Kalen
Kalen does not invite Grace out for a victory celebration, but to the warehouse. He hasn't decorated it much, but he has put a little stars and streamers thing on the table and hung a ridiculous flamingo pinata. Because look, nothing says congratulations like a fucking ridiculous flamingo pinata.
There is food, but since Kalen doesn't cook that Grace has ever seen, it is sitting on the table in boxes. Bakery boxes. Nothing that looks like an actual takeout box. And there is, of course, coffee waiting in a French press and all the crazy things Kalen puts out with coffee for Grace to play with.
And, nevermind that Christmas is in like five minutes, there is a little stack of wrapped up congratulations presents.
This is what happens when Kalen tries to be supportive. Pinatas and presents and coffee.
Grace
When it was suggested that they celebrate the literal surviving of Grace's first Awakened semester, she was expecting... Well, she wasn't expecting this. Coffee was expected, but that's because this is Kalen we're talking about here. But presents? And cake? And, "Holy shit, Kalen, you have a lawn ornament hanging from your ceiling."
She smiles as her eyes track to one thing and the next and back again, barely hovering over each thing in turn, even Kalen himself. It's like Christmas, only one that doesn't reek. If Christmas involved the massacre of pink papier-mâché creatures hung from the ceiling, it might be worth celebrating.
The warehouse, this crazy old formerly-a-business building, now houses cozy matching upholstered chairs and other such handsome furniture and accessories, and stars and streamers and ridiculousness. You can read Kalen in this mélange of stuff, you know. The old barn-like warehouse, made comfortable with expensive furniture and random elements. A juxtaposition of oddity. Kind of like the guy who wanted to turn a pile of his money into a networked emergency GTFO fund for everybody, because why have money other than to give it away, right? And buy pink flamingo piñatas.
"It's perfect," she says, her eyes finally landing on Kalen again as she walks into the room toward one of the couches, and then plants herself in it. Shoes come off, and she's already starting on the coffee.
It's easy to forget a tangled-up life in this place. Easier still when the weight of school is off one's back, for the time being at least. The weight of everything else still pulls, but it's a start
Kalen
"It is," Kalen says with the kind of gravity she's never seen him use without being ironic, "A piñata."
He settles onto the couch, watching her. It is a minute before he starts making coffee, less because he's waiting for Grace and more because it's Kalen. He's undoubtedly had coffee already.
"I must confess that I've never thrown a congratulatory party. I determined that flamingo piñatas were the most congratulatory of piñatas. Hopefully it is true that they are more congratulatory than penguins." He grins. "Also, penguins are so cute. I don't really want to hit them."
Grace
"Ooooh, a piñata," she says, mimicking his ironic gravitas. "You know, I always did love piñatas as a kid. I think it's something about children, really, how they love to beat the shit out of things."
Grace plays with her coffee, throwing in heavy cream and caramel, and topping it off with one of those ridiculous rock candy coffee stirrers. "And you know, after all this stress lately, I can see the allure of beating the crap out of something inanimate and pink. It's perfect, really."
She blows on her coffee, and looks up at him over the steam, a little sad smile on her face. "Thanks. For this. for all of it really, I mean, all the food and prodding and getting me out and stuff too. You've been such a help."
Kalen
"I have never...." He waves at the piñata. "I wanted to. I remember other children talking about them, at birthday parties I think. But I didn't have birthday parties or go to birthday parties. Parties at all.
"Kharisma drug me out to raves eventually, but those aren't exactly the same. I enjoyed them, but they aren't full of people celebrating one thing." He does not sound particularly sad about the lack of birthday parties in his life. As he once told Grace he had solitary underground adventures and rooftop adventures and aside from a few isolated incidents, as far as he is concerned his childhood was brilliant.
Kalen adapts. Kalen survives. And, if he must, he reframes narratives until they tell a story he doesn't mind telling. Grace has seen him spin silver linings out of the ether before. He may even remember his childhood as happy, but some of it seems unlikely to have seemed happy at the time. It seems unlikely that he was always so indifferent about parties and piñatas.
Why else would he have brought one to Grace?
"Did you think I did all that for you?" Kalen asks Grace with a laugh. "I was bored and you're one of the only Magi in Denver who doesn't run from me. Eating takeout alone all the time was just getting depressing. Less pitying looks when you order for two."
Oh, yes. And Kalen deflects thanks and affection with a reflexive ease that speaks of years and years spent alone. He doesn't always do it, and in this moment it is less a deflection and more teasing because his smile and his eyes are both warm, but it is still his first instinct.
Grace
Grace stays silent for a while, braving the hot coffee concoction in little sips while Kalen goes and talks about his childhood. But eventually she just comes back with "Well, I guess I'll have to let you have the first swing then. Sometimes it only takes one good whack, wouldn't want to deprive you of the pleasure."
She curls her legs up on the couch, "Speaking of which, do you have a stick?" Apparently, she is all about violently disemcandying a flamingo. Perhaps handing a stick to a recently stressed-out student reeling from finals hopped up on sugar and caffeine isn't the best of ideas ever, but Grace sure thinks it is.
"Oh please. I know you're not that desperate for company. You have Garrett, and you said Sid doesn't hate you anymore. And there's Pan," she says, trying to remind Kalen that he isn't as anti-social as he really thinks. "But, even though you had such evil ulterior motives as 'I want to be friendly', thanks anyway."
Kalen
"Did you just ask a Flambeau to confirm that there were objects with which to beat other objects and/or monsters available?" Kalen asks with a raised eyebrow. "Of course there are. I can even teach you very basic staff work. Or you can just use it like a big stick. It's your party."
"I may have never hit a piñata, but I assure you I have hit enough things and broken them not to feel deprived. Admittedly, vampire hunting would be soooooooooo much more amazing if they were actually filled with candy."
"I know. If I settle in one place and am not careful enough, soon I have friends. I am not completely incapable of that. I just...there are people who want to kill me. Perhaps for secrets I may or may not know. And they have killed people I cared about before. I don't hate having friends, Kit. I just hate what becomes of them sometimes.
"Wait? Am I friends with Pan? I'm not really sure what...I mean...Pan reminds of some people I knew. I think one of them was my friend. The other...it was too formal for that."
Grace
"You realize, right, that half of the fun of piñataing is watching people be woefully inept at staff work. You're supposed to get blindfolded and dizzy first. Smashing objects other than the piñata is expected. Bonus points if you hit someone else or yourself with the stick," she laughs, and then laughs some more about candy vampires. Granted, Kalen is probably talking about actual vampires, but Grace's mind's eye goes straight to Buffy the Candyman Slayer and stays there. She just doesn't have it in her right now to get worked up over yet another monstrous thing.
This is supposed to be a victory party anyway.
"I know. I worry about my friends too. Well, I don't know. Maybe you're not 'friends' with Pan, but he's not running away from you. I kind of get the impression that he wouldn't run away from anything, so maybe that's not the best metric, but you know."
She swirls her coffee around with an almost solid sugar stirrer, and stares at it, instead of Kalen. It's just easier. "You know, when we first met, you said something like if I wanted to be safe, I should stay away from you. We were all in public, and I thought you were joking, but now I know better. Even still, I'm not running away from you, am I? You're just going to have to somehow come to terms with the fact that there are some people who like you. Difficult, I know."
Kalen
"It isn't difficult to come to terms with the fact that you like me. I spent a long time deliberately having no one close to me, but I learned people were okay. I like having friends, Kit. And I am not always terrible at it.
"It's harder to come to terms with the thought of this chantry being destroyed too. But there seem to be enough ways to be in danger in Denver that I think perhaps I should worry less about that."
He sighs then laughs softly. "Pan probably wouldn't run from anything.
"He sat with me once, when I was exhausted and miserable. He read for awhile and I pretended that I was looking at maps for awhile. It's not like we could never be friends. I'm not sure that he really wants to be friends. Most of the priests I have known don't. The only notable exception was...very different from Pan.
"But that might have been a function of how we met. Or that he was closer to my age and had comparable degrees of experience as far as magic went. I don't really know. There's a lot going on with Pan.
"Like...Garrett and I aren't friends. He's like my adopted father, and we are really close, but that's different from friends."
Grace
Garrett. Now that's a twisty ball of emotions to stuff inside, now isn't it? It's hard to talk about the man with Kalen, because they are so close, and it's impossible for her to talk about him with anyone else because she feels that it's the height of meanness to speak ill of people behind their back. Unless one of her friends were seriously planning on going to him for psychiatric help, there is nothing to say. And even then, there would be much left out.
Information has worth, but so does privacy. They're like sides of a coin that is itself a thing of value.
But honestly, if she were to say something about Garrett right now? Maybe that's why he's so lonely. He doesn't want friends. He doesn't want to be equals. He wants to be everybody's fucking father. Damn if that coffee isn't getting stared at real hard.
"Yeah. Denver's interesting. I will give it that. But there's also a reason why that's a curse," she sighs. "So far, we haven't heard of your hunters yet, but likely they'd just be another straw for the camel's back." So what, don't worry about them, worry about... all the other stuff too. Right. Not exactly brilliant help here, Grace. But being all positive and uplifting about the future just isn't her thing right now. She has his same fears. Telling him to be rid of them would be hypocritical.
"And yeah, that's uh... different from friends. I don't know. I just have a hard time treating other people like they're my father, you know? Even Pan, and he's, like, a father. I don't know if I could be close to someone who's not a friend."
Kalen
"Yeah. He kind of freaked out a little when you came by. I forget he isn't...he doesn't care as much about protocol with me anymore and I didn't think to explain to you who he was and the kinds of things he did because...that's just never who he was to me.
"I was still new in the chantry and not yet a member of the Order when I met him. That's why sometimes when he isn't thinking about it he calls me Eli. He used to come up and see what I was reading in the library. Sometimes he would bring me books.
"I know he must have seemed horrible to you. But he was so patient with me. And gentle. And then he started bringing me to see Jake and sometimes I would go visit them and suddenly I had somewhere I could be on holidays and....
"I should have known better. Especially after Terrance and Pippa. I should have expected he wasn't going to do anything like what he did with me again. I'm sorry. All that did was hurt both of you."
Grace
Grace just listens, drinks long sips from her coffee, and peers at Kalen through the steam as he talks, and talks, and talks. It's like he needs to get this off his chest, and is just monologueing his way through it all. And she tries to be as blank as possible.
"You've said you're sorry for that before, you know. And I don't even slightly blame you for wanting to help me, so you can stop, okay? It's all cool," she says, then studies the boundaries of the room, eyes grazing over the form of that pink flamingo and mouth curling up ever so slightly in the process. "I don't even really blame Garrett either. I know I hurt him back."
Exactly how she managed to hurt him, she couldn't say. And that's the truly scary part. It would be one thing if she could point to some behavior, some reason why her presence made him dredge up all that pain. If she had an answer to that question, she could stop it from happening again.
"You said you had a stick?" she asks, deliberately trying to steer the conversation elsewhere. Somewhere more... festive. Or perhaps, violent. Either way.
Kalen
Kalen, who has to think in completely different ways to talk about people and how they make him feel, blinks when Grace brings up the stick. Why does she want a stick?
Piñata!
"Yes. I will go get you a stick." He sets his coffee down, rises carefully, and then walks toward where the firing range is. He returns with a staff and a silk scarf, both of which he holds out to Grace.
Grace
It's a relief to have that dark spot of a conversation ended, and Grace's eyes light up when she sees Kalen return with a stick (which is actually a quite substantial-looking staff) and scarf combination.
Because this is fun. Better than having to talk or think about things. Hello not giving a shit, where have you been?
She hops up and does this unbalanced dance with her coffee cup, trying to drink and stand and not spill all at once. The coffee gets placed on the table, and she grabs at the scarf first, tying it around her head while walking over to where the poor flamingo is suspended from the ceiling. "Okay, now... stick!" she says, and gropes around in the air until she finds it.
Once found, she spins around with the staff in hand, to get the other prerequisite of 'dizzy' satisfied. When she makes the first trial 'where is the piñata' swooshes of the staff, though... she must be cheating. Peeking, maybe. It finds its mark, wobbly though she is. The pink thing makes a little hollow clunk. "Hey-y, gotcha!"
And then, it's time for a real swing. She winds up, and does this overhead slam that she's sure is going to strike... well, something. As she said, it's the point of piñataing to watch people be woefully inadequate at staff work.
Kalen
There is a muffled choking noise, followed by, "...Kit. I am not sure what is customary, but is it permissible to laugh while people are flailing at a piñata with your staff like a drunken four-year-old?"
Grace
"It."
The staff strikes air, making a whooshing noise (because she is trying, and isn't actually peeking).
"Totally."
The piñata veers in spinning circles and pendulous swings as Grace wings a foot of the thing, making further hits somewhat less likely.
"Is."
She winds up like the staff is a baseball bat, and does a very awkward 'to the side and up' combo, which actually manages a solid smack, as the piñata swings forward, and the staff meets it in the air.
"Haha! Got it! Okay, your turn. Now you get to look like a drunken four-year-old!" she exclaims, and sets the staff's end to the floor, looking quite proud at the successful flamingo hunt, as it makes chaotic motions overhead, dangling from its string.
Kalen
Kalen does laugh, because Grace looks ridiculous and because he'll look ridiculous and because eventually candy will come spilling out of a slain piñata and there is just nothing else to do.
He takes the scarf and staff and moves to the piñata. He studies it for a few seconds as it swings more and more slowly. Then he puts on the scarf like a blindfold and spins in a few circles. It it unlikely he is terribly dizzy, but it also unlikely he can spin that fast.
He does not peek. He knows the height of the thing. It's probable distance from him. And so locating the proper direction is a matter of a few easy arcs of the staff. Once he taps it he whirls the staff in one hand, strikes and misses, then strikes and hits. There is a solid sound of impact and a light cracking, but the piñata does not yet give way.
He slips the blindfold off and grins at Grace like this is the best thing ever.
"We need to get more of these. It will be great!"
And he holds out the scarf and staff to her again.
Grace
Sometimes, Kalen displays some of what must have been some elegant physical prowess, before a building fell on him that is. Even blindfolded and limping, he whirls a staff like he knows very well how. Even if he hits air.
Now it's Grace's turn to laugh (and stay a good distance away, because blindfolded staff-swinging people, no matter how good they are, can be dangerous). "Just imagine it's really a vampire flamingo!"
Then, he gets his good solid crack in, and good for him. Now he has the full piñata experience. Grace puts on a fake-unamused face, and gives him a haughty golf-clap. "Good show, sir, good show."
She walks up again, takes the blindfold back, and the staff. She twirls around, grinning, staff held aloft. This time, she makes sure to get really, really dizzy. Who knows how many times that staff has been used in battle, perhaps? But now it has another purpose. She tries giving it a one-handed whirl like Kalen did, and it slips out of her hand and clatters to the floor.
So now, she's blinded, giggling on the floor, feeling around for the staff again, and wobbling a bit on unsteady feet.
Kalen
Kalen has faced no few enemies. He has not done so with a staff, but there may yet come a day. The whirling and striking looks impressive enough, but Kalen prefers guns. Grace has not seen him handle a gun yet.
Her advice about considering it a vampire flamingo gets a laugh. As does the golf-clap and the faux-formal congratulations. And the ensuing craziness with the attempt to twirl the staff.
"If it makes you feel any better, Kit, my first attempt to do that was about that terrible and I wasn't dizzy and had instruction."
Grace
Upon finding the staff, she stands back up, and points the staff at the general direction of Kalen's voice. "Now you stop laughing," she says, with fake gruffness. "This is serious business."
She stumbles a bit trying to find the piñata again, and is pointed in the entirely wrong direction when she starts prodding at the air with the staff. Is it here? No. Here? No.
But then, this is the point of the thing -- to look ridiculous and make fun, because there is nothing better to make.
Eventually, she finds it, by then somewhat recovered from the dizzy spin. And this time, when she gives it a good solid whack, it splits open. In its death throes, it flings its mixed candy on Grace's head, and all over Kalen's warehouse. Chances are, he'll be finding candy under the couch or under a rug or in the corners for a while.
At the first drops of candy rain, Grace lets loose a whoop of success. "It's okay Kalen. I slew the beast. You can relax now," she says, and while her face is bright, it does bring certain things to mind -- that there are beasts out there that need slaying, that no one can truly relax until it is done.
It's not like 'Thakky' is going to spew candy when they're victorious over the thing either. Probably. For all she knows, demons are made of Jolly Ranchers. But probably not.
Kalen
Kalen laughs at Grace searching and whoops when Grace smashes the piñata. It is not quite the kind of sound one would generally expect, all joyous and spontaneous and not at all quiet. Piñatas, he has already decided, are going up in the chantry. They can have a delightful time knocking them down.
He doesn't seem concerned about the amount of candy on his floor. And it's Kalen, so this is expensive oddly-flavored gourmet candy. No boring things like cherry or grape - persimmon and mango and pomegranate and blackberry and pear. Single handmade truffles in tiny boxes.
Kalen settles back onto the couch and fixes more coffee, watching Grace. He doesn't seem interested in scrambling for candy, but he does seem interested in Grace's reaction to candy everywhere. There are still neatly wrapped presents, the top one sporting an elaborate ribbon bow, but he doesn't call her attention back. He is in no rush.
Grace
The scarf she pulls off her head is silk, and the staff she lays on the table is no broom handle. It shouldn't be a surprise then, that the pink flamingo was full of gourmet candies. "Oh wow, Kalen, you do not do anything halfway, do you?" she asks, picking up one of the little boxes. It's blackberry and dark chocolate and sinful, you know. Grace has never been one for decadence really, or things without purpose.
She has to be careful not to step on any of the truffles as she makes her way back to the chairs. A few of them, where it's easy to do so, she picks up and takes with her. Perhaps when they're done here, she'll gather them all up to save Kalen having to do it with his broken body. Not that she thinks he can't, just... it's a courtesy. But for right now, she flops herself into a chair, spills her haul out on the table, unwraps that blackberry chocolate and pops it in her mouth.
It tastes like joy feels -- something she hasn't let herself touch in so long.
"S'good stuff," she mumbles, with her mouth full.
Kalen
Kalen laughs at her, and the warm relaxed sound carries into hugs spoken tone, rendering it practically a purr. "We don't live forever, any of us, and my House especially. Why do anything halfway under such conditions, Kit?"
He may not do things without purpose, but he had that early training with an Ecstatic and a Euthanatos before the joined the Order. The lines between what he learned from all of them blur into something fuzzier. Fluid. Whole. Joy is a purpose. Pleasure is a purpose. Life is a sacred gift. Protecting it is a sacred duty. Even when you kill to do it. Especially when you kill to do it. Blackberries are fucking amazing. None of this is complicated or contradictory to him. He knows nothing of how light acts as both a particle and a wave, but he already understands how one's existence can comprise such seemingly different things as part of a unified whole.
"You never did answer my question about the mangoes," he says, like taking an abrupt sidetracking back to the first conversation they ever had is totally something everyone does at random.
Grace
"Mangoes? Well, they're like peaches and cherries and blackberries and black pepper and almonds," she says, with a smirk, remembering this conversation well. "They're drupes. Mangoes have got a stone in the middle." She doesn't even have to check that one on Wikipedia. Maybe in her random musings, she's been memorizing fruit types. It wouldn't be the strangest of things locked up in her memory.
She takes up another box, another dark and sinful-looking thing. "This one's pomegranate. Persephone's bane," she says while unpacking the box. "One of your kittens is called Pomegranate, right?"
So far we have biology nomenclature, mythology, and kittens if you're keeping count.
Kalen
"Shoshannah's kitten, yes. I do believe she is named for that very legend. Mine is Persimmon. Which is, I think, a different classification of fruit entirely. They both stay at the house." Kalen curls up a little with his coffee. "I thought mangoes were drupes."
Grace
Grace munches on the pomegranate truffle, and gulps down her carameled coffee, her eyes tracing the room again, until they land on the present with the big bow. "Well, you were right," she says, absently. "You know, Kalen, you're going to make me feel bad buying me all this stuff. I can't exactly... reciprocate, you know?"
But then, she thinks about how that might sound. You bought me a present, and I hate you for it, grr! Not exactly.
"What's the big one?" she asks, flicking her gaze over to him with a smile.
Kalen
"It gives me something to do. I used to train, but...." He leaves his coffee beside him on the couch for a few seconds and spreads his hands, then picks it back up and takes a sip. "And buying things for me wouldn't make any sense. I don't know who I am in Denver yet. Maybe who I am first in Denver. Not sure how long I'm staying yet.
"The big one is...definitely not a puppy. It would have chewed through the box by now. Open it and see."
[But what's in the box? Assorted boxes contain: an antique pen and pencil set in a case, a frighteningly comprehensive assortment of fountain pen ink, some graph paper notebooks with thick ridiculously touchable paper, a large leatherbound book (like the size of an encyclopedia) and a smaller one (like a journal size). You know, exactly what someone would get for Grace.]
Grace
"You don't know who you are in Denver yet?" she asks, giving him the side-eye. "You are who you are, I thought. You may have different identities perhaps, but they're not who you are."
She walks up to the packages and hefts the big one up. It's heavier than expected, and she looks a bit confused. Maybe she was thinking stuffed animals? In any case, she sits down with it, and carefully unwraps the paper and then gets into the box, and pulls out the huge book. At first, she's thinking he got her a tome to study or something, but opening it just reveals thick, blank, eggshell-white paper. She's meant to fill this with her own words.
Sometime during the unwrapping of all those boxes, she gives Kalen a sheepish look. "You know, my handwriting is atrocious. I'm too used to doing all my writing on the computer." She says that, but she also happily runs everything through her fingers, flips through the books, and oohs and ahs over the antique pen and pencil. Next semester, if there is to be a next semester, she will be taking notes and drawing diagrams in luxurious style. Perhaps that huge leather encyclopedia will one day boast graph and tree diagrams, visualizations of algorithms, and graphical interface sketches. Or maybe barely-legible stories. Or both.
"None of these are puppies," she says and grins at him. "Thanks."
Grace has an idea of who Kalen is. Who he really is. Even if he hasn't figured that one out on his own yet. It's just so hard to be him because it hurts too much. She understands. Today is the first day she's allowed herself to feel truly happy again, just because having happiness ripped away from you hurts. You don't want to experience that again, so you deny joy's return. Like having people ripped away from you time and time again, making you avoid becoming close again. Which makes her wonder... why her? Why is he so truthful when it comes to her? There's questions in her eyes as she packs away the wrapping paper into compact folds, this tied with ribbon. Easy to toss. Or save for more present-wrapping. Never let it be said that Grace is wasteful.
Kalen
"The Order...we take Names, which you have no doubt surmised. But we also have Words. Most of my House have Words like Blazing and Conflagration and Overwhelming and Triumph. I know-I know, you're already bored now. But you should know that for the context here.
"Mine is Metamorphosis. My Avatar is a thing constantly shedding masks and with no real face ever visible." He smiles, his expression caught somewhere between excitement and reassurance. "I do sort of become different people, Kit. There are common threads but I'm not...I don't keep identities or personalities or much of anything at all for very long."
Grace
"My Name's Chimeric One," she says, while flipping through a blank book as though she were reading its pages. "Sometimes Una. Or L. Marshall. Or Kit," she says, with a smirk. "Someone else came up with that last one. I don't know what my Word is."
She seems a bit distant, reading her blank pages. "Gadfly told me about Avatars somewhat, but he didn't have much to say. He'd never seen his. Neither have I. I wouldn't have the first clue. Do you really think you don't have a face under your masks? Do you think you are your Avatar?"
Kalen
"We are our Avatars and aren't our Avatars. It's...I don't know, like the Holy Trinity? You have a God and Jesus and the Holy Ghost and they are three different things and one thing at the same time.
"I think...I don't know what I think. There are things about me that don't change, but I've always found it so easy to slip into being other people. For a few minutes or a few hours or a few years. I learn different things because I see things differently. I have to, to respond as someone else would without hesitation.
"I believe only the Order mandates that tradition, but if you would like to take a Word I see no reason you could not. I know you keep computers, but I think there is something to having paper and pens and colors to chose from. There are books full of notes and accounts in most Hermetic libraries. You can read so much of who we are in how we approach magic and reality. I thought it might help you to have something to keep your notes in that was more...tangible."
Grace
She laughs at that last one, really laughs, as though Kalen is in on the joke even. "Silly. You think this is tangible? That it isn't really just as made of ones and zeros as the files on my computer?" she says, lifting the heavy book.
"Just takes a wee bit of translation from this to straight data. Although, in its present state, I could compress this quite a lot..." Again, she laughs, to her own little joke.
"You know, when I have time, I was going to go the other direction. I think I told you about that idea, to take the Chantry library and digitize it? Tangible to digital, digital to tangible, when things are so transcribable, they may as well be the same thing. Like spatial dimensions."
She goes off into tangents of her own personal reality and her approach to it. It's easier than talking about Avatars that she has never seen, or who Kalen truly is. Changeable, without a face underneath the façade. Or so he thinks. Or doesn't know what to think. He hints that someday he will change into someone else and leave. All Grace could say to that is that she will miss him when the wind changes. All they have is right now, but that's the case anyway. It all blows away in the end.
Kalen
Kalen laughs too, because he does follow that. Hell, sometimes he argues that. "All that aside, it seems more tangible. Don't tell me perception isn't everything sometimes."
"You want to transcribe all the books in the library?" He raises a curious eyebrow. "How?" He assumes she is not going to say by typing them all up in a database. Or letterpress. Which is a shame because letterpress is as gorgeous as it is laborious. Still, he isn't sure they know anyone who could make proper woodcuts for illustrations.
Grace
"Perception is in the eye of the perceiver," she snarks back. More chocolate. Must have another of those joyous sinful things. It's the kind of thing Grace would never buy for herself -- she'd probably take one look at the price tag and declare it anathema. One could buy a small computer for that, etc. etc. But she's not in charge of buying it, and it's easy to forget the source of candy for now. It just exploded out of a flamingo.
So, she's chewing on a pear truffle when she answers him next. "There's these setups you can build, with open-source blueprints. Get a couple cameras, a frame to hold the books, it's pretty neat. Still rather manual. Someone's going to have to turn pages and push the button until they're sick of it. But then, once the pages are in digital form, I can do so much with it. Strip the text out of the images, you know, do all kinds of fun things. I can make data dance for me."
She may have a lot of confidence in her skills, but it's not overconfidence. Kalen knows. He's seen how she is with a computer.
"Anyway, the real benefit to such a thing would be that people would be able to say, upload their personal notes, their personal libraries, and still take the books home with them at the end of the day. We could expand the library, share all our knowledge. You know, make it networked."
She starts laughing, again, this time at herself, at how grandiose she's getting. She stands up, and raises a fist in the air, with fake dramatics. "I want the library to transcend its earthly form, to shed the weary chains of the material, and be... free!"
It's a kind of 'ha ha, only serious' moment.
Kalen
"I imagine," Kalen says slowly, suppressed laughter turning his voice into something rich and warm, "Little winged books flying about the library and pressing themselves wistfully against the glass when you say things like that. Perhaps with those little whining noises puppies make." One day, Grace will get to see him kill, and then the distance between this moment and his eyes cold instead of just distant is going to strike her. But so far, all she sees are little indications of his training.
"I have time. I can help you scan books. And build things, if you think someone with all the mechanical knowledge of a five-year-old can help you with that. It sounds like a brilliant idea. Would you set up something like Ginger, but for chantries? So that we could share books that way? I mean...you would only want some magical knowledge to be so free, yes?"
Grace
There are times when Kalen says things that are so damn awesome. Even though he claims the computer knowledge of a womp rat, he has a tendency to think in 'those' ways, which makes Grace feel there is hope for the Hermetic yet. Yeah, something like Ginger but for Chantries. Hell yes. Let's do that.
"Well, I have enough mechanical knowledge to follow a blueprint, and you can just hammer where I say to hammer or something. It'll be great! And if anybody asks what we're doing, we can say we're making winged book-puppies!
"I do like the way you're thinking with the Ginger-for-Chantries thing. But why would you only want some magical knowledge to be free? I suppose everybody can decide for themselves what they want to share, but I opt for as open as possible."
Kalen
Kalen sighs and stays quiet for a few seconds before he answers Grace. Interested in open cooperation or not, Kalen still comes from an Order that sees fit to limit access to knowledge and shuns transparency to the point that they have their own internal branch dedicated to justice.
"Some knowledge is dangerous. There are things that can become of us, terrible things." His lips press together. "You remember when Garrett was talking about having had to kill his wife? When we Fall, it is often those who most loved us who hunt us down. If we haven't destroyed them already.
"To anyone without proper training and understanding, curiosity can be dangerous. Even those with some comprehension of the dangers in the study of some particular types of magic still Fall. Having those rites at your fingertips is...you have to understand how difficult it is not to use them, just once, with good reason. But from there, very often, there is no turning back.
"And while I would share most information freely with chantries, there is the matter of Sleepers to consider. Trying to sneak a little more magic into the world is one thing, but there are things it is much safer not to share.
"Trust me, I wish that we could just share ourselves with the world. For now though, I think we should limit our sharing to other chantries. And, if we can find them, independent Magi. There are some out there."
Grace
She sits back down, and curls up a bit when Kalen goes on the latest track of conversation. It's not as happy. When he talks about Garrett having to kill his wife, she looks away.
"Well, okay, I get why you wouldn't want to have a copy of L'Ultimo Giorno on the Magical Netflix or something, but do they really keep shit like that around... just... Wait yes, of course they do," she says, and facepalms. "It was in a vault at a Chantry, wasn't it? And then when it got stolen and carted halfway across the world, they proceeded to be extremely tight-lipped about what all went down because... reasons.
"There's times when people could learn to be more free with their information, I guess is my point. Also times when they could be more careful to whom they hand the keys to the vault. I do understand that. Also, we have to hide from the Technocracy and shit, so we can't be too open. There's no sleepers who know about Ginger, I'm not that naive. As open as possible. Within reason."
Kalen
Kalen nods. "As open as possible within reason is exactly what I was hoping for. I know you feel really strongly about...putting restrictions on people. I don't want to go through some horrible vetting process or censor things or anything like that. I just want us to be careful."
Grace
"Oh, the application form will have to be suitably onerous. Must be filled out in pen, in triplicate. Preferably with one of these things," she points at one of the expensive-looking fountain pen boxes, "using gold ink, of course. You know, I had a pen once that wrote in gold ink. Really crappy for taking notes with because you can't see it. Anyway, yeah. And you only get text, no pictures, because sometimes the pictures are dirty," she says, and makes the face of a scandalized church lady.
"I suppose if we're going that route, we'll need a few things. Share the blueprints for making a book scanner, then leave it up to everyone else what they want to donate. With the caveat of please no books which house viral meme demons or something. How would you stop that, anyway? I'm all for making a safe system if we can manage it. Trouble is, I feel kind of like a new kid setting up a service that has 'please hack me' written all over it because I don't know what the heck I'm doing." Grace sighs, looks up at the ceiling in her way of gazing into the distance. "If I actually knew any others of the technomantic persuasion, I would open-source this idea and then we could really make it secure. But I don't."
"Maybe we beta test it locally. I think I can trust everybody here not to be malicious assclowns."
Kalen
"I have never had to do such a thing," Kalen says, eyes scanning over the flood of candies as he thinks for a moment. "Knowledge and words have considerable power. In Egypt they used mutilate or draw snakes in hieroglyphs as already dead to neutralize the threat they could pose. Removing all instances of the name of the dead would prevent them from reading funerary rites. So...assuming you could erase the Name of a thing, you could Unmake it. Or you could mutilate all the words about its power, perhaps.
"Oh...were you even seriously asking that question?" He smiles a little, not exactly apologetic or self-conscious, because he doesn't think that would merit an apology regardless and he isn't really self-conscious at all around Grace.
"Most books can be safely copied, and sharing them between chantries should pose no issue. I assume you can set up something similar to Ginger so only the people who should have access have access." His eyes light up, and then he looks right at her with huge dramatic puppy eyes. "Can-you-make-us-a-self-aware-virtual-librarian?"
Grace
Grace practically cackles in glee at Kalen's dramatic puppy act. "I can make us a virtual librarian. It'll have to learn its own self-awareness though. I'm not that good. Maybe... a guy this time. A companion piece to Ginger? Sexy robot voice is not optional, of course. Also, I can't believe you just said that! You're really excited about this virtual librarian thing, you... want to help?"
The Hermetic and the nascent Virutal Adept bleed into each other sometimes, it seems. Grace shares her love of things with robot voices, and Kalen shares his optimism and wish to save the world. And expensive pen and ink sets. He may be of an Order whose members she has abysmally low rate of success with, but then he goes and posits library networks with virtual librarians, and Grace can't help but get along with this Hermetic. He's too damn fun.
"But like, you don't have to tell me, the writer, that knowledge and words have power. It's just, sometimes, a picture of a snake is just a picture of a snake. Other times, yeah, a picture of a snake contains a virus that will bite you. The solution is not to destroy all pictures of snakes, the solution is to sanitize your inputs."
Grace looks over at Kalen with a sheepish grin. He probably doesn't know what sanitization of input means. "Which, is a thing where you basically treat all input, in our case books, as though it could be trying to hack your system, and never ever give it the opportunity to run code.
"Only problem? I know what I have to do, but not how. Haven't quite figured out the magical equivalent of netsec," her eyes flit around. "Yet."
"Sharing them between chantries should pose no issue, but it kind of does if I can't make it secure. I mean, look at what happened in Vienna. I'm not saying I don't trust people, but... Well okay, I am kind of saying that, aren't I..."
Kalen
"Right." Kalen sighs. "Let's figure out the local version first, I guess. We can work on the rest of it as we go. I suppose our worst case scenario could be creating a place to access information that isn't actually uploaded anywhere like Ginger. As a worst case scenario, it isn't terrible. Hell, we could use the office building at the warehouse if we needed more space. Or the warehouse. Whatever."
He finishes his coffee and sets the mug down. "What would we need to start? At a minimum?"
Grace
"Are you saying, you want to take this place," she says, and waves arms around at the warehouse, "and make it into a data center?" Honestly, you couldn't wipe the smile off of Grace's face if you tried. Well, okay, you could, but how horrible a crime that would be!
And then, he asks her what they'd need to start. So, he's planning on buying toys. Oh dear.
"We'd need a trip to the hardware store, and a couple of cameras for the book digitizer-o-matic. For storage and data access, we'll need a server and a decent high-speed connection. And, you know... build for expansion. In the future, we can branch out to other chantries, and really share knowledge... Oh, I'm so excited! This is going to work!" And she'll get new toys!
"Oh yeah, and a voice model for the librarian."
Kalen
"Well, there are entire rooms we could use. And it would be nice to do something with that other building. We probably shouldn't do anything serious there as far as scanning until I set up more serious security measures, but for building and archiving non-security risk books there isn't any reason we can't use it now.
"Mmmmmmm...I think it would be way too weird if the voice sounded like me. But...how much of a vocal sample do you need? I bet we could find someone.
"If you make me a list of supplies, I will pick them up and bring them here. Servers...you can write down model numbers or part numbers, yes?" He laughs. "Are we going to have to climate control a computer room like we are growing orchids or storing wine?"
Grace
"I was going to scan the things at the chantry. Easier to cart data than it is to cart books to here and scan them. Plus, the chantry has security measures already. But yeah... hmm. It depends on how extreme a setup you're thinking of, how climate-controlled we have to get. You did say, you know, 'at minimum'. At minimum, we'll need one server. At minimum, it could run fine in a room that stays cool-ish, so maybe air conditioning for the summer? It might be nice to have a backup, though. So, okay, two.
At the other end of the scale, we've got multiple servers, in blade configurations set up in racks, they're up off the ground for flood protection, they're in a sealed room with filtered air, and air conditioning for cooling and humidity control, with a monitor to keep either measure from fluctuating too much... It can get pretty extreme.
Truthfully, though, we don't need that if all we're doing is scanning books. I could fit our entire library on one hard drive without a sweat. Pictures and all."
She leans her head on the side of her arm, quirks up a smile. "Why am I being so honest with you? I could probably tell you that we definitely, at minimum, need a pit full of colorful plastic balls, and you'd probably get us one."
"Hmm.. Maybe Hawksley would like to be the voice of a library. I'll ask."
Kalen
"I have yet to meet Hawksley," Kalen murmurs, though he sounds amused more than anything. "He seems entertaining enough, at least."
"Let's plan to have complicated things eventually, so we'll get the number of computers we need but set up a room that could get more interesting. That way, we won't have to move anything later if we need all the insane climate control settings." He regards her in a way that suggests he is trying not to smile (and not even really trying because Grace has seen Kalen not expressing emotion enough times to know his expression is rarely not exactly what he intends it to be).
"Do you think we should install the ballpit in the conference room? Because we could also use part of the garage...."
Grace
"We definitely need a ball pit it in the conference room. That way, when we have a conference, everybody's nice and comfy. And if the person speaking is bad, we can throw plastic balls at them," Grace says, and she's not disguising her own smile.
"I love the way you're thinking. Plan for expansion. And ball pits. And winged book puppies."
Ahh yes, she is stuck on the thought of books as whining flying things. She leans back in her seat, throwing her arms behind her head and smiling in no particular direction. "I'll get you a list."
And then, she lets loose an extended little noise. It sounds like someone holding down the 'e' key on their keyboard in an expression of barely-contained excitement.
They're going to build a computer lab. With AI librarians and ball pits (although that last one is probably a joke). And it will be awesome. The Awesome Lab, that's what they can call it. And and and...
It's almost enough to wipe away the vileness she's faced, and what she'll have to continue facing, this. She's trying, though, to look to the good things.
Kalen
Kalen watches Grace with growing amusement until she makes that gleeful eeeeee noise. And then he laughs, low and quiet and entirely unstaged. "Good. I like lists. At least when I have no idea what I'm buying.
"What color would you like your awesome mad scientist lab to be?" He might have been joking about the ball pit, but he is not so much joking now.
Grace
"Color?" Well, now that's a question. Grace doesn't usually think in terms of picking out color schemes. Kalen has seen her apartment, with its non-painted walls and mismatched everything. And maybe that's why he's asking, to see if she does actually have some sort of fashion that she has yet to express.
"Um... Does it matter? I don't know... Blue?"
Kalen
"Blue." Kalen says once, as if to confirm. And then his eyes flash for a second and he smiles a little. "I can do blue."
He grins. "Okay. Write me a list and we'll get started."
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