It's interesting the way that places could grow on you. Could call you back to them with steadily increasing frequency. Justin's residence at the chantry had been sporadic at first, but these days he was here just as often as not. Even, sometimes, during the week. So it was early Tuesday evening and the sky was a wide expanse of solid blue broken by distant trails of dry, stretched clouds and the sun was a bright, low point to the West, shining a glare in the corner of Justin's eye and he tightened the wire on the finished section of fence he'd been working on.
The pasture, of course, was still empty, apart from the tall grass and the occasional chirp or scuttle of a small animal. For a moment the Verbena took a step back to survey the work he'd done, wiping a sheen of sweat from his forehead with the back of a hand. There were a couple of scrapes and bruises on his arms and fingers, one of which was still bleeding slightly, but he didn't pay them any particular mind. Instead he crouched down and began to pile his tools into the crate he'd carried them in, getting ready to head inside for a shower and some food.
Grace
Grace parked her car in the driveway of "The House" a bit crooked, but then the car itself was a bit crooked, so it all balanced out, right? There would be others here, though she couldn't yet feel their presence, and she took a brief look in the mirror out of self-consciousness. At least she didn't look half-dead with lack of sleep.
Her first week had been one long string of nights where her brain just wouldn't stop asking questions she couldn't answer. It's hard to sleep when you can't stop talking to yourself. And her attempts to find such answers consumed her waking hours as well.
But now, she'd managed some rest. There were Answers. That made a difference -- just knowing that her questions weren't impossible.
She put on her best smile, set out to greet... whomever, and beg them for more.
After ringing the doorbell, she thought to herself how silly that was really... they were probably already quite aware of her presence.
Grace didn't fit in this place -- square peg, round hole, and all that. The beautiful sky and verdant outdoors, the smell of pines on the wind -- all pretty... maybe somewhat interesting from a mathematical perspective. Fractal pines, strange attractor wind-flows, the quantum tunneling of scent, these were her thoughts on the matter of nature as she waited to be admitted.
Shoshannah
"Someone's here."
Shoshannah is an interesting girl, and she'd taken it seriously when Justin asked her if she wanted to help work on the fence - so there she is, helping how she can. Chances are good she's hammered at least one thumb and picked up quite a few splinters and scrapes in the process, but she'd worked hard. It's what she does, as Justin's starting to know - she disappears in her tasks (self-assigned or otherwise) and the results thereof, and mostly hopes people ignore her when they can't help but notice her. Sid and Pan are exceptions, as Justin is starting to be. And as to how she knows someone's here? Well, she has been working on extending her perceptions. And spirits still whisper to her quite a lot, even if they aren't as drawn to her, or as easy to understand, as they once were.
"Race you, tough guy."
She doesn't wait for an answer and yes, she knows he has the handicap of the bucket of tools - she also knows she has no chance of beating him otherwise, so maybe it evens out. And so it is that an eighteen-year-old Dreamspeaker comes running, running from the pasture, only to slow down when she sees a stranger at the door. Obviously she's Awakened, no one else can find this place - and obviously she knows someone, or she wouldn't have thought to look. So prickly, sharp, hard edged (creepy, eerie, scary, angry) Shoshannah looks at the newcomer, and isn't sure what to say or do.
"Hey." It's minimal, as greetings go - and the girl is still out of breath. Sure, that's why.
Justin
Even with the tools, he could probably have beaten her. If it'd been earlier in the day, maybe, or he'd been feeling especially competitive. As it was, Justin just laughed and let her get a head start before he propped the small wooden crate under his arm and jogged after her. Shoshannah would probably be disappointed by the lack of effort.
He arrived at the front door a few moments after the Dreamspeaker did, but he recognized Grace from a few yards away and paused to wave at her. He smiled when he pulled to a stop at Shoshannah's side, re-adjusting the box of tools under his arm. "Hey again. Glad you found your way out here. Shoshannah can let you in while I put these away."
And then the two women were left to themselves for a couple of minutes as Justin rounded back to the garage and went inside to put the tools away.
Grace
[Awareness+Perception to take note of resonance]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )
Shoshannah
[same-same!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 4 )
Grace
Grace seemed to snap out of some kind of daydream as the girl opened the door, and her smile flickered a bit at the sudden onslaught of 'angry'. It was her tendency to put up walls against others, to deal with the rawness of anger from arm's (or continent's) length. But the teenager in front of her was a surprise. So much sharpness in so small a package. She herself radiated a kind of sliding quality, either the shifting of sands, or the violence of a fault slip, so she probably shouldn't judge.
"Hey, um.. I'm new," she said, with that faltering smile, trying to put the girl at ease.
Her eyes slid off of Shoshannah at Justin's greeting, and gave him a small wave in return.
"Name's Grace," she said, with a bit of eagerness, but no outstretched hand.
SerafÃne
This if for e-mail scene. Perception + Awareness-as-empathy
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 3, 3, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )
SerafÃne
(Also as preparation for entry to scene which will be in a few! Per + Awareness)
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 7, 10) ( success x 5 ) Re-rolls: 1
Shoshannah
For all that she feels it, Shoshannah doesn't look particularly angry - like she's sullen and bitter and has a chip the size of Colorado on her shoulder, sure, but not actively angry. (She feels more like Death come to call, like purgatory, like loss and anxiousness and goosebumps and chills and nightmare sweats. Her resonance is just the icing on the cake.) There's no answering smile, but at least when Justin recognizes Grace there's a slight relaxation.
Only slight, mind.
"Shoshannah. Come on in, I guess." And she does let Grace in, though the relative ease of companionship she'd shared with the Verbena moments ago is gone - for now, for who knows how long, or where. "You're the one Sid called about. Right?" The accent's odd - a good bit of southern American (Texas, to be exact), but more of something vaguely British, vaguely exotic. "You hungry? We were working. I'm starving."
Grace
"I, yes, Sid did let me know it was okay to show up," she said, still faltering a bit as she walked inside and looked around. Her eyes didn't so much stick to the usual objects in the room, but rather its boundaries. The ceiling took as much notice as the furniture.
Hungry? Well, she hadn't thought of hunger, but now that food was mentioned... Had she eaten lunch?
"Oh, you know what, I think I am hungry. Huh," she said, with a kind of half-smile. "What are you working on, if I might ask?"
When Justin reappeared, it was through the door that lead directly from the garage into the kitchen, so if the other two were headed that way they'd likely run into him just as he was coming through the door. When he shut it behind him he had to give a little tug to get the latch to click into place. One of a handful of small defects around the otherwise very well-built house that he'd been meaning to fix (but hadn't gotten to yet.)
As Justin walked toward the sink, he pulled his shirt off and used it to wipe the sweat from his face and neck. His skin was tanned beneath it, with darker lines marking the spots where the neck and sleeves of his t-shirt usually lay. He spent enough time shirtless that his worker's tan wasn't too obvious, but it was still there.
He'd been doing a lot of work lately, and it showed. (In more ways than one.)
At the sink, he set down his shirt and ran a line of cold water to wash the blood and grime from his arms, scrubbing his skin clean with a bar of soap.
"There's some leftover lasagna in the fridge, if you want to heat it up."
Grace "Ah, yes, it was Sid who let me know it was okay to come by," Grace said, still faltering a bit. As she walked in, her eyes seemed to flicker with equal attention to the ceiling and the furniture, as if checking the boundaries.
Big place. Pretty, if you liked the ranch aesthetic. If. Shoshanna's voice got through to her a bit, and her face pinched. Well, she hadn't thought about hunger at all, but now that it was brought up, had she eaten lunch? Or breakfast?
"You know, I think I am hungry now that you mention it. Huh," she said with a little nod to her head. "And, what have you been working on, if I might ask?" Of course, it wasn't fence work she was expecting, or hoping for.
And then, her head swiveled in the direction of Justin and, well, wasn't he ah... comfortable. And bloody? "Are you okay? Your arms..."
Shoshannah
"Just a few scrapes from the wire - I think I hammered each of my fingers at least once." She holds her hands up to show whatever bruises and cuts she's gained with the kind of pride that only comes from pampered kids learning to do something with their hands. "We're building a fence around the pasture. I mean, we work on all kinds of other stuff," not necessarily - or even often - together, but still, "but everyone needs to try something new every now and then. Right? Knowledge and understanding are experiential."
She's talking more and faster than Justin's ever witnessed - it's almost like that first day all over again. And never mind that, while she'd looked (for longer than necessary, even) when he'd taken his shirt off, she's pointedly looking Anywhere Else right now.
"I'm learning how to ward, though, if that's the kind of work you want to hear about. What are you working on? Or, I guess, what do you want to work on first, since you're new?"
Serafíne
Serafíne will never, ever, ever, be any help whatsoever in mending fences, wooden or otherwise; or 'tilling the garden, or mowing the grass, or repairing the screens or putting up the storm windows or washing the back patio or cleaning the kitchen or really -
- much of anything.
She will, however, replenish the chantry's pot supply with great regularity, particularly since she may well be the only person who dips into it with any regularity. Though that isn't happening now.
But see, not long after Grace has shown up, a goddamned anniversary edition Porsche 911 in anthracite brown pulls up behind Grace's car and Sera -
- who is dressed in a white babydoll mini-sundress with spaghetti straps and flat-ish heeled black Doc Martins because she wants to know what it was like to have lived through the age of grunge as more than a child -
- slides out of the passenger's side door, waits for someone to pop the trunk (do these things have trunks?). Grabs the handles of some re-useable shopping bags, the sort made of laminated rice and/or feed bags and sold in fair trade shops.
Essential supplies these, you'll have to guess what. For now.
---
Inside, the doors swing open. Sera carts her bags (just two) in to the kitchen and -
"Grace! You made it. Rock on. I was just thinking that I oughtta give you a call. Fuck, welcome! What the hell has been going on with you - "
And Sera is the sort of person who can say rock on and not sound like a complete shit. Mostly because she sounds so pleased, and draws attention to herself like a lodestone. Then circling the kitchen, before Justin has quite finished at the sink.
"Jesus Christ, Justin, is this a chantry or a nudist colony, put some fucking clothes on, man. What the hell - " with an edgy, quicksilver grin that takes in that glance Shoshannah was giving Justin. " - careful, or the natives'll get all restless."
Also: pot - kettle Sera, since as soon as she heaves up those shopping bags they can all see that beneath her not-exactly-prim white sundress she is wearing black lingerie and thigh-high fishnets held up by black garters. All visible beneath the translucent material. Because that is how she dresses, guys.
Hawksley
Anyone who has shaken Hawksley's hand -- and in this instance, everyone has -- knows that what callouses he has are thin, light things. The activities of his fingers involve page-turning, primarily, not hammering stakes into the ground or stringing wire. He has done manual labor in his life, but by god, that was punishment. Why someone would choose to build a fence when there are plenty of people one could hire to do that sort of thing... why, it boggles the mind.
But he drives a Porsche. That he has never worked a day in his life has not seemed to affect the quality of that life, at least not in the material sense.
--
These things have trunks. They are not large. They are a pocket where you put A Suitcase or Two Bags of Something, in this case ... groceries? He didn't ask when Sera put the bags in. He doesn't ask -- well wait, no, of course he does. After he gets out of the car as well, pocketing the keys.
Is he wearing aviators? Of course. Are his khakis straight-legged and just a bit skinny and rolled up at the cuffs to bare his ankles? Naturally. Light blue -- what are those? Loafers? Boat shoes? A strange amalgam of both? They have laces, whatever. His t-shirt is tissue-thin, with brown and burnt orange in thick horizontal stripes. Hawksley takes one of the bags, if Sera is willing to share, and heads in a step or two behind Sera.
Sera zeroes in on Grace. Hawksley's eyes run up Justin's back from lumbar to cervical spine like a finger dragging across skin. "Excuse her," he says to them, or perhaps just Justin: "she's gone Puritan. Too much clean living."
He gives Shoshannah an upward nod, a nonverbal hey, and sets a bag down, and pushes his aviators up and grabs some counter, swinging himself up to sit on the edge, long legs dangling down. He leans over to peer into the bags Sera had him trafficking, but he's talking to Justin while he does so. You can tell, because he starts with:
"Justin, when you have a minute, we should talk."
Serafíne
Groceries. Yes. Those are groceries emerging from the bags, one of which was indeed surrendered to Hawksley on the walk from the Porsche to the kitchen door. Absolutely and bloody essential groceries Sera is currently unpacking including a more or less complete vintage cocktail kit - bar tools on a neat silver caddy with red bakelite handles, a pair of cocktail shakers, a chrome caddy with four highball glasses all silvered with silver coasters and etched with portraits of Roman soldiers or whatever. And, several varieties of fairly top shelf liquors, focus on the locals like Stranahan's, but also a few liqueurs, shelf-stable mixers, the beginnings of a properly stocked cabinet.
And: her second-favorite bong, which she is donating to the chantry for Reasons. It is genuinely lovely and looks like a handcarved sculpture and is shaped like an elegant black swan.
And: a medium sized illuminated black writing board, the sort often seen in coffee shops, advertising the drink of the day, along with a set of fluorescent markers. It needs to be hung up and plugged in somewhere for anyone to use it, but Sera just assumes that someone else will handle that sort of thing. Which is usually what happens in her world.
Too much clean living, earns Hawksley a smirk and a brief moment of very direct eye contact as Sera is unpacking her purchases. Clearly, she is anticipating the end of clean living any day now and laying in supplies, as if for a siege.
"I don't know where to put all this," to Shoshannah and Justin, more than anyone else, " - does this place even have a proper bar?"
And her attention snags on Justin, then cuts this direct line back to the Hermetic. That quicksilver grin reasserts itself as she gives him a faux-critical once-over before adding -
"Oh, Hawksley. You're throwing the energy of the room all off-balance right now." Nods this little note of agreement with herself and anyone looking at her in that moment can see that she's absolutely bullshitting and challenging and gleaming and bright and bemused and self-amused and enjoying every second of it. "You should take off your shirt too.
"I mean, it's just feng shui. Equilibrium and what-all." A beat and a faux-puzzled look to the room at large. "Or maybe it's Science?
"For sure it is one of those things."
Justin
Are you okay? Your arms...
There'd been some blood, yes. Not much, but enough to leave a visible line of red down the back of his hand and a few inches of his forearm. There'd been a nail in one of the old fence posts (which had shortly thereafter been removed) that he'd missed. One of the many hazards of manual labor.
But when Justin pulled his arms out of the sink and reached for a towel, there was no sign of injury. Maybe the cut had just looked worse than it actually was.
(Maybe, with her awareness active as it was, Grace would sense the little flare of vital and enduring energy that seeped from Justin's hands while he washed them. Even when he wasn't working an effect, Justin resonated like an ever-renewing life-force.)
"Just missed a nail in the fence," he explained, in a tone that sounded a little like a verbal hand-wave.
Somehow during the midst of all this, Sera and Hawksley had shown up. Maybe Justin noticed the way that Shoshannah's eyes refused to make contact with him, or the way she'd started rambling when she came into the kitchen. But if so, he didn't acknowledge it, because Sera was there in her white sun dress and her black lingerie telling him to put some fucking clothes on. Justin gave the Cultist a pointed look. One of those expressions that was meant to convey an obvious sentiment.
In this case, the sentiment was: ...seriously? (One would imagine his tone to be very bemused.)
And though she may have managed to succeed at making him feel awkward (note the way he turned away from them and rubbed the back of his neck,) he didn't make any further attempts to acknowledge the moment or put his shirt back on. It was lying, loosely balled-up, on the floor at his feet and smelled about as sweat-soaked as it looked. Not exactly an appealing prospect. Justin picked it up and made his way toward the entrance to the dining room, moving past Hawksley as he did so.
"Sure. What's up?"
If the Hermetic seemed inclined to follow him, Justin would continue on toward the living room. If not, he'd stop and turn around.
Hawksley
The young man on the counter is, at the moment, actually even more useless than Sera is. Sera brought groceries, and liquor, and is unpacking them. Hawksley is sitting in her way, looking through her stuff, picking things up and playing with them, reading bottle labels, and essentially getting in the way of everything. While he does, he looks over at Grace, brightening. "See! Our schedules refused to match up and we met again anyway." He says this as though he and Grace have been in a long debate about fate vs. will or happenstance vs. serendipity and he thinks he's winning. Then again, Hawksley seems like the type of person to think he's always winning, one way or another.
Oh, Hawksley. He lifts his eyed, eyes alighting on Sera again, curious. Then: grinning, broadly. "Good god, you're right," he says, reaching up to whip his sunglasses off the top of his head with the body language that would normally accompany a Great Scott!. "My eternal apologies," he tells her, hands gripping the edge of the counter and pushing him off with a smooth shove. His feet hop to the ground again, surprisingly light despite his height. The aviators stay on the counter, chrome-rimmed and amber-lensed. "That certainly sounds scientific."
Justin heads for the living room, saying they can talk now, and Hawksley starts to follow him, reaching to the hem of his shirt. His long arms cross and then unfurl as he pulls it up, lifts it over his head, and then slings it over his shoulder. Beneath that shirt he is golden in a way that makes it seem like he was born that way, would look like this even if the sun never touched his skin. He's wearing a golden wing on a chain, the emblem hanging above his solar plexus.
"As for what's up," he's heard saying to Justin, as he walks into the dining room and around that long, long table to the fireplace, but the rest of the sentence is lost. The now-equally-shirtless Hawksley is saying to Justin's back: "my agenda is blended."
Sera
"Thank god they're gone," says Sera, once Hawksley has - yes - stripped off his damned shirt, tossed it over his shoulder, and followed Justin from the room. The Cultist (who returned Justin's ...seriously? glad with a ridiculously smug grin) slides Hawksley's aviators aside now that her groceries, such as they are, are unpacked and littering the counter, and hoists herself up onto the counter in the precise spot he just occupied, all fiddlingly annoying and in-the-way. She is rather shorter but her legs swing just the same and she turns to Shoshannah and Grace then, see, all fucking conspiratorial. "We can totally talk about them now - "
Except: the flash of her teeth, the sudden curl of her mouth.
"Wait, actually, we are going to pass the fucking Bechdel test and talk about Nothing to Do with Them. How about magic?
"Did you feel that, Grace - " eyes on the apprentice, slide to the creepy Dreamspeaker a moment later. "Justin healed himself. There at the sink. That flare in the air, that was his Work. I don't know how he does it, I don't know all that much about Verbena practice but yeah - see, it's different for all of us. Did we talk about that?
"Different for Shoshannah than it is for Pan or me or you. Shit, you know Shoshannah I have no idea even what your Tradition is? Like for the longest time I thought you were Pan's apprentice. Seriously."
Shoshannah
This? This is an interesting thing for Shoshannah, if by interesting one means 'embarrassing as hell' and also 'really more than a bit irritating' in addition to 'confusing'. For a girl who's so abrasive and angry feeling to begin with, it only makes things worse - and the problem is only slightly alleviated when shirtless!Justin (and now shirtless!Hawksley) leave the room.
"Give me your hipster-vintage bar toys. I do the aesthetics." It's sullen, grouchy, a bit sneer-y, and par for the course as far as Sera knows the girl - she hadn't been all that different the night in the bar, when Padre had ordered her home. And never mind that she can't quite look at Sera, either, making the tough act a bit more obviously a lie. In reality, Shoshannah is supremely uncomfortable and refuses to acknowledge it. And Grace? It's quite possible that in the midst of all this, Shoshannah's forgotten that she asked her a question. And of course the bar toys are put where Shoshannah wants them, and of course they're placed so well that she could be staging the house for sale. She's got a great eye, really, though no one ever expects it of her.
This gives her time to center a bit, to more firmly affix the I Don't Give a Shit attitude she wears so well so much of the time. "Dreamspeaker. And Initiate, thanks. I'm not really just a kid." Despite the common perception goes unsaid, naturally - it's not needed. So bland, so removed that tone even as everything about her prickles and pokes. She's a difficult one to get a bead on, is Shoshannah, and her trust issues? They're about a mile high.
-----
And since we know what everyone else is wearing, and to mark the difference(s) between Shoshannah and Sera still more clearly, here's this - a completely superfluous description of the girl's looks.
The Dreamspeaker is tall for a woman at a long and lean five foot nine inches, and has the model build to go with her model height although it's not quite so waify if one gathers the courage to actually touch her. It's all glamour, that, though she certainly is tall and thin. Her hair is black, or as close thereto as hair gets, and pulled back into a loose, somewhat messy ponytail in deference to the manual labor she'd been doing and the wind that occasionally blows it into her eyes if she doesn't restrain it. Underneath the pale rarely-sees-sun shade of her skin is an olive tone that comes more and more to the fore as she spends time outside working with Justin, playing with spirits, doing . . . whatever it is Shoshannah does when no one's looking. Her eyes are bright, clear, piercingflayingscarringscourging blue. Her ears are pierced, once each, and the holes there are filled with simple gold studs.
The clothes are simple today, but still of remarkably good quality given what people (think they) know about her - shorts bare her long legs, ankle height work boots adorn her feet, and a well made cotton tank top covers (most of) her torso, though it leaves a sliver of belly, hip and back bare. It's modest, really, but not particularly conservative - if she weren't everyone's nightmare, Shoshannah might be someone's dream. Goodness knows she's good looking enough.
Grace
Shoshannah proudly bore her bruises, and Grace tried hard to care about the fence and the effort put into it, though her mind wandered to other places. Good fences make good neighbors, perhaps, but something there is that doesn't love a wall (the poem went) that wants it down. Walls, fences, firewalls... She filed away an idea there, the germ of a concept. There was a story there, somewhere.
When she came back to reality, the younger woman was talking about knowledge being experiential -- one has to do to learn. Perhaps, yes. Or, you can teach a computer how to do it for you, and then go take a long nap.
Despite the mental wandering, Grace was actually paying attention to the words, if not the deeper content, and when Shoshannah got to the real interesting bit, the gears clicked into place. "Wards? What are wards?" she asked, knowing the word 'ward' but not its context. "And, yeah... I'm working on something, but it's really embarrassing. I mean, I know what good code looks like, and this is not it. Knowledge is experiential, right? Well, I'm learning a lot about how to hack things together in a really sh... uh... crappy way."
She leaned in and fake-whispered to the girl, "I'm really new." A half-smile lit one side of her face, and she continued, "I'm actually here to check out the library, so I won't embarrass myself much more, you know? But as for stuff to work on here, oh... Well, I suppose that depends on what needs doing? A local network wouldn't be bad, I don't know what you guys have though --"
Serafine's entrance tore off the end of Grace's little spiel in grandiose fashion, the woman sweeping in with her bags of 'stuff' and her presence, and a 'rock on' that made Grace's face light up even more. These little connections, drawing down the walls, these people with the mischief of spring in them.
Hawksley was next, and Grace imagined the two must go everywhere together, so alike. The house didn't seem too big anymore, filled with people and activity and a sudden surge of primal force that drew her attentions back to the man cleaning up at the sink. Huh.
And then, there were two half-naked men in the room, one with no real reason to be... "Hmm, I guess this means we do all need to take our shirts off... Or put on parkas. I guess it depends on whether you're after equality or balance."
Thankfully, there was no need for that. They left, presumably to discuss... what? Half-naked guy things? But Serafine was talking interesting again. "He healed himself? That's incredible... I did feel that, I was wondering," she said, her mind again in-gear. Magic? Well, Grace didn't think of it like that really. But a better word for it she couldn't muster. Breaking down reality's barriers (for she really is the thing that doesn't love a wall, shifting the stones out of her way), digging into the vulnerabilities, until...
Verbena? Pan? Dreamspeaker? Initiate? This is why she needed a fucking book. Hell, just a dictionary for this new jargon would be fine.
Shoshannah
"Verbena and Dreamspeaker are Traditions - like the Cult of Ecstacy," here, there's a nod at Sera though really she's only guessing - that one meeting had been months ago, and goodness only knows if she'd found out then. She certainly doesn't remember. "Groups of Awakened that share a similar worldview, though it's not a hive mind or anything. Pan - I usually call him Padre - is a person. He's in Mexico now, but has a church in Federal, in the city. And Initiate and Apprentice are ranks. They're pretty general, and mostly we don't make a big deal of them unless it's a formal occasion that calls for it, but they are what they are."
She shrugs and simply looks at Sera for a moment, sitting on the counter surrounded by things she expects other people will take care of - and Shoshannah probably will be the one who does, because despite her love for fine things and her high quality clothes, she has no aversion to doing what needs to be done. This one eighteen year old girl has more work ethic in her little finger than most people do in their entire bodies, in lifetimes. Soon (not soon enough) her eyes flick back to Grace, then wander away.
"You wanted to see the library - I can take you, if you want."
Serafíne
"Yeah, you know what?" This to the sullen, grouchy, teenaged demand that Shoshannah be allowed to take and stage the bartools somewhere in the house. For reasons of aesthetics. "My hipster-vintage bar toys are actually tools of ritual, and not tchotchkes. See," and this with a quicksilver grin to Grace, "some of us think that the ability to make a decent cocktail and or drink cheap tequila straight from the bottle is exactly what separates us from the unenlightened masses," then back to Shoshannah, "so: the barware is going on or in the bar if there's a fucking bar.
"Otherwise, they're staying in the kitchen by the cabinet that is designated for the booze until we secure a proper bar."
And still focused on Shoshannah, returning that look with another bemused and slightly wider grin than even Grace received, full of wry apology, "I meant apprentice in the general-language sense rather than the rank-sense. His student."
Her attention sweeps back to Grace as Shoshannah offers a litany of tradition names, bullet points about their purpose, guesses at her own, and explains who the hell Pan is. And Sera, oh her own eyes are completely steady on Grace's, even if the brand new mage is looking at Shoshannah and trying to absorb all of this.
"Hawksley was right," a bit dreamy, to Grace, when Shoshannah's explanations end. "You have fucking incredible eyes. Did you get any of that?" Compassion and humor in that too. And if Grace seems inclined to wander off toward the library with Shoshannah's offer, Sera will follow.
Grace
Confusion could be a word written on Grace's forehead, and apparently Sera had read it. The information headed her way was like a gloss over something more substantial, much like Sera must have felt when Grace had gone over her own newly-acquired worldview -- lost in words that barely made sense, from a culture that wasn't familiar.
Confusion was replaced by incredulity at Sera's pronouncement that both she and Hawksley agreed on the status of 'fucking incredible eyes'.
"Do what now?" the question was posed essentially to the both of them, Grace's incredible eyes flitting between the two to prove the point.
Ahh yes... library. And at that word from Shoshanna, the offhand mention of food, and lasagna in the fridge was completely forgotten. Time to answer some questions.
"Yeah, I think I need a beginner's book... Double You Tee Eff 101?"
Serafíne
Sera hops down off the counter with an easy movement. She's nowhere close to Shoshannah's willowy height, and even if she oh-so-often works to create that pretense, to take up that much more space in the world than the gods or whomever thought she should perhaps be granted, see: she moves with ease. Loves that body she has anyway and all the things it can feel and be and do.
"Most of those terms Shoshannah was throwing out, they're like religions, right? See, it's like, all the religions in the world, what if they were all correct. All internally and specifically correct, at least for their adherents. Buddists and Weirdoists and Catholics and what-the-fuck-all all got their prayers or spells or lives answered and framed and judged and defined under their specific set of beliefs.
"That's more or less what it's like for us. I mean, the way I work is nothing like the way Justin works, or Shoshannah, or you. And you can sort of make it up as you go along, right? Just push yourself, your frame, your worldview until it all comes more sharply into focus -
" - but when you find someone who shares your world view. Hell, then you can sort of draft off their Work a bit. Use their understanding to push your own along.
"So when I said Justin's a Verbena, it's like saying he's a fucking Catholic. Or, well. Technically a pagan or whatever, the Catholic bit was a fucking analogy."
Sera looks like she's ready to tuck her arm into Grace's just as easily and intimately as she sat with Hawksley that night they first met at Mutiny, and walk with her through the kitchen, chatting as they follow Shoshannah toward the library. If Grace stiffens up or pulls away, though, it won't get that far. Sera'll tuck her hands into the pockets of her cut-offs instead.
"Does any of that that make sense?"
Shoshannah
Something, goodness only knows what aside from it being fairly obvious that it was something one of the other women said, sets Shoshannah's shoulders stiffer, stutters her step, and suddenly she's peeling off. "You know what? Sera can get you into the library, Grace, you don't need me. See you around, or whatever." This is muttered only barely loud enough to hear, and now the Dreamspeaker can't look at either of them. Somehow, she's managed to shrink in on herself, giving her the appearance of a less corporeal waif - so much about her feels like the grave (and sets the hairs on the back of one's neck on edge, gives one shivers and goosebumps) that the visual impression is fairly strong. In truth, if she could she'd just disappear . . .
. . . but she can't, so she does the next best thing. Which is, in this case, all but fleeing (despite the urge to fight - who knows what would happen if she did that here, now) the company she's in and getting to her room as fast as she can. It's quite probably a relief for Grace and Sera when she does.
Grace
Grace listened as the Cultist of Ecstasy spoke (and if that were the name, it seemed appropriate for her) but a bit of sadness fell about her face as Sera continued.
She wasn't religious. At all. The opposite in fact. Religions were mostly a way to control people, she thought. Most powerful institutions are. Sure, individual practitioners could be perfectly wonderful people, but the leaders? The ones shoving ideology down from on high? They could make you believe anything. Greed is good, murder is permissible, you can get to the afterlife if you give me all your worldly possessions...
It was just an analogy, she tried to say to herself. Don't read too much into this.
"But, I haven't really met anyone yet who does share my world view, or come close. I mean, I think Sid is the only... you know... one I've talked to who really gets me, and she's not at all about computing," she said, her eyes flickering to Shoshannah, who looked offended. Oh. Well, crap.
When the girl stormed off, all teenage rebellion and spite, Grace looked about to follow her for a second before catching herself. Instead, Sera caught her by the arm, and the touch did set off alarms, did cause her body to involuntarily tense. It didn't help that today, the usual pins and needles in her skin were worse.
Sera responded by putting her hands into her pockets, and Grace went apologetic. "Oh, um... Sorry, you startled me."
Serafíne
Sera's face is rather narrow and her eyes are large but close-set and her brows rather straight (and rather darker than her bottle-blonde curls) but they spike upward as Shoshannah huffs off and her dark eyes linger on the teenager as she stalks from the kitchen, all venom and spike. She says nothing and makes no move to belay or interrupt Shoshannah but breathes out a breath that says, teenagers, what can you do which is, uh, pretty ironic coming from a girl who looks like Teenage Riot made flesh on her best days. And see, still her eyes linger, until the Dreamspeaker is out of immediate view.
That breath also serves as apology / brush-off of Grace's apology for that awkward moment where Sera's all let's link arms and Grace is all stiff no thanks which ends with Grace having her arms (tingling or otherwise) to herself and Sera with her hands not in her pockets because her author forgot she was wearing a sundress that probably does not have pockets but instead: linking in front of her like she's holding her own hand for a moment, then swinging free again as she leads Grace down toward the library.
And, talking,
"Well, see, one of the Traditions are the Virtual Adepts? Computer geeks, I suppose you would probably fit there," a narrow shrug of (growingly bony) shoulders beneath that not-prim little white dress. " - though I don't know of any in Denver I suppose you'd find them in the internet," - yes she said in the internet - "or whatever, too? But fuck if I know how you'd start doing that. They probably have some secret magickal hideout in games or whatever somewhere but I know fuck-all about computers,"
- the flash of a grin,
" - as I think we've established. I mean Dan puts music on my iPhone for me even if he hates it. Vinyl geek all the fucking way. 'Course you gotta be careful for a whole helluva lot of other reasons with that online shit because there's the Techs but that's probably WTF 102 right?"
"And," does she breathe? Probably has learned some circular breathing technique from Jim or: she's just a talker. "I am an Ecstatic. You remember the word I used for that feeling of oneness with the universe you were talking about? That feeling is kindof our jam.
"You should probably talk to Jim. He's one of us and he's a badass and he's smarter than me. Knows all kindsa shit about Ghandi and neuroscience. I mean, maybe you're more like us than you think."
Grace
The fluidity of Sera, the way she just moved on from every little bump in the social landscape like it was nothing, was turning into a point of envy for Grace. Be like that, sometime, okay? And then, the thought was banished.
She followed Sera down the hallways, listening to the words, and zeroing in on the back of her head quite absentmindedly. Secret magickal hideouts in internet did sound more her style. But again, there was nothing to go on really.
And another option, Grace the Cultist of Ecstasy? Again, Sera knew someone Grace should talk to about it (did she know everyone? Wouldn't surprise).
"Okay, but, I saw you unpacking your ritual equipment? Yeah, I don't really drink much, or do pot much. I don't know if that's a necessity or something. I wasn't on anything when I went down to that power station, though, I know the description kind of sounded like it."
"But I have another question. Why should I be careful of the people who fix broken computers? Techs?"
Serafíne
They're headed down the stairs to the lower library level when Grace remarks that she saw Sera unpacking her ritual equipment and oh that makes Sera laugh. Grace cannot see the sudden flash of a widening grin across Sera's sharp features, but that tip-back of her blond head, the swing of her curls against her spine are frame enough of the laughter beneath. Which is mostly embedded rather than uttered, framed by her body.
At the foot of the stairs, while Sera's sorting out the technology required to enter, she turns back and gives Grace a wry little look, through the width of that abating grin.
"I was being a little over the top when I called the barware ritual equipment. We're not quite so formal," chagrin? Not quite, just the a certain degree of self-awareness and a certain understated bemusement. " - and honestly, alcohol isn't as good for expanding consciousness as other substances, especially hallucinogens. But it's more experiential - sex or music or energy, right? Like a fucking crowd when they're vibing on something, all moving together, just this one pulse and you lose yourself into the expanding mass of that movement. Or even," a mild smirk, the slightest arc of distaste, from the Cultist-on-a-fucking-fast, " - denial. Exercise, yoga, breath control? Those things aren't for me, but yeah.
"Honestly, I was being a bit tongue-in-cheek." There's a directness to her gaze her, steady and certain, "but you know, when it doubt, recruit recruit recruit. And you should still talk to Jim. He's fucking awesome and he'd like you. Oh, but I hope you drink at least a bit. Hawksley's going to throw you a party as soon as his Collins secures him a permanent place to live."
The door to the library swings open, and Sera gives Grace an after you style gesture.
"The techs, fuck. I don't know where to fucking begin. I suppose with the fact that we call them the Technocracy, and they know what we can do, but they prefer the status quo.
"I've heard that they call us Reality Deviants. Which should tell you something.
"And I know that there are some in town."
Grace
So, it wasn't just a collection of like-minded people, it was a collection of wildly differently-minded people? Well, that's almost even better, right?
Sera's description of the Cultists didn't exactly make Grace feel any closer to them. She was more a kind of techno-monk, an information-age scribe than anything else. Much more content to sit by herself in quiet focus than in a crowd. Denial wasn't exactly the word for it, Grace did what she wanted, she just didn't want much.
But a world without people like Sera? Boring.
"Really? A party, for me?" she said, and the introvert in her cringed. But hey, networking, right? Just put on a smile, and take it. It was intended to be a gift, no doubt, or just an excuse to party.
When Sera unlocked the library, Grace's face lit up, and a tiny "eeeee" noise escaped her before she could control it. Immediately, she beelined to the nearest bookshelf and started reading titles. Unfortunately (intriguingly) they all sounded quite... Odd.
Sera continued, and Grace tried paying attention to both books and voice, until a word struck her, "Wait, Technocracy? The rule of technology?"
Serafíne
"Hell yeah, are you kidding me?" Sera returned glancing over her shoulder at Grace to take in the other woman's expression. A certain directness to the look with which Sera favors her, this steady and quiet survey that takes in the expression around the edges of the smile as well as the smile itself. They're in shadow in the library until Sera reaches for the lights, and in the darkness her eyes glitter with reflected light from the living space up the stairs. "Waking up's a Big Fucking Deal.
"People mark passages, right? Crossings, borders. Places where definitions start to blur, and that's what's happening to for and by you, isn't it?
"It's so fucking amazing, Grace. You have no idea. - "
And then the library doors open and Grace makes that eeeeeee noise and Sera falls a little bit in love and throws her head back, laughing out loud in the quiet hum of the sealed library. Oh yes, the titles were... Odd.
While Grace starts to browse, Sera starts to circle to a particular shelf. She's spent enough time in here on her own research (which might suprise anyone who knows her) that she knows exactly where to go, but then Grace asks about the Technocracy and Sera pauses, glancing back at Grace. The chasing note of puzzlement on the Cultist's features suggests that she has literally never considered the provenance of the word until Grace just broke it down for her.
"Huh," like a lightbulb, " - yeah, I mean. I guess that's what they are. Like Big Brother right? They're like the Reality Cops or something. The man. Make a spectacle of yourself and you might bring them down on you." And then, a little chill, Sera's eyes all unfocused and searching the room, the library, its rafters, the hushed quiet of its mechanically cooled air. She breathes out sharply; breathes out the memory of an unconscious girl and a bullet through the heart and a wholly different awakening, collapsing entirely into ash. The blitheness leaves her voice, and Sera's eyes find Grace again. Fix on her, this brief and haunted air about her as she admonishes, quietly, with a spare little smile. " - so, you know. Don't do that."
Hawksley
There is a knock at the library doors. Who could it be?
Serafíne
Sera opens the library door. Is that Hawksley!?!?
(If so she looks oh three seconds or so from hugging him because yes being absent from her company for anywhere from five minutes to twenty-three years might earn you yet-another-hug. Except uh, he may be still half-naked and she is resolutely Not Touching Him. So the potential hug sort of metamorphs into an open-armed this. is. the. library. sort of gesture that may be more than the place really demands or requires.)
"Hey! C'mon in." Sera wants bonus cool points for being the first person to let both of them into the chantry library. But she says this only with her shining grin. "I was telling Grace you were gonna throw her a party. And we were talking about the Techs and stuff."
Sid
The visitors may have noticed the old as hell truck parked in the drive. Up until Sera and Grace entered the library, that truck's presence has been the only clue that a particular Orphan is on the premises. She must have arrived sometime after Justin and Shoshannah went off to build a fence or she would have offered to help. She missed the fireworks in the kitchen and whatever happened in one of the rooms on the second floor.
When the door swings open for Sera, she'll see that the lights are already on. Sid has been in the library for who knows how long now, curled up on one of the loveseats, back pressed into one of the arms, a book opened on her upraised knees. She missed the entrance of the other magi due to a combination of an incredibly lowered guard (it's a library, a library in a basement behind a high-tech security door, chances are it would survive a zombie apocalypse) and an attention that is thoroughly engrossed in the text she's reading (something about mass and Matter and physical things).
Sera's laugh is like the piercing of a veil, or the snapping of a twig in the forest. Like some prey animal Sid comes alert, and she tenses a second before she recognizes the voice as belonging to a certain Cultist. Tucking a slip of paper between the pages of her book to mark her place, she sets it down on the cushion near her feet before she swings her legs to the side and rises. She's peering around a bookshelf just in as the discussion of the Technocracy starts to gain momentum.
Slipping her hands into the back pockets of her jeans, the Orphan reveals herself in her entirety. She is wearing, Sera will notice, a light green t-shirt with grey stars over a pair of new jeans, both items purchased recently while in the company of the Ecstatic. Her feet are bare and her hair is down, curling over her shoulders.
"Reality cops," she repeats, voice quiet in the aftermath of its revelation. "I only knew they were bad news."
No hellos, no hey how are you or nice to see you Grace. Even as her old self starts to assert itself over the new, some of Sid's habits aren't fading.
Hawksley
That's Hawksley!
He has put his shirt on again. Having left Justin upstairs, balance has been restored to the universe and it is no longer necessary for the chantry's feng shui that Hawksley be half naked and disturbing to teenagers or landscape architects. Not, of course, that he needs to be shirtless to disturb anyone.
He sidles in and she throws her arm to show him the library and he gives her a pursed-lip smirk, a smile trying not to be a laugh, shaking his head. "You showed me last time you brought me here, you mad thing," he tells her, and leans over her, because in her highest of heels she is not his height, to put his hand on her back and plant a kiss on the top of her head,
like one she might have given Dee. Quite like that, in fact.
He smiles at Grace, giving her another nod of hello, though he saw her not so many minutes ago in the kitchen. "I will throw you a party. Would you want one before or after my birthday party?" Fuck no, he's not sharing his birthday party, he doesn't care if she's a newly Awakened mage and it's sort of her birthday, too. "Also: fuck the Techs. Never forget what you are and the power your belief has to shape your world. As soon as you decide that they're omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent, that's your reality."
His fingers snap, as though it's that easy. Like it's magic.
Which he's saying: it is.
Sweeping away from Sera, mercifully sliding his hand off her back, he gives a sharp whistle through the library, which is just... not... library behavior. "SID. HEY. I SAW YOUR TRUCK, SID. HEY."
But Sid is right there, and stepping out from behind some shelves and Hawksley just beams at her. "Sid!" As though he wasn't just shouting her name like a kid who hasn't been taught the rules yet... which is one of the more accurate descriptions of Hawksley, and one he'd be proud to wear if he could hear the unreliable narrator of his existence saying it. He opens his arms. "Hug? I put my shirt on, I'm totally safe."
Granted, since she wasn't upstairs to see he and Justin shirtless, this comment has no context, but nevermind that. Maybe he means that hugging Sid without a shirt on would drive him out of his mind. Could be.
Grace
The way Sera described it, the party would be more of an initiation rite than anything else. A way to mark a transition, like puberty almost. Ceremonies like that were intended to drag the liminal being (in the halfway, fuzzy, almost-there state) into a new life. Was it tribal politics, human nature, or both that people felt such ceremonies necessary? Thoughts buzzed around as she listened and read book titles.
She paused at a tome whose spine read 'Dissertations on Enochian Vowel Forms' with a quizzical expression. Was there a card catalogue or something? Oh, paper! What she wouldn't do for a search engine for this.
When Sera started getting serious again, the creepiness edging into her voice, the shifting of attention stopped. Techs, then, were like the police. Avoid. The name, at first, had frightened her a bit -- she was a tech (technician). Her whole life revolved around tech. And she was new and didn't know the specifics.
The liminal state is a dangerous place. She didn't know what to do, she didn't know what was expected, and wasn't that why she was here? Visiting the library was a kind of ceremony then, passing a locked threshold, being granted new words.
There wasn't any drinking or music right now, but it was as good as a party, to her mind.
And then, much like a party, people just started showing up, or showing themselves. Sid appeared out of nowhere from within the stacks, to whom Grace gave a grin and wave.
And Hawksley, shirtfull, but no less distracting, asking her when she'd like to have that party. "Oh, well, it's.." She almost said, 'your party' but no, it really wasn't. "I'll leave that up to you, I guess."
Her head cocked at his 'Also', the mental machine chewing on that one. Just as soon as he'd said it, he accosted Sid with her name and threatened her with a hug, and Grace laughed. "Don't believe it, Sid."
Sid
Hawksley gives a sharp whistle that shatters the subdued quiet of the library. Where she was peering out from behind the shelves, Sid startles, but she doesn't shrink back or try to hide. She's done with hiding, at least from these people.
And then she's there, stepping out and making her presence known as if they couldn't feel her already. She lets them know that she doesn't know much of anything about techs except to stay out of their way.
Hawksley greets her brightly and she looks at him uncertainly, though the corners of her mouth threaten to curve upward as she looks at him. How could anyone be wary of Hawksley for very long? He looks at the world with the wonder of a child. Being near him feels how Lois Lane must have felt flying with Superman - except without the romantic connotations.
He says he put his shirt on so he's safe, and that look of amused uncertainty shifts to pure confusion. She looks from him to Sera, her lips parting to ask for clarification (are his hugs somehow contaminated unless he wears a shirt?) when Grace laughs and tells her not to believe it.
Sid looks back up at Hawksley, eyes lifting first, then her head. She smiles, a small, slight curving of her mouth. "I believe him." Bare feet moving whisper quiet across the plush carpet, she goes to accept that hug, possible cooties be damned.
Serafíne
Here's the thing, Sid pops out of the woodwork and Sera's dark eyes are on the Orphan as she appears from behind one of the stacks. Reality cops Sid repeats and Sera gives her this little shrug by way of acknowledgment and awareness, see. It's sort of a yeah and also something like maybe y'all should talk to someone with a wee bit more authority about this sort of thing all wrapped up together. Because the larger the audience is for her bullshit on these topics of intellectual interest, the more immediate and prickling is her awareness of how fucking little she really knows.
Then That's Hawksley and she's doing that thing with her arms and he's smirking at her and kissing her on the crown of her head with his hand on her back and calling her you mad thing and, "Oh," she's saying, rather under her breath, a bit stiff beneath his hand but also rolling her eyes and muttering, " - I knew that." With a certain vehemence that says she knew no such thing.
"He's right too," to Grace more than Sid and rather quietly at that, then, with this upward lilt of her chin towards Hawksley as he goes to hug Sid. "Pretty much everything we do's in defiance of them, and their world view. Down to our fucking existence and every breath of magic in our blood and bones. Every vision, every breath, every time we open ourselves up to the pattern or spike in to the - what the fuck is it you see? was it data or something? is a great big fuck you to them.
"I mean, there was this whole war and shit," this to Grace and Sid both, with another little curl of her shoulders by way of a seriously, don't listen to me disclaimer. "Uh, you should ask someone else if you wanna know more? 'Cos I know fuck-all about it."
Then, a little comma between her brows, " - wait, when's your birthday?" to the Hermetic, as he and Sid share a (dangerous?) hug. (Sera's only response to Sid's confused glance, if she caught it, was a mild smirk and an encouraging upward lilt of her straight dark brows. "I didn't know it was your birthday. How old are you going to be?"
Hawksley
Hawksley. Is. Aghast. At Grace. "How dare you, madam!" is his response when she tells Sid not to believe that he's safe, and yet:
there's some truth to that. His intensity, his presence, the sheer power one can feel flickering at his fingertips and behind his eyes, the lust for that power, the lust for the sun and moon and physical touch and the books -- god! -- the books, the knowledge, the newness and the freedom of Grace, the gut-wrenching-spine-bending existence of Sera, the gasp that is Sid.
Yes, Sid, the wonder, the eyes of a child, the eyes of a god infatuated with all that dwells in its sight.
No, but: Grace is right. None of that is safe.
--
"We'll do it after," he decides, easily, without waffling or shifting or pressing for preference, as his arms are folding like wings around Sid as though they hug like this all the time. He puts his chin atop her head. He squeezes, crinkling up his face, making a noise that speaks of comfort and satisfaction and the sheer effort of the squeeze. Even after that pressure abates he holds onto her, swinging her slightly, to the beat of: "You're. So. Warm."
Mercifully, he releases her after that, inhaling deeply and giving a quick -- of course I'm right -- rejoinder to the conversation Sera is having with Grace. He drifts towards a stack, glancing back when Sera mentions the war, and chimes in: "I've got some histories at home. You could probably find some here. Some of them are... old. There's newer information, some of that is on some magic-locked net or something, I don't know, I hear rumors."
His voice is getting more distant as he's fading through the shelves, calling back: "August 8th, but we'll party on the weekend. And! A quarter of a century, so I expect all my gifts to be solid silver. JUST KIDDING. Grace! Come here! I found a programming manual from the seventies, but -- hot damn. This ain't your daddy's ...I don't fucking know, insert-programming-jargon-here." There's a beat, and a flip of pages. "Ooh! Margin scribbles!"
Hawksley has never sounded more gleeful.
Grace
Sera explained more about the 'Techs' but each explanation formed new questions in Grace's mind, and Sera wasn't the one to answer them. Her gaze wandered the stacks, then. "Maybe these books hold some answers then, you think?"
She lost herself in the reading of titles, some in languages she didn't know, none of which sounded promising, until her yelled name caught her attention.
The book Hawksley found was old, no, ancient in programming terms. Grace was a little crestfallen at the mention it was from the 70's. Why keep it, save for nostalgia? He was right, the newer stuff wouldn't be in dead-tree format. But his enthusiasm was infectious, and the thought of notes in the margins was quite intriguing.
She stopped pawing her way through the section she was at, and bounded over to the way back, to peer at the found programming manual from behind.
And her eyes went wide.
Of course, a manual like this would be mostly math. It would be made to last, in a language that never ages. She was expecting COBOL, and was getting so much more.
Hell, the diagrams of data entropy that Hawksley was just thumbing past like they were nothing...
"Hey, wait, hold on, go back, you're hogging it!"
Hawksley
Hawksley, as though he's out to prove that he can't be trusted, just says "Ack!" (yes, aloud) and hops the book a few inches from his hands to Grace's. She'd better catch it.
Okay, frankly, if she doesn't, Hawksley will. But he grins either way, abandoning the manual to Grace. He peers over her shoulder a bit, but frankly: this isn't his jam. It's hers. He knows it's hers. He knows none of them are going to be able to teach her like this, and because of that: he envies her. Oh, how he envies her.
With a pat on her back, he smiles again, warmer, almost fond, and heads back to Sera and Sid. Or starts to. And then he finds that Dissertations on Enochian Vowel Forms and makes a Murr? sound behind his tongue, halting his steps and reaching for the spine.
Sid
Sid knows that Hawksley, all of them aren't safe. Any one of them can turn in an instant. They could hurt her. And by opening up to them and trusting them she risks bitter betrayal, which would hurt all the more.
And yet when Hawksley folds his arms around her, Sid's arms wrap around his lean torso and she leans against him. A warmth like pure sunshine envelopes her. When he squeezes her he can feel her hands tighten against his back an instant before she relaxes, but she doesn't jerk or twist away from him. He rocks, says that she's. so. warm, and she laughs somewhere near his collar and says, "You're one to talk."
Then he's releasing her to go chasing after something else and Sid turns her face away in hopes that no one will notice it is a little redder than it was.
"Ah," she says in response to Sera's lack of knowledge. "Maybe, maybe Pan might know more. Or Jim. Did I give you Jim's number?" she asks Grace, who may or may not be hunting after Hawksley by then, leaving Sid alone (relatively speaking) with Sera. Sid closes the gap to the Cultist (or she closes the gap to Sid, or they close the gap to each other) and offers her a hug as well. And though she's concerned for the sharpness of Sera's figure beneath her arms Sid only says, "I'm going to," while twisting and pointing with her thumb abck over her shoulder. "I want to finsh this chapter before I go home."
She goes back to her couch or loveseat or whatever, stopping to give Grace Jim's number should she need it, but otherwise she prepares to lose herself again to her tome.
Serafíne
Sera returns Sid's hug but see: her own is lightly offered, is a stand-in hug, an analogue for a hug rather than a genuine embrace. The Cultist has reached the point of her fast where (oh, inhale the scent of Sid's red hair, loose around her shoulders) she has to hold herself a little physically apart from those to whom she is closest. This day or the next or the one after:
the rite.
And then, oh Denver, be afraid.
But see: the loose curve of Serafíne's skinny arms around Sid and then Sid retreats to finish her chapter before she heads home and Sera waves a little farewell and thinks that book looks boring and the books see that Hawksley and Grace are showing such interested in look boring-er and boring-est.
And see, when there is a break in all of this mutual adoration of Books the Cultist Couldn't Give a Damn About she interrupts it to offer Grace two more volumes for her perusal. Yes, they're in the chantry library, but yes, they are also available on amazon.com and in the odd (Very Odd) actual physical Sleeper-accessible bookstore. Doesn't matter.
They are both by the French surrealist author Rene Daumal.
The first: A Night of Serious Drinking.
The second: Mount Analogue: A Novel of Symbolically Authentic Non-Euclidean Adventures in Mountain Climbing.
"When you get done with programming and shit, try these. You know?" A little grin, this shake of her blond head. Then, all quiet see? "Don't get stuck."
Which is a great thing for Ms. Your Books Are So Boring to say, but there's a wry twist to her mouth that suggests that she is perfectly, sublimely conscious of her own hypocrisy.
Grace
Grace did catch that book, and afterwards, jabbed Hawksley in the side with her elbow (for when she does reach out and touch someone, it usually comes with some level of violence) but her gleeful demeanor showed it hadn't been meant to hurt.
And for once, Grace attained focus. She flipped back to the data entropy diagram, which seemed to be making a point about entropy maximums and boundary conditions, and what they looked like. The side-note in this page's margin seemed to be a generalized algorithm to process that in the field. She touched the pen marks with numbed fingers, seeking a connection to the one who wrote that. What she wouldn't give to sit down and have a long chat...
It was a bit beyond her, but she didn't much care. The pictures were beautiful, at any rate.
Then Sera invaded her consciousness, to whom Grace gave the strange, dawning comprehension look of 'oh, yes, I am actually in a library with other people'. "Oh, ah, A Night of Serious Drinking," she mumbled. "The only night of serious drinking I have ever engaged in was my 21st birthday, and it was a bit regrettable, I'm afraid." She gave the Cultist a smile, and then, "But I'll try to keep an open mind."
Over the course of the evening, to at least be able to say she kept that promise, she would peer into those other works, and she would find the one to be more than a story about drinking, and the other to be much more than a story about mountain climbing. They were way more metaphorical than the concrete programming manual, but no less truthful in what they had to say (although a great deal of any of the books she read that night went a little beyond her ken).
In the end, she would likely have to be told to go home, or told to sleep. But for now, she went and curled up on one of the couches, taking her shoes off so she could properly contort herself into comfortable reading position, taking a break from people and talking -- recharging in her own fashion.
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