[How awake are we?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (1, 4, 5, 6, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )
Kalen Holliday[This is what happens when you stop spending all your time reading Neruda and playing adorable message tag and daring to be a person Kalen....]
[How distracted by Resonance are we?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )
SerafíneThere is a certain late afternoon light that grabs the edge of the horizon - just seizes it - and spills itself across the flinty horizon, over the snow-capped peaks. Clear spring days, bright and effortless, fading into wintry nights that are so open they feel arctic: with a brilliant, brittle chill that spreads itself down from that high, clear sky.
It is that hour; it is such a night, and the chantry house is lit up but those lights are banked and nearly blank because it is such a clear, dark night that the world feels far, far larger than one ever remembers it is. That's the scene through the kitchen windows, bleeding in through the edges of the space. The current residents of the kitchen have opened the blinds and the curtains wide to let that light and the sense of space inside, but otherwise the scene is quite domestic:
Sera, seated on the kitchen counter, long leg in thigh-high fishnets in a straight-line stripe pattern, denim cut-offs and a too-large band t-shirt that is sliding down to bare her right shoulder. Hair pulled back into the world's messiest chignon, which is in turn wrapped in nail-head studded leather. She's resting her chin on her right knee, poking her toes out through the holes in the fishnet weave, painting her toenails rather meditatively with a color that is some irridescent shade of black while also murmuring something to Dan, who is attending to a couple of pots on the stove.
Kalen HollidayKalen walks into the Chantry. This time doesn't hesitate about coming to see anyone, not even to put away groceries. Not that that would help him today. But then, he's not really carrying groceries today. Serafine has seen Kalen mostly in black and grays, though sometimes he plays with color. He has been known to wear blue jeans. And she's seen him, on occasion, with make up. Very little, but sometimes a thing he plays with. Today Kalen shows up in jeans and hiking boots and a dark brown corduroy coat. Despite a little bit of dirt, it's obvious that everything but the coat, which is vintage, is new. The coat fits so perfectly he is either incredibly lucky or had the coat tailored - quite possibly the second because though the outside has some minor scars the lining of the coat, which is a paisley pattern in cream and brown and gold, seems new.
He hangs a leather satchel over the back of one of the chairs and then flops into it. "Hey." His attention, normally so centered on Serafine, lingers a bit on Dan tonight. Lingers on both of them, here and there, almost as though seeing them for the first time.
SerafíneSera: Perception + Empathy on Kalen. Emotionsssss?
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 5 ) Re-rolls: 1
Serafíne"Hey."
Dan greets Kalen first. His voice is richer than you remember, more baritone than tenor, and rough about the edges. There's something comforting about that. The edge of a sort-of-smile bleeds through the scruff of his blond beard. He has a pan and flips something over in it. Asks, with another, more assessing glance, "Everything okay?"
Sera, she takes her time. Painting toenails when you are a little bit high requires concentration but she is only a little bit high so she looks up - luminous - catches the way Kalen's gaze lingers on Dan - then back. This bright edge to her, strange and thoughtful and drifting over the new clothes, the vintage leather coat, what she can see of the lining, everything.
"You look nice tonight. I like that coat."
Kalen HollidayKalen's emotions are...difficult to pin down. Not because Kalen is hiding them, but because Kalen doesn't really have much for either any real idea what he thinks right now and because there are a lot of emotions present - overwhelming more as a symphony than a few steady ones. There is definitely something about the way he looked at Dan, like there was some reason or connection that wasn't there before. Grateful and curious, but maybe also a little wary. Other than that he seems...almost like the entire world is new and fascinating. Like all of the myriad possibilities is suddenly, and perhaps overwhelmingly, enthralling. He also, despite the things that must merit his attention based on the Ginger post and their past few encounters, lighter than she might expect.
"Well," he says to Dan, "Wherever the world is ending tonight if it isn't stopped isn't here. That's something." It's hard to tell precisely how he means that, because he sounds like that answer is serious enough, but there is a trace of amusement flickering around the edges of his tone. Something relaxed and golden and radiant. "How're you?"
"Yeah?" He asks Serafine. "I thought it might be fun." The coat? He definitely means something more complicated than the coat. "I think it's older than I am, but I haven't looked. Maybe one day. I'm sure it has all the stories."
SerafíneDan breathes out a huff of laughter. The expression is wry rather than deep, the corner of his mouth still hooked, chin rising as he takes in that response. Not precisely looking for anything deeper than both the intention and the flicker of amusement. "I'm good. Fixing Sera a reuben because it's St. Patrick's day and she refuses to drink green beer."
"I'm not fucking Irish and green beer is fucking gross."
Someone interjects, angling her elfin chin toward Dan without lifting her eyes from the delicate work of painting her nails.
"Want one?" Dan to Kalen, here. "Sauerkraut's made by a friend of ours who's getting into fermentation." Of course they have friends who are getting into fermentation.
--
Sera, for her part, half-smiles at Kalen. Presses her mouth into the bony prominence of her knee. "I think you mean something more complicated than that coat. Dan says you got some kind of ultimatum from one of your contacts? All-in or all-out?"
Kalen HollidayKalen laughs at the pronouncement about green beer. Does he want a reuben? He has never had one. Not as any of the people he has been. But never before has he known people who had friends who were getting into fermentation. And the new skin he is trying on seems like someone who could be into reubens and knowing people who get into fermentation. Maybe he makes kombucha. That sounds like fun. It seems to go with photography and a telescope he hasn't yet assembled and -
Wait. There was a question. Does he want a reuben.
He smiles and nods. "Yeah. Thanks. I've never had one but that sounds cool."
And then Serafine is pulling his attention back to vampires and ultimatums. "Well. Kind of the coat. I mean. And the camera and telescope and I bought a pool table." He says this like it has some kind of meaning beyond the fact that he has more disposable income than he knows what to do with.
"That part of the equation is rather simple. Ultimatums...well...they might be part of complex situations but in themselves they have two likely outcomes. Sometimes you can add a few, but they're relatively uncomplicated. But yes, Iris is getting ready to move and she needs to know whether to expect us to be with her.
"It looks like probably not. Which...there are good things and bad things about that. Still, maybe better than leaping in with a bull in a china shop impression."
SerafíneDan scratches his beard a bit as Kalen both accedes to a reuben and informs Dan that he's never had one. Doesn't know that much about Kalen's skins, the past skins on the new one that he is trying on, but gives Kalen another wry look and, in deference (for the moment) to Sera's question about ultimatums does not continue to chat about hot deli sandwiches, just sets about making it. Simple: homemade pumpernickel bread sliced thin, spread with homemade thousand island dressing, slathered with the sauerkraut made by someone getting-into-fermentation and topped with roast beef, all with some butter on the griddle.
It sizzles as he puts it down. Checks the low heat and turns the other one over, just waiting for it to hit that perfect state of crisp.
Dan glances at Sera. She is - struggling - a bit to understand where they are, and how and why now. Needs a scorecard and some coaching. Doesn't really think of herself as smart.
"You say, it looks like probably not. Because of us I suppose? If it were up to you Kalen, what would you do?"
Kalen Holliday"I think that, whatever else is going on, I don't want something like Lilean Holdings operating in my city. Maybe they aren't running their human trafficking ring through Denver, and maybe those ghosts predate their ownership of the club. They very well could. But they are evil, Serafine."
He sighs and his eyes trace over to watch what Dan is doing. "I care about the souls trapped in that place and I care about the people who are going to get hurt. But whatever we do here, people will be hurt. There are few enough of us that we can't be everywhere. This fight, it should be ours. They all are, really. But within all of our limits. Without knowing what else it might stir up. Knowing that, whether for better or worse reasons than ours someone in Denver is already fighting them...." Again he sighs, eyes still on complicated sandwich alchemy.
"I think that I would likely let it go. At least for now. Maybe, if I came to understand it better, I might change that. There is certainly an opportunity here, to strike. A good one. And, make no mistake, it would be striking at evil. I'm just not sure that's enough on its own anymore. Even for me."
KiaraThere are those like Kiara Woolfe that can deconstruct and reconstruct their bodies to that of other forms. Other creatures. Shapeshift, for lack of any better word for it. Certainly there are no few to whom Kiara would call her family that spend time in the skin of wolves; of other large creatures. There's something almost poetic about it to the Verbena, the idea that you'd offer so much of yourself to the Craft (and to the Earth) you might simply transcend one variation of self in favor of another.
She's heard the stories, of course, horrifying ones about the complications of things like metamorphosis and yet there are times when she feels her skin itch as if it knows she's contemplating the possibilities of one day; when you're ready. Not yet but --
"Hey."
They probably feel her before they hear her; the cyclic energy; the rustle of clothing; Kiara in a purple jacket with zips everywhere and a knitted cap half covering her dark hair. She's leaning into the doorway; fingers wedged into pockets; the loop of keys around her knuckles. All red lips and dramatic eyeliner and there is, always, that feral quality to her, Kiara. That element of the unintentional (mostly) predator. She's smiling in Dan's direction because something he's frying smells amazing.
Unfolds herself a little from her perch.
Glances from Kalen, to Serafine. "I hate the idea of people's energy being trapped in there." A quiet throw in to their conversation; the Verbena meanders toward a bowl of fruit on the counter; picks up an apple and turns it over in her palms.
SerafíneNo one has really told Sera about the human trafficking rings, the ghosts, the rest of it. She has never seen a ghost, doesn't really understand that they are, as they are, perhaps cannot fathom why a soul would linger instead of allowing itself to dissolve back into the great fastness of the universe from which we arise to which we return: whatever is beyond these bodies. She doesn't think much beyond this body, just lives within it, here and now, anchored and aware.
"Dan said Grace wanted to burn the place down. Which seems - " a brief, sharp breath in. "Excessive, you know? The unintended consequences: we own each one that follows from our choices."
--
Dan, flipping the sandwiches, makes a quiet noise in the back of his throat.
"If you're that concerned about the company proper, why not take them all down? You don't have to kill anything, don't even have to get your hands dirty. Grace is a hacker and this is a privately held company, with some international dealings.
"All she has to do is set something up so that it looks like they're using those clubs as a cover to launder money for ISIS or some international terrorist organization. Go back far enough and make it real enough to get the government's attention, make sure there are enough smoking guns to smoke them out, or at least give them headaches and heartaches for a very long time."
--
Sera has stopped painting her toenails. Glances up as Kiara walks in and watches the other woman as she walks, dark eyes sliing from eyes to red lips to the curve of her hips beneath the bottom hem of the jacket.
"What would you need to do to set them free?"
Kalen Holliday"The thought had occurred to me. But...honestly...there are a few people who have expressed concerns about what happens if we set the balance of power they're part of here, which we don't really understand, off from what it is now. It could be better. It could be much worse. I don't know.
"They already lost the Dolphin, one of their clubs. We may not have to intervene at all. But, even if we do, it need not be on any terms but our own. I think there are possibilities in working with Iris that are rare. But...that is not the same as thinking that the outcomes are all good. They are just...uncommon. What she is proposing, what we have here, what we are about to walk away from...it is a chance we won't see again. And part of me wants to take it, just for that. Part of me wants to try to wrap my hands around a new and incomprehensible world in the hope that it will have more light.
"But that hope is slim. And it is not really justification for all the horrors it might unleash."
He shrugs a little. "As to the ghosts...I am given to understand there are more trapped souls than we can really help as well. I do not like to leave them, particularly when I had found a way to reach them. But there are a few of them there, and while I certainly have concern for them, if this goes badly it may well lead to more ghosts than it lays to rest."
Serafíne"Right but - " Dan exhales, softly. Takes the first of the reubens off the griddle, finally. Checks the second one, then goes back to the first, cutting it in half with the edge of his spatula. Some of the sauerkraut starts to ooze out.
"You understand what I'm saying, don't you? If the corporation is providing the structure and the means and engaging in the criminal behavior to which you object the most and you want to do something to disrupt their systems, that's smart. It makes sense. You do it in the most hands-off way possible. Then, you don't have to worry about firemen dying in a fire Grace set: just about figuring out how to create the sort of cybertrail that would entangle them in investigations and litigation for years to come.
"There, you've acted. You've acted in a way that brings a spotlight back to them and impedes their ability to function with the impunity they have come to count on."
--
Sera, quiet, shoots a glance at Dan. THIS IS ALL FUCKING GREEK TO HER, OR KUMQUATS, but her eyes are liquid, quiet, changeable, and they swing back to Kalen listening as he remarks with some passion that part of him wants to wrap his hands around a new and incomprehensible world in hopes that it will have more light.
"I'm sorry Kalen I don't - " pause, glance. "I don't really understand what she was proposing, except she wanted you to join her and act like her ally. Because you sound pretty fucking idealistic you know? Almost mournful, too. Like we're leaving something on the table that might make shit better and I just want to get that - understand it, you know?"
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