Tea and tequila [Unfinished]

Serafíne

A fair Thursday night and twilight and the sky has that strange and streaky clarity that comes after-the-storm. The air bright enough that you could swim in it, that the late evening seems perfectly framed by every window, open or otherwise, even within the potentially dusty confines of an overstuffed bookstores.

The light in the failing east is purple and in the still-sunkissed west is a golden sort of blue and between them is where you live, and that is how things are when the front door to a certain bookshop swings open, and a certain set of bells (are there bells? there should be bells) rings and a certain rather exquisite creature wearing an exquisitely fitted dress of absolutely see-through freeform white eyelet style lace, beneath a beaten-up cropped leather jacket complete with epaulets, because why not epaulets, the world requires epaulets.

Sera: angular and fresh and lovely and a little bit something because she is always a little bit some, sleeves of the leather jacket pushed up to her elbows to show off her tattoos and her bracelets and her rings, and she gives the first few rows of shelves a bit of a look-see because it is a shop and one is supposed to shop in shops and she gets a bit caught up in the poetry section but tonight she hasn't picked up anything, not a thing, but the time she heads back toward the counter looking for -

well, looking. Always looking, isn't she?

Gallowglass

Serafíne enters and for once there's nobody at the desk. It's a desk, not a counter, and the typewriter which usually graces it is missing, too. There's a box of pens, closed fast but you can still see the pens. They're all heavy, little works of art, the nibs etched instruments of artifice. Wands. They're wands. Of course they're wands, just look at them. They're ink-wands for inscribing inky thoughts on matters occult and arcane and worthy of changing the world.

He's inside somewhere, of course - of course he is. Has she ever been here when he wasn't? Had she ever wandered into it before, when there was a Sara, dark-haired pale-skinned woman with sea eyes and a smile that etched lines around her mouth, that sort of pallor that's china-cup delicate, those same sort of lines too? Hadn't.

Valiant and relentless, Adam Gallowglass and his sidekick Ruse.

By the time Serafíne has come from the poetry section to the counter and perhaps looked over the pens or perhaps gotten into some other trouble, Adam comes out from the back. The door to the back is closed today, not even ajar a little bit, the lights out and dark. The lighting is dim in the bookshop too, a lightbulb out somewhere.

"Hello, Serafíne. Ruse isn't here. How are you? I was just about to close shop. Would you like some tea?"

Her leather jacket thankfully keeps him from being too scandalized.

Serafíne

Twirl? Dex + Athletics

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

Serafíne

Oh, she has assuredly gotten into trouble. Pouring a bit over the desk right? Then peering around then leaning against it then oh, then the the pens, the wand-pens with their heavy nibs and their exquisite inkiness, with their heft and their sort of squat and stubby majesty and she has opened the box of pens and slipped one (just one! only one. the loveliest one) and is twirling it all dextrously between her fingers, smiling, just, with the quiet pleasure of it.

And seeing her before she knows she is seen means a mildly different perspective. The light behind her like a halo the quiet concentration of a martyr or a saint written in a neat, straight line between her straight brows. The sort of creature etched into stained glass and still somehow haunted, right? But aren't we all.

She looks up when he comes out though. Dark eyes quietly direct, mouth a quick, darting little curve that feels more private than you can imagine. Interior. This is where the light shines.

"Darjeeling?" she enquires, hopeful see? When offered tea, and it sounds so very much like a yes. Then, back to the pens, still twirling. "Are these for sale?"

Wonder who she might buy it for.

Oh, gee. I bet I know.

Gallowglass

He is snagged occasionally by how gorgeous Serafíne is. This is one of those occasions; where Adam notices it. Notices it, and shakes his head free from it, the curl of his arrogant mouth something just a touch more wry and alas not more forgiving but acknowledging. The beard which frames that mouth is well in hand today, almost tonight, trimmed close against his jaw, while the rest of his hair is its usual thatched mess, a Dream-slick of go on spend some money on hair product instead of fucking fancy pens. His eyes are sunken deep, their lids red-rimmed and shadows beneath making a nice oval with his girly eyelashes thrown into the mix.

"I have Darjeeling," he answers. "Honey, cream, milk. Some of that blasted agave stuff if it doesn't go bad." His accent slips in, thief-like, then disappears; that's how his accent works. It is a thieves accent, culled from various far-flung markets. Adam while he's saying this hasn't come to a stop at the desk; he's come around it, and now he's turning the lock on the door and flipping the little 'open' placard around to closed.

He wants to add Wards to it. He's got an idea, see, involving the turning, if you turn it clockwise when you're turning it and touch a certain mark to be scribed just so in ink that is this very specific ink, wouldn't that be an excellent symbol and neat and elegant to harness the energies of -

But that's for later. Sera. "And no," turning, returning. "They are not for sale." He reaches over to pluck the pen free from her fingers. "At least not here. I can give you their businesscard."

Serafíne

Oh, Darjeeling. Serafíne is pleased and the crest of her mouth shows it. This flash of her teeth between absolutely crimson (painted) lips today, all white and darting, yes. Mind Sera prefers her Darjeeling with whiskey, not cream, or perhaps whiskey-and-cream, which is a different sort of indulgence, but she herself is of a mind to supply the whiskey.

"Wait, you mean like tequila?" He did mention agave, correct? This time Sera's mouth has an ironic coil to it, a bit smouldering and she has hitched herself a seat on Adam's desk, see, and hasn't given up the twirling until -

oh, blast.

Someone steals her pen.

"I've never tried tequila in tea before. Wouldn't've guessed it of you, either. What other secret vices are you hiding in your back room?"

But, how many pens does he need?

Sera has slipped from the desk to her feet and -

"Are you sure you need them all?"

The pens. "I really liked that one." The one he stole. "Where's Ruse, anyway?"

Gallowglass

"Ruse is doing what Ruse does best: eviscerating stuffed animals," Adam says. He doesn't deadpan it but he delivers the line straight, if it even is a line. Maybe it's not. Maybe Ruse is out there somewhere, bandit-like, sidling up to teddy bears in the night and there's a quick flash of movement and then a shriek as some little girl walks in on -- horror. Stuffing everywhere.

"And I do need them all, but I'll give one for your birthday if you tell me when it is."

He puts the pen carefully back in its place. The box is lined with silk or satin, something vaguely honeyed, and he sets it carefully amidst the rills of shadow and light which flex oh flex along the fabric and then he shuts the box's lid over it and then he puts the box in a drawer although first he turns it over and peels a business card taped to the bottom of the box off. This he hands to Serafíne.

He's not angelic. He's matter of course. He's self-assured. He's an arrogant snob. He's -

He's poised between making a horrified face at the idea of tequila in tea and considering the merits (none) of that idea. "No. I mean like the nectar from the flower." He takes one step back, because of course he's come around his desk again, and the step back allows him to open the back door and to wave Serafíne through it.

"How are you?" He asks the question with a sharp flash of a glance. He doesn't expect her to start crying or to reveal her deepest and most inner turmoils, but something has struck him now: it makes him look at her more closely.

Serafíne

"I already had my birthday," Sera is already missing the pen, the feel of it in her hands. Sometimes she writes in a journal and sometimes she draws in a journal and sometimes she doodles in a journal and she thinks the pen would be a nice, solid pen with which to do such things. Also thinks, naturally, that Hawksley would like one, because it is a nice pen, and pens make words, and words make books, and he does like books, and thinking, and thinking about books.

This is how her mind works, see? Almost innocently associative.

So, she is missing the pen and she is smiling a rather private sort of smile, the sort of private smile one is sometimes embarassed to have seen on the face of a stranger, like catching a glimpse of some dark, strained corner of their chambered heart.

"So you'll have to wait to next year. And if you need them all, how can you give one away?"

LOGIC, Adam.

Regardless, Sera accepts the card and is belatedly disappointed about Ruse and might have decided to slip out had she not already accepted an invitation to tea, but she has accepted such an invitation and ducks through the back door as he opens it and he asks, see - How are you and she sees that sharp flash of a glance in her periphery, see.

Breathes it in the way she does.

On the cusp of an inhale as she is passing him and she turns and meets his eyes with a brief and rather breathtaking sort of directness. Considers him, so clear-eyed, for several spare seconds. Then, quietly, "It's been a year since the people who held the chantry before us were killed.

"I've been thinking about them alot lately. But I'm fine."