Adam
The dark-haired and thoroughly uninteresting
young man can be found at Vietnamese place right beside a building that
advertises legal services, massages, with a Psychic Reader upstairs. The
weather is practically balmy, so the young man is seated alone outside
the restaurant at a table. He is wearing a charcoal gray coat with a
mended elbow and a distant expression. He is in that perfect state of
comfort, spine curved against the chair-back, and he is playing with his
rice and chopsticks, trying to build a tower out of the grains of rice.
Adam
[Dex! For playing with food!]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (2, 9) ( success x 1 )
Adam
[Hmm.
Let's say yesterday Adam discovered and is now trying out a ritual that
is basically Perfect Time, Hermetic Style. If today is the day some
vile foe is going to hit him with a Time Distort-o rote, today is also
the day he is prepared to not let it keep him down. What would a
Hermetic Time-y thing be called?
The Golden Hourglass of Ra.
Yes.
-1 for Specialty Focus, and a theoretical -1 for taking his time
setting the whole thing up. We'll say he extended earlier too!]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (7, 10) ( success x 2 )
Adam
[Or not.]
Adam
[Well, he likes to be thorough.]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (7, 10) ( success x 2 )
Adam
[Let's have Intelligence + Enigmas + Int Specialty, for writing in a nifty Cypher he made for just such an occasion.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 3 ) Re-rolls: 1
Adam
[! YAY. Quick, Sid, save Adam before his player figures out more ridiculous stuff to roll for and it starts going poorly!]
Sid
[first
of all do we even notice there is an Adam around? magidar is a-go! -3
for Arcane you sneaky sneak, but Sid's a-paranoid, so here goes]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )
Sid
[and another for Alyssa, she don't got no Arcane hoo hoo]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )
Sid
[dex+ath: how you do that thing you do, gurl]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 4 )
Alyssa Solomon
[[Yay, me roll too! Awaredar: Sid!]]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 6, 6, 9) ( success x 3 )
Alyssa Solomon
[[Awaredar: Adam!]]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (7, 7) ( success x 2 )
Sid
It
really is a surprisingly lovely day in Denver today. The city still
has a dry and dusty feel to it despite the snow- and icemelt that runs
in rivulets down the street. Mostly that's because the city is a
desert. The scrub grasses are dry and brown and crackle beneath feet,
when there's any grass at all. Partly, too, it's the residue of the
sand that gets thrown down when the roads become slick or icy. Salt has
no power in this city, and it's not good for the environment.
This
isn't a story about the dryness of Denver, though, that's just the
setting. Sid is in the area because she wanted to find something in a
shop somewhere. Probably she could do with a massage, and maybe
sometime soon she could do with some legal advice, but for the moment
she's making her way down the street at a quick-ish pace, deftly guiding
a skateboard here and there as she weaves past pedestrians, a slight
smile on her face for the feel of the wind in her loose red hair flowing
like a banner in her wake. She's dressed in jeans and black-and-white
Vaans that have seen better days. There's a brown messenger bag whose
wide strap bisects a yellow t-shirt with a red-stencil depiction of a
roaring lion. It's a nice day to be out and about.
Until she
picks up on some unfamiliar resonances. Frowning, Sid comes to an
abrupt stop, kicking up her board to catch its edge in one hand. At a
considerably slower pace she follows the one that is...not bloody and
rustling like wings. Which is difficult to focus on because that other
one she senses far more strongly. She turns a corner and sees a
Vietnamese place where someone is sitting outside in the fading light of
a very early spring day. Shifting the board so that she carries it
under her right arm, Sid continues toward a figure her mind simply does
not want to settle on.
Adam
[Do I notice people? Aware!]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Alyssa Solomon
A
Vietnamese restaraunt, legal services, a masseuse and a psychic
reader. If you put those in an envelope and gave them to Karnak, he
might say Four things that Alyssa Solomon could be found at for some reason or another.
Well, not quite so likely the masseuse, but there's at least an outside
chance. So it's a fun irony that she's not actually here for any of
these reasons. Rather, she turns onto the block and makes her way down
the street having just come from a nearby hotel. From the way she looks
like she's just been through a war of some kind, perhaps it's best not
to wonder too hard why she was there.
And certainly a war is
exactly what she looks like she's been through. Or, perhaps more
accurately, a fire. Her face, normally lightened with a touch of makeup
to give her a pale complexion, is smudged and the makup has run to give
her strikes of white amidst the flesh tones. Her eyes are rimmed red
from smoke irritation and the lipstick is smeared a bit, as if she's had
to rub at her mouth. Her old Bauhaus shirt smells of smoke, which adds
to that smell of blood and the flapping of wings which the
supernaturally senstive can detect. Her hair is a little bit frazzled,
and that's what seems to irritate her the most. All in all she doesn't
appear to be a bit irritated, but still possessed of her sense of humor
and certainly not in physical distress. A cigarette dangles from her
lips as she walks along.
And that's when she picks it up. Sid's
Resonance is distinctive, and if there's one thing that Alyssa prides
herself on it is remembering what people feel like. The other is harder
to pick up, but it tingles on the edges of her consciousness. She
isn't even taking care to casually avoid mirrorred surfaces right now,
which would be a problem if a Technocrat or witch hunter were to happen
to notice how she's not reflecting. Lucky her, they aren't.
She
looks up at Sid, who is skateboarding along and coming at Adam in the
opposite direction that she's coming from. A crooked smile pushes
through her general annoyance and she picks up the pace to approach the
Verbena.
Adam
He notices people!
But first a
word from our sponsors on Vietnamese rice (very like Chinese rice in
this case) and the towers made there-of. The towers are not terribly
impressive. The tower on the edge of Adam's plate lacks a certain
something: height, maybe, or - well. It's just a few grains of rice
stuck together, balancing precariously on edge. The truth of the Tower
of Babel, baby: it was only a few grains of rice high. Adam puts his
chopsticks down and, while there is no book currently in evidence on his
person (he does have a bag, and the bag probably has a book in it or
three), he has a notebook, and he's writing in the notebook with a heavy
pen [Wand, silver and mahogony, Ace of Wands, Knight of Wands] which
is probably far too fancy for a man his age and a 99 cent store
notebook, in blue ink, scritch-scratch, scratch-scritch, something about
the relentless passage of the hourglass.
Adam. His resonance is
this gleam of a thing: valiant, relentless. The dark-haired young man is
innately (Arcane) Mysterious, but that just takes the edge off: behind
the edge, something Time-y is relentlessly in Effect.
But who cares because he notices people, too!
The
Flower-Witch first; he stops writing to look in her direction, and when
she appears, halts abruptly on her skateboard, Adam smiles (or does he
frown? or nothing at all? or - wait, what?), and raises his pen-hand to
snag her attention with a wave and a beckon.
But then the
bloody-winged thing, like wings made of blood are made for a descent for
things fall apart and the centre does not hold, and he turns to look in
Alyssa's direction with a considering sort-of frown (or a smile? or
nothing at all? or maybe back at his book? Eh, background people: Extras
in your life).
What's this? What's this?!
A reason to keep the ol' Arcane up, looks like.
Sid
Sid
doesn't know what it is about Adam that causes his presence to slip
through her mind like water through her fingers. He waves and beckons
to her, but does not take down whatever it is that distorts her minds
senses, and so it's hard to stay focused on where he's sitting. The
easier face to look at is Alyssa, the one with the bloody wings who is
missing a reflection. Did Sid notice that about her before? There
there is no mirror-Alyssa reflecting from the shop windows and the
rearview mirrors of the cars she passes? Yes, surely she did the day
they carted Pan's bleeding self back to the chantry.
She remembers
the woman more, that she'd asked at the chantry where they stashed the
weapons. Sid hadn't had an answer to that. Usually if people were
assumed to be a threat they weren't told where the house was, and
besides. Aren't they all more than a little bit dangerous without a gun
or a knife in their hands?
Her attention shifts with a slow blink
from the Hermetic and his plate of stacked grains of rice to the Hollow
One. Her gaze dropping to the ground a moment as her left hand reaches
up to tuck her hair behind her ear - revealing if only for a moment an
edge of dark ink on the inside of her wrist and a discolored line along
the outside of her forearm (well she was riding and is now carrying a
skateboard, chances are she wiped out once and had to be taken to the
hospital).
"Hey," she says when they're steps carry the women close enough together to exchange such greetings.
Alyssa Solomon
Alyssa
has probably had a bit more experience than Sid with mages whose
presence slips through most people's minds like you're trying to look at
them through a waterfall. Her training growing up certainly makes her
book-aware of the phemonenon, and she's been living on the fringes for
quite a while. She's used Effects that approximate it for her own
defense, but the actual quality itself has been beyond her grasp. Of
course, she's also a stubborn person, so the nagging feeling in her head
just makes her want to look closer. It is only by sheer force of will
that she doesn't walk right up to Adam and stare at him until he drops
it.
But she does keep away doing it, instead giving a quick look
in that direction and a little nod before she looks back to Sid.
"Evening, Red. How's tricks?" The cigarette's glowing cherry is
flicked onto the ground, where it's snuffed with the toe of a pair of
heeled Doc Martin boots before the butt is tossed into a nearby
ashtray. "Sid, right? Sorry, it's been a few. Don't forget a face,
but names can sometimes get past me."
Sid
It's not
hard to have more experience than Sid when it comes to the parts of
being Awake that are farthest from being Asleep. Like bookish young
shopkeeps who don't...quite...register in her line of sight. The only
thing she's aware of and accustomed to, really, is her own unique
ability, and that she studied for years and years, filled notebook after
notebook with carefully articulated notes on the subject before she
finally (and not all that long ago) accepted that there is no scientific
explanation for her strange ability. She just...is...different. Warm and bursting literally from her toes and fingertips with the vibrant energy of growth and potential.
Still.
She is facing Alyssa and she is looking at Alyssa and her attention is
almost completely focused on Alyssa, but her eyes. Sid's eyes, dark
brown behind a pair of narrow, black-rimmed glasses, dart to the patio
of the Vietnamese place. There is a shadow between her reddish brows
that tightens her expression slightly yet someone visibly thanks to her
pale complection. Sid does not like it when she can't-quite-tell when
strangers are lurking in the shadows, and that one that is sort of maybe
potentially Adam-shaped is somehow lurking in plain sight.
"Alright,"
she answers. She is not bothered in the slightest by the cigarette
smoke, and she does not allow her attention to snag on and obviously
categorize all the ways in which Alyssa Solomon looks disheveled. She
nods to her name, doesn't ask after Alyssa's. Maybe she remembers it.
Maybe she's just a little too distracted and paranoid to care at the
moment. Once, she hmms a little, a low little note that's more a
vibration in her throat than it is an audible sound as she glances over
to Adam. Maybe it's an effect he's cast, trying to keep himself out of
sight?
She would ask as politely as she can manage why Alyssa
happens to look so disheveled. They've only just gotten over their
umbrood infestation and perhaps there is some new and terrible thing
lurking on the horizon. There always seems to be something like that in
Denver.
[Prime 1: Watch the Weaving, yo!]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (3, 4) ( success x 1 )
Adam
[Ooo, someone doing something? Awareness again! + Specialty.]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )
Alyssa Solomon
Alyssa's
not what you would call a gentle woman. She's not overtly cruel and
she's no bruiser, but she doesn't have patience for a lot of the
bullshit most of the time. She is, however, a perceptive enough person,
and her own brow furrows a little when she takes note of the fact that
Sid's not entirely comfortable by something.
Now, it's very
possible that Alyssa herself is the source of the tension from the
Verbena. There is at least one other mage in the city who she generally
puts in a state of unease by virtue of the coppery, sticky taste of her
Otherness. And she knows that she's not always a people person, and
that doesn't mesh well with a lot of people. But Sid didn't exactly act
this way before, and so the Hollower who was almost a Hermetic can
place a guess at what it may be.
And what's more, she gets it.
So
she pops her neck to the left, then the right before she turns her
direction back to Sid. A little smirk tilts her mouth upward at the
left corner. "You wanna talk elsewhere, where someone isn't trying to
wear a neon sign that says 'Don't Look At Me?' Fairly sure they didn't
bring enough for the whole class to share."
Sid
Alyssa
hasn't seen Sid act like this before because in their small handful of
run-ins there hasn't been someone like Adam sitting as quiet observer on
the edge of their conversations. There has been a Kalen, who is almost
not really the same thing, because Kalen always seems on the brink of
drifting off into a doze but is always more solid, more real.
It
doesn't help that as Sid peers at the Weaving that wends its way around
Adam it doesn't seem to suggest what she's sensing. Then again, Sid is a
Life Mage. She can follow the fate of a pattern and she can examine
its prime make-up, but this is Time and she doesn't recognize it.
It
would be different, too, if it were someone she didn't recognize. If
she and Adam hadn't met and had a conversation already she would have
sort-of noticed him and she would have kept right on walking. Maybe
she'd have even set down her board so she could have a little more speed
on her side. But she does recognize him, and what's more, that first
and so far only meeting didn't leave her with a sense that she should be
any more fearful of him than anyone else. Which is still plenty
fearful, but not enough to have her taking Alyssa up on her offer to go
somewhere else.
There's a flicker, though. The corner of her
mouth twitches upward just a tick. Alyssa's noticed him there, as well,
and what's more she indirectly calls him out. Sid, quiet, seemingly
timid and once afraid-of-strangers-to-the-point-of-extreme-shyness, is
even more direct.
"No," she says. "Excuse me," she says, to
Alyssa first. Then she's taking a few steps toward the Vietnamese
restaurant's patio, curling her free hand over the fence that separates
patrons from pedestrians, and she leans forward a little.
"I don't
know what you're doing but it's freaking me out, so stop it, or leave
it up and we'll leave you alone if that's what you want." Choice given,
Sid straightens, steps away and pulls away and just begins to turn
away, watching that murky figure (is he tall and lanky or average or
short and squat is his hair dark or auburn or is he handsome or plain or
or or) from something only a little more direct than her peripheral.
Alyssa Solomon
Alyssa
seems surprised, and a bit intrigued, when Sid excuses herself and goes
to toward the source of the Arcane. She leans back on one heel,
crosses her arms over her chest and watches with a little curious smile.
When Sid tells the mystery mage to stop it or they'll leave, the smile becomes a grin. "Okay, I like you."
Adam
He
is a rumpled figure: dark-haired Gallowglass, in a reader's habitual
slouch, closing his notebook with a glance for the last word he wrote.
His attention is on the women. Their attention keeps forgetting him,
then remembering they're forgetting him, then slipping back to him. He
might notice it if he weren't so busy noticing that Alyssa has no
reflection at all in the shop-window and the window of that parked car.
There is a legend - Chinese - about the mirror kingdom and how once upon
a time the reflections had their own lives and could move in their own
way and do as they pleased, but then there was a war, and the victorious
people (our people - here, on this side of the mirror) cast a spell on
the mirror kingdom, shape-changing them and trapping them in their own
world, forcing them and their children and their children's children to
repeat the movements of their victors, exactly, forever. Until one day,
so the legend says, Fish - the great warrior - breaks free: surfaces
from the reflection slowly, and comes out of the mirror.
He
wonders what happened to her reflection. He is wondering what happened
to her reflection when there's an upkick in Euphoria; or maybe it's
Desperation? and he has settled his pen down, fingers curling loosely
over one another, chin and - beard? Yes. He has a beard - or stubble.
No, it's a beard - resting atop them.
He is noticing Sid using the
most essential Sphere and wondering about Alyssa's reflection still and
paying very little attention to what is actually happening so he is
actually taken aback when Sid leans over that little fence which
separates people on the street from people in the patio. Adam, taken
aback, straightens out of his slouch, eyebrows jumping up, a quick
glance for Alyssa, and a hand scruffing through his already extremely
beleuguered hair.
"Hello, Sid," says he, because a hello seems
like a good start while he regains equilibrium. "Erm, do you mean what
you just Looked at," solemn, that whisper of foreign-accent in the word
'Looked,' "or, uh, my Uncanny ability to be forgettable? Because no can
do on the first, but suppressing the second," a crinkle of a bemused and
bewildered smile, "means, ah, introductions, I'll hap'ly oblige."
Sid
Alyssa
says she likes Sid, and who can blame her, really? What isn't there to
like about a tall, pretty redhead with a figure that is both lean
athletic and soft curves in all the right places, carrying a skateboard
under one arm and wearing a Lannister Lion on her shirt? (There are a
lot of images of prancing lions in the world, but this one comes with
words that are currently almost completely obscured by the strap of her
bag, and that logo reads HEAR me ROAR just above a small Game of Thrones
logo.)
Alyssa never saw Sid when she was at her worst and most
reclusive, a time when she would have wished with all her might for an
ability like what Adam has instead of the one that makes flowers bloom
at a touch. The Hollower does not know just how far this woman has
traveled to get from being ruled by her fears and terrors to a
reemergence of her former confidence and candid demeanor. And there are
still things to change. Sid has long since knocked down the walls that
she put up to barricade herself from the rest of the world, but there
are still windows to be thrown open and old rooms inside of herself to
be aired out.
Adam sits up, scruffing up his appearance further
before greeting her finally. She does not return it, not yet anyway,
but turns her head so that she looks more directly at him now, faces him
more head on. Her brows lift, not because he noticed her peering at
him, but something else.
"They're not the same thing?" she asks,
the surprise and interest in her expression mirrored in her tone. As
for introductions, they both know her already, and they are both (at
least according to appearances) grown adults. Tucking the thumb of her
free hand into the pocket of her jeans, she lets them make their own
introductions if they're so inclined.
Alyssa Solomon
"There
we are," the Hollower says, as Adam suddenly snaps into focus like a
camera that's finally gotten its settings right. She reaches up to idly
wipe at one of those smudges of ivory foundation that are unevenly
streaked down her face, scratching with the tip of her fingernail like
it's itching a bit. She still grinning, though less widely now that she
has to be (her version of) polite to the new guy. "Welcome back to the
foreground of reality."
She doesn't step in to explain exactly
what Arcane is for Adam right away, instead giving the man a chance to
do the explaining himself. She does tilt her chin up in a nod to him.
"So yeah, hi. I'm Alyssa. Nice to meet you."
Adam
[*FISTSHAKE*]
Adam
Adam
returns Alyssa's nod with one of his own. He was paying more attention
before to the Mystical signifiers that attend her: the blood-drenched
flurry of wings, the lack of a mirror-twin, but now - after the fact -
he absorbs the rest of her appearance. Fire-smoke, streaked pallor. Adam
is pale, almost vampire pale, dark half-moons under his eyes, but
that's because he should get more sun.
"Adam, thanks, and the
same. Heh. Don't take this the wrong way, but you look like an argument
for staying out of the foreground. Who'd you save from a fire?"
"And,"
looking at Sid, again, sea-eyed and fading back to serious, but a
dreamy sort-of serious, as if his attention is - not wandering,
precisely, but it's a subject which he doesn't entirely understand, and
he'd like to study it, so, "No, they're not. My uncanny ability to be
forgettable is called arcane, and it's just part of my charm. Happened
when I passed through the first threshold of study and really opened my
eyes."
Adam
[A cautious test-post.]
Sid
They
make for an interesting trio. There's Adam, pale from not enough
sunshine. And there's Sid, the flame-haired woman with a natural
complexion pale as cream. And there's Alyssa, with her makeup that put
her somewhere on the same spectrum of pale but is streaking away. The
more interesting dichotomy, however, would be the nearly-Hermetic and
the full Hermetic. Not that either of them announce to the other the
Traditions that they follow. For Sid that's more than alright. She
doesn't understand why it's so important to announce it, anyway. In
most of her travels the revealing of a Tradition path is met with
scrutiny and more than a little trepidation. Without them, Adam and
Alyssa trade quips and banter easily enough.
One thing Sid has
enjoyed immensely about putting down roots and keeping herself in one
place for more than a handful of months is the learning. She makes it
plain she didn't know that Adam's ability to blend into the background
is separate from the effect she saw and immediately he fills her in on
it. It's a part of him, too.
"And you turn it on and off at will?" she asks, sounding the barest touch envious.
Grace
[Nightmares!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (3, 5, 6, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Alyssa Solomon
She
shakes her head when Adam asks who she saved from a fire. "Myself, as
it turned out. Some jackass decided that he was going to set up a fake
fucking medium practice. I went in to check it out for a couple people
who were paying me to, and he decided to get frisky with the flash
paper. Which, as my legendarily infamous 'fuck me' bad luck would have
it, he fumbled and dropped a whole handful of it into onto the stove.
Which caught his Time Life Mysteries of the Occult books on fire."
She
sighs, waves her hand. "It all went downhill from there. But nobody
died and his small business owner dreams have gone up in what are likely
to be attempted arson charges, or whatever the accidental version of
that is. So I'm getting paid and it's a good day."
She looks over
at Sid when she asks if Adam can turn it on and off at will, and again
she gets it. There are times Alyssa's wanted that ability. It's deeply
useful--almost a near-necessary survival tool--when you're on your
own. "That's how it works, yeah. There are ways to jury rig it, but
it's not quite the same."
Grace
[Perception-Awareness!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 4, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )
Grace
Grace is not so trained as Adam, to know where
her innate hiddenness comes from. She hasn't a word for it, because
nobody has yet told her what Arcane is. As far as Grace is
concerned, she's just not that easily described, and that's fine by her.
She wants to go unnoticed. Works hard at that. Maybe that's why it
works?
With makeup, she looks female. Without it, and the right
clothes, she could pass as male. Her eyes are a kind of hazely greeny
brown, it kind of changes depending on the day or the light. Her hair is
variably messy or straight or whatever. And her clothing choices are
limited to jeans, sneakers, tee-shirts, jackets -- in other words, she
looks like anybody you could see walking down a street anywhere. The
kind of person who your eyes just slide off -- the opposite of striking.
And
she is walking down the street today, when she catches the scent of
blood in the air, and makes a disgusted face. But then, the others begin
to filter in. Bliss, clawing its way free -- that would be Sid. And the
blood is winged -- that would be Alyssa.
Alyssa always tends to
give her that momentary shock -- bad memories flooding back. But it's
not her fault. Grace soldiers on, putting on a smile to greet her
people. It's then that she notices someone else with them. Huh, he's
here too?
Sid
[percept+awareness -2 for Grace's Arcane this time!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )
Alyssa Solomon
[[What Sid said!]]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 6) ( success x 1 )
Adam
Adam's
eyes crinkle up with laughter when Alyssa replies with a(n amusing, to
him) work story, and Adam laughs quietly, but he also laughs by hunching
over, grinning in a way that creases his cheeks like they want to
dimple, but don't quite, under the fuzz of beard, and it's a gawky ol' C
our chuckling Adam makes. "That's too bad. In twenty-five minutes, I
have an appointment with Madame Sibyl," he nods his head toward the
Psychic Reader neon sign above the massage parlor (or is it above the
lawyer's office?), "though not, I admit, to out her as a fake, but
purely because to satisfy my own curiousity and have my fortune read.
What line of business are you in?"
He only nods when Alyssa says
that's how it works, yeah. Sid enjoys the learning that comes of being
rooted in place; Adam, to tell the truth, enjoys teaching to a point. So
he adds: "It doesn't work very well if you already know me well. My
father, alas, has never been fooled at a family function."
[Do I notice Grace?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 5, 9, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )
Adam
ooc: hmm. that last sentence should read: My father, alas, has never been fooled when I try to slip away from a family function.
Sid
Sid
is more than a little envious of Adam's ability, though not for the
reason Alyssa supposes. Though that certainly would have been helpful
for an Orphan hiding out from the world at large, she's not quite that
person anymore. She's almost not that person at all, not anymore. So
when Alyssa says that there are ways to jury-rig it, Sid gives a slight
nod. She's sure there is. And at higher levels of understanding of
certain spheres Sid will be able to alter her form completely. No one
would even recognize her. She would be completely hidden and fully able
to live a different life. It would come with a price, one she might
have even been willing to pay once. Now thow, there's just that slight
nod of acceptance of new information. When Adam says it doesn't always
work, especially when someone knows him well, the corners of her mouth
lift in a slight smile, warm and amuse but tempered.
Alyssa then
gives a work anecdote involving fire and flash paper and false
psychics. Adam asks after her line of business, and Sid waits for her
to answer that before asking a question of her own. A question she
doesn't get a chance to ask because she senses another, someone more
familiar though just as indistinct and faded-feeling as Adam did when
she first happened upon him. She seeks out the source of that shifting,
moving feeling and finds Grace. Grace who would rather go unnoticed
but who paints a smile on her face regardless. When Sid sees her
walking up to them, the world around them a pale, dusty blue-grey as the
light of early evening continues to fade toward darkness around them,
she lifts her chin in greeting toward her.
Alyssa Solomon
Sid
picks up on Grace's approaching Otherness quicker than Alyssa does.
Whether her supernatural sixth sense is fuzzed out a bit due to smoke
inhalation, or Adam's Arcane futzed with her Awareness or whatever it
is, she doesn't pick up on that shifting sensation until the Verbena is
well aware of it.
But she is made aware of it, and her head moves
a little to the right almost as if it's the thing being shifted. She
looks over her shoulder and notes Grace. She knows that she makes Grace
uncomfortable and she doesn't revel in the fact, but she doesn't shy
away from her either. Instead there's just a tap of her fingers to a
sooty eyebrow. Her white foundation-streaked face, the red-rimmed eyes
and smokey smell around her doesn't change the way she would otherwise
greet Grace. "Evenin'."
She looks back at Adam then when he lays
out the ins and outs of Arcane for Sid. The Hollower relaxes, by
degrees, when he's up front about it--including when it doesn't work.
That speaks to his character for Alyssa.
"What do I do?" She
smiles a bit at the question. Truth be told, she likes coming up with
different ways of describing her line of work. "I look into people's
problems and make them go away. The kinds of problems that people like
us might have a unique talent at making go away." A pause then, and
she's getting another cigarette out. Because she really needs to smell
more like a chimney right now, clearly.
"You?"
Grace
Grace
waves at Sid, and rushes a bit down the sidewalk toward the group. All
friends here, even if they're friends who make you gag when you run
across them unexpectedly. Damn, Alyssa, where did you pick up the blood
habit? She's so nice, otherwise. (Yes, Grace thinks Alyssa is nice.
Let's just go with it.)
"Vietnamese, Adam? You like books and pho?" Grace asks, a grin on her face. Obviously she thinks this means they should be best friends now, or something.
Then,
she notices the state of the Hollower's face. There's a sudden flash of
concern, followed by Grace's eyes widening a bit. She's decided that
hey, Alyssa really likes doing her face up strangely, huh? Just ignore that...
Adam
Here comes Grace: tectonic plates - the destroyer of walls; the wrecker of empires. One day, perhaps. Make a shift.
He
still has this little twist of a smile which is a half-smirk in
response to laughing, and he nods his hello when she joins them. You
like books and pho? with a grin. His response a self-deprecating (or as
self-deprecating as Adam is capable of being) : "When I realized I was
sweating tumeric, it seemed rather as if a break from curry was in
order."
He'd say a question (quest!) deferred was a lot like a
dream deferred, thanks Langston, if he only knew it, and he'd watch Sid
until she asked it. As it is, the conversation is in full flow.
Adam
in a gray coat seems to be in a friendly mood. He is not exuberant
about it, but there it is. Alyssa turns the question back on him, and
her answer has re-shaped his expression into something more bemused.
Bemusement is a standard Adam expression, that and other in-between
expressions, on their way to intent and fixed and curious, see.
"I
- uncover mysteries occult and arcane, dangerous and dark,"
eye-crinkle, so he probably isn't really being serious, just trying to
match her explanation. "And I work at Night Owl Books. Or An Arch Key,"
sounds like Anarchy, when he says it aloud, "Books, if that's more your
scene."
"You're all welcome to drop by, of course."
Sid and Grace already have, but he still means the invitation at this particular moment: go ahead, drop by, read things.
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 ) Re-rolls: 1
Sid
[because I like dice: DOO DE DOO YOU'LL SEE WHEN IT MATTERS]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Sid
For
a moment Sid is there, bag slung over her body, skateboard tucked
beneath her arm, free hand hooked on the pocket of her jeans, and she is
almost, almost...something. Who knows. She's a hard woman to
read sometimes, that Red. She doesn't have the Arcane ability that Adam
and Grace have, but there is something about her that tends to be
elusive, hard to pin down. Unless she decides to be direct. Like
walking right up to a fuzzy and unclear Adam to tell him straight out to
stop it or they'll leave him to his own devices. She hadn't meant it
to be a threat, really, but if Adam had wanted to be left alone he would
have left that guard up. Sid and Alyssa would have gone on their way
to some other space to sit and chat and become best friends of a
different sort than a bookish shopkeep and a computer hacking
wunderkind.
But Sid is lighter, maybe. Or more open, more
something. More other, perhaps. As she stands there and lets the
conversation flow around her, her question forgotten for the time
being. Adam and Alyssa talk about what they 'do.' Maybe Grace will
chime in as well, but Sid remains quiet. "Speaking of pho," she says,
and she moves to the fence behind which Adam probably still stands.
It's metal and low, not nearly high enough to keep someone with Sid's
long legs out for more than the time it takes her swing her legs over.
"I haven't eaten since this morning." And then she does it. She braces
her free hand on the metal rail of a fence and she swings one leg up
and to the side before pushing up from her other foot to hop the rest of
the way over. This puts Adam and Sid on the side of the fence reserved
for those who are going to eat at the restaurant, and Alyssa and Grace
over with the pedestrian traffic still.
She does not ask if Adam
would mind if she officially joins him at his table (likely bringing
Alyssa and Grace in her wake if they'd like to stay and chat and eat as
well). She's been invited back to his store which must of course then
mean she's been invited forever to sit with him at his table, wherever
that table may be.
Alyssa Solomon
If the state of
her face bothers Alyssa, she's not showing it. She's perhaps a bit
irascible, but certainly not overly so and she doesn't address it with
Grace. Just don't mention the hair frizz. It wouldn't be pretty.
She
grins a bit when Adam tries to match her wierd job-for-wierd job.
"Wow. You and I seriously need to combine businesses. We probably run
into the same clients. I get 60, you get 40. Unless you like shooting
things too, in which case we'll go 50/50." She could be joking about
the offer (and she probably is), but it sounds as serious as anything
else she's said. She takes in the name of the shop and nods.
"I might just have to check it out."
Sid hops the railing and mentions she hasn't eaten, and Alyssa smiles a bit. "Well, you kids have fun with that." Kids,
says the twenty-eight year-old. It's more for humor than for
denigration though. "I don't think pho would go too well with a stomach
full of glossy paper-turned-soot, and I think I need to get some piss
beer in me to clean out my lungs. So I'm gonna take my leave. I'll see
you all around though."
Grace
Glossy
paper-turned-soot? So that isn't some sort of fashion statement? Grace
seems to be trying to puzzle this one one for a few moments, but then
Alyssa has to leave. "Oh. Bye Alyssa! You'll have to tell me why you were eating burning paper some other time, I guess."
So,
now that she's going to be left alone out on the sidewalk, Grace
follows Sid over the fence and out to Adam's table, invited or not.
Hell, Adam would probably love another chance at trying to convert her
to the Hermetic side.
Truth be told, Kalen's having more success
at that than anyone. The more time they spend together, the more Grace
rubs off on him, and he on her, until she's got him postulating the
creation of AIs for their servers to talk to, and he's got her drawing
Enochian sigils. On the computer. Don't get too excited, Adam.
"Curry is good too, I like your taste, dude. Better than soot. Much better."
Adam
Oh!
The Dream-haired young man has a moment of realization. The moment of
realization leads him to absently pat at his pockets as if just by
patting them whatever it is he needs (right now, a business card) will
appear. Alas, that does not happen. He doesn't have enough Matter and
Correspondence yet. One day. Or maybe he just forgets mid-pat what he
was looking for; that also seems likely, based on his expression, which
grows distant for a moment only to become present again when he realizes
hey! whoa! Sid! jumped the fence! and he scoots his chair over so the
chairs are more evenly spaced, or something.
"I don't know. Seems
like the idea man should get 60, the muscle 50, if that's how that
would break down," couple it with a goodnatured grin that conjures up
echoes of earlier laughter. Then, seriously, "It was nice to meet you, Alyssa. Ta."
He
has another moment of revelation, and moves his notebook to the side,
then hands over one of the Vietnamese restaurant's paper take-out
menues, just a little bit greasy, for Sid and Grace to look at before
going inside to order. It's that kind of place.
"Cannot argue that," he says to Grace, with a nod, when she says Better than soot, another half-smile.
Sid
Curry
is good, pho is good. Right now, Sid would go find Alyssa's mark and
steal all his flash paper to eat if it would satisfy her stomach.
That's the thing about forgetting to eat. When the mind forgets the
body goes into power-saving mode, but when it remembers oooh, everything
boots into hunger mode at once. Sid pulls out a chair first, even as
she leans down to set her skateboard against the fence she just hopped.
"Take
care, Alyssa," she says after the woman is well on her way. She knew
that it was not a fashion statement, the state of her makeup and her
hair and all, but if Alyssa wasn't in the mood to go freshen up before
wandering down a street in broad daylight who is Sid to judge?
Next
comes off her bag, which she tucks beneath her chair before finally
settling into it, taking a moment to push her long red locks back over
her shoulders. It does not matter to her where she ends up at the
table, either next to Grace or next to Adam, or both with one of them
getting a spare chaire between them. Or maybe they pull chairs back
from where they wandered off to other tables and so there are precisely
three. Either way, she settles to look over the menu before heading
inside. Sid has no intention of going in carrying all of her belongings
with her, but neither does she intend to leave them outside for the
wild animals to snatch from the other side of a low metal fence.
She slides the menu to Grace first. "I'll keep an eye on our stuff," she says.
Grace
Sid
wants to watch her stuff. Grace has no 'stuff' other than the laptop
bag, which is going with her regardless. But anyway, she smiles, takes
the menu, marks an A2 and a P12 in memory (spring rolls and a meatball
pho) and trots off to the front to go order. Soon enough, though, she's
back to 'watch the stuff' for Sid. "Hey, your turn."
Adam's not
good enough, she supposes. Or not trusted enough. Would be that. There
was a time when Grace would have thought that what she and Sid went
through would inspire all kinds of trust in just about anyone, but not
anymore.
With that, she turns to Adam, "So, how's things? By the
way, you are outside of the bookstore. I did say that staying there
might be your best strategic course of action. This place? Could be
firebombs any time now." She is joking, but only just. With her luck, it
could turn out to be quite the true statement.
Adam
"Oh,
I'm not going back in," Adam tells Sid, so that she and Grace can go in
and order together if they'd like. "I can keep a weather eye out," and
that almost-accent whispers through his syllables again, just shy of
un-American, not-quite belonging anywhere else.
However it pans
out: with Adam telling Sid that they have good (insert this Vietnamese
dish here), or offering her a bite of an untouched roll (cold, though),
until Grace returns and Sid goes, or both of them returning about the
same time, when Grace mentions firebombs etcetera Adam makes a sound in
his throat that's almost a chuckle. Heh. Shoulders hunch forward, just a little, and he picks up his long-neglected chopsticks in order to make a rice tower again.
"I
rather think Alyssa's run-in with fiery mayhem preserves us from
suffering the same fate, this afternoon at least. Things are good. No
danger, just quiet study. Acquired a signed F. Scott Fitzgerald
inscribed to T. S. Eliot. My aunt is going to cry when she gets back
from her whirlwind tour."
Sid
Adam isn't going
back in he says and Sid's brows rise. Sid is not so concerned for her
belongings that she wouldn't trust them with him - her bag is full of
mostly replaceable things and the skateboard was (supposedly) left
behind by some guest at Sera's house. It can be replaced, too, though
Sid would be a little sad to do it. And besides, Adam doesn't look like
the sort to try to jack someone's skateboard. Her wallet, though, that
goes with her, obviously.
She offers him a slight smile and an
even slighter nod before she rises from her seat to follow Grace
inside. Maybe they discuss the possibility of splitting an order of
spring rolls, but in the end they don't. Sid is simply too hungry to
share anything right now. She orders spring rolls and (that Vietnamese
dish because she hasn't had it before), pays in cash, and is still
sorting her change back into her wallet as she pushes through the door
back to the patio.
She reclaims her seat, with all of her things
precisely where she left them. There is a slight crinkling of her
forehead and a twisting of her mouth, because she catches the tail end
of Grace suggesting firebombs.
"I doubt it'd be anything so
straightforward as firebombs," she comments, her expression smoothing as
she watches Adam begin to play with his food again.
Grace
"True
that, Sid," Grace comments, and sighs. It's too public to go over the
less straightforward, but shit. Yeah. Firebombs are too direct. How
about all the cows whose fat has ever been rendered by a certain
McDonald's suddenly claiming vengeance on their human predators? That a
little less straightforward for you?
But Adam's life in Denver has
yet to obtain such complications. Grace gives him a smile when he goes
over his decidedly slow-paced awesomeness. "Whoo! Seriously cool that.
As for me, well... you know. Good and bad. School's on, and I'm totally
busy studying and stuff myself."
Adam
His smile
gets wide and deep enough to almost dredge out dimples again; sends
light skidding across his sea-ish eyes, although it's still a quiet
expression somehow. Quiet because it is directed inward rather than
outward, perhaps - because it's accompanied by a little nod. Because it
is seriously cool and Sarah is going to be super happy and he is going
to leverage that happy into a favor that he wants her to do for him.
Valiant and relentless: his resonance does not actually include shining
armor. She mentions studying, and he pricks up. First, because - " -
Sid. I was on tumbler and somebody re-blogged this thing about using a
lemon or grapefruit to start seedlings in. Bury the fruit and the peels
become compost. Thought about it for flowers in the Spring. And Grace,
how's the writing going?"
He will actually wait for a response
from both of them, such as it is, although: behold. Men are gossips.
"And what's the deal with Alyssa? Has she been around a while,
affiliated with that house, or...?"
Men are huge gossips.
Sid
They
are waiting for their food to be delivered, perhaps with little plastic
placards with big colored numbers etched into them to declare they're
here! Outside! Waiting for food! Sid, however, feels her stomach give
another rumble even though it's not-quite-audible. Sure, Adam's rolls
may be cold by now, but before he gets started telling her about tumbler
posts and lemon peels-as-compost containers, she looks at him and she
reaches her hand toward his plate. But there her hand hovers a beat as
she looks at him, brows lifted. "Do you mind?" Because she's not
simply going to take it.
And then he is going about tumbler posts,
and Sid's interest is piqued. It makes sense, after all. "I've heard
of people using biodegradable materials for it before, but I hadn't
heard of that." She has an interest in the growing of plants in a
normal and mundane way, but the interest is mostly academic. After all,
what does it matter to her the proper temperatures and soil levels and
what not when she can cause a plant to bloom with a touch?
And
Adam asks Grace about her writing, and Sid pauses to listen to the
reply. She hasn't heard of Grace's writing in some time. So many
things were put on hold these last few months.
When Adam finds
himself intent on gossipping about Alyssa, Sid shrugs her shoulder. "I
was there the first time she came by the house, but I don't think that's
when she first came here."
Grace
"Oh, Alyssa is fantastic. She's been a big help around... you know, with things," Grace says, and what she means is Thakinyan, but alas. They are on the street.
"I know she kinda gives off some weird vibes, but she's cool."
Grace
notes how Sid is going for Adam's leftovers, and then, "Hey, you need
some more weed, there's this place? High Line something... Number's at
the house, I forget it. It's run by Alyssa's friend, and he's... well,
he has the good stuff," Grace says, because she knows how Sid seemed to need it to keep food down in the aftermath of Hydra.
"Mmm,
writing, yeah, I tried to get a lot done just before the semester got
going in full, to sort of keep the fans going for a while. And I set up a
donation box on my site. Someday, when I'm super famous, I could maybe
get more than a few bucks here and there out of it, no? You think?"
Adam
If
he isn't able to infer what Grace means by things, he certainly seems
to be inferring. He has cupped his chin in his hand again, wrapping the
fingers of his other hand around his gray-clad fore-arm, his gaze intent
on whoever is speaking at the moment. He'd waved his fingers slightly
toward his cold left-overs because he doesn't mind. In fact, he pushes
the plate toward her. He's skinny, and that's not because he's keeping
fit. It's because he forgets to eat or food stops interesting him, plus
genetics. Genetics also play a part. He looks thoughtful at both
contributions to what's the deal with Alyssa, and while he's listening
to the Question of Weed and A Good Place To Get The Good Stuff +
writing, the Golden Hourglass of Ra tells him with a time-knot with a
perfect radiant edge that it is time for him to make that appointment.
"That
depends on what you're willing to write," Adam says, "and who you're
willing to sell to. There's always, what's it called, kickstarter. And
I'm afraid it's time for me to go visit Sibyl the Psychic Reader now.
Wish me good fortune. Was a pleasure running into you both again."
As
he's taking his leave, he stands up, takes his notebook and his pen and
slides them both into his bag, which he hitches over his shoulder. He
doesn't reach out to shake hands all formal-formal, but he does give an
awkward little wave. Backwards walking, bump into fence, lack of
coordination, look back at fence like: How did you get here? Real
startlement.
And after farewells are given, he's off. Next door,
Arcane back up, Mysterious, and maybe he went that way, but maybe he
turned over there. It's forgettable, the manner of his departure. It
happened, and then it doesn't matter.
Sid
Adam
has to take his leave to go have his palm read or some other such
thing. Silly thing, that. If he had the proper knowledge in the proper
places he could find that stuff all on his own. Or talk to Sera.
Perhaps she should put him in touch with Sera eventually, if he hasn't
already met her. Seems everyone's already met Sera the moment they
cross the state line.
But Adam goes, and he leaves Sid and Grace
to eat their pho and their spring rolls. Sid does not comment on the
weed that's available via some friend of Alyssa's. She gets her own
supply through her own connections which do not actually connect to her
in any way - at least not on paper. Perhaps someday Jim will change his
supplier, though, and then Sid will get to try some of this good stuff.
They
are left alone to their food to chat, but not for too long
unfortunately. Sid receives a text not long after Adam leaves, keeping
the women from delving too far into deep conversations (or conversely
from wallowing in awkward silence for too long, with these two and what
they've been through it could be either). She makes her excuses and
then she's hopping back over the fence, dropping her skateboard to the
pavement and rolling away again, off to meet someone or get something
before meeting someone or something else. There hasn't been a moment
during their brief encounter, though, where Sid has seemed as she did
the last time she and Grace spoke. She is not quietly withdrawn, nor is
she too-thin anymore with her cheeks hollowed and the dark marks of
many sleepless nights marring the skin beneath her eyes. She
looks...okay, really. Settled, maybe, or close to it. Better than
she's seemed in a while, at lea
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