Night Owl Books keeps odd hours. Today it opened at five in the afternoon and will stay open until five am. Today one of Adam's employees (Sara's employees, really) was called away by a family emergency, and Adam, as a kind boss and a careless one, said that would be all right. Today a local Denver artist by the name of Anouar Taaffe has come out with an art book entitled Golems, Salt and Dybbuks, full of staged photographs around Denver's Union Station and metro-lines as well as the nearby State Parks. The art book has a theme and the theme is Jewish folk beliefs (or Kabbalistic folk beliefs) translated into an expression of a thriving but sorrow-stricken subculture.
There is a pyramid of these near the door because there will be an event at two-thirty am for the book and its author. The backdoor to the off-limits employees only area is open and there are tubs of earth visible on the floor, as well as some rearrangement of tables and certain shelves, those that aren't built-in maze-like to the building.
The front door is not locked, because this is a shop, but Adam is playing with Ruse on his desk as well as Ruse's new friend, a ghosty white ferret whose name is not Ghost.
Serafíne
Awareness
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 4 ) Re-rolls: 1
Serafíne(and for Mssr Adam.)
Dice: 4 d10 TN5 (3, 4, 8, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 4 ) Re-rolls: 2
AliciaAlicia has been in here for not-quite an hour. Just long enough to get the shit-shooting out of the way and disappear into the mythology section. She hasn't said anything about the tab she may or may not intend to have him take her name off of. They can deal with that when she pays for the book she's reading.
She does intend to pay for them. This isn't a library. The place won't stay open by sheer force of will.
Or maybe it will. Maybe Adam is the sort of wizard who can keep his electricity going and the bill collectors off his ass with a couple of rituals renewed every so often. She hasn't asked yet. She's been hiding in a corner somewhere for the last not-quite an hour.
Adam[Sera's awareness cares not for Arcane.]
SerafíneHer senses are open because her senses are always open and that is how she was made to be, and it is late enough that the streets are dark and early enough that they are not yet empty, and she does not know the day or hour, except that she knows her place quite precisely in both of them.
A certain street a certain door a certain-time-of-day when the sky is still skimmed with light and the earliest stars are coming out of hiding. Hard to see them in the city, but people who believe in them know they are there.
The unlocked front door opens because this is a shop and maybe there are bells because this is a shop and the shopworkers need to know when the door has swung: one way or the other, open for a customer, or closed behind her.
Sera.
It's not cold outside but it cools more quickly after sunset and there's a moment when she's standing just inside the closing door when she seems surprised or puzzled to find herself here. Tips her chin back, golden hair swinging down her spine, and glances up at the ceiling, like she's curious. Like oh, hey. ceiling. Like a bookstore is a strange place to find oneself, as strange a place as anywhere else.
Sera is wearing spike-heeled thigh-high leather boots laced up with criss-crossed chains and a tiny leather skirt and a Jesus and Mary Chain t-shirt (white) over a black bra beneath a black hoodie. Her hands are in the pockets.
She breathes in. Feels Adam just as surely and strongly as she feels Alicia. Still feels, most days, something else too.
That's okay. "Oh hey." And she smiles, a very simple sort of smile. "Ruse."
A very simple sort of pleasure she's already crossing the shop to enjoy. Seriously, who gives a fuck about books when there are ferrets around?
AdamHe is not generous: not with his time and not with his books. He is not generous at all, Adam. He is greedy. He stays sleepless so he can finish reading an interesting chapter or paragraph or page in spite of his body's demands because he wants to. He allows the Awakened individuals of his aquaintance back into the employees only room sometimes because they're special they're not dumb sleepers they're already forces to be reckoned with and he wants to.
He wants to.
But his lack of generousity doesn't (always) make him a jerk. He doesn't usually want to be a jerk to people. Some people he even finds acceptable, for non-Hermetics.
Alicia came in, they talked, she wanted to look through the books, he didn't want to be her shadow; he stayed with the ferrets after an, "Ask me if you need anything," and she might have heard him laugh once, a bark that is surprised with itself and husky and moves his whole godamned body into a hunched little C.
The white one (not completely white; there is a dapple of caramel on its back) is being bullied, running around a tall stack of books and startled every time Adam puts his hand down into rearing back then gingerly placing a paw on his knuckle and the signet ring (a sign of Saturn) he is wearing on his Jupiter finger, the stone Carnelian for Venus and rubbed with White Lead for properties that are conducive to a ritual he performed (chaunted).
Here comes Sera, and his expression shifts -- a subtle thing, that just-surfacing smirk. He is a smirker, it is sad to say, a truth. "Hullo, Serafíne. Ruse says 'hello,' but he might be distracted. He's got a new friend you see."
AliciaWho gives a fuck about books when there are ferrets around? People who think ferrets are creepy.
As the front door jangles open and the voices at the front of the store kick up a conversation Alicia considers whether she wants to be rude or whether she can find it in her heart to mark her place in the book she's going to buy anyway. It's a heavy matter to consider.
In the interlude between consideration and action comes her voice from further inside the store.
"HI SERA."
SerafíneSera comes right up to Adam's desk, she doesn't much care for personal or private space and she sees Adam, you understand. Sometimes he retreats and is a shadow behind the goddamned ferrets but quite often she sees him as directly and wholly and entirely as she sees everything else.
Feels everything else.
And so she looks up at Adam as he says her full-name and catches the leading edge of that surfacing smirk and her eyes are tender as a bruise, rimmed with dark dark liner but clear behind it, this dark and clarified blue. Up, just once, then back down to the ferrets, that smile (unguarded) resurfacing as she watches them tussel, the sinuous muscularity of their little bodies, reaching out to stipple the desk-top with her own fingers, hoping to entice Ruse-and-Friend closer to her own hand.
"He looks like he's - " and there is something glassine about her tonight, which becomes evident for example when Alicia shouts her name. A momentary tension, a bracing-for or rallying-of before she lifts her right hand from the desk and waves back to Alicia.
"Alicia, hey." Back to Adam. "You guys know each other?"
Adam[Perception (Specialty: People) + Awareness. Hmm. Sera. 'Sup? Are you traumatized?]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 5 ) Re-rolls: 1
SerafíneHey, god. She's glancing away at him, flashing that reached-for smile when Adam decides to look at her, really look at her, and she's not thinking about it and he sees it immediately because he's looking at her and he's looking for it; wondering about it. Sera doesn't have any skill at dissembling. Really: it's all there to be read if you want to read.
So yeah, traumatized: some kind of darkness that has nothing to do with a break-up but is still wrapped up in grief and darkness and a kind of loss. She's also healing, this is recent, but long-enough-ago that she can smile, at the antics of Adam's ferrets.
AdamHI SERA. Alicia from the corner, like a boggart or a House-spirit. The just-surfacing smirk gets wider for an instant and draws out the crinkle-lines around his eyes; they're almost merry, they could be merry, they at least connote a sense of humor, because crinkly-eyes always do. Blame the paradigm of Santa Claus.
Adam folds his arms across his (thin [no athletic prize]) chest and straightens, leaving the ferrets to Serafíne. Who is always, utterly, beautiful; who he always has to look at for a moment, no matter what she is wearing, how far from his 'type' she might be -- because Serafíne: what an arresting woman. And there is something glassine about her, tonight; so Adam looks at her for a second longer than he might usually, before glancing over toward Alicia's dark and gloomy corner.
"Yes." He doesn't elaborate because he's not a social host. There's space for Alicia to elaborate, of course.
Meanwhile: Ruse and Friend. Ruse is actually quite pleased to see-smell Serafíne because Serafíne means attention. Ruse is at the edge of the desk on Ruse's hindlegs looking for a good dangle on Serafíne's clothing to snag and pull and climb. Friend is hiding behind the stack of books, humped a little like a slinky caught mid-fall. Friend is ready to flee.
SerafíneRuse will doubtless find a good dangle. The hem of the unzipped hoodie if nothing else, stretched out, less black and more worn-through black, victim of a dozen washes, that sort of coloration, and soon as Sera turns around and sees Ruse standing up like a person which is so fucking adorable she'll reach for him, hold out her left arm, the cotton cuffs of the hoodie overstretched, loose around a wrist stacked with leather-spiked and leather-wrapped bracelets. Sera has a spikey-ring across three fingers of her left hand, silver or maybe iron, and another ring, beaten-bronze, on the index finger of her left hand, both of which catch little bits of light and wink back at whomsoever glances their way.
Yes. Adam says, and perhaps Alicia says nothing or goes back to her book.
Serafíne glances up once, her dark eyes on Adam's, steady. "Cool." - before they drop away again, and if Ruse hasn't found a hook already well here comes that left arm, yes, her fingers curled together the way one curls one's fingers, reaching for a half-wild thing.
She knows about half-wild things.
"He's shy," Sera, eyeing Friend, humped and hiding and ready to flee. That half-smile carving lovely across her mouth again. "Doesn't know that you can see like all of his back above the books."
AdamCool. He glances back at Serafíne, and the glance slides like a bead on wire; each woman has an end of the wire, right now, even if one of them isn't technically visible. He could look in the big moon eye silver mirror above the door, deterrent for thiefs. Adam has only caught two would-be thieves since he came to Denver, took up residence in the bookshop. He did not react in a manner unfearsome in either case. He doesn't think Alicia's going to steal; it's all mirror anecdote. He glances at the mirror, then back down at Friend.
"It's all right." Whisper-ghost of accent and slang, on that all right. "She seems smart enough." See now? He can be nice (enough). His arms stay folded but he lists to the side and his arm rests against the wall/bookcase by his desk, because standing isn't restful.
Ruse pounces Serafíne's arm, hug-attacking it before attempting to clamber up. Ruse has grown since the last time Serafíne saw him, but just a little, and he won't get too much larger. He is certainly larger than the ghost-y cream and caramel gelato-coloured beast who has begun to inch-worm away from the stack of books as if he knows that they're talking disparagingly about his hiding place. Then it sees Ruse going up Serafíne's arm and decides suddenly to charge:
War! The last second will see a sudden veering away if Sera so much as makes a sound or moves a muscle.
"When's your band going to play somewhere again?" Adam asks.
SerafíneSera is alas moving a muscle she is moving several muscles, her muscles were made to be moved and her arm is being pounced by a ferret and oh, ferret! is so animal and so thoughtless and so adorable that it unlocks the gates of the smiles she did not quite understand she was guarding.
Turning her arm like a coil to cradle the animal that will not be cradled and bring it closer, to marvel over his weasel-y little whiskers and impertinent pink nose and sharp little eyes and laugh when he clambers up from the bough of her arms to perch on her shoulder and burrow through the curtain of her hair, which unlike the too-low stack of books is an excellent ferret-y hiding place, variegated, the dark roots and the blond, disordered curls and Sera sees that attack and she's kinda bracing for it and here it comes but oh!
peace breaks out, or at least a momentary strategic retreat.
When's her band going to play somewhere again?
A little shrug, the errant sort that feels younger than she really is.
"Dunno. It's my fault. I keep telling Dan I'm gonna go to London soon, he shouldn't book anything. Then I don't go. Why? If we get a gig are you gonna come?"
AdamHe watches the Friend scamper, although scamper isn't the exact right word. The Friend-ferret, the pale-ferret, wants only to find a place to curl up. There is tube on the floor -- there are a couple of tubes on the floor, and jangly ferret-toys, and ferrets are musky creatures, dense and aromatic (sure), as Sera can no doubt tell with Ruse perched as he is hiding in her hair. The pale ferret gets down from the desk carefully, pausing on this level of that drawer and this level of that stack out of fear, getting stuck once but it's all right Adam lifts the thing and puts it down. Promptly: into one of the tubes. The tube begins to spin. Ferret-shadow within. Ruse looks down, watching, peeking through the fall of Sera's hair.
Adam, with a faint smile. "Can you sing anything in Ancient Greek?" It's not a non-sequitor; he wants to know. "
SerafíneSera inhales ferret-musk. Feels the tiny little feet on her shoulder through layers of cotton. Is still smiling that neatly framed smile that seems so lovely and vulnerable and open.
Just, you know, happy.
Above or inside or around or beneath or within everything else. All the things that can be contained, without thought or limit.
And hey, Ruse, she herself smells musky. It's the marijuana smoke in her hair.
"Hmm." More inquisitive than thoughtful, the curl of her mouth. "Say something in Ancient Greek."
AdamHe considers for a moment, and then he does. If the Cultist knows Ancient Greek, she'll likely recognize the poetic fragment; if she does not, she'll hear the strange sussurating syllables, the tidal flow all waves lapping against the shore, all light lancing through honey and falling on a wine-dark sea, and it sounds like a beaten coin, whatever this thing is that Adam says.
Serafíne(Charisma + performance. Mimicking the words / trying to sing, yo.)
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 4, 7, 7, 8, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 6 ) Re-rolls: 3
SerafíneThe creature before him does not know Ancient Greek. That much is evident in the supple thread of her gaze, half-blurred. The way she cants her head, like an animal, to listen not for meaning but for sound. The ocean's rocking rhythm against some wooden hull. The scent of sun and salt-spray in some graveled cove. Cedars, rising against the sky. Then she opens her mouth.
Her voice is thready and she doesn't know the language so the syllables slew strangely together, uncouple from their beloved, and find themselves instead coupling with strangers on either side, going from neatly ordered poetry to beautifully phrased nonsense that resembles Greek the way an impressionist's painting seen up close resembles anything in it meant to invoke. Which is: only if you are looking.
And yet - lovely, lovely. Achingly lovely, the notes falling from her mouth like rose petals.
AdamHe stills as she sings.
He didn't expect it; his eyebrows lowering signify that, sure enough. He didn't expect it at all, but a small, fond smile touches the corners of his mouth while she is singing, and he looks at her. He sees her, too. He doesn't seem at all like the sort of man who would look at another person and see them, really, distinct and clear against the rest of the world, distinct and clear and burning within their own skins: a lamp.
But he does see her, usually. He sees her tonight. He can't look away from her when she sings and when the lovely thing is done, he remembers not to hold his breath, the small fond wistful little smile becomes something that makes the lines on his face ache, stays quiet because Adam is a quiet suggestion of things that are and are not more often than he is a presence.
He is a shadow. That is why he has none. See?
"Bravo!" His eyebrows quiver. "That was beautiful," and of course he means it. "You've got a good ear," he adds. "And," reaching over to take Ruse from her shoulder a moment before Ruse launches himself dangerously toward the tube on the floor, "your voice suits the language. If you get a gig, let me know."
He expects she'll send out the usual mass-text. That's fine.
SerafíneAwareness-as-empathy, Adam. Something that makes the lines of his face ache.
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 5, 6, 6, 6, 8, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 8 ) Re-rolls: 2
AdamSera, being intuitive, being perceptive about people, being empathic -- Adam: he is such a center, relentlessly a center, and it can't surprise her to know that he is comfortable completely in his own skin and his own place, but he is. Sera can read, can absorb, that he is truly is impressed by her song, enough so that he was moved to make a gesture -- but decides against it. How'd see absorb that? Maybe in a certain movement of the expression gliding over his face, right?
And the small fond wistful little smile that becomes something that makes the lines on his face ache becomes that something because his mind is off with some gone-away thing, some absent wish-you-were-here, a longing for a thing.
But Sera, she can also see that he is trying to -- not draw her out, precisely, but give her a certain focus, because he can see
or saw
that haunted-by-darkness air she had.
SerafíneHer voice is low, is rough, she's been smoking. She's been smoking sometimes too much, not mindfully but mindlessly. Lighting one from the end of another one. Feeling the rough burn of smoke in her lungs, against the back of her throat.
So: low and raw and immediate, intimate, as full of shadow as it is with light, and Adam is a shadow but she watches him, looks at him, sees him quite the way he looks at her, and sees her, single and entire, and burning, burning, the the windows and the walls and the many, many doors.
And she looks at him much the way he looked at her.
A moment: only. And yet,
what she sees makes her breath catch, snag in her lungs, makes her shining-eyes, makes her frown, a neat knot between her brows and glance-away as Adam is telling her that was beautiful and that if she gets a gig, she should let him know.
"Okay," Her little mouth curls: a hook. The sort that pierces skin. "I will."
Ruse has been removed from her shoulder and Sera's eyes drop to follow Ruse, Ruse, Ruse-in-Adam's-hands.
Then Sera kind of upends herself, gathers herself in a way that says that she is going. Leans forward to brush her mouth against Adam's temple. It is not a lascivious gesture, no. It feels like a prayer, or a blessing.
"I'm gonna go." She tells him, then. "Thank you."
He may not ever know what for.
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