Ask Me When I'm Sober

Ian

[Jae-shin's Dex+Brawl]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 4, 6, 6, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 5 ) Re-rolls: 1

Ian

[Ian's Dex+Brawl]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 10) ( success x 4 )

Ian

Washington Park was full of visitors today - the lush, green landscape dotted with joggers and frisbee players, college kids playing basketball, boisterous children playing hide and seek in the trees and elderly couples walking hand in hand by the lake. The weather was lovely, a welcome change of pace from the cold snap that had hit earlier in the week. The evening sun was a warm golden glow shining through the trees. Ian and Jae-shin were sparring in the grass near one of the flower gardens. Maybe it was the weather (that infectious thrill of spring,) but the today the practice had an air of playfulness about it. Ian grinned as they danced around each other, breathing hard. His pulse beat out a rough rhythm in his ears, and sweat shone on his exposed skin. He had on a pair of tapered silver athletic pants, but was otherwise shirtless and barefoot. His toes dug into the soft earth before he lifted off in a tight, predatory spring.

The attack was swift and elegant, but Jae-shin was just fast enough to block it. After a series of swift blows, Jae-shin finally managed to land a hard kick to Ian's side. Ian exhaled roughly at the impact only to dance away, shaking his head with a laugh.

"Careful, I might start fighting for real."

Jae-shin's expression was quietly challenging.

Serafíne

Awareness.

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 7, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 7 ) Re-rolls: 2

Jo Hamilton

[Jo Hamilton uses SPLASH!]

Serafíne

Among the visitors: someone, you know? Who knows, who has some hint of, every strange tracery of magick in the air tonight. Who is: enthralled by it and entombed by it and entangled by it. Follows that thread from god knows how far away to the place where it makes a new, strange knot.

Ian and his partner have an audience. Probably they are too intent on each other to take note of anything more than the impression of blond hair left loose, streaming into a wild tangled mass when the wind kicks up. The sensation of her resonance: gut-wrenching, enthralling, threshold-hovering right there. Right there. Right there.

Sera is wearing something close to preppy drag: a highwaisted skirt, pleated and short, with silver buttons precise at the waist. A longsleeved, rather high-necked little jacket, also black, with more silver buttons in marching military-themed rows, the cut of which would be conservation were it not, you know, so very short: the undercurve of her breasts, the spare cut of her torso. The dark scrawl of her tattoos against golden skin. Someone's been worshipping the sun: somewhere. Somehow.

Serafíne

(Fair warning guys: I go to bed in an hour and a half, so I am probably going to ignore osting order or I will not get to make another post with these many people in the room. :) )

Jo Hamilton

[I'm fine with that :D]

Grace

"So, yeah. The park!" Grace says, sniffing in the warm air and tree smell. "Places like this are good for distraction-free thinking-time. And you need that."

She walked down a park path with Jo, all decked out in a bright blue shirt with a massive comma on it. Just below the comma, in small text is "or 1=1 --". If we're going to teach, do it right, right? Be the exploit.

"So, first off -- you say you want to learn about electricity and stuff like that? First, I want to know -- what do you think of the physical things? The elements, atoms, that kind of thing? Because it's all related. Well, okay, it is all all related, but forces and matter more so than most."

Lavinia

[Per+aware, oooh?]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 4 )

Jo Hamilton

[Do I sense decepticons?! per+aware]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7) ( success x 3 )

Serafíne

Resonance: Emanating from the slight blonde watching the guys spar, so many layers of resonance.

visceral, enthralling, liminal, sundrenched, soaring

The first three: intrinsic to her being. The latter: extrinsic, less tied to her blood and body and bone and presence, but still close, immediate. In/on/around her, maybe anchored somehow. Maybe lingering like a perfume.

Jo Hamilton

She needs distraction free thinking.

This is what Grace says to Jo, who has her cellphone out in her hand and is plugging away at something. Because Jo... Jo doesn't know the meaning of 'distraction-free' unless what Grace really means is boredom. Jo moves too much to ever be distraction free; always thinking, always searching.

The day has been warm, though the temperature has dropped dramatically from her time on campus, and she's dressed accordingly. Her black tank is lit up with yellow letters spelling out 'IN TRAINING TO BE BATMAN' with the bat symbol displayed at the top. And capri light pants (do men call their long shorts capris or shorts?). Of course, her wrists are touched with all manner of things to decorate them (probably gutted someone's computer somewhere, hopefully they don't know about it).

"Huh? Oh right yeah like.. Ok well I mean like, it's just coding right? Like a background program.. like ya know.. like your desktop wallpaper. Or maybe it's like, like an if-then statement. Like if THIS coding happens, do this! Ya know like.. dude how did the Matrix explain it? Where's trinity when you need her?" Jo hummed. She hummed like the powerlines. Always moving, but never radically. Predictable. Necessary. Pulling humanity along, whether it liked it or not.

Jo Hamilton

[ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_-OTZHBIuE for illustration of what I mean by Humming]

Lavinia

It's actually a beautiful day. More than a beautiful day, it's fan-fucking-tastic. She had been spending time with friends, some people she had concluded were decent company, regardless of whether or not they had a roof over their head. There but before the grace of God go she, and all that jazz. She remembers being out here, she remembers being hot and being cold, she remmebers thinking that she had better be brilliant or better be talented because otherwise she wouldn't be able to put a roof over her head.

Anyway, it wasn't important. She'd eaten part of a bucket of chicken with the guys, bid them adios and headed on to enjoy the rest of the park. It was a beautiful place, full of frisbee and basketball and trees and- oooh, were those people sparring?

Something felt interesting, and her dark eyes lit up like torches (like she ever had to really wonder about that) and a grin blossomed across her face. THe blonde, with her golden halo of hair and rather remarkable height and capris (nope, those were regular pants, they were just capris because Lavinia Cervantes was over six feet tall) She followed sensation, marched forward in combat boots and a cut up tee shirt (something to hide naturally occuring holes from God-knew-what)

And she headed forward, looking from the men sparring to a blonde sitting and watching and instead her attention went there. Had no qualms with plopping down next to her. Left ear to the lady's side.

"They just start?"

Ian

[Life 3, Better Body diff 6]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Ian

[+1 Dex for 24 hours, woot]

Lavinia

She sits and there is light. Not the typical light, but something radiant and warm, something that burns, ever so slightly, egging close to the edge, a reminder of some ember burning eternal. Something without boundaries, something without eges, constantly pressing outward, something that went out to the corners of the universe and birthed new and birthed more and there was light, there was warmth, there was something that lingered there.

Something that is. That was. That will always be even when the mortal shell of the being who held the universe in her very finite form. She touched against something larger than herself, larger than the heavens. Truly, she must be of the divine. Truly, she must be greater than a being bound only to this plane. All haloed and sonorous voice and eyes like torches, like lighting across the dark. And once that light set aside, her eyes were the space between the stars. Bright but so very, very dark.

Ian

[Ian's Dex+Brawl]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 6 )

Ian

[Jae-shin's Dex+Brawl]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 4 ) Re-rolls: 1

Serafíne

"Fuck if I know," the lovely creature shrugs and the movement threatens to upend whatever modesty the cut of the jacket affords her. She is wearing sunglasses. Yesterday they were framed with skulls. Today, they are black, cat-eyed, the frames studded with silver nailheads. Match to the leather wrapped-round her throat.

This sideglance then, her eyes hidden behind the glasses so large they dominate her angular features, without occluding them. "I just started watching them."

The sun slides across the reflective surface of the dark glass. Moving, luminous.

Grace

"Well, yes. Except that there is no real if-then. If you look deep enough into the code, you might say forces are a type of matter, or matter is a type of force. They are composite objects made of the same general parts. Like, take electrons. Electrons are what carry electricity, which is a force, but they're also the things that help make up atoms. They're the same type of object, just with slightly different variables. So if you already have some theory of matter, it's relatively easy to translate that into a theory of forces."

Stroll, stroll, stroll. Lecture, lecture, lecture.

Ian and Jae-shin.

Cloud.

Wait, what?

"Oh hey! They're doing a thing!"

She turns on a heel and heads over. So, now -- a bright-eyed embodiment of shifting, winged focus starts beelining for the assembly, pseudo-apprentice in tow.

Ian

It was the first time any of the people in the park (apart from Ian's current sparring partner) had seen him since he'd gone Seeking up that mountain peak. The first time Sera would notice the addition of a deeper, more primordial note within his resonance. The primal energy of it coiled fittingly with the rest of his feline characteristics. And as Ian moved, the press of his Will blossomed out, his working evident to anyone paying particular attention. He focused with his pulse, his movement, dancing across the grass with an effortless grace that hinted at his ballet training. And then suddenly he lunged, ducking beneath Jae-shin's arms to knock him in the back of his knee. Ian followed it up with a sweeping kick that took the Akashic's feet out from under him.

Then he pounced, pinning Jae-shin to the grass with a sharp, triumphant grin.

Jae-shin looked up at him quietly, catching his breath. After a moment, he laughed - pleased and surprised. "You cheated."

"You're just mad I finally pinned you." Ian reluctantly released his prize, getting to his feet as he cast a glance toward Sera and Lavinia. When he focused on the latter, there was a light tilt of his head. "Hey."

Jo Hamilton

"Buuuuuuuuuuut matter is just code. So like if it's jsut matter and stuff, then it's just code. Cause like, how could it like be anything else? So is it like a program running? Or like.. it has like a schedule? But like if it's not an if-then, then like why is the weather and stuff all chaotic? Like for realsies?"

Now Jo HAD sensed a new individual, she has just been engaged in her phone and Grace, but now was being aimed in their direction. "A thing!" Jo exclaimed, as if this said everything. "We must like see this thing! Because things, things are cool. Not like those thingie-ma-jigs.."

Jo is right on her heels, shoving her phone in her back pocket.

Lavinia

"Good enough for me," she replied with a shrug. She wasn't wearing a skirt today, like Lavinia ever really paid attention to what she was doing in a skirt, dared egg someone closer to getting an eye full of whatever she was wearing underneath, but we digress. It wasn't important what she wasn't wearing right now. "I'm Lavinia."

Sera got another glance, having the worst time not looking and being taken in by the fact that Sera was striking. Maybe she had painting or chalk drawings on her mind after her last escapade with the awakened populace of Denver. She opened her mouth, but then noticed people approaching and turned her attentions again.

When Ian spoke she nonchelantly watches his lips, not longing but decyphering. Then, her eyes went to his face. "Hey, you two are great," she replied.

That was the voice of a herald. Something that spoke with confidence, that bid fear not, something that brought tidings of joy or the message of something wrathful beyond measure. She is a messenger, or at least that's what her voice seems intent on conveying about her.

Ian

[I suppose we should do this awareness thing]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 7, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

Serafíne

Then it's over. Ian - cheating - has pinned his partner and Sera, who seems to be both watchful and somehow removed or contained or maybe merely high, notices. Her sharp little chin rises in a way that makes the sun's reflection glint off the nailheads in her sunglasses: or maybe just the darkdark glass.

And she: claps.

You know: for the show.

Around the paper cup, fingers finding her palm. Mouth crawling, curved at one corner that is essentially inhabited.

"Serafíne. You can call me Sera."

This to Lavinia. Nothing to Ian except the fixed attention of her hidden eyes on him, as he rises: from the hold, from the ground. Glances up at Sera, Lavinia, greets the latter. Something arrested in that awareness. She knows everything: feels everything. Every piece of it, which threatens to peel her apart even as she is cinching herself back together.

Grace

"The weather and stuff is all chaotic because it isn't an if-then. There are very few things in this universe that are a true either-or. Mostly, we exist in the grayish in-betweens. If things were deterministic, like an if-then, we would be able to predict the chaos precisely. But as it's all built on probabilities, even so far as the electrons and protons? The world isn't a firmly defined thing. At all. Which is nice, because hey -- that would be way boring."

That spiel having been said, Grace golf-claps to Ian, and plops down next to Lavinia. "I'm Grace. Hi."

Jo Hamilton

"Well yeah but you're like totally simplifying it. Like, it's an if-then statement but it's not like, if Jo sneezes, Butterflies are born. It's like.. like If this person does this, under this, when this, but only while, then this happens, which does this, but only this while this, and so on and so on. Like it's a lot more complicated and stuff. You can totes predict stuff, if you got the code. Like if I knew the whole code, I could totally tell you when stuff is gunna happen. I mean it's be like super easy. But like we're missing the pieces and stuff so it only seems chaotic.

Jo..gives Ian a thumbs up. That is her congrats to..whatever that was. Because Jo isn't into the physical exercises, save one..or two.

"Yo Sera!" Jo gives her a wave and then finally..oh FINALLY focuses on the new one. She twitches her nose, lifts her brows and seems to look as if someone gave her to the key to the gaming store. Grace sits next to lavinia, who is sitting next to Sera. This... no.. this can't be.

So Jo, sits in Grace's lap and leans in towards Lavinia. "So, will you marry me?"

Lavinia

[You're on my deaf side, did I actually catch any of this?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN8 (1, 3, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )

Lavinia

"Sera," she repeats, grins a little at Serafíne, lights up for a second because there is something vaguely hopeful for the woman at her side. She wasn't entirely human, this one. On first glance, certainly, but there's far too much energy there. More than a mortal body can handle (she's fragile, though she doesn't let on. She's stronger than she looks, but she's not as strong as she thinks) "Glad to meet you."

This is Grace. And there she is, surrounded by strangers who feel like- well, now, this one is certainly different, but happens to have the misfortune of being on Lavinia's right side instead of her left. She scoots back enough so that she can kind of see Grace's face. A little. Just enough so that she doesn't have to turn her head to see the woman next to her. Her brows furrow for a second, like she was thinking, like she was straining.

But, once she puts two and two together, the woman laughs, something that is intent and warm and that stuck to the senses. She wasn't terribly loud, but she certainly cut through the ambient sound.

"Lavinia," she offered to the pile of GraJoCe. "Are you tryin' to make an honest woman outta me." Brow quirked, grin widened, "or are you proposing to Sera? I haven't been married in a little while, so I feel the need to clarify."

Ian

Lavinia said they were great. Grace and Sera clapped, as though Ian and Jae-shin had been nominated the evening's designated entertainment. Jae-shin responded to the approval with a hesitant smile, perhaps unsure if he ought to be encouraging the notion that combat was a spectator sport (or perhaps he was just shy.) He got to his feet with a smooth motion, dusting dirt and grass from his legs. Unlike Ian, he had on a tank top, but was otherwise similarly outfitted in athletic clothes. They'd obviously come here with the express purpose of doing what they'd just been engaged in.

Ian, of course, took the applause in stride. The side of his mouth quirked lightly, and he bent down into a loose, graceful bow. Slightly theatrical.

"You guys are welcome to join us, if you like."

The challenge hung in the air, dry and coyly tempting, though Ian did not expect that any of those seated nearby were likely to take him up on it.

Serafíne

Yo Sera! shouts Jo and our Sera tips her coffee mug in the creature's direction. Her head turns; their collective reflection crawls across the gleaming surface of her glasses. Does not comment on if-thens and why-wheres and data because that all sounds like bullshit to her.

Except of course you can predict stuff. She's a seer. The future and the past crack themselves open between her teeth.

They speak different languages, though. On every level.

She is looking at them though: her golden head turned, her chin low over her narrow shoulder, the dark cut of that little black jacket clearly tailored for her: from the width to the length to the glove-like fit of the arms. Custom-made.

Somehow the lift and curve of that cup is both greeting and farewell. It's clear - body language, the way she holds herself - that this is only a temporary waystation.

"I don't believe in fucking monogamy," this to Lavinia, a sideline, a sidelong. "So marriage is pretty much off the table. I think she was proposing to you, though."

Then she's moving, turns around on her heel because she never sat down, just paused in her passage. Glance back at Ian over a dark shoulder. "Ask me when I'm sober. Watch me say yes."

--

That's really all the farewell they get. She's on her way down the path, into the shadows. Sunglasses still covering her eyes.