It'll ruin my fucking day.

Serafíne

Whiskey River doesn't actually serve much whiskey and there's not a single fucking river in the whole of the sweet little bar tucked away on a sidestreet in East Colfax. The bartender/owner is (naturally) a guy with a pretty impressive beard and round coke-bottle glasses and a thing for hard ciders. Not commercial ciders - too sweet, too girly - but old fashioned ciders where all the sugars have been fermented out so that the alcohol is rather closer to champagne than apple juice, or Red's Apple Ale (heresy: that shit will never be served here.)

It's early. Whiskey River doesn't have a kitchen, doesn't serve food. It's just a bar, not some fucking gastropub. Oh there's always a foodtruck nearby, at least when there's a Thing and often when there's not a Thing but in a city of any size there's almost always some sort of Thing close by. The point though: there's no kitchen, no dinner rush, a few regulars for happy hour maybe but it's not the sort of place that middle managers seek out after their nine to five so at this hour Whiskey River is uncrowded and uncluttered. A little extra business downstairs sure thanks to the pot dispensary upstairs and you can sit out on the back deck beneath the arbor overhung with vines and smoke a discrete bowl and watch some friends unload gear from a white conversion van.

Inside there's this girl seated at the bar. Feels like a rock star and she's wearing sunglasses inside in daylight and has half-her-head shaved so, hey. Maybe. Elfin ears bristle with metal, as do her heavy black combat boots. The bartender has laid out one of those long hand-hewn wooden troughs full of little tasting glasses and one of the guys setting up the stage takes a break to come to her and wrap his arms around her shoulders and drop his mouth to the crown of her dyed blond head. Murmurs something that makes her lift her head up, all sudden and ghosting smiles.

(What he says, which you can't hear, is: I thought you weren't drinking tonight. What he thinks, which you also can't hear, is: If you're going to drink, I wish you'd eat something.

What she says, laughing, back is: I changed my mind.

Girl's got a right.)

Ian

Sometimes people ended up in bars by happenstance - because they were nearby and wanted a drink and hey, look... there's a sign. Ian had never been inside of Whiskey River before and had no real idea of the kind of drinks they served there, but his car was waiting for an oil change and he had time to kill, so he jogged across the street and slipped in through the front door.

The place was relatively empty, apart from the bartender and a scattered handful of regulars. It made Sera's presence at the bar all the more eye-catching, with her bottle-blond hair and her pierced ears and her sunglasses and that unmistakably potent resonance. It didn't take long for Ian to find his way over to her, dropping down onto the seat next to her own. The sleeveless shirt he had on (it was an old black band shirt with a picture of Iggy Pop on the front) showed off the warm tan of his arms when he leaned over and rested his weight on his elbows.

"Any recommendations?" He nodded toward the bottles lined up on the wall and the taps down at the end of the bar.

Serafíne

"Not yet."

Sera, with the flash of a smile - white teeth in a painted mouth, quick and sure - and Ian's own reflection doubled back at him in the surface of her sunglasses. Her posture is a mirror of his - elbows against the bar, her forearms hovering, her hands fine, deliberate, inked - above the tasting glasses. There are stem glasses and brandy-like snifters and beer glasses, all miniaturizednd lined up in front of her. That posture of hers half resembles a master playing chess, half a monk at prayer.

"I'm tasting." So she says, so she smiles, nudging her wooden tray in Ian's direction. "Ciders. You can start on that side and meet me in the middle if you want. I've got a card here somewhere to say what the fuck everything is."

Then her eyes drop from Ian's face to his chest. Back again.

"Tell me that t-shirt belonged to your fucking ex-boyfriend and he left it behind when you kicked his ass out."

Ian

"I don't do boyfriends. If I did, I wouldn't fucking steal their clothes." He glanced down at the shirt for a moment, contemplative. The fabric was thin and faded. A couple of holes showed in the hem at his hip. It fit the over-all look he had going, with his fashionably distressed jeans and black harness boots. Maybe that was intentional, or maybe it was just laundry day. "I got this at a thrift store in New York."

He eyed the drinks on Sera's tray. When the bartender started to approach, Ian gave a little wave of his hand to indicate that he was fine. If she wanted to share, he wasn't going to complain. So he picked up the glass on the end closest to him, swirling the contents slowly. The cider had an opaque golden glow where the light hit. When he took a drink, he let the flavors sit for a moment on his tongue.

"Hmm. Less sweet than I thought it would be." Judging by his tone, that wasn't a complaint.

"You look like a vampire," he teased, reaching over to wiggle the edge of Sera's sunglasses.

Serafíne

PERCEPTION PLUS EMPATHY MAGIC POWERZ? (focused on don't do boyfriends because why the hell not.)

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 2, 2, 5, 8, 9) ( success x 3 ) [Doubling Tens]

Ian

It was a matter-of-fact remark. And from what Sera could tell, an honest one (at least from Ian's perspective.) Whatever the status of his particular relationships, he seemed to have a knee-jerk resistance to the word: boyfriend. (Which, knowing him, probably applied equally to girlfriend. Though he had once admitted to having one of those.) Both the title and the implications.

He didn't have any particularly strong emotions about it though. At least, not at that moment. What little was there to read was mostly along the lines of: yeah, no thanks.

Serafíne

"I love thrift stores," Sera tosses back. "Buffalo Exchange is the fucking best. Though I never exactly pictured you inside one. Don't tell me I've judged you all wrong either, Ian. It'll ruin my fucking day."

The last with a slicing grin that is both half-a-challenge and suggests, well, that her day will be anything but ruined no matter what he says.

Sera doesn't really examine the cider. Doesn't lift it to the light to examine the tone, the clarity, the texture. She takes one of the glasses at the far end of the tray, lifts it, drinks. And savors, yeah. Makes a contemplative noise when Ian says that the drink is less sweet than he assumed; more complex. The effervescence and the noise and the base and top notes merging on the palette.

"I'm too fucking tan to be a vampire," she tosses back, lifting her brows as he wiggles her glasses, leaning into it, inviting physical contact in a manner than is heedless, thoughtless, reckless. "And I don't have the teeth.

"You wanna see my new tattoo?"

Ian

Don't tell me I've judged you all wrong.

Ian laughed at that. "I like what I like. But if it makes you feel better, these jeans cost about three hundred dollars."

Likely Sera had a whole closet full of shoes that cost more than that, but it was still a fairly large sum to pay for jeans on a dancer's income. That much, Sera had never been wrong about. Ian's priorities leaned rather heavily toward vanity.

Sera thought she was too fucking tan to be a vampire. It wasn't that long ago that vampires had been in their thoughts in a very real and visceral way, and yet... here the two of them were, joking about it like they were nothing more than myths of folklore and Hollywood horror. How odd their lives were, sometimes. Ian responded to Sera's claim with a broad grin, showing off the white gleam of his own teeth. His canines had always been just a tiny bit too sharp. Perhaps it was him who was secretly harboring vampiric tendencies.

You wanna see my new tattoo?

"Sure."

Ian tipped back his head and finished off his cider. When he set the empty glass down, he leaned closer to Sera, eyeing her with a curious slant to his gaze.

Serafíne

Sera is - in fact - carrying tonight a skull-studded clutch made by Alexander McQueen that costs upwards of two thousand dollars but no matter. Ian likes what he likes. Sera likes what she likes and on some level maintains this absolute bloody pretense that she is not utterly loaded. Twines bicycle chains with her strains of golden south seas pearls, wears tin bubble-gum rings on the hand opposite that deceptively ancient bronze piece she always seems to wear on her right index finger.

And on, and on, and on.

--

But hmmm. Here they are. She says something about her tan (and it is summer, and she is - brilliantly, beautifully golden) and teeth and Ian flashes his, without remark and she, lovely thing, is looking at him. Looking at him, in profile, inhaling over the rim of the next sample she is about to down a certain tick of recognition evident in her countenance that surfaces and turns over and subsides in the time it takes her to swallow the next one down. Golden, dry - winesaps, so says the cheat-sheet on the bar in front of her.

And they're talking about her new tattoo, and it isn't that new really, just new compared to the others and as she sets down her glass she offers Ian her left forearm. Turns it over.

So much ink on her arms, hands, wrists, fingers. On the palm of her left hand her absurd tattoo of a pair of scissors, the blades on either finger, the handle either turning into or being consumed by a shark whose body continues down her palm and onto her wrist. Other bits here and there: compressed letters and words, miniscule images, familiar enough from the flash of her hands. She has a larger piece on her right forearm (a crow's skull) and another large piece on her upper left arm (a grinning, skeletal torso) - but the new tattoo she points out to him (likely with yet another tattoo-framed finger) tumbles down the inside of her left forearm, three small letters following sinuous twists of one of the darker veins branching beneath her skin like objects tumbling down a waterfall.

Three little letters, all akimbo

y

e

s

--

"I think you should try having a boyfriend someday," Sera tells him, then. Why the fuck not? She has opinions about everything, it seems.

Ian

[Life 2, coincidental diff 5 +1 (just had a drink) -1 (practiced)]

Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (2, 5, 6) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Ian

Sera looked at him, and in the light of the bar his features had a sharp cast. The slope of his eyes, his nose, his lips; the angles of his cheeks and jaw... there was primal elegance in his profile. The kind of beauty that felt at least partly unapproachable - like glossy magazine prints and skyscraper billboards. Sera was that kind of beautiful too. The kind that could hurt, sometimes.

But Ian didn't have any tattoos.

Sera turned her arm over, and her skin said: yes. Ian smiled, just a little, and touched the palm of her hand, guiding a slow, winding path down her wrist to her forearm, where those three letters greeted him. He traced over each one with the tip of his finger, and where he touched the nerves in her skin prickled with warmth and something like the gentlest electric current. As though in acknowledgment of the invocation inked into her flesh.

"I'll take that under advisement."

Serafíne

Awareness. 'Cos!

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

Serafíne

So, Prime 1: Watch the Weaving. Dif 4 -1 (practiced).

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (5, 6, 10) ( success x 3 )

Serafíne

She said the tattoo was new, but it has been long enough that her skin has healed, the ink sealed deep in the layers of her skin. Nothing raw, or raised, or scabbed over about it, really. Months old and yet: new.

--

He touches her. She, lovely thing, goes still in a way the feels expectant, active, animal, coruscant. Head tucked as if she wear listening for a secret. Somewhere between pointing out the new tattoo and Ian reaching for her hand and wrist, she has picked up the next of her drinks with her free hand. Her fingers steepled over the mouth of the glass are still now too.

She has the oddest little smile on her face, no more than a twist of her darting mouth, a certain curve lifting her cheek and she does glance at him, then, when she senses his magic, when she both feels the warmth, the current, and also inhales the texture of as it hangs in the air - around him, between him. Breathes it in and breathes it out,

and looks,

and sees,

mesmeric. Mesmerized, right?

She exhales, a little bit of force from the diaphragm with the shape of a laugh that has gone unvoiced. Her dark eyes bank from his hand to his profile as he assures her that he will take that under advisement. The tone makes her laugh again, and laughter becomes her.

She says, "Will you?" because she wants to needle him, and, a moment later, quieter, "Don't stop," because she doesn't want him to stop. Not right now. Not precisely yet.

The magic, she means. Doesn't she?

And, yeah, the rest of it.

Ian

[One more roll for good measure]

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

Ian

Will you?

"No." His smile broadened when he spoke, the answer a little needle of its own. He was a stubborn creature. But needling words aside, he didn't seem terribly interested in resistance just then.

Don't stop.

Ian's lips parted. His breath exhaled full and slow. Sera's skin was warm and alive beneath his touch, her body language inviting him in as much as her words. That slow, tracing contact from his index finger spread into a series of points as his hand settled onto her arm and slid up the length of it - to her shoulder and then her neck. Wherever his fingers touched, her skin came alive underneath them. When he reached her throat, he slid the pad of his thumb over an artery, feeling the faint beat of her pulse. With his other hand, he reached over and pulled her sunglasses from her face, setting them down on the bar. When he could see her eyes, he looked at her, tilting his head slightly as though in curiosity. His gaze flickered from her irises to her lips.

When he kissed her, it was open-mouthed. Slow and almost infuriatingly gentle, but when his tongue touched hers, it sent a spark of sensation radiating down through her body.

Serafíne

This is what denial does both to her and for her, you see. Wears her, or perhaps she wears it, until her want is as close to the surface as her pleasures ordinarily would be. This is what she seeks, cultivates, hones in these days and nights when she denies herself. No hairshirt purification this vaguely ritualistic fasting of hers, (when she is starving, when she is wanting, when she is hungry, when she is sober The Next Step seems so achingly close that she can hardly begin to understand how or why she doesn't end each fraught, hungry night making out with her goddamned avatar), but something else entirely. Quite as deliberate, and also - somehow - (entirely) wanton.

She is just so - hungry.

-

Another breath, the edge of laughter on its cusp but still withheld as his hand continues up her forearm, and over her spare biceps to her shoulder, to her temple. The glasses she allows, and he finds her on the otherside, the smear of eyeshadow and mascara, her pupils a bit dilated from both the darkness and perhaps some small bit of something she has ingested contricting like a predator's as he pries away the glasses. But she's no predator, not really, she's something else entirely and she is curving her neck in his directly, lifting her chin, inviting his gaze, his touch, his mouth with this lambent stillness that haloes her.

And maybe he starts that kiss slow and infuriatingly gentle - seeking her, provoking her - but fuck it. There is this moment between where she is hanging there, tenterhooked, that sensation sparking warm against her tongue and spreading.

And then she makes this noise.

God that noise.

And she's on her feet and she's kissing him back kissing him back and she wants wants wants and nevermind that it is 5 p.m. or maybe 6 and Ian is maybe getting his oil changed and running and errand and her bandmates are setting up the stage for a quick little runthrough of a gig where they're gonna work (really work) on those songs they're gonna put on the EP and she's (mostly) fasting because It Is Time for Things to Happen and this is Ian and she wants to tell him to go get a boyfriend already, try a relationship, it's not that hard, because she likes to tweak him and she knows he can take it and anyway she has Opinions and none of that matters.

She's reaching for him.

Her hands are in his hair and she's stepping into him and he's kissing her and she's kissing him back harder, breathing the air from his lungs and if there were a wall behind him she'd probably have him pressed against it in two seconds flat, that's the kind of kiss this is.

Serafíne

Time 3 / Mind 2 / Life 2 (Coincidental. Dif: 6. -1 focus. -1 resonance.) I think she'll need at least 4 successes for minimal effect.

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (1, 8, 8) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Serafíne

Extending. :D Dif +1

Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (2, 9, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Ian

There were things about Ian that Sera didn't know. Facets of his life and his emotions that only made a complete picture when viewed as a whole. She didn't know that he'd once had something like a boyfriend. But he wasn't thinking about that right now, because Sera was kissing him like she was ravenous and there wasn't room for anything else in his head or his body apart from that overwhelming sensation. It caught him a little off-guard at first, and when she stood up - when she pushed into him - he answered her sound with a quiet one of his own. This low note in his throat - pleased and surprised and slightly tinged with his own hunger.

It was a feeling he knew well. The drive of it. The aggression. The way it coiled up from his stomach into his his teeth and his fingers. The pool of it low in his hips. They were in public. It was barely dinner time and the bar was only sparsely populated, which made their little demonstration all the more obvious to anyone watching. Perhaps the bartender shot them a surprised look and wondered if maybe he ought to say something (suggest they find somewhere else to do whatever it was they were in the midst of doing.) Perhaps one of the customers watched them and secretly hoped that maybe they would stay right where they were. If so, Ian didn't notice, because Sera had his attention captured completely.

They were both standing now, and Ian slid his fingers into Sera's hair, grasping at it on the longer side while his other hand scratched through the soft buzz of the shorn half. Sera kissed him hard enough that their teeth clicked together, and Ian's lips spread in response - almost a baring of fangs (if he had them.) He bit down on her lip hard enough to leave it reddened.

And then time just... stretched. Like an infinite pool of hunger and breath and touch and that kiss, when he melted into her again, seemed to go on forever. And dimly he realized that might be Sera's doing (the same way those warm little sparks of sensation where his) but if so he wasn't about to complain.

Except that, really, pulling off someone's clothes in an open bar was a bit too exhibitionist even for him. Sera wanted to push him somewhere, but there was only empty air behind them. And now the bartender was looking at them. And probably so was everybody else.

"Mm, we should go somewhere," Ian murmured against her lips.

Sera

Mmm, we should go somewhere.

He has to break the kiss in order to murmur that, even if it is murmured against her lips. And, really, she has to breathe sometime, doesn't she? And she: loves to breathe, relishes this too, this coming up for air, the crest of the wave of want and fulfillment when she is breathless enough that her chest is still aching and the first molecules of oxygen are hitting her lungs.

His first answer is laughter. She has pulled away now enough to breathe and her brow rests against apex of his cheek, the bridge of her nose against his jawline, her mouth below, seeking his neck, but gentler now. The first wave of push him against the wall is past and she is dimly aware that she succeeded only in upending a few barstools or something. And that informs the laughter. Shapes it in her body and in her breath.

Her hands have found his body, of course - and her arms are loose around his waist now. Maybe others are watching. Maybe Dan, setting up for the little happy hour set they were going to play to work through some early ideas for the EP Sera has promised she will buckle down to produce: soon, soon, soon.

"Maybe there's a back room," she mutters back, mouth open, seeking him with her teeth now. Because see, " - we're supposed to play soon. Or you could stay and watch. Take me home, after."

Ian

There was a long delay in his response. Sera's mouth found his neck and with her arms wrapped around his waist she'd be able to feel the way his muscles moved - the shift and flex of them beneath his skin. His stomach tightened when he exhaled. The sound of his breath hitched slightly when he felt teeth on his throat. Had the two of them not been in a public space, this whole affair likely would have unfolded differently.

Ian traced his thumb over the shorn part of Sera's hair, losing himself for a moment in the way it felt under his touch. It would have been easy to stay there with her: to fall into the sensory experience of just exploring the way her body felt against his lips and his hands. It would have been easy to pull her (or let her pull him) into some back room and forget that both of them had other obligations. It would have been so fucking easy. Like falling. But the rush of Sera's impulsive energy was slowing down, pooling around them in this lazy sensuality. And the reminder that she did, in fact, have other obligations, was enough to make Ian pause. Enough to make him blink and look up and think in this strange, idle way, that something about Sera smelled different.

No, she smelled like Sera. Sun-kissed and cider-steeped and punctuated with bits of metal. But Ian noticed it - the presence of her. The newness (even though they'd kissed like this before.) And for a split second it made him feel as though he were out of place (in this bar, in her arms.)

He hesitated, caught somewhere between pleasure and hunger and this creeping sense of doubt.

"To be honest..." he gave a breathy laugh as he began to pull away, reaching back to unhook Sera's arms from around his waist. "I can't really stay. I should probably just let you do your thing."

Sera

Hard to tell when she becomes aware of the change-in-him. Hard to establish, precisely, when it clicks home to her that he has withdrawn from the strange click-home concordance that was - seemed to be - lock-and-key because whereever she is, there is no room for idle thought. She's still there, her brow against his cheek, her mouth beneath his jaw, this sense of wholly-animal-seeking about her now more refined, tempered. Almost delicate: an opening not a consumption.

But then he's laughing - to be honest - and she doesn't know what that actually means but he's pulling away and reaching to unhook her hands and she sure as hell knows what that means. He doesn't really get to do that: unhook her hands from around his waist, because when he starts to do that, like he's untying a strange little knot she figures it out and drops the contact and pulls away, pretty much all-at-once. Breathless on an inhale, this sharp kind of withdrawal that has her dark eyes stitching with this neat, darting, quite shallow precision over his face.

Her brows are drawn together, and her hands - and her body - are shaking, just a little bit. Doesn't say anything, and after that brief, shallow glance - she just turns around and walks away.

Ian

It was a gradual thing, the subtle slide-shift in Ian's expression when Sera pulled away. Because, whatever his conflicts, part of him was still there - still pulling in breath like he couldn't get enough of it, his skin still flushed from the contact - lips still swollen, red, parted, wet. He caught the shake in her hands when she turned. Expected her, maybe, to say something. But she didn't. For a moment it looked like maybe he regretted it (pulling away,) but that would have been an oversimplified reading - and she wasn't watching him anyway.

She didn't ask if he was alright. It was debatable whether he would have really answered if she had.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly. Then he turned around and left the bar.

Sera

She doesn't ask him if he's okay. He doesn't ask her, either. And he's always closed off and right now - right now she's trying very hard to be closed off too and she has not quite the shittiest-walls ever but it's close but if you never think to try to looksee what's on the other side, well. Right now she can't look at him, not really. She has learned to give herself permission to just feel her shit sometimes and not everyone else's, and she's not going to turn around, no sir, except -

It's the apology, the I'm sorry he offers to her back that has her spinning around amidst the disordered jumble of barstools they've upended and shoved about all around them and she spins like whoa.

"Fuck you Ian. I don't accept your generic bullshit apology. What the fuck."

--

Maybe he still leaves. Maybe he doesn't. She's a seer but that doesn't mean she knows which path he's going to take.

Ian

He'd apologized because he had - genuinely - felt bad. For hurting her. For disappointing her. But the moment Sera turned around and lashed out, that empathy snapped off like the flick of a light switch. Maybe she saw it in his eyes. The way they went from soft to obsidian-sharp during the span of a few breaths.

"Don't accept it then."

Maybe Sera had more to say. Maybe she didn't. Either way, he didn't turn back after that.

Ian

Something Biblical

Ian

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

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

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

Grace

[Awareness!]

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

Serafíne

Also: awareness.

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

Grace

[ lol ]

Serafíne

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

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

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

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

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

There.

Grace

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

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

Today, it's the weird.

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

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

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

Ian

[Awareness]

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

Serafíne

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

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

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

Smiles: quiet, compressed, spreading, slow.

Lovely.

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

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

Ian

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

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

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

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

Grace

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

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

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

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

Serafíne

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

"I'm glad you're well."

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

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

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

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

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

Elijah

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

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

Elijah

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

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

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

Something.

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

Ian

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

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

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

Grace

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

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

Arionna de la Babin

[awareness]

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

Arionna de la Babin

[Alertness]

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

Grace

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

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

Arionna de la Babin

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

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

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

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

Ian

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

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

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

Serafíne

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

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

--

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

Elijah

[Who am I looking at?]

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

Grace

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

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

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

Ian

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

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

Elijah

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

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

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

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

A beat.

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

Serafíne

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

Arionna de la Babin

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

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

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

Ian

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

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

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

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

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

Grace

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

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

But no, no such luck.

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

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

With that, she goes to right her bicycle again.

Serafíne

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

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

--

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

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

(Per + Empathy: WTF Grace?)

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

Elijah

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

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

Arionna de la Babin

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

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

Grace

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

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

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

Elijah

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

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

Elijah

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

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

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

Arionna de la Babin

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

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

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

Ian

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

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

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

Grace

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

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

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

Serafíne

"See you guys."

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

Another kind of magic.

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

Hey, we're all entitled.

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

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

Serafíne

(Graceful jump? Dex + Ath)

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

Serafíne

ish. night y'all!

Domesticated

Ian

The weather out in Morrison was cool and slightly cloudy. At the Chantry, Annie was out on a riding lawnmower, cutting the grass in the front lawn. She glanced up when Ian's car wound up the country road and pulled into the driveway, watching him with half of her attention while she navigated the mower past the front steps. The sound of the the engine was a loud, echoing buzz through the otherwise still landscape.

When Ian got out of the car, he lifted a hand in greeting. She acknowledged him with a nod, strawberry-blond hair flickering around her in the breeze. She looked as if she'd been landscaping most of the day. Her skin was tanned, her forehead beaded with sweat despite the cool breeze. As Ian approached, she killed the engine and leaned forward onto the steering wheel.

"There's some beer in the fridge, if you want it. Dogfish Head I think."

"I might. Thanks. You should join me."

"Mm, maybe when I'm done."

She started the engine up again, and Ian hopped up the steps to let himself inside.

Elijah

He had come with the explicit intent to read. Elijah had a thing about libraries. A thing about burying himself in studying and feeling the quiet, bookish rush when he found something he didn't know, transcribed it somewhere personal for later. Quietly and neatly tucked away for his private use. Elijah didn't know there would be people here. He hadn't anticipated it, but then again he never really anticipates seeing people. It just happens. Kind of like showing up at parties and dancing and making bad choices with regards to women happens. Elijah just kind of accepted that some things happened.

When he pulls up, he notices a lady on a motor cycle. With strawberry blonde hair, and he's getting off his motor cycle and putting his helmet away and he gives a little wave.

"I haven't met you-" he says, but realizes that he isn't being loud enough over the mower. He's wearing jeans. Jeans and a shirt with three quarter sleeves that buttoned part of the way. He has a vest on, but it's buttoned tight. Pocketwatch nestled close against his ribcage.

"Hi, I'm Elijah!" he waved, "I've been using your crap-er-stuff! Do you need anything?"

Serafíne

Coincidence, something like it. Five minutes, maybe ten after Ian pulls up outside the chantry another vehicle rattles up the driveway. This one is larger and sketchier looking: an old conversion van with Colorado plates and a handful of peeling bumper stickets affixed to the back doors. The engine ticks quietly beneath the hood after the driver turns it off and it sits there still for a long moment before both the driver's and passenger's doors open. Dan hops out of the driver's side. Sera sliiiiides down from the passenger's side, careful in her heels.
The tall consor loops around to the back and opens one of the back doors to grab a brown paper back from the back. Handles that bag with both confidence (he asked them to double bag it) and care (that's top-shelf liquor in there) and lifts a hand to wave to Annie as he circles 'round to take Sera's arm. She doesn't really move until he's by her side, seems absolutely enthralled by the way her toes wiggles.
Then she takes this deepdeep breath and lifts face to the cool, cloud-scattered sky. Is: absolutely still for one long moment, marveling at its vastness and the way it makes her feel equally: immense and immeasureably small, grateful to have blood running through her veins, and - inexplicably, or perhaps not-so-inexplicably, briefly, spine-curvingly sad. All of that, all at once, all liquid through her.
Then she takes Dan's arm and cuddles close and then head in too. Why the hell not: their might be waffles inside, or lilies of the valley, or Ian, or whatever.

Serafíne

(Repost: to fix typos AND paragraph breaks.)

Coincidence, something like it. Five minutes, maybe ten after Ian pulls up outside the chantry another vehicle rattles up the driveway. This one is larger and sketchier looking: an old conversion van with Colorado plates and a handful of peeling bumper stickers affixed to the back doors. The engine ticks quietly beneath the hood after the driver turns it off and it sits there still for a long moment before both the driver's and passenger's doors open. Dan hops out of the driver's side. Sera sliiiiides down from the passenger's side, careful in her heels.
The tall consor loops around to the back and opens one of the back doors to grab a brown paper back from the back. Handles that bag with both confidence (he asked them to double bag it) and care (that's top-shelf liquor in there) and lifts a hand to wave to Annie as he circles 'round to take Sera's arm. She doesn't really move until he's by her side, seems absolutely enthralled by the way her toes wiggle.

Then she takes this deepdeep breath and lifts face to the cool, cloud-scattered sky. Is: absolutely still for one long moment, marveling at its vastness and the way it makes her feel equally: immense and immeasurably small, grateful to have blood running through her veins, and - inexplicably, or perhaps not-so-inexplicably, briefly, spine-curvingly sad. All of that, all at once, all liquid through her.

Then she takes Dan's arm and cuddles close and then head in too. Why the hell not: there might be waffles inside, or lilies of the valley, or Ian, or whatever.

Kalen Holliday

Kalen also drives up to the chantry. He hasn't really spoken to...really anyone who isn't living with him lately. And, even then, he's been gone a lot. Tango lessons and photography lessons and actual tango dancing and taking pictures, although never actually pictures of tango dancing. Mostly pictures of nature, but sometimes streetscapes. Abandoned places. Lost things.

He has a growing collection of pictures of sunrise. Some of the prints are tucked into the pages of books of poems in yet another place he can't bring himself to call home. A place with vegetarian cookbooks and notes on brewing kombucha. He brings echoes of that place with him though, echoes of something quieter and calmer and traces of the smoke from clove cigarettes and sage.

Annie gets a nod, but little other greeting. Elijah gets a smile. And then Kalen heads into the house itself.

Ian

Sera and Dan got a wave from Annie, a little more relaxed (more familiar) than she'd been with Ian. "You all decide to have a gathering I didn't know about?" The pitch of her voice rose above the buzz of the engine as the two made their way up to the house. The question didn't really seem to require an answer, as evidenced by the fact that she redirected her attention to Elijah a moment later.

He was trying to talk to her, so she cut the engine again (reluctantly) and got down off the riding mower. A pair of work gloves donned her hands, and she pulled them off one by one as she sauntered over to offer Elijah a proper greeting. "Elijah, you said? I'm Annie." She stuck out her hand for him to shake. "Feel free to head inside. I've got some work to finish up."

---

When Dan and Sera entered the house, they found Ian standing with Leah in the hallway. She had her back against the wall, lounging slightly as she spoke to him. She smiled a little. Tucked a section of her hair behind her ear. When she looked at Sera, her smile brightened momentarily. "Hey Sera." Ian glanced over his shoulder and nodded at them. He looked as though he was about to head into the dining room, but just then Kalen walked in the door, and he stopped.

He met Kalen's eyes for a long moment. Then he strode off toward the patio door.

Serafíne

WHAT WAS THAT IAN. (Per + Empathy)

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )

Elijah

(waaaaiiiit, WTF? +2, because he really wasn't paying attention. Per+empathy)

Dice: 7 d10 TN8 (1, 2, 5, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

Ian

[I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about.]

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

Kalen Holliday

[So many dice everywhere. Perception+Empathy]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 4, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

Elijah

"Awesome, thanks! It's great to meet you Annie-" he takes her hand and gives it a shake. His smile is bright, his eyes are too, "-I figure when you finish up we could play three man or something."

He grins, something playful, but frankly anyone who knows the game knows that you really, really don't want to play three man. Not if you loved your liver. Not if you wanted to remember how the evening ended- frankly the only thing that gets you drunker faster is an illustrious game known only as fuck the bus. He wasn't sure why it was called fuck the bus, but Elijah didn't seem to really care. It got you drunk fast and involved playing cards.

In he went, and he did as he usually did, paused in the hallway, acknowledged anyone who came by. Ian got a wave, Kalen got a smile (and a note shoved under his door, hastily written trying to memorize library, bbl because Elijah would try to memorize a library if given the opportunity.)

"Hey, Sera. Hey, Dan," voice warm smile brighter, whole being reaching for more than what he was. Restlessness given a direction. Chaos reaching the bounds of what he is and trying for more. Insistent we are more than this

Elijah

(Elijah wasn't in the house for that look, sweeeeeep that under the rug)

Ian

Whatever that look was about between Ian and Kalen, it was likely more complicated than what little could be intuited on the surface. What Sera can tell is that Ian is not completely happy with Kalen at the moment, and was not expecting to see him. And that whatever is going on, he's perhaps less than keen on talking about it in this setting, with other people around.

Serafíne

"Leah." That's Dan. Half-greeting, half-reminder murmured into the soft fringe of Sera's sidecut as they walk in and he disentangles himself from the tugging insistence of her arm, looped through his. It does seem to remind her. She pulls herself upright then, through the shoulders at the spine, and smiles warmly back at the girl.

Lifts up her hand - palm flat and open - and waves, this deliberate and segmented movement of her fingers that makes the tendons in her wrist move like the hammers in a piano as glissades down a scale. The dark ink on her skin: on her forearm, framing her hand, inside her wrist, following the delicate branches of her pale blue veins. The warm bronze of the little ring she always seems to wear on her right index finger.

She is wearing tiny little denim cut-offs, an expensive black bra beneath an unzipped black hoodie and strappy black sandals, sky-high heels, laces wrapped up her calves to her thighs, decorated with a scattering of butterflies. Why the fuck not?

Catches the look from Kalen to Ian, back again. Glances at Elijah and smiles at him when he greets her, then turns back to Dan as the latter unpacks the liquor they've brought onto the kitchen counter. Murmurs something against his shoulder.

Kalen Holliday

And everything was so perfect until he actually got here, wasn't it?

Everything is always perfect, until he actually touches it. And then...well...and then it changes. Transforms. Liquid and shimmering into something else. Everything is always doing that, though. Whether he touches it or not.

It doesn't always end badly, does it? Depending on at what point you consider a thing ended. What is an ending really, in a world where science advocates transformation over destruction and magic...well...magic indicates a world of infinite possibility? Just a pause? The space between heart beats?

He takes a breath and slips past Serafine and Dan, there is a light brush of his fingertips on Serafine's shoulder, and (if he doesn't move away or give some negative indication) Dan's. Welcome to being a person Kalen accepts into his world Dan. He mostly indicates this by touching you. Leah, whom he doesn't recognise, gets a little nod.

And then he is beyond them, and he too heads for the patio.

Ian

Elijah suggested they play a game of three man, to which Annie just snorted with dry laughter. "Yeah, no thanks kid." They parted ways, with Elijah heading into the house and Annie hopping back on the riding mower. Those inside would make out the muted growl of the engine as it came back to life. She'd likely be out there for a while yet. Even just the manicured part of the property was big enough to make grass cutting a sizable chore.

"I like your shoes," Leah offered to Sera (because Sera's shoes were amazing.) For a moment her attention turned to Kalen, glancing between him and Ian's departing figure. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. Fidgeted slightly with the hem of her t-shirt. After a pause, she began to follow Ian and Kalen outside, but seemed to think better of it when she reached the sliding door. She balanced on the balls of her bare feet, looking out through the glass, then she changed course and made for the kitchen.

Outside, Ian paused at the side of the node to pull off his shoes and socks. Usually when he did this, he stripped naked and actually climbed into the hotspring, but today he just pulled up the cuffs of his jeans and sat down on the rocks, letting his feet slide into the warm water. For a moment he closed his eyes, feeling the way the wind brushed against his skin. Taking in the scent of the spring and the nearby flowers.

Elijah

Let it be said that Elijah Poirot was clueless in many things.

He stood there, gave Leah a little wave, "hey, I'm Elijah. Annie said I could come in and chill." He clarifies, as if he needs to introduce himself to the people he doesn't know, because he does. Tries to be polite, tries to use the polite people skills he is ever-so-desperately trying to cram into a two week period. In truth, he was at the chantry because he needed a break. Jenn had him learning about salad forks and dinner forks and he didn't think this was the kind of etiquette that he was supposed to be learning, but she was really intent on making sure he could handle himself in some kind of social situation because once upon a time she was working with some elderly woman who was Order of the Eastern Star who ever-so-politely overlooked the fact that Jenn was something that old, rich, southern women called terrible names meaning them in the most polite of manners.

Jenn had a lot of tolerance for bullshit. It kind of makes sense how she can put up with Elijah.

So, he watches as Kalen heads out the patio, watches as things move around him and he just… blanks. Doesn't quite put things together and doesn't seem terribly concerned by not figuring things together. It was off to the kitchen and the unpacking of liquor.

"I have not seen you guys in for-fucking-ever, and that is definitely a fault on my part."

Serafíne

"I'll let you borrow them sometime." Sera to Leah: steadier now. Steadier because she is - well - concentrating. Eyes half-closed, her chin on Dan's shoulder, her spare frame a lean cipher against Dan's taller and only slight more solid frame. So: no. He does not look like he is going to be carried away by the wind, but he is whip-lean and dresses to emphasize it, in his signature hipster uniform of skinny jeans and some obscure band t-shirt. "Tell me when. They'll look good on you."

Quiet, then: "Leah, if you wanna go out there you should. There's no reason for you to hang back, you know? If they need privacy they'll find it."

Meanwhile: Elijah appears and announces that he has not seen them in for-fucking-ever and Dan grins at him over Sera's elfin left ear, which naturally bristles with hardware.

"Hey man," says Dan, grinning. "Been awhile. Good to see you." The bottles are out. He doesn't put them away because it isn't precisely a collective kitchen anymore: not as it was. Just folds up the brown paper bag for recycling and glances down at Sera as she says something quiet to him again.

"I think we're heading out, but we'll catch up soon."

Suddenly and quite as surely as she knows so many other things: Sera doesn't want to be here. So: they will go.

Kalen Holliday

Kalen steps out onto the patio, closes the door gently behind him. He doesn't so much approach Ian as the spring, and he leaves the pool between them, settling on the opposite side of the water. He does not put his feet in the water, but he does come reasonably close to the edge. Close enough he can reach out to skim the surface of the water with his fingertips, though he does not. Not yet. Maybe not at all.

Instead, he lets his eyes settle on its surface. He can see reflections in the water. Shimmery. Shifting.

He is so rarely sure he isn't dreaming.

"Hey," he says quietly.

Ian

"Oh, wow, thank you." Leah's appreciation of Sera's offer was both surprised and genuine. She paused in the kitchen to regard her with an uncertain smile, which fell a moment later when Sera mentioned Ian and Kalen. A soft blush of color appeared on her cheeks. "No, I just... wanted a drink." She glanced over at Elijah then, who was attempting to offer her an introduction.

"Yeah. I figured. I mean, people just kind of come and go sometimes." She was less warm in her greeting of Elijah than she had been with Sera, but that may have been because Elijah was new. (And her age. And a boy.) After a pause she added, "I'm Leah." Then she promptly turned around and grabbed a bottle of orange Izze from the fridge.

----

Outside, Ian both felt and heard Kalen's approach, but he didn't acknowledge it until Kalen spoke. Then he opened his eyes, gazing across the pool. The water was clear aquamarine, with just the slightest sensation of steam rising up off the surface. It smelled of alkaline and minerals. "Hi," he offered quietly. He felt different (stronger, more primal.) Maybe Kalen had already noticed.

"Haven't heard from you in a while."

(Ditto, Ian.)

Elijah

"That's cool," he tells Dan, "I'm taking piano and harp for non-majors, so pretty soon you will get the opportunity to see me shred on six and a half octaves worth of… well… harp." He didn't have a good word for it. Didn't have a lot of things there, because all he could think of was yep, it's a harp. But, you see, harkening back to a conversation he'd had with Dan in the grass once upon a time, he did remember telling the man about his awkward stringed-instrument skills.

Secretly, he was trying to convince Jenn to get a baby grand, not because he was terribly serious about playing, but because it would be cool. Then again, if you have a piano you'll actually play the piano and, since the first quarter, Elijah has found himself rather missing the instrument. It was meditative. A moment when he could think and be in the moment and think about the click of the metronome. Powering forward, driving to something, finding life in something written.

He liked sheet music, but he didn't talk about that. Most recently, he spent his time trying to figure out how to get a piano through the door of his apartment.

Elijah turned his attention to Leah and grinned, "wanna see an awkward harp recital in two weeks?"

Kalen Holliday

[WP]

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

Serafíne

"Awesome." Dan to Elijah, with a quick grin that verges on the engaging, but does not precisely get there because he has sort of already checked out of the conversation.

Sera flashes Leah a shark-scissors tattoo peace sign real-quick because: yeah, she means it, and yeah, they are awesome shoes, and yeah, what the hell, she's rich, not that most strangers or even friends or for that matter lovers have ever really noticed that about her but: see, it is an easy offer to make. But she has also kind of checked out, or perhaps: checked back in to whatever was wrapped up around her spine when the van pulled up outside and as they turn to go she grabs one of the bottles on the counter they just unpacked. Picks it up by its neck and carries it with her as she goes.

Doors slam open. Doors slam closed.

Dan in the driver's seat. Sera with her temple against the cool glass, the world smearing past her. Her heart beating in her body, her breath strange in her lungs.

Ask Me When I'm Sober

Ian

[Jae-shin's Dex+Brawl]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 4, 6, 6, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 5 ) Re-rolls: 1

Ian

[Ian's Dex+Brawl]

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

Ian

Washington Park was full of visitors today - the lush, green landscape dotted with joggers and frisbee players, college kids playing basketball, boisterous children playing hide and seek in the trees and elderly couples walking hand in hand by the lake. The weather was lovely, a welcome change of pace from the cold snap that had hit earlier in the week. The evening sun was a warm golden glow shining through the trees. Ian and Jae-shin were sparring in the grass near one of the flower gardens. Maybe it was the weather (that infectious thrill of spring,) but the today the practice had an air of playfulness about it. Ian grinned as they danced around each other, breathing hard. His pulse beat out a rough rhythm in his ears, and sweat shone on his exposed skin. He had on a pair of tapered silver athletic pants, but was otherwise shirtless and barefoot. His toes dug into the soft earth before he lifted off in a tight, predatory spring.

The attack was swift and elegant, but Jae-shin was just fast enough to block it. After a series of swift blows, Jae-shin finally managed to land a hard kick to Ian's side. Ian exhaled roughly at the impact only to dance away, shaking his head with a laugh.

"Careful, I might start fighting for real."

Jae-shin's expression was quietly challenging.

Serafíne

Awareness.

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 7, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 7 ) Re-rolls: 2

Jo Hamilton

[Jo Hamilton uses SPLASH!]

Serafíne

Among the visitors: someone, you know? Who knows, who has some hint of, every strange tracery of magick in the air tonight. Who is: enthralled by it and entombed by it and entangled by it. Follows that thread from god knows how far away to the place where it makes a new, strange knot.

Ian and his partner have an audience. Probably they are too intent on each other to take note of anything more than the impression of blond hair left loose, streaming into a wild tangled mass when the wind kicks up. The sensation of her resonance: gut-wrenching, enthralling, threshold-hovering right there. Right there. Right there.

Sera is wearing something close to preppy drag: a highwaisted skirt, pleated and short, with silver buttons precise at the waist. A longsleeved, rather high-necked little jacket, also black, with more silver buttons in marching military-themed rows, the cut of which would be conservation were it not, you know, so very short: the undercurve of her breasts, the spare cut of her torso. The dark scrawl of her tattoos against golden skin. Someone's been worshipping the sun: somewhere. Somehow.

Serafíne

(Fair warning guys: I go to bed in an hour and a half, so I am probably going to ignore osting order or I will not get to make another post with these many people in the room. :) )

Jo Hamilton

[I'm fine with that :D]

Grace

"So, yeah. The park!" Grace says, sniffing in the warm air and tree smell. "Places like this are good for distraction-free thinking-time. And you need that."

She walked down a park path with Jo, all decked out in a bright blue shirt with a massive comma on it. Just below the comma, in small text is "or 1=1 --". If we're going to teach, do it right, right? Be the exploit.

"So, first off -- you say you want to learn about electricity and stuff like that? First, I want to know -- what do you think of the physical things? The elements, atoms, that kind of thing? Because it's all related. Well, okay, it is all all related, but forces and matter more so than most."

Lavinia

[Per+aware, oooh?]

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

Jo Hamilton

[Do I sense decepticons?! per+aware]

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

Serafíne

Resonance: Emanating from the slight blonde watching the guys spar, so many layers of resonance.

visceral, enthralling, liminal, sundrenched, soaring

The first three: intrinsic to her being. The latter: extrinsic, less tied to her blood and body and bone and presence, but still close, immediate. In/on/around her, maybe anchored somehow. Maybe lingering like a perfume.

Jo Hamilton

She needs distraction free thinking.

This is what Grace says to Jo, who has her cellphone out in her hand and is plugging away at something. Because Jo... Jo doesn't know the meaning of 'distraction-free' unless what Grace really means is boredom. Jo moves too much to ever be distraction free; always thinking, always searching.

The day has been warm, though the temperature has dropped dramatically from her time on campus, and she's dressed accordingly. Her black tank is lit up with yellow letters spelling out 'IN TRAINING TO BE BATMAN' with the bat symbol displayed at the top. And capri light pants (do men call their long shorts capris or shorts?). Of course, her wrists are touched with all manner of things to decorate them (probably gutted someone's computer somewhere, hopefully they don't know about it).

"Huh? Oh right yeah like.. Ok well I mean like, it's just coding right? Like a background program.. like ya know.. like your desktop wallpaper. Or maybe it's like, like an if-then statement. Like if THIS coding happens, do this! Ya know like.. dude how did the Matrix explain it? Where's trinity when you need her?" Jo hummed. She hummed like the powerlines. Always moving, but never radically. Predictable. Necessary. Pulling humanity along, whether it liked it or not.

Jo Hamilton

[ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_-OTZHBIuE for illustration of what I mean by Humming]

Lavinia

It's actually a beautiful day. More than a beautiful day, it's fan-fucking-tastic. She had been spending time with friends, some people she had concluded were decent company, regardless of whether or not they had a roof over their head. There but before the grace of God go she, and all that jazz. She remembers being out here, she remembers being hot and being cold, she remmebers thinking that she had better be brilliant or better be talented because otherwise she wouldn't be able to put a roof over her head.

Anyway, it wasn't important. She'd eaten part of a bucket of chicken with the guys, bid them adios and headed on to enjoy the rest of the park. It was a beautiful place, full of frisbee and basketball and trees and- oooh, were those people sparring?

Something felt interesting, and her dark eyes lit up like torches (like she ever had to really wonder about that) and a grin blossomed across her face. THe blonde, with her golden halo of hair and rather remarkable height and capris (nope, those were regular pants, they were just capris because Lavinia Cervantes was over six feet tall) She followed sensation, marched forward in combat boots and a cut up tee shirt (something to hide naturally occuring holes from God-knew-what)

And she headed forward, looking from the men sparring to a blonde sitting and watching and instead her attention went there. Had no qualms with plopping down next to her. Left ear to the lady's side.

"They just start?"

Ian

[Life 3, Better Body diff 6]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Ian

[+1 Dex for 24 hours, woot]

Lavinia

She sits and there is light. Not the typical light, but something radiant and warm, something that burns, ever so slightly, egging close to the edge, a reminder of some ember burning eternal. Something without boundaries, something without eges, constantly pressing outward, something that went out to the corners of the universe and birthed new and birthed more and there was light, there was warmth, there was something that lingered there.

Something that is. That was. That will always be even when the mortal shell of the being who held the universe in her very finite form. She touched against something larger than herself, larger than the heavens. Truly, she must be of the divine. Truly, she must be greater than a being bound only to this plane. All haloed and sonorous voice and eyes like torches, like lighting across the dark. And once that light set aside, her eyes were the space between the stars. Bright but so very, very dark.

Ian

[Ian's Dex+Brawl]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 6 )

Ian

[Jae-shin's Dex+Brawl]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 4 ) Re-rolls: 1

Serafíne

"Fuck if I know," the lovely creature shrugs and the movement threatens to upend whatever modesty the cut of the jacket affords her. She is wearing sunglasses. Yesterday they were framed with skulls. Today, they are black, cat-eyed, the frames studded with silver nailheads. Match to the leather wrapped-round her throat.

This sideglance then, her eyes hidden behind the glasses so large they dominate her angular features, without occluding them. "I just started watching them."

The sun slides across the reflective surface of the dark glass. Moving, luminous.

Grace

"Well, yes. Except that there is no real if-then. If you look deep enough into the code, you might say forces are a type of matter, or matter is a type of force. They are composite objects made of the same general parts. Like, take electrons. Electrons are what carry electricity, which is a force, but they're also the things that help make up atoms. They're the same type of object, just with slightly different variables. So if you already have some theory of matter, it's relatively easy to translate that into a theory of forces."

Stroll, stroll, stroll. Lecture, lecture, lecture.

Ian and Jae-shin.

Cloud.

Wait, what?

"Oh hey! They're doing a thing!"

She turns on a heel and heads over. So, now -- a bright-eyed embodiment of shifting, winged focus starts beelining for the assembly, pseudo-apprentice in tow.

Ian

It was the first time any of the people in the park (apart from Ian's current sparring partner) had seen him since he'd gone Seeking up that mountain peak. The first time Sera would notice the addition of a deeper, more primordial note within his resonance. The primal energy of it coiled fittingly with the rest of his feline characteristics. And as Ian moved, the press of his Will blossomed out, his working evident to anyone paying particular attention. He focused with his pulse, his movement, dancing across the grass with an effortless grace that hinted at his ballet training. And then suddenly he lunged, ducking beneath Jae-shin's arms to knock him in the back of his knee. Ian followed it up with a sweeping kick that took the Akashic's feet out from under him.

Then he pounced, pinning Jae-shin to the grass with a sharp, triumphant grin.

Jae-shin looked up at him quietly, catching his breath. After a moment, he laughed - pleased and surprised. "You cheated."

"You're just mad I finally pinned you." Ian reluctantly released his prize, getting to his feet as he cast a glance toward Sera and Lavinia. When he focused on the latter, there was a light tilt of his head. "Hey."

Jo Hamilton

"Buuuuuuuuuuut matter is just code. So like if it's jsut matter and stuff, then it's just code. Cause like, how could it like be anything else? So is it like a program running? Or like.. it has like a schedule? But like if it's not an if-then, then like why is the weather and stuff all chaotic? Like for realsies?"

Now Jo HAD sensed a new individual, she has just been engaged in her phone and Grace, but now was being aimed in their direction. "A thing!" Jo exclaimed, as if this said everything. "We must like see this thing! Because things, things are cool. Not like those thingie-ma-jigs.."

Jo is right on her heels, shoving her phone in her back pocket.

Lavinia

"Good enough for me," she replied with a shrug. She wasn't wearing a skirt today, like Lavinia ever really paid attention to what she was doing in a skirt, dared egg someone closer to getting an eye full of whatever she was wearing underneath, but we digress. It wasn't important what she wasn't wearing right now. "I'm Lavinia."

Sera got another glance, having the worst time not looking and being taken in by the fact that Sera was striking. Maybe she had painting or chalk drawings on her mind after her last escapade with the awakened populace of Denver. She opened her mouth, but then noticed people approaching and turned her attentions again.

When Ian spoke she nonchelantly watches his lips, not longing but decyphering. Then, her eyes went to his face. "Hey, you two are great," she replied.

That was the voice of a herald. Something that spoke with confidence, that bid fear not, something that brought tidings of joy or the message of something wrathful beyond measure. She is a messenger, or at least that's what her voice seems intent on conveying about her.

Ian

[I suppose we should do this awareness thing]

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

Serafíne

Then it's over. Ian - cheating - has pinned his partner and Sera, who seems to be both watchful and somehow removed or contained or maybe merely high, notices. Her sharp little chin rises in a way that makes the sun's reflection glint off the nailheads in her sunglasses: or maybe just the darkdark glass.

And she: claps.

You know: for the show.

Around the paper cup, fingers finding her palm. Mouth crawling, curved at one corner that is essentially inhabited.

"Serafíne. You can call me Sera."

This to Lavinia. Nothing to Ian except the fixed attention of her hidden eyes on him, as he rises: from the hold, from the ground. Glances up at Sera, Lavinia, greets the latter. Something arrested in that awareness. She knows everything: feels everything. Every piece of it, which threatens to peel her apart even as she is cinching herself back together.

Grace

"The weather and stuff is all chaotic because it isn't an if-then. There are very few things in this universe that are a true either-or. Mostly, we exist in the grayish in-betweens. If things were deterministic, like an if-then, we would be able to predict the chaos precisely. But as it's all built on probabilities, even so far as the electrons and protons? The world isn't a firmly defined thing. At all. Which is nice, because hey -- that would be way boring."

That spiel having been said, Grace golf-claps to Ian, and plops down next to Lavinia. "I'm Grace. Hi."

Jo Hamilton

"Well yeah but you're like totally simplifying it. Like, it's an if-then statement but it's not like, if Jo sneezes, Butterflies are born. It's like.. like If this person does this, under this, when this, but only while, then this happens, which does this, but only this while this, and so on and so on. Like it's a lot more complicated and stuff. You can totes predict stuff, if you got the code. Like if I knew the whole code, I could totally tell you when stuff is gunna happen. I mean it's be like super easy. But like we're missing the pieces and stuff so it only seems chaotic.

Jo..gives Ian a thumbs up. That is her congrats to..whatever that was. Because Jo isn't into the physical exercises, save one..or two.

"Yo Sera!" Jo gives her a wave and then finally..oh FINALLY focuses on the new one. She twitches her nose, lifts her brows and seems to look as if someone gave her to the key to the gaming store. Grace sits next to lavinia, who is sitting next to Sera. This... no.. this can't be.

So Jo, sits in Grace's lap and leans in towards Lavinia. "So, will you marry me?"

Lavinia

[You're on my deaf side, did I actually catch any of this?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN8 (1, 3, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )

Lavinia

"Sera," she repeats, grins a little at Serafíne, lights up for a second because there is something vaguely hopeful for the woman at her side. She wasn't entirely human, this one. On first glance, certainly, but there's far too much energy there. More than a mortal body can handle (she's fragile, though she doesn't let on. She's stronger than she looks, but she's not as strong as she thinks) "Glad to meet you."

This is Grace. And there she is, surrounded by strangers who feel like- well, now, this one is certainly different, but happens to have the misfortune of being on Lavinia's right side instead of her left. She scoots back enough so that she can kind of see Grace's face. A little. Just enough so that she doesn't have to turn her head to see the woman next to her. Her brows furrow for a second, like she was thinking, like she was straining.

But, once she puts two and two together, the woman laughs, something that is intent and warm and that stuck to the senses. She wasn't terribly loud, but she certainly cut through the ambient sound.

"Lavinia," she offered to the pile of GraJoCe. "Are you tryin' to make an honest woman outta me." Brow quirked, grin widened, "or are you proposing to Sera? I haven't been married in a little while, so I feel the need to clarify."

Ian

Lavinia said they were great. Grace and Sera clapped, as though Ian and Jae-shin had been nominated the evening's designated entertainment. Jae-shin responded to the approval with a hesitant smile, perhaps unsure if he ought to be encouraging the notion that combat was a spectator sport (or perhaps he was just shy.) He got to his feet with a smooth motion, dusting dirt and grass from his legs. Unlike Ian, he had on a tank top, but was otherwise similarly outfitted in athletic clothes. They'd obviously come here with the express purpose of doing what they'd just been engaged in.

Ian, of course, took the applause in stride. The side of his mouth quirked lightly, and he bent down into a loose, graceful bow. Slightly theatrical.

"You guys are welcome to join us, if you like."

The challenge hung in the air, dry and coyly tempting, though Ian did not expect that any of those seated nearby were likely to take him up on it.

Serafíne

Yo Sera! shouts Jo and our Sera tips her coffee mug in the creature's direction. Her head turns; their collective reflection crawls across the gleaming surface of her glasses. Does not comment on if-thens and why-wheres and data because that all sounds like bullshit to her.

Except of course you can predict stuff. She's a seer. The future and the past crack themselves open between her teeth.

They speak different languages, though. On every level.

She is looking at them though: her golden head turned, her chin low over her narrow shoulder, the dark cut of that little black jacket clearly tailored for her: from the width to the length to the glove-like fit of the arms. Custom-made.

Somehow the lift and curve of that cup is both greeting and farewell. It's clear - body language, the way she holds herself - that this is only a temporary waystation.

"I don't believe in fucking monogamy," this to Lavinia, a sideline, a sidelong. "So marriage is pretty much off the table. I think she was proposing to you, though."

Then she's moving, turns around on her heel because she never sat down, just paused in her passage. Glance back at Ian over a dark shoulder. "Ask me when I'm sober. Watch me say yes."

--

That's really all the farewell they get. She's on her way down the path, into the shadows. Sunglasses still covering her eyes.

Anima

Ian

Life was in bloom in Rocky Mountain National Park. Not just the verdant green of the grass and trees, but the bustle of tourists wandering its many trails. When Ian woke up that morning, the air was 70 degrees and clear. Perfect weather for hiking. He passed a number of people on his way to Longs Peak, most of whom were only there for the day. As the elevation went up, the ambient temperature started to chill, and the steady line of hikers thinned out to only a few. Up on the mountain, it was still winter. The ice and the snow made climbing treacherous.

It was the third day of his camping trip, and he was seeking something more than what he'd found so far. The ground. The trees. Rolling forests that seemed to go on forever. Above the mountain, the sky spread out in a vast expanse of blue.

But to get there, he'd have to climb. So he did.

It was easy going at first. Meditative, even - ascending the rocks by instinct and muscle memory. By the time he was halfway up the peak he was alone, and the air had turned cold and biting. The sound of the wind was a low howl. From a distance it seemed a lonely picture: one man climbing away from spring's welcome embrace toward the unforgiving remnant of winter's last breath.

A couple of times he might have slipped, but he was careful, and Ian always did have a knack for keeping his balance. Somewhere around late afternoon he paused to rest on an outcropping jutting out from the rock face. Leaning back against he cold stone, he closed his eyes and breathed deeply of the thin mountain air. His arms and legs ached. His pulse was beating hard against the inside of his eardrums. He could never seem to get enough oxygen out here.

anima

Not many people out today. Tonight: not at this hour, not in this space, not on this particular day. Not up here, the scrubby treeline left behind somewhere near the beginning of the trailhead. Now, the sun is sinking behind the ragged edge of the frontrange mountains among which he climbs and the warmth of the day is rapidly disappearing. From where he sits - atop a rock wall overlooking the scrubby wallow of a treeless valley that has only started waking itself to the thought of spring, above a band of striated granite damp the runoff and snowmelt he can see the ship's prow prominent beneath the greater bulk of the mountain. The outdoor solar privys nestled beneath another prominent little ridge that will take quite the scrabble to get down.

The trail up the peak: maybe tomorrow then, and only if he remembered his ice axe and crampons - that much he recognized from nearly the first glimpse of Long's Peak at the trailhead this morning. Closer now, he can see how much of the climb will be on snow and ice: a wallow up the glacier, the long traverse over a snowfield, hard rock scrabbles and then crosswise up a long, steep couloir. Most people wouldn't tackle a climb like that alone.

Ian isn't most people.

The night's gathering in, though. Out here the stars are spectacularly spangled - but still not bright enough to light the trail outside of a full moon. Time to find a place to camp.

Something about the horizon tonight.

That glow.

Ian

He had his gear with him - packed tightly and efficiently into a backpack that he carried strapped around his torso. For this particular journey, it was only the basic essentials: food, water, rope, axe... but there was a tiny single-person tent, should he have need of it. The round-trip climb was about 15 hours - six or seven to the top of the peak. He hadn't really planned on stopping, but sometimes plans change. The daylight disappeared faster than it seemed it should have. How long had he been out here?

Ian got to his feet carefully and surveyed the landscape above and below him. Wind gusted past, blasting his cheek with a few sharp crystals of snow. The glow on the horizon pulled his gaze back to the sky. He watched it for a few long moments, then turned and began the steep ascent toward the snow. He needed to get out of the wind, and it would provide more shelter than the bare rocks could.

anima

Sometimes the day disappears faster than it should. Sometimes the edges of the world close in upon themselves, then crack open again come morning. He is alone on the trail, night around him. Below the thin glow of sunlight reflected upon the surface of a shallow mountain lake. The skeletal frame of a ranger's cabin, blackened at the eves and around the boarded-up windows tucked into the leeside of the ridge he both eschews and skirts on the shores of the lake. An elegant fringe of ice crusts over the protected southern shore. Everywhere ice, the winter ice has melted. Even as he hikes up toward the snow, he crosses these nameless, snaking little rivulets that find every channel in the rock.

Has he been here before? Both the trail and the mountain take on a different aspect after dark. The sharp fin of the Ship's Prow gains a ragged prominence as the ridge he follows tucks lower and skirts beneath it. The mountain beyond gains both bulk and prominence - dark and darker against the luminous night sky.

Rock beneath his feet now. Then snow in the slope at the bottom of the couloir.

No one else in sight.

Ian

[Per+awareness]

Dice: 6 d10 TN10 (2, 4, 5, 5, 7, 9) ( fail )

Ian

Somewhere in the world, it was still daytime. Somewhere, but not here. Standing at the base of the Diamond, Ian looked up and surveyed what he could make out of the sheer cliff face. It was dark, but he saw better in the dark than most people did. (Better, but not perfectly.) If he was going to make camp he'd need to follow the keyhole trail past this part of the mountain, into the more gradual slope where the snowdrifts piled against the wall.

If.

But he wasn't tired. And the stars looked beautiful tonight.

"Are you there?"

He said it quietly, almost as much to himself as to the mountain, and the winter winds stole the words away from his lips even as he said them. He didn't expect a response. Another moment, and he hesitated. Looked out across the snow. Then turned and started to climb.

Ian

[Dex+Ath]

Dice: 8 d10 TN7 (3, 3, 6, 6, 7, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Ian

[And again!]

Dice: 8 d10 TN8 (4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 1 )

anima

Are you there?

Ian asks and there's no response. No formal response - though he doesn't seem to expect one. Merely the arcing echo of the wind, funneling over the ridges. There's no response, but that does not stop him, no.

He starts to climb.

--

Here is a familiar rhythm, a familiar path against a familiar obstacle. The loose strength of his wiry frame against the unmoving, implacable rock, breath harsh in his lungs, fingers aching, thighs burning. The stars pinpoint-bright overhead, the seam of the sky -

Difficult angles in the dark, but he pulls himself up and up with ease.

The slope sharpens and the holds grow less certain, more rare, and still he hangs on.

Somewhere above, silhouetted against the impervious sky, this sketch, this shadow of movement. Fleeting - rising, faster than he is, mind, and with an almost impervious ease.

Ian

The climb here was more dangerous than any other part of the peak. A steep drop descended below Ian's feet, stark and cold and unforgiving. A couple of rock chips skittered down the side of the cliff, dislodged by his hand where it gripped a crack in the stone. The sound they made on the way down was deceptively gentle. The climb was slower than Ian would have liked, given the wind and the darkness and the fact that he had to stop periodically to reaffix his rope tether (lest he slip and fall.) But the landscape here was beautiful at night, the slopes and forests below stretching out far into the horizon.

It became a rhythm, almost. Like dancing or running. The sharp crack of the spike going into the rocks. The reach of his arm - seeking, holding, pulling himself up to the next ledge. The rocks were cold and sharp beneath his hands, the surface under his feet slick enough to be worrisome. He'd done this before - not here, but on other mountains. He knew how to be careful. And he was (careful.) But he was also hungry. The sore heat from his arms and legs mixed with a prickling sensation in the subdermal layer of his skin. Some crawling, impatient drive. A need to move. To climb. (To hunt?)

Something was there. High in the shadows. The flicker of motion caught Ian's attention and he stopped still, his body pressed against the rock-face as he looked up, searching.

His heartbeat jumped. After a few beats, he kept climbing. Faster now, trying to catch up.

Ian

[Per+Alertness diff 7 -2 (acute senses)]

Dice: 6 d10 TN5 (2, 3, 5, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 4 )

Ian

[And Dex+Ath again, diff 9 this time]

Dice: 8 d10 TN9 (1, 1, 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 1 )

anima

The flick of motion in his peripheral vision, somewhere above. Some plateau, some rockledge, which dissolves into a near-perfect stillness that does not even seem to breathe when he tips his head back: pauses in his climb, and look, stares, seeks.

There, again, rising, and now his efforts redouble and he is on the move. Struggling - straining to go faster but there's a rhythm to this that cannot be rushed. Driving in the anchors, moving the rope that keeps him safe, assessing each new hold, practically blind on an unfamiliar rockface, which only sharpens its prominence.

He can follow the lilting movement of whatever it is above him darting quick and light-footed, before it disappears far above.

He could go faster if he dispensed with the protections, and simply climbed.

Or hell, maybe he's confident enough that he can find and track whatever it is again: in his own time.

Ian

He could go faster, yes. Though it was, by all accounts, an unwise thing to do. Scaling an unfamiliar peak alone in the dark was already pushing the bounds of what any sane climber might hope to get away with. And at this height, if he fell... he might very well not survive.

Ian was not suicidal. He had been... once. A long time ago. That moment seemed both close and very far away. One could add up the things that he had survived, and suddenly falling off a mountain no longer seemed like the worst thing that could happen.

Maybe it was frustration, or maybe it was the sense that somehow these things (these man-made things - ropes and anchors and the synthetic shield of his clothing) did not actually belong here. Ian took a breath to steady his heartbeat and ripped the anchor out of the rocks. It took a few moments for him to free himself of the encumbrance of his gear, but once he did, he reached out over the dark expanse of space beneath him and dropped it all into the void.

Then he pulled off his gloves, and his hat, and his coat. Each of these things went down the mountain, discarded. The wind was cold. Finally his boots and socks. He always did move better barefoot.

He was in danger of exposure now, though a Life mage always had ways to combat that. Regardless, he started climbing again. Faster, easier. More like the lithe creature that moved in the shadows.

Ian

[Stamina]

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

Ian

[Wits+Alertness]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 6, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 5 )

anima

Ian sheds all these things, divests himself of human accoutrements and human gear and gear and human protections: not simply rock anchors and the light and strong synthetic rope he bought, but other, simpler things. Climbing boots, climbing gloves, hat and coat. The warm woolen socks: drops them down below him into darkness.

If he doesn't come back and gather them up before the morning, the strange occasion of finding all these things littering the trail will lead the earliest group or two of hikers to call the park rangers. Maybe there'll be a small missing person's hunt, to make sure there's no one lying in a gully with crushed vertebrae and a broken leg.

No matter.

--

There's laughter. Not precisely audible and really quite far from human: the sense of it begins when he flings down the first anchor. Builds as he strips himself down to certain essentials. Physical: spiritual. Laughter: more inside him than without him, felt more than heard, the tattoo of it against the back of his skull, quite as coy as he is. Not precisely mocking, but hardly gentle. Call it: challenging.

--

He climbs: naked.

This is dangerous, and any other climber would call it damn near suicidal: an unfamiliar cliff face, a cold, often snow-bound path lost in absolute shadow, only the sky shining, illuminated, above. Searching, blind, with fingers and toes for each little perch, always maintaining three points of contact with the face of the rock. Muscles aching, trailing the path of a swift shadow barely visible.

Wait.

Not trailing.

Ian hauls himself up over the edge of the cliff face and finds himself on the edge of a ridge that eddies out into a gentle snowfield rimmed with tall, dark pine trees heavy with snow. He knows that he is well above the treeline and yet: here they are, so dark where they are not drenched in snow and limned with reflective moonlight. The bulk of the mountain on whose shoulder this wood sits is massive, prominent. The wind sharper, colder still. Beyond this one peak: even taller giants rise and rise and rise like black teeth against the luminous sky.

All is quiet. His breath is harsh in his throat and both fingers and toes are lightly abraded. He's freezing. Nothing is moving but he is not really searching out movement. He is thinking quite differently in this precise moment: anticipating rather than following.

No need to follow when you can lead.

Ian

[Life 2 - Resist Cold, coincidental diff 5 -1 (focusing with blood) -1 (practiced and/or taking his time)]

Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (3, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Ian

Somewhere during the climb, the mountain became larger: his intended destination now only a stop on a much more arduous journey. Ian's hands grasped the edge of the cliff as he pulled his weight over the edge, numb fingers clawing at cold stone. The air was freezing, striking sharp against his exposed skin. Every joint and muscle in his body ached from the climb. Where his feet touched down, blood stained the snow. Breathing deeply of the dry winter air, Ian got to his feet and surveyed the landscape - the tall pines and the looming presence of the mountain as it reached up into the black sky.

A voice uncoiled somewhere in the back of his thoughts: coy, feminine. Laughing. A challenge?

This is why he was here, standing in the snow with naked, bleeding feet. Because he needed to try - needed to find that part of himself that was more than a collection of mundane details. The name on his birth certificate: Ian Tao Lai. The things that he owned: a nice car, a collection of art films on blu ray, a closet full of overpriced clothes with designer labels. The jobs on his resume: dancer, model, bartender. Beyond that, what was he? Life. Hunger. Instinct.

Human? Animal? Was there a difference?

He was also something else - something more than both of those. And that part of him was why he was here. Without evolution, life became stagnation.

Kneeling down, he curled his fingers into the snow and scooped up some of the blood from his torn feet. He closed his eyes and drew a line down the center of his forehead; the line of his nose - down to his lips, where he tasted salt and copper. He focused on his heartbeat - on the blood moving through his veins, keeping him alive, keeping him strong. And he bared his teeth as he pushed with his Will, asserting his existence against the creeping chill of the cold. Speeding up his slowing heart. Warming the core temperature of his body.

He felt it like a surge of primal energy. His breath was a sudden gust of heat in the cold air.

And when it was over, he looked down at the snow-blanketed woods and began to run, heading for the trees, and toward the rising peak of stone behind them.

anima

Hmmm.

Dice: 9 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 6 )

Ian

[Dex+Ath]

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

Ian

[and again!]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 4, 7, 9, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )

anima

Hmmm.

Dice: 9 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Ian

[Stamina 1]

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

Ian

[Stamina 2]

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

anima

Ian no longer feels the cold. Smears: the blood-stained snow over his face and mouth and chest, remembers that a heart beats beneath the protective shield of his sternum. Reaches inside, feels it beating, and starts to move.

Runs: flat out over the snowfield, steeper than he understood in the darkness. Hurtles himself toward the treeline, kicking up snow behind him as he goes. The world is bright over him: shining stars, brilliant sky,

and then: dark and dark and dark. Every sound cushioned by the heavy branches of the pines and deadened by the deep drifts of snow. Harder to run here than he imagined at the start: on two legs he has to plow through drifts that are knee deep, even thigh-deep and the work itself is exhausting, but he pushes through. Framed by the harsh rasp of cold (he does not feel it) dry (that he feels) air in the back of his throat, which pulls the whole of the drifting world into a peculiar sort of focus.

Gradually he becomes: aware, you see, that he is not alone.

He is shadowed by another, larger and more graceful, unhindered by the drifts through which he has to force himself. This coy presence, at the edge of his vision again - lashing movement and a certain - goading - challenge inherent in the bend and sweep of its frame in his periphery.

When he finally surges past it (and somehow the wood seems much, much deeper than it appeared, somehow the peaks he was seeking seem quite as far away, now, as they ever did) Ian might be forgiven for feeling a certain - primal - surge of triumph.

Ian

He’d chased the winter from his lungs, but winter was not a thing so easily conquered. It was there in the snow and in the dark. In the press of chill that slid over his skin. As he ran, the drifts grew deeper, clinging to his legs as he pushed his way through them. He wasn’t running out of urgency, or to pull away from the shadowed, graceful creature in his periphery. He was running because he could. Because the pain and the struggle and the coursing of his blood made him feel more alive.

When he noticed that he’d pulled ahead, he stopped. His body went still, poised in the deep snow like some kind of predator, his posture and his gaze steady and alert. How much could he see here? The darkness was thick between the tall, blanketing pines. He turned to regard the creature who’d been shadowing him, eyes drifting over the shadows in search of something that yet moved. Did she stop? Or did she dart past him?

Almost, he spoke again. But that kind of language felt wrong here. So he crouched down in the snow and tilted his head and watched; listened. The scent of pine resin was sharp in the air, mingling with the cold clarity of ice and earthy minerals of the stone mountain. Even here, in this inhospitable place, there was life.

Ian

[Sensing Life: Life 1, diff 4 -1 (practiced - using his heartbeat as a focus)]

Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (4, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

anima

There: a shadow. Another shadow that sweeps and surges - yes, past him now, while he pants in the darkness.

While he: watches.

While he: listens.

While he reaches out through the strange shadowed density, the close-wrapped stillness of this place to touch the patterns of the world around him, real and unreal, layered bright together.

She does not have precisely that sort of tattoo against his magical senses - and yet he can sense, dimly, faintly, dully, the silvery connection between the two. If she has a beating heart: it is simply another iteration of his own.

Which is larger, stronger in his chest than he has ever before understood before.

--

She is moving again: fast and faster now.

He will need more than his own two legs to keep up with her.

Ian

He remembered a time, once, when he had been something other than human. When his body was not what it was now. The memory of it still felt oddly close to him, though that Awakening had been... years ago. He remembered the way his paws felt ghosting along the ground. The way the brush of wind had seemed like electric current against his face. The way that everything had been sharper, clearer, more alive. He remembered the weight of it, and the ready responsiveness of all that muscle and tendon.

He also remembered the reason why he'd changed - and the reasons why he'd walked away.

This was not that night, and he was not the same person he had been then. When he opened his senses, he sought some deeper connection. A grounding link to the Tapestry around him. Perhaps he was looking inward - for what was this place but a landscape inside his own heart? Was he trying to understand her or himself? Maybe it didn't matter. Maybe there wasn't a difference.

She wanted to run. So did he. He wanted to run and to climb until everything else in his mind disappeared - empty but for the surge of his blood and his breath that screamed I am here. I exist. I am alive.

The rest of his clothes were left discarded in the snow. Whatever he was, whatever he could be, they would only get in the way. And then he ran. The snow was thick and heavy and clung to his legs, but he ran anyway. Pushed through it. Pushed past the aching exhaustion in his limbs. And all the while he could hear his heart in his ears, beating deeper and heavier and louder.

He didn't so much Will the change as accept it - surrender to it. The way he had that night all those years ago.

Ian

[Be a tiger, Ian! diff 8 to start, definitely spending WP - will extend as much as he can]

Dice: 2 d10 TN8 (4, 5) ( success x 1 ) [WP]

Ian

[diff 9]

Dice: 2 d10 TN9 (1, 6) ( success x 1 ) [WP]

Ian

[down to 3 WP, and again]

Dice: 2 d10 TN9 (5, 9) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Ian

[aaand again]

Dice: 2 d10 TN9 (3, 7) ( success x 1 ) [WP]

Ian

[last WP!]

Dice: 2 d10 TN9 (3, 7) ( success x 1 ) [WP]

anima

)Ian sheds his clothes and it is not clear how he manages it. This is not the fumbling strangeness of human thumbs and cuffs and collars, the inevitably inelegant dance of getting out of his goddamned underwear. There is far less work, and it takes much less time, than it took him to shed all that gear, back on the physical mountain he was climbing when he came:

here, wherever here is.

Ian sheds his clothes and he does it virtually with a thought.

Steps out of them or perhaps wills them away and then moves again, surges forward, the drumbeat of magic in his body and in his lungs, in his heart and in his blood, a hungry arc bright against the framing darkness.

He runs.

He works.

He Works.

He moves: reaches for something he remembers, now more with his body than his brain, folds himself back into his body and begins to peel what is essential out of himself. No longer on two legs - though somehow not precisely four - he is low and elegant - little more than a shadow surging beneath the overhanging pines. As the elevation rises, the drifts deepen and yet: like her - he glides over them now, rather than floundering through.

Soon enough they leave behind the piney woods. Rising still, snow and ice a skim coat over the shoulder of the mountain that seems both metaphorical and actual: which rises and rises and rises, above them, absolutely wreathed in mist, opaque and dense. There is a kind of triumph radiant in her as they run, as they rise that he can feel but beneath and above that, always the push, the urge, to movement, to rise. She would challenge him all the way to the summit -

- but he has spent himself so thoroughly, exhaustion (of the will, if not the body) begins to assert itself beneath and around the exhilaration of the hunt.

Ian

Triumph, yes. Exilaration - visceral and unguarded. They both felt it. And they ran together now, swift and agile as hunting animals. The wind played patterns in the soft fur that now lined his skin, and when his toes flexed there was the presence of something sharp and hooked. The landscape looked different like this - even the slimmest shards of moonlight were bright and luminous.

He'd given everything he had to find this place - both within and without. And he was tired now, more than he could remember having been in a very long time. The exhaustion went down to his marrow, and deeper still... a spiritual as well as physical exhaustion. But he was happy, too. How could he not be?

I am here to be here. Like these rocks and sky and snow.

Some mountains could not be scaled. Perhaps this one was one of those. Perhaps he'd given everything he had and could go no further. But she would challenge him all the way to the summit, and he was yet standing. Moving. Breathing. And he would climb until he couldn't anymore. Perhaps that would not be much farther. Perhaps it would be farther than he could imagine. (He had already come that far.)

So he grasped the stone wall with his clawed hands and began once more to haul himself upwards, looking upward as he did - toward the mist and the dark, opaque sky.

Ian

[Str+Ath]

Dice: 7 d10 TN8 (1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )

Ian

[Stamina]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2) ( botch x 1 )

anima

Do di do.

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

anima

Some summits can be had the first time a mountaineer chances a ridge. Others are eternal, somehow: they require long sieges, endless assaults. What he knows - and there is a point where it knows it so clearly and thoroughly that he must understand it in the very marrow of his bones - is that he has come as far as he can now. He has spent himself. And still she is there - peripheral, residual, harrying and leading and rising rising rising. He can go no further.

There is something - (yes) - new in him. Some opening. Some shift, which is paradoxically both smaller and greater than himself. And yet: he digs in his clawed hands, to drag himself still further, leaves behind the windswept ridge on which they had been racing, and follows her into the clouds.

Colder here, sharper, strange. The mist wraps him right 'round until he can see no more than his forepaws in front of him, the face of the rock. And there is more here, stranger things, the murmuring of voices he cannot quite distinguish, which still somehow make his heart - well - seize. By which we mean: stop, only for a moment, but wrenchingly so, before it thunders back to life.

And then: then - something else, disorienting and disconcerting, or perhaps it is the elevation. Everything goes blank: black. Creates itself and comes undone.

Conciousness deserts him.

Ian knows nothing more.

anima

(Ian will awake the next morning still on the trail: he has 4 lethal dmg from a bad fall, WP 0, and Arete 3.)