H O R S

Kiara Woolfe

[Yay, people! I'm going to go type something.]

Kiara Woolfe

Fall was settling comfortably into Denver.

The trees beginning to shake off their leaves and leaving drying shells scattered over footpaths and manicured lawns the city over; the mountains turning brilliant shades of honey-gold and deep crimson red on the horizon and the weather starting to subtly shift; breezes bearing the intention of cooler days to come. Thursday afternoon in the city limits had dwindled into a pleasant, breezy affair. It was still warm enough for layers to be disguarded under the warmth of the sun, clouds scattering across its path.

Still the weather for lounging on the grassy expanses Washington Park had to offer; littered as they were of recent days with curling, crumbling leaves. You still found the poets with their heads buried in books, stretched out on the ground with their shoes beside them; feet bare to the world. Still the mothers pushing strollers along the winding pathways, dogs chasing balls and the glinting promise of the lake, birds diving and settling on its surface to glide along, shaking their feathers and dipping their faces into the water.

The face of a city that changed and within it - the ones who saw the other side. The shadows that fell, the noises and the ugly.

Kiara Woolfe wasn't to be found lounging on the grass as late afternoon sunlight slanted across it, she was on one of the park's many basketball courts, seated on the side beside a chainlink fence, tying her dark hair back, a basketball housed between her feet. She was the sole occupant of the court aside from a lone bird; perched high on the fence, watching her progress with tiny, anticipatory movements of its head. When she rose, scooping up the ball, it startled and took flight with a rustle of feathers.

Kiara moved out onto the court, the sound of the ball echoing as she began a slow circuit.

Alexander

[Awareness?]

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

Grace

[Awareness?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 7, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

Grace

This place, man. This fucking place.

Last time Grace was here it was to inspect the remains of a woman-chimera with four arms who'd put a good friend into... let's say mental distress. Almost getting your face ripped off will do that to you.

Then, there was everything that happened after.

She doesn't even really know why she's here, other than perhaps something in her that wants to show the monsters who's boss. Don't show your face here anymore, right? We live here too, and we like this park.

Well, territorial, tribal ideology never sit well with Grace. She'll make an exception for dead things who like to reshape people into horrified and horrifying monsters. Call it the line beyond which Grace Evans will actually categorize a person.

Anyway, it's with that thought in mind that she's in the park today, dressed in her jeans and bite-proof grey turtleneck jacket, paying a great deal of attention to what's going on around her (while simultaneously shoving her head in her cell phone and walking). She hears the basketball. She feels the pulse of the world. She looks up, and starts toward the court.

Kiara Woolfe

[Awareness, perhaps?]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 6, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )

Kiara Woolfe

[All of time and space is the Verbena's.]

Alexander

[Because I need to know if he fluffs or not for the post... Arete: Spirit 1, Entropy 1. Sensing the gauntlet, looking for weakness. Coincidental, TN4. +1 for trying something new, -1 for taking his time.]

Dice: 1 d10 TN4 (9) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Kiara Woolfe

[Playin' some ball. Dex + Ath.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Alexander

Kiara may not have been drawn here to lounge on the grass, but Alexander? Well, that’s exactly where he can be found. Not so far away, at a familiar spot near the lake, he’s lying on the grass. It’s not particularly uncommon to find him here, although his visits maybe aren’t quite as frequent as they used to be. There’s still hope in the visits, though. Hope that he’ll meet someone again, hopefully in better circumstances. Until he learns how to do more than look into the spirit world, this is the best chance he has for that meeting.

He seems to be watching the lake, but that isn’t really where his attention is at the moment. The bottle of water that he’s slowly turning over and over in his hand might, to those who know him and how he Works, give the hint that his attention is elsewhere. There’s also a frigid, frozen chill in the air around him as his will bends reality just a little. Not enough to do anything obvious to those who aren’t attuned to such things. Just enough to deepen his awareness of the border of this world and its mirror. Scratching at the boundaries, looking for areas of strength and weakness.

He’s there for a while before other sensations start to make their selves known. The pulse of the world not so far away. The razor edge of fluttering wings. The gathering of Awakened. Letting go of the effect, he pushes up from the grass and heads towards the basketball court to meet the familiar – and not as familiar – presences.

Dan

Tall guy in black skinny jeans, a fitted flannel shirt open over a t-shirt. Blond hair, blond beard, hints of tattooes flashing at cuffs and collar like the evidence of ink on a scrivener's hand. He has a battered leather bag slung across his tall, spare frame and is walking with a long-haired brunette in a flowing, flowered skirt that billows in the wind. She, in turn, is walking this bright yellow-and-orange fixed gear bicycle along the path. Has a basket on the front and paperflowers woven into the weave.

He's smoking a cigarette. Well, maybe it's a cigarette, except she asks for a drag and he gives it to her while they stand at a cross-roads, looking not-at-all like park-people. He catches a glimpse of Grace or maybe of Kiara, though. Takes back the cigarette and touches the brunette's shoulder and says something low by way of farewell. She climbs on the bicycle, nevermind the way her skirt blows in the high plains wind, and keeps on going. He turns and lifts a hand toward - well, someone. Maybe a couple of someones. Maybe whoever will return it.

"Grace," Dan says, overtaking her with his long strides and lanky frame. Then, "Kiara," when they reach the basketball court. Listens to that peculiar ring of the ball against the court - elastic and resonant, all at once. Taut.
"Fancy a game of HORSE?"
Wry grin at Grace. Maybe a challenge.

River Vasquez

River doesn't know anyone here except Farrah. They haven't been to the park together but they have gone and gotten a new wardrobe. She's got a couple job applications tucked into her oversized purse and there she is, walking around the park with a pair of awfully high heels thrown into her purse so she can walk around and enjoy the feeling of the ground on her feet. It was starting to get cold, too. Or, at least, colder than the perpetually perfect San Diego.

Her hips swayed when she walked, exaggerated and like she was bopping along to some song that was playing in her head. The strut said it all: River was bouncing along to the Beegees Stayin' Alive. She doesn't really care where she's walking, just that she is walking and then this: she notices the sound of people on the basketball courts. She doesn't know who they are, but she is curious enough that she wouldn't mind seeing what tthey were doing.

A heel turn and redirection later, the dark-haired woman bops down the way to see people. She's got on yoga pants. Yoga pants and an oversized shirt and a sports bra that is more restrictive than a sportsbra has any right to be. No sir, nothing on River Vasquez was moving unless she damned well wanted it to.

And thus, the ball of sunshine bops over to the basketball courts.

Grace

"Neiiigh?" Grace says, flashes Dan a smile. "Oh, wait. That sounds like no. I mean, yes. Unless that means you want me to ride you, in which case -- no."

She quirks her head, though not at anything in particular. Maybe analyzing her own speech for its utter strangeness. "How do you play horse? Also, hi Kiara."

Hi, sunshine. Well, that's different. Grace turns away from the court, looks the new one up and down. There, a little tick of the head upwards, like 'hey'.

Kiara Woolfe

The brunette navigates the court at a slow jog, bouncing the ball between her hands. She's a lean creature, the Verbena, with finely shaped features and dark, expressive eyes. She feels a little like a fixed pulse to the world and a lot more like the first flush of exhilaration. Nature in perpetual motion, that's the sense Kiara Woolfe gives as she lobs the ball toward the ring and watches the neat arc it cuts through the air, watches it hit the ring and wobble inside.

There's a flash of teeth at that, a private (or so she believes in the moment) surge of satisfaction.

She's dressed as much for the occasion as the weather, the pagan, in a pair of soft grey sweatpants that are tied loosely at her hips; in a fitted shirt that adheres to the curve of her spine; her middrift is bear where it cuts off and the dark lines of a tattoo are visible, teased at the edges where the hem rises as she reclaims her ball and turns to sight the sensations creeping along her skin.

The bite of Alexander, the shifting, keen sensation of Grace. Others, too. Some Kiara can't instantly place, that has her pause. Raises a hand to cover her eyes and look across the rolling slope of a hill, beyond the fence and the dappling surface of the water. The ball is tucked under an arm and she's still in transit as Dan appears, as they're greeting her.

"Hey Grace, Dan." There's a flush of color in the Verbena's cheeks, it suits her alarmingly well. "Do something fancy, shoot for the hoop. Next in line has to copy you or create their own." She raises her eyebrows in Dan's direction, gently directs her ball his way with a dragging edge of a smile.

"You can lead us off if you want. Show us what you've got."

Dan

"I'm not one to insist on universalizing my own experiences," says Dan, and maybe he's smirking a bit behind the shadow of his beard, while also rather precisely pinching off the cherry of his cigarette(?) and then stomping the ember to ash beneath the heel of his Converse All-Stars. He's wearing them for fashion, not function. That smirk mingles with a vague, bemused grin. " - but, you've never played HORSE?"

A lift of his chin, wordlessly returning Kiara's greeting. Falls silent as she explains then game, then reaches out to take the basketball as Kiara passes it his way.

Those are musician's hands, not a ball handler's, but still. Can't be a lanky guy from middle-America without playing some basketball, someday, somewhere.

"You do a 'round, repeat the last shot. If you make it, great. If you miss it, you get a letter. Once you've spelled HORSE, you're out. Last person standing wins."

He takes a minute to lift his leather bag over his body and set it carefully aside, then gives the basketball a few experimental dribbles, hand-to-hand before shaping a drive toward the basket.

First shot is simple: a lay-up.

Dan

Dan retrieves the ball as it comes through the basket and passes it to Grace.

Dan

(Lay-ups are easy, dif 4 if you guys wanna roll!)

Alexander

Alexander wanders over with no great rush. There doesn’t seem to be any great disaster at this exact moment, nothing that needs to be rushed towards or away from. And let’s be honest here, he is more likely to be rushing towards it – partly in case anyone else is in danger, partly because he’d just want to know what was happening. Apparently he thinks the cat just got unlucky.

Yes, Alexander heads towards the court. He’s not dressed particularly differently from the others this afternoon. He wasn’t unfamiliar with colder climes, so the trousers favoured by the others are replaced by cargo shorts. The guy seems to like his pockets. Above that, a black sleeveless tshirt covered by a red flannel shirt, worn open and untucked and drifting vaguely in the breeze. Some walking boots and a rucksack, now shouldered, completed his attire for the moment. It wouldn’t be entirely surprising to find him with something tucked away for if the weather changes for the worse, though. He’s lived here long enough.

He pauses at the gate to the court to watch what’s happening, and to wait to be noticed. As if they wouldn’t have picked up on his approach any more than he picked up on their presence here. But he doesn’t want to distract anybody from their shot.

Kiara Woolfe

[I just like rolling to see how badly the dice roller crushes my dreams. Hup, hup. Lay up.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN4 (1, 3, 4, 4, 5, 10) ( success x 4 )

River Vasquez

[awareness: are these *gasp* unique people?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 6, 7, 7) ( success x 3 )

River Vasquez

She is bright, a literal brightness that comes with warmth, that comes with the first rays of the sun that come back and fight their way through the vestiges of winter. There's a sort of determination that comes with those first sprouts of life that poke through the snow, something that is intent on becoming more than just grass.

But the other woman acknowledges her, the one who doesn't quite ping on River's senses as well as one would imagine, but we digress. She runs her hands over the rail, looks back when she feels the pull of something frozen on her senses. She turns around, regards the other stranger in a sea of them. She smiles, something bright and relaxed.

"The game just started," she said in a voice that has a fair bit of an accent. More Cuba than United States, but very familiar with English.

Grace

Ooh. Game. Some sort of sportsball game. Right. Horse.

Grace bounces the ball on the court, eyes flitting to the cold spire of Alex, and she smiles at him. Then, it's time to earn her letter. Or not. Who knows, she might just do the thing right.

She walks up to the spot where Dan shot from, and peers up at the hoop.

"Well, I didn't spend a lot of time outside when I was a kid. Jumping chollas and oppressive heat will do that to you," Grace says, and she doesn't follow that up with 'oh yeah, and none of the other kids would play with me', but there is that too. She has people to play with now, so. What does it matter?

[Dex + Ath = copying Dan's layup!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN4 (1, 1, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )

Grace

Not bad, nope. Went through the hoop at least. Grace assumes that counts, and picks up the ball to throw it to Kiara.

Kiara Woolfe

There are days when Kiara feels acutely connected to the world around her. Feels the way every tiny hair on her body reacts to stimuli: the sun, the gentle, curling breeze, the brush of fingers, the rough give of her basketball. The awareness of others, like her, who were at once a part of and more to all of it. She feels it today, beneath the afternoon light. The prickle of her senses - a hand raising to cup the back of her neck and she twists in a slight, fluid motion to watch Alexander's approach.

The edge of her mouth retains that same smile she'd offered Dan not a few heartbeats ago.

"Hey," she's studying Alexander now, her dark eyes absorbing a hundred tiny details about the man she knew by sight, by sense, but barely at all. The frozen lake in winter. She gestures at his rucksack, resting over a shoulder. "Unburden yourself and come join the game. I'm ambitious enough to want to see how I rank against everyone, today." Her smile widens and a dimple flashes into a cheek. "It's the day for it."

Then, warmth. Inviting and bone deep.

She turns to River, inclines her head. Her hand falling away. "It has," agreement, consideration. "You're welcome to join too, if you want." This briefest tick of eyes over her figure and she turns back in time to catch the ball lobbed her way by Grace. She moves across to take up the other woman's place, canting a little smile sidelong as she does. "Not bad, Evans."

Then, her face adopts a slightly more focused expression, eyes on the hoop, her entire body sings with it. The anticipation of landing the shot. When she makes it, her shirt lifts enough to reveal the full design of that tattoo on her lower back, a spiraling shape with a line cut through it. It gives the impression of something vaguely oriental, some designation or belief inked into the pagan's skin.

Her shot sinks into the hoop neatly and Kiara makes a tiny hop-step of satisfaction.

Dan

They're all Special People, resonant, the signature of their magic charging the air around them so distinctly and assuredly. All Special except for the guy with the roughly worked head of blond hair and the wallet chain and on and on and on. Him? He's ordinary.

Gives Grace an ordinary little grin/smirk in response to her ellipses of understanding. Then gives her a few beats of applause when she makes the lay-up. Watches the ball as she passes it to Kiara then his eyes cut back to Grace as she walks or maybe-jogs across the court and out of Kiara's way. Drops his mouth to Grace's ear and mutters something.

(Muttered: "It's all physics, Grace.")

Which he knows would never make sense to Sera, who does not believe in physics. He figures Grace does, though.

"Game just started," the guy affirms to River, either in echo of overlay of Kiara's statement. "No one has an H yet." Is: retrieving the ball from beneath the basket or maybe wherever it rolled after that shot - bending low and scooping it up with long-fingered and rather deft hands, tossing it back and forth like he's deciding whether or where to go when his phone rings.

Or rather: his phone starts playing the opening riff to The Breeders' Cannonball.

Which means: his phone rings.

He has the presence of mind to toss the ball in Alexander's direction (hey! join the game!) even as he's reaching for the phone in his back pocket. Pulling it out, putting it to his ear. Maybe he gives them a gotta get this but isn't that obvious?

"Hey. Where the fuck are you?" He might be overheard saying as he walks off, pausing only long enough to grab the bag he dropped off when he stepped onto the court.