Owner	Pose
Nettie Crowe	The Candle, Booke & Belle shop was closed for the evening, though the door -- inscribed with runes that those who cannot sense magic cannot see, indicates that the door is always open for those who truly need aid or friendship. A spellwork, to make sure that Nettie does not miss the chance to help someone.     All is quiet outside. Inside? Well, that's another story.     A record player is set up on the tea counter, where several boxes also are stood up, stacked four or five high with different locations, different languages displayed all over them.     Today Nettie was wearing old, grayed jeans with happy little psychadelic patches covering the holes in most of the places and a T-shirt promoting some weird British punk band.     'You're a heartbreaker Dream maker, love taker Don't you mess around with me You're a heartbreaker Dream maker, love taker Don't you mess around, no, no, no!'     The silver-gray hair of the witch was pinned up in a massive messy bun.     "Corvax, luv, do us a favor and check in the freezer for the ray's egg cases, would you? I needto know if I have to make a trip to get more."
Billy Kaplan	Today has been a quiet, slow day for Billy. Future Demiurges who are full-time NYU students and part-time crimefighters don't get many quiet, slow days. And it has made the kid go through that awful task that busy people so often hate to do: introspection. He's walking down the sidewalk wearing black Docker books, jeans, an Ozzy Osbourne T-shirt, and a black leather jacket. He definitely does not, from all appearances, look like an intelligent sociology student. He looks like someone you want to check your purse or wallet when you walk past. He takes a deep hit from his vape and lets the vapor trail out behind him as he heads for Nettie's shop. Closed. He looks deeper and sees the runes and a small smile crosses his lips. He stuffs the vape in one pocket and walks in the shop. "Hey, Nettie," he says quietly.
Nettie Crowe	Nettie hears the witch bells ring, and Billy may feel the wards on the place coming to take a closer look at him. Thankfully, this sanctum survived the Angel attack as of late, and part of that was Nettie's working. Apparently he's okay, and as the crow overhead lands to eyeball Billy as Nettie's eyes poke up over the boxes.     "BILLY!" she calls out in enthusiasm, wiping her hands off on the back of her jeans as she comes around the counter, the short witch looking up as Billy walks in. "Come in, come in lad, make yourself at home. Mi Candle es su Candle." she motions, rolling her hand, one of her hand-rolled cigarettes hanging from her lips.
Billy Kaplan	An honest smile forms on Billy's face. He definitely was hoping Nettie would be around. He shuts the door behind him and inhales a deep breath through his nose. "Gods, I love the smell of this place," he says as he tries to find an uncluttered chair to sit on. He slips off his leather jacket and hangs it over the back of the chair and flops down. "So what's going on? Things in the city sure seem to have quieted down after all of that nonsense. How you holdin' up?"
Nettie Crowe	"Nothing a little tea and dragon's blood can't patch up. Can I get you a cuppa?" she questions as she moves a couple of boxes. She opens one, takes a sniff and then gives a soft "Ugh... these are *extra* pungent this time --" and then closes the box and marks it with strange lettering, before she goes to turn Pat Benetar down and comes to sit near Billy.     "Rebuilding stock, taking time to re-establish my trade routes along leylines -- I suspect one of those young bucks tapped into a leyline and didn't have the common sense to send a message along for adjustments." she gives a wry smile to Billy.     "And how are *you* faring? How's school?"
Billy Kaplan	Billy accepts some tea from Nettie and thanks her for it. He peers around the cluttered, eclectic shop as he sips the tea. "You live a good life here, Nettie. It feels so peaceful here." He frowns a bit. "School is fine, but I get lost in it for all the wrong reasons. I plunge into my studies, and I'm sure that makes me any parent's dream, but I do it to avoid something bigger." Billy's nervous gaze shifts around the store, stopping at this oddity or that, before landing back on Nettie. "I'm scared, Nettie. I'm getting more powerful and I'm afraid something is gonna get away from me. I have no right to dump that shit on you, but I have absolutely /no/ idea who else to talk to."
Nettie Crowe	Nettie pauses a moment, and she takes a deep breath, and she leans to the side to place her cuppa on a saucer. Billy's tea cup is a bright red with happy silver edging, almost flower like. Nettie's is the color of bleached bones. The tea is hot and flowery, probably some herbal blend.     "I see." she states, and she breathes out, as she brings her gaze up to Billy.     "No, you've come to the right place. I've tought, off and on, magic. Control. I used to teach groups at a time, in fact. Some of them are still alive today." she murmurs, and then she considers. "Though Aggie's in a pensionier's home in Chelsea. On account of her service." she explains, and she steeples her fingers.     The shop does have oddities; there's a line of blood red crystals glowing, tacked to a board in the shape of a butterfly. Tucked up behind a besom's straw there is the leering grin of a bare skull that seems to stare down at Billy.     There's even what looks like a goat's skull with a single spiraling horn up from the middle of it, wrapped in rainbow ribbons spiraling down and tied in a bow through the eyes. She purses her lips a moment.     "The bad news is... something will always get away from you. I hate to call it *growing pains*, but that is what it is." she leans forward, and suddenly she can feel every bit of her age weighing on her shoulders.     "The trick is mitigating the damages so that as few people are hurt as possible. It's okay to be scared, to be *terrified* of what you are capable of. Goodness knows I was."
Billy Kaplan	The teenager's attention is /locked/ on Nettie as she speaks. It is very clear by his motionlessness and his expression and his body language that, for better or for worse, Billy has already decided to utterly trust Nettie. That's where he is: a place where he's so afraid of himself that he is willing to place complete trust in someone he actually doesn't know all that well. In the barest whisper: "Nettie, I don't wanna hurt anyone ever. It against everything I believe in and stand for. Please, I'm /begging/ you, please help me prevent that. I will do /anything/, I will follow your every instruction. Please, Nettie." He doesn't cry. He's too "tough" for that. But his eyes moisten and his expression softens completely.
Nettie Crowe	"Billy... I can't promise you won't hurt someone by accident, because you're learning. I am telling you the truth." Nettie replies, and she shakes her head "Which is more than I give a lot of people coming in here to try and learn magic. Magic itself is dangerous. Magic in this city is dangerous. You can walk into any of a dozen night clubs and find yourself at the end of a pike or being dragged to Hell because you looked at the wrong demon the wrong way. Knowledge costs." she explains quietly, and she purses her lips.     "I will help you every step of your journey, Billy. You're a good lad."
Billy Kaplan	The inner ends of his eyebrows steepled up, he peers long at Nettie. "I've tried ignoring it but that doesn't work. I tried burying myself so deep in my schoolwork that I didn't have time for anything else. I tried chemicals. Weed. Booze. Cigarettes. X. Anything I could get my hands on." He shakes his head and sits back in his set and takes a long drink of tea. "That magic can't be resisted. It's...like it has a mind of its own. All I can think to do next is to study it, to figure out if it's in me to master it." His gaze goes back to Nettie and he is very, very serious now. "Because if I think I'm going to lose control and hurt people, Nettie, I swear that I will do what I have to do to make sure I can't."
Nettie Crowe	Nettie leans forward again. Her elbows are on her knees as she listens.     And she gives a swallow, weighing her words very carefully.     "You got dealt a deadly hand, but you've got a lot of will power, and you do not want to hurt others. That is a rarity, in my experience." she gives a wry smile, and leans back.     "Have you lost control yet?"
Billy Kaplan	Billy slowly stands up. He walks over to the bar counter and sets his empty tea cup there. He stands with his back to Nettie like he's wrestling with something. He is utterly motionless for long, long moments. There is a battle going on inside of him. The tension radiating from his body is both physically and spiritually palpable. He is on a path that will lead him some day to immense, universal power or to misery and death. And it balances on the edge of a razor. A whispered answer: "Many times."
Nettie Crowe	Nettie stands up, and she walks over to the counter. Her shoes tap on the wooden floor of the shop, and she leans back against the counter, looking out over the shop.     "Would you beleive that once upon a time, I was a proper Victorian young lady. Going to balls and debuts, born to a formidable magical family?" she asks quietly. She gives a slight smile. "I remember my brothers, Richard and William would always try to stir some sort of trouble up to have us excused for poor behavior. Our eldest sister, Ellen, was the proper lady of the house. Everything a Victorian Family could ask for in a noblewoman. We'd be part of the House of Lords if we weren't so... odd. Back in the day." she explains quietly.     "... my sister, her husband, and my infant niece were murdered by Witch hunters. And I was an incredibly talented little shite. I thought I'd be able to wheel and deal and get my sister and her baby back. An exchange of blood for knowledge." she states, and she reaches up to tug at her hair. "I was a brunette, then. WIth dark brown eyes, like my mother's. But... things went wrong. I managed to shield my younger brother Albert from the spell's effects, and he ran to find my father and uncle."     She walks behind the counter.     "I was among the strongest casters in my family, blended humans and Homo magi. We could trace our bloodlines back three hundred generations, and few could measure to my skill... but I couldn't hold the power I had within me worth beans. All the control techniques and learning, in my moment of passionate, freverant *want* to be right, to win, to pull my sister and the baby back from the other side of the veil of Death, didn't matter. And I got hurt."
Billy Kaplan	Those sharp blue eyes of Billy's follow Nettie. There's no doubt his attention is on her. He's processing what she says. Sometimes you get into a conversation with someone and it's like they're just waiting for you to quit blabbing so they can have their turn to talk. Other times, like this one, they hang on your words like they are life itself. He swallows. "So all of the good intention in the universe don't mean shit. We've been lied to since we were little kids, told that good behavior is rewarded." He starts to pace a little bit. "I listen to your story and I think in my anger I would want to punish the witch hunters. Make them suffer. That's new. I didn't used to think like that. And I'll take a fuckin' razor to my throat before I become an oppressor. That ain't self pity or looking for attention. That's truth." His pacing picks up a bit. The tension in him is building. Somewhere in the room some small trinket or other moves like it was knocked aside. Some hanging, dangling things clink and clatter like a wind came through them. But finally he sits back in the chair. He doesn't calm, but he does control. "What...what happened next? You said you tried to get them back and you got hurt. What happened?"
Nettie Crowe	"... my soul was partially ripped from my body. It's not supposed to happen like that. You're supposed to go totally, or not at all... but... I had a tether. My familiar, Corvax." Nettie explains.     And she gives a small smile. "The feeling of your soul leaving your body by force is... indescribable torture. My father and my uncle worked to seal myself back in my body, which, unfortunately, had the effect of slowing and eventually stopping my aging. I've got markings, on my back, that keep my soul in my body. It means I have trouble traveling the Astral, and it physically hurts. But also... I can't touch anyone, without warding them. You don't brush Death so closely and with so much vehemence... and walk away. Normal people cannot stand my touch for long... it gives them horrible nightmares. Sometimes for years. My students. My friends... my wife."     She looks to Billy, and she looks up around the shop.     "Intention means everything, Billy. You can flub up your Latin when casting or read dead languages -- but magic *does* care about your intent, but breaking the laws of Death... Death doesn't mind throwing it back in your face."
Billy Kaplan	After sitting for several beats more, digesting the heavy story that Nettie just told, Billy stands. He approaches the witch, his new friend, hopefully his new mentor. He hold out a hand to Nettie for her to take if she wishes. It's a message: that he is not afraid of scary things. He's only afraid of himself. "Nettie, will you help me? You're so raw, so real. I don't know anyone else I trust."
Nettie Crowe	"... were you not listening before, lad?" Nettie's accent is clearer now, less Proper English and more MOdern Lincolnshire.     And she reaches out, with a gloved hand, and she grasps his hand.     "I already said that I shall be with you ever step of the journey. I'll teach you what I know about mitigating the damage -- and everything I can to help you control your power. From now on?"     And Nettie gives a toothy grin     "You're a student of The Last Crowe."
Billy Kaplan	Holding Nettie's gloved hand in a firm but gentle grip, Billy reaches over and touches Nettie's bare arm. He is a furnace of magical energy, and the skin of his palm is so very warm, like someone with a mild fever. He's not doing anything suggestive or sexual in any way, I mean you're both gay for gods' sake. It's a touch of friendship and a message: I am not afraid. I stand as your friend. His strong, warm hand rubs up and down Nettie's arm. Kinship. Then he releases her arm and smiles. "Student of The Last Crowe. I like the ring of that, Nettie."
Nettie Crowe	Nettie looks up at Billy, her aquamarine eyes narrowing a moment as Billy touches her skin, and she holds her breath, expecting the recoil.     But then there was nothing. Just the warmth.     She gives a soft scoff. "Getting dramatic in my old age." she states, and she reaches up and pinches Billy's cheek.     "Last time I could touch a lad without him bending over in horror was a young man I met at the Thorn and Rose, lil' dive bar outside London. Very Punk, very 80's. Nice fellow, hazardous to his friends is all.'
Billy Kaplan	Billy smirks a bit when his cheek is pinched. He returns to the chair he was sitting. "Well I don't have any friends except for you, so that part isn't a problem for me." He laughs a bit. His mood is dramatically improving. Teenagers. Can't keep track of their moods. "Fuuuuuck. I will have to go soon. Tomorrow my entire day is booked writing a paper. I have about 200 pages of notes and I have to figure out how to chop it down to a 25-page paper. Thaaaaat should be fun." He rolls his eyes.
Nettie Crowe	"... that should be easy. One idea per paragraph, arranged in a logical manner." Nettie states, and she clasps the boy on the shoulder.     "Or do they not teach that anymore in college? Do you need a typewriter for the paper? I think I have mine kicking about from the 70's. Might need a new tape." she gives a grin.     "You're a clever lad. You'll be fine."
Billy Kaplan	Billy stands and reach out his arms to give Nettie a friendly hug. "Thank you for everything, Nettie. I'll be back to see you again soon." Then he grabs his jacket, slips it on, and heads out the door. There goes someone who will either be a huge blessing or the world's worst nightmare. And the jury is still very much out.
Nettie Crowe	Nettie does, indeed, gently hug the college boy.     "Good luck on your paper, lad, get some rest. We'll start with some training next you visit." she warns him, pats his shoulder, and sends him off.     And as Billy walks, overhead the watful, scarlet eye of Corvax supervises, to make sure he makes it home safe.