hipsters @coolbar 2nite only!

Serafíne

Hole in the wall of holes in the wall. The entrance is from the middle of a long alley behind some shallow galleries and the space is strange and there's a red door and a purple light above it that is intuitively menacing but a strange scroll-worked sign above that says simply: cool bar. Then something like a bank big bank vault door and a long stairway down-down-down and: oh hello.

Bar and stage as likely to host impromptu walking productions of MacBeth written back into street slang as it is to have a band, but tonight there's a band. Not much notice. Folks who got the invitation late this afternoon only saw: pop-up show, @coolbar with a link to the location and a minute later come here are new stuff thanks, auto-correct.

Pen

Here is Pen - come through the ominous purple haze, come through the big bank vault door and the long stairway, the echoing stairway, the stairway which echoes (it does echo, echoes and contains, a tunnel) like some kind of nautilus, and: oh hello.

Here is Pen, who came because she wanted to hear the band and see the band members, in an artist's smock doubling as a tunic. The effect is airy and winsome John Williams Waterhouse, some Spring-witch, cobalt blue embroidery at the edges of the collar which is a split that goes down to her sternum the laces left loose like that, and her hips are banded by a belt of braided leather.

Here is Pen - but where is Dan; where is Sera? Pen sweeps the place with a glance, aspiring (the soldier) to alertness, and if she sees either of them: she beelines. Or she joins the small crowd at the bar, ordering a ginger rye from the bartender.

Serafíne

Bright and warm and windy the next morning. The snow mounded up so high yesterday now has a bright, granular crust and everything, everywhere is a paean to gravity, a lesson in watersheds. Easy to get out and back on the road home, even at the immoderately early hour of ten-or-so a.m. And she's curled up in the passenger's seat, knees drawn up, forehead against the glass, sunglasses yes, dark and huge, against the glare. He doesn't imagine she's slept. Doesn't imagine she's slept much, anyway. He knows how much acid she took two days ago. How long it takes to come down.

Well, hey! Dan and Dee and Rick are setting-up on the small stage and there's something easy and companionable about it all, some return-to-rhythm, something necessary and organic that passes between them as they go about the work in an unfamiliar space. Been forever since they 'played-out' after all. Sera is sitting on the stage while the others work. She wanted to wear her Easter dress again but it seemed that the skirt would be an impediment to the on-off she tends to do with her guitar, so she is back to one of her standards: a pair of tiny denim cut-offs and fishnets and filmy, lacy black bra beneath a ripped, worn, studded, shorn leather jacket.

Her legs are swinging, swinging, swinging and she sits while her friends work, and she has a beer and a shot and she's talking very companionably with an attractive young rather-earnest looking black guy sporting a pair of hipster glasses, worn jeans, and a distressed t-shirt which features a line drawing of an enormous sheep eating a tiny laser-eyed monster.

Sera waves and beams when she sees Pen making-a-beeline. Her hair is worn differently than it often is, and when she turns to say something to Tre about who-Pen-is it becomes obvious why: she is wearing a crown.

"Hey!" That smile. "You came!"

Silas

Silas' pants are too loose for a true hipster, but other than that? There is the stubble, the hair swept just so, the button down shirt (with sleeves rolled up to approximately the elbow, displaying tattoos on his arms) tucked into denim that moves well with him rather than constricting his movements, the bow tie that coordinates, contrasts, something. It doesn't match, no, where would be the fun in that?

He drinks his whiskey neat, at least tonight, and of course he's here for the band. Why else could he be? But there are things that mark him out as different [as primal, as Other], and there are things that Echo from him, literal representations of the Ars Vitae with which he is so familiar. His skin is warm to the touch on the occasion it's brushed - a sunlit glade full of riotous growth. There is no jewellery but for one thin gold band on his right ring finger, and a paler bit of skin of a similar width on the middle finger next to it.

Sitting with drink in hand, his back is to the bar; his eyes on the assembled are a vivid blue, clear and vibrant, and observant. He sees Pen enter, sees so much.

Serafíne

Awareness!

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

Silas

Same!

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )

Serafíne

Then, well. This moment when she lifts her chin and looks and looks and oh: everything in that moment is sharp, heightened, intimate, surreal. "Check that guy out." So she says to Pen, a lift of her chin toward Silas. "He feels like someone you'd know."

Pen

[?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 4, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )

Pen

Sera beams and it is Sera and it is that smile and Pen smiles back: a flash of a thing, burnished like a piece of silver, see, tarnished until suddenly: a rill of brightness, catching the day, and of course her entire expression is lit up by it and by Sera and by the prospect of music made by somebody fashioned and crafted by someones that she knows here on this particular night with snow a rim outside a créme brulee shell to be cracked get to the sweet within. "Of course!" - that rill of brightness in her voice, too: steadiness. "I feel as if I have been longing to hear you play, that it is exactly what I want to feel in my collar and my rib cage - Sera, I am very excited," and the flash of a smile and its left-over remnant pleasure becomes this curl of a grin. "Hello," to Tre. "I'm Pen."

And she might have said more, but there by the stage is Serafíne, observant, lifting her chin and Pen does check that guy out, turning so her back is to the stage and she can give that guy an assessing look (a weapon must be ready, always; she tries to be always ready).

"I don't, though. He seems as if he should have antlers, doesn't he?"

And if Silas meets Pen's eyes, she lofts her eyebrows and cants her head.

Pen

ooc: Er, make that the fancier and more Pen-like: "He seems as if he should wear a crown of antlers upon his brow, doesn't he?"

Grace

[Awareness!]

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

Grace

There's an invitation. Grace responds to that invitation, not so much because she enjoys going to bars for music, but because of the sender. Sera could make just about anything worth it.

The swirl of different in this place doesn't surprise much. She still blinks as she steps in the door, this be-winged thing, at everyone else's oddness. She wears her coat-of-many-colors -- red, with strips of LED lights sewn in. If it looks a little worn, perhaps it's just because she wears it everywhere in winter.

A bee-line, she travels, straight to Pen, head down, like she is trying to forget the rest of the crowd is here.

Silas

Eyes are met, yes, and a brow raised in return; questioning, perhaps, from the bit of the bar closest the stage. Silas is not terribly far from where Sera and Pen met, and so after acknowledging their presence (and feeling their Presence) he takes up his drink, signals the bartender for two drinks of the women's choice to be added to his tab, and makes his way to where they stand. Why not? There is music, and there is quarry here, even if he chooses not to hunt, and there are people of interest.

Silas is brazen, he is bald, and when he moves towards where Pen assesses and Sera prepares his gait is sure, and nigh predatory. It is not rushed but measured just right to give Sera chance to give answer before he's close enough to hail them.

"Hello," he says and his deep voice is familiar to Grace. There's a slight accent there, as the Other carries itself from impression to reality; it's English, maybe, if you listen to it sideways, but the kind of upper class English that one hears in places that commoners aren't often about. "I feel that you two may be people I should know. I'm called Silas."

Grace

Silas is Arianna's friend. So is Pen. It remains to be seen if Grace will be able to associate with either of them once it comes out that she'd much rather punch Arianna in the face than give her prejudices credit by being nice.

For now, though...

"You don't know Pen? Really?" Grace makes a 'huh' face. Lets them introduce themselves. "Hey, Pen."

Serafíne

"You know we're loud," Sera-to-Pen, "right?" And there is a moment there of introduction: Tre to Pen and Pen to Tre, perhaps. Sera tells Pen that Tre is, you know, cool, which is code enough for Tre to understand that Pen, like Sera, is magickal. And to Pen's comment about crowns and antlers, all Sera has to add is: "Don't look now, he's coming this way."

With a neat wink. They can be all archaic together.

And: a twirl of Sera's fingers at Grace as she is bee-lining and this glance at Tre that includes a neat little smirk and this particular NPC might well shake hands with Pen and even Silas and also: Grace if she gets here soon enough but he also has a feeling that it is time to take his leave. He's gonna go chat up the bartender/manager and work the crowd and he has enough easy, unselfconscious charm that he can really work a crowd.

"Serafíne. Hey. Everyone calls me Sera."

Nick

Here is Nick, who was likely gently persuaded into coming and ultimately came because he wanted to hear the band play. He is come separate from Pen, though he went back to the house to change before coming out because he couldn't stand to be in his work clothes any longer. He is wearing a collarless chambray shirt and a pair of dark brown khakis and boots: the effect is a simple one, contrasting neatly with Pen.

It will also let him blend in here, which is just as well. Nick has the sort of air about him that could be a buzzkill in a place like this.

Nick gathers his bearings for a moment after he has stepped in the door into the haze and red and purple lights. Pen is easy enough for him to see, and so is Sera, and there is Grace. He lifts a hand to all of them, and he stops at the bar first, because damned if he is going to be at a loud concert without a drink in hand.

Pen

They can all be archaic together, and here come to roost two bird-things (winged quake herald of change dark crow reverent portent) in the cool bar as well. The cool bar really is cool; look how many cool people have come to it (because of Sera - core of gravity; center of the circle). Silas has Pen's attention, as a stranger and a stranger who feels as he does, but when Grace cuts through the crowd she is welcomed with a warm look. She offers the man-who-should-wear-an-antlered-crown her hand. Her wrist is clasped in a metal bracelet; there are rings on every finger, including above the knuckle of her thumb, and she says -

"Silas. From Silvanus, I take it?" with easy good humor, and in the middle of the question this perplexed look for Grace, which winds past Grace to rest on Sera: the question continues. Why should Pen know Silas and not Sera, hmm?

Grace

She waves back at Sera, the twinkle of fingers, a quirk of a lip. But she doesn't understand the weird look Pen gives her. Some people are easier to read than others.

"Hey, Nick too. We're freaking flocking."

Silas

"Yes, actually. My mother is ever interested in the esoteric." Grace is there and she waves her fingers, so Silas gives a nod of his head; it could be a bow but that it isn't at all, and while he may sound like it, look like it, he isn't quite that archaic. Any hand offered is shaken, displaying his tattoo-sleeved right forearm - it is cloaked in symbols of Horned Gods and Hunts, lending still more credence to the thought that perhaps there ought to be horns on his person. As stated, he is warm to the touch in a way that might be considered feverish, were it not so vigorous a sign of life.

"It's a pleasure to meet you both. And to see you again, Grace - I hope all is well."

Serafíne

Grace says that we are freaking flocking and Sera favors the Virtual Adept (sorry: Grace, Sera has not adjusted to the name change.) with a neat liiittle smirk. Grace and her propensity for commenting on the coincidences of mages-coming-together. Well: no coincidence tonight. It's the first time Sera's band has played out in...

...months. Nine or more. She has a shot and a beer and when Siles orders another one of whatever the women are drinking to be put on his tab, hell, she gets another round. Of shots, not beer. Stranahan's Colorado whiskey: goes down a treat. She tosses it back like a pro. Eyes Silas' tattooes when he outstretches his hand to be shaken. Notes the warmth and goes, "Oh, your hands are warm!" And she remembers: others with warm hands. The passing wonder of it.

"I hope you brought your earplugs," Sera says this mostly to Grace, in a way that is teasing-serious, and reaches out to ruffle Grace's hair. Whom Dan pauses in his work doling out cords and setting up drums and amps and whatnot to greet with a grin framed by his blond beard.

Nick

When Nick appears behind all of them, it's without emitting a sound; a more forceful presence than his would be likely to startle other people. Lucky he's not like that.

"Hello everyone," he says, and when he finally settles on a place to enter the little circle of Willworkers here it's next to Pen. He has a whiskey and soda in hand. Dan, where he is setting up amps and doling out cards, gets a wave.

Nicholas, curly-headed and solemn, offers a moment's quiet regard for the other man present: he had not arrived in time to catch his name. "Hello. I'm Nick."

Grace

Grace shrugs at Silas. He can hope all is well all he wants. She isn't going to explain why it isn't right now. But she leans into Sera's ruffling fingers, pulls out -- yes -- a pair of earplugs connected to each other by a wire from her coat pocket. Smirks.

"They are loud," she explains. Gives Nick a wave.

There's goodness to this. Coming together, waving at people, the meeting, the parting. Grace, for her part, is simply present. If her eyes go darting to some light fixture or other rather than a person, it's just the way she is.

Silas

"Silas," he says for Nick's benefit, offering a hand as well; there are Manners to this one, and they are deeper and stronger than just a handshake might seem. And Grace's shrug is taken in stride - already he's come to realize that Grace tends towards the terse, at least with him, and that her reactions are not always what he would consider apropos. Or polite. Still, he reserves obvious judgement, and attempts to include her as much as the others, until it seems she'd rather be left alone.

"I've not been in Denver long, though if you are the Nick and Pen of whom I've heard, we have a friend in common." He's not as secretive as his Housemate in some ways - in this way. He doesn't much mind the assembled knowing who he knows.

Pen

Pen's gray as gloaming eyes gleam when Silas blames his name on his mother's love of esoterica, but she does not discuss it (or the fact that she believes likely his mother was inspired by the mien of him, the clear and present godhood in his shadow; what will Margot make of this one?). Only seems friendly enough, inquisitive but questions will keep.

She executes a small double take when Grace actually pulls out earplugs; her eyes gone wide. She measures their proximity to the stage (the scant few inches, since Sera was and perhaps is sitting still on the edge of the stage, her band busy about her), then finds the speakers.

"Should we move if we hope to preserve our eardrums then?"

There is a Nicholas; Pen reaches for and takes his drink because she has yet to order one of her own and she wants to drink something.

Pen is sharp enough to: "Oh, you are Ari's childhood friend. Sera, have you met Ari yet?"

Grace

[Manip + Subt = Ari? Oh no, I have no probs with her.]

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

Grace

Never let it be said that Grace has manners. Perish the thought. It's a rare day she remembers to thank people for gifts, and has a tendency to look at people oddly when they thank her -- because property is a bit distasteful when it comes right down to it. What are manners, except for the customs and rituals of tribes who've never claimed her?

"Well, we can," she says, to Pen. "I'm just not a huge fan of loud music, myself."

She tries not to let it show on her face the distaste in her when Ari's name is brought up. She licks her lip, snakelike, tilts her gaze to the side. Not paying attention anymore.

Nick

[Oh? Perception + Empathy.]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )

Silas

[You think so, do you. How droll. Per+Emp]

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

Serafíne

"Tre always has extras," Sera assures Pen: of earplugs. If she is intent on preserving her hearing. "Dee too." Because hearing loss is a problem for musicians. Or at least: musicians who are not disciples of life.

They are indeed very close to the stage. Sera is still sitting there, letting her legs swing and swing and swing. She is excited, wired. Perhaps she is on some-small-thing other than alcohol, in addition to alcohol, but the darkness in cool bar is deep enough that there will be no good view of her pupils.

Gives Nick a quick, chasing grin. Shakes her head no to Pen: she has never heard of Ari and she takes no part in the examination of Grace who is trying-not-to-let-things show. That shake jostles a few of the curls pinned up amidst the glories of her crown but the whole of the mass is well-secured.

Then Dan is there with a hand on her shoulder because everything's set up and they need five minutes to go over the set list, don't they? In the past they've always done covers, or covers of their own shit that Sera-and-Dan have sold to other artists, stitched together by Sera's irrepressible and slowly raveling charm. Tonight though -

"We'll be out in a few! So glad you guys came - "

Nick

His drink is commandeered; Nick allows this with hardly a sideways glance. This is the way of things. It frees up his hand to shake Silas's, and there is this glimmer of recognition there as the man says his name that Nick doesn't bother to hide. "Ari's mentioned you," he says.

His hand falls back to his side, and Nicholas is an insightful man and it's not difficult to notice the way in which Grace's gaze slants sidelong, how there is this slight wrinkling of her nose. Nick marks it; for now, he says nothing. His hazel eyes are for Sera, who is swing swing swinging her legs, and there is this crinkle of amusement at the corners of his eyes. "I didn't realize you were in the band, Sera. Thanks for inviting us."

Pen

Nick didn't realize she was in the band; that brings out Pen's dimples, for whatever reason, a mischievous glint.

Then: "I am glad too! Break the bone and chase the echoes down," Pen says, earnest and whole-hearted and here a quick flash of a smile again that winds up not being quick at all; flash bomb, the way it just dazzles (lake-light, shield-light) for a moment but there's the blinding blot after effect. That lingers; in the place of this metaphor, it becomes diffuse. Dan gets a tilt of her chin, a pleased hello acknowledgment; then courtesy: "I am for the bar."

It is an invitation, sure, because there are people now crowding in, and their area is a coveted one; funny how a crowd will eddy, will whorl like a river against a stone-strewn shore.

She hands back to Nicholas his drink; it has been considerably depelted. "It is good to meet you, Silvanus." Pause; "I meant to say Silas," and she sounds perplexed: because she did. (When one is marked, such things often happen. Especially if one is speaking to someone myth-seeped as Penelope.) "In some other venue, I shall want most dearly to ask you questions!"

And she is for the bar, so.

Silas

Silas marks the same shift in expression that Nick does, and he too lets it lie; he is the new addition, after all, and Arianna is more than capable of fighting her own battles when they're worth fighting. And sometimes when they aren't. More interesting is that Pen has labeled him a childhood friend, and that Nick's eyes sparkle recognition at his name. The way he sips his drink, finishing it, is casual, as are his posture and eyes.

"Yes, she and I know each other of old. If you'll pardon me - I promised my roommates I would remind them to be here for the show. Break legs, Sera."

He says this with sincerity, in the way of far older performance arts than this - and with pleasantries traded, he makes his way for the door - where he'll be able to make his call in more favorable conditions.

Serafíne

This is a ridiculously small venue and those invitations went out to maybe one out of five people on Sera's normal invite-people-to-shit contact list (which is of course, managed by Dan-not-Sera) and the other magi may well have five-ten-fifteen minutes or more of conversation before the quartet come out of - er - the back office and the hallway down to the bathrooms with their instruments and plug in to check a few levels and channels and whatnot but they already tried out the space on Monday when the bar was closed and figured (most) of that shit out. Dan and Sera with guitars, Dee with her bass, Rick on the drums. And this is new work and it is collective work, brawny and rhythm-section forward. Great big and (yes) loud as promised though the wave of noise has been modulated for the space, you see. It is also: loud as in, full, driving. The wall of instrumental sound and Sera's and sometimes Sera-and-Dee's or even Sera-and-Dee-and-Dan's voices a melodic cloud above it, floating through a river of noise.

(Er: thank you all for coming! I gotta sleep!)

Grace

Grace huffs at Nick. Didn't realize Sera was in the band? Wait until the first time she does literal magic with that voice of hers. It is something.

Pen departs for the bar, and Silas departs for his roomates. "Want to follow Pen?" she asks Nick. "It's about to get loud right here. Might be better at the bar, eh?

She hefts her weight back and forth, clearly ready to move if he is. Clearly ready to wait with him if he isn't.

Ms. Gray

Ms. Gray

Okay. so:

- this scene comes three days after the last one.

- danger is unlikely, but could happen. i don't know what your characters plan on doing they could be really, really dumb, what do i know?

- questions, ask me.

- any effects you want to have done ahead of time, any other preparation you think they might do, now is the time.

- based on rolls we have already done: pen has a dream roll in effect gives +1 to politics / lore - technocracy. pen has a corr / prime no follow rote going on. sera has a corr / prime / time - no follow / no scry now or later rote going on.

- any other effects you wanna initiate (dampening resonance, et cetera?) mind shield? magickal equivalent of arcane? anything else: feel free to roll now!

Kalen Holliday

[Watch the Weaving d=3 (4 -1 personalised instrument) // 4 suxx target because duration]

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (2, 3, 4) ( success x 2 )

Kalen Holliday

[And extend - now d=4 - WP because Mages think that should be gone through like whoa]

Dice: 4 d10 TN3 (7, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 5 ) [WP]

Ms. Gray

Mind Shield - Sera. Dif 4-1 (personalized instrument)

Dice: 4 d10 TN3 (2, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

Ms. Gray

Mind Shield - extension. +1 / -1 taking time.

Dice: 4 d10 TN3 (4, 5, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Ms. Gray

Sera: Mind Shield on Pen. Mind 2. Dif 5 -1 -1 (personalized / time)

Dice: 4 d10 TN3 (1, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 3 )

Ms. Gray

Extension.

Dice: 4 d10 TN4 (3, 5, 6, 8) ( success x 3 )

Ms. Gray

Three days later and they meet at the chantry and the hour is early early early early ridiculously early (so says Sera who is cranky before it is still before noon and she had to get up and get dressed and shower and drive all the way out to Morrisson (DAN DROVE, SERA NAPPED) and her crankiness is a cover for something else, the ratcheted anxiety that has asserted itself more sharply, more presently, with each passing day.

Forty-five minutes later and they are back in Denver. Rather a long way from the likely Technocratic complex that Kiara and Nicholas scouted spiritually this night past, and really (the way things go) rather close to the neighborhood that Sera and Dan call home.

Zook's Coffee and Ice Cream, which shares a building with the Denver Puppet Theater. Twenty-seven minutes after one p.m. on a modestly warm March Saturday. That's where we begin.

Penelope Mars

Today is the ambush -- of diplomacy. Fuck yeah! The goal: to woo an ally who is already an ally, if the rite was successful, untampered with, Good, but doesn't yet know it.

The night prior she considered the Technocratic Union and its Conventions and she considered what she had heard of a faction within the Union which does not want to stir the sleeping embers of their feud into something too too hot and she considered, also, the rumors of someones working within, which the rite has confirmed, and thought on what signs and by what Names such a society might be known - and then she had slept. Dreamt. Just before she met Serafíne and Kalen the Flambeau for their diplomatic mission (ambush), she cast a warding and when she shows up to meet them there is this. Her resonance: sheathed, tucked away, ace up a sleeve - diamonds (she is not a cheater), the glint of a possible weapon all that power: given over to secrecy.

Scrubbed of her resonance, Penelope is still something of a Presence.

Study of a Flambeau, sans resonance.

Here she is: red hair braided into a crown, some waving tendrils loose around the face, bangs pushed off to the side; the same silver-gray coat the inside an interlocking pattern of green leaves with frock-coat cuffs rolled back. Beneath the coat, a tunic with a collar that skims her collar-bones and falls to mid thigh. The coat is belted by a belt with a belt buckle that wouldn't be out of place on a runway, or in a painting: you know the type. Modern-day, updated legend: myth: circles. The tunic itself is simple and also rather modern (but the Echoes), and the leggings are High Fashion leggings, another Morrisian design on those. Her boots are high. There's a knife in one, probably. She has a purse which is more of a satchel, hangs at her hip, is easy to reach within: and within a few odds and ends, just in case she needs some instrument other than her wand (up her sleeve in truth: sheathed, just like her resonance). She is wearing a ring on the finger of Mercury and the finger of Saturn (and her wedding band, which never comes off, on the finger of Apollo - sing love with a golden lyre), and a ring again on the other finger of Mercury.

Composure is belied by a troubled shadow in her eyes, which will remain regardless: she is too earnest, too open, for there to be no shadow.

Pen's suggested (it's always a suggestion, never a demand) plan, as she expressed to Sera and Kalen on the way over, is not very Ocean's Eleven. Identify the potential ally, strike up a conversation with this person, quickly establish credentials We-Know-You, This-Is-What-We-Are-Interested-In, and try to make a deal.

Anything more Machiavellian or Byzantine at this point in time will have to come from the other two.

Kalen Holliday

Kalen arrives at the House having already cast what little magick he plans to cast today. There might be more magick, counter-magick and striking magic and whatever else. The truth though, is this: the Technocracy has Alexander. Kalen assumes that anything he could give away is compromised. Alexander knows all of the places he could go, knows his Resonance. They can take what they want from Alexander's mind if they press hard enough. What good will warding do him now?

Instead he comes ready to watch for magick. If their potential contact or anyone else is attempting to do anything with whatever knowledge they have gained, that may tell him something. That he will respond to.

There is, of course, the matter of what thoughts he might have on their negotiation. Those might be relevant. But then, he does not intend to lie. His last few dealings with a crisis have taught him that honesty is good and that violence is not necessary and his priest tells him these same things. Take away misdirection and violence from him and you get what?

The young man in jeans and a mottled grey and purple sweater that is practically begging to be touched and that brings out the green in his eyes. No weapons beyond those that cannot be separated from him. This afternoon is for diplomacy and ice cream. Tomorrow, or later today, perhaps Kalen will be all monochromatic and razor-edged. But not now.

He's in agreement with Pen's plan; neither more complexity or duplicity suits him. At least not for the moment.

Ms. Gray

Sera does not have any Machiavellian plans. She has no Byzantine schemes. She may have a dress from the Dolce and Gabbana Byzantine collection, but that not mean she knows what a Byzantine scheme would be, except perhaps: intricate and gilded. This is new and strange and foreign and she has within her mind and heart a piece of the seeking shaped by the work, pushed to the point where such a conversation would be most propitious.

Dan asks questions. Like: "Are you all three going?" and "Where do you want to park?" and other questions about logistics and appearances and The Way This Will Work. He flicks a thoughtful eye over Pen's get-up and then glances at Sera. She is wearing a sweat-shirt turned inside out and denim cut-offs and fishnets when they show up to the chantry, but when they leave he has convinced her to change into skinny black jeans and a long-sleeved flannel shirt and gloves, yes gloves, to cover her tattoos. Her hair is its native brown, long and curly, and the remainder of her tattooes have been covered with make-up or bandaids or something.

--

They all prepare in their own way. Two cars, both rentals. One is left in the parking lot if needed for easy escape, and that is left before their quarry even arrives at Zook's Coffee and Ice Cream. The other lets them off a half-block or so (or more?) away from the location. Sera is seeing/remembering; waiting, listening to some ineffeable point in time before saying: okay. Now.

Inside, an attractive young woman with (natively) blond hair and cool gray eyes sits tucked in one of the far corners of Zook's. She has been here working for an hour and a half.

The staff do not complain. She always leaves an excellent tip.

Sometimes she reads, quietly, steadily, meditatively. More often, she works on / frowns over a Microsoft Surface, folded out to reveal its neat little keyboard, or up to just the touchscreen. At a certain time on a certain day, that device dings. She has a new email. Something in it makes her mouth tighten. She looks up from the device, and away, at her reflection in the glass.

She counts to ten.

Ms. Gray

Then she counts to ten in Swahili.

Ms. Gray

Then she looks back.

Penelope Mars

Serafíne is seeing/remembering. Okay. Now. Pen has given herself over to events and to a certain trust so: they go, Pen's stride goes long and she gets first to the door to the coffee shop and ice cream parlor, will hold it open for Kalen and for Serafíne. Meanwhile: give both the street and the restaurant an alert and absorbent glance. How gray her eyes are; how dark. There could be anything out there: there could be anything in here.

"Milkshakes will be on me today," she says; and if she sees nothing suspicious, only a woman who may or may not match what description Sera was able to give Kalen and Pen three nights ago, she asks Sera: "Do you see our friend?"

Because - well, one hopes there is a friend, hm?

[And we'll have a Perception + Alertness roll. -2 diff for Acute Sight.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN4 (2, 2, 5, 10) ( success x 2 )

Ms. Gray

Per + Awareness - Ms. Gray

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 4, 5) ( fail )

Kalen Holliday

Kalen is content, here and now, to let Pen lead. Pen is like some wary mythic knight; he trusts her to walk first into danger. All of the training he has been agitated others in Denver neglect to recognise, she has. And she has a willingness to strike too. He might wait, and he might wish that she had waited; but he trusts that if she senses danger Pen will respond.

And so, the potential ambushes are left to Pen. He does not search out potential threats and exits and entrances and where all the cameras are. He steps through the door Pen holds open with a faint smile about the milkshakes and then his eyes scan the crowd for one target, alight, and linger.

[Perception + Empathy - WP b/c first impressions are the most important]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 5, 10) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Ms. Gray

The blond woman with the tablet appears calm and well put-together. There is, however, a small frisson of frustration evident in her at the moment. Something about the way her brows are pulled together. Something about the cut of her mouth. The way she holds the device she has in front of her.

Ms. Gray

Pen declares that milkshakes are on her and Sera gives a tiny little smirk. Too early in the day for her to want to eat anything but they have smoothies and smoothies appear to be the name and title they have given to their milkshakes. Whatever. Instead of charging at their target, the trip wait in line and order something. The lunch rush is past; there is a low murmur in the air and some sort of singer-songwriter album on the PA system and a perky young man behind the counter who takes their orders and takes Pen's payment and proceeds to make whatever they have ordered while the trio stand at the counter and Sera confirms the target to both Pen and Kalen with a flick of her eyes. Even dressed down - looking rather younger and perhaps a bit more plain than is her wont, even with her tattoos hidden and her resonance dampened, Sera is a presence in the room. She flirts a bit with the kid behind the counter. Winks when he offers her a perfectly civilized cup of tea with her own little teapot, both of which she picks up and carries as she heads over to Ms. Gray.

Flashes a quick, incisive smile. "Mind if we sit?"

Ms. Gray's pale brows rise. The gesture: precise. She takes in Sera and she does it head to toe. Then Kalen. Then Penelope.
Something there: some knot of a breath, let go. Bemused.

She looks back at Sera. "I haven't much time, but you're welcome to join me."

Surreptitiously, she glances back at Pen again. That get-up. She probably has crystals in her shoes, tumbling around her toes.

Penelope Mars

Pen does - indeed - have a willingness to strike. But she is also sipping on a milkshake by the time they've approached Ms. Gray (and there. Even the Union cannot escape the mythic threads which run bright through the world: cool gray eyes, intellect, everybody knows the sign of the goddess), which does not exactly seem like prime leap into action position. Maybe that's part of the idea: seem disarmed, be disarmed, and later one will be disarmed.

The surreptious look: Pen catches it; it dredges up the beginning of a smile, some gleam in her own gray eyes (still troubled [shadows]), and she sits beside Ms. Gray and leaves the other side of the corner table/booth for Sera and Kalen. The silver-gray coat drapes over her thigh with casual glamour and she does not yet set the milkshake down: it will leave a ring on the counter.

"Thank you. You have the air of a regular; is the food here good? I'm Kat, by the way." She is, too, Katabasis being one of her names, and the she deems most appropriate to the moment. She offers her hand; the one she hadn't been holding the cold milkshake with.

Then: "We are Traditionalists; we were hoping you would consent to a conversation."

Kalen Holliday

Pen sits beside Ms. Grey and starts talking. Kalen settles across from Ms. Grey with a blueberry milkshake and no magickal defenses and he smiles at her a little. It puts him in position to watch her eyes. Puts him in position to strike straight at her while Pen strikes from her side, too. He does not anticipate striking. He met once, he is almost certain, another Technocrat in another coffee shop and they were, for about forty-five seconds, allies of a kind. No one was shot in a coffee shop then and he expects no one will be shot (or otherwise physically attacked) in a coffee shop today.

This will be more complicated and will need to hold for longer than forty-five seconds, but he has faith. Hope. A ridiculous willingness to find humanity in monsters. Given that they've kidnapped Alexander, he might certainly be willing to cast the Technocracy as monsters at the moment. He might be a little less inclined to forgive.

Still. He and Serafine once saved a man from a spirit of justice by convincing the ghost of the child child he murdered it didn't need vengeance. He brought a flower to a sea witch. Forgave this entity that...long story there. And then, layered with those, other stories. He can believe in Ms. Grey.

Assuming that Ms. Grey does consent, Kalen offers one of his hands across the table to her. "Elliot."

Ms. Gray

"Mmm." Ms. Gray murmurs. In response to the name and perhaps the question: about the air of a regular, about the quality of the food. This may be a note of agreement: why yes, the food is reasonable. Or yes, I come here with some regularity. I have found that I am able to work without disturbance, here.

Until now.

Pen does not set down her milkshake. Sera, however: sets down her tea. Feels awkward holding it with gloved hands and Ms. Gray gives the gloves a mild glance. Assumes that is another eccentricity of these throwbacks. Vestigal, superstitious.

A moment's consderation from Ms. Gray. Then a nod: of agreement. "A brief one," she reminds Penelope. Wonders if these strangers understand that they are no longer necessary. That the sun will continue to rise and fall and fall and rise, with or without their prayers. " - but yes."

This mild flick of her gaze up from those gloves; across the table. She reaches up - delicate gesture, this - and takes Kalen's hand. "Dr. Deidre Gray." This mildly expectant pause. She works in circles where she expects her name to be: often, recognized.

Penelope Mars

[Oh, oh. Wits (One Jump Ahead specialty totally qualifies, yeah?) + Politics (Tech! - thanks Dream). Now is the time to Know Things That Can Be Useful, right?]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 3 ) [Doubling Tens]

Ms. Gray

Idealism is a remarkably strong thread in the Technocracy. The belief in humanity, in a path-forward, a rising tide lifts all boats, et cetera. Certainly a Technocract disposed to not-murder Traditionalists, to aid one, to be On Their Side would subscribe to such an idealistic philosophy. But would also be burdened with / struggling again, an often-oppressive and many-layered bureaucracy that constrained her ability to act and to actually live up to her own ideals.

Penelope Mars

Pen considers Deidre. The cadence of her voice. The neatness of her measure. Pen's gaze stays on Deidre's face, and there is this true thing: House Flambeau has a strong feud against the Technocratic Union. Another true thing, of course, is that flesh and blood is weak, and the heart wants what it wants. She glances once at Kalen, consideration there too: splits a tiny tendril for Sera, and then all for and back to the Conventionalist. She says:

"I will be as brief and direct as it is possible to be and still be successful in convincing you to aid us in our endeavor. You have one of ours locked up in your facility; he works for the Denver Police Department and is slender of power but a good-hearted defender of - " Brief pause: this spark of a smile, and she is ardent. The resonance is sheathed but it is an Echo of the wizard's heart and the wizard's will. The smile is not good humored; it is grave.

" - people unable to defend themselves. We want him back; we want there to be no overt war in Denver because an apprentice was snatched - " Emphasis. Pen is invested in Alex because he is a person and she cares about people (too much), but she is more invested in the rest of it: rumblings of an Ascension War, rumblings of War period. " - or because somebody wants to be promoted in a spiritless bureaucracy and the easiest path to promotion is fomenting trouble, dismay, and bloodied lunacy. We want to know that somebody on your side is against the mindlessness, the muddying of the human spirit, which comes with such conflict."

"What do you think of starting up pointless war-in-the-streets between yours and ours; making Denver a battlefield? Would you not rather focus on saving lives; on ingenuity? What do you think of the cop - can you help us retrieve him?"

[Charisma! Expression! Beguiling Specialty! Willpower!]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 6, 10) ( success x 4 ) [Doubling Tens] [WP]

Kalen Holliday

Kalen is gentle with Deidre's hand. Gentler than usual, not so much because he is hesitant as because Deidre's delicate movements remind him of hummingbirds. Though, he thinks of word in Spanish. Kolibri. He has Named two people for hummingbirds, in two languages, and he adored -adores- them both. He has seen neither for some time. He is not certain one still lives. He knows, that in at least some manners that make anything between them impossible, one hasn't been alive since well before they met.

That delicate movement conjures up bits of poems and live music and flashes of brightly colored feathers. Pen is speaking and Kalen is not so persuasive or so charismatic or so....

For decades he wove his will into lies and violence; and yet, here, he has stripped himself of those things. The only things he really has to give Deidre in this conversation are honesty and faith and hope. He knows that. He came here with his mind open because if those things were all he had, there was no reason to hide them.

Those things were meant to be seen. Luminous like stars. Whole swarms of suns.

"We are not always in agreement," he says quietly. "But we must all want a better world. One we don't have to keep tearing apart." He meets Deidre's eyes then, if she lets him. "Help us?" Pen might be asking because Alexander is a person. Kalen is asking for a much less abstract kind of love; Alexander is, after all, one of the only people he considers family that he has left. Even so arguably as he still has Alexander at the moment.

Ms. Gray

Ms. Gray listens to Penelope and watches Penelope and there is a mild degree of neutrality in her pale gaze. A curious lilt to her chin, the faint rise of her brows. Something clear and - searching about the way her eye tick over Penelope while Penelope favors her with such a clarion call.

There is - beneath that part of her that is meant to rise to such calls - an abiding skepticism. It serves her well, you see: questioning assumptions, refusing received knowledge. An insistence on empircal evidence. She thinks, when she cares to, that their kind are absurd holdovers from some ancient evolutionary course. The coccyx, the appendix: some shadow of once-necessary organ that has been reduced to superflueity and will eventually simply correct itself.

"His arresting officer was transferred three days ago. There may be a small window of opportunity in the next three days. We may be able to clean up the records enough to allow him to return to his former occupation.

"For that, though. You will owe me a favor."

She still has the tablet out. Slides her finger across it and executes a program, then snaps it shut.

"Come back tomorrow. I'll leave a packet with Lola at the ice cream counter, after three p.m.

"And do not attempt to follow me. The first lick of reality deviance and the deal is off."

With that, she fishes out a tip, stands up, picks up her perfectly sensible tote bag, and takes her leave.

Counsel/Council [In Progress]

Sera

Some morning some strange stupid ordinary morning; sunlight or maybe shadow-fall, dark clouds, the strange anemic light of a clouded wintry morning and a jeep (circa 1990s) with Colorado tags and nothing else to distinguish it pulls up outside a certain luxurious home set away from the others on its own acreage. Normally they'd come bearing gifts today there are no gifts. Gatorade and an acid hangover and a Sera and a Dan. He was able to sleep, a bit. She wasn't. Still has that jittery rawness that comes in after a certain kind of rush, sick-ache in the back of her throat, her head, her body. Sick-ache elsewhere, too, someone underneath her skin, enough that he has to coax her a bit down out of the Jeep's passenger door. Pulls her into a hug and kisses her on the crown of her head and she curses beneath her breath, resists because something in her was meant to resist.

They head inside. Sera and Dan find Annie and have a talk with her. Then maybe all of Trinity. Dan puts tea and coffee on and starts cooking something potato-y. Sera curls up in the kitchen while he cooks. She expects, hopes, that other mages will start arriving soon.

Grace

[OOC Note: If you are known to Grace yet (Except Alex, because she thinks he's mad at her and will instead tell Kalen to do it for her), you will get a text message at the very least with some nonchalant message like "What's up?" or the like, since the original Ginger message said that people should "Check on their friends and family". She knows Pen and Nick don't have Ginger yet, so would not follow that up with a line about having "Spoken to Ginger lately?" but the point of all this is to make sure that everyone she knows knows about the meeting. Sorry ALL YOU FREAKING NEW MAGES WHO ARRIVED WHILE SHE WAS IN AUSTRALIA. You get nothing. ;_;]

[[ Addendum OOC Note: Rolls for that Corr ward

Grace @ 12:06AM [Making a Corr ward about herself! Corr 2, Diff 5 - 1 for taking time.] Roll: 3 d10 TN4 (5, 5, 9) ( success x 3 ) Grace @ 12:07AM [Extending, with WP!] Roll: 3 d10 TN5 (3, 3, 7) ( success x 1 ) Grace @ 12:08AM [With Actual WP!] Roll: 3 d10 TN5 (3, 5, 6) ( success x 3 ) [WP] Denver @ 12:20AM ~♥~ Welcome to Dedicated Dicing Den, I love Vesta. ~♥~ Vesta @ 12:20AM [Witnessed!] ]]

Of course, Grace attends, but not until after she has texted everybody to check on them and generated a somewhat solid ward about her to keep the sneaky spies out. She knows all about that sort of thing, being a sneaky spy herself and all. The wording of that IMPORTANT message has her unnerved. Not too many things are of the type that can't be spoken of on Ginger. One of those things is the War.

She really vanished to Australia for almost a month to relax and try to forget anything that had to do with the return of the Technocracy (and Vampires and a band of Stupid Wizards) as an actual, pressing threat to everyone's continued existence. It wasn't fear that drove this, or avoidance (as if Australia were some mythical land without Technocrats, right?). It was preparation. In order to stand up and keep fighting, you have to occasionally indulge in self-care. For Grace, this meant doing a lot of penguin-watching. In other words, she had expected such a call to go out, in just such careful language for quite some time. Preparing for it only makes things slightly easier.

The first thing she does upon arrival is try to find somebody who will tell her, right now, what is actually up. What has changed the precarious balancing act Denver's been going at for months now? So of course she wanders into the kitchen. There was mention of breakfast, after all. Someone is cooking. Aha, that someone is Dan...

"Dan. I love a good breakfast potato and all, and I love you for making them," she says, and then turns her attention more toward Sera. "But what's going on?"

Sera

"Alexander was kidnapped by a technocratic agent." It is Dan who answers Grace, his voice low and steady over the sizzle of peppers, potatoes, onions. Sera's tired, quiet. Still the suggestion of hallucinations at the edges of her vision from the drugs she took to access Lakashim. Feels so strange to be back, anchored in her body, in a solid room. "right from his precinct, a few weeks ago. He didn't answer some texts or return a call, so Sera scryed for him. Thought he might've gotten lost or maybe hurt, hiking or whatever. When she couldn't locate him in the here-and-now, she searched for the last time she could find him in the timeline."

The consor looks up from the mildly meditative work of cooking.

"Let's see who else shows up. Probably best if she doesn't have to repeat the story too many times today, you know?"

Grace

Grace's eyes go wide and stay that way, before she raises a hand to her mouth, and those eyes start darting in different directions while she thinks of what to do. She knows people to talk to. She can hack the enemy. She can do things, and she wants to do them all right now immediately, except that nobody else knows.

"Oh."

Words just aren't the best, most easy thing right now. Her insides are churning too much. Wide, searching eyes find Sera, and she approaches slowly, reaches out with her arms. Sera may be still hallucinating at the edges. Maybe this might seem like one -- Grace willingly hugging another person? But yeah. Yeah.

Nicholas Hyde

Nicholas is in attendance, perhaps with Pen in tow.

He hadn't had occasion to go out to the chantry yet - though perhaps this is not exactly true. He has meant to go, in the way people mean to check out the cool art museum right across the street for months and months after they move in; and yet things have a way of coming up in the life of a busy mage. He is with Pen again! They have a new place in a new city! He has a new job! He is meeting new people! There are rumblings about Technocratic presence from everyone he has spoken to! So: chantry is on the backburner.

The smell of cooking breakfast and brewing coffee greets him, and his stomach rumbles. The sight of Grace and Sera, both among the few new people he knows, brings a slight smile to his face as soon as he has followed the sound of voices into the kitchen: there are hugs happening. Nick does not yet understand that the context of the hugs is terrible and potentially tragic. Dan he does not know: he catches the man's eye in one of the moments that he looks up from the stove, and nods to him.

It does not take him long to figure out that Sera is minimally responsive right now. His expression becomes concerned, questioning, as he looks between the three people present. He says nothing, preferring to take context from what they are doing; there is, after all, the tacit understanding with meetings like these that things will be explained.

Kiara

The front door opens and closes with a hushed urgency. As if even in doing this much, it was trying to play tribute to the reason for their gathering together like this. The sound of buckles and leather and boots and that sudden flutter in their bellies. The swoop and flush of inspiration anew; the bloom of hope - that's what the Verbena felt like, you know. That all was not lost because here, nature was still thriving. Here in narrow shoulders and a slim figure with long, wild hair as dark as her eyes.

She cuts an impressive sight, the Verbena known (and to a few, unknown) as Kiara Woolfe.

She's dressed in black boots that don't quite reach her knees and jeans and a flowing top; the material looping and gathering at one hip so it falls over the other; hangs against a shoulder. There's a rattle of jewellery that accompanies her - lips made up with a bright red shade part a little as she reaches the gathering; hand to the doorframe.

Overheard, perhaps. Some of that last.

"Sorry I'm late." She has eyes for Serafine, the pagan. They flicker over the others, though. Pause on Grace, Dan. Nicholas (and Pen) warranting a hitch of her eyebrows. Uncertainty. Surprise. She's somehow always surprised by newcomers, as if Denver should somehow have been impossible to discover.

Sera

Well, Grace is reaching out to hug her and Sera, who is now seated on a counter or a table or a stepladder, which is to say: seated, but seated on something that is definitely not a chair, opens her arms. What else would she ever do when approached with a hug? She smells likes cloves and ash and snow and orange juice (orange juice!) and the morning-after fumes of a long, long night. Dan might've napped while she was scrying, but Sera has not been to sleep.

Hell, that's usually the case if she's up at this hour: it simply means that she has not yet been to sleep.

Somewhere in there she kinda - rouses, right? Contact is so very necessary for the animal-in-her, and she presses her nose into Grace's hair. Something strangely bracing about the solidity of that contact, of her spare frame and the strange, undeniable strength if not of her frame, at least of her resonance. The promise of: magick beneath her skin.

--

Dan, cooking. He's a tall, skinny guy with blond hair and a blond beard and tattoos covering his arms. He's wearing skinny jeans and a plaid button-down with the sleeves rolled up his forearms. If he started yesterday evening with a bow-tie, he has since untied it. Gives Nick an appraising glance: up and down, you see. Just so, while still somehow managing to attend to the peppers, onions, and potatoes in the sautee pan in front of him.

"You must be Nick." With a glance, you know? Sera tells him everything. A quick smile, crisp and warm framed by the beard, and then: an apologetic shrug with a glance at the pan in explanation. "I'd offer you my hand, but - "

They're kinda full.

Then Kiara joins them, and Dan is pouring breakfast onto both a plate and a platter, and says, "Kiara. Have you met Nicholas or his wife, Pen?" Deftly making introductions all the while. "There's a loaf of ciabatta warming in the oven. One of your want to grab it? We can sit in the dining room and we'll fill you in."

As Sera disentangles herself from the unexpected Grace-hug, Dan steers her toward the Gatorade in the fridge. Electrolytes or something. Sera makes a face and grabs both Gatorade and whiskey, which Dan helpfully points out sounds like the world's most disgusting combination. Well then: Sera will put it in her tea and just skip the Gatorade, anyway. Who says it works? She thinks it's a myth. She prefers: magick, anyway, when the time comes to heal her hangovers.

Kalen

Kalen has been, also, in Australia.

He was, briefly, back in Denver to meet with other Hermetics. Stopped off in Santiago on his way back to Grace and penguins. There are pictures from those first few days, before he told her what he knew about the coming war. Not that she would not have known. There are many people in the world that Kalen will hide from and lie to when it suits him, but Grace is not among them.

Sun or no sun, Kalen is still pale. There is a little dusting of very faint freckles over his cheekbones. His eyes are, if anything, more haunted than when he left. Kalen Michael Holliday is as terrible at vacations as he is at being Flambeau; though, one of those is a more recent development than the other.

He is quiet as he surveys them. There are no warm, excited greetings. A faint dip of the head to each of them, and then he is getting coffee. He holds Grace's eyes perhaps a few seconds longer than anyone else's and he brushes against Kiara as he slips past her, and in that this is unlike the grim and withdrawn creature he was when he first arrived in Denver; still, this is Kalen a little guarded, and a little quiet, and entirely reminiscent of what he had been haunted.

Nicholas

Once Nick is there only a little longer, people he does not recognize (as though he'd recognize so many) start to filter in. He is standing near Grace and Serafine, his arms folded across his chest, his limbs loose in a way that belies his actual feelings about this meeting. See, he's picked up on the fact that Sera has been up too long, that there is some whisper of a Working that she wears in her hair, wound around and beneath her skin. These things in conjunction with a meeting everyone is invited to: they usually mean something.

Dan, the person who is in front of the stove, catches his attention with: You must be Nick. The Chakravanti appraises him then, perhaps searches his memory and the relatively few conversations he's had since arriving in Denver, before returning with, "You must be Dan."

He goes to grab the loaf of bread that is warming in the oven, after a momentary pause to cast around for a mitt. As much of an impressive (foolish) entrance it might make to grab it barehanded with nothing but magic as a barrier, Nick is not that sort of mage, in any sense. Mention of Kiara's name draws his eyes to the woman that entered shortly after he did, and there's a glimmer of recognition there.

The bread he sets on the counter, close enough to Dan for convenience but not so close that he'd risk inadvertantly burning himself on the pan. "Hello, Kiara. And - ?" This, to Kalen.

Kiara

The brunette's eyes are a very dark brown. They've been highlighted today with liner and the lashes that frame them and drop, briefly, against her cheeks as she feels Kalen sweep past behind her, are curling and long. A lovely creature, by all accounts, Kiara but the manner she cut a brief, bright appraising look Nick's way reads a fair amount into there being far more to her than a charming little heart shaped face and cheeks with a tendency to dimple when she smiled.

(Only honest smiles drew them out, that being said).

"Hello," it's a murmur as much as anything, a hand idling to bury itself in all that dark hair and cup the back of her neck. "Welcome to the party." A notch up of fine dark eyebrows; one wings just slightly higher than the other and while Dan assembles plates of food - the Verbena kicks off from her resting perch and sets herself up with a glass of red wine. Unhooks a glass and pours it out, delivering the rich aroma into the mixture Dan's efforts had already let loose.

"That," a gesture with her glass here, Kiara's rings gleaming, toward the man who had pressed in behind her upon entry. "Is Kalen. Can I interest anyone else?" She sets the bottle down, the Verbena and leans into a counter out of the stream of activity; holding the glass against her body without any particular fuss about sampling it. Her tone is light enough, but beneath the glamor of it (not even magickal, this time, just posturing, just brittle play-acting at some notion of normalcy from the earth-witch) there's a sense of tension; lacing into her shoulders, the set of them. Her fingers curled around the stem a little too forcefully.

"It sounds like the occasion for it."

Sepulveda

He is not late. He was invited only by association and his associate such as she is arrived ten minutes ago. Came into the kitchen and started garnering information and he traipsed the periphery of the property smoking a cigarette and having an argument under his breath with himself.

Maybe Nick saw him on the way in. Kiara may have. Kiara is attuned to this land in a way he will never understand. Tried to understand. Kiara may have known Hinata who went by Eloise when she went by anything but that's a story for another time. At this time the Etherite who came as Grace's plus-one is chain smoking.

He is a forensic pathologist. A medical examiner. A doctor. A Scientist. Shouldn't be smoking. Does anyway. That is irrelevant. In time he finishes his cigarette and does whatever it is that Disciples of Matter do with their cigarette butts and lets himself into the Chantry.

A short man. Five-foot-six in his shoes. Came from an inquest this morning so he's wearing a navy blue suit and a white shirt and a conservative tie even though he hates ties at all let alone ones with still patterns he had to comb his hair and trim his beard didn't have to but he chose to and he's wearing black-rimmed glasses and a wedding band on his left hand and soon as the door's shut he's surveying the room intruder that he must think he is.

Everyone is in the kitchen. He calls out as he walks. A deep voice belies a slight frame. Light accent.

"Marco?" He follows the smell of food into the kitchen. Green eyes find Nick and then Grace. Eyebrows flick. Greeting in it and also expectation.

He expects Grace to introduce him since she's the one who ran his background check. He will absolutely take a glass of red wine. Breakfast be damned. He has two apprentices. They won't be joining the congregation. They have work and school and a propensity for freaking out at the slightest hint of impending doom.

Grace

Grace has been happy, up to the point where this call went out. Vacation agrees with her, when she's allowed to be somewhere very warm and work on her Work. Right now, though, she looks like she just got punched in the gut. When Kalen's gaze meets hers, she tries to hold on to it, tries to tell him with her eyes that everything will be okay. He's going to be... even less happy. Let us hope that the emotional outcome doesn't lead to doing anything rash. Not that she expects it of him, but still.

She's about to accept Kiara's offer of wine when Dr. Sepúlveda shows up in the entryway to the kitchen. For the life of her, she can't quite grasp that it's her 'job' to do introductions until a few painful seconds have passed. Maybe he has to look at her and cough.

"Oh, yeah. Um. This is Andrés Sepúlveda. Doctor. He's with the Society of Ether. Andrés, everybody. Everybody, Andrés," she says, with sweeping arm gestures in his general direction. Sorry, dude. Your invite to this shindig came courtesy of a Mercurial Elite with only the weakest grasp on what normal human interactions entail when she's on the scent like this.

"I could use some wine," she says to Kiara, and then seems to change her mind immediately. "No. Actually, no." She puts her thumb knuckles up to her eyes and leans on the counter like she's got the biggest headache. "I don't need to do everything that needs doing while drunk..."

Pen

Pen did arrive with Nick!

And then she was quiet, because there is a reason she is nursing a very strong cup of coffee as if the coffee'll have enough edge to scrape her into brightness. Quiet is relative. Chain-smoking Andrés got a what's up outside. Grace also got a what's up, probably coupled with big concerned eyes given how worn the Mercurial Elite looks. Pen's a softie. Serafíne and Dan, two Good Mornings, an incisive little this is really early isn't it? look for the former, but of course it is because 'meetings' like these are never good news you see that doesn't change one city from the other. Nick didn't get a what's up. Kalen got a wiggle of fingers, a half-smile.

There's a certain wistfulness to her regard of the wine, wine's as red as rubies in a fairy tale or it's the color of a gown the color of stars, but wine and coffee don't go together, do they? Then again, dare not!

Anybody she doesn't know gets the (semi-full) introduction, Penelope Sylvia Mercury Mars bani Flambeau ordo Hermes. There don't seem to be too many of those. Neat.

Pen is: mistress of languid aplomb, at least right now. Asks Dan if he needs help, chopping or any such thing, carrying plates into the dining room, c'mon people give her some busy work.

Sera

Dan wasn't really cooking for a (the) crowd, so the spread laid out in the dining room, or maybe the living room, is modest. He just wanted to get some solid food, some carbohydrates and potassium, some liquid other-than-booze, back into Sera's body as she is coming-down from whatever-it-is she uses to fuel her magick. The ciabatta, though, that's a good sized loaf, not exactly loaves-and-fishes but it's not exactly a loaves-and-fishes crowd.

It's Dan who starts,

"Alexander hadn't responded to a couple of voice mails or texts. Sera was concerned he might've gotten hurt while hiking or something, so last night she decided to scry him out. But she couldn't find him anywhere."

They're sitting close to each other, though at the moment Sera is not inviting touch the way she is often wont to do. No, something about her scrubbed-raw senses has her in want of: space, boundaries, singularity. Feels so strange to be one, when sometimes you can be: all, every, any.

"So I looked back," this is Sera, and if she looks as if she has not slept for quite some time, well: she has not slept. The edges of the room have a sort of brilliant smearinenss to them and everything from her temples to her fingertips aches. She doesn't mind the ache. In fact, she invites it. "Searched out the last time I could find him.

"Several weeks ago, Alex was approached at the police," a slight handwave. Unlike the rest of the western world, Sera has never watched a Law and Order marathon. She doesn't have a ready lexicon of crime-show language, " - thingy by a guy who said he was an FBI Agent named Paul Mason. Wanted to have a chat with Alexander.

"Took Alex into a room inside the place and started asking him about a 'case' he was investigating. Showed Alex a picture of Leah. Mason said he was investigating Leah for the murder of twelve people, and asked if Alex had seen her.

"Alex was pretty clever. He managed to answer without lying, without really answering, but Mason was not taken in. He kept questioning Alex, pushing him to give her up - or, well," this narrow hitch of the creature's spare shoulders. The movement framed with an elegant simplicity. "testing him, right? Weston asked Alex another direct question. Alex tried to leave.

"But Mason shot him with something: a tranquilizer, maybe. Alex tried to run, but the guy came after him and the drug he'd used was pretty fast-acting. Alex started to shout, and he went for his gun but they were grappling over it and he couldn't really get it out of the holster. He still managed to get a shot off that went into the floor before he passed out.

"These other cops came running. Mason convinced them that Alex had gone nuts while they were talking, that Alex started talking to someone who wasn't there and was going for his weapon and that Weston had to do tackle Alex to stop him from hurting himself, then Alex passed out. Mind magick, yeah? The cops believed Mason.

"They called an ambulance.

"The paramedics - two women - started toward the hospital, but changed course halfway there. Drove East instead, toward Aurora. Kept going until they ended up in one of those boring-ass looking developments with the low bland buildings and the sod and the fake ponds and shit. Dan says it sounds like a research park, and we put it together to be close to the UC Denver schools of public health and dentistry. That's where I lost track of him. The vision closed-off and I couldn't find him anytime, after."

Grace

After Sera's spiel, Grace chimes in, perhaps sooner than the impact of all that has really hit. She's been waiting to get a few things off her chest, although she's still speaking to the kitchen counter.

"So this means, if you knew Alex, you're in danger. He also knew where the Chantry is, and he had Ginger, so chances are they know we're having this meeting right now."

She doesn't stop to explain Ginger to those who don't have it. Priorities and all.

Her head comes up, and her eyes flit to people, but seem to pierce through them, until she settles on something non-living -- non-emoting.

"I know a guy. Mercurial Elite who has been watching the Technocrats in the area. I'm going to find out what he knows. And then I'm going to hack their shit to within an inch of it's life if I can. We'll find out what we need to get him back."

She says these things with conviction, like she is going to do them, and if anyone had any ideas about stopping her, they have another thing coming.

Sepulveda

Sepúlveda did in fact stare at Grace and give a bit of an open-armed You gonna introduce me or what? gesture when she didn't do so within about five seconds. File that one away under the Virtual Adept living up to her name.

He's silent during Dan-and-Sera's explanation and the clearing of things off Grace's chest. Keeps one hand in his pocket if he has been offered a glass of wine. Keeps both hands in his pockets and fails the Don't Make Music with the Random Coins and Other Jangly Junk test.

"So..." A hand leaves Sepúlveda's pocket to scratch at his beard before he goes on. He's a hand-talker. "If they know about all this, the Chantry and the Ginger and all that, how are you so sure they aren't expecting you to try to 'hack their shit'?"

Grace

It was a long drive to the Chantry with the doctor in tow. Grace has the feeling it's going to be even longer on the way back.

"By that logic, they're expecting everything, so we should do nothing. But I'm open to other ideas if you have them."

Sepulveda

He points at her.

"I'm going to ignore your unsound accusation of logical fallacy for the moment. We can discuss that later." Yes, Grace. Yes it is going to be a long ride back. "Other ideas!" He indicates their fellows with a sweep of an arm. "You have a room full of associates who I'm sure are very bright and more than capable of gathering data and contributing to a plan that's a little more nuanced than 'Go in the back door and hope they don't notice or do anything about it.' Like, where's your support? What are you gonna do if it does go wrong, and you don't find out shit, and now we gotta go after you and Alex? Where's this building they took him to? Can we use, eh, what do you call it, social hacking to get additional information? What about a two-pronged approach? Divide and conquer, eh? That's how they get new members, they pick off the ones who want to be cowboys."

Nicholas

Nick listens to the long explanation Sera offers, largely without expression: no surprise, and no fear. He is still digesting when she finishes, and when Sepúlveda and Grace begin their back-and-forth. He does not know Alex. Nicholas knows of Alex, but due to his and Pen's habit of rarely Naming those they run into even when they discuss - well, he doesn't know that yet.

"I think it's clear that this meeting was called because we have no intention of leaving a man to die," Nick says, and this is perhaps directed mostly to Grace. He did not miss her defiance of them, the lifted chin: and it's true, in many chantries there would be discussion of whether or not, in fact, they ought to retrieve Alex. "So I'm glad to skip ahead with you to planning." A pause. "It sounds like first we need to find out where he is. How much do we know about their operations in the area? Has anyone met or seen any of their operatives?"

Kalen

Kalen was expecting that the news would not be good. This is a different shade of horror from perhaps what he had thought that he would encounter. Still, this is Alexander. Whom he has referred to as both his brother and his griffon; among those in Denver, only Grace has also been referred to with any kind of possessive terms. His fox. His Virtual Adept. His partner in crime. And here she is, ready to charge in.

In these moments, he can remember a girl who did not yet know that she would be this marvelous creature. He has always known. Though, perhaps, not which of all the possible variants on that creature she would be. That, to him, is irrelevant. It is only all the blazing possibility crackling at the edges of his awareness ready to be made manifest he is drawn to. It plays out from there as it must.

There are other worlds and other lives and he does not believe any longer that any loss can be eternal. Love can be eternal. Hope can be eternal. Perhaps struggle and war and horror will also prove eternal. So:

His fingers tighten on the mug cradled in his hands and he is quiet at first. He listens. He breathes. And, let us be honest, he prays. Of course he does.

But then his attention is wrested away from divinity and faith and abstract concepts to a single moment, through a series of related moments, and then to this particular moment. Nick's cutting into the exchange between Grace and the doctor earns him a brief smile. It even hits his eyes for a second, because whatever is going on, Kalen can feel a dizzying array of emotions at once. Usually does, in fact.

"I can request a detailed report of the findings of another member of the Order who came here to assess the Technocratic threat and weigh our options for war. We can speak with one other contact I am aware of, others with have them, and reassess from there with the full whole of what we know from there. If he was dead, it would seem improbable that any such effort would be being made to hide that fact; so we may reasonably conclude that he is alive, at least, for the moment."

Kalen has to take a careful breath before he speaks again. Measured. Controlled. As though this control could possibly extend to his thoughts. To the too-fast pulse he can feel in the hollow of his throat. "What we cannot reasonably conclude, is that the person we reclaim from them will be the same person that they took." What he is not willing to conclude is apparently that they will be unsuccessful. Reason can be damned there, apparently.

"We will need to be prepared not only to find him and to go out and get him, but to handle whatever complications there might be." Whatever complications there might be. You know. In case Alexander's mind has been overwritten. His memories taken. Kalen does not elaborate there.

"If that is not something that we can do here, there is somewhere I can take him. Though, Alexander would prefer, undoubtedly, to remain here. This is our home."

Pen

Pen is alert and attentive. And sitting, now. Ankle on her knee, legs crossed like a man's, one hand on her ankle. Nicholas has heard about Alexander, Pen has met Alexander, but Pen doesn't connect Serafíne's story with anybody she's met.

"Two rumors going around could be factored in here.

"One, and I personally count this as confirmed fact because of its source. The Technocracy's lab in Denver has recently had a 'fairly sizable influx of personnel.' This could actually serve us quite well. New staff means unfamiliar faces, an unclear pecking order, and loads of paperwork. Even if the lab in Denver happens to be hyperefficient and without flaw, they can't all be untouched by the callous hand of human error and now there are some new guys. This provides us with a -- decent -- stage to enact a Daring Extraction. Send someone in, undercover, to rescue this fellow, outfitting this someone with all the advantage we can scrounge together. In and out. Difficult, yes. But… with the right information - " Naturally, flicker of her attention to the Mercurial Elite here. " - and enough gumption, not impossible."

"Two. And this one really is a rumour. Possible allies on the inside now, the inside being the Technocratic Union, the rumor being there is a group made unhappy by the choices the Union is making… especially as relates to igniting another Ascension War. Now if this is the case -- be prepared, ladies and gentlemen, for heavy speculation! Obviously, this one would be a really nice rumour to confirm. If this is the case, and members of this faction are already in Denver, could we presume they would be interested in a Traditionalist taken in for questioning as this Alex was? And, presuming that, could we not presume they might be on his side? Or, if not on his side, open to persuasion?

"What I'm getting at here is IF we have Magi skilled in Entropy Time Correspondence, if we have friends of Alex's who might possess some meaningful personal effect could we not roll the dice practice some form of -omancy and, using Alex, or rather the idea of him and the fact of him, to sort-of boomerang find these potential allies and make contact with them.

"We can presume he is being held somewhere heavily warded," and this time her graylight eyes flicker-flame in acknowledgment of Serafíne. "I wouldn't be surprised if the Union's facility was in the UC Denver school of public health and dentristy, but this is because my prejudice says there cannot be a more thoroughly boring and yet also terrifying fortress for 'Reason.' The other member of the Order who Kalen mentioned should know."

Wandering, Pen. Refocus: "Anyway. Although Alex's person would be always heavily warded those we might contact will not be -- and thus vulnerable to a Find You Out spell."

"Be nice to have somebody already on the inside to help with that Daring Covert Extraction."

"As for his current state of mind, how much of a threat is the Union likely to deem this Alex? What is he like?"

Kiara

The Verbena frowns down at her glass as Dan begins.

That frown only intensifies when Serafine chimes in and by the time she's done the brunette's knuckles are almost white from the ferocity of her grip around her wineglass. There's voices, then. Grace and the Doctor and then over to others but all Kiara can truly hear is a ringing in her ears and the hot trickle of anger.

Worst fears can come true, too and this has (always) been one of hers. Only she had made certain assumptions regarding who would be the one taken. Perhaps that had been a gross sort of egotism on Kiara's behalf, to imagine she'd be the only one they'd target because of course they'd position the cross-hairs on someone like Alexander, with his connections and the ease of access to him.

Of course.

"Dionaea muscipula," she says quietly, after a sip of wine. "The Venus flytrap waits for insects to trigger not just one, but two tiny receptors before it springs shut. It waits for that exact moment. It's very clever." There's a sharp inhale, the Verbena lifts her eyes. "I agree with the Doc in that we need to be cautious about how we do this." A cut of dark eyes to Sepúlveda. She'd handed him off a glass of wine earlier - half the pagan's is already consumed though the flush that's risen to her cheeks doesn't seem entirely of its doing. There's a degree of anger in the Verbana, a tremor of unvoiced fury present there.

She pauses, waits for Kalen and Pen to speak, then, head tilted at the latter, says with the slow framing of forming speculation: "Advantage like altering their appearance. A new employee, a recent transfer. It would be incredibly risky, but - not impossible." A beat. Kiara's narrow shoulders curl in, she seems, momentarily, quite beaten down by the goings on, her fingers lifting to touch her temples, eyes closing briefly. "This building where we think he may be being held, it's possible that I can see into it from the other side. Step across and gain some insights.

I may be able to get some help from the spirits in the area, too. They see a lot more than we imagine."

Sepulveda

His wife was Verbena. Some of the gathered know this already. Some of the gathered know what befell that woman already.

Sepúlveda's anger is not Kiara's anger. Though his love belonged to her tradition their furies do not well from the same spring. The Etherite does not seem angered by this though by the sounds of it he is informed.

As Kiara speaks he listens. His glass is as emptied as is hers. His eyes flick to Pen's after she has finished speaking.

"This new laboratory." The fuck does he have to lose. "I'll go." For those who don't know: "I work for the county, as a medical examiner. I have some training in Mind. Say I go in after this Alexander, under official pretense. If I had another backing me up, I could gain some intelligence." A beat. Aimed towards Grace: "Do not mistake the Technocrats for gods, Gracia. They have the same hot blood as do we; they have no choice but to cooperate, though, eh?"

Sera

"Alex is an apprentice." Sera answers Pen's question, "He's an orphan and he's always seemed pretty straight-laced to me. His magick isn't strong enough to break reality. I can't imagine that he's a prime target for the Order. Ever. Kidnapping him and holding him - "

Flat-mouthed, here. Something sharp and angry cuts through the scrim of her exhaustion. Her small hands are fisted and there is something something something -

Dan cuts in. "The way we see it, there are two ways we get Alex back. One is go get in there somehow and take him back. The other is to get them to give him back, and hell, maybe to think it was their idea to give him back all along. If we have to do it the first way, it sounds like everyone here is willing to do whatever is necessary to make it happen.

"But if the second path is viable, it seems like it's the safest for everyone here, and especially for Alex. Hell, if they let him go, there's no reason he couldn't resume his own goddamned life and job. Now, I don't know much about the internal workings of the Technocratic Union, but I watched a helluva lot of the original X-files, so I am pretty convinced I have some idea about how shitty, controlling bureaucracies work. If we, somehow, get the less militant faction to frame this Agent Weston as a crazy Fox Mulder type, kidnapping innocent fucking apprentices who are suspected of nothing more than being wrong-place wrong-time wrong-day, maybe they can force his release."

Dan takes a deep breath: inhales through the nose. Exhales the same way. These little gears turning as he marshals his thoughts.

"We've got what, two - " a glance at Sera, " - maybe three ways back to them. That guy who contacted Will last summer. This - entity? - who's been in contact with Kalen. Which, I'm not sure I really understand? And Pen's idea, which I think Sera has the magick to pull off if no one else does."

"Grace, I think it's fair to conclude that Ginger is compromised, but they don't know that we know. Maybe you start putting your hacking skills and magick to work by making it seem as if we are still using it. If they've cracked our code and we know they've cracked it, we can use Ginger to feed them false info, or false leads, or hell, just string them along until we really need to feed them something. I'm also thinking that maybe you could do something with any compromised phone numbers: some kind of rote spell to replicate pre-compromise use. You know: make it seem like someone's still calling, texting, surfing the 'net just as much as ever. Amplify the noise they have to sift through to actually find us."

"Then there's Leah. If you haven't met her, you probably shouldn't. Best to be able to say, truthfully, that you don't have any goddamned idea who the girl in the picture is. But I don't know: maybe we take it another step. Maybe we fake her death far away from Denver, dramatically and convincing enough that the Order mothballs their investigation of her for another five years. That, I'm not sure if it's achievable, or what we'd need to make it real enough to convince the order. But it would give her - and us - and maybe Alex - some breathing room.

"I mean, if it has to be daring rescue, it'll be daring rescue. But maybe it doesn't have to be."

Kiara

Oh, she wants that. Dan is discussing going in and taking Alexander back by force and there's that scratch and illumination, like a match-head drawn against the side of the box. That flicker of fire that dances through Kiara's dark eyes where she stands cradling that wine glass against her chest. She's silent for much of this - the debate, the turning over of decisions and probable routes.

In her mind's eye she sees it: the reckoning.

The laboratory up in flames, Alexander freed and the others - fleeing like rats from a sinking sink. Cowering and ruined.

There's little room for mercy in the Verbena's fantasy, in the hot-blooded whiplash of it as blood and vengeance play out their pretty imaginings in her grim little tucked in expression; the fine pull in of her brows as she pours another glass of wine. It trickles out with a tidy little glug, droplets of dark red painting the sides of the glass.

Then she frames the bench with one hand. Lets the wine scrap away the edges; dull the roar of payback. The jangle of it against her nerves; pulsing in time with her heart.

It doesn't have to be a daring rescue - but part of Kiara Woolfe desperately wants for it to be. "Faking her death might not be impossible if it comes to that. With the right tools. Manipulating certain aspects. It just has to be convincing, not perfect." She lets her eyes tick to the Doctor, then Kalen. "There are ways we could probably pull that off." Kiara doesn't offer details on what that idea might require. DNA altering. Pattern changing on a base level.

"Especially since at least two of us have medical training." Her dark eyes tick away, she breathes in sharply. Says no more.

Grace

She squints at Doctor Sepúlveda. He must think her extremely stupid. She never claimed they were gods, so why is he telling her that? Except if it's to tell himself, even as he signs himself up for an undercover mission -- with his inability to say five sentences without pissing somebody off. Martyrdom complex? Maybe. He's also the one most likely to pass himself off as a scientist, because he, well, is one. If he's willing, Grace won't argue with that.

But, Gracia?

Nevermind. Arguing is a distraction.

Sera gets a quick nod. It was already in Grace's plans to use Ginger for whatever it could, be it passing messages to whichever person now holds Alex's phone, or spreading disinformation. Making it look like it's being used would be easy enough. Generate some fake threats, generate some fake messages about the fake threats.

"I can do that. I can also try to confirm if Ginger has been accessed, although if they're smart, they're hiding that. Anybody who has it, though? Might want to ditch your phone. At least, for a while. There's protections in place to keep the network from being sussed out, but anything's possible."

Usually, that is a good thing. Anything is possible! Go, ride your T-rex into the oceans of possibility! But it goes both ways.

"Kalen can provide you a replacement," she volunteers, for him, because she can, and because she knows him well enough to realize that's about as much an imposition as asking him to grab her a beer from the fridge.

She's not so much thinking about it when she wanders over in Kalen's direction. It's just a thing that happens. She bumps up against his side, like a cat showing affection. No arms, no hugs, just that. It'll be okay. It'll be okay -- that's the thing that she's trying to tell herself.

Pen

Kiara's head-cant and the slow dawn of speculation. Advantages like, the Verbena says, and the spark of some acknowledging light sifts up through Pen's serious eyes. Quiet thumb and middle-finger snap, ending in a Yes Like Those finger-gun point. Sepúlveda volunteers. Pen leans forward. Rests her elbow on her knee, chin on her thumb, forefinger curled around her mouth. Serafíne. Attentiveness. Dan. The bells of Ys are drowned and silver; they only peal-out sorrow, fog-drenched and soon-lost; shadow-dappled, salt-wave sea.

During all the listening, she takes the top off her coffee spares a quick glance into cup damn it empty puts cup back down on the table. Pulls a moleskine out of her coat pocket or a pencil out of her bag and makes a few illegible notes.

"Let's see. I have Andrés and Kiara - " Questioning flick of a glance. (?) " - interested in the physical role of going in to rescue Alex. I have Grace manipulating lines of communication we might now expect the Union to now have access to or be aware of to spread misinformation and miscommunication. Grace: might you also use your contacts to attempt to get information on Technocratic protocol in this city or elsewhere? Risky, but an appropriate use of 'hacking,' I think. And that goes for anyone who might have contacts with knowledge of the Union's ways. If we do send Andrés and Kiara or whomever in to the lab, we will want to arm them with the very best ability to spin bullshit into gleaming sterile badges of Technocratic union. That is, belonging. We also want the least danger possible, yes?"

"I believe with what we have discussed what IS most clear is that we should make a concerted push to see about ... well, if we have ourselves, or if we have more than ourselves. To that effect we have Kalen and a partner, or even better, two partners! exploring one avenue of information. Sera, and a partner or two, exploring another. Even if no one else has the power to pull off such a boomerang pow-chicka-plao Finding, surely there may be some who are not quite as advanced but are able to Work with you and lend their support to the ritual?"

"Huge help in case of daring rescue, huge help in case of daring rescue that involves lying and getting them to 'give' us your Alex. I'll be honest here: I don't believe we can convince the Union in Denver to just release Alex back to his old life sorry old boy about that misunderstanding dust-off dust-off. I'd like to be flexible here: if it looks like we can arrange something to that effect, great! But there are no 'innocent fucking apprentices' to the Union. There are potential recruits, there are Sleepers, and then there are those who are dangerous. I believe we are to them what Nepha - no. What Marauders are to us. Or rampaging Spirits. Too dangerous… a problem to be solved."

Her spine straightens a little: oh! Struck by remembrance! Right!

"Speaking of problems to be solved and spirits, earlier you - " (Kiara) " - mentioned talking to spirits and potentially going over to the Other Side in order to get perspective on the area in question. I don't know if I'd personally recommend going across just in case one got stuck in -- I don't know: I don't know what kind of anti-spirit Magick wards the Conventionalists might have put up. But I like the idea of knowing what they know or having some sort of spirit ally on tap to distract the Union with at a key moment or, or, well in reserve for later if needed.

"Nicholas here is adroit when it comes to dealings with spirits. Perhaps you two can come up with something together?"

"As for Leah, I like where the discussion is going. I have let's see hmm Andrés, Kiara, and Kalen? on 'fake a body' duty. Leah and her cabal should probably be told about that plan and they can probably, should - certainly, help with the faking of some outrageous magickal - " Pen wiggles her fingers " - Leah catastrophic burn-out elsewhere."

Her forehead crinkles: concerned and her mouth slants to the side. Fingers go tap-tap on her ankle.

"What are we neglecting to think of...?"

Glance around.

Nicholas

Kiara's head-cant and the slow dawn of speculation. Advantages like, the Verbena says, and the spark of some acknowledging light sifts up through Pen's serious eyes. Quiet thumb and middle-finger snap, ending in a Yes Like Those finger-gun point. Sepúlveda volunteers. Pen leans forward. Rests her elbow on her knee, chin on her thumb, forefinger curled around her mouth. Serafíne. Attentiveness. Dan. The bells of Ys are drowned and silver; they only peal-out sorrow, fog-drenched and soon-lost; shadow-dappled, salt-wave sea.

During all the listening, she takes the top off her coffee spares a quick glance into cup damn it empty puts cup back down on the table. Pulls a moleskine out of her coat pocket or a pencil out of her bag and makes a few illegible notes.

"Let's see. I have Andrés and Kiara - " Questioning flick of a glance. (?) " - interested in the physical role of going in to rescue Alex. I have Grace manipulating lines of communication we might now expect the Union to now have access to or be aware of to spread misinformation and miscommunication. Grace: might you also use your contacts to attempt to get information on Technocratic protocol in this city or elsewhere? Risky, but an appropriate use of 'hacking,' I think. And that goes for anyone who might have contacts with knowledge of the Union's ways. If we do send Andrés and Kiara or whomever in to the lab, we will want to arm them with the very best ability to spin bullshit into gleaming sterile badges of Technocratic union. That is, belonging. We also want the least danger possible, yes?"

"I believe with what we have discussed what IS most clear is that we should make a concerted push to see about ... well, if we have ourselves, or if we have more than ourselves. To that effect we have Kalen and a partner, or even better, two partners! exploring one avenue of information. Sera, and a partner or two, exploring another. Even if no one else has the power to pull off such a boomerang pow-chicka-plao Finding, surely there may be some who are not quite as advanced but are able to Work with you and lend their support to the ritual?"

"Huge help in case of daring rescue, huge help in case of daring rescue that involves lying and getting them to 'give' us your Alex. I'll be honest here: I don't believe we can convince the Union in Denver to just release Alex back to his old life sorry old boy about that misunderstanding dust-off dust-off. I'd like to be flexible here: if it looks like we can arrange something to that effect, great! But there are no 'innocent fucking apprentices' to the Union. There are potential recruits, there are Sleepers, and then there are those who are dangerous. I believe we are to them what Nepha - no. What Marauders are to us. Or rampaging Spirits. Too dangerous… a problem to be solved."

Her spine straightens a little: oh! Struck by remembrance! Right!

"Speaking of problems to be solved and spirits, earlier you - " (Kiara) " - mentioned talking to spirits and potentially going over to the Other Side in order to get perspective on the area in question. I don't know if I'd personally recommend going across just in case one got stuck in -- I don't know: I don't know what kind of anti-spirit Magick wards the Conventionalists might have put up. But I like the idea of knowing what they know or having some sort of spirit ally on tap to distract the Union with at a key moment or, or, well in reserve for later if needed.

"Nicholas here is adroit when it comes to dealings with spirits. Perhaps you two can come up with something together?"

"As for Leah, I like where the discussion is going. I have let's see hmm Andrés, Kiara, and Kalen? on 'fake a body' duty. Leah and her cabal should probably be told about that plan and they can probably, should - certainly, help with the faking of some outrageous magickal - " Pen wiggles her fingers " - Leah catastrophic burn-out elsewhere."

Her forehead crinkles: concerned and her mouth slants to the side. Fingers go tap-tap on her ankle.

"What are we neglecting to think of...?"

Glance around.

ten a.m. is SLEEP TIME [in progress]

mercury

[aw, undisclosed location <3]

mercury

Mercury is the trickster god of messages delivered (divination sought, divination received), of luck, of psychopompous travel, and of Poetic Eloquence. On the day only a short while after a certain gathering of minds has occurred Pen sets out to find Serafíne she settles a pair of sunglasses on the bridge of her nose and there is, on the interior of the side arm a meticulously graven symbol of the messenger with wingéd sandals. Penelope (patience, weaving and unweaving) makes a stop, before showing up at 719 Corona Street. The door's always open but at ten am in the morning Pen doesn't yet try it. She does show up unannounced, brashful instead of bashful: a striking red-haired creature, concerned and here to fulfill her name's ordinance before it is too too late. Money where her mouth is, always. Almost always; nobody is perfect. Certainly not the headstrong, sometimes heedless (oh, but one tries) Wizard.

She'd have come earlier in the day but that she wanted to bring something and still doesn't know Denver as well as she'd like; she has a brown paper bag under one arm. And she knocks, or rings a bell.

Serafíne

Ten a.m. is a perfectly ordinary hour at which to come calling but for some of the seraphim is it the middle of the goddamned night. Out on the front porch a collection of implements that belong to winter. Snowshovel and covered tin full of salt and an old flexible flyer and a single ski on one end and two mismatched ski poles on the other, three flyers for area pizzarias and one for a head shop and two for edibles!!!!!!111!! and a little circular with coupons for the strange sort of fast(ish) food places that accumulate at the edges of a neighborhood in flux, like this one. The porch swing stripped bare of its cushions and drifting in the breeze and the planters bare and dry or swirled with snow and Pen knocks or rings the ebell or both and there is a brief interregnum until - eventually, eventually - the front door opens and there is a tall gentleman in a pair of jeans and a band t-shirt, barefoot, the blast of furious warmth all around him, and something else, bread, baking or rising, sweet-tinged, cinnamon scent in the air.

He looks her over, Dan. Kind of smiles through the beard, but wry, you know. Brows lofted.

"I take it you're here to see Sera?"

mercury

There is, usually, a faint intimation of the ardent about Pen; the archaic meaning of the word ardent, when the other meanings aren't applicable. But winter is still cold, and Denver winter is different from New England winter for reasons she hasn't quite put her finger on yet.

From the paper bag, there is the faint whiff of some savory smell, garlicky-onions, potatoes; something which curls beneath the cinnamon bread warmth. The crumple of tinfoil.

Pen smiles at Dan. Her eyes are visible through the lenses of her sunglasses, because the lenses are pale pink (rose-tinted, one might say), and so are the lines which spring out around them and her mouth in the smile.

"I am; is she in now? If not I'll quest after her - where ever."

This gesture in the air; an expression of vibrant energy.

Serafíne

He: gives a quick little smirk. The edges of the expression are softened by the frame of the beard and there is something alight and fond in his eyes. Dan glances down, her rose-tinted eyes to the paper-bag, and steps back, allowing her entry. Inside: warm warm warm, an impression of wood and antiques and a pile of shoes of the sort that well-loved and well-lived-in houses acquire in the wintertime. Salt on the hardwoods, tracked in from without. An old wardrobe and art art art on the walls and a long-hallwall leading back toward: a warm and bright kitchen, all white. A view through to the garden, the impression of a tree. The clackclackclack of a dog's nails on the wood as Sid comes loping up.

"She's here. Upstairs. Come on in. I'll show you."

And so saying: he disappears down the hall. Headed toward the stairs, and he seems to think that she: will follow.

mercury

"I have brought the household breakfast tacos," Pen says by way of defining the moment, or at least the paper bag. "Some are steak, some are vegetarian, and some are vegan; a couple may be Greek fusion. I did not pay very dear attention, but I know mango salsa and eggs went into a couple of them, garlicky yucca and, hm, beans."

Inside warm warm warm and Pen unbuttons her snow-brushed coat, flakes already melting into darker splotches on the stiff nappy fabric. Wipes her boots against the hardwood by the door, pausing to allow Sid the dog to smell her hand and guarded against any dog-leaping-up shenanigans.

And she does follow Dan.

Serafíne

So: Sid doesn't leap but she does wag and she does head-bump and she does wind around between legs and beneath feet. Huffs a breath out on Pen's palm but spares more attention to the bag-of-breakfast tacos, circling, circling, wagging her tail, hoping and perhaps expecting that something exciting!! is going to happen soon. Then: Sid is always hoping that something exciting!! is going to happen soon, because it usually does. BIRD or BALL or SQUIRREL or FOOD or ALMOST FOOD or SOCK! and as they are leaving the foyer there is a mild tangle of oh your coat and I can hang that up and the discussion (with as few contractions, Dan does note, as possible) of breakfast tacos has him pausing part-way to the second-floor landing (a black and white photo of Amelia Earhart, a spider-plant with baby-plants cascading down in an old macrame holder.

"I dunno how much privacy you'll need. Kitchen's that way if you wanna wait, but we have roommates, you know? Or you can follow me up to Sera's room. We'll surprise her with breakfast tacos."

mercury

"I'll follow you to Sera's room," Pen says, with a dawn-light on fog wreathing a fairy hill sort of smile, this glancing brightness. Pen is a swashbuckler; swashbuckler's like surprising people. She is looking at the pictures or furniture or what-have-you knickknacks on the walls.

"And I do want to speak to her privately; another time, I will drop by to be purely social. Are you baking bread or is it one of the other roommates?"

Serafíne

"Dee made cinnamon rolls last night. I just had them in the oven warming up."

The quick, crisp suggestion of his eyes over his shoulder, and then they are turning, turning, turning, like the interior of a nautilus, before they are spilled out into the second floor hallway: all dark, flanked by wooden doors on all sides, the hardwood floors softened by a threadbare Persian rug. One of them he goes to: knocks, gently. Opens or rather: cracks open, a hand still braced against the door itself. Inside: well, a certain sense of compelling chaos. Windows again, the gray light of the prairie morning, great-big-room and a great-big-bed and a cool-ass vanity and a lump beneath the windows that could be a monster-made-of-animate clothing or could simply be a chair, covered in laundry.

Dan leaves Pen to find a place to sit or stand (the vanity might be attractive) while he circles to the bed. There is no evidence of Sera in the room other than her resonance until he somehow finds her, unearths her from among the pile of white sheets and white comforter in the center of the bed. Cups the back of her head, leaning over, murmuring something to wake her, gently, gently, while Sid barrels up the stairs and in behind.

mercury

Are there books? Because if there are books, Pen gravitates toward the books and stands near them, running her eyes over titles. Even if it is just some haphazzard stack. If there is any poetry book at all she gives a startled pleased impulsive involuntary cry of recognition because Pen likes poetry, and maybe she reaches to flip through it. Is there art? Because if there is art, Pen gravitates toward the art in the absence of books, and studies that. Eyes turned away from the bed is deliberate, perhaps because she herself would hate to be surprised like this in bed (or would she?) by a guest (or would she?), and Pen's decorum is falsified and learned dragged over her bones like a fashionable robe of embroidered satin but she has it.

Looking around at Serafíne's bedroom, the Cultist's resonance seeped into the hardwood floors, seeped into threadbare rug, woven into the walls itself, enthralling, visceral, incandescent, a heady brew a potent concoction, Pen holds her sunglasses up between thumb and forefinger, studies even the cracks on the ceiling before her glance cuts back to Sera and Dan. Quizzical.

The brown paper bag is held tucked under her elbow, beside her messenger back, some old leather thing that looks as if it should contain a traveling alchemist's traveling shop: and perhaps it does. Scarred old leather, oxblood and clasped by some meaningful metal, something which remembers being transformed once upon a time.

Serafíne

There are indeed books: one slender bookshelf-full of books wedged against the wall between an antique chest of drawers and a stack of canvases (there is: you understand, Art as well) and the somewhat overflowing closet. Every last volume is a collection of poetry. Our Sera gravitates toward the French symbolists, the chaotic absinthe drinkers, the florid madmen of two centuries past, but she cannot read French so has them in translation: usually side by side. There are others, though, innumerable others, everything from Blake and Shakespeare to chapbooks self-published three weeks ago and sold on the street by a guy starting a drumcircle with nothing but three plastic construction bottles and these rough segments of rebar. One of the shelves is somewhat more empty than the others, but hey. That one doesn't belong to her.

And Pen is carefully looking away because she would not want to be surprised like this. Perhaps would not want to seem so damned vulnerable: sleeping, right? Sera - well - she might not care. Vulnerability - deliberate, invited, welcomed - is part and parcel of her magick, isn't it?

Here and now she is sleeping like an animal. Waking like one, too: all warm and half-blind instinct, uncurling from the nest she has created in the center of the bed, inhaling, asking questions that don't quite get answered with the noises she makes. She has only been asleep for a very little while and the disorientation that trails a vivid dream follows her into the waking world.

Finally, though: she's awake. Sitting up, nearly swallowed by the comforter, reaching for a t-shirt because, you know: naked, pulling it up and over so that Sera and her tangled mane are briefly eclipsed and then reappear again.

Dan takes his leave then, promising tea. Sera gives Pen a quizzical, hung-over look.

"Uhm. Hi. It's so fucking early."

Serafíne

There are indeed books: one slender bookshelf-full of books wedged against the wall between an antique chest of drawers and a stack of canvases (there is: you understand, Art as well) and the somewhat overflowing closet. Every last volume is a collection of poetry. Our Sera gravitates toward the French symbolists, the chaotic absinthe drinkers, the florid madmen of two centuries past, but she cannot read French so has them in translation: usually side by side. There are others, though, innumerable others, everything from Blake and Shakespeare to chapbooks self-published three weeks ago and sold on the street by a guy starting a drumcircle with nothing but three plastic construction bottles and these rough segments of rebar. One of the shelves is somewhat more empty than the others, but hey. That one doesn't belong to her.

And Pen is carefully looking away because she would not want to be surprised like this. Perhaps would not want to seem so damned vulnerable: sleeping, right? Sera - well - she might not care. Vulnerability - deliberate, invited, welcomed - is part and parcel of her magick, isn't it?

Here and now she is sleeping like an animal. Waking like one, too: all warm and half-blind instinct, uncurling from the nest she has created in the center of the bed, inhaling, asking questions that don't quite get answered with the noises she makes. She has only been asleep for a very little while and the disorientation that trails a vivid dream follows her into the waking world.

Finally, though: she's awake. Sitting up, nearly swallowed by the comforter, reaching for a t-shirt because, you know: naked, pulling it up and over so that Sera and her tangled mane are briefly eclipsed and then reappear again.

Dan takes his leave then, promising tea. Sera gives Pen a quizzical, hung-over look.

"Uhm. Hi. It's so fucking early."

mercury

"I had no guess for the best time. I would've at daybreak as the dawn was pinking the horizon, but I - "

Pen is apologetic behind her rose-tinted sunglasses with her red red bangs swept in swashbuckling rakishness off her shoulder and curling in at her cheekbone. They give her eyes a tawny darkness, those sunglasses. Perhaps Serafíne doesn't require the apology, but Pen is still apologetic. Not sorry, because there are different connotations for that word: sorry, bedraggled, pathetic, in the wrong. Apologetic is: regretful, wishful of otherways.

Deepbreath. Penelope strides 'cross the room to Serafíne's bed and holds out the brown paper bag, combining both assurance and uncertainty in the gesture. Paradox, well: don't Hermetics just attract paradox as a lightning rod attracts lightning?

" - brought some breakfast tacos. For the whole household, but first pick is yours. I hope you don't mind me dropping by so early. Next time I will try for the night. I love your book collection."

Pen, you see, is earnest; even when she is being a little solemn.

Serafíne

"Mmmph," murmurs Sera, this rough sleep-bound noise that is not dismissive but rather: indulgent. Some old meaning of indulgence, too. The pardons peddled by the popes, perhaps. There is absolution of all fault wrapped right around her tongue. So, "mmph" and a neat little shrug, the spare frame beneath the tee, her shoulders, narrow, her body lost in the warm wallow of her bedclothes, and for all that she is oh, perfectly at ease. Reaches to take the bag as if it were perfectly natural for her to wake up of a morning in a room as if she were being attended to by a Mucha piece, some personification of flame come to life, who has brought her tacos. Or at least: first pick.

"Thanks," for the tacos. For the comment on her book collection. "I tell people the door's always open, but truth is if you wanna catch me sober, afternoon's the best. Later, though. I don't usually get up until - fuck. Later than this."

Then she's unwrapping the bag. Peering inside. "What the fuck's in a breakfast taco, anyway?"

mercury

"Mn. Are you a vegetarian or vegan? If not, there are some Greek fusion tacos; eggs, feta, spiced steak. Then there are pulled pork, pineapple, melted cheese, eggs - really now that I think about it I think it is the eggs that make them 'breakfast' tacos. There's something with a cilantro sriracha sauce and fried avocados, my personal favourite, but they're all delightful. From this little taquéria down in Federal, across from a psychic reader's house. The warm butter yellow one."

There are more 'normal' breakfast tacos too. Pen brought quite a lot of them; the bag is rather heavy, the silver foil most of the tacos are wrapped in glinting like knight'shelms crumpled at the bottom of some dragon's chasm.

"I will remember that in the future. My hours are all over the place, too." For different reasons than the lifestyle that Serafíne lives, but still. Modern day wizards still do things by certain hours, sometimes.

"May I sit?" on the edge of Serafíne's bed. If given no indication one way or another, she sits; if Serafíne says yes, waves her down, she sits. Otherwise, the opposite: standing, the continuance! But in sitting, Pen is an intent acolyte; could've been the portrait for any waiting Pre-Raphaelite angel, damosel, Maenad-crowd: that hair, that face, a certain sweet intensity.

"I was telling Dan I'd like to drop by sometime just to be social, but this isn't exactly a social visit: at least, it is not a social visit for pleasure. My preference! This is a social visit for messages of news, probably unwelcome."

Serafíne

Sera's housemates would be perfectly happy talking about Greek fusion tacos and cilantro sriracha and hand-made maize tortillas and artisan this-and-that and housemade free-range activated whatever. Sprouted things, maybe, ground back into other things: the origins and the pleasure of food, as a fetish for something like an authentic experience of the world. Sera is far less picky. She favors Pen with an interested and perhaps indulgent sort of half-smile as the other woman lists out the many iterations of tacos in the heavy bag and likes the combinations: of sounds, the certainty, the intent, the meaning, but doesn't really listen much to the many possibilities of breakfast taco. Shakes her head NO when asked if she is vegetarian or vegan and kinda glances down at the tacos and kinda pokes through them. Hmm.

Cant of her head then, all animal. Doesn't usually eat much, doesn't usually eat this early, but she gets that a gift must be accepted and without reservation, that there is a kind of ritual there, so when Pen asks if she can sit Sera nods er, yeah? and continues to listen and eventually finds one (truth: doesn't matter which) that she claims for herself. Nudges the bag over to Pen to take one if she wants one, takes a napkin too and wraps it around the foil and doesn't open the breakfast taco. Crumbs in the sheets, you know?

Ghosting smile on her neat little mouth (still sleepy) as Pen says she wants to drop by sometime just to be social and Sera would remind Pen that she and Nicholas have an open invitation to a party! pretty much anytime but: somehow Sera listens, absorbs, everything drifting over her features like water, right up to the quick narrowing of her brows, the quizzical bird-cant of her golden head.
"Oh. What's the news?"

mercury

Pen takes a taco too. The silver foil glints takes on a vibrant hint of color where it reflects Pen's clothing or perhaps Serafíne's bedspread, and she uncrumples it enough to fish out a small feta-crumple with her thumb nail and put it on her tongue, just a ritual taste. Because it is about the gift. The willworkers who meet Pen [Wizard-Enchantress About Town] out of context never get her name until they've asked. In context is different. There're rules.

There're a lot of rules. Some of them bind her fast, and she couldn't break from them without deep consequence.

Pen tucks one leg beneath herself, but the casual pose in no way detracts from a certain steady poise; there is an attenuated alertness to her eyes, lake dark usually bright bright now behind the soft-rose lenses, and red her mouth and red her hair and snow her skin. Fairy messenger, except that she is solid. Bone and blood, weight at the foot of Serafíne's bed, near Serafíne's knees (perhaps; who can tell under the bedclothes?).

"It seems apparent that the Union is about to make a push in Denver, and elsewhere; it is elsewhere that the push has already been felt most strongly, I am told. But Denver in particular is about to become quite important for the Union, and for those who are going to fight against it: which includes my Tradition. Have you met Orrin?"

There is more, but of course Pen isn't just going to talk and talk and talk and talk and talk over Serafíne. Her reactions or nonreactions are important; Pen is earnest.

Serafíne

So. So.

Pen says that something is apparent about the Union and a push and Denver and elsewhere and Sera, you see, breathes in. Her mouth is closed, this is all through her nostrils, something about the breath, the way she samples the air, seems as deliberate as every-other-thing about morning. Her head - well - aches, but it is a dull ache, a bit distant, enough to remind her that her body can hurt as well as it can heal. She would like a cigarette but she doesn't smoke indoors.

This is news, and it is news, honestly, that something in Sera quite suddenly does not want to receive while she's still In Bed, wrapped up in her fluff and down with her favorite stuffed rabbit stuffed somewhat unceremoniously beneath a pillow somewhere in the middle of the night/morning. There's an ear flopping out, and Sera pulls the rather small stuffed animal out from beneath her pillow and curl-slides her legs from beneath the bedclothes. She's getting up. No worries, Pen, the t-shirt she pulled over her head (The Ramones) is long enough to cover her ass. Her legs are bare. Long and a bit pink from the sleepwarmth, muscle evident beneath the skin when she moves, but only because there is so little fat to her.

"I haven't met Orrin. Maybe I've heard of him? Wanted to start a war on his own or something, Leah told me last summer. Sharks versus Jets with vampires and technocrats.

"Far as I can tell they've known we were here for years, haven't bothered us yet. Why now?"

Asks Sera, who is headed toward the bathroom. It's morning: her teeth need brushing.

mercury

"I don't know," simply, and without despair or heaviness. Not knowing does not fill Pen with a sense of helplessness, or vulnerability. Not knowing makes Pen want to act, to consider. To quest.

Pen will wait until the sound of running water is off before continuing.

"Perhaps they have been preparing quietly for a while, after the last time. Perhaps there is someone new in power, and this new person wishes to make a point or sees some advantage. Perhaps there is something else going on, something Other." Slender pause. "Who stands to gain? I mean, I believe both sides benefit more from ...at least a cold war instead of a hot one."

This is offered quietly, but steadily; musing, though it is nothing she hasn't thought before and since the meeting with her tradition mates.

"And yes, that was probably Orrin you heard about. He was considering using the vampires as a distraction for the Union, but it doesn't look tactically viable now." Brief pause. She smooths a hand over the bedsheets, and if it seems like she should wait for Serafíne to return from bathroom before saying any more, this is when she does it. "Leah; of the Trinity cabal? What is she like?"

Serafíne

Water runs and then does not. That's the way of water. There's a pocket door between the rooms and a cut of light from one into the other and Sera is perfectly content to brush her teeth in front of a stranger. See: she reappears in the doorway, leaning one shoulder against the frame, the sleepy tangle of her hair and the froth of paste in her mouth, brushing brushing brushing, and though she does not neglect the task, there is something subversively lazy about the way she goes about it. As if she had all the time in the world.

She lets Pen talk; and she listens. No need to pause but oh see: through the scrum of her hangover a kind of narrowing focus as Pen says that she believes both sides benefit from a cold war, not a hot one. Strange little thread of -

oh.

Then she disappears, back into the bathroom, this time closing the door behind her, to spit and rinse and run the water and pee and all the usually morning things and when she reappears she has added a pair of boyshorts to the t-shirt that is her morning ensemble. Black beneath the white tee.

"Leah's never really had the chance to be a girl. And I don't think she ever will, but if she's strong enough to survive her awakening, she can handle that."

There is a frown again, bisecting her dark brows. A step back, to some earlier thought. "How do I know that they're doing the gearing up? And not, this Orrin. And you, maybe?"

mercury

That's a good question. Pen accepts it, doesn't quicksilver flash back with a retort; just accepts the question, and clasps her hands, forearms on her knees, leaning forward. Gravitas.

"You don't." Up go her eyebrows, as if to punctuate the truth of it. "I am from a house known for its martial prowess: I believe that it is important to fight. Because you love something - " Here Pen's brows draw together, an ardent tenderness, see, a care. " - something in the world, its people. As they are and as they might be." This faint smile: not helpless, because no. But aching, maybe: bittersweet. "But I don't believe in poking sleeping leviathans, just because somebody wants to get their exercise in. That's no good.

"So - right. You don't; I don't either, really. Know who began the gearing up, or who began the ball's rolling. What I do know is back in New York City and Boston there have been incidents, and the Order has declared a state of war for those areas. They expect it to spill over in Denver because Denver's an important location to the Union. Their laboratories here make one-third of the medical supplies for the organic soldiers. They've recently had a huge influx of personnel."

Brief hesitation. "There is - urgh. I don't suppose it would mean anything to you if I referenced a 'Manifestation from a mindscape'? Which knows Grace and Kalen?"

Serafíne

There is a knock at the door right about -

oh, there. Firm, not unassuming. Sera with this rather undulant hitching motion picks herself up from the frame of the bathroom door and ambles her way past the haphazard, strangely elegant vanity (the framed photo of frida kahlo prominent) to open it. A hand on the wood, this small opening. Just to see, you understand.

Then, Dan. Who is carrying a little tray with a pot of tea and two teacups. The kind with wedgewood roses and gilt edging and saucers, of course saucers.

She lets him in, naturally. He goes to set the tray with tea-things on a bare place atop the armoire, not before sliding a cork-pad beneath it to insulate it from the heat.

A beat of attention, strangely sober, strangely steady, cuts back to Pen. The same note as when Pen admits that yes: Sera doesn't know. Can't know. But: she listens. That framed sobriety, a neat concern.

"I know of a spirit - " Sera returns. Dan is still in the room, though he is leaving. If their closeness was not an indication of his awareness-of-magick-in-the-world, then certainly her casual address of things-other in front of him is. " - a sending of a Singer whom Kalen, at least, knows. But somehow I don't think that's what you mean right now?"

mercury

"I don't believe so." Pen's forehead wrinkles.

"This Manifestation came from a - Mindscape, or was created by a Mindscape and then came from it - and has some sort of Technocratic connections. It warned Boston about the 'crats next moves and it seems as though it came to warn Denver, too, through Kalen and Grace. I'm not too clear about that. But apparently it spoke of a faction within the Technocracy which is at odds with the faction pushing for a resumption of the old bad violent vulgar hostilities."

"I'd really like to talk to somebody on the inside," she sounds wishful, wistful even. "Kalen's planning on trying to get in contact with it - him? The Manifestation identifies as male - again about it."

Serafíne

A - rather long - beat, as Pen explains the Manifestation from a Mindscape and something about the technocrats and some unclear warning. The thread of tension in Sera's mouth and body, cutting through the skean of her present awareness, her hung-over morning. While Pen talks, Sera pours tea. A cup for herself. Another for the Hermetic, if she makes a sign that she'd like some. Then Sera wanders back across her room to the vanity where she unearths a half-empty bottle of Stranahan's and douses her Darjeeling with Colorado whiskey.

Yum.

William had contact from a technicat summer before last, when he googled the Technocracy. Someone calling himself White Knight, said he wanted to talk. I don't think anybody god back in touch with him. Mostly we made William stop googling the technocracy.

"Still. It might be a different way - " Pause. Tongue in her cheek. "In. If that's what you really want."

mercury

"That's interesting," Pen says, and it is, to her. Avid creature of story gathering, as anybody with the winged messenger god for a namesake should be. She forgets herself, sometimes, forgets the details; but desire for tea does rouse her; some sign is a neat nod, yes please, and she'll cup her fingers around the teacup. "I'll ask him about it. He triggered this White Knight guy just by googling?" skeptical, not of the story but of the framework behind the story: must be more beneath the surface. "Must've got very lucky or very unlucky."

"Do you know Richard?"

Serafíne

"Henry's son?" Sera waits for some non-verbal sign of acknowledgment. She's sitting on the edge of the vanity, now, her ass in Frida Kahlo's face, bare feet on the seat of the vanity stool, sipping tea-and-whiskey from the cup. "Met him once. At a Christmas party, or Yule or whatever the fuck it is the Verbena celebrate. He was being all broody and anti-social and staring out the window, so I asked him to dance.

"Apparently, he doesn't fucking dance." Quick little shrug, this spare elegance to it. All at once, you understand: over and done.