The Great Imposition

[Puck]

A wild Acanthus appeared, and Puck's sanctum is not in a presentable state, so it's off to the circle of creation! It was a giant cathedral built in the likeness of Westminster Abbey away from the downtown area. So pretty easy to find.

In the pews that lined the interior was a man. A man clearly waiting for someone. A man with some very important somethings on his phone. What? This is Official Business Time and the last thing you want to do is be the tardy Time mage. Gotta get here early and kill Time slowly. This was heavy stuff today. After the last official gathering of the awakened it was evident this was a very important moment for mages. A great burden the council couldn't possible do more then once for fear they might disrespect the wrong people with accountability and maybe even consequences for their actions. The horror!

Sarcasm aside though? Puck did like getting to meet the new acanthi. The Enchanters hadn't been a large path since he came to the city, and a chance to have some extra voices in the choir was one he looked forward to. He wasn't sure how well they'd get along, but they had plenty of Time to figure that out.

[Moira]

She parked her Mini a few blocks away, and took advantage of the nice weather to walk. Her black leather ballet flats made no sound on the ground as she walked. The blessings of good rubber soles. She was wearing a white cashmere cardigan with a butterfly print, and a olive button up collared shirt underneath, with a smooth black skirt that fell to her ankles. Her pixie cut was freshly blown out and as wild as ever. Her makeup was simple, yet polished, she kept her lip neutral with a simple gloss.

She made use of the time it took to walk from her parking spot down to the Circle to confirm a few things with her assistant. Moira was fortunate to only have to actually be in the office two days a week. Today, was not one of those days, but she still had to touch base. Which she stopped dead in her tracks at the North entrance looking up."Yeah....I gotta call ya back hon. Yeah. I'm at my appointment. Hmmhmmm. Yeah. Just ..hey..I need to stop you there, just email me. I will look at later and call in at the end of the day, okay? Okay. Right. Byyyyye." She hung up on him, and turned her phone to DND mode. How pretentious is this? Whoa.

She took a big breath and let it out slowly, nibbling slight on her lower lip before finally shrugging and heading in until she found the other Acanthi. She set her first sights on Puck. And she started to grin almost immediately. She liked what she saw. Especially the hair, right? Who does that remind you of? This grrl.

"Hey there.....nice to make actual contact. I'm Moira! Like the text suggested. They didn't give me your name, so ummm unless you want me to refer to you as 'Hey GUY', I hope you have something else to offer in exchange."

[Puck]

The sound of an unfamiliar voice drew his attention as he quickly rose from his seat and slid his phone into his pocket. It also got a soft chuckle from him. Was there anything worse then a coworker who doesn't realize when a call can be an email? Okay, maybe a supervisor who doesn't realize a meeting could be an email.

"I'm Puck. Voter of the Council of Free Assemblies and Councilor of the Enchanters. Hey guy works in casual settings though."

He settles into a comfortable smirk.

"So Moira, have a seat." His hand sweeps to the pew next to him, sitting if Moira chooses to do so as well. "Tell me about yourself and what brings you to Sacramento."​

[Moira]

Her smile grew a little wider at something he said in that first sentence, and she closed the distance between them as they spoke back and forth, taking a seat next to him in the pew. She leaned back against the wood, her body angled towards pucks as she intended to engage him. Her body language open, and she nodded a bit at the question.

"I didn't fit in. In the last city I was in, I mean." She paused a second and shrugged. "Nothing like, unfortunate, or anything happened it was just a failure to launch. My mentor was Silver Ladder, and ummm about the only thing we agreed on is that we didn't agree on anything. There was really no common ground, and so I did what I always do in times like those and just tuned him out. That definitely backfired on me. Apparently ignoring him completely was somehow a worse insult than our constant back and forth." She shook her head.

"We eventually got to a better place, but I refused to join his order and that unsettled many. It bred distrust, and perhaps rightly so, but I'm not going to do something just to do it. I didn't feel any connection to its members or what they stood for. I probably could have outlasted that attitude, I mean I can be stubborn enough, especially when I think its bullshit. " She paused to smile softly at the telling. "But there was this feeling that just started as an anxiety. Like sometimes I just felt really anxious, and like I wasn't where I was supposed to be." She paused a second like she was considering how much she wanted to really share.

"I had started soft looking for a larger studio to apply too. I've been working professionally in my industry for a few years, so moving to a larger game studio had been on my mind for some time. I immediately got an offer from EA, which the office is only an hour and a half commute from here, so that just sort of seemed a little to good to pass up. That feeling of anxiety has gone away since I've been here. So why did I come here? I mean, a feeling I suppose. That it was time. And that sounded, a lot less flaky in my head than what actually came out." She spread her hands and shrugged with a grin. "Well damn. I guess that's kind of where I'm at right now."

She regarded him a moment. "What about you, Puck..." She said is name and drawled it out a bit, as if testing it to herself, how it sounded. It sounded so generic, and perhaps that's exactly why he chose it. Maybe another reason, and just like that she reeled herself back into the conversation. "What brought you here?"

[Puck]

Puck listened, mesmerized by the story. It sounded pretty petty to him. The Libertine honestly couldn't think of anyone else he'd met that cared that much about Order membership. At least Ladder meant Puck didn't have to go over the Lex and Tet. Three cheers for cutting corners!

"Sounds rough." Forced relocation was never easy, but the Awakened had a slightly easier time relating then most. "At least you have a fresh start with a cool job. Hopefully the city suits you well."

​"I was looking for a change after my Awakening. I wasn't especially fond of my small town newspaper and wanted a chance at something more fulfilling. Preferably where everyone around didn't know my true name. I got a job at the Sacramento Bee writing about economics and labor trends and I've been here ever since. I keep the winds of chance blowing for my monthly rituals and look for ways to pitch in where I can. Met a few spirits. Pissed off most of the Concilium."

He shrugs, smirking once again.

"You might have the local loud mouth for your councilor, just so you're aware."

That smirk? He might have enjoyed a few of those loud mouth moments.

[Moira]

She felt a tension leave her that she hadn't realized she'd been holding onto until it was gone. She chuckled heartily at that last. Oh yes she did. Understanding was in her features as she nodded showing she was actively listening to him.

"Well if my time in my last city taught me anything, it was to temper some of my naughtier impulses to stay more even keeled. Working for a gaming giant like EA is an office politics minefield, which thankfully I negotiated only two days in the office a week, which will be a real blessing during crunch to be in my own space, though I may have to commit to an extra day later in the week with crunch. We shall see."

She paused and watched him a moment. His presence wasn't overwhelming, she wondered if he felt pressured by hers. Looks were sometimes deceiving.

"If you want to do a piece on misogyny in the gaming industry and how it effects demographics of women in those fields, I would be happy to give you an interview as long as I remain anonymous."The reason she brought that up became obvious quickly. "My other passion other than game design is fine art. Painting to be specific. I'm still learning, but I'm working on enough art to have my own art show. And the only way to learn is to do. Painting is not a spectator's sport. It's about perfecting technique and confidence in your own style. I'm working on a portrait series now. So I am painting actual subjects. I'd trade a hard hitting interview with a successful woman game designer for you posing for me and my portrait series." She paused after the offer was made, her gaze focusing on his.

"As far as Arcana is concerned. I'm definitely stronger in Fate, naturally, and with Time I am geared to post cognitive events rather than pre cognitive. I want to get as good at pre cognitive as post, but I suppose that will be a goal to work towards while here in Sacramento. Forces I've focused on sound, which is really really useful cause I'm not all that stealthy, or in situations where I don't want my conversation overhead...its certainly useful." She snickered a little when she said 'she wasn't all that stealthy.' What an understatement that was!

[Puck]

"Yeah, I tempered before my awakening and I got stuck in a dead end job in the middle of nowhere USA." The smirk is gone, and serious Puck is serious. If only for the moment. "I'm done being less then I can be because some tree humping hippies don't like confrontation or accountability."

Thoughts of a particular hippie mage surface and subside before words can be blurted out.

"I'll keep your offer in mind. Never hurts to have a back up story on a slow news cycle." He smiles a bit for the easiest recognition he'd done so far in Sacramento. Not that the others were difficult? Just less talkative. Moira was making this almost as easy as Mobius did, and Puck only really said two sentences on that one.

"I just like talking to people. Don't know if that counts as an interest? But yeah, definitely spend most of my spare time around people. Fate's great for rigging those first impressions also. I tend to go with Spirit, Space, and Time for my back up arcana."

And wasn't stealthy? Join the club. That doesn't even merit a snarky comment. It's not something normal most people are familiar with. Although, it beckoned the question why she thinks that might come up? He should probably ask that. Yeah, probably.

[Moira]

"It's interesting you took that to heart so quickly. I'm not talking about dimming your light for others comfort, but tempering your own demons and things that I struggle with personally. Like for example, I have to literally set timers to eat meals because I can get so caught up between work and my creative projects and people that I neglect to actually take care of myself." She paused a moment, and yes, she was a bit curios.

"Okay..I can't help it I have to bite on this one, what dendrapheliac peed in your cheerios...or refrained from any cheerio peeing that might have needed to happen, but didn't and you clearly had a rebuttal." She said all of this with a grin, mostly because she got to use the word 'dendrapheliac' in a sentence!

She grinned again, and chuckled a little, snapping her fingers. "I am hoping for cheap labor. Apparently people expect a lot of money to pose for painting, to the point I may just have to take another painting or drawing class, just so I can have access to models again that I'm not shelling out every spare dime I have for one session. The only crappy part about that is its usually only for learning the figure, and I'm not interested in that, I am way past that." While she wasn't a starving artist thanks to being gainfully employed, it sure felt like it sometimes.

She chuckled a little. "I think it can be, for us, I mean." She shrugged a little with an easy smile. Her expression sharpened a bit when he shared his own expertise. "Oooo spirit, really? I've heard that's a pretty wild study. That would be interesting!" She didn't comment further. She made a face like OH! SHIT! Like she almost forgot something. "Oh..I have a different identity I use normally. So if you see me out and about and in public and things like that, you would call me Allegra Cole. That's what my new identity is all configured under."

[Puck]

Meh.

He thought he got the gist, but the clarification Moira offered was still something he seemed disinterested in. Facing his demons meant cardio and cleaning and all sorts of other things the Enchanter had no intention of conquering. He preferred to be around people, mostly because it kept his mind off all the 'constructive' things he should be doing.

"You'll know him when you see him. Just look for the baked goods and the big dumb smile."

He rolls his eyes dramatically, grinning to his fellow Enchanter as his attention settles back on her.

"The particulars of the cultural misappropriation bro can wait for a more private setting. He might be willing to model for you though. He seems like a people pleaser."

It would be a fairly mild critique of the Shaman, but something in Puck's tone betrayed the fact he didn't consider that last part a compliment. The mention of the spirit arcanum though? That brought the pride joy back to his voice.

"Oh yeah, I used it to speak with an angel a few months ago."

He shrugs like it's nothing.

"I use the pen name Connor Ellis at the Bee. I also use it around sleepers if you want to use it. I prefer to still use Puck though."

[Moira]

When Puck said 'baked goods' she had a flash in her overactive imagination/mind. She started to snerk, and when she fully laughed, she waived a hand.

"So...you immediately made me think of that one show 'Dexter.' The main character is a serial killer who only kills other serial killers, and works with the cops. So to try to fit in and seem normal, he would bring them donuts every day...." She nodded a little bit grinning widely with humor. She sobered some, but the humor was still etched present in her expression.

"So I get the people pleaser thing, and you are right. That rarely solves problems." 'That' in this context meaning people pleasing and not holding others accountable. She also took his hint and refrained from discussing further in this location. Well...at least after the little funneh.

She looked a little like 'really?!' and patiently, well as patient as she got, I mean there was some fidgeting, listened to how he was addressed amongst sleepers, but still preferred Puck. Check.

"Okay...lets go back to the angel thing! Tell me the most interesting thing about that interaction....." Then she paused like something dawned on her. "Unless you would like to save that for another time. I guess...I mean..I would understand."

If he said they had to wait to talk about that stuff cause he had other priorities for the meeting, it was what it was. Besides. Time was on their side.