REI

Nick

The REI in Denver is particularly crowded today, it being the middle of the day on a Saturday at the cusp of real spring. Parking was difficult to find, and the store's landscape is dotted with people browsing through climbing gear and hiking gear and a particularly ambitious couple who are here today examining kayaks.

Nick, for his part, is here mostly because of Thane. When Thane Owens came to Denver, Nick made an effort to show his friend what there was to see outside the city: not the city itself, note. It left him nostalgic in a way that maybe he should have anticipated ahead of time, but regardless, here he is now looking through harnesses and grapples and other climbing gear.

He looks out of place in a place like this, and he perhaps feels out of place too. In a room that is humming with conversation and plans made and casual transaction, he is a hushed calm, standing there with his head slightly tilted as he runs his fingertips over different items.

That's where she'll find him, turning a harness over in his hands, a beam of sunlight filtering through one of the large store windows catching in the matte black of his hair and the bright green of his jacket.

Serafíne

Are there shopping carts in REI Denver?

There must be. There are shopping carts everywhere. There are shopping carts in fucking Macy's, and there would be shopping carts in Nordstrom if the sort of people who like shopping carts would be able to fill them in Nordstrom. But: no. They have to head to Nordstrom Rack to pilot their carts around clearance racks full of mid-level designer brands that richer folks have picked over and discarded.

Ahem.

Here is a shopping cart with one squeaky wheel piloted by a rather striking creature who bends the curve of the universe with her mere existance.

That squeaky wheel heralds her arrival a half-second before she turns the corner. The first impression: the enormous sunglasses, the golden curls. She takes in Nick. She takes in the climbing harness he's fingering. And she says:

"Adventure bound?"

Nick

The squeaky wheel catches Nick's attention before Sera herself does. Miraculously, since Sera herself is quite a presence, the way she feels like the long nights of exhilaration and burning need that were part of Nick's life as a teenager. The Cultist is cutting a path through the crowd, which parts for her if only because maybe they're wondering where and why she got a shopping cart to bring in here.

Still, the important thing is that they part, and Nick has half-turned his head in her direction even before he senses her coming, and once the familiar tang of resonance hits him he does indeed face her in full.

He glances down at the harness in his hands. "Not an adventure in particular. I'm just planning to try to go climbing more often."

His hands lower, and the harness along with it. "I have no idea what I'm looking for, to be honest. When I used to go climbing before, I always went with my friend and borrowed his gear. What adventures are you planning?"

Because Sera is planning some, of this he has no doubt.

Serafíne

There's nothing in the shopping cart and what the hell, once she has made the turn she has also decided to abandon it so abandon it she does. Straightens from her somewhat languid slouch and steps around it and what is Sera wearing at REI? A remarkably (perhaps not-so-remarkably) short red cocktail dress beneath a slashed up leather jacket and fishnets that hug the flesh of her thighs, frame her long legs with diamond-shaped-shadows, and heels that add an extra five-or-so inches to her 5'5" frame. Ambles down the aisle head canted, sunglasses on the gear on display like she's considering it, piece by piece by piece.

"I don't plan my fucking adventures. Takes all the goddamned fun out of it."

Her mouth curves, her chin rises. Equal parts sharp and wry.

"You planning on summitting mountains or just... getting your hands on some rock?"

Nick

"Well, some level of preparation helps keep you from wiping your ass with a handful of leaves or stuck in the hospital with severe dehydration," Nick says, and a look cuts toward her then, his smile also a wry thing.

He returns that particular harness to its hook, and if there is any amusement at Sera's red cocktail dress and slashed leather jacket, he keeps it to himself for now. The Cultist is drawing a look or two, but she's probably used to that.

"I don't think I'm ready to summit mountains or anything like that. I'd mostly just like to get out and do it more. I figure, I'm in Denver and this is the place for it."

Serafíne

Sera gives a neat little shrug, expressive and dismissive all at once: of the perils of poor-planning. I mean hell, she doesn't go that far out, and anyway: magick, right? She can always find her way back home.

And she doesn't look like she belongs here. Those heels and that dress, that jacket. The bristle of hardware in her elfin ears: a half-dozen small hoops and at least two larger spikes. The impression of her tattoos: which are black and white, the lot of them. The suggestion of script when she reaches for the harness he's putting away. Turns over the package, no real hint on what he can see of her sharp features beneath the dark glasses as to what or how much she knows about that shit.. Or why she's here. Or anything.

"We could go bouldering. Don't need any of that gear. Maybe some decent gloves and rock climbing shoes. Best way to learn."

Nick

There is no real hint as to how much Sera knows about that shit, as she turns over the harness in her hands. Maybe that makes Nick a little wary of what she says next, though there's also this: he trusts in Adepts to be Adepts, to be good at a lot of things and to always keep people guessing. These are the sorts of powerful magi he has always encountered, up until now, even the most human of them.

"I'd like that," he says, when she suggests bouldering. And he has straightened, and he is looking down at her, and he is a creature far from his mythic landscape just at this moment with his dark curls and somber features.

"Want to help me find a pair of good shoes and gloves, then?" Because: well, it'll give him a better idea of just how much exactly she knows before he goes climbing boulders with her. Given the exactly zero number of times he's seen her sober, perhaps he's wise to consider this.

Then again, this is indeed the best way to learn, and he uses magick as much as she does, though not with her skill. Can't they always find their way back home?