Hangtime

Elijah

He had ducked out the back of a bar for a much needed moment to breathe.

Santa Fe looked very different when you weren't looking at the store fronts. The allies and the backs of buildings and the trash cans all made the places look the same. There was the occasional puddle, the loose gravel and hints of grass trying to stubbornly shove itself up through the pavement and say that it endured, because it is true and strong. Elijah wonders, briefly, if the Order felt strongly about weeds, how they persisited. How they were the epitome of something exerting their will upon their environment.

Weeds will grow because they want to. How dare anyone try and say otherwise.

But there he was, sneaking out the back of a bar with his top button unbuttoned and for the first time in a long time feeling like he was drowning in the open air. Feeling smothered by the actuality of the world around him and tonight, yes tonight, he was trying so goddamned hard to be present. COuld have gotten shitfaced but, instead, was outside of a bar in the back alleys sober, deciding instead that he needed to walk. Needed to pace. Needed to recenter himself before he rejoined the rest of the world and pretended that his best friend wasn't in mortal fucking danger. That there was nothing he could do about it.

That he could pretend that one of his other friends was dearly hurting, so disconnected and curled in on herself and splitting apart and he doesn't even know where the fuck to find her. Knows someone is taking care of her but, frankly, given who it is Elijah feels like his world is resting too much on the shoulders of a man who he has barely met. Trusts, yes. But perhaps...

Perhaps.

He makes his way through the back alleys, wonders if he should try and score something harder than whatever he could comfortably get from Samir.

Being present is fucking hard.

Serafíne

AWARENESS!

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 6 ) [Doubling Tens]

Serafíne

Weekend and still early enough that the bars and galleries are packed and there's foot traffic, not so much in the back alleys where Elijah has gone to pace but still: a cater-waiter taking out the trash, a prostitute with a short man in a dumpy suit negotiating at the back entrance to a dive bar. And so on.

Chilly but not precisely cold, with banks of clouds slipping across the sky, and between the clouds and the light pollution there's not even a hint of the stars tonight. Not from the downtown streets.

Elijah finds Sera on the empty patio of a small bistro (the last few patrons inside linger over after dinner drinks and desserts). Coincidence this, really. No reason, but sometimes the world functions like that. Things fall apart, other things are put together again. She's sitting on one of the wooden tables set back against a brick wall. In summer these are shaded by great big offset market umbrellas but the umbrellas have been taken down: either for the night or for the winter. The chairs are locked down and shunted forward against the table, but there she's sitting, leaning back against the brick, legs crossed at the ankles, wearing her curb-stompers and fishnets and a leather skirt that is half-metal rings, an old Siouxsie Sioux t-shirt, a flannel shirt, a leather jacket.

Leaning back against the brick, smoking a joint, one hand resting on Sid's big head. The dog, of course, curled up beside her.

Banked glimpse toward Elijah out of the corner of her eye as he emerges from the mouth of the alley next door. "I knew you were around." Closes her eyes again, takes another drag. "No one else feels like you."

Elijah

He exhales, hard and harsh like he took a hit of something that was too strong and it didn't feel good in his lungs. Like he was fifteen and lighting up for the first time because it seemed like something that could be fun or it got passed to him at a party and you fucking go for it, freshman. If you're gonna party with seniors, you don't wuss out.

"What do I feel like to you?" he asked, "I know how i see you, but it never really hit me to ask how I come across on a-" waves a hand, doesn't want to flat out say metaphysical level and words are failing him "-y'know. I get a lot of hurricane but I could never really swallow the irony."

comes her way, because she is there, and she is present and she isn't some ghost to him. Then again, where ghosts ever just something to him, either? For all intents and purposes, this is just another sepctre he could spend the night talking to. He takes a seat by the bricks so he isn't towering over her. Doesn't take much, it feels like.

Except he knows that isn't the case, in his perception Sera had never been small, just like she had very rarely been human save for those moments that reality was unkind. Thinks about whatever one-sided conversations they've had when she's been out and he's been introspective.

Serafíne

"Mmmm." She is quiet tonight; or if not tonight: now and her voice hums in her nose and mouth. She is: considering his resonance and something about the lilt of her chin or the set of her jaw is reminiscent of a wine tasting. That consideration. Shifts the joint from one hand to the other and offers it to him if he wants, then turns that first hand over like she was holding a hidden stone inside her palm.

There is no stone, nothing there, just her skin, and she wonders what sort of magick it would take to show him a visual representation, an illusion, an allusion.

Instead: "Ever been sailing?" A beat, a moment of recognition or not. "Ever been caught out in a gale?"

Elijah

He settles in, takes the joint and takes a hit because it's there. Because he's tense, because it's offered and hospitality, you see. Holds his breath and hands it back. She's there and she's been there for... he doesn't know how long. Serafine has a taste for these things. He doesn't... she just knows. Doesn't know how she knows, but she does.

She asks if he's been sailing, and he laughs. Something small that makes the breath escape from his lungs and lets the remnants of smoke out into the air.

"I've never been sailing," he says, smiles a little, "I actually kind of find the idea fucking terrifying."

Serafíne

That brings her dark gaze quite immediately back to his face. This slanting glance, half-shadowed by her lashes, half-shadowed by something else, entirely. Still, look, see: aware. Alive to the nuance of expression. And she kind of straightens, stretches through the spine enough to lean up-up-up and kiss him on the temple.

Soothing, affectionate. He finds the idea terrifying.

And, really, she should have known.

"Then I'll find another fucking metaphor. You feel like a storm on the horizon, and the monarch trying to outrun it."

Elijah

"To me, you'd always been... just this gut feeling, when you're right at the edge of falling off of something and you're in that moment of hangtime. Like fucking skydiving," he said, had a smile on his face and his voice was tinged with fondness.

He didn't quite know whatshe needed, what would keep her anchored and present. What would keep the pot holding on to the kettle as it were. It was a struggle to remain in the moment sometimes when your mind can go so many other places, "but yeah... I fucking loved that feeling. It's before you ever even consider opening your parachute."

Serafíne

"Parachutes are playing it safe when you can learn how to fly."

The quick, wry curve of her mouth, mostly hidden by shadows. She tips her head to the side and rests her temple on the young Hermetic's shoulder. Gives him a little nudge with her elbow.

"I'm alright, you know? You should go on with your night. See where it takes you."

Elijah

She says she's alright and there he is, her temple on his shoulder and he closes his eyes. Takes it in, feels what is there and the weight of her head and the residual softness of her hair and drinks in that wry smile or smirk or grin or whatever it is that she wears.

She tells him she's alright.

"... I would rather spend my night with someone I don't have to lie to," he confides, "even if we sit here the whole night and don't say a goddamned thing."

Do-Nots

Serafíne

Thursday late night: a few galleries still open, sure. This opening or that charity function, the warmth of the sunlit day fast fled but anyplace with a patio has gas-flame heaters going to extend the useful life of their outdoor spaces well beyond summer. Pedestrians aplenty though at this hour most of the people slipping out of the odd gallery or restaurant still open are not heading out to bar-hop, but are heading home. Taxis hum on the corners and the bars are still - not crowded, precisely, but pleasantly full and life pulses up and down the street.

The Stone Pony had one of its signature Low-Dough Local Shows tonight and is more crowded than most. There's even a fresh-donut food-truck (WARD'S DO-NUTS) parked in the empty lot across the street, which is hard to resist after a night full of drinking.

Out on the sidewalk in front of the bar, a certain creature sits. Legs drawn-up to her torso, one arm loose around them. Cheek resting against the apex of her knee, eyes kinda-mostly closed, she has had enough to drink and/or smoke that she is in that drifting phase, but periodically brings a spiced cigarette up to her mouth (sideways, pointing on an upslant, away from her golden curls) and takes a drag. There's a dog curled up on the sidewalk at her side.

Folks leaving the bar to head across to WARD'S DO-NUTS walk around her without really looking at her or acknowledging her, but folks do that all the time with strangers sitting on the street. Avoid eye contact, refuse acknowledgment, ignore, ignore, ignore.

Elijah

It had been a running of the gauntlet, really. He had intended on talking to Yvette today but found that she was conspicuously not at work and doing whatever it was Yvette did when she had a day off work. Nobody at the gallery knew whens he was coming back,; Elijah presumed she got fed up and quit. Shrugged it off, lacking some vital information to follow up on. It was the first few moments that he hadn't spent glued to Jenn today.

She was scared; he couldn't stop apologizing. We digress.

So, he was walking, walking because he needed the air and he's tracing back his thoughts and the words he's said. Should probably feel guilty about not offering to help but, frankly, Elijah wanted to be involved with this whole human chimera business about as much as he wanted to remove his kidney with a butter knife- which is to say, not at all. He inhaled slow and deep and tried to remember where it was that he had parked in the first place.

The walking always takes you somewhere, though, and soon enough the walking took him to a bar that he had considered going into but decided against because, well, he was working right now. It might not have looked like it, but the young man in his vest and button down shirt had actually been doing things that he had deigned to be important.

He doesn't pass by Serafine, though. Stops and sits down beside her, on the opposite side of the dog.

"You have a new friend," he said,indicating over to the dog.

Serafíne

Something so liquid about being this drunk, makes her feel like every joint in her body is made of warm, kinda melty butter, and that same looseness is evident when the creature opens her eyes and lifts her chin up-up-up just high enough to perch her chin-not-cheek on her bent right knee. Up close she smells like burnt sugar, cloves, whiskey, sweat. Has on this long-sleeved, high-necked dark sweater with little thumb loops at the end of the oversized sleeves, which may be the most modest thing he has ever seen her wear other than men's pajamas,

but no. When he sits down or maybe when she moves he can see that it is cropped so high it does not cover the lower curve of her breasts, and is oh-so-slowly raveling.

"Hey." Drunken ghost of a smile across her mouth, though its context is hard to read. Maybe she's curled up here because she can't quite walk. Maybe she's at the maudlin stage of way-too-much. "Long-time no-see. How're you?"

Then, a sort of orienting side-glance. Oh, the dog. Could be some random dog, right. "That's Sid."

Serafíne

How are you Elijah? Per + Empathy because.

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (2, 3, 3, 4, 6, 6, 8) ( success x 3 ) [Doubling Tens]

Elijah

He's stressed, that much is clear. He's stressed but he's trying to play on being normal, because he can fake some normalcy from time to time- he's done it for years. Faked being fine long enough to get out of state care. Long enough that people think he's clean when he's not. He's stressed, but he wears it well when he's being honest about it.

Up close she smells like s'mores to him. The only time he's ever really had s'mores was when people were drunk and he associates the whiskey smell with camp fires for reasons he doesn't entirely understand. Or bonfires, more accurately. He associates campfires with tea and being cold enough that his bones ached and the air in his lungs was freezing and he had loved every blessed second of it because it meant he was alive and pushing past whatever limits he'd thought he had. Work until whatever the discomfort is becomes normal. Then, redefine.

He's stressed, but he's happy to see her. The kind of happy that comes when you've missed someone and he has, indeed, missed her. Missed the smell, missed the context. Missed the textures ebcause she had a number of textures. He didn't have enough details to render her into spoken word, but some part of him now has a strange taste in his mouth when he thinks of people as art because the concept could be taken too far and-

Well, now. That evokes a completely different scent on his senses.

"Hi, Sid," said in the voice that is reserved for puppies, a little like he's talking to a baby that might bite his arm off. Then, back to normalcy, "I'm tired, but I'll be okay."

A beat.

"Taking tonight to be alone?"

Serafíne

Sid cocks an ear and lifts her muzzle from her paws and looks up and across Sera's when Elijah speaks to her in that puppy-baby voice. It's a look, you know: strange little doggie eyebrows moving, something on her new spiked-leather-collar clinking with the motion. Then she drops her head back to her paws. Thumps her tail once or twice in acknowledgment of the greeting but it is late and she is tired and it is sleep-time even if her human pack doesn't seem to understand that that's what darkness is for.

Sera, though. Sera looks at him longer than the dog does. Pivots her chin on her knee as if it were a fulcrum, and reaches out to offer him her cigarette. Awkward little movement, that - hand half-buried in her too-long sleeve, thumb and index finger pinched around the filter of the cigarette like she was holding a joint.

And if he takes the cigarette, then her hand is free and she reaches out to give his hair an affectionate and maybe comforting ruffle. Brushes her thumb over his temple.

And he asks if she's taking tonight to be alone and well, she gives him a neat little shrug and a banked, drunken blink. "Yeah." Could just have slid out of the bar for a smoke, though on an ordinary night she might've done that alone or might've done that with a stranger she wanted to make out with. "Not sure if I can get up right now. Ever have one of those nights where you're all fuck. What the fuck are these things at the end of my things and how the fuck do they work?"

Elijah

She offers the cigarette and he does take it, takes a drag and tastes what's there. Has a moment and he's absorbing tastes and sensations and the way it feels when smoke tries to encroach into your lungs and your brain is insisting that this is bad for it but your body is telling your brain to fuck off. He doesn't actually smoke that often, all things told. More for ritual purposes or, in these instances, when someone else is smoking. He smokes a whole lot less once he started taking studying a little more seriously.

He closes his eyes when he feels her hand in his hair. Grins just a little at the edges and exhales away from Serafine and her new canid companion.

"I'd offer to take you home, but I'm afraid you might fall off the back of the motorcycle," he tells Sera, "and Sid wouldn't fit."

It takes him a little while, though, to piece through what she just said and it makes him laugh, "I haven't had one of those in awhile, I'm kinda jealous not gonna lie."

Serafíne

Truth is, she wouldn't mind if he exhaled in her direction. She'd breathe that in, the way she does everything else.

"I have - " there's hang-time in her sentences, space-between and he can here that now, maybe see it. She gestures with her free hand (the worn not sliding through his block locks) like the word she wants is floating in the air in front of her if only if only she could pull them out of the ether. Oh, there. " perfect balance. I wouldn't fall off. Sid's a fucking racehorse. "

He hasn't had one of those in a while; one of those nights, when she strings them together, one after another, like gleaming little gems on a hand-knotted necklace. "S'cause all'a that fucking book-shit. If you'd been my apprentice - "

Inhales again, all-at-once, and kinda refocuses, reaches for the cigarette because here's the deal, she wanted it back, yo. "That why you're all stressed out? Or is it something else?"

About ten feet down, the door to the bar opens. Music spills onto the street, some electric blues with a deep bass line and a girl's lilting soprano floating above it as people come out into the bright, crisp night.

Elijah

"Well, if you want to go home, let me know because I can take you. And I'll go slow enough that, y'know, Sid can follow. It'll be like having a one person parade or some shit," he replies.

Forgets he has the cigarette, though, and then she's talking about how he could have totally had more blazing drunk nights and epiphanies set in motion by pushing and transcending basic human consciousness into something sublime. She's plucking it out of his fingertips and once he realizes she wants it he makes a little sound of recognition, gives it up with little fanfare.

Was he stressed out about the Order, though? Or was it something else?
"The book shit's pretty relaxing, not gonna lie. I like it a lot better than I thought I would," he starts, "but mostly it's-"

a second, he hears the floating soprano songstress in the background, enough to catch the pitch but not enough to pick out whether or not he knows the singer. "You remember that thing that tried to eat Sam and me in the park back in August?"

Serafíne

He asks her if she remembers that thing that tried to eat Sam and Elijah in the park back in August and Sera makes a strange little face; straight flat brows drawn together and a note of something like she's trying to put together a dimensional puzzle on a remarkably flat surface, or is maybe simply drunk, or maybe both and she doesn't really understand which is which. But:

"Mmph." That noise means, no. She does not? Remember that thing. Remembers Samir being in quiet, though. Remembers - oh so distinctly - a particular branching of time that no one else remembers quite simply because she reversed and reworked it and got knocked the hell out by reality for her troubles. So: maybe one thing (hungry-monster) explains the other (Samir-in-quiet) and that Mmph could mean as much yes as no, or maybe even go on.

Someone's holding the door open for other someones and this little knot is breaking away to head across the street to WARD'S DO-NUTS, why not. The soprano voice lilts beautifully in the bright cold air.

Elijah

[can I place that voice? Do I know it? Looking! per+alert]

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

Elijah

"Well," he continues, because there's a whole story here, he continues, "once Sam was a functional person again, we went to go check some things out. Looked back at the past, blahblahblah got a lead-"

it dawns on him that talking about this out in the middle of the open air when some incredibly polite Euthanatos is looking for a person who could literally be anyone probably wasn't the best idea. Drops his voice because (given the fact that he just saw a very familiar arm attached to a bearded person he totally recognizes) and-

"Long story short, Jenn did a painting that turned out to be a Nephandus and now Henry's calling in favors and I'm trying to sell Jenn on the idea of chilling with a bunch of reality breakers out in Morrison on an extended witness protection-style vacation."

Kiara

[Can we sense a Sera and an Elijah?]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 8) ( success x 1 )

Serafíne

She's really fucking drunk. Takes her a minute to let the loops and whorls of the story, the declensions and the allusions and all the strange little bits of code our Elijah (conscious of the public street, the story, the potentiality of intrusion) wraps this in but she's really strangely still while she follows the looping path and finally (does she know who Henry is? WE ARE NOT SURE AND NEITHER IS SERA but this happens pretty regularly to her so it's really no big deal and also No Big Deal.
"Have you warded her?" A sloe-drunk blink. A beat. "Has anyone?"

Has a few places where Jenn could stay if Morrison's objectionable. Or if the folks out there object to having a potentially-hunted human so close to the Node, but doesn't say anything about that. Not yet.

Meanwhile the last of the group has spilled out of the door and yeah, Elijah, you recognized that arm and the owner of that arm is starting to cross the street when he does a bit of a double-take and waves off Dee and a few friends and redirects, heads straight for the young Hermetic.

"Hey man." Dan greets Elijah when he's close. "What are you doing out here by yourself?"

Kiara

"I don't get half of what we just spent two hours lookin' at, but damn if I didn't enjoy the free food."

The voice that curls along the street is masculine; low and steady. There's a consideration to the subtle edge of twang to it. Texan, perhaps, long ago. Now it's melted and softened into something else, something that doesn't stand out so entirely against the backdrop of Denver, but still -

"Well you've been collecting dust out there in Morrison long enough, I figured - "

"Funny. You remember where Deb said she was gonna swing by?"

There's the scuffle of footsteps and a couple appear, meandering down the street. They're dressed a little fancier than some; suit and tie for the man, a dark burgundy dress for the female that slinked around her ankles in a swish of silk. There's a slash of red painted across the female's mouth, it might have been enough to sight Kiara Woolfe but then -

There's that little give to the atmosphere. That pulse; that tickle of rejuvenating energy. Sid may well be the first to feel it. There's that supple tremor to the universe the Verbena brings with her with all her dark hair and quicksilver smiles; a vibration against the strings.

-

Half way down the street and they're passing a bar and Kiara makes this soft, subvocal noise and unlinks her arm; turns her face into the distance for a beat. Neal's pocket vibrates.

"Deb. She's about a block up." A beat, he's studying the younger female's face, tracking her eyes toward the bar. There's a cough. He passes her back a shawl with a pointed look that doesn't quite sit on his rugged features; handsome, though. Underneath the tired eyes and scruff and the softening paunch; still a handsome man.

Built from strong stuff, that was most of those from the mountains.

"Don't stay out too late."

She leaves a little red smear of lipstick on his cheek as they part ways and it's Kiara alone, eventually, the staccato clip of her black pumps against the pavement that finds the gathering, adjusting the strap of her little evening purse over a shoulder.

Elijah

"Yeah, she's covered. It's cool. She doesn't want to drop her whole life because bad shit happened. Like, I get that. I don't know when shit's going to blow over and you can't stop living your life because there's a possibility something horrific is going to happen," he sighs. Hard, harsh. Ah, that is what has stressed him out. "I've asked? But Jenn is not down with the whole witness protection spiel beyond what Mike's already done."

A beat.

"Mike's a wheel turning kind of guy," shrugs, that's all he says on the matter. "He's, like, the most weirdly honest person I've ever encountered. Once shit blows over I'm totally buying him a bowl of pho or a beer or something."

Dan is coming across the street though and he smiles, bright, gives a wave, but it's his turn to make the puppy dog expression, head cocks to the side and looks at Dan like he doesn't quite understand what he means that he's out here by himself.

"S'just me and Sera and Sid," he gestures to the dog, "that's Sid. I think you have a new housemate."

Serafíne

WHAT THINGS DO I FEEL. (Awareness)

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (3, 3, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 5 ) [Doubling Tens]

Serafíne

So now: Elijah and Sera on the sidewalk and Dan closing the distance to Elijah, giving the young man a still, level sort of look that hooks his breath somewhere in the center of his body. He glances at at Kiara and gives her wave of greeting. Gaze snags on the retreating frame of the strange from whom she's parting, something about the set of his shoulders or -
- but no. Dan's blue eyes drop to Elijah and he sinks into a crouch. The sort of crouch an adept adult of some authority takes when speaking with a child in the midst of a tragedy. Getting on his level. "Sera's with you?" Looks up from Elijah, searching the empty space beside him like he's trying to trace out her outline against the pitted brick wall of the Stone Pony. Breathes out, softly.

Swears, beneath his breath.

And Sera can feel Kiara, the moving pulse of her energy, breathes that in feels it mingle strangely with her blown-out senses, breathes it in and in and in again, like maybe she'll never have to breathe the other way. Except: she always does.

But there's Dan. She's looking at him and can't quite look away, all snagged. "He can't see me." Sera murmurs to Elijah. She could shout, though, all she fucking wanted. Doesn't have to be quiet about a thing. "None of them can."

(Oh god, she's: drunk and god-knows-what-else and something hitches inside her like whoa.)

Elijah

[Manip+sub, I totally did not just say I saw Serafine.]

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

Elijah

There is this horrible moment when Elijah realizes that he can see and hear Serafine.

Dan can not see and hear Serafine. She says nobody can hear her, or see her for that matter.

Now, there is a moment when Elijah has this dawning horror that there is a very real possibility that Serafine, the woman without a last name, is very much dead and he's seeing and hearing her because Elijah Poirot is a person who sees and hears dead people. This is not uncommon. There have been instances where it has been slightly more difficult to pick voices out in a room and tell which of them belong to bar patrons and which of them belong to people who are no longer people in the strictest of senses.

Usually, when he says shit like this, people ask him if he's on his medication (he's not) and try to determine whether or not he is hallucinating and a danger to himself or others.

So: Dan gets this.

"It's just one of those nights that you feel like you're with a person, that kind of persistent idea," he says, like it's an apology, "I don't know, it feels like..."

He sighs, runs his hands through his hair but stops where she might still be making contact because he doesn't want to brush her away. He's totally not going to be the one who tells Dan that Serafine is dead. He's trying very hard to spare him that information.

Which is good, because Serafine is very much not dead.

Kiara

The Verbena arrives somewhere between Dan dropping to his haunches and Serafine informing Elijah that Dan can't see her. That she's a phantom to them. Kiara's curling the edges of her shawl around her arms; winding it through and there's a little glossy program twisted in one hand. Something about a gallery showing - makes sense.

The dress, the complicated messy updo she's managed with her dark hair; it sits with strands framing her cheekbones. The cut of it, a v neck that highlights her lean frame, there's a lone pendant around her neck on a thin silver chain; crystal, it looks. Cut into a thin shape with a pointed edge and maybe once, something like it would have been enough to draw sidelong glances.

Murmurs and certain assumptions (hell, maybe it still does in the right company).

"Hey." She greets, her heel scraping against the ground as she comes upon them. She's wearing some vaguely sweet perfume the brunette. Her dark eyes swinging down and they fix, of course, on Elijah's company. Trace over (thin air). People spill out, talking about the music and Kiara's eyes shift to them for a beat as Elijah is saying -

"What's going on?" - Sharper, that. Kiara's voice comes out a little too punctuated, she's staring down at Elijah, now. The edges of her generous mouth pinching into a frown; brows constricting.

Serafíne

"I know what's going on, Elijah. Pan explained it to me. I just - " Dan is still crouched on his haunches, skinny jeans pulled tight across his knees, hands braced on his thighs, weight balanced, only so. Looks tired, sad, maybe a little bit strained but he is also trying not to look like any of those things and trying not to draw too much attention from his friends (and SERA'S FRIENDS) over there chatting and buying donuts.
"She's supposed to be staying with a friend of Pan's." Neat glimpse up then, this grimace of greeting when Kiara walks up to them. "I don't think it's a good idea for her to be here. Right now it's only going to hurt her."
Then he looks past Elijah, not really close to picking out Sera's place beside Elijah against the wall. "I'm sorry."
(Sera has, in the interim, buried her head in her knees. Sid kinda stirs but Dan doesn't notice the dog either, even as the dog gives a hopefully-comforting thump-thump-thump of its tail.)
--
Kiara asks what's going on, maybe she's asking Elijah but Dan knows what's going on. "Sera got hit with paradox, or something. She can only communicate with people who are Awake. She's invisible to everyone else. "
"I should probably go." Before more folks come over and make the whole thing stranger and harder and more terrible and more remarkably ordinary: talking about the band, eating donuts, chatting about the party at so-and-so's tomorrow night, or such-and-such's dislocated elbow at the last Derby meet, and on and on and on. Unless someone stops him, off he goes.

Elijah

"That... is so much better than what I thought it was," he looks at Dan, puts a hand on the back of his head and leans in to kiss him on the forehead. The gesture is one that bleeds off a very real, very palpable amount of tension that the young man was feeling. Pan explained what was going on to Dan. Dan knew Serafine wasn't dead, and right now this is absolute news to Elijah.

Dan explains what's going on and Elijah eventually lets go of the other man so he can actually leave, Elijah leans a little against Serafine, kisses her on the head, too, because she was there and she was alive and Kiara is there and she seems concerned but Elijah, for his part, was decidedly less stressed out because, obviously, while one of his friends was in mortal peril right now one of his other friends was very much assuredly not dead and this was a blessing.

"Sera's not a restless spirit," he tells Kiara, like this is fantastic news.

He curls in, content to stay on one side for the time being. Content to stay at Sera's side and doesn't say anything. Runs his fingers through her hair and doesn't know what to say to her. The world is passing around her, and she's an observer right now. People are moving on without her, and that is a painful place to be.

Kiara

There's this little moment where Kiara's features harden into something quite furious and angry. This moment where her spine straightens and her shoulders round back and she's got this gleam in her eyes that's all agitation. Her mouth thins into this little seam and she's staring down at the ground for a second as if she cannot for all her days quite decide what to do with that.

The anger. Not at Elijah, not at Dan. Not at Serafine, but - "Fuck." She lets out this little catch, her eyes closing and she turns her face into the distance, frowning hard.

Serafine's head is between her knees when she manages to compose herself enough to look back and then Dan is leaving and Kiara makes this tiny motion; a uncurling of her fingers as if she wants to say something to the man to comfort him because his friend is invisible, but how do you offer comfort for that. Where is the damn rule book for friends of those removed from your sight by paradox?

"We'll take care of her, Dan."

It's a quiet, futile thing to say and Kiara seems to know it. She does move, though. Wedges herself down near the Cultist and folds the edges of her dress between her knees, presses her shoulder against the other woman and says in this furious, vibrant undertone. "You're going to be okay, you know. Screw the universe. You'll be fine. I missed you."

That's futile too, but maybe it's also enough. She says, after a beat: "I have a spare room. If you want somewhere to be, you can stay there. Anytime."

Serafíne

Elijah kisses Dan on the brow and the older man allows it, gives this twinge of a not-quite-smile through his beard and returns half the gesture: reaching to cup the back of the young Hermetic's skull with tattooed hands. Then he lets Elijah go and pushes himself upright. Shares a grimace of something (and maybe anger is the right response to this bullshit, but it is rather difficult to work his way through his very real concern to something that bright and righteous. And then there are Dee and Rick on the other side, absolutely in the dark, both kinda angry with Sera instead of for her, because for them the absence is total, is the story of Sera's semi-regular disappearances from their lives and some of the committments she makes in them: like really making a go of the band, you know, that one.

Fuck.

But, he straightens. Says, "Thank you," quietly and simply to Kiara and turns on his heel to cross the street to the food truck and as he goes he's getting out his phone, texting or maybe calling someone. And he doesn't want to look back, is telling himself not to but he cannot help it, as if he might someone turn his head fast enough to catch a glimpse of her and then hold her in his gaze.

--

Kiara wedges herself down between Sera and an adolescent dog with a spiked-leather collar who was laying down but sits up and puts her chin on her paws as Kiara sits. Thumpthumpthump goes Sid Vicious' tail.

Sera sits there, her shoulders move like bellows, but without the regularity of tears. Those are just great-big-breaths she is taking, maybe to steady herself, maybe to feel her body open up, maybe because they make her ribcage seem like it is being pried open and she would rather feel that physically than the other way it sometimes happens, the cracked ribs and the marrow within. Or maybe she's doing that to try to keep from throwing up.

And she finally lifts her head from her knees, hair sliding through Elijah's fingers and she gives Kiara this quick tight smile of gratitude. Oughta say screw the universe, I'll be just fine right along with her but she can't say either. She is: a hungry ghost of a thing, and she wasn't made for silence, or anything like it. "My phone doesn't fucking - "

One of her arms unfurls from around her legs, she makes a loose gesture, "work." No selfies. No texting. No Ginger, no nothing. "And I don't - I don't even know where you live."

Elijah

He's there, and he's trying to process, can't imagine what this is like for Dan. Can't imagine what this is like for Dee or Rick, either. Because they have no idea, just know that she isn't there anymore and doesn't know what they know about what but he presumes the answer is nothing. He presumes the answer is nothing and it doesn't drive a complete wedge in Serafine's friendship with them.

He doesn't know what to say. Doesn't know how to say it, either, only that he is glad she is alive. Only glad that she is a presence, even if it is a presence that is stuck between the worlds.

A second, then?

"You know, I could text people for you if somebody else can make your phone work. You just... y'know... gotta get people to do your communication by proxy," he says. Leans a little into her but then realizes that's not enough independence.

"We can make things work out."

Resolute. Because, if he said this, it obviously can be willed into being. They can make things work out, it would just take time.

Kiara

There's a cat on the second floor of Kiara Woolfe's apartment building that follows her on occasion. Sees the brunette passing and uncurls itself, stretches and arches its spine and slinks along with a chiming bell as its herald to wind around her legs when she passes. Sometimes, it happens. Other times - there's a dog walked in Washington Park that nearly threw itself at her; frothing and snarling.

They sense it, sometimes. What she is, that delicate twinge to the order of the universe. Sid, like the cat on the second floor, sits up and pays attention - Kiara's fingers reach out and ghost over his head, her fingernails scratching behind an ear.

There's a flash of a smile at Elijah over Serafine's head; bracketed in there between the pair of them as she is; a sliver of gratitude. A little indication of her approval, because: "Well that's just plain rude." A curl of amusement, a husk of wry humor in the pagan's voice as she unclasps the little purse she's had with her all night; the outside glitters with tiny black beads and inside there's a fold of notes, a credit card and a few loose dockets for who knew what.

She extricates a pen, Kiara. Uncaps it with the lid held between her teeth and scribbles down on the back of a take out receipt her address. "817 17th St, Bank and Boston Lofts. Apartment ... 422." She shakes it out to dry the ink a little and then holds it out to Serafine, her dark eyes roving her face.

"Whenever." She lets her gaze tick past her to Elijah and her mouth curls a little, because: has she seen Elijah since they'd returned? Days bleed together and its disjointed and odd to her, not a student of Time, but: she loses track.

The when, the where. "Hey, kid." Soft and easy, as if it were any other night and she'd caught sight of Elijah in a crowd. Never mind the universe.

Serafíne

Sera bumps Elijah back and doesn't really say much. Pressure there, acknowledgment, awareness. He's so damned optimistic it makes her spine feel brighter and she could tell him that it's not the same, because it isn't, but he says it so resolutely that she doesn't. Somewhere in the middle of all this she turns and cups his head and kisses him firmly on the temple like she's comforting him not the other way around.

Then Kiara is scribbling out her address on a receipt, waiting for the ink to dry, handing the piece of paper to Sera who is drunk enough that she has to do a single and then a double-take as her focus narrows and then zippers open and then folds the receipt very, very neatly and lifts the fraying hem of her raveling cropped top and tucks the address into her lovely little black-lace bra.
Drifts for a while, after.
--
Not much later, a cab or maybe a solid and non-descript mid-price sedan pulls up. Luxury brand, probably, but not the sort one notices. The sort one doesn't-notice. The street is mostly empty and that's a no-parking zone right in front of them but it's late. No meter maids out. Doesn't matter that he's double-parked in front of a fire hydrant. A man Elijah knows, whom Kiara does not yet know (methinks?) gets out of the driver's side and circles the car. He's tall(ish), mid-30s, pale skin, dark hair. Greets Elijah. Greets the dog and she knows him enough to stir-to-life when he comes around. Introduces himself to Kiara, not formally because they are out in the open, but conveys enough about himself that she can guess his tradition and rank from his words, demeanor, and resonance.

Offers Sera a hand-up and she takes it and she doesn't wanna go,
but she does anyway.

Reality-Induced Hangover [In Progress]

Elijah

[Per+alert, pay attention to the road, kid, +2 diff(App4 chick sunbathing is distracting)]

Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 7) ( botch x 2 )

Elijah

[Dex+athletics- I meant to do that]

Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (2, 4, 9, 9) ( success x 2 )

Elijah

Serafine is sunbathing somewhere in the park.

Elijah had been running, not that he is a particularly adept runner, or really even particularly remarkable in regards to his relative speed, but he does happen to last a little longer than most people would in this weather. He wasn't the kind of guy who would train for a marathon, but something got stuck in his head that made him want to- namely, being stuck in a class about gemstones referred to as "Rocks for Jocks" and being told that there was no way in Hell that he could actually survive running a marathon without tapping out or throwing up. Seeing as how he was never one to settle for being told he couldn't do something, he was out running.

He was running and he'd come across Serafine sunbathing. Now, grant you, he's seen Sera in relative states of mostly dress or dress that rounds up to being clothing but there's a point when you're running or exercising that your brain goes fuck this nonsense, you need to put your energy into moving and not thinking. And eventually, you hit the point where the only thing your brain can process is obscenities and breathing. And in that moment, amidst his running, amidst the appreciation of whatever she'd been wearing and wherever his imagination was going, Elijah failed to notice that there was a park bench in front of him.

Which he ran headlong into.

Tumbled. Rolled, rolled, rolled some more and almost took out a cyclist who happened to be passing on the trail. The cyclist veered, nearly toppling into a tree but, instead, heading straight for the bushes, which made someone making out with his girlfriend (second base, wooo!) squeak the sound that a romantically frustrated teenager can make. The chain reaction was set into motion and Elijah, for his part, was content to sit on the ground and be torn between Serafine, who is sunbathing, and the chaos he caused.

"Hi."

Serafíne

What she is wearing is a cheetah print bandau style bikini top and a pair of daisy dukes, unzipped and unbuttoned, so short that the pockets are visible below the hem of the shorts. Some sort of bikini bottom beneath, slightly mismatched from the top. Her skin loves the sun, absorbs it and reflects it back into the world. She is beautifully tan everywhere one can see, and her dyed-blond hair is brighter for the sun in the sun. Or perhaps the bleaching is recently refreshed.

There she is, sunglasses covering her eyes, hair pulled back, feet bare, flat on the slightly nubby surface of an old white coverlet turned picnic blanket, alone for the nonce. There's a picnic basket at the foot of the blanket, closed right now. No visible evidence to show how much she's still hurting.

But she is.

"Hi."

Okay, moving a little slow as she turns her head to regard Elijah, neatly ignoring the chaos too.

Maybe she's hung over.

"You put on

Serafíne

"You put on quite a show."

Elijah

"They totally just put park benches in random places sometimes, It's a city initiative," or I totally wasn't paying attention to the fact that there was a park bench in front of me and I caused the human equivalent of a five car pileup. He smiles, something bright and shameless, because he didn't have time to be ashamed right now of being just a tad unobservant.

He catches that she's moving a little slowly, though, cocks his head tot he side but doesn't say anything. There's lots of reasons a person could be moving slowly, right? His first thought is that she's moving hangover slow, but then again- has he ever seen Sera hung over? Wouldn't magic kind of negate the need for having a hangover unless one wanted a hangover?

He does get up, grass stains on his knees and he'll no doubt end up with a bruised elbow, or bruises somewhere because he'd actually been making decent stride before the unfortunate meeting with a parkbench occurred.

"But yeah, I... uh... that was completely unintentional. The you can't run a marathon gauntlet has been thrown, once Dan and I went out when I'd had a shit night sleeping and we hiked and just did shit and it was meditative so I figured that running could actually be a good alternative to getting shithoused regularly."

Serafíne

"Mmm." She hums back. Agreement or acceptance or something of virtually everything he said. This hum that is physical and sub-liminal, somehow. Held in the instertial space that always feels somehow beneath her skin but above her body, this framing awareness of the world she carries like a second skin.

"I like to rockclimb. Jim was into yoga in the fucking park. Are you really thinking about training for a marathon? You might want to take up something safer than running, yeah?"

Elijah

"Given my propensity for running into things?"

Serafíne

"Naw. Given the universe's propensity for throwing park benches right in front of you."

This quick skim of her mouth, the briefest flash of her teeth behind glossed lips: perfection.

Elijah

"The universe just knows- Poirots and park benches are natural enemies," he grins, playful, brushes off his knees and checks out the slight scrape on one of his elbows. "I like the idea of trail running. It's running, but through nature. Or those obstacle courses people do? Those seem cool, but I figure why fuckin' climb a fake tree when you can climb an actual tree."

Scoots over, carefully pets her hand for a moment before settling in, comfortable, nearby. He establishes where he is, what the space is, whatever comes next.

"I didn't know you rock climbed," he said.

Serafíne

That draws out her smile again: quick and sure. Almost viciously confident, the slash-and-draw of it beneath the bright, reflective opacity of her dark glasses. Something animal about it, even with the sort of slow-glandular movement that most people assume is the visible evidence of one of those knock-you-on-your-ass hangovers. Maybe an acid hangover.

Elijah pets her hand, which she finds a little bit weird, but doesn't seem to mind, and settles in. Probably on the expanse of that nubby coverlet. There's room for another body, another several bodies, that hasn't been filled yet.

"There's a helluva lot you don't know about me, kid."

Says our Sera, who is older than he is and rough-voiced today, muscles bunching in her stomach as she shifts her body to sort of lean in his direction.

"The idea of it and the fact of it are pretty different things. If you like the idea, fuck. Give it a try. Maybe you'll like the idea of it more than the fact of it. Maybe you'll like the fact of it more than the idea of it. Then you'll know."

Elijah

There's a helluva lot you don't know about me, kid.
"Do I get to find out?" the immediate response. Doesn't seem keen on not knowing something, but is incredibly interested in the idea of finding things out. Sera defies definition, she just is and there's layers. Beyond that, there's delight in his voice, somewhere in his eyes that make them more green than amber and the south creeps in because- well, because. Doesn't need a reason to have origins.

"I think I like the idea of a lot of things, but find myself missing the mark on the actuality of them. I didn't think I'd like camping though, and I fucking love camping so maybe trail running will be like that," he said, paused and grinned, "about a week ago I ran into this one chick and we ended up racing in the forest, she was like this wood nymph- I think she's still in my phone. I figure if trail running is anything like that, I'll like it."

A second, then?

"I'd like to find out more about you, at least. I want to know a person and not the idea of a person."

Serafíne

"If I were you I'd stick to chasing wood nymphs over mere trail running any day. If that girl's in your phone you should give her a call. See if she wants to race through the forest again. See where it leads."

This neat little shrug of her shoulders, mild, incisive, the movement cushioned at the edge of her range of motion because: ow. Ow ow ow.

"Or where it ends."

She looks: up then, and then, away. Back towards the sky where the failing sun reflects in the dark surface of her lenses. Doesn't seem at first to be reactive or reacting to his comment that he wants to know a person and not the idea of a person, except:

"Alright. Ask me any question you want. I'll answer. Anything in the fucking world."

Elijah

Ask her anything?

It's not a moment where the gauntlet is thrown, not something that seems like a challenge- an aha, I can ask whatever I want! moment. Not a triumph, just an offer. He perks up, but for all his delight and eagerness he's hesitant. There's no room for hesitation, though. Not in his mind, at least.

But he hesitates anyway. Any question, and she'd answer.

"What is..." he stops, "is it weird that now that I have the opportunity to ask anything I don't know what to ask?" Laughs because it's disarming, laughs to himself more than anything,. more an exhalation of breath than laughter.

"What do you dream about?"

Serafíne

"Which dreams do you mean?"

The glasses give nothing of her eyes away but oh there goes her mouth, the slow-burn-crawl of it, just at the corners and nothing more. There go her straight little brows, rising into a brief but thoroughly eloquent arch, which is more challenge that query.

"The kind that crawl across the surface of your brain at night, and linger in the morning like a half-remembered cigarette? Or the ones you cultivate yourself, watching the light drift across the surface of a cup of tea, while the world slides by?"

Her shrug is shortened, arrested. The motion inhibited by a deep, dull, healing ache.

Hangovers.

Gotta be.

Elijah

"Like, the ones that pop in your head at night and disappear the next morning if you don't quite grab hold of them fast enough. The this is my aim for a better world and this would make me happy to see into fruition works, too, but specifically I was thinking about the sleeping ones," he tells her.

She's gotta be hungover, he thinks, but he's got delight written on his face and takes her in while she's still processing the day through hazy ouchness.

Has to be a hangover. But, he asks anyway.

"By the way, you want Tylanol or something? I'm pretty sure I've got some in the car."

Serafíne

"That's sweet, kiddo." Wry. This humming awareness in her voice, a throaty affection. "But I don't think Tylenol'll do much for me. I got my ass kicked by reality, not booze."

Neat little curl of her shoulder, then, a herky-jerk motion that stitches the joint back into place and tugs the nubby coverlet as it happens.

"Hawksley once told met that he'd dreamed of flying since he was a baby. You know: taking off, climbing up into the sky, soaring. Not just daydreaming, you know? Night-dreaming too. Night-dreaming first, I fucking think, like this piece of his soul that had to work its way out one way or the goddamned other.

"I never had dreams like that, thought sometimes I'd get glimpses of what-might-be, usually all wrapped up in weird half-raveled metaphors. Sometimes they'd be a little more straightforward - so obviously meaningful that it was hard to let go of even when I couldn't fucking figure it out.

"Last night I dreamt that I was walking through this spiraling cocoon of pearl, holding a baby that was either a person or a six-pack of Monk's Sour Ale, searching for Debbie Harry because I had to return her ant colony, and when I found her, every word we said to each other made sense backwards and forwards, and then Debbie was gone and I was standing in the middle of this road in a place that felt like the desert, right? That sky, those stars, that lonely fucking expanse of possibility, and there was a road and I was beside it, and I was walking because I'd been waiting for someone to pick me up, but he never came.

"So I said: fuck it, and started walking the way I wasn't supposed to go, flipping off the stupid moon."

--

"What about you? What do you dream about?"

Something in her tone - some slanting awareness, perhaps - shades that to mean: when you aren't dreaming about drowning.

Remembers that, Sera does. Is: careful around it, too.

Elijah

"I kinda figured it was something? But if it was something normal I figured, hey, stuff." He tells her, keeps sitting up but eventually halfway through the story concludes that he doesn't like sitting up and looking down at her because it felt a little like he was towering. Screw being towering, there was a blanket, so it was down to the blanket. Back on the fabric, eyes at the clouds until, of course, he decides he'd rather look over at her.

He listens to the dream, acutally kind of laughs a little at part of it, some of it was absurd, some of it was... Well, he could empathize. Maybe he flipped off the moon in his dreams, too.

"I have no idea who Debbie Harry is, is she, like, GReta Garbo but less mainstream?"

--

What does he dream about?

"Mermaids, usually. Or unicorns. Once I had a dream that I was supposed to get married and I was all fuck that so I went into this forest and came across this pool of water and there was a lady in it, so I followed her. Like, I went into the water but the world turned upside down and it wasn't water and I was in, like, Gotham City and I crawled out of a puddle and kept, like, skipping between medieval fantasy world and Gotham City. And somehow I met Batman, but he stole my car because for some reason I had a car.

"The mermaid dreams usually make more sense. Like, you hit the ocean floor and everything glows blue and there's an epic battle with a giant angler fish and sometimes I don't win, and it's not like breathing is a problem? Like, the fact that we're under water doesn't even matter.

"But man, fuck angler fish. Those things are cool and creepy."

--

"Where are you from?" next, casual and curious.

Serafíne

Head tipped back, fair hair rippling, mussed beneath her scalp, caught up in the texture of the picnic blanket, spare shoulders open, that suggestion of attention beneath the dark sheen of the glasses, which is always, somehow - sharper than one thinks.

"Do you think that matters?" The sloe-gin-hum of her voice. "Where a person's from?"

Elijah

"It mattered to me," he said, "if it doesn't matter to you, it doesn't have to. I like knowing where people started, even, y'know, if the concept of people starting anywhere but between the Tigris and Euphrates matters much."

He takes in the details, sideward and lights bathing down from the sky. He could have,f or a moment, forgotten that she was here to enjoy the sun and he was here to ... you know... not run into park benches.

"I guess the better question is: where do you think your story starts. Doesn't have to start where you accidentally popped out."

Serafíne

Her kinda-smile starts as a slice and carves itself across her neat little mouth once again and there is no particular sense of deliberation about its progress, except for the deliberate choice she makes to enjoy even this: the warmth of the sun, the reality hangover, the young man beside her who is both chaotic and strangely precise in the midst of that chaos.

"I have no fucking idea where my story starts," of course, she counters, this rough clearing-of-throat noise that is rather like a laugh. She thinks: that we, ourselves, singular and individual are least equipped to tell our own stories and she thinks, on some level, that even the concept, the conceit of that is rooted in the strangest sort of human solipsism, which somehow combines self-obsession with the ineluctable need to be seen. And it's not like she doesn't share in that need to be seen, because fuck. Look at what she's wearing. And she doesn't say any of that because she doesn't really know the word solipsism and is instead mostly think-feeling all that shit.

Complicated, see?

"My folks had two places when I was born. This apartment on the Upper East Side that was mostly my dad's during the week, and a house in Bridgehampton, where the family stayed. He'd come home, sometimes. Weekends, I guess. Went to boarding school when I was seven or eight. Then it was summers and holidays, then like, that time kinda eroded, too. School was out in the middle of fucking nowhere in the west of Ireland. This big fucking neo-Gothic mansion called Kylemore. All girls, run by nuns. Hail Mary full of fucking Grace."

Elijah

"The only way that a place called Kylemore could even be remotely cool would be if the place had secret passageways and you girls had this whole Secret Garden style escape from oppressive nuns and the world blossomed into fucking technicolor as a respite for gray skies and rulers," he says, muses. builds it up because he has within him a desire to embellish things. To paint something drab a little more favorable color instead of seeing what he had been invited to see once before- something desolate. Something lonely.

It's complicated, see, when people can split time. When children are accessories or burdens.

"Nuns are fucking brutal."

Not joking. Completely serious. He's been on the wrong side of an angry nun a couple times. You don't grow up in Louisiana without brushing against Catholicism at the very least. He ruminates on this for a moment before firing back with.

"Best kiss? Or favorite?"

Serafíne

"How about first?"

She tosses back. As if this were an auction, or a treaty negotiation. Mouth curled, yeah.

Always.

Elijah

""First? Sold."

First?

He had tot hink about this one, could think about the first time he had sex easily enough, if only because he'd told someone, hunted through details, went back through a year book to see if he could find that girl's name out and still drew a blank.

"I was thirteen and her name was Megan. Megan was a freshman and people kinda thought she was going tyo get pregnant before she graduated and drop out or whatever, but we were in the same pottery class. Jenn didn't like her," Jenn still doesn't like her, "but I didn't think there was anythign wrong because she was cool, yeah? She went to parties with seniors and had her belly button pierced.

"Like, I knew girls were around? And I knew guys were around? The first person I wanted to kiss was James Evanson but I was pretty sure the dude who sat behind me in algebra would have kicked my ass if I kissed him so, like, second person was Jenn but I thought that's gonna be weird, you know her mom and her dad went to prison once and might actually kill you so no.

"So anyway, Megan was actually about number seven on the list of people I wanted to kiss when I was thirteen but that's totally not the point." He laughed, laughed because thirteen year old Elijah logic was, for lack of a better word, completely irrational. He shrugs, goes on through the story. Cavalier about the experience, "So Megan shows up and I'm elbow deep in clay and she tells me her parents aren't going to be home until late so I walk her home after school and she lives in the freaking swamps in this trailer park and nobody in their right mind wants to actually go there but she lives there so we're going, right?

"The house is a place straight out of the seventies, and she pops the liquor cabinet open and offers me a bottle of something that tastes like fucking rubbing alcohol. So we drink a little... or a lot... I don't know. I remember feeling really shitty, like, an hour in and she told me that this was completely normal and she ends up sitting on top of me on the couch and we kind of made out and I had no idea what I was doing but I ended up with my hand up her shirt and that was the first time that I had encountered real, non-imaginary boob so I thought I was doing pretty awesome.

"I walked home after that? It was kind of a standing arrangement after that? Tuesdays, I'd walk her home, she'd get me drunk and we'd make out on a shitty couch. Lasted about a month before she got a real boyfriend. She ended up being my dealer later."

Serafíne

"Katie O'Connor. In the Chapel, this night in October. You know how the light changes in fall, right? Just kind of starts gathering itself inwards, shrinking. It's not dark all the time yet and the sun is so fucking persistent but the bite in the air, come morning. The frost from your breath.

"Goosebumps prickling up your arms as you're stumbling out of the dorm for vespers and breakfast and that sense of night around you, even when it is just incipient, the world stitching itself up at the edges.

"I had cigarettes, sometimes. One of the gardeners would bring them to me, and somehow I lifted the sacristy key right off Father Flaherty, like three fucking times, is how little attention he paid. Finally managed to make a mold from it in this old bar of soap. Communion wine is shit, man. Usually, but sometimes he'd buy himself a nice bottle and to sip on a Friday then blend in the remainder of it to be blessed.

"Fuck it, anyway. We'd sneak off to the chapel to smoke cigarettes or maybe get high. It was away from the dorms, away from the great house, down this path in the woods and we'd sit behind the altar, watching the smoke rise and mingle with the moonlight. I think the first seventeen joints I smoked were tobacco and like dried banana peel but finally we go our hands on the real thing. It was so fucking blissful.

"She fell asleep with her head on the crook between my arm and shoulder. We woke up in the predawn, shivering, it was so cold. Our breath looked like smoke.

"I kissed her, then.

"After that, we'd go to the chapel to smoke and get high and make out and I kissed her a helluva lot more. 'Til we got caught.

"She got suspended I got expelled. Because I was quote unquote incorrigible.

"She had freckles like you wouldn't believe, Katie."

Elijah

He listens to the story. To the whole of it, the ins and the outs with Katie O'Connor and the moments of rebellion and the taste of another person. The feeling of something that felt, loud and clear like it mattered. Something that pinged on his senses like romance, actual romance.

She had freckles like you wouldn't believe, Katie.

"Personally, I think incorrigible is a fucking fantastic way to be. They're implying that it's a hopeless cause, but... y'know... it's incorrigible, not to be corrected, improved, or reformed because there isn't anything there that needs to be changed."

A beat, a thought, then?

"Do you ever wake up and think you know, I'm pretty fucking awesome?"

Serafíne

"I always wake up and think, you know, I'm pretty fucking awesome."

The wry curl of her mouth crawls wider. The convex surface of her dark lenses just hold his gaze, fixed and unyielding.

"Do you?"

A beat.

"Doesn't everyone?"

Elijah

"It's hit and miss," he doesn't look away. She doesn't look away, and he doesn't either. Isn't going to shy away since he'd been the one who had wanted to talk about things. He'd wanted to know, so he asked, "but generally the I'm pretty neat outweighs the I'm a royal shitbag most of the time. I'm cool with the awesome-to-not ratio."

21th Birthday Redux

Elijah

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

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

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

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

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

Serafíne

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

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

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

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

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

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

There's something new back here, too.

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

Elijah

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

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

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

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

Serafíne

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

--

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Hey, guess who's legal now?"

Elijah

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

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

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

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

Serafíne

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

In other words, perfection.

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

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

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

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

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

Elijah

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

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

He actually sounded a little excited about that.

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

Serafíne

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

--

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

No.

--

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

And so they do.

--

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

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

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

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

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

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

Elijah

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

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

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

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

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

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

A lot has changed.

Cameo-Dan

Steel

[Nightmares]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 7, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )

Aidan

[also nightmares]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Steel

[Also, as we're 'working'... ]

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

Steel

Summer is in full flow, and so are the streams of people passing through the shopping precinct. People come and go in search of food, coffee, shopping, or simply passing through on their way elsewhere. It’s a warm, pleasant day. The sun is out and those who aren’t tied into the suit-and-tie uniform that their gainful employment demands are showing more and more skin, trying to develop that tan that the fashion magazines tell them that they should.

Sheeple, really. People who follow the same routine, think what they’re told to think, drink the brand of cola that they’re told to, working towards their little white picket fence, perfect wife, and 2.4 children, even if there’s something that niggles away in the backs of their mind that this isn’t really what they want.

But the crowds can be advantageous to certain people. Those who prefer to blend into the crowd, a faceless blur in a sea of faces. The sun, and the extra skin on display, gives added distraction to the marks. Middle-aged men work well – their surreptitious glances at the youthful cleavage in easy view means that they don’t pay much attention when someone remarkably unmemorable happens to bump into them. Faces aren’t noticed, the lack of a certain weight in a certain pocket isn’t picked up on until later when there’s something to pay for or an ID card to dig out.

The pickings are slim, though. A short, thin female fishes a ten dollar note out of a wallet before slipping it quietly into a trash can. It’s better than a kick in the teeth, but she’s had better hauls. Maybe it’s just time to take a break. After picking up a coffee from a stand, she finds an unoccupied bench to settle onto and just watch the people passing by for a while. The hood of her top is slipped down, revealing dyed black hair and pale skin. Black combats and boots finish the look. Apparently someone didn’t get the message about goths being out of fashion these days.

Aidan

[perc - Intuitive - + awareness]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 7, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 4 ) [Doubling Tens]

Aidan

[*sad*]

Aidan

The world has always been different to Aidan; at least he thinks it has. There are blanks in his mind, things that hide away memories about himself. He can only assume, then, that this had always been the way it was. Ah but did it matter?

He had no desire to buy things. Aidan didn't really understand the need to collect anyhow. He always had just enough to get by, clothing wise, and enough supplies to create his art when he needed it. Besides, Aidan believed in meaningful relationships, and if a shirt didn't want to come home with you, it shouldn't be forced. He was here because he had followed the wind, and the wind had whispered softly of fun things and people. Then it went on its way. Wind spirits were like that. They were flippant and whimsical, most of the time, so one couldn't expect to talk long with them.

But we digress. Aidan was wandering, as he often did, with a bit of a bounce and a smile. He hummed some song he heard somewhere, though he couldn't recall where or what it was. It was hot, but Aidan had a tendency to flip social convention on its head and... and well wear a long sleeve. It was light fabric of course, probably hand knitted some time ago, but it was long sleeve none the less, and extended past his own hands. It hung loose enough that his collar bone showed and it was a mercy that it hadn't fallen off his frame; Aidan could never properly size his shirts. It was only his jeans that were worn appropriate to his shape, and his sneakers, which of course were used and worn from walking. He had nothing else.

Aidan found himself pausing near a planter, blinking at the greenery that rested inside. "Oh?" He said, as if he understood every word...and maybe he did, maybe he didn't. He leaned in, pushing a few leaves out of the way. "Oh right! This?" And he plucked a dry leaf from the poor thing and smiled brightly. "All better! Right?" Aidan pressed it against his nose. "Smells nice though."

He never minded the people. Aidan understood how odd he was, and how that tended to translate to all the people around him; sometimes though, he forgot. He straightened and stepped from the plant, walking past the benches with no particular goal in mind. He wasn't here to shop after all, just wander.

Steel

[Per+Aware?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )

Steel

The crowd in the mall is fairly tasteless, no particular edge of emotion powering it. So it’s easy to notice when a little extra something doesn’t quite blend in. Something sprightly and enchanting – almost other-worldy? Something less than ordinary, more than the mundanity of the background blur.

It takes a short while of watching people before she starts to narrow down its owner. A young, thin thing talking to… Is he really talking to the plant? Oh, good grief, like the plant really cares about a dead leaf. There had been thoughts that maybe she should try to reach out to the local Awakened, but maybe this isn’t the best of choices. Assuming that this isn’t some elaborate Technocracy plant, anyway.

So for now she sips her coffee and watches him.

[Because we’re trying not to be obvious, Man+Sub?]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 6, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 4 )

Aidan

[Do I sees you seeing me?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 4 )

Aidan

Aidan was...Aidan was like a faerie, someone might say. The way his resonance played, tossed and tugged at the part of each person that sung their desires. It didn't need to know what those were, it only needed to make one feel as if it did. But bounced in a way; it bounced in a playful way that said whatever 'it' was, it had no ill intentions, but merely wanted to dance... or run.. or play games. His resonance sung of magical forests and glowing creatures that sang and dance without a care. Aidan was very much like that. He never seemed to notice the terrible things in the world, or he found the silver lining in them.

Aidan laughed. He laughed and he turned just a little and dropped his eyes down. "Hello." And his smile was bright and warm. Sunshine, someone might call it. It felt like that..inviting, pleasant. But he was smiling at something near his feet, and then reaching a hand down to grasp at something, something small, and holding it gently. "I did...thank you." He says. To most people, Aidan is just another person off his meds, or tamed enough that he's not a 'danger' to them. Still odd. Still strange. but he doesn't notice.

There is a feeling he has in the back of his mind, of being watched. He can feel the eyes perhaps, feel the person keeping watch, but Aidan doesn't see them, doesn't find them in the crowd. It's not unusual afterall.

Elijah

He was running out of vests.

One couldn't be sure that this was even possible, but it was true. Elijah was running out of vests. Specifically, he was running out of vests and things that went with vests. Which was a terrifying notion when one thinks about the sheer volume of clothing Elijah must own in order to successfully fill up two closets at two different locations, but it was true. He was running out of things that were business casual and then running out of things that he found even remotely interesting because… well… who could really find business casual interesting? Elijah had a palpable disdain for polos, a strange feeling of irritation that came when he tried to pick out cargo pants, and an irrational distaste for being asked to wear chucks or vans.

He was particular about shoes. He was particular about a lot of things, the least of which was making certain that he- in all of his longish haired and lanky glory- was not mistaken for someone who could even remotely come close to skateboarding. He's taken one too many face plants. Seen one too many curbs from close up that he does not want to entertain the idea that he might end up down there for awhile.

Today's search yielded little results, but he did happen to emerge victorious with a couple vinyl records, a DVD, and three books on ancient Egypt. He had to get something that would be even remotely helpful, or maybe he was just interested because Egypt seemed interesting, or maybe still there is a chance that Elijah actually picked up his phone and checked messages on something. Whatever the case, he was walking, had a powerful need for something that rounded to being food. Attire was comfortable, but warm- because let's face it, Elijah Poirot wears way too damn many clothes. Jeans, some three-quarter length half button up thing for a shirt, a vest (because where else will he put his pocket watch?), and about half a dozen bracelets on one arm.

Oh, yeah, and a necklace he couldn't take off that was tucked into his shirt because Jenn tied knots really, really well.

Steel

Steel peeks over, puzzled. There’s apparently someone there that he’s speaking to, but it’s nothing obvious. Certainly not a person, and he doesn’t seem to be wearing one of those little ear pieces that make perfectly sane people look like they’re talking to themselves as they walk down the street. None of that, and so? Maybe it’s drugs, or a lack of meds, or something else. Either way, he doesn’t exactly come across as the most… sane person on first impressions.

On the other hand, it doesn’t seem like she’s been spotted either. There may be a little looking around, but nothing focussed and searching. This time, at least, she seems to be passing without notice. For now.

And suddenly it seems to be raining Awakened. Another resonance, another Mage. This time she takes a moment to pull up her hood before looking through the crowd again. The moment helps to mask her features, make her a little more anonymous in case she needs to vanish again. Again, she scans the crowd to locate the source while she takes another sip of coffee.

Aidan

Elijah and his vests. Elijah wasn't exactly subtle, at least o Aidan, and he wasn't hiding. He was clearly there, holding things he had bought and Aidan...Aidan could sense him of course. He pushed himself on his toes, looking for the signature he felt near him, still holding onto to...whatever it was he was holding onto. Then he half knelt and smiled to the uh...air.. "I think I see him!" He let go of the invisible thing and began a small jog towards Elijah, who may or may not be privy to his existence.

He weaved, as needed, then vaulted himself at the shopping Eli with a "Eli!" To follow it. "We've been looking for you!"

Elijah

[Am I completely oblivious to the presence of other magical people? Per+aware]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 5, 5, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )

Elijah

He is clueless. Sure, he picks up that tiny feeling of enchantment and the sense of something on the back of his neck that was like some darling little far creature in the woods, but he is completely oblivious to the idea that there were any other people around that weren't Aidan. There is a sound he hears, one that accompanies Aidan like little footsteps and perhaps a sigh. Little people. Little dead people specifically. He liked crowds, liked the sound, liked how you could get lost in the sensory input and pretend like the people reflecting into the shadow lands were just… regular people.

Maybe they liked that. He wasn't sure.

There was the sound of his name, and his brows rose and Elijah transferred the bag from one arm to the other (books about ancient Egypt don't come in reasonable sizes. They only come in why is this so freaking huge and it's just about lower Egypt? Fuck! (It's a very specific, but very common size. One can also buy boxes of Cheerios by the same measurement.)) "Hey, princess," he said with a grin, "and Aidan. Who is most assuredly not a princess."

A beat.

"Been looking for me long?"

Steel

The strange one, maybe talking to ghosts and plants and bugs, shoots off with a target in mind. A target, it turns out, with more to it – to him – than meets the sleeping eye. A target who is the new source of resonance in the mall, and another one that he’s unfamiliar with. She doesn’t yet have much in the way of knowing contact with the other Awakened in the city, but she’s beginning to get the feel for some of those who are around. Most she’s gone unnoticed by – the way she likes it, for now. One she’d come up against and left – was allowed to leave – but that one, on later thought, was less likely to be a threat to her than the other. The one in the park, who’d attacked without warning. She begins to get angry again as her thoughts wander, balling her free hand into a fist before she catches herself and makes it relax.

Well, I know how she feels and I won’t be letting that happen again.

Now, though, there are these two. One who Steel was close to writing off as someone to contact, another that she knew nothing about. One way to start working out that little problem, and getting a better feel for him. Steel stands and starts to wander in their general direction, following the ebb and flow of the groups of people passing by. Getting close enough to listen, she finds a shop window to stare into. Or, at least, stare study the reflection and the two people talking.

[Just drifting, nothing to see here… Manip+Stealth]

Dice: 9 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 6 )

Aidan

Aidan is confused by this. "Why? Why am I not a princess?" The concept of gender roles has apparently slipped past him. He pauses close to Eli and lets his eyes drop to the books. "Oh! You have new friends!" He sounded delighted, exceptionally so.

"No." They hadn't been looking for him at all really. Aidan lightly scratched at his neck. "We were just going to explore but then you showed up! And now we're together. She was my guide. To find you when I came." Aidan looked down and smiled warmly. "I guess we're just meant to be together. I like having friends."

He hasn't picked up on Steel yet, hasn't noticed that she tends to be around wherever he is. Aidan laughed warmly. "Or maybe you can't get away from us Eli."

Elijah

Sincerely, if he knew what he was missing, he would kick himself. Would roll over on his face and lament to the stars how did I become so blind? But, the fact of the matter was this: Elijah Poirot was outclassed when it came to noticing Steel. The young man with the detective's name was just not on his game when it came to the powers of observation at that juncture. So, there he was, bag in hand and posture comfortable, just conversing with the black-haired young man standing with him.

"Princess is a gendered term? The male equivalent is prince, but there isn't a gender neutral royal offspring term," which, given that this is a modern age, Elijah wonders if that is something people need to work on. Aidan's eyes drop to the books and Elijah perks up immediately from instruction mode- and let's face it, he could explain any number of things about modern society that Aidan didn't get. He was comfortable with that- into a frame of thought that was decidedly more excited. The bag gets set down, and one of the books- heavy and having the slightest scent of decaying paper and ink to it- gets pulled out and opened up.

"I wanted to look some things up about ancient Egypt and I realized I don't have any starting point for knowledge about ancient Egypt, except fro some of the things I talked to Kalen about but I really wanted a gigantic primer on the history of- anyway, I wanted to know more to make some things make sense in a broader cultural context," he said, flipped through the pages, "they have an entire chapter on the Rosetta stone."

Steel

Oh, Elijah, not as blind as you’d think. This is something practiced, something that came naturally. Maybe not as naturally as some other things, but still good enough to evade casual attention. Add to that the way the world just seems to overlook her most of the time… At least until she does something stupid to draw attention to herself, which is a habit she tries to avoid developing.

The conversation gets going in earnest, and there are fragments that might be useful to know. Someone named Kalen who seems to know things. Egypt might be trendy enough for this to simply be idle academic interest, or there’s the possibility for something more going on. Awakened have hobbies, but they also tend to get involved in things that bite back.

There’s still coffee, so she takes another sip. And keeps on listening.

Aidan

Aidan blinked, a little confused. "What if I want to be a princess? You get to wear tiaras right? They're sparkly and pretty! I heard they have a really bad attitude though sometimes. Really vain. I've never met one though! They're probably just really proud of how they look! What do princes get to wear? Oh wait! You can be a prince!"

Aidan looked to the book Elijah had, and then he tilted his head a little, scratching at his hair. "Why don't you just ask them? The people who were there? You could travel to Egypt and ask them what it was like. They'd probably tell you. They'd probably like being asked! Oh oh.. you could ask the lion statues too. I bet they see everything." To Aidan, asking the direct source of information made far more sense, but then, he wasn't much of a book worm; he spent most of his time talking to the things people read about, or at least, talking to things that had been there longer, even if he didn't always understand them...

"What's...the Rosetta stone? Is it red? No no! Is it a stone that is a rose?"

Elijah

"You can wear a tiara if you damn well please, regardless of whether or not your royalty. Jenn's got a tiara somewhere, she was in one of those school-sponsored popularity contests and placed third. She was the representative for the art class, which was technically also a club," he said, conversational and still flipping through the book. He gets to the page about the Rosetta stone, the chapter that starts it all and there is a look of delight in those bright green eyes. He settles in a little closer to Aidan, a little conspiratorial, "anyway, it's a fucking badass tiara and there may or may not be pictures of me wearing it on Instragram."

There totally were pictures of him wearing a tiara on instagram.

"Traveling to Egypt is kind of cost and time prohibitive," he said with a laugh, "I've got my passport, but I don't speak… I think it's Arabic? I don't think they speak Koptic there, at least not regularly- anyway. It's easier right now to load up on books and soak it in. The Rosetta Stone is what enabled people to be able to decipher what the ancient Egyptians wrote, it was basically like the equivalent of microwave instructions that come in three languages… if microwave instructions were culturally significant. It's basically a gigantic carved stone."

A beat, he flips through, "I don't know off the top of my head if it's marble or limestone or sandstone…"

Steel

The first guy she’d spotted, well. Downright strange. He seems harmless, but then appearances can be deceiving. Hadn’t she used that to her own advantage before, after all? And all of them – the Awakened – had the potential to be much, much more than they physically appeared. There were ways of working that didn’t end up with the world fighting back too much, but when the necessity was there? Well, explosions can be made to look coincidental.

The other guy, though, sounded a lot more interesting. Cost being a limit? Then either he isn’t a fan of black suits and mirrored shades, he’s too far down the pecking order to take advantage of the perks she assumed they could get, or this is an extra-curricular activity. It’s too early to tell. Too early to know if it’s worth the risk of letting down her guard for a bit.

Time will tell.

Aidan

"Jenn has a tiara?" There was something about his tone that made it sound like a child who was just given the keys to the candy factory. "You'd look good in a tiara! I think anyway." Aidan flashed him a bright smile. "Really! Is it just diamonds or are there different colors? I like tigers eye. It's fierce. Rawr." He gave a mock claw in the air and giggle to himself.

"Wouldn't they speak ancient egyptian?" Aidan's brows furrowed slowly. "Why would they speak Arabic? Wait did they speak that back then?" He scratched his head again. "Oh! I bet you could find a way to talk to them normally. Or make pictures or... or maybe they can show you places that are important!"

"So the stone is a translator? Does it just tell them what it means? " Aidan blinked and canted his head. "Microwave instructions..Oh I think I get it now. I think. Maybe? Yes! I get it now. It's like having one of those rings the cereal gives you because it likes you."

Elijah

"It's mostly just those little fake diamonds? A lot of glass and crystal but it's made out of freaking titanium, which I thought was kinda badass. The thing is freaking impossible to break," as though they had tried to put the tiara to the test. Couldn't even coax it into a wobbly semi circle. We digress.

He starts to meander, picking the bag back up and halfway precariously perching the book in one hand, and he makes his way slowly to a nearby window to look at what might be there. Elijah didn't have a shopping problem, wasn't prone to impulse buying- or, rather, was very good at convincing himself whatever it was that he was buying wasn't an impulse buy and therefore needed to come home with him. This is how you end up with three books on ancient Egypt, ladies and gentlemen.

"I think if I were to show up in Egypt I'd get eaten alive by tourist traps and get robbed and I'd end up having to ask very politely to have someone come and fly me back home on account of being stranded in a country where I don't speak the language. Basically, I'd just be bracing for disaster. And languages morph and develop and change over time depending upon a number of factors, like who is ruling and who is conquering and what's going on politically. And some languages end up dying out over time." A shrug, "it's a thing."

"Anyway," he drops his voice and converses in more conspiratorial, quiet tones. Slips in and is a little more in Aidan's space than he was before, "not everyone has the luxury or opportunity to talk to things directly, so that's why things like the Rosetta stone are hugely significant. Being able to interact with the actual, like, spiritual manifestation of things is generally considered the exception instead of the rule."

Dan

Tall guy, lanky. Somewhere north of 25, and actually north of 30, thank you very much. Happens to the best of us, happens to all of us if we're lucky enough. Black skinny jeans and a button-down short-sleeved plaid shirt. No bow-tie tonight. The button-down is open a the collar. Arms full of tattoos, from the edge of his wrists until they disappear beneath the sleeve of the short-sleeve shirt, colorful work, deliberate and deliberately chosen.

Exits a little hole in the wall, frowning at the display on his phone, lighting a cigarette.

Doesn't normally smoke except when she smokes, but, well.

Sometimes you just need a vice.

Steel

Ever since coming to this city, Steel had pretty much kept herself to herself. Oh, she’d been out and had contact with people at the most superficial level, but no real contact. Nothing more than some very tense, stressed minutes while she got away anyway. It had been relatively easy the last time she’d tried this. But that was before she knew about who – and what – was out there, and generally best left far, far away.

There comes a need to make new connections, but there are various issues surrounding trust to get over first. Otherwise it would simply be a case of saying ‘hi’ and letting her own resonance flare out to mingle and merge with theirs. No, she needs to know more about this guy before she risks coming out in the open. She doesn’t exactly have the resources to search official files, doesn’t have the contacts in the city (yet) to ask around and see what people have to say.

Which leaves a possibly riskier approach. Steel pushes away from the window and turns to walk, a route which just happens to pass by Elijah and Aidan. She seems to stumble on something and bumps into Elijah, muttering some kind of apology. The voice, for as long as it lingers in memory, sounds vaguely English.

[Dex+Larceny, I’ll have your wallet please, Elijah. Pickpocketing spec, Larceny aptitude. Which I completely forgot about earlier, still not used to this character's dicings.]

Dice: 8 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 7) ( success x 3 ) [Doubling Tens] [WP]

Elijah

[Per+alert=6 - 3 (damn you, arcane!)= 3, diff 6]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5) ( botch x 1 ) [Doubling Tens]

Aidan

[Perc + alertness? Totally just a trip right miss? 7-3= 4 dice]

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

Aidan

"Did she name it? Sometimes things like to be named. It makes them special." Or maybe Aidan just liked to name them and he was convinced they liked it. But Aidan moves with Elijah no, lifting his hand sup to wrap around behind his neck, his elbows hanging down against his chest. He hummed when they moved, even whe Elijah talked. When they stopped at a window, Aidan beamed. "Oh that's pretty!" He said with a smile, dropping his hands and leaning against the glass. He pressed his palms against it. "I wonder what the pattern is for that. " He squinted his eyes, pressed his nose against the glass."Oh. So you should learn the language then. Leanr the language and visit. Then you'll learn what you need to learn from the people who lived there right? I bet if you ask someone real nice, they'll teach it to you." And someone really meant someone that wasn't necessarily corporeal to everyone else.

Aidan's head jerked up and he looked away from Elijah momentarily. But then he realized he was talking to him and Aidan turned his attention back. "huh?"

"Oh! I forgot." A small laugh escaped him, as if it were just some tiny joke between the two of them. Sometimes he really did forget that people couldn't 'see things.'

Now Aidan notices Steel bump into Elijah, even tries to give her a smile to show it's alright. "That's OK." He says it almost on behalf of Elijah. But he doesn't notice the wallet grab. It's all innocent to him. But then...wasn't most things?

Elijah

All he knows, at that juncture, is that he ran into an English woman who had a voice that was sort of highish lowish mezzo soprano alto coloratura feeling to it. Who had hair that was… uh… something. She had clothes on!e remembered very distinctly that she had clothes on, and he responded to the apology with a- "hey, no problem-"

but he's walking, you see. He's walking and there was someone who was presumably attractive shaped and had a lovely accent and he was thinking about something and about to explain something to Aidan and all was well and fine and dandy-

But he kept walking. And was heedless of the fact that he was walking into a store from with a giant glass window. A floor-to-ceiling glass window that was polished and primed and perfect and probably should have had some tape on it or an X or something that would indicate that people need to stop walking at some point.

Elijah did not.

The next thing he knows, there is a hollow clang and a reverberation and he has sprawled, flat on his ass, in front of a giant glass storefront. Now, carefully adorned with an Elijah-shaped set of prints where he'd run flat into it.

Dan

He lights that smoke. Inhales, long and raw and slow. One hand with the cigarette, the other - rough fingers, broad palm - around the screen in his hand. Turns his blond head and gives a faint smirk goodbye to friends leaving the bar - not for a smoke but, for good. Words are exchanged, and there would be a fistbump but he has both hands occupied. Straightens all-at-once when Elijah walks right into a picture window. Considers stubbing out the cigarette and heading over to help but sees the kid with them.

Figures they're on a date.

Wonders if he oughtta suggest Elijah check the kid's ID before sleeping with him.

Thinks better of going over to see if Elijlah is okay since that other kid is there.'

Steel

Steel had planned on just walking away, blending into the faceless crowd and going through the wallet carefully, away from any other prying eyes who might wonder where she happened to come across a wallet of a young man who she most definitely didn’t look like or was in any way related to. Although it’s surprising the things that you can ‘’just happen” to find that others have unintentionally dropped.

There’s a noise – some noises - just behind her, though. Not the kind of noise that comes with having been made, that kind of noise tended to involve a lot more shouting and running and calling for the police. So it creates a pause, just long enough to look back over her shoulder at what she was about to leave behind. She sees the young man sprawled on the ground and the oily marks that his skin had left on the plate glass window, and she laughs. Just the once, but it’s been so long since she last did it and it felt good to just enjoy that fleeting moment. And it is fleeting because she needs to vanish before he tries to pay for something, notices what’s missing, and tries to patch together what had happened.

And so she fades from view, and most likely from memory.

Steel

[Sorry that was slow, didn't spot it was my go]