Cameo-Dan

Steel

[Nightmares]

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

Aidan

[also nightmares]

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

Steel

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

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

Steel

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

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

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

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

Aidan

[perc - Intuitive - + awareness]

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

Aidan

[*sad*]

Aidan

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

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

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

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

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

Steel

[Per+Aware?]

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

Steel

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

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

So for now she sips her coffee and watches him.

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

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

Aidan

[Do I sees you seeing me?]

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

Aidan

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

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

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

Elijah

He was running out of vests.

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

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

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

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

Steel

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

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

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

Aidan

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

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

Elijah

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

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

Elijah

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

Maybe they liked that. He wasn't sure.

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

A beat.

"Been looking for me long?"

Steel

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

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

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

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

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

Aidan

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

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

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

Elijah

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

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

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

Steel

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

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

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

Aidan

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

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

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

Elijah

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

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

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

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

Steel

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

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

Time will tell.

Aidan

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

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

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

Elijah

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

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

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

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

Dan

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

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

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

Sometimes you just need a vice.

Steel

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

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

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

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

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

Elijah

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

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

Aidan

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

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

Aidan

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

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

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

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

Elijah

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

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

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

Elijah did not.

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

Dan

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

Figures they're on a date.

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

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

Steel

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

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

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

Steel

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

Counter/Magic

Steel

Life brings with it certain necessities. Food. Water. Shelter. Meet the basics and the needs get more complex. Security. Company. Creativity. Somewhere on the great stairway of needs is that to be clean. To wash and wipe away the dirt, even if water alone isn’t enough to wipe away the stains that are left behind. For most it’s not a complicated matter, to find a shower and a washing machine. It’s not that simple for all. Some have to find other ways.

Health clubs are good, if you can get in. Hospitals are better. Either way, it’s a simple thing to find a shower and get clean. Find the right place and time it right and there’s no rush either. No shortage of hot water. For a while, it feel wonderful. But all good things must come to an end.

Steel doesn’t have much else to do with her day. She has her eye on somewhere to hole herself up and make her own, even if it’s not for long. She doesn’t need to lighten the heavy burden of cash that lies on the rich office workers not so far away right now. Some new clothes would be good – god only knows how old and worn these ones are now – but that’s not urgent. If anything, still looking like a down-and-out is a decent mask to keep most people away.

So she sits on the grass, leaning against the back of a bench, near some pond or other in City Park. There’s an open sandwich packet in her lap, but she’s not eating. Bits of bread are being torn off and thrown to a couple of birds that are hopping around on the grass close by. And our shadow? Black hoodie is on, hood down for now, and worn black combats top heavy boots.

Samir

[la la awareness roll]

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

Serafíne

also awareness roll.

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 ) Re-rolls: 2

Samir

And here comes Samir.

He's on his way from one place to the other. Impossible to tell from looking at him where he's headed or from whence he's come. If he's in a hurry or taking his time. A sharpness to him that suggests he doesn't have time for niceties.

Unlike a certain individual lounging in the grass he doesn't have to do a damned thing to escape other people's notice or fade from their memories. It helps if he's putting forth a concerted effort to do either but sometimes all he has to do is step back into a person's periphery and it's as if he never existed at all. People he has known for years can't agree on what he looks like.

He looks like a typical twenty-something westerner who's on his way to a party on a Friday night. Empty-handed but that may not last longer than anything else ever has.

Steel

[Oh, crud, nightmares. I keep forgetting the nightmares]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 5, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )

Steel

[Awareness too?]

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

Serafíne

Strange night, stupid fucking park, this steamy dusk-strewn Friday night. Stormclouds scattered menacing at the edges of the sky, through a handful of stars are already coming out in the east, the sun has painted the western horizon with those vivid, bruising colors that - at a certain hour, when a certain light lingers this close to the apex, the crux, the fulcrum of the fucking year - are so real and brilliant and impossible that they seem to shatter the seat and seads and threads one's heart, just for a passing second. Lovely, lovely.

No telling if her heart's shattered, no reason to notice her except: well. For the way the world bends around her and the way she bends into it. They are hardly the only folks out here tonight. This stage on a nearby lawn, this acoustic-folk-rock thing happening, people picnicking, getting stoned, getting drunk, playing frisbee, drinking wine, making out, making up, making hay while the (last threads of) the sun shines.

She has a bottle in hand too: another stranger silhouetted against the darkness, picking her way barefoot over the grass. Coming from the direction of the frisbee game toward - whatever, who knows? she doesn't. Doesn't know her name right now, not precise. But what the hell.

She may be reacting to that sharpness, might've stood up from one of those blankets to intersect that path? She also senses something else, without resonance precisely, breathes out with her, closes her mouth, bites her tongue and is wrenched into line with the stuff-of-the-universe, reaches -

(Watch the Weaving Prime 1. Practiced. Specialty Focus. Dif 3.)

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

Serafíne

(sorry, lost my first post because I was being dumb, but! it is late for me and I am sleepy so fast-posting is good for lizes and I am kinda include to mostly ignore posting order if cool with all. so post 'em when you got 'em.)

Steel

It doesn’t take long for the woman to run out of bread to throw at the birds that are still hopping and scratching around in the hope for a late meal. With the light and the sound of the city, it’s maybe not that unusual to see creatures that should be roosting away somewhere in places you wouldn’t necessarily expect.

The box empty, there’s a short blaze while she lights up a cigarette and starts to inhale. Nothing fancy, nothing herbal or otherwise enhanced. Just a straight old death stick. A dimmer glows and fades and glows and fades...

Sam may wander by without notice, but Sera? Oh, she stands out as no mere sleeper. She sees and knows more of the world than the vast majority of the population. And... wasn’t she familiar somehow? Some club over Colfax way? Yeah, maybe.

So there’s no flight yet, but Steel does pull her hood back up. Dyed black hair hidden away with other, more noticeable features. The cigarette continues to glow in the dark.

Samir

He isn't attuned enough to the world around them to make notice of someone who doesn't want to be noticed. Not even a flickering of notice. Something sugar-spun the rain would take away.

One moment he's meandering along minding his own business looking at his phone from time to time because he is young and youth are attached to their goddamn electronic devices. The next moment here comes the young woman everyone notices whether they want to or not.

Sam remembers her. He's not a gambling man but he would be willing to wager she doesn't remember him. He's also going to double down and say he can continue on through the park without anyone accosting him.

Steel

[Awareness again, you up to something Sera?]

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

Serafíne

Of course everyone notices her.

Against the shadows she is another shadow, sharp and shapely and heady and gut-wrenching and soaring and strange and compelling, and she's barefoot and she's walking through the grass with the exaggerated care that could me she is a very, very, very precise creature and cares a fucking helluva lot about where she puts her feet or that could also mean she ate some edibles and drank a bottle of 1995 Veuve Cliquot Rose all by her lonesome nevermind that she has not eaten solid food for a month and a half for reasons of ritual or what the fuck ever.

Not that anyone's noticed.

--

Samir is not getting out of here though. She's on an intercept course. Reaching out for him. Still working. Blood sluicing through her saliva just enough to give her mouth a watercolor crimson frame, but it's the pain she needs, the hammer-and-nail of it to push through.

--

"Wait, stop. Fuck - "

The path is crushed gravel, ouch her poor feet and toes, but she is so clearly talking to Samir. Has a champagne bottle in one hand but is reaching for him with the other.

" - there's something, fuck. Can you feel that? I'm trying - "

Extending (+1 for extensions, -1 for resonance)

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (1, 5, 9) ( success x 2 )

Steel

[There's something there and it's wrapped around this woman's mind and, damn... It's like grasping at shadows. But Sera teases enough of them apart to work out that there's something wrapped around the woman's mind. Something hiding and containing what should be as brilliantly obvious as Sera's own Resonance. The magic, though? Is devoid of taste and texture.]

Steel

People move, going about their business. Eating, drinking, making some moments of merriness in their quiet little lives. Are they lucky, no have such defined and bordered existences? Or are they poor sods to be pitied, unaware of the cages that they’re not even aware of. Blinkered to their blindness.

The one, though, carrying the bottle and winding her solitary way across the grass. The one who feels more awake than the rest of the sheep in the park. The one with a target in mind? Another who slips from attention so easily that, given the blink of an eye, only the vague memory of a presence remains. Someone the world shadows even more strongly than it does with her.

Steel shifts, but she doesn’t run. She stands and sits on the bench, perched on the back with her feet on the seat. And she watches. She knows that the woman with the bottle is doing something, but is it to do with her..?

Samir

It isn't so much that Samir doesn't like other people touching him. More like he doesn't like what his brain does to the person who touches him later on when he's sitting at home alone. That's another thing you can't tell from looking at somebody. How fucked up they are or aren't.

Their paths cross as they crossed before but this time Sera is reaching for him and Sam is trying to settle an argument with himself. Does she remember him or is she just wrecked off of champagne and whatever has caused her mouth to stain itself the colour of burst summer berries.

She's Working. She's Doing Something. She reaching for him and the words and the reaching and the imploring have him stopping. Eyes wide in the dark. She is so clearly talking to him.

"Um... what? I'm sorry, I don't..."

See: he felt Sera coming. He felt the magick she had worked and the magick she was now working and he isn't an unaware creature but he's unaware of what it is she's sensing or doing and he's read enough on Ginger lately and heard enough horror stories that he's grown a bit wary.

"What're you trying?"

Serafíne

A brief cameo in the downshunted light of one of those atmospheric faux-gas lamps, haloed in the darkness reveals her outfit. Silver lame hotpants and a white Sid & Nancy t-shirt, black bra obvious beneath, right arm stacked with rubber and leather and spiked bracelets, left covered in tattoos, even the flash of her hand as she does not appear to give a fuck about Samir's wide eyes or perhaps objection to physical contact.

Sera does not hug him but she does kinda slide her left arm through his right.

"Shhh." Hushed, susserant. And this, to Samir. I mean, maybe he dances away from the way she curls herself against him, but if not here she is, a stranger taking him by the arm and leaning in to him as if she needed something physical, something real, some anchor to keep herself on this plane of existence. And she turns her profile to him, the bridge of her noise against his shoulder, as if it were no more than natural. "Shhhh."

Nothing about her to tell you where her mind goes - how far back, how far deep, how thoroughly dark the place - except for the pressure of her hand against his arm.

"I just need you to watch my ass while I do this, okay? And be ready to run if I tell you to run."

Serafíne

(Dropping the Prime effect. Rolling: 1. quick and dirty mind shield to dash off first.

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (2, 3, 6) ( success x 2 )

Serafíne

Countermagick: unweaving the strange effect she has identified.

Dice: 3 d10 TN8 (2, 5, 10) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Samir

The evening is warm but not stifling and Samir is wearing a faux-leather jacket that has soaked up what little coolness the air offers. It glides against Sera's skin as she takes his arm and he tenses with the contact but does not try to haul himself back and away from her. Especially not when she uses words like proper words and not just shushing him like he's going to give them away.

He may yet. Right now he's tense and he's looking around the park. Can't watch her ass in the literal sense because of how she's tucked against him but he can feel the pulsing of the magick come out of the contact between them and his heart is hammering away in his chest and his mouth is dry.

If she tells him to run he'll be ready to run.

He lets the knuckles of his right hand rest against her ribs but beyond that Sam does nothing to reciprocate the touch. He's ready to run right now. He has no clue what's going on.

Steel

Oh, this fucking city.

All she’d wanted was somewhere to hide away in. Time to settle and gather herself and start to work out what the fuck had gone wrong before. Where people had gone.

But, not. Apparently that was too much to ask for. This woman with the bottle does something, fights her battle and does... something. What comes next, though? That she can feel. The unwravelling of her masking, the shield between her strangeness and the world around her. The extra little help she’d given herself to blend into the background, beneath notice.

She stands. And? She runs. She isn’t one for up-front fights, especially when she doesn’t know the ground or who the hell she’s fighting again. Or, for fuck’s sake, why! Once she gets out of the open she can take to the shadows and disappear again.

Assuming she makes it that far.

[Dex+Ath - so using WP]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 3, 5, 7) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Serafíne

Her eyes are closed. God she's concentrating and the world devolved into these strange trapezoidal pockets of awareness. Some piece of her mind or her body keeps her: breathing, these short, harsh little breaths and just once she remembers so physically, so viscerally, so entirely that her too-thin frame shudders and if Samir has an ounce of empathy about him, he will sense both her dread and her determination and there's this way she kinda edges her spare frame foreward rather than back like she's shielding his ass even as she holds on to him and does -

does, well, whatever.

(Unweaving. Continuing.)

Can't talk right now. Something nerveless and shockingly physical about her magick, the way it rips through her body. The way she pours herself into it, mouth open a bit because it feels like she is both swallowing and dissolving the effect that so unsettles her.

Dice: 3 d10 TN8 (7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Steel

It’s still holding. It’s still holding. It’s still holding.

It’s still holding, but not for much longer. She needs to get away, but it’s still too open. She can still be seen, it’s way too obvious where she is.

Well, fuckit. She’s gotta do something. Her masking isn’t going to last much longer. That woman obviously knew something about Mind magic – hell, who even know how powerful she was. Steel just wants to get away.

The run slows to a walk. It might not be obvious to Serafine, but Sam might notice her balling her hands up into fists. As if she’s about to fight someone. Or something.

[Dark Streets, Ent 2 Forces 2. TN5, -1 for practiced, -1 for resonance, WP because hell yes. Darkening the shadows between her and the edge of the park.]

Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (1, 4) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Serafíne

Sera does not notice.

Every piece of her focus is fixed on undoing that Work. On peeling it apart, on exposing it to sunlight. On something, and god it echoes in her, and god it strips her, willingly mind, so thoroughly bare that even her teeth are aching with the effort.

--

And Samir, what does he know? There's just this strange girl, once again ignoring every convention regarding personal space, tense and aching and frightened and determined, at his side.

The air around her reeking of her magick.

(Countering: continued. Still on the Mind effect that creeped her out in the first place.)

Dice: 3 d10 TN8 (5, 7, 8) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Serafíne

Sera does not notice.

Every piece of her focus is fixed on undoing that Work. On peeling it apart, on exposing it to sunlight. On something, and god it echoes in her, and god it strips her, willingly mind, so thoroughly bare that even her teeth are aching with the effort.

--

And Samir, what does he know? There's just this strange girl, once again ignoring every convention regarding personal space, tense and aching and frightened and determined, at his side.

The air around her reeking of her magick.

(Countering: continued. Still on the Mind effect that creeped her out in the first place.)

Dice: 3 d10 TN8 (2, 5, 10) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Steel

[As the last threads of the effect are burned away like smoke on a breeze, the woman's resonance appears in the light of day. The sensation of something Shadowy. Piercing.]

Samir

[And Jamie is now officially too braindead to type a proper post. I'll write something amazing about his noticing skills when we pick this up again later!]

Steel

There is goes. The last of the effect torn away, but why the fuck for? All she’d been doing was fucking feeding the fucking ducks.

Time to vanish. It wasn’t her finest work. It was rushed and unsubtle, but hopefully enough. Enough to mask her physical form for long enough to get away from that bloody woman. Enough to make herself hard to find again.

Hopefully enough.

[Dex+Stealth. +2 from Dark Streets, +3 from Arcane.]

Dice: 12 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 9) ( success x 4 )

Steel

[Gee, thanks. Nice roll.]

Serafíne

The effect pulls away and the resonance is new and the resonance is fading and the owner of that resonance is disappearing, Running. That much she can sense.

Steel finds the shadows of the park, thickens them. Cuts past picnickers and bike-riding and drunk kids and latenight joggers, breath harsh in her throat.

No one follows.

She makes her escape, or seems to.

Singular, eccentric, golden.

Serafíne

Eleven-thirty rounding closer to midnight and the only reason the doors are open and the crowd is streaming out now is someone turned off the singer's mic after the third encore and management turned on the harsh house lights and started playing the star-spangled banner. Three dudes in thick black beards start right in the middle of the bank of doors leading into The Palace belting out one of those misheard versions of the national anthem and it's hard to tell whether their errors are deliberate and ironic or simply the result of overindulgence in some beverage or substance or the delights of being a heavily bearded dude standing outside a stinking-hot concert venue watching the sweaty organism of your fellow-travelers spill outside. A poet might say it's like watching a galaxy being formed: the great singular mass of the audience resolving itself into small pinpoints of light: bright, moving, liquid, exultant.

She's part of that mass, Sera. The sort of girl who takes a stranger's hand in a dark and crowded club and follows him into the center of the pit and drops that hand quite as easily and simply as she took it in the first place, sliding out of his orbit, singular, eccentric, golden.

Samir

This man is not a poet. He's a drug dealer and a shut-in besides. All he has to say about the experience is many people populated it and he felt compelled to count every person who passed over the threshold but he was waiting for one person in particular and that one person wasn't even part of the concert they were just meeting someone after the concert and once he did what he needed to do he was fully intending to just leave but then the crowd came pouring out of the door and this other person wanted to stand talking for a long time and he didn't want to be rude.

So here is Sam.

And here is Sera.

Sam is speaking Spanish to a young woman named Yolanda and they are both dark of skin his mother being from India and her parents both being from the Dominican Republic but in this city nobody pays any more attention to Spanish than they do to English. Businessmen and engineers and doctors speak both languages in this city. Some of them even speak Mandarin or Vietnamese. It's a big city for one so high up.

Yolanda wants to sleep tonight. That's why she's here. Sam is Awake. That has nothing to do with the why but he is here all the same. And when Sera comes near he almost but does not quite look away. Aware, you see. He's aware.

Serafíne

(awareness - )

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 6, 8) ( success x 4 )

Serafíne

Sera is awake, and blonde (bottle) and not precisely fair but fair-er than Samir and Yolanda. The Spanish though - the rhythm of it, more liquid, more elegant than English - is as familiar to her as her blood-and-bones. Right now it is no more than one out of a half-hundred conversations hanging in the air around her. She drifts through them, a stranger dressed low-slung cut-offs and a see through black lace bra.

Has something tied loose around her hips and something else slung over her left shoulder, maybe a concert tee, and a silver chain bisecting her lean frame.

Tattoos, too, dark ink flashing on the frame of her hands, or her left flank and she first streams past and then turns. Looks - hungry right? For something or anything, following that impinging sensation (piercing) until she meets the stranger's eyes.

Holds them, too.

She's anything but fucking shy, our Sera.

Samir

[AWARENESS]

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

Samir

Sam's accent does not peg him as a native speaker. If anything it has a more Middle Eastern lilt to it being as he has more experience speaking Arabic than Spanish but he is from fucking Vancouver originally. Spanish with a Pacific Northwest English accent. It's out there.

It's out there and it's on a young man of average height who looks taller because of how lanky he is. His black hair is tied in a knot at the nape of his neck and his profile is handsome. Not classically so but he has strong features and bright warm eyes even in the dark. Even when the fingerprint of his magic is like a needle finding its way into a vein. A knife finding its way into flesh. Something piercing and unapologetic in its piercing.

And then their eyes meet. His gaze would be piercing to a Sleeper but Sera hasn't been asleep for a long fucking time. She's stronger than he is and growing stronger still. It doesn't quail him but it does catch his attention. It does make him look at her.

He is in fact handsome even out of profile. Young and still growing into his features. He will fade from memory just so soon as they part ways. The universe has a fucked-up sense of humor.

Oh shit say his eyes though he doesn't say anything yet. He has to finish up with Yolanda.

Serafíne

Okay well you know what Sera's resonance is. She also has a ring that was consecrated by Hawksley so she's like got so much resonance going on it is pretty nuts: visceral, enthralling, liminal sun-drenched, soaring.

MAYBE SHE IS AN ARCH MAGE.

(but uh the latter stuff localizes not to her being but something on it)

Serafíne

There's a current moving around them: water streaming out to the sea, and moving against the current is far harder than moving with it, but look: she catches that gaze and sparks and turns around and breathes in and then she breathes fucking out. Laughing or something, as she stops still in the middle of that current, becomes a rocky-outcropping, a sandbar, creates her own sort of undertow. Then starts swimming against the tide, cuts through a trio teenagers tottering in too-high heels, slippery as an eel. Shorter than all of them in her silver-trimmed combat boots.

Two steps away while he's finishing with Yoland and not at all shy about listening in.

Waits her turn through, as if someone somehow somewhere had taught her some manners or maybe she simply knows better than to interrupt a deal going down.

"You're fucking new."

- is what she says to him, after.

She wants a cigarette. She wants so many things.

But right now, she's not giving in to anything, except curiousity.

Samir

They'd passed drugs for money and were just shooting the shit when Sera walked up. Yolanda likes Sam. This is their first time meeting but he's attractive and he's shy and she has impressions of him that may or may not be true. She is thanking him for coming out tonight and saying she hopes he'll be at the party next weekend and he is giving a noncommittal answer and she's walking away and then -

You're fucking new.

He saw her coming and he still startles like he'd heard a car backfire. Puts his hands into his pockets and shuffles them around he has plenty in his pockets but Sera is a wanting thing. He would take her for a homeless or an addict if it weren't for that fucking ring on her finger or the strength of her essence.

"Ah..." Uncomfortable breath of a laugh. His natural inclination is to make eye contact and yet he ducks away from it as quick as he'd duck away from a fist flying at his face. "Yeah. Good... good eye. Who're you?"

Serafíne

"Serafíne." Who're you? That was easy. Sera smirks, this quick, lively little movement of her mobile mouth. On the dark, spangled street in the midst of her crowd, her dark eyes have these pinpricks of reflected light that glide she flashes him that expression. "Call me Sera."

She reaches up to grab the t-shirt from her left shoulder and tosses it over her right.

"Who the fuck are you?"

--

Samir ducks away from eye contact. God, Sera seeks it. Maybe she snags his gaze again. Maybe she's just hunting it.

Samir

Young as he is Sam is not a creature that can put up a fight for long. Nothing in his psychology to make him want to escape capture nor to give chase as a means of delayed gratification. He is self-aware and Sera can sense perhaps that he is aware of how it is he's acting and the longer they are in each other's company one with a sense of Normal and Insane can label his behavior as Insane but they are beings capable of becoming gods if they keep at it long enough. They don't have time for that shit.

He can maintain eye contact for a couple of seconds at a time before something makes him uncomfortable and he looks away. Sera does not make him uncomfortable. That's not the kind of illness he has.

Who the fuck is he.

"Samir," he says. A knee-jerk twitch of a smile that doesn't reach his eyes. "Call me Sam. You mind if I smoke?"

He has a Canadian accent. God help him.

Serafíne

"You go ahead and smoke, Sam."

Though the truth is: she minds.

Or maybe she just wants, right now.

"You weren't at the show." She tells him, like maybe he needs to know. Or no, perhaps it's not that at all. "It was fucking amaze-balls. Did you really show up here just to meet that chick? Give her her shit?"

Samir

[perc + empathy: because i want to see what happens]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 5 ) Re-rolls: 2

Serafíne

First and foremost: desire. Not for any specific thing, or maybe for too many specific things, so many things all rolled together. She is hungry and she is hungry and she wants a cigarette and she wants a joint and she wants a fuck and she wants wants wants and she is: not having it. Is deliberately and decidedly not indulging. Or perhaps it is not the denial that matters, so much as the want she is cultivating, honing, sharpening until it hurts her. Until it drags her forward, upward, rising, hooks-in-skin.

So no. She actually doesn't mind, somewhere beneath all that.

Samir

Here is another way a thing can pierce: in the moment his eyes meet hers when she tells him to go ahead and smoke he looks at her without Looking at her. Looks at her like he's paying attention even if that attention only lasts so long as it would last for a flashbulb to stun her sight and then it's over. Alright. She wants to mind. If he smokes it will give her denial.

Self-aware on top of everything else and he grits his teeth so he will not sigh for sighing will show what he has seen and so he fishes out a pack of cigarettes instead. He wasn't at the show.

"I don't know what you're talking about," says the shitty liar. Out comes a coffin nail and out comes the lighter. With the cigarette held down near his hip he strikes the lighter's ignition once to make sure it works. This all seems coincidental. He's talking while he does it. "She's... she was in the area, and I was in the area, and..."

Four fucking times he strikes the lighter wheel and then he hits the cigarette with the flame and inhales deep and pockets the lighter like none of this is a Thing. Blows the smoke away from Sera. He can't stop looking at her and yet he has trouble maintaining the looking.

Sigh. Now he sighs.

"Who was playing tonight?"

Serafíne

"You're a shitty liar," so she declares, and truth it must be. She's a truth-teller, or maybe she's ust a shitty liar herself. Takes one to known one, right? Still, that crawling half-smile, the cut of her ribs beneath her skin, chin rising, eyes half-closing, inhaling even as he blows the smoke away from her because fuck, isn't that what she's looking for? The space between who she is and who She is. The space between. A kind of shimmy-shrug meets both his sigh and the question that cuts in after the sigh: who was playing?

"Glass Animals and TV on the Radio. Show opened with the reunion of this local band that apparently used to play out all the time like fifteen years ago, Odor of Pears."

Doesn't really always believe in personal space, Sera. She's showing that now, squeezing closer, grinning up at him. Blond curls damp with sweat, her spare ( - wasting - ) frame gleaming with it.

"Next time come inside okay? I promise you'll have a good time."

Samir

A normal person might have crouched into a defensive posture but Sam is an honest sort. That's what makes him a shitty liar. She calls him on it and he stands still a moment like he isn't used to being in the presence of someone who will call him on his shit and then he lets the ghost of a laugh leave his lungs. Easy to lose since he takes a drag off the cigarette a second later and then the pocketing of the lighter and the sighing and and and.

When he sighs it's not because of her but because of the shit with the lighter. Might sound like it's because of her. Either way he changes the subject.

And then she's in his space and he lets her get there because maybe he never learned what the fuck personal space was. Doesn't invade other people's but doesn't push other people out of his either. She can see he's uncomfortable though. Shitty liar. Lots of things make him uncomfortable. He's staring her in the eye the entire time she's next to him though. Proximity makes it harder to look away.

She promises he'll have a good time.

He swallows thick and tries to look like a man who has confidence in himself. Stands up a hair straighter and grits his teeth again. He looks like he could still be a teenager but for the hardness of his bones and the implication of muscle underneath his clothes.

"O--" Yeah. Nailing it. Something catches in his throat so he swallows and tries again: "Okay. Sure."

cockroach

[You guys mind a PC drive-thru?]

Serafíne

I wouldn't mind but I am going to bed! after my next post. hah. so tired.

Samir

[I'm good for about another hour or so.]

cockroach

[It's a one-post thing. Possily with meaningful eye contact.]

Serafíne

then slide on in!

Steel

[Awareness?]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Steel

A shadow passes through the crowd. The shadow has been creeping through the city for the past few days, now. Searching, but not for anything concrete or specific. More of a concept. Safety. Maybe even home, although it would take a long time before anything becomes even close to being called that.

East Colfax has finally drawn her in. It’s not a nice area. Letting agents might try selling it to the unsuspecting as Edgy, Happening, and other euphemisms that skirt around the fact that this probably isn’t a place many would want to live if they could possibly help it. Who would to trip over drug addicts, gang bangers, prostitutes, turf wars, psychiatric cases and the homeless just to get to the bus stop?

But even within shitholes, there are places that attract traffic and places that rarely see people. Because they’re run down and dangerous, because they’re in a patch of territory that’s dangerous to get to. Hell, because they’re just one of those places that people avoid.

Maybe it’s one of those places she’s seeking as she works her way through the unexpected crowd. But there’s something – two somethings – in the crowd that distract and divert and get her attention. A beacon of sensation. Something sharp and piercing, not entirely unlike… Unlike someone she’s acquainted with.

So there’s a figure – most likely a woman, the bumps seem to be in the right places – looking directly at Sera and Samir as they share their quiet conversation. It’s not for long, and she doesn’t approach. She doesn’t know them, and she still doesn’t feel safe. She’d been freaked out by how she’d been uncovered a few days ago, and she’s not planning on risking that again. Not yet. The thinning sea of people is a shield and she plans to disappear back into the night before that shield vanishes.

Serafíne

"Hah." She says: both a laugh and a word, her mouth, see, opening. The flash of her teeth framed by the remnants of lipstick, chin high, head thrown back. The tangle of her hair snaking down her back. She seems intense and wanton and wanting and also: delighted.

Simply, uncomplicatedly, delighted.

Poor uncomfortable Sam.

He exhales these clouds-of-smoke and she inhales them and she doesn't really want that kind of ordinary cigarette but still she inhales like there is some kind of fine perfume threading through the air.

More strangers streaming by: couples holding hands, groups commenting volubly on the show, the setlist, the staging, taking and posting selfies, pulling old friends and half-remembered strangers in for a clasped forearm and a bro-hug or maybe even a real one.

Sera, smiling up at Sam, insinuates herself even closer, though somehow it all feels accidental. When there are this many strangers around aren't you meant to shimmy forward, to turn aslant and half-flatten your body to let them pass? Except she's doing that and lifting her bare arms and the t-shirt is sliding from her shoulder and she's reaching up to anchor it, to steady it, and then she's just reaching up, sidling, sliding her bare arms around his neck, lifting her mouth to kiss him quite openly on his, if he doesn't turn away.

Inhales the nicotine-laced breath from his lungs, if only in passing.

Lingers.
Lingers.

Lingers.

Then breaks away: "Awesome. Next time - " like a promise, a pledge in her pocket. "See you around Sam."

She steps around him, then. Joins the crowd. Drifts away.

Samir

For the record: Sam can count on one hand the number of traditionalists he has met who did not subscribe to technomancy. He cannot boast the ability to identify them by their own names but he could tell them for what they were because of their alienness. Their physicality or their wildness or what have you.

Sera does not bump that count onto his second hand. Also for the record.

She is right up in his space and his experience would tell him she is going to stay just right where she is and that is going to be the end of it. Experience doesn't mean dick to people who stay inside and learn the world through computer screens but Sam would never call himself an experienced man anyway. Smart sure but not experienced.

And Sera is a little bit older than him.

So alright they're in a crowd people are bumping into each other that's why he avoids crowds he doesn't know where their hands have been or what's riding on their breath and Sera isn't a Sleeper but she is a stranger. Something in her that he trusts enough to let her get close enough to loop her arms around his neck or maybe he's just human and hasn't learned to divorce himself from the necessity of physical contact.

Still. Her mouth on his neck and he was not expecting that. She can hear the reflexive sharp breath and the intellectual tamping down of it. The wait. The what the fuck. Then she breathes and he breathes and alright. His hand never finds her body because of the stun her mouth leaves him in. Tension coursed all up through his spine and his shoulders. She needs this.

Now he needs to go home and beat off about four times before he can go to sleep. Thank you Sera.

Sam swallows the serotonin out of his throat and says, all faux confidence, she isn't going to remember him by sight alone anyway so he doesn't believe her even if she thinks she's telling the truth, "Y... yeah. Okay. See you."

Oh hi Cigarette how are you let's get the fuck out of here.