[Ashley] These times are sometimes the hardest one to navigate, the in-betweens. The cusps. The blank page before it flips and begins a new chapter. Waiting's all you can do, or all it seems you can do: wait for those weeks to slip past, wait and hold and anticipate and fear. One would think Ashley would have gotten much more skilled at walking those in-betweens after so long doing it, but they still make her uneasy.
Jarod is gone and soon she'll part ways with Kage for at least some of the time, even though they'll keep in touch and she'll likely see the Orphan fairly frequently while she's out doing her work. Emily and Israel - who knows where the winds have blown them.
Next weekend there's a wedding.
It is hardly unheard of to find one Ashley McGowen in a state of brooding. Many people in Chicago found her out nights, alone, sitting and staring at the stars or reading a book beneath the street lamp, and that is how she will be found tonight. She's with Zane, her head pillowed against the dog's ribs while he slumbers and while she stares up at the firmament that shows itself through the park's canopy, still flushed with summer. But not for much longer.
There's an unhappy anniversary coming up soon. Ashley will be in San Francisco by the time it arrives, but that's not much of a comforting thought.
A journal lies open across her stomach, the pen slanted across its pages, its back and front bound in dark fragrant leather. Its pages are still virginal. Whatever words she has to put there have become stuck between her teeth perhaps, and they reach between the gaps but fall, skeletal, to rest unfulfilled. She lifts the pen now and again and taps it, but doesn't touch it to the sheet. Coming here to write is just a pretense, sometimes.
[Gale] There were any number of things to do in Boston on a Saturday night. Things that Gale Covington probably would have preferred to be doing, rather than wandering through the common at night alone with a 4-month-old puppy. But for all that one might expect a certain level of irresponsibility from a 20-year-old former street hustler (and current low-level drug dealer,) Gale took this particular responsibility seriously. Perhaps it was because he was fond of Finnick, or maybe he was just fond of Jarod.
Maybe he didn't dislike it so much after all, anyway. The trees here were pretty, even at night. And the air smelled like grass and earth with just a faint hint of wrought iron. Gale held the leash in his hand loosely, the excess trailing on the ground after Finnick as the dog followed his nose from one spot on the ground to another and back again. They were moving at a slow pace, with nowhere in particular to get to. Jarod and Ilana would be at the wedding for another couple of hours yet, and he didn't feel like going back to an empty hotel room (even if it did have porn and room service - preferably not in that order.)
The lazy directionlessness of their walk came to a halt with the arrival of a sensation that had not yet become wholly familiar to the young Apprentice, and Gale stopped in surprise as he looked around, attempting to identify the source. After a long moment, his eyes landed on Ashley's distant form. From here, it was impossible to note anything of much distinction about her. Only that she roared with Hunger and an underlying pulse of Thriving life. In the latter sense, at least, they were not all that dissimilar. But there was Zane, lying down beside her in the grass, and the shepherd completed the image in Gale's mind.
Ashley. Ashley from the picnic. Ashley who was a friend of Jarod's.
That was all the information he needed to invite himself over. So he did.
"Hey again," he said, casually (as if he was used to meeting people this way in the park.) He came up behind her and moved around to plunk himself down in the grass, followed closely by Finnick, who moved to snuffle curiously at Zane's ears. "Mind if I sit?"
[Ashley] Her Hunger tugs at him, insistent. It does that to everyone, pushes thoughts they normally keep buried (or not so buried) to the surface, magnifies everything they've ever wanted and demands that they pursue it. It might be a reason Ashley chose to sit alone at the party while the rest of them mingled - normal society doesn't do a good job of containing her anymore. Where Jarod and Bran and Justine can pass themselves off as characters, as strong personalities, Ashley makes herself intensely felt. She's like a wild animal they aren't sure if they should touch.
Gale's approach startles her and she has to turn her head all the way to the side in order to see him and by then she's already pushed herself partway up on her elbows. She doesn't need to do this in order to hurt him; it's just instinctive. Zane's head raises and his ears stand erect, and perhaps it's the fact that the dog doesn't get to his feet or growl that eases her.
She recognizes him more quickly than he recognizes her. He's the boy Jarod had with him, the apprentice. Jarod went chasing after him through the grass.
A corner of her mouth quirks in amusement when he asks if he can sit a second after he's plopped himself down in the grass. "Looks like I'm not stopping you," she says. Zane nudges Finnick but doesn't bother to get up, his tail swishing back and forth in the grass. Ashley holds out her fingers for the puppy to sniff. "You're out here late."
[Gale] "Not really. This is pretty early for me." Gale's voice had a relaxed drawl tonight, and he grinned in Ashley's directly as he crossed his legs and made himself comfortable. He was wearing a pair of dark, very new-looking jeans and a white ringer T with black trim. One of his wrists was decorated with a couple of old leather bracelets. Beside him, Finnick and Zane occupied themselves with greeting each other and this drew his attention for a moment.
There was a thing about puppies: like children, they didn't always have a terribly developed sense of self-preservation. The more self-assured ones could be downright cocky, charging headlong into potentially dangerous situations with their tail held high. Finnick was approaching the right age for that sort of thing - young enough not to have been hurt by the world and old enough to have discarded some of his puppy-ish timidity. Then again, perhaps he was simply developing a pampered pure bred's sense of entitlement. Jarod didn't seem the type to pamper anything, let alone a dog, but it was a fair bet that Finnick received a higher quality of life than many pets simply by virtue of the fact that his owners were wealthy and one of them a Disciple Verbena.
Suffice to say, like everyone else in the Nightingale household, Finnick had a strong personality, which poor Zane had gotten the brunt of on their last encounter. The shepherd nosed him gently, and Finnick wagged his tail and warbled. The fur stood up on his ruff as he jumped and wrapped his paws around Zane's neck, gnawing at the older dog's muzzle with a mouthful of pinprick-sharp teeth.
"Hey..." Gale sat forward and reached out to grab hold of the shiba's collar, pulling him gently away. "Leave that poor guy alone."
Finnick complained loudly and attempted for a moment to break free from Gale's grasp, then looked up at him and sneezed.
Gale just laughed. "And who says dogs can't talk, huh?" He ruffled his fingers through the fur on Finnick's scruff and eventually the puppy settled down in the grass next to him, ears up and mouth slightly open as he panted in the summer heat. Canine matters settled (for the moment) the Apprentice turned his focus back toward Ashley. His eyes landed on the presently-neglected journal. "Were you writing something?"
[Ashley] Zane makes a disgruntled, lowing noise as Finnick begins to gnaw at the soft skin around his muzzle, but shows no ill temper toward the puppy. He does lift a big paw to attempt to swat him aside or pin him to the grass, however. Ashley raises herself further up on her elbows, less because she's on guard still than because the dog squirming beneath her now makes a less than comfortable headrest.
She's reaching out a hand to take Finnick but Gale grabs the puppy first and scolds him gently. Ashley reaches down and massages the base of Zane's ear instead. The shepherd lets out a huff and his brown eyes slide shut.
"They think at least, kind of," Ashley says, with a glance out of the corner of her eye at the dozing dog. "I've ridden around in their minds before." It's a little detail Ashley doesn't usually put forth about her use of the Ars Mentis - in all likelihood because it's something many other Hermetics might regard as frivolous. Not so among the Verbena. It's something she was doing long before she joined them, though.
She follows Gale's gaze down to the untouched page. "I wasn't," she says. "Nothing was really coming to me."
[Gale] Gale nodded. "Yeah, I get that. Some days it flows, and some days... it just doesn't." He seemed as though he might have been speaking from experience. "What kind of stuff do you write?"
He had a curious nature, which was hardly unusual for any Willworker (and especially for one who was young and freshly Awakened,) but Gale tended to come off as a bit more personable than Jarod, if also less refined. He sat forward and fished his hand into the back pocket of his jeans, pulling out a lighter and what looked like a small joint. There was a certain carelessness in that... in the way he didn't seem to think twice about doing this beside a stranger and in an outdoor, public place. Then again, this was Boston Common. He would hardly be the first.
"Is it cool if I smoke?"
(Well, at least he asked.)
[Ashley] There's a little too much on Ashley's mind for the words to be flowing easily. Some days these sorts of things help her: she often writes to rid herself of the words that she can't say, pours every sick thought and feeling onto the page without shying away. She's produced a few somewhat disturbing pieces of work that way. Today it simply lacks coherency. She doesn't tell Gale that.
"Poetry mainly," she says. "I'm not really a narrative writer." One has to imagine themselves as someone else for that; Ashley remains largely incapable.
Gale brings out his joint and Ashley blinks at it once, believing it a handrolled cigarette, before recognizing it for what it is. She doesn't show any discomfort, precisely. Whatever is there is from a lack of experience rather than because he has offended her sensibilities; they are, after all, in Boston Commons. "I guess," she says, to his question.
[Gale] "That's cool," he responded affably, and if he'd noticed her momentary hesitation in regards to his smoking, he didn't seem to find it worthy of note. There was a spark and a brief flare of orange glow from the lighter, which he then slid back into his pocket as he pulled in a lungful of smoke thoughtfully. The smell of it was organic and heady, and once it reached Ashley's nose she wouldn't have any doubt as to what it was. Jarod would probably complain about it later (especially if Ilana noticed it,) but he'd gotten worse from Jarod before.
"I write too. A lot of it ends up as song lyrics. The rest just fills up my notebooks. Habit born of too much free time, I guess." He glanced at Ashley and seemed to realize how that statement could be read, because he paused before putting the joint to his lips again. "I mean... in my case."
He closed his eyes as he pulled in another breath of smoke, and when he let it out, it puffed in little rings. Gale watched them dissipate slowly into the night air with a kind of meditative interest.
"So how do you know Jarod?"
[Ashley] It occurs to her as she breathes in the scent that she's likely to get a contact high. Ashley hasn't had nearly enough experience with illicit pharmaceuticals to recognize its strength merely by the scent - in fact, anything is likely to smell strong to her - but after a second she hunkers down a bit, away from the cloud of smoke. It's not precisely that she's concerned about the high for its own sake - she simply doesn't know how it's going to affect her. What she's likely to say under its influence.
Not that it isn't anything that couldn't be fixed with the Ars Mentis.
Gale writes song lyrics. In truth, Ashley isn't sure of whether she would have discovered her talent for poetry if she hadn't lost her music. Whether she would've been the sort of musician who enjoyed putting song to word and vice versa. Her brow furrows momentarily, but she lets the statement pass, and his statement about her free time seems to pass without bothering her. If there's one thing Ashley doesn't have a lot of, it's free time, even now away from Chicago.
"I used to live in Chicago," she says. "I've known him on and off for about two years. I was the chantry head there for a while and he kind of gave me my introduction to the Verbena."
It doesn't really explain the intricacies and complexities of their friendship, not in the slightest, but Ashley has a knack for summary.
[Gale] "...Huh." Gale considered Ashley's explanation thoughtfully. There was something a touch ambiguous about his response, both in its lack of clarity and in the way his voice took on an almost questioning octave. Then again, Ashley might not notice. In any case, he didn't elaborate on his thoughts.
Finnick raised his head into the air and flared his nostrils as he scented the marijuana. Then he sneezed again and set his head down on his paws, letting out a long, canine sigh. Gale ruffled his ears affectionately, then pulled the joint from his mouth and held it out for Ashley to take if she so desired. "I didn't think to bring a second one with me, but... if you want some." There was a relaxed air to this gesture, as if this kind of interaction was rote for him. Smokers' etiquette.
[Ashley] The ambiguity of Gale's reply goes unnoticed. For Ashley, who has difficulty gauging tone, such a thing is a way to fill up the empty space between words. It's a way for Gale to say something while saying nothing, and a word on its own is as open to interpretation as the same bit of text would be, lacking any body language or vocal cues. The body language, at least, she's gotten better at interpreting since her introduction to Life magic.
Still.
Ashley looks up when he offers the joint and then gives a slow shake of her head. "No thanks. I don't smoke." There isn't even really any of the sort of tempted-but-resisting curiosity that might ordinarily accompany similar words. If she knew and trusted Gale better, perhaps. But she knows little about him other than that he is, apparently, Jarod's new apprentice.
One he's actually bothered to acknowledge.
[Gale] Ashley turned down his offer and said she didn't smoke. Gale glanced at the joint, glanced at Ashley, and shrugged. "Alright." He was quiet for awhile, watching the tiny thread of smoke that rose up from the end of the hand-rolled paper between his fingers.
"So, if you used to be the chantry head... how come you're not there now? Is it, like... an elected thing? Or just... whoever's been there the longest?" After a pause he added, by way of explanation, "I've only been to the one in Madison. Jarod said Chicago's chantry is pretty different."
[Ashley] Gradually, Ashley lets her head come to settle on Zane's ribs again. It leaves her a little more vulnerable, flat on her back and staring up at the canopy of leaves and branches above their heads. She curls a leg up almost unconsciously, leaving her knee bent and one foot resting flat against the ground.
An elected thing.
Ashley's lip curls after a moment. "I was sort of the de facto leader for about half a year. I don't really know why. But a couple of people rolled in and started making me responsible for things when it was convenient for them, so I decided I might as well make it official. They didn't really like that."
That's really all this is: a political tale. A tale of the vanquished. Though perhaps it's just as well. Ashley has qualities many people would want in a leader, but she isn't one all the same. "There was a cabal that got really competitive over it. A couple of Choristers. They thought of me as a bad person or something, so I got politically blocked and eventually I just got sick of the bullshit." A beat. "Different chantries handle them differently. We had this...election by cabals system that my cabal set up when we took power. It was supposed to be shared. Problem is that nothing really gets done that way. A lot of chantries are unified under one leader."
She raises both of her eyebrows and then adds, wryly, "Which insults a lot of democratic sensibilities, but trying to get Awakened society to do anything otherwise is a fucking nightmare."
She's bitter. It's probably not entirely unexpected.
[Gale] "...Man." He laughed. "That sounds like a lot of bureaucratic bullshit. I'd have left too." He took a drag off his joint, running a hand through his hair in an absent gesture. It was thick and soft, a little prone to curl, and could probably do with a cut soon. "Oh the naive days of my youth when religious nutjobs didn't have magical powers. Fuck that shit. Seriously. Fuck. That."
He let that thought percolate a moment before continuing.
"I dunno. I went to a chantry meeting. It was about fifteen minutes of boring shit, then the pizza got there and someone turned on the stereo and things just sortof devolved. I kinda felt bad for the chick running things. She seemed kindof... what's the word... long-suffering."
He laughed again. "When Jarod showed up, Grace's gang practically swarmed him. He was so annoyed. I shouldn't laugh but... man, it was fucking hysterical. And then I got to listen to him grumble about smelling like pot and patchouli all evening."
[Ashley] "Jarod went to the chantry? For a meeting?" The surprise of that seems to have been enough lift Ashley's head off of the dog again, and she blinks at Gale in a manner that suggests her incredulity was not affected. She's surprised enough to have forgotten to ask further about anything else he's said, really, though the name he dropped means little to her.
She bites at the inside of her cheek, letting that linger for a moment or two and then gradually, gradually, easing herself back down. "Our meetings weren't really like that. There was always food and stuff, but a lot more arguing. Somebody always left pissed off. It was like that in Boston too."
[Gale] "Oh no," he corrected. "Jarod never goes to meetings. He hardly ever even goes to the chantry. I think he was just checking up on me."
The joint was close to done at this point. Gale pinched off the end and tucked the remainder back in his pocket in case he might want it later. Then he glanced at Ashley, noting the surprise on her face and the alertness of her posture. "We hang with the Verbena out in the country sometimes. I think it's mostly for my benefit though. Well... and 'Lana's. She likes it out there."
He was being chattier now. In hindsight he might regret that a little. Gale didn't know exactly how much he ought to trust Ashley. How much was ok for him to tell her. But there were very few people who he could talk about these things with, and it was a huge part of his life now. Leaning back on his hands, he gazed up at the canopy of branches overhead. "It's cool, you know. Jarod told me you used to sleep together."
(Which might lead one to wonder why he'd asked her about the nature of their relationship. Maybe he'd just wanted to see what she'd say.)
"I mean... he didn't really get into it. But he said you were cool. And that it was complicated. And that I should mind my own fucking business." He rolled his head to the side and shot Ashley a cheeky grin.
[Ashley] Maybe Ashley regards it as a bit of a betrayal, that he asked her about how they used to know each other while knowing what their relationship had been all along. She flicks him a glance out of the corner of her eye that suggests as much - as though she wonders if she was being set up. Then again, Ashley regards many other people she knows as duplicitous. As easily as she might provide others with certain information, she is hardly a very trusting person.
"I don't want to talk about it," she says to his cheeky grin. Which is probably her way of saying precisely what Jarod had, in fewer words. "But it's not really all that complicated." In fact, to Ashley, the story breaks down rather simply.
If she were inclined to tell it.
"Are you being initiated into the Verbena?"
[Gale] Ashley said she didn't want to talk about it, and to the kid's credit, he dropped the teasing smile almost instantly. He could be pushy, sometimes. And stubborn. Like a certain British Hollow One, he didn't always make much of an effort to filter himself. But that was where their personality similarities ended. As a rule, he had a lot of respect for and sensitivity to other people's moods. This had always been his saving grace where Jarod and Ilana were concerned.
After a moment, he lifted his shoulders in a faint shrug. "Alright. Sorry."
Then she asked him about the Verbena, and he nodded. "Hopefully, yeah. Jarod says I've got awhile to go before I'm official though." Gale slowly unfolded his legs and lowered himself down onto the grass, crossing his arms underneath his head for a makeshift pillow.
[Ashley] It's for the best that Gale's similarities to Thomas end there. Thomas has pushed Ashley for information before - he had enough of a lack of self-preservation to do so when inquiring about Daiyu around this time last year. It was, as far as Ashley can recall, the only time she ever truly lost her temper with him.
He never really tried to give her any sympathy after that.
"I had to go a year before I was actually initiated into the Tradition," Ashley says. "He did too, I remember him telling me." Ashley tips her head back and moonlight limns the sharp cut of her jaw and her eyes are full of stars. "Jarod takes all of it a lot more seriously than he probably wants you to think. He's a good teacher though."
[Gale] "I know." Gale smiled a little. "He is. I like him a lot. That's why I wanted him." He paused, contemplative. "The Keepers - they're the other Verbena - are like... in tune with the primal world. Jarod is the primal world. I dunno. It's different." He glanced over at Ashley, rolling his eyes up to meet hers. "You feel a little bit like that too."
Of course, one could make the argument that Gale was just responding to Resonance, and that this hardly defined whether or not someone would be a good teacher. But whatever it was he'd sensed or felt about Jarod, he wasn't yet disappointed. "I mean, it's funny, right? He's so counter-intuitive. Or maybe just complicated."
Gale's lips parted again, as if to continue speaking, but then he closed them, silencing whatever thought was on his tongue. After a moment, he tried again. "Can I ask... what he taught you? Or is that not kosher?"
[Ashley] "Sometimes it's just the experience of the Willworker," Ashley says, of how he feels about the other Verbena he's met. "I'm an Adept. I am my Word. But I wasn't when I was younger." It's likely that Gale hasn't spoken very extensively about the magical world yet - he is after all still an apprentice. Many magi get a crash course through speaking with Ashley; she sometimes talks with more overt mysticism than many Traditionalists do.
Then again, this is to be expected of a Hermetic.
"Jarod's complicated," Ashley says. Though she'd perhaps be hard pressed to explain the ways in which he is complicated. Ashley doesn't wholly understand most people; he eludes her even more than the rest. Most of what she does know of him has been sensed on an intuitive level.
Gale asks then what he taught her, and her eyes flick up to find his. "He taught me Life magic," she says. "But more than that." Her brow furrows for a moment. "An understanding of blood and the physical world. It's difficult to boil down."
[Gale] Jarod hadn't really talked much about rank with him. He'd mentioned that some Willworkers were more evolved than others, more powerful than others, and that it took a lot of time to get to the level of ability that he himself was at. Gale knew that he was an Apprentice. And he knew that Jarod was a Disciple, because someone had called him this once. It wasn't that Jarod was being lax as a tutor; rank and titles just weren't terribly important to the Verbena. Had Gale been a Hermetic, there was a good bet that he'd have learned the hierarchy on his first day. But Gale would have made a terrible Hermetic. Cultist, maybe. But he felt like a Verbena, even though he resonated much more quietly than either Ashley or Jarod. He felt like a heart-beat. Like growth. Like green. Encapsulated vitality.
Though, at present, that vitality was in a dormant state as the effects of the pot worked their way through his system. If Ashley was at all familiar with marijuana, she might note that the Apprentice seemed to have the hallmarks of someone who smoked it at least semi-regularly. He wasn't giggly. He wasn't particularly spaced out. He was just... calm and contemplative. And perhaps a little less than completely sharp.
"Hmm," he intoned, quietly. "That's cool. I still get such a visceral thrill from it, you know? Feeling the Life around you... it's intense. Makes you feel like... I dunno. The world is so organic. And it all just flows into everything. Trees and grass and worms and birds and people. And here I am just this... one tiny part of it. If I really focus sometimes, it's like... I am the trees. Does that sound crazy?"
[Ashley] Unlike Gale, Ashley has not had frequent exposure to marijuana. What she's been breathing in isn't quite enough to get her high - after all, they're out in the open, and the smoke largely dissipated by the time it reached her - but it is enough to evidently get her to emit a quiet little laugh at what Gale says. While members of the Awakened world are more likely to understand such a feeling than most, it doesn't quite take away from the strangeness of his statement.
"No," she says, after a few seconds. "You learn to take in everything and make it a part of you." That's not quite what Gale said, of course, but it's how Ashley sees it, the world as a separate entity, something to be consumed.
"I learned Mind first," she says, abandoning use of the Latin. She is, after all, in the presence of another Verbena, and their language is simpler. "I learned to read animals' minds pretty early on. It's different from Life magic but it's...I don't know. It made me realize how many different ways there are to take everything in. Better smell, better hearing. That kind of thing. Even if I couldn't directly experience it back then."
[Gale] For a moment there, right after Ashley giggled, he almost looked as though he might have been annoyed. But she went on to tell him that he didn't sound crazy at all, and that she'd experienced similar (if not precisely the same) feelings, and he relaxed again.
"Jarod's been trying to teach me that. I haven't been able to do it. It's frustrating. He talks about how you can read people's emotions, and I get what he's saying. I mean, I usually can anyway, but it's more... intuition. We've only been working on it for a week though. I think I'll get it. I mean... it makes sense. Sometimes I think I almost have it. But I have to practice with other people. Jarod's too hard to read."
He paused, then added with a grin, "It'd be cool to read an animal's mind, I think. Finnick would probably tell me to fuck off and get him something to eat."
[Ashley] That comment about Jarod being hard to read - Ashley lets that pass. She's had all too much experience with it. Her hand trails up out of the grass and slides over her stomach to rest there. It could almost be seen as a nervous gesture if her muscles seemed more tense.
"It's easier to defend yourself first," she says. "And hold yourself stable. After you do that you learn how to find the weaknesses in someone else." This, perhaps, will tell Gale all he needs to know about Ashley's view of Mind and probably also quite a bit about how she learned it herself. For her it is an issue of dominance, of overpowering things and of learning to hold herself steady and define her own edges in a world that continually seeks to batter them down.
Ashley is quiet for a few seconds. Then, "I couldn't figure out how to read people at all after I Woke. Physically, that is. I had to read their minds and then watch their faces and figure out what everything meant again."
It's an odd bit of self-disclosure for her; the marijuana, in all likelihood. Of course, without context it likely won't mean much at all to Gale.
Her other hand travels up and around to rub at Zane's ears. "It's not really anything as articulate as that. People are like that but animals aren't. It's more like this hum. Like everything you think about when you're not really thinking."
[Gale] An ambiguous expression crossed his face when Ashley talked about defense and finding weaknesses. One of those looks that's too subtle and too complicated to give a clear impression of it's meaning, but nonetheless indicates that the person is reacting to something; feeling something. Gale stared at Ashley for a long moment. The corner of his jaw flexed and his eyebrows came together. But he didn't say anything.
Likely he might have stayed like that (quiet; guarded) but Ashley's story had touched a note of curiosity in him, so after awhile he asked, "What happened to you? I mean, when you Woke Up?"
This was the sort of thing one might wonder about other Willworkers. What was it like for them? How were they re-birthed into the world? Was it a moment of intense beauty? Was it bathed in blood? Gale only knew one other story besides his own, and its owner had not been inclined to give it freely. Perhaps Ashley would be the same. Still, he asked. Because she'd mentioned it, and because he wanted to know this about her.
[Ashley] Gale becomes quiet, more guarded, after Ashley speaks of learning Mind. Ashley doesn't notice. Whatever might have struck the boy as something to be concerned about is something that she stopped thinking of as troublesome a long time ago. Her view of the Ars Mentis is just now part of who she is. Who she has been.
Ashley has been asked this question once or twice before. Generally by younger magi who are curious about her - she is, after all, an Adept. Something a little untouchable to many of them. They want to know where she came from. He'll likely find her less taciturn than Jarod about many things. There is information that Ashley has gotten used to offering forth freely; her Awakening, her magic, all of that is a sign of power. There's no reason strategically for her not to want to talk about it, and so she does.
"I was racing a friend to class on my bike and...I don't know. Hit the curb, maybe. I flew over the handlebars of my bike and cracked my head open." Ashley's gaze doesn't waver from the sky while she talks. Her voice is steady. She's told the story before. "And I forgot a lot of things. I woke up in the hospital and it was like...being a different person. They tried to talk to me a lot but I didn't understand most of it. Words didn't really fit together anymore. So I remember getting really angry and wanting it to be different."
There's no way Ashley can tell it that will communicate the enormity of what she did. That she, an 18 year old who had no grasp of the Awakened world, took the fragments of her broken mind and shaped them back into something resembling a human being. She doesn't try. Her tone and her language are both flat. "So I had a dream about...being hanged. Over an ocean. And two crows came and one took my eye and one took my ear, and then I fell into the ocean and was swallowed. And then I was myself and my dad got me the hell out of there before my doctors could start to question what happened."
[Gale] Sometimes things happened in the world, and there didn't seem to be any kind of rhyme or reason to who or why. Gale knew this. He didn't need anyone to tell him that usually the worst things in life happened for absolutely no reason at all. But this was the first moment where it occurred to him that Awakened life was no different than anything else. That some people paid dearly for their enlightenment, while others did not. Ashley's Awakening might have been his own. And yet it was nothing at all like his own.
Then again, if there was a price to pay... perhaps he'd already paid it.
He was quiet for a long time after Ashley's story, trying to imagine, perhaps, what that had been like for her. He'd done the same with Jarod's, but Jarod's story had been very different.
"Maybe you were a Viking in a former life," he contemplated aloud. And if she'd had any time to interact with him outside of this (time enough to know where he'd come from and how he'd grown up; to see the way he often acted around other people) she might have been surprised that he'd even picked up the connection. She might still be. Gale didn't project a very intellectual image, and he looked even younger than he actually was.
[Ashley] Gale isn't the first to have picked up on Ashley's more primal connections very quickly. Kage, within the third time of their meeting, had compared her to an ouroboros; Jarod didn't take long either. She has the knife he gave her last Christmas still. It is in fact a treasured possession, something used for ritual. (Ashley has a way of turning gifts into ritual, as a matter of fact - look at her necklace.)
Still, the kid doesn't seem terribly intellectual, but all the same he is studying with the Verbena. And with Jarod in particular. That alone assures Ashley that he's not stupid.
A corner of her mouth quirks and the hand resting on her stomach runs up and down over the front of her shirt a few times lightly. "Maybe," she says. "But this is the only one that matters."
A beat. "It's more likely my Avatar. How it wanted to talk to me. It happens for a lot of people that way."
[Gale] Gale wasn't stupid, no, though he would never land himself an impressive score on a standardized IQ test. His intelligence manifested in other ways. In this regard, however, it was more a matter of the things he'd been exposed to. Being homeless and broke for years of one's life left one with few entertainment options. In this case, public libraries were a god-send.
Maybe, she said. But this is the only one that matters.
Gale smiled at that.
"Yeah, Jarod said that. About... Avatars, and how they communicate. Have you met yours? What's it like?"
(I'll show you mine if you show me yours.)
[Ashley] Ashley is far more connected to her Avatar than most other magi she knows. Kage, for as extensively as He affects her life, still doesn't entirely understand Him or what He wants for her. Jarod seems to be, but Ashley still knows very little about what it is. Or his paradigm. Or...many things about Jarod, really. He knows more about her, though neither of them have given too much away.
Which is why it perhaps strikes her as a little amusing that Gale asks if she's ever spoken with hers. "A lot," she says to that question. "Well...kind of. It's only actually spoken to me twice. I just feel things, and want things as much as it's possible to ever want them. And I have dreams."
But Ashley doesn't go into those. They're dark visceral things - blood and battle and tangled flesh, the taste of raw meat and the scent of pine and salt water. She doesn't always remember them. Just that she has them. Just that she's always had them.
"The Midgard Serpent," she says. "At least, that's what I think it is. It's never specifically said. It's an ouroboros, at least." One with a decidedly predatory bent. A sea monster.
[Gale] What Ashley described... this was how it was for many of them, and judging by the way that Gale listened and gave a slight nod of assent, it was probably much the same for him (though his own Avatar was rather less overbearing than either Ashely's or Jarod's.) "Yeah, I get that. Sortof... talking without talking."
He unfolded and stretched out his arms in the grass above his head, arching his spine for a moment as he opened his mouth and yawned. The kid seemed relaxed; lazy even - though not disinterested. He bent one of his knees and lay there, sprawled and gazing up at the stars. The edge of his shirt had pulled up a couple of inches on his stomach, leaving a strip of bare skin visible at the waistline of his pants. Either he didn't notice or he didn't care.
"Man. That's fucking crazy. How is it you get the Midgard Serpent, and I get a fucking unicorn?"
[Ashley] Ashley laughs at Gale's question. It's not loud, it's not altogether entirely audible - her laughter generally is not. Still, the soft dry noise bursts from her throat for a second and then stills.
"There's nothing wrong with a unicorn," she tells him, though Ashley suspects that in Gale's case it doesn't imply that he's virginal. "They're guardians." At least, in most of the legends and folklore she has readily at hand.
There's a pause, and there'd be a solemn note in it if Gale cared to hear. Something in how her brow furrows and then relaxes itself again. "Besides, I'd like to be satisfied with something for five seconds." Right now, she's not, never is - though where the Serpent's drives end and Ashley begins is something she can never entirely sort out. Having an avatar that thoroughly tied in to one's being is something of a double-edged sword, most of the time.
[Gale] One could debate for hours where it was exactly that one's avatar ended and oneself began, if there was even a line at all. No one really knew, though everyone seemed to have an opinion. Perhaps it was simply the subconscious creating an embodiment of one's true self. Perhaps they really were the reincarnated souls of ancient and powerful spirits. (But then, what were spirits but a personification of an idea?) Gale was too new yet to have come to any conclusions in this regard, though it was a fair bet that his seeming disappointment was a bit affected. Regardless of what one believed an avatar actually was, there was no debate that mages were irrevocably tied to them. The connection was a symbiotic thing. If Gale's avatar was a unicorn, then there was a part of himself that identified with certain aspects of what a unicorn represented. Whether he wanted to admit it or not.
They're guardians, Ashley said.
"Yeah. I suppose you're right." And there was a slight hint of warmth to his tone that suggested he might agree. After a moment, he rolled over, propping up on his elbows. This brought him face to face with Zane, and he grinned at the dog and ruffled one of his ears. Finnick glanced over but didn't get up.
"That sounds kindof sad," he said quietly. "I'm just happy that I'm alive. That I get to see all this." His eyes drifted from Zane to Ashley. An astute person would notice that he'd maneuvered himself steadily closer to her over the course of their conversation, but that could just as easily have been a natural response to the intimacy of the subject matter. He was close enough now that she'd be able to see the rings of golden-amber pigment that surrounded his pupils, a stark contrast to the dark grey of the outer iris. "Can I cheer you up?" he asked.
[Ashley] Gale has been steadily creeping over toward her, but Ashley is not astute enough to really have noticed. These aren't the sorts of things he picks up on, his distance from her or what that means or whether she should be having a reaction to it. When she'd told Gale that she had used Mind to figure out what facial expressions and body language meant again, she hadn't been exaggerating.
Still, at his question she looks over at him, meets his eyes for a few seconds as though surprised to notice he is there. "I'm not sad," she tells him.
Which is as much of a truth as it can be. There's nothing there, immediately, bringing down her mood; Ashley is just naturally dour. Naturally dour, and her memories weigh on her like a waterlogged cloak. Though Zane at least seems happy for the attention and yawns, stretching out his forelegs as Gale rubs his ear.
Ashley glances over toward the dog and smirks, then glances back up toward Gale. "Besides, aren't you guys supposed to leave soon? Jarod said after Violet's wedding." Which begs the question of why he isn't with Jarod, presumably at the wedding, but she doesn't ask.
[Gale] Ashley said she wasn't sad. Gale might beg to differ, but he hadn't really meant it the way she'd chosen to interpret it. When he'd asked her about Jarod, there'd been a prickle of cold anger. Ashley did, indeed, seem dour tonight. And Gale was all-too-familiar with unhappy people. He'd spent a lot of time around them, in one form or another. There were the kids in the warehouse, huddled together in makeshift families to chase away the cold and the loneliness. And then there were the people who drove by the old street corners at night looking for them, because they either didn't want real intimacy or didn't know how to find it. There were people who died alone in alleyways, and those who shot themselves full of whatever drug they could find so that they wouldn't have to think about how incredibly fucking sad they were.
And then there were people like Ashley, who maybe on the outside didn't seem so bad off, but who said things like 'you learn how to find weaknesses,' and laughed as though there was a vice around their lungs.
"We're leaving tomorrow. I forget when, but it doesn't matter. I'll just sleep on the plane." He eyed Ashley curiously for a moment, as if trying to figure out her line of questioning. "I didn't really mean anything. Just, like... you seem kinda bummed, I guess. Sorry for assuming."
[Ashley] He's eying her as though trying to figure out where she was going with the question, and there's little in her manner to imply it one way or another. Gale, though, Gale knows better.
What she was doing was this: she was just searching for words to say, something to make him respond in order to move away from the topic of her being sad. Ashley isn't an empathic person, and she's a little awkward more often than not, but that's not to imply that she's without social skills. She doesn't figure out what other people want in order to get what she wants - she's just good at controlling the conversation in order to prevent it from going in a direction she doesn't like.
At least, most of the time.
Ashley shrugs a shoulder when Gale comments that she seems bummed. "I'm moving soon," she says. "Again. I just have a lot on my mind."
And, well. Now that he's talked more to her, things have become more clear. Gale's familiar with unhappy people. Gale is familiar with people who are recovering from trauma, who know how to control themselves and control the impression they give off to other people. Gale is becoming familiar with magi, who believe that the world changes on impulse, through belief, through want and Will, and that's true for themselves and the other people around them (they are a part of the world.)
It's not entirely accurate to say that Ashley is running. She is, however, seized by a desire to be somewhere else other than Boston, and she probably wants to be in a place where there are no ghosts, where there are people who don't know her demons. She moves on when she thinks she's had everything she can in a place, and there's nothing left for her in Chicago, or in Boston - or at least she believes there isn't. Ashley is a person who is living because she is too stubborn to die, who has an endless hole to fill, who is torn simultaneously between hating the world and loving its bright centers, who is starting to remember that happiness is a possibility but has forgotten, in a sense, what it feels like. She loves Jarod. She loves Justine and Bran and Kage and Adam. It's just not enough.
And last weekend, well. It caught her off guard. She's angry about it and about everything; that's her trigger response.
[Gale] Ashley and Jarod were more alike than either of them probably wanted to believe. But whatever Gale thought in regards to the two of them, he kept it to himself. His feelings toward his mentor were complicated enough in their own right. And Jarod... well, for all that he may have been similar to Ashley in some very important ways, they were by no means the same person. Jarod's survival mechanisms were more finely honed than Ashley's were. He was better at locking people out (even when it seemed as though he was letting them in,) better at shutting himself down. He was better at pretending. Gale never would have gotten this deep of an understanding of him from a single conversation.
But for all of Ashley's hard-edged bitterness, she was possibly less broken than he was. She was angry at the fact that she'd been hurt. Angry that the things she treasured had been taken from her. She wasn't always obvious about it, but she didn't entirely hide it either. Ashley knew that she deserved better. For all her dourness, there was a sense of stubborn hope in that.
Of course, Gale didn't have so complete a picture of her. He knew what he saw, what he felt, and what logical deductions could be made with his limited knowledge. That wasn't a hell of a lot to go on, but to say that she had a lot on her mind was a bit of an understatement. So he didn't really push this. Instead he made the rare concession of admitting something personal about himself.
"Yeah. Me too." He smiled a little. "Smoking helps with that, you know."
[Ashley] Hope - no, that's not quite the word. It's not entirely accurate to say that Ashley believes that she deserves better, either; perhaps it's the feeling one gets from her, what they would expect of her, but no. What is accurate is that she wants more, that she just wants, but can't entirely fathom a world in which everything she wants is within her grasp. She can't imagine people who will give her the things she wants or would care to, or having music again. Perhaps, if she could, she'd be a Master already.
Ashley looks over toward Gale when he mentions his smoking. "If I wanted to just forget, I'd do it with Mind," she says. "But it won't change anything."
Someone should remind her of those words the next time she's drinking too much (it happens a lot). "If you do that you sort of lose your drive to make anything different. I've never understood how it works for the Cult."
And maybe therein lies the reason so many Awakenings are traumatic. Most magi are unhappy people. To want to force the world to change, to continually work toward more, to rip reality apart and reform it - that's not the work of the content. That's not the work of happy men. Perhaps therew as something to what Gregor used to say, after all.
[Gale] There was a long pause. Silence. Then Gale slowly got to his feet and dusted the bits of grass from his jeans.
"Alright then, captain buzz-kill. You stay here and think. I'm gonna go find some ice cream."
He roused Finnick, who stood up slowly and yawned. Then the two of them walked back to the path and began to make their way toward the park's perimeter, leaving Ashley once more to her own devices.
[Ashley] Ashley, captain buzz-kill.
More relaxed magi tend to have this sort of reaction to her a lot. So do the cheerful ones. Who can blame them? The sort of naked disdain she seems to have for them is something that's very difficult to miss.
Ashley's eyes trail the boy as he rises to his feet. It's a sour note to end the evening on, especially given that they might not see each other again, but she doesn't apologize. It wouldn't be genuine. "Okay. See you," she tells him. She might have said more, but the words stick in her throat.
She rolls over, lets the notebook slide to the grass, and pillows her head in a folded arm. She flips her pen between her fingers.
Then stares at the blank page, which waits to be filled. And it waits a long time.
