What was it like for him to her them?
He could play like this was fine, like this wasn't jarring, he had to think about it. What was it like to hear the voices? What was it like when he was younger, when things seemed less scary, when there wasn't the potential for them to drag him to the wayside? "When I was little, I just thought they werenormal. I thought everybody could hear them. Sometimes it was good, sometimes it was bad... I mean... dead people just don't want to be stuck where they are anymore. They want to move on. Everyone wants to move on ion one way or another... it wasn't until I was a teenager that I figured out that maybe... maybe I should just keep that shit to myself, ya knw?"
He paused, catching her attention, catching the way she looked him in the eyes and then? Then he smiled, smething genuine, "it's a hit and miss things. You take the good and the bad, I guess."
Jennifer"it always sounded like that from the books I read about it, It would have to be very unsettling if a ghost is bothering you at an inconvenient time... or any time really I guess." She kept looking into his eyes. Her purity of concern and interest was mirrored in his eyes back at her. She had known others that could talk to ghosts and demons at the camp... the ... what had Elijah called it... a commune camp? But her dad had told them not to discuss the real life applications with her very often and she was mostly just given books to pass the time. Now she was realizing that other kids did not grow up reading Occult books out of boredom.
Jen reached out her hand and lightly touched his a small smile also playing at her lips. "I will always help you if I can, whenever you need." The purity of the truth resonated around them. Then her smile widened "Even at 3:30 in the morning!"
SerafíneAwaaaaareness.
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 8) ( success x 5 )
SerafíneThey both have their arms full, Dan and Sera, and its the former who is kicking open the door from the garage into the kitchen and holding it open with her rather meager frame, shoulderblades pressed against the hewn wood, her head half-shaved, the other half all dark, dark roots and long golden curls, tumbling over leather jacket.
He's taller than she is. Much taller, but they look like they're tribe, you know. The easy way they move together. The attention he pays to her, the way she smiles for him, even sometimes when she doesn't feel like smiling at all. It's the tats - they both have them. Sera's most obvious on her hands and less dense (though still visible) on her forearms where she has pushed up the sleeves of her leather jacket. Dan's are scrawled, crawling almost. His forearms and hands and even his neck are covered in ink.
He doesn't feel like she does though. Her resonance is an intense entanglement of sensation - absolute instinct, animal instinct, the hungry, immediate, breath swallowing sort; and captivation, like a seizure of the heart; and something else entirely, something other. Something between - between doors and definitions. She's tilting her head back, aware of Dan as he slides by her, and the way she's watching him a stranger watching her would naturally assume that she is about to grab his ass.
You know, like that.
Except she's carrying a case of liquor and needs both arms to lug it inside.
--
And she feels them, this shifting awareness, attuned, so responsive to resonance that she often catches her breath when she feels it.
As she does now: searching out the owners of both. Finding the one she knows.
Sera straightens and lets the door slide closed behind her.
Her eyes are dark, and slide between the two. "Who's your friend, Elijah?"
Poirot"Hey," he's awake. He shouldn't be as awake as he was but there was the lingering scent of coffee in the air and, as he had said before, sleep was for the weak (or the tired. Being tired wasn't weakness, it was just being tired- when he's tired he's prone to hyperbole). But there are people coming in, and Sera comes with a feeling, and Sera comes iwth a Dan because they are both coming together because... because they were a unit. A matched set.
Who was his friend, she asked?
"Oh, this is Jennifer," he says, "not Jenn-" of course not Jenn. They've both met Jenn. Jenn is smaller and less wide-eyed and smelled vaguely of chocolate and pot all the time, because one knows her vices well.
"Jennifer is new," he said, "and I figured I should show her some of the places she could meet other people like her."
A beat.
"It was completely my idea to meet at this time of night, though."
JenniferAwareness
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Jenniferalterness - does she remember seing Sera at the coffee shoppe?
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 8) ( success x 1 )
JenniferJen helps by taking a bag from Sera and setting it on a counter. Then she holds out her hand. "Pleased to meet you." she is all maners and purity, Sera could feel the purity radiating from Jen. Did this feel familiar? "I'm sorry I cannot place you, but you seem kind of familiar to me."
She also turned and greeted Dan, "nice to meet you I'm Jennifer, some people also call me Jen, but Elijah already has a friend named Jenn and it was getting confusing for him I think." At this she glances over at Elijah and gives him a quick smile.
"Elijah said he did not know the owners and he knows you. We aren't intruding are we? I've never heard of a house before where people can come and go as they please and no one knows who owns it. Elijah apparently had too much coffee and wanted to show me the library here. I.... I have some occult knowledge and I'm wanting to verify some facts." She rushed out this last part with a glance at Elijah to be sure she could talk about such things with these new people. She wondered if they knew Delilah too. Jen's world was so small now. Now that her dad was MIA and her mom was in prison and all the followers disbanded or in jail as well. New friends were good, scary though. After she felt she had observed the proper etiquette she withdrew closer to Elijah, to the person she knew, the person she felt safer near. As she drew closer to Elijah she took a deep breath and calmed her anxieties she felt bubbling towards the surface. New experiences were good, experience was part of life, everything is connected, life is pure.
Serafíne"Hi Jennifer."
Jennifer is all manners and purity. Sera is anything but. The first time she met a certain forty-something priest she asked him to make out in his confessional. Still, Sera holds out a hand and takes Jennifer's hand. Her own is warm, and calloused, and covered in tattoos. She has chipped black nail polish and - on her right hand - a bronze ring with egyptian hieroglyphs or something on its shield, and on her right something badass and spiked covering three fingers and their knuckles. Leather and spiked bracelets encircling either wrist, and on and on.
Her eyes are fixed on Jennifer's - this intensity there.
"I know who owns it. I know a helluva lot of shit."
In the interval, Dan has put down his own box on the counter and come back for Sera's, and he relieves her of her burden with the briefest glance - perhaps a little grin - for Elijah.
"How new are you?"
(Sera is - starting to - hum beneath her breath. It's an old song, the sort that feels familiar as the rocking movement of a cradle.)
(Mind 2: reading Jennifer's surface thoughts, Difficulty 5 -1 for focus.)
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (1, 3, 9) ( success x 1 )
PoirotSera knows who owns it.
"Really?" it just comes out. he shouldn't be excited about that, about knowing who actually owns this house because, quite literally, Elijah had no idea. And it was, at this juncture, that it seems to dawn on him that... perhaps he hadn't done the right thing. Again. He winced.
"... I probably should have asked someone if it was okay for me to bring her here."
SerafíneThis supple flash of Sera's dark eyes in Elijah's direction.
"Yeah," Sera tells him then. Quietly and full of compassion. "Probably."
It's just an interlude. Her attention is back on Jennifer.
JenniferAt this last part Jen turns quickly to Elijah " I asked you if it was okay and you said yes!" Jen's eyes got bigger as she felt that Elijah had lied to her for the first time since their meeting several weeks before.
She turned back to Sera. "May I ask who owns this beautiful house and if I should leave now?" He eyes glance down the hall way wistfully as if she wont' get to see the library, but clearly she has enough Etiquette to do whatever Sera feels is best.
Serafíne"You can ask. That doesn't mean I'm gonna tell you," Sera murmurs, her mouth curling raw, curling wry. Beneath or perhaps behind that box she's wearing cut-off denim shorts, tiny ones, fishnets held up by visible garters that hint at the lingerie beneath. A scalloped French lace bra beneath an unzipped black hoodie beneath an unzipped black leather jacket, scuffed and scarred and patched. Sera is a striking thing. She has her own specific gravity.
"C'mon. I'm gonna show you something, and make sure you know what this place is, and why it is sacred, and why it is secret, and why it has to remain so." A glance from Jennifer to Elijah and back again, and then Sera's in motion, leading them from the kitchen to the dining room. Down the steps - toward the hot spring where the node lies.
(Extending that effect. +1 difficulty.)
Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (1, 4, 9) ( success x 1 )
Poirot[WP- because water is not his friend]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )
PoirotFrom the kitchen to the dining room, down the steps, he didn't say anything. Sera was going to show them why this palce was sacred, why it was a secret- why he couldn't just show anyone this place. He was a little tense, and it was strange because he knew that the node was a rejuvenating thing. He had a feeling that he knew where they were headed and, for his part, he was content to stay about as far away has he possibly could. It was like marching off to see some known wonderful horror. Like seeing a man-eating tiger.
He shook his head, and inhaled deep and remembered that it was just water. It was more than just water, and he would be fine.
JenniferJennifer follows Sera in her black out fit that was striking in contrast to Jennifer's solid white full length coat she had been wearing to keep away the chill and had not yet removed when she met new people. Whatever the rolls were in this place Sera was clearly in a position over Elijah. This also meant that Jennifer was probably going to be tested by her. Maybe she could pass the test with flying colors and keep Elijah from getting into more trouble?
"Do you mean sacred beyond the node that replenishes quintessence and feeds the deity within? I felt that out back when we arrived."
Jennifer remembers what Elijah had said about him not swimming, but that she could swim if she liked. She had realized then that he did not like water, and if she had understood him correctly he had mentioned the hot-spring at the same time as the node so they had to be close if not the same thing. She linked her arm into his and leaned closer to whisper " I'll protect you from the water and wont let her toss you in okay?"
SerafíneSera slides the door open onto the patio, and the steam billowing from the node enshrouds them, stark and warm and damp against the climate controlled temperature within. Sera steps over the threshold and out of the way and then steps aside so that Jennifer and Elijah can follow.
"You know an awful lot about magick for someone so new," Sera says to Jennifer, perhaps warily. Perhaps challengingly. Perhaps just curiously. Also, strangely, quietly. "Who trained you? What's your Tradition?"
Serafíne(And: extending that rite again. Mind 2 to read Jennifer's surface thoughts.)
Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (1, 8, 8) ( success x 2 )
PoirotThis- this was actually something that Elijah was a little curious about. He slowed, but once they were out there he looked at... and you couldn't help but be calmed. be relaxed, if only because it was nice and it was warm and it was natural and real and this was real.
"Don't stress," he tells Jennifer with a grin, "I'm fine."
And he inhaled again, slow and deep, and he had to clarify something, "and I thought it was okay, but I wasn't thinking-" surprise "-and I probably should have checked with someone else who is higher up on the food chain before bringing someone here. I thought you would realy, really benefit from coming here, though."
Jennifer*Tradition? what did she mean by that? is that the chorus thing dad mentioned once. He acted like he'd said something he shouldn't though and she is so casual... must be something else. answer what I can first, try to keep Elijah from getting himself into more trouble.... Who trained me?*
"My father trained me, and my mother, and random books that he left laying around and I read because I was bored."
*do I explain about the camp? about my family? about mom being in jail now? no... not yet I don't know them. It isn't lying to leave things out. Elijah said my history was kind of odd and to keep it to myself until I knew people better...Did dad set me up to be sacrificed for something other than the goddess within... where is he and why won't he come help me. I know he'll be back for the ritual to help birth the goddess within.... maybe he will show up before and I can ask him questions. FBI is still looking or him anyway... he has to stay hidden. FOCUS.*
" I am new to here, but not new to powers and being awakened. I have lived in the mountains around Denver my whole life and I always wanted to live in the 'big city' and now I am! Elijah has been helping me change my terminology into what is more common around here, but most of it is the same anyway. That is part of the reason I'm interested in reading the books in the library here, I'm not sure what new stuff I will learn, but I can use the terminology that you all use to explain myself and hopefully not sound quite as crazy as I seemed at first to Elijah. I had never met another... mage really until I met him. I had met people that were partially awakened and had some minor powers, but that was all and my father kept a close watch on all of my interactions with them. "
*I bet now it was to sensor what I learned... I probably could learn a lot from the library.... a lot of whatever he was keeping from me.... but most of my occult knowledge seems to still be correct.*
"Thank you for being such a selfless friend." She squeezed his arm with hers in a simi hug feeling.
*he really does just seem to want to help everyone. such a sweet lost kind heart. He is a good friend. will always be a good friend*
"We all make oversights once in a while, I'm not upset with you" Another arm - in - arm hug and she smiled reassuringly at him to prove she was no longer worried about the possible lie.
SerafíneSera's hair gets a bit curlier from the humidity around the node. She's pushing a tattooed hand through it, over the undercut, through the curls, paying this half-attention to the steam rising, billowing up from the surface of the water, still half-humming beneath her breath, and now it is starting to seem autonomic, both listening and listening as she is wont to do.
And Dan comes after, not long after, slides his tall, lean body in behind hers and wraps his arms around her shoulders from behind, leaning forward to rest his chin on the crown of her head. Familiar, see.
And Sera glances at Elijah and she's a bit solemn for a Sera but you know, cannibals will do that to a person, and then her dark eyes slip back to Jennifer, and honestly - honestly - there's no hiding the way her features change as she both listens and listens -
" - were your parents awake?"
--
Dan, then, over Sera's shoulder. "What were their names? Your parents? Where did you live before Denver?"
JenniferJennifer is looking at Sera to answer her question and so notices the shift in her features. a look of concern crosses Jen's face. " are you okay Sera? did I say something I shouldn't have?"
*Jen replays the last few things she said aloud and is perplexed about Sera's expression, perhaps she stepped on something?*
*how can I explain without seeming crazy I don't know dad's name... it was always hidden. He was always dad or honey... and the one time i asked.... (mental image of a hand printed bruise on her arm)*
Jen's face clouds over for a second and a flicker of worry crosses her face. "look, I know this sounds odd, but I don't actually know my father's name. he was always "dad" to me and "honey, darling, or sir' to my mom. Her name was Angela though. Your name makes me think of her... both kind of meaning angel."
*images of 4 or 5 different mountain camps flip though her mind*
"I lived in the mountains around Denver, but we moved around... the last location was closest to Estas Park"
*will they remember the news... will they figure out I'm from the... what did Elijah call it... religious commune? (random news clips flip though her head and you can see a picture of a woman bring arrested, mugshot and jury trials. sometimes the name Angela White is printed at the bottom, a picture of a generic man's silhouette with a question mark inside it read Mr. White under it and WANTED at the top) stop thinking about the trials!*
Jennifer closed her eyes and took a deep breath and calmed herself, she even smiled a little as she said. "I know it is odd being my age and not knowing the name of your father, but that is the truth of it."
*does mom even know his name... she never slipped up, not once, maybe even she doesn't know it. Oh goddess within what is real from my past and what is fake. I want so badly now to see this library that I didn't know existed to search out truth and facts!*
SerafíneSera breathes out, once and hard.
Glances at Elijah, then back to Jen. "You guys can stay here tonight. There are bedrooms, you can have your pick of any that haven't been claimed. But Elijah, it's not a good idea to take Jennifer to the library yet. We need to have more of a chat.
"Jennifer, you're not in trouble, but I need to make that you're okay. I'm going to take you to see a priest tomorrow. Elijah, take care of your friend - there's food and booze in the kitchen - but don't leave. I'm serious. We need to take Jennifer to see Pan tomorrow."
With that, Sera glances up at Dan, over her shoulder, and he bends his brow forward to touch her own. This kind of communion, and then he opens the glass slides and they head back inside.
Perhaps to do some research. Angela White. The Religious Commune. On and on.
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