Serafine
An old white Econoline van sits in the
driveway of the chantry. North Carolina license plates, and a
half-dozen or more bumper stickers from the strangest of roadside
attractions to be found throughout the midwest adorn the rear. The
windows are tinted and in any case it is or soon will be dark outside.
Call it dusk, settling over the spine of the mountains to the west.
It
is cool enough and the air is dry enough now that steam billows from
the pool of the spring, drifting dense and warm until the wind catches
and dissipates the clouds. Sera's in the hotspring, drunk enough that
the heat makes her feel light headed and also high enough that the
feeling of lightheadedness makes more than her head spin. It makes the
world spin. She can feel herself connected to the spine of it, the axis
points deep below, the running stitch neatly threaded through the joint
of her thumb, and on, and on, and on.
Dan is with her. Of
course he is. And while she's in the water he's stretched out on the
stone, fully dressed in skinny jeans and a button-up short-sleeved plaid
shirt, blond hair and his scruffy blond beard, bow-tie undone around
his neck, sitting right behind where she lounges in the pool. Cradling
her head when she leans back into him.
Ian
Ian
made note of the van in the driveway when he pulled in and parked his
car, but he didn't yet have the association to attach a particular owner
to it. Outside, the sky was a low, dusky blue, and the late-spring
plant-life around the property was in full, lush bloom. Ian took a
moment to regard the scenery when he stepped out of the car, then
pocketed his keys and began to walk around the outside of the building,
making his way toward the node.
Evidently, he wasn't the only one
who'd had this particular inclination. When Ian drew close enough to
make out the details of Sera and Dan, he slowed his pace. Contemplating,
perhaps, the merits of coming back another time. (Later, when the stars
were out and most people would be asleep.) But it was a long drive, and
he was here, so he let his feet take him to the edge of the rocks
around the pool, then crouched down on the balls of his feet and offered
a nod to Dan and Sera.
"I guess we had the same idea."
Except
that Ian wasn't really dressed for the water. He had on jeans and a
t-shirt and a very expensive-looking pair of boots that probably would
not tolerate getting wet.
"Mind a third?"
Serafine
Light
reflecting off the surface of the swirling water - skylight, twilight,
the half-shed gleam from the windows of the house proper - makes it
impossible to tell what Sera is wearing, but her neck and shoulders are
bare and though her hair is pulled up and back into a loose and sort of
self-tying knot, the ends are damp and dark from it.
There is
something loose jointed and liquid about the way she moves the back of
her skull against Dan's thigh as Ian approaches and sinks down at the
edge of the pool. Sera is all sharp-featured, the aquiline nose and
deep-set eyes lined with thick black liner, the quick little mouth
curling in a rather self-indulgent smile as she glances at Ian and says
something in her mind that doesn't exactly make out out of her mouth,
then tips her head back, see, back, to look up at her consor in what
could easily be read as a mute appeal.
"We don't mind," the tattoo-covered guy says, quiet.
Then
Sera pivots her head back to look up at Ian, and says, "This is Dan."
She's remembered how her voice works. Breathes in and in and in and in
and exhales.
Ian
[Oh, I'll bite. Empathy: What was that look?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )
Ian
"I remember."
Ian's
mouth lifted at the edges in a soft shadow of a smile. Maybe Dan
remembered that day at the park, with Sera in those ridiculous (and
impressive) heels. Certainly Ian did. Sera's own memory was a less
certain thing. She looked at Ian with that languid, self-indulgent
smile, and he tipped his head lightly to one side as though attempting
to decipher some meaning from it. Whatever he saw, he offered no direct
response.
"Ian," he introduced himself to the Consor. There was a
roll of muscles in Ian's legs when he pushed back up to a standing
position. He pulled his boots and socks free, one by one, and set them
carefully out of reach of any easy splash-radius. If Sera expected him
to shy away from the water, she would find herself surprised on that
count - just as Kalen had been. If there was something feline in Ian, it wasn't of the water-hating variety.
He
pulled off his shirt in a fluid motion and dropped it in the grass,
then went for the belt on his jeans. Sera and Dan would have time to
stop him, if the idea of watching him strip down made either one
uncomfortable. But there was nothing overtly flirtatious or
exhibitionist in the way he shed his clothes. This was something else. A
ritual.
Grace
[Awareness!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 4, 8, 8) ( success x 2 )
Grace
If
the two Mages are paying attention, they might notice the sudden shift
in the air -- the focused sharpness of Grace. If they're paying very
good attention, they might just notice her before they hear the door to
the backyard roll open. And they might expect her physical presence
soon.
They'd be wrong on that last part, because of course Grace
appears on the scene right when Ian starts to strip. And oh, watch as
Grace experiences a human BSOD.
She just stands there for a few
seconds, blinking, as if trying to figure out if this male model getting
naked thing is really happening, and then blurts out: "Oh, Ian, I
wanted to ask you about Sky. I'll... ah... later. You guys are...
seem... uh. Busy."
Totally smooth.
Serafine
"We
met before, Sera - " Dan is reminding her, bending down to smooth a few
damp curls over her left temple. Touching her lightly and regularly to
ensure that she remains somehow rooted, somehow grounded in her body on
nights like this, when she is doing so many things to leave it behind.
To melt into the knotted connections that dot the matrix of the
universe. To throw herself into them, let herself go until there's
nothing left. " - at the park, when you insisted on wearing those boots
- "
Which livens her up, see. A supple arch of her spine and the
curve of her left breast crests above the water and she's smiling see,
widely now at Dan. "My boots!" Delighted by the thought of them, her
body humming with that delight, squirming enough to make the water
choppy as she kicks out her feet as if she might just see them on her feet.
Neither
Dan nor Sera stop Ian as he strips. Dan watches as Ian pulls off his
shirt, not-quite-covertly, but not precisely overtly either.
Sera is not
watching as Ian strips down, but her attention is drawn slantwise by
the line of Dan's energy, that not-quite-covert glance, and so Sera is
looking up and about to say something to Ian when -
Grace,
oh Grace,
poor Grace.
Ian
And
then there was Grace. Ian glanced over his shoulder toward her and
released a quiet huff of laughter, his hands hovering over the top
button of his jeans.
"It's fine, Grace. You aren't interrupting anything."
There
were eyes on him now. Ian felt them, but mostly ignored it. If he was
at all self-conscious, it didn't show in the way he stripped off the
rest of his clothes. And to be fair, there wasn't much there to be
self-conscious about. He had a dancer's body, all gracefully etched
lines. He could have modeled for an art class, if he'd had the time and
inclination. But he wasn't trying to model for anyone right now - he
just wanted to get in the water. So that was what he did, stepping down
into the hot spring until the water covered his waist and the steam
curled against his skin. With a slow sigh, he sat back into the groove
of the rock shelf and sunk lower, leaning his head to look up at the
sky.
Grace
Grace doesn't actually just stand there
and stare at Ian any longer, oh no. When he goes for the jeans, she
turns around. Good thing, too, or they might be able to see the glowing
red face of hers even as far away as they are.
"I'm not?" she asks, apparently to the house.
"Hi Sera, hi Dan," she says, and then waves... at the house.
Serafine
"Hey
Grace," this is Dan, quiet. Watching Ian with a certain withheld
appreciation until the other man slips into the water, then bending down
once more to plant a kiss on Sera's temple and ease the crown of her
head off his thigh. He is so very gentle with her, acutely aware of the
state she's in, cupping her head and murmuring something to her that
makes her draw back her shoulders and shake her head, but whatever
passes between them is low-voiced, a barely audible murmur.
Then
Dan is standing, a long and fluid arc of motion. Not graceful the way
Ian is graceful, but with a physical immediacy that means that Dan is at
least present in his body, more than most. Barefoot on the flagstone,
he says,
"You want anything to drink?" and seems to be addressing
Ian and Grace, then, and he's already in motion, laying a warm,
calloused hand on the back of Grace's shoulder as he passes her to head
into the house, dropping his mouth to her ear to murmur.
"Safe to turn around now. He's in the water." - right in her ear.
--
"Do
you know what you feel like?" This is Sera, to Ian, after he has
slipped in to the hot spring. Now she's looking at him, through the
stream, with those dilated pupils and that rather far-away expression.
Her voice is low, a big rough - perhaps from the heat or the moisture,
perhaps something else. It seems to be more than a rhetorical question
though, from the lilt of her chin and the damp and slanting directness
of her gaze.
Ian
"No underwater orgies today," Ian
responded to Grace with a light, dry tone. When Sera asked if he knew
what he felt like, he looked at her with a veiled expression and did not
immediately respond. Instead he lifted his arms out of the water and
propped them on the rocks behind him.
A week and a half ago, he'd
come to this place to heal. There'd been raking claw marks on his leg
and his side - evidence left behind from a creature that had once been
not all that dissimilar to himself. Except that Ian was not a cat,
whatever the impression he gave. He was, and he was not. It was a tricky
thing to describe - being one thing, while another lived in your bones.
He didn't say anything, but he nodded. Slowly, and with meaning. (Yes.)
Then to Grace he said: "What did you want to ask me about?"
Grace
Thank
goodness for Dan, the only sane one present. Grace gives him a thankful
smile and a nod, but no indication that she'd like something to drink.
Maybe she hadn't even heard him.
So, she turns around and creeps
up on the hot spring, and sits a little ways away from it, on the rock
ledge surrounding a birdbath gone overgrown with Sid's Working.
"Haha,
underwater orgies. Right," she says, trying to be a little more
comfortable with the current situation, because she does want to talk to
Ian about something.
"You sent me some vague texts, man. I'm glad to hear everyone made it, but how did it go? How is Sky?"
Serafine
Without
Dan to lounge against, Sera sinks deeper into the water, and tips her
head back against the stone. This supple skim of humor crests her mouth
as Ian avows that there are no underwater orgies, but she does not seem
entirely connected to the place or the moment, does she, and it is not
entirely clear that the humor arises from his comment or from something
inborn and internal.
Something about the directness of Ian's
attention when he answers her - wordlessly - draws her dark gaze back to
him, and there it lingers.
Strangely wry as she closes her mouth
around the assurance that yes, he knows what he feels like, and
swallows whatever words were in her mouth.
Ian
"He'll be better when we find Claire, but physically he's fine. He was able to heal himself once I got the roots out."
Sera,
of course, had no frame of reference for any of this. Although
presently she seemed as though very little could disturb her thoughts.
Ian didn't make an effort to explain any of it beyond his simple
response to Grace's question, and it felt a bit as though perhaps he did
not want to talk about it. That his vagueness stemmed from more than just his catty disposition.
"There was a fight, but nothing we couldn't handle. Then Alyssa called a spirit to help cleanse the area."
Ian
let his arms slip and ducked his head briefly underwater. When he came
up, he slicked back his hair and wiped the wetness from his eyes. Warm
droplets caught in his eyelashes and traced thin lines down his face.
He didn't say anything about the man whose body he'd cut in two.
"You look like you're on something really nice," he offered to Sera.
Grace
"Good.
I didn't tell you guys all the details afterwards, because I was
exhausted, but... when the thing saw me, it tried to trap me in a
hallucination. Sky was there, and he helped me through it," she says,
and there's a bit of softness to her voice that neither of them have
heard out of her since she appeared. Sky made a bit of an impression, it
seems.
"I tried to tell him to hold on, but he didn't think he was going to make it. I'm really glad he did. He's a nice guy."
Serafine
It's
true. Sera has absolutely no frame of reference for the question and
answer session between Grace and Ian. She's present, right, lounging in
the water, her head aslant, her fingers somehow, strangely, still
attached to her body. Her lungs working, her heat beating, the world
all wrapped around her and written into her skin.
And she doesn't ask questions.
Doesn't ask anything.
She
has to hear the softness in Grace's voice, doesn't she. She hears
everything, Sera, throws herself out there and winds reels herself back
into her body and she has to hear the softness in Grace's voice, and
listen there is a flicker of awareness, there. A certain way she lifts
her chin and then her body to glance upward, but there is only so much
room for softness inside her now, and she has too many stories on the
back of her tongue tonight to ask for another one to add to the
repository.
When Ian notes that she looks like she's on something really nice,
though, she does glance up at him. Makes this noise all in the back of
her throat. Affirmative, warm. And tells him, "Mmm. Molly."
So yes. Something nice. Something very nice indeed.
Ian
"Yeah, he is a nice guy."
Too
nice to have been with Ian, really. As much as they'd ever really 'been
with' each other. Ian didn't seem surprised when Grace confessed this
part of her story - the part she'd withheld earlier. He did look up at
her though, a soft slant to his eyes that bordered on regret. It was
because of him that Grace had been put in that position to begin with.
"I'm sorry I dragged you into that."
Though if he had it to do over again, would he have done it any differently?
Sera's
response to his observation got a knowing little smile out of him, and
he slid along the wall of the node until his body came to rest about two
feet away from where Sera half-sat, half-floated in the warm spring. He
didn't make any attempt to touch her or otherwise invade her space,
just settled there - closer to her pattern and her resonance.
Almost, he asked if she had any left. But he bit back the urge before the words could finish forming in his head.
"I'm almost jealous."
Grace
"Oh, it was hardly the worst--" Grace starts to say, and then -- considering the company -- decides to change her wording.
"I
mean, it wasn't that bad. We were able to fight back." As opposed to
lying there helpless while you die over and over. That hallucination was
pretty tame compared to the ones she's used to.
"Don't be sorry. I wanted to help. I knew what I could be getting into."
Sera
is being ignored for the time being. She's being exceptionally quiet,
as she has been most times Grace has seen her in recent days. She won't
even say hello. And if she doesn't want to say anything, Grace will let
her continue to say nothing until such time as words appear. It may not
be the best way to handle the situation -- ignoring it. But this is
Grace, and she lets people do what they want.
Grace is even almost a little bit sure that the silence directed at her doesn't have anything to do with her.
Serafine
Their
conversation washes over her the way the ocean washes over the shore.
Oh, waves. The movement of the spheres. The strange pattern of the
moon in the sky. The way the stars wheel and the wantonness of their
burning. She is aware of the current of it, see. The softness in
Grace's voice, The near-regret in Ian's. The underlying threads and
the places where the weave frays, where the story is as yet unfinished,
where the threads are starting to ravel because nothing is ever whole
and nothing is ever simple and nothing is ever clean.
And the
night comes to her in strange stuttersteps. Now she sees Grace
blushing, Grace saying hello so precisely to the house proper and not to
any potentially-naked men. Ian sliding around the pool to be close
enough to feel her resonance in the air, so that he is here when she
opens her eyes and her pupils contract brief but sharp, like the
aperture of some antique camera, and -
"Jealous." She doesn't believe him. The whole word is threaded through with skepticism. "Why? I have more."
She always has more.
"If you want some."
Ian
"I said almost."
A delicate curl of his usual wry humor traced its way back into his
tone. He paused before responding to Sera's offer, as though giving it
consideration, but then he gave a slow shake of his head.
"Not tonight." There was a low gravity in his voice when he said it.
To Grace he said, "If you need anything, let me know. Right now I have something I need to do, but we can talk later."
It
felt a bit like a dismissal, though the tone was too relaxed to come
off as rude. Grace and Sera could continue their conversation around him
if they chose, but he hadn't come here tonight to talk, or to go
skinny-dipping. He was here, in this place, because it had something
that he needed. So he let himself sink deeper into the water and put his
head back against the stone and closed his eyes.
[Per+Meditation]
Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (2, 5, 9, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Grace
Huh.
Okay. The Sky question having been answered, and Ian having retreated
into the water, Grace stands. She waves to the assembled naked Mages
(whether or not they have their eyes open, she's not really looking in
order to tell).
"Okay. Goodnight, Ian. Goodnight, Sera. I'll be in the house."
She starts to walk back up the path. Maybe she'll find Dan and badger him for a while. That sounds like a great idea.
Serafine
He said almost.
Sera
makes this noise, which is mostly an exhaled breath, though beneath it,
behind it, she also sounds somehow breathless, without air, anaerobic,
perhaps. The heat. She has been soaking in the spring for
god-knows-how long, alcohol and a few other substances giving her this
delicious sense of transparency that also makes her -
- well, vulnerable, here and now. Incised, right?
Aren't they all.
--
"Night Grace."
--
When
Sera opens her eyes again she is here and she is elsewhere and she is
everywhere and she is waking sometimes these days, transfixed by a
rootless sense - of both loss and transparency that she cannot hold
inside her and cannot make whole.
Whatever Grace does Dan returns
not long later with a bottle of beer in hand and flashes Grace a smile
framed by his beard and heads back to the poor and sinks to his haunches
beside Sera and touches the bottle against her temple to get her
attention and she tilts her head abck and whatever he sees - in her eyes
or over her hands - makes him murmur something quietly to her. Then
he's reaching for her, helping her upright, and she turns and
half-stands and wraps her arms around his neck and then he shifts his
grip to take her hand instead and holds her firmly as she climbs out,
steam rising from her body, water streaming down her long, long legs,
tattoos everywhere,
everywhere.
She wraps her arms around him and he wraps and towel around her and just holds her,
for a long, long time.
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