Art Appreciation

Lucas Reed
One of the gallery spaces in the Art Network (a two-story Arts Center located on Santa Fe) was currently exhibiting a show by the artist Tadashi Hayakawa titled Echoes of Heritage. It was by chance that Lucas happened to be walking by. He might not have turned his head in time to see the poster, but he did. One of the artist's paintings was depicted on the print, and it caught his attention. Something about the colors and the pattern of the shapes. It stirred like an old memory - something he carried in a part of his soul that remembered another time (another place.) So he stopped there on the sidewalk, looking at the poster for a long, stilled moment. Then he blinked and glanced up at the building.

Why not?

He went inside, grabbing a brochure as he made his way up the stairs to the exhibit.

Kalen Holliday
[How distracted by Resonance are we?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 4, 4, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

Lucas Reed
[Edit: "He went inside, grabbing a brochure as he made his way through the door." (Because apparently I'm an idiot and this gallery is on the first floor.)]

Lucas Reed
[Also, if anyone wants to check this thing out: http://www.artworknetwork.com/currentexhibit.php]

Kalen Holliday
Kalen is drifting through the exhibit - half aware of the colors taking shape in the works of art before him and half still caught on butterfly wings.

The world is colors and light and he feels it more now in general and then more in specific as Lucas comes into the gallery.  There have been days that he would have come straight up to Lucas-to greet or to challenge or to welcome.  Tonight he keeps looking at the paintings.  One of them reminds him of a tiger.  And therefore of Ian.

At the moment though, he is standing before a portrait of some koi fish and wondering if they, creatures of ink and color and fate and dreams, would like to come sailing off of the canvas to swim through the air in the gallery.

What would all of these people do?  Would they think it was as magnificent?  He remembers that he was afraid when confronted with a larger world, but that larger world did arrive in the form of something trying to eat him.  And magic, wild and instinctive and pure and glorious, saving him from being eaten.

Serafíne
(I may/may not join, so please no one wait for me!  Just if the whim hits.)

Lucas Reed
[Awareness]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 6, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 4 )

Grace
[Awareness too]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )

Lucas Reed
Lucas was somehow both easy and difficult to miss. Easy, because he was rather on the small side physically, and difficult because something about him felt so vivid and clear - all stark details and vibrant color. He also felt older than he looked. Like remembrance. Like these paintings, actually. Old and new all at once.

Kalen noticed him, but didn't look. Lucas noticed Kalen as well. He glanced toward him with wide, dark eyes, alert and interested (curious as much of him as he was of everything else in this new environment.) He didn't approach Kalen immediately though. Instead he wandered past a wall decorated in elegant black and white canvases. His eyes followed the brush strokes, curving around as he tilted his head - briefly enraptured.

Grace
Kit.  Come help me pick out some paintings.  The library needs more color.

If Grace were honest with herself, she'd ponder about Kalen's sanity, with that text. Such a request is like asking Pan Echeverría to come help pick out new servers. But let's be double-double honest -- she's not doing this to pick out something pretty for the library. She's mostly doing it to keep Kalen from buying the entire lot of paintings and leaving them with no funds with which to purchase new servers.

She's got her priorities straight, does Grace.

She only hopes she makes it there in time to keep him from spree-ing.

But, when she arrives, she doesn't sense the presence of her sometimes overly enthusiastic friend. She feels... something though. Someone(s)? The hairs on the back of her neck stand up, but she keeps on going. It's just that little bit of confusion, as she steps into the place, looks around.

She doesn't look like the kind of person who belongs in an art gallery. A nerdy tee shirt paired with jeans of the non-designer variety make up the majority of her wardrobe, and today is no different. Still, people might find it hard to consider her anything but the background noise.

Lavinia
[I wanna roll awareness!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Lavinia
She was wearing a suit. An honest-to-God, tailor-made perfect lines and seams suit. She wasn't sure what to wear to an art exhibit, especially one that she was showing up at alone. She found, however, that she rarely had the opportunity to wear her suit, so god dammit she was going to wear it. With heels, because fuck people who can't deal with a six and a half foot tall vision of angelic radiance. That was the thing about going alone places- she didn't have anyone to stand with. No one to impress upon her certain standards and responsibilities.

Lavinia could do what she damn well wanted.

So there she was, bright blue heels clicking and legs looking especially long. The pants sat high on her waist, the shirt tucked in and a nice, crisp white. The top button was unbuttoned; she wore a black tie anyway, jacket thrown over her shoulder with some gold pin on the lapel. She wore a men's watch, something that wasn't as nice as the suit but something she liked anyway. It wasn't so much a gift as it was that she stole it from a previous lover/devotee/student of celestial things. He didn't care that she kept the watch, she wore it sometimes to remember him, to wax nostalgic on better times.

Art had a tendency to do that with Lavinis, provoke introspection. She held a tiny blue bag with a tiny gold strap. Make your shoes match your bag, someone drilled it into her head and arguably this is the nicest the blonde-haired woman had looked in awhile. She was hovering by some picture that spoke more of movement than anything. The loop, something that made her think of ink being poured into water. She stood in front of a bench, one that she considered making use of.

Kalen Holliday
Kalen, because it was Oliver who greeted him as he came out of the dark, remembers him in some ways more clearly than he does Lavinia.  He remembers the sense of Lavinia more than the person.  He is not sure what he will call her.

He already calls Alyssa Angel.

They already have a Seraphine.

Kalen leaves Lavinia be for now, slipping through the gallery instead to meet Grace.  He is unconcerned by the unexpected gathering.  These are so very Denver.  If the others stay, they will become accustomed.  If they leave, as so many seem to....

Well.  He can only hope they found what they were searching for before they moved on.

"Hey, Kit."

Grace
Bwa? Grace looks over Kalen like he's an alien. She even reaches out with a confused hand and sniffs the air around him.

"Kalen?"

The fuck?

"You're different. Way different."

She gets the sensation of a swirl of shattered colors, of stars, of something otherworldly. Like what's standing in front of her might just be alien indeed. It's enough to question all other evidence that Kalen is... Kalen. It's like coming across a good friend who's suddenly gained a foot in height.

Lucas Reed
"Lavinia." Luke's smile was broad and natural when he felt her come in; sensed her presence like a brilliant beacon of angelic light. She and Kalen had that in common (they both felt as though they'd descended from the heavens,) but Lavinia was at least a slightly familiar presence - and impossible to miss in every conceivable way. Luke managed to pull his attention away from the paintings long enough to approach her, tilting his head so that he could meet her eyes with his own. She was a full foot taller than he was, and standing beside each other, the differences in their appearance was stark.

"Nice to see you again." He glanced back at Kalen and Grace. "I guess I picked a good time to wander through the neighborhood."

(Yes, funny how that worked.)

He'd shaved today, so there was no evidence of the facial hair he'd been sporting on their last encounter, but the septum ring was still there. He'd also shaved his head recently, leaving only a fine layer of dark fuzz on his scalp. Unlike Lavinia, he hadn't bothered to dress up (that would have required advance knowledge of his plans.) Instead he wore a simple white t-shirt over a pair of red skinny jeans and a set of doc martens.

Lavinia
There's a way that she assesses new feelings and resonance. She marks it, closes her eyes for a second. She's feeling things out, trying to assess if the feelings were something she could be concerned about. Checking to see if anything felt familiar. One. Two. Three..? No, she didn't recognize the third. Lavinia?

Eyes open, dark like the space between the stars, bright like torches. Her face lights up, and she looks at Lukas. He was broad and natural and vivid brightness. Something felt right about him, something felt like color and brightness and wild trips of the imagination.

"Hey, Lucas, right?" she turns to the left to talk to him, splitting her attention between the painting. Keeps her open to anything that might come up that she misses. "It's pretty good timing. This exhibit is great, I haven't been to a gallery in forever."

Kalen Holliday
Kalen laughs softly at that greeting.  "I sleep now too.  It's bizarre."

He can see, out of the corner of his eye Lucas and Lavinia greeting each other.  Notes that they seem to know each other.  But, at least for now, he lets Grace have a moment.

"I like the one with the koi fish.  But I think we might wake up one day to find they've swum off the canvas.  Which I suppose would be alright, as long as they swim high enough in the air to avoid the cats."

Lucas Reed
"It's beautiful, and reminiscent, and... dynamic. I love that about it." He indicated the piece that Lavinia was gazing at. "I really like this one. I've never seen Hayakawa's work before, but now I think I want to look him up when I get home. I love just... being in this space."

As though to indicate this, he took a few steps back and sat down on one of the cushioned leather benches, leaning back on his palms to regard the full picture of the wall in front of him - taking it in like a snapshot (painting it into his memory.)

"You can call me Luke. Unless you like Lucas better. Either works." He glanced up at her, tilting his head back toward Kalen and Grace. "Should we introduce ourselves?"

Grace
Well, it's Kalen's appearance, Kalen's body wash, and Kalen's idiosyncratic way of explaining paintings. So either it's a thing with Kalen's memories who has somehow managed to best him and replace him like some kind of magical body-snatcher, or it's really him.

Grace blinks.

"Right. What happened? With the...." she waves her arms around in the air.

It's then that she looks around at the paintings, looking in vain for the one he's talking about.

"And which one has the koi fish? I just see a bunch of black circles."

Lavinia
"I think it would be a little sad if art were static, this though, this is fantastic. It… it moves, I guess flows is better because.. yeah," she moves with her hands, holds them out in front of her in a triangle and moves downward and then up, following the dark swatches of paint on the canvas. she remembered someone telling her about the use of negative space, but she was pulling for it, trying to find something that pricked her memory on that other than the words negative space.

She takes a seat with Luke, and it's quite a ways down for her to go. She stretches her legs out, crosses them at the ankles. She isn't towering that way, but she seems to make sense when she is towering. It seemed to emphasize how she was boundless, emphasized her own use of space.

"Names, and what you choose to call yourself, is important. If you want me to call you Luke, you're totally Luke," she informs him, lips upturned and smile playful. She looked back to the two people, taking them in for a second and only really being able to place one. That was… Grace? Mechanical keen and sharp and winged thing. Her expression lingered on Kalen for a moment, she cocked her head to the side and tried to place the feeling and, perhaps, she lingered long enough that she realized she was being rude.

Blinked and shook her head. Looked back at Luke.

"It's like you're standing inside of someone's head, looking out and seeing how they perceive the world."

Kalen Holliday
And if it were a thing with all of Kalen's memories, would it really be someone else?  Could it really be?

"Mmmmmmmmm...not here.  Here is for paintings."  Kalen leads her to a painting that might be a portrait of koi fish or might be an abstract reminiscent of koi fish.  Kalen sees koi fish, fins and lily pads and auspicious red markings.

There is a second when his attention is caught by another painting, a second which stretches into a few seconds of staring into bold and majestic brush strokes, mostly black with a hint of red.  There might be a clumsy circle on that canvas to Grace, but Kalen sees a tiger.

Of course he does.

Kalen shifts his attention back to Grace, back to the koi fish and their vibrant colors.  Away from the power and the majesty of the tiger.

"This one," he says to her.

[And, should you wish to look at these particular paintings: http://www.artdistrictonsantafe.com/uploads/events/celiv2.jpg and http://artworknetwork.com/files/detailed/detail-HYrXOS.jpg]

Grace
Grace looks, and she tries, she really does. There she is with the confused cocked head and everything.

"If that thing jumps from its canvas and starts swimming around the room, I'm going to call for backup."

It doesn't look like fish. In fact, it kind of looks like a penis, with some additional appendages.

"The colors are..." colors. They certainly have wavelengths of light bouncing off of them, yup. "Pretty? Though?"

Lucas Reed
"The paintings?" He asked because she might have meant him, based on her wording (and the fact that she was looking at him.) "They are like that. I think most good paintings are. Sort of what painting is I think." After a beat, he exhaled softly. "Fuck, I'd love to meditate in here."

He glanced up at Lavinia with a wry glimmer in his eyes. "I have another name. Maybe someday I'll tell you that one too."

And on that note, he hopped up off the bench and walked over to where Grace and Kalen stood examining a painting that looked a bit like koi fish.

"This is a great show, don't you think?" He held out his hand. "I'm Luke."

Lavinia
The paintings?
"Right," like it just dawned on her that they could possibly be talking about the paintings and not the man she happened to be talking to, Though she does turn her attention back to them, smile growing wide when he says he'd love to meditate here. "You might be able to, you know, come in the middle of the day, make nice with the curator and see if you can come in when it's closed. I'd feel like that would be a benefit of running a gallery, sometimes you get to be alone with all of this."

She sighs, and that really was for the art. The woman sat on the bench a little bit longer. Her attention swinging to Luke with that wry glimmer in his eyes. She quirked a brow at him and her smile upturned; she was not one to back down from a challenge. A task. Something new. Layers upon layers, she thought. The woman stayed seated for awhile, taking a moment to just soak in the painting.

She stayed there for a second longer, put her hands on the bench and hoisted herself up. Jacket gets thrown over her shoulder again and attentions go where they have to go- with people. Perhaps more than art, she craved attention. Craved contact because existence had been very lonely since she got back to Denver. May as well go make friends, right?

Of course right, onward! To people!


Kalen Holliday
Had Grace told him what she saw in that painting, Kalen would have bought it for Kharisma.  At some point.  After he stopped laughing.

"They are colors, are they?"  He smiles.  "We can get a different painting.  There are many paintings in the world and we do not, alas, have infinite space."

Perhaps he might have said something else, might have started drifting toward another painting, but Luke arrives.  Kalen reaches out and shakes Luke's hand, smiling again.

"Kalen," he says.  "Welcome to Denver...?"

Grace
Grace would argue about that space point, but it might end up with Kalen wanting to buy infinite paintings, so she just smiles, and leans in. "It looks like weird squiddy genitalia," she whispers, because there are other people around now. "I don't see where you got koi."

That having been said, there are other people around now, and she must welcome at least one of them. She smiles at Lucas, first, because he spoke some introductory thing. "It is. More for the people, I think."

Lavinia she has seen before, in less formal attire. Grace squints her eyes at that, but whatever. Apparently white suits are appropriate attire for people to gawp at thousands of dollars worth of pictures of black circles and fishlike penii. She'll never ever understand this.

Lucas Reed
"Thanks." Luke smiled as he shook Kalen's hand. The skin on Luke's palm was a little rough - worn and nicked in places from labor or training. He didn't offer any correction to Kalen's assumption, which was as good as confirming it. "I'm liking it so far. Are there a lot of us around?"

(Us. The Awakened. People who resonate.)

Grace acknowledged his presence with a response, but neglected to offer her name. At this, Luke canted his head with a little smile (as though to convey that this fact had not gone unnoticed) but didn't press her for it.

"I've met Lavinia and Josephine, and now you."

Kalen Holliday
Kalen thinks back to a time when the only other Awakened he knew were Kharisma and Jack.  To living in a Hermetic chantry surrounded by other Magi.  To Santiago with Ramon and only occasionally any others at all.

"I think that depends on how you define a lot," he says.  "Sometimes more than others.  People drift in and out.  But if you want to feel that out for yourself sometime, we can set up some introductions.

"Maybe a smidge more wine and a smidge less art.  Maybe not."  A trace of something playful threads through his tone.  "But you never know.  I might buy an art gallery something.  I am in a mood."

Grace
"Kalen? In a mood? You don't say," Grace says, and rolls her eyes. Yes, dears, he's pretty much always in a mood. Some kind of mood.

"Mmm. And, you have met Grace," she says, adding to Lucas's list. "I am delighted to make your acquaintance." Grace is totally playful, making fun of the very idea of people saying such silly things as 'I am delighted to make your acquaintance.'

Lucas Reed
Lucas laughed at that. "What it must be like to be able to buy art galleries on a whim." He didn't actually know if Kalen was being serious or not, but even the suggestion seemed alien to him. "I think art transcends ownership. Kind of a shame we've capitalized it." He glanced at the painting before replying to Kalen's offer. "I think I'd like that, though. Introductions. Not so much the wine."

(He didn't drink, you see.)

And here now was Grace's introduction - so very proper (so very making fun of proper.) Luke caught the inflection, but didn't seem especially offended by it. Instead he just grinned and nodded toward her. "I'll remember that."

(And he would. He would remember their names forever. Possibly even into the next lifetime.)

Kalen Holliday
"Paintings on a whim, maybe.  I might have to think about the art gallery.  Investors.  Paperwork."  He rolls his eyes.  "So much effort."  And then Kalen grins.  "And there are so many books to buy first.

"Less wine, huh?  Okay.  We can still do that I think.  I should get your number or something.  So that we can have further discussions about things that may or may not transcend ownership."  He doesn't mean art, at least it isn't art that he';s thinking of.  No, Kalen is thinking of Nodes and libraries and maybe at some point Ginger and the House.

But, now that Luke brings it up, maybe art too.

If he donates that one painting to a museum, he's pretty sure he and Grace will have something to laugh about forever.  Would she visit it, after he died?  Would he stand before it in another life and wonder why he was laughing?

Focus.

"Sometimes it can be like herding cats, but I'm sure we can get at least a few of us together."

Grace
"I feel like pretty much everything transcends ownership," Grace says. "Humans just like coming and fucking things up with their resource distribution systems."

"We're like cats because most of us are like 'phh, rules'. I mean, it makes sense, doesn't it? Isn't that part of how we got to be who we are in the first place?"

And thus, Grace goes on the blabby side of things.

"But yes, we must introduce you to more people. If you want. If you don't want, that is okay too."

Lavinia
For all that she was tall and striking and generally hard to miss, Lavinia had done a very good job of just standing, smiling ever-so-slightly, and enjoying the conversation. She watched people talk, watched mouthes specifically in such a fashion that one might wonder if she speaks English as a first language. (She does, she is just a little deaf on one side, but people don't know that to look at her.)

Idly, she ended up humming the first few bars of Colors of the Wind from Pocahontas at the mention of things transcending ownership.

Lucas Reed
"Whatever works." See, he was easy like that. One might almost be forgiven for mistaking him for a Cultist (the resonance, the septum piercing, the hints of socialist leanings - though there was that wine thing.) "Seems like you guys are a diverse group. That'll be a nice change of pace." He didn't elaborate though, mostly because they were in public, and however relaxed his demeanor he still understood the dangers of indiscretion. To Grace he said, "I agree with you, actually. Art just has a way of transcending it in spite of us. I mean, if you see a painting, it becomes yours for as long as you remember it."

Luke pulled a cell phone out of his pocket - an android that looked a few years old and more than a little scuffed (it was kind of a miracle he hadn't broken it yet.) He didn't actually need to write Kalen's number down, but having a contact list made life easier. "Here, let's switch." He opened up his contacts and handed the phone to Kalen.

Kalen Holliday
Let's switch.  Kalen pulls his phone out of pocket and hands it over.  Maybe he could be more cautious, but what, really, might happen.  Ginger is hardly noticeable.  All of his contacts are in by the names he has given them.  Luke probably won't remain Luke for long.

He enters his name as Kalen Holliday, though he expects he doesn't have a reputation outside the Order enough for that to matter.  His phone number.  An e-mail address.  The physical address for his library.  And then, because non-sleep-deprived and newly-emerged-from-a-Seeking Kalen is nothing if not playful, he snaps a picture of the koi (or penii, that is, after all, for each of them to interpret on their own) and sets it as his contact picture.  And he has that luxury.  Grace is right there.  Grace will alert him to signs of ambush while he is playing.

"Yeah.  We even mostly get along.  Me less, actually, I think.  On account of my being all  moody and temperamental."

"Oh.  Hey.  You can play the phone switching game too if you want," he says to Lavinia.

Grace
"Hah, yeah. I'll remember that one," she says, pointing toward the 'koi'. "Some of the circle ones are nice, but about all I'm going to remember of them tomorrow is weird black circle shapes. I guess that means I don't get to keep them."

Unless...

Grace takes out her own phone and snaps a picture of a random painting. They might have a rule about that here. Grace doesn't care.

"Caught you, you... funky circle."

Lavinia
"Do we all pass to the right? how's this going to work?" she says as she fishes a boring, boring phone out of her tiny, tiny purse. It is a go phone, the kind of thing that you put minutes in every so often or ditch in a trash can when it becomes to cumbersome. Something with a removable memory card. A smart phone that is several generations old and was… surprisingly scratch free.

"Lavinia," she clarifies, doesn't give a last name because what were the odds that someone would have more than one Lavinia in their phone?

She looks at Grace and grins, "you know, last time I saw you, you and… uh… Jo? Was it Jo? Anyway, did you guys get home okay?"

Lucas Reed
When Kalen took his phone back, he'd find that Luke had entered both a phone number and an e-mail address (though no physical address.) His full name was apparently Lucas Reed. The e-mail address he entered said: chotehathi@gmail.com.

Kalen said that he was moody and temperamental, to which Luke just smiled quietly. "I can handle moody." He passed his phone over to Lavinia. "It's like a circle jerk, but way more boring."

After a pause, he added, "Sorry. That was super inappropriate."

Lavinia
[oh my god, did I hear that correctly?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN8 (1, 1, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Kalen Holliday
"Oh, Kit.  They will live forever in your heart."  He glances over the information Luke put into his phone, and then offers his phone to Lavinia.

"Famous last words," Kalen mutters, but with no real indication of anything but amusement.  And then there is a startled, muffled laugh.

"Damn.  Well, that was not on the list of things I expected to hear at this particular exhibit.  I mean...the ne next Tuesday down the way with the artistic nudes maybe.  Not so much here.  Definitely welcome to Denver."

Grace
"Why wouldn't we get home okay?" Aside from, you know, monsters. But even then, getting home okay is still fairly good chances.

Notice, she does not hand her phone over. Instead, she slips hers back in her pocket. It's just a weird thing to imagine, okay? Like handing somebody your foot to pass around. Her phone is something she typically uses to do Magic with. It hums with her. One might expect it to grow its own wings someday and fly around.

And, it has secrets upon it. The phone numbers of a few vampires, her friends (without nicknames), her encryption, her specialty programs. She's not in any hurry to completely open up to the newcomer.

Which is not to say that he doesn't get all the smiles she can muster.

"Oh, my heart will be so thrilled to learn this, Kalen. Truly."

Lavinia
It takes a moment where there is curiosity then surprise, then finally she was sure of what she heard.

And Lavinia laughs.

She takes the phone from Luke. Eyes light up and nearly close, laughing comes unabashed and sonorous. There are sounds that one thinks o, but they don't have human equivalents. There are all sorts of images that people go to when angels laugh, and it usually involves something sickeningly sweet but this isn't sickeningly sweet. This is the voice of a herald, whose mirth is not quelched.

"So we just don't make eye contact while we're doing this and it's all good?" she's getting a little tan, but her cheeks are pink and she's putting her name in the phone. Lavinia Cervantes. A phone number from Texas, no email address. But she does take a picture of herself while she's holding back laughter, something about photos makes her less daunting but makes her hair seem a little more like a halo. Though, she doesn't seem to have her hands free, because she took Kalen's phone too soon and she looked a little awkward for a minute, confirmed what was right with Luke's before starting in on Kalen's.

Same thing- Lavinia Cervantes. Texas phone number. No email. Standard peace sign selfie. (Do celestial beings take selfies? Yes, yes they do.) She got back to laughing, just small and under her breath but it lingers in her eyes.

Lucas Reed
"You have a nice laugh." Luke smiled at Lavinia, his expression openly sentimental. Not exactly a flirtation (that would involve some kind of intent.) More like the way he looked at those paintings. Like he wished he could jump inside the sound of her voice and live there. (He would likely recall that laugh when he thought of her later: hear it again in his mind as clearly as though she was standing beside him.)

If her phone eventually made its way into his hand, Luke would type the same information that he'd given to Kalen. Otherwise she'd get a text from him later. Grace didn't offer her phone, so Luke didn't ask for it. Everyone had different boundaries. Different things they considered personal and private.

"Not making eye contact sounds like a pretty depressing way to have a circle jerk. Where's the intimacy?" The tone of his voice there was relaxed and honest, lacking in anything resembling wry flirtation.

To Kalen, he said, "I aim to be surprising."

And then? He ducked his head in a little bow of goodbye. "I have to get going, but I'm glad I ran into you all. I hope we can meet up soon."

After that, he made his way back out to the street.

Lucas Reed
[I must be off guys! Thank you for the scene! Have a good night!]

Grace
[I must also be off. Work work :(]

Kalen Holliday
[Me too, really.  We just want to call it at phone numbers and goodbye?

Lavinia
(sounds like a plan to me!)

Grace
[Whee! Sleep time!]