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.

Yoga in the Park is for Weirdos

Lucas Reed

[Dex+Ath]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 7, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 4 ) Re-rolls: 2

Lucas Reed

The sky above Washington park was densely clouded, casting a blanket of grey over the surrounding landscape. People often likened that kind of weather to broody or depressed moods, but Lucas wasn't really the type to prescribe emotional weight to the clouds. The sky and the earth were as they were. They existed beyond meaning or emotion. And today, he was perfectly content to practice his craft in the park - regardless of the quality of the light. The air was on the cooler side of warm and slightly breezy. Not bad for yoga, really.

Which is what he was doing at this precise juncture. He had a grey yoga mat rolled out over the grass, and was stretching his small, agile frame into a scorpion pose, legs curved up over his head as he balanced on his elbows. He was dressed for the occasion in black athletic shorts and a white tank top. A small bead of sweat trailed its way down the side of his temple, past the corner of one eye and down the curve of his cheek. Dimly he registered it, but paid it little attention.

Kalen Holliday

[How distracted by Resonance are we?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 4, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

Kalen Holliday

Kalen associates Washington Park most strongly with one spirit and one person; neither of whom are present at the moment. He misses them both, but one of them is in the Umbra and one of them...well. That's complicated.

Lucas is here though. Arranging himself into shapes. Kalen knows more about yoga in the abstract than in practice, though he has a passing familiarity with it. He did, after all, live with Kharisma.

He approaches Lucas slowly. and pauses a little distance away to wait. Only Alexander gets Kalen waiting inches from his face. When Alexander believes that he is who he is and will let him-

Here.

Now.

Kalen directs his attention off of that mess and back toward Lucas. Yoga would probably not be the worst thing to happen to Kalen right now, but he makes no attempt to join Lucas, even so. Just goes still and silent and waits for for Lucas' attention.

Serafíne

(Awareness, yada.)

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (2, 2, 4, 4, 5, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )

Lucas Reed

[Awareness, wee]

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

Lucas Reed

It was not so much that Lucas didn't notice Kalen. Indeed, he was aware of everything around him. All of the patterns - living, material, sentient or less so. They existed as part of the greater universe, like water rising up to create a wave (briefly,) before sinking back into the vast span of the ocean. One of those waves felt like Kalen.

Lucas held his pose, balancing calmly despite the quake of muscles in his arms and his core. That was part of it - the stretch, the pain (the sweat.) After a while, he uncurled carefully and settled into a lotus position, leaning back on his palms to regard Kalen.

"Evening," he said, smiling. Did he remember Kalen? Of course. He remembered everything. Luke looked around at the park, taking in the trees and the flowers and the scattered visitors. "Nice day, hmm?"

Serafíne

"That is so fucked up, what you're doing to your body right now." Kalen shows up and waits for attention; like a cat or something. Standing there. He could be whistling. Maybe he should be whistling, but the lingering, man. Someone might have something to say about that.

Instead, someone has something to say about scorpion pose and said someone is wearing denim cut-offs with fine threads dangling over the spare meat of her well-tanned thighs, a sleeveless off-white lace vest-thingie with dangling fringe over a too-small American-flag print bikini top and drinking something from a plastic cup: grotesquely green. She's not glowing but: sweating, the way people do when it is humid and summer-hot and has the most amazing Grecian sandals, leather straps wrapped all the way up her calves and thighs. She is thin enough that it is noticeable to strangers and perhaps remarkable to those who know her now, who have known her through other times and traumas, though perhaps not thin enough yet to make her appearance alarming. Just: sharper. Honed. The delicate hollows framing her clavicles deeper, the long bones of her frame all the more evident.

"I mean seriously. I'm pretty sure those bits aren't supposed to be pointing in that direction, you know?"

And what does she feel like? The edge of something, some framing thing, beyond or perhaps before definition, gut-wrenching and compelling in the same breath. And also: the sense of soaring beneath the summer sky, sun soaking you right down to the bone.

"I don't mean that thing right there," Lotus position, which Lucas has since assumed, "I mean that shit you were pulling before. Even though I'm pretty sure that your toes aren't meant to point like that either."

This after she has clambered over a park bench from behind and taken a seat on the spine rather than the seat. Because she felt like it.

Kalen Holliday

"I think that definition varies rather widely, but I'd say so," he says to Lucas. And, now that Lucas is no longer twisted into complicated poses he approaches a little.

His eyes shift to Serafine, and he dips his head in a little nod. "Serafine." He smiles faintly, as he says her name, but that is all. Tonight he makes no move toward her, not to touch her and not to offer his arm.

Kalen settles on the ground not very far from Lucas, just beyond easy reach. And leaves them to hash out how the human body should move without any interference from him.

Lucas Reed

Lucas felt like memory. Dreams. Bright, vivid colors and old, lingering recollections. Moments in time, kept safe. Treasured (akashakarma.) Sera told him that what he was doing to his body was fucked up, and Lucas just laughed quietly. His eyes - wide and dark - held an edge of some remembered secret.

"I wasn't aware there was a rule-book for the human body." After a pause he offered his name. "Lucas Reed." To she and Kalen both, he said, "Bani Akashayana." He used the true name, not the version they were likely used to hearing.

"Did you end up buying any paintings?" he asked Kalen, one brow lofted in curiosity.

Serafíne

(I just wrote a REALLY great post and lost it. So gimme a sec!)

Lucas Reed

[Awww, that is such a massive bummer when that happens. :( ]

Serafíne

"'course there's a rule book for the human body. There's a rule book for every fucking thing," the creature contends, and there is a sense of contention about the words. The deliberate sophistry of debate, the seeking-of-clash. She smirks, too: quick and sure, the mobile sweep of her elegant mouth, the spark of clear-challenge in her eyes. "Mind, I'm all for breaking the rules. Breaking the idea of them, hell, breaking the frame of reference that demands and requires rules in the first fucking place so in theory I am on your side, except that yoga shit is fucked the fuck up."

She curls one half-bare shoulder, up, down. Eloquence in the simple form of her body, the way she uses it. "I had a friend who was into it, though. He used to do it in the park in the mornings with a bunch of other weirdos. He was a pacifist. Pretty badass for a pacifist, but you know."

--

Then, see. Kalen: he says her name and she lifts her chin and returns the glance and says hello with the gesture and hello perhaps with her eyes and there is something sharp about her, this ever-present awareness, but tonight the usual penetration of her gaze is: banked, withheld, kept in check. Doesn't say anything back, and that is a choice: to keep herself for herself, by herself, and to herself. An edge of something that feels like -

- oh, hell. what would you know about it?

The edge of her smile, maybe, but only the edge.

--

She doesn't introduce herself, but Kalen said her name. Maybe she assumes she has already been introduced.

Kalen Holliday

Kalen's attention lingers on Serafine for the greeting more than anything. Beyond that, his attention wanders between the two of them as their discussion continues, and there is no real response. He is paying attention and he is present, which is, at times, less clear. But he is not part of their debate and he apparently has no desire to be.

He settles back a little, onto his elbows, and allows his attention to settle on Lucas at the introduction. There is a little nod when he gives his Tradition, though Kalen is apparently as interested in offering formal introductions as he is debates about yoga.

"Well, Grace thought they were some kind of hideous interpretations of penii." There is a quick flash of a smile. "It was apparently that kind of night. So, none for us." None for us, he says. Not none at all, perhaps.

Lucas Reed

"Mm, perhaps he and I would get along. I teach yoga. And I'm a pacifist. Sometimes I even come out here with my class in the morning, like a bunch of weirdos." Lucas grinned and winked at Sera. Whatever he thought of her assertion about rules, if in fact he thought much of anything, he didn't engage her on it. People believed what they believed.

Kalen's response to his question was carefully worded, a fact that did not entirely escape Lucas. He rolled his head a little, regarding Kalen with a curious expression, but didn't pry any further into the matter. Neither Kalen nor Serafine seemed inclined to offer proper introductions, (though Kalen had already given an informal one) which was notable, though not necessarily worrisome. Mages could be a guarded lot. There were pieces of Luke's identity that had not been offered either.

"I've seen a few paintings that involved hideous depictions of male genitalia. They were actually pretty interesting. Definitely not for everyone, though."

Serafíne

"Maybe you would, but I dunno. He also liked to get high. Tossed back tequila like a motherfucker. Like I said: he was a badass." Her smile is a curl of remembrance, quickened, slipstream, slipsliding into one of those between sort of places the human body seems meant to hover within: sorrow / joy, or bitter/sweet. Quite simply: Sera misses Jim. Misses him sometimes with her body and sometimes with her soul and sometimes with their cross-section. Her heart quickens and oh, she allows herself that ache. Allows herself to feel that ache, but there was so many others inside and within and around and beneath that one that it makes her heart stop sometimes. And there is a moment there where her face is canted away and her body is framed just so against the gray, lingering light, mouth open, eyes distant -

And the conversation continues beneath and around her and then they are both talking about hideous penii and whatever it kind of interrupts and spikes through her strange twinge of nostalgia and also grosses her out a little bit. She breathes out sharply, takes another sip of her kale smoothie, and stands.

"I gotta go."

And so: she does.

Serafíne

(sorry kiara! is my bedtime! here in a few minutes!)

Kiara

(oh its fine I'll just cry into my soup. ;) )

Picnic with the pops.

Alexander

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

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

Alexander

[And Int+Med?]

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

Alexander

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

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

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

Lavinia

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

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

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

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

Kalen

[How distracted by Resonance are we today?]

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

Kalen

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

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

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

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

Alexander

[Int+Med still?]

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

Alexander

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

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

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

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

Lavinia

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

Abort mission, abort mission!

Serafíne

(Awareness.)

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

Kalen

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

No. We lie.

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

Alexander

[Awareness]

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

Alexander

[Dex+Ath]

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

Serafíne

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

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

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

Alexander

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

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

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

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

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

Kalen

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

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

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

Lavinia

She doesn't jump.

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

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

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

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

Serafíne

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

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

Alexander

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

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

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

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

Kalen

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

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

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

Lavinia

(skip me, please!)

Serafíne

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

Alexander

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

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

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

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

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

Lavinia

[Do I notice this? Per+aware]

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

Kalen

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

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

Serafíne

(going to go, actually. night folks!)

Dandy Lions

Elijah

He was getting pretty accustomed to driving over here.

He liked coming to Sera's place. He liked the house, he liked the general atmosphere, but for the most part he enjoyed the smell. It was a strange thing that he had a hard time putting a finger on. Truth be told, Elijah couldn't think of what it was specifically about the smell. It was something smoky in his mind but not smoky. Something herbal without being herbal. Something comforting without having the accoutrements of the things most people thought were comforting. It wasn't apple pie- Elijah never equated pie with comfort, actually. He did not come from a pie household. He came from a Chinese takeout household, but home wasn't so much comforting as a base of operations. This didn't smell like a base of operations. This smelled like the kind of home he'd want to have if he was setting down roots.

He liked the smell, he liked the feeling of her sofa- she was off doing something. He couldn't remember what, but he remembered, once, laying on her couch with a far off look and feeling like the world was ending and Dan brought him food and Dan brought him tea- was it tea?

Elijah wasn't sure, but he remembered things. He remembered how it felt warm and how it felt like a safe place. LIke the kind of place that would be home if he was laying down roots to call things home. We digress.

he is there, pulling up to the door with a paper bag in hand and it's not the kind of bag that holds liquor. It's not the kind of baggie that holds weed or anything of the sort. There is a delicacy to the way he holds the bag, knocks on the door three times and steps in, because he's never not been invited in, because the door was always metaphorically open. He's wearing khakis. Khakis and a button down and a suspenders and too fucking many clothes because, of course, Elijah wears too fucking many clothes. A half a dozen bracelets on one wrist, a necklace tucked into his shirt for privacy.

"Dan? Sera?" he asks, voice just reaching out because he hasn't checked for them yet. May as well ask first.

Serafíne

The door is always open, not simply metaphorically, but literally. It's a nice little neighborhood, up and coming, young couples in the condos, old families in the houses, trees lining the streets there and back again, but there's not a single fucking neighborhood in Denver where people feel comfortable leaving their doors essentially permanently unlocked.

This place, though: he knocks thrice and steps in. The door opens when he reaches for the knob. Here is familiar chaos: a stranger's foyer, music somewhere, from somewhere, the muted sound of voices, a tumble of boots and rainboots and heels and hippie sandals and whatnot on a tray near the door. The redolent scent of bread breaking and the distinctive, musty scent of pot. A kettle, rattling.

He can follow the thread of voices or music, a trail that loops through entryway, past rooms for living and rooms for dining, past stairs leading up up up past Amelia Earhart and beneath a spiderplant in a macrame planter into darkness and he's headed toward the kitchen but also someone is coming back up that shelf-lined hall to meet him. She is a silhouette against the brightness behind her, frame all in shadow. Broader and taller and wider and rather more voluptuous than Sera and he knows her as Dee: all that milk-cream skin in the shadow.

"Hey. Elijah. Dan and Sera are in the backyard if you're looking for them?"

Maybe there's chitchat. Maybe not. But beyond her the kitchen and bread-baking and a bottle of wine (red) open on the counter and an upended blender with tough little kale stems stuck on its blades and an open box with pot on the table and so on. Outside: Dan and Sera sitting on the cabana bed that dominates the patio in the center of the lovely yard. Edison lights strung through the branches of the tree above. She is cross-legged and he is sprawled out and they have a book of some sort open between them.

Dan reaches up and gives Elijah a supple wave when the sliding glass doors open. Greeting and invitation, all at once. Sera turns and flashes him a ghosting half-smile over her shoulder. She is so spare. Maybe it's summer but does she seem thinner than he remembers? Sharper: honed.

They're still talking as he walks toward them but he cannot hear what they're saying. It happens like that sometimes.

Elijah

"Hey Dee," he replies, smile bright eyes alight and all sorts of other things that fall into the rhyming spectrum. Dee is all shadow but he knows she's creamy milky smooth and that the blush travels all up her features when you say the right things and he wonders, briefly, if he should. If he should linger and figure out something to say, because he is ever so interested in finding buttons- not the kind that push but the kind that fasten two pieces together. He's eager to find the corresponding space where it sticks out and gets to be itself. The notable piece that joins two concepts. Something that adds that extra something.

Elijah likes finding buttons. He'd love to find Dee's, maybe has even said as much with lingering bits of attention from time to time when the thought strikes him. He's not the keeping type, but sometimes he can appreciate a woman who is curvaceous and bakes fucking amazing bread. "Still need a cheerleader this season?"

He lingers long enough for that question before moving on, and he does move on to the back yard with a raise of his hand and it's out to the back. Doesn't bring booze, doesn't bring pot, doesn't bring his usual fare like a wise man, like a pilgrim, like something coming to appease the gods. But these are not gods, that much he knows. He knows these are mortals who breathe and live just like he does so there's no need to make a pilgrimage, no need to treat this place like a trek up the mountains and the sharp, honed woman here who is so very spare with her half-smile lingering like the ghosts he knows so well (hears in the distance, at the very edges of his senses, an argument with the self. The sound of some poor soul tearing himself apart. Being brought to his knees by his enemy, his shadow, his self- skewed by some truth because the ache in that sound he hears, that pricks across the distance, is one he's learned. The truth is sometimes worse than any lie you can tell.)

there is an invitation and he comes, sits, doesn't say anything because he can't hear what they're saying. He doesn't prod for what they're saying, doesn't try to reach in where he isn't quite ready to hear. he sits, and retrieves from the bag he'd been so careful with, a chain. It's not a metal chain, but one that is carefully woven and blue flax. and like some crown one goes to Dan and the other to Sera if they'll take them.

"They were going to get mowed over along I twenty-five," he said, "I don't know if you like flowers."

But there they were.

Serafíne

"I'd be more inclined to say yes if I thought you'd actually show up for match - " Dee laughs; open-mouthed, open-voiced, without rancor because there isn't much of that in her body but also: darling if you want to lead the cheer, do. She has keys in hand and a mission somewhere and he can sense the flash of her smile as she skims past him. Sun outside but here: all shadow. The center of the house, cocooned as if it were caged by standing ribs, warm as a beating heart.

--

Outside he comes closer. There are instruments here but set aside: an acoustic guitar on the far edge of the bed. A fucking harmonica on the plastic table between the two patio chairs fronting it. Sera is: watching him and also glancing up at Dan and responding to something he said. About something, somewhere. That glassed-in feeling you sometimes get in a familiar place that has an edge of strangeness to it.

Elijah offers them both flower-chains and Sera is sitting up and she reaches for hers and Dan leans forward and reaches for his, holds it neatly where it is braided, gives the younger man a wry look that could verge on a smirk. Sera for her part is smiling. Lifts it over her head and drapes it around her neck, reaching back to lift up her hair to settle the flower-chain beneath it. She's wearing a cropped halter beneath a loose lace vest with fringe and tiny denim cut-offs and opaque thigh-high ivory tights fringed with crocheted lace and the flower-chain fits right in.

"Who doesn't like fucking flowers. They're lovely. Thank you Elijah." so says Sera.

Dan turns his over in his left hand and sits: forward and up and loops it around and instead of draping his over his own head and neck, doubles it and sets it on Sera's curls like a crown.

"Good to see you, man. What've you been up to besides saving dandelions from the Department of Highways?"

Elijah

She smiles, Dan smirks, and he grins and is a polite, beaming little ball of chaos on their back lawn. He's pleased, of course he's fucking pleased there were flowers and he wasn't drunk when he gave them up and didn't even ask Dan if he could plait daisies into his beard because it would be fucking hard and Elijah didn't know how to braid and he had a bit too much respect for Dan's beard to do that.

"I've been learning how to swim," he says. There should be more, but he doesn't give more until he realizes he needs to clarify.

"I mean, like, literally learning how to swim. How to actually put self in water and not drown," a second, "also, I have a harp recital in a couple weeks if you want to come. I have mad skills." Kind of. He kind of had skills. "Anyway. The swimming thing is big, it's kinda something I wanted to do for awhile so I figured I'd do it because there's this fucking badass lake and I want to take people camping- you-" he gestures to them "-would be amongst those I count under "people I want to take camping." So, preemptive invite."

Serafíne

"That's so cool," this is Sera, shaking her golden head after Dan crowns her so that the little chain of plaited wildflowers slips askew on her half-shaved head. The shake is deliberate: she courts that moment where everything slides sideways, where perfection unmakes itself. Uncrosses her legs, but only to curl them up again, smiling at Elijah, quietly and - perhaps - still, though somehow as if from a great distance. Maybe that's how she feels when she's relaxing on the bed in her backyard and friends and strangers come to see her: half-way between a goddess and an oracle. That's so cool she says and she means it. Imbues that meaning into her words, warm and forward. She knows: what it means and what he is doing and she is pleased and proud of and by and for him, and finds a way to press all those thoughts and feelings into a few little words.

"And I didn't fucking know you played the harp. Like the Apollo-harp or the angel's harp or the orchestra harp or the mouth-harp? I might be out of town for the recital, but let me know and if we're around, we'll come."

Elijah

"Like, the actual legit bigassed orchestral harp," he clarifies. He's smiling like he's proud, like he's pleased, like he could soak in all that pride and he's sharing it with her because he wanted to share the moment. Because he wanted someone to share joy with, wanted to give people fucking chains of blue flax flowers and sit in the grass and effuse like an eight year old who just found some new beetle outside or an astronomer who found a star that rewrote a whole constellation. Somewhere between world altering and- no. No it is all world altering. A beetle no greater than a star, the effect profound and joy-ridden for both of them. And so it is, he's concluded water has a new definition. Concludes that water has always been there, has always been the transitioning point for him so fear it?

"It works a lot like the piano, it just has some places where it's a little different- but I'm rambling. Yes, I can play the harp- I can also play the piano, but I actually kinda like the harp more," he said. No admission there, just fact. "If you guys are in town you are definitely invited. If not, I'll… uh… figure out some way to acquire a harp. Or something."

Yeah, because that was totally a thing. He didn't seem like he was terribly sold on lugging a giant orchestral style harp around but he did seem keen on figuring it out.

Serafíne

"Mmm. You can always buy a harp, you know. I'm pretty sure they sell them in stores and shit." Sera murmurs, lifts her dark eyes up to catch Dan's on the honed line of her aw, the delicate framework of her profile. They share a glance, private. The twinge of a smile: also private and graveled with bitter / sweetness, and then Sera's looking back at Elijah, and his childlike enthusiasm. "Text Dan when you know when and where. He'll let me know."

Something Biblical

Ian

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

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

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

Grace

[Awareness!]

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

Serafíne

Also: awareness.

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

Grace

[ lol ]

Serafíne

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

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

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

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

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

There.

Grace

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

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

Today, it's the weird.

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

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

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

Ian

[Awareness]

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

Serafíne

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

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

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

Smiles: quiet, compressed, spreading, slow.

Lovely.

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

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

Ian

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

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

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

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

Grace

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

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

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

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

Serafíne

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

"I'm glad you're well."

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

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

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

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

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

Elijah

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

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

Elijah

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

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

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

Something.

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

Ian

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

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

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

Grace

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

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

Arionna de la Babin

[awareness]

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

Arionna de la Babin

[Alertness]

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

Grace

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

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

Arionna de la Babin

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

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

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

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

Ian

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

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

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

Serafíne

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

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

--

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

Elijah

[Who am I looking at?]

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

Grace

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

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

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

Ian

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

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

Elijah

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

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

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

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

A beat.

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

Serafíne

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

Arionna de la Babin

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

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

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

Ian

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

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

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

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

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

Grace

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

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

But no, no such luck.

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

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

With that, she goes to right her bicycle again.

Serafíne

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

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

--

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

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

(Per + Empathy: WTF Grace?)

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

Elijah

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

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

Arionna de la Babin

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

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

Grace

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

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

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

Elijah

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

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

Elijah

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

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

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

Arionna de la Babin

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

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

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

Ian

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

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

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

Grace

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

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

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

Serafíne

"See you guys."

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

Another kind of magic.

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

Hey, we're all entitled.

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

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

Serafíne

(Graceful jump? Dex + Ath)

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

Serafíne

ish. night y'all!

Domesticated

Ian

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

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

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

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

"Mm, maybe when I'm done."

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

Elijah

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

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

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

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

Serafíne

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

Serafíne

(Repost: to fix typos AND paragraph breaks.)

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

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

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

Kalen Holliday

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

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

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

Ian

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

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

---

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

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

Serafíne

WHAT WAS THAT IAN. (Per + Empathy)

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

Elijah

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

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

Ian

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

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

Kalen Holliday

[So many dice everywhere. Perception+Empathy]

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

Elijah

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

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

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

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

Elijah

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

Ian

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

Serafíne

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

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

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

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

Kalen Holliday

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

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

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

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

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

Ian

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

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

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

Elijah

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

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

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

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

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

Serafíne

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kalen Holliday

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

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

He is so rarely sure he isn't dreaming.

"Hey," he says quietly.

Ian

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

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

----

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

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

(Ditto, Ian.)

Elijah

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

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

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

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

Kalen Holliday

[WP]

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

Serafíne

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

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

Doors slam open. Doors slam closed.

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