View source for I quit. No, I quit

{{
| date=08/29/2018
| time=
| summary=Alma explains to Wednesday that she has to quit.
| cast=
* [[Alma]]
* [[Notion|Note]]
* [[Kai]]
| 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 [https://youtu.be/nHiM5RHOwhk "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 [https://youtu.be/xwtdhWltSIg 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
}}