Upstairs [Retro]

Or, Being a Continuing Account of the First Day They Met.

Or, did a Certain Bonisagus ever get a certain Seraphim to say the word bani or Cult of Ecstasy?

Also, What About Ruse? Does he Get His Own Show?

Adam

Up they go. Up the stairs. The stairs are not tricky, necessarily: but there are tricks in the stairs. That one there is a little bit higher than all the others. The spacing is off. That one there makes a sound a low-moan sound like the wind slipping through the hollowed out tusk of some fantastical sea-creature like the wind slipping through that hollowed out tusk could conjure up all sorts've ghost stories things creeping out've a book it's a sad sound that resonant and noticeable and only just hushed by a carpet. Up they go. Up the stairs, and up to the half-loft level of Night Owl Books (maybe that sound the stair made was an owl-ghost reading a word or two from a fairy-tale? Because this is that kind of book-shop: isn't it? Guarded by valiant-relentless young man and his sidekick Ruse who is a ferret but that's just part of the magick, eh?), where there are books. Quelle surprise surprise. There are lots of books. Rows and rows of books. Many, many books. But it is also an open space: there is a carpet, and a huge, dark-brown, velvet-knapped beanbag chair, a love sac to be precise, oddly placed amongst all the other furniture that Night Owl Books (An Arch Key Books) boasts. Wooden chairs and weathered chairs, a chair somewhere in one of the aisles that's metal painted a gift to Sarah from one of their anarchist friends. It looks very comfortable and if and when Serafíne goes closer to it she might notice that people have drawn on it. There is a small square window between shelves looking out and down at the street with the silver-gilt suggestion of a dusty Turkish coffee pot and plain paper framed by wood and on that paper it says ANARCHY. There's also a bookend of Michelangelo's David.

There are also tubes.

What kind of tubes? The kind of tubes a ferret particularly likes to roam through and play in. Some of the tubes are fabric and are purple with yellow stars and one is this clear orangeish plastic. Some of the other tubes are narrower, and can be connected to other tubes to form an obstacle course. There are a lot of tubes.

Adam is not unduly worried that people will go up the stairs and be dismayed by the mess. There are little ferret paw prints in the dust by the silver Turkish coffee pot and the anarchy sign because that is where Ruse likes to curl up sometimes. When he is not being disappeared, sneaky, ferret-y. Adam. He'd said:

"Roman?" like he was just checking. "Do you mean Ancient Egyptian? We don't have books in Ancient Egyptian, but we might have books on one of those scripts. Erm. Is it Egyptology that your friend is interested in?"

And once they're up, he reaches over and plops Ruse on Serafíne's shoulder.

"Here. This is where he likes to play."

The implication being: you can play here too. Away from my desk.

Serafíne

What the fuck? There are tubes?! Creature that she is, Sera is taking everything in; she's consuming it all but hers is not not the consumption of a greedy fucking asshole and so her attention is drifting rather agreeable over dust and anarchy signs and books and books and Books and bOOks and she's thinking about hieroglyphs and there are, in point of fact, hieroglyphs on the ring she wears on her right index finger and she has no early idea what the fuck, if anything, they might mean, but that doesn't stop her wearing them and she's wearing what she's wearing and shadowing him up the stairs and there are tubes.

Sera is delighted by the goddamned tubes.

She has NO IDEA they are for ferrets.

She is even more delighted when Adam drops Ruse on her shoulder, and quite frankly, squees almost physically.

She might forget this tomorrow, Sera. She's not really an animal lover. Ruse is just so fucking cute.

"I don't know what kind he's interesting in;" Sera is not looking at Adam. Why look at a forgettable young man when there's a ferret bandit on your shoulder. "The gods and shit, maybe. He looks like one of them. God you have," as if she had just noticed that this was a bookstore, " - so many fucking books."

Serafíne

What the fuck? There are tubes?! Creature that she is, Sera is taking everything in; she's consuming it all but hers is not not the consumption of a greedy fucking asshole and so her attention is drifting rather agreeable over dust and anarchy signs and books and books and Books and bOOks and she's thinking about hieroglyphs and there are, in point of fact, hieroglyphs on the ring she wears on her right index finger and she has no early idea what the fuck, if anything, they might mean, but that doesn't stop her wearing them and she's wearing what she's wearing and shadowing him up the stairs and there are tubes.

Sera is delighted by the goddamned tubes.

She has NO IDEA they are for ferrets.

She is even more delighted when Adam drops Ruse on her shoulder, and quite frankly, squees almost physically.

She might forget this tomorrow, Sera. She's not really an animal lover. Ruse is just so fucking cute.

"I don't know what kind he's interesting in;" Sera is not looking at Adam. Why look at a forgettable young man when there's a ferret bandit on your shoulder. "The gods and shit, maybe. He looks like one of them. God you have," as if she had just noticed that this was a bookstore, " - so many fucking books."

Adam

Ruse is trying to scrabble for purchase on Serafíne's shoulder. Ruse is nosing his way underneath Serafíne's hair. Does Serafíne have shining earrings? Ruse is reaching toward one of those, then finding out that this causes Ruse to sip down Serafíne's shoulder and Ruse must needs scrabble for position again, nose sniff, sniff, sniffing.

The dark-haired young man with the sea in his eyes; he chuckles. The sound's just a shadow of a thing, and nobody notices shadows anyway. He is watching Ruse on Serafíne's shoulder because he doesn't actually want the whatever she is to hurt the animal by mistake. See, here Ruse comes, sniffing around Serafíne's jaw, putting a paw-hand on her chin like maybe if it holds there it can maneuver --

He stays by the stairs, too. Adam. Answers, simply: "I like books. Each one is a forest; each forest is full of shadows and light. Different shadows and different lights, erm, ah, sometimes, so... Many. What god does your friend look like?"

Adam

ooc: that should probably be like "so... Yes, many books" instead of "so... Many." (grin)

Serafíne

Oh, Sera has earrings. Sera has rather a lot of earrings, though not all of them shine. There is a spike through her lobe and a dangling skull with crystal eyes or are those diamonds and then there are hoops and loops and studs and stranger things climbing up the delicate cartilage. One of these is a safety pin.

It is made of platinum.

Easy access, Ruse, to all these delicate, flashing things. There is also, just at the hollow beneath her right ear, the tattoo of a triangle. Just a triangle. One black triangle, nothing else.

Ruse noses and Sera holds her chin up and holds herself still and allows Ruse to nose around. She is a bit ticklish and rather aware of the ferret's perch but stiff against its scrabbling scrawl and a bit ON DRUGS, though your author has forgotten which ones and may reinvent them, and careful careful careful. That exagerrated care, see.

"That's very fucking poetic," says Sera, with a sort of eluting slide of her dark eyes and just her eyes because she does not want to move her head and startle the animal squirming beneath the weight of her hair. And see the way she says it says that she approves. That is very fucking poetic. Sera approves of poetry. She loves the way it feels in her mouth. "I like poetry.

"You know like Baudelaire and shit. Fucking love him."

Thinking of Baudelaire makes her think of Hawksley and a certain night rather long ago in her garden. Summer then; winter now. Summer too, the night she saw him from across a crowded rooftop bar and could not recognize him because -

"I don't know which god he looks like." It makes her breath catch a bit; or maybe that is one of Ruse's paws on her cheek as she smiles. "One of those badass Egyptian ones I guess."

Adam

[Int + Academics, why not, for a remembering.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 7, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Adam

Ruse begins to somehow make his way down Serafíne's arm. Her clothing, the straps, the hooks, the strings, whatever it is she was wearing the night (because Adam's player has forgotten: left with an over-all impression of essential hotness), helps the pale bandit descend with stealthsome ease. Ruse just wants a sleeve to crawl up or a pocket to investigate. Ruse just wants a place to curl. Little animal breaths: warm on her skin. Tick-tack of whiskers.

Now, Adam. His expression is a distant one: considering, considerate, dreaming of some Other things. But his answer is immediate, and so his his voice. "I like poetry too." He does not seem like the kind of young man who would say 'love.' "Not Baudelaire so much, but - " and now the expression in his eyes is immediate, too, immediate on the strange mage in his shop. " - others. Do you know H. D.? She wrote Holy Satyr which - " another pause. Then: a sly grin; his gaze gone distant again. He pushes his hair out've his face because it'd been in danger or maybe he just felt the weight of it.

" - no. Listen to this. It's from Demeter."

"Men, fires, feasts,

steps of temple, fore-stone, lintel,

step of white altar, fire and after-fire,

slaughter before,

fragment of burnt meat,

deep mystery, grapple of mind to reach

the tense thought,

power and wealth, purpose and prayer alike,

(men, fires, feasts, temple steps) -- useless."

He gives each word attention as if each word were a thing that is more than a word. Adam loves Words. He'd never say the word 'love.' But he loves them. Of course if Ruse is being too distracting, Adam goes to help him be less distracting.

Here he is speaking normally again: "But listen, later -- "

Then back to love affair with language.

"Of whom do I speak?

Many the children of gods.

Now they are wrought of iron

to wrest from earth

secrets; strong to protect,

strong to keep back the winter

when winter tracks too soon

blanch the forest:

strong to break dead things,

the young tree, drained of sap,

the old tree, ready to drop,

to lift from the rotting bed

of leaves, the old

crumbling pine tree stock,

to heap bole and knot of fir

and pine and resinous oak,

till fire shatter the dark

and hope spring

rise in the hearts of men."

Just Adam again: "I like it because it seems like a good starting place from which to look at the world. A map, I suppose. What Tradition do you practice when you work your Will?"

He is not concerned she might be a Technocrat. If she is, well bravo Technocratic Union, you've finally got a perfect infiltration Agent.

Serafíne

You really like words don't you? Awarempathy.

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 5 )

Adam

He does love them. Not just: look, a word, why, isn't it a sexy word? Yes, yes it is. He loves words because, and perhaps Serafíne reads this in his voice, the attention he gives them, or the look in his eye; intuits it as much as anything else: He loves words in a visceral sense - because a word is never just a word; it changes; it means other things, it - yeah. Dude loves words and poetry. Helped him figure out the world.

Serafíne

Oh, fare thee well Ruse. Sera moves again when Ruse retreats from the vicinity of her shoulder and begins to crawl down her arm. She is no longer still, a Sera-stature, aware and alive but unmoving in the manner of a girl delighted to have a damned ferret looping all sinous over her shoulder, tucking itself into the hidden mysteries of her hair. No, Ruse retreats and that stillness leaves Sera and she curls her arm to following the little beast's downward scramble and aids him in the finding-of a place to curl. It's winter; she must be wearing a coat. Something made of battered leather but well-lined and worth considerably more than its appearance would suggest. So: Ruse scrambles and Sera is watching him, but,

her dark and darkly made-up eyes flash in a congruent arc upward to Adam as he tells her that he likes poetry too. Maybe she's smarter than she appears on first blush; maybe there's a different sort of intelligence written into her skin-and-bones, her intoxicant-rich blood, all of that because that look is lowered and is lashed and is, see, sly in its own way, which is not Adam's way, and wry in its own way, which is not Adam's way, and goddamned knowing, too, in its own way, which is not Adam's way, and that expression is fraction and sliiiiides across her mouth and is then gone because

Listen to this.

and she does. Listen to this, glancing away with him, her delight in the goddamned ferret ebbing into something else as she listens, her hand and arm coiled and cradled to give the little beast a place to curl. Listen to this and she listens and she listens oh, breath withheld, body alive, actively listens and Sera does not love the words, does not adore language itself but the pieces that infect the language and slip between the words and his attention is a kind of passion and he is not the sort of young man who would ever say love but

oh

she can see it. Hear it in every breath and between them too,

and when he is done there is silence from her; not a sly sort and not precisely a reverent sort but see she's listening to the echoes from the corners-of-things and - and - and -

"I can't wait 'til you meet him," the creature enthuses. "You guys are gonna fucking love each other." Oh ho she is so wrong.

Then, a brief, sharp laugh. "Give you three fucking guesses."

Adam

There is a faint smile when Serafíne enthuses over her god-like friend. He doesn't say anything about not being able to wait to meet him or how he's sure that will be the case. He doesn't say anything to dampen expectations, either, like: but some gods have enemies, Serafíne. Adam's myth is not a myth of gods and men; just men.

Three guesses?

Serafíne: in his book-forest, his word-wood - all enthralling, all thresholds and boundaries and places-between, offering him a three-guess challenge? He accepts, of course.

"House Merinata," he says first.

Serafíne

"What the fuck is that!" Sera scoffs, and oh how she scoffs, cradling Ruse in a little bit of a crook she has created with her arm and her cook, becoming more comfortable and starting to sort-of explore the space, circling, see. And the way she moves, you'd never really guess, or perhaps even remember, afterwards, that she really is rather-a-small-thing, after all. "I never went to Hogwarts, not after I Woke Up, anyway."

She may even be starting to explore the books. The many books, the forest of books in which she finds herself. Her unoccupied hand on this spine or that cover or that sliding stack of magazines.

"Bzzzzzzz! Guess again."

Adam

To say that Adam is disinterested in Harry Potter jokes is to say that the ocean is disinterested in another drop of water. He lets that slide right off him; or into him. Does not appear troubled, or remark on it. He smirks when she scoffs; folds his arms over his chest, leaning his shoulder against the edge of a book-case.

Ruse, meanwhile, is riding the cradle-crook of Serafíne's arm with wide ferret eyes, nose twitch-twitch-twitching, eyes so damned bright, poking its head against her waist and trying to peer out from between her elbow and waist like that's a better angle to look at the world. But then oh no, that angle sucks! Stuck! And Ruse pokes his head out the other side of Serafíne's forearm, sniffing toward her palm like maybe there's a treat.

"You sing in the choir," he says, sly, on his second guess.

Serafíne

"You silly thing," our Sera is saying to Ruse or maybe to Adam, all sliding, sidling affection. Oh, she is drunk or something, look at how the light shines in her eyes and now the ferret is sniffing up her arm and the closest thing to a treat Sera has on her person is a pack of clove cigarettes into which she has also secreted at least two very well packed and rolled joints and and a couple of geltabs of acid among other things and she offers none of these to the ferret and does not even really understand that he's hoping for a treat because Sera does not have pets and there is a reason for this.

Pets, in Sera's care, would likely die. Too often, she can hardly take care of herself.

"You're either a fucking liar or something or you're terrible at this game. I'm not a fucking priest. I'm not even fucking a priest.

"So, last guess."

Adam

"What happens if I don't guess correctly?" Adam asks.

Serafíne is near a bookshelf and Ruse: quick quick quick! Ruse hops onto the bookshelf, pulling himself leeeeeanly from Serafíne's body to the relative stability of shelf.

Serafíne

"Huh," and oh lucky day, Ruse. Sera has one hand on a different shelf and is tracing the Latinate embossing of some old leather-bound tome with a thoughtless fingertip and then has the other still a bit curled for the benefit of the ferret and is reaching for Ruse but misses and Adam asks the question that he asks and Sera huhs the way she does everything, with a degree of vividness, a certain intensity that makes her seem more real and immediate than everything else around her.

"I never thought of that. I wonder what should happen. Puppy dog tails should start falling outta your mouth? Or an endless supply of shrooms? Maybe you'd have to buy me a drink; or maybe you couldn't ever ask again. Or maybe both of those goddamned things.

"I don't fucking know. What would a story say should happen?"

Adam

"A story would say I should lose my way, or shadow, or soul, or something," Adam says. "A story would say: that's it, or try again, or you knew the whole time. Erm, I suppose it depends on what kind of person is doing the answering, so it depends on you."

A brief pause, and then: "So my third guess. I'll guess Ecstatic."

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is his only real guess. He never thought she was a Hermetic of House Merinata; if anything, she'd've been one of their fey friends. He never thought she sang with the choir; though mayybe, he would have been surprised, but not entirely surprised. But an Ecstatic: look at her.

If she's not an Ecstatic, she's gotta be a Hollower.

Shallow impressions.

Serafíne

"Yeah," says Sera, with a smile that is formed of equal parts delight and rue. " - 'course."

And is, perhaps, a small bit abashed because she loves, loves loves loves, but also knows - oh, hey - just how obvious she is like to be.

"What about you. And don't make me do three guesses. I'll cheat, Look forward or back 'til I can figure it the fuck out."

Adam

"I'm a magus of the Order of Hermes," he tells her, seriously. He doesn't give her his House or his various other names. Adam Gallowglass, just Adam; that's more than enough of an introduction for a penny-mystic, for a primal, for a Cultist of Ecstasy.

And perhaps Serafíne says, again, how much Adam and her friend are going to like each other, or makes a crack about Hogwarts (again), and Adam says: yeah? What House am I? And does not lose his temper when Serafíne replies.

And perhaps then Ruse wiggles into a tube and Adam shows Serafíne how to play with him before going back downstairs to his own work; maybe Serafíne comes too. Maybe she buys those two books; perhaps she has forgotten she was going to. Perhaps there is more talk of poetry; perhaps there isn't.

But the night grows old, and this is just a moment in time: it has had its time - and that time is done.