The One Where Sera Rewinds Time

Grace

[Previous posts, for reference!]

Grace

It's been a shitty few days. But for someone else in the place, it's been a whole lot shittier.

Grace doesn't understand Quiet. She's never been through it, never seen anyone go through it. The closest she's come has been suffering from a Technocratic virus meant to torture its victims as much as possible through hallucinatory horror. So she has sympathy when Samir takes apart his bed or spends the day cleaning furiously. She's always there with food, cutting through his bullshit to make him eat. Thinks this might have been something the monster did to him.

She couldn't really leave the office the day before yesterday. He was more out of it than usual, and somebody had to make sure he wouldn't bolt out and start wandering the streets again, muttering about that woman who tried to put government mind-control agents in his food.

Not that he'd get too far, because Grace hasn't yet shut down her monitoring program.

Yesterday, though, he wouldn't eat. Wouldn't do anything. His little red dot on her map of Denver didn't move.

Today, the dot is on the move again. And Grace is on her phone in the kitchen, calling Sera. The only time he's been halfway coherent was after she helped him get there.

Sera, your phone is ringing.

Serafíne

The creature sounds - well - sleepy when she answers. Like she was drowsing on a blanket spread out beneath the late summer sun, or maybe - just maybe - rolling over amidst the rich tangle of her fluffy white duvet and crisp sheets. This lazy, back-of-her-throat sound as her mouth more-or-less finds the right spot on her iPhone for talking. That's all luck.

"Grace. 'Sup?

Grace

"Hey, Sera. It's about Samir -- I don't know if you know him? The guy from the... a few days ago? Things aren't really improving," she says, glancing at the plate she made up with all of Samir's favorites.

"He's not eating. Or drinking. I really don't want to take him to the hospital, but eventually, you know, people get dehydrated... I don't really know what to do."

She's avoiding saying all the reasons he's giving for not eating. And of course, she doesn't want to take him to the hospital for Reasons. That's not even close to an option.

"He seemed to do better with you."

Because, you know, you have that magic touch, there, Sera.

Serafíne

"Mmmph."

Something something in the background. Music. A window rattling open, perhaps, the assertion of exterior noise, the hum of some insistent insect. The world is so alive, and beneath it this susurrant huskhuskhusk. That's the comforter, trailing along the floor behind her. Unwinding.

"Where are you?" Then: "Where's that?"

And then:

"Okay. Be there soon."

--

A half-hour, maybe forty-five minutes later, a van pulls up to a certain address in another section of town. The passenger's door opens, and rather spare young woman in a short pink sundress covered in bumble bees. Thigh-high fishnets held up by visible garters encase her legs, right down to her well-worn black combat boots. Damp curls fragrant around her shoulders, a thermos full of whiskey-spiked Darjeeling in hand, she hangs out long enough for her companion - tall, blond, beared, lanky - to park and circle the van and come up alongside her.

Together, they head toward the closest door-like thing they see.

Grace

[Awareness! Can we sense the approach of a Sera?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 5, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )

Grace

Grace lets Sera know the address -- a place West of Denver proper, on the outskirts of town.

The Warehouse sits beside the Office, a two-story building. Neither look like much from the outside, which is probably the point. A horribly faded image of a cow decorates the side of the Warehouse, which might lead one to believe that this place was attached to a dairy business at one point. It is not, anymore. For one thing, dairies don't generally have need for such thick doors, with what appear to be biometric locks.

Grace is expecting visitors, and she can feel the mesmerizing presence of Sera filtering in through all the other resonant signatures here. It doesn't take her long to appear at the door to the Office, opening it with a crunching noise.

"Hey, Sera. Dan," she says, keeps the door open for them -- but not too much. Persimmon, one of Kalen's Bengal cats is eyeing the door like it is a portal into a strange new world.

Serafíne

The door opens. There they are, the pair of them. Sera has her head tipped back - gleaming sunglasses obscure her eyes - but she is sort of looking over the frames at Dan, who has a tattooed hand on her shoulder and is laughing, or maybe smirking, just a bit at something Our Sera said.

He glances up, inhales as the door opens, and - nah. Doesn't say anything except, "Grace," which serves as a stand-in greeting for the two of them because Sera kinda waves her thermos of tea.

In through the door and they are both looking around because the place is so - well - unusual and the technological locks honestly kinda freak Sera out so good thing she doesn't really notice-notice them.

"Interesting place," Dan to Grace, as he steps in behind Sera. "Kinda feel like I'm entering the lair of a Bond villain. Or at least the movie-set of the lair of a Bond villain."

Sera, for her part, lofts one of her straight dark brows over the rim of her oversized glasses. Fixes them on Dan, briefly, then back at Grace. "Where is he?"

Samir, she means. Of course.

Samir

Yesterday the dot had no more energy than a slug. Even a slug is possessed of a sense of self-preservation. All living creatures have within them such a drive but Samir is trapped in a reality that doesn't match the reality his friends know. The other day Sam was able to claw his way back to some semblance of sanity. He isn't having wild visual hallucinations or hearing so much noise that he can't concentrate anymore but Sam doesn't know how long he's going to be like this. Quiet doesn't come with an instruction manual.

Today Sam is tired. Call it a bout of despair. His only options are to fight off the madness for a few hours and be incapable of doing so much as hauling himself out of bed for the rest of the next day or to lock himself in his room so Grace doesn't keep trying to get him to ingest whatever mind-control substance the government or the Technocracy maybe it's the Technocracy maybe it's some other entity he hasn't thought of yet but the voices are angry with him and if they can't get him to do what they want him to do one way they'll find another.

So he went with Option B.

The dot is upright and active. Thus far it hasn't moved from its place on Grace's map of Denver.

Grace

"The Bond villain's totally Kalen," Grace says, nods at him. Inside the place, it looks (and feels) more like a Hermetic's lair, with the resonance of Kalen and Elijah seeped into the pores of the wood. Kalen likes his interiors beautiful and decorated, with deep, jewel-tones on the walls, and paintings, maps, objects plenty. If Sera ever makes it to the library, she will find a rather large marble lion statue -- it is that kind of place.

"He has locked himself in his room. I'll show you," she says to Sera's question, and turns to go up the stairs.

Serafíne

So, jewel tones, paintings, rich warm woods, libraries with enormous marbles statues hidden away behind a concrete facade with a fading dancing cow, thick doors and biometric locks.

Definitely Bond villain. The vibe only deepens the further they get inside.

Dan gives Grace a quick little - something. Grin? Grimace? Something between? through the beard and falls into step behind Sera as they head up the stairs. She's being pretty quiet, keeps pace, doesn't take off the sunglasses, makes all the turns and follows all the paths.

Upstairs, the hallway: "You have a key right?" Sera, quiet. "Lock-picking's not exactly one of my skills."

Grace

Grace looks like she's just coming to think of the idea of a key. Of course, Sera needs to get in. Samir's locked the door. That all makes sense. Part of the reason why she gave Samir a room that locked in the first place was to give him a sense of security. That's going to get violated now, isn't it?

"Key. Right. I do, hold on..." she says, and darts down the hallway, slipping her finger on a fingerprint-reader, which opens the vault-like door to her own office. The Bond villain vibe does not decrease. At all.

Soon, though, she's returning with a keyring of note. There's keys to their servers, to the freeze-dried goods larder, to the gun range, to a few other offices -- and Samir's room. She holds out the right one to Sera.

"I don't think he'll want me to be the one opening that door. He's been... unhappy with me today I think."

Samir

Oh good. Voices out in the hallway. Just what a guy who's already having auditory hallucinations and delusions concerning the intentions of the person who's been providing him with shelter wants to hear in a moment like this.

The door is already locked. On their side the girls can hear a rustling and then a very near thumping. (The audience can see Sam flying up from where he'd been sitting on the floor and grabbing a computer chair and then wedging it underneath the doorknob.)
He's breathing fast. He's scared.

Grace wasn't taking I'm not hungry for an answer earlier. They must have gotten to her already. He doesn't know who's with her and he doesn't particularly want to find out either.

Serafíne

"It's really good of you to watch out for him, Grace," Dan tells her when she returns with the key, remarking on the fact that Samir might be - unhappy with her. One of his hands is on Sera's spare shoulder, beneath her damp curls. The other is on her opposite bicep. They're close.

Sera accepts the key from Grace's hand. Well, first trades-off the thermos full of whiskey-laden tea, then accepts the key. She takes this neat little breath, watching Grace or a beat, or two, or even three longer than is necessary, then exhales, long and quiet. Wry.

"Grace," she says, still-quiet, frowning a bit, thoughtful. Glances down at the keys as she turns them over in-hand, then back up. "You know that's not about you, right? Right now. Whatever he's feeling. He's unmoored right now, that's all. Don't take it to heart. I'm sure he'll thank you for everything, when he's better."

--

Doesn't say anything more, Sera. Turns over the keys.

Opens the door.

--

Tries to, anyway. It only goes so far. Gets stuck and Sera tries to push it harder and it is Dan who stops her pushing Pulls her back a bit, a gentle pressure on her spine. Bends over and kisses her on the crown of her head, murmurs something into her ear.

It's not like a closed door will keep her from doing magick. It makes it harder, though.

--

"Samir, it's Sera. I wanna help, but you need to let me in. It's harder from out here. Please open the door."

Grace

"Oh, I'm very aware that's all about his... you know," Grace says. "I think he's afraid of me is all."

She takes the thermos, steps back, gives Dan this look: a bit of exasperation, though not at anyone in particular. More, this situation. It's frustrating. The door sticks, and Grace doesn't speak anymore. She just looks up at the ceiling, like it might have some answers.

There is a thing that might have some answers, might it not? She fishes for her cell phone in her jeans pocket, pulls it out.

Samir

"Ah, fuck..."

The muffled exclamation sounds almost mournful. Like this is worse than he thought it was so much as he can claim to be thinking part of his problem is his brain is always on and it's always overthinking but if his brain were the thing misfiring right now it'd be an easy fix. It's not his brain. It's his Avatar or the cosmos or the code. Something.

A moment of silent contemplation. Shut the fuck up. Think. Where the hell am I. Are there more of them? Does it matter? It doesn't matter. How the fuck does this window--

Oh there it goes.

A latch pops.

Serafíne

Sera listens. Closes her eyes behind those glasses and breathes out something like a sigh.

"I don't think there's anything we can do, Grace. I'm sorry. I'm just gonna go."

Nudges Dan with her right shoulder and hands the keys back to Grace, then turns around and heads back down the stairs.

Grace

She looks up from her phone (still showing Samir inside his room) when Sera speaks, her eyebrows almost meeting in the middle of her forehead. "Okay. I'll keep an eye on him, I guess."

She breathes out a sigh, and looks around -- at the door, at Sera, at Dan. "Well, thanks for coming, anyway. Any time you want to come by and play laser tag, or... our library is open to anyone, so..."

But, hey, maybe now's not the time.

"Just, yeah. If anything changes, I'll let you know."

Samir

[i am so sorry grace. soak roll per rules on p. 439 in M20.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )

Samir

There's no more noise from inside the room after that.

Grace's computer screen can tell her more than the closed door can. She's not looking at it now but when she does she'll see the dot is moving at a decent clip. That drop down to the ground didn't hurt him at all. Truly the universe looks out for the young and the crazy.

Serafíne

Time 3. Rewind. Difficulty: 8 -1 (focus) -1 (resonance: liminal)

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 7) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Serafíne

Ditto. +1 (extending) -1 (quint)

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5) ( success x 1 ) [WP]

Serafíne

(Again, Damnit.)

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 7) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Serafíne

Per + Empathy

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 7, 10) ( success x 3 ) [Doubling Tens]

Serafíne

Stop.

They're walking away and Grace is saying something about fucking laser tag, her brows drawn together over her eyes, and outside there's more than the latch opening there is the rattle of a window in its casement and maybe the sudden drop of a body -

- no -

nothing hits the ground. No one heads downstairs. The seconds are peeling themselves backwards and apart and there is something about this that is so inherently wrong it feels like unsplitting a broken-atom, like pushing ink back into the nib of a pen. Just a wrench and shaking her hands are shaking her hands are shaking as she reaches out to take the keys from Grace's hand and Grace is saying or maybe thinking that Sera should be the one to open the door because Samir is maybe a little bit afraid of her right now and Sera is looking at the keys in her hand and gives Grace a quirky little frown, pushes the keys back into her hand.

"On second thought, he locked the door. Let's not barge in. Let's go back downstairs?"

So: noise outside. Grace's voice, others. Keys yes, but none in the lock.

Footsteps shuffling in recessional.

Dan's giving Sera a suspicious look but that might be the suggestion of restraint over the keys or something.

Grace

Time unhooks itself, starts rolling back. A few seconds go by, the other direction. Surely the universe won't miss them. Right?

For all Grace is aware, the lingering presence of Sera goes and makes her feel as though between-worlds in a sudden burst of Working that lingers -- without a trace of what actually changed -- right as she hands the keys over, trying to explain why she shouldn't be the one to open the door.

Sera's pushing the keys back on to her. Yes, let's go back downstairs. Grace didn't really want to open that door in the first place.

"Sure. There's a room with some couches down there," she says, gives Sera's shaking hands a little look. Wonders what changed her mind.

But then, she turns and walks down the hall again. Samir's sanctum of solitude won't be breached just yet.

Samir

They both know him better than they might think they do. He hasn't changed. It's the reality surrounding him that's changed. Samir is locked inside his own thin cocoon of paradox more than he can say to be locked inside that room but he is still in there somewhere.

They both know even if he has never admitted to it that Samir suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder. On a bad day he doesn't like to touch things other people have touched and he doesn't want to touch other people and he'll hole up in his own apartment. They've lost track of him for weeks already because he won't reach out when he's having a bad time and it's so easy to forget about him anyway. Even on good days he seems distracted by his own thoughts.

This is a bad day. With mood swings and voices whispering in his ear.

He is sitting on the floor in the corner of the room. The window is closed. The door is locked but not barred. There are two voices out in the corridor. He breathes slow and waits until he hears footsteps retreat down the corridor. Then he crawls underneath the reassembled bed and wraps his arms around his ribs and closes his eyes.

Serafíne

Downstairs, they find the couches Grace mentioned. Sera can feel the faint jangle of broken reality behind her eyes, at the back of her skull, held off, waiting. So she closes her eyes and doesn't really think about it.

She's good that that, Sera. Not thinking about the Thing Behind Her when she wants to avoid instead of simply deny reality.

Dan sits in the corner of the couch. Sera sits beside him, sort of curls up against him. Rests her sharp little chin on his chest. Grace might offer them something to eat - that happens here sometimes, or so we hear, but if so Sera waves it off. Unscrews the lid on her thermos and takes a sip of her whiskey-laced tea.

Then gulps it down like a shot.

Does another like that.

"Tell me what that room looks like, Grace. While I Work. It'll help me imagine it."

Correspondence 2: to establish the link through which she can cast. Is this vulgar too? -1 (focus) -1 (time)

Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (3, 6, 6) ( success x 2 )

Serafíne

(Extending:

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )

Grace

They do pass a kitchen on their way downstairs. There is a cake on the table inside, and some cookies. They are vegan carob cookies, because Samir used "I'm a vegetarian" as an excuse not to eat once. Now, the taste of those atrocious cookies might be what's caused him to believe them to be full of mind-control goo. Carob kind of has that lingering aftertaste.

But they pass it, and Grace offers a cookie (because she wants to find somebody else who likes them other than Elijah) and gets told no. And they continue.

"Well, depending on whether he's disassembled his bed again, there *is* a bed in there. Or at least parts of one. It's a rectangular room. Like, about four hundred square feet? And the walls are green. Tile floors, with some of Kalen's Persian rugs on them, because it's all tile and he might want to go barefoot. Um... there's a window? It faces West."

There's other things too. A painting on the wall that Grace only barely recalls, and a couch (because this place sprawls with couches). There's a dresser too. But she doesn't mention those.

Instead, she goes to one of the puffed-up overstuffed chairs in the little sitting room and plops herself into it.

Samir

There was a painting on the wall. Now it's been taken down and propped canvas-side towards the wall. No damage done to it but Sam didn't want the damned thing watching him and he had to scrub the walls down anyway. That room smells much more strongly of antiseptic than it ever did before he started staying with them and that window may have been open while he was on his cleaning binge Monday but it's just as likely he did not open it.

Irrelevant. Sera can't see what Sam is doing upstairs. She can feel the low hum of his resonance for the persistence of his Quiet. Like threading a needle. He's oblivious. If he were in his right mind he would have snipped the thread so soon as he was aware of it but he is not aware of it. He's underneath the bed trying to sleep.

It's difficult. Sometimes he hears the echoes of a monstrous woman's shriek. He smells rotting meat.

He does nothing to resist Sera.

Serafíne

Dan tightens his arms around Sera's spare shoulders. Even he can feel the hum of her resonance, the en-victualled, enthralling thrill of it. A few of the hairs on his forearm stand on end. She is both here and / there because there is no here or / there there is only is. Can't see it but behind the glasses her eyes are closed. Her throat works neatly to swallow another mouthful of tea that Dan kindly helps her steer toward her lips. Not that she's drunk this quickly, no, but she started earlier and she is allowing herself to become loosed, unmoored, unmade, undone. Something very un-everything about her magick. The way she lets go of her/self the way she has neither her nor self, the way she becomes everything and nothing.

just, you know, all.

Starts humming somewhere in all this, nothing more than a hum, faint enough that it sounds meditative.

First: calm mind. Dif: 7 -1 (focus) -1 (time)

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

Serafíne

Extending: +1

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (5, 8, 8) ( success x 2 )

Serafíne

Extending again!

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 7) ( success x 1 )

Grace

Grace has never really understood how this works. How Sera can just drink a thing or smoke a thing and the universe changes for her. I mean, if that were a thing that worked, every college student who ever filled a stairwell with the aroma of pot would be turning back the pages of Time as they did so.

But, however it works, it does. That's all Grace really needs to know.

She stays quiet as Sera does her thing. Personally, she always likes a bit of focus when she's untangling the Tapestry's strings, making them dance to her direction. She does, however, pull a leg up into the chair, her foot resting in her lap. It's comfortable, for a certain type of person...

Samir

To compare it to the sudden yearned-for cessation of a headache isn't accurate. It's close. He may very well never talk to either of the women downstairs about what it's like to live with his illness. Ignore the fact that they're the closest thing to friends he has in this city.

Well. One of them is. One of them was or could have been or almost was. Plenty of reasons for her not to be here and she is anyway. Neither of them can reach in and pluck the paradox from the room cast it outside blot it out with her own energy but getting him to sleep so he can fight this off himself is a greater help than Sam can even see right now.

He isn't blind to the world around him. When Grace found him he was. He was getting better and he's blind to the fact that he was getting better.

That itch to check everything in the room is gone. He's too tired to stay busy enough to keep himself distracted from the thoughts that let themselves in unannounced. Those stop too.

Sam exhales as if he'd been holding his breath this entire time. No one is there to see it. He's alone with his madness but it's a madness reduced to one front now. May take him a few days to come out of it enough to recognize that he wasn't actually alone. Right now he's tired and no one is trying to open the door.

He lies still a moment and when he's assured of the fact that he can move Sam rolls onto his back and climbs out from under the bed.

Serafíne

4 Grace does not understand how Sera can do what she does, and the truth is that that equation works the other way, too. Sera does not understand how magick can function within the confines of all these devices, programs, data.

But she's not thinking about any of that right now. She is / everywhere. A moment where her mouth is seamed and her eyes are closed and the humming stops.

Then something else. Sharper, more gut-wrenching than the work she has done until now. You can do this/You can make it through.

(mind 2/prime 2 - modified cult-y hope's birth, which can give 1 temp willpower. this is more like a gut-twisting affirmation of strength/life than hope, specifically. Would be more poetic but it is late and I am tired).

Dif: 6 -1 (resonance) -1 (focus)

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (4, 5, 6) ( success x 4 ) [WP]

Serafíne

Extending.

Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (2, 3, 8) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Serafíne

"I think that's all I can do." Sera murmurs when she comes to / from wherever she's been, Half-sitting up, dress rucked up, hair mostly dry by now, at least on the surface. Dan helps her off him and then stands up and reaches down a hand for her and she rises, too. Gives Grace a distracted little smile and heads out with Dan. He opens the van door for her, reading a certain tension in her brow and in her body that has him paying attention to her as he circles the van, opens the driver door, climbs inside.

Waits.

Serafíne

Paradox.

Dice: 14 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 9 )

Serafíne

Soak

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

Leah

Serafíne

Awareness / Perception

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (2, 5, 6, 6, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 6 ) [Doubling Tens]

Emily

There's a concert in the park tonight. One last summer event before the city settles in for autumn. Nothing big, but a temporary stage has been set up in the grass and a couple of local bands are set to play. Across the park, the sound of folksy art-rock rolls over the green hills. They can hear a dim echo of it in the zoo, and some of the animals decide to join in by uttering an occasional answering call into the air.

It's a relaxed affair, as concerts go. The mood is pleasant and friendly among the crowd, with a number of people passing around joints to share. Some of them lay sprawled out together on blankets, while others stand in groups, swaying and dancing in time to the music. Towards the back, a few people have broken out snacks and bottles of wine.

Some of the people come and go, as visitors wander through the park and stop to listen before continuing on their way. One such person happens to be a girl of about nineteen who's standing beneath the overhanging shade of a tree near the back of the audience. She's tall, this girl. Maybe 5'10-5'11. With wavy dirty-blond hair and a rounded face. Her eyes are shut as she listens to the music, and for a moment she puts her arms up against the tree and sways back and forth - letting herself become absorbed in the song. It's a pretty composition. A little sad and a little eerie (a woman haunted by the ghosts of her past.) The lead vocalist has a deep, rich voice with a powerful range, but here she uses it in an understated way.

This girl. The one under the tree. She isn't a face that Sera would recognize, but she feels so very familiar. Her resonance is fiery and powerful, cycling and regenerating. Like a phoenix. (Like Leah.) Here though, the sensation is stronger. And instead of the volatile blister of scorching heat there is instead a deep, lambent flame - burning like a bonfire.

Perhaps the similarity is an odd coincidence. Perhaps not.

Serafíne

Dusk still lingering against the edges of the sky and strangers sprawled all around the lawn. Someone dancing in gyrating circles down near the stage, more than one someone. Lazy circles to match both the music and the mood, like dervishes slowed to half or maybe even quarter-time, girls in long skirts with bare feet and hemp anklets strung with little bells, this guy with who bops up and down like a goat on acid, but only sometimes, you know. Dances like that no matter who's playing: it's more about the motion than the music.

--

"Hey." Not really interrupting, Sera kinda waits for the song in which the strange (?) is absorbed to work itself through, and end. Everything ends, right? Even music you can get lost in live in a park on a lazy summer night when the sky has gone half-golden with the banked and fading glow of a falling sun. The hey comes from a chick in a see-through white lace sundress layered over black lingerie. Yes, see: you are supposed to look at the way the attire frames, reveals, and conceals her body. Blond hair pulled back from sharp, striking features in a messy and haphazard twist.

Dark blue eyes reflecting the last shreds of the sun skim the stranger's profile. This little knot of consideration between her brows, neat and thoughtful and defined.

"Leah?"

Trusts her feelings more than her eyes or almost anything else, Sera.

How many fucking times has that gotten her into trouble.

Emily

If it'd been anyone but Sera, maybe the girl wouldn't have turned. But it was Sera, and she did. There's an awareness to it. The way the girl's eyes settle on Sera's face and know her. She doesn't seem surprised. Maybe she felt Sera coming.

Up close, Sera can sense the working of the girl's Will. The finely crafted effort that went into reshaping her face and her hair. It's subtle - the hints of alteration. Nothing visible to the naked eye. Even to Sera's acute senses, it isn't easy to detect. Another mage probably would have missed it.

But Sera trusts her feelings more than her eyes. And in this case, those feelings turn out to be correct. The girl smiles. She doesn't seem high, but there is definitely something different about her (something besides her face and the burning strength of her resonance.) She looks... at home in her skin. There's a renewed sense of purpose and strength that tends to come after a successful Seeking.

She puts her finger to her lips. "It's Emily, here." She pauses, glances back at the stage. At the people gathered across the lawn. Suddenly, she smiles, reaching out to clasp Sera's hand - should she allow it. "Let's take a walk."

Emily

[Edit: remove that first "The girl smiles." I meant to erase that.]

Serafíne

Strange to clasp hands with someone mid-spell. This momentary dissonance that feels like being so fucking high the world around you has become entirely unmoored enough that you can be both chilling on a couch in a gross little bedsit in the west end and also soaring past the rings of Saturn or maybe some other fucking monstrous planet, who turns around and blows you a kiss. Why not?

Just this shard of it, but: of course she takes Leah/Emily's hand, watches her own fingers settle neatly between the other young woman's, and there is a dull flash of ache as she remembers: someone else whose hand she always holds. And then: another someone before him.

So: holding hands, music soaring behind them as they pick their way through picnickers with drowsing infants and kids to wrangle and other folks: getting high, getting to know each other, not giving a fuck about knowing each other but making out anyway, or maybe just watching the sky and waiting for the first stars to emerge.

Sera does not say much or really even anything until the outer perimeter of the audience is still visible sure but beyond earshot and the music has become background instead of foreground.

"You feel renewed, yeah? Settled into your skin," which is a weird thing to say when she isn't even wearing her own skin, not precisely, but, " - what's all this for, though. Practice - or," complex shadows cut right across her features. " - something else?"

Emily

Leah (Emily) glances back at the crowd, and for a moment there's something slightly wistful in her eyes. Fondness and nostalgia mixed with yearning. Like she knows that she will always be at least a little bit apart from them. But on evenings like these, it's easy to pretend that things are different. That all of them - Awakened, Asleep - still share the fundamental belonging of being human.

Sera wants to know why she changed her face. Why she calls herself Emily here.

"Annie thinks the Union is still looking for me. She doesn't like me going into the city, so I made Emily. It's easier, too. If I... run into anyone I used to know." She releases Sera's hand slowly, turning away from the crowd to look across the park as they walk. "We didn't plan to come back. Did she tell you that? Probably not. Our coven... they didn't give us a choice. Too dangerous, right? Keeping a potential Fallen in their midst."

Her voice cuts a little sharp and angry on that last line, and for a moment it looks as though a fire is being reflected in her eyes. Perhaps it's just a trick of the sunset.

"I guess I shouldn't blame them. Knowing who I used to be." She cants her eyes toward Sera with a searching gaze. "Do you ever regret helping me?"

Serafíne

"Look at you."

This moment where her whole-heart is seized and wrenched and not-precisely-shattered but, oh, Sera knows plenty about how to destroy a muscle like that. How to stitch every whole closed, too: again and again and again. Her breath catches in her throat, and she squeezes Leah's hand so tight the girl might be forgiven for wondering whether she can bear the grip.

"How the fuck could I ever regret you? Get that idea out of your head. It doesn't belong there. Seriously, look at you."

Emily

Sera grabs Leah's hand again, and the force of her grip is powerful enough to leave a bruise, but Leah doesn't cringe - doesn't shake her off (and later there won't be a bruise, because she is stronger than she looks.) Instead she looks at Sera and inhales sharply. It could be sound of pain, but it isn't. It's gratitude, maybe. For seeing her. For having always seen her.

The truth is, it could have been a trick. One day Leah might become the thing that John Brogan wanted her to be. Perhaps she already was. If so, she could do a lot of damage. (If this is how powerful she is at almost-nineteen, how much stronger is she going to be at twenty five? Thirty?)

But Sera is powerful too. What kind of damage is she capable of? What are any of them capable of?

When Sera looks at Leah, she doesn't see the angel of death. She sees something beautiful. (Because she is. They both are.) The thought of it brings a bright glisten of tears to Leah's eyes. They don't quite manage to spill over, but the wetness is visible.

"Thank you," she whispers.

It's a long moment before to speaks again.

"I remember more, each time. About who I've been. All of these other lives. Some of them... I wish I didn't remember. This time I remembered how I Fell. I don't want to remember that, but I have to. I think it's important. I made a choice to become that. The Order of Reason took everything from me and I was so... angry. I still am. I mean, look at this place. They stole the whole world from us."

Now the tears do fall, as Leah stops still and looks out onto the city. Her voice drops when she says, "I'm so tired of hiding. But I can't be that person again. I won't."

Emily

Emily

Sera grabs Leah's hand again, and the force of her grip is powerful enough to leave a bruise, but Leah doesn't cringe - doesn't shake her off (and later there won't be a bruise, because she is stronger than she looks.) Instead she looks at Sera and inhales sharply. It could be sound of pain, but it isn't. It's gratitude, maybe. For seeing her. For having always seen her.

The truth is, it could have been a trick. One day Leah might become the thing that John Brogan wanted her to be. Perhaps she already was. If so, she could do a lot of damage. (If this is how powerful she is at almost-nineteen, how much stronger is she going to be at twenty five? Thirty?)

But Sera is powerful too. What kind of damage is she capable of? What are any of them capable of?

When Sera looks at Leah, she doesn't see the angel of death. She sees something beautiful. (Because she is. They both are.) The thought of it brings a bright glisten of tears to Leah's eyes. They don't quite manage to spill over, but the wetness is visible.

"Thank you," she whispers.

It's a long moment before to speaks again.

"I remember more, each time. About who I've been. All of these other lives. Some of them... I wish I didn't remember. This time I remembered how I Fell. I don't want to remember that, but I have to. I think it's important. I made a choice to become that. The Order of Reason took everything from me and I was so... angry. I still am. I mean, look at this place. They stole the whole world from us."

Now the tears do fall, as Leah stops still and looks out onto the city. Her voice drops when she says, "I'm so tired of hiding. But I can't be that person again. I won't."

[repost!]

Serafíne

Somewhere down a path, in the gloaming. They say that Europeans did not know what to do with the hum of insects in the North American summer when they first arrived on the continent. The constant drone of love-mad grasshoppers, cicadas, crickets, katydids flush through the wide lawn, the close-tended trees. Strangers in the distance add a low note in the distance, no more than a quiet drone. The view of the city laid out before then, distance enough that it assumes a sort of surreal frame, as if it had been painted onto a backdrop and infused with light. How close you can be, and how infinitely far, from something right in front of you.

--

Quiet, right. Sera can do quiet. If Leah wants to walk that's what they do, but they stop again, the view of the city and tears in Leah's eyes and - oh, fuck.

Sera wraps the crying girl up in her arms. Doesn't tell her to stop crying or that it'll all be okay or any of the usual stuff that we are programmed to mutter to avoid the embarassment and vulnerability inherent in tears: especially, in another's tears. Just wraps her up and maybe makes some comforting noises, because somehow those noises seem to naturally occur in the human body. Leah - at the least, this version of Leah - has a good six inches of height on Sera. They fit together just fine, though.

At least, if Leah allows the contact.

--

They peel apart, maybe early, maybe eventually.

"They didn't steal the world from us." This Sera says, with quiet certainty bordering on conviction. "We're still here, you and me. Aren't we? And sure I get beaten half to death when I try to save the life of a dying friend, but I'm still here.

"And fuck. The world's bigger than them-and-us, you know? It's enormous, effortless, eternal, infinite. It's so easy to get lost in the idea that because we have a beginning and an ending - birth and death - that everything else does, too.

"That's not meant to be comforting, by the way. I don't think it is comforting. But their victories are meaningless if you stand back and look at them from the distance of the stars, you know? It's like the length of a heartbeat, or less, measured against the span of a human life.

"I'm sorry you have to hide, from them or anyone. But you have chances now, and choices, that most people don't get - the first time around, you know? Let alone: the second or the third."

Emily

She doesn't make much noise when she cries. But for all that her face might be artificially crafted, the emotion displayed there is real. The impression - the way her brows tense and the way her chin shakes just slightly - is one of righteous anger as much as grief. She holds onto Sera with a tight grasp. It's the first time in a long time that she's held onto anyone with that kind of confidence, even with the way she has to bend into it to meet Sera's height.

Finally they break apart, and Leah wipes the wetness away from her cheeks with the back of a hand. "There's a part of us that's infinite too. But it doesn't make the things we do in this life less meaningful." It isn't said as a refute, really, so much as an observation (all things big and small.)

Still, she takes a breath, and it seems to calm her.

"It's what power does, I think. I used to watch the Order of Hermes and the Celestial Chorus wage wars in the name of their Reality. I wonder how different we'd be, if the Traditions had won instead of the Union. Would it be safe for ordinary people to gather like this in the park? Would they have that kind of freedom?" A beat and she looks at Sera. Smiles a little to show she's still present. "Don't worry, I'm not going to do anything stupid." She starts walking again, looking out over the horizon to watch the burnished sun paint patterns through the trees.

"There's a couple of Hermetics in town. Richard and Orrin. Have you met them?"

Serafíne

"Mine wasn't really an argument for nihilism, you know? So much as it was, fundamentally, against the idea that war is a thing you can win. I mean, for territory, sure. To stop genocide, all goddamned day. To tell people how the world should be, that shit fails."

This quick, rather grim, strangely winsome little smile that crests the curve of her mouth, then dissipates as easily and quickly. "I'm all about the here and now.

"It's not just power, either. It's how willing you are to privilege your beliefs, your wants, your desires, your need for vengeance, or honor, or certitude, or glory, over those of the chick standing next to you, and the guy next to her, and so on and so on.

"Not really meaningful when someone is hunting you down because she wants to imprison you for who you are, how you were born into this stupid fucking world. A little more meaningful when you're standing in front of a caul, and walking - away, instead of - into.

"I know you won't do anything stupid." Another neat, rather quiet twist of her mouth. "I believe in you."

--

"And naw. I haven't met the Hermetics. They don't usually fraternize with my sort, you know?"

Emily

"That's because they're assholes." It's a flippant comment, and for a moment it makes Leah seem more her age. More like the girl she probably would have been if she didn't have the weight of who-knows-how-much history woven into her soul. "Except for Henry. He gets a pass. And Elijah too, I guess."

But she'd mentioned Richard and Orrin for a reason.

"Richard's a Quaesitor. He's actually Henry's son, which... I still have a hard time believing. Orrin's a Flambeau. They're supposedly in Denver to investigate the deaths of some other Hermetics, but I think there's more going on than that. Annie isn't happy about them being here. Richard at least makes sense, but Orrin is a military commander. You don't send someone like that to investigate. You send them because you're expecting a fight. Or maybe you want to start one."

She glances at Sera, and for a moment she looks... worried. "You're right about war. No one ever wins. If you ever do see them, be careful. I don't think we should trust them."

Serafíne

"I'm not particularly good at being careful, either."

This tone of wry-truth, a certain curl of her sharp little mouth. The first time in a long time during this conversation that she allows her dark gaze to cut away from the younger woman, track out to the city spread over the high plains.

"If they're really investigating those deaths, you'd think they'd wanna talk to me." The curl of her mouth - crisps, like a sheet of vellum caught-to-flame. A certain brittleness there, a certain crackle. "I helped destroy the woman who killed them. If they'd bothered to work with us, they might still be alive.

"Tell Annie I'll keep - her concerns in mind. Okay?"

Emily

[Forces 2, coincidental, diff 5 -1 (practiced)]

Dice: 4 d10 TN4 (5, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Emily

There's a wry little smirk from Leah when Sera mentions that she's not good at being careful, but it fades at the mention of Sera's involvement in Victoria's death.

"Yeah. I don't know. I'll be glad when they leave."

She stops a moment, thoughtful, then shoots Sera a flashing look, her eyes glimmering with this slow-burning challenge. "Think you can beat me to that tree?" She cants her head toward a tall oak about 100 feet away. Before Sera can answer, Leah takes off running, her hair billowing behind her like golden flames. She isn't an athlete, but it doesn't really matter. She just wants to run. To feel the wind on her skin. So she does. And even though she has to be careful, she allows herself this small moment of freedom: kicking up the wind around her in a passionate swirl that grows stronger and stronger as she nears her destination. It whips over the grass in a spinning vortex, leaving behind a series of windswept spirals.

Maybe she gets there first, or maybe Sera does. Maybe Sera just laughs and lets her run. Either way, Leah spins around and falls back into the grass, laughing. In that moment, she is both childlike and ageless.

Probably, they go back to the concert after that. And there isn't any more mention of war or the Technocracy. Because there's music and pot and wine and people and there's only so much room in life for worrying about the unknown.

Reality-Induced Schizophrenia

Samir

retroactive disbelief vs. dynamic resonance rolls 1/3

Dice: 2 d10 TN7 (2, 10) ( success x 1 )

Samir

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 1 )

Samir

2/3

Dice: 2 d10 TN7 (5, 10) ( success x 1 )

Samir

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (3, 6, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

Samir

3/3

Dice: 2 d10 TN7 (3, 9) ( success x 1 )

Samir

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 3, 3, 5, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )

Samir

It's a beautiful evening. Clouds cut back on the mountain-high heat and the breeze feels nice after a period of oppressive sunlight. The sidewalks teem with pedestrian foot traffic and every block emits music and conversation. People shout across the street at each other and open restaurant doors give way to the sounds of clattering cutlery and discussions melted together into a din.

That said: Samir is having a bad day.

The worst thing that could happen to a Virtual Adept is to lose his sense of direction. Their magic works through connections and code and when it all starts to fritz out everything looks the same. He hasn't changed his clothes in two days and the less said about what he did yesterday when he escaped from wherever he was Thursday night the better. On a good day the man is aware and leery of germs and their presence in the environment and on other people. His own thoughts keep him away from other people. The amount of ritual he has to go through just to leave the apartment eats up entire hours of his day.

Grace has never seen the young man with his hair down. The tie responsible for keeping it restrained is still in place but he's had a rough few days and chunks have fallen free of its bindings and fall stringy down to his shoulders. A healing laceration mars his face.

'Laceration' is too kind a word. It looks like someone tried to eat a chunk out of his face and managed to break the skin without causing any further damage. Scabs left behind.

He may or may not have gone missing. Someone may or may not have said something. He doesn't even know where he is right now. He ought to know he's going the opposite direction of his fucking apartment because the light rail tracks are nearby and he doesn't live near the light rail.

So whatever Grace is doing on this lovely late summer afternoon she happens to look up and see a somewhat disheveled young reality hacker go slinking past.

Grace

[Awareness!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 4, 8) ( success x 1 )

Grace

Grace is having tacos. She's got a sack in one hand and a taco in the other, taking in the sights of Federal Boulevard on her way to her car when it happens. There's a hint of sharpness to the air, and it's something familiar, something that jogs her memory. She looks around her, and her eyes almost pass right over Samir. If it weren't for the general state of him, with the scabs of healing wounds and signs of distress, she might have had to look a lot harder.

People like Samir disappear. It happens. Whatever it is about him that selectively deletes him from memory works hard. It can get you in trouble. Still, she's heard it around. The event that left him like this, his disappearance? Not exactly something that she's missed.

"Samir?"

They're about to run into each other -- literally.

Samir

Her voice is different than the voices of the loas that had gathered in judgment around him and started hounding him two nights past. It's real. It tugs at him in a way the voices he's ignoring do not.

In the seconds that their eyes meet as they pass each other on the sidewalk Grace can see a glazed sort of madness in his eyes. This isn't a mindscape he's in or a Marauder he's become but she can feel the influence of his resonance and more than that she can feel the paradox crackling around him electricity-wild and for a second it looks as if he's going to turn and run.

Sleepers everywhere. If he were not in control of himself this would be a potentially deadly situation. Still could be. Grace doesn't know what sort of state he's in.

Startled and jolted and Sam stuffs his hands deeper into the pockets of his banged-up biker jacket. Ducks his head and keeps walking. For all he knows she's not real. He's having trouble differentiating between what's real and what isn't. He can push away the things that are very obviously not real but it's the things that could be real and aren't that still give him trouble.

They do not run into each other literally or otherwise. He sidesteps her and passes her by.

Grace

Okay. The taco she was eating gets wrapped up and stuffed in her bag quick-like.

"Samir! Hey," she says, to his back, turning around to walk with him. "It's me. It's Grace. Where are you headed?"

She tries to keep her voice calm, does not even get close to touching him. When she pops up at his side a few seconds later, it's on the other side of the sidewalk.

Samir

"I--"

He about jumps out of his skin when she appears in his peripheral vision on his left side instead of his right where she'd been a moment ago. She can hear whatever he was about to say next catch in his throat.

There's as likely a chance that he's talking to himself as he is talking to another human being. He doesn't understand why it's called Quiet. Ought to just call it Batshit and get it over with. Even if she is a hallucination it's not worth leaping into traffic to stabilize his personal bubble.

A frown creases his brow. They're still walking.

"Are you actually here?"

He's too worn out to try and word that question so he doesn't sound as if he's lost his damned mind.

Grace

Are you actually here? Grace remembers those words from another direction. Lying in a bed drenched with sweat and bloodstains when a quiet Verbena in a lab coat and face mask brought her water. Are you actually here?

She knows what that's like. Knows the look on people's faces when they figure out that the person they're talking to is out of their minds. She just keeps walking without letting that get to her enough to show the shock.

It doesn't really matter why Samir's like this. Just that he is, at this point, hallucinating. Pretty sure about that.

"Yes. Though I know it's fairly difficult to take me at my word when I could be a hallucination. I'm not, though. Listen, you've been gone for two days now. I can see why. You need some help, yeah?"

Samir

Just because she says she's actually here doesn't mean she isn't saying what he would think she would say. The mind is a more powerful computer than the typical user and the typical user doesn't have the ability to write a few lines of code and change physical space.

Their people tend to generate Paradox more quickly than the other traditions do. It's hard to tell how far gone he is from looking at him. Maybe he wouldn't have even noticed an expression of shock if it came over her face.

But he flinches when she uses the word 'hallucination' and stops walking when she says she can see why. That he needs help.

"What?" he says. "No, I'm fine. What are you talking about?"

Grace

"Hmm yes. Fine," she says, stops on the sidewalk with him. "I'm not going to argue. You are alive enough. That's good. People have been worried."

It could be a lot worse, she seems to be saying. At least he's only wandering down the road looking like a rabid dog got to him, asking his friends if they're really there...

"Where are you headed?" she asks again. He might even know.

Samir

"Nowhere."

He's paranoid. Just because she isn't a hallucination doesn't mean she isn't something else. A construct or a hologram. An evil twin or something. Paranoia shoots his answer out at her and it's not an honest answer.

A glance over his shoulder reveals the direction he was headed is clear. Grace doesn't know where he lives or how he gets around.

"Just..." He clears his throat. Scratches the skin near the bite one two three times quick then shoves his hand back in his pocket. Doesn't scratch the bite itself. If he did that he'd tear off the scab. Act normal, damn it. "Just out for a walk."

Grace

"Okay," she says. Damn, he's going to be hard to get to, she thinks. Just out for a walk? Fuck, man. She rolls her eyes, because even the insane will get that out of her when they're being ridiculous.

"Would you like a taco?" she says, digs into the bag to find a fresh one. He might not have eaten for those two days. It's still in its wrapping paper when she hands it over, across the sidewalk. She has to lean over to get anywhere close to him, but she does. Slowly.

Samir

"No no no, I don't--!"

Overdone attempt at reassurance. Like he has a muscle spasm adjusting his Friendliness dial and cranks it all the way up to 11. That she hands something to him at all whether it's the innocuous taco it actually is or appears to be something fucked-up filtered through the lens of his perception would have been enough for Sam to try and decline as polite as possible if he were--

Well. Sam isn't exactly mentally healthy on an ordinary day either but if he's deranged on an ordinary day he's quiet about it. Quiet versus In Quiet.

His hands came out of his pockets as he sprang away from Grace. Not showing his palms yet but more to keep his balance. Like he might need to turn and start hauling ass in a second. That wound on his face looks like it hurts even if he doesn't realize it's there.

"Heh!" Act normal: fail. Reel it in. "I don't eat meat. Vegetarian." He stops talking before he can launch into a delusional rant about what the government does to the meat in this country. Starts walking backwards away from her. "Thank you. Though. I really... I'm fine."

Grace

She turns to face him as he's walking backwards. First things first? We're going to make sure he doesn't get lost again, 'cause it looks like he's about to book it away from his friends -- again. Honestly, Samir? The taco gets stashed away again.

"I'm going to call Kiara, all right? She can help with your," Grace starts, making a sweep across her face.

She pulls out her phone, and huffs a little sigh into it as she goes to operate her 'special' programs. Tracking people is almost her specialty, by now. Usually, she doesn't do it to friends, but in this case...

"I'm also going to make sure we can find you," she says, under her breath. "Last time somebody called Kiara, that didn't work out so well..."

[Corr 2, Life 1, Mind 1 = Tracking a Samir. He's not running away again if she can help it.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (5, 7, 8) ( success x 4 ) [WP]

Grace

[Extending, because...]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (3, 7, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Samir

That gesture she makes doesn't mean anything to him. Sam frowns heavy and considers her for several seconds. Call Kiara. How does she know Kiara. Maybe she is actually Grace.

In an ideal world he would accept the help she offers and sit quietly while they waited for the healer to arrive. It isn't as if Kiara is an unknown variable here. He trusted her enough to go off into the desert and let her show him the fucking Umbra. He's been alone in a warehouse with Grace several times.

His capacity to trust others and his own safety aren't the issues here about but he doesn't have an altruistic martyr streak going either. It isn't a matter of him valuing other people's lives more than his own. Worrying that the Technocracy or vampires or some other faceless malevolent force is going to swoop in and kill his friends. It's that he doesn't trust himself.

No way for him to convey that to Grace without sounding crazier than he already does so he just stands wide-eyed controlling his breath while she looks down at her phone to punch in a command.

Sam isn't a ghost. He can't vanish at will. What he can do though is keep creeping backwards away from Grace and then duck into a fucking alleyway. Introduce a bit of lag between when she last physically saw him and when his coordinates show up on her computer.

When she looks back up he's gone from the sidewalk but she knows exactly where he is.

Grace

After the blip of red shows up on her map displaying "Samir" she flips back to the normal operating routine of phones. There's a list of contacts that she scrolls through (Jeez, Grace, when did you start having all these friends?) and finds the K's.

Somewhere else in Denver, Kiara's phone starts going off. If she picks up, it's Grace on the other end with this to say:

"Hey, it's Grace. I'm having a problem? I'm on Federal right by the... uh... Truong An Asian Gifts store? It's Samir. He's all fucked up. Need backup. You available?"

Kiara

[We're doing a little detective work from the other night here. Life 1, coincidental scanning blood. Who was with Elijah? Did Kiara figure that out. Base diff 4, + 4 Sam's Arcane equal to Jesus or something to pick up traces of his resonance, -1 focus, -1 taking her time = BASICALLY DIFF 6]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )

Kiara

[Extending, don't mind me.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (1, 2, 3) ( botch x 1 )

Kiara

[Oh screw you paradox.]

Samir

[That is amazing.]

Kiara

[Reality says no.]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (3, 7) ( success x 1 )

Kiara

[Kiara says ow.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )

Kiara

The last time Kiara had gotten a phonecall, it had involved her driving to Washington Park to assist Elijah with a certain situation involving a drug dealer, Vulgar magic and some sort of entity that had ended up as little more than fatty, smoldering clumps on the ground where it had (quite literally) been scorched from the earth. To say the Verbena's evening had taken a turn would be putting it lightly.

Tonight, she's leaving a tip at a Vietnamese restaurant and shrugging her bag over a shoulder when her pocket vibrates. Not Elijah's half blurred identifying picture but a placeholder (the brunette was yet to manage a capture of Grace for her number) and it's with a pause and a swipe of her thumb over the screen that Grace hears the click and familiarity of Kiara's voice on the other end of the line.

"As I live and breathe, Grace Evans. What's going on, girlfriend?"

There's a certain lightheartedness to the pagan's greeting as she smiles in farewell to a waitress and pulls open a glass door that fades in response to Grace's greeting. Kiara twisting, instead, to sight her location in relation, a frown pulling her red painted lips down. "Samir?"

The pieces hadn't made any sense at the time. Blood on Elijah. Another Awakened but she hadn't been able to pick up a trace. In fact, it had seemed - "I'm on my way." She's easy to spot, too. The Verbena with her long, wild hair and red mouth. The edges of a skirt licking at her heels as she jogs toward the Truong An Asian Gifts store; a heavy silver belt laced at an angle around her hips and jewellery; stones and beads and who knew what else adorning her wrists and neck.

You could feel Kiara Woolfe coming, the deluge of rejuvenating energy and swirling, pulsing life (here came the healer).

[Be nice, dice. Awareness, just in case.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 6, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 5 )

Grace

Grace is a presence leaning against the outside wall of the gift store when Kiara shows up. She's looking into her phone, and Samir is nowhere to be seen.

Still, she peels her eyes off of whatever is so interesting in order to look at the sensation of Kiara. "Hey. He turned and ran. But I could see it coming, so," she flips her phone around, showing Kiara the map of Denver, complete with the little red dot that is Samir upon it.

"He's hiding out in an alley behind the shop. I think he's hallucinating and extremely paranoid. Doesn't think we are who we say we are, I think? In other words, use caution."

Samir

That little red dot starts to boop its way around the back of the building and towards the parking lot.

After he'd ducked out of sight Sam had thought he would try a little self-medication. Light up a cigarette and wander the length of the alleyway or breezeway or whatever the hell this structure is called while window-gazing while he gave himself a pep talk. Acting like he's waiting for someone. Something other than hiding from someone who is trying to help him.

What he can state with certainty is that he is in fact hallucinating and he is in fact suffering from delusions and sensory overload.

What he cannot state with certainty is what actually qualifies as any of those things.

Hiding in an alleyway was not the smartest decision he's made today and especially not this particular alleyway. It takes about two cigarettes for him to state that to himself with certainty. Not smart hanging out in a place where it looks like the awful things he's been seeing or worrying about could actually happen.

Something rustles through a pile of garbage and that's about enough self-medication for right now.

So the little red dot moves. Luckily the little red dot hasn't eaten in two days and has no sense of direction right now. It starts to head towards South Federal rather than cutting north and running.

Samir

OOC: STRIKE THAT FIRST SENTENCE I JUST LOOKED AT A MAP

Kiara

Whatever Kiara had been doing before Grace called, there's no clear sign of it. No shopping bags hang from the woman's arms; there is just a lightweight jacket that cuts in at her waist and elbows, leaving her forearms and wrists free and allowing glimpses of the bracelets the brunette wears around each; a ring on her right hand; some smooth oval stone that catches and glints with her movements in the light.

She's slowed to a purposeful walk by the time she sights Grace leaning against the wall of the gift store, the shifting, keen sense of her guiding the Verbena as surely as anything else. The sensation the Verbena has of the other woman is frequently something clever and agile, the cunning fox that slips into the grasses before it can be scented by predators; the circling eagle; its wings spread wide and casting low shadows across the dry earth before it dives. Clever and quick, that was Grace.

Kiara's eyes tick to the phone in Grace's hands with this brief, tugging smile.

Admiring. Impressed. She nods, breathes out slowly as Grace talks and falls into step with her; Kiara's skirt shifting around her legs as she does; it's a vibrant flourish of pinks and greens and a cut down the side that reveals the edges of the strapped heels on her feet. "I think I may know why. Elijah called me the other night from Washington Park," Kiara's voice is pitched low, her focus shifting from Grace to the careful dodging of pedestrian traffic around them as they weave toward the dot known as Samir.

"He said he was there with another - " She hesitates as a couple brush near them, "- one of us. Something attacked them, but by the time I got there whoever was with him had taken off. Elijah had their blood on him. I tried to use it to figure out who it was but - " The Verbena's expression knits into something akin to lingering confusion. "The blood was strange. I couldn't get anything that even seemed human, but Elijah said the guy with him, he was freaking out."

Her eyes tick to Grace. "Sounds a little familiar."

Grace

"Yeah. I put that much together. I mean, the injuries match what I've been told," she says, shrugs. "Samir's a friend. He's one of my kind, you know? Think he's having the worst couple of days ever..."

She heaves herself off the wall, looks at her phone again. "He's moving. Probably found the courage to get out of that horrible alley... Want to go get him? See if he'll respond to some semblance of reason?"

She sighs, heavy, like that's rather unlikely. At the very least, he might stand still long enough to let Kiara heal his face. But then again, Grace isn't really going to let him walk the streets now that she knows where he is. He's a walking Technocrat magnet in his current state. Fuck that. She starts walking a brisk pace in the direction of the dot. South. Let's go that way.

Samir

Fun fact: Samir had been meeting up with Elijah the other night after nearly three weeks in a milder episode of Quiet. No one has seen him at all this month because he has been holed up in his apartment hallucinating and attempting to puzzle out a sort of meaning from the hallucinations.

All he's come up with is he needs to stop fucking up vulgar hacks.

So for three weeks Samir had subsisted on a diet of cigarettes and bottled water and whatever he could scrounge up from the bodega downstairs without drawing too much attention to himself. He looked a bit thinner to start out. Now he looks thinner and dirtier for not having bathed in two nights. The wound on his face is the source of the blood on Elijah's shirt.

Their paths converge because he doesn't know where he's going and they do. When he sees the both of them his eyes go wide. Dart between the two women's faces several times. But he doesn't turn and bolt. He puts his back against the wall of the building and breathes fast and waits to hear what they have to say.

Kiara

The look Kiara casts Grace is one of contained sympathy. She brushes the fingers of one hand briefly against Grace's elbow, the touch so fleeting and barely there before it was gone it could have been mistaken for an accident. Touch rarely was, that being said, with the Verbena.

"We'll fix it. If we have to, we can hold him until I can at least heal his face." There's something very matter of fact about the way she says this, Kiara, that offers the idea she has absolutely no qualms with attempting to physically restrain a fully grown man to prevent him injuring himself (or others) further. It's there in a steady way the brunette says it; the intent sweep of her eyes over the crowds, the tilt of her chin.

Their paths converge and Samir looks like a startled, wide eyed doe caught in a hunter's crosshairs. Back against the wall; staring at them and Kiara's supple mouth thins to a line; her dark eyes flicking over the Virtual Adept's body and returning to focus with keener intent on his face. On those wild eyes of his.

"Hey, Samir." Kiara takes a step, subtly preempting Samir's flight on one side; her fingers slide to her sides; one resting over her bag; a worn leather thing that looks as if its held together by determination more than any physical resilience. The pagan's voice is quiet, threaded with (deliberate) pleasure at the sight of him. He looks thin, drawn and smeared in blood and dirt and there's a certain way the Verbena draws in a breath, a certain angling of her body that reads readiness.

That speaks of unvoiced sympathy for his current situation.

"Grace and I were just looking for you. I heard you had a rough night. I can help you feel better, if you like."

Grace

"Yeah, don't grab him, Kiara. I know you might want to -- I'm just saying, that will make it worse. Be careful about the touching shit all together. I'm afraid of what he might do if he gets hyped up by somebody trying to hold on to him. I used to be like that. Sucks."

She just keeps staring into her phone while she talks, not really looking at Kiara's reaction to that.

Eventually, they catch up. They catch him. He's up against the wall and scared shitless. Grace's eyes skitter off of his, with his fast breathing and cornered animal expression.

"Hey. I called Kiara, just like I said. Hey, I can get you something vegetarian to eat, hey? I uh... ate all of the tacos..."

It's about all she can do at the moment. And necessary, because come on -- he looks like she did after throwing up her stomach lining for a month.

Samir

Option A: Continue asserting that he's fine and nothing's going on he just partied too hard the other night hah hah go away Friends nothing to see here and then they double-team him and everything is awful and they end up on the news or in a Paradox Realm or Room 101 or or or.

Option B:

He listens as Kiara offers to help him. He listens as Grace offers to get him something besides the tacos she ate. He doesn't want food. They as in They with a capital T They are trying to kill him because he won't do what they tell him to do. He knows They aren't real. But then there's the germs he knows are there. Germs and he go round and round most nights anyway.

But he's tired and he's hungry and he doesn't want to upset them. He and Tobacco concluded that they're real and they probably aren't being remotely mind-controlled by the Technocracy. Or else he just doesn't care if they are.

"Okay," he says.

Kiara

It's at some point between Grace asserting that she shouldn't touch Samir and the way Samir looks at them as if he's resigning himself to some fate worse than death that the Verbena's fingers slide into her bag and curl around her phone. It's a subtle motion but in Samir's current state might as well be certification she's calling in more suits to come in and restrain him while they escort him away.

The brunette knows precisely two people who might be able to reach the man pressed against the alleyway wall in ways that won't snap whatever tenuous control he's clinging to and her fingers tap out a message to the first she locates in her saved numbers. Two women with devices in their hands, exchanging looks between them and the second; the taller; tucks hers away after a moment and reaches down to set her bag on the ground with a dull impact suggestive of heavy items within.

"Okay." She repeats and straightens, but doesn't approach. There's a cant of her head, her eyes search Samir's expression for signs he's about to lash out, make another run for it. "You know I'm not going to hurt you, right? You have a cut - " she gestures to her temple, the heavy jewellery on the Verbena's wrists clinking together. "I'm going to fix it. I'm going to come closer."

A beat. Kiara takes a step. "Tell me if you want me to back off."

Serafíne

Taxi on the corner. The yellow sort with the lights framing the word TAXI to tell you: on duty or off, occupied or un. Half a dozen tree-shaped air fresheners hanging from the rearview mirror and a strange, subdural sort of music muttering from the speakers.

Lights flashes against traffic. The smear of the lingering sun this bloodied, blooded stain over the windshield, or maybe that's simply the pulse of traffic light as it changes over from yellow to red.

--

A woman climbs out of the backseat. Creamy white, maybe ivory, cocktail dress. Brocaded or beaded and strapless, long hair pulled back into a loose almost-chignon that only emphasizes the darker, shaved fringe on her head. Heels on the sidewalk (black, peep-toe, these) as she saunters towards the trio, studded black clutch tucked in her right hand.

Samir

Sam opens his mouth to answer the question as to whether he knows she's not going to hurt him. It isn't so much that she cuts him off as he decides he doesn't want to answer that. Sure the hallucinations aren't real and he can tell himself that all he wants but the ones he sees are everywhere and the ones he hears won't shut the fuck up. He can ignore them but that doesn't make them go away.

His eyes have a febrile sheen to them but he's gone pale from lack of sleep and food. It isn't illness that has him acting like this. They can practically feel how haywire his Work has gone or hear electricity crackling in the air around him. Practically but not quite.

He wants her to back off but not for the reason Grace has warned her about.

That cut is a bite. What bit him was once human. A young blond man with an appetite for dangerous things unwrote its Pattern and left it as singed nothing on the grass in Washington Park. He isn't sure he believes her. When he puts his fingers to his face he doesn't draw away blood but that's because the wound has already scabbed over.

Wordless resignation. Kiara can put a hand on him and he won't try to escape.

Grace

Grace nods at his "Okay" and starts stalking off to find him something vegetarian in this place. The Vietnamese places usually have plates and soups full of meat. The taco places usually have meat wrapped up in tortillas. Maybe she might find a taco place with some sort of bean burrito, but then that would be full of lard, so no...

A bit of wandering through Google finds the place they just passed (Saigon Bowl) with a vegetarian menu. Score. Lemongrass sauteed tofu sounds good (and more portable than a soup) so, she trundles off to go get some.

Kiara seems like she has this "no touching" thing down. She's asking permission first, at least.

It's then that she notes Sera, that unmistakeable gut-wrenchingly enthralling sensation of her. Grace turns and waves. "Gonna go get him some food," she says, as if that explains everything. It might. The guy needs to eat as much as he needs his face put back together.

Serafíne

Mind 2: (less aura reading/surface thoughts. more like a life scan: wtf is wrong with you?) Difficulty -1 (focus)

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (9, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Samir

Mind won't tell her how it happened (I think she needs Prime for that) but Mr. Lakhani is enjoying wild hallucinations and sensory overload. Also low willpower bc he's been pushing away the hallucinations for like three nights in a row. The fact that he has OCD outside of Quiet isn't making things any better but he is having a lot of intrusive violent/homicidal thoughts so yay.

Serafíne

(And now Mind / Prime: 1 methinks. are you under the influence of magicks?). Dif -1: focus.

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (6, 6, 10) ( success x 3 )

Samir

Someone botched the ever-loving fuck out of a vulgar Forces 2 effect. "Electrical Chaos," that particular effect is called. 9 points of Paradox for the low low price of two Arete.

Kiara

It's hard to imagine what Kiara must have texted Serafine to get her to Federal on a Saturday at dusk. After, even. The sun sinking down and stars speckling the sky; clouds rolling over and there's the three of them with Samir pressed back against a wall as if he's preparing himself for some sort of onslaught. Blood dried to his face; gore and who knew what else staining him.

He's got a bite mark on his face and the creature responsible for it wasn't anything explainable to most people. There's nothing normal about any of this but then again - their lives, their world - Kiara's taken a step closer and Grace stalks off in the quest for food and then there's the curl and hook of the Cultist and Kiara cuts a look over a shoulder; her hair wild and loose tonight; she's in white and pink and green and there's a protracted pause before she says anything.

Lets the other female closer and then: "Something attacked him with Elijah in Washington Park two nights ago." An undertone, that. Kiara's voice a deliberate aside, her hands dropping to her sides. "Whatever it was, it got Samir. I can heal it, but - " Her attention settles back on him. It's not the physical that's the problem, the unspoken as she moves closer. Her focus on the injury to his face.

[Life 1, scanning those injuries to see how bad they actually are. So much magic. -1 for focus.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (3, 5, 7) ( success x 3 )

Kiara

[Int + Med to possibly lower a roll to heal with Life, I think we need at least 3 to drop it a diff.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 8) ( success x 1 )

Kiara

[Vulgar af, Life 3 + Prime 2: Heal Samir's face. Base diff 7, -1 focus, -1 going slow, -1 practiced rote]

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (5, 5, 5) ( success x 4 ) [WP]

Kiara

[Paradox, 3 + 1 for probable/possible Sleepers around cuz they always are]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 6, 10) ( success x 2 )

Kiara

[Ow.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 9) ( success x 1 )

Serafíne

The creature's dark eyes track to Grace as Grace walks by, remarks that she is going to get him some food. Sera's mouth is painted a red so dark it seems to be the color one imagines heart's blood must be. There is a sort of sliding acknowledgment in that glance but also: a clear focus elsewhere. This hum, beneath her breath, beneath her skin, the sliding grace of it, music of the spheres or at least music of her spheres: less rhythm than harmony, with the glissading uncertainties of the universe.

"Paradox."

That is Sera's response to Kiara. Both the verbal greeting and the unspoken warning or perhaps request.

Samir is hallucinating like a schizophrenic off his meds and on a psychotic break.

--

None of them really belong here but at least in her usual get-up Sera can be both classified and dismissed as a streetwalker. That's what all the abuelitas in a certain priest's congregation always thought she must be: showing up at all hours, half-dressed, fucked the fuck-up.

Now it is dusk, a late-dusk, a summer-dusk, the hum of traffic skimming by on Federal, feral kid and Sera's mouth closes, flattens - this neat, thoughtful sort of grimace. Keeps some distance as Kiara starts to heal Samir. Her right hand half-closes, thumb rubbing slow and rhythmic over the bronze ring she always wears. This small physical tic she is not really aware of.

(While Kiara is casting: Mind 1: Mind Shield.)

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (1, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )

Grace

Upon her arrival at the Saigon Bowl just down the street, Grace orders some lemongrass sauteed tofu (with peppers and a spicy sauce, the menu says, so hope Samir likes heat. Probably does.)

It reminds her so much of all those times Kalen would just bring her food. Like -- hey, you look like you haven't eaten. Here's some noodles. Don't starve. He's rubbed off on her. Or, perhaps she just can't think of anything else to do for him. Everyone wants to help. It's a thing you do as a Mage in Denver -- or at least it's a thing that their little group does. Theirs is a small spot of sanity in the insane world.

It's going to be a little bit before the stir fry is done. In the intervening time, she checks her phone. Samir is staying put, and that's a good sign. She doesn't want to have to chase him down so she can deliver tofu.

Samir

All of them would qualify as schizophrenic if they were to ever speak to a Sleeper professional about what they believe themselves capable of accomplishing. Breaks from reality and delusions of grandeur. Strange thoughts and stranger behaviors.

Reality is punishing Samir for breaking the rules. His is not a divorce from reality brought on by a chemical imbalance and reality is not one thing to all people.

He is more dangerous than a schizophrenic because the things he believes and thinks he can make into reality. If he chooses to believe in whatever it is he's seeing and hearing then those things can cross the gauntlet into this world.

They're all wary of him. He knows they are. He's breathing heavy because he's overwhelmed by what the world is doing to him and then there's Kiara trying to help him even though he's--

Well. Sera isn't reading his mind. She has no idea what he's thinking. Neither is Kiara. Kiara is close enough to hear the cadence of his respirations. That he's scared.

Kiara's palm finds the wound on his face smooth but for the scabbing and the two days' worth of stubble come in on his jaw and as she works her pagan magic saltwater traces the line of her thumb.

He keeps his hands jammed in his pockets and his eyes locked shut the entire time.

Kiara

There is something innately wild in the manner the Verbena heals people. Professionally, as a mundane calling, she rarely does it quite as intimately (or brazenly) as this. Which is: Samir allows Kiara to come closer and - with a beat where she garners the awareness from Serafine (Paradox) - invade his personal space. She steps close enough to him that he can see the color of her eyeshadow; the thick application of mascara on her lashes; the faint smattering of freckles on her nose.

He can smell the brunette's perfume and when her eyes rove his face; feel the intensity behind it. Her hands come up; there's no contact at first; just a vague sense of warmth that radiates from the pagan. She looks as if she's pushing at the edges of an invisible bruise; her teeth sink into her lip and she tastes blood; the tang of it on her tongue strengthens the focus.

Pulls at the fabrics of reality; unspools it; slices into it with the precision and disregard a weed might for the way and direction it grows; pushing itself into the world. Kiara Woolfe pries apart what should be and creates what shall be and Samir's eyes are shut against it when she puts a hand on his face; cups it; and slides another down into his clothing.

Over his chest; skin to skin. Pushes down and there's this subtle; tingling radiation. A surge as if his heart had suddenly galloped and there. His skin begins to knit itself together; as if time had sped up in tandem and the layers of wounded tissue repair; half hidden by matted hair and dried blood and a few days of beard growth Samir's body regenerates and he can feel it. Feel the burn of Kiara's will pushing itself against him and then -

She lets go; there's a sudden severing and the sense of warmth fades and she steps back, Kiara, the slightest of smiles twitching her mouth.

(There's always a cost, though).

Her nose starts to bleed and she takes a jerkier step back, lifts her fingers to her face; turns her eyes on Serafine and notes, in a considerably weaker voice: "It's done." (Nature cannot be altered without recompense.)

Serafíne

(Mind 3: Calm. Difficulty: 8. -1 Focus. - 1 Time.)

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 7) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Serafíne

(Extending: +1)

Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (2, 7, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Serafíne

(One more time.)

Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (5, 8, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Serafíne

Samir has plenty of time to refuse what comes next. To get up, to get away. To object: physically or forcefully or merely with his words. There's magick in the air as Kiara, touches him, spills blood for him in more ways than simply one. Unknits something-that-was and creates what-will-be.

Somehow, on some level, this is all so absurd. The strangest of gatherings around a frightened, hallucinating drug dealer. It's not really a part of town where passers-by look too closely at strangers, because they don't want strangers to look back, but anyone looking would probably make a half-dozen connections and end up with an assumption that is somehow closer to the truth than they know: college kid and shrooms, graduate student and a bad batch of MDMA, friends gathering to talk him down from that ledge, or at least out of the filthy alley behind Saigon Pho House or whatever, and into someone's car.

Humming: Sera is simply humming, a very quiet, very particular song beneath her breath. The chord progressions basic enough that they sound very much like a lullabye. This point where they hook through: skin and spine and consciousness and she closes her eyes, fixed and concentrating. Sinking into this not-precisely-meditative state where she wraps her intentions around her will and frames them in her mouth with a stranger's words.

Opens her eyes not long after, strangely settled.

The humming opens up into this low, rough song, the words more spoken than sung.

Black sky and black sea, lighten up
When we can't breathe
All dreams escape fire, over worlds
Fly but won't tire
Slow down on us wind, hold us still
When everything spins

Near the end she offers Samir her hand. Who knows if he'll take it.

"I have to go. You should let Grace or Kiara take you home. You shouldn't be alone right now."

Grace

The food arrives, and Grace picks out a coconut juice drink to go with it. Tips the people, because she always does. They may not know it, but they're helping so much.

So -- plastic sack of food hanging off of one arm, with the coconut drink in hand, she uses the other to check on her phone, to see that Samir's still there. They haven't scared him off yet. And so, she takes it easy, doesn't run after him. Probably wouldn't be a good idea to run after him anyway. Probably would be a good idea to take it slow and just arrive where he decides to hide and be very insistent about the food.

We'll get there. Eventually.

So it takes a little bit, again, for her to stroll up all nonchalant and smiling.

"Thanks, Sera," she says, because there's the hum of her Working in the air, and something happened. Did it not? Wasn't there someone singing? "I brought lemongrass tofu. They assured me it was actually vegetarian. And this is some kind of coconut drink," she says, giving him a look-over. The bites are gone from his face. That's cool.

No excuses this time, Samir.

Samir

The last time they saw each other Samir promised Serafíne that if she said or did anything to make him uncomfortable beyond the level of uncomfortable he was striving for on his quest to Leave The House More Often he would tell her.

He broke that promise. He made up an excuse about leaving a window open and got the hell out of there. That excuse was bullshit. Then he spent the next three weeks shut up in an apartment whose windows he never fucking opens let alone would have left that way barely talking to anyone.

Neuroplasticity ensures that the human brain can adjust to just about anything. The mind and the will it houses are more powerful tools than any focus any of these fledglings could conjure up. Whatever drove Sam into choosing solitude has kept him there long enough that he's fallen into Quiet twice in one month.

Whether he wants her to or not Kiara runs her hand over his cheek and face. He's wearing the same clothing he had on the night he met Elijah. Wine-red Doc Martens and black jeans and a biker jacket. Some band t-shirt on underneath. Some gray tissue-thin cotton t-shirt with a band logo so faded one would have to lay it out flat to make sense of it.

His heart hammers against the Verbena's palm. He grits his teeth and closes his eyes tighter.

Yes. Yes this looks fucking absurd.

Kiara takes away the scab and the wound beneath and he when he has his right mind back later he will thank her. His right mind remembers the attack. She takes away the wound and she makes room for Sera and then Sera shuts down the part of his brain that is always on. Nothing she can do for the Quiet if she even realizes he is in Quiet. Maybe she just thinks he is a schizophrenic or a bad trip. He doesn't know what she saw in his pattern and he doesn't ask. He doesn't know where he is right now.

Another saltwater line leaves the other eye when he opens them. Lets go a breath like he'd been holding it all this time. That release junkies seek when they push the plunger. A moment of disorientation. Sera doesn't know what effect she's had. He's still in Quiet. But it's quieter now.

He shouldn't be alone right now.

His hands are still shaking. He doesn't take hers. In his right mind he would take her hand and his mind is better but his mind wasn't the problem to begin with. He looks her in the eye. Still bombarded by things he can recognize and ignore but not escape. And then here comes Grace to offer gratitude his throat won't give up.

Sam sags against the building rather. His knees do not give out. He remains standing.

"Fuck," he says. Ragged. Like someone who'd about lost their voice screaming the night before. "I'm so tired..."

Alright. Coconut drink. He won't argue with her. Whatever Sera did helped.

Serafíne

Sam doesn't take her hand, so Sera drops it back to her side. Has a little clutch slung across her body on a chain reaches for that little clutch, snaps it open, pulls out 1) lipstick; 2) an iPhone. Gives Grace a quiet little look as she reapplies her lipstick and calls another cab. Offers to share it with Kiara if Kiara needs a ride but otherwise: soon, gone.

Serafíne

(Thanks guys! Gotta sleep!)

21th Birthday Redux

Elijah

Of all the places that Elijah could sit down and read, Sera's place didn't seem like it was going to be in the top five. As it turns out, that was an incredibly incorrect statement, because there he was on the front porch, motorcycle parked somewhere inconspicuous and near another vehicle in the hopes of not getting it run over while he's off dallying with people whose company he enjoys.

Maybe it was a new leaf. Maybe he was trying to make good on things, trying to make good on the prospect of being a good student, or maybe he was just trying to avoid being in the middle of an Arbonne party.

That was the truth of the matter: Jenn had been conscripted into hosting a "party" for a friend, which consisted of getting facials and being pressured into purchasing things that she didn't actually want. Elijah had a problem with impulse buying, and there was going to be copious amounts of drinking. The girl selling brought enough booze to keep a small army well lubricated socially. Elijah knew that he tended to do stupid things when he was drinking, and somehow suspected that buying expensive skincare products might be one of them.

Also, he wanted to see Sera. And Dan. And Dee (he actually made a meet! Recently, too. Came with pompoms but was sans-fly away skirt because- well- he was no seamstress. He might have been thin, but he had no hips. Nothing pre bought was going to stay on)

But there he was, backpack slung over his shoulder and helmet deposited by the front door and he knocks- because he always knocks- and makes his way in. "Bonjour! Je errance à travers votre maison. I promise I'm not robbing you!"

Serafíne

Some ordinary Wednesday night. Strangers call it hump-day.

Which isn't a saying that has much resonance at 719 Corona Street. No one there has a normal job. Rick is still at the record store and part-time at a comic shop, filling in for a friend who is off trekking in Nepal. Dee's got the bakery, and that's morning work. Sometimes she stays up all night and heads in for a few solid hours of kneading bread. Sometimes she gets a later shift. Regardless: not a normal 9 to 5, which is pretty cool. Gives life a different rhythm, plus she - like Rick, has some hopes of something else, soon.

Dinner-ish time. Or lunch. Breakfast for some folks, like our heroine who tends to sleep until the ass-crack of four p.m. and wander down for a morning libation of tea-and-whiskey, thank you very much. Fasting - more intermittent, now, pressurized and experimental - doesn't really effect that schedule she maintains so assiduously.

Dinner-ish time. The windows are open and there's a breeze blowing through the house and music someone and meat-on-the-grill. Always a guest or three - like Emily, aka Honey Bunches of Chokes, who's dressed up for her evening shift at Saphistry and heading down the hall and out the front door as Elijah comes in.

"Hey hot stuff," Emily grins. Has half-a-sandwich wrapped in wax paper that she's consuming. Is dressed in a neat outfit that fits almost perfectly with Elijah's aesthetic: pinstriped pants, a shortsleeve button-down, bow tie, fucking suspenders, hair loose, finger guns. One-handed finger-guns her greeting as she passes by. "Everyone's out back, I think. Cooking out."

So they are: so he will find them. Dan at the charcoal grill, manning tongs and shit and drinking a beer. Dee in a lawnchair, Sera on her cabana bed with a guitar in hand.

There's something new back here, too.

A tire swing hung from one of the great arms of the big oak that dominates the back yard.

Elijah

They match. Almost, they almost match, because there he is in a pair of slacks and a shirt with three quarter length sleeves pushed up to the elbows, vest unbuttoned, but soon enough ready to be rebut toned- which was what he started doing when he looked at Emily- with her grin and loose hair and the fucking suspenders. He never learned how to tie a bow tie, figures he should ask at some point.

"Great match last week," he tells her, starts to meander outside because Elijah meanders, takes in details of the house, basks in the smell because it always smells fan-fucking-tastic. Can't imagine the place ever smelling like anything other than food or incense or herbs or a party or the various people who lived there. Elijah didn't talk to Rick much, but he had concluded this was a travesty- made note to do it again at some point. It helped to have friends who worked at record stores, he had his eye on a few vinyls. Maria Callas specifically. He had a beginner's guide to Italian shoved in his backpack because of the soprano. "Are they matches or are they meets? I don't know."

But eventually, he would meander again. Eventually, he would find himself in the back yard smelling charcoal and whatever else was on the grill. Resists the urge to hug Dan from behind because Dan isn't fireproof. (Note to self: become fireproof. He's learning a fair bit about Ars Essentiae and, frankly, he's been kicking himself the entire month because if he had fucking learned it first like he was apparently supposed to things would be a lot easier right now.)

"Holy shit, when did you get a tire swing?" Backpack gets shrugged off his shoulders, hung low in one hand. Grin bright and off to the grass with him.

Serafíne

"Don't worry your pretty head about it, sweetheart," Emily tells him, a spark in her eyes, a quiet little smirk ghosting across her mouth. "Show up with your pompoms again and you can call them whatever the hell you want."

--

"Fuck if I know," so says Sera, glancing up once as the sliding glass doors open. She is wearing sunglasses and a black Echo and the Bunnymen t-shirt and that appears to be it? The t-shirt is long enough to tuck beneath her ass on the cabana bed and cover the tops of her thighs but her legs are long and bare where they emerge from the bottom head. Criss-cross applesauce, that's how she's seated, body slung forward, not really hunched but the guitar's acoustic and she is, really, so startlingly slight when glimpsed like this: out of context, no heels around, no make-up, hair an "I just got out of bed" sort of mess.

Prettier, maybe, without all the stuff that goes with being Sera. Or perhaps: a different sort of pretty. Still arresting - the spare edge of her jaw, the elfin spike of her ears through the chaos of her hair. The hollow temples, the darting bits of ink as her fingers drift over the fretboard, framing out a chord progression pretty soundlessly - not strumming, not striking over the soundboard. Listening to the something something something somewhere in her head.

The Fuck If I Know from Sera makes Dee roll her eyes.

"Few weeks ago," Dee tells Elijah, "This guy we know is starting a business installing artisan tire swings in the yards of Denver's nostalgic rich assholes, needed a place to put one in to take a picture, and customer reference to add to his quotes. So.

"Tire swing." Quick grin of her red-red mouth.

Sera's eyes are on Elijah though, still. Marked, lingering, assessing.

Dan turns around too, glances at the kid, then back at Dee.

"Hey, guess who's legal now?"

Elijah

He takes in the people around him. There's Dee, with her lips ever-so-red and drawing attention to it, makes him watch the words she's saying before going back to her face and her eyes. There's Dan, who is cooking- because he was accustomed to seeing Dan cook, rather liked watching Dan cook, takes in the way light plays across the various colors etched across his skin. Then? Sera.

Sera, without her makeup. Sera, in a state that is very much her, very much appealing, entrancing, breathtaking, but… it's her. It's just another version of her, another part of her definition, another piece of Serafíne that was not always so edged but still edgy. Something where the corners were softer. She seemed some far creature, something that ruled the summer courts for half a year before giving way to winter. Something who made her bets and bargains for a year and a day.

"Yeah," he says with a smile, something bright and pleased, he's stepping off onto the grass, over to where the bed is so he can park it for a moment. At least give the appearance of someone who was not completely enthralled with the fact that his friends had a swing in their back yard. Let's face it, that was the only acceptable thing to do when you had a strong oak and plenty of space. "I had to get a new wallet, though, I left it at the mall. So! The fake ID has been laid to rest."

He sits down near Sera, leans a little against her for a moment, hi without saying it.

Serafíne

"We could make you a new fake-ID," Dan tosses back, turning something over, adjusting something else. In addition to the sturdy tongs he has one of those silicon-based oven-gloves, hanging from a hook beneath the charcoal grill, which he gets out when he really wants to manhandle the corn dressed with lime-butter, maybe, or the new potatoes which will be cooked in foil over the coals and then smashed and then grilled until they are crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside.

In other words, perfection.

"A stand-in, you know. Let you give it a proper funeral, maybe cremate it on the grill or in the firepit. Paper, you know. Don't wanna release toxic whatever-the-fuck fumes from actual plastic."

Sera: has a mug of cooling tea in a neat cup-and-saucer settled on the flagstones beneath the cabana bed. Real china, flowers and shit all over it. Elijah comes close and gives her that little lean and she kinda leans back against him, this side-bump of acknowledgment, awareness, this animal sort of understanding.

"We could just pretend like today's his fucking birthday. Give him a real goddamned party."

Dan: "I thought you were on him to study."

Sera, this not-precisely-abashed little shrug. "All things in moderation, yeah? Or, you know. Excess."

Elijah

"I'm down for both of those things, give the ID a proper send off instead of, you know, what actually happened which is probably it, and a bunch of other crap, living in a trash can because I don't carry cash-" which he should really start doing. Curbing the desire to be completely loaded with various illicit substances has really cut back on the need to actually carry anything more than a couple fives- maybe a ten.

"And if it helps make the case for a party- I successfully managed to actually study for the last ten days. That is probably my longest streak of academic excellence since getting here. It's either party or looking through the history of bookbinding and the modern printing press."

He actually sounded a little excited about that.

"I don't think I've had a real party since I was twelve. Pleeaaase can I be a delinquent student for, like, eight hours? Maybe four?"

Serafíne

"Four hours?" Dan gives Elijah a bearded smirk. "Do you really think you can get through one of Sera's birthday bashes and make it back to whereever the hell it is you are reading about the history of bookbinding in four hours?"

--

And Sera gives Elijah a banked look with a neat little shake of her head.

No.

--

"Let's have dinner first, at least." That's Dan again.

And so they do.

--

If Sera was fasting tonight, well: she's not anymore. It is Elijah's 21st birthday do-over and first there's the cook-out in the backyard as the edges of the sky sink toward dusk and the flames spark and meat and potatoes and zuccini and corn sizzle on the grill. Corn smothered in chili-lime butter and hand-made sausages from the charcuterie next to Dee's bakery, crusty rolls and whatnot. Makeshift cake (the cinnamon rolls Dee brought home for breakfast tomorrow) hastily done up with fondant and a quick-thrown-together buttercream to write as much of HAPPY BIRTHDAY as she can get on the surface, and 21!! on another one.

Candles, the trick sort that go out and spark back to life again and again and again.

A bottle of red and a bottle of white and a bottle of something sparkling or gin and tonics or whatever the hell it is Elijah would like to have. The night opening up, becoming wider, more expansive as whatever is consumed or smoked blooms wide open.

There's this point where the spare, artless, morning-after creature disappears upstairs to make herself over. Emerges in a cocktail dress with black-rimmed eyes and spikes through her ears and fishnets and combat boots and out they go - somewhere, everywhere, anywhere.

No reason to recall that a couple of weeks ago Elijah nearly died jumping in front of a bullet headed for the guy who had just served him his first legal drink of his life. No mention of that day, or that night, where they went, what came after. No one's looking for them, no one's come asking. The memories of the patrons fuzzed and muddled, their own bodies made-whole.

What matters is here, and now. The little mock funeral for his fake-ID, complete with black umbrella dug out from the left-overs in the foyer. The meal, shared with friends, around a table. The whatever-comes-next of it all.

Elijah

The do over, he concludes, is infinitely better than the actual twenty-first birthday.

There was food, there was food that he actually wanted to eat and he wasn't spending it in a seedy bar with half of his friends phoning it in because of prior engagements or being hungover. It was outside, with the air feeling fresh and there's fucking cinnamon rolls- an odd truth. he adores cupcakes but can't stand actual full-sized cake. There was some sort of care paid with little bite-sized things that didn't go into sheet cakes.

His ID gets a eulogy- a real, honest-to-God eulogy. Something with fond times mentioned (the first time they met at seventeen when a guy with biceps the size of his head asked Elijah in some gravelly voice what he wanted his name to be, and he'd picked Jason Johnson because there was a Friday the Thirteenth poster hanging on the wall in the guy's basement and there were mosquitos and fireflies everywhere.) Some close calls had- a near confiscation more than a couple times back home when the colors didn't seem quite perfect. Goodbye, dear friend, goodbye.

He still tells stories, though, if only because he likes sharing. Gives a recount of the match he'd seen recently and relayed his utter confusion with regards to roller derby. Talks about an operetta he'd wanted to see, which was pretty fucking hilarious for the time frame it was written in. Dances with people even when there isn't music playing because music was playing somewhere.

Doesn't forget to tell Dee he loves the way she blushes. Doesn't forget to tell Dan that he admires how incredibly fucking smart he is. Doesn't forget to tell Sera that she defies fucking words, that he fucking loves that.

Maybe he's just drunk. Falls asleep somewhere, at some point. Dreams of nothing instead of Nothing.

A lot has changed.