Silas

Silas
It is currently just below freezing, but as the day progresses Denver is projected to see a heat wave reaching into the 50s - spring has begun, it's true, and Silas can feel it in his blood, in the air, in the things growing beneath the ground, but soon enough everyone will be able to feel it nearly as well as he can.  For much of the week it will be progressively warmer, and there will be rains to fuel life that needs it.

For now, though, there's a man somewhere in his late 20s or early 30s, good enough looking if you like that sort of thing, lounging outside of a high end greenhouse.  By which we do not mean dispensary, though he's hardly averse to such things - we mean plants of other sorts.  He's early, or perhaps they're opening late, but it doesn't really matter; around him, there's a feeling of life.  There's also a feeling of being near a predator.

Grace
[Awareness?]

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

Grace
Grace has a new hydroponics system, keeping (of all things) a small succulent plant alive. Well, one of them is the primary, the others are just backups in case of catastrophe.

All this would be a little more understandable if Grace knew the first thing about taking care of plants. She does not. River's expertise has been the entire reason why her first foray into soilless gardening hasn't been a complete waste. However, there have still been problems.

She needs something -- a different nutrient profile for the desert plant. Some rocks that she could have Amazon deliver, or -- there's this one greenhouse...

So, she's leaving the place now, carrying a bottle of hydroponics additives and a small bag of inert rocks. The way she bends the universe around her, you'd swear a giant falcon just landed, making the ground shake.

Silas
And the way the universe bends around Silas, you'd think Spring was a person, and that she'd just arrived - perpetually.  There's the feeling of warmth and growth, and also of storms, and Winter and Summer clashing.  Spring is an in between time, is a time of sometimes violent change, and while this man very definitely feels of all of that?  He also feels of indolence and indulgence.

This woman, this Grace, with her feeling of a falcon having just landed, exits a hydroponics store a few doors down, and Silas' eyes are inexorably drawn that way, intense and intent - a hunter of a more earth-bound variety.  She heads towards her car, ostensibly, and her path takes her near the Hermetic.  Silas nods, smiles in his slow way.

"Morning."

It's a simple greeting that doesn't demand an answer - but instead politely requests one.

[Aware, just cos]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 6, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )

Grace
Spring, time to melt the snow. It's a wonderful time of year for someone who finds Winter to be the most awful season of them all. Grace is bundled up in her red coat and fox-colored scarf (both of these gifts -- she hasn't the first clue about fashion herself) in order to keep the cold at bay.

It feels like Spring now. Now. Very suddenly. She looks up, just as a man tells her it is morning.

"Um. Yes, it is," she says, tilts her head. Stops in her tracks. "You... Are you a co-Worker of mine perhaps?"

The way she says it, the 'Worker' does feel capitalized.

Silas
Silas' eyebrow raises at this, but euphemism and innuendo are more than just used for sexual things and given the feel of this woman . . . it's as apt a description as any.  "Perhaps," he offers noncommittally, and pushes off the wall to offer his hand for a shake.  "I'm Silas."

The introduction feels truncated because it is; there's so much more to it in a way that may or may not feel familiar to Grace.  He is who he is, after all, even after years of learning other things, in other ways.  Half of his life spent largely outside of the Order - minus the near-constant conclaves and symposiums - hasn't erased certain character traits, nor has it done away with certain turns of phrase.  Even in his lean, there was a certain air of brooding formality.

"Might I know your name, Miss?"

Grace
Grace looks down at his offered hand, and says: " I don't know, Silas. Might you?"

She tucks the little bag of rocks under her arm so she can she his hand, which, Silas might note, is an awkward sort of thing for her. She's unused to the act.

"I'm Grace."

Silas
It's meant to be witty, perhaps - and, to be fair, it does elicit a little smirk.  This handshake is something to which Silas is fully accustomed; it doesn't linger, isn't overly powerful, and during the time they retain contact Grace finds any chill promptly and swiftly removed from her fingers, her palm, and that fecund warmth spreads up her arm.  When their hands are separate again, there's a strange and sudden feel of lacking - but many small aches and pains, paper cuts and the like, are considerably lessened.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Grace.  I've only arrived here recently, and haven't met many people yet - coWorkers or otherwise."  There's a nod towards her bag of rocks, her bottle of hydroponics additives.  "May I ask what you're attempting to grow?"

Grace
Almost everyone in Denver would be responding to that with 'pot'. Grace isn't looking for a quickly-growing plant though.

"Hen and chicks. Just got a few chicks now, pretty happy with that. Sempervivum."

She looks at her arm like she's not sure about it. What the hell?

Looks back up at him. Analyzes the pompousness, the healing sensation in her arm. Thinks: Progenitor?

They'd have to invest in some mighty fine nanites to get that to happen, though. And probably wouldn't go around touching strange women with them.

"Lots of new folks in town. Who are you with?"

Silas
Oh, it's a lucky thing that Silas can't read thoughts - if he knew that such allusions were being drawn, he'd sever the conversation that's only barely begun.  From whence she'd draw such a conclusion, he wouldn't even be able to comprehend.  Progenitor!  Pfffft.  Who are you with, gets a mildly confused look, as though Silas doesn't strictly understand what Grace is asking.  There are a great many possible answers to that, after all.

"For the moment, I'm with myself - I contract my services as a master gardener and landscaper.  I've a card, if you'd like one."  And said card is drawn from the wallet pulled from his pocket; it is green and gold, as one might expect, with an abstract feeling of things fertile and growing behind his name and title (the master gardener bit, not any of his more esoteric ones), an out-of-state phone number marked as mobile, and an email address.  "Or do you mean, who do I know?  I've a friend who's nearly as new as I, and another friend who's been here longer but doesn't run in quite the same sort of circles.  With whom are you?"

Turnabout is fair play, and all that - and suspicion is contagious.  Grace's wariness informs Silas' own.

Grace
She takes his card, notes again the exceeding formality of it. This is a guy who likes to aim for the appreciative, queenly nod of Martha Stewart.

"Caution is a necessity these days," she says. "I'm on the good guys' side."

There, a little sly, proud smile. She is on the good side. Doesn't everyone think they are?

"Trads. A rather non-traditional Tradition, but still."

Silas
"Everyone thinks the side on which they reside is the correct one, don't they?"  It's an echo of her thought, without knowing she's thought it.  Perhaps it's simply a case of great minds think alike.  "But, that said, I believe we share the same one, though my own Tradition is one of the most traditional, as most consider them."  For all his experience in Ars Vitae, all his training with a Verbena hereditary witch, he is far more formal than that.

And as for Martha Stewart?  It's quite possible that Silas doesn't know who she is.

"Though I would agree that caution is a necessity, always, I find that far too often it leads to paranoia and the closing of doors that could be quite beneficial if left open."  To be fair, Silas' speech always trends to the formal - but this is above and beyond.  Given Grace's reactions thus far, clearness in where they both stand may serve them best in the long run.  And of course, her assertion that her Tradition is not so traditional leads him to think of the two most recent additions - but she doesn't seem the Etheric type, which means she must be one of the technomancers - the Virtual Adepts.  It's not a mindset that Silas understands, though the knows that most views have some level of validity.

"Are you a Denver native, then?"

Grace
A Traddie, he says. And berates her for paranoia.

"It's not really paranoia if they are truly out to get you," Grace says, attempting to justify herself.

"A few months ago, we had a guy dragged out of his workplace and locked up in solitary for the high crime of association. Dude was a cop who never did anything to anybody.

"So, you know, I don't really care if you find me paranoid," she says, shrugs. No skin off of her back.

"I'm actually a Phoenix native. Hate these winters."

Silas
For the record, everything in Silas' bearing so far has been casually friendly; this impression has carried to his tone, even if his words have somehow been twisted to something far different than their intent.  Formality and manners are hardly the same as aggression in most cases, though anything can be wielded as a weapon if it's held just right.  There is nothing remotely resembling beratement in anything about him; at best, there's a mild curiosity.

"'They' is a vague, amorphous concept that can be used as a ward.  Of course paranoia is sometimes warranted, and naturally I don't know the circumstances that caused yours - I am simply saying that caution and paranoia are different things, and both are best used with discretion.  Either can be just as dangerous as the lack thereof."

And then there's explanation of why she feels the way she does, and Silas nods - cedes the validity of her point, if not her behavior.

"I find you judgmental, cold, and unforgiving, and yes, a bit paranoid.  You have your reasons, as does everyone else, and I hope they keep you as safe as you think they do."  It's not quite dismissive, that.  Not quite condescending.  But a stranger on the street can only take so much aggressive attitude before stepping back with hands raised, metaphorically speaking.  "But, was this cop friend of yours the Disparate of whom I've heard?"

Grace
Grace is a bit taken aback by his response, but amused. Bluntness, oh yes, she can appreciate that.

"Well, I find you to be a bit on the pompous ass side, but I'm trying not to hold that against you," she says, the jesting nature of that statement rather plain on her face. "First impressions are, after all, prone to change."

She draws her coat in closer. "I am cold. Freezing my toes off here. I'm not sure where you got judgemental from though.

"You are right about the unforgiving bit. Though usually I don't make up my mind about somebody until they've gone and done something unforgivable. So far, you've said hello. Somehow, you refrained from raising the dead and skinning people alive while doing so, so you have no need to worry about needing my forgiveness."

"And yes. I am talking about that 'Dispirate'. I guess you know about the situation then?"

Silas
"I'm not entirely sure from where you got pompous, either - any more than you are from where I got judgmental, I'm sure.  Ah, look - she's finally opening.  Do you need anything else for your chicks?"  He nods towards the store for which he'd been waiting, turning towards its door.  "As for 'unforgiving' - I mean like a brick wall.  In the time since we've met - what, five minutes now?  You appear to have decided who I am, and that you don't particularly like that perception."

He shrugs, wry.

"Which is fine.  As you've said, impressions change - and even if they don't, there's hardly need for you to approve of or like everyone you meet.  The situation, though . . . I know little.  I know a Disparate was taken, and that some are banding together to go to his aid, and that a friend of mine is marginally involved.  As I told you, I'm a recent arrival and have little connection here."

Grace
"I think I have what I need for the chicks, but I wouldn't know if I were wrong," she says, admitting to her lack of skill.

"As to the other thing, most of us were marginally involved," she says. 'Were', like the situation is now resolved.

"You should get more connected, you know. It helps."

Silas
"Yes, it does," comes in response to how helpful connection can be, and as he opens the door with something between a nod and a bow - indicating that Grace is welcome to go in first, should she be so inclined.  "And for the chicks, you need feed of some sort, depending on their age.  You've a pen for them?"

Silas is best with plants, perhaps, but he knows quite a bit about most things living.  It's a perk of his upbringing, and his training.  This is a distraction for a bit, the finding of things that might be useful - and plants that will stand up to roaming chickens, keep away predators and bugs that might be drawn by them, and so forth - and pointing out interesting (to him, anyway) plants and their properties, both mythological and practical.  But then, back to . . .

". . . this place is far different from any in which I've lived before.  Many of my connections are familial, elsewhere, and I am strangely and delightfully lacking in that here."

Grace
"Oh, no, uh.. They're hen-and-chicks plants. Succulents. Sorry, that's a bit confusing," she says, holds up her bottle of liquid plant nutrients. "Chicken-feed."

She ducks into the greenhouse door, if only because he opened it, and she doesn't want to stop talking, precisely.

He has a lot of familial connections, he says. "That's nice, I guess. Well, not that you're lacking them here, but that you have such a strong family... Tie?"

Silas
"My mother is a legacy from time immemorial," he says with a shrug, and a bit of smirk at the misunderstanding; Silas had wondered why Grace might need hydroponic fluid for chickens, but he was hardly one to argue about it.  "And my father . . . well, some people call him a fluke.  I just say he's prone to Xaos."  It's pronounced Chaos, of course, but shaped with a capital letter at the fore.

"But I was raised at conclaves, until that became an iffy proposition.  At which point, I was sent to live with my godmother - who is a different sort of legacy entirely than my mother."  There's fondness when he mentions his godmother, but the shape of 'mother' is sharp, brittle around the edges.  Some sort of struggle there, then, and a gleefully appreciated, fairly new-found independence.

Grace
There's a bit of kinship. Grace loathes her mother. She also doesn't really feel the need to go into the ins and outs of that relationship in front of a total stranger.

A small, but powerful family he has, it sounds like. Mages too, likely, from the way he talks about them.

"And who do you know here? I can imagine maybe... Pen and Nick? Dr. Sépulveda?"

All of those are people who are nearly as new as he is, after all.

Silas
"I know Arianna - though she knows Pen and Nick."  They are, after all, bound together into a cabal.  "And I know Dr. Sépulveda, though I've not yet run into him here.  I was friendly with his daughter for awhile, a year or so ago."

Here, there's amusement; one can imagine that the Etherite and the Hermetic might have had some amusing conversations, particularly when the latter - a Hunter by every mark of him, and not just a predator either.

"Who else should I meet?"

Grace
"Me," she says, first and foremost. There's a bit of a grin there. But she does know a lot of people.

"If you like plants, though, you should talk to Kiara," she says. Kiara being the only witch in town that Grace knows of who has awakened her houseplants.

"River, also. She's been helping me with the whole hydroponics system. Oh, also, Nick's putting in a garden, so you know."

Silas
"I'll keep that in mind, and let them know that you said so."

There's an amused grin here, now - his words are still formally structured, but it seems that Grace has recognized his generally relaxed and friendly attitude for what it is.

"You may feel free to pass the information on that card forward, if you see fit.  None is hooked to an address or the like, but either will receive an answer in a timely manner."

Grace
"I will see it as my duty to pass on your digits, then."

Or, at least, to let everone know that this Silas guy is not a Progenitor. Probably.

At that, Grace starts getting distracted by the plants on display in this place. As much as she tends to kill them, she doesn't mind looking at them.

Silas
Plants are a good thing by which to be distracted - and are, in fact, Silas' reason for being here.  So, after a bit of shopping around, some mild advice on gardening and the like, and paying for his purchases?  Silas is on his way.

"I'm sure I'll see you around," is the simple salutation upon leaving.