Per + Awareness. Someone here?
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )
SerafíneChilly but not cold, not frigid, not freezing (in fact, above freezing - astonishingly, surprisingly, in a way that anywhere else in a winterbound world would feel like the early edge of spring) which is markedly different than the last time they were here, piling in through air so bright and crisp and bitter-sharp it could snap the breath in your lungs right in two.
Here is the commotion, the cough-and-sigh of an old engine being silenced. The turn of a key. The turn of a screw. The turn of a day well into night and the sprawl of the stars spackled against the sky's vault where the clouds do not hold sway, the low bright wedge of a waning moon wrapped with mist or the trail of a passing plane or something is enough to interrupt her chatter as Dan comes round the side of the old conversion van and opens the passenger's door for her because she cannot quite manage it.
One of those sprawling nights and tonight she takes a stutter-step or two and rights herself mostly by making Dan start to stumble and he catches her, of course he does, he always does, and she looks up just then and breathes in sharp and aching and has this sudden sense, this seizure of the infinite that she hardly knows how to place, but he's talking to her low, amused and they're in motion: the door, the chantry. Familiar.
Empty now mostly but not all the time.
The kitchen first, the clatter of her heels on the hardwoods. He's promising her tea and she's asking for whiskey, not that she needs anything else layered onto her high when she: stops. They: stop. She breaaaaathes in.
"Someone's here." Hums around the thought-of-it. Holds that sensation against the back of her tongue. Shivers, see, consumed and then reborn. "Kiara."
KiaraSomeone is here. It's telltale, that awareness. That sense of the pull-apart-and-renew that speaks of Kiara. Here, it's doubly so because she feels, the Verbena, so alike the Node in its imprint. It's a double serve of that energy she brings to the fore.
Rejuvenation, which, in the heart of winter feels like a hit of the most appealing kind of adrenaline.
She's been here off and on over the course of the week. There's wildflowers in a vase on the kitchen counter; a splash of yellows and reds and purples, primarily. Arnica and zinnia, echinacea and bellflower; natives to the Denver area, invoked no doubt to the vibrancy they offer by the urging work of a child of nature such as Kiara considered herself to be. Dan is promising tea and the kitchen, the whole house, really, has an intoxicating blend of scents to it tonight.
Something prepared earlier; a cutting board set down; fresh herbs and small containers of spices littering the space; a used tea towel; the makings of a meal not quite cleared and a half open bottle of Merlot, see and the fire is lit; it cracks; emanating heat and the aroma of newly thrown in logs. There's nobody in the kitchen of course but she's nearby. The creak of worn in places floorboards and feet padding down from above.
Kiara, in a soft grey sweater with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows; in thick purple socks and sky blue leggings; her dark hair drawn up with messy deliberation; piled atop her head. There's a book in one hand; the spine tilted as its examined and she slows to a halt in the foyer; eyes drifting. There's voices. She appears, then. Leans her weight into the doorframe between dining and further into kitchen.
"There's leftover soup on the stove."
This, her easy, called greeting. A thumb tracing the spidery lettering of the title in her hands.
SerafíneThe two of them: Dan - tall, lean, in an old plaid sportcoat with leather-patched elbows over a Pixies tee and a pair of black skinny jeans, tattoos evident on his hands, around his throat. A skim of blond hair cropped fairly short. An easy manner, a loose confidence that feels broad, aware, bemused, protective. He looks up first, as Kiara appears in the doorway. Smiles an easy smile that crinkles the lines around the edges of his eyes. Still has an arm around Sera's shoulders, mouth half-hovering over the tangle of her hair.
He's kind of holding her upright. She is still deciding whether she wants to take off her shoes and teeters between the extraordinary heights her Alexander McQueen's give her and the strangely welcome flatness of the ground beneath - a moment of indecision that she is noodling through and wavering over and hovering around, all threshold-like -
"I see you found the place," Dan says, his voice all a-rumble, more to Sera than Kiara because Sera has an ear near his sternum, and he is sort of steering her forward, holding her elbow when he needs must as she decides whether to be tall or whether to be not-tall. He glances at the counter, back to Kiara in the slidingly comfortable sweater. "And you've settled in. What kind of soup?"
Meanwhile, "I was right," Sera murmurs in the vague direction of Dan's shoulder, taking pleasure in both the presence and the shape of it. Pleasure, too, in the frisson of sensation up and down the column of her spine. Of course she was, she always is, she is alive to the feel of the world in a way few people are, feels every so keenly, cries without reservation. "I was riiiight."
Reaches out to steady herself on Dan's shoulder then. Needs those shoes fucking off suddenly and entirely so off they go, and she looks up, this toss of her golden curls finds Kiara's eyes and flashes her a grin and "Hi. Hi hi hi." Pupils the size of dinner plates - god only knows what she's on.
"Do you know what you feel like?"
Kiara"I did," Kiara's returning the taller man's easy smile with her own; though hers is a drifting; subtle thing. The shift and play of it; humor surfacing in the corners of her mouth as her eyes travel between him and the woman; half tucked up in his hold. Her mouth isn't red tonight; the brunette. Her face washed and cleaned and the vaguest hints when she eventually shifts closer of soap and sandalwood and the woodsy afterburn of tending to the fire.
"Or well - I did with a little help from a certain Virtual Adept." She pushes off from the doorway, then, skirts the dining table; slides her fingers over the back of a chair; rests them there when Dan asks and then Serafine - who draws Kiara's focus keenly; the brief touch of something more intimate housed in the way her dark eyes settle there, on her face; on her too-bright eyes - "Ratatouille," she supplies with a little flourish back of one sleeve, where its sliding down. The twist of impatient fingers pushing it back. She has the long fingers that suggest artistry, or could have, in another lifetime.
"With a little twist." Kiara's smile can't help but grow a little at the pronouncement. At Serafine. Because of course she knows but - "Tell me what I feel like to you." That, with a brush outward; a hand with book in tow; an invitation to indulge her.
Serafíne"Where on earth did you get fresh tomatoes - " This time of year - he is asking as Sera finds her feet and wriggles and/or is set free, the ease between the pair of them that feels as well worn and perfectly broken in as a pair of fitted riding gloves. Supple, close, encompassing. Dan's asking that question and then he is not asking the question, he's swallowing it with a laugh that is half-voiced, a flicker of a glance from Sera to Kiara and back again. Then he's off to the stove. "Smells divine," he is telling Kiara as he picks up the kettle and carries it to the sink. Water rattles in the tin as it starts to fill. Glances back over his shoulder at them and takes in the sweep of invitation with that hand-and-book.
"Okay so." This is how Sera starts, eyes closed, smile carving its way across her mobile little mouth as if there were a secret melting on her tongue. There's laughter in her voice and beneath it something else, akin to buoyancy but without the lift. Somehow, it seems a little bit removed. "There's this museum in London with all these marble things like frescoes and whatever. Reliefs - "
"The Victoria and Albert - " Dan supplies or perhaps asks and she doesn't really respond except for a contained shrug, because she doesn't know the fucking name, and doesn't care but -
"Right, see. That or something, all this shit they stole from wherever. Greece and Egypt and everyplace else. And they've got these statues of this dude and he's a face on both sides of a column, you know? like the rising and setting sun, or the past and the future, or what the fuck ever." Sera's eyes are still closed and that smile lingers and she's walking sort of forward but doing so in a way that makes her seem so very aware of her body and its balance and also its imbalance. The pleasant way she sways, the way the world tilts itself on an unseen axis and staggers its way right round again.
"Except not like dudes. You know? Two women instead. And they have snakes for hair and they're both breathing, except in different ways. You wanna know what they're like?"
Kiara"I could tell you," she begins, Kiara, to Dan, on tomatoes and where but she doesn't quite finish the thought because - Serafine. Kiara's voice was heavy with laughter as the other woman begins her story and - okay so - Kiara sets the book down on the dining table in favor of both hands being loose and free. Potentially, perhaps, free enough to catch her if she needs to.
Free enough to take an arm; a hand; some part into her possession if the moment calls for it. She's on something, of course and Kiara knows it but somehow her voice contains and controls that laughter and it's not really at Serafine. She doesn't take satisfaction in the altered state of another human being so much as she enjoys the spontaneity of it. The bends and twists of Sera's narrative.
The breaks and pauses.
The way she's moving forward with her eyes closed as if in total co-operation and trust with the universe not to present a tripping hazard while she swims around her memory. A hand grazes Sera's elbow at some point; the voice of the Verbena; Kiara's warm, receptive voice close to an ear. "Mm, I remind you of a two headed snake fresco?" This, the murmur of quick amusement; the cut and catch of Dan's eyes briefly; the rush of laughter captured in her throat as Kiara's fingers fall to Sera's side; one sliding to capture a wrist.
To hold it just gently; an anchor point, perhaps. "Okay, tell me - " A pinch of fingers tighter, dark eyes bright. "What else."
Serafíne"Column."
Inhale and exhale and the rattle of water from the faucet into the kettle. The chill from the cold night outside still bright on her skin but receding as the warmth of the house ticks through. Eyes still closed, wholly aware of the world all around her, smiling as she feels rather than sees Kiara approach. Turning her head to follow the beat of the other woman's resonance, harrowing and restorative all at once, in a way that makes her chest cave in on itself, carve in on itself when she gives herself over to it.
As she does know, see. Half-smiling in Kiara's periphery, the edge of a cheek, the tangle of dyed-blond curls piled over the crown of her head from the sharp part defining the sidecut.
"It was a column," hand on her elbow and then her wrist. Sera inhales deliberately and catches the edge of her lower lip between her eyeteeth and and cracks open one and turns her wrist within Kiara's grasp to clasp hands. Anchoring isn't precisely what she ever wants, is it? But see, Sera's hand slides down to match Kiara's, to grasp Kiara's, palm to palm. "One opening her mouth, breathing in, just inhaling, this great, terrible drawing-in and the edges of things becoming all jumbled and distorted, cracking down the spine, marrow rich between her teeth and none of it every enough.
"Behind her, the other face and she's breathing too, but out, not in, and her mouth is pursed, see. This warm stream of breath that remakes the world. Like one of those chicks who comes back from the underworld. Makes everything bloom."
Bareish feet now. Long (for her) legs, fishnets, this pair of denim cut-off shorts so short the pouch of the pocket is sometimes visible below the threadbare hem. T-shirt and hoodie, half-zipped, leather jacket left to hang open over both.
"So," Dan supplies over a shoulder as he finds the cabinet where the tea is kept. Measures out some into a stainless steel teaball. Wry. "Nothing at all like a Janus-face, in the end, hmm?"
Sera just hums what could be assent or could be dissent and clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth because it gives her pleasure to do so and brings Kiara's hand up to press her mouth to its back. Smiles against the other woman's skin, the whisper of her own mouth, the hint of her own teeth.
"Grace brought you here, hmm? I brought Grace here. When she was brand new."
KiaraThere's something to the way Kiara listens; the intent tilt of her head; the frame of her mouth in that supple; subtle smile. The long lashes that dip to fan against her cheeks. They're long naturally; dark and quite as expressive as much of the Verbena's features tended to be. They give her eyes an almost doll like quality; the deceptiveness of a face that could seem entirely too delicate for whom and what it belonged to.
Here, at the ranch, in her oversized knitted sweater and winter socks; she plays at the embodiment of an easy, careless young woman.
There's something to the way she listens, the way her expression opens up and she smiles; toothy and bright in the instant after Serafine brings her hand to her mouth; a thumb flexing aside to brush at the edge of a knuckle; the hint of the other woman's jaw. Some briefest of tactile reminders. "Destructor and remaker of the cosmos, hm," Kiara's eyes linger on the point where her hand is greeting Sera's lips. The edge of her mouth toys with that smile; it lingers.
"That sounds about right." Grace brought her here, she brought Grace here. Kiara reclaims her hand; twists the palm a little as she does to brush it against the slope of the Cultist's face. "She did. I've been out here talking - to Callisto - to the trees," a beat; the brunette's face draws in; sobers just so.
"It's too quiet, you know? It needs people, here. So I'm giving it some personality back."
SerafíneSera has never spoken to Callisto, never seen the Node's guardian spirit and the only conversations she has ever had with trees have all been drug-induced hallucinations. The lingering, pleasant sort that razor open the skin of the world and allow her to slip inside it.
"Al ot of people have come and gone." This from Dan, behind them. He has turned and is lounging back against the countertop, tall and lean, waiting for the water to boil for the tea. "It does seem quiet, though."
Sera hmms against the back of her throat once more, lifts her chin to catch the edge of Kiara's expression - that lilting sobriety, whatever lays behind it, too. Something in that expression arrests her. Actually arrests her, stops her from offering to tell Kiara the tale of the chantry-before, the cabal incinerated in the blink of an eye by a girl awakening with terrible power and a ruinous legacy. So, sobriety and an answering sort of sobriety that is tenterhooked and not-quite-sober, because she never is, Sera. You know, quite sober.
"What have you been doing?" she inquires instead. Aware - suddenly, acutely - of the shadows rimming the room.
KiaraIt's on the tip of Kiara's tongue to say nothing drastic. She's not entirely sure why, only that for as many hours as she's spent here, surrounded by the trees and water and that faint, humming buzz of energy - it doesn't feel like hers. Like anything she holds a true right to. She's merely a traveler, a guest like so many of the others who have passed through its doors, slept in its beds no doubt were. Or considered themselves.
So she has not stripped down walls or rearranged furniture or done much but bring in her own particular essence; stoke the fire (quite literally of course) and reinvigorate the ranch the way a tenant might care for the dust-smeared windows of a room they newly let. There is, all said, a sort of considering way Kiara takes in the house; her eyes shifting beyond Serafine in the moment and then return; briefly resting on Dan beyond; tall and lean against the kitchen counter. The Verbena slides her fingers over the back of a chair; rests them there; long fingers closing around the polished wood.
"Places have ... memory." The brunette's attention seems to narrow on that beneath her hands; she caresses the length of the chair; twists her mouth in some brief, catchall smile that reads for her appreciation, her fondness for the fact. "I feel the trees, the earth, this house. I listen to all of that and let it soak me in. My presence here." That curling smile returns to Kiara's mouth; she turns; leans her hip heavily against the table and shrugs a thin shoulder; the sweater drops over it; baring a slash of skin.
It's a few sizes too large for her but it adds to her air of casual negligence. The unconcerned manner her hair has been bundled up; the frayed knees on her leggings. "It's hard to describe. Properly. It's like - " There's a noise; some sub vocal dismissal of her words. "- checking the vitals of a place." There's more to that, of course. But the sense of her presence is gleaned, too. The flowers scattered around the premises; the fire; the food prepared and simmering on the stove.
There is the makings of home and comfort to Kiara's tendings here; swaddling the chantry but briefly into layers of her own devising. The hint of her perfume; the cloying sweetness of sandalwood and sage having been burned at some point.
"What brings you guys out here?"
SerafíneSera and Dan are both listening to Kiara, each in their own way. Sera so obviously altered drifts through the narrative, this smile on her face that is equal parts sharp and keen and lovely and private. Contained somehow, even when so little about her is anything close to containment. She is aware suddenly of the rooms and the transitory imprint of those who have come before and who have since slipped away. Of the dead and of the living, and the memory of the former makes her shiver, and the thought of the latter, well, sometimes makes her sad.
She doesn't say anything though. Just watches Kiara through half-lashed eyess and inhales and exhales and feels Kiara's presence, allows herself to feel the new layers settling like new skin over the old.
It is Dan who answers.
"Sera wanted the node. And to have a look at the wards. There used to be a guardian of sorts out here. Prickly kid named Shoshannah, close with a Chorister. Have to assume that she moved on of her own accord, since we never found a body."
He isn't joking, not precisely. Or perhaps there is a thread of it, a spare humor that acknowledges the transitory nature of their lives, and the way they intersect.
"You should do whatever you want with the place." Sera cuts in, suddenly. Dark eyes opening, her sharp little chin rising with this defiant curl of her mouth. "Whatever the fuck you want. I don't think anyone's made it a home since the folks who held it before us. Not even Shoshannah. She just kind of - draped herself over the spine, sometimes. I mean it, whatever the fuck you want.
"I'll look into freshening up the wards."
KiaraSera wanted the Node.
This tips Kiara's focus her way for an instant. There's something very ... intimate, quietly so, in the way she looks at her for just that moment. A shared beat of something that passes across her face; that softens her mouth and the cant of her head. Perhaps it's the consideration of one lover to another, who knew.
"It's beautiful out there. I showed Kalen and Grace Callisto the other day." Something curls the edge of her mouth then, she drifts beyond Sera; catches and cups her elbow as she passes. Brief; deliberate touch. Comfort, there and gone. "I don't think Grace had ever seen her." Kiara moves toward the stove, collects up a dishcloth and pries the lid loose; a cloud of steam rises up and she sticks a spoon inside the contents; stirs it around for a moment and then taps the edge off; returns the lid. Turns, wiping her hands off to settle in against the counter.
All this, while Dan says they don't think the prior Guardian of sorts is dead; that she was friends with a Chorister. Something like brief amusement banks in the look Kiara casts his way; though its tempered by the way she draws her shoulders in; braces her hands against the counter.
"Choristers, hm." Oh, them, says her tone.
Serafine cuts in, then. She should do whatever the fuck she wants to with the Chantry. Kiara's smile re-surfaces; she drops her face forward enough to half conceal some unvoiced reaction; a spasm of laughter, perhaps. The protracted way the title of another Tradition seems to fuel some irritation beneath her easy smiles and candor. "Ian said it was a waste, too. I guess it is. All this space, though. It feels like something should be here. Even passingly."
SerafíneThe kettle is starting to rattle, not quite whistling, just on this side of boiling when Dan joins Kiara at the stove to take it off; to tip it over the teapot pour out the hot water for the tea. Another cloud of steam, this one rather less fragrant.
Sera reacts to the touch - quite as one would expect her too - this coronal flare of a look, framing Kiara's profile, an intent awareness that has that dilated gaze tracing the line Kiara's throat, lingering on a certain tender point tucked just beneath the ear.
"I don't think it's a waste, exactly. Just that it never really felt like it was mine. Or anyone's. I don't know how the people who held it before handled the house, whether they lived here or just visited, but they were closer knit. You know? A cabal. Probably the place was pretty empty then too since they wouldn't let even consors in but maybe a couple of them made it their home."
"Shoshannah tried, I think. You know? But it always felt like she was playing house." This is Dan, a brief interruption as he returns the kettle to the stove.
Sera makes a back-of-the-throat noise. "I think Shoshannah hated me. Or something. Fuck. I couldn't do anything with the house. I mean, I need people, you know? To make a moment sacred. You're already settling in. I'm serious about what I said. You should do whatever the fuck you want with the place. If it feels like something should be here, do it. Let us know if there's anything we can do."
Kiara"I have that tendency." This, Kiara's response, the beginning of it as she motions with her chin toward a small fern that's taken up residence in one corner beneath a window; the fronds are very vibrant green; it looks ... thriving; perhaps too much so for the season. Her gaze cuts back; those dark eyes; that expression of contained mirth.
"I've moved around so much I forget to wait before I make myself comfortable." She runs the edge of her tongue across her lower lip; wets it; draws it between her teeth for a beat as she watches Dan's progress with the tea. Lets her eyes tick back to Sera, frees her lip to say: "But I might start coming out here every so often, pay it a few compliments. At worst, everyone will get tired of my company.
At best - " She tenders aside hair where its falling free; the motion as impatient as it always seemed. Careless; adeptly so. " - make it defensible."
She rucks up the sleeves on her sweater where they're draping low; the material bunching. "If you want company when you go soak, my schedule is wide open." This, with a hint of something. The suggestive tilt of her face; the capture and curl of her mouth. That same unconcerned air she seemed to offer the world at large.
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