Ruby lugs a heavy bucket full of sudsy water from the Foyer to the Atrium, waddling a little like a duck as she goes. She's dressed for heavy duty cleaning, with the orange rubber gloves and everything. She wipes perspiration from her forehead with the back of her wrist and turns towards the door. Rosh should be arriving fairly shortly, and it would be nice to have an extra set of hands.

Once twice, three taps on the door. Rosh arrives, a mix of emotion at what would happen next.

Sunlight sears through the large Atrium window. Ruby had... expanded it modestly to be more accommodating to the potted plants she had arranged on the floor. At the knock she makes her way to the front door.

"Rosh?"

"Ruby" Rosh nods in respect. "Is that Pine-sol?"

"Mister clean, actually! Is the doorbell not workin'?"

Rosh runs a hand through unruly, embarrassed hair. "um. I didn't try?" How else could you respond to that? "May I come in?" Rosh glances down the street and back, then feels even more silly. What was he looking for? he found the right house after all.

"Come on in, come on in! Best not give the neighbors a show. Don't worry about the knockin' I was just worried I'd broke the electric when I moved some of th' walls around." She ushers Rosh into the mudroom, then then into the unfinished entryway. The narrow twin staircases will be impressive, if they're ever finished.

Walls moved around? "Remodeling?" Rosh takes in the Sanctum. so... different then his own. For one the roof was not rusting out.

"Yes indeed! Whole place needs to be redone. Place made no sense as a Sanctum, way it'd been set before." Ruby sets her hands to her hips and appraises her guest.

"Would you mind if those clothes get ruined? Or would you like some spares?"

"Ruined" Spade's mind drifts back to Consilium and he shudders. "Uhm, no. I don't mind. What do you need?"

Ruby's face brightens, all the way to pixie pleased. "Why, we are goin' to be cleanin! I need all the gutters cleared out, the sidin' scrubbed, the good Lord only knows how much varnish all these floors will need..." she winks at her captive, glad for his company. "Give us plenty of time to get to know each other, I figure!"

Oh, lord almighty, it was worse! "Right. Which first? I think your buckets is gettin cold" Rosh points to said bucket. "What first?"

"Well, how about you get to movin' all the plants from the Atrium to the ritual room, and then we scrub the floors?" She leads the way.

"Rosh, you know... I understand this might be an unusual arrangement for you. I'd heard quite a bit about you, especially that business with Andrade."

Rosh gets to work, lugging the greenery out of the way. He's on the floor scrubbing before he answers. "That was all just reaction. Libertine fire maybe? Andrade is... frustrating?" And honorable. But Rosh can not/will not admit that.

"I believe it. But for a moment there it seemed you were goin' to be leadin' the flock. Few months later, you're buried under blame." She scrubs viciously at a particularly stubborn stain "What happened?"

"Bad choices." Rosh finds his own hard spot and digs in. "They are over reacting. No one died. I mean." Stupid spot.

"Dear, I seen bad choices. I seen good men make fool decisions, seen fools make, well, extra dumb decisions. Somethin's brought you low in an ugly way, Rosh."

"All I know is that it all happened. Bad fortune. Bad fate? I just want to be past it." The spot clears up and Rosh works on the next.

"Good, and I'm here to help you do that." The young man had great things ahead of him, until he'd been derailed. He still had his guard up, but Ruby would knock it down, and he will build himself up again stronger than before. "Where did you study, Rosh?" She asks, wondering whether the disciplines of the Free Council might affect her teaching. Honestly, she doubted Rosh would even need teaching in the Arcane arts.

Two answers for two questions implied by one sentence. Both fit well enough, And Rosh was not embarrassed by either. "I ran from the promise of education. And fell right into the Supernal." Literally Rosh thought to himself. "One Archibald Lefour picked me up and taught me how to See the world and how make art from my will. I left him to join the Free Council. Beyond the basics, I'm self learned." Rosh wipes up some extra water and continues on. "What about you, teach."
Pet name? Rosh had hated it when Reign called him Gandalf. Some frustration came with the territory.

"Lefour? I don't believe I'm familiar with him." So Spade has abandoned a master before, Ruby learns. Will Rosh do the same? Mentor can feel the undercurrent of defiance in Apprentice. Even though his demeanor is laid low, he carries a bitter lump at his core, like a kidney stone of the heart.

"I studied under an Alchemist. I'm afraid you'll find me a little unorthodox for the Path of the Mighty, but don't you worry, my road may be roundabout, but it still leads toward the Key."

"Let's begin our first lesson, dear."

Influence Light, 3 suxx: 8x Intensity of natural light
Ruby raises her hands up, and her fingers shape the eye of the tortoise as he carries the Sun towards its zenith. As she does so, the river of light from the great window intensifies, brightens to a painful intensity. Not quite enough to be as dramatic as Ruby had hoped, maybe enough to get the point across.

"Alright, we keep cleanin'," Ruby instructs Rosh, although it's difficult to really distinguish the features of the floor in the glare.

Rosh grunts and squeezes his eyes shut, He opens an imago to help feel out the dirt on the wood and where the cleaner has yet to be applied. Using this sense, Rosh continues to clean, feeling his way across the room and wiping away the foreign grim and dust. "Alchemist? Where did you study?"

Ruby watches Rosh, squinting. He seems to be doing far too effective a job. "No Magick!" She commands.

Cloven hoof splits earth, womb's fire rise to meet the Chariot's glory. Ruby doesn't entirely appreciate the Atlantean lexic for this spell. It reeks of Paganism.

Control Heat, 4suxx, 1 target factor Advanced Area effect
The room fills with sweltering heat, wet heat. We're talking Sahara roast with Turkish steam-bath humidity. Suddenly smells that went unnoticed bloom rottenly from between floorboards. Some kind of vagrant gang had made the Sanctum their home after Animus had left it empty, and the... offal of their hedonism stains the wood deeply.

"Alright, keep on, keep on!" Rosh is asking a few too many questions, when he should be scrubbing. "I studied under the Necromancer Gregory Church of Dallas, Acquisitor and Stone Scribner, now get some more Lysol on that sponge before I flood this room with it, two inch deep." Jesus, and the whip cracks...

Rosh holds back a sigh, and scrubs. He had spent many an hour in the sun doing one thing or another, but this? The humidity and the smell were worse.
Cleaner is spread where the wood stinks followed by a hard scrub. NO questions this time.

"When we faced the tower, we stood against the tempest. No illusions, no metaphors, no nonsense. We saw the true glory, the radiance of the Throne isself. More'n that, we've got ourselves a Geass, a purpose. Not the low kind, stitched together by human needles, no offense to Tyria, I love her to death, I do, but it's the Will o' the big Gee-Oh--Dee we heard, his Will we follow."

"Tha's the right to lead, lead our brothers and sisters out of their own ignorance and toward a purer path, a righteous path! I saw that from you, Rosh. I see it in you now. You know you're in the right, you know it... and I know it too, I do! But right now you ain't stronger than their ignorance, bless their hearts, bless their hearts. You're gonna need the strength to abide no lies, to weather adversity the kind that tears away your body and your mind and leaves naught but your Soul behind."

Holy~ nevermind. Respect. "Um. should I open a window?" Maybe it was a bit too muggy in here for poor Ruby.

Smug as a pug.
"Rosh, you open a window and I will toss you through it!"

White Noise, 1suxx
Laces of Ruby's magic tighten about the room, and a dull blaring noise rises from the thud of Rosh's knees against wood, the slop of the wash rag. "We endure because no one else can, Rosh. We've been blessed, but we've got to prove every day that we are worth that blessin'." At this point Ruby actually has to shout a little bit, and she's visibly uncomfortable even without physical exertion. "Tell me what you saw, what you saw at the Tower."

"Freedom." Rosh does not bother yelling. If Ruby can not hear over her spell it's her own damn fault. "All the power in existence freed, and the result was perfection"

Rosh's answer stuns Ruby. She lets the sound abate, the heat diminish, the light dim, and she tries for a moment to find something to say. What an unusual thing... an astounding thing... adrift in the Cataclysm of the Aether, Freedom?

"Must have been Grand," the corners of Ruby's mouth creak upwards as her heart falls right out of her chest. Freedom. It's something that hadn't occurred to her often, Freedom. Freedom is a rare word to whisper amongst the Mystagogues, a rare thought to echo between bookshelves. After all, Freedom amongst Sorcerers is unquestionably dangerous, unpredictable, and incalculable.

But Liberty? God-given Liberty? Does it not have a place in the Awakened world? Has Ruby learned to be Neokoros, to forget how to be American?

"Let's take a break," she whispers.

Rosh wonders if he offended her. He collects his bucket and wrings out the sponge, allowing Silence to build louder than the cacophony.
"I'm sorry if I said something..." Rosh tries to find a good word, but gives up.

"No! No. Don't be sorry. You said something wonderful," Ruby pastes a strand of hair back. "Are you thirsty? I am right ready to keel over. You want an ice tea? I have some diet coke." Parched on the inside, sweaty out, Ruby wrung sponge makes for hydration. She exits the Atrium on backpedal, continuing the conversation from another room.

"Did you say you're an artist, Rosh?"

"I am. I work as Tattoo artist. Or I did anyway. Coke would be perfect." Yeah. Money was getting tight now. Rosh suddenly wonders how his mentor would react to the work had running down his side. Course, not she or anyone could see it at the moment. "And you, you help run the Museum?"

Tattoos? Well that can go either way. Ruby suddenly wonders how her apprentice would react if he knew about the work she had on her shoulder. Course, not like he could see it at the moment. She picks up two cans of Cola from the other room, returns and hands one to Rosh.

"I wouldn't go 'round sayin' I help RUN the museum. My job is what we call a Savant. We do research, write papers, that sort of thing. Phrymides always helped more on the administrative side than I did. Until things got dangerous, I'd been spendin' more time 'n Carson City than anywhere else. Diggin' up Native art."

"Oh, was that why... We Libertines came across a picture of you and Captain and others in a BBQ joint. We wondered why that place was marked. Thought maybe it was important?" Rosh pops his can as he passes the conversational-ball back to Ruby.

"In Carson? Yea, that Barbeque... we were out there lookin' for a way to shut down the Obelisks of Discovery Park. Diggin out there for a few weeks... you wouldn't believe how much Leftenant loved that awful Barbeque." Ruby laughs the memory lane laugh. "Terrible shame, what happened to the Captain. He was a good man. But if that spot was marked it was marked because of the awfulness of the things sealed in those hills. It was ugly magick, and I'm glad we're past it."

"What color do you think would go good as a wood varnish? Do you think I should go light, like Scandinavia style? Or dark, like a cherrywood?"

"Definitely darker wood. A cherry would be perfect." Rosh replies as he mulls over the revelations. "The bridge and the Obelisks. Are they linked you think? this Building in Granite Park. How many more secrets are lying in wait? We really know nothing about this city beyond what was left behind."

"No, we really don't," Ruby agrees. She motions him with her cola to follow her. "Come on, let's bag up some of the trash upstairs. There was a gang or some homeless folks or somethin' that were living here and they left it... just awful. We'll just bag up all the big things and the food trash and call it a day, okay? That way I can be ready so you move in, say next Saturday?"

Rosh started following, his step faltered at the news he was moving in. He is surprised he is surprised. "I, well. Alright. Yeah. Saturday" Rosh begins collecting the refuse. "Ruby. Your work. You could be doing that anywhere in the world. Right?"

Is that a handbag full of coffee grounds? Oh, that goes in the trash. "I have friends here, Rosh." She cinches one sack and shakes open another. How true was that anymore? "How about you take these down and I'll keep bagging." Rosh has been perceptive enough for one day.

Black bag refuge stacks along the street. Orange signals eight, and Ruby thanks Rosh for his help, satisfied that they're finished for the day. The door closes behind him, and he stands for a moment with a small tin of oatmeal cookies, before turning to go home.