Penguins and spider killbots with tap shoes

Kalen Holliday
[Nightmares]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (5, 7, 9, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )

Kalen Holliday
[Awareness]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )

Kalen Holliday
It is Easter.
Kalen hasn't had holidays in forever.  Not with a whole odd collection of people to celebrate them like this with, at least.  And so, he has done, as the handful of people who know him may have come to expect, the only logical thing.
Which is, of course, to stuff Easter eggs with chocolate truffles and orbs of semi-precious stones and liquor-filled chocolates and random coins pulled up from shipwrecks and tiny wooden carvings and whatever else he has encountered that struck him as interesting and small enough to fit in a neon plastic egg.
There are little baskets full of more candy and small bottles of liquor and stuffed animal bunnies and lambs.  Apparently Kalen decided that the Denver Magi need alcohol and stuffed animals and chocolate.  Sometime between yesterday morning and today.
No piñatas this time though.  (Sorry Grace.)
Kalen is sprawled over a couch, reading a book that looks like it is probably at least three times his age.  There is no compulsive note-taking.  There is coffee, although he looks awake enough to not really need to be drinking all of the coffee ever today.  He smiles when he sees Grace.
"Hey, Kit!  Happy Easter!"

Grace
[Awareness]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )

Grace
Grace comes out of the kitchen carrying some coffee of her own (done up the way some might describe as 'overdoing it' with cream and whipped cream and cinnamon and caramel and such). She smiles back and proceeds to give herself a whipped-cream mustache with the coffee.
"Hey, you. What are you reading today eh? That doesn't look like it's for school."
She leans herself against the couch, soaks in the ozone-tinge that Kalen brings -- the sense of storm. It's only then that she wipes her upper lip off, stares at the cream on her hand, and then licks it. She's rather unconcerned overall about looking silly, especially in front of Kalen. He doesn't really care.
And hey, that's cool.
"I barely know what to do with myself, you know? I would be doing homework right now, but..." but, there is no homework for a drop-out. It feels strangely good. Freeing, definitely.

Kalen Holliday
Kalen rolls his eyes.  "Obviously," he says, as though Grace is being deliberately difficult.  "You should be hunting Easter eggs.  They aren't going to find themselves you know."  The corners of his mouth twitch, but he manages to still look almost completely serious as he adds.  "I'm relatively sure none of them are self-aware enough for that."
Don't let him fool you with those cool eyes, Grace.  He is not entirely unmoved.  He does care about that whipped cream mustache.  He thinks it is both comical and adorable.  He's just not commenting.  But he cares.
"I would suppose," he says, "That you should use all your newfound time time to discover what you want to do with all your newly found time now that you have it."

Grace
"Oh, I'm only being a little bit dishonest. I know exactly what do to. Finish my novel, write a bunch of stuff that's been leaking out of my brain, I've got an experiment to work on, and books to read, and we've got to make some more progress on the book scanning, and hey -- maybe in all that, I'll actually get some work done with the security business," she says, and grins at him all conspiratorially, putting on fake wild-eyes like some kind of mad Etherite.
"Because we need spider killbots with lasers on their heads that also wear tiny tapshoes so they can dance with each other."
She pushes herself off the back of the couch, but only so that she can join him in sitting -- at a chair across the way, because Kalen loves to sprawl himself over all the space a couch affords. Of course he would move for her, and of course she would rather he just be comfortable.
"I bet I can find every Easter egg in this room," she says, and holds up one of the plastic things, recently plucked from a side-table.

Kalen Holliday
"And to think I thought you wouldn't be into building a an awesome robot lion to house the security system at the library annnnnnnd patrol the grounds."  He grins.  "Not sure I'm ever so glad to have been wrong."
He's still smiling as Grace picks up an Easter egg.  "Can you now?"

Grace
"Yeah. I could analyze the plastic and dimensions of this, and then look for similar items in the general area. Would pop out like little lightbulbs on my screen," she says, though it doesn't look like she's about to pull out her computer to show him (or show off as the case may be).
"But that would be cheating," she says, with another conspiratorial grin.
She pops open the egg, finds it stuffed with a raspberry tart truffle (which does make her glad) and pops it into her mouth. Lazy holidays -- they should all be like this.
"Awesome robot lion, you say? Spiders are more stable on the legs, and they can climb. Although I imagine a lion whomping down on some bad-guy from the ceiling would be quite interesting," she says, mouth still half-full of raspberry tart.

Kalen Holliday
"Lions are very symbolic, Kit," Kalen says.  But then so are spiders.  He's just being a jerk and arguing for lions because, like bow ties, lions are cool.  It's the principal of the thing, really.  Lions are awesome and spider killbots, even with tap shoes, just aren't a thing he wants to half live with.
"It would only kind of be cheating. It would perhaps not be as fun as crawling around and looking for eggs.  I've not done either that I can recall, so I wouldn't know.  It was kind of fun hiding them, I guess."
"What have you been up to?  I know I've been away a bit."

Grace
"Maybe we can develop some kind of gecko-feet for the lion-bot? Make it able to stick to the walls," Grace says, and perhaps she never really was kidding about that mad-Etherite look.
"What I've been up to? Scanning books. Also doing some looking. There's something I was shown in my Seeking -- kind of like a running theme. There was a poster on the wall of the Wheel of Fortune card out of the Tarot. At the time I didn't know what it meant, just the name. So I looked it up. It means that things tend to go in cycles -- the good and the bad. When things are at their worst, you need to look to change. When thing are at their best, you can't let that make you complacent.
"Things are looking up. For now. Even though in recent past they were pretty bad. I can't stay there."
Or here, really.

Kalen Holliday
Kalen blinks.  He follows half of that.  He isn't sure it's the half he needed to follow.  "What?"

Grace
"What what? Gecko feet? They have micro-structures on their feet -- little grippy things that let them climb on the ceiling. Of course we'd have to make the lion light enough for the gecko-feet to hold," Grace explains, hoping that's what he was asking about.

Kalen Holliday
"No.  I understood that part.  Gecko feet.  The other part.  About you."

Grace
"Mmm, yes. A few weeks ago I was screaming and dying downstairs. Now I'm thinking about making lions with gecko feet and I can't let the spectre of the hydra keep holding me back from that. The wheel turns. Things change."
She sips coffee, and grants herself another whipped-cream mustache. Gives him a smile.

Kalen Holliday
"Oh.  Like that.  Yes.  Of course things change."  He smiles.  "They cycle and curve and sometimes set upon their own tales.  Ebb and flow.  Rain into streams into rivers into oceans into clouds into rain.  Nothing is ever still.
"I'm glad you let go of your ghosts."  He hasn't quite managed that yet.
"Do you want tea?  I'm thinking lemon.  Or maybe mint."  He rises, rises up onto both feet and perhaps there is something in that motion of a baby antelope, because it has been that long since Kalen walked on two feet unaided, but he does start off for the kitchen without any stumbling or falling over.  Just don't ask about the practice while he was hiding Easter eggs.  He certainly was not carrying around a bunch of treat-filled tacky plastic because he wanted an excuse for what he was doing on the fucking floor.  Because he would never, ever do that.

Grace
"Kalen!" Grace's eyes go wide, but she doesn't stop smiling. "Your leg! Oh, how did that happen? Did you find someone who could fix it?"
Most of the time, Grace pays no heed to his (former) lack of mobility. It's only now, when he's moving like a baby ungulate across the Chantry that she really sits up and notices for real. Ever since she's known him, he's leaned on a cane. It became part of her internal idea of Kalen almost -- a guy with a limp. But less pathetic, and more badass -- a guy with a sweet cane, because he lived a dangerous existence.
"We should go hiking!"
Because yes, that's exactly what someone who's just recently attained the status of 'mobile' is likely capable of doing. Maybe he can just skip by on sheer power of will.
"Mint! Mint for me!" she says, with exclamation points, because suddenly everything is so exciting.

Kalen Holliday
He laughs.  "Yes.  Yes.  But give me maybe a day or two first."
"Ah.  I had a moment with my Avatar.  Different than yours.  But good.  We came a bit closer to an understanding, at least."  He still sounds amused, if a bit less.  "So many things to do.  But...I think they'll be good.
"I think I might go visit Flagstaff," he says as he steps into the kitchen.

Grace
"You did? You didn't yell at your Avatar, tell them to fuck off about three or four times, and end up stabbing them in the heart with a sword then? I mean, I get what it was doing, I suppose. Still sounds very odd, that."
Then he mentions Flagstaff.
"Isn't that where your old Chantry was?" Was, because it was destroyed.

Kalen Holliday
He laughs again.  "As with all of my relationships, I think probably the one most interested in doing that kind of stabbing is not me.  And I mostly know people with the patience of saints, so that says something."
There is the sound of things moving in the kitchen.  "And yes.  It is."

Grace
Grace really doesn't know what to say to that, only sips her coffee. Doesn't want to pry into things, and if she offered to go with he'd probably be afraid for her safety or some other thing.
"Well, I hope you find what you're looking for there."

Kalen Holliday
"I think there isn't anything there anymore.  Just bits of a building and some sand.  I mean...that's not what I'm going back for.  Looking for things.  That wouldn't even make any sense.  I'm going back to leave things there, where they ended, maybe.  But there isn't anything to take from there.  That time is just...past.
"You want like normal mint or green tea mint or this raspberry lemon spearmint?"  Clearly, by the sharp switch, he is done talking about Flagstaff.  But she got that much at least.  It's a lot more than she could have gotten before.

Grace
To leave things there. Like his ghosts perhaps. Grace sighs, but she's too happy for him to tinge it with any sadness. "Green tea mint sounds delicious," she yells, because it does, and because they're done talking about Flagstaff.
And then, she looks down at her cooling coffee. Well, better finish this before the tea arrives, or she will be double-fisting caffeine. She gulps it down.

Kalen Holliday
Kalen reappears a few minutes later with her tea and his tea, both still steeping in their mugs.  He hands Grace hers and then settles onto the couch again with his.
"Anything else interesting going on?"

Grace
"Mmm yeah. I talked to Lena," Grace says, looks down into her mug of tea. Not ready to drink yet, it's still so hot. But the mug feels nice, and she wraps her fingers around it.
"I still think it's a bit futile to pretend we can get along, but she seems to think it's all because we were messed up by Hydra, and everything can be okay between us again. I don't know. I think it's less to do with us being 'damaged' and more me being me. Maybe some of her being her too. I told her I would try at least. I just don't hold much hope with five out of five recent interpersonal interactions going south in a huge way. There is a pattern there.
"Can't always get along with everybody, as much as it hurts."

Kalen Holliday
"You cannot always agree with everyone.  And you are unlikely to always get along with everyone.  But you can learn to find some way to get along with probably most people.  You have to be willing to give, and you have to be willing to really fight to understand, and you have to be willing to be exposed in ways that are horrifying and difficult," his voice is gentle, rather than disapproving.
"I don't agree with Alyssa half the time, and I am pretty sure she will hit me in the face, at least once.  We're still going to find ways to work that out and have an awesome cabal.  I don't agree with Gallowglass on things like fundamental world view, and that, oddly enough, hasn't stopped us being friends.
"Sometimes, we don't agree.  We don't stop being friends, do we?"

Grace
She scratches her eyebrow, gives Kalen a bemused look. "This from the guy who didn't know he had friends until I explained what friends are to him?"
"Still. I think that's a bit different. You don't cause Adam mental anguish every time you talk to him. That's very unfriendlike."

Kalen Holliday
"Hey!  I know what friends are.  I always knew that!"  Kalen reaches under the couch, grabs an Easter egg, and tosses it lazily at Grace.  "I may not have been able to recognize the experience from inside of it, but that is a totally and completely different problem from not know what friends are.  I know how people work.  I spent years learning that.  I had to."
He laughs.  "Oh.  No.  I'm pretty sure I cause him all kinds of mental anguish.  He comes anyway and he talks to me until I'm okay because sometimes you do these things for people you care about even if you grit your teeth and it is horribly difficult not to scream at them.  I asked him to come see Sera sing and I was really tired and Sera thinks we're dating or something now.  And even that hasn't infuriated him.  He gives a little and lets me be a mess and I give a little and let him mostly have that he is superior to everyone.  He mostly doesn't mean anything by it, he's just like a cat.  It's who he is, that smugness.  And you know, perhaps his view of the world is narrow, but believe me there are nights I need him with all of his ridiculous certainty to come hold my world together.  It isn't the worst thing or the best one, but it is the one we have."

Grace
She catches the egg, listens to Kalen but doesn't listen. No, it's different. Completely different from herself and Lena, Kalen, can't you see that? They don't prop each other up despite the pain, they tear each other down painfully. There is a huge difference.
But no, he wouldn't know. He doesn't know much about what's gone on between them, not that she would volunteer a bunch of information like that even to him.
"He's not superior to everyone. Strange concept coming from a guy who owns a bookstore called Anarchy. But then many people use the term without having the first fucking idea of what it means."
Because please yes, let us change the subject...

Kalen Holliday
Kalen sighs.  He does know some of it, because Lena told him.  He knows what it is like to drive into people and tear at them until it seems like the only outcome is unmaking each other.  He knows so well what that is like, and he knows what finding ways to stop that it like, and what uneasy peace and growing understanding and the eventual kind of friendship that can leave you with.  But he does not try to tell her that his friendship with Gallowglass was not always easy or that his friendship with anyone has ever really been easy.
There are shades of meanings to words.  Common usage meanings, which like a single common reality aren't the truth of the words.  But Kalen isn't in the mood for that discussion.
"How protective are we with Ginger?  I mean...I know your issues with Alexander.  I'm willing to hold off on having him on Ginger until you're alright with that, this is actually not about Alexander.  It's about other new Mages and about Mages that we...know but don't know how well we trust.  They need information too, but we also need to be safe.  Sometimes I'm not sure where we should draw those lines."

Grace
She shrugs. "I've been drawing it at, well, if I see them at the Chantry or I know through other means that they're definitely not evil. Or if they find out about it from someone else and come calling.
"I also try not to be pushy about it, because sometimes people don't have phones or whatever. I've set Lena up again, and I've at least talked with some of the new guys in town about it. Adam, and whatshisface... Leonhard. But some people have yet to make time for me, and that's okay too."

Kalen Holliday
"I'm relatively sure that Ian isn't evil," Kalen says.  "I'm not sure he's precisely good.  I am very sure that he is dangerous.  And, I don't care.  And I don't think he'd be dangerous to us in the ways that you are afraid of.  But...I haven't figured him out and I don't know that that's something anyone is going to do in a reasonable amount of time.
"I don't want him to be cut off from knowing what's happening though.  I don't think he needs to be.  But...."

Grace
"I'm good enough anymore, Kalen, I could probably work my way into his phone without permission and fuck his Ginger install up -- make it look like it never existed. Does that make you less worried?"
She messes with the tea, apparently deciding that time has come for her to actually imbibe the stuff, though she has to put her plastic egg down to do so. It wobbles on the table next to her chair. Why are there never enough hands when you need them?
"Who's Ian?" she asks, because she's never met the guy. "Why do you think he's not good and dangerous?"

Kalen Holliday
"I don't think he's not good.  I would just hesitate to make any promises.  He feels like a fucking hunting cat.  He's got mysterious and elegant nailed.  And the time we have spent together mostly has convinced me that I love being around him, but not that I should bring him here.  I want to.  But he's...I don't know what he is."

Grace
Grace is confused, and grants Kalen a look that says it all. "You don't know what he is? Like, are we talking... he isn't a Mage, he's something else? Or... Why shouldn't you bring him here, I guess is my question?"
She takes the teabag out of her mug, and tries not to let it drip on herself as she lays it down on a saucer by the table.
Mmm, tea. Tea makes everything better. Especially if Pan made it, but that's not the case right now...

Kalen Holliday
Kalen sighs, rolls his eyes, and gives up entirely on being delicate.  "Oh, he is very definitely a Mage.  And the sex is very definitely fantastic.  I'm not sure if those two things on their own qualify as things on which we base this trust decision."

Grace
"So you're sleeping with him, but you're not sure you trust him enough to bring him to the Chantry or let him have access to Ginger?"
Again, confused as hell. Grace is less concerned about the sex itself, and more concerned about the fact that Kalen is doing so with someone he apparently trusts about as far as he could throw Antarctica.
"You still haven't answered the question of why you don't trust him. Is it just because he's not forthcoming about his past? Because hell, that could describe about... ninety percent of us. But I don't know. Maybe just trust your gut?"

Kalen Holliday
"I don't know.  I do trust him.  In the immediate sense.  I kind of want to call him up and invite him over to have ridiculously expensive wine and watch movies.  But...look.  I trusted Jenna too.  And I don't think I was exactly wrong, but I do think that she's kind of connected to the reason for everything Flagstaff.  Not like she's an awful traitor, but like she got into trouble and it followed her home.
"Of course, you guys let me stay, and those same people are still after me."

Grace
"Ahh, that kind of thing. Then I could, indeed, point at you. You always did say I should stay away from you, like you're made of radium or something. But I don't know Kalen, seems like you've always been quite open about that. People are after you. We don't care. Denver is pretty wild a place, trouble comes for us anyway.
"I don't see other people being out to get you as something we should kick you out of the circle for. I mean, Hydra was out to get me for a while there, and it would have made perfect sense for us all to just go into strict quarantine and not let anyone help. I have a feeling that's what the disease was designed to do. You would rely on people in the community to help you, try to heal you, and it would infect them that way. But how we managed to kill it was together."

Kalen Holliday
"I'll talk to him then.  I certainly don't think he wants to hurt us.  I'm not sure he'd protect us.  But I guess maybe we should invite him in.  Maybe he just needs to feel safe somewhere before he really starts to relax enough to get attached.  I guess I did.  And a few of us, really."

Grace
"Yeah, talk to him. I'll be cool with your judgement. And you have the ability to install Ginger yourself now too, so go use that phenomenal power," she says, with a bit of obvious sarcasm at the end.
She sips tea. And eyes that egg. Maybe it's chocolate again. She picks it up and shakes it, but it doesn't sound chocolatey. Opens it up to reveal a small amethyst geode. Well, interesting.
Purple crystals cast dancing light around in the half-sphere, a pretty thing.

Kalen Holliday
"I know.  I'm not exactly falling over people to invite all the time.  I'll get there.  Really.  I'm excited."  He smiles.  He keeps smiling as he watches her find the geode, all purple and sparkling.
"I guess now your schedule is way more open for Australia.  I'll have to get us tickets."

Grace
"Yeah, Spring Break came and went," she says, still eyeing that geode. "But now, I have time. I'll get some writing done, I think. Would be nice for that."
Because, even on vacation, Grace is probably not going to simply relax. Ever.

Kalen Holliday
"I was having newly Awakened Magi to introduce to their new worlds for Spring Break.  It wasn't a good time to leave."  He smiles a little.  "But I suppose it never is and we'll just have to do it anyway."

Grace
"You know, Australia has fairy penguins. One once pecked Linus Torvalds, and that's how he came up with the logo for Linux," Grace says, a totally random bit of trivia. But hey, penguins. They are creatures of the code.
"They're adorable. I'd let one peck me all day. And be grinning at the cute. I imagine Linus was the same," she sighs, obviously overcome with penguin-love.

Kalen Holliday
"Penguins, huh?  Penguins and spider killbots with tap shoes?"  Kalen laughs softly.  "Sometimes, I do not understand the things you love."

Grace
"Yes. Both of those things. You're going to have to let me make the lion with six legs at least. I need dancing robots in my life, and four legs just isn't enough," Grace says, and who knows if she's even kidding.
"We'll also have to go diving at the Great Barrier Reef. And visit Uluru maybe?" Grace has plans for the entirety of Australia it seems. Penguins to reefs to sacred sites of the Dreamtime.
"Where would you like to go?"

Kalen Holliday
Kalen shudders.  "Yeah.  You can go diving.  I will go drink somewhere and try to pretend you are not underwater."
"I don't...really get vacations.  Just pick some places and I'll see what I can figure out.  But hey, maybe hiking now."  He smiles.

Grace
She laughs at him, "You're the one who wanted to go somewhere. I don't have to go diving, it's okay. I wouldn't want to make you feel like that. And I wouldn't want to go alone either."
"And yeah! Hiking! I'm so happy for you."

Kalen Holliday
"Well.  We could drag other people.  But...I'm not so much an in the water person.  Hiking though...I like things on land.  Or zip lines.  Flying is cool.  But not water.  And probably we should try to avoid direct contact with flames."

Grace
"Hmm... A man of the elemental air and earth. Gotcha," she says, kidding him. But then, they're avoiding the actual reason behind that water avoidance. Does Kalen even know how to swim? After what happened to him as a child, perhaps not.
"I don't do so well with fire either. Strange, though. I should be, right? What with being a Phoenixian."

Kalen Holliday
"I do alright with a lot of things with fire, but I still think maybe we should stick to bonfires or fireplaces or candles.  Not like extreme tourist attractions like brushfires."

Grace
"Mmm yes, Mr. Has The Fireball Trick That He's Never Shown Me," Grace says, and sips tea. "Brushfires are tourist attractions?"

Kalen Holliday
"I don't have occasion to fling fire around that often.  It's not I'm just sitting around lobbing fireballs for fun."  He huffs.  "I like lightning better anyway."

Grace
"Yeah, I figured. You feel like lightning, you know. I guess that's a thing, huh? We tend to like the way we... resonate. I wonder what that means though."
"Why do we... feel the way we do? Do you know?"

Kalen Holliday
"We are Enlightened.  We can reshape the world with our Will.  It is an intrinsic part of what we are, that magic.  And it spills outward from us, echoes of what we are.  It is just aspects our nature, radiating outward.  All energy does that right?  Heat, light?  Our Resonance is just like the energy of our Avatar radiating outward through us, in a way.  The stronger we get, the better our connection, and the more energy spills through.  It gets refracted by who we are, like light through a prism.  So, mine is like a storm, yes, because that energy is transformed by what I am before it reaches the world beyond me."

Grace
She smiles at him, ready to repeat the question like a hyper three-year-old. Yeah, but why?
"I feel different now. Sharp, you know? Guess I connected with my Avatar in more than one way when I stabbed it in the heart."
For anyone who might be just now entering the Chantry (cough cough) Kalen is sitting on a couch in the living room, Grace at a chair opposite. They both have mint tea, and there's a couple of plastic Easter eggs opened on the table next to Grace. One of them contained an amethyst geode, which she's still got in one hand -- a tiny little sparkly thing.
Kalen has been a busy Kalen this morning, hiding eggs. Perhaps they'll still be finding them weeks later, stowed under and behind things.

Kalen Holliday
"How you interacted with your Avatar in order to gain that power affects what kind of aspect that power takes on, yes.  And yes, whatever it wanted you to understand, you understood.  So you're both moving forward together in more synergy, and so more of its power is spilling over into you.  Your connection from before and your new connection now are both a part of that."

Grace
"Never really... hmm. I mean, I get what you're saying, and all. And in a way that makes sense. But I always figured more power would come with more study. I didn't think, 'Oh, someday I'm going to meet my Avatar and go on a vision-quest'."
Grace looks at the the boundaries of the room, where the walls meet ceiling, her eyes skittering around. "It feels strange to have that confirmed. Why would it be like that?"
Because, Kalen, you are talking to a Virtual Adept -- a woman who this time last year did not believe in superstition. Who did and still does believe in science and paradigms thereof. To speak of others going on vision-quests, certainly. She was always sure that happens. But not to her.
"I guess I don't really need to know. But I'd like to understand what it means for me."

Serafi­ne
"Hey Grace, Kalen."  That's Dan, greeting them from the doorway leading up to the dining room, the kitchen, the garage and thence the driveway.  He has an arm loops beneath Sera's shoulders and around her narrow back, and he is holding her more or less upright and she is playing a kind of peek-a-boo with both of them and does not remember whether he said hello or she said hello but she heard a hello and that seems enough for her now.
Liquid with sun and drink and the delirium of spring.  Liquid and steadily unsteady walking with her own right arm looped around Dan's back and her left hand braced on his abdomen, negotiating the stairs in her remarkable heels, wearing a white sundress that would be perfectly sweet were it not also perfectly transparent or close to it and paired with black lingerie beneath.
Dan drops her off at the couch and she flops back onto the half that Kalen is not occupying, inhales, see, deliciously, then rolls onto her side, curling up with a throw pillow as Dan asks, or clarifies,
"You're sure it's in the library?"
"Mmmm."
"Okay I'll be back."  And explains, briefly to Kalen and Grace if they give him a look of inquiry that Sera forgot her phone.
--
Sera inhales again.
Her eyes are closed.  The world's spinning, but see,
"It's like that 'cos your fucking magic Grace."  Okay, thank you professor Serafíne.

Kalen Holliday
"Dan," Kalen says, watching as he negotiates the stairs with Sera.  Once Sera is curled up on the couch near him, he smiles, more warmly this time, and reaches out to rest one hand on Sera's side.  He does not pet her, but he does touch her.
"Well, yes.  It's because you're magic."  He glances down at Sera, still amused by that proclamation.  "But from here...it starts to matter a bit that our Traditions are so different.  Because we approach magic and Avatars and destiny and what those things mean with about the same degree of consistency as different religions approach the concept of divinity.  Which is to say with varying degrees of passion and with varying degrees to which we are willing to accept other truths."

Grace
Grace pulls her phone out from within her laptop bag and starts sending Sera a bunch of texts.
This is to help you find it, Dan!This is to help you find it, Dan!This is to help you find it, Dan!
The thing will be bleeping at him, or whatever sound it is that Sera has for text messages.
And while apparently absorbed in something extremely important on her phone, Grace says, "Well, yes, of course Sera. But you'll have to excuse my trying to peel back everything and figure out all of the whys, because isn't that how I ended up magic in the first place?"

Grace
[I'm going to have to go here soon. Game of Thrones time!]

Serafi­ne
Sera's eyes are already closed when Kalen reaches out to touch her so she cannot close them again but there is a kind of beat in her body, the way she inhales again, all physical, her shoulders curving deliberately with the breath.  And well if he's reaching out to touch her she's probably going to curl her legs over his lap.  Why not?  It feels like an invitation, and doesn't she almost always accept invitations.
"We're having a party.  You should come," Sera non-sequitors, before continuing.
"I mean: magic Grace.  Like fucking actively.  That shit's a metaphor, see?  You've got to connect to it in your fucking soul.  You've got to let it punch through you.  It's more than words on a page or maybe you find a way to be like that with the words on a page."

Kalen Holliday
"It's more...organic for some of us.  Something that was always part of us that we grow into.  We might reflect on it, but the ways in which you want to be able to dissect it aren't...ways we understand how to help you with.  You aren't wrong to want to do it that way, but we're...not really able to explain on those terms."  He glances at Sera as she puts her legs in his lap and smiles a little again.  "Maybe you could try Patience?"  He frowns, trying to think.  "You might be able to get some analysis from Gallowglass.  He likes you well enough, but you'd have to interpret it a bit.  He is brilliant, though, he might manage to translate mysticism into something close enough to science.  Trent is with the math, he might be able to help you."

Kalen shrugs.  "It isn't that I won't keep trying, it's that my answers are going to be...very unscientific."
He turns his attention to Sera.  "When?"

Grace
Kalen and Sera start trying to occupy the same space -- something she's still a little surprised to see Kalen so into. Time was she thought he was somebody who really valued his personal space. But lately he's gone all cuddly on her. Well, not on her. On other people. Which is fine by Grace, really.
To look at them though, it puts a wistful smile on her face. "I know. I understand. I could try Patience, as little as I actually run across her. I could also try what little access I have with the Virtual Adept information feeds. Ugh, Patience needs Ginger, you know? I should really get a hold of her."

Serafi­ne
"You should try the Farmer's Market."  Sera tells Grace: of Patience.  "There was a flying dude there, too.  He looked like Wonder Woman 'cos his glasses didn't fit.  I couldn't understand a word Patience said to him but she was clearly thrilled to see him."
To Kalen, then -  "Tonight.  Tomorrow.  This morning.  It's fucking spring, man.  Time for garden parties."
--
Dan reappears then, Sera's iPhone in hand.  Waves it at Grace with a quick, engaging grin.  "Found it, thanks," he's telling her as he circles the couch to where Sera is nestled, sinking down into a crouch near where she's resting her head, leaning in to plant a kiss on her brow.  "Found it," more quietly, because he knows how fucked up she is. right now.  "You ready to go?"
And Sera is ready to go.  She reaches out to loop her arms around Dan's neck like she means him to drag her upright and laughs up it as he starts to do just that, helps her get her legs off Kalen's lap and beneath her body, and doesn't give her back her phone yet because this time she would never remember where she left it.
--
"You should come," Sera's telling Kalen, as Dan gets her upright, adjusts his grip to support her.  "You too," to Grace, and then they're leaving, heading back the way they come in in the first place.

Kalen Holliday
"If I run into her again I'll try to give it to her.  If she has a phone.  Otherwise I may have to get her a phone too."
"Yeah.  One of you call me when you get that together then," Kalen says, watching as they leave.  "Goodnight."

Grace
"The party is probably an ongoing thing; looks like she's already been partying a bit... But then, Sera's always partying. It's... hard to tell," Grace says.
"Maybe you should just show up at her house with something alcoholic and try out your new legs with some dancing."
Grace illustrates 'dancing' by waving her arms around. And by the looks of it, she is trying to be uncoordinated. Nobody could dance that badly except on purpose.

Kalen Holliday
Kalen laughs at that.  "I don't even know where she lives.  Or if I'm quite up for dancing yet.  But I will take it under advisement."

Grace
"Oh! I do," Grace says, and since she's got out her phone already, brings up Google Maps, crosses over to the couch, and shows him.
Sera did say she wanted him to stop by, of course. It's not like she's sharing something she shouldn't.