Killing Young

Jan 29th, 2015 12:03 AM

Just another morning. Asp had been up for a while. She always was up before the sun, carrying out the routine that powered her brain up. Teeth were brushed for minty freshness. Her workout was as it often was, a morning routine of cardiovascular fitness and muscle maintenance that lasted an hour before a cooling shower that left her skin tingling and smelling of strawberries and cream.

She had her hair in a towel turban and was wearing a pair of navy blue sweats and a white tank top. A newspaper was before her on the kitchen table, along with a very, very large bowl of Raisin Bran, a sort of nasty-looking protein shake, and a little bit of storebought fruit salad from the night before.

Asp was definitely far more interested in the food than the paper, but it was a way to pass the time as she destroyed her breakfast with celerity.

**Star** · Jan 29th, 2015 12:27 AM

Gross, yo.

Was she really going to eat that? Together? All at once?

There was Raisin Bran in his kitchen?

Lank curls gleamed as they dried. Like the sunrise, the mop would slowly rise over time, but for now, it was obvious someone had showered recently. And the clothes. Khakis. A nice button down. The nicest. Usually when only own one of a thing? It's the nicest.

Was he Dressed Up? Maybe. Just a little. Were there little dark fatigue bruises under his eyes? Maybe.

"...and... Uh."

He'd been saying something. About something. For just a moment, he looked at his cabal-mate of the past six months as if she were a total stranger. Like the day they met.

"Uh. Hi. Asp."

**Avis** · Jan 29th, 2015 12:59 AM

The Councilor of Warlocks trailed in behind the magician, a ragged shadow in unwashed clothing, head bent, dark hair trailing listlessly over her face. Her arms hung by her sides, hands limp, sock clad feet noiselessly scuffing the linoleum as she lethargically shuffled forward. Her steps paused at Star's side and her gaze rose off of the floor as though for the first time. Blank, unblinking eyes took in the form of the guardian and then turned on Asp. As though drawn by some inexorable force, Avis shuffled over to the table and took a seat across from the Obrimos, arms folding across her stomach.

"Asp," Avis repeated, voice a monotonous rasp. The skin around he eyes seemed to be tighter, drawn in, her lips thinner. It was obvious she hadn't seen even winter's weak sun in over a week. She'd quit her job. That much Asp knew, but Avis had been like a ghost after she'd delivered the news. Drifting in and out of the Sanctum at odd hours. Staring off into space whenever she was around. She'd never look quite like this, though.

"We need your help," she pronounced solemnly. "We need you to kill someone."

Jan 29th, 2015 01:06 AM

Asp chewed her cud. Straight up, that was what it was; raisin bran, milk, green shit and a bit of fruit all sort of mingling behind teeth and lips. It wasn't very good, but apparently, it was healthy. Kind of like shitty salads and kale and quinoa. Star had to have better ideas than the health food market clerk. He had to. The guy was basically the Wolfgang Puck of crepes.

She nodded to the two with a full mouth, working it over, getting set to get something that didn't taste like a cow's asshole to drink...

...when Avis made her pronouncement.

Asp blinked twice. Looked from one to the other, her towel turban bobbing ever so slightly as she moved and chewed. Then, she swallowed. Only then did the Sentinel reply to the unexpected proclamation.

"What's that, now?"

Spoon found side of bowl. Fuck it.

"What happened?"

**Star** · Jan 29th, 2015 08:24 PM

And there it was.

If anyone wondered whether Opposites Attract ? Avis' words cut through any pleasantries, stalling, or even euphemisms. Like glass and skin. Some people need to say a thing for it to be real. Like saying someone died. Or seeing a corpse at a funeral.

Nobody needed the words to make it real. But words were also coping mechanisms. Euphemisms. Dodgy. No one's dodging.

But as he slid in next to her, their appearances were even more starkly contrasted. Eyes slowly focused into the moment, and hands tucked under armpits as arms crossed. The caging of hands was as much a statement as anything else: Serious Business.

"She's pregnant. And... "

Words, barely louder than a whisper. You know the rest.

Sometimes, it's the death of dreams that words make real.

**Avis** · Jan 30th, 2015 03:56 AM

"...We talked it over," Avis finished for him, her eyes breaking away from Asp's with a blink. She looked at her hands, now pooled in her lap, slowly turned the pale digits over, studying them.

"We talked it over," she repeated again, "and it needs to die. To..." She trailed off, throat choking on the words, so she swallowed them away. It was all lies, anyways. It wasn't what it needed to do. It was what she needed to do. What they needed to do. But, never, ever, would the blame lie on it's unformed head.

"We figured," her voice mumbled, "that you could kill it for us. Dull green eyes found their way back up to meet Asp's eyes. Wet, but steady. Not pleading. "That you would be able to, I mean. I...I don't like doctors. I'll go to one if I have to, but we wanted to ask you first."

Jan 31st, 2015 11:37 AM

Asp was quiet for a long moment. Her hand snaked over to the horrible beverage, she brought it to her lips, then stopped, glancing down at it before getting up to grab a Vanilla Coke from the fridge. She'd need the caffeine if she was going to have this conversation.

"Wow. Whoa. Sorry, that's big news. Like, big."

She cracked it, took a sip. Talk about the craziest thing ever to wake up to. Hi, Asp, can you do a quick abortion?

And what question was it of morality? Asp had her personal views, and this didn't conflict with them - no, the flash wasn't toward Sleeper debates or anything of that nature. It was to the question of Hubris. Her Hubris. The Wise ought to not do things that could be done reasonably easily mundanely with the Arts, and Avis was asking her to play God to do something she could do mundanely without difficulty.

Couldn't she?

Of course, Avis was Avis. She'd had a rough past, and while surely Asp only knew parts of it... there were considerations to be made.

Asp's eyes met the Mastigos's, and she nodded.

"It's, uh, yeah. I am able to do it. I'll need to think about the exactly how of it, so I get it right. I've... never been asked to do this before. Hey, you wanna sit for a sec? Lemme take a Look? I'm gonna just run a scan over you, so I can visualize it, you know?"

How did you target a fetus without blasting the mother?

When she Awoke, that was basically the last question she ever thought she'd have to answer.

Asp knew a spell that might do what she wanted it to do, maybe? She'd need to be able to sense it, to locate it, to pick its microscopic place in the Weave out and tease those strings out so they could be examined and targeted and conceptualized apart from Avis, on its own from Avis, as its own living organism...

With a murmur of High, she pulled up her Life scan like a super ultrasound to take a look...

It'd let her see what was going on, and buy her a moment to think.

4 sux to Sense Life, restricted to pregnant humans and their fetuses.

**Star** · Feb 1st, 2015 07:11 PM

"We talked it over."

Eyes more green than blue glanced over at Avis, then back to Asp with a slow nod. It was agreement. It was solidarity. It was confirmation. If a scarred hand had been loose, he would have reached for it. Occupied with themselves, he was left to turn awkwardly and rest a hand on a hoodied shoulder.

There are some things a hug can't solve. And sometimes, people need their space. Not Space. Long fingers lingered for just a moment, then slipped away to rest between them. Available, but not intrusive.

His own shoulders twitched, and eyes widened at the other Angel's words.

Spell?

That twitch was totally a flinch. School said it was just a few cells dividing.

Magic might say otherwise.

Life.

Air rasped in through nostrils, and something hot and achy swelled the back of his throat. His hand between them moved to cross the space and burrow into hers.

**Avis** · Feb 2nd, 2015 02:11 AM

The Warlock's eyes dropped towards her lap again as she felt her lovers hand find it's way into her grasp. Her eyes lay there for some moments, but it wasn't because the sight moved her. It was because the exact opposite was happening. All she felt was warm skin against her own. Just matter touching matter. There was no sense of two consciousnesses connecting, no sense of intricately undulating emotional landscapes meeting. It was just two pieces of intricately developed biological mechanisms, just two collections of organic fluid, tubes, cabling, and structural elements touching each other.

In that moment, surrounded by the faint breeze of the theater's ventilation, sitting on the braided strands of fabric over stuffing and a metal frame, Avis felt like the only person in the world. It was ridiculous. An untruth, but at that moment, she just could feel no grand web of life or energy, no tapestry of souls, no understanding of Truth. It was just her, trapped inside her skull. But, then, there came a tingle. A shiver came over her, brought on by the sensation of something dragging a wet feather up her spine. It was a symptom of the Supernal. More real than anything else she'd heard, or felt in that moment. A reminder that no, in fact, she wasn't trapped. She wasn't cut off. She wasn't the only person there.

Hesitantly, her fingers tightened on Star's hand. Hopefully the action would give him the comfort he sought.

For Asp

Feb 2nd, 2015 11:39 AM

Asp nodded to Star's confirmation idly, but her focus was elsewhere in that instant. She had hunkered down a little bit, and to the uninitiated, it might have looked like she was just staring at Avis's covered belly. Not so, not in truth - her sixth sense for Life was flowing, and she was feeling for something, mentally moving the threads of the Weave to see...

...there. Tiny and barely existent, but glowing in the Weave just like anything else. It was part of the world around her, just as much as Asp or Star or Avis or the bacteria her Sense was presently filtering.

Wow. It was strange, thinking about Life in the terms of a Supernal mystery unto itself even as science explained the mundane elements of it. Was this Life she was about to snuff out? Of course it was. But death was just a part of Life. All things were conceived in some way. Not all things lived through to be born. Nature was a harsh and unforgiving Lie, and only through the Arts could they control her.

She stood up, looking to her tense patient and her nervous partner.

"I see it. It's still very early, microscopic, but I've found it now."

Asp rubbed her hands on her pant legs and took up her Coke once more, taking a long sip to let herself think for a moment. The magical conundrum was not whether or not to kill it. She'd killed bugs just as easily, and they were just as much a part of the Tapestry as this microscopic organism. The question was one of Wisdom, one of Hubris. Did she have the right? Shouldn't this be done by some sort of physician?

Of course, she had plenty of medical knowledge herself. Enough to have read a thing or two. Enough to make a couple of suggestions.

"So, things I should tell you about. It's about two months along. Now, I'm not a doctor, and one of the upsides of doing this mundanely is that you get actual medical support if you start experiencing side effects like post-partum depression or anything like that. Those sometimes happen, and I can't just magic away depression. Too risky. Anything injury-wise is easy to take care of, but when it comes to sensitive brain chemistry, that's complex." She sipped again. "I'm willing to do it for you, Avis, if you want me to. You're my friend, and it's your body. But we gotta ask ourselves - should we use Magic for this? Unraveling a fetus when a quick procedure could take care of it for you... I guess it's a question of how much you dislike doctors."

Asp wasn't the paragon of Wisdom, but sometimes, it was important to ask. All three of them had a part of this.

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2015-01-31 11:30:45		Asp rolls 9 to Gno+Life+HS to Sense Life (restricted to pregnant humans and their fetuses) (10 Again)		8, 2, 5, 5, 9, 1, 2, 2, 10, 9		4 successes

Killing Young

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