sphere of Forces?"
N. Hyde
Nick is quiet while he processes the idea of having enough wealth to not only own this house (alone), but to have the choice of whether or not to live in it. There is a nod to acknowledge the information that Lysander offers up as he follows the other man up the stairs, noticing the curve of the balustrade and imagining Ari there; it hooks one corner of his mouth.
"I don't know it," is his next admission. Though he is not Hermetic: perhaps he can be forgiven this. "Do you have many students?"
Horace Gladstone
[Oooh, another Manipulation + Subterfuge moment!]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 3, 5, 5, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )
N. Hyde
Eh?
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )
Horace Gladstone
He doesn't know it. Lysander doesn't say that's too bad. Doesn't express disappointment or rue. He doesn't know it: okay. He'll pick it up or he won't. The Euthanatos is not Lysander's responsibility.
Has Lysander had many students? "Yes." Something hawkish when his eyes hood like that. Something almost sleepy, those long straight eyelashes. Princely, even. Up the stairs, onto the second floor, Lysander stops by a window with a view of the grounds outside: all the way to the cliff's walk, the gray crash of the sea, fairy lands forlorn surely visible at some hours of the night out there from this window. "Both those I take for my own and those I teach brief lessons to, as a favor to their Masters."
Nicholas can read something of Lysander in the deliberate way he keeps his gaze out on the sea for a moment, before turning his eyes on the dark-haired younger man. He can read something of Lysander in the way he chooses to phrase things. He can intuit something of the man's character in the way he is choosing to conceal it.
Nick is insightful. And it's hard to be insightful.
"What do you think the appropriate relationship between a master and his student is? What is the appropriate level of intimacy, the appropriate time spent one on the other?"
"Do you look forward to having students one day?"
The last question is a feint. He is curious, Lysander, but does not expect Nicholas to say so without reservation. He is of the opinion that Euthanatoi don't 'look forward' to having students; they prepare themselves for responsibility, and rather grimly. But it's a feint. The other questions are leading questions, in their way, and Lysander is about to probably get more personal than Nick will be comfortable with, or he is at least beginning to lay traps.
N. Hyde
Manip + Subterfuge
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 6, 6, 9) ( success x 3 )
Horace Gladstone
[Mm?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7) ( success x 4 )
N. Hyde
There are many circumstances in which Nick uses leading questions himself: after all, counselors refrain from advice giving. No one wants to hear what you think they should do. Help them come up with the solution themselves, on the other hand -
Well. He notices the traps that are being laid. Whether he is quick-witted enough to escape them is another matter. Perhaps he will have this moment in which he sees that horizon line looming ahead before he tumbles over the waterfall, the headlights coming on too fast in the dark, and he will only experience frustration at his inability to spring out of the way. He's young yet.
There is a subtle shift in Nick's expression when Lysander begins asking questions: something furtive, something already deeply uncomfortable. He might wonder whether Nick has picked up on what he is doing (he has), but his level of discomfort seems to have escalated quickly. His efforts to disguise this are notable, but not enough.
He absorbs the information Lysander offers, and the last question, feint or not, is the easiest for him to answer. "I don't know if I would say 'look forward to,' but I'm sure I will," he says, and he sounds just a little resigned in a way that suggests that Lysander is absolutely right in this particular assessment of Chakravanti.
He gives weight to the other two questions with a slight tilt of his head. "Ethically, it's important to note the power differential between a teacher and a student, and that requires clear boundaries. You can have mutual warmth but it can't and shouldn't be a friendship. Or anything else. Which isn't to say," and there is a quick beat here in which he considers his words, "that things don't get complicated in small communities like ours. Sometimes there are pre-existing relationships that have to be worked through. Why do you ask?"
Horace Gladstone
"You strike me as an observant kid; why do you think I ask?"
N. Hyde
There is a sidelong glance toward the other man, a rueful expression that flickers across Nick's face. "I don't know you, so I obviously can't say with any certainty. I doubt it's because you plan to take my opinion into serious consideration for your own purposes, though."
Horace Gladstone
[Okay, Lysander. Can you HIDE YOUR TRUE REACTION this time from the INSIGHTFUL KID?]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 5, 5, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
N. Hyde
Nope.
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 6 ) [Doubling Tens]
Horace Gladstone
He seems amused.
He is amused, but the seeming of his amusement is mellower; is lighter. Is more air, more easily dispelled. His actual amusement is somewhat cynical, somewhat informed by punk ass kids think they're so clever and a rather brittle weariness. He doesn't dislike Nicholas. He is carefully forming his opinions as they go. His opinion has just grown a little more formed.
"When I ask for an opinion, I like to decide whether or not I'm going to give it serious consideration myself, after I've heard it."
He raises his eyebrows. Forehead creases. But he isn't Diana, to wait Nicholas out with expectance; with that kind of spider-patient courtesy. He leaves the window; continues the tour down the hallway. Impressive as the hallway on the bottom floor: of course there are suits of armor here. Some candles, burning; lots of candles, burning. Burning everywhere, to dispel the darkness.
"What do you think of Pen, as a Mage?"
N. Hyde
Nicholas wanders after Lysander down the hall, and he is trying to keep the general wanderiness of his demeanor to a minimum tonight. Not here; here he should focus, he shouldn't be noting the play of light off of the armor or immersing himself in either the material sensations or flow of energy in this place. He is more grounded tonight.
The weariness - this he notes with interest. Nick does not have an instinct for attack, for pressing the advantage; there is no bloodthirstiness in him. If there were, he'd be a far more dangerous man than he is; but he is a healer and a keeper of secrets, not a combatant in any sense. Even now, were he to try to identify his emotional response to the new information, the predominant one would be concern, at the isolation that people feel as they climb, at what else he hasn't seen, at the implications of that for himself and perhaps one day for Pen.
He is drawn out of that train of thought by the next question, because here, when he thinks back on the other questions - he glimpses the pressure point, the place where he is expected to step. "Brilliant, and driven, and in love with the purpose she's gotten from the Order," he says. And then, without much of a pause for Lysander to follow up, "You think I'm going to hold her back."
Horace Gladstone
[These are not the emotions you are looking for. Manip + Subt.]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 7 )
N. Hyde
Maybe I am! You don't know!
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 5 ) [Doubling Tens]
Horace Gladstone
[Hmm. And a Perception + Subt, how do you feel about the things you just said, Nick?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 7, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )
N. Hyde
[Nope.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )
N. Hyde
[The thing that Lysander can tell with absolute certainty is that Nick is angry; defiant even. His temper, when it spikes, does not look like Pen's. It is something more difficult to suss out, something slow building and slow to die; he grows distant. There is perhaps some fear there, driving it from below, though it's not based in insecurity or feelings of unworthiness: Nick understands and accepts that his path to Ascension looks different from Pen's.]
Horace Gladstone
A Text Message interlude.
R: How is it going?
P: Fine. Merry Christmas!
R: Is Casper the Friendly Ghost charming them?
P: I don't know. He and L are off gallivanting together.
R: LOL.
P: :|
R: Sorry.
R: Why did you let them go off alone?
P: Nick was having a good time with Diana and he wanted to talk to L and L wanted to talk to him.
R: Oh come on. A good time with *Diana*?
P: You're cruel. Diana is only a little terrifying.
R: I bet you ten dollars that if you look away from your phone right now she will be looking at you like you are an insect.
P: No bet.
Horace Gladstone
He is quick. Nicholas may have noticed that down below, when they first met. He is quicksilver, when he wants to be. But Nicholas has been able to read Horace Lysander well tonight. Perhaps he doesn't want to be now.
There is a flicker in Lysander's eyes, a sea-change. There is a beat; it could've been deliberate, but does not seem so. Natural rhythms, we all fall into them. "No," he says. "I don't. How could you?"
"I want my student to be happy. Happy students with something they care about pay sharper attention in class. In some ways, I think it is better when we take lovers outside the Order - there is so much competition within it."
Horace Gladstone
R: What do you think they're talking about?
P: I dunno. The house?
R: Probably you and how much of a failure he's going to make you.
P: Shut up.
R: Lysander is a dick.
P: He is not.
P: Well he is.
P: But he's not cruel.
P: I mean not to guests.
P: I don't think he'd be cruel to Nick.
P: Shut up.
P: He wouldn't be.
R: Not saying anything.
N. Hyde
Lysander is quick: Nicholas noticed that before. Still, Nick generally has confidence in his ability to read people (perhaps even too much, at this point in his life) and he has been able to read Horace Gladstone well tonight. He notices that turning of the water there in the other man's eyes, and though he himself is hiding whatever anger he may have, Lysander is perceptive of Nick enough to notice some of it thaw and drain from him.
After the Hermetic is spoken, Nick merely looks abashed. He is realizing, see, that between Robin and Vivienne and Diana, perhaps he came in expecting to fight and he's found one where it isn't warranted. The Euthanatos is not Lysander's responsibility, and yet this will be something of a formative moment for him, one he will look back on and realize that had he surrendered and accepted that the interaction would be as it would be, he wouldn't have shamed himself in front of this Adept.
He will learn not to make assumptions. He will learn that even insight has its limits when a person is unknown to him. Perhaps the conclusion he comes to is wrong; he still makes it.
"I'm sorry," he says. "That was unfair of me." A beat. "It's only that your questions seemed to be leading someplace."
Horace Gladstone
"Don't worry about it." The noblesse oblige is rough; it seems disused, but it is not disused; that is just Lysander's manner. Burnished hair, burnished eyes too sometimes; those straight lashes, that sea-change, and light is contained within his iris' his dark pupils lends him a soulful air of attention even when he is dismissing an apology or an assessment or whatever it is he is actually dismissing.
"This way," and he is walking backwards, one arm held out to indicate a particular door. "You may like this upcoming room; it has been the cause of more trouble for wandering house guests than any other thing in this entire building."
And once Nicholas has fallen into step, he picks up the initial line of questioning. "So I asked you what you think an appropriate master-student relationship was, what you think of Pen as a Mage. Now I'm going to ask you what you think of yourself as a Mage?"
N. Hyde
[Awareness!]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 6, 7, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 5 )
N. Hyde
Nick, meeker perhaps than he was, pads after Lysander into the waiting room. A cause of trouble for wandering house guests, Lysander says, and Nick's interest piques (not that this is hard to do.) He keeps pace with the other man easily, matching his stride as though he were a shadow moving alongside him at high noon.
Then Lysander begins his questions again, and again Nick is wary. This time he waits it out though. It does not help that this is a difficult question for him to answer; this is not something he has thought about extensively, at least not in the terms that Lysander is framing them.
"I know enough to fulfill my responsibilities," he says, and then pauses because he knows this is not the answer Lysander wants, and he also knows it's not the full truth, either. "I know enough to be of use to the other people around me. I want to understand how reality fits together and go past...what's immediately apparent. I think I..." Nick hesitates. "I want to be sure I'm doing the right thing, by myself and by others. It's so easy to do those other things I want wrong."
N. Hyde
[Alertness?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 5, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )
Horace Gladstone
"Have you entertained the possibility that she will hold you back?"
Lysander expects a denial, but is ready to meet it; first a sluice of a glance, a faint smile and crinkled eyes.
Nicholas can feel that the floor they're on is more saturated in (soaked in [brimming with]) old Workings, strong Workings, Workings that have soaked into the wood and the marble and the metal that are as close kin to this hall to the rooms upcoming as the foundation is. Ancient. No; not ancient. This is America and this is an American house even though some of the rooms were imported direct from France (and perhaps, there, some truly Ancient old Workings, the archaelogical remnants of Order Magi before they were in their modern shape). But quite old. His intuition tells him that there are interesting things to be found if he were to actually poke around here. That he could, if he were able to focus his insight, if he were able to watch the weaving, follow any manner of hints suggestions whiffs toward their source: smoke to fire, and into the fire, all the little mothlings. He knows that there is Something Coming, not just because Horace Lysander told him trouble was afoot, but because he can feel it.
And here it is. He knows it is a powerful Mind compulsion even as it casts its net on him. There is a green door and he has heard somebody he most wants to hear from calling him, emphatically and with great excitement, to 'is that you? is that you? come here quickly you have to see this leave the door open come quick!' And Nicholas definitely wants to heed the call. The compulsion is strong, and once it has its net on him: it will tangle him up, dredge him toward. Tug.
He is fore-warned - he can fight the compulsion, can't he? (But it's true, Nicholas. You are wanted. You are being called.)
N. Hyde
This question: it takes him aback, and perhaps Lysander can see then that no, Nick has not ever entertained the possibility that Pen could hold him back. This may not be for reasons that are immediately apparent, and for Pen's mentor, it's likely that whatever Nick's reasons for not entertaining this question, they don't matter. "I...well, no. But I don't think she would do that." A beat, in which his tone becomes more thoughtful. "If I were becoming something which would be held back by her, I don't think I would want it anyway."
Perhaps this would sound foolishly romantic to anyone who didn't think about it, who didn't understand his frame of reference: Nick has seen, if only once as of right now, what happens to Chakravanti who isolate themselves. He will see it again, and again, before we continue our story in the present. But that's not yet.
He has only a few moments to cast his eyes around this new place, Workings so old that they defy memory (but no - Nick could trace the threads of Fate back, perhaps, if he wanted and had the skill with Matter). At first he thinks this is where wayward travelers lose themselves in Lysander's house, because he is fascinated. There's something of his own hallowed energy here, but different, and it draws him.
Ah yes - and here it is. The green door, and a powerful compulsion that he recognizes for what it is: Lysander can see the whites of his eyes, see the way his foot moves forward even as his upper body draws back, as his arm folds protectively across his chest (his heart). He is seeing his father; Lysander does not know this. He only sees the effort it takes to disregard: but he has seen this before.
For moments he is silent. Then, as he regains his composure, "How many people have gone through that door? Where do they go?"
Horace Gladstone
Lysander stops and waits Nicholas's struggle out. He is alert when he is stopped, watchful of the young man. Nicholas hasn't yet had so much as a sip of water or a crumb of bread, but he is still a guest. In the Solarium, room of glass and candle light and intense discussion, Penelope is texting with friends; they are telling her she shouldn't have let Nicholas and Lysander wander off together, and being generally amusing.
[Another Text Interlude.
A: listen to R. He's often right. Then smug about it.
R: The choreography for my I Told You So dance is already primed.
A: to amuse you, Pen, imagine it set to the modern major general. R always makes a stunning, if convincingly gay, pirate of however you spell it
A: OH I AM SORRY DID I REPLY ALL <3 to R
R: Penzance.
R: And, quite frankly, I am the very model of a modern Major-General.
R: Acceptable song for I Told You So. Thanks, Ari. <3
A: always in service ;)
]
And Pen is feeling both rebellious and guilty, heart-sore and impatient. And here is Zelda, and Alexandra, and she can't seem to leave the Solarium. What is it, some kind of enchanted glass otherworld, and only the right epiphany release you?
Upstairs, in the hall where enchantment is the marrow in the bones of the house, Nicholas regains his composure and asks a question. Two. Lysander crosses the hall and opens the green door. Of course it does nothing for him, and it is a dim-looking thing before he reaches in and flicks on the light. Nicholas might be reluctant to come near, just in case the compulsion snakes out again, but it does not. Fought-through valiantly, and it doesn't strike again; it is no snake at all. Has no fangs.
"A high number," Lysander says, and this is pure dismissal. He doesn't care to recount exact numbers of fools or victims. "But it isn't a Portal; or," and he grins, a satyr's grin, "not precisely. You answer the call, go in, and then what happens depends on where you step. The most common thing is they fall asleep until I come and collect them. The least common thing is they wake the dragon."
N. Hyde
The green door opens, and Nick is indeed hesitant in drawing near: it was only last night that he summoned terror-crows to peck out a man's eyes, and that they burned that same body in a hollow in the woods behind his friend's house. He might have found himself somewhat replenished last night, but he's still not at his best.
It's Christmas. He hasn't heard from his father, and though he knows his father and his father's patterns by now, he would like to.
Yet: we move on, and so does Nick. He casts an eye over the Workings on the door, of at least those that he can see (it's not much), and up to Lysander. This man - he's not what Nick expected from what Pen told Nick about him. "Wake the dragon?" He is interested, and wary of being interested, and snared in spite of all that.
Horace Gladstone
[Enochian!]
Dice: 9 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 6 ) [Doubling Tens]
Horace Gladstone
[Let's share our perceptions, shall we? Coincidental Mind 2/Prime 1. Maybe some other 1s. Diff 5, -3, Enochian is cool. But it can't be that cool, so.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN3 (9, 9, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )
Horace Gladstone
He puts a hand on Nicholas's shoulder to draw him closer, once Nicholas is close enough to be drawn so. Careful, strong hand; heart's blood warmth in his fingers and palm He will keep Nicholas from stepping into the room if Nicholas gets the idea that he could do that now, or should.
"It will only be me," he says, in what might be meant as a comforting manner (automatic manipulations). Before he takes his hand from the Chakravanti, he speaks an invocation in a language Nicholas has heard Penelope use. But Lysander is a different sort of Mage from his student: when he speaks, even though his voice is soft and almost casual, the command is no shaping -- no imperious suggestion;
it is a demand, and a song struck from the heart;
it is the clarity of glass, dragged out of the stars and given to Mankind: Here. Have light. A lullaby; something old.
It'll only be Horace: the strength of his power settling into the young Chakravanti's mind with more surety than the compulsion. The room is a small green room: there is a fainting couch and a sideboard and a very interesting looking curio cabinet, partially hidden behind which is a door. There is a rug of interlaced vines and ivy leaves. There is a tin ceiling, designs which echo the rug in the tin; and this is where Nicholas's borrowed sight begins to reveal how the spell is woven into symbols hidden stamped scribed into the tin and then woven into the weft of the rug, how the mind compulsion is the lure and then: leave it up to chance. He can see how the curving arches of what aren't windows but might've been if this room were anywhere else are instead simply walls made to look as if they should go somewhere strengthen and fix the web. The web: step there,
and you feel dizzy, are suggestible: sit over there. Touch over there, and you sleep, and you do not wake up even if you are moved; not until the spell has run its course, or it is unlocked.
Step there, and you vomit. Take another step, and you are stricken with diarrhea.
Step there, and you hear somebody behind you and know that you have just enough time to get out of the room and head back the way you came and not be caught, if only you do that right now: and with alacrity.
Step there, and you wake the dragon.
The dragon is a bronze (?) statuette coiled on a small table: wake it and it will attack; its eyes are red; it is not alive, though there may be a spirit bound to its heart; it has its own resonance, Guarded, Trickster, Golden, Piercing.
N. Hyde
After having come across the Green Door, Nick is not in any hurry to enter the room ahead of Lysander. He is a careful man, and so he keeps pace and doesn't put even a toe ahead, and as it turns out his caution pays off here (of course it does.) Lysander places a hand on Nick's shoulder, drawing him closer. Nick allows it, and as Lysander offers his reassurance he perhaps even bows his head a little.
This isn't necessarily trusting, though Lysander might think it so. It's a commitment to a decision to allow Lysander to do what he will and therefore: no fear.
Lysander can hear the sharp intake of his breath as the Weaving in the room springs into relief, as clearly as one of Ari's etchings beneath his fingers. This is a room of traps, of potential missteps and almost certain humiliations, and in spite of himself, he is impressed. Perhaps even inspired. His eyes are mainly for the dragon though, to the spirit he suspects is shackled to it. (And here: Nick is not sure how he feels about that.) "I see," he says, because he does.
"Did you bind it?"
Horace Gladstone
"No, that was another in the cabal of my youth." Lysander allows Nicholas a close look; he will even take his hand away, and with Nicholas's perceptions sharpened (augmented [enhanced]), would allow the boy to step into the room and look at things more closely. But if Nicholas does, Lysander warns him before he takes the Sight away again; banishing the connection with a gesture. The world is more wondrous, certainly? "We did have fun with him. He's very good at misleading, deceiving, and keeping one on one's toes."
N. Hyde
Carefully, carefully, Nick steps into the room to stand closer to the web that clings to each corner of the room with its snares in the center. He is not so foolish as to step into the middle of it, even as curious as he is: his Sight just now is a borrowed thing, and even without Lysander's warning he'd be aware that it could be taken from him at any time.
A sudden onset of flulike symptoms would be, possibly, the cherry on the shit cake he assumes his first impression on the Hermetics has been so far.
"You speak in the past tense." Nick glances at Lysander out of the corner of his eye, back at the dragon. Then he steps back out of the room as his Sight fades away.
Horace Gladstone
"We don't play very often any more." He does sound regretful, though not in any deep way. He does not think about the fun he could be having, or once had. It is equivalent to somebody remembering how much they liked that super-soaker gun when they were little, a particularly fun summertime campaign. But of course Horace is Notos, end-of-summer autumn wind coming up from the South. "Not even with little Mysteries like that guy there."
Lysander shuts the door behind Nicholas and gestures him down the hall. "Where were we? ..." Musing cast to his tone, and Nicholas has (is given?) the opportunity to direct the conversation before Lysander comes back have-you-ever-entertained-the-idea, wouldn't-want-it-anyway.
N. Hyde
Something about this is vaguely sad to Nick: a sort of mystic Calvin and Hobbes, a child grown up with his pasttimes tucked away to moulder in the closet. It surprises him, even, because Nick was not especially childlike even when he was a child.
Nicholas walks with Lysander down the hall, suddenly mindful of all the time that has passed and that Pen is probably waiting for the two of them. He feels a stab of guilt because he has left her alone with Diana, the spider woman. Nick remembers perfectly well where they were, and he has talked about himself enough for one night. "So what made you take Pen on as a student?"
It's just on topic enough. Maybe -
Horace Gladstone
[Let's, in fact, see how Diana and Pen are doing. Diana, you are saying? Intelligence + Academics.]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 5, 7, 8, 8, 8) ( success x 4 )
Horace Gladstone
[Pen, your reply? Ack. Wits + Academics.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Horace Gladstone
[Diana, be pleasant. Manipulation and Empathy.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )
Horace Gladstone
[Pen, try to be charming. Char + Emp.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 6, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 6 ) [Doubling Tens]
Horace Gladstone
"Mmm... Did Pen tell you what made her decide to eschew the aimless life?" Lysander asks, and it could be one of those questions asked in order for the asker to better answer the question the other guy asked.
N. Hyde
"She did."
Horace Gladstone
[OH HEY. Manip + Subt? Eh? EHH? We can use our (silver-tongued) specialty here.]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 5, 5, 6, 6, 10, 10) ( success x 6 ) [Doubling Tens]
N. Hyde
[Gah. Hermetics.]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 7, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 5 ) [Doubling Tens]
Horace Gladstone
"She had already been drawn to the attention of our Order. We already wanted her, though I was not involved in any of that. I was busy with real work. When she came to me, I was - " He pauses, and he is taller than Nicholas. Not by much, a scant inch or two: but it lends some grace to this kind-of slantwise look down, straight lashes gracefully shadowing his cheekbones. "At last somewhat confident the last group of kids I'd been teaching could stand on their own, and I was not necessarily looking to take on someone new in the fashion that Pen was 'new.' But … well. She is a very, what is that word, it's on the tip of my - beguiling. A beguiling young lady. Very," his brow lowers, as if thoughtful, "well you must know. Somebody would have picked her up if I hadn't, but I like a challenge and an underdog. I like passion wedded to wit."
N. Hyde
I was busy with real work. An offhand comment, yet he notes it with interest: sometimes it's in these little throwaway phrases that people reveal the most about themselves. Then again, Nick has already noted that Lysander is far less affable than he seems. This is a house of masks and smoke and very carefully arranged mirrors.
"It sounds as though she made it an easy decision for you, then."
Horace Gladstone
"How long have you two been seeing one another?"
N. Hyde
It's unusual for Nick to be surprised in social interactions, and yet he has been so several times tonight. "We've known each other for six or seven months," he says, again with that caution, that feeling around with his toes for the jaws of the trap, "and we've been together for...three or four, I suppose."
Horace Gladstone
"Do you think I'm laying traps for you, Nicholas? That you're going to say the wrong thing, and find yourself on the floor of my home, shitting your pants?"
He sounds amused; poignantly so, how ridiculous, hah, hah. Easy to forget that he actually was; the look Lysander gives Nicholas is one calculated to be reassuring, or conspiratorial.
N. Hyde
There is this look that Lysander gives him, at once reassuring and conspiratorial; it would be easy for Nick to mirror this, as he so often does, because it's a look he gives other people on occasion. Perhaps that is one of the things he finds disconcerting about Lysander: magi as powerful as he is are possibility models, and even though Nick is not and will never be Hermetic, there is some essence here of could-have-been-one-day.
Instead, a corner of his mouth snicks upward. "Are you?"
Horace Gladstone
[Pokerface. Manip + Subt again!]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 2, 4, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )
N. Hyde
[Really, are you?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 5 ) [Doubling Tens]
Horace Gladstone
"What would I have to gain?" Lysander says, in such a way as to imply that of course he's not laying traps for Nicholas.
He is absolutely laying traps for Nicholas, as Nicholas can intuit. Lysander is adept at deceit, but Nicholas is just a touch more astute. However, those traps don't necessarily end in Nicholas shitting his pants on the floor of Lysander's home. He has some decorum, and he is not the boy he was.
N. Hyde
"That's what I'm trying to figure out." Nick smiles; it's a beatific thing, a can't-be-bothered sort of thing, and this as he gains confidence: he is learning a lot, and he expands along with the knowledge gained. "I at least got the impression that your pants-shitting days were done, though. So no, I'm not worried about that."
Horace Gladstone
"Are you worried about anything?" Here with this company and specifically. There's another conspiratorial, or comradely - yes, comradely - lift of his brow. Jay Gatsby lift of his brow, inviting in its way, just enough ripple of good humor beneath the question.
N. Hyde
"We just walked past rooms with the sort of lose-yourself-in-fairyland door you hear about in old stories, and a network of the most mortifying traps I can think of. I'd be a fool not to be worried about anything." The good humor, Lysander finds reflected back at him; still, Nick's eyes flick on occasion to the scenery of the rooms they pass through, perhaps as though wondering whether there is indeed some sort of trap. Or maybe he's just trying to take stock of where they are in the house and how long it's going to be until he can sneak back into the tall grass.
Horace Gladstone
Lysander chuckles, spark to hay, gold hay gone up in smoke; there's smoke in his voice, when he chuckles. "Well then. Try not to look as if you expect something when I ask you about your relationship with Pen. It's the only thing I know we have in common. Have you dated Magi from a different Tradition than yours before?"
Horace Gladstone
[Dude, not a leading question. Just curious. MANIP + SUBT.]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 5 )
N. Hyde
[No such thing.]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 6, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 ) [Doubling Tens]
Horace Gladstone
[-_- By Grabthar's hammer, this will not be a tie.]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
N. Hyde
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 6 ) [Doubling Tens]
Horace Gladstone
This is just about the leadingest question that Lysander has asked Nicholas.
N. Hyde
"We could find other things in common," Nick suggests, and this again is amiable. The side glance he gives up at Lysander at this very leading question is more of an eloquent thing than Nick perhaps intends it to be: Nick is calculating how loosely he should define "dating." But he, too, has decorum, and his history of warm but casual contact with other people is an uneasy subject for him, even if no longer the sharply painful subject it once was. "Pen is the only one since joining my Tradition," he says. "I was Disparate for a long time."
Horace Gladstone
"Ah." Lysander took on a Disparate-for-a-long-time student, but that does not mean he has no reaction to the idea of Disparates: he does have a reaction. Perhaps he can conceal it.
And perhaps it is because of that sidelong look that Lysander opens his mouth, as if to say something; but then he shuts it again. Flambeau, contrary to popular opinion, have self control. They must. So, instead, rather neutrally, "It will be very difficult, if you carry on. Do you expect to carry on through next Yule?"
[Oh, oh, what, no, you don't see through ME, lashes flutter, etc.]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 3, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
N. Hyde
[Maaaaybe I do.]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 4 ) [Doubling Tens]
Horace Gladstone
[Or you don't.]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )
N. Hyde
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 5, 7, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 5 ) [Doubling Tens]
N. Hyde
[And here's my subterfuge roll.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 4, 5, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )
Horace Gladstone
Lysander has strong (disappointed) reaction to Disparates, and most of those opinions are negative -- but there's a directed negativity there, an experience-risen negativity.
He isn't so much trying to hide anything when he opens his mouth then shuts it. He really is deliberately not saying the first thing that popped into his mind, which was going to be rude, revelatory: and mean.
Lysander can be very mean, but -- there's a sense that he doesn't want to 'spoil' something. Things.
[And Horace: *squint* Per Subt.]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 6, 6, 7, 7) ( success x 4 )
Horace Gladstone
[Meanwhile, Pen is impatient! The house is huge! Wants to find Lysander and Nicholas! Why use a cell phone when one can Scry! Correspondence 2 + Prime 1 (where is that certain resonance). -1 focus, -1 using personal item from targets, darn it.]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (1, 2) ( botch x 1 )
Horace Gladstone
[Pen: Curse aloud ELOQUENTLY.]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )
N. Hyde
Nick absorbs all of this, the subtle shift in the other man's voice, the layers in the conversation, body language, the meter of breath: it takes someone particularly astute to understand what is feigned here and what is not. There is an idea in the study of magic-as-parlour-tricks, in legerdemain, that to pass off something successfully the performer must live the illusion, must build it into their identity to some extent, and some understanding of this concept is helpful in peeling away falsehood (or, at least, the things that are further from the truth.)
He is not as practiced at the actual construction of the facade as Lysander, though. Maybe it's the way the flesh around his eyes tightens for only a moment. When he says, "I expect to carry on as long as she would like to carry on," this is a simple statement of truth. And also: Nick's life, both mundane and Awakened, has been a series of learning to let things go, to accept that the fundamental nature of creation is built upon transience and change. He expects nothing; expectations disappoint.
Horace Gladstone
[2 paradox points for Pen.
But try, try again. +1 diff.]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (9, 10) ( success x 2 )
Horace Gladstone
[Is someone scrying for - ? Lysander Awareness.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 6, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
N. Hyde
[What?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 4, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Horace Gladstone
[Weaving-Watch!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN4 (1, 2, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )
Horace Gladstone
"You should come over next Yule then, not as a plus one but invited in your own right," Lysander says, with a warm smile. "Now what might we have in common. Do you practice any martial arts; you don't fence, do you?"
There's some distance on the word 'you,' as he senses clearly the signature ardent daring of his student's magick. Senses it, and knows it for what she is trying to do, though he still (without bothering to reach for an instrument, no invocation necessary) Looks at the signs she is leaving behind, traces the construction of the window with his sight: this is how angels must look at the world; how God looked at Creation, d'you see?
Nicholas can feel the suggestion of Pen's magick, and then the stronger flare of Lysander's.
N. Hyde
"I will," Nick says, and perhaps the invitation and the warmth throws him a little. It occurs to him only as Lysander is moving on, here, that the way in which the statement is phrased -
But there is too much going on just then for him to follow that train of thought to its completion and ultimate state of unease. As Lysander finishes his question Nick, too, senses Pen's magick at work, Lysander watching as she Weaves. He almost forgets to reply. Then, after those scant few beats, "No, neither. I've done yoga for a long time, insofar as it counts," and technically it is a martial art, of a sort, "but nothing martial. Do you fence?"
Horace Gladstone
[Doo de doo. Manip + Subt.]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )
N. Hyde
[Oh man, what did I say now?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 4, 4, 8, 10) ( success x 3 ) [Doubling Tens]
Horace Gladstone
"Yeah." He doesn't say it meanly, like of course I fence, I asked you while searching for something we have in common, fool. He doesn't say it with an overabundance of enthusiasm, like he's about to try to press Nicholas into the sport. He says it warmly; there's something burnished, see, to his tone of voice; something silvery rather than golden. He reaches out and puts his hand on the scruff of Nick's neck, between his shoulders, and steers him this-a-way, then his hand is gone again: down another stairwell. "I've tried the what's it called the aerial yoga. I enjoyed it, but," and his eyes twinkle. "I turned it into a different kind of exercise, and got rid of the ribbon. Broke my arm."
Horace Gladstone
[Pen: Okay. I know where they are, ish. Now can I get there? WITS. This house is difficult. Specialty, sure why not.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 6, 9) ( success x 3 ) [Doubling Tens]
N. Hyde
Nick is scruffed, with only mild surprise: Nick mainly grew up around women (his gun nut uncle in the middle of the desert aside), and he mainly works around women, and most of the authority figures in his life have all been women. He isn't used to this sort of paternal invasion of his personal space. It isn't necessarily that he minds; there is simply a way his muscles start and contract before they rapidly become relaxed again. "Aerial yoga without the ribbon? So some kind of Forces exercise?"
He tromps down the stairwell, unaware that they are likely to barrel into Pen at any moment. "I mainly just use it these days to clear my head before Working," and that W could be uppercase or lowercase, who knows. "A lot of times I'll have to go out pretty far to where the Veil is thin enough to work, and it's been helpful once I'm there."
Horace Gladstone
"What work do you do?"
The w could be capital or not. Context. Context doesn't necessarily mean much when someone is a martial conversationalist, jumping from one topic to a side topic. Still.
N. Hyde
It could be a capital or not; Nick is not sure. So he answers both. "I work as a counselor in a crisis center," he says. Doesn't bother to name it; most people don't know it, and there's only one serving this area anyway. "And I practice communicating with and summoning spirits - usually for different things. It's a very different type of interaction, though. I'm still learning how to...speak with them and figure out what they want, I guess."
Horace Gladstone
"What they want?" Lysander sounds intrigued. "Why?"
"Hey." Here she is; come unsheathed from the candle-lit fire-laced gilt and glory halls of Hermetic Ingenuity, all dressed in moonlight and fish-scales and fog; flushed, either because of Gladstone's Scotch or because of an embarrassing interlude during which - in full sight of her mentor's cabal, her rival, and her ex-cabal-mate - her own Will rubber-band snapped back at her and she spilled some wine on the floor and said a foul mouthed word or three. Both of those things are liable to put roses in her cheeks.
N. Hyde
"Because when I figure out how to step over, I'll need to know how to make some friends." Nick's voice is a little dry, a tone that says that perhaps he speaks from past experience.
Then Pen appears, and Nick straightens, a smile pulling at the corners of his eyes and mouth. She looks flushed; did she run to get here? No, not short of breath. Probably the scotch. "Hello. How's the rest of the party?" Nick offers one of his hands to Pen as she draws near to himself and Lysander. He appears none the worse for wear.
Horace Gladstone
[Hmmm. But I, your Teacher, would like to know how you're doing, Student. Per + Subt.]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )
Horace Gladstone
[No! I can do this, man. ManipSub.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 7) ( success x 1 )
Horace Gladstone
[Ugh.]
Horace Gladstone
"Everyone is ebullient; they are three steps away from becoming intellectual Maenads, so I fled to find the two people I like most in this house before I was torn apart." A hand. Pen laces her fingers through Nicholas's and leans against his arm, just so.
"I was just bringing Nicholas back down to meet everybody," Lysander says, after a moment's quiet regard. Of Pen, of Nick. Of Pen and Nick together. "And questioning him about his martial prowess, work, etcetera."
"Oh, excellent! His martial prowess is his work ethic. Or his work ethic is his martial prowess; or do I just mean prowess? He is full of prowess; you'll both forgive the clumsy segue!"
"Is he," Lysander says, and he sounds amused. "I'm sure his prowess is sufficient for what he intends to do with his life, at present."
"Lysander, you sound -- " A frown. Directness, even when she might not want to be direct. "Cold. 'is sufficient.' What?"
"I'm sorry; do I sound cold, Nicholas? I hope I've been welcoming. What do you think of the house?"
Horace Gladstone
[AND another manip + subt from Lysander, because c'mon.]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )
N. Hyde
[DO you sound cold?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 4, 6, 9, 9, 9) ( success x 4 ) [Doubling Tens]
Horace Gladstone
Cold isn't the perfect word for what Lysander is or sounds like, but there is a bit of a something there in that remark, brought on by whatever impression it is Nicholas has left.
N. Hyde
Intellectual Maenads, Pen says, and the corners of Nick's eyes crinkle at the phrase. He is more relaxed than he was when Pen left him earlier to allow him to tour the house with Lysander; all told, the conversation with Lysander could have been much worse.
He feels relaxed until he listens to the exchange between Lysander and Pen: then, gut sinking, he looks from Hermetic to Hermetic. "The house is amazing," he says, and this is both enthusiastic and earnest, if not Nick at his most eloquent. "You've been very welcoming. Thanks for the tour, and for humoring me."
He had thought that he had sailed past the traps; now it occurs to him as they move back out to join the rest of the party that maybe he didn't wait long enough to come to that assessment. "How many people are here, Pen?"
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