Friday and what time is it? oh my God is it before noon? Somehow Sera got out here after being elsewhere and someplace else before that and there was a park and there was spinning and there was puking and there is also that mummy-curse woman and there are so many damned things and somehow she finds herself at the Morrison Farmers' Market on a Friday morning, loose and loosely framed, coming down and hung over and also still rather stoned, the acid lingers in her system, altering her perceptions, so much longer than the booze.
And here she is; colorful tents and the backs of pick-up trucks. hydroponic tomatoes and early spring greens like watercress and kale and spinach, cold weather crops and farmer cheese and the stranger booths where old ladies sell colorful hand-knitted berets and weird hippie cults sell paper-bead necklaces and other folks have bedding plants already out in a profusion of color and there are samosas that are more like turnovers and turnovers that are more like popovers and displays of whole-grain sprouted organic stone-ground gluten-free paleo breads so bountiful and vibrant they seem to be growing and on and on and someone is preaching about the Death of Our Lord because it is Good Friday and time to remember his suffering and death and Serafíne has had enough of suffering and enough of death and that is probably why she left the rectory so early, though the truth is that her memory of the evening-before is partial and particulate and strangely-written in her mind. The dark park and the fire of sunset and a panther or some fucking thing and light. Pan holding her hair while her body purged itself and the first edge of a long, shivering comedown asserted itself.
And morning now, morning here, still high. No longer drunk. Hung over but only just because she's magic, because she can make the worst of that go away, and does.
Wearing a short pink dress that has somehow been laundered since last night with a swirling skirt and torn diamond patterned fishnets and Doc Marten's so her feet are rather flat to the ground, a small, sugar-skull printed backpack/handbag slung across one shoulder. Blond curls and a half-shaved head. The most riduculous jewelry.
The way she deforms the world.
Bends it, like light through a prism.
Sunglasses hiding her eyes.
ShoshannahAnd then there's her. She was a regular at the farmers' market last year from the time she moved into the Chantry - the girl with her bike, the storyteller, the witchy woman
she got the stars in her eyes
the ghost girl. They don't really like her, the general populace of Morrison, and those who come from farther out, from the more-likely-to-be-superstitious farms and country, like her even less but she moves through the space - in it but not of it - as if she doesn't care, as if she's above it all, distant from it. Removed.
Outside.
She's tall, this young lady (because she's too old and not the right bearing or attitude to be called 'girl', and all the other feminine descriptors seem too common, ill fitting, because clearly she's something else, something more, something less, something other) who dresses with rich but casual flair in her dark washed, tinged with something like sepia jeans riding low on her hips, the long, not-quite-tunic spring sweater with long, lace-knit sleeves that keep her wrists and arms neatly covered even without any of the usual cuffs or sleeves or fingerless mitts, the brown, flat boots that can only be the most supple of leathers, folded to reveal a lining of vintage-looking pink and cream and brown flowers and laced just so. In flats, she's as tall as the Cultist in her highest heels, but who's keeping track?
So often, Shoshannah feels small.
There is no comedown here, just the occasional hard and unforgiving smile of thanks when she accepts her bag of early spring peas, of greenhouse tomatoes, of early lettuce and herbs. Goodness knows the Dreamspeaker can (and does) cook - chances are good she knows her way around quality ingredients when she sees them, even this early in the season. There's that ghost-pale skin that's already tinging itself with bits of olive now that there's more sun to be out in when she spends as much of her day as possible outside, doing whatever it is Shoshannah does with herself when she's left, a nineteen year old girl alone, to her own devices at the Chantry. There are those blade-sharp blue eyes. The long fingers, the cool touch and voice.
And there's Serafine, so much opposite at least if one takes only the aesthetics into account, only the surface obviousness. And maybe true opposites, all things considered. One is life to excess, one is the grave.
"Hello," is what comes when Shoshannah finds herself in hailing distance of another known mage. "Out early, aren't you?" And a pause, eyes narrowed in consideration. "Or is it late?"
SerafíneSera makes this noise against her tongue, or perhaps beneath it. Somewhere in her body. Here is Shoshannah reflected it Sera's dark glasses, the rather ordinary humans milling all around them, the starbust glare when the glasses rise to a certain angle. The sun bright and hot overhead, for all that the air around them is still shadowed and mountain-cool.
Amusement, bemusement, some measure of both. Perhaps a strain of rue, though Sera does not and cannot rue her excesses. Sometimes it seems that she is nothing but excess.
Sera has the handle of a net market-bag nestled in the curl of the first knuckles of her left hand, but she has not purchased anything and does not seem to be browsing or assessing the produce and wares, so much as she is drifting through the moment.
"Either." Her mouth spreads in a wide, close-lipped sort-of-grin and the lights framing everything chase themselves in this starbright progression that Sera savors wholly and thoughtlessly every time she moves her head. She has no idea how she ended up here. That frightens her not at all. "Both. I don't fucking know."
Chin tilted up because like this Shoshannah has all that willowy height on her.
Sera is not looking her best; last night is chasing itself beneath her skin. Still she looks fine, just fine. Content to simply be. And to be here, and every other iteration of that contentment.
"Haven't seen you in a while. How're you?"
Shoshannah"Well enough, thank you." Shoshannah speaks with the sort of grammar that only non-native English speakers (or English language majors, or certain classes of Brit) do; she's not 'good', or even 'alright', but 'well'. This is always the case, and on the rare occasion that people have seen her upset she's slipped into other languages, spoken with grammar as crisp and clear, rather than anything less than this. And it has been awhile since either of them has seen the other for any amount of time - since they were vigiling over Pan in the hospital, perhaps, or some time closer to then than now.
"And you?" It's careful, the question. Even when Shoshannah and Serafine are speaking the same language, there's a comprehension barrier. A cultural one, perhaps. The Dreamspeaker doesn't understand so much of what the Cultist says (and is) at all, and so she keeps the divide wide and strong. "Have you been singing lately?"
There's so much more she could ask, about zombie dogs and demonic films and so. many. things. But it's a farmers' market on a spring day when the air is cool and crisp and the sun is shining, and so it's small talk. It's little things. It's an attempt, which is more than Shoshannah usually makes for people she's reacted to as she had to Sera initially.
SerafíneSera makes another noise beneath her breath and reaches up to pinch the bridge of her nose. The gesture is thoughtless, her hand shields her sunglasses and casts a long, strange shadow over her sharp features, her aquiline noise and slow-crawling mouth. Sunlight this strong at this hour in this place is nothing close to Sera's friend and really, aren't they just standing at something-like-odds in the narrow lane between some bustling stalls, somehow more vivid and more real than everyone else around them.
With very little between them.
Not that Sera appears to give a flying fuck: about grammar or divides or proprieties or where they've encountered each other or what the hell has happened since.
So, shading her eyes, still smiling that rather-tired, there-are-tracers-everywhere-and-I've-been-awake-and-Awake-since-forever sort of smile, that humming smile that skims beneath her skin and sets her aligned with all the goddamned vibrations for good or for fucking ill.
"I'm fucking awesome," Sera returns, see. This slash of a grin. Maybe the same one that crossed her mouth the first night she meant Father Francisco Echeverría and asked him to make out in his goddamned confessional, because why the fuck not? The edge of her smile widens. There's a hint of teeth behind it. "I think I puked on a panther last night. And I'm still pretty sure that there's a mummy living at the rectory with the Padre right fucking now. There's a kick-ass food truck at the end of the market. You wanna grab some whatever fucking meal is appropriate at this ridiculous-ass hour of the day?"
AlexanderAnd what brings Alexander into town? Exploration, mainly. After a slow start to the day with a bit of a lie in, he had discovered a flyer for a certain farmer’s market running today. With not much else to do, and the prospect of a decent ride down to Morrison – and, after, beyond – he downed a coffee and rode on over.
So here he is. Two piece bike leathers, with the jacket undone to reveal a long-sleeved technical tshirt. It’s not all that cold, after all, as much as others he passes in the market may shiver and pull up their collars a little as they pass him. There’s a rucksack on his back, looking fairly empty at the moment – handy for carrying anything that might catch his eye. The (new, unbuttered) helmet is carried in one hand, containing a pair of leather gloves.
Given the time, and a certain peckishness, he’s looking over the menu at a food stand. Trying to decide what, if anything, really appeals.
Shoshannah[For the record, this, minus superfluous accessories. http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/9c/42/20/9c42207186b25e45a81eff83e50dff77.jpg ]
Shoshannah"It's noon, Serafine." This is almost gentle - is gentle, even, coming from the girl whose voice is smooth and clear and still feels like boulders rolling away from tombs. It's also spoken with one corner of her mouth curled up into something like a smirk - amused, perhaps, as one might be at a particularly engaging episode of Absolutely Fabulous. And of course that's what the Cultist seems like to her much of the time, when she isn't grating on every exposed nerve the younger Dreamspeaker has, intentionally or not. "I could have some lunch, yes."
Because of course the Ancient Wisewoman of the Mountain was up at a perfectly respectable hour and had a healthy, square meal for breakfast at a reasonable time, so of course it's now time for lunch. This is clear in both her attitude (sometimes one of smug superiority, even through everything else) and bearing.
And so it is that the study in contrasts that is Shoshannah and Sera's companionship heads for this kick-ass food truck, to wait in line behind Alexander. One of them may well give him goosebumps, may make the hairs at the base of his neck stand on end, may have him thinking of ailing (or dead) friends or family. That one is tall, and young.
The other is Serafine.
SerafínePERCEPTION PLUS AWARENESS WHO IS THAT I FEEL.
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (2, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 6 ) Re-rolls: 3
Alexander[o.O Everyone and everything]
Shoshannah[Per + Aware is a good thing, yes yes!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 5, 6, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )
Serafíne"Yeah, I never get up before the ass crack of three p.m.," Sera returns with a quiet little smirk and a sidelong glance as they fall into a strange-sort-of-step while Shoshannah quietly disapproves of Sera's excesses and quietly approves of taking the measure of the day as it is meted out and Sera catches something of Shoshannah's bemusement beneath the skin of her beauty, the quiet - oh yes, can we call it condescension? beneath her skin.
Beyond that glance, that light-laced, brilliant, swimming look that is framed by the edges of her sunglasses and is threaded through with a kind of liminal awareness-of-other and awareness-of-the-other that is physical and metaphysical, implicit and implied, there is, in Sera, a kind of expansiveness that sees-but-hardly-notices Shoshannah's quiet brand of propriety. Perhaps even indulges it, see?
" - even then I'm wondering how much longer I can curl up in bed. I'm a lazy fuck."
--
And Sera and Shoshannah come up behind Alex in the line at the food truck and by then Shoshannah certainly has a sense of the new resonance. The new resonance that Sera is bleeding off in the morning light (visceral and enthralling and now liminal, too, all thresholds and passageways, all new) and Alexander's: frozen frozen frozen. Sera has felt the lick of that cold against the roof of her mouth all damned day long, anticipatory, beneath the immediate weight of Shoshannah's stark, angry, defensive core, and Sera is swimming in it the way she swims in the world, aware enough that as they come close to the food truck she shivers too, but then somehow they're in line and they're behind Alexander and Sera - who is high, let us remember - comes up behind him and wraps her arms around him and bends her forehead and her dark glasses to sort of ...
...well, commune with his empty rucksack, see. She smoke and shampoo for she has had a shower in recent hours, but somehow she still carries the ghost of a very long night beneath and around her skin.
"Alex." Sera is sort-of gleaming. She smiles; that smile is bright beneath her skin. The light moves strangely all around them and she is captured perfectly in the net of it. Less a greeting than a title, less a title than an introduction, the way she pulls him back around to show him to Shoshannah. Tugs a bit. "This is Shoshannah. Shoshannah, this is Alex. He's new.
"He's a fucking cop."
Says Sera, laughing. You don't want to know how many illicit substances are running through her goddamned veins right fucking now.
Alexander[Meh, why not - Magedar too]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )
Ralph AaronHe just stands there for a long moment, down at the end of one aisle where the sun reflects almost blindingly off brightly coloured tents and the gleaming shine of chrome and glass on trucks and cars and bikes. Ralph hasn't slept, he's a few hours past the wheels of his plane touching down and maybe a small hint of weariness bleeds into his features and the slouch of his shoulders. There is always an almost shy, half embarrassed smile given to anyone who bothers to pay him too much attention - and thankfully there are not many of them.
He's tall enough (6'2) and in another life could have played football (weighing in at nearly 91 kilos) but there's no sharpness to him, no edge that says there's cause for worry. His hair is brown and too long so it's tucked behind his ears. He's wearing glasses and a leather jacket that's dusty from his travels. The jeans he wears are the same and so are the dark boots. Closer inspection however might cause some to label Ralph an eccentric...the kind of guy that collects odds and ends or wears mismatched clothing with intent. An old compass hangs from one belt loop on his jeans and he's got an odd pair of sunglasses hooked at the vneck of his tshirt. There's worn lettering on the right front breast of his leather jacket and some odd crest that's faded on the back.
He's moving forward, toward the food truck, while considering his options with the food truck or the fruit just purchased in his bag.
Alexander[Reacting without thinking - str+brawl]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )
AlexanderThe menu of the stall he’s at is mainly fruit based. A selection of smoothies, fresh fruit, yoghurt, or ice cream. It’s the mix of fruit that he’s deciding on as the familiar sense of Sera arrives before her; the enthralling, the feeling, the moment of threshold. The familiar is accompanied, though, by the strange and new. The angry defensiveness. The feeling of strange, of mourning and passing on. The two get closer but, before Alexander gets a chance to turn around and see the newcomers, hands are coming around him.
As well meaning as the gesture had been, Alexander reacts without thinking. A wrist is grabbed, Alexander turns and pushes back against the owner of the arms. And then realises what he’s done as Sera topples backward. Shocked embarrassment follows recognition on his face as he follows to where she lands, to help get her back and steady on her feet. “I am so sorry! I didn’t realise it was you. I thought... There was something strange and I didn’t think...” He glances up to Shoshannah, the source of the new resonance. “Um, hi?”
ShoshannahYes, as soon as Sera's sent tumbling, Shoshannah's reaching to help; she may have her feelings about the older mage, but that doesn't mean she's the sort to just let her go flying. Alex even gets one heck of a glare for it, and never mind that he's a fucking cop. So there she is, reaching for one of Sera's hands just as Alex is apologizing, and then a wince. A flinch, even, and she steps back suddenly, her hands returning to her own space. When Alex looks at her sidelong and upwards as he assists Sera, he may or may not catch sight of that just-been-slapped expression -
There was something strange, indeed.
- before it's tucked away and turned to cool, separate indifference.
"Hello," is the answer, so simple that it isn't - all still, silent waters and things hidden in inky depths. There's no assertion of it being a pleasure, or any such things - just assessing eyes keeping an eye on Sera who is herself but high as a kite as is often her wont and thus in need of more regard than Shoshannah would usually grant her, or so the Dreamspeaker's perceptions of such things say. She's tall, this young lady, though the 'for a woman' modifier is of course required - she's nowhere near Ralph's 6'2, but rather measures in at 5'9 or so, and has the build of someone who might do well on a catwalk, or in a swimsuit shoot, all long, lean limbs and slight curves and just enough to her to not be considered too thin. "I'm Shoshannah, like Sera said."
SerafíneSo many things at once. See: here is Sera with her arms around Alexander and she's communing with his backpack or what-the-fuck-ever all HELLO BACKPACK. YOU ARE A PACK ON A BACK and I AM CULTIST OF ECSTASY but naturally there is more to the moment than that, and in Sera is often a sort of finite infinity, an awareness that is bothing within and outside of the stream-of-time. But she's small and they're at a fruit stand and he feels that strangeness and grabs her wrist without thinking and pushes her back either before she is aware of it or within the frame of her awareness or whatever. Sera is not skilled at the marshal arts and even if her wallowing impressionistic view of time means she is here-and-then and now-and-when sometimes, she also has no warning and the moment happens and Alexander sends her,
yes,
sprawling backwards and to-the-ground in that little pink dress. Hard enough to bruise her tailbone and knock her glasses loose and have her just sitting there like How did I get here? for a searching, jarred-loose moment while Alexander and Shoshannah are both reaching for her. One to one hand, the other to the other, and Sera accepts the help and allows herself to be pulled upright and smiles, oh smiles, at Alexander, as if she wanted nothing more than to be knocked on her ass, which is manifestly untrue but it also happened and who the fuck cares. Strange when Shoshannah reaches for her too, though.
So Shoshannah gets an extra half-second of regard as Sera gains her feet and dusts off her rear and rights her glasses and then lifts them from her eyes to the crown of her head.
Smiles again at Alex, "It's okay. I'm fine," and she means it, Sera. There's nothing tucked away there. Blown pupils and what-all that Alexander will certainly recognize as secondary signs of drug-use. "Seriously. You two, though. You two should totally hook up sometime. Alexander like tore a hole into the other side or whatever, when he woke his ass up one afternoon. Had these voices calling him and all that shit. I dunno, you two might have a helluva lot to talk about, you know?"
Ralph AaronThere's a flex of worry that overcomes his features when Alexander sends Serafine sprawling. He had been close enough to bear witness but too far to keep delicate bones and fine skin from meeting unforgiving pavement in a way that must have at least been uncomfortable. A range of motions sprawling from concern to curiosity and all the way around to indifference work their way over his features until he falls into line like the rest of the paying customers waiting their turn.
His posture is no longer set in a slouch, he stands with shoulders slightly back and spine curved. His arms are long and hang loose at his sides, one hand clutching his bag of fresh fruits and vegetables. He looks awkward, with a thin moustache that is dark like his hair and pieces of long brown hair flying free from behind his ears. The glasses aren't exactly a fine fit either, it's what looking at Clark Kent must be like.....they're present and there and worn, but they just seem out of place and don't belong.
But for what it's worth he straightens them on his face and stands in line and waits. And watches.
AlexanderPerhaps he was feeling a little twitchier, because of Shoshanna’s radiating defensiveness. Or maybe surprising someone who’s used to having to watch his own back just wasn’t the greatest of ideas. Either way, Sera sprawls on the ground. He does notice Shoshannah reaching out to help then pulling back, although the glance is missed as he’s looking to the hand he’s trying to grab to help Sera up. He replies to Shoshannah’s greeting, though. “Alexander. Um, yeah. I don’t normally do this. Just... um, yeah.” He looks at Sera as he pulls her up. “Oops.”
When he’s happy that she’s not about to topple over – due to crazy shoes, various drugs, lots of booze, or something else that may have crept into the mix, he releases her hand. She does seem ok, though. But, then again, when doesn’t she? She’s either the easiest going person Alexander’s ever met, seen so much that nothing really spooks her, or is generally too stoned to care. But, in that moment, he realises that he doesn’t really know anything about her. The middle of a market, with lots of people looking at the crazy man pushing random women over probably isn’t the best of places to start that particular conversation.
Then Sera is trying to get Shoshannah and Alexander together to talk. If it hadn’t been for the whole crazy-Awakening thing, followed by trying to find someone else in town to talk to about Spirit stuff, it might have come across as rather clumsy matchmaking. Which it probably is, of a type. Given that it’s the Gauntlet-ripping and voices – yeah, the bystanders really do think he’s crazy by now - that she brings up, he assumes that she would be one of those good people to talk to. Embarrassment takes a back seat to curiosity and, maybe, a little hope. “I’d like that. If you don’t mind talking some time. Um, bring a body guard if you like.” He gives a crooked smile, trying to poke fun at himself and the slightly ridiculous situation.
ShoshannahShe can feel someone watching, but then Shoshannah can almost always feel someone watching from some plane or another, so it's not that that's got her slightly more overtly defensive than usual - arms move to wrap around her waist, holding herself together or protecting her core or maybe just standing that way because it's comfortable, who knows? - but something else. Sera mentions that she and this Alexander fellow should get together to talk, and she shrugs.
"I've heard voices as long as I can remember," is what she offers, quiet, see? Some of us are subtle once in awhile, Sera. It wouldn't hurt you to be, too. "But Awakening was different. We can talk, if you want. Have you been to the House yet?"
Because, of course, Shoshannah spends as much time outside, wild and free, as possible. She's not all propriety and repression, far from it. The glance around is to get a bead on who is doing that watching, if it's someone she can see here, and her eyes land on Ralph; one brow rises, sharp, questioning - not an invitation, exactly, but the closest thing to. He's watching, and she knows it. There are bound to be reasons - convergence is so often a thing among the Awakened, particularly here in Denver.
Serafíne"Seriously, man." Sera says, all loose-limbed and loose jointed and loose. Scrapes on her palms where she reached back to brace her fall on her ass, and some bruising hidden beneath the dress and fishnets, probably, but nothing else, and nothing wrong, and more to the point, nothing she can't heal. Right?
She's goddamned magic. This brief slash of regard that seems sharper and deeper than any earlier glance and softens into some fucking thing. "It's cool. I mean, last night I puked on a panther."
Which, you know.
She seems rather secretly proud of, thank you very much.
Of course Alexander thinks that Sera is the most easygoing person he's ever met. He's never seen her on her knees in a priest's rather utilitarian bathroom at five a.m., puking her guts up and radiant with a dark and powerful energy, so fucked up she could not manage to do anything but hug the porcelain, shaking with revulsion and fear because a dark adept decided she just might be worth recruiting. That fearlessness. That willingness, also, to give herself over, entirely, to fear. That capacity for surrender.
She's just a stranger who found him on a two-lane road in the mountains, with a broken-winged owl and a whole head full of despair.
So, see. Clumsily matchmaking while Sera - not about to topple over - reaches up to pull her sunglasses back down over her eyes, which are more black than blue now, pupils so dilated that the radiant afternoon light makes everything in the world seem like it has a halo, which is just fine with Sera.
The line's moving and she has sort of stumbled her way out of it, which is also fine because Sera has no particular desire for fruit or yogurt or anything healthy right now. Maybe scrambled eggs layered over potatoes fried in bacon grease. Maybe thick sliced wholegrain bread slathered in butter. Carbohydrates and fat fat fat to soak up whatever remains of her hangover.
--
"You look like Wonder Woman," this to Ralph, behind them. Shoshannah's giving him a Look of Invitation while chatting up Alexander about voices and waking up and all the many boundaries it is their right and privilege and will to cross and Sera in her pink dress, with her tattooes and bracelets and necklaces and rings like brass-knuckles and with her reflexes like those of a doddering sloth or and the instincts of a particularly cuddly but Occasionally Badass koala has pulled back and crossed her arms and she's drawn by whatever it is she is drawn by and in this case it is Ralph's gesture. Reaching for the glasses.
Wonder Woman?
"You know before she did the twirl-thing to turn into herself, she'd reach up to take off the glasses and take down the bun and bam. Badass.
"Please tell me you're a fucking superhero."
AlexanderSome may think hearing voices is a sign of madness. So did Alexander on that very first day when he heard them. The quiet, female help-me. The hungy, desperate come-to-us. The two people who may have just been figments of a dream, but may have been something else, something more, entirely. So much so that he was convinced is was his mind that had broken, rather than the blacked-out windows keeping him from seeing so much more.
“Yeah, I know the house. I don’t get there often, but will try to stop by more if that’s the best place to catch you.” He doesn’t know – hasn’t been told – that she lives there, guards it. The random games that Chance plays in leading mages together occasionally pushes them apart, and their paths just haven’t crossed at the house before now. Although she may well have seen his note on the fridge, the one about the weird-death-thing and the ghost.
“Puked on a panther..?” The complete swerve in the conversation catches him for a second, wondering if he heard her right. He looks to Shoshannah, eyebrows rising. Asks, “Is that a euphemism for something?”
As Sera is starting to speak to Wonder Woman? Then? There’s a buzzing sound coming from somewhere on Alexander. He rolls his eyes, muttering something about it being a day off. The phone is retrieved, and with a slightly annoyed apology – annoyance directed at the phone, rather than either of the women – he steps to one side to take the call. He’ll be caught up for quite some time, by which time the others may well have moved on elsewhere.
[And now I’m overdue going to bed – thanks for the scene!]
Ralph AaronSometimes, though not often, Ralph wishes he were smaller. He wishes he could handle the people the way that he has watched so many others work them. A smile here, a wink there and doors open...secret clubs are unveiled. These things never happen though for Ralph, not of their own accord but much like Sera in her shimmering, radiant glory and Alexander and Shoshannah with their quiet regard...they are fucking magic. He could a great many things if he wanted, but like Clark Kent he muddles through with man paws and blunt offerings hoping that that'll do the job. It does, sometimes. But then there are others where he is not so successful.
He realises far too late that he's staring. Not particularly staring, but watching with intent which might be the same as staring if you dissect the two. His eyes slide to the right, edge over to the left because Shoshannah has him in her sights with an arched brow and a look that might bear an invitation or something closer to it. He clears his throat...
"I'm sorry, Ma'am?" He says when Serafine says he reminds her of Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman? He is tall and built like the kind of guy that knows his way around a gym and can run miles and miles without needing a break or passing out. His index finger pushes the glasses up on his nose again and he takes a step toward them as Sera angles her lean body so that there's no mistake that she's talking to him.
"Oh no, ma'am." He shakes his head, his voice weighted and heavy with a Midwestern accent. "I'm no superhero, I'm just a pilot..." He gives her his best smile and in his attempt to be charming he only manages to come off as shy and slightly awkward. A nod is given to Shoshannah and then Alexander as he departs.
Patience MasonThe Farmers Market might not be the sort of place you'd expect to see the likes of Patience Mason, perhaps to some she seemed to gentrified, or maybe she simply seemed to busy, or to up in the clouds for something like this. Funny then that Patience has a stall over on the other side of the market grounds.
Funny how unlike how she usually dresses she is now dressed in a fairly utilitarian skirt and merchant's apron, the shirt beneath the apron an archaic looking plaid, even her shoes were more sensible the woman dawning a pair of old work boots beneath the whole get up. Gone was the dated leather jacket and riding pant's and though she still looked like she had stepped out of the 40's or 50's, Patience Mason might seem to some all the more normal today.
Her stall was empty already, most of her goods selling quickly and easily she was popular here to be told. It always helped that she knew how to alter the molecular compounds of her crops and livestock to produce the very best flavour's and the highest level of nutritional value.
Right now she was simply moving some things back towards the parking lot, the woman carrying a series of empty palette's back towards the truck, yes an old farmers truck at the other end of the grounds.
Of course this is when she runs into Serafine and Shoshannah, spies them down one of the aisle's, and she strides up with the blue pallet's in hand and smiles at the two she knew saying.
"Appropriate Sociological and temporally aligned salutations individualized personage Sera and individualized personage Shoshannah, it is a positively aligned noospheric indicator that represents this moment of actualization." She says without missing a beat, it seems some things don't change regardless.
ShoshannahNo, some things don't change. Wonder Woman is who Sera likens Ralph to, and Shoshannah actually smiles - there's amusement there, again, twice now. And yes, perhaps there is a bit of condescension, but at least it's not overt. Never mind that the Cultist is now a Disciple and Shoshannah is still an Initiate - what does that have to do with how one views life choices? But the regard is more benign, now, than it's been in the past at least.
"I'm also not a super hero - I guess, for now, you could call me a translator. Or a Librarian. Or a Guardian." Or a lot of things, not the least of which is creepy as hell, though obviously she doesn't point that out. She doesn't need to. "Hello, Patience. There was a new guy - you missed him. And now there's this new guy. I'm Shoshannah," she adds for Ralph, as an afterthought. "In case that wasn't clear. And this is Sera, and that's Patience."
SerafíneMa'am? This kid is calling her ma'am and that is actually something Sera is not precisely able to process in the same way she is not precisely able to process pretty much everything that Patience says, ever.
God they are surreal, aren't they, these strangers clustered in the northern end of the weekly farmer's market in the weedy blacktopped parking lot of a defunct big box store near Morrison. All except for ordinary Ralph, shy and slightly awkward and not a goddamned superhero, after all.
Or at least not yet and certainly not Wonder Woman. Just a pilot.
"Hah," says Sera, open-mouthed, appreciative see. "It was a metaphor, see? The glasses don't quite fit. The one thing off in the picture, you know? I like transitions, but I'm probably keeping you from getting a goddamned smoothie. Were you getting a smoothie? I bet with a glomp of protein powder, right?
"Jesus fuck did you just call me ma'am? That's so adorable. The name's Serafíne, but everyone calls me Sera. And fuck," Sera breathes out sharply. Full of last night's exhaust and this mornings revelations, that breath, and she's about to ask him what sort of pilot and does he fly private jets or like Delta and oh hey she knows someone who loves to fly, who always feels like he's soaring and her voice is already colored with notes that are both warm and intimate when Ralph's mention of being a pilot brings Hawksley to mind (Sera, whose judgment on these matters is fucking suspect, is already sure that this shy and somewhat awkward guy with the glasses and the compass on his belt and Hawksley, fucking Hawksley, are going to adore each other.) when Patience rocks up in an apron carrying palettes and talking like a robot and while Sera is used to Patience talking like a robot that is pretty much all she knows about Patience because she cannot understand a word Patience says so,
"Hey Patience - "
seeing her out here, carrying shit. Being herself, Sera exhales all sharp and it sounds like a laugh but there's something else and Sera looks up at poor Ralph as if he were an anchor, as if he were a foundation.
"She is here, right? Like, I'm not the only one who sees her?"
SerafíneThere is a beat and a breath and then,
Sera is grinning,
"Oh, wait. Shoshannah totally sees her. Fuck, yes, alright. Hello Patience, rock on. Do you moonlight as a stevedore?"
Shoshannah[Sorry to bolt like this, I was paying attention to site time instead of mine!
Ralph AaronWould he look different without those glasses? Maybe if he took them off, they might never recognise poor Ralph again if he shed the nerd glasses and that weird leather coat and that old steampunk looking compass. He makes no move to do so however, he stands there in all of his normality and looks at Shoshannah when she speaks and nods as it becomes appropriate. He smiles and it's more of a sweet smile than it is anything else, free of guile or the like. But Patience arrives and he is immediately cocking his head toward her with a look of utter disbelief. Fingers are tucking back his hair before pushing the glasses back up, before a ghosting touch passes over those weird sunglasses.
With his head on a swivel he looks back at Sera with a slow movement, both brows tipped upward and his heads slightly narrowed as if he were listening very carefully to every word she says. He tries to answer her with each question or statement ...
(It was a metaphor see?)Oh...yes...right sorry about that I just...(The glasses don't quite fit, the one thing off in the picture)....my glasses? Well, they're just...I don't see so good... (Were you getting a smoothie? Glomp of protein powder?) No...I don't really care for Protein...it doesn't taste very good...(Fuck...did he just call me ma'am?) I apologise Ma - Miss...I didn't mean (name's Serafine, but everyone calls me Sera..)
"Miss Sera...I'm Ralph, Ralph Aaron...Miss Shoshannah...Miss Patience... pleasure to meet you all." He nods to them, shifts his gaze back to Patience. There is the slightest adjustment to his body language, a shift of position ever so slightly as if he might be situating himself in such a position that he can watch Patience and keep her within arms length of him rather than the other two women.
"I'm flying back out...soon...I thought I'd just have some food..." Said to no one in particular, for no reason.
Ralph Aaron(^ should say : both brows tipped upward and his eyes slightly narrowed)
Patience MasonThe two women were well known to Patience, known in the way that a small community of likeminded individuals [mostly] usually is and both of them are given nods and friendly smiles as she took in Shoshannah's words, and slowly swivelled her gaze to land upon Ralph Aaron. It might be disconcerting for the pilot to see those blue eyes, so very much like the clear blue he was used to flying through. She really did look like she was from another era, an individual torn out of time. From the victory rolls in her blonde hair to the clothing she wore, she was both an oddity, and a lady.
She set the palette's down as she was introduced, and extended a hand to Ralph as she said warmly. "This intrinsic temporal frame is one of decided notability and affirmation within my noospheric reality. As indicated by Shoshannah my heritalogically assigned identifier is Patience Mason, your identifier is Ralph Aaron, i recognize your direct bio-noospherical actuality sir." She said before looking towards Sera as she spoke about being a stevedore.
The smile was no less present as Patience laughed and shook her head. "One hundred percent Negative Sera, I concurrently manage and cultivate five point three six two geographical hectares of agriculturally assigned landmass in this distinct geological region. I movate to this socio-capitalistic enclave and distribute my cultivations for a marginal profit equation."
SerafíneSera gives Shoshannah a wave as the younger woman takes her leave, sans smoothie or whatever else they were meant to acquire at the fruit vendor/yogurt truck at the end of the line for the Morrison Farmer's Market. And it is a shame that Shoshannah has softened toward Sera because her disdain was awesome and brilliant and Sera never noticed it so perhaps the world would've been better off if it had continued -
but,
a glance at Ralph, who is now calling her Miss and apologizing and is probably from Minnesota and Sera's look is equal parts warm and edgey and wry and there is something aware about her when she pauses like that, midthought, midword, midramble, midbreath and simply, merely looks.
"Nice to meet you, Ralph. I know we seem like weirdos but that's just because we're hippies. Well, Patience is maybe a robot but she's probably a robot-hippie. That's an awesome compass. Do you fly amazing hot air balloon devices or boring old airplanes? Oh, and don't let me make you lose your place in line."
Ralph AaronHis eyes lower, his smile widens. All of this seems to happen at once. This makes his hair leave the place behind his ears where he tucked it just a moment ago. He does it again in earnest and steps forward in line, his eyes laying on Patience for a second or two longer than may be considered appropriate. "Thank you Miss Patience." He says with a nod. There is no violence in his body language, no threat of it, but he does keep keenly aware of the woman with the odd vernacular and bright blue eyes.
"I don't think you seem like a weirdo at all..." He could ramble her, waffle on until he was standing there by himself. Thankfully he stops and clamps his lips shut to offer Sera a smile that seems to punctuate the statement that they're not weird. Not at all. "I fly all manner of ships..." The line progresses, he turns his head to continue speaking. "Right now I'm flying a regular old plane." It takes him some time to consider the compliment on the compass but when he finally does he nods and smiles once more.
"It's a Royal Navy brass marine nautical sundial compass...you ever seen one Miss Serafine?" His eyes find Patience behind his spectacles and brows arch, "You see one like this Miss Patience?"
Patience MasonThere is talk of hippies, and robot hippies, and as always Sera seems to earn a raised brow both confused and intrigued. It was a common thing for the pair of them, one not understanding the other in one way or another. It kept them apart, even if they might be fast friends. But that was simply the way of it.
"An interesting theorum Sera, however concurrent evidence in a negatively aligned spectral analysis would indicate that this bio-physical structure is neither equipped nor overridden by cybernetic interfaces nor of sufficiently ideologically parallel noospheric alignments." She shook her head gently as she turned back to regard Ralph as he spoke, her eyes widening pleasantly as he spoke about being a pilot.
"Your concurrent actualized socio-capitalisitic self-assignment is that of aeronautical guidance and navigation?" She inquires, almost thrilled with the idea. "A definably superlative temporal occupation is it not?" She says as she looked down to smile pleasantly at the sundial, but then her eyes shoot back up, noting a faded impression on the leather of his coat and Patience seems to straighten slightly, her hands brushing down dress and apron before she says curtly.
"ethernautical Captain Aaron then?" She inquires, as if the man should fully understand what she means by that. "Is this a direct and prerogative intersection of actualities EC Aaron? Or a quantum equivalency randomization?"
SerafíneSomething about Ralph and something about Patience and something about they way they seem to fit together in the cluttered warmth of her awareness as she surfs through the remnants of a long, strange trip that steered itself onto and into some remarkable wreckage before it surfaced again, whole and intact and contemplative at four a.m. on a familiar couch in a small, rather familiar house, with a familiar glass of water without ice on a familiar coaster on the familiar, thoroughly old fashioned sidetable while a worn, secondhand blanket spilled from her shoulders and pooled around her waist and Sera settled not to sleep but maybe to dream, the sour taste of her own vomit still a remnant at the back of her throat.
Maybe it is the way Patience's eyes widen; the thrill that Sera can feel thrumming beneath her voice, that moment of concurrence when she inquires as to whether Ralph is working as a pilot and even though Sera has no goddamned idea what Patience is asking Ralph, that frission of vibrance, that elegance thrill, is remarkable and tangible and Sera can feel it against her skin, can taste it at the back of her throat.
So, so.
Sera settles a bit. Quiets a bit; smiles a bit feels the shape of her mouth around that smile. Wants a cigarette and thinks about how she wants a cigarette and sends this lashed glance shooting back toward Ralph, all peripheral, that glance, though there is a supple thread of attention pulled through and pulled to, all knotted up with a kind of physical awareness, of place and time, and of her place in time, and so many other things.
"No," says Sera, quiet and quite nearly kind, as Ralph tells her that his compass is a Royal Navy brass marine nautical sundial compass, and the truth is that Sera has as much chance of understanding what the hell that means as she has of understanding anything that comes out of Patience's mouth. Still, listen to that. Listen to him.
When you know that much about something, about anything, there has to be passion for it beneath the skin. "Never seen anything like it."
Ralph AaronThere's pride beneath that nerdy exterior, something bright and rigid that seeps through the cracks of the image he leaves out for them to see like a fine cut suit in a tailor's window awaiting finishing touches. A few frazzled threads here and there, but it has potential and that is the idea that lies glistening on the surface of Ralph's outside self. Promise and hope shimmer on his skin like smooth as glass water beneath the noon sun. But, that moniker, Ethernatuical Captian Aaron. It makes him smile wide and without the glasses and a proper hair cut, simple Ralph Aaron might just be something. He nods to Patience, the corners of his mouth drawn outward in a tight lipped smile. "Yes, EC Aaron, but Ralph'll do today. And it's alright Miss Patience, our paths are not converging based on any directive...just...coincidence I figure." Though his faith in coincidence was about as strong as his trust in Patience herself.But...Sera. She doesn't know about the compass and hasn't ever seen one and without thinking Ralph steps out of line and waves the people behind him forward. The way that he moves is practised, as if he had to remind himself to walk this way and keep himself normal. Keep himself square. Fingers push up the glasses again and he unclips the compass from his belt and shows it to Sera up close, and Patience too if she comes closer. "See...this is an original, I got it from my old mentor, up in Quebec about 8 or 9 years back. Here, watch..." He opens the sundial and holds it up to catch the wind and allowing the little triangular piece to swivel with the wind, giving him an accurate path of the wind's movement. "They don't make them this way any more..." He adds, "A lot of pilots use control panels and modern gadgetry. I just use this. Hasn't failed me yet."He's still got his fruit in one hand and now the other is occupied by the compass. With a quick glance at the line and another toward the sky, Ralph smiles wistfully. Thoughtfully. And then looks back to the two of them. "I need to be going, Miss Sera and Miss Patience...I'm glad I got to meet the both of you..." But to Patience he offers a much longer look that clearly says he's got an eye or two on her.
Ralph Aaron(it took out my formatting, lol. sorry for that)
Ralph Aaron(i'm going to do a few things so I can attempt to stay up later and play. will be around, thank you for writing with me)
Patience MasonHe assures her that hes not here for anything particular, just present because well, chance dictated so and so Patience seems to settle a little, though she remains poised, alert, and all together attentive upon the man himself. He holds up his sundial to show the pair of them, shows off the working movements and refined capabilities of the instrument.
Patience can't help but look quite pleased with the device, its craftsmanship speaking to her and she nods in agreement. "Such atmospheric sensory devices are inappropriate for rapid and massive replication and manufacture, thus their distinct loss of concurrent value to average and uniform aeronauts. I utilize similar instrumentation aboard the physical structure identified as Aurora." She watched him clip the compass back onto his belt and bid his goodbyes and Patience actually offered him a brief, but not hurried curtsey, as if there were some particular formality she was observing.
"I actualize your divergence from this concurrent relativistic parallel Ralph, it is stipulated and acknowledged that this personage desires and affirms a positively aligned continuation of your concurrent temporal solar cycle." She offers him a nod as well before she bent to pick up her palette's.
SerafíneSee there are things happening herein about which Sera has no genuine knowledge, so she just skims, breathing in the significant looks, the bright rigidity of Ralph's promise, the odd little terms he and Patience throw around. The glance they share; the excite, inquiries, ease. It is mostly just her eyes that move between them, and her eyes are once more hidden by her sunglasses, so all they have is that brightly reflective surface and a certain twist to the shape of her mouth as they share names and titles and tidbits that suggest something deeper and broader than mere acquaintance. A certain concurrence. A certain, oh, call it correspondence.
Why does it all taste like brass and spit polish and the way sails snap in the wind. Spitpolish and the sea. Sera thinks of the stars in the sky; their mute distance. Of ships; of the promise of flight.
Glances at Ralph again, dips her half-shaved bottle-blond head to examine the device as he opens it up, shows her how it works, and Sera is holding her breath ever-so-slight, and she no longer thinks that Ralph is from Minnesota, so much as the coat that he is wearing is from Minnesota, and she gives him that edgy half-smile, and she may not properly remember this afternoon. It will get tangled up in sensation and oh, it is time to go.
Ralph will not get his smoothie. There is something to the shape of the clouds that tells him it is time to move on.
Patience gathers up her palettes.
And Sera? Well, there's a rather tall, rather skinny bearded hipster dude wearing a short-sleeved plaid button-up with a bowtie, arms covered in tattoos, who is parting the crowd to find her, because jesus they have a gig tonight, and Dan is pretty sure that Sera has not slept at all since this time yesterday.
"Nice to meet you, too." A quiet and rather slow-spreading smile for Ralph.
Which shifts to something rather different as she favors Patience with another glance, more direct and considering than any she has given the woman. "And you," wry, "Farmer Patience. See you."
---
And, off they go, don't they? Different lives. Different worlds.
Strange parallels.
Serafíne(Thank you both! How does that work for a wrap?)
Patience Mason[Works thank you both for the fun!]
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