The Tower // Catherine

[Altair]

Early December 1972
Magical Psychology

He had tidied up. His jeans were black, ending in a pair of newly polished leather shoes. Long arms crossed over his chest, the deep blue of his shirt showing a shiny quality in the light. From a sleeve peeked the ink of an old tattoo.

He was feeling ok, sending a thanks to whatever power had granted him a moment outside the constantly hallucinatory. Though to say he was comfortable would be a stretch. It showed in the stiff way that he sat, in how his feet would not stay still, soles bouncing and jittering in an image of the teenage boy that was no more.

As though he'd been called in and was getting ready to argue his case.

His eyes, one bright blue, the other a cloudy grey, were trained on the woman before him, willing her to speak first.

And in an effort for some anonymity (- or, perhaps, nostalgia -) he'd signed in with his old name:

Marcus Vega.

[Catherine Price]

Catherine sat with natural poise, a quiet authority that neither demanded nor begged for acknowledgment—it simply existed. Her gaze settled on him thoughtfully. Not clinical, but more like a reader reacquainting themselves with a well-worn book.

He had made an effort, that much was clear. Polished leather shoes, dark jeans, a deep blue shirt with just enough sheen to suggest he hadn’t entirely abandoned pride. But it was the tattoo slipping out from under his cuff that caught her interest—an old act of defiance, perhaps, or an untold story. Her gaze lingered briefly before drifting upward.

His discomfort was palpable, radiating in restless feet and the defensive cross of arms over his chest. There was a boyishness to it, like a schoolboy caught outside the headmaster’s office, ready to argue his innocence even if no one had accused him. And yet, there was gratitude too, barely perceptible but present—a quiet relief at being here, maybe?

Then there were his eyes: one vivid blue, cutting and precise, the other clouded, distant, weighted with unsaid things. They pinned her with an intensity that walked the fine line between challenge and plea—though wrapped so tightly in resolve, he likely thought it imperceptible. Catherine tilted her head slightly, a faint smile curving her lips, dark eyes sparkling with curiosity. She wasn’t one to bow to unspoken demands, no matter how piercing the gaze.

Her attention flicked to the parchment resting in her lap. Marcus Vega. The name hung there like a puzzle piece yet to find its place. Names were chosen, often deliberately, and Catherine couldn’t help but wonder at this one’s meaning.

Still, she waited. Waiting was part of the game, and Catherine Price knew how to play it well. Patience, after all, was often the most revealing weapon.

[Altair]

It was a long silence.

A silence that clung and forced its way throug his body, starting from the heels of his feet and travelling up until it hit his spine, sending invisible shivers to his head and his arms, to fingers potent with magic.

Out in the world, he was a looming shadow, a monstrosity of flaming power. Out in the world, he was finely attuned to everything that moved around, physically or in spirit. He was on top, in control, leaning into the constant raging chaos.

Now he felt small.

Not small in the way that he'd felt when called into the office of Anneka for performing blood sacrifice during class, for breaking all the rules, and pulling with him two of his fellow professors.

Not small in the way that he'd faced up to his old mentor, knowing that when it was over, one of them would have passed out of existence in their entirety.

Not even small in the way he'd felt sitting at a lonely table in the middle of the Great Hall, once upon a time pulling white lies to Auror Rhys Thorneson, so that a Spencer and Francis could bring forth their mad dance and pull the world into into a flurry of alchemy and violence and fever dreams.

No, now he was truly small, in the way that he had placed himself under her gaze for the sole purpose of making himself vulnerable.

"What do I do?" he asked quietly.

Perhaps it was for that illusion of control that he chose to break the silence.

[Catherine Price]

Catherine regarded him with the faintest tilt of her head, her expression betraying little. She didn’t rush to fill the silence he’d broken, as though his words were just another ripple in the stillness. Instead, she allowed his question to hang there, raw and unanswered, leaving space for its weight to settle—on him, not her. Silence was revealing in its own right, an instrument far sharper than any well-timed word.

Her gaze remained steady, clinical but not without a trace of warmth, as though she were peeling back the layers of the man before her with the precision of a surgeon. Here he was, stripped of the masks he wore so effortlessly in the chaos of the outside world. No bravado, no fire—just a man, raw and grasping for answers that, deep down, he likely already knew. Or perhaps he had simply forgotten how to hold on to.

“What do you do?” she echoed, her voice low but edged with the sort of clipped refinement that demanded attention. It was not a question meant to coddle; it was a blade meant to cut. Catherine’s posture remained relaxed, one arm draped easily over the back of her chair, her legs comfortably crossed. “That, Mr. Vega, is indeed the question worth pondering. Your presence here suggests that you’re searching for an answer you suspect you won’t like.”

Wasn’t it always something like that? A shadow they couldn’t shake, a truth they were running from, or just the quiet, desperate hope that someone might steady their hand before they fell too far? It was always an inkling—something clawing, gnawing, refusing to let them rest. Something that led them here, to her, as if she might have the key they’d lost somewhere along the way.

She leaned forward slightly, the faint gleam of amusement in her eyes tempered by something far sharper—calculated, probing. “Do you mean in this precise moment? Or do you mean, more broadly, for every misstep and calculated chaos that may have led you here?”

Her tone softened just enough to unnerve, to invite him in while simultaneously leaving no room for pretense. “Because those are two very different questions, though, I suspect, the answers might share the same root.

[Altair]

Mr. Vega.

His response to the name was unexpected, as though it did not truly belong to him. As though she'd described someone else, or even used simple words, such as pronouns, by which he was unable to recognise himself. Mr. Vega made him feel like a snake that had grown too large and was now staring down at the stiff, lifeless skin that he'd already shed.

It was a choice that he had made a long time ago, and which had been right. That was ok though - one way to learn about yourself was to have others bounce your thoughts back at you from a different context. When finding yourself in doubt, it was nice to find the confirmation resonating deeply within.

"Do you mean in this precise moment? Or do you mean, more broadly, for every misstep and calculated chaos that may have led you here? Because those are two very different questions, though, I suspect, the answers might share the same root."

Her words struck something in him and he could feel a line forming on his forehead.

He did know whether he agreed with this. He understood where she was coming from though. He particularly understood, if she also already knew who he was (which a lot of people did, admittably).

In the past, her way of conflicting with his expectations might have annoyed him, perhaps angered him. And he knew that his precise way of trying to deal with that sort of situation was to be snarky, or to simply just downgrade her to something unintelligent, and leave.

So now, his feet still jittering, blue gaze steadily at her, the furrow on his brow jumped back and forth to connect with this immature annoyance, back and forth to making himself sit in his own discomfort, and back and forth to hatching his words for her.

"But what if I have my answers already?" he asked.

She didn't strike him as unintelligent, quite the contrary. Perhaps she just thought, on good grounds, on years of experience, that she knew his type.

But he'd done his bit of research too. He knew it was hard to scrutinise yourself from your own perspective. And he decided that he was ok with her jumping to conclusions without really getting to know him first.

A thought came, then passed, that the chance was pretty good that he'd end up somewhere he'd want to be, anyway.

"What if I just came here to get the tools to handle them in a better way?"