Yoga in the Park is for Weirdos

Lucas Reed

[Dex+Ath]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 7, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 4 ) Re-rolls: 2

Lucas Reed

The sky above Washington park was densely clouded, casting a blanket of grey over the surrounding landscape. People often likened that kind of weather to broody or depressed moods, but Lucas wasn't really the type to prescribe emotional weight to the clouds. The sky and the earth were as they were. They existed beyond meaning or emotion. And today, he was perfectly content to practice his craft in the park - regardless of the quality of the light. The air was on the cooler side of warm and slightly breezy. Not bad for yoga, really.

Which is what he was doing at this precise juncture. He had a grey yoga mat rolled out over the grass, and was stretching his small, agile frame into a scorpion pose, legs curved up over his head as he balanced on his elbows. He was dressed for the occasion in black athletic shorts and a white tank top. A small bead of sweat trailed its way down the side of his temple, past the corner of one eye and down the curve of his cheek. Dimly he registered it, but paid it little attention.

Kalen Holliday

[How distracted by Resonance are we?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 4, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

Kalen Holliday

Kalen associates Washington Park most strongly with one spirit and one person; neither of whom are present at the moment. He misses them both, but one of them is in the Umbra and one of them...well. That's complicated.

Lucas is here though. Arranging himself into shapes. Kalen knows more about yoga in the abstract than in practice, though he has a passing familiarity with it. He did, after all, live with Kharisma.

He approaches Lucas slowly. and pauses a little distance away to wait. Only Alexander gets Kalen waiting inches from his face. When Alexander believes that he is who he is and will let him-

Here.

Now.

Kalen directs his attention off of that mess and back toward Lucas. Yoga would probably not be the worst thing to happen to Kalen right now, but he makes no attempt to join Lucas, even so. Just goes still and silent and waits for for Lucas' attention.

Serafíne

(Awareness, yada.)

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (2, 2, 4, 4, 5, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )

Lucas Reed

[Awareness, wee]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )

Lucas Reed

It was not so much that Lucas didn't notice Kalen. Indeed, he was aware of everything around him. All of the patterns - living, material, sentient or less so. They existed as part of the greater universe, like water rising up to create a wave (briefly,) before sinking back into the vast span of the ocean. One of those waves felt like Kalen.

Lucas held his pose, balancing calmly despite the quake of muscles in his arms and his core. That was part of it - the stretch, the pain (the sweat.) After a while, he uncurled carefully and settled into a lotus position, leaning back on his palms to regard Kalen.

"Evening," he said, smiling. Did he remember Kalen? Of course. He remembered everything. Luke looked around at the park, taking in the trees and the flowers and the scattered visitors. "Nice day, hmm?"

Serafíne

"That is so fucked up, what you're doing to your body right now." Kalen shows up and waits for attention; like a cat or something. Standing there. He could be whistling. Maybe he should be whistling, but the lingering, man. Someone might have something to say about that.

Instead, someone has something to say about scorpion pose and said someone is wearing denim cut-offs with fine threads dangling over the spare meat of her well-tanned thighs, a sleeveless off-white lace vest-thingie with dangling fringe over a too-small American-flag print bikini top and drinking something from a plastic cup: grotesquely green. She's not glowing but: sweating, the way people do when it is humid and summer-hot and has the most amazing Grecian sandals, leather straps wrapped all the way up her calves and thighs. She is thin enough that it is noticeable to strangers and perhaps remarkable to those who know her now, who have known her through other times and traumas, though perhaps not thin enough yet to make her appearance alarming. Just: sharper. Honed. The delicate hollows framing her clavicles deeper, the long bones of her frame all the more evident.

"I mean seriously. I'm pretty sure those bits aren't supposed to be pointing in that direction, you know?"

And what does she feel like? The edge of something, some framing thing, beyond or perhaps before definition, gut-wrenching and compelling in the same breath. And also: the sense of soaring beneath the summer sky, sun soaking you right down to the bone.

"I don't mean that thing right there," Lotus position, which Lucas has since assumed, "I mean that shit you were pulling before. Even though I'm pretty sure that your toes aren't meant to point like that either."

This after she has clambered over a park bench from behind and taken a seat on the spine rather than the seat. Because she felt like it.

Kalen Holliday

"I think that definition varies rather widely, but I'd say so," he says to Lucas. And, now that Lucas is no longer twisted into complicated poses he approaches a little.

His eyes shift to Serafine, and he dips his head in a little nod. "Serafine." He smiles faintly, as he says her name, but that is all. Tonight he makes no move toward her, not to touch her and not to offer his arm.

Kalen settles on the ground not very far from Lucas, just beyond easy reach. And leaves them to hash out how the human body should move without any interference from him.

Lucas Reed

Lucas felt like memory. Dreams. Bright, vivid colors and old, lingering recollections. Moments in time, kept safe. Treasured (akashakarma.) Sera told him that what he was doing to his body was fucked up, and Lucas just laughed quietly. His eyes - wide and dark - held an edge of some remembered secret.

"I wasn't aware there was a rule-book for the human body." After a pause he offered his name. "Lucas Reed." To she and Kalen both, he said, "Bani Akashayana." He used the true name, not the version they were likely used to hearing.

"Did you end up buying any paintings?" he asked Kalen, one brow lofted in curiosity.

Serafíne

(I just wrote a REALLY great post and lost it. So gimme a sec!)

Lucas Reed

[Awww, that is such a massive bummer when that happens. :( ]

Serafíne

"'course there's a rule book for the human body. There's a rule book for every fucking thing," the creature contends, and there is a sense of contention about the words. The deliberate sophistry of debate, the seeking-of-clash. She smirks, too: quick and sure, the mobile sweep of her elegant mouth, the spark of clear-challenge in her eyes. "Mind, I'm all for breaking the rules. Breaking the idea of them, hell, breaking the frame of reference that demands and requires rules in the first fucking place so in theory I am on your side, except that yoga shit is fucked the fuck up."

She curls one half-bare shoulder, up, down. Eloquence in the simple form of her body, the way she uses it. "I had a friend who was into it, though. He used to do it in the park in the mornings with a bunch of other weirdos. He was a pacifist. Pretty badass for a pacifist, but you know."

--

Then, see. Kalen: he says her name and she lifts her chin and returns the glance and says hello with the gesture and hello perhaps with her eyes and there is something sharp about her, this ever-present awareness, but tonight the usual penetration of her gaze is: banked, withheld, kept in check. Doesn't say anything back, and that is a choice: to keep herself for herself, by herself, and to herself. An edge of something that feels like -

- oh, hell. what would you know about it?

The edge of her smile, maybe, but only the edge.

--

She doesn't introduce herself, but Kalen said her name. Maybe she assumes she has already been introduced.

Kalen Holliday

Kalen's attention lingers on Serafine for the greeting more than anything. Beyond that, his attention wanders between the two of them as their discussion continues, and there is no real response. He is paying attention and he is present, which is, at times, less clear. But he is not part of their debate and he apparently has no desire to be.

He settles back a little, onto his elbows, and allows his attention to settle on Lucas at the introduction. There is a little nod when he gives his Tradition, though Kalen is apparently as interested in offering formal introductions as he is debates about yoga.

"Well, Grace thought they were some kind of hideous interpretations of penii." There is a quick flash of a smile. "It was apparently that kind of night. So, none for us." None for us, he says. Not none at all, perhaps.

Lucas Reed

"Mm, perhaps he and I would get along. I teach yoga. And I'm a pacifist. Sometimes I even come out here with my class in the morning, like a bunch of weirdos." Lucas grinned and winked at Sera. Whatever he thought of her assertion about rules, if in fact he thought much of anything, he didn't engage her on it. People believed what they believed.

Kalen's response to his question was carefully worded, a fact that did not entirely escape Lucas. He rolled his head a little, regarding Kalen with a curious expression, but didn't pry any further into the matter. Neither Kalen nor Serafine seemed inclined to offer proper introductions, (though Kalen had already given an informal one) which was notable, though not necessarily worrisome. Mages could be a guarded lot. There were pieces of Luke's identity that had not been offered either.

"I've seen a few paintings that involved hideous depictions of male genitalia. They were actually pretty interesting. Definitely not for everyone, though."

Serafíne

"Maybe you would, but I dunno. He also liked to get high. Tossed back tequila like a motherfucker. Like I said: he was a badass." Her smile is a curl of remembrance, quickened, slipstream, slipsliding into one of those between sort of places the human body seems meant to hover within: sorrow / joy, or bitter/sweet. Quite simply: Sera misses Jim. Misses him sometimes with her body and sometimes with her soul and sometimes with their cross-section. Her heart quickens and oh, she allows herself that ache. Allows herself to feel that ache, but there was so many others inside and within and around and beneath that one that it makes her heart stop sometimes. And there is a moment there where her face is canted away and her body is framed just so against the gray, lingering light, mouth open, eyes distant -

And the conversation continues beneath and around her and then they are both talking about hideous penii and whatever it kind of interrupts and spikes through her strange twinge of nostalgia and also grosses her out a little bit. She breathes out sharply, takes another sip of her kale smoothie, and stands.

"I gotta go."

And so: she does.

Serafíne

(sorry kiara! is my bedtime! here in a few minutes!)

Kiara

(oh its fine I'll just cry into my soup. ;) )