Character Sheet
Name: Miriam Green
Shadow Name: Morata
Age: Sixteen.
Gender: Female

Path: Mastigos.
Gnosis: 3
Mana: 4/12
Wisdom: 7

Arcana: Mind 3, Space 2, Fate 1, (In Progress) Spirit 1

Aspirations: Unlock the Secrets of the Fire.

Obsessions:

Virtue: Faith
Vice: Curiosity

Health: 8/8
Willpower: 7/7
Defense: 2
Destiny (Merit): 4/4

XP: 0
Arcane XP: 1

Attributes:

Strength 3, Dexterity 2*, Stamina 3
Presence 2*, Manipulation 2*, Composure 3*
Intelligence 4, Wits 3, Resolve 4

Aspects:

Promising High School Student (4): She's smart and well liked around school. In fact, she has a pretty good grasp of not merely the basics of high-school learning, but even the things that are up to the senior year. Beyond what a person might learn in a she's a little lost, and so there are limits as to the kinds of things she'd know about, but if it can be found in a textbook she might have read, she's probably read it. As well, she knows how to plan her time, to get along with other people at school and not get into fights, and otherwise do well in this respect. She's best at history.

Preacher's Daughter (3): Growing up with a father who tells the gospel word, you learn how to mimic the way he gives sermons, quote the bible chapter and verse, and know more than a little about how to interact with people and their religions, faiths, and how churches function. Whether it is mingling after church, being a sounding board for her father's sermons, or playing games that involve reciting long passages of the bible from memory, she is good at it.

*A Bit of a Tomboy (2): She's really at the age where you're supposed to outgrow this sort of thing, really. But she still likes climbing things, she still likes running around the school, she still knows a little about getting into a scrap, even if she hasn't actually gotten into a fight since...well, a few years. She's keen, athletic, and very, very interested in baseball (boo, Kansas City Monarchs, boo!) which she read about, not having a radio, and that being fledgling besides. In any wise, it certainly isn't fading with time, and it's given her a set of interests and hobbies that meshes quite interestingly with her obvious piety and (reasonably, mostly) obedient nature.

Breaker of Chains (2): Abraham Lincoln was a swell guy, in her opinion. Her own father's involvement in the NAACP and her engagement in High School history has made it so that she's actually surprisingly knowledgeable on race issues, and quite talkative about them in the right circumstances. She knows how to keep her mouth shut, of course, around older white men or the like, but she has her opinions and she wears them on her sleeve, and that includes knowing a lot of things most girls her age wouldn't know about, academically and otherwise.

A Practicing Mage (2): While Morata has a lot to learn, and has only been practicing magic for a short time, she is now fully settling into magical society. She knows the Orders, and more than that she is starting to understand both the personalities and how magic truly works. It is a long journey, but she has taken another step forward.

Can We Keep Him? (1): She has had dogs and cats before, and currently has one of each, which she of course does all of the work taking care of, because her mom said that if she had to deal with that, she'd throw them out. She has a bit of a way with animals, and after the third or fourth stray, also with people and convincing them to go along with her quite innocent and well-meaning requests.

Problem Solver (1): Kids in her neighborhood and at school tend to trust and like her, or at least she's tried to be liked, and even go to her for help sometimes, whether of an academic nature or just to see what she has to say. She's not exactly a local guru or anything, but she's clever and tends to be able to help people with minor problems, or dispense advice, even if that advice is often enough 'Really, you should tell your parents, they're gonna find out, you know, and if they find out and you didn't tell them, they'll cane your hide raw.'

Sneaking The Cookie Jar (1): She's not a dishonest person, but being someone with a lot of friends means that you sometimes know how to lie for them, and more than that, that you know a little about sneaking an extra quarter here and there. Whenever caught she's full of contrition, and more than that she's not a fundamentally dishonest person, but...well, she knows plenty of people who deserve an extra cookie every now and then.

Mother's Teachings (1): Her mother has tried to at least teach her the basics of cooking, cleaning, and keeping house. The logic that she'll probably need it if she goes to college has been pretty persuasive, and while there are gaps, she's quite self-sufficient when it comes to balancing a budget or all of the other things a modern woman is expected to do, as far as it goes. She's best at cooking meat, and her recipes are all pretty simple, but it's food that'll fill a belly, and that's the most important thing.

To Dream A Dream (1): Morata has become a truly expert in the magic of dreams, and indeed has begun to truly explore what Demons and other denizens of the Astral can and will do. This is merely an extrapolation of what she can already do, hence the discount. Special: Can use Arcane XP for this.

Powers--

Mage Sight (Peripheral, Active, and Focused): She seems to be able to see something that others cannot. Magic itself, and her eyes seem especially attuned to distances and the spaces between things, as well as the minds of other people.

Mage Armor: Mind, Space

Mind 3, Space 2, Fate 2 (In Progress up from 1)

Spirit 1 (Will complete in two weeks)

Rotes--

Dividing the Mind (Mind 1): A rote to divide the mind in two, this means that it has extra reach to add to duration and so on, and that there is a two-dice Yantra that can be done to add to the power of the spell. Involves imagining the split in her mind to enact it.

Scholar's Little Helper (Mind 1): Scholarship is hard work, and it's often difficult to sift through a five-hundred page book on Astral adventures for the single passage on a threatening Goetic demon that's currently ripping the rest of the Cabal apart. Plus, cross-referencing other works can be difficult. Through this tiny little rote, the caster can input a word, phrase, or topic, mentally, and essentially search the book just by holding it up to the light, copying knowledge of what was said in those passages and the passage surround it into their brain without having to search. It does not grant perfect understanding, and sometimes the section requires context to make any sense, but it can save weeks on a big scholarship project. (Rote Mudra, Promising Student, +4) Reach: With each additional Reach, you can search an additional book in the same spell; You can absorb the entirety of the contents of the book, if not always parse its meaning, as if you read the entire book in the instants it took to cast the spell, cover to cover. It may take some hours of thinking and consideration to fully parse the contents, and of course at times understanding and applying it can be more difficult: but an entire book read in less than a second is still something.

Strengthen Mind (Mind 3): It does not, obviously, only effect the intellect, but any aspect of one's mind can be made sharper, as can one's social abilities. The key to doing this, or rather the Mystagogue form of it, involves closing one's eyes and pressing one's fingers against your forehead, as if trying to stimulate thought by motion. When you open your eyes, the spell should be cast. You cannot improve your mind or social abilities to superhuman levels (Rote Mudra: Promising Student, +4), Reach: You may divide the 'Potency' of the spell, eg: Potency 4, enhance Intelligence by 1, Wits by 2, and Resolve by 1; spend a point of Mana: temporarily, for as long as the spell lasts, Attributes can reach supernatural levels.

Scholar's Protection (Mind 3): Adapted from a famous Silver Ladder rote, this grants protection ot the humble scholar. They make a sign with their hands as if their hands are books, their palms pages, and then so long as they neither attack or order an attack, others struggle to gather up the will to attack them. If they do order an attack, or attack themselves, the spell automatically fails… but only for the target, and not any others. Automatons, or beings without thought are immune, but this potent spell makes it so that anyone with a Resolve less than their Mind +1 cannot bring themselves to attack. Those that can still feel hesitation, and it is as if the Mage has two points of Armor. Supernatural beings have an advantage: if they have a supernatural trait, they get +1 to the comparison of Resolve versus Mind, if it is equal to the Mage's, they get +2, and if it is greater, they get +3… even then, a weak-willed but powerful supernatural being might find themselves frozen in fear and doubt. (Rote Mudra: Promising Student, +4) Reach: Spend 1 Mana, the spell may now last for an entire day; You may spend Reach to increase the difficulty of overcoming the Protection, once; Attackers lose 10-again on rolls to attack someone, if that person has willpowered through the magic.

The Dedicated Will of the Just (Mind 3): A spell taught to her by her Uncle, it is in some ways an extension of previous spells. By touching the forehead and spreading one's fingers across it, yours or others, when someone grits their teeth and uses their will, they find it stretching out, like hitting a high note and holding it for longer than a single action, based on the power of the spell. (Rote Mudra, Preacher's Daughter +3) Reach: Willpower when spent can add +2 to all resistance traits; Willpower spent both increases one's ability to endure, and one's ability to 'act'; By spending a Mana, the caster can imagine the benediction and thus enact it in a single breath on themselves or any target, as fast as the speed of thought.

Determined Will (Mind 2): The Mystagogue must go through many hardships for knowledge. Whatever a materialist thinks, anyone experienced in Mind magic knows that willpower exists, and so by a series of invisible taps against either their own or--imagined--someone else's skull. By doing so the Mage can make sure that when they, or others, gather their will for a great task, as long as it isn't magic they will get a bonus to the will-enhanced roll (9-again.) (Rote Mudra: Preacher's Daughter, +3: Inspire others and inspire yourself), Reach: The bonus can be increased; the bonus might be able to be used even to enhance magic, strengthening the will that brings itself to bear in casting a spell.



The Bonds of Fate (Fate 1): It is one thing to look at someone and see them, it is another to be able to look at them and see the destinities, the curses, the broken oaths and more that mark their soul and their persons. Mystagogues imagine a cobweb of connections and strands of fate itself, and carefully reach out a finger to tap at the edges of the cobweb without breaking it, to see what creeps up. (Mudra: Can We Keep Him? (+1), the spider spins its web.) Reach: The Mage can know when someone is possessed, mind controlled, or otherwise has their destiny majorly influenced; the Mage can tell someone's Destiny and Doom, can know when the curse they're affected by will be lifted, or so on.

The Unusual Path (Fate 1) : Fate itself can sometimes intervene in small ways. Through this spell, a Mystagogue can state a goal and then receive omens, sometimes faint and contradictory, on how to begin working towards it… and can even allow them to match strength with strength: subtly twisting fate so that their talents are just the right ones needed to advance upon the goal. Miriam uses it to occasionally leverage her way through a tricky social situation. The Mudra involves tugging on strands and pulling them in with a flip of a hand, as if examining something. (Rote Mudra: Problem Solver, +1) Reach: Can substitute any skill needed while under the spell for another within the same category, e.g. the character's religious passion turns out to be just what it might take to convince the homeless person to tell you where the body is hid, instead of a skill involving the streets or crime; Can, if taken further, substitute any skill for any other skill: your athletic prowess intimidates the homeless man, your knowledge of petty trivia charms the high society lady you need to steal from.



] No Shackles For The Scholar (Space 2): A Mystagogue cannot be stopped merely by a locked door, or being chained up above a pit of sharks while a villain monologues about how the Secret of the Amazon will die with them. So by imagining their own escape, and circling around that thought a few times as fast as possible, they can affect it. Any one barrier: locked door, handcuffs, barred window, or so on is fine… though it cannot get one through a bouncer or through fire. It can also be cast on an object, such as if you want to push a macguffin through a locked door and then face the enemy yourself. (Rote Mudra: Breaker of Chains, +2), Reach: Can pass through even shackles or objects they could not move through, such as being chained up, or trapped in a coffin, or anything else; subject can squeeze through narrow gaps that they should not physically be able to make it through: you can in fact drive a car through an open front door half its width if you cast this spell on it.
Merits--

(**) 'Profession'--Student
1--Gain 9-again on any roll that can be justified as having to do with one's profession.
2--Gain two dots of Contacts related to one's 'profession.'
3--+1 to rolls against any mental, physical or social stress that might get in the way of performing one's profession.[1] This cannot create a positive bonus.

4--8-again on rolls.
5--One special bonus based on the nature of the 'profession.

[1] Okay, in this case, imagine the college student who is good enough at class that he can show up hungover and still get something out of class, or the athlete who can go out not feeling 100% and still actually manage not to fuck everything up forever, even if he's not putting in his best performance.

(***) Parents: It may seem absurd to say it, but having parents in the picture who can help solve moderate problems is a boon. Obviously the drawback is that if they get involved and it's over her head, it could end badly, and that more than that, they obviously are sure they know best, but asking Mom or Dad is totally an option available to her, and one that can enlist their aid and ask their advice.

(***) Contacts:

She has contacts with both People She Knows At Church, a broad group but in some ways self-selecting, and among those kids she knows around the neighborhood, as well as People At School. People are willing to talk to her, ask her advice, and that goes both ways, doesn't it? If she wants to ask around, she could certainly do worse than asking when she's at church, with someone inclined to see her well already.

Egregore--Mysteriorum Arche (•): In a teamwork spellcasting roll in which the character is participating, she does not suffer the –3 penalty to contribute without the necessary Arcanum rating, and adds an automatic success if a full participant. All members of the ritual team must possess this Merit.

(*)Language: Latin

She knows Latin, read and spoken.

(*) Order Status (Mysterium)

She has been initiated in the first mystery of the Mystagogues.

(*) High Speech

She can use High Speech as a Yantra in spellcasting, and knows enough to be (roughly) conversational outside of the very formal language of Spellcasting.

(*) Egregore

1) In a teamwork spell in which she participates, she doesn't take -3 to the roll if she couldn't cast the spell on her own, and if she can she adds an automatic success to her dice roll for the purpose of granting the ritual leader the bonus dice. However, everyone involved in the ritual must have this level of Egregore. This represents her connection to magic, and through it, others of the Order.

(*) Resources:

She has a little bit of spending money saved up. Not much at all, but it's something. And it's more than a lot of people have, and so she knows to be grateful for it.

(****) Destiny

Effect: Miriam does not yet know the specifics, but she is destined for greatness and yet also doomed in some way.

Currently at 4/4.

(***) Astral Adept: Can enter the Astral far easier, by paying just a WP and meditating.

(***) True Friend (Virginia)

Effect: Miriam has a true friend. True Friend represents a trusting relationship that cannot be easily breached. Unless Miriam really does something to deserve it (really, really) Virginia will not betray her, and I, the QM, has to go easy on her in terms of throwing her into danger. Slightly kid gloves with her, as part of an implicit contract, though that does not mean that Miriam's mistakes or actions might not involve her in deeper problems than she should be facing. And any roll, natural or supernatural, that has the purpose of influencing Virginia against Miriam takes a 5-dice penalty. Additionally, once per...let's say week, Miriam can regain a point of Willpower by having a meaningful/heartfelt/important interaction with Virginia.

Consilium Status (*): Consilium--Increasingly she is a known entity, someone whose existence is no secret at all and whose fame is even harder to deny.

Contacts: Vampires (1)--Her work with vampires means she has a greater awareness of where she can go to talk to them, especially once she thinks through what she saw.

Allies (1): Guardians of the Veil--In the aftermath of yet another Interview with a Vampire, she has been contacted by the Guardians of the Veil, who are curious and who are willing to trade curiosity for curiosity.

Trained Memory (1): She has trained her mind to be something like a steel trap, though perhaps rather more effective than that, all things considered: steel traps can rust, because outside of stressful moments she never needs to roll to remember anything… she just remembers, and without Magic at all.

Minor Elements:

--Having studied a Spirit Bestiary, Miriam is now more able to tell some common spirits apart, even without using magic, and can call up basic facts about said common spirits.
--Has the Memories of a vampire in her head, which can be examined/considered later.
 
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Page 112: Alternatives
Page 112: Alternatives

Morata did not like it, really. Losing Petro and Storia definitely narrowed down her options, and it would mean she would not have any Obrimos to take along. She would definitely feel the lack of Prime, considering how the 'magic of magic' as some called it, would be rough. But she nodded, because she understood that other people made choices and it wasn't as if he had said naughty words while putting her down. If he felt they were too busy and she was too busy as well to take part in a trade… who was she to say that he was wrong?

She nodded and smiled, "I do hope your work goes well. We're all under a goodly deal of pressure, but I hope that this will succeed."

"It'd be terrible to have to do this again next year, if there is even another chance," Petro said.

Ah, that was a point, actually. In theory there was next year, but considering the Silver Ladder's own hunt and all that was happening… she understood. "Yes, it would be." She nodded firmly and said, "I'll take my leave. Do you know where Marco is?"

"He's not here today, or at least not yet. But I think he'll be here soon," Petro said, considering it for a moment. "He's visiting briefly before returning to his other duty."

Sara.

Petro was talking about Sara. The shifts meant that the population of white kids as opposed to colored kids at her High School was continuing to decline, but if Sara could function, she would be at school. She wasn't sure what had been decided there, actually, and now she was left wondering at that. She knew there'd been discussion, but truly she'd been trying not to think about it… and she'd been assuming that she was going back, even if she had bad days.

Now she knew she'd have to ask, and for that matter see Sara.

But first… she needed to find Loki.



She knew where to find Loki. The miscellaneous tables were fascinating places. She'd spent a very, very fun afternoon with Loki at them in late July.

"See, a lot of these things are just garbage, but garbage can be used and reused, and there's some fun things here," Loki said gleefully, as he picked up a brush that had been painted so that each bristle was a different shade of a color of the rainbow. It was truly a very pretty wood-handled brush, and the rainbow of colors reminded her mind of the stories from the bible about rainbows, though she was sure at a guess that it probably had more to do with the refraction of light.

She was, as it turned out, entirely wrong. "What does it do?"

"It makes you think your hair is a different color," Loki declared.

"It makes you
think your hair is a different color?" Morata asked, baffled at that.

"Yes. It has a very obvious use, but not a very powerful one… what use might that be?"

"Can you see your hair as a different color in the mirror?" Morata asked.

"Sort of… there's some limitations of imagination and coloration…"

"So it's a fashion item. Trying out new hair coiors to go with new hairstyles," Morata guessed.

"Exactly! There's a lot of objects like that, things that do strange things in the right circumstances… there's sorts of Mystagogues who study it all the time. But, for the moment what matters is that it is not very impressive and yet it is just free for the taking… if you check it out, of course. They do want to keep track of these things. So, do you want to try it?"

"Would my hair really look good any other way but black?" she considered, and he grinned.

"You can actually get to see. Even if the answer is no, it's a fun little game, isn't it?" Loki asked.


Loki was at one of those tables now, bent over it, examining some new objects, or at least ones that he'd never explained to her.

She saw him, and now she had to think about what to do?

How to approach him?

[] Be direct: ask him about the possibility of working on a mission, because he's sure to know if you're dancing around things.
[] Talk to Loki about the objects, let him lead the conversation, and you can always allow him to tease out Morata's meaning.
[] Ask Loki what he knows of this new Mage, Id, perhaps that will motivate him to tell her things she needs to know… and be a good segue into talking about the team.

A/N: So it goes!
 
[X] Talk to Loki about the objects, let him lead the conversation, and you can always allow him to tease out Morata's meaning.

I think Loki might appreciate this more out of all approaches.
 
[X] Talk to Loki about the objects, let him lead the conversation, and you can always allow him to tease out Morata's meaning.
 
[X] Talk to Loki about the objects, let him lead the conversation, and you can always allow him to tease out Morata's meaning.
 
[X] Talk to Loki about the objects, let him lead the conversation, and you can always allow him to tease out Morata's meaning.
 
Page 113: Objects of Art(ifice)
Page 113: Objects of Art(ifice)

Morata looked at the objects that Loki was considering. It seemed to be a knife in a sheath, an old-fashioned plate, and what looked like a locket. The locket was silvery, and Loki had opened it. Inside was a woman's face, staring out. A white woman, with an elaborate hairdo and a pinched expression, but also eyes that seemed almost piecing. It was a unique portrait.

"You see it, don't you? It's the part that almost makes it something worth keeping," Loki said.

"What?"

"These come from our Flying Dutchman," Loki said, and his voice grew more dry. "He was quite helpful, and there were a few trinkets he was able to pass on. Nothing that needs to be locked away, just tiny little tricks, mostly. Like this…"

He held it up. "Whoever's hair lock you put in there, a portrait is made that captures something of their personality, or so the theory goes." He smiled and held it out. "It disappears when you take out the bit of hair, but the person doesn't have to be living."

"Huh," Morata said, and she could not help but be fascinated. "That's… useful. Though does it reveal personality? You couldn't know, it might just reveal what they show to the world?"

"That… is a point. We've hardly done any sort of study involving dream-diving after… huh." Loki considered that for a moment, "We tested it with several people, but that could just be that they appear how others see them?" Loki turned it over and over in his hand slowly, as if he were trying to memorize it, take in all those little details. "Any other ideas?" He asked it with genuine curiosity, looking at her as if she were someone who knew things. She liked that look, because she was knowledgeable and the more he brought her in, the better she felt about it all.

Theirs was a friendship founded on many things, and…

"Or could it have something to do with whoever is holding it, or around, or put the hair in?" Morata asked. "Have you tried it with two different people?" For instance, if a random white Sleeper put his father's hair in the locket would he see just another Negro and if she did the look he had on his face would be fatherly? "Or… the relationship between the two. I'm not sure."

"Huh, we might want to scoop it up, then," Loki admitted. "At least the other two aren't like that. This one… it's tied to a small East Coast town that still exists. It shows how rough the waves are." He held it up, and she realized that it was a placid pattern of waves on the dish. "We aren't quite sure why and how it does that, but this is one of the things that we know is at least two and a half centuries old. We think it may have to do with Changelings. But we cannot be sure. It is… obviously, useless for us, and there are no Mages in that old village, at least none that we know of. So there's nobody who has a better claim."

It was an established fact that, all other things being equal, and sometimes all other things being incredibly unequal, Mages had the first, second, and last claim to anything magical. Supernatural politics may get in the way of it, in a practical sense, but the Mysterium was not in the business of giving things up if they could not help it.

"And the last one?" she asked.

"Truly useless. A knife that makes it so that any game animal skinned with it is diseased, its meat giving you one of a number of entirely natural but often horrific illnesses. Even when washed in hot water and when magic is used to remove any traces that should cause it… it's caused. If it was just a knife that did that in general, it'd be useful for the darker side of things," Loki said, making a face. "But it merely taints certain kinds of meat, rather than causing diseases."

Morata shuddered. "So it's… useless?"

"I'd think so, but someone did think of one use for it. Can you think about what it is?" Loki asked.

It took a moment, but she realized it. "If there was some sort of creature that ate dead animals or people, you could use it to trick it and harm it by leaving out tainted meat?" Morata guessed, though that really did sound cruel. "Or use it to protect a dead body… humans are, physically but not spiritually, animals, right?"

Either use sounded both very specific and distressing at the same time.

"Just so," Loki said. "And speaking of just so: what did you want to talk about?" There was a laugh in his voice as he said, "I know you were interested, but I also know when someone is asking just to get me comfortable. So what are you trying to do, and how do you want me to help, if you don't mind me asking?" He turned to look at her, consideringly.

Give me your best pitch (just hit the high points)

[]


A/N: You got decent rolls for figuring out alternate uses for the objects, but I forgot to record them.
 
Emphasize (Order it from Top to Bottom)

[] The potential gains in knowledge from the trip.
[] The experience of meeting Demons.
[] That it would be a favor to her.
[] His ability to help make sure everything worked out/ensure her well-being.
[] Write-in, something else.


Seeing as I've literally not gotten a vote... gonna try to make it simpler, maybe?
 
[X] Safety and then Knowledge
-[X] His ability to help make sure everything worked out/ensure her well-being.
-[X] The potential gains in knowledge from the trip.
-[X] That it would be a favor to her.
-[X] The experience of meeting Demons.
 
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[X] Plan Novelty
-[3] The potential gains in knowledge from the trip.
-[1] The experience of meeting Demons.
-[2] That it would be a favor to her.
-[4] His ability to help make sure everything worked out/ensure her well-being.

My read on Loki is that he is a bored rich guy. At the very least it is a stereotype that he plays into. That means the new experiences can compel him into doing stuff. And if that is not enough, we can say we owe him a favor later. That should be enough to get him on board.
 
[X] Plan Novelty
-[3] The potential gains in knowledge from the trip.
-[1] The experience of meeting Demons.
-[2] That it would be a favor to her.
-[4] His ability to help make sure everything worked out/ensure her well-being.
 
X] Plan Novelty
-[3] The potential gains in knowledge from the trip.
-[1] The experience of meeting Demons.
-[2] That it would be a favor to her.
-[4] His ability to help make sure everything worked out/ensure her well-being.
 
[X] Plan Novelty
-[3] The potential gains in knowledge from the trip.
-[1] The experience of meeting Demons.
-[2] That it would be a favor to her.
-[4] His ability to help make sure everything worked out/ensure her well-being.
 
Page 114: Idol Distractions
Page 114: Idol Distractions

"There's a mission in the Astral I need to pull off, and this team is going to be interesting, though I just hope that I'll be able to handle the twists and turns I'm sure to face, being as new as I am as a Mage" Morata said, and she had no doubt he could see through her diffident routine, the way she said it as if she were not laying it on thicker than some slices of beef.

"Oh, are you?" Loki asked, with a smirk. "You're a prodigy, right? So what's worrying you so much?"

"Well I'll be working with Demons, and we'll be going to an island that is under their remit, to chase secrets of… of the Great Fire," Morata allowed herself to admit, because she was sure Loki was aware. "I might be able to get some more information about them through this, and I felt as if you might be curious."

"I do focus a lot on curios," Loki said, frowning and tapping his fingers. "Who all is it going to be?"

"I'm pulling people together, but Hatty, Id, yourself and Marco. Hatty agreed and Id invited himself on the recommendations of the Hierarch, and so that's two. I still haven't talked to Marco, and I'm talking to you now," she admitted. "It would be a favor to me, since both Petro and Storia have declined. You have plenty of experience, even if it's not in the Astral, and so I thought that it would be a favor asked… where I could also give something back."

"Ah, one of those, then?" Loki leaned over a little and said. "I do have another out of town meeting in a few weeks. I'll be thankfully and fortunately gone by the time you succeed or fail at the whole ventures, from what I can gather of the timeline involved."

This was right. "But I plan on going on this expedition long before that," she admitted, "Because as dangerous as it could be, I know that letting it sit would not make it easier, and there's only so much time left."

"Deadlines can be so literal among our kind," Loki said, shaking his hand and sweeping an arm up to grab one of the objects on the table at random. "We put a lot of pressure on people, and the Hierarch is almost certainly turning the capital idea of trust into something more rotten. I… do not like our competition any better."

"Our competition?" Morata asked, trying not to sound too eager.

"It does seem as if we have come closer to an accord. But let me say, as this is a favor to you, I will ask for repayment, and I cannot, old sport, merely ask for something token for such help when I am hardly that familiar with the Astral." Which was an exaggeration, she realized, because he'd spoken of going there several times before to set up deals where either they had to meet in the Astral before meeting in person, or where they could not meet in person. So she knew he at least had enough experience to navigate his way through the matter, which was more than plenty of Mages knew. It was honestly remarkable how difficult Astral Travel could be for those who did not bother studying it… or maybe it was entirely unsurprising, on the other hand.

"Of course, I understand that," Morata said. If she wasn't allowing herself to owe things, she'd be doing something even worse than that and essentially giving up on gains because she didn't like the costs. It was always going to cost her, to push this forward. She'd agreed, though. The Hierarch had approached her, and he'd said the words that had sent her through weeks of struggle, and weeks that seemed to be paying off.

"I'll pay the price I need to pay, and think it a cheap price when the alternative is far, far worse."

"Right, so Marco, I assume that you're going to go after him? He went to visit one of his charges," Loki said, with a glinting smirk at that.

Ah. Sara and Marco were in the same place, then, which meant she'd have to talk to Sara first. It would have its difficulties… but ignoring Sara was hardly a good idea, and so she considered it for a moment. Sara veered wildly at the best of times, and yet… and yet there was definitely something that had caught Morata in her orbit, and it wasn't just guilt that she was the one that only a few months ago was the one who uncovered the damage.

She was not responsible, but God help her, she felt sorry.

What's wrong today?

[] [Sara] Sara is in that mode where she was acting just a little affectionate and a little strange, that bit where she's taught a way of acting and apes it. Except this time Morata's not in the mood for it, this time it doesn't feel interesting or odd or something to take for granted, but instead a sort of slice, a kind of cut. Miriam cannot and does not like this feeling, and cannot place it either.
[] [Sara] Sara is in a mood, because the matter of relatives has come up, and the whole of her shot at going to school has been jeopardized by that. It drags and digs into her past, into people who--in every case--she's been divorced from for months as a result of the things that happened to her. It would be cruel to resent her for what she is doing, yet she is to some small extent taking it out on Miriam.
[] [Sara] Sara is almost too much all business, almost a little bit gone, and in being gone, she was ever more present, since her being 'gone' was a result of the things done to her by the Seers, by all those months of control, and without it she seemed… not hostile, but absent from any real relationship with Miriam, or anything other than practicality with Morata… miserable, oddly enough.
[] [Sara] She's stuck in a phase, our Sara is, and this one is an especially unnerving one, because it's the one that's based on her view of Miriam, the sort of 'her' that was used to model getting close to Miriam, and as such both realistic and unrealistic alike, and aware that she was not behaving 'naturally' for whatever that was worth.
 
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Loki seems to be in which is a good thing.

[X] [Sara] Sara is in that mode where she was acting just a little affectionate and a little strange, that bit where she's taught a way of acting and apes it. Except this time Morata's not in the mood for it, this time it doesn't feel interesting or odd or something to take for granted, but instead a sort of slice, a kind of cut. Miriam cannot and does not like this feeling, and cannot place it either.
 
[X] [Sara] Sara is in that mode where she was acting just a little affectionate and a little strange, that bit where she's taught a way of acting and apes it. Except this time Morata's not in the mood for it, this time it doesn't feel interesting or odd or something to take for granted, but instead a sort of slice, a kind of cut. Miriam cannot and does not like this feeling, and cannot place it either.
 
[X] [Sara] Sara is in that mode where she was acting just a little affectionate and a little strange, that bit where she's taught a way of acting and apes it. Except this time Morata's not in the mood for it, this time it doesn't feel interesting or odd or something to take for granted, but instead a sort of slice, a kind of cut. Miriam cannot and does not like this feeling, and cannot place it either.
 
[X] [Sara] Sara is in that mode where she was acting just a little affectionate and a little strange, that bit where she's taught a way of acting and apes it. Except this time Morata's not in the mood for it, this time it doesn't feel interesting or odd or something to take for granted, but instead a sort of slice, a kind of cut. Miriam cannot and does not like this feeling, and cannot place it either.
 
[X] [Sara] She's stuck in a phase, our Sara is, and this one is an especially unnerving one, because it's the one that's based on her view of Miriam, the sort of 'her' that was used to model getting close to Miriam, and as such both realistic and unrealistic alike, and aware that she was not behaving 'naturally' for whatever that was worth.
 
Page 115: Roles
Page 115: Roles

Miriam Green did not believe in gambling. It may not be a sin, but it was intemperate behavior, along the same lines as drinking, excessive smoking, and too public displays of affection. All of these things could make her uncomfortable, and yet she was friends with the son of a numbers man, knew several friends who had breached the laws regarding alcohol, knew plenty who smoked more than she would prefer… and had only the aged on the same frequency as her when it came to what affection she felt was at least a little bit unseemly.

Yet, along the lines of the alcohol, one could not help but acknowledge that outrage was a moveable feast and that hypocrisy was a common spice to add to it.

For instance, every time she went to see her friend, Sara, Miriam Green was gambling. She was gambling on what version of Sara it would be, and there were so, so many.

Miriam Green nonetheless would not alter from her path. She used magic to hide how she was dressed from the world, two layers of it even ready to be dropped, but she was not going to dress in anything besides what she liked to wear. Some versions of Sara liked that, some did not, and those that did could like it in all manner of ways.

So when she knocked on the door and stood there, she had to wrap Morata about her just to be sure. It was not an active process. She was not two people in one skin, something that could just happen and not even in some traumatic sense as had happened to Sara. People were not, by and large, as people thought they were. Their minds were more complicated, in both beauty, fragility, and horror, than There was a lot the world of the Wise knew about the mortal mind that it did not share. Considering all the things that were believed, the truth would seem an absurdity and be ignored.

Mages had tried before, and been labeled strange deviant cranks for it, with their declarations about the absurdity of hysteria, feeblemindedness, and indeed of a half-dozen other common, tried, and tested labels. Admittedly having read what some asylums put out, they seemed as apt to create new sub-categories of psychosis based on slightly different perceived causes as create new labels for things society labeled as wrong.

In both cases, very.

Sara was wearing an apron when she opened the door. It was the early afternoon, and so she knew this was not the right time for dinner. So the fact that she was wearing an apron had few other excuses. Except of course, the simple desire to wear an apron.

"Hello, honey, you're here early," Sara said, as if there was a schedule. There was something glassy about her eyes, though not entirely absent, not entirely vacant. The personality wasn't a nullity, wasn't some sort of absence, for all that it was based too strongly on certain rules and expectations.

"I did just come from the Athenaeum," Morata said, and hated that she was playing into this. But she most definitely was, it was hard to deny when the proof was in front of her. Here she was, getting off from a day's work to check in on Sara. It only played into the game, in a strange way.

Sara took in her pants, her shirt, all the things about her that were different, and made a decision. It was not quite the decision society would make. No, it was the decision that society would make if it was told slant.

So since Morata sometimes (often) wore what society said were men's clothes, she was treated like a man, as if they existed in a bizarre universe in which sex was decided by mode of dress, obeying neither identity nor biology, the former of greater importance among Mages than among Sleepers.

"Oh, that sounds like important work. I've been doing a few silly little things around the house, you know." She actually twined her hair around her finger in a nervous gesture. Even when her mindset was like this, she still did plenty of reading and work, she just tended to downplay it because she was wearing a skirt and the person she was talking to wasn't. Morata stepped in.

"That's fine," Morata said, though she didn't know if she wanted to play into it or not. It was always a choice, and a fight was almost never a good one even when she had 'reasons' for it. "You do a good job," she said, because it was true. Despite everything, Sara was very "useful" as more than just someone to study, someone who seemed at once a Sleepwalker and not.

Even when her mindset might make one assume she wasn't doing the job, instead it meant that she found some odd and absurd excuse to consider whatever she did woman's work, even though it was academic and the most stringent of views would have therefore rejected it.

"Thank you, sir," she said, and for a moment Morata was more an employer than anything else. Sara blinked and turned a little. "Have you had any lunch? Mid-lunch snack?"

"No," Morata admitted, considering it. "Or, I could do with something to eat… but not if it means burdening you."

"Burdening me?" Sara asked, sounding innocently baffled. The problem was, even if she was annoyed, she'd be more likely to be passive with hidden undertones of chiding than anything else. "I made some sugar cookies earlier--"

Uh oh.

"And a sandwich shouldn't be too hard to fetch for you. Please sit down, please sit down." And as she said it she tried to bustle Morata, without touching her, toward an easy chair. "I assume you read the morning paper?" A nervous, even awkward laugh. "Oh, of course you have, how would you really go about the day without knowing the news?"

Morata, of course, had been rather too busy for that, but she just nodded absently and tried to think about what to do next. "I'll settle down anyway. I can take the moment to think."

"As long as you tell me what you're thinking," Sara cooed, but there it was. She heard it, the fear of being left out, the desire to be 'read in.' It was still Sara in some ways, and one of the ways was definitely the understanding that what she didn't know would still hurt her.

Morata considered it, and considered the girl bustling about in an apron and very modest clothing, preparing to get her food.

What to talk about?

[] Food is usually a safe topic, and perhaps it is one that could bring out a little exasperation, as she still does not quite get how Miriam's taste in food is so generally 'bland.' The risk is that it could be a shallow topic, one that won't bring out enough. However, there's times when that's what a person needs…
[] The news might be a topic to get Sara interested, because she was--unlike Morata--a habitual reader of newspapers, as opposed to one who had to remind herself of it. It'd risk getting caught up in the strange sex roles going on here, but of course there's nothing that doesn't risk that…
[] Talk about her work. It might be the most likely to cause her to downplay it or brush it aside, but it can be hidden as a practical concern and it might let Morata start to get an idea of how Sara is really doing.
[] Sara knows her other selves, or knows that they exist. She is not unaware, so perhaps there could be more there, but of course there's always the possibility it could be a splash of icy-cold water on a conversation that already risks being stilted… but it's at least not playing into the set of odd stereotypes.

A/N: Apologies for the wait, but here we go.
 
[X] Food is usually a safe topic, and perhaps it is one that could bring out a little exasperation, as she still does not quite get how Miriam's taste in food is so generally 'bland.' The risk is that it could be a shallow topic, one that won't bring out enough. However, there's times when that's what a person needs…

I think a safe topic is a fine pick. It is not a good idea to push someone every time you see them. They can start to associate your visits with stress and lose any enjoyment they get from the visit. I do not think we should try to pry into her head this visit.
 
[X] Food is usually a safe topic, and perhaps it is one that could bring out a little exasperation, as she still does not quite get how Miriam's taste in food is so generally 'bland.' The risk is that it could be a shallow topic, one that won't bring out enough. However, there's times when that's what a person needs…

She's a little volatile right now so playing things safe.
 
[X] Food is usually a safe topic, and perhaps it is one that could bring out a little exasperation, as she still does not quite get how Miriam's taste in food is so generally 'bland.' The risk is that it could be a shallow topic, one that won't bring out enough. However, there's times when that's what a person needs…
 
[X] Food is usually a safe topic, and perhaps it is one that could bring out a little exasperation, as she still does not quite get how Miriam's taste in food is so generally 'bland.' The risk is that it could be a shallow topic, one that won't bring out enough. However, there's times when that's what a person needs…
 
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