Picnic with the pops.

Alexander

[Before we start writing, Arete. Sensing stuff so TN4, -1 for taking time, aiming for 2 successes]

Dice: 1 d10 TN3 (5) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Alexander

[And Int+Med?]

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

Alexander

They say that the city boasts 300 days of sun a year. Many of those days may include sun at some point, but the climate has a tendency to the wildly variable. Today? Today is not one of those days. Today has been peaceful and calm. There hasn’t been much more than a breeze to slowly push what cloud there is over the city. Maybe, to those who pay attention to such things, the hovering calm had muted the wailing horns and sirens of traffic forcing its way along crowded roads.

So the sky is mostly blue, with a few high, wispy clouds overhead. And here, in the park, the grass is green and flourishing in the warmth of the sun. The water of the lake laps gently at its shore nearby. There’s the sound of activity carrying on the air from the sports pitched not so far away and an occasional, rhythmic pounding marks a jogger running through their laps.

And Alexander? Alexander is lying on that grass, by that lake, with eyes closed and breathing slow. He almost seems immobile – frozen – until you watch him long enough to see his chest rise and fall. Next to him is a small rucksack, a discarded tshirt, and a bottle of water. Boots and socks are paired up, sitting by the rucksack. He could be asleep? Only he isn’t, quite. It started out with wanting to feel the flow of the breeze around and over him, so that’s what he pushed his will against reality to do. Then the mix of the warmth, the calmness, and the hypnotic beauty of sensing the currents of air... It’s easy to wait for thought to slow and stop and freeze in its tracks and simply be.

Lavinia

It's a beautiful eighty-one degrees fahrenheit today, and she is out running. She has a pretty easy schedule, one that doesn't demand that she actually be doing much any given day. Lavinia was running, because running felt fantastic, because the air felt fantastic, and most importantly she had recently acquired tennis shoes and she needed to actually wear them in. She now had four pairs of shoes. It was starting to get to the point of ridiculous, she had decided. Since coming to Denver she has all but doubled the number of shoes she owned after coming to Denver.

The sky was blue, with some wispy clouds overhead. She had her hair pulled back in a high ponytail, curls bouncing when she moved, choice in clothing made it abundantly clear that Lavinia Cervantes had legs that went on forever and, whilst running, she was content to just be in the zone. That is, of course, until she saw a person. It's telling that the things that come to the tall blonde's mind when she saw a person laying in the grass that she wasn't entirely certain if they were alive or not. She missed a lot of the big cues, like the sound of someone breathing and it was just a little bright for her to possibly catch the rhythmic rise and fall of someone's chest.

Now, there were things that crossed her mind- if she was wrong and this wasn't a dead body, it was for the best that she not disturb said person because saying sorry, I thought you were a recently made corpse doesn't seem to set well with most people. If she woke the person up, they wouldn't be so forgiving.

So, Lavinia started her approach. Slow and steady and cautious. There is a feeling that comes with her, and it is that feeling that signals her arrival more than anything. It is that feeling of something beyond walls, beyond definitions, something that would be and always had been. Something that was larger than the mortal frame carrying it. So, there she was, approaching Alexander to make certain he wasn't a dead body. Because that's a normal concern. Totally.

Kalen

[How distracted by Resonance are we today?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 7, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 6 )

Kalen

Kalen adores Washington Park. It has been some time since he's seen one of the friends he met there, because, at this point he considers a spirit a friend without so much as the batting of an eyelash. He senses, for the first time in a long time, something angelic in the park. He remembers Lavinia, mostly from the art gallery.

He has a green tea smoothie, because he has just discovered the glory of green tea smoothies. Through perhaps slightly distressing circumstances, but it is hardly as though his tongue did not heal.

Healing, after all, is what they do. Sometimes more quickly than others, perhaps. But. As a rule.

He approaches Lavinia and Alexander, though, really, more Alexander. Lavinia may feel like an angel, but she is hardly the first being Kalen met who has had that kind of resonance. Certainly not the first with whom he has associated divinity. Alexander gets the most of his focus for now.

Alexander

[Int+Med still?]

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

Alexander

He can feel it. Oh, he can feel the way the breeze drifts over his body. But he can really feel it. The way that the warmth of the sun heats the ground, creating tiny thermals as the air warms and rises. The way that the air sinks as it passes over the lake. The occasional eddy as some nearby object or other blocks and redirects the flow. The swirling currents as he inhales and exhales.

Something tugs at the edge of his awareness – or maybe his Awareness – but it’s something subtle and far distant for now. Unimportant for the moment, really. Whatever happens, happens. Much like the hopelessness of trying to stop the wind in its tracks, or the flow of water downhill; It can be done, but at the moment it’s far too much effort to try.

There’s a slightly quickening of his breathing, but otherwise Alexander lies still on the grass and lets the flow of air and time and the universe wash over him.

In another world, maybe someone could make an Ecstatic out of him in the end.

Lavinia

She finally got close enough to recognize that the person in the grass wasn't probably in need of medical attention, but rather, said person in said grass was probably having a good moment just communing with nature and, therefore, should probably be left alone, but then there's movement and then there's people and she suddenly becomes aware of the fact that, oh, shit, I'm not alone and this is now awkward. She clears her throat, carefully starts to steer herself along her way. Wiggles her fingers and gives a little half audible "Hi," to whichever of the people- either Kalen (whose name she vaguely remembered) or Alexander (whose name she had no idea of, but she had been making sure he wasn't dead because nobody can be that sort of serene without pushing up daisies).

Abort mission, abort mission!

Serafíne

(Awareness.)

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

Kalen

Kalen gives Lavinia a little nod. "Hey," he says quietly. And then he drops onto the blanket to sprawl beside Alexander, not touching him him but not far from it. It is, in some ways, a thing might more expect from a cat, the intent watching and the silence and the being only inches away.

No. We lie.

It is not quite like a cat. Because Kalen is not impatiently pawing at Alexander and meowing insistently for attention. At least not yet.

Alexander

[Awareness]

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

Alexander

[Dex+Ath]

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

Serafíne

"This is fucking good enough - " Rick is grumbling, though his grumble has a fond edge to it that excises the immediate meaning from the words and changes them incrementally into something ever-so-slightly else. He and Dan and Dee have the heaviest loads, Sera the lightest. A picnic blanket slung over one arm and a kale-pineapple smoothie in the other hand. The quartet tramp through the park to a small knoll with a view of the water and the soon-to-be setting sun: picnic basket and reuseable grocery bags and a pair of guitars and a giant tub of CheezBallz (TM) and there is other conversation, backwards and forwards and forwards and backwards, which we will not take long to relate as it is offscreen for most of the principals tonight. Low and laughing, familiar, sure.

They are an attractive quartet: Dee is a tall girl with deep dark hair and skin so fine and pale and clarified that strangers call it creamy. Summertime, in a mile-high city, she must be well-committed to sunscreen to keep it that way. Dee is wearing a knee-length, flouncy skirt in a fine dark navy with two rows of white brick-brack trimming the bottom hem. Dark hair piled and perfectly pin-curled atop her head. Rick and Dan have the requisite hipster-garb: skinny eans and band t-shirts, beards in varying lengths (short, dark - Rick; longer, blond - Dan) and Vans or in Dan's case schlubby Birkenstocks he picked up at Buffalo Exchange. Dan (or someone) has painted his toenails a lovely metallic teal.

When they arrive at the picnic site, he offloads his guitar case and leans it against a convenient tree, sets down: cooler and reuseable shopping bag and gives Sera a hand unfurling the picnic blanket.

Alexander

That something at the edge of being noticed, it turns out that there is more than one something. Sleepers had passed by completely unnoticed, lost as he was in... not exactly pulling the world apart and putting it back together, but figuring out how it lies. Where the edges are, the strong points and the weak ones. Maybe – with luck – where he might be able to push a little harder in the future to do more than simply sense. To change.

His breathing speeds a little more, not far from normal, when Lavinia approaches. She had been slow and unthreatening, her distance kept as she closed and watched for signs of life. Had that been the only presence, Alexander’s return to wakefulness and alertness might have been rather more gentle.

The second presence, though. The one that gets closer and closer and drops down and almost touches. Now that is rather more threatening. The resonance is new and unfamiliar and... powerful? A danger. A threat. It takes a little while for conscious thought to fire up, for the image of Kalen to register and be recognised. But even then, this doesn’t feel like Kalen. This isn’t the approaching storm. This is something else.

As the presence gets closer and lowers to the ground, Alexander rolls and kicks up. Instinct pushes his up and away from the newcomers, turning to face the threat. His breathing, calm and peaceful just a few moments before, is now faster and deeper. His bare feet dig into the soft, grassy ground. He’s up and ready to fight, turned a little and arms up ready to fend off what might physically come.

His gaze switches between Kalen and Lavinia. “Who the fuck are you?”

Kalen

Kalen tilts his head, then realizes what the fuck that is about.

"Mmmmmmmm...Grace said she thought I might be a clone. I'm relatively certain that is not true." There is a hint of a smile. "I suppose I should just be glad you didn't throw me onto the ground this time, Alce."

And he waits. Patient. Calm. If anything seems off other than the Resonance it's that calm. The lack of shadows under his eyes. Peace and Kalen were not so much things that got on.

Lavinia

She doesn't jump.

Things change very quickly and she doesn't take a step back, doesn't hesitate, doesn't seem like she is making a reach for anything because where the Hell would she keep it? She's not got a lot in the way of fabric on her personage. If she managed to hide a lethal weapon on her then she has very much created a pocket that exists outside of space and time and the last thing one has to worry about is the fact that she might be carrying a knife and more about the fact that she made a bag of fucking holding. There was no bag of holding, therefore, nothing to fear. We digress.

She takes in the tension, takes in the way that Alex rolls up, practiced and comfortable and ready for something Very Bad to happen and she puts her hands up, just enough to not be a threat. Just enough to indicate that she isn't going to snap and that this? This isn't a dangerous situation.

"Hey," she says, "just passing through, I'm Lavinia-" she then looks between the two males, "-I think there's been a misunderstanding here, let's just breathe and talk it out… okay?"

She wasn't going to walk away now, she was pretty sure that this guy could render the dude she met at the art gallery (Kalen, right? He looked like a Kalen) into a fine powder and she couldn't exactly walk away and let that happen, right? Of course right. Though she does try very hard not to wince when Kalen says something about maybe being a clone but probably not.

Serafíne

The blanket is old and worn, and plaid of course, fringed at the edges with a few strands of dried grass stuck in the nap of the flannel from the last time it was dragged outdoors for this particular purpose. Dan and Sera open it up until it covers an area of grass nearly as large as a queen-sized bed. Dan slips off his sandals to step onto the blanket and trample it down. Dee follows suit while Rick anchors one end of the blanket with the cooler and starts digging around for the bottle of Malbec and stemless red-wine glasses they brought with them for the party.

Sera is still at the edge: alert, aware, a vision in a little white sundress so fine as to be translucent, worn over crisp black lingerie. It is harder for her to slip off her combat boots, so Dee wades over to give her a hand. Takes the smoothie in her right and holds up her left while Sera balances and tries to make the laces come up almost by magic or - you know - fingertips. Some combination of the two.

Alexander

It’s not the first time that one of the Awakened in the city has surprised Alex. It’s not even the first time that Kalen has managed to do it, not so far and not so long ago from the here and now. At least this time hasn’t – yet – ended up with bruising, or worse.

Alexander takes a longer look at Lavinia when she tries to reassure him that she isn’t a threat. His gaze lingers for a moment longer before it returns to Kalen and stays there. She’s still in his peripheral vision – he’s not ignoring her – but she’s not seen at the threat right now.

Kalen – or the man who looks like Kalen, sounds like Kalen, but just feels so damned wrong for Kalen – is the one getting his the focus of his attention. He’s the unknown. Given the strange stuff that he’d seen, and the even stranger things he’d heard about, it doesn’t seem unreasonable that someone could look and sound like another person. He’d felt the change in Grace recently as she had ‘upgraded’, but that was a broadening and deepening of what was already there. This? This is different.

“No way are you Kalen. You might look and sound like him, but there’s no fucking way. So who. The fuck. Are you?”

Kalen

Kalen rolls his eyes. "Exactly who are are so very sure I am not. Which is an interesting enough situation, I admit."

He pulls out his phone and taps on a few keys. Then a few more.

"Check your messages sometime," he says, rising to his feet. "Get back to me. I'll be at home. Call and warn Grace if you must."

Lavinia

(skip me, please!)

Serafíne

(also no reason to wait for me since: my screen froze and I had no idea anyone had posted. and am not really interacting with folks!)

Alexander

Alexander’s eyes narrow a little,watchful and wary as “Kalen” stands and offers his words. There’s no attempt at explanation, but then standing in the middle of a wide-open public space possibly isn’t the best of places to discuss things that a certain group of well-dressed individuals with their towncars and mirrored glasses would just love to know about.

There are times when he wonders if he’s a little too paranoid about thing. And then there are times when he thinks he’s not paranoid enough. Having his friend possibly snagged by some kind of... B-movie baddie and cloned, or whatever? Or maybe this was a spiritual thing – it wouldn’t be the first time, and wouldn’t be the last time, that something from the other side of the Umbra had interfered with things in this world.

He pauses before replying, watching. This is going to be hard, but it’s worth a shot...

[Arete, sensing spirits. Base TN4, +3 for no focus, -1 for practiced. So very much spending the WP.]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( success x 1 ) [WP]

Lavinia

[Do I notice this? Per+aware]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )

Kalen

Kalen sighs. "Really. I commend your vigilance." Even if it doesn't exactly please him right this moment.

But then he turns to leave. He does not run. He does not seem terribly concerned Alexander will shoot him while he isn't looking. He heads away with the same easy pace he approached with. There are conversations that could be had and there are things he might try to say, but here, with an audience...no.

Serafíne

(going to go, actually. night folks!)

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.