Lucy
The day was sunny and warm, but everywhere
people with the proper applications were getting the same alerts to
their phones. Winter weather watch. A spring storm was crawling its
way over the mountain ridge, oozing grey and ominous and heading
straight for Denver. Would it last? Would it really snow? That
remains to be seen. What matters is that the evening is cool and
cooling further with every moment.
And those standing near to a
certain tall woman with vibrant (bottle) maroon hair are colder still.
The place is a little courtyard of shops. The Rocky Mountain Chocolate
factory and Overland and others line the tiny square on two sides, with
16th Street and Lawrence making up the other two sides. Writer Square,
it's called, and there are sculptures everywhere. Tall posts with
lights atop them sprouting up from empty stone flower pots. Sculptures
of children at play, with a bat, with a crown. One with several metal
children climbed to the top of a small metal structure.
It's meant to inspire, but in the semi-darkness broken only by the street lamps and the storefronts, it seems a little ominous.
It
doesn't help that there's the strange woman standing there, leaning
back against the sculpture of the child holding the bat, a paper bag
from the Chocolate Factory in one hand. She's dressed in a black lacy
top with a deeply scooping neckline, and sleeves that flare out at her
elbows. Beneath it is a bright aqua bra. Between the hem of the shirt
and the waistband of her shredded skinny jeans her stomach is flat and
pale.
She is watching people. Or maybe she's waiting for
someone. Or possibly it's both or something else entirely. At the
corner the 16th Street shuttle pauses, pouring out riders that push past
those waiting to board. Lucy takes a bite of a chocolate bon bon and
looks in that direction.
[sure why not try some awareness for the lulz]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (6, 6, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 5 )
Alexander
['Cos it might make a difference to the entrance - per+awareness]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )
Lena Reilly
[[Awareness too! Spec: Uncanny Instincts]]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 ) Re-rolls: 2
Alexander
The
air is already cooling from the slowly setting sun, and the approaching
storm promises things to get colder still. But Alexander likes to be
prepared for the weather, moving from one city where “wet” is the usual
order of the day to one where it can swing between extremes within
hours. So he’s out today wearing gear suited for the cooler weather –
thick grey hooded sweatshirt with a red t-shirt peeking out, dark green
combats and walking boots. There’s a rucksack on his back, looking a
little emptier since he pulled out the warmer top to wear. Why is he
here? Judging by the Under Armour carrier bag he’s been shopping. Has
been, but is now sat on a bench with a Starbucks take-out coffee cup
watching the world walk by.
Those walking between Lucy and
Alexander might be forgiven for feeling the weather has turned somewhat
glacial. The clear air still, frozen for a moment as they pass by.
Shrugging further into their thick coats, they hurry through onto warmer
places. The coolness of Lucy’s resonance takes a while to notice,
similar as it is to his own. But the extra feeling of threading pulls
his attention towards the watching or waiting woman, rather than those
fighting to get on or off the shuttle.
Lucy
[go for it!]
Lucy
It
is cold where the two Awakened stand, not all that far from each
other. One is dressed for the oncoming cold, the other is, well, not.
Lucy's boots are sturdy black leather with a two inch heel, they are
comfortable and can withstand wakling a number of blocks, but they are
not cold weather gear.
Whoever she might be waiting for must not
have gotten off the bus or come around the corner into the square. The
bus pulls away from the curb, the crowd scatters, and Lucy relaxes back
against a metal child's chilly pate. The paper of the bag crinkles as
she reaches in for another chocolate treat.
The close proximity of
another who feels like a touch of winter has been noticed, but, uh.
Lucy has been waiting for someone and she doesn't always feel terribly
social. But since she has to wait a little longer anyway...
Tilting
her head in Alexander's direction, she offers him a wide and friendly
smile as she offers up a bit of small talk. "Can you believe there's a
storm coming? It's practically swimming season."
Lucy
[HOO HOO HOO WELCOME GRACE TO THE STARBUCKS ROOM OF HORRORS]
Grace
[Grace -- ;O_O]
Grace
[Awareness!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 5, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )
Alexander
People
come and go, Alexander watches them as they almost bounce off each
other as they work their way through the crowd around the bus stop.
Some, the stories behind them are quite obvious – the mother trying to
shepherd her kids home for dinner and bed before the weather turns, the
man in the suit running before slowing to a halt as a bus pulls away.
Others are not so easy.
Alexander gives Lucy a smile in return,
glancing down at her clothes and back up to her face. “You’ve not been
here long, have you? The mountains can spit out all kinds of weather in
a few hours, from sunshine to snow storms and everything in between.”
He fishes out a mobile, turning the screen on to the weather warning
showing over the lock screen. “A little warning helps. Or the ability
to tell the future, but crystal balls are so unreliable. You might be
able to get a couple of hours swimming in, but you probably want to
avoid doing it up in the mountains for a couple of months yet.”
Lucy
Lucy's
smile widens, and she shifts so that she's no longer watching the
shuttle bus stop. She'll notice when the one she's waiting arrives,
she's a lot like the two of them, after all.
"You know, there are
more tools to divination than just crystal balls." Lifting her chin,
she looks up at a sky that is blurred by the lights, with only one or
two particularly bright stars shining overhead through a film of cloud
cover. "Weather's usually pretty easy, actually, there are signs."
With another shrug, she looks at Alexander again. "But if the weather
here's really all that erratic...Cold doesn't bother me, personally, but
it can certainly mess up plans for an evening.
"I'm Lucy. I'd
offer to shake, but," she shifts her hands, one of which is occupied
with the bag, the other with a shard of chocolate.
Alexander
Alexander
takes sip from the cooling coffee – no longer hot, but still warm
enough to be drinkable – as Lucy talks about divination. “Well there’s
always a good piece of seaweed hung outside. If it’s wet, you know it’s
raining. If it’s horizontal, it’s gotten windy.” He smiles a little
then shrugs at the bad joke. “But whatever works for you, really. I’ll
settle for the weather forecast and keeping something water-proof
handy.” The smile widens again. “You don’t think rushing for cover
when it starts hailing adds a little something to a stroll through the
park?”
“Alexander. And not a problem.” He raises the coffee cup in greeting.
Grace
16th Street Mall is not Grace's
favorite place in the world. Everywhere there is a memory -- some
connection to a wound in her past that has scabbed over and scarred. The
parking lot where she first saw it. That thrice-damned Starbucks.
So why is she here?
Perhaps it is because of those memories. She killed the beast after all.
About
the only reason she would come to a temple dedicated to commerce would
be to treat its bookstores like libraries and to watch people. Although
today, it seems, she has been caught in the act (or just felt bad about
it), and thus is carrying an actual plastic bag with a book inside when
she arrives at Writer Square with its eerie human facsimiles.
The artificial people do not bother her. Real people bother her much more. People are a hard problem.
She
can sense the others -- cold in different lights, and her eyes graze
over the people -- people like trees, people without contexts -- to find
them.
Alexander. Of course. A hard problem there.
She walks
towards them, and they will feel her in return -- the muted but sharp
and sudden displacement that she brings with her.
"Alex, hey,"
Grace says, gives him a smile, before turning to Lucy. "And you are --
oh... I met you once at that place with the thing..."
Lucy gets an awkward wave.
Lena Reilly
She's
running. Lena doesn't run often. She might jog, she might walk, she
might even dance her way down the street, but Lena rarely runs. Tonight
she's moving quickly, sandals hitting the pavement hard as she races up
toward the square. Her hair is slightly tangled in the collar of her
jacket, some of it caught between the biker's jacket and the T-shirt
underneath. She's breathing moderately hard, her jeans-covered legs
pumping as she skids around someone, comes up toward where Alexander and
Lucy chat.
Now here's the good news: she's not being chased.
Rather, she's trying to make up time for being late. Lena is a little
embarassed about not being on time; for someone whose Tradition
specializes in Time magic, you would think being prompt isn't an issue.
But even Time users get held up by other things, and that's what
happened here. She slows to a jog and then a walk, heart still racing
as she comes up to the two. That withering pulse is going a bit more
rapidly now, her energy thumping like her heart is, and she gives an
apologetic smile as she comes up.
"Hey, sorry I'm late," she
begins as she's within conversation range. Alexander she knows, if only
vaguely from that one time, and she gives him a smile and wave. "Hey
Alexander. How are you?" And a smile to the Virtual Adept, who she
knows very well. "Hey Grace."
She pauses there to catch her
breath, presses two fingers against her neck to check her pulse. It's a
habit when she's out of breath like this. "I was five minutes away
from my apartment when I forgot I had something to do," she tells Lucy.
Lucy
The
suggestion of a strip of seaweed is met at first with curious interest
and then a genuine laugh. "It depends, really, on whether you're alone
when the hail hits or after you've found cover. Then it could very well
turn into a jewelry commercial."
She does sense something sudden,
sharp, and shifting coming nearer. Coming from the direction of a
bookstore, Barnes & Noble, perhaps. Their employees are so alert
and hawkish, keeping an eye on their stock and products. Lucy tilts her
head, but before she can turn and look to see who it is that's coming,
that voice greets Alexander. Turning to look at Grace, Lucy returns the
awkward wave with a vastly diminished smile and a lowering of her green
eyes.
"Yeah," she replies. "Lucy," she reminds her, and before she can make good an escape from all that awkwardkness-
Lena
races onto the scene. Lucy pushes off from her statue-perch and
straightens, adjusting the fall of a slouching canvas bag resting over
one of her shoulders. "Hey," she greets, warmth rising up in an
otherwise cold woman. "There's no rush, really. It's not like we don't
have hours and hours before the clubs close."
Alexander
Alexander
has begun to wonder if mages have some kind of natural attraction to
each other. In a city with a population of over half a million, the
chances of accidentally bumping into other Awakened should be tiny. But
time and again, something nudges the dice and brings them together.
Alexander pulls a coin out of a pocket and rolls it between his fingers
absent-mindedly.
Grace greets the two of them, her resonance only
announcing her approach shortly before her physical arrival. He turns,
smiles back at her, and answers, “Hey, Grace! How’re you doing?” The
bag from the book shop? It’s noticed, but not commented on. Books –
meh. The wave to Lucy? Grace being awkward around someone new, or
something having come between them already? Either is possible, but not
something Alexander can work out just yet.
Then Lena arrives, hot
and bothered against the cool (cooling) background, and gets a smile of
her own. “Hey! Um, Nina was it?” He raises an eyebrow as she checks
her pulse. “You ok?”
Grace
Oh, Grace's eyes
narrow, though it's not any one of them that she's suddenly glaring at.
It's just -- it's happening again right? Surely, now, a mummy will fall
from the sky. This is what happens in her world now. And perhaps the
others will pick up on the fact that Grace no longer seems to know which
expression to express.
Eventually, she settles on a smile for Lena, however. "Lena, hey. You guys were going to a club?"
Some
might take that as Grace trying to invite herself, but Grace's idea of a
good time is not an enclosed room with a bunch of people. If it were,
she might be at Sera's party right now with Kalen, enjoying all those
people. But no. Let's not.
"I'm doing good, really. Getting shit done, you know."
Lena Reilly
"I
know, I know," she says with a grin to Lucy. If anyone knows that,
it's Lena. "There's a lot of clubs to get to though, you know. What
kind of DJ would I be if I didn't give you a proper tour?"
She
pauses there a moment, pulls her hair back over her shoulder and
composes herself. She isn't worried about looking out of sorts so much,
it's just a matter of putting other people at ease. People are more
relaxed around you when you're not looking like you just got finished
escaping Jason Voorhees, after all. Alexander calls her Nina and she
smiles, shrugs it off. "Close enough. Lena. Nice to see you
again...and yeah, I'm okay." She nods a little bit. "I have a habit of
keeping track of my vitals. It's...a thing." Odd? Perhaps, but who
among them is really normal?
She notes the awkwardness, the bit of
chill (no pun intended...or IS THERE?) between Lucy and Grace. She
knows why too, there was some weirdness between them before at the
place. Grace may be worried that they're about to be plunged into
supernatural catastrophe and Alex may wonder if there's a natural
attraction, but Lena knows the truth (which is to say, HER truth. They
all have truths and they don't all match after all): the threads of
Destiny weave them together when they're fated to be together. Maybe
it's because Alex needs to get to know Lena and Lucy, and Grace needs to
face the Starbucks where they got stung.
(Worth noting: Lena
notices it. But she doesn't seem hesitant because it's a coffee shop,
not a virus-filled bee. She doesn't fault Grace for feeling the way she
does though. They all react their own way.
Whatever the reason, they're here now and it's because they should be. "Yeah, I'm going to show Lucy around to the best spots."
Lucy
There
are many theories about why people with their eyes open to the secrets
of the universe congregate together so readily. They are all in their
own way true. It's Fate, it's something threading them all together,
binding them into this moment however briefly. It's something about the
resonances, the way they draw other Awakened to them even as the
warping of the atmosphere pushes the Sleepers away.
Truth is,
they'd probably all bump into each other even if they weren't Awake.
Denver, for all of its size, is not terribly large. It's population
sprawls out over miles, but there are certain places where people tend
to gather and run into each other over and over until they give up and
decide to become acquainted. It's just that kind of a place.
There
is an awkwardness in the interaction between Lucy and Grace, and Lucy
gets it. She is weird, even by their standards, as Spirit Mages tend to
be. The very air around her chills, the ground beneath her feet seems
to frost over, they can feel it creeping over any exposed skin. In
Lucy's experience, the best way for her to handle someone who is so
obviously uncomfortable around her is to remove herself from that
person's space.
Stepping closer to Lena, who straightens and
adjusts her hair. "I didn't realize we were hitting up more than one or
two. We'd better get a move on, then. It was nice meeting you,
Alexander." She offers the man a smile, nods to Grace, and looks to
Lena to lead the way.
Alexander
Whatever the
reason that the Awakened of the city continue to bump into each other,
the occasional weird occurrence is hardly reason to avoid others. But
Alexander is still fresh and relatively unscarred by the nightmares –
figurative and literal – that some of the others have fought through.
Hell, the worst he’s faced happened when he was on his own. If you
don’t count the owl, that is.
He nods when Grace says she’s
getting things done. They’re most likely things he doesn’t really
understand – her way of working her will, the specifics of the high tech
stuff that she’s working on with Kalen, that kind of thing. He does
try to show an interest, though. “How’s the scanning thing going?”
“Ah,
Lena. Yeah, nice to see you again too,” Alexander replies to her.
“And, yeah – I’m keeping well, thanks. Finding my feet and all that.
How about you? You seem... happier than the last time we bumped into
each other. ”
Lucy suddenly seems to be in a rush to get going,
quite a swing from saying they had plenty of time to make it through the
clubs. So there is something between Grace and Lucy then? His
eyebrows rise a little as he tries to work it out, but Lena and Lucy’s
plans for the evening grab his attention. “Oh? Where are you guys
headed to?” Alexander has tried some of the local nightspots at random,
with varying degrees of success. But hearing from one of the locals –
especially from one who works the club circuit – seems like a better way
to find the good ones.
Grace
"Oh, did Kalen tell
you about that? Yeah, we've got all of my books so far. Working through
Kalen's takes a bit longer, and part of the reason is that he keeps
collecting more," she says, and oh -- she is adding another to her own very small physical book collection tonight though, isn't she?
"So
far, no bites on getting anyone else hooked into the project though.
And nobody has any opinion whatsoever on what happens with the books at
the House."
Which, of course, is the biggest shame ever. She should just sneak down one night and set up the scanner and do it, for fuck's sake. Nobody said anything, but they didn't say no, right?
"That sounds like fun," Grace says to Lena, and by that she means fun for other people.
Lucy,
she's just ignoring for the moment. It's Grace trying to make the woman
feel better, actually. She only knows that she sometimes doesn't play
the role of 'normal human' very well at all. People have a tendency to
take that and run away from it. She at least thinks she understands. She
doesn't know that Lucy's thoughts right now are an imperfect mirror of
her own.
Lena Reilly
Lucy moves closer and
suggests they take off, and Lena seems fine with that. There's plenty
of time for her to get to know Alexander better, and Grace has been a
little skeptical about them hanging out together (though she's willing
to try, Lena knows) so maybe smaller doses are best for now. And she
doesn't plan on making Grace just hang out outside of the coffee place
that bothers her anyway.
"I am...more me," she says in response to
Alexander's observation. "Which is always a reason to be happier. I
guess you could say I found myself again, or at least I found the road
to get to where I am." Does that even make any sense Lena? I mean,
really.
"I figured we'd start with the Church over on Lincoln and
we'd wing it from there. Mr. Groove and DJ Tatiana are spinning tonight
and tomorrow, and he's pretty good. Hip-hop's not normally my genre
but I can appreciate it and he's actually opened for guys like Dre and
Jay Z so that should give you an idea of how good he is at it. And
Tatiana is just freaking amazing. She does this remix that uses "Twisted Nerve," the whistling song from Kill Bill, that I absolutely love."
She
looks over at Grace when she mentions that no one's answered back and
smiles a bit. "I'm still going through a lot of the updates that were
posted while I was offline. There's a lot there. I'll try to offer
some thoughts if I can."
Grace ignoring Lucy is a gesture that
makes sense for Lena, but only because she knows Grace. Lucy doesn't
and Lena doesn't want to guess at how she's taking it. "But for now,
I'll see you guys later." She looks at Lucy and smiles. "Shall we?"
Lucy
The
other three are obviously part of some sort of collective, though Lucy
guesses that they're not part of a cabal. At least not with each other,
not with all the catching up that seems to be happening. She does not
interrupt, and she doesn't appear to be in a rush, at least not in the
sense that she's trying to escape or run away as wildly as Lena rushed
onto the scene. As she'd said, she hadn't realized Lena was taking her
to more than maybe two places tonight, and there are only so many hours
left until three or four when most of the clubs start shutting down.
As
it so happens, Grace is ignoring her anyway, so best to give her space
to relax. As the stranger, the outcast, the out of towner, Lucy is
accustomed to giving ground to those who've been in the area longer.
Which is weird, because Lucy had thought that things had more or less
been settled between herself and Grace, but clearly they haven't.
But,
just because she doesn't interrupt that doesn't mean that Lucy doesn't
notice things. Kalen's name for one, is met with a lowering of her eyes
as she looks away. Lena saying that she's more herself gets a curious
look, but this is neither the time nor the place to, well, to pry, which
is the only way Lucy would put asking about something that sounds
personal like that.
Shall we?
Lucy nods and turns to go. "Want one?" she asks Lena, holding out the paper bag of chocolate treats as she starts away.
[and with that, Lucy is out! thanks for the scene!]
Alexander
“Oh,
I completely forgot!” Alexander replies, when Grace says nobody else
has been getting hooked by their work. “I was supposed to try to
translate those scrolls, wasn’t I? Let me know when would be good to
take a look and I’ll see if I can make any sense of them. I don’t know
if there’s much else I can do to help you guys out, unless you just need
someone to keep turning pages.”
“That does sound like fun,” he
tags onto the end of Grace’s statement. “I’ll give the Church a try
next time I’m on a night out. I’m really not dressed for it, or I’d ask
if you guys wanted some more company.”
Lena’s statement gets her a
closer look from Alexander. The statement might seem a little odd to
the others, but it does make sense to him. Uprooting himself and moving
to a new city, new job, new life has left him a little directionless.
Oh, he’s finding his feet, but there’s still that feeling that he still
needs to work out who he is. So finding the road? He gives Lena a warm
smile, touched with something a little melancholy. “I’m glad you’ve
found it,” is all he says though.
He raises his now-empty coffee
cup to Lucy again, as a farewell instead of a greeting this time. “Nice
bumping into you, Lucy. Hope to see you again.”
Lena Reilly
She
smiles to Alexander and Grace and heads out with Lucy, intent on a good
night. After all, they're heading for the clubs, and that's is where
Lena lives to be.
Grace
Lena and Lucy going off
together to dance to that whistling song for Kill Bill nets (at least
Lena) a bright grin. Finding the road to get to where Lena is? "Roads
like that are meant to be walked, I suppose," she says.
It is good
to see Lena, and the more she sees Lena looking and claiming that she
is doing better, the more Grace begins to actually believe it. There is
that part of her that still wants to be so very sure that she's not
pushing Lena off of her newly found road though.
"I'll see you guys around," she adds to the departing couple, because that's a veritable certainty.
And then, there is Alex. "Oh sure, you want to go now? It's okay if you don't have time or whatever. I always have time. At least, for that, I always have time, hah."
Alexander
And
it’s just Alexander and Grace left there, in the fading light. The
loss of Lucy’s resonance should have meant that those nearby felt a
little less of a chill, but the promised storm front is starting to
arrive and a colder wind circles the Mall, bringing the physical
temperature down a few degrees from the wind chill alone.
“I’m
guessing it won’t be a quick thing to do, so now’s not the greatest of
times. But I’ll give you a shout in a day or two and give it a try.”
He opens up his rucksack to stuff the shopping bag inside, before
slinging it over one shoulder and slipping his other arm into the
strap. “This looks like it could be a bad one,” he says while looking
up at the sky. “You probably want to get back before it really hits.”
Grace
Grace shrugs, "I'm sure it'll be fine. Sometimes water comes out of the sky. It is strange thing, I know."
She
just naturally feels more comfortable dealing with people one-on-one,
but perhaps Alex will take it as her being glad to see Lucy gone.
Whatever interpretation people make concerning herself and Lucy, she
will go blissfully unaware of it until someone asks about it, at which
point she will be thoroughly flummoxed as to why anybody thought that
there was something not quite right between the two of them. Such is
Grace.
As is, she leans in conspiratorially-like, and says: "Now is always the greatest of times, didn't you know? It's the only time when anything happens."
Alexander
Alexander
laughs. “Well, yeah. But not everybody likes being out in...” he
fishes out his phone – some kind of Android thing, Grace will probably
be happy to see – switches it on to look at the storm warning.
HEAVY SNOW COMBINED WITH NORTHEAST WINDS UP TO 30 MPH MAY REDUCE VISIBILITY TO LESS THAN A QUARTER MILE AT TIMES.
Alexander
turns the phone so Grace can see it better. “That.” Not everybody,
no. Alexander will most likely go out walking in it later, though. He
has his own strange little habits too.
He does take Grace’s
increased comfort to be to do with Lucy moving on. He’s seen her with
others without being particularly uncomfortable, after all. And he’s
not aware of the hitches in Grace and Lena’s relationship, or their
ongoing work to patch things up. But whatever the reason for the
awkwardness to be there, that’s a story for another time.
Alexander
looks again at Grace after what she says about now. He cocks his head
to the right, considering her. “Have you been speaking to Sera? That
sounds like something she’d say. Not that it makes it any less true, now
that you mention it.” He nods towards an approaching bus. “But I
really do have some things I need to get done. So until a later
now...” He smiles and bows his head to her.
“And... yeah, call me Alex.”
Grace
"Okay,
Alex. Good luck with the bizarre sky-water, and thanks for the
heads-up," she says, waves. It is just as awkward as the one she gave to
Lucy.
And then, it is off again. But not before Grace turns and
gives a pointed look to the Starbucks direction and gives it a double
middle finger.
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