I quit. No, I quit
{{ | date=08/29/2018 | time= | summary=Alma explains to Wednesday that she has to quit. | cast=
| place_name=Chandler Park in the beforetime, Old East Side | log=Earlier a conversation happened in text
- Wednesday to Alma: Just checking in - you seemed hurt or anxious the other day. Anything I can help with? *eye emoji*
- Alma to Wednesday: I've got a lot on my mind. if you have time, I'd like to talk
- Alma to Wednesday: I'm talking to Jim right now too. He's struggling with something.
- Wednesday to Alma: Let me know when/where. *thumbsup*
- Alma to Wednesday: you in old east side?
- Wednesday to Alma: Yeah, outskirts of the park. South side right now.
Wednesday is walking along the curb of a large park in eastern Measure 2, a place that used to be called Chandler Park in the beforetime. Since then, the park has grown decidedly wild - new trees dot previously open spaces, and buildings around the outskirts have fallen into disrepair, sometimes literally. The neat grass has become a new form of prairie. The big man is fully decked out in all the usual garb, and is crouching down in the tall grass, eyepatch flipped up, examining a clump of weeds in the bright sun and still air.
A truck drives by and stops. Alma gets out and unloads her bike from the truckbed. "Fly back around here later. I need to talk to him privately about some things first, ok?" She stands near her bike watching him drive off towards Osborn, and then looks around for a tall man in a hat and a concert tshirt. Note sees him first and caws over to him. Right in Alma's ear. "Hey! watch it, you." She heads off towards Wednesday, warily looking around.
Wednesday sees Alma, popping back up with a smile, and moves to intercept. When he gets close, he nods to the bird. "Sure thing, Note." He digs into a lower pocket - pulling the coat open a bit to show the shirt today is for "Avatarium" - and produces a single peanut - leftover from the other day, no doubt. He balances it on his shoulder. "That Jim?" he nods in the direction the truck went.
Note takes off and strafes Wednesday's shoulder for the peanut. She catches it and whooshes up, spiraling.
Alma nods, "He's gonna install a new station over in Osborn. I've been poking around there more lately. At first I stayed away because of all the talk. Then I realized, I'm a bad ass mage. I don't have to stay away." She grins, but it's a weak grin. "He's got something he's struggling with. I suggested he come by and talk to you about it."
"Well, I hope I can help." He nods, though, looking determined, if curious. "Hey, about the other day - I didn't mean to sound patronizing, when you said emotions are good..." Wednesday looks at Alma eyebrow raised in question.
Alma looks up at Wednesday and reassures him, "No, you don't sound patronizing to me. I don't know how Charles felt. It's just, anger has a bad rep. I think it's important for people to understand that emotions are ok. I hope I didn't alienate him."
"No, I think that was me," Wednesday says, shaking his head and smiling ruefully. "I assume he's....Garou? I was warned they like their privacy. His threats make it pretty clear the warnings were spot on. His anger...it was different, though. He was walking down the street, polite as can be, and just seething on the inside."
Alma hmmms. "I've met him a few times. Met him in the market when he picked up my grapefruit that had fallen out. He'd never had one before. I shared it with him and told him about Second Stories because it looked like he could use the facilities there. That's what I thought when you asked if was a new part of the community. My mistake." She looks a little pained. "Uh... speaking of community. I have to quit the chantry. I can't," she interrupts herself, not sure where to go with that sentence.
"You have to..." Wednesday tilts his head, narrowing his eyes - curious again. "Oh, no. That was supposed to be my line, but good people convinced me to stay. Why do you feel you need to leave?"
Alma breaths out a big sigh. "Because I'm leaving my tradition."
Wednesday nods and waits for a moment, hoping more info will be forthcoming.
Alma nods back at him. Begins again. "I just can't handle the idea that we--I mean, my tradition--find it's okay to kill people. It /hurts/." Her eyes squinta little. "It hurts just to think about it. They say it's okay because a person is just their soul and it comes back around. but, Wednesday, it's not okay. What if they're wrong? And they don't understand everything about the mind. I don't. or the body. Do you know how much the body is part of us? We are made of so many things and the soul is just one part and if you kill a person you are destroying a precious and unique being. So I can't handle it. I haven't talked to None about it yet." A couple of tears squeeze out of her squinted eyes. "I feel like I'm betraying them. I love them. I just can't. I just." she trails off in another sigh. The tension in her eyes slowly leaves as she takes time to calm herself.
Wednesday frown as Alma explains, and holds out an arm just a bit, subtly offering a hug if wanted. A breeze picks up at that moment, sending a ripple in the tall almost-prairie grass that is this corner of Chandler Park. "You're right. We're our bodies, too. We're our spirits, but we're not only our spirits - but there -is- a cycle. I don't know everything about the mind, but I believe that the Masters know more than I do. And sometimes, ending that person - that universe in itself - it's probably the right thing to do for the rest of the world - sometimes even for them." He sighs - all of this has a ring of faith to it - not something experienced.
Wednesday too? "A child, wednesday. A toddler? It's like they think people don't have free will. People can /change/. They should be given real choices." She she steps closer to hug Wednesday but stops short. She's being pulled in different directions.
This caw says hello, and Alma looks up to see Note diving down to land in some weeds. Alma starts crying in earnest, he face going splotchy. Her hands tighten on her bike and she starts to get on it. "I have to go."
That would be... because Kai is here? She's walking along a ditch, picking weeds, filling a threadbare canvas sack with them. To the practiced eye, those are medicinal plants, things that are good to eat, which in fact grow in abundance in the area... ignored. She looks up when Note lands near where she's picking. "Surprised you left me any berries," she tells the crow, then straightens. It's then that she catches sight of Alma and Wednesday, almost out of hearing distance, really. Surely out of hearing distance when there's a chatty crow right there, and one is head-down in a task.
"Whoah, what kids?" Wednesday recoils at that new information, letting Alma go for a second. He glances down the road and sees Kai approaching - all he has time for is an upnod. "Unless you mean Nephandi?" Again, narrowed eye, tilted head, and his voice quiets as if by instinct on the name of the damned.
Alma is on her bike now. She wipes her face, smearing tears through dust on her face. "I have to go. Kai doesn't want me here." She takes off. Note stays with Kai.
There's an intuitive sort of leap: if Kai didn't want Alma around, she'd head the other direction when the woman was sighted, or at least wait for her to clear out. But she's no sooner seen the pair than she starts trudging, tired-looking, their direction. Not that the bike-mounting and starting-to-hightail is missed. She perhaps looks... less surprised than she ought to, though.
A bit later Wednesday carpet-texts Alma. There are so many texts.
In one run of texts Wednesday basically says that Mages have been trying to cure the vile crap Nephandi did to themselves almost as long as we've known about them. As far as we can tell, the act is permanent, and is an act of will that the Nephandi themselves do to make themselves permanently drag the entire world down, forever. The soul always informs the body and mind, and it's always bad, especially bad if they Awaken.
In some other texts Wednesday explains that he's very upset that Alma didn't give him the opportunity to explain this, It seems to be a pattern that Alma jumps to bad conclusions about Weds. He's very upset with that.
Alma sits with thsoe texts for a while until eventually replying:
Alma to Wednesday: I left because Kai was there! I thought she didn't want me around
Alma to Wednesday: Note just came back
Wednesday to Alma: Kai didn't want you not there. It might have been good for her to talk to you, she's not happy about how it is, now.
The next morning she sends more texts.
Alma to Wednesday: I feel like a huge disappointment. I want to reply. I do. I will.
Alma to Wednesday: I didn't realize I did that to you. I'm self absorbed. it was all the questioning. I only noticed when you talked about how Zach treated you. :(
Alma to Wednesday: I want to talk about how I treated you. and did you know that I trust you and Kai? I know we definitely won't always agree but I trust you to be a true person. it's corny, but like a tree. I don't always agree with them but I know where they stand.
Alma to Wednesday: we can talk later
Wednesday replies right away with *grumbling* no matter how late he had to stay up because of Maya...
Alma to Wednesday: oh, I saw Maya yesterday. but I had to go. I just couldn't. I needed quiet time. don't worry! not the quiet!
Alma to Wednesday: maybe do you have time later today? It's been tough. I don't know if I'll have the energy... if I can't please know that I'm thinking of you
Wednesday to Alma: Thanks for this. I'll get better, we'll talk, it'll be okay. Just don't want you to make what I think of as rash decisions based on sympathy for Nephandi.
Alma to Wednesday: !!! I've never even met one!!! The idea freaks me out!!!! ok ok talk to you later
Wednesday to Alma: *eye emoji x 2*
Alma to Wednesday: who is this and what have you done with Wednesday? >_> .)
Wednesday to Alma: Get it? Eye eye? Aye aye? *eye emoji x 2 again*
Alma to Wednesday: oh. my. god. that is the worst best pun. and omgomg I'm talking to Ay Ay Ron this could mean something }}
