Something Biblical

Ian

The day was pleasantly warm, if a bit cloudy. Above the trees, the sky was soft and grey. Only a week ago, there'd been blood splattered in the grass by the tennis courts, but it had long-since been washed away. Today there were no monsters hiding in the bushes. There was just the interwoven threads of urban and natural life that always existed here.

Ian wasn't by the tennis courts today. He was sitting lotus-style in the grass near Grasmere Lake underneath the overhanging branches of an oak tree. Above him, the leaves whispered softly in the wind, and he could smell the cool alkaline of the lake water. At present his eyes were closed; his body relaxed in its meditative pose. The grass tickled gently at his bare feet.

He was aware, of course, of the presence of other bodies. People walking, talking, playing. They passed him by on the trail or ran through the grass at his back. He let the presence of their patterns exist within his awareness without needing to look at them.

Grace

[Awareness!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Serafíne

Also: awareness.

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 8 ) Re-rolls: 2

Grace

[ lol ]

Serafíne

Ian: meditating, lotus-posed, aware but also closed-off. Remote, see.

Strangers divert themselves around them, drag blankets through the grass for a late-week picnic, change their choice of frisbee-lawn, come running after any toddlers who appear to be on a collision course. We live with certain rules of behavior. Among these: don't bug people who are doing yoga or whatever that shit is in the park.

Someone else here, not far away really, not so meditative either. Still, there are similarities. She is aware of every-fucking-thing and also sits with her legs crossed. Not lotus-style though, plain old criss-cross applesauce.

Green smoothie on the worn wooden planks of the picnic table she inhabits, plastic cup sweating in the heat. Leather journal laid open on her bare thighs, elbow digging into what meat remains, cheek cradled in the heel of her palm, an ink pen in the other hand, the shadow of the nib neat where it hovers above the page.

Caught between: between things, between places, between thoughts.

There.

Grace

Every now and then, Grace rides her bike. It's good to keep in shape, and apparently it's also good to throw at horrible dog monsters, in Jo's opinion. Grace won't be resorting to the bike-as-a-weapon principle any time soon, but hey, it's a great form of a getaway.

She seems to dodge people and things along the path without having to pay much attention, and perhaps people wonder -- if not that, what is she paying attention to?

Today, it's the weird.

Vampires, dog monsters -- this park has gone insane.

But it's not anything horrible she picks up on. It's Sera, sitting at a picnic table. Of course she pedals over. It's been a while. And the last time -- it wasn't a time for talking.

When she arrives, she tilts her head, as if trying to figure something out about the Cultist, and then: "Hi. What's up? Besides clouds."

Ian

[Awareness]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 4, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )

Serafíne

Sera knows Grace is coming, has to know Grace is coming, always seems to know where everyone is, and there is a strange and rather precise sort of awareness livid in the air around her as the bike gets - closer and closer. Climbs off the path and onto the grass - trampled here because so many people come to picnic.

Maybe Grace reaches out and balances herself against the frame with a spare hand on the picnic table. More likely, she drops her legs from the pedals to the ground, sliding ever-so-slightly off the seat, straddling.

Creature that she is, Sera does not look up until Grace greets her, and then - she does look up. Somehow she is already oriented in that direction, something about the cant of her chin, the angle of her neck.

Smiles: quiet, compressed, spreading, slow.

Lovely.

Which angles into a rather private smirk when Grace says besides clouds. That joke doesn't seem to match Sera's particular brand of humor. Neither does it surprise her from Grace.

"Hey Grace. Writing a song, planning a trip, letting the world in. How are you?"

Ian

He'd been in the park for a while now. Probably close to an hour, though in his current state time seemed to pass differently. Fast, slow, standing still. There is a nexus at which all things intertwine. Ian wasn't so much not thinking about the time as he was not thinking at all.

But he wasn't asleep, for all that he might have looked it. (No, his posture was too straight.) And there were familiar notes of resonance dancing in the background, alongside the voices of playing children.

His coming out of the trance was gradual. First a slow roll of his neck, then he lay back in the grass and unfolded his legs. Then he opened his eyes and looked up at the sky.

After a while he rolled up to his feet and walked over to the picnic table where Grace and Sera sat, talking. He didn't say anything when he sat down on the opposite side, but he cupped his jaw in his palm and leaned an elbow on the table, smiling quietly. Watching them, as though he found their actions interesting.

Grace

"Building a robot and playing with my office plant," she responds, as if those two had anything to do with one another.

"That doesn't exactly explain how I'm doing, more the what... I'm really good though."

She steps off the bike, lets it crash to the ground. Whatever -- it's a bike. If it weren't built to be used, Grace wouldn't have bought it.

Ian's getting closer, a thing she notes by the resonant feral sensation. She doesn't quite turn to greet him yet though, lets him sit at the table first. And what he is doing to her, she does right back. She looks at him, little quizzical smile on her face, cupping her jaw in her palm (though there's nothing to rest her arm on).

Serafíne

"Mmm." The noise Sera makes is: warm, and quiet, and affectionate and just a little bit removed. As if she were both here but elsewhere. Floating in the middle of the lake, perhaps, the sun warming her face, the world both expanded and constricted to the boundaries of water and sky, dampened, insulated, lapping - gently.

"I'm glad you're well."

That same reaction as the bike crashes, though it is sharpened. Maybe surprised. This bright-edged hook that darts to one spinning wheel then rises to bank off Ian's smile.

This flash of dark script, a rather chaotic hand, tangled with doodles ornate enough to be a match for the many dark tattooes framing Sera's hand as she drops the pen into the center of the spine and closes the journal around it.

There's Ian - looking and Grace being kind of weird and looking too, monkey-see, monkey-do style.

Sera: who is golden, sunbronzed, sweating faintly, sharper now - leaner see? Huffs out this low laugh.

"Fucking hell. You two know each other, right? Or did you contract some brain-eating disease and lose all memories of each other and now need a new introduction?"

Elijah

[oooh, people? I'm not looking for them, but if I notice!]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )

Elijah

One of the benefits of being blind was that Arionna didn't have to actually look at some of the things that Elijah eats, because let's face it- Elijah ate garbage. Delicious, chili covered garbage, but chili dogs had no nutritional value and despite the fact that he'd seen a documentary on what went into hot dogs he didn't seem to actually care. The thing about Denver was that it lulled you into a false sense of security that things might be of a higher quality than they actually were. They were not, in fact, of a higher quality. They were just a dollar more expensive than the dogs in New York City.

Not that he was aware of this. He'd never been to the big apple.

But he was, in fact, out with a friend and enjoying the fact that today wasn't completely crappy. He had a recital coming still, so it was nice to spend some time completely away from a harp. And darling dear, Arionna had likely learned her fill of what was interesting about harps (very little) versus what is pretty straight forward (most of it.) But? He was talkative. Always talkative. Clad in jeans and a V neck and a pullover sweater. Pocketwatch in the kangaroo pocket (because pockets). But, there he is, making his way down the nearest path when he feels…

Something.

It's enough that it makes him pause. Makes the blond a little confused as to whether or not he's noticing something magical or he's got indigestion.

Ian

"I'd like to see that. The robot."

He was wearing a white v-necked t-shirt and a pair of dark jeans. Fairly standard casual clothes. Likely, he'd been walking through and stopped to meditate on a whim. (And point in fact, his hat and shoes were currently taking up residence inside the crook of a tree root.)

To Sera, he offered a lofted brow. Then to Grace (playing along) he said, "I'm not sure. What's your name again?"

Grace

"He started it!" Grace exclaims, in mock-defense.

"Okay, Ian," she says, emphasizing his name because she does know him. "How are you today? I heard the last time you were here, you patched up some people? Good thing you were there."

Arionna de la Babin

[awareness]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (6, 7, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 5 )

Arionna de la Babin

[Alertness]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 5, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )

Grace

"You can come see my robots any time." Robots. Plural. "And you know where."

"And, I am not telling you my name, you will have to guess."

Arionna de la Babin

She can smell it though. She wouldn't consider herself much of a snob when it came to food, but hotdogs were not exactly a food she found enjoyable. She had eaten plenty of them in her time, and if anything, she'd rather keep her distance. Except with Elijah is eating them of course, and she's walking along beside him.

Her hair had been cut to make it easier to handle now, and her eyes ventured off into the distance, looking through people instead of at them. Unlike those with some etiquette and care for others, Arionnna didn't bother to wear glasses to hide her lack of vision; she just expected people to handle it on their own.

When Elijah pauses, Ari stops a moment after, his footsteps having faded, and she tilts her head a little in his direction. "If you are sensing what I am, there are familiar people nearby." Because she just felt it, more powerfully than she could smell or hear right now. All of them just washed over her. Though even she recognized something different...something new.

Arionna simply felt colder. Sometimes, even her skin felt colder. She put a hand on Elijah's arm, sliding the red tip of her cane in the rough direction of where the sensation seemed the strongest. "That way, I think."

Ian

"Chastity, right? It's something biblical like that." His lips widened into a grin, but he dropped the act quickly. Apparently Jo had spoken to Grace about the creature they'd encountered last week, and Ian's subsequent assistance. He pressed his lips together and made a soft sound. Serious and thoughtful.

"I think they would have been okay, regardless. Jo was in bad shape though. I guess it was lucky I was nearby."

(Not so lucky for him, really. He'd ruined half of a very expensive suit.)

Serafíne

Something somewhere in there makes Sera breathe out sharply, this quiet, self-contained little huff. Whatever is going on, bouncing back and forth between Grace and Ian makes her skin prickle in a way she would struggle to define if you asked her to define it. She doesn't like it though. Gives them both a sharp line-of-a-look and reaches for her green smoothie and untucks her legs from her not-quite-lotus position. Drops her feet to the bench seat in front of her.

Gladiator sandals in silver-trimmed leather criss-cross her calves right up to the middle of her thighs.

--

This: shifts, though slightly, when Ian's mien and demeanor change. Softens, really - a note of passing concern that comes and then goes, rather without awareness or context. Sera takes a sip of her smoothie, and reaches for her little leather book.

Elijah

[Who am I looking at?]

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

Grace

Grace flips Ian off. With a huge grin on her face, because that's how she does. "Yup. That's me. Chastity."

Although, let's be honest -- when's the last time she was unchaste? Long ago. Still, much like her real name, it doesn't quite fit.

"It was lucky. I think that was Jo's first taste of weirdness. She'd argued with me before about how some things just can't exist..."

Ian

[Per+Empathy on Sera (Did I say something wrong?)]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 5, 5, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )

Elijah

There is a moment of redirection. He chooses to rely on what it is that Arionna is telling him, and also takes the opportunity to peer into the distance. There were people and when he finally squinted and tilted his head a little to the side he noticed that there was a Grace-shaped person, an Ian shaped person, and Serafine. He could recognize Sera anywhere because she just drew attentions. She was distinct. She was most assuredly herself.

He shot Arionna a glance, a smile that was heard more than seen and he used the corner of his sleeve to make sure he was presentable. Or at least not covered in chili.

"It's Ian and Sera and Grace?" he is already headed that way, "let's go be social."

And so, he walks. Perhaps a little slower than he normally would, but mostly because her legs were shorter than his. He continued on, called out and offered a wave, "was there, like, a meeting nobody told me about?"

A beat.

"Okay, that was lame, hey!" and he bridged the gap his voice didn't quite cover.

Serafíne

Sera's reaction is less to Ian, more to Grace. This seed planted in that moment where Grace dropped her bike and decided to stare at Ian. That was just weird to her, and it morphed into something between them that felt domestic in a way that makes Sera feel both constricted and detached. She's sober and she still has no fucking idea what they're talking about and that confuses her and she's not really in a place for this kind of back-and-forth. Not when her senses are blown this open, her awareness is this sharp, her hunger is this bright.

Arionna de la Babin

"Seems to be the presence I sensed. Seems entirely like them." Though she was more familiar with Ian's because she had seen him lately. Her lips tightened, but Ari kept her hand on his arm as he walked, at least for the time being. Adjustments took time.

"Incredibly. If there were a meeting, I'd suspect you'd be the first to know. Is there anyone in Denver that you aren't friends with?" He always seemed to know people, or were at least, friendly enough to seem as if he knew them. She was not, on the other hand, and knew it quite well, just as everyone else did.

"I'm not certain being social is an activity I generally engage in, you understand?"

Ian

"She seemed like she handled it fairly well, all things considered."

Jo could have run, after all. Many people would have. She could have curled up into a ball and gone catatonic (no one would have blamed her, really.) But she didn't do either of those things. And Ian didn't say: I hope she's alright, because he already suspected that she was.

Instead he glanced at Sera and tilted his head a bit - this alert, animal expression. He wasn't as adept as she was at this sort of thing (at seeing into people,) but the look didn't escape him. Nor did her body language.

And again, he did not say: are you alright? Instead his eyes softened a little and he got up to walk around to her side of the picnic table. There he sat down beside her on the table, letting the warmth and weight of his presence say what he was not saying out loud. If she didn't like the proximity, he'd slide away a moment later. Otherwise, he set his hand lightly on her lower back.

"Hey guys." This, of course, was for Elijah and Arionna.

Grace

"I heard she threw a bicycle at a dog-thing," Grace says, nods.

It feels... chilly. And this is not the season. So Grace sighs, at the 'hey guys,' and goes to look-see. It could be Alex, right?

But no, no such luck.

The ease with which she was handling the previous social interactions just goes flying out the door now that Arionna has arrived.

"Yeah, hi Elijah. I better, uh... I need to get back, actually."

With that, she goes to right her bicycle again.

Serafíne

Something about what she's doing: reaching for her battered journal, holding her long-neglected kale-and-pineapple smoothie suggests that she is gathering herself. Then Ian is circling the picnic table to take a seat beside her. She doesn't tense; there's no physical objection to his proximity, just a minute, curious flash of her dark blue eyes at his profile. The frame of it against the park's impressionistic blur beyond.

Her lower back is warm on his palm. The sharp little articulations of her spine evident beneath her skin. You'd think she would have a tattoo there, something dark and curled given the tattoos all over her hands and arms, flashing even from her palm when she reaches for something with her left hand but no: merely skin. A sun-born, sun-worshippers remarkably undamaged skin, but she's only 25, and she's magic. Maybe she'll never grow old.

--

Elijah and Arionna arrive and Ian greets them and Sera gives them this spare, ghosting, half-framed kind of smile that stands-in for a greeting.

Then Grace goes from garrulous to, well, not. Sera glances at her. That glance lingers and sharpens, because really, she cannot help herself.

(Per + Empathy: WTF Grace?)

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )

Elijah

[Per+empathy: WTF just happened? Grace?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 5, 5, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )

Arionna de la Babin

[perc+emp - all the cool kids are doing it...and I totally suspect....]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

Grace

[Grace's whole body language just changes from relaxed to on alert as soon as she realizes who's coming. It could be Elijah, but she actually said hi to him, so no, probably not.

There's this look to her, like she's wary of a threat, almost.

That, and a whole lot of social anxiety just popped into being. Grace does not like Arionna, in a rather visceral fashion.]

Elijah

[Manip+sub: don't worry, Grace, I got your back. This is totally normal.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 5, 5, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )

Elijah

"Hey," he does catch that something is up, that something feels up, but for once he resides fairly firmly in his realm as a young man in his early twenties. He is a beast that can be observant when he doesn't put his mind to it (and it is true, Elijah can't seem to risk paying attention to something. He notices things when hey aren't screaming at him.) All he notices is this: Grace is in a hurry to leave.

He does, however, catch enough to know that he needs to step up his game.

"Yeah," he says, tone convivial and like he had just remembered something, "oh yeah, you're doing, like, robot things." Even half warbles because Elijah… well… doesn't understand what it is Grace does in a magical sense. "That did seem pretty important, I'm surprised you took the breather as it is."

Arionna de la Babin

Arionna can hear it. Tones have shifted. Before she might not have heard it, might not have noticed. But now she must, and she does. Grace isn't just in a hurry to leave, she's in a hurry leave because of Ari. They never really got along, and they most certainly don't now, but she never truly picked up on such a....deep tone of dislike. There's a twitch of her lips, a lip of a corner. It's amusement, almost, though whether at Grace's reaction or at the little details she's picking up...

Ari pulls her hand away from Elijah's arm. "That won't be necessary, Grace." Because Grace may not acknowledge her, but she will acknowledge the woman. Ari lifts her hand to blindly pat at Elijah's shoulder. "It is, after all, your circle. Hardly seems appropriate for an outside to barge in when all the pleasant conversation was just starting."

"I'll get a cab." She turned, sliding the red tip of ehr cane in front of her lightly, careful of her steps on the way back. Though she does pause to tilt her head and body towards the group. "By the way. Ian. I appreciate the help you provided the other day. " That's really all she needs to say to him. It's a round about way of saying 'Thank You,' but it's how Ari does things.

Ian

"I wasn't there for that part." (The bicycle-throwing.) Ian noted Grace's reaction to Elijah and Arionna's arrival with a look that might have been some combination of questioning and skeptical. He remembered, of course, how Grace and Arionna felt about each other. But he didn't call her out on it. Instead he said, "If you're still at the warehouse, I might come by sometime." Because he genuinely was curious about Grace's robots.

Sera was gathering herself. Perhaps she had somewhere to be or perhaps she was not happy with where she was or perhaps she simply liked to be on the move. Regardless, Ian stayed beside her for as long as she remained. Sat there and touched her in this way that was quietly and casually intimate. Like the way that cats will sometimes sit quietly in a person's space just to be there. (That's what it felt like, too. Like sitting next to a very docile tiger.) Her skin was warm under his palm. Just once, he slid the spread fingers of his hand slowly up and down her spine. Then he let the contact fall away.

"You don't need to go, Arionna." Neither of them did, but Grace hadn't left her departure as open to debate. "We're just hanging out. I like your hair, by the way."

Grace

"Oh, yeah," she says, to Ian. "Come by. I'll make tea or something. We can play laser tag in the arena too, if you like."

Still no response to Ari, but she gives Elijah a nervous smile, and steps back up on her bike, walking it out, and feeling out the pedals first before hitting her stride.

She doesn't even look at Ari. Not once did she even notice that something was off, that she'd cut her hair or enjoys staring through people nowadays. It's as though she's making a clear effort to ignore the fuck out of the woman.

Serafíne

"See you guys."

With all the arrivals and departures and offers of departure, Sera's is pretty low-key. A supple arch of her spine, the bracing of her feet on the seat of the picnic table. Then she's rising up-up-up and jumping (perhaps gracefully?) down-down-down, flatflooted tonight. Green sludge sloshes around her in plastic cup but (clever girl) she keeps it lidded so it doesn't spill.

Another kind of magic.

Seems to include everyone in that see-you-guys though there is a different sort of awareness of Ian than the rest. Subtle, supple. Another glance at Grace then, lashed and quietly banked, empathetic. Love, see, even when Grace is being weird.

Hey, we're all entitled.

Sera lifts her cup by way of farewell as she saunters off.

Who the hell knows where she's going except: away. Away from here.

Serafíne

(Graceful jump? Dex + Ath)

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 5, 5, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )

Serafíne

ish. night y'all!

Taco Truck

Kiara Woolfe

[I'm doing the thing with the sensing because, y'know. Dice.]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )

Serafíne

Early evening, midweek, springtime - warm in a way that feels bonesoaking after the long, dark winter. Now though: my god, the sun, the dogwoods, the tulips and the anemone, the late-blooming daffodils, the iris bristling-green but not yet in-bloom in dark stands around the lake. The redbuds a bruising blush of magenta, here and there a cherry tree that has just come into bloom or has come-and-gone while you were looking at it: tender tender tendersweet.

Spring.

The park is flooded with people from every walk of life and every socioeconomic strata. Skateboarders, joggers, frisbee throwers, dog-walkers, dog-runners, dog-carriers, picnickers of both the makeshift and the wellplanned varieties. Puppet-show creators and street artists and balloon-sellers. Grandparents running after toddlers, teenagers trailing after the world's most clueless adults. Bird-watchers, goose-feeders, toy-sailboat-captains, roast-nut vendors and on, and on, and on. Pick-up softball games and a stray game of intramural quidditch and not one, but two people in Chewbacca suits neither of whom knows the other -

and amidst all this agitation, green-green-growth and exultant tumult a certain creature, laying on her back in the green green grass, dark glasses over her eyes, golden hair threaded through the grass, head back, feet flat on the ground, knees bent, arms spread wide wide wide.

Kiara Woolfe

The warmth had hit her like a freight train. All that deep, deep cold and then suddenly; sunshine. Suddenly the world twisting just so and then - oh. Spring is sprung and there's a poetry to Washington Park again that somehow felt hushed and suspended while the snow fell. As if winter had pressed her finger to her lips and shushed the world and the travelers that once upon a time traversed it. Kiara Woolfe had been one of these - not to say she'd entirely stopped visiting but - her absences had been longer.

Her presence stirring here and there - conversations via Ginger - a flash of dark, wild hair in a Café, a bright red smile across a room - there and then - gone. As if pinched and snuffed out; leaving only the wisps of curling smoke; the suggestion of the Verbena.

That was in essence so very much the brunette's way, however. She was a wilding at heart and as much as the city entertained her there was forever curled around Kiara the notion of something borrowed but for a time from nature. Some sprite that manifested in a flash of sharp white teeth and dark; laughing eyes. Just as it does now - Serafine on the grass and then a shadow sliding across her form. The sensation of rebirth; the tickle at the senses and suddenly -

"Hey, stranger."

- Kiara; sunglasses perched on the edge of her nose; head tilted to the side. Drinking in the sight of the other woman; her fingers idly curled around a bottle of water. Kiara; who smelled like sunshine and coffee; vital and sweet and yet - something else, too. The curl of her lips suggestive. "Mind if I sit?"

Grace

[Awareness!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 4, 9) ( success x 1 )

Grace

The warmth does not hit Grace like a freight train. This Phoenixite loves the warm, and even embraces the hot. It's amazing she manages to get through the winter without freezing a toe off. Warmth hits her like a fluffy pillow. She just wants to roll around in it.

Maybe that's why she's out here in the 'wild' nursing her internet addiction by strolling around with her face in her phone. Or, she could be peeling away the universe's veils and poking stuff on the inside, it's really hard to tell...

But she isn't. At least, not in any way less mundane than anyone else does with their own quantum-tunneling pocket-sized sums-of-most-human-knowledge.

After some fashion, the skittering wanderer wanders inexplicably towards the others, as Mages are so wont to do. Like attracts like, or something like that. But she still doesn't look up from her phone. Maybe she's just not quite aware of them yet, drifting their way like following a familiar scent.

Serafíne

The creature has to feel it from a long way off: that singular sensation - devouring rebirth, the voracious energy of it, but she does not move, does not stir, does not sit-up-and-wave or otherwise embrace the sensation until Kiara's shadow moves over Sera's skin. Which is already bronzed, as if she had spent those last dredging weeks of winter-to-spring somewhere far, far away. Someplace with white sands and luminous seas and a golden sun. St. Tropez or Rio or Santorini or Phuket or fucking Bali.

Maybe it was fucking Bali.

Maybe it was just Jamaica.

Whereever: she has three bracelets made of braided grass and cheap glass beads around her left wrist, tattoos scrawling dark on her fingers, wrists, forearms, her left bicep, curling up her negligent flank, disappearing into shadow or beneath the straps of her leopard-print bikini top.

Next to her head, sweating in a plastic-domed Big Gulp cup, a bright pink Slurpee. Guarantee you it is dosed with something.

"Hey." This see, as much to Kiara's shadow as to Kiara. Quiet really, for a Sera, the edge of her mouth: curving, faint. This lift of her chin, both subtle and supple, rather hard to see for the angle except for the way it makes her hair slither through the grass. "I'd mind if you fucking didn't sit."

The glasses are too dark for anyone to see her eyes, but the sense of her attention is clear. The direction. The strange, drifting precision.

Kiara Woolfe

There's quiet laughter at that.

At the idea that she'd find offense in it; Kiara's decision whether to sit or not to sit which - frankly - was really no decision at all but an eventuality. She had always had the intention to - it was the tease with formalities she really had no great care for that slowed her descent to the grass. She drops a bag down; it rattles with authority; the contents burdened enough to impact with some weight; to compress the soft earth beneath it before the Verbena folds herself down beside it.

"Guess I'd better fucking sit, then."

Scoops her sunglasses back over her face so her dark eyes are visible. Uncaps the water bottle and tips it against her lips; swallows and watches Serafine out of the corner of her eyes; smiling as she turns her face afterwards. Her mouth is cherry red tonight; the water leaving it gleaming wetly in the gathering dusk.

There's almost something feral about the imagery; the bold, wet, red. She reclines back on a hand and tilts her head - quiet for a beat before: "Grace." A slanted look to Serafine; the edge of humor there around her supple lips. "Have you ever noticed - " Kiara settles down on her side; cupping the side of her neck and pressing an elbow down to support herself; draping across the narrow margin of space between herself and the Cultist as if she had no concern of Serafine minding the invasion.

The way it brought the Verbena's long lashes into greater clarity; the sweep and settle of them against her cheek. The steady weight of her regard through dark eyes. "The way we seem to converge. You'd nearly think it was magic." A slow, satisfied shift of her mouth, then. She lifts her chin.

Watching Sera while she lounges in all her leopard-print bikini-topped glory.

Grace

Grace marches up to the two of them as Kiara is speaking on the oddity of convergences, and Grace -- while still not looking up from her phone -- adds: "It's a consequence, I think. Entanglings, you know? I felt something familiar over here, and my feet must have moved for me."

She puts her phone into a pocket on her jeans, her black t-shirt one with a graphic of a robot in yellow and white, advertising: "Pass your Turing test in 2 weeks! $99"

"What's up. Is this grass taken?"

Serafíne

"Like magic, sure," comes this note of quiet, humming agreement from the Cultist. Except, somewhere within or around the phrase is something else: something not-querelous precisely, so much as it is contrarian. Her golden head turns as Kiara descends, as if on a fulcrum. That same sense of both weight and calibration which somehow both belies and telegraphes her physical state of some-sort of inebriation.

Here's the truth: right now, just now, Sera is really rather stoned.

It's the best way to be stoned, with the sun cracking brilliant above you like the golden yolk of a perfectly cooked egg.

" - but not exactly magic. And it's not really a consequence. And it's not really a convergence: it's a choice. A whole bunch of fucking choices you know? To walk: towards, instead of: away from. To be open right? Somehow and on some level to everything that is. Or at least, the pieces of it that hit you on your fucking wavelength, yeah?"

The sustained sense of eyecontact: the dark lenses and Kiara's dark eyes just - momentarily - hanging.

Then a glance up. The frame of her dark glasses a cluster of tiny crystal-eyed skulls: of course.

"Hey Grace."

Kiara Woolfe

Sera is really rather stoned and Kiara is - mellow, to put it one way. Her smile lingering there as the blonde turns her face toward her and their eyes meet; holding there as the Verbena reaches over with her free hand to catch and surrender a strand of hair away from Serafine's brow; her wrist jangling with its usual assortment of brevity in chains and stones and the silver catch and gleam of something resembling a pentagram.

It's no wonder Arionna possesses the dismay for the brunette she does - she wears her beliefs without compromise, Kiara. There's no attempts to disguise her tendencies when it comes to faith - or the lack of it, in certain things.

The Verbena's touch though, where it ghosts along her skin, is gentle. Barely there to be felt stronger than the breeze before - "That depends, what's the password?" This, Kiara twisting back a little; her sunglasses dropping forward onto her nose as she settles back onto her elbow; pushing space between herself and Serafine; toeing her bag out of the way of Grace's invited situation.

"Been a while." This, Grace's actual greeting beyond the initial drawling tease, a thin eyebrow arching. "How's my favorite technological wizkid been doing? Not behaving yourself, I hope."

Grace

"I wasn't really aware of my making a choice, but hey -- I'll take credit for being open to everything," Grace says, smiles down at Sera.

"The password is: I'm sitting on the grass and you can't stop me?" There's a smirk, and then a plop as she adjusts to the sudden downwardness.

"I am totally not. Behaving myself. Ever."

Because fuck that, okay? Grace doesn't reach out to the others in their touchy-feeliness, but she doesn't seem bothered by it either. Doesn't seem so willing to put distance between herself and others these days.

Serafíne

"Like magic, sure," comes this note of quiet, humming agreement from the Cultist. Except, somewhere within or around the phrase is something else: something not-querelous precisely, so much as it is contrarian. Her golden head turns as Kiara descends, as if on a fulcrum. That same sense of both weight and calibration which somehow both belies and telegraphes her physical state of some-sort of inebriation.

Here's the truth: right now, just now, Sera is really rather stoned.

It's the best way to be stoned, with the sun cracking brilliant above you like the golden yolk of a perfectly cooked egg.

" - but not exactly magic. And it's not really a consequence. And it's not really a convergence: it's a choice. A whole bunch of fucking choices you know? To walk: towards, instead of: away from. To be open right? Somehow and on some level to everything that is. Or at least, the pieces of it that hit you on your fucking wavelength, yeah?"

The sustained sense of eyecontact: the dark lenses and Kiara's dark eyes just - momentarily - hanging.

Then a glance up. The frame of her dark glasses a cluster of tiny crystal-eyed skulls: of course.

"Hey Grace."

Serafíne

Ack. Not that one!

Serafíne

Sera is quite remarkably still as Kiara's arm - with its gleaming cachement of baubles and bangles - shades her face. That stillness is somehow still very inhabited; immediate; cognizent: aware, implicitly, explicitly. Though her eyes are hidden, there is still this sense that she sinks into even the impression of contact. The layers of it, as fine and finely calibrated as the layers of skin, and blood, blood and bone.

Sera tilts the crown of her skull back and back, chin rising to plant a supple, quiet kiss at the base of Kiara's palm.

Lets it go, turns her hidden gaze in Grace's direction as Grace sits in the still-lush grass.

--

Somewhere in the grass: a low buzz-buzzing. Sounds like a bee. Isn't a bee.

The hum of someone's phone, low, insistent, which starts over again as soon as it stops. Sera is patting down the grass, looking for the thing, looking-looking for it as it starts its buzzing chorus all over again, and finally finds it, shades her eyes against the lowering sun to read the screen, makes a noise and then rolls over and lifts herself up from the grass, dusting herself off, this twist of apology in her mouth as she wanders a bit away to take this call thingy.

In passing.

Ian

It was after sundown, but not yet late enough that Washington Park had cleared of visitors. Joggers ran in staggered numbers down the winding trails. A group of teenagers occupied one of the fields for a game of soccer, shouting rambunctiously over muted din of passing cars. A few couples were playing doubles in the tennis court.

Ian wasn't running tonight, as he often did. Instead he occupied a patch of ground beneath a couple of tall, overhanging trees. The grass beneath his feet was cold and brittle from winter, but the unseasonably warm temperatures had melted the last snowfall. It'd been like that for months, snowing and melting in sporadic bursts.

He was rehearsing something. Or at least, it looked it. Testing out how certain moves flowed and letting them settle into his muscle memory. Dancing alone in the park at night without music. Stopping and starting periodically with slow, measured movements. His expression was focused and withdrawn. With the temperature in the 40's, he had on only a sleek black windbreaker over his athletic clothes (the lower half of which consisted of running shoes and a pair of 3/4 length sweats with cargo pockets.)

Grace

The park holds a special place in Grace's heart. She knows she's not alone in coming to see the lake, just for the prospect of getting to talk to The Message again. But today has her wondering why...

Why did she decide to step out of the nice warm Inside and go to the Big Room? It's a refrigerator in here. Colder than a refrigerator, even. At least she had the presence of mind to bundle up in her coat, gloves, and that scarf Kalen bought her for Christmas. His gifts are practically the only vehicle through which Grace manages to show a sense of fashion. Underneath all that, she's got jeans and old sneakers on. It's a strange mix of upscale cashmere, wool, and grubby. Whatever, eh? It's not like she cares.

There's a trail of crushed crunchy grass behind her that meanders, because this free spirit does not enjoy being constrained by sidewalks. And then, she sees Ian. It's hard to mistake him, even at a distance. Few other people in the city are such graceful dancers. The meandering stops, and instead, she shuffles over to him in a straight line, hands in her pockets to keep warm.

Arionna de la Babin

[feeelsins the feels]

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

Arionna de la Babin

Arionna was not jogging. She was not playing soccer. She was not dancing or engaging in any form of physical activity. Instead she does what she often does, and she simply walks. Spring is coming, a season her mother would rejoice in, being her own embodiment of it. Odd how Ari took to winter; the season of death and slumber. With the last throes of winter so near, it seemed only right that she should walk and enjoy what little remained.

The moon would be peeking over soon, and she would feel the pull of it. But for now... she only walked.

The others slid into her perception soon enough, though the true intensity of it was deeply muted compared to their previous encounters. It might be her own ties with the moon, or perhaps...she was merely preoccupied in her thoughts. The cup of coffee in her hand expelled steam through the small hole, and Arionna took a moment to sip from it. Did she dare it? T hat was often the million dollar question. Was it worth it?

Ultimately, she decided on a small, and almost insignificant 'yes.' Her steps deviated, moving slowly towards the sensation.

Ian

[oh look, resonance]

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

Ian

Temperature could be such a subjective thing. For someone from a warm climate, 40-odd degrees might seem like scarf weather. For someone used to the cold, it felt like spring.

He didn't look up at first when he felt Grace drawing near, keeping his focus on what he was doing. His awareness of her was an instinctive thing - the way he was aware of the trees and the wind. He heard the shuffle of her feet behind him. Felt her resonance shift and soar. She was something familiar. He never seemed to mind when she watched him.

Arionna was... less familiar. But her approach was slow and distant. Ian waited until she was within easy earshot before he stopped dancing and turned to regard first Grace and then her. Grace got a small, knowing smile. (It always seemed like he was keeping some kind of secret.)

"What, no basketball tonight?"

Grace

[Magedar!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 7, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

Grace

"I don't basketball," Grace says, in a complete lie. "I just sometimes crash other people's games when they beg me to. You must have me confused with someone who owns..." balls? No. That would be bad. Don't say that. "Sporting equipment."

She skips up, breathing in the cold. And she is cold, this southern desert creature. Phoenix is not known for its freezing temperatures, after all. She almost doesn't tie it to Arionna, but then... oh yes. Her.

Oh well. You shouldn't let people get to you, any more than you should the cold. Arionna is her Arionna's problem to deal with, as we all are. Still, one of Grace's hands pokes out of her coat, gives Ari a wave. It's a brief thing. Hopefully, it won't be seen as too fucking altruistic.

Arionna de la Babin

If Ari had felt supremely comfortable with the situation, and the people, she might have found Grace's demeanor amusing; in some way she still did. They both seemed to lack social capabilities, though in amazingly different ways. Perhaps that's (part of) the reason why they don't get along quite so well. The others were...self evident to those in the know of her person.

She pauses nearby, close enough to talk, far enough to give them all space from her, more for her than them. "You're doing better." Better from last they met, when he left rather quickly. Grace's small wave casts a glance her way and Ari....sips her coffee. Not an overly active individual.

Ian

Arionna surmised that Ian was doing better than he had been upon their last encounter, to which Ian offered her a look that felt blandly cryptic (almost dismissive.) He didn't humor the assumption with a verbal response. Instead, his attention slid back to Grace.

"Oh I see. That was a different Grace I played last time. Your more fun twin. Does that make you the evil one?" His aloof expression melted in a subtle grin. "You should give me her number." He trotted back a few steps, glancing at the tree overhead. There was an hint of animal energy in the way he moved. The ready way he rested his weight on the balls of his feet, like any moment he might spring into motion. And sure enough, a moment later he jumped up and grabbed the overhanging branch, hanging there experimentally to be sure the tree would hold his weight before he swung and landed closer to Arionna.

"Arionna, right? From the Pho place?"

Grace

"I have to grow a goatee before I can be considered the evil one. Duh. I though everyone knew that," Grace says, totally dry.

She watches him do his little jumps and swings, and rolls her eyebrows. But there's a little smirk there too. She's only slightly mocking his showing off. After all, if you've got it, flaunt it, right?

"Arionna and I, uh... at least share one thing in common. We both have an appreciation for noodle shops."

Arionna de la Babin

"They also cackle. Villains cackle. Terribly. Sometimes they have a mustache that they twirl. A sort of Dali-esque, though hardly as grandiose. " She cast a glance towards Grace. "I think the mustache would suit you. But now the usual goatee. Far too tame and boring." Though Grace wasn't on her list of most entertaining people. She only seemed less of a mundane, and more of the sort of person who might twirl their mustache, if given one.

Maybe Ian was showing off. That was typical of men, was it not? A youthful male, in his reproductive prime meets a youthful girl in her reproductive prime, and naturally one must woo the other. So does the dance go. So when he hangs, and jumps, Arionna takes a step back and gives a small cant of her head. Mostly his actions are interesting (though it didn't help that he did have a very nice figure and face).

"Yes. I enjoy food. Culturally different. Noodles is part of that. "

Arionna de la Babin

[ARE.. noodles ARE. holy crap english]

Cala

Doors open for her.

They always have.

Small doors and large doors, locked doors, every door she has ever encountered. Some of the doors are more metaphorical than others, but even the most literal ones - they click.

Open.

--

Here's one of the arts a refugee learns: how to disappear in plain sight. How to slip beneath the ordinary radar. How to seem like part of the room. How to drift with but not of the crowd. How to settle for a time - to alight - against a bench, on one's own haunches, meditative as the light sky darkens and the strangers start to desert the park. Time to go, which she knows with a glance at the sky and something else - something (distant) - that pulls her upright from the energy-conserving reverie, the slip-through-the-spaces determination with which she lives this life.

Across the lake, just on the other side of the boathouse, someone looks up.

Senses the skim of energy in the air. Closes her eyes to feel the beat of it against her senses.

And: gets up.

Walks the other way.

Cala

Too far away for Arionna to sense her, but both Ian and Grace feel the brief brush of a stranger's resonance against their senses. Distant, then gone. It feels like a key sliding into a lock. Simple, slight.

Cala

(That was just a cameo, guys. I've gotta get up early to hike through the neverending snowstorm and below 0 temperatures to get to work tomorrow, so need to get my rest now. :) night!)

Ian

"I would genuinely like to see Grace grow a Dali mustache," Ian mused, eyeing Grace's features in this sharply appraising way - as though he were painting the picture in his mind. "She wouldn't be the cackling type though. She'd be the kind who sneaks up on people."

Maybe he was showing off, a little. Maybe he was just finding ways to keep his body warmed up. Arionna was a good 6 years younger than he was, which... was not an insignificant number. (Though Elijah had been the same age, hadn't he?) Either way, the gesture was more playful than luring. And when Arionna stepped back to widen the space between them, he didn't follow.

"I prefer sushi, but Pho will do in a pinch..."

His voice paused and trailed off in a beat of silence, and he glanced over his shoulder as though he'd heard (or felt) something that distracted him. A brief skim of his eyes across the lake. Hunting. But whatever he was looking for, he turned away a moment later.

"You go to school?" (This to Arionna.)

Misanthrope.

Elijah

Santa Fe was full of things. Art galleries, tattoo parlors, and restaurants. There were people there looking at art and gathering at food trucks and this was the sort of place that people wanted to be. Tucked into some tiny strip mall, between a gallery and a boutique, was a tiny shop that was unreasonably warm called Van Gogh to Go- which was funny, in and of itself because Van Gogh wasn't exactly a person who did pottery, but there it was.

A little hole in the wall shop that let people build and glaze and fire their own pottery. They even offered glasses, but the building was cursed. Nobody really understood it, this happened to be a good location but everything that went in this particular building seemed to die within a matter of months. No matter what the concept. On Saturdays, there was the offering of shots and pre-fired ceramics.

They weren't teddy bears or unicorns (unicorns are hard), but they did have quite a few bowls and the occasional lopsided coffee mug that was fifty percent off if you wanted to do something with it. They didn't trust people to fire their own work on a cheap booze night, but the staff at Van Gogh to Go, a little round woman with freckles and curls and a tall, gaunt fellow who smiled often and had crooked teeth but a sensuous voice, were more than happy to oblige their patrons.

The back smelled a little like pot. Back where the kilns were and the walls were bright and garish and swirling like it was starry night except it wasn't all starry night. It was... more aboriginal than Van Gogh. The name just sounded better with Van Gogh.

Elijah wasn't sure what he was doing with his Saturday night, but it somehow involved pottery. There he was, sitting on some crappy park-style bench against a wall holding an uneven cracked half of a bowl.

"Depending on the glaze?" the little round woman told him, "some of the detail work you're doing could get lost? So... uh... be aware."
"Mmmmn-hmmn," he replied.

He wasn't paying attention. He had shots of tequila lined up nice and neat and dead.

Serafíne

Awareness!

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7) ( success x 6 )

Serafíne

The front door to Van Gogh to Go swings open and another blast of chill swamps the little storefront. Barely below freezing but after the balmy weather this week past the cold seems sharper and brighter and harder-edged, and has had absolutely no impact on the clothes our heroine has chosen to wear tonight for a pub-crawl briefly interrupted by a side-trip to a paint your own pottery store.

Tonight Sera's wearing a tight little leather skirt that barely covers her ass, thigh-high fishnets in a diamond weave texture, an old Siouxsie and the Banshees tee - white, washed so often the cotten is beginning to erode - over a black bra, beneath a battered leather jacket, shearling lined. Perhaps in deference to either the weather or the pub-crawl she's in her shit-kicker boots tonight so, you know. Not tall the way she often seems.

There's a little bell on the door and it rings to announce the arrival of anew customer and the little round woman looks up and, perhaps surprisingly, blinks her recognition of the new arrival.

Sera doesn't seem to notice anyone except Elijah. Makes a little beeline over to him and swings a leg over the flat bench - just one, straddles it nevermind that her skirt basically allows her no room to move her legs if she wants to maintain anything like decorum (she gives no fucks about decorum). Rests her chin on Elijah's shoulder.

"What the fuck are you painting?"

Elijah

What was he painting?

Precisely, or more accurately, what the fuck was he painting?

Elijah looked at the broken piece of pottery, cocked his head tot he side and tried to think about what was there. Really give it a name and a word because that was, in and of itself, a powerful thing. Giving something a name, imbuing it with properties by saying I dub thee a bowl, but frankly, he wasn't sure just yet. It reads across in his hesitation, the way that his mouth opens and then closes and then quirks to one side.

"Polka dots," he decides, "and little chevron things."

Chevron thingies.

He shrugs with his free shoulder, and leans a little against the woman at his side, "fuck if I know what the plan is, they keep bringing me booze so I keep painting."

Serafíne

"You don't have to know, you know," the creature murmurs, low beside his ear. She has a bony little chin and he has a bony little shoulder and he leans against her and she's naturally, thoughtlessly affectionate with him in a way that never precisely seems sexual. There's alcohol on her breath from the martini bar across the street and a martini bar doesn't seem precisely like her sort of scene but that doesn't stop her, wouldn't stop her.

And she's behind him, kind of, giving him space to paint and to not-get-paint on her favorite Siouxsie Sioux t-shirt. "You could just say fuck if I know. Who the fuck cares about having a goddamned plan. Slash the shit out of the underbrush and go whereever the fuck it takes you, yeah?"

Lifts her chin then. Places a delicate kiss behind the structure of his shoulder, over his jacket, tee, vest, whatever it is the tall blond boy is wearing.

The little round woman hovers. She's not quite fretting yet, but - she does want to interrupt and ask if Sera will be painting this evening.

And then there're the things she never picked up. The little round woman would like to ask her if she'd like those things, too.

Elijah

"Once we fire it?" he says, starts, "doesn't matter if I had a plan or didn't have a plan. The glaze is gonna do whatever the fuck it wants to do- hors de mes mains."

It's not sexual. He could be a number of things, and most assuredly was a creature who enjoyed sex, engaged in it, and generally did any number of things but his affections towards Sera weren't ever lustful. Weren't focused on her legs and how they were long (even though she wasn't tall, he didn't understand that, but understood that her legs were long and she was not and that made perfect sense to him) and that her features were striking and that she had any number of wonderful textures at any given time and he knew that if he could, he'd do whatever he was capable of for her.

But they are there, and she presses her lips to the fabric of his vest and the fabric rustles against his shirt underneath it.

"Wanna paint the other half? I was thinking about doing both and then, like, gluing them together or something."

Serafíne

"Hours of what?" Sometimes French and Spanish are just close enough that Sera understands one or two of the words sliding out of Elijah's mouth when he decides to respond to her in French. One or two. She breathes in and and smiles against his vest and this smile shows teeth - that he can feel - then kinda shrugs and lifts her left leg over the bench to join her right on the other side and close as they are her bony knee catches Elijah a bit in the spine but she's careful too, nimble if not precisely graceful, and she murmurs a little apologia and pats his back comfortingly.

"I'll paint the other side but I don't know that you need to glue the pieces together, after. Nothing wrong with being broken - is there? You don't have to put everything back together, you know? Sometimes that's just how things are."

mouse

[awareness]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

mouse

Even the most stoic of people must allow themselves some moment to breathe, even if it meant showing a side of themselves they'd rather not. This isn't to say that the 'letting one's hair down' sort of thing meant that the stoic was no stoic, but simply, that there were moments when being guarded was simply exhausting.

Arionna was no stoic, but the concept still held. She hadn't known they were there, and had simply ventured out in an effort to give herself some time to just...zone out, or give her own mind a rest. Studying had a way of tiring her out, despite the fact that she enjoyed it immensely. Since she had plans to work on art, or some manner of activity that would be messy, she hadn't bothered to dress as extravagant as she was want to do. No, she chose a simple peasant skirt. Green, with some sort of cultural pattern on it in gold. And a T-shirt with some manner of faded skull pattern on the front. Even her hair was pulled back into a long braid, then wrapped up on her head to keep it out of her face. Of course none of this was seen except for the moment she slipped in and took off her coat.

But it took a moment simply to do that. Her hand had paused on the door, the familiar feel of Sera and Elijah so very close to her. They felt too close, close enough that she wondered whether they were going to be exactly where she had planned to be. And then she questioned whether she ought to leave.

She stood there for far too long, the cold air of the city mingling with her own icy feeling. Her lips tightened, untouched by the usual colors of lipstick, and with a deep breath, she gave him and plunged right into the potential interaction of all three.

Arionna stepped in. She stepped in, removed her coat and took a seat at a free table for the moment.

Elijah

"Hors de mes mains, out of my hands," he clarifies.

He nods, listens to what she's saying and holds the piece a little gingerly at the sides. He's overworked one half, had been explicitly told that if he wasn't careful he could accidentally over-glaze the piece and it would end up stuck to the insides of the kiln. Elijah was not a child that had been trusted with things that were breakable. He now now also an adult that is not trusted with breakable things.

"I think that..." he stops, has to reorder, "I think it's a lot harder to be broken. I mean, if you break you just become something different. "

mouse

[LMAO helps if I change names]

Arionna

[*cough* no one saw that]

Arionna

Even the most stoic of people must allow themselves some moment to breathe, even if it meant showing a side of themselves they'd rather not. This isn't to say that the 'letting one's hair down' sort of thing meant that the stoic was no stoic, but simply, that there were moments when being guarded was simply exhausting.
Arionna was no stoic, but the concept still held. She hadn't known they were there, and had simply ventured out in an effort to give herself some time to just...zone out, or give her own mind a rest. Studying had a way of tiring her out, despite the fact that she enjoyed it immensely. Since she had plans to work on art, or some manner of activity that would be messy, she hadn't bothered to dress as extravagant as she was want to do. No, she chose a simple peasant skirt. Green, with some sort of cultural pattern on it in gold. And a T-shirt with some manner of faded skull pattern on the front. Even her hair was pulled back into a long braid, then wrapped up on her head to keep it out of her face. Of course none of this was seen except for the moment she slipped in and took off her coat.

But it took a moment simply to do that. Her hand had paused on the door, the familiar feel of Sera and Elijah so very close to her. They felt too close, close enough that she wondered whether they were going to be exactly where she had planned to be. And then she questioned whether she ought to leave.

She stood there for far too long, the cold air of the city mingling with her own icy feeling. Her lips tightened, untouched by the usual colors of lipstick, and with a deep breath, she gave him and plunged right into the potential interaction of all three.

Arionna stepped in. She stepped in, removed her coat and took a seat at a free table for the moment.

Serafíne

"That's pretty fuckin' wise," agrees Sera, with the equanimity of an inveterate stoner. Even nods her lovely golden head a little. She still has the side cut but has allowed the soft fringe of the buzz cut to grow out a bit so that is resembles instead the pincurled fur of a cocker spaniel whose coat has been closely trimmed to spare it the heat of the summer.

Okay so instead of sitting properly on the bench she chooses instead to sit criss-cross applesauce like a guru hovering a few feet above the ground. The big bulk of her boots awkward beneath her knees. "But I think there are a helluva lot of things that're broken. People that're broken. Or maybe they're becoming but they forgot the goddamned process. Got sidetracked. Got their asses hurt all over again.

"Anyway. You should glue it together again after I paint it, if you want. Is there teal?"

And Sera glances up somewhere in the midst of all this. She could feel Arionna's resonance from blocks away. This shiver cascading down her spine, close and closer until the door opens and the girl herself is there, hesitating in the open door, blasting winter into the otherwise warm little space while she makes a decision about whether to stay or to go.

Dark blue eyes touch neatly, lightly on the young woman, then swing back to Elijah as she takes up a brush.

"Your little friend's here. I don't think she approves of me." Murmured quietly, privately, with this supple thread of a smile. "I'm not sure she approves of anyone. Were you guys supposed to meet?"

Elijah

"That would suck," he proclaims, "being in the process of building yourself back up but forgetting to get to that part so you're just... like... fuckin' person pieces."

He reached across the table, stretched, stretched, stretched for something that he was pretty sure was teal- it looked teal, and he grasped it awkwardly with his left hand. Looked up in time to see Arionna and he smiled, bright and all sunshine, because he was sunshine, doesn't realize that his proximity to Sera might be considered odd. Doesn't realize that his proximity to a lot of people may seem odd. Only that he wants to be close, so he is. And that was that.

"Nah, this wasn't planned," he said, "it's more serendipity?"

And he handed over the teal, waved the little quarter-glazed piece at Arionna, since waving the other hand didn't seem to dawn on him. "Are you gonna come paint with us?"

Arionna

She set her coat neatly on the bench she was at, lightly pulling on the bottom of her shirt, as if it had pulled up where it shouldn't have, even though it didn't. Ari was even ready to make a decision on exactly the sort of thing she wanted to do, and without hopefully giving into the people not far from her. She wasn't a stalker after all, and yet being in another place that they were just seemed rather odd, even to her.

But Elijah was already inviting her over, waving some piece of pottery at her, and he certainly didn't look in the best of shape; alcohol had that effect didn't it? Her brows furrowed a little as she looked from Elijah to Sera, an obvious dilemma occurring. With a small sigh she removed herself and her coat from the chosen table, and stepped over to them, taking a place with the most distance from her and Serafine; maybe because she didn't like her, or maybe because she simply preferred her space. "You seem rather cheerful."

Serafíne

The Cultist doesn't comment on what forgetting might do to people. Strangers, anyone. She does give Elijah this look, which is both banked and lashed and contained, absolutely lovely against her profile. Then she glances down at the table on which they are painting. This slant-wise view that feels stolen, all the discrete implements necessary to the work in just one place, wrapped in shadow and stolen light.

And she breathes. Imagines herself with two great wings framing her spine. They're folded and damp. They're new. Sometimes they ache.

In that moment she goes a bit far away.

She's pulled back when Elijah declares that this wasn't planned and is closer to serendipity. That's when she wakes. Takes the teal from Elijah's hand and squirts some onto the paper plate that serves as their amateur palette, holding the brush briefly, neatly, between her sharp little teeth, then plucks it out and dips the tip into the glaze even as she reaches - with her other hand, the left, wrist bristling with leather bracelets, spiked and studded - for one of Elijah's shots of cheap tequila. Knocks that back like a professional.

Sera was going to tell Elijah that she has that word - serendipity tattooed somewhere on her skin. But Arionna decides to join them instead and the Cultist chooses to seam her mouth and swallow those words, glancing between Elijah and Arionna with lifted, lilting brows. Clearly that comment was for Elijah, not her. She'll let him respond.

Elijah

"I prefer not to be morose if I can help it," he tells Arionna, still has that bright smile on his face, because why not? Why not smile and why not be in a good mood. Tipsy though hewas, his words were precise and measured, like language held a purpose and would be executed with the same on-a-dime precision that it deserved.

"Have you met my friend Sera?"

Arionna

That he prefers to be cheerful...

But Arionna isn't sure he can be anything but it. Elijah always seems to be the sort of person who is like that. Always happy in some way. She normally finds such people to be rather annoying. How -can- a person be happy all the time?

She looks to Sera slowly. "Yes." Simple answers are preferred. There's no need to elaborate about the tacos, and the meeting with her and Kiara. There isn't much that would come out of it. She rises, steps away long enough to get a plate like item and sits back down to begin her own crafted item. It wasn't going to be lovely either, Arionna hadn't an artistic bone inside of her.

Serafíne

When Elijah asks if Arionna has met my friend Sera, my friend Sera sets down her shot glass, tequila burning the back of her throat, and flashes Arionna a peace sign with her left hand. The gesture is enough to expose the strange tattoo that takes up much of her left hand. Scissor blades evident on her index and middle fingers, which come together into the handles on the meat of her palm. One of the loops then slowly turns into a shark whose tale curls all the way down the tender skin of her inner wrist.

"We've met," Sera echoes / confirms, her crawling mouth tucked into a little smile. Her instinctive, unremitting compassion at war with her regular desire to make those with comfortable, well-settled opinions a little less comfortable, a little more un-settled. "Kung Fu Tacos was out in Lodo a few nights ago," unlike Arionna, Sera does elaborate. "Though fuck me, I don't think I ever actually ate my goddamned tacos. One of them was smoked duck with kim chi. Kiara was there and I got fucking side-tracked."

Then a glance back at Arionna. "You know, pottery painting doesn't seem quite like your bag. What brings you out here?"

Elijah

Yes, Arionna says, and he might be a little tipsy but something washes over him and he is suddenly made aware that things seem... awkward. Not completely awkward. Not Carrie levels of awkward, just... awkward.

Tequila is picked up and offered to Arionna. If she doesn't partake he drinks it and puts the glass down, upside down, on the table.

"I think Kiara just does that, not that she means to but it's, like, attention getting."

Arionna

She declines, visibly, by pushing the shot glass back to him. "I drove." Because while she's perfectly happy bending and breaking modern society's rules, the outcome of such bad decisions would be far greater in cost than they are worth.

"I wonder what it is you think is... my bag... exactly." She reached for a color, pulling it to herself and setting up her small space to begin painting.

"She means to." Arionna decided to add into it. "Her demeanor suggests that she desires attention, seeks it out, requires it. "

Serafíne

Serafíne is perfectly happy to claim the shot that Arionna turns down. Does so without a second thought, long fingers - tattoos framing them - reaching for the rim of the shot glass over the bristle of brushes and paint pots on the newspaper-lined plastic table.

Such a strange place. Such a strange conversation. Such a lovely burn at the back of her throat. "I never fucking drive," to both, as she tosses back the shot Arionna refuses for pretty solid reasons. "There's a reason fucking god invented cabs, far as I can tell."

And Arionna wonders what Sera thinks is her bag, exactly, and Sera kinda shrugs her narrow shoulders in a gesture that looks like surrender and doesn't really respond directly because it wasn't really a question directed at her and more to the point she doesn't really know.

But - "Kiara didn't distract me from my taco. I had this chocolate I was drinking and then I had to pee and there was a bar and I forgot about them until like four a.m. and I was telling Dee that I'd found Kung Fu Taco and she was so fucking jealous and she asked what I had and I was like.

"Fuck. I left my tacos."

Daub daub daub. Dot dot dot. Teal polka dots are being plopped almost-neatly onto the white ceramic broken thingy.

Sera's dark eyes flash up, across the table at Arionna, so far away, who adds that Kiara means to, desires attention, seeks it out, requires it.

Quietly, then, still daubing, "You sound like you don't approve."

Elijah

"That's cool," he declares. He should probably drink something else at some point. He tasted a little like tequila but he always did. Some people drive, and some people do not.

Sera proclaims she never fucking drives.

"Ah, and on the twelfth day the lord did look down upon the people and said, ugh, my people have to drive places and it doth verily fuck up their reverie, and he did bestow upon the earth the yellow cab taxi service, and it was good. But so as not to abuse the lord's gift, he made it smell like stale cheetos and White Shoulders, and it was good."

He grins, and stops his polka dotting for a moment, "I kinda like having attention. I'll admit it, totally not ashamed."

Arionna

"I wasn't aware that stating the obvious was the same as disapproval. If you want to know what I think, then you should just ask." Sera did daubing, Elijah made polka dots, Arionna began by slowly making a line around the outer edge of the plate. She worked slowly, trying her best to be as careful as any real artist might; maybe because she knew how bad she was at it.

"You're just as obvious, Elijah." Arionna hunched a bit more over her plate as they spoke. Normally she'd have her nose stuffed in a book; anything to keep her thoughts rolling. People could be boring,

"Why cheetos?"

Serafíne

"Sounds like you have us all pegged," Sera murmurs, and her paintbrush hovers but doesn't move much and mostly she watches Arionna over the edge of her own piece. Dark eyes lashed, remarkably sharp for all that the alcohol she has imbided tonight is surely stealing some of her focus right from beneath her feet. It isn't an admission: it is something else, though Arionna is unlikely to discern the sense of whatever it may be.

"What brought you to Colorado?"

Elijah

Why cheetos?
"The lord works in mysterious ways," he says with conviction, but can't get the grin off his face long enough to take himself seriously.

Though, admittedly, he does pause, he does think about it, and he does put his piece down. It would have been easier to bury his head in the sand. To busy his hands and not say anything but... he doesn't.

"Hey, Arionna?"

There is hesitation.

"I know you probably don't intend for it to come off that way, but sometimes you say things about people and it comes across as kind of... I dunno... angry. And I get you can be angry but, like, Kiara's my friend, ya know?"

Arionna

She hears them both. What they say, the tone that comes from Elijah, and the subtle warning that she gleans. She's insulted his friend and he isn't very fond of it, that's what she gathers. Her brush stroke slows, and she lifts her brush from the plate.

"My mother was committed. I was under age." It feels uncomfortable to say to anyone other than Danny, who she's come to be close to. Her lips pursed and she blew softly on the paint to be certain it was dry.

"Her disposition is her disposition. It won't change depending upon the friends she has. If you wish to keep truths from her to spare her person, then it's a choice that you make. I choose not to. " Her gaze lifted slowly and she looked at Sera and then the tipsy Elijah. "I assume that it's not favorable for you."

Serafíne

Sera cuts Elijah a glance as he speaks up to say that Kiara is his friend. And she has had more than a few shots herself, but still there is something aware in that look, quietly simmering, and then the glance banks and lowers to her piece. She isn't really painting now. Her brush is still and there's her shadow over the table the stillness of the room around them. The little round woman hovering but not precisely close.

Some three months ago Sera and some friends ended up here on a whim and Sera was stoned - tripping - and she painted a plate threaded to look like a mummy pink and orange and black. Hasn't been back to pick it up and the mummy has been sitting in the pile of to-be-claimed pieces for months. She doesn't really remember it.

"How old are you now?"

---

That's quiet, too.

Elijah

[manip+sub: because talking about this is totally normal for me!]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 6, 10) ( success x 2 )

Serafíne

Perception + AWareness as Empathy: Eijah.

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 7 )

Arionna

[ditto on Sera's]

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

Elijah

"Hospitals are hit and miss," he tells her, "sometimes the food's okay but you lose time. I didn't know any lifetime residents, that's pretty rare from what I understand. I'm sorry that happened, though."

And that'swhere the genuine quality of it was. He did feel sorry, not in a pitying way but in a way that he really did understand. Being committed was a familial affair. It didn't just impact one person, it impacted the whole family. He understood tha this was hard, wanted to be present and give some insight, give something that was mitigating, but at the end of the day, he couldn't.

Bless him, though, for trying.

Elijah

It's more then that, though. It's more than just trying to show empathy, it's that realization that the minute he opened his mouth he shouldn't have said anything. Shouldn't have done anything, wants to abandont he topic wants to flee. Sera catches the little things. The fact that his eyes- a little glassy- focus on a wall for a moment like he was expecting something to happen. She could tell when his stomach tensed, the way that he froze up, that beyond that the experience he had owned up to was more of a miss than a hit.

Or maybe it was a hit when he was praying for a miss.

Maybe there is a touch of recognition, of relief. There but for the grace of god goes he, but it's always lurking in the back of his mind. That he may lose touch. That he may go back, that he might do worse than-

Well now, that's a story for another time, isn't it? Off in a flicker of a memory that tries to set fire to panic but is stomped out too quickly in the name of being rpesent for a friend.

Arionna

skip me for now

Serafíne

So. Arionna doesn't really answer Sera's question. And it was a question: directed at her, quiet, compassionate in its way.

Then her dark eyes flicker to Elijah. There's a beat of her always failing heart, and then that always failing heart skips, and then her attention is entirely on the young man, not the young woman. "My folks put me in rehab for the first time when I was twelve."

And she's slurring her words so you kinda understand why that fucking happened. How her teenaged years got devoured.

"When I was eighteen I stole a bunch of meds, checked myself out, and sold the drugs to buy a ticket to London."

Elijah

Twelve.

What had he been doing when he was twelve? He didn't know half the things he did now were even in existence when he was twelve. He wasn't even interested in girls when he was twelve, wasn't fascinated with holding hands or making out or anything remotely familiar in that sense until he was thirteen. Was thoroughly off in his won little world at twelve. Was just an imaginative child at twelve. One that didn't grow up quite fast enough.

He nudged Sera a little, eyes stay with hers for a moment. Does the quick math and knows she's at least six years off from that last visit.

"London's got to be a lot better," he admits, though it's not an admission for him. He's never been to London. "Do you have any good memories of being a teenager at least?"

Serafíne

Elijah considers the age and considers the source and does quick math: what he knows of her. How far removed she is from whatever when down, then. And he tells her that London's got to be a lot better than rehab and she gives him this simmering look, because yes it isholy fuck, other shit and she's a bit too tipsy to do anything else. To be anything else.

And he wants to know if she has any good memories of being a teenager at least and she gives him this near little shrug "'Course." Which is both truth and lie and shoots a banked glance at Arionna, whose one-line admission started this line of commentary and questioning.

And Sera puts her brush down and rises from her seat and grabs her little clutch and goes to pay, both for today's pieces and for the pieces she did months ago, before she went to London, before -

Gives Arionna and Elijah a little privacy.

For the nonce, at least.

(OOC: sorry was trying to wait for arionna but I am so tired. going to bed! night!)

Kung Fu Tacos

Serafíne

(Arionna since you were here first do you wanna start? Or shall I?)

Arionna

[OH people!]

Arionna

[yes yes! I will!]

Serafíne

(Grins) I already started writing a post. Gimme a sec and it will be up.

Arionna

[kk!]

Serafíne

Kung Fu Tacos is a big yellow truck parked on a little pedestrian square at the intersection of Some Street and Some Other Street somewhere in Lodo. It's dusk and cool again and getting close to freezing - rude awakening after simmering sunshiney days in the 70s earlier this week. The sky has this deep, blue-rimmed hue that saturates the low-hanging clouds and the downtown core is lit-up and there are strings of Edison lights slung across the street. Vampire Weekend (M70) is coming from the soundsystem inside the kitchen and a blonde chick with a half-shaved head in a tight little leather skirt, torn fishnets and combat boots is ordering a Flock of Tacos.

Roast duck with mango salsa, one lemon pepper shrimp taco, and one mu shu veggie taco. She asks for a beer but they don't have them to instead she orders a Mexican hot chocolate.

There's a flask in the inner pocket of her leather jacket that she can use to dose it liberally with something alcoholic.

The order entered Sera steps aside, standing on the edge of the pavement, watching the city's skyline as dusk deepens into night, waiting for the guys in the truck to call her order up.

She's alone tonight, for now and there's a cloth bag dangling from her right wrist.

She's alone tonight, but probably not for long.

Probably never for long.

Kiara

[Let's do that thing, that tells us things.]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Arionna

[People like me?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )

Arionna

Dusk is when all the critters really come out. Sure there are birds and other small creatures in the daylight hours, sometimes even a cougar, but often times the best animals wait until the sun begins the long drop into the earth. It's beautiful, the way the colors play in the sky, and anyone who found such things displeasing could be considered aesthetically inept. Thus it is expected that Ari wanders along the city streets; what sort of animal would she be to miss the best hours of the day?

Now it's not necessarily for Tacos that she's here. It's likely on her way to whatever destination she had in mind, which might mean that destiny has a way of throwing the oddballs together at the best times...or worst. The three of them seemed unlikely to fit...well...Arionna didn't fit well with anyone it seemed, except maybe Danny on occasion, so it may simply be that nature had a very interesting sense of humor.

She moved through the people who still lingered, her nose in a book as was often the case, and hardly paying much attention except for the recognition of a familiar sensation. Her gaze slipped over the book and ahead, the scent of tacos sliding into her lungs, and searched momentarily for the source.

Kiara

Serafine's probably never alone for long and it's true - tonight, at least, that she won't be. You could call it fate, or the fates or if you were leaning toward Kiara Woolfe's particular taste on things you might just invoke any number of Goddesses; any whim of nature's and call it so. This is where x decides to intersect with yz and so shall it be. The pagan's coming out of some establishment [a bar by the sign; some cocktail flashing intermittently on and off in sporadic unrest; all purples and reds with a neon green olive stabbed through its heart] just across the square.

She's alone; or on her way to be; sliding out the door and holding it easily for a pair of departing women; Kiara's smile tilted their way for a moment as they set off in another direction; calling wild farewells over a shoulder that are snatched away and carried across the open area. The Verbena unhooks her arm from the door; lets it click shut with snug fixture to block out the chatter of voices within and curls a coat around her body.

Boots. The brunette was forever in these tall; black knee high affairs that rustled the edges of her outwear and trumpeted her impending arrival far more dramatically than perhaps even her resonance did. That slow play of something eating at your senses; hunger; like that which drew the wandering to King Fu Tacos. Kiara doesn't halt, per say, when she gleans that touch of frost, that entrancing tug; a belly deep enthrallment; but she does smile.

Does lift her chin; the collar of her coat turned out against the dusking cool. Does reroute her footsteps.

She smells like a whirl of margaritas and change; the clever wind that blows through; that's Kiara. Wordless approach, though her eyes have already found Sera by the time she's closing on her. Would you call it predatory, that gaze? Perhaps only so much as the plant that strangles another. Unintended perseverance. Her lips are already bending in a smile as she clatters over; picking a path in those heels of hers.

Serafíne

I know these things?

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 4, 5, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 6 ) Re-rolls: 1

Serafíne

Sera is smiling and her smile is small and strange and a bit far away. She's lost in something and perhaps it is called thought. Then again, maybe it is sensation. She can feel the subtle shifts of resonance in the air from miles away.

Maybe she's lost in Time. She has that feeling about her, and she looks both forward and backward with near-equal ease, oracle that she is - though few others, even her fellow magi - understand that Time was in her bones and sinew long before she ever woke up.

Somewhere a door opens though, and three friends part. Somewhere the trajectory of a strange little girl going from Here to There is interrupted by a riot of sensation, and it is cold outside and neither Sera's tiny leather skirt nor her fishnets do much to protect her skin from the cold and there's a hint of a pink glow to her knees and nose and thighs and it is cold enough that she has pulled her shearling lined leather jacket closed and zipped it up and tucked her hands into the pockets where she rattles around in search of a lighter and a clove cigarette, which she does not light because her Mexican hot chocolate is ready before she has lit the cigarette and well before her tacos.

"Hey - ! What the fuck are you doing out here tonight?"

This smile for Kiara, warm. Open arms, a feckless hug if the other woman allows it, that lingers a moment longer than is strictly indicative of platonic friendship. The brush of Sera's chilly cheek against and the vague scent of cinnamon-and chocolate wafting from the cup lifted carefully over Kiara's shoulder for the duration of that hug. Held carefully behind Kiara's ear.

Then they are disengaging and Sera senses Arionna's resonance again. Shivers. Visibly, physically shivers. "Feel that?" Low-voiced to Kiara, dark eyes seeking out the source.

And settling there. Sera watches Arionna pretty visibly, and something about that stare seems to be an open invitation to approach.

Arionna

Sera...

With her perceived absence that Arionna doesn't understand. The politics, the names of their groups, the need to pull others into your own perspective, willing or not, and thus the breadth of the traditions is simply alien to her. Thus Sera's inclinations, the way her blood pulls her, the way she seems to be in some other place, are all unknown as anything other than someone who may be taking far too many substances to be even remotely healthy. Still, the group of magi she's come to know are interesting when watched from afar. They have their problems and oddities, and she knows well enough that she's not a 'part' of the lot of them, but they're still worth observing; that's precisely what she does for Sera. She watches, still and cold.

Kiara pours out of a building with others like herself in demeanor. Arionna lowers her book slowly, closing it just a little as her attention shifts to the new, changing wind. The affection the two of them might have is obvious, the sort of affection she still finds to be odd. The more she kept herself on the out of things, the stranger it all seemed. What -was- the purpose of a hug when not used for soothing? It felt, suddenly, like an odd cultural construction.

When Serafine looks in her direction, Arionna shifts her gaze back to the woman. Perhaps the invitation is gifted silently with merely a look, and perhaps Ari knows what it is. There's no movement as of yet. Approach seemed easy for some people, though for for her it was harder to approach than to flee. She had to decide if she wanted to join on the onset, and exactly what the entire meeting could provide; her recent encounters had been less fruitful than she had hoped, and had contributed to the reemergence of her inherent wariness.

Kiara

There's laughter; quick and bright and spirited as she winds her arms around the other woman in greeting, is greeted, with that emphatic demand. Kiara's hands span and easily rub in some brief foray of pleasure and greeting over the Cultist's back; scratching between Serafine's shoulder blades with her fingertips before she pulls away; still smiling; her dark hair drifting into her lashes.

"As much as I like being one with nature," this, Kiara's little lip curl, her throw back to time spent away from Denver's heart and in another sort, "Sometimes a girl just needs to cut loose and get a little drunk with her lady friends." Her thin fingers tousle in and pry her mane of hair from under her collar; throw it over a shoulder and turn; twisting in some synchrony when the other woman asks -- shivers, because -- "Oh." Kiara's eyebrows rise a little; arching up in their fine little groomed lines as her eyes join Serafine's in their quest to pinpoint -

"That - would be Arionna." Something to the way she speaks the other woman's name; at once curious to find her out here too and ripe with some expectancy. There's another book in the Orphan's hands its presence draws the slightest flicker of reaction from the brunette for a beat. Kiara's dark eyes roving over Arionna with some cursory appraisal.

There's a murmur aside; toward Serafine's ear as Kiara turns momentarily to study what the Kung Fu Tacos might have to offer her. "I get the decided impression she doesn't approve of me." There isn't so much reproach to that; to Kiara's inkling; her assumption; as there is a warm sort of humor to it. An understanding, a recognition of the severing of ways.

Serafíne

Denver is on a high plain and in the plains it is fucking windy. No wonder Kiara's dark hair whips around her face, gets tangled with the sweep of her lashes. Sera shakes her own face free of the long licks of bot. tle-blond curls and turns her face into the wind a bit, head canting as Kiara cranes to follow that glance, chin half-rising as Kiara supplies the girl's name.

This threading glance, from Arionna to Kiara's profile and then back again.

"Hah." She murmurs back, this grin spreading across her fine little mouth that is sharp and lively and challenging. "Who the fuck wants to be approved of. I bet the both of you are better off."

Meanwhile Sera is prying off the lid of her chocolate. Steam rises, banks, and is carried away by the wind. "Hold my lid, huh?" This to Kiara.

Arionna

It was a burnt sienna colored cover with a black square along the spine that wrote Magic in History as if it were part of a series. The tan box on the front which held the title was small, though Strange Revelations might have been made out. Probably not anything remotely important; she simply enjoyed reading.

She might not have come for tacos. But when one is standing near food without having had dinner, and whilst walking and reading, the intention can change. She wasn't hungry before, but the smell of the tacos is starting to stir her appetite, and the orphan slides her book into the bag at her side, pulling out her wallet instead. Ari wore black. The only bit of her that had been allowed some reprieve from her usual pattern, was the fur like material along the top edge of her boots, of which it had a grey peppered appearance; imitation rabbit or some such.

Stepping right up to the taco stand, once the line had been cleared, she ordered something simple with beef and cheese. There's no need to be complex tonight. Food is food, particularly when your stomach begins to growl. This didn't suggest that she neglected the appearance of the other two. No. Arionna paid attention, to what she could from her place away from them, but she certainly didn't pass them off as simply as she would anyone else.

Kiara

Kiara's tasked with holding Serafine's lid and she takes it easily in hand; running a fingertip through the chocolate dusting coating the inner side and stealing a taste of it as she does. It leaves an incriminating trail blazed across the plastic that she's unrepentant for as she licks at the sweetness and savors it; stroking at the edge of her mouth as Arionna encroaches; takes up a place in the line and puts in some order.

She watches her progress, Kiara, with this suggestive little squiggle shaping her red lips and waits for Arionna to claim her order before she steals over; lid in hand and cranes up to whisper something to the vendor before tapping the tiny serving counter with a palm and twisting back; hand raised against the breezy falling evening to face Arionna.

There was a tiny bit of ledge; a crumbling sort of brick facade just shy of the Taco Stand and it's toward this Kiara meanders; pauses mid-step to look again at the Orphan. "Hey - " Calls it out; her out; tilts her head. "Come join us, yeah? If you want to." Kiara's dark eyes settle there on Arionna for a long pause as if there's plenty more she'd like to add; her coat unfurling and wrapping back against her legs.

She doesn't though, add more. Just slides there onto the wall; crosses her legs and offers Serafine her lid back; if she wants it. Exchanging this little look with her as she does; some brief, enigmatic thing that reads of olive branches and persistence. Why not, it offers.

Let's see where this takes us.

Serafíne

Not often is Sera quiet. Not precisely quiet, not regularly quiet, nothing close to reserved. But there is a sort of space she cedes to Kiara in between the beats of her invitation to Arionna, quick, wry twist to her mouth. A certain way her gaze lingers on the bow of Kiara's red lips after that little look passes between them.

In the time it takes Kiara to lick that lid and toss off that invitation and return to the crumbling brick wall against which Sera half-perches, half-lounds, Sera has dug out her flask and topped off that hot chocolate with a healthy dose of Stranahan's and retrieved the plate of tacos she orders. Three sprawling things wrapped in foil that smell heavenly but not quite as heavenly as alcohol-laced cinnamon hot chocolate. So the tacos are set aside, and may not be consumed at all.

Steady eyes, dark blue - something about her that seems to be more contained, far more sober than the state of intoxication two nights before - a mobile mouth curled over the lip of the cup, this sharp profile. All that sensation around them.

Sera glances at Kiara's profile, again.

Back at Arionna.

Waits to see what the shivery kid will do.

Arionna

An invitation was the least of all actions she might have suspected, and she's still a little unsure as to whether it actually occurred, and why. Her lips tighten, brows furrowing just a little as she stands off to the side and waits for the tacos to be made.

The truth is, they're trying. Danny has been trying. Not just to include, but to explain the way others see things. These are not her people, but they are potentially better than all those others out there, blindly walking through life. Ari knows she doesn't much like the sort of people Kiara would be lumped into, and while she doesn't know Sera, those two are cozy enough that she suspects she wouldn't much like her either. And yet...

Ari takes her taco silently, reaching for some hot sauce on the bar to squirt in the food. When she stepped away from the truck, she made certain to step closer to the two women; within speaking distance but there would be no firelight dances or sharing of marshmallows anytime soon.

Kiara

How does Kiara Woolfe see the world; behind all those smiles and lingering glances there had to be much that she wasn't saying, right? There had to be story to that. To her. There was, always, after all, a beginning for all of them. For Serafine and Kiara and Arionna. Their interactions so far, the latter two had skirted rather perilously between awkward and uncivil. A corrosiveness that could not bend or soften to suit platitudes. They were, in short, who they are and there was a gulf between their vantage points of the world.

Kiara's might have been a gentler dismissal when it came to the ways Arionna seemed; the way she saw and pushed against; but it was there all the same. And yet -- there were times, there were nights, when it seemed almost a given that they gravitate together. That likeness should call to likeness despite the tiny nuances where they differed. Perhaps it took seeing certain glimpses to alter perceptions enough, to give pause enough to do what the Verbena did just now -- find the give; offer a little.

Keep the wolves at bay just a little longer.

Serafine is watching and Kiara cuts her a furtive look when the Orphan seems given to bridge the distance even a little. That tiny edge of a smile there; the tiny ghost of it giving humor back to her mouth. "You've met officially, right?" This, as Kiara is draping her coat over her legs to keep them warmer; her dark eyes shifting between the two women.

Serafíne

Kiara drapes her coat over her legs to keep them warmer. Sera's legs are pretty fucking bare - shapely, shapely legs that seem long not because Sera is tall (although without the gentlemen around to tower over her, she is a perfectly adequate height. Even tall, by Arionna's diminutive standard) but because her body is made in such a way that her limbs seem long. And they're sprawled out in front of her, crossed at the ankles (boots so worn the leather is supple as a second skin, not stiff), pink from cold beneath the diamond weave of her thigh-high fishnets, torn in places.

If they were in Federal Sera might be taken for a hooker.

They're in Lodo, though. She has tattoos on her hands, framing her palms, on her palms, on the inside of her fingers, all blackwork, visible when she lifts the mug in greeting to Arionna. The scent of chocolate, thick and rich, and whiskey.
Always whiskey.

"Not officially." Which may or may not be true. That is to say: " - or, if we have, I don't fucking remember. I'm Sera. That was quite the dance, you getting over here. You always that fucking shy?"

Her voice is wry, warm. This spark to her gaze.

Arionna

It was true that they had commonalities. Nature, life, older magic, more primal magic. It was all there. The outlook were widely different, with Arionna embracing the darker aspect of their natures. Sometimes the similarities shine brighter than the differences, and maybe..just maybe..that was what was happening now.

"No." Arionna says simply. She can't recall an official meeting between the two of them, or if they ever exchanged any words that would have meaning. Her weight shifts a little, moving to the right leg and and further from the two of them. They're an interesting set of three. Kiara seemed relatively normal, at least by Arionna's standards, and Sera seemed to move to the end of the spectrum that she found personally distasteful fashion wise; that was unfair, she couldn't deny she had a few skimpier clothes in her wardrobe that she pulled out for summer. She was more interested in the ink on Sera's skin, though unwilling to press in enough to examine it.

"Arionna." Spoken after a small bite and a slight swipe on her lip with her finger to transfer the sour cream to her mouth without using her tongue. "If you mean to inquire as to whether I am often timid, then the answer is no. I find timidity to be a trait of the inferior. If you mean to question whether I often dislike the presence of others and therefore refuse an attempt to engage in social behavior, then the answer is yes. I suspect that's a bit new for you."

Kiara

Not officially, gets this little twitching suggestion of mirth. Then: or I don't fucking remember, which gets the briefest flash of white teeth. Kiara's sharp little mouth widening in a smile before she lifts her chin and waits to see if the foundations of introduction need laying. They do, but - they happen without her input and the Verbena takes the chance to rise and reclaim her own cup of chocolate, pushed out onto the tiny counter for her when its ready; steam rising from a tiny slit in the plastic lid.

She steps back; fingers curled around the cup to the tune of Arionna making it known she's not timid, that she dislikes the presence of others, often. Kiara, prying the lid off with one hand, turns her focus on the petite black clad female beside her, commenting with the quickest, curling, throaty noise of amusement. "I had noticed that, actually."

It's hard to deduce if Kiara's making fun; she could be. Her eyes are bright; there's a way she smiles that's suggestive of something close to it. She doesn't press at it, though. Put her fingers to the wound and wait for the blood to well to the surface. "What brings you out here tonight, I'm supposing it's not -- " She gestures in a brief cutting gesture; arc back over their shoulders; toward the bars; the restaurants.

Social behaviors, seems the unspoken commentary.

"People." She finishes; lifting the chocolate to her lips.

Serafíne

Kiara drapes her coat over her legs to keep them warmer. Sera's legs are pretty fucking bare - shapely, shapely legs that seem long not because Sera is tall (although without the gentlemen around to tower over her, she is a perfectly adequate height. Even tall, by Arionna's diminutive standard) but because her body is made in such a way that her limbs seem long. And they're sprawled out in front of her, crossed at the ankles (boots so worn the leather is supple as a second skin, not stiff), pink from cold beneath the diamond weave of her thigh-high fishnets, torn in places.

If they were in Federal Sera might be taken for a hooker.

They're in Lodo, though. She has tattoos on her hands, framing her palms, on her palms, on the inside of her fingers, all blackwork, visible when she lifts the mug in greeting to Arionna. The scent of chocolate, thick and rich, and whiskey.
Always whiskey.

"Not officially." Which may or may not be true. That is to say: " - or, if we have, I don't fucking remember. I'm Sera. That was quite the dance, you getting over here. You always that fucking shy?"

Arionna

[methinks that is a repeat]

Serafíne

OOPS.

Here was the real post:

Arionna might find Sera's wardrobe even more distasteful if her leather jacket were unzipped and unbuttoned, for all she's wearing beneath it is a somewhat transparent black and pink bustier, the cups studded with little silver rivets. So, yeah. Skimpy as fucking hell, on a blustery day when that shit just seems unreasonably revealing. That and a line of studs and hoops crawling up her ear and a heavy silver spike right through the cartilage. A bar ring across three fingers of her left hand and a copper one on the index finger of her right.

They are too far for Arionna to get more than a flash of the ink, something open and curving on the inside of her left palm, though, curling down over the tender inner skin of her wrist. And: these cramped lines framing the palm that seem certain to be letters or numbers of some sort. Perhaps Roman numerals. They have that officiousness to them. That narrow heft.

Arionna introduces herself and Sera's mouth quirks into a small half-smile and she's probably about to share some pleasantry like Hey or something else when Arionna continues, annoucing first that timidity is a trait of the inferior.

Sera breathes out all at once. Laughter like a blow but there's something disbeliving to it - "Jesus fuck - " she swears beneath her breath. And that laughter turns into something else, just a supple note of disbelief, something intermediate.

"Naw. It's not new to me. I just think it's a shitty way to treat yourself and others, you know?"

Arionna

"I like to wander." That's the best reason she can ever give for finding herself in some street at some part of evening for no other reason than because she wanted to. "Before the winter leaves us and the nights become shorter." Because soon enough that's what will happen. The sun will return to shine on them for far longer than the moon will breathe, and poor Ari will no longer feel the strength of the darkness. Something about the sun made her skills less...capable. She lets the potential teasing from Kiara slide, but then she's accustom to such things and to misinterpreting them.

She eats, crumbles up the foil and slides it in a nearby dumpster. There isn't much to her mannerisms most of the time. When she returns, she remains still, curling her hands in front of her and holding them there as they talk, never wavering her attention.

But Sera laughed. She laughed and Ari moved her attention, focused it entirely on the tattooed woman. "Ah, an original perspective. The dislike of social isolation is something that many humans express disdain for. Not surprising you'd express the same sentiment. I enjoy my place. I fail to see who I ill treat myself, if I find it pleasurable."

Kiara

There's something to the way Kiara listens to Arionna's words; head tilted just so toward her; that thick, dark hair of hers falling loose around her shoulders; the slide of her tongue along the edge of a tooth. She's watchful and perhaps -- quizzical, the draw up of her eyebrows; the smoothing down of a momentary shift; the curve of her supple red mouth into a line; a frown.

Emotions working there as the Verbena's throat moves to swallow. Her eyes shifting to encompass Serafine's reactions; a smile captured amidst her body's stillness. The impression of momentary perplexity in the dimple that arises; surfaces and fades as Kiara regains her momentum. Gestures at the book; always one; always something; found in the Orphan's clutches. "You keep some company, though." This as she moves to resettle herself; her coat flaring open as she slides one leg over the other.

She's got tights on, beneath her coat; black; winter thick but they strain at the knee; draw thin enough for her skin to be glimpsed beneath. Kiara rocks one foot a little; the lacing on her boots rattles against the leather. There's zippers somewhere; an impressive heel one imagines must sink some inches into soft earth. "All those authors, their impressions, their thoughts. People aren't so bad. Well," There's a brief, consolidating smile. That edge of the tease again.

"Some of them. Some of us." Here another glance at the Cultist; Kiara's long lashed gaze shifts back. "I can't say I blame you avoiding others, but - " She takes another sip of the cooling chocolate. "Get messy, sometimes."

Serafíne

"You ever been in love?" Sera asks Arionna. It sounds like a quip. There's a supple curl to her mouth, lips pressed together, contained but - " - or lost someone you love? Ever found yourself eating an ice cream cone, your favorite fucking flavor, and suddenly you're just sitting, there and you realize you cannot stand anything about it. Ever piece of it is offensive to you?

"Or broken down in the bathroom of a dive bar off Seventh and Fifth. Had a strange hand you scratchy toilet paper under the stall because yours was out and you needed to blot your running mascara so you could get up and wash your hands and go back out and keep making out with the guy you're taking home that night, and he's got this smell of onion on his breath okay fine and a little bit of a paunch but these yawning, yearning eyes.

"Ever gotten stoned and watched the sunset or remembered, suddenly, this perfect slant of childhood or lost an earring in a cab and had the cabbie track you down at a priest's house two days later and return it. Sweetly you know? Expecting nothing because he though you were a prostitute?

"Ever stop a sixteen year old girl from jumping to her death from the roof of a hospital with the power of your mind - I mean, tell me you've done one of those - just one of those fucking things, or just kissed a boy and made him cry - and I figure then you'll stop talking about humans on the whole like there was any such thing and just think of them as people.

"I mean, though." This quicksilver smile. That rant was low and lovely and passionate and bright and even at the end there are equal parts of irony and beauty in Sera's eyes. "The hell do I know? I'm only human, and I gotta piss."

She straightens, then, Sera. Looks around and spots that bar that Kiara came out of not long again. Takes her coffee and leaves behind her tacos and says, "Be right back - " to Kiara and even Arionna, and then, to Kiara, " - hey. Are you meeting your ladyfriends later? Or wanna come home with me?" even as she's on her way past, heading for the bar and presumeably - bathroom - within.

Serafíne

(Also! I need to run. Super tired. Thank you for the RP!)