It wasn't lip service, what Richard said about staying in touch. Eleanor hears from him with fair regularity; sees him even more often. Almost every monday-wednesday-friday, actually, at 3 to 3:50pm. There amongst the law students, though usually sitting toward the back of the room, and usually with a small island of space around him: books piled in front, arms folded across his chest. No laptop. No notes.
Just listening. Usually frowning his way into ever-deeper lines on his brow. A couple times grinning, that startling transformative expression. At least once, baggy-eyed, rumpled, clearly post-allnighter, falling asleep halfway through lecture with his head back and his mouth open.
--
He drops by office hours too. Darkening her doorstep every other week or so, distinctive in that three-standard-deviations-above-the-mean height, books casually held against a hip as he taps on the doorframe with his knuckles. Folding himself into that chair, which like most chairs seems too small for him. Laying open a text or other to discuss the foundations of criminal law, the repercussions of this or that precedent-setting verdict, and at least occasionally -- the nature of law. The nature of right vs. wrong. Dichotomies, false or true.
And so it goes. For a while, the topic of What They Really Are, of Magic, of Reality As It Truly Is, never really surfaces. For a while she might even think he's chosen to repress it again. Leave it unburied but untouched: a part of his life that he ignores, a gift that he squanders. For a while, he seems content to frame their relationship in the uncomplicated terms of the average human: Professor. Undergraduate. Teacher. Student.
Then, halfway through the semester, a text on her phone. Have some q's. Can we meet @ your place?
--
She sets the time. He shows up on a bike: a graphite-grey lightweight urban hybrid of a bike, the tires narrow but rugged, the frame large and narrow and strong as the struts of a suspension bridge. He rides in the streets and he rides fast, leaning into the corners, swinging off and gliding the last few yards. At those stone steps up to her front door his sneakered feet hit the pavement. He hoists the bike effortlessly up on a shoulder, trots up the path, sets it down with a bounce or two on her porch and locks it up.
It's a cold year. Snowstorms are still blowing through. Today's a clear, frigid day, though. He's in layers: a heavy outer jacket left open, a hoodie zipped up to his throat, some form of t-shirt or other under it. No helmet, though he really ought to know better. If there's a doorbell he hits the button. If not, he knocks.
Eleanor YatesAt least once, Richard gets kicked out of Professor Yates's class. You can guess which time. There's no attempt to conceal the fact that she is displeased, even angry; she halts class, tells another student to wake him up -- no names, simple eye contact and a nod at Richard's slack mouth, saying wake him up, then a simple drop of her chin towards the door when he stirs. You're excused, she informed him. It was never brought up again, at least not by Eleanor. But one does not simply fall asleep in her class, undergrad auditor or not.
Her class is a rapid one. There is a lot of ground to cover, a lot of reading for the actual law students, but there is a greater focus on discussion than on exams or papers. There are better teachers on campus, ones who are less aloof, ones who have a natural talent for encouraging independent thinking, but Eleanor is no slouch. On her good days she is a force of nature. On her bad days...
and there are a few bad days. They are rare. And it's a spectrum. But only one day really stands out as bad. It wasn't even that she was in a sour or pissy mood, nothing that overt. She was flattened She was numb. Her eyes had no light in them, her energy was a void. She sat during most of class, arms and legs crossed, hardly ever interjecting even when the discussion veered off track. There were times she didn't even seem present. There were times when she seemed almost bored, angrily bored but too exhausted to do anything about it. Too exhausted to care.
No one really noticed. Maybe Richard didn't, either. Except her resonance was a thudding pressure in the back of any Awakened skull, cold and submerged and broken into pieces. Cracks spiderwebbing across the ice, splintering like the sound of thunder.
--
Most days, she is fierce and invested, pacing as she lectures or joins in the discussion, gesturing with her hands. Her voice is soft in tone if not in volume, melodically casual, which makes it all the more potent when she tells them just how hard the law can be, or goes over a particularly thrilling case study. There are even days when they laugh.
So naturally, she says dryly near Act II of a story, a smirking smile on her face, they called the judge.
The room erupts. One student covers his face, shoulders shaking at the sheer absurdity.
--
Whenever Richard comes to her office, she makes time to see him. Law students take precedence, but she sometimes stays beyond them while she and Richard chat. She has a hacky-sack that they toss back and forth, or that she tosses between her hands idly, and while this may be cliche, there is a lot to be said for physical activity during a discussion, particularly with someone so... well. Physical. He may or may not get the sense that Eleanor understands that need, too. She did, after all, have the hacky sack already. The weather isn't often warm, but there are sunny days even in winter, and a couple of times she has done a walk-and-talk with him, wandering the campus green, crossing Evans, strolling to the stone garden beside Olin Hall. Her hands stay in her coat pockets; they discuss many things. Not magic. Not the Euthanatoi.
Oftentimes, she suggests a book or another professor to talk to about something outside her scope. Oftentimes, he comes back to her after reading or talking to someone else to discuss it again. She is curious, always, to hear what he has learned or thought lately. She does not outright dismiss anything he suggests, which she sometimes does in class, but questions him, sometimes ruthlessly, to explain or defend it. At times they part mid-conversation, because Richard -- and occasionally Eleanor -- need to read up on or mull over something before they continue.
He's not a grad student. He's certainly not a law student. Still: she gives him her time.
--
One day, he asks to talk at her house. She texts back after an hour or so: Of course. 1400 South St. Paul. She sets the day and time, and at the appointed hour he shows up on his bicycle. There is a car out front, a grey Camry that's about ten years old. It's parked alongside the curb. He comes up to her porch, which for the moment is bare of its patio furniture, and knocks on the glossy black door. The house almost smells newly constructed.
When the door opens, Eleanor seems shorter than usual. That is because she is not in heels, which she does not always wear but often enough to be noticeable. In fact, she has no shoes on at all. She is wearing black slacks that qualify in cut as 'skinny' and a long-sleeved, cream-colored shirt with a boat neck and thin horizontal stripes in navy and black. Her hair is in a loose braid that trails over one shoulder, and she is holding a mug with a tag hanging down the side identifying the contents as chai.
"Come in," she says to Richard, stepping aside to let him enter. The floors are wood into the foyer and great room and kitchen. She has nice furniture, but the overall effect is that she must have rented this house furnished or had someone decorate it for her; it does not feel like a museum, but it lacks the cozy, lived-in feeling that would make you feel comfortable dropping into a chair and propping up your feet somewhere. Eleanor takes his coat if he sheds it, hanging it on a sleek-lined silver coat rack that currently holds an umbrella, two jackets of different weights, and so on.
The dining room and kitchen are one, the stove expansive and expensive, the light fixtures diaphanous. Her decor is one of contrasts: light and dark, soft and hard. Brighter colors are used sparingly and seem all the more powerful, the items in red or purple or green appearing striking and meaningful as a result.
"Would you like some tea?" she asks him, looking up as she rounds the kitchen island. "Coffee?"
RichardRichard does, in fact, shed his outer layer. Layers, if the house is sufficiently warm. A surreptitious glance at her stockinged feet prompts him to stomp out of his sneakers as well, and while she hangs his coat up, he swings his backpack off his shoulders and crouches down in the foyer to unzip it.
By the time she is done with his coat, he is back on his feet, the backpack set out of the way. He hands her a small package: a half-pound of whole bean Tully's Full City Roast. "Thanks for having me over," he mentions as he follows her to the kitchen. As in her office, he takes the time to look around: the dark furnishings, the stark walls, the high ceilings and mercifully tall doorframes.
One of those quick, wide grins answers her offer. "Coffee, sure," he says; a touch of irony, since coffee was what he brought her as a hostess gift. "Just whatever you have on hand," he adds, in case she thought he wanted her to open the package now. Which he doesn't. While she starts the drip, he takes up a station leaning against the kitchen island.
"Nice house," he comments. "Better than the townhouses on faculty row. Did you just move in?"
Eleanor Yates[BELATED!
Eleanor @ 2:26PM[Despair]Roll: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 2, 4, 5, 6, 10) ( success x 2 ) VALID]
Eleanor is completely barefoot. The house is actually quite comfortable, once one manages to tell the difference between Eleanor's resonance and an actual chill in the air. She does not ask him to remove his shoes, but there is a very shallow, long tray to one side of the foyer made of thin black rubber, and a pair of her own boots are already standing there. Even the tray is quite clean, though it has a few specks of magnesium chloride from earlier snow. He steps out of his shoes and hands her coffee.
She smiles, taking it in her free hand and looking at the bag before looking back up at him, "Thank you, Richard, that was very thoughtful." And she is sincere. It was thoughtful. She feels things like gratitude. She carries it with her into the kitchen, setting it on the counter along with her mostly-full mug of chai.
Coffee, he says, whatever she has on hand. Which means the beans that are already in the hopper of her grinder-coffeemaker. It's nice, like most everything in this house is nice; the burr grinder on top, the water line. Eleanor gets a mug for him and presses a button, and for a few seconds conversation is increased in volume but not obliterated as the beans are ground to powder.
"I bought the property some time ago, but the house was completed just last semester," she tells him, and nods her head at the mug behind her that is now accepting its drip of robust black coffee. "How do you take it?"
Richard"It's nice," Richard repeats -- perhaps because anything else he might say,
Where'd you move from? Did you make a lot of money as a prosecutor? You must have. Do you live alone? Big house for one. Are there bodies in the basement?
would verge on too-personal. Or just absurd. The grinder goes off -- they raise their voices, lower it again as it stops. She asks him how he takes his coffee.
"Lots of half-and-half if you have it," he says, "but no sugar. Or just black. Thanks."
She gets mugs down. He casts about; finds some coasters somewhere and lays them out. There's an innate sense of courtesy to him; someone, at some point, taught him some modicum of manners. As she pours, he pulls out one of the barstools at the island. "May I?"
Eleanor Yates"Thank you for saying so," a second time, though it was really only the flow of conversation that kept Eleanor from thanking him, on the first iteration, for his compliments to her house. And truth be told, most of his questions would be rude, or overly personal. There aren't, where he can see, an abundance of framed photos of loved ones here and there. There is art, striking and in keeping with the color schemes and studies in contrast, most of it large, lots of it actually local, but one doesn't assume he can tell that at a glance.
There is nothing to tell him where she came from, or why, or who else might share this space with her, or even if there's a basement to begin with (there is). Only tasteful, low-key opulence, clarity of style, tangible and physical proof that she has had some success in life that is, for most people, all too far out of reach.
She has half and half, and when the coffee has finished and the maker shuts itself off like the little obedient robot it is, Eleanor passes his mug to him across the island. He gets a coaster, and she gets him a small spoon, and she hands him a pint-sized container of organic half-and-half from the fridge door, which is mostly full. She remains standing, moving comfortably around the kitchen, nodding as he eases up into a barstool. "Of course," she says, and sips her chai as he seats himself. One arm crosses loosely over her middle as she watches him, legs crossed in front of her, her shins creating perpendicular lines at roughly a 45 degree angle.
"What's on your mind, Richard?" she asks him, as he stirs half-and-half cloudy and bright into his deep black coffee.
RichardA rather appalling amount of half-and-half goes into his coffee, actually, disappearing and then blooming up out of the black. He's a bit hungry. Richard is, in fact, oftentimes at least a little hungry. His metabolism burns high. He stirs the coffee until it turns the color of pale clay, his long fingers ginger on the small spoon.
Richard's eyes flick up to her as she draws their pleasantries to a close. He doesn't mind at all. He's capable of small talk, even good at it, and just looking at him one can easily imagine him greasing the wheels of more than a few parties. It's there in that innate courtesy, that relaxed grin.
He has no real love for small talk, though. And there's a forthrightness to him, a certain sharpening of the light in his eyes, as he straightens a little in his barstool. One foot rests flat on the floor despite the height of the seat: that's how long his limbs are.
"I've been thinking more about -- magic." Is there a way to say it without that ring of absurdity? "About being Awake, and about learning to deepen my insight. I think -- I don't think I'm ready to walk into the nearest Chantry and just start siphoning knowledge yet. But if you could maybe recommend some literature, or maybe ... mind exercises, or however you even start to contemplate stuff like this ... "
The very first day, he was like this too. Uncertain of what he was asking for, only that he was asking. He's not like this when they discuss more mundane topics. Reading assignments and essay topics, research directions, class. But then: this is different. Amorphous. Sweeping, yet intensely personal. He trails off; beetle-browed again, hands cupped around that mug of coffee he's yet to sip from.
"And I'm curious about your Tradition," he adds. "I'm curious how you make the world make sense for yourself, because I'm still working on that."
Eleanor YatesRichard does not know it, because there are no personal pictures down here, no photos of family or friends or children or elderly or ancestors, but Eleanor knew another very tall, very athletic, very blond man who was better with small talk than she was. Diplomatic. Confident without being cocky. He did not have Richard's gregarious charm or quite the same ease of demeanor, but there are commonalities that she notices. You always notice these things, and sometimes they strike you out of nowhere and arrest your attention. Cruelly, sometimes, like a hand clenching on your jaw to turn your face toward a light. Cruelly, sometimes, like a hand softening into a caress on your cheek, closing your eyes.
He reminds her of no one. But she notices the similarities. And the differences.
Both 'magic' and 'mind exercises' he says with hesitation. She doesn't mock him for that; he would not be the first mage to eschew the word 'magic'. There are many Awakened, in fact, who refuse to call it that. An entire Tradition, in fact, agrees on it, and plenty of individuals and sects alike within the grand scheme only feel chagrin. For her part, she doesn't speak much of it at all. She calls it work, she calls it will. She knows it is also called magic, and sometimes uses that word. It is what it is; language can only take one so far.
It's at the end, what he says there, that makes her brows tug together. In sympathy, almost, though not pity. "Aren't we all," she says, a touch dryly. We the Awakened. We the mortal creatures. We the human race.
Eleanor sips her chai, which is about the same temperature as his half-and-halfed-to-death coffee. "Where would you like to start? My Tradition, practical application and nurturance of your abilities, or making sense of the world? I think in many ways a discussion of any of these will lead naturally to the others. So it depends on where you want to plant your first step."
Richard"Tell me about your Tradition," he says, firmly this time. "I can literally read the rest out of books. I can read about your Tradition out of a book too, but -- I want to know how you see it. Your place. The world. Whatever you want to talk about, wherever you want to start."
Eleanor YatesShe takes a breath, hearing that, but nods. "It's a difficult question."
She drinks some of her chai, thinking about how to begin answering it. Her eyes linger on the liquid inside. "I am almost entirely certain that I have been a Euthanatos in most, if not all, of my past incarnations. Those that Awakened, naturally. It is the nature of my soul. Regardless of whether I Awaken or not, however, my lifetimes follow... a cycle."
Eleanor's eyes lift from her tea, finding his. There's darkness in her own. A levelness that is not quite flat, not empty the way they sometimes are. "I'm set in my ways," she says wryly. "I think I was also influenced by the nature of my Awakening, which I won't go into just now. And those things are part of the reasons I became a Euthanatos.
"You mention making sense of the world, or making the world make sense," she goes on, noting verbally that these are two different things. "The thanatoic paradigms make sense to me. I do not attribute my abilities to 'the One', as a Chorister might. I do not worship the earth, or anything upon it that is physical, so I could never mesh with the pagan traditions for whom life or sensation are worthy of all their adoration. I cannot understand the magi who fixate their attention and lean against technology or devices. I refuse to be caged by endless books of rules and rhythms to which magic must ascribe lest it fail. But it was not a simple process of elimination."
Taking another breath, she pauses there, sipping her drink. "The Euthanatoi exist in many forms in many different cultures. In many, we and those like us remain nameless to society out of necessity; we are something absolute, something vital, but also unspeakable. We are an inconvenient, uncomfortable reality: fields must lie fallow, forests must burn. Lives must be ended." She is quiet a moment, staring as though at tea leaves. "Not all Euthanatoi kill. But all of us understand, perhaps above all else, that Sleepers and Awakened alike cling ferociously to life. We hold too tightly, in a panic over the natural order... that diseases grow and that people die. Even the most dynamic consciousness resists change, when it comes guised as finality.
"We are forever gumming up the works," Eleanor tells him wryly, lifting her eyes again. Her mouth is pulled at the corner, not quite a smile but something like it. "Change is painful. But stagnation is the only true death. When the Wheel stops turning, the universe itself has died. Many think of themselves as agents of karma, of fate, of chaos, and sometimes all three or none of the above. There are some who are merely shallowly treading in our ranks, hired killers who know a bit of magic. But I think that in the end, it is not culture or even practice that unites us, but that belief: the Wheel must turn."
RichardA spark in his eyes, when she speaks of all the reasons the other traditions don't make sense to her. It hits some sort of chord in him. Resonates. He nods: he doesn't attribute his abilities to the One. He doesn't worship the earth, he doesn't build his world around growing things or sensation. He doesn't get the steampunks or the cyberpunks. He doesn't get, either, the books and the rules and the symbols and the occultism.
He's clearly not a goddamn goth either. So there's that.
"That's exactly how I feel," he interjects, even as she's saying it's not a process of elimination. "It's not elimination, but -- I can't make myself fit with those Traditions. The only other one that maybe, possibly makes sense to me is the Brotherhood. But I don't ... like the idea of balance.
"I like change. I like pushing the boundaries. I like... possibilities, and all those possibilities collapsing down to one path forward."
He quiets, then, while she sips her drink. And he motions for her to go on, making some vague sound of apology at interrupting. His turn to listen. His turn to sip at his coffee-flavored half-and-half while she speaks of the uncomfortable reality, the clinging to life, which is a clinging to stasis; painful change, death, the turning of the Wheel.
A moment of quiet, then. His brow furrowed again, the way it does when she explains something in class that he doesn't quite understand or -- more frequently -- isn't sure he agrees with.
"The biggest problem Charles had with the Euthanatoi," he says, "was that he always thought you guys were 'playing god'. And he was a Chorister so... he was obviously sensitive about that. But I have to admit, that's the part that makes me uncomfortable too.
"How do you know you're helping the Wheel turn?" For what it's worth, this isn't confrontational. It's not accusatory. It is blunt, though. It is as unflinching as the many debates they've had in her office, and perhaps -- far more personal. "How do you know you're not just a killer with a bit of magic, who thinks she's doing the universe a favor?"
Eleanor YatesShe thought, the first day he came to her office, that he might find his way to the Akashics. The way he looked when he clenched his fist. The way he spoke of his own physicality. But she's been watching him, and more importantly listening to him, over the past couple of months. She is not surprised when he mentions them, and then says: no. Not the man who reads about chaos theory on his down time. He is not about balance.
Some Euthanatoi are. They see that as the crux of their work. Eleanor does not. These are not life-for-life transactions. She does not weigh pros and cons and see which one is heavier. She does not think that every time she kills someone, the universe works it out and a baby is born somewhere and or a tree grows or a butterfly flaps its wings. Sometimes people just die. Sometimes people just need to.
He describes entropy, or a version of it, and she doesn't call that out. He likely knows, or will sort it out himself. She sips her tea, and then she goes on with her thoughts. They return to her easily, at least.
Eleanor smirks, regarding Charles. And she has finished her tea, so she sets the mug in the sink, turning back around with her slender arms crossed over her ribcage. Her legs did not uncross. She moves smoothly, fluidly, not a movement wasted, but there's a comfortable looseness to it. She could have been a dancer. She may have been.
"My biggest problem with the Celestial Chorus is that they think there is a god," she says, which sounds almost like agreement. With him, or with Charles, or something. But she doesn't tense when he says that he has... concerns... about what the Euthanatoi do. She just listens. It's not the first time she's heard these questions. She has, in fact, heard them with spit behind them, spit on her cheek. People have been far more personal about it. Richard's questions glide over her.
"There are spells," she says, using a commonly understood term. "Some see it as an aura reading, others have their own ways of interpreting what they learn. You said you knew of the spheres -- readings of a person's mind and spirit can reveal more than you might think, particularly if they're unable to shield themselves." Sleepers, then. She inhales. "Some actions leave a mark. Not always. So there is research involved. At times it is not unlike preparations for soliciting a warrant, making an arrest, conducting a trial. But of course, not every Good Death is enacted on someone who has corrupted themselves. Most," she admits. "But some are more subtle influences, not overtly violent or wicked, but people who are simply... done. And may not know it yet. But they are ready.
"I have been thanked," she says quietly, "by a few."
Eleanor inhales deeply, exhales. "At higher levels of understanding, there are deeper ways of being certain. There are ways, even at the level of an initiate, to fill someone with such remorse, or such love, that they will tell you the truth. There are ways to increase your own sensitivities. One may call spirits to reveal what happened in a room ten, twenty years ago to find a guilty party. Seers rewind their thoughts through time, roll them forward, to see possible consequences. There are many ways to be sure. Or as sure as one can be.
"I have also walked away, at times," Eleanor tells him, "even when certain of a person's guilt. Even when I felt sure. Because there were times when, if I could not give a Good Death, I suspected it was not yet time. At least two of those times, I have gone back. We have completed."
There is a long pause here, and she is telling him dark things, hard things. She is talking about killing people. "I have also killed people because it was going to happen whether it was a Good Death or not, and it was better that I take the burden than those around me.
"I have also killed because I was told to.
"And because I was paid.
"And once, I killed someone because I was angry."
RichardAnd just like that they've completely left the mundane world behind. The world where he rides bikes in late winter; where he once swam, and swam very very very well, and swam as well as he possibly could
and didn't win olympic gold
and yet was still able to look at what he did do, all that he did accomplish, and feel -- what was the word she used? -- completed. Complete. As though a cycle that had opened had closed; as though he was ready to move on.
That world is not a lie to him. He is not one of those magi -- those Awakened, those willworkers -- who sees the consensus as a lie, a shroud to be ripped down. There is a different reality behind this reality, but: it's like quantum theory. A different set of rules for a different scale, a different view of the world that few ever see, and fewer still understand. It doesn't make newtonian physics false. It doesn't negate relativity. So too with magic: it doesn't negate the reality where people go to school and go to work and compete for medals and write college essays. It is simply a different facet; an aspect of the world that very, very few ever see, and fewer still are able to understand.
They are in that aspect now. A world where fate may or may not be a real thing. A world where the strings of probability can be influenced. A world where stagnation is the enemy, even as entropy -- entropy as thermodynamics understands it -- will be the death of the world.
A world where sometimes people have to die. Maybe because they're guilty of something, or a Bad Person, but -- not always. Sometimes simply because it is their time, and their clinging to life is sand in the gears of reality.
--
They are talking about killing people. This is a sort of trust, Richard supposes. That he won't report her to the goddamn police. That he won't betray her trust, even if the police can't do a damn thing to her, even if she is safe from the retribution of human law. Of which, ironically, she is a paragon.
A few moments go by in silence. His eyes on her: large and blue and clear, quite not at all the sort of eyes one imagines would house the intellect and the will that just might, even if he has not said it aloud, align with the Wheel. With the ruthless forward momentum of time's arrow, which is ultimately set by the irreversible chaos of the universe.
--
"Who was it?"
Eleanor YatesEleanor does not say anything for a moment. Her arms are still crossed.
"My nemesis."
RichardA flash of humor, and likely not humor she shares. He doesn't understand her the way she means the word. Perhaps he's not meant to. "Well," wryly, "I gathered as much from the 'angry' part."
A small pause. He interprets her reticence as unwillingness to expound, and he has at least the social acumen and grace to not pry. Pinching the small spoon between thumb and forefinger, gives his coffee another brief, thoughtful stir. Then,
"How would I go about learning more about your Tradition? I don't suppose there's an option to audit."
