Warehouse, Interrupted

[Crowley]

Down at the Free Council warehouse lorehouse, there is life; movement.

There is probably some scraping and banging too. You see, Crowley is... cleaning. Yes, I know it sounds strange and unbelievable (the Temoins du Sud can attest this as they share the same Sanctum) but the metal musician is vacuuming and wiping things down.

There is even a paint pot or two, brushes, sheets for covering things.

The doors and windows of the warehouse lorehouse stand open so that the airs within can be cleansed and circulated. Window frames and windows have a sheen of damp paint. Some of the older, more dingy, carpet has been taken up and tossed out; inside, new carpets lay in rolls, ready to be placed down.

Crowley is a mess of dust and paint, looking more shabby than usual with a really faded bandana covering his head and another wrapped as a neck tie. But the smile - the Enchanter is happy.

Varyx alias-of-a-girl

[Varyx]

Jeans and a well-worn leather jacket clad the tempting blonde as she wandered up to the warehouse door. Windows open, she could hear the sound of someone banging around inside. Well, looks like Crowley's here. Or else Emrys was in for a big surprise. Either way, she knocked, leaning easily against the doorframe and checking her phone while she waited for him to answer.

[Crowley]

Crowley spun, waved.

"Mysterious V! Welcome!" He moved to usher the Mastigos inside, discovering along the way that the object he held in his hand was a paint brush. It caused him to pause - had he lost time somewhere in his joyous work?

"Ah! Come in. Take a seat. Just pick anywhere, plenty of space - over there... or there... is best. Cleaned up all over there. Still dusty down this way, if you're game. Oh... We got a water cooler somewhere and there are some cups in the kitchenette. Did you want a drink?"

[Varyx]

Stepping inside, Varyx's gaze swept up Crowley's form and she smiled. "I see you've been busy," she observed, crossing the space towards the location he'd been gesticulating at with his paintbrush. She waved a dismissive hand at his offer of a drink and shook her head. "No, I'm alright, thanks."

Finding a place to sit, she watched Crowley moving about, her expression curious. "Doing a little spring cleaning, I suppose?"

[Crowley]

"Um. Yah. Well... I don't think the place has been opened up since we hosted everyone last year. Theres only two Libertines right now so there isn't much call to use the space. I was here. Thought I'd make myself useful."

Crowley located a bucket and dumped his brush.

"So. What can I do for you today?" A vulgar thought made its way openly across his face for an instant. After that, he managed to put up a more professional mask: it faded quickly, curiosity consuming it as he trailed behind the gorgeous Warlock.

[Varyx]

Varyx caught the look on Crowley's face, the one that she recognized immediately. She grinned, a fleeting temptation to distract him from her actual purpose here (or at least to tease him) passing through her mind for a moment. But his own expression calmed and hers followed suit. No, today really was to be for business. Though, she supposed, strictly speaking that sort of thing was business for her.

"Well, I'm sure you know I don't belong to any Order. I've been considering the idea of joining one, but I have yet to find one that truly speaks to me. Faust, actually, pointed out that there are certain parts of my personality and attitude which might match well with the Council, so I thought I'd come speak with you about it. I've been speaking with people from all the Orders, actually, over the past few months. Better to get information like this straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak. So, I guess to begin... Would you mind my asking how you came to join the Free Council?" The question was posed perhaps more delicately than was necessary, but if she'd learned anything about Awakened life, it was that all of them had something... ugly in their pasts. Awakening was rarely a comfortable experience. And it seemed unlikely that their lives had been particularly rosy since, so she chose not to assume that any information about the pasts of her peers were things they would be immediately comfortable sharing with an acquaintance. In fairness, there was an argument to be made that she and Crowley could be considered closer than acquaintances, but she knew better than anyone that sex didn't necessarily equate with an intimate personal relationship. No need to assume that she was privy to his secrets because they'd spent a night.

[Crowley]

The Enchanter paused.

No one had ever truly asked a question like that of him before. It bordered on the privacy zone... and yet, it was an important discussion point. He felt that he and Varyx were more friends than mere acquaintances. The Mastigos did have the right to ask, seeing as this whole meeting was about the Council.

Surprise, suspicion, sensitivity, resolution: the emotions ran rampant across his malleable visage before he spoke.

"I joined the Free Council after a stint with the Mysterium. I had been used as an auger, pretty much on tap with mimimal instruction. You know, always told I wasn't ready, which was crap because I was Awake, after all. So I walked. I stumbled onto a Libertine meeting soon after and found that my opinions were accepted (maybe not valued, but accepted) and that I could actually do stuff. There was no hierarchy as such. No arse kissing to folks whom I felt were just sitting pretty. The Council is about mutual assistance - everyone puts in; everyone gets something out of it."

A pause.

"Does it make it loud, sometimes crass, a lot of times argumentative and slow to get its act in gear - yes. The Movement here suffered a bit with that: many new faces... all the time... or none at all. So there was hardly anyone to work with or a pile of fresh faces, all with their own ideas and views, and we'd have to thrash things out again from the beginning. I won't deny that is something the Free Council of the River City has a problem with in the past; its just the nature of things here."

[Varyx]

Varyx couldn't help the look of faint surprise that crossed her face at Crowley's mention that he'd been Mysterium, once. And then more at his treatment. It seemed unexpected that he considered that to be the standard operating procedure for the Mysterium. Maybe it was, in other cities. Given that there were only 3 Mystagogues in all of Sacramento at the moment, perhaps it should have been less surprising that it felt a little more about mutual assistance here. But then, this was the kind of information she'd come for. Avis had made a point to specifying that each Order was more than just what was in this city, that it was a world-spanning fraternity. She needed to be sure she'd picked the right one, beyond the context of Sacramento and its frankly unusual status as an active war-zone. And, honestly, even though this didn't provide all that much for her to make a decision concerning the Council, it did seem to lend itself to the instinct in her mind that the Mysterium just wasn't the place for her. Ironic, she supposed, given that they were the ones actively courting her.

He paused and she was about to respond, when he continued, outlining - once again to her surprise - what he felt with the Council's weaknesses, especially in Sacramento. She began to smile. His honesty was refreshing. Besides, that just lent his previous point, about the Free Council being more democratic, that much more weight. It wouldn't have been such an issue if the newcomers had inherently less of a say in the Council's decisions and direction. Maybe that wasn't necessarily a good thing when it comes to a place as tumultuous as this, but it definitely spoke to their conviction about what they professed to believe.

There was a pause while she absorbed everything he said, and then nodded. Time to see if he'd respond to her prodding as well as Miach and Faust had. "So, there's no hierarchy? Sounds idealistic. I mean, I understand the desire, but is it realistic? How can the Council get anything done when no one voice carries more weight than the rest?" A quick, amused smile flashed over her face. "Or do all of the meetings devolve into the troublesome circular arguments that seemed to want to take over Avis' recent forum?"

[Crowley]

Crowley found himself a spare seat and dropped into it backwards, leaning against the back of the seat with his legs splayed all over the place in a slovenly mess.

"Well. We do have a few positions. Electable positions. They don't give Libertine more power per se, but they do give you a certain weight... under certain conditions. We got Syndics... kind of like elected representatives... for areas with bigger Assemblies, right? Key thing is, they debate issues with other Syndics, so they form a house of reps kind of thing if there is enough of them. You know, limit the number voices - as in any representative democracy. So yeah, if there is enough of us that things get too disruptive, we can empower some of us to do the talking and fine tune all the positions before we vote. Vote on the positions put forward, not the person. We tried it here, but our numbers are too unstable for the practice to work well."

He laid his head on his hands, almost musing.

"If the shit were really to hit the fan, we do have a mechanism to cut the crap. We can under those circumstances elect a General-type guy to be the leader. For the duration of the crisis. Sometimes authoritarian power has its uses - as long as its used wisely and with care. Don't think we ever got that far here."

He kept that one vague, not wanting to give away too much.

"Theres another role out there too. Yeah - role, not ritual position or hidebound hierarchy title. The role of Emissary. I was Emissary. Maybe still am. With so few of us there really isn't much call for it." He shrugged and lifted his head. "Its a diplomat type role... eh, okay... more like the Ambassador role from the middle ages or something? Do things with other groups - Consilium, Orders, other Cabals and shit. I had it when I was Herald, so the two positions complemented one another. But as Emissary I, like, represent the interests of the Movement as a group."

He paused, scratched at his chin.

"Yeah. I'd say our problem is the way our numbers bounce so much. In places with a more settled population a lot of those constant teething issues would have been worked out a long time ago and the Assembly would be more settled - and debates would be easier, I guess. Case in point - Avis' forum. We don't talk as a collective group much around here; even the big meets are well... the Councillor's telling us stuff. So when you offer the floor, everyone wants their voice heard, the thread of the topic can be lost, and it all goes circular. Because all that creative energy, of ideas and how to improve things has been pent up for so long, its like a dam breaking. It has to come out. And because its seen as a one off, people want to make sure that their idea wins."

[Varyx]

Varyx nodded at appropriate intervals as he explained. Made quite a lot of sense. She could certainly see the appeal. She just wasn't entirely convinced that idealism like this always panned out. Not that she had anything against idealism or idealists, just that she herself liked to keep realistic expectations. To cut down on future frustration and disappointment.

Beyond that, though, he made a good point about the trouble with the forum - not enough opportunity to speak out like that lent itself to everyone trying to talk over one another once there was an opportunity. "Well, perhaps the solution is to make sure that such opportunities for each member of the Consilium to speak isn't a one-time thing. Perhaps we should much more readily open the floor when necessary, even if it's only to give that pent-up desire to help some release."

She stretched, her arms lifting above her head for a moment in a pause to allow her to think on her next question. She didn't want it to come across as rude or prying - that wasn't the goal. But she needed to know the kind of relationships she'd be interacting with if the Council were to be her choice. "So tell me about you and Emrys. Do you work together often? Would you consider yourselves friends...?" She drifted off, leaving the question open ended for Crowley to fill in his own answer to the nature of their relationship.