Blankets.

Grace
It's December. There's no snow today, but that doesn't mean it's not cold. To the southern desert-creature that Grace is, this state is just wrong. These times, similarly, have been just wrong.

The heat is on. It doesn't matter. Grace is wrapped up in a blanket on one of the couches in the Library with a mug of hot tea, which she stares into with a sad, pensive pierce of the eyes. If she weren't alone, someone might accuse her of being a touch melodramatic. But who cares about such things when you're alone? You could potentially dance down the halls with a cat on your head when you're alone, and nobody would be the wiser (save for the cat, and why would they tell about something so embarrassing?)

Not all of this bundling up is due to the cold, obviously.

Elliott
Spending weeks in Santiago has certainly changed some of Kalen's settings, nudging him even further away from the person that he and the Order constructed and more toward....

That he is not sure of.  He can barely remember who he was before people and events were shaping him into things.  He cannot say if this is closer or further from who he would have been.  Absent Kharisma and Jack, if he had found first some forbidden knowledge could he have simply become Victoria?  He expects so.  Tormented enough, Lucia?  Again, he assumes so.

He does not think that he can just decide who he is again, craft a name and a personality out of nothing.  Personalities are earned things.  You cannot just imitate them into being and have any depth to them.  But he is choosing, so carefully, who he lets influence him.  Marcellus, certainly.  The Order...probably not.  Ramon, yes.  Denver...yes, mostly.

And so he has come home.  He has even brought blankets back from Chile.  Whole piles of them that are sitting neatly folded in wooden crates.  some are probably Christmas gifts.  What he plans to do with all of them is unclear.

Did he spend considerable time curled up with blankets being coaxed to drink wine or coffee in Santiago?  Yes.  It may be one reason he brought back apparently 85% of the blankets available for purchase there.  He sees Grace curled up and staring at her tea and keeps walking for the moment.  Picks out a blanket knitted from orange and white and brown flame yarns.  Fox colors.  Grace can have one of her presents early.

He brings that blanket and one with bright sky blues and occasional golds.  He offers the fox-colored one to Grace.

"Merry Christmas," he says quietly.  He could ask why she is staring at her tea, but he knows he doesn't have to.  If she wants to talk, she'll tell him.

Grace
The presence of an actual person is enough for her to do something else other than stare into tea. Kalen gets a smile as he approaches with another blanket.

Then, a brighter one as he offers one to her as a Christmas gift. Fox colors. She puts down her tea on a table and reaches out to smell it first, holding an end of it up to her face to judge all its qualities.

"Oh, it's so warm. I love it, thanks."

The blanket gets added to her nest, she tucks it in here and there to eventually look like a human head and hands poking out of a mound of fibercrafts. It's a comfy place to be.

"You got one for Alex too, I bet?"

Elliott
"I think Alexander just sleeps in snowdrifts or something," Elliott says.  "But yes.  I got him a blanket he can scoff at."  He curls up on the couch with his blanket.  He seems less like he has any real desire for it than Grace, but he also seems content to have blanket and couch time.

It has never been difficult to convince him that blankets are the best and he should have them right now.

"It looks like I'm only back in town a couple weeks.  And then I have to go to Hawai'i.  Business.  But...sometime in January.  Australia.  Pick it out.  Buy the tickets.  Make the reservations.  You know where there are credit cards you can use if you need them.  I have not, yet, spent all of the money on Christmas."  Yet.

Grace
"Really?" another bright smile. "We can go to a place where it is summer? I will buy those tickets and march you onto that plane, man..."

She lays her head back on the couch, looks at the ceiling. "I mean, I need a vacation, I think."

"Alex. You should probably give him his blanket early too. I kind of fucked up. He doesn't think anybody cares about him anymore."

So, there's that. And Samir's in quiet. And Elijah or William or whatever it is he's calling himself nowadays got attacked too, don't forget. Then there was that thing with Mike which... Well, as much as everyone left is still alive, it still kind of sucks. The important people in her life are all going through something.

Elliott
"Alexander...I know how he can react to things sometimes.  Don't think it's something you did.  Even I barely get to know him in some senses, and I know how much I mean to him.  He's not always someone who is easy to be close to, particularly, I have always assumed, when he most needs it.  I'll get him his blanket.  And some marshmallows.  Is there anything I should know?"

"You know Kiara told me I should be proud of you?"  Elliott smiles a little.  "Which I always am.  Now especially, though.  I told her that, but it seems ridiculous not to also tell you that.

"I know I bounce around and check in less, but because I trust you.  And you know I will come back if you call me.  Always.  Unless I have to stop the end of the world, like sometimes happens.  But that, I think, you understand."

Grace
Is there anything I should know?

"Well, apparently he's spent the last month and a half or so isolating himself from everybody, destroyed his phone, and lived like he was under Technocratic surveillance. He wasn't. It was Ihsan coming and talking to him about the murder he posted about on Ginger. I could have prevented that by telling him about Ihsan. Ihsan could have prevented that by telling him anything."

He could have prevented that by not taking 'lo, I have been contacted by Technocrats' as a reason to hide from everyone else and enforce a zero-contact policy, but then... Kalen is right. When he most needs someone, he flees from them, apparently.

"You should be proud of Kiara. She actually faced down the Nephandus. I just set everything up," Grace says, curls around in her blanket-mound.

Kalen continues being Kalen, offering her his pride, his trust. It's nice. "You're only going to be in town for two weeks?"

Elliott
"That sounds like Alexander.  He did once stop speaking to me for weeks because my Resonance changed and he thought I was an imposter, you may recall.  But I will get him a new phone to put Ginger on, unless you've already taken care of that.  If nothing else, I have his business card with his work contact information.  I can get in touch."  He smiles a little.  "I can get him like a dozen, because he loves to destroy phones."

Elliott considers the update on Kiara a moment.  "She did not mention.  I don't think she wants to talk about it.  I'm not sure if she needs to, but even if she does...I expect I am probably not the person she'd choose to do so with.  Still, I will keep it in mind in Hawai'i."  There is a soft exhalation.  "Anything you think I should know before that?  Specific things I should know will be difficult for her, or anything."

"And yes.  We have to go retrieve a magic stone for a mythic artifact.  It involves scuba diving.  Fortunately, I can do that now.  I am hoping it will be a quick trip.  We have a location.  We just need to get the stone and come home, but I expect there will be some kind of complications.  I could be wrong.  But.  Honestly.  What would you expect?"

Grace
What does she think he should know? What would be difficult for her? "I don't know. Nephandi? Nephandi are difficult. Pretty much sums that up."

Kiara didn't really go into much detail when she told Grace. Doesn't know all the ins and outs. That's okay, she doesn't need to know.

Tea. It's getting cold over there. It doesn't have two blankets. She grabs for it, and settles back in.

"I wouldn't have the first clue what to expect in Hawaii. Friendly mer-whales? Probably more like unfriendly Cthulhu-beasts, honestly," she says, and rolls her eyes at the world for being horrible. "Mutated mahi-mahi, something like that?"

She sips at her tea for a moment, and then: "Magic stone for a mythic artifact? In the oceans around Hawaii? If I didn't know any better, I'd say that was just an excuse to get some more beach-time in."

Elliott
"Well, I more meant what would you expect but complications."  Elliott smiles.

"I've never even been to a beach.  All my diving has been pools and lakes.  One day I may do one of the dives at the aquarium here."  All of the things he has done.  All of the things he has seen.  But never the ocean.

"Sasha is interested in this war not happening with the Technocracy.  Henry too.  They are going to try calling the Order off.  I haven't told them, at least not yet, about Atreyu.  I...don't know so well how they will take that.  I don't want to...I would just worry.  Mostly for Atreyu."

Grace
"Mmm. Yeah. Even Sam was a bit put off by my description of Atreyu, and he's a Mercurial Elite. He knows what we do. I mean, you and I might be the only ones who'd really... know him."

Him, her, whatever.

"It still amazes me that the guy was never born. Reminds me of some ancient deity legend, you know? Sprung fully-formed from his mother's head?"

Metaphors. Words to say things that you can't easily express. Gods and legends of the present...

"So, you're telling other people, huh? Is that why we're vacationing in Australia?"