Grace
[Magedar! Perception 3 + Awareness 2 = Sensing some resonance?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )
Constance
How do we post here? you start, I start?
Grace
I'll start!
Constance
[perc + awareness]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 4, 6, 6, 6, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 6 ) Re-rolls: 1
Grace
So,
Grace sits at one of the small wooden tables that line the far wall of
this place -- Pho-nomenal (silly play on words, but whatever. The fare's
decent). It's not much to look at, but holes in the wall with good food
usually aren't. The air is almost steeped in the smell of spice and
broth, and when you walk in, it makes you want to take deep breaths.
That kind of place.
One probably doesn't notice the woman in the
back who's busy eating with her cell phone in hand, apparently ignoring
her meal for the sake of Facebook or whatever it is she's doing. She
wears jeans, sneakers, and a gray jacket -- totally inconsequentially
normal.
Until the air fills with more than just pho. Suddenly, to
those with minds open more than usual would get the distinct impression
of a skittering sharpness. Like someone's slicing a keen blade through
the heavy spices.
[Life1 : Detect Poison. Diff: 4 - 1 for taking her time]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (3, 5) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Constance
Connie,
free and clear from her last contract, it having ended the day before,
has not only picked up her meagre paycheck but has also deposited it.
Seeing as it’s an award winning day she figures a bite of her favorite
vermicelli might be in order.
Brown hair is pulled up into a
braid, she wears little to no makeup, and comfortable clothing; a navy
blue scoop neck sweater, a pair of faded jeans, and worn runners make
her no less remarkable than any of the others in the crowd. It isn’t
always clothing that marks one as unusual, though, and at first glance –
as she’s moving towards the counter to order – blue eyes pass right
over Grace.
..it’s only a millisecond, one tiny fragment of time,
but everything changes and suddenly the restaurant, it’s food, and it’s
patrons, are forgotten. The long legged woman freezes, like a foal, her
nose twitches as though she could smell it but all the while there’s
this unstable but intense pull from the woman her eyes had just passed
over.
Stranded, seemingly, in a line of other people she does a
double take, harkening back to the incident in the coffee shop, and
happens to be staring. The lady behind her gives her a little shove,
Connie balks, and steps out of the line ready to bolt because that one,
she’s like them.
Grace
The sensation of
heat, like someone suddenly opened an oven floods over her, and Grace
looks up Connie's glance, meeting her eyes.
Never met this one before, huh. And Grace, she notes the freezing, notes the staring, the readiness to get the fuck out. Why?
Her
eyebrows make with a kind of dance that says confusion and worry at
once. It's rarely a good thing for a Mage to look that frightened. So
Grace freezes, looks behind herself (as if to look for whatever it is that has Connie so upset).
Serafine
Per + Awareness
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (3, 4, 5, 5, 7, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 6 ) Re-rolls: 1
Serafine
(Any objections to Sera doing a flyby? :) )
Constance
None here!
Constance
Shall I wait to post then? :D
Serafine
naw, go ahead and post. (grins) sera will probably not interrupt quite yet!
Constance
Memo
to self; next time you want to look like a deranged meth head remember
this moment and recall every episode of 24 your cousin has ever watched.
The might arrest vegans for cannibalism but the show seemed to have a
pretty decent handle on how morons escape.
The moron, being her,
of course. She blinks, at Grace, presumably, and then is ousted from her
spot in line as the lady behind her has obviously had enough of
indecision in her ninety five years of craggy, old, wrinkled
skin-living.
The short haired brunette looks at her, and then
behind where she’s seated, and then back at Constance as if to think
‘who, me?’ with a spicing of ‘what the eff’ for flavouring, she’s
supposing.
Her wide mouth widens as politeness demands some sort
of smile, she shakes her head and shrugs, “I-I, sorry, I thought you
were somebody else.” It’s an entirely plausible excuse, really, but it
doesn’t tell Grace much about why she’s still standing there. Truth be
told, Connie isn’t sure either.
“Uh, sorry..” Yeah, about that.
Serafine
Outside there's a feeling and there's a van and the van is a white conversion van and still with North Carolina license plates someone better take care of that and oh, hey, Dan picked Sera up at the Church of the Good Shepherd and Sera murmured directions to him all aslant and well,
what
the hell. That's how and why he is dropping Sera off at the corner
she's alighting from the passenger's side, swinging the door shut behind
her, hands in the pockets of her leather jacket, elbows all sharp,
heels hellishly high though she walks in them with a long stride and a
kind of masculine swagger, as if they were nothing. Nothing at all.
Glimpsed through the picture windows, unearthing a hand from one of her pockets to reach for the front door.
Grace
"Oh,
yeah, I've had that happen before," Grace says, giving Constance a
similar smile. "Are you new around? I haven't seen you... in the
area..."
She sets down her phone, screen to the table, and
suddenly there's the urge to look at the door (the threshhold, the place
in between inside and outside). And Grace doesn't freeze or start with
worry, but breaks into an honest smile.
Sera.
Constance
Undulating
awareness sparks an otherworldly feeling and she’s swimming in this,
watching the face of this foreign woman with a long nose and sincere
eyes in silence. It happens, she says, Constance nods faintly and feels
the influx of something new seeding itself in the present. It’s like a
capsule opening to release tendrils of reaching potential, they say
being, they say start, they say turn your head, girl.
So she does.
And
the coffee shop comes slamming back to her once again; a tall blonde
speaks in riddles, the face of Anyboy and his calmness in the eye of her
skittish behavior, and who can forget this one reflecting from behind
the door like she isn’t really there.
Heat finds her face, colour
swathes across it like a swaggering pirate, and she knows that the jig
is up because blue eyes have returned to Grace’s face to find that smile
of familiarity. It’s happening again? For the love of ..whoever.
Whatever.
“Well then..”
Serafine
So the
door opens and then she's not swimming in the glass but all immediate,
all present. Cropped leather jacket over a short, tight, absolutely
crimson cocktail dress that ends approximately two tenths of an inch
below the point at which it would be utterly indecent, making it
therefore merely indecent. Diamond-patterned net tights, thigh-high,
held up by black lace garters. Shoes bordering on the impossible, the
swath of blond curls and a half-shaved head. The most ridiculous
jewelry, but Connie remembers her for more than that style that makes
her impossible to ignore and hard to forget.
"Grace."
See,
Sera comes up to them, skirts Connie's personal space. Reads that heat
beneath her skin, something of that awareness, that sense of being at sea and yeah.
Take your time and live in it.
Take your space, too.
Here's
Sera, murmuring a greeting to the crown of Grace's head, bending down
to run her finger's through the other woman's short dark hair. The
gesture is familiar.
A glance up at Constance, then. This edge of a smile; the grace of slightly-stoned dark blue eyes.
"You guys've met? Or are you just meeting?"
Grace
"Oh
us? I've never seen her before in my life," Grace says, trying to
ignore the hair ruffling. It's a Sera thing. The sun will rise in the
East, and Sera will ruffle her hair. Possibly kiss her head.
"Are you okay?" she asks Connie, because wow -- those reactions. What the Hell?
"Sera, have you met her before? She looks mad."
Constance
She
is mad, yes.Connie knows she’s mad, she must be mad, that’s the only
explanation. After all, Sera had confirmed that they weren’t in the
circus but she felt like the entire thing had disbanded and all of its
former employees had relocated to Denver.
Yeah, she must be mad.
“Oh,
only just,” She says to Sera after a time, having watched her approach
and the way she’d interacted with Grace. Constance relaxes visibly, but
she doesn’t go to sit down with them, rather she steps towards the table
as if to afford some sort of clue to the whole puzzle.
“I’m,
I-er,” Constance was still replaying her last pause-tap meeting with
Sera in her head, that shifting of reality still gave her goose bumps
and she was very much unaware of how her presence affected others.
“I’m Connie, and okay, and a little mad. Yes.”
To
Sera, she offered a small smile, she wanted to say something friendly
to somehow bridge the gap but Constance wasn’t exactly sure of what to
say in this instance.
Serafine
"She's New,
Grace," and Sera says it quietly, just like that, with the capital
letters and what-all clear and evident in the rich intonation. With the
hint of a smile that is wry and this subtle, sweeping glance at Connie
that deepens the edges of the smile she's wearing, crinkles the corners
of her eyes, but only just.
"So she doesn't quite know why she keeps feeling us and she's not precisely sure what's going on. At least, that's my guess."
A
quick slanting glance back at Connie. Sera has by now hooked a hand on
the spine of Grace's seat, but has not grabbed a chair of her own to
sit down.
"Grace was new too," to Connie, " - not that long ago, really. Remember how that felt?"
Grace
"Heh,
I meant angry, but hey, a little madness never hurt anybody," she says,
trying to put Connie at ease with a smile and a bit of humor.
Then, Sera says she's New, and suddenly everything makes some sense. The dawning of realization crosses her face. "Oh!"
"Ohh," she repeats, tinged with a bit more gravity.
"Fucking amazing. And scary. Hi, Connie. You're not mad."
Constance
They
speak their own language of understanding with familiar words, they
just have a different meaning, and it’s like she’s able to pick up
pieces of the conversation that is being had without being spoken. New,
yes. Mad, not angry, in the crazy sense. Well that’s true, she thinks,
blue eyes moving from Sera’s face back to Grace’s once again.
If
she didn’t have proof of their ..otherness, and her own, she might have
had a bit of a difficult time remaining a part of this conversation, it
all could have gone down a lot differently. Yet she remembers other
instances, too and finds that her hand has come to rest upon the top of
the back of a chair across the table from the other women.
Sera’s
smile deepens and Constance can’t help but smile in return, fueled by
the feeling that the Cultist exudes, and perhaps the familiarity she
brings with her. It isn’t so much that she’s met her before, or that she
even took the time to make note of what this difference might be, but
that warmth she holds is much different than the way Connie’s is.
The
way it hits home for Grace signifies the importance of Sera’s actions
to Constance and it wins the woman some points in her favor.
“Is this the wrong place or time to ask either of you what the hell is going on? Because, well, reasons."
Serafine
"We
can't talk as freely here as we could someplace a little more private.
Because it is weird as hell and something most other people around us
wouldn't understand. It's something that good get us in trouble, too,
if the wrong people overheard us, but asking what the hell is going on is a pretty good first step - "
Then,
Sera's phone buzzes, somewhere in the depths of one of the pockets of
her leather jacket. The creature pulls it out, glances at the display
and makes a noise in the back of her throat.
"I'm sorry. I've gotta run. But Grace can help you because honestly, I can't remember when I wasn't like this, you know? Grace, you can give Connie my number. Even my address."
Back to Connie then, " - we're still celebrating 4-20. Probably the party'll go on all week. You'd be welcome to stop by."
Serafine
And
then, Sera taps something on her phone, tucks it away again, drops a
kiss on the crown of Grace's head, and heads back out the door, just the
way she came in.
Grace
Grace
grins at Connie, and picks up her phone again. "Give me a minute, okay?
I can likely come up with something that could help."
And then,
she's tapping away at the the thing. A normal enough sight -- someone
being incredibly antisocial and putting their face in their phone with
someone standing right there. Her countenance, well, she looks truly angry now. Not mad, but like the woman has a serious case of 'focusing bitch face'.
Could
be checking her email. Or sending a text. Or hacking into the cosmic
Data and inserting her own. In any case, the air slices again, shudders
like a sharp earthquake.
[Corr 2: Secure Connection: Diff 5 - 1 for taking her time]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (6, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Grace
Aaand, Connie's phone makes whatever noise it makes when a text comes in.
Constance
Sera’s
in and out, somehow Connie’s not surprised, she’s reminded of that
quote about Gandalf and how he arrives precisely when he means to. It’s
the same, save the glaring discrpencies, you know, Sera not being a
craggy old wise man in a pointy hat and all.
Connie still doesn’t
invite herself to sit but she’s lingering at Grace’s table like someone
who is waiting for contact information or directions on where to meet up
later. The other woman asks her to wait a mo’, she nods, and then her
phone is chiming pleasantly – a stock preset from the iphone – and she
digs it out of her pocket to take a look.
Presuming, of course, that it’s Sera’s contact information..
“Huh..”
Grace
Connie
gets some rather rapid-fire texts, soon after the first chime, more
chimes come. And they're all from an unknown caller. However, from the
knowing glances Grace is giving her, it's obvious who's doing it.
There's
names for everything you're experiencing, you know. That's because
others like us have walked this path before and labeled it. You're not
alone.
I know
when it first happened to me, I was pretty weirded out, trying to figure
out what was going on. And then, I found someone to explain it. Sera,
actually. The touchy-touch woman.
I
can send you these messages safely (and before you gave me your number)
because I am like you. I can see the truth under the shell of
'reality'. We all see the world differently now that we've Awakened,
even if sometimes we disagree on what reality's 'true form' actually is.
How do you see it?
What questions do you have?
Constance
The
chimes ring again, and again, and she flicks the ringer off as to not
draw attention from other patrons. This time she does take a seat, and
between surreptitious glances from her phone to Grace, understanding
begins. It isn’t the full-fledged knowing that comes with experience but
a miniscule piece of a very large puzzle, one with a great number of
oddities that she has yet to discover.
Should she be surprised
that Grace could find her phone like that? Not really, considering what
Sera had done, those moments where everything else around them had stood
still and the way they seemed to exist, only together.
Connie
isn’t that surprised, she’s thrilled more like, and laughter sounds from
the quiet young woman as she is now seated across from Grace at the
table. Without food. In fact she’d all but forgotten the reason for her
having come into the pho place all together, staring down at her phone,
she replies.
It’s like, what? She said Awakened, too, like I was asleep. I don’t get it, I mean I’m not supposed to get it – God did she babble like this vocally? – am I?
Blue
eyes left her phones screen to lift towards Grace again, she shifts in
her seat, leaning on her elbow which is on the table and thinks a
moment.
I dunno? I
..don’t know what is happening to me, I’m not sure. I don’t ..I see
things like normal people do, I think. What do you mean SEE?
Grace
I mean, when you Awakened, something changed. You became capable of altering the world, bending it to your will.
To
use a Matrix reference, the wool has been pulled over your eyes since
birth, but now you've taken the red pill. Something's fundamentally
just... different, isn't it? You can feel it.
Personally,
I see the world as being made up of Data, which our brains process into
something our minds can accept as real. But if you take that analogy
further, if the world is Data, what happens when you understand that, and then start changing the Data?
Well, apparently people I've never met before start getting text messages ;)
So,
now, to the patrons of this restaurant, you've got two young women
furiously texting at each other instead of speaking. How nerdy can you get?
Constance
It’s
a little like coming into the caf and sitting down at the edge of a
table as far away from whoever is at the other end of it as you can, and
then texting yourself, or your sister, or pretending to until the rest
of lunch is over. Yes, she remembers high school that clearly.
Thankfully college was a little bit better.
Maybe she was taking
Grace’s interpretation a bit too literally, after all, she didn’t really
see anything beyond the norm, and it wasn’t like she’d been trying.
I
just started having these dreams, I'd get these feelings when I
meditate, or know when somebody had died even if I wasn't in the room
with them. I don't know, it's not like I *see* things. Yeah. I feel
them.
Somehow a menu was placed beside her, she'd missed
any presence of a person at their table while typing on her phone, and
in truth Connie wasn't really in the mood to eat right now. She did
order some tea, though, and didn't even think twice about having a
silent conversation with a stranger. Who says you can't find friendship
through social mediums? Riiight.
I've never tried to change anything. I can't explain it. I didn't think I could change
things, or affect them, it was more like.. tapping into something
deeper, or hearing bits of a song on a static-filled radio.
Grace
Grace
has her food (a medium bowl of brisket and tendon pho, rather
untouched). Her coffee sits there, also rather untouched. She had been
on her phone when Connie came in, hadn't she? Perhaps just not
interested in the food she'd bought. Or maybe Connie just interests her
more. In any case, she starts texting with one hand, and eating soup
with the other now. Her stomach is finally winning the war.
Yeah,
that feeling of tapping into something deeper is what I'm talking about
when I talk about how you 'see' things. I tap into the Data. It's my
'something deeper'. Something that feels more true than the idea that
the only thing to the universe is what you can touch and hear and see
with your physical body.
You
may not be able to cause any affect in things right now. But you can
tap into reality in a much more fundamental way than just by sight and
sound and touch. And maybe eventually you will be able to modify it.
There's
a name for this state of being. We're called Mages. And what we do is
magic. But, you know, not like the guy pulling a rabbit out of a hat.
Connie
talks about knowing when someone had died when they weren't there, and
that... well, that triggers a pang. She must have lost someone. But
Grace isn't going to pry.
Constance
The menu has been given a once over, even
if she already knew what she’d wanted it was good to check; minutes
later Connie’s asked for an order of chicken vermicelli with the lemon
and chili pepper sauce and a coffee. Extra cream and sugar. Meanwhile
the takeout line moves along at a steady pace and new faces find their
way past the table both women are seated at.
Hesitantly she looks
over her phone at Grace, thinking on how to explain what she thinks she
knows, and being completely ready to be told that it is, in fact, all
wrong.
It’s like being in
a dream state and slipping in and out of it, not like you’re in what
everyone else assumes to be reality and finding something more, maybe. I
don’t know. I see..
I
see a garden, not data. I see life, the absence of it, the thriving
untamed nature of it, and all that comes with it, and more I don’t know.
I see other things, literally see them, and that’s not as weird as
..well this entire conversation.
Her coffee has arrived;
she adds sugar and cream, stirring whilst she continues to tap away at
the older model backberry in her hand.
Are there mages who see spirits?
Grace
It's
kind of... exciting? Yes, that's the word. Finding a skittish new Mage
and telling them all this stuff. What if Connie is a plant? What if
she's not what she seems? But hey, you never win without trying. And
people stuck their neck out for her. So many times.
The other woman is hesitant, unsure, and Grace just keeps giving her some truly happy glances in return.
My
Awakening was like that. Slipping into a dream state. I just saw things
with my eyes then (well, probably not. I probably just perceived it, in
the mind's-eye) but I've yet to really duplicate that experience again.
I
kind of envy people who can, sometimes. But it comes in handy if I can
show people what I see too. I can display most of what I do on my
laptop, right?
Connie asks if there are Mages who see spirits. Grace bites a lip.
I
have seen one. I think it was a spirit anyway. What they call 'spirits'
I suppose. It was made as a kind of spiritual email? Shaped like an
angel. It called itself The Message.
I
don't go looking for them. I wouldn't know how. And some of them are
very very dangerous. We were lucky The Message wasn't one of them. But
it's not unheard of to see spirits, no. You're not alone there.
Not alone, Connie. Not anymore. It's okay.
At least, for now it is.
Serafine
That
conversation inside expands and contracts, carried out entirely by text
message and outside, on the still-sunlit street, Sera in her remarkably
tiny cocktail dress, with her thigh-high net tights, her black lace
garters, her heels, her rather ridiculous assortment of jewelry - all of
it, all of it - lights a cigarette and slides a pair of sunglasses we
forgot she had parked on the crown of her golden head down over her
eyes.
The sunlight washes over the exterior of the pho place and
Sera hums in the back of her throat and exhales the sugar-spiced smoke
and feels the street beneath her spike-heeled feet; imagines it, solid,
immutable, framing in the bright spikes of ordinary-life all around,
Constance and Grace inside. Sera can feel them too. That humming
aligns with the currents of the universe, an old song she hardly
remembers, which slices itself between the layers of her skin and opens
itself all blooming over her tongue.
Constance
Smiles
are welcomed, and returned, so much so that the skittish foal of a
young woman settles into stuffing her face while texting with Grace
without much mind to those around them. Entranced, perhaps, more than
excited; she’s wondered for ages, or what felt like ages, what was wrong
with her and there were stories of maladies in her family that went
back generations. To say she’d been worried was an understatement.
With such exuberance, Connie typed as quickly as she could in reply to Graces remark about seeing externally and internally.
How do you know the difference? I could ask you if this is even real. It’s like the girl in the red dress, only, I feel a bit more like I’m still dreaming.
Grace’s
reaction to her question mutes a bit of that fired up excitement in her
eyes, she watches the text come in between surreptitious glances
between her phone, the woman across from her, and her food.
What
she read didn’t make her feel any better and for the moment her food was
forgotten and blue eyes lowered to the screen of her phone again.
Slender shoulders lowered and curled inwards, as though she were
protecting the message she had yet to deliver, and in a way maybe she
was.
I just thought I was alone, period. In everything. A
moment passes. Is there somewhere safe you all.. talk? I mean, there’s
got to be ..something, right? Somewhere? It’s like you all are
everywhere..
She could use the terms Awakened and Mage
without giggling at the surreal feeling it created, and she could talk
about the way it felt to have grass beneath her feet, or how the
meditations of a quiet afternoon might lead her to unlock a puzzle or
untie a knot that was previously unpassable. For no more effort than the
fact that she’d focused on it, thought, and rested, and finally
somehow..
Richard
"Serafíne, isn't it?"
Well; listen to that. Someone who pronounces her name right. The real
way, with a guttural 'r', with a high-riding vowel. Coming out just
steps behind her, a to-go bag in hand, is a very tall man with fantastic
hair and an equally fantastic smile. He is wearing jeans; he is
wearing a deeply v-necked t-shirt with casual gallic aplomb.
He is
not wearing a beard. Or an enormous hiking backpack. Or the stench of
forty-some-odd hours of unwashed traveling. So: Serafine might not
even recognize him.
"It's Richard," he supplies. "We met some weeks ago."
Serafine
Sera's
doing magic. Starting too, anyway: sometimes she just cannot help
herself. The universe moves in currents and she moves with it and she's
half-humming and a bit zoned out here and smoking her cigarette with
her head tilted back and to be honest with that barely-there cocktail
dress and the leather jacket and the spiked heels and the cigarette and
the neighborhood she looks a bit like a prostitute and wouldn't
give a fuck if you made that mistake. Ninety-two percent of a certain
priest's congregation are convinced of it.
And then, someone says her name.
Her whole name.
In a way that, really, even Sera cannot quite manage.
That
makes her slash him a grin even before she genuinely registers his
presence, or the way his presence has her looking up (and up and up) and
then finally (finally!) she finds his eyes and the grin widens into
something like a laugh and Sera is holding that clove cigarette like a
joint and gestures with it thoughtfully in Richard's general direction
(which: is up!), and declares:
"The fucking giant!" with a
widening laugh. "I remember. You can call me Sera. What the fuck are
you doing out here? Haven't gone back to Kathmandu yet?"
Grace
I
didn't know the difference. I wish I could tell you that it's all
sunshine and roses. It's not. I guess the best way I could describe it
is that being a Mage means everything is just more. More good, and more bad too.
We're
not everywhere. We're pretty rare, in fact. Do you believe in fate? It
sounds silly, but sometimes, we just seem to show up right where we're
needed. It's freakish, sometimes. I wish the universe would give me a
head's up when it's planning on moving me around like a pawn, you know?
But we seem to converge in places more often than chance would allow.
And then, we also have places where converging is expected.
This
is where caution is warranted. She doesn't know the rules. And perhaps
wouldn't follow them. Are you supposed to hook up a scared newbie to a
lie-detector? Make them understand if they slip up, you'll know, and...
Grace takes the time to have a go at eating, to think about how much to tell her. Watches Connie while she does.
I thought I was alone.
There is a place. You wouldn't be able to find it on your own. It's a secret, because we have enemies.
Grace eyes Connie from behind her phone. Sorry, dear. Not all a bed of roses.
Richard
Richard's
easy grin widens as well, genuinely pleased to be recognized. "That's
right," he confirms, unoffended: but then really, why would one be
offended by being called a giant? Unless, of course, one had acromegaly
or something similarly unpleasant. Regardless:
"Getting banh
mi," he says, hoisting the take-out bag, tiny in his big hand.
"Kathmandu is going to have to wait. I'm a rising junior at DU, and
I've already spent this entire semester abroad." Let's be honest. He
eyes her -- is that a dress? We will call it a dress. He eyes her
dress for a dubious, baffled moment, then returns his attention where it
belongs. "What about you? Pho fix?"
Constance
Is ..your way of seeing things, that’s how you ‘interface’ or.. whatever?
Shyly,
she smiles again, shrugging as if to explain her uncertainty in terms
of phrasing. It’s a sudden question that is asked somewhere between
Grace saying there is more. Everything. Which is, again, something that
the younger Mage can understand because her experience backs that up to
a degree, but that would be likening the shy nurse to the Cultist
outside.
Yeah. I do, I did before.
Duplicity isn’t
something that even the mundane can escape from. The fact was people
lied, they cheated, and even the best could fall into an abyss that they
weren’t able to climb back out of even if they wanted to. Even if a
thousand armies chained them to their mounts and tried to drag them out;
she should know, Constance was really, really good at digging her heels
into the dirt and refusing to budge inch.
If she thought about
it, and she did, it stood to reason, this caution of Graces and the
immediate arrival of others where she’d seemed to randomly choose to go.
Trust
wasn’t an ample supply in any reality and with that, she nods demurely,
but part of her still wants to ask if she’s being pranked. If this
isn’t a joke. When is the camera coming out? Where are the laughing
extras?
One way or another she was in a lot deeper than she could
ever imagine, and someday, maybe if she was lucky, the truth of that
(and many other) things will hit home. For now, she types again:
I understand. A pause. So what do we do now?
Serafine
That
is indeed a dress Richard. Or perhaps a "dress." Sera has
accessorized her "dress" with rather remarkably disparate pieces of
jewelry. A bronze ring with something-like-hieroglyphs etched into its
shield on her index finger. A bicycle chain wrapped four times around
her neck. A pastiche of plastic-and-glass bangles on her right wrist
and diamonds nearly as large as her hidden pupils in either ear, right
next to safety pins. Literal safety pins.
"I have no idea what
the fuck that means," Sera grins at Richard, quite pleasantly, and
whether she means the banh mi or the rising junior business or any of
the rest of it is not wholly clear, except, " - but I think that means you're hanging around, yeah? You should stop by some weekend. And," this to the pho fix?
question, "naw. I was over at the Church and then I was like: oh,
Grace and the new girl. They're inside, right? And Dan said he was
like five minutes away seventeen fucking minutes ago, you remember Dan, right?"
Maybe
he doesn't. Maybe they never were introduced. Regardless, Sera
assumes on some level that everyone knows everyone and she's all
enthusiasm.
Then, a double-take. A triple-take at the crown of his head and all that beautiful hair.
"God. You are so fucking tall."
Sera has managed to make herself about 5'10", thanks to five inch spike heels. And maaaybe comes up to his shoulder. Right? Or at least the lower lobe of his ear?
Richard
"It
means I'm hanging around," he affirms. "I saw your invite for the 4/20
party," he adds. "I meant to go but something came up. Let me know
about the next one, yeah?"
So now Richard's eyes keep wandering
over to those disparate pieces of -- um, jewelry. Is that a safety pin?
Yes. Yes, those are safety pins. Is that a bike chain? It's
not that he's never met anyone like her before, per se. He grew up in
Berkeley. He competed all over the world in his prior life as an
olympic athlete. He just literally traveled around the world again as
something of a pilgrim. He's seen things, man. But then: okay. So it
is that he's never quite met anyone like her before, because all the
punks and freaks and hipsters and weirdos he's met -- well. None of
them were magical, were they?
Fortunately for him, he's not
the only one staring at oddities. She's staring too. She keeps
looking up at the top of his head, which she can't even see even if she
is 5'10" today. Sorry, Sera. Richard grins: "Thanks." Like it was a
compliment, being so-fucking-tall. "You're so good at standing on
heels. Which is probably the bigger achievement.
"And -- nope. Sorry, I forgot who Dan is. You waiting on him for a ride or something?"
Grace
No,
you really don't. But that's okay. Things are about to get even weirder
in your life, and it would be a benefit to you if you had people to
share that with.
I
could take you there, to our house in the middle of nowhere. It's not
as creepy as I make it sound. And you'll probably want someone to help
show you the ropes, teach you. There is someone I know who is good with
spirits, I could introduce you to her perhaps?
All
of that, if you want it of course. Not going to push anything on you.
But it can be rough I know. Strength in numbers and all that.
It
strikes her that this is a mutual trust thing. Grace could be carrying
the poor Connie off to be a horrible sacrifice or something, and Connie
would probably not even be able to guess. But, you know, first thing
Grace did after meeting Kalen was to go trouncing off to his creepy
warehouse full of guns and dehydrated food to learn how to shoot. Nobody
ever said new Mages make good decisions.
Either way, she loads up on rice noodles while waiting for a response.
Constance
It
had to be said, her piece, and Grace’s. That was just the way of it,
she figured, and so she nodded when she was told that she didn’t
understand and let that go, too. What a bother hanging on to that would
be.
The way she figured it there was really no getting away from
this; it had taken over nearly every vestige of her life and even with
her toes in the sand, the wet sand, with the stirring tide so far out
she could still appreciate that the sea was vast, deep, wide and most of
all as changeable as she needed to be adaptable.
Constance wasn’t
about to spout promises to behave, or that she could contain herself,
or that she would be able to keep secrets in such a case where they may
need to be said. She really, truly, had no idea what was about to happen
and even when she would, hopefully, gain some knowledge she might find
that things had gotten more murky rather than any clearer.
You’re
right. I don’t know what to say. More everything, yes. Please. I can’t
say I have to trust you, but, I want to because I want to trust Sera and
Patience. Even that guy that was with you all. Damned if I do, damned
if I don’t, I think.
Sheepishly she shrugs,
shovelling another mouthful of noodles into her mouth, and the
close-mouthed, lopsided smile she offered Grace was really one of
friendship. Here’s hoping the proverbial olive branch didn’t grow a
grove and decide to bury her.
Serafine
It is a compliment, being so-fucking-tall.
There's nothing but pleasure in the fact of it to bed read into the
inflection of Sera's voice, like she's just vibing on the idea-of-it
every time she notices it again.
"Ha. It's kinda still-going-on. I mean, I think
it's still going on. But there's pretty much always something
happening, least on the weekends. Sometimes weeknights, too. Even if
it's just Dee's roller derby team or those weird record-shop guys."
That
is interspersed, see, because as soon as Richard compliments Sera's
ability to stand in heels, Sera drops her eyes her feet and admires them
and might be able to say something (and she is: see, good at walking in
them. Does so with a masculine sort of swagger, to boot).
"He's
my - " a wave of Sera's hand meant to accompany everything Dan is to
her. Consor, lover, friend, butler, nurse, attorney, guitarist. " -
housemate. Plays guitar, fuck he's amazing. And yeah, he's supposed to
be around to pick me up. Probably forgot and ran by the Church. I
don't really drive."
For obvious reasons, that's probably wise, Sera. "I guess you made it to your friend's house okay that night, right?"
Richard
She
gets a little smirk for that. She doesn't really drive. She's had a
4/20 party going for -- what, eight days running? Richard adds two and
two. Of course she doesn't drive.
"Oh yeah. I remember him now.
Plays guitar, right?" And: "Yeah, I took the bus over when I woke up.
I think you guys were still crashed out. Thanks, by the way. Was a
nice way to come home."
He tosses his hair back. Actually does that: tosses it back out of his blue, blue, blue, blue
eyes. He's tall as fuck, this is true, but he has none of the
stoop-shouldered awkwardness of the too-tall and too-gawky. He wears it
well, casually, stylishly, unostentatiously, like a superbly cut suit.
"Want a ride?" he offers. "I'm parked just around the corner."
Serafine
"What
the fuck," and this is how, and how easily, Sera accepts the ride that
Richard offers her. Sera offers him a neat little shrug and laughing
grin and exhales a plume of clove-spiked cigarette smoke from her
nostrils and stubs the cigarette out on one of the ribs of the little
building and does not seem to care or perhaps even notice that Grace and
Constance are still inside or that Dan is like to be around any minute now looking for her.
"That'd be awesome. Hawksley'll be so fucking jealous.
I bet you drive the world's tallest car. Oh my god, did you ever think
about doing commercials for shampoo? I would buy the fuck out of
whatever Breck-girl shit you're using."
Grace
"You met Patience? She's a hoot," Grace says, mouth half-full of rice noodles and beef. Social graces aren't her forte. "Great person though. She's really nice. Kickass ride, too."
"You want to go now? It's a bit out of the way. Might take a while."
And as she talks, Grace is typing in another message. Her number.
314-1592 For if you want to reach me again. You won't be able to track this convo back, 'cause I'm not using a number for this.
Just,
don't use the phone lines to express your strange new world. There's a
reason this is as off the record as I can manage. You don't want there
to be a record of this conversation that a third party could
overhear, you got me? If you contact me again, keep it to something that
sounds normal.
Richard
"Noo, I'm sure he
won't," Richard says easily, as though he knew Hawksley, which he
doesn't. Maybe he's projecting. Maybe he's just that fucking confident,
that fucking laid-back, that if his sort-of-girlfriend showed up in
some ridiculously tall, ridiculously well-haired Franco-American
swimmer's car he wouldn't be jealous. Or maybe he just thinks the best
of people. "He's cool." And then, astute: "Unless you want him to be
jealous?"
And then, tickled: "I did a couple endorsements back
when I was swimming. Can't say I've done shampoo, though. Damn, missed
out on my true calling. Also: I think you're going to be disappointed.
I drive a Civic."
Constance
Laughing softly, she
nods, “Yeah, I liked her a lot.” Pause, “Even if it took a bit to
understand what she was saying, she seemed really nice.” In that not so
murder way. But what did Connie know? She could be having this entire
conversation in her sleep, right? Hah.
Shaking her head she
shrugged as if to apologize, “I ..I can’t.” It wasn’t that she didn’t
want to go, or that she ultimately distrusted Grace, there were
expectations of an old life that she was still living and –
It
felt like a shell to be rid of, a skin she’d out grown, and all the
while as she watched the words appear on her phone, and saved Grace’s
number, an explanation formed.
“I just have.. I have to do something else first.”
The
less she said about that, probably the better, but all in all Connie
confirmed that she had the number saved in her phone and replied.
Got it. I’ll keep it on the down low and.. thanks, you know? For not being the scary kind of Mage or, well scary.
It
seemed that the girl came in surges, apparitions here and there,
present one moment and gone the next for in seconds her food was shoved
into the takeout box she’d requested. Connie didn’t want to tell Grace
what it was she felt that she had to do before she met with the woman
next and they went to this place, and she was introduced to more of
these rarities, these Awoken.
I gotta go. I’m sorry.
Constance
[*murdery way]
Grace
"Don't
be. Keep in touch, okay? If something happens and you need to talk,
don't be too shy to call," Grace says, and actually says it. Their
conversation, to an outside listener, would make no sense. But Grace
apparently doesn't mind mixing her verbal and textual communication.
With
that, she flags down the waiter, and asks for a to-go container too.
Would suck to waste the noodles. It doesn't take long before she too is
packed up and ready to go, with a little plastic sack to carry her food
in, and her laptop bag slung across her shoulder.
Constance
A
flash fire grin snaps across her face like those full wide lips were
made out of accelerant and the joy in her eyes was the flame. It burned
bright and quickly, widening only to give way to warm laughter, which
wasn’t at all blistering but maybe her touch was. The inescapable fact
was that Grace, the poor girl, now had a friend or a bit of a carry on
as it were.
She and Patience.
“I will, I promise. I will.”
Really,
she meant it, because the trouble was – as anyone with enough wit to
notice was – when she truly meant something it was as apparent as the
nose on her face.
“Thanks again, Grace.”
Serafine
"'Course
he is," Sera returns, agreeable, when Richard assures her that Hawksley
is cool. She doesn't quite understand the way in which Richard
misunderstands her enthusiastic declaration that Hawksley will be so jealous by which she means that he will be so jealous of her for getting to ride with a giant!
and because the other inflection of jealousy has not really entered her
mind she flashes Richard a quick grin when he asks if she wants Hawksley to be jealous and says,
"'Course
I do. I mean, he could come too except he's not fucking here." And
whose fault is that? Books. Sera blames the books. She swings into
step with Richard then, heading off to the Honda Civic around the
corner, confident that it will be the World's Tallest Civic, and somehow
the inflection of that irrepressible confidence finds its way into her
voice. " - wait, endorsements. What the fuck! Are you a model or some
fucking thing?"
Richard
"Stop it." Richard is very dry, very amused. "My ego, it will explode. I'm a swimmer. I was,"
and they disappear 'round the corner, where, disappointingly, a very plain-jane Civic awaits.
Grace
"You bet. Any time," Grace says, smiles back. Any time you want to be reassured that you're not crazy...
Because
Hell, that's likely to happen more often than Connie can even imagine,
but we'll get there. When they leave, they go together, and then go
their separate ways once out the door. But Grace watches Connie, she
does -- when she thinks it's okay to look back. And probably, even if
the other woman were to look back, Connie wouldn't notice or remember
noticing Grace doing so. Something about how the Virtual Adept dressed
in shades of gray seems to blend into the rest of the world, going
unnoticed so often she has to make an effort to be seen in a crowd.
She's going to be okay. It's going to be okay.
Maybe it won't happen to her like it did... to every else.
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