[How awake are we?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (3, 5, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Kalen Holiday[And how distracted by Resonance are we?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )
Alexander[Oh, that Resonance thing..]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 10) ( success x 1 )
Alexander[Meh, why not - Arete. Sensing Time. Diff 4, -1 taking time. Going for 1 succ for the effect, 1 for the scene]
Dice: 1 d10 TN3 (7) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
AlexanderThe day has been comfortably warm, clear skied, and mostly relaxed. The natives of the city have been taking the opportunity to make the most of it while it lasts, before the weather turns and it becomes much more preferable to be indoors than out. So early evening in Washington Park has been quite busy, with office workers swapping their formal shoes for trainers and pounding the walkways. Families had appeared, with an occasional picnic basket in tow, but they had headed home again as the sun started its descent towards the horizon and the air turned just a little bit cooler. A woman calls to her dog, trying to get it away from the edge of the lake where it was barking at a duck.
Near to the lake is a stone fireplace. A small fire has been built up in it, spreading warmth and light across the area surrounding it. Contrasting the warmth is a Frozen aura; it brings with it thoughts of the cold, but also of those moments in time that seem to last and last. That sensation seems to be coming from Alexander, who is sat facing the fire. He’s got a bottle of water in his hand that he’s absent-mindedly turning over and over in his hand. There’s a steady rhythm to it, counting away a few seconds with each turn. He’s watching the fire. There’s an opened case of beers nearby, with one bottle opened and started next to Alex.
A little while ago Kalen would have gotten a text message on his mobile. At Washington Park. Bring marshmallows.
Kalen HolidayKalen arrives, perhaps a little later than Alexander might have expected. Perhaps he doesn't keep marshmallows on hand. Perhaps he was...well...who knows where Kalen goes sometimes? The thing about Kalen, even in Denver, is that he vanishes. He just hasn't turned his phone off and let everyone in Denver think he's dead. The thought occurs to him, now and again, that he could still run,
But instead he comes to Washington Park, and he brings marshmallows. He's on his phone, juggling it and two cups of hot chocolate, a bag with marshmallows in it looped about one wrist. He's dressed for weather about ten degrees colder than most people would think he needs to be, but Kalen is cold in Denver in general, nevermind near Alexander.
He hangs up the phone as he gets close to Alexander, and there is all kinds of affection and warmth in his tone as he says goodbye. A fucking brilliant smile. And then Kalen slips the phone into his coat pocket, moves to carrying the hot chocolates one in each hand and smiles, offering one to Alexander as he gets close enough.
"Hey. How are you? I had to guess, so I got all the flavors. And then someone may have told me I was probably doing it wrong, and mentioned that I should get a bag of them. You know, unflavored ones. So...I have those too?"
AlexanderThe last time they met, Alexander had said that he needed to walk. And he had, for quite some time. He’d eventually made his way home before vanishing himself, at least for a little while. One of the things that appealed about the city when he was looking for somewhere – anywhere – to move to was the mountains. They had always been the ideal place to get away from everything for a little while. And so he had. A few days had been spent in the middle of nowhere, with a tent, some packaged food, some water, and some decent clothing. He’d walked out and, after those few days away, had walked back.
And he is back, and making his own attempts at being sociable again. Which is why there is the park and a campfire and a text message to a friend. Alexander feels the approach of the storm – maybe a little foretelling of what is to come later in the evening – and looks up at Kalen approaches with his load of goodies.
“Hey. I’m doing ok. How about you? And who was that? I don’t see you smile like that often.” Alexander gives his own smile. A little tired, maybe, but at least genuine and warm. He shrugs at the debate over the marshmallows. “You know me, I’m not much for traditions. Flavoured ones are cool too, as long as they toast.”
Kalen Holiday"Oh," Kalen smiles and glances a little away, and Alexander might expect to hear it is Danny. Some other lover. But, no. "That was my priest. I call him, sometimes. He says he will forgive me, if I spend Christmas here with all of you, but that I will come back for Easter Mass." There is emphasis, yes, but there is no trace of anything authoritarian in Kalen's half-impression. There is are still traces of some other place in his voice, in some ways some other person.
He sometimes misses the person he was while he was dead.
"We have all the marshmallows. I don't think you'll be disappointed." He sets the marshmallows down by Alexander. Glances over the fire and the beer. The corners of his mouth twitch. "I'm still not the best at this, but I think I can say with reasonable certainty that this is not a date."
AlexanderDanny wouldn’t have been Alexander’s first guess. Kharisma would have been up there. Possibly Sera? But the way Kalen speaks, that trace of something else in his voice. More likely someone elsewhere, away from the city.
“I didn’t know you had a priest. Does Pan know that you’re seeing other clergy?” A smile pulls at one side of Alexander’s mouth with the teasing. “Did you ever think about the Chorus instead of the Order?”
Alexander sets the offered chocolate on the ground and looks into the bag of marshmallows to get an idea of what Kalen had gone little nuts with this time. “Have you ever actually toasted one of these before? And no, not a date. I think we scared Alicia off deciding we weren’t each other’s type. And I have no interest in the contents of your underwear.”
Kalen Holiday"He's been my priest since he decided drag me into his church while I was probably dying and keep me until I definitely wasn't. Which was before Denver. After Flagstaff." He smiles a little. "And I adore Pan, but he isn't Catholic and also probably very glad my soul isn't his problem. I do sometimes go to his church, but only because my confessions are...well...complicated." Kalen. Confession. Really?
The bag has a dozen oversize flavored marshmallows, chocolate and hazelnut and raspberry and.... But he also did get a bag of normal marshmallows. Because Ramon is a good judge of when Kalen is over-complicating things. And is willing to take calls concerning whether or not Seth had a soul to light candles for. Because of course, what all other humans need is Kalen calling them because roasting marshmallows somehow provokes the need to know things about souls right now.
"Well, in fairness, I never considered the Order. I got dropped on their doorstep and took to them. And, you know, they kept me, which a a pretty new thing for me. I liked...the way we are more cohesive, in a lot of ways. There's a lot more politics, and I hate that part, yeah. But...there are good things. They're pretty much the only stable thing I've ever had.
"Given just slightly different circumstances I may have joined the Chorus. The Euthanatos. The Ecstatics. Probably not the Verbena, but possibly actually the VAs. I mean...I told you a little. I could have at least looked like what practically anyone wanted. I just took the cards I was given because the universe has a plan. And, mostly, I trust it."
SerafíneI suppose before I attempt to join I should check to see if you guys are okay with me crashing? Because I an uncrash. Hah.
AlexanderGo for it!
SerafíneAwareness.
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (2, 3, 3, 6, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )
AlexanderThey’d had a conversation... how long ago, now? A few months and a couple of lifetimes? Kalen had explained a little of his history. About how the wicked witch of Flagstaff had a house land on them. Only it hadn’t been a witch, it had been Kalen. And there had been a name mentioned. “Ramon?” The man who had prayed and prayed and started putting him back together again.
Kalen? Confessing? There’s a quiet reflection in Alexander’s voice when he asks, “Do you find it helps? Confessing?” He’s fishing a couple of marshmallows out of the bag – plain ones to start – and the bag goes back down on the grass. There are some long sticks near the burning fire, just out of reach. Alexander leans forward from his cross-legged position – balancing on both knees – to grab a few before settling back and skewering the squidgy sweets with a couple of them.
“If the universe has a plan, why do you do what you do? How do you know its plan isn’t for the bad things to take over?” He hands one of the sticks to Kalen before holding his out closer to the flames.
SerafíneThe only invitation Serafíne receives was the spark of her
awareness - the supples threads of Kalen's storm and
Alexander's edge-of-lake-in-winter that pulled her upright
while texting in the back of a cab. She told the cabbie to
stop at the edge of the darkened park and climbed out and paid and tipped him generously in cash from her little skull-studded clutch and waved and then,
well, then. Her resonance woven around her, out ahead of her, announcing her as much as the click click click of her heels on the paved path. It's harder to walk where the path branches off, becomes gravel and then just grass and her spiked heels sink into the soft turf.
But you know, a tall, slender shadow against the city's lights picking her way carefully over the lawn, heading their way.
Serafíne(er. ugh. REPOSTING.)
SerafíneThe only invitation Serafíne receives was the spark of her awareness - the supple threads of Kalen's storm and Alexander's edge-of-lake-in-winter that pulled her upright while texting in the back of a cab. She told the cabbie to stop at the edge of the darkened park and climbed out and paid and tipped him generously in cash from her little skull-studded clutch and waved and then,
well, then. Her resonance woven around her, out ahead of her, announcing her as much as the click click click of her heels on the paved path. It's harder to walk where the path branches off, becomes gravel and then just grass and her spiked heels sink into the soft turf.
But you know, a tall, slender shadow against the city's lights picking her way carefully over the lawn, heading their way.
Kalen Holiday"Ramon," Kalen confirms.
He settles onto the ground near Alexander. close both because Kalen's idea of space is a little bit unlike normal ad also because this is a quiet conversation. Not the kind to be overheard. "So, I sort of ended up coming to religion through the Order, as weird as that sounds. There are...reasons it isn't that I can't really talk much about save to say that it's...part of our Paradigm, a lot of us.
"So, I did confession then, but it seemed...strange. I always felt...kind of distant from religion. Until Ramon. But...that involved a lot of drifting in and out of consciousness to find him there, praying. And he's...Pan is sometimes like Wrath and Judgment. Bt what you feel when you stand near Ramon is...love. Impossible, unconditional, infinite love.
"Confession with him is...something. I still fly out there, sometimes. Because...he's just. I don't know. He makes you feel whole. And loved."
He looks up at the sense of Serafine but he doesn't seem worried. Of course not. Serafine can hang out and have discussions about things he doesn't tend to tell anyone and there are plenty of marshmallows.
AlexanderAlexander isn’t – currently – shying away from contact. Isn’t withdrawing. Isn’t shuffling away from Kalen to regain a little more space. On the other hand, he’s not snuggling up or trying to wrap an arm around the other man. The proximity is warming – for Alexander, at least – and companionable.
“I never got the whole religion thing. It always seemed to be a way for people for people to tell others what to do, regardless of whether they followed the rules or not. Like those preachers on the TV. Send me all your money to save your soul! You don’t see them suffering in fear of the afterlife.” He shrugs. “I guess I can see how that could be comforting, though. Ramon, anyway. Pan’s divine vengeance less so.”
Alexander pulls the stick back, checking the marshmallow, before turning it a little and holding it closer to the fire again. “How does it work? The confession, I mean.” He watches the fire again, with a smile forming as he feels Sera’s presence approaching.
SerafíneThey could be on a date, couldn't they? Sitting like that, close, each to each, with a merry little fire dancing away in a fire pit, and yet Sera sways up - not quite her usual masculine gait because she has to take rather more mincing quite-little-steps to keep her heels from sinking into the grass. But she comes close anyway, like she belongs there, like she belongs everywhere, and lifts a hand.
"Hey. Room for one more?"
She's wearing a little black dress, this spidery knit piece so loosely put together that it shows more skin that it conceals. The wind makes it ripple against her body, engagingly, and she reaches up to tuck her long hair over one shoulder.
Kalen HolidayKalen laughs. "See...I've always found Pan's presence really calming. Apparently this is not the normal response."
He looks toward the fire. Thinking. "So, you go to your priest. Sometimes in those boxes, but the boxes aren't the point. You go to your priest. You confess your sins, and sometimes your fears. And he will not tell you that your transgressions had no meaning, but he will remind you, at least if he is Ramon, that there are no sins for which there cannot be forgiveness. That God loves you.
"I think the and-then-you-drink-a-bottle-of-wine step is not actually how everyone experiences it, but...I can always take you to Chile." He smiles. "The wine is good. Granted, I have some of it. You could always confess your sins to me and we can drink a bottle of wine. But I'm in no way a mediator between people and God."
He reaches up, on the side he has space to do so without hitting Alexander, toward Serafine. "Hey. I think so." He looks over toward Alexander, because he isn't entirely sure. Serafine already hears his secrets. Hell, Serafine has practically taken confessions from him. But he doesn't know if that is true for Alexander.
AlexanderAlexander snorts. “Maybe we just caught each other on a bad day.” Like a day when Grace was living through a waking nightmare in the library? That probably wasn’t the best of days. And they hadn’t met each other since. Pan just hadn’t happened to be in any of the places where Alex had been, and Alex had no inclination to seek out the priest or any kind of confession or absolution in a house of God.
He’s thoughtful when Kalen explains how confessions – or, at least, their version of them – go. He pulls the stick back again and picks at a scorched edge of the marshmallow. “I don’t believe in God. So there isn’t much point in asking for forgiveness from him. Or her. However you see it.” He goes quiet, pulling a bit of soft marshmallow off and popping it into his mouth. “Swap the wine for something that doesn’t taste of vinegar, and maybe drink it before hand, and I might take you up on the offer.”
Kalen looks towards Alexander for confirmation. “Always. Beer, marshmallow, or both?” Sera gets the same warm, tired, smile that Kalen received not so long before. “You’re looking much better than you did before. And... thank you. For putting me back together. Again.”
Serafíne"Marshmallow beer," Sera tells Alexander, and perhaps she means it, picking her way the last few steps to actually join them. This flash of her smile, made into a secretive thing by the dancing flame, as she chooses - and claims - some space on the ground, close to the flame. Close to her friends, too.
She looks exquisite tonight, and sounds, dare we say it, almost sober? Rather fine silvery-white lingerie peaking through the threads of that little black dress. Diamonds in her ears and diamonds at her neck and long legs absolutely, spectularly bare all the way down to her silver Alexander McQueen heels. They look like wings embracing her feet, absolutely at odds with her request for marshmallow beer and equally at odds with her appearance in the park, but what the fuck.
She had a whim and she wanted to follow it, so she did.
And she smiles at Kalen, and she flashes Alexander a rather brief, haloing smile when he thanks her for putting him back together. This neat little shrug, which is not shy but is - perhaps surprisingly - modest. "'Course. Full recovery right?" That's what she's asking him. She doesn't say anything about how she looked or how she felt that night.
Or how she's looked or how she's felt since.
"Did you ever believe it god?" This to Alexander, as she slides neatly into the conversation.
Kalen Holiday"I don't entirely see how you can see the things we see and not believe in some god," Kalen says. He smiles though, puzzled more than argumentative. "But we can just use bottles of whiskey. And less God. That works too."
"I didn't get the beer marshmallows," he tells Serafine, half-apologetically. "I wasn't sure how that'd go with the taste of being lit on fire."
AlexanderAlexander considers how marshmallow beer would taste, and it’s not really a pleasant thought. He passes over an unopened bottle, a stick and the bag of marshmallows for her to make her choice and arrange them in whatever strange combination takes her fancy. “Wait, there are beer marshmallows?” He really shouldn’t be surprised, Kalen does seem to have a knack for finding downright bizarre food.
He rubs his chest when she asks about the healing, wincing again at the memory of how it had felt when Victoria had shredded his body with his magic. Just after he had shot her, and just before... He clears his throat. “Yeah. All fixed. One day I’ll have to learn how to put myself back together again like that.” One more thing on the very long list of things to learn one day. “How have you been doing since?” And, to both of them, another question. “And do you know how the others who were there are doing?” Elijah, seeing his first death. Lucy, seeing the act of death rather than the aftermath. Ian, killing Victoria.
He shrugs again, picking up the so-far-untouched cup of hot chocolate and sipping at the warm liquid. “No. My mother wasn’t religious at all, so I wasn’t brought up into it. It never really made much sense to me when I was younger, and when I was older... If there’s this all-benevolent deity with the power over all creation, why does he let bad things happen to good people and bad people get away with whatever they want? It never seemed... right.”
He looks into the fire as he decides how to put what he wants to say next, but shakes his head. “Some of the things out there are powerful enough to be thought of as gods. But then, “ he glances up at Sera, “some of what we can do compared to what the unawakened can? Does that make us gods? And God? The old guy with the beard and booming voice? No. Not for me.”
Serafíne"My mother believed in god so much she was pretty sure he would just fix me if she sent me very far away and gave me over to him." Sera remarks, her voice low - not rough though it is throaty - and musical, which is easy to forget except when she's like this. Quiet(ish). Reflective, bathed in firelight. Profile all sharp. She's staring at the flames and mostly doesn't catch Alexander's movement to pass her beer and marshmallows. Not surprising, she takes the former. She passes on the latter, though, for all that she claimed she wanted both. "I don't - "
a pause, not precisely arrested but suspended, " - well, I don't know that I believe in god, not precisely. But I believe in connection and I believe in people, good and bad. But I suppose that a theologian would tell you that god's first gift to us was free will. There is bad in the world because someone chose it. Choice. I guess that's something else I believe in."
Then, a quieter smile. This darting glance at Kalen's profile before she finds Alexander again. "I'm okay." Which is both: true, and nowhere close to the whole story but - "Elijah's pretty wrecked, but I think he'll be alright. Eventually, poor kid. I saw Ian the other night. He seemed to be finding ways to work it out."
Kalen HolidayKalen reaches over, takes Alexander's hand from his chest, and then, provided Alexander doesn't try to take his hand back, moves it so that he can touch Alexander's fingertips to Serafine's throat. So that Alexander could feel her heartbeat. So that he's touching both of them, connected to both of them, if only for a few seconds. "It's over. You're alive. Everyone you went with, they are alive. We are here. Focus on that." He releases Alexander's hand without taking him away Serafine.
"Well," Kalen says quietly, as he settles back into where he was and spears a marshmallow. "If we're being precise, I believe that there was something that spoke the words that birthed the whole of creation. I don't think any religions manage more than an interpretation of that being, so they're all, in some sense, imperfect.
"But you have to approach the unknown, and even the Unknowable, somehow." Like whether the boy you failed to save in a Mindscape has a soul to light a candle for. He was real enough to roast marshmallows with and to spend a day with and to grieve for. It seemed real enough, when he shot him.
He takes a breath, and when he speaks again his voice is very soft. "Healing is...often time-consuming. But they will. We all do."
AlexanderKalen reaches for Alexander’s hand, and Alexander? Doesn’t pull away. He’s not withdrawn, or withdrawing, but is puzzled as Kalen pulls his hand towards Sera. Puzzled until it’s clear what Kalen intends, when he explains. Returns the favour of pulling Alexander away from his dark contemplation and back to the present. Where everybody – almost everybody – lived. He sighs, moving his hand to Sera’s shoulder a few moments after Kalen releases it to give it a gentle squeeze. Then gently nudges Kalen with his elbow as he pulls his arm back.
“Free will and choosing to do bad things, sometimes even for the right reasons, I get. We all make choices. But what about the things that don’t come from our choices? Things that only exist to hurt? Disease. Disasters. Or how about Thakky? Or whatever else there is floating around out there? The things that the Fallen worship? How did they come about from choice and free will?”
I believe in connection and I believe in people. Alexander joins the others in a few moments of quietness before raising his cup of warm chocolate in a toast, knocking it against the cup or bottle of the others if they return it. “To connection, and to people. And to healing.”
SerafíneSera catches her breath when Kalen brings Alexander's hand to her throat. Lifts her chin, leaning back. There is something imperious about the gesture, something expectant, even elegant, the way in which she almost surrenders. It would never occur to her to deny someone access to her body when they genuinely wanted to touch it. This easy sensuality is absolutely threaded through her and so: her breath catches, and her chin rises, and she leans into the warmth of Alexander's hand, and he finds her heartbeat beneath his fingers, quick and vulnerable, finds her pulse driving - faster then, faster.
Because, quite frankly, she likes to be touched. Because being touched turns her on, and not in anything more than an existential way in just this moment but - her heart beats, and her heart beats faster, and the edge of her smile smears into something a little more dreamy until that contact is broken.
Sera's eyes are more on Kalen than Alexander in that moment, and they linger there, as Kalen remarks on how one approaches the unknown and the unknowable. He capitalizes both, she capitalizes neither, but there is a vibrant chord of sympathy inside her. Something that sing for the thought.
The unknown and the unknowable, they make her heart beat faster, too.
"We're not the only things in the universe with free will, you know. And disease - this time last year I was - "
Well, wait. She arrests herself, just stops. "Connection, people and healing." Picks up the beer in response to Alexander's toast, then, and gives himthe leading edge of a luminous smile. "I'll drink to that."
Kalen Holiday"How all of that came to be, I do not know. But...." He fixes Alexander with serious eyes, and gives him the most complete version of the truth he thinks he can. Some secrets of the Order he is more willing to surrender than others. And some things...well.
"I can see them, Alce. The echoes of the Words that made Creation. The rest of it...that I can't see. Perhaps, one day. But not now. Not yet." Not yet. He can not see those things, yet. But one day...he doesn't discount the possibility.
He does not comment on the disease thing. He did not, not really, know Serafine then. But he remembers going through that with Grace. Text messages. Aftermath.
But he does lift his hot chocolate to toast. "Indeed," he says.
AlexanderAlexander takes a drink of the chocolate, as the others take their drinks, then there’s another quiet pause. He agrees with choice. People choose what they do, for good or for bad. Or to stand against the good or the bad. And it spreads. One can inspire many, and the world can change. For the better, or for the worse, depends on the people and their choices and their actions. Does the intention matter more than the act? Or the ends justify the means? Is that how Victoria fell?
He catches himself brooding again and lies back on the cooling ground, still feeling the warmth thrown off by the fire. There are dark clouds in the sky but, at least for now, there are clear patches that let the early stars show as the day and the night meet.
“I don’t know everything came into being. Maybe it was always, already here? Something exploded and here we are? I dunno. One of those unknowns, or unknowables maybe? How do you see them? The words, I mean. Did your faith let you see them? Or did the words give you faith?”
He turns his head, resting on the grass, to look over at Sera. “What about you? Where do you think all this came from?”
SerafíneSera has tears in her eyes now. She doesn't know how they got there. They're just there. Gleaming with reflected firelight, not yet spilling over the dark frame of her lower lashes. While Alexander lies back on the cooling ground, Sera finds herself leaning forward into toward the warmth of the fire. Might have something to do with all the bare skin she's showing, but there's an incipient coil of a shiver somewhere at the base of her spine, ready to shake itself out.
Somewhat blind, she flashes Alexander a grin nonetheless. This quick expression tossed in his general direction right along with a sweet, narrow little shrug. "I don't know. I don't know that I care, either. What matters to me is now, you know? But now's like - " a quick, sharp sniff, " - now's like always, everywhen. Time's just another illusion. Kinda like history, and maybe we're all running backwards from the end to the beginning and we don't fucking know it."
Another quick shrug. "I dunno. I never claimed to be a genius."
Unlike present company Sera's library consists of three shelves of a four-shelve bookcase. Nothing but poetry.
Kalen Holiday
"Seeing them. And Marcellus. I learned to love them from Ramon. I learned to read them, at least the first of them I could read, from Marcellus." There is still something in his voice that saddens when he mentions Marcellus, even as his tone warms a little.
He looks over to Serafine and there are not tears threatening in his eyes. Not yet. It happens now sometimes. Alexander probably missed the last time. There is firelight catching in Serafine's tears like tiny suns and Kalen both loves and hates that they are beautiful. Of course he does.
Sometimes he talks about remembering things that haven't happened yet. He understands that. But that isn't the part of what she says he responds to. Instead he reaches out, and unless she tries to stop him runs a finger along the line of her jaw and turns her face, very gently, toward him. He wants to be looking into her eyes, not at them.
"I could be with geniuses," he says. "But here we are."
AlexanderAlexander reaches out a hand and makes contact with Sera wherever he can reach – a knee, the back of her back. He knows that she finds comfort in contact, and he’s happy to offer it when he has something to offer. When he isn’t holding himself in and everybody else out.
“If now is like always, does that mean we’ll always be sat here by the fire, drinking beer and hot chocolate, and watching the stars come out? I can think of worse places and times to be.”
He nudges Kalen’s leg with a knee before letting it rest there. He’s comfortable with these two and in this place. He’d been dragged through into another world with them not so far away. Of all of the people in the city, they are the two he trusts the most. So here, and now, he doesn’t withdraw from the contact.
“I don’t wish that I could see what you see, but I understand how seeing them would change how you see the world. Seeing and believing and all that stuff.” He shrugs, shoulders rubbing and flattening grass. “I guess I’ve just seen enough of the other side to doubt that there’s anything benevolent watching over us. Occupational hazard, I suppose.”
He smiles at the sky. “If you guys need anything more than a high school diploma to be around I am so screwed.”
SerafíneHer skin is warm from the fire, jawline all sharp. Sera does not try to stop Kalen, but instead lifts her face into his touch, her chin rises, her closed mouth curving in the smallest sort of smile, which is so lovely it verges on the painful. The tears don't spill. They stay in her eyes as she meets Kalen's gaze, holding the look he gives her with a sort of overt fearlessness.
Ask her to look right into your eyes, and she will. Just you watch.
Her smile tightens with a sort of gratitude, as she echoes, "Here we are."
Then she leans forward, right hand braced on the ground, and kisses Kalen, quite chastely, on the lips. Lifts her chin and she's already rising, shooting a glance past Kalen at Alexander as she gets one of those lethal heels beneath her, then the other.
"That's what that means, yeah," she tells Alexander, and oh she is away of the contact, how comfortable it means he is with her. "We'll always be here. We'll also always be everywhere else we'll ever be. One of those fucking mysteries, man. The unknowns and the unknowables.
"Thanks for sharing your fire with me. I gotta go."
And so she does. Standing, perhaps with assistance, picking her way back across the grass. Hard to hail a cab from the part at this hour, but somehow she'll manage it.
She's magick, Sera. That's how it works.
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