So jealous.

Grace

[Reposting the last bits for memory refresher!]

Constance

It’s a little like coming into the caf and sitting down at the edge of a table as far away from whoever is at the other end of it as you can, and then texting yourself, or your sister, or pretending to until the rest of lunch is over. Yes, she remembers high school that clearly. Thankfully college was a little bit better.

Maybe she was taking Grace’s interpretation a bit too literally, after all, she didn’t really see anything beyond the norm, and it wasn’t like she’d been trying.

I just started having these dreams, I'd get these feelings when I meditate, or know when somebody had died even if I wasn't in the room with them. I don't know, it's not like I *see* things. Yeah. I feel them.

Somehow a menu was placed beside her, she'd missed any presence of a person at their table while typing on her phone, and in truth Connie wasn't really in the mood to eat right now. She did order some tea, though, and didn't even think twice about having a silent conversation with a stranger. Who says you can't find friendship through social mediums? Riiight.

I've never tried to change anything. I can't explain it. I didn't think I could change things, or affect them, it was more like.. tapping into something deeper, or hearing bits of a song on a static-filled radio.

Grace

Grace has her food (a medium bowl of brisket and tendon pho, rather untouched). Her coffee sits there, also rather untouched. She had been on her phone when Connie came in, hadn't she? Perhaps just not interested in the food she'd bought. Or maybe Connie just interests her more. In any case, she starts texting with one hand, and eating soup with the other now. Her stomach is finally winning the war.

Yeah, that feeling of tapping into something deeper is what I'm talking about when I talk about how you 'see' things. I tap into the Data. It's my 'something deeper'. Something that feels more true than the idea that the only thing to the universe is what you can touch and hear and see with your physical body.

You may not be able to cause any affect in things right now. But you can tap into reality in a much more fundamental way than just by sight and sound and touch. And maybe eventually you will be able to modify it.

There's a name for this state of being. We're called Mages. And what we do is magic. But, you know, not like the guy pulling a rabbit out of a hat.

Connie talks about knowing when someone had died when they weren't there, and that... well, that triggers a pang. She must have lost someone. But Grace isn't going to pry.

Constance

The menu has been given a once over, even if she already knew what she’d wanted it was good to check; minutes later Connie’s asked for an order of chicken vermicelli with the lemon and chili pepper sauce and a coffee. Extra cream and sugar. Meanwhile the takeout line moves along at a steady pace and new faces find their way past the table both women are seated at.

Hesitantly she looks over her phone at Grace, thinking on how to explain what she thinks she knows, and being completely ready to be told that it is, in fact, all wrong.

It’s like being in a dream state and slipping in and out of it, not like you’re in what everyone else assumes to be reality and finding something more, maybe. I don’t know. I see..

I see a garden, not data. I see life, the absence of it, the thriving untamed nature of it, and all that comes with it, and more I don’t know. I see other things, literally see them, and that’s not as weird as ..well this entire conversation.

Her coffee has arrived; she adds sugar and cream, stirring whilst she continues to tap away at the older model backberry in her hand.

Are there mages who see spirits?

Grace

It's kind of... exciting? Yes, that's the word. Finding a skittish new Mage and telling them all this stuff. What if Connie is a plant? What if she's not what she seems? But hey, you never win without trying. And people stuck their neck out for her. So many times.

The other woman is hesitant, unsure, and Grace just keeps giving her some truly happy glances in return.

My Awakening was like that. Slipping into a dream state. I just saw things with my eyes then (well, probably not. I probably just perceived it, in the mind's-eye) but I've yet to really duplicate that experience again.

I kind of envy people who can, sometimes. But it comes in handy if I can show people what I see too. I can display most of what I do on my laptop, right?

Connie asks if there are Mages who see spirits. Grace bites a lip.

I have seen one. I think it was a spirit anyway. What they call 'spirits' I suppose. It was made as a kind of spiritual email? Shaped like an angel. It called itself The Message.

I don't go looking for them. I wouldn't know how. And some of them are very very dangerous. We were lucky The Message wasn't one of them. But it's not unheard of to see spirits, no. You're not alone there.

Not alone, Connie. Not anymore. It's okay.

At least, for now it is.

Serafíne

That conversation inside expands and contracts, carried out entirely by text message and outside, on the still-sunlit street, Sera in her remarkably tiny cocktail dress, with her thigh-high net tights, her black lace garters, her heels, her rather ridiculous assortment of jewelry - all of it, all of it - lights a cigarette and slides a pair of sunglasses we forgot she had parked on the crown of her golden head down over her eyes.

The sunlight washes over the exterior of the pho place and Sera hums in the back of her throat and exhales the sugar-spiced smoke and feels the street beneath her spike-heeled feet; imagines it, solid, immutable, framing in the bright spikes of ordinary-life all around, Constance and Grace inside. Sera can feel them too. That humming aligns with the currents of the universe, an old song she hardly remembers, which slices itself between the layers of her skin and opens itself all blooming over her tongue.

Constance

Smiles are welcomed, and returned, so much so that the skittish foal of a young woman settles into stuffing her face while texting with Grace without much mind to those around them. Entranced, perhaps, more than excited; she’s wondered for ages, or what felt like ages, what was wrong with her and there were stories of maladies in her family that went back generations. To say she’d been worried was an understatement.

With such exuberance, Connie typed as quickly as she could in reply to Graces remark about seeing externally and internally.

How do you know the difference? I could ask you if this is even real. It’s like the girl in the red dress, only, I feel a bit more like I’m still dreaming.

Grace’s reaction to her question mutes a bit of that fired up excitement in her eyes, she watches the text come in between surreptitious glances between her phone, the woman across from her, and her food.

What she read didn’t make her feel any better and for the moment her food was forgotten and blue eyes lowered to the screen of her phone again. Slender shoulders lowered and curled inwards, as though she were protecting the message she had yet to deliver, and in a way maybe she was.

I just thought I was alone, period. In everything. A moment passes. Is there somewhere safe you all.. talk? I mean, there’s got to be ..something, right? Somewhere? It’s like you all are everywhere..

 She could use the terms Awakened and Mage without giggling at the surreal feeling it created, and she could talk about the way it felt to have grass beneath her feet, or how the meditations of a quiet afternoon might lead her to unlock a puzzle or untie a knot that was previously unpassable. For no more effort than the fact that she’d focused on it, thought, and rested, and finally somehow..

Richard

"Serafíne, isn't it?"

Well; listen to that. Someone who pronounces her name right. The real way, with a guttural 'r', with a high-riding vowel. Coming out just steps behind her, a to-go bag in hand, is a very tall man with fantastic hair and an equally fantastic smile. He is wearing jeans; he is wearing a deeply v-necked t-shirt with casual gallic aplomb.

He is not wearing a beard. Or an enormous hiking backpack. Or the stench of forty-some-odd hours of unwashed traveling. So: Serafine might not even recognize him.

"It's Richard," he supplies. "We met some weeks ago."

Serafíne

Sera's doing magic. Starting too, anyway: sometimes she just cannot help herself. The universe moves in currents and she moves with it and she's half-humming and a bit zoned out here and smoking her cigarette with her head tilted back and to be honest with that barely-there cocktail dress and the leather jacket and the spiked heels and the cigarette and the neighborhood she looks a bit like a prostitute and wouldn't give a fuck if you made that mistake. Ninety-two percent of a certain priest's congregation are convinced of it.

And then, someone says her name.

Her whole name.

In a way that, really, even Sera cannot quite manage.

That makes her slash him a grin even before she genuinely registers his presence, or the way his presence has her looking up (and up and up) and then finally (finally!) she finds his eyes and the grin widens into something like a laugh and Sera is holding that clove cigarette like a joint and gestures with it thoughtfully in Richard's general direction (which: is up!), and declares:

"The fucking giant!" with a widening laugh. "I remember. You can call me Sera. What the fuck are you doing out here? Haven't gone back to Kathmandu yet?"

Grace

I didn't know the difference. I wish I could tell you that it's all sunshine and roses. It's not. I guess the best way I could describe it is that being a Mage means everything is just more. More good, and more bad too.

We're not everywhere. We're pretty rare, in fact. Do you believe in fate? It sounds silly, but sometimes, we just seem to show up right where we're needed. It's freakish, sometimes. I wish the universe would give me a head's up when it's planning on moving me around like a pawn, you know? But we seem to converge in places more often than chance would allow.

And then, we also have places where converging is expected.

This is where caution is warranted. She doesn't know the rules. And perhaps wouldn't follow them. Are you supposed to hook up a scared newbie to a lie-detector? Make them understand if they slip up, you'll know, and...

Grace takes the time to have a go at eating, to think about how much to tell her. Watches Connie while she does.

I thought I was alone.

There is a place. You wouldn't be able to find it on your own. It's a secret, because we have enemies.

Grace eyes Connie from behind her phone. Sorry, dear. Not all a bed of roses.

Richard

Richard's easy grin widens as well, genuinely pleased to be recognized. "That's right," he confirms, unoffended: but then really, why would one be offended by being called a giant? Unless, of course, one had acromegaly or something similarly unpleasant. Regardless:

"Getting banh mi," he says, hoisting the take-out bag, tiny in his big hand. "Kathmandu is going to have to wait. I'm a rising junior at DU, and I've already spent this entire semester abroad." Let's be honest. He eyes her -- is that a dress? We will call it a dress. He eyes her dress for a dubious, baffled moment, then returns his attention where it belongs. "What about you? Pho fix?"

Constance

Is ..your way of seeing things, that’s how you ‘interface’ or.. whatever?

Shyly, she smiles again, shrugging as if to explain her uncertainty in terms of phrasing. It’s a sudden question that is asked somewhere between Grace saying there is more. Everything. Which is, again, something that the younger Mage can understand because her experience backs that up to a degree, but that would be likening the shy nurse to the Cultist outside.

Yeah. I do, I did before.

Duplicity isn’t something that even the mundane can escape from. The fact was people lied, they cheated, and even the best could fall into an abyss that they weren’t able to climb back out of even if they wanted to. Even if a thousand armies chained them to their mounts and tried to drag them out; she should know, Constance was really, really good at digging her heels into the dirt and refusing to budge inch.

If she thought about it, and she did, it stood to reason, this caution of Graces and the immediate arrival of others where she’d seemed to randomly choose to go.

Trust wasn’t an ample supply in any reality and with that, she nods demurely, but part of her still wants to ask if she’s being pranked. If this isn’t a joke. When is the camera coming out? Where are the laughing extras?

One way or another she was in a lot deeper than she could ever imagine, and someday, maybe if she was lucky, the truth of that (and many other) things will hit home. For now, she types again:

I understand. A pause. So what do we do now?

Serafíne

That is indeed a dress Richard. Or perhaps a "dress." Sera has accessorized her "dress" with rather remarkably disparate pieces of jewelry. A bronze ring with something-like-hieroglyphs etched into its shield on her index finger. A bicycle chain wrapped four times around her neck. A pastiche of plastic-and-glass bangles on her right wrist and diamonds nearly as large as her hidden pupils in either ear, right next to safety pins. Literal safety pins.

"I have no idea what the fuck that means," Sera grins at Richard, quite pleasantly, and whether she means the banh mi or the rising junior business or any of the rest of it is not wholly clear, except, " - but I think that means you're hanging around, yeah? You should stop by some weekend. And," this to the pho fix? question, "naw. I was over at the Church and then I was like: oh, Grace and the new girl. They're inside, right? And Dan said he was like five minutes away seventeen fucking minutes ago, you remember Dan, right?"

Maybe he doesn't. Maybe they never were introduced. Regardless, Sera assumes on some level that everyone knows everyone and she's all enthusiasm.

Then, a double-take. A triple-take at the crown of his head and all that beautiful hair.

"God. You are so fucking tall."

Sera has managed to make herself about 5'10", thanks to five inch spike heels. And maaaybe comes up to his shoulder. Right? Or at least the lower lobe of his ear?

Richard

"It means I'm hanging around," he affirms. "I saw your invite for the 4/20 party," he adds. "I meant to go but something came up. Let me know about the next one, yeah?"

So now Richard's eyes keep wandering over to those disparate pieces of -- um, jewelry. Is that a safety pin? Yes. Yes, those are safety pins. Is that a bike chain? It's not that he's never met anyone like her before, per se. He grew up in Berkeley. He competed all over the world in his prior life as an olympic athlete. He just literally traveled around the world again as something of a pilgrim. He's seen things, man. But then: okay. So it is that he's never quite met anyone like her before, because all the punks and freaks and hipsters and weirdos he's met -- well. None of them were magical, were they?

Fortunately for him, he's not the only one staring at oddities. She's staring too. She keeps looking up at the top of his head, which she can't even see even if she is 5'10" today. Sorry, Sera. Richard grins: "Thanks." Like it was a compliment, being so-fucking-tall. "You're so good at standing on heels. Which is probably the bigger achievement.

"And -- nope. Sorry, I forgot who Dan is. You waiting on him for a ride or something?"

Grace

No, you really don't. But that's okay. Things are about to get even weirder in your life, and it would be a benefit to you if you had people to share that with.

I could take you there, to our house in the middle of nowhere. It's not as creepy as I make it sound. And you'll probably want someone to help show you the ropes, teach you. There is someone I know who is good with spirits, I could introduce you to her perhaps?

All of that, if you want it of course. Not going to push anything on you. But it can be rough I know. Strength in numbers and all that.

It strikes her that this is a mutual trust thing. Grace could be carrying the poor Connie off to be a horrible sacrifice or something, and Connie would probably not even be able to guess. But, you know, first thing Grace did after meeting Kalen was to go trouncing off to his creepy warehouse full of guns and dehydrated food to learn how to shoot. Nobody ever said new Mages make good decisions.

Either way, she loads up on rice noodles while waiting for a response.

Constance

It had to be said, her piece, and Grace’s. That was just the way of it, she figured, and so she nodded when she was told that she didn’t understand and let that go, too. What a bother hanging on to that would be.

The way she figured it there was really no getting away from this; it had taken over nearly every vestige of her life and even with her toes in the sand, the wet sand, with the stirring tide so far out she could still appreciate that the sea was vast, deep, wide and most of all as changeable as she needed to be adaptable.

Constance wasn’t about to spout promises to behave, or that she could contain herself, or that she would be able to keep secrets in such a case where they may need to be said. She really, truly, had no idea what was about to happen and even when she would, hopefully, gain some knowledge she might find that things had gotten more murky rather than any clearer.

You’re right. I don’t know what to say. More everything, yes. Please. I can’t say I have to trust you, but, I want to because I want to trust Sera and Patience. Even that guy that was with you all. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t, I think.

Sheepishly she shrugs, shovelling another mouthful of noodles into her mouth, and the close-mouthed, lopsided smile she offered Grace was really one of friendship. Here’s hoping the proverbial olive branch didn’t grow a grove and decide to bury her.

Serafíne

It is a compliment, being so-fucking-tall. There's nothing but pleasure in the fact of it to bed read into the inflection of Sera's voice, like she's just vibing on the idea-of-it every time she notices it again.

"Ha. It's kinda still-going-on. I mean, I think it's still going on. But there's pretty much always something happening, least on the weekends. Sometimes weeknights, too. Even if it's just Dee's roller derby team or those weird record-shop guys."

That is interspersed, see, because as soon as Richard compliments Sera's ability to stand in heels, Sera drops her eyes her feet and admires them and might be able to say something (and she is: see, good at walking in them. Does so with a masculine sort of swagger, to boot).

"He's my - " a wave of Sera's hand meant to accompany everything Dan is to her. Consor, lover, friend, butler, nurse, attorney, guitarist. " - housemate. Plays guitar, fuck he's amazing. And yeah, he's supposed to be around to pick me up. Probably forgot and ran by the Church. I don't really drive."

For obvious reasons, that's probably wise, Sera. "I guess you made it to your friend's house okay that night, right?"

Richard

She gets a little smirk for that. She doesn't really drive. She's had a 4/20 party going for -- what, eight days running? Richard adds two and two. Of course she doesn't drive.

"Oh yeah. I remember him now. Plays guitar, right?" And: "Yeah, I took the bus over when I woke up. I think you guys were still crashed out. Thanks, by the way. Was a nice way to come home."

He tosses his hair back. Actually does that: tosses it back out of his blue, blue, blue, blue eyes. He's tall as fuck, this is true, but he has none of the stoop-shouldered awkwardness of the too-tall and too-gawky. He wears it well, casually, stylishly, unostentatiously, like a superbly cut suit.

"Want a ride?" he offers. "I'm parked just around the corner."

Serafíne

"What the fuck," and this is how, and how easily, Sera accepts the ride that Richard offers her. Sera offers him a neat little shrug and laughing grin and exhales a plume of clove-spiked cigarette smoke from her nostrils and stubs the cigarette out on one of the ribs of the little building and does not seem to care or perhaps even notice that Grace and Constance are still inside or that Dan is like to be around any minute now looking for her.

"That'd be awesome. Hawksley'll be so fucking jealous. I bet you drive the world's tallest car. Oh my god, did you ever think about doing commercials for shampoo? I would buy the fuck out of whatever Breck-girl shit you're using."

Grace

"You met Patience? She's a hoot," Grace says, mouth half-full of rice noodles and beef. Social graces aren't her forte. "Great person though. She's really nice. Kickass ride, too."

"You want to go now? It's a bit out of the way. Might take a while."

And as she talks, Grace is typing in another message. Her number.

314-1592 For if you want to reach me again. You won't be able to track this convo back, 'cause I'm not using a number for this.

Just, don't use the phone lines to express your strange new world. There's a reason this is as off the record as I can manage. You don't want there to be a record of this conversation that a third party could overhear, you got me? If you contact me again, keep it to something that sounds normal.

Richard

"Noo, I'm sure he won't," Richard says easily, as though he knew Hawksley, which he doesn't. Maybe he's projecting. Maybe he's just that fucking confident, that fucking laid-back, that if his sort-of-girlfriend showed up in some ridiculously tall, ridiculously well-haired Franco-American swimmer's car he wouldn't be jealous. Or maybe he just thinks the best of people. "He's cool." And then, astute: "Unless you want him to be jealous?"

And then, tickled: "I did a couple endorsements back when I was swimming. Can't say I've done shampoo, though. Damn, missed out on my true calling. Also: I think you're going to be disappointed. I drive a Civic."

Constance

Laughing softly, she nods, “Yeah, I liked her a lot.” Pause, “Even if it took a bit to understand what she was saying, she seemed really nice.” In that not so murder way. But what did Connie know? She could be having this entire conversation in her sleep, right? Hah.

Shaking her head she shrugged as if to apologize, “I ..I can’t.” It wasn’t that she didn’t want to go, or that she ultimately distrusted Grace, there were expectations of an old life that she was still living and –

It felt like a shell to be rid of, a skin she’d out grown, and all the while as she watched the words appear on her phone, and saved Grace’s number, an explanation formed.

“I just have.. I have to do something else first.”

The less she said about that, probably the better, but all in all Connie confirmed that she had the number saved in her phone and replied.

Got it. I’ll keep it on the down low and.. thanks, you know? For not being the scary kind of Mage or, well scary.

It seemed that the girl came in surges, apparitions here and there, present one moment and gone the next for in seconds her food was shoved into the takeout box she’d requested. Connie didn’t want to tell Grace what it was she felt that she had to do before she met with the woman next and they went to this place, and she was introduced to more of these rarities, these Awoken.

I gotta go. I’m sorry.

Constance

[*murdery way]

Grace

"Don't be. Keep in touch, okay? If something happens and you need to talk, don't be too shy to call," Grace says, and actually says it. Their conversation, to an outside listener, would make no sense. But Grace apparently doesn't mind mixing her verbal and textual communication.

With that, she flags down the waiter, and asks for a to-go container too. Would suck to waste the noodles. It doesn't take long before she too is packed up and ready to go, with a little plastic sack to carry her food in, and her laptop bag slung across her shoulder.

Constance

A flash fire grin snaps across her face like those full wide lips were made out of accelerant and the joy in her eyes was the flame. It burned bright and quickly, widening only to give way to warm laughter, which wasn’t at all blistering but maybe her touch was. The inescapable fact was that Grace, the poor girl, now had a friend or a bit of a carry on as it were.

She and Patience.

“I will, I promise. I will.”

Really, she meant it, because the trouble was – as anyone with enough wit to notice was – when she truly meant something it was as apparent as the nose on her face.

“Thanks again, Grace.”

Serafíne

"'Course he is," Sera returns, agreeable, when Richard assures her that Hawksley is cool. She doesn't quite understand the way in which Richard misunderstands her enthusiastic declaration that Hawksley will be so jealous by which she means that he will be so jealous of her for getting to ride with a giant! and because the other inflection of jealousy has not really entered her mind she flashes Richard a quick grin when he asks if she wants Hawksley to be jealous and says,

"'Course I do. I mean, he could come too except he's not fucking here." And whose fault is that? Books. Sera blames the books. She swings into step with Richard then, heading off to the Honda Civic around the corner, confident that it will be the World's Tallest Civic, and somehow the inflection of that irrepressible confidence finds its way into her voice. " - wait, endorsements. What the fuck! Are you a model or some fucking thing?"

Richard

"Stop it." Richard is very dry, very amused. "My ego, it will explode. I'm a swimmer. I was,"

and they disappear 'round the corner, where, disappointingly, a very plain-jane Civic awaits.

The Mummy

Halima Rahal

It's been a little while since our heroes rescued a reawakened mummy from the Denver Museum of Nature and Science's Egyptian exhibit. Once she was escorted out by Serafine, Grace, Pan and Riley, the former three got her to the good Father's church where he allowed her to stay in the rectory for the time being. The woman--Halima Rahal is how she identified herself--has taken the time in the meantime to shake off the last sixty years that she lay at rest. She has managed to secure clothes in the form of a purple dress and matching tweed jacket-like top that doesn't stand out too much in the church. Halima has largely stayed within the confines of the rectory for now though, as she becomes acclimated to the world that she has woken up to.

This is where Serafine and Grace find her. She has managed somehow to acquire books and newspapers to catch up on the last sixty years of history, particularly regarding her home country but also America, where she finds herself now. She sits at a table, her dark hair pulled back and over one shoulder as she reads about recent events in Egypt with a frown of concern. It is her home, after all, whether she is a thousands year-old Egyptian or a museum researcher who has been missing for the last sixty years.

Serafíne

The rectory has a surreal familiarity for Sera. The worn floorboards, the short, narrow hallways. The untouched-since-1972 kitchen where the bachelor priest boils water for tea and stores the goodies the women of his parish bring him so regularly. Pan is absent - at the Church offices, perhaps - but Sera must either have permission or perhaps she is just brazen enough to walk through the unlocked doors without asking.

"You been here before?" Sera asks Grace as she catches the screen door and opens it; opens, too, the interior door which is - Grace may note - unlocked. A plain foyer and living room, with only religious art and worn furnishings. A blanket folded neatly over the spine of the couch, which Sera has had spread over her more than one late and aching night. The familiar scent, which she inhales.

Sera does not dress in any way that Pan's congregation might find respectable and most must surely assume that she is a prostitute or something similar. More than a few go further in their assumptions, but she has not been around as often as late so perhaps some of those rumors have faded. Regardless, Grace will surely note how familiar Sera - anything but the religious sort - is with the space. "Kitchen's back through here."

So it is.

That's where they find Halima; in the kitchen, at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper.

Pan's not here to put water on for tea but Sera at least knows where he keeps the bottled water. Opens the fridge and grabs one for herself and maybe Grace, then circles to the kitchen table.

Grace

[Perception + Awareness!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 4, 5, 9) ( success x 1 )

Grace

"Nope, can't say I make a habit of breaking into Pan's house," Grace says. She's been to the church just once. And then there was tacos or something -- hard to remember. It was as freaky then as it is now, all bright with Pan's luminous resonance -- one Grace finds akin to standing in a prison courtyard at night staring down the searchlight.

Going into the rectory without Pan here feels like a trespassing to her, especially with that judgey brightness. But it's not like they don't have reason, and it's not like Pan's going to mind.

They stroll together into the kitchen, and find Halima reading a (nearly dead media) newspaper. Of course Pan wouldn't have a computer for her to borrow, and of course Halima might end up worse at using them than even he.

"Halima, hello. It's good to see you again. Nice dress," Grace says, and not really because she likes the dress. Just that it is clothing, which is a change for the better.

Halima Rahal

[[Halima Per+Aware!]]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

Halima Rahal

She already sensed them when they were approaching, but she doesn't look up until they've actually come into the kitchen. Halima carries her own sense of Resonance, it is worth noting. It is sense of eternity, as if it was frozen in place in the blink of an eye. They also get a slight sense that may be unnerving (or may not)..that chilling of Jhor. It's barely there, as if it's just on the verge of fading completely away. But they can still pick up on it.

She smiles when she sees the two mages, sets down the newspaper. "Good day. And thank you," she says to Grace with a little nod. Faint amusement, as if she understands. She knows it's not normal for people to just walk around fully naked, after all, and she has a sense of propriety, even if it didn't bother her so much at the time. "Sera, yes? And Grace, if I recall correctly. I'm pleased to see you both. I did not get a chance to thank you properly in the chaos of our escape from the museum. I owe you both, and your friend Father Echeverria, a great debt. I do not know what may have happened if I had been caught by someone else."

Serafíne

"You'd probably've been arrested and imprisoned, or maybe locked up in a mental facility or - "

See, people say I don't know what would've happened about the things they do not wish to imagine; or the things they refuse to imagine. On some level, though, Sera must believe that Halima intends to ask herself - perhaps has already interrogated herself - on 'what would have happened' had they all not somehow felt the surging change in pattern, the reassertion of LIFE LIFE LIFE and all its consequences, somewhere way upstairs.

"You know when we felt that from downstairs we thought you were a fucking dinosaur. But seriously, what the actual fuck. How did you become a mummy?"

Grace

"Riley's also one to thank, you know. She got you out of there," Grace says, sticking up for her Traditionmate in absentia.

She walks over to the kitchen table to inspect the back of Halima's newspaper, curious over what the time-lost woman has been reading about. And, still reading, she echoes Sera. "Yes, how did that happen? Was it something like fake-death on a timer? Wake me up in fifty years?"

Grace stands up straight again, looks at the wall. "I suppose I could see why someone might want to do that."

Halima Rahal

[Closing Tag]

Halima Rahal

"Yes, very possibly," she says in agreement with Serafine's assessment of what may have happened. "Or worse. I am sure that you know, there are things out there that have no problem believing in such things as me, or you, but would not be so welcoming." Yes, she does indeed know the possibilities of what may have happened. It's just which of them that it would have come down to.

There is a fain smile that lights on the woman's face when Sera asks, and Grace echoes, the question of how she ended up in that spot. It's a valid question. I mean, come on. You don't end up spending sixty years in a sarcophagus and then just wake up, borrow a shirt to wear as a skirt and skip away without some very valid curiosities being arisen. Halima leans into the table, interlaces her fingers and sets her hand on the surface, shaking her head to Grace's thought of the timed fake-death.

"No, that's not it. Or, I suppose, not entirely." She pauses there, lets out a breath. There's no annoyance or the like; just prepping herself to explain. It's a difficult thing to do in her situation. "I am...two people, essentially. Part of me--most of me, at least consciously in my mind--is Halima Rahal. I was an expert in anthropology and Egyptology, which led to my employment at the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities. I grew up as normal, I had a sister and a mother and father. No...significant other, I understand the term is now.

"That was where I met Amunet," she continues. "Amunet is my tem-akh...the spirit that completes me. Many years ago, Osiris warred with his brother Sutekh in what is now called Egypt. When Sutekh killed Osiris through treachery, his son Horus used the Spell of Life to create the Shemsu-Hero. Those loyal to him, undying, who could aid in the struggle. This struggle continued for millenia, until what we call the dja-akh, the ghost storm, ravaged the Underworld and tore us apart. We were forced to find new bodies...new hosts. Amunet found me."

It's strange, the way that she's talking, of course. She refers to both parts in the third person, sometimes the first. She even knows it's strange, but it's the way that it works. "Unfortunately, she did not find me for long before the agents of Sutekh did. We were not quite strong enough yet to repel them, and they destroyed my body. Drained it to look like a preserved corpse, thousands of years old, and sealed it away. It is difficult to destroy us. I was trapped in the underworld for some time, while my body become ready and my soul regained its strength. And then it was time and I came forth." She smiles. "When you found me."

Serafíne

int + occult

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (4, 10, 10) ( success x 2 )

Serafíne

Sera listens as Halima unfolds her story; listens closely and as carefully as she can, which is not perhaps as carefully as one might wish. The creature is sitting in one of Pan's kitchen chairs with a bottle of water in one hand and she doesn't understand a thing Halima is telling her, knows she is not going to get one single piece of the story right, and Amunet and Horus and Spell of Life and what the fuck?

See, Sera cannot hide anything and does not bother to hide anything because why the hell would she hide anything, so there's a sort of polite interest/concern because she is genuinely interested/concerned but also Halima is so matter-of-fact that Sera is not swept away in a tide of emotion and also Sera is sure that none of this will make sense to her,

except some of it does. The names. The names of the gods.

Which she interprets, and interprets, and interprets, a narrow line stitching itself between her brows.

"So like. Basically, you have these enemies who worship Set, and like. They tried to kill you but didn't kill you, they just put you to sleep? Then your avatar woke you up again, somehow. Will they be able to find out that you've come back?

"Will they come looking for you?

"What - what do you plan to do next?

"What can we do to help?"

Grace

[Int + Academics = What are those words, Halima?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (7, 7, 9, 9, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 7 )

Grace

Grace has heard the mythology of Horus and Osiris and Sutekh. It's pretty much all about how Horus and Sutekh had a 'who can be the biggest dick' war with each other. Horus, the smart one, once challenged the evil dude to a boat race, only the boats had to be made of stone. He painted his normal boat to look like rock and won.

And that's not even to speak of the time when Horus wanked it on Sutekh's lunch, so that when the gods challenged them to figure out who had fucked who, his semen would be found in the right place. Oh, the stories...

But yes, the real story, the one everyone knows (who knows of Sutekh and Osiris and Horus and Isis anyway) is the one where Sutekh killed Osiris and scattered the pieces of his body. Isis put the body back together minus a cock (because they had to have some pathos in there somewhere) so she made him a new one, and raised him from the dead.

"Why would anybody worship Sutekh? He's like the Egyptian pantheon's loser supreme. I mean, who worships a guy who gets tricked all the time?" Grace says, trying to choose sides for Halima's sake. To be honest, though, she thinks them stories. Perhaps stories based on some truth. Perhaps there were people like herself alive back in those days who could very well put the pieces of someone back together and raise them from the dead. She doesn't deny that. But that they were gods?

And the Underworld...

"If they come looking for her, apparently what we need to do is challenge them to a concrete boat race. Engineering isn't their strong point."

Pho

Grace

[Magedar! Perception 3 + Awareness 2 = Sensing some resonance?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )

Constance

[perc + awareness]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 4, 6, 6, 6, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 6 ) Re-rolls: 1

Grace

So, Grace sits at one of the small wooden tables that line the far wall of this place -- Pho-nomenal (silly play on words, but whatever. The fare's decent). It's not much to look at, but holes in the wall with good food usually aren't. The air is almost steeped in the smell of spice and broth, and when you walk in, it makes you want to take deep breaths. That kind of place.

One probably doesn't notice the woman in the back who's busy eating with her cell phone in hand, apparently ignoring her meal for the sake of Facebook or whatever it is she's doing. She wears jeans, sneakers, and a gray jacket -- totally inconsequentially normal.

Until the air fills with more than just pho. Suddenly, to those with minds open more than usual would get the distinct impression of a skittering sharpness. Like someone's slicing a keen blade through the heavy spices.

[Life1 : Detect Poison. Diff: 4 - 1 for taking her time]

Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (3, 5) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Constance

Connie, free and clear from her last contract, it having ended the day before, has not only picked up her meagre paycheck but has also deposited it. Seeing as it’s an award winning day she figures a bite of her favorite vermicelli might be in order.

Brown hair is pulled up into a braid, she wears little to no makeup, and comfortable clothing; a navy blue scoop neck sweater, a pair of faded jeans, and worn runners make her no less remarkable than any of the others in the crowd. It isn’t always clothing that marks one as unusual, though, and at first glance – as she’s moving towards the counter to order – blue eyes pass right over Grace.

..it’s only a millisecond, one tiny fragment of time, but everything changes and suddenly the restaurant, it’s food, and it’s patrons, are forgotten. The long legged woman freezes, like a foal, her nose twitches as though she could smell it but all the while there’s this unstable but intense pull from the woman her eyes had just passed over.

Stranded, seemingly, in a line of other people she does a double take, harkening back to the incident in the coffee shop, and happens to be staring. The lady behind her gives her a little shove, Connie balks, and steps out of the line ready to bolt because that one, she’s like them.

Grace

The sensation of heat, like someone suddenly opened an oven floods over her, and Grace looks up Connie's glance, meeting her eyes.

Never met this one before, huh. And Grace, she notes the freezing, notes the staring, the readiness to get the fuck out. Why?

Her eyebrows make with a kind of dance that says confusion and worry at once. It's rarely a good thing for a Mage to look that frightened. So Grace freezes, looks behind herself (as if to look for whatever it is that has Connie so upset).

Serafíne

Per + Awareness

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (3, 4, 5, 5, 7, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 6 ) Re-rolls: 1

Serafíne

(Any objections to Sera doing a flyby? :) )

Constance

None here!

Constance

Shall I wait to post then? :D

Serafíne

naw, go ahead and post. (grins) sera will probably not interrupt quite yet!

Constance

Memo to self; next time you want to look like a deranged meth head remember this moment and recall every episode of 24 your cousin has ever watched. The might arrest vegans for cannibalism but the show seemed to have a pretty decent handle on how morons escape.

The moron, being her, of course. She blinks, at Grace, presumably, and then is ousted from her spot in line as the lady behind her has obviously had enough of indecision in her ninety five years of craggy, old, wrinkled skin-living.

The short haired brunette looks at her, and then behind where she’s seated, and then back at Constance as if to think ‘who, me?’ with a spicing of ‘what the eff’ for flavouring, she’s supposing.

Her wide mouth widens as politeness demands some sort of smile, she shakes her head and shrugs, “I-I, sorry, I thought you were somebody else.” It’s an entirely plausible excuse, really, but it doesn’t tell Grace much about why she’s still standing there. Truth be told, Connie isn’t sure either.

“Uh, sorry..” Yeah, about that.

Serafíne

Outside there's a feeling and there's a van and the van is a white conversion van and still with North Carolina license plates someone better take care of that and oh, hey, Dan picked Sera up at the Church of the Good Shepherd and Sera murmured directions to him all aslant and well,

what the hell. That's how and why he is dropping Sera off at the corner she's alighting from the passenger's side, swinging the door shut behind her, hands in the pockets of her leather jacket, elbows all sharp, heels hellishly high though she walks in them with a long stride and a kind of masculine swagger, as if they were nothing. Nothing at all.

Glimpsed through the picture windows, unearthing a hand from one of her pockets to reach for the front door.

Grace

"Oh, yeah, I've had that happen before," Grace says, giving Constance a similar smile. "Are you new around? I haven't seen you... in the area..."

She sets down her phone, screen to the table, and suddenly there's the urge to look at the door (the threshhold, the place in between inside and outside). And Grace doesn't freeze or start with worry, but breaks into an honest smile.

Sera.

Constance

Undulating awareness sparks an otherworldly feeling and she’s swimming in this, watching the face of this foreign woman with a long nose and sincere eyes in silence. It happens, she says, Constance nods faintly and feels the influx of something new seeding itself in the present. It’s like a capsule opening to release tendrils of reaching potential, they say being, they say start, they say turn your head, girl.

So she does.

And the coffee shop comes slamming back to her once again; a tall blonde speaks in riddles, the face of Anyboy and his calmness in the eye of her skittish behavior, and who can forget this one reflecting from behind the door like she isn’t really there.

Heat finds her face, colour swathes across it like a swaggering pirate, and she knows that the jig is up because blue eyes have returned to Grace’s face to find that smile of familiarity. It’s happening again? For the love of ..whoever. Whatever.

“Well then..”

Serafíne

So the door opens and then she's not swimming in the glass but all immediate, all present. Cropped leather jacket over a short, tight, absolutely crimson cocktail dress that ends approximately two tenths of an inch below the point at which it would be utterly indecent, making it therefore merely indecent. Diamond-patterned net tights, thigh-high, held up by black lace garters. Shoes bordering on the impossible, the swath of blond curls and a half-shaved head. The most ridiculous jewelry, but Connie remembers her for more than that style that makes her impossible to ignore and hard to forget.

"Grace."

See, Sera comes up to them, skirts Connie's personal space. Reads that heat beneath her skin, something of that awareness, that sense of being at sea and yeah.

Take your time and live in it.

Take your space, too.

Here's Sera, murmuring a greeting to the crown of Grace's head, bending down to run her finger's through the other woman's short dark hair. The gesture is familiar.

A glance up at Constance, then. This edge of a smile; the grace of slightly-stoned dark blue eyes.

"You guys've met? Or are you just meeting?"

Grace

"Oh us? I've never seen her before in my life," Grace says, trying to ignore the hair ruffling. It's a Sera thing. The sun will rise in the East, and Sera will ruffle her hair. Possibly kiss her head.

"Are you okay?" she asks Connie, because wow -- those reactions. What the Hell?

"Sera, have you met her before? She looks mad."

Constance

She is mad, yes.Connie knows she’s mad, she must be mad, that’s the only explanation. After all, Sera had confirmed that they weren’t in the circus but she felt like the entire thing had disbanded and all of its former employees had relocated to Denver.

Yeah, she must be mad.

“Oh, only just,” She says to Sera after a time, having watched her approach and the way she’d interacted with Grace. Constance relaxes visibly, but she doesn’t go to sit down with them, rather she steps towards the table as if to afford some sort of clue to the whole puzzle.

“I’m, I-er,” Constance was still replaying her last pause-tap meeting with Sera in her head, that shifting of reality still gave her goose bumps and she was very much unaware of how her presence affected others.

“I’m Connie, and okay, and a little mad. Yes.”

To Sera, she offered a small smile, she wanted to say something friendly to somehow bridge the gap but Constance wasn’t exactly sure of what to say in this instance.

Serafíne

"She's New, Grace," and Sera says it quietly, just like that, with the capital letters and what-all clear and evident in the rich intonation. With the hint of a smile that is wry and this subtle, sweeping glance at Connie that deepens the edges of the smile she's wearing, crinkles the corners of her eyes, but only just.

"So she doesn't quite know why she keeps feeling us and she's not precisely sure what's going on. At least, that's my guess."

A quick slanting glance back at Connie. Sera has by now hooked a hand on the spine of Grace's seat, but has not grabbed a chair of her own to sit down.

"Grace was new too," to Connie, " - not that long ago, really. Remember how that felt?"

Grace

"Heh, I meant angry, but hey, a little madness never hurt anybody," she says, trying to put Connie at ease with a smile and a bit of humor.

Then, Sera says she's New, and suddenly everything makes some sense. The dawning of realization crosses her face. "Oh!"

"Ohh," she repeats, tinged with a bit more gravity.

"Fucking amazing. And scary. Hi, Connie. You're not mad."

Constance

They speak their own language of understanding with familiar words, they just have a different meaning, and it’s like she’s able to pick up pieces of the conversation that is being had without being spoken. New, yes. Mad, not angry, in the crazy sense. Well that’s true, she thinks, blue eyes moving from Sera’s face back to Grace’s once again.

If she didn’t have proof of their ..otherness, and her own, she might have had a bit of a difficult time remaining a part of this conversation, it all could have gone down a lot differently. Yet she remembers other instances, too and finds that her hand has come to rest upon the top of the back of a chair across the table from the other women.

Sera’s smile deepens and Constance can’t help but smile in return, fueled by the feeling that the Cultist exudes, and perhaps the familiarity she brings with her. It isn’t so much that she’s met her before, or that she even took the time to make note of what this difference might be, but that warmth she holds is much different than the way Connie’s.

The way it hits home for Grace signifies the importance of Sera’s actions to Constance and it wins the woman some points in her favor.

“Is this the wrong place or time to ask either of you what the hell is going on? Because, well, reasons.”

Constance

[*the way Connie's is.]

Serafíne

"We can't talk as freely here as we could someplace a little more private. Because it is weird as hell and something most other people around us wouldn't understand. It's something that good get us in trouble, too, if the wrong people overheard us, but asking what the hell is going on is a pretty good first step - "

Then, Sera's phone buzzes, somewhere in the depths of one of the pockets of her leather jacket. The creature pulls it out, glances at the display and makes a noise in the back of her throat.

"I'm sorry. I've gotta run. But Grace can help you because honestly, I can't remember when I wasn't like this, you know? Grace, you can give Connie my number. Even my address."

Back to Connie then, " - we're still celebrating 4-20. Probably the party'll go on all week. You'd be welcome to stop by."

Serafíne

(Okay: time for me to turn into a pumpkin. Thank you for letting me flyby. So glad to see you again ino! hope we get to play soon!)

Serafíne

And then, Sera taps something on her phone, tucks it away again, drops a kiss on the crown of Grace's head, and heads back out the door, just the way she came in.

4-20

Serafíne

Someone (who is not Sera) has filled the concrete planters flanking the front step and hung paper garlands from the bare limbs of the trees in the front yard and someone (who is not Sera) has slung party lights and Edison bulbs on strings around frames in the backyard and someone (who is not Sera) has scrubbed the patio furniture hauled out the cushions and the pillows and restrung the hammock and swept the front porch and moved that goddamned unicycle from one side of the front door to the other and someone has opened the windows and someone else has made sangria and someone else has dyed eggs and "hidden" them in ABSOLUTELY PLAIN SIGHT around the front yard and some of those eggs are real and are hard-boiled and others of those eggs are plastic and contain treats like chocolates and joints and marijuana-infused chocolates and jelly beans because it is Easter and it is SPRING! and there must be jelly beans and it is Sunday or maybe some other day, and the sun's out.

It's afternoon.

Brunch is a generous name for the basis for the party, which will go on and on and on but it started as an after-lunch brunch so there are Bloody Mary's of all sorts and various fruit-and-liqueur-and-sparkling-or-still-wine drinks and whenever Hawksley comes, however long he takes to make his way through the crowd in the house, he will find Sera in the garden, lounging on the bed she keeps there, with a very, very stoned Dee, curled up, drifting or dreaming, her dark head resting on Sera's belly, Sera's hand in Dee's hair.

Sera's eyes are on Hawksley as soon as he emerges from the house, but he has to know she felt him from god-knows how far away. When he's close she lifts her head for a kiss, inhaling, expectant, and she tastes both sweet and dry, maybe a bit effervescent - champagne - and herbal, because of course, and she tells him,

"Tell Rick to make you a fucking Venetian spritzer, they're amazing."

He just got back from Venice, Rick. Learned how to make them there.

Somehow the rest of us never knew he was gone.

Hawksley

It's Easter, and it's 4/20, and guess which you celebrate when you're friends with a Cultist. Both, of course.

Hawksley is lounging on the bed in the back garden. He wasn't here for after-lunch brunch. He has been smoking or eating THC-laced sour candies for a while now though, and he is staring at his hand, grinning.

Sera saw him emerge from the house whenever ago, must have been a few hours, saw him flop on the bed, and maybe he remembered to stop and kiss her, and she was like Rick something something Venice? He just grinned and flopped.

He nudges her with his elbow. "Look at my hand," he says, grinning, in awe. "My hand is so weird." And laughs.

Serafíne

"You're so stoned," Sera says, murmurs, bending over to nuzzle his temple with her nose or something. She's grinning, too. She loves it. Loves this. Loves, undulant, so many goddamned things.

And she looks at his hand, of course. It is so fucking weird. His awe is amazing, infectious enough that she bumps his head with her brow and tips her own head aslant and says, "It's like a starfish without a mouth in the middle."

And she breathes in and contemplates that and breathes out and laughs, " - your toes are fucking weirder, though. Watch. Make them wiggle!"

Hawksley

He's still giggling, and his nose is all wrinkled up and his eyes all wrinkled shut and his teeth prominent and he looks so happy. He laughs again. "I'm so stoned," he agrees with her, notices Dee, brightens, says "Dee!" just like that, and leans over and kisses her mouth long and full and eager, with her right there on Sera's lap.

Comes up for air, nuzzles Sera with a bit of Dee's lipstick on his mouth but he's using his brow and nose to nuzzle her. Then he looks distressed. "Ew, no, my hand's not a starfish."

Serafíne

Dee is half-drifting but when Hawksley starts on about his hand she lifts her head up and rests her chin rather than her cheek on Sera, watching him sleepily, adoringly right. Kisses him right back, too, rising a bit into the kiss as Sera twirls finger through one of her rockabilly curls.

"Wiggle your toes - !"

Sera insists again. She's nuzzling him back, brow to brow, bending with the curtain of her hair framing them. Her hand not occupied with Dee has come 'round to cup the back of his head.

Hawksley

"I can't wiggle my toes, Sera," Hawksley says, with sneering impatience. "They're far away."

Serafíne

"I can wiggle mine," Sera boasts; oh, she's so fucking boastful. Dee in her lap and Hawksley at her side. The flash of teeth behind her smile against his skin. She wants to eat him up. "Wanna see?"

Hawksley

She keeps touching him, but he won't be held. He moves around, away from nuzzling, away from her hand, like an errant child. Which is not an unfair comparison, at the moment. "Toes are weird," he says in dismay, and flops backward, hiding his face against her hip.

Serafíne

"Everything's weird," Sera sighs back, and the sigh is deep and pleasureable, is gusting, really. She breathes in all rolling and undulant and breathes out the same way and Dee rolls over, not really away but more to the side, as Sera reclines backward. Hawksley evades her; she doesn't chase him with anything but her eyes, this darkling gaze that slants down the line of her body; over the faint swell of her breasts, down the spare plane of her bare stomach, the waistband of her cutoffs, the crown of Hawksley's golden head at her hip. Dee's dark head against her other flank.

Smiles at both of them and if Hawksley is being an errant child and doesn't want her hand in his hair, Dee doesn't mind, Sera brushes her thumb lovingly over Dee's temple, draws a line down Dee's cheek to her mouth, and allows Dee to bite the meat of her thumb, molasses-slow and thoughtful.

"Sky's fucking weird. So far away that I can't remember how far but close enough to punch through me sometimes. I don't get popcorn. Or herringbone. Or the word limelight. Or wildebeest.

"You're weird, too." This slantwise glance, back in his direction. Smiling down at him where he's hiding. Trying to figure out how she smiles. How she makes herself stop. If that's even a possibility right now. "I love you."

Hawksley

He cannot be tied. He was not made to kneel. He shakes off a tether; he thinks gravity is a suggestion. Sera understands. Sera, above most people, he can trust to understand. He curls up there, nuzzling her in his own time and in his own way and in this weird place, because there is something dark and familiar and soothing in the way she smells and the denim fuzz on his nose and all of it, everything.

"Sky's never weird," he mumbles, contrary. He stretches his legs out, bare toes splayed, wiggling in one long wave, then drops them again. "I'm very weird," he agrees, accommodating. He turns his face up and smiles at her, is told he's loved.

Grins. "You said it again," he tells her, like he just won a prize.

Serafíne

"Mmmph." Sera makes a noise like her mouth is full of something; feeling or words or smoke or sky or the memory of sky or the feeling of fullness or something, something, and it is wholly affirmative and she lifts her chin and grins back down at him and nods see? this exagerrated yes. Yes, she said it again. Didn't she? Yes, he won a prize.

"Everything's weird," Sera says, now probably simply to be contradictory, except everything is weird isn't it? Always is. She loves that. She loves everything. She also loves: him. And she crows, then, "You wiggled your toes!" like he just unlocked some god's inner sanctum and found the key to all things just laying around. NBD.

Isn't she beaming? Doesn't she look so fucking proud of him, and how absurd is that -

- except there are his toes and they are wiggling. Sera's grinning then; watches him move. Watches him make himself move. Thinks about nerves and sparks and whatever the fuck she understands of electricity, which is that it happens sometimes in the sky and sometimes beneath her skin and so very often when he touches her. She smiles around the thought and stretches through the hip, stretches out one of her own legs and wiggles her toes in an answering sort of wave, and it feels like a wave, too. Connected through a current or an undercurrent. Some moving line of - god, what the fuck ever.

Easter Sunday

Kalen Holliday

[Nightmares]

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (5, 7, 9, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )

Kalen Holliday

[Awareness]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )

Kalen Holliday

It is Easter.

Kalen hasn't had holidays in forever. Not with a whole odd collection of people to celebrate them like this with, at least. And so, he has done, as the handful of people who know him may have come to expect, the only logical thing.

Which is, of course, to stuff Easter eggs with chocolate truffles and orbs of semi-precious stones and liquor-filled chocolates and random coins pulled up from shipwrecks and tiny wooden carvings and whatever else he has encountered that struck him as interesting and small enough to fit in a neon plastic egg.

There are little baskets full of more candy and small bottles of liquor and stuffed animal bunnies and lambs. Apparently Kalen decided that the Denver Magi need alcohol and stuffed animals and chocolate. Sometime between yesterday morning and today.

No piñatas this time though. (Sorry Grace.)

Kalen is sprawled over a couch, reading a book that looks like it is probably at least three times his age. There is no compulsive note-taking. There is coffee, although he looks awake enough to not really need to be drinking all of the coffee ever today. He smiles when he sees Grace.

"Hey, Kit! Happy Easter!"

Grace

[Awareness]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )

Grace

Grace comes out of the kitchen carrying some coffee of her own (done up the way some might describe as 'overdoing it' with cream and whipped cream and cinnamon and caramel and such). She smiles back and proceeds to give herself a whipped-cream mustache with the coffee.

"Hey, you. What are you reading today eh? That doesn't look like it's for school."

She leans herself against the couch, soaks in the ozone-tinge that Kalen brings -- the sense of storm. It's only then that she wipes her upper lip off, stares at the cream on her hand, and then licks it. She's rather unconcerned overall about looking silly, especially in front of Kalen. He doesn't really care.

And hey, that's cool.

"I barely know what to do with myself, you know? I would be doing homework right now, but..." but, there is no homework for a drop-out. It feels strangely good. Freeing, definitely.

Kalen Holliday

Kalen rolls his eyes. "Obviously," he says, as though Grace is being deliberately difficult. "You should be hunting Easter eggs. They aren't going to find themselves you know." The corners of his mouth twitch, but he manages to still look almost completely serious as he adds. "I'm relatively sure none of them are self-aware enough for that."

Don't let him fool you with those cool eyes, Grace. He is not entirely unmoved. He does care about that whipped cream mustache. He thinks it is both comical and adorable. He's just not commenting. But he cares.

"I would suppose," he says, "That you should use all your newfound time time to discover what you want to do with all your newly found time now that you have it."

Grace

"Oh, I'm only being a little bit dishonest. I know exactly what do to. Finish my novel, write a bunch of stuff that's been leaking out of my brain, I've got an experiment to work on, and books to read, and we've got to make some more progress on the book scanning, and hey -- maybe in all that, I'll actually get some work done with the security business," she says, and grins at him all conspiratorially, putting on fake wild-eyes like some kind of mad Etherite.

"Because we need spider killbots with lasers on their heads that also wear tiny tapshoes so they can dance with each other."

She pushes herself off the back of the couch, but only so that she can join him in sitting -- at a chair across the way, because Kalen loves to sprawl himself over all the space a couch affords. Of course he would move for her, and of course she would rather he just be comfortable.

"I bet I can find every Easter egg in this room," she says, and holds up one of the plastic things, recently plucked from a side-table.

Kalen Holliday

"And to think I thought you wouldn't be into building a an awesome robot lion to house the security system at the library annnnnnnd patrol the grounds." He grins. "Not sure I'm ever so glad to have been wrong."

He's still smiling as Grace picks up an Easter egg. "Can you now?"

Grace

"Yeah. I could analyze the plastic and dimensions of this, and then look for similar items in the general area. Would pop out like little lightbulbs on my screen," she says, though it doesn't look like she's about to pull out her computer to show him (or show off as the case may be).

"But that would be cheating," she says, with another conspiratorial grin.

She pops open the egg, finds it stuffed with a raspberry tart truffle (which does make her glad) and pops it into her mouth. Lazy holidays -- they should all be like this.

"Awesome robot lion, you say? Spiders are more stable on the legs, and they can climb. Although I imagine a lion whomping down on some bad-guy from the ceiling would be quite interesting," she says, mouth still half-full of raspberry tart.

Kalen Holliday

"Lions are very symbolic, Kit," Kalen says. But then so are spiders. He's just being a jerk and arguing for lions because, like bow ties, lions are cool. It's the principal of the thing, really. Lions are awesome and spider killbots, even with tap shoes, just aren't a thing he wants to half live with.

"It would only kind of be cheating. It would perhaps not be as fun as crawling around and looking for eggs. I've not done either that I can recall, so I wouldn't know. It was kind of fun hiding them, I guess."

"What have you been up to? I know I've been away a bit."

Grace

"Maybe we can develop some kind of gecko-feet for the lion-bot? Make it able to stick to the walls," Grace says, and perhaps she never really was kidding about that mad-Etherite look.

"What I've been up to? Scanning books. Also doing some looking. There's something I was shown in my Seeking -- kind of like a running theme. There was a poster on the wall of the Wheel of Fortune card out of the Tarot. At the time I didn't know what it meant, just the name. So I looked it up. It means that things tend to go in cycles -- the good and the bad. When things are at their worst, you need to look to change. When thing are at their best, you can't let that make you complacent.

"Things are looking up. For now. Even though in recent past they were pretty bad. I can't stay there."

Or here, really.

Kalen Holliday

Kalen blinks. He follows half of that. He isn't sure it's the half he needed to follow. "What?"

Grace

"What what? Gecko feet? They have micro-structures on their feet -- little grippy things that let them climb on the ceiling. Of course we'd have to make the lion light enough for the gecko-feet to hold," Grace explains, hoping that's what he was asking about.

Kalen Holliday

"No. I understood that part. Gecko feet. The other part. About you."

Grace

"Mmm, yes. A few weeks ago I was screaming and dying downstairs. Now I'm thinking about making lions with gecko feet and I can't let the spectre of the hydra keep holding me back from that. The wheel turns. Things change."

She sips coffee, and grants herself another whipped-cream mustache. Gives him a smile.

Kalen Holliday

"Oh. Like that. Yes. Of course things change." He smiles. "They cycle and curve and sometimes set upon their own tales. Ebb and flow. Rain into streams into rivers into oceans into clouds into rain. Nothing is ever still.

"I'm glad you let go of your ghosts." He hasn't quite managed that yet.

"Do you want tea? I'm thinking lemon. Or maybe mint." He rises, rises up onto both feet and perhaps there is something in that motion of a baby antelope, because it has been that long since Kalen walked on two feet unaided, but he does start off for the kitchen without any stumbling or falling over. Just don't ask about the practice while he was hiding Easter eggs. He certainly was not carrying around a bunch of treat-filled tacky plastic because he wanted an excuse for what he was doing on the fucking floor. Because he would never, ever do that.

Grace

"Kalen!" Grace's eyes go wide, but she doesn't stop smiling. "Your leg! Oh, how did that happen? Did you find someone who could fix it?"

Most of the time, Grace pays no heed to his (former) lack of mobility. It's only now, when he's moving like a baby ungulate across the Chantry that she really sits up and notices for real. Ever since she's known him, he's leaned on a cane. It became part of her internal idea of Kalen almost -- a guy with a limp. But less pathetic, and more badass -- a guy with a sweet cane, because he lived a dangerous existence.

"We should go hiking!"

Because yes, that's exactly what someone who's just recently attained the status of 'mobile' is likely capable of doing. Maybe he can just skip by on sheer power of will.

"Mint! Mint for me!" she says, with exclamation points, because suddenly everything is so exciting.

Kalen Holliday

He laughs. "Yes. Yes. But give me maybe a day or two first."

"Ah. I had a moment with my Avatar. Different than yours. But good. We came a bit closer to an understanding, at least." He still sounds amused, if a bit less. "So many things to do. But...I think they'll be good.

"I think I might go visit Flagstaff," he says as he steps into the kitchen.

Grace

"You did? You didn't yell at your Avatar, tell them to fuck off about three or four times, and end up stabbing them in the heart with a sword then? I mean, I get what it was doing, I suppose. Still sounds very odd, that."

Then he mentions Flagstaff.

"Isn't that where your old Chantry was?" Was, because it was destroyed.

Kalen Holliday

He laughs again. "As with all of my relationships, I think probably the one most interested in doing that kind of stabbing is not me. And I mostly know people with the patience of saints, so that says something."

There is the sound of things moving in the kitchen. "And yes. It is."

Grace

Grace really doesn't know what to say to that, only sips her coffee. Doesn't want to pry into things, and if she offered to go with he'd probably be afraid for her safety or some other thing.

"Well, I hope you find what you're looking for there."

Kalen Holliday

"I think there isn't anything there anymore. Just bits of a building and some sand. I mean...that's not what I'm going back for. Looking for things. That wouldn't even make any sense. I'm going back to leave things there, where they ended, maybe. But there isn't anything to take from there. That time is just...past.

"You want like normal mint or green tea mint or this raspberry lemon spearmint?" Clearly, by the sharp switch, he is done talking about Flagstaff. But she got that much at least. It's a lot more than she could have gotten before.

Grace

To leave things there. Like his ghosts perhaps. Grace sighs, but she's too happy for him to tinge it with any sadness. "Green tea mint sounds delicious," she yells, because it does, and because they're done talking about Flagstaff.

And then, she looks down at her cooling coffee. Well, better finish this before the tea arrives, or she will be double-fisting caffeine. She gulps it down.

Kalen Holliday

Kalen reappears a few minutes later with her tea and his tea, both still steeping in their mugs. He hands Grace hers and then settles onto the couch again with his.

"Anything else interesting going on?"

Grace

"Mmm yeah. I talked to Lena," Grace says, looks down into her mug of tea. Not ready to drink yet, it's still so hot. But the mug feels nice, and she wraps her fingers around it.

"I still think it's a bit futile to pretend we can get along, but she seems to think it's all because we were messed up by Hydra, and everything can be okay between us again. I don't know. I think it's less to do with us being 'damaged' and more me being me. Maybe some of her being her too. I told her I would try at least. I just don't hold much hope with five out of five recent interpersonal interactions going south in a huge way. There is a pattern there.

"Can't always get along with everybody, as much as it hurts."

Kalen Holliday

"You cannot always agree with everyone. And you are unlikely to always get along with everyone. But you can learn to find some way to get along with probably most people. You have to be willing to give, and you have to be willing to really fight to understand, and you have to be willing to be exposed in ways that are horrifying and difficult," his voice is gentle, rather than disapproving.

"I don't agree with Alyssa half the time, and I am pretty sure she will hit me in the face, at least once. We're still going to find ways to work that out and have an awesome cabal. I don't agree with Gallowglass on things like fundamental world view, and that, oddly enough, hasn't stopped us being friends.

"Sometimes, we don't agree. We don't stop being friends, do we?"

Grace

She scratches her eyebrow, gives Kalen a bemused look. "This from the guy who didn't know he had friends until I explained what friends are to him?"

"Still. I think that's a bit different. You don't cause Adam mental anguish every time you talk to him. That's very unfriendlike."

Kalen Holliday

"Hey! I know what friends are. I always knew that!" Kalen reaches under the couch, grabs an Easter egg, and tosses it lazily at Grace. "I may not have been able to recognize the experience from inside of it, but that is a totally and completely different problem from not know what friends are. I know how people work. I spent years learning that. I had to."

He laughs. "Oh. No. I'm pretty sure I cause him all kinds of mental anguish. He comes anyway and he talks to me until I'm okay because sometimes you do these things for people you care about even if you grit your teeth and it is horribly difficult not to scream at them. I asked him to come see Sera sing and I was really tired and Sera thinks we're dating or something now. And even that hasn't infuriated him. He gives a little and lets me be a mess and I give a little and let him mostly have that he is superior to everyone. He mostly doesn't mean anything by it, he's just like a cat. It's who he is, that smugness. And you know, perhaps his view of the world is narrow, but believe me there are nights I need him with all of his ridiculous certainty to come hold my world together. It isn't the worst thing or the best one, but it is the one we have."

Grace

She catches the egg, listens to Kalen but doesn't listen. No, it's different. Completely different from herself and Lena, Kalen, can't you see that? They don't prop each other up despite the pain, they tear each other down painfully. There is a huge difference.

But no, he wouldn't know. He doesn't know much about what's gone on between them, not that she would volunteer a bunch of information like that even to him.

"He's not superior to everyone. Strange concept coming from a guy who owns a bookstore called Anarchy. But then many people use the term without having the first fucking idea of what it means."

Because please yes, let us change the subject...

Kalen Holliday

Kalen sighs. He does know some of it, because Lena told him. He knows what it is like to drive into people and tear at them until it seems like the only outcome is unmaking each other. He knows so well what that is like, and he knows what finding ways to stop that it like, and what uneasy peace and growing understanding and the eventual kind of friendship that can leave you with. But he does not try to tell her that his friendship with Gallowglass was not always easy or that his friendship with anyone has ever really been easy.

There are shades of meanings to words. Common usage meanings, which like a single common reality aren't the truth of the words. But Kalen isn't in the mood for that discussion.

"How protective are we with Ginger? I mean...I know your issues with Alexander. I'm willing to hold off on having him on Ginger until you're alright with that, this is actually not about Alexander. It's about other new Mages and about Mages that we...know but don't know how well we trust. They need information too, but we also need to be safe. Sometimes I'm not sure where we should draw those lines."

Grace

She shrugs. "I've been drawing it at, well, if I see them at the Chantry or I know through other means that they're definitely not evil. Or if they find out about it from someone else and come calling.

"I also try not to be pushy about it, because sometimes people don't have phones or whatever. I've set Lena up again, and I've at least talked with some of the new guys in town about it. Adam, and whatshisface... Leonhard. But some people have yet to make time for me, and that's okay too."

Kalen Holliday

"I'm relatively sure that Ian isn't evil," Kalen says. "I'm not sure he's precisely good. I am very sure that he is dangerous. And, I don't care. And I don't think he'd be dangerous to us in the ways that you are afraid of. But...I haven't figured him out and I don't know that that's something anyone is going to do in a reasonable amount of time.

"I don't want him to be cut off from knowing what's happening though. I don't think he needs to be. But...."

Grace

"I'm good enough anymore, Kalen, I could probably work my way into his phone without permission and fuck his Ginger install up -- make it look like it never existed. Does that make you less worried?"

She messes with the tea, apparently deciding that time has come for her to actually imbibe the stuff, though she has to put her plastic egg down to do so. It wobbles on the table next to her chair. Why are there never enough hands when you need them?

"Who's Ian?" she asks, because she's never met the guy. "Why do you think he's not good and dangerous?"

Kalen Holliday

"I don't think he's not good. I would just hesitate to make any promises. He feels like a fucking hunting cat. He's got mysterious and elegant nailed. And the time we have spent together mostly has convinced me that I love being around him, but not that I should bring him here. I want to. But he's...I don't know what he is."

Grace

Grace is confused, and grants Kalen a look that says it all. "You don't know what he is? Like, are we talking... he isn't a Mage, he's something else? Or... Why shouldn't you bring him here, I guess is my question?"

She takes the teabag out of her mug, and tries not to let it drip on herself as she lays it down on a saucer by the table.

Mmm, tea. Tea makes everything better. Especially if Pan made it, but that's not the case right now...

Kalen Holliday

Kalen sighs, rolls his eyes, and gives up entirely on being delicate. "Oh, he is very definitely a Mage. And the sex is very definitely fantastic. I'm not sure if those two things on their own qualify as things on which we base this trust decision."

Grace

"So you're sleeping with him, but you're not sure you trust him enough to bring him to the Chantry or let him have access to Ginger?"

Again, confused as hell. Grace is less concerned about the sex itself, and more concerned about the fact that Kalen is doing so with someone he apparently trusts about as far as he could throw Antarctica.

"You still haven't answered the question of why you don't trust him. Is it just because he's not forthcoming about his past? Because hell, that could describe about... ninety percent of us. But I don't know. Maybe just trust your gut?"

Kalen Holliday

"I don't know. I do trust him. In the immediate sense. I kind of want to call him up and invite him over to have ridiculously expensive wine and watch movies. But...look. I trusted Jenna too. And I don't think I was exactly wrong, but I do think that she's kind of connected to the reason for everything Flagstaff. Not like she's an awful traitor, but like she got into trouble and it followed her home.

"Of course, you guys let me stay, and those same people are still after me."

Grace

"Ahh, that kind of thing. Then I could, indeed, point at you. You always did say I should stay away from you, like you're made of radium or something. But I don't know Kalen, seems like you've always been quite open about that. People are after you. We don't care. Denver is pretty wild a place, trouble comes for us anyway.

"I don't see other people being out to get you as something we should kick you out of the circle for. I mean, Hydra was out to get me for a while there, and it would have made perfect sense for us all to just go into strict quarantine and not let anyone help. I have a feeling that's what the disease was designed to do. You would rely on people in the community to help you, try to heal you, and it would infect them that way. But how we managed to kill it was together."

Kalen Holliday

"I'll talk to him then. I certainly don't think he wants to hurt us. I'm not sure he'd protect us. But I guess maybe we should invite him in. Maybe he just needs to feel safe somewhere before he really starts to relax enough to get attached. I guess I did. And a few of us, really."

Grace

"Yeah, talk to him. I'll be cool with your judgement. And you have the ability to install Ginger yourself now too, so go use that phenomenal power," she says, with a bit of obvious sarcasm at the end.

She sips tea. And eyes that egg. Maybe it's chocolate again. She picks it up and shakes it, but it doesn't sound chocolatey. Opens it up to reveal a small amethyst geode. Well, interesting.

Purple crystals cast dancing light around in the half-sphere, a pretty thing.

Kalen Holliday

"I know. I'm not exactly falling over people to invite all the time. I'll get there. Really. I'm excited." He smiles. He keeps smiling as he watches her find the geode, all purple and sparkling.

"I guess now your schedule is way more open for Australia. I'll have to get us tickets."

Grace

"Yeah, Spring Break came and went," she says, still eyeing that geode. "But now, I have time. I'll get some writing done, I think. Would be nice for that."

Because, even on vacation, Grace is probably not going to simply relax. Ever.

Kalen Holliday

"I was having newly Awakened Magi to introduce to their new worlds for Spring Break. It wasn't a good time to leave." He smiles a little. "But I suppose it never is and we'll just have to do it anyway."

Grace

"You know, Australia has fairy penguins. One once pecked Linus Torvalds, and that's how he came up with the logo for Linux," Grace says, a totally random bit of trivia. But hey, penguins. They are creatures of the code.

"They're adorable. I'd let one peck me all day. And be grinning at the cute. I imagine Linus was the same," she sighs, obviously overcome with penguin-love.

Kalen Holliday

"Penguins, huh? Penguins and spider killbots with tap shoes?" Kalen laughs softly. "Sometimes, I do not understand the things you love."

Grace

"Yes. Both of those things. You're going to have to let me make the lion with six legs at least. I need dancing robots in my life, and four legs just isn't enough," Grace says, and who knows if she's even kidding.

"We'll also have to go diving at the Great Barrier Reef. And visit Uluru maybe?" Grace has plans for the entirety of Australia it seems. Penguins to reefs to sacred sites of the Dreamtime.

"Where would you like to go?"

Kalen Holliday

Kalen shudders. "Yeah. You can go diving. I will go drink somewhere and try to pretend you are not underwater."

"I don't...really get vacations. Just pick some places and I'll see what I can figure out. But hey, maybe hiking now." He smiles.

Grace

She laughs at him, "You're the one who wanted to go somewhere. I don't have to go diving, it's okay. I wouldn't want to make you feel like that. And I wouldn't want to go alone either."

"And yeah! Hiking! I'm so happy for you."

Kalen Holliday

"Well. We could drag other people. But...I'm not so much an in the water person. Hiking though...I like things on land. Or zip lines. Flying is cool. But not water. And probably we should try to avoid direct contact with flames."

Grace

"Hmm... A man of the elemental air and earth. Gotcha," she says, kidding him. But then, they're avoiding the actual reason behind that water avoidance. Does Kalen even know how to swim? After what happened to him as a child, perhaps not.

"I don't do so well with fire either. Strange, though. I should be, right? What with being a Phoenixian."

Kalen Holliday

"I do alright with a lot of things with fire, but I still think maybe we should stick to bonfires or fireplaces or candles. Not like extreme tourist attractions like brushfires."

Grace

"Mmm yes, Mr. Has The Fireball Trick That He's Never Shown Me," Grace says, and sips tea. "Brushfires are tourist attractions?"

Kalen Holliday

"I don't have occasion to fling fire around that often. It's not I'm just sitting around lobbing fireballs for fun." He huffs. "I like lightning better anyway."

Grace

"Yeah, I figured. You feel like lightning, you know. I guess that's a thing, huh? We tend to like the way we... resonate. I wonder what that means though."

"Why do we... feel the way we do? Do you know?"

Kalen Holliday

"We are Enlightened. We can reshape the world with our Will. It is an intrinsic part of what we are, that magic. And it spills outward from us, echoes of what we are. It is just aspects our nature, radiating outward. All energy does that right? Heat, light? Our Resonance is just like the energy of our Avatar radiating outward through us, in a way. The stronger we get, the better our connection, and the more energy spills through. It gets refracted by who we are, like light through a prism. So, mine is like a storm, yes, because that energy is transformed by what I am before it reaches the world beyond me."

Grace

She smiles at him, ready to repeat the question like a hyper three-year-old. Yeah, but why?

"I feel different now. Sharp, you know? Guess I connected with my Avatar in more than one way when I stabbed it in the heart."

For anyone who might be just now entering the Chantry (cough cough) Kalen is sitting on a couch in the living room, Grace at a chair opposite. They both have mint tea, and there's a couple of plastic Easter eggs opened on the table next to Grace. One of them contained an amethyst geode, which she's still got in one hand -- a tiny little sparkly thing.

Kalen has been a busy Kalen this morning, hiding eggs. Perhaps they'll still be finding them weeks later, stowed under and behind things.

Kalen Holliday

"How you interacted with your Avatar in order to gain that power affects what kind of aspect that power takes on, yes. And yes, whatever it wanted you to understand, you understood. So you're both moving forward together in more synergy, and so more of its power is spilling over into you. Your connection from before and your new connection now are both a part of that."

Grace

"Never really... hmm. I mean, I get what you're saying, and all. And in a way that makes sense. But I always figured more power would come with more study. I didn't think, 'Oh, someday I'm going to meet my Avatar and go on a vision-quest'."

Grace looks at the the boundaries of the room, where the walls meet ceiling, her eyes skittering around. "It feels strange to have that confirmed. Why would it be like that?"

Because, Kalen, you are talking to a Virtual Adept -- a woman who this time last year did not believe in superstition. Who did and still does believe in science and paradigms thereof. To speak of others going on vision-quests, certainly. She was always sure that happens. But not to her.

"I guess I don't really need to know. But I'd like to understand what it means for me."

Serafíne

"Hey Grace, Kalen." That's Dan, greeting them from the doorway leading up to the dining room, the kitchen, the garage and thence the driveway. He has an arm loops beneath Sera's shoulders and around her narrow back, and he is holding her more or less upright and she is playing a kind of peek-a-boo with both of them and does not remember whether he said hello or she said hello but she heard a hello and that seems enough for her now.

Liquid with sun and drink and the delirium of spring. Liquid and steadily unsteady walking with her own right arm looped around Dan's back and her left hand braced on his abdomen, negotiating the stairs in her remarkable heels, wearing a white sundress that would be perfectly sweet were it not also perfectly transparent or close to it and paired with black lingerie beneath.

Dan drops her off at the couch and she flops back onto the half that Kalen is not occupying, inhales, see, deliciously, then rolls onto her side, curling up with a throw pillow as Dan asks, or clarifies,

"You're sure it's in the library?"

"Mmmm."

"Okay I'll be back." And explains, briefly to Kalen and Grace if they give him a look of inquiry that Sera forgot her phone.

--

Sera inhales again.

Her eyes are closed. The world's spinning, but see,

"It's like that 'cos your fucking magic Grace." Okay, thank you professor Serafíne.

Kalen Holliday

"Dan," Kalen says, watching as he negotiates the stairs with Sera. Once Sera is curled up on the couch near him, he smiles, more warmly this time, and reaches out to rest one hand on Sera's side. He does not pet her, but he does touch her.

"Well, yes. It's because you're magic." He glances down at Sera, still amused by that proclamation. "But from here...it starts to matter a bit that our Traditions are so different. Because we approach magic and Avatars and destiny and what those things mean with about the same degree of consistency as different religions approach the concept of divinity. Which is to say with varying degrees of passion and with varying degrees to which we are willing to accept other truths."

Grace

Grace pulls her phone out from within her laptop bag and starts sending Sera a bunch of texts.

This is to help you find it, Dan!This is to help you find it, Dan!This is to help you find it, Dan!

The thing will be bleeping at him, or whatever sound it is that Sera has for text messages.

And while apparently absorbed in something extremely important on her phone, Grace says, "Well, yes, of course Sera. But you'll have to excuse my trying to peel back everything and figure out all of the whys, because isn't that how I ended up magic in the first place?"

Grace

[I'm going to have to go here soon. Game of Thrones time!]

Serafíne

Sera's eyes are already closed when Kalen reaches out to touch her so she cannot close them again but there is a kind of beat in her body, the way she inhales again, all physical, her shoulders curving deliberately with the breath. And well if he's reaching out to touch her she's probably going to curl her legs over his lap. Why not? It feels like an invitation, and doesn't she almost always accept invitations.

"We're having a party. You should come," Sera non-sequitors, before continuing.

"I mean: magic Grace. Like fucking actively. That shit's a metaphor, see? You've got to connect to it in your fucking soul. You've got to let it punch through you. It's more than words on a page or maybe you find a way to be like that with the words on a page."

Serafíne

(That is cool with me, I need to go to bed very soon. Sera's presence is very much a flyby. :) )

Kalen Holliday

"It's more...organic for some of us. Something that was always part of us that we grow into. We might reflect on it, but the ways in which you want to be able to dissect it aren't...ways we understand how to help you with. You aren't wrong to want to do it that way, but we're...not really able to explain on those terms." He glances at Sera as she puts her legs in his lap and smiles a little again. "Maybe you could try Patience?" He frowns, trying to think. "You might be able to get some analysis from Gallowglass. He likes you well enough, but you'd have to interpret it a bit. He is brilliant, though, he might manage to translate mysticism into something close enough to science. Trent is with the math, he might be able to help you."

[Yeah, I am only perhaps around much longer too.]

Kalen shrugs. "It isn't that I won't keep trying, it's that my answers are going to be...very unscientific."

He turns his attention to Sera. "When?"

Kalen Holliday

[Arg! Pretend I did not somehow land that note in the middle of that post!]

Grace

Kalen and Sera start trying to occupy the same space -- something she's still a little surprised to see Kalen so into. Time was she thought he was somebody who really valued his personal space. But lately he's gone all cuddly on her. Well, not on her. On other people. Which is fine by Grace, really.

To look at them though, it puts a wistful smile on her face. "I know. I understand. I could try Patience, as little as I actually run across her. I could also try what little access I have with the Virtual Adept information feeds. Ugh, Patience needs Ginger, you know? I should really get a hold of her."

Serafíne

"You should try the Farmer's Market." Sera tells Grace: of Patience. "There was a flying dude there, too. He looked like Wonder Woman 'cos his glasses didn't fit. I couldn't understand a word Patience said to him but she was clearly thrilled to see him."

To Kalen, then - "Tonight. Tomorrow. This morning. It's fucking spring, man. Time for garden parties."

--

Dan reappears then, Sera's iPhone in hand. Waves it at Grace with a quick, engaging grin. "Found it, thanks," he's telling her as he circles the couch to where Sera is nestled, sinking down into a crouch near where she's resting her head, leaning in to plant a kiss on her brow. "Found it," more quietly, because he knows how fucked up she is. right now. "You ready to go?"

And Sera is ready to go. She reaches out to loop her arms around Dan's neck like she means him to drag her upright and laughs up it as he starts to do just that, helps her get her legs off Kalen's lap and beneath her body, and doesn't give her back her phone yet because this time she would never remember where she left it.

--

"You should come," Sera's telling Kalen, as Dan gets her upright, adjusts his grip to support her. "You too," to Grace, and then they're leaving, heading back the way they come in in the first place.

Kalen Holliday

"If I run into her again I'll try to give it to her. If she has a phone. Otherwise I may have to get her a phone too."

"Yeah. One of you call me when you get that together then," Kalen says, watching as they leave. "Goodnight."