Red Room (Heather ST)

GraceThe first two, they were easy. Of course, when you have access to quantum algorithms for breaking encryption, just about any computer system is yours for the taking, right?

From the driver's seat in a Carl's Jr. parking lot on the outskirts of Denver proper, Grace has just set in motion the process that will net her more money than she's ever even thought of having. The only problem is that people care a hell of a lot about those numbers. They will be looking for her.

She's got Chloe IV set up under the dashboard of the passenger seat, empty save for her coat which serves to nonchalantly cover up the setup of lasers and hydroponics going on, because that's just not something she wants to have to explain. But, it's a bit necessary for all this. Don't want to take chances here.

No. In fact, let's make sure nobody... normal can trace her activities at all.

[Entropy 3, Forces 2, Corr 2 = Clean up the mess! Diff = 6 - 2 (taking time, personalized instrument)]

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (4, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

Grace[Extends!]

Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (2, 5, 9) ( success x 2 )

fluxIt was easy. Grace was done with covering her tracks and getting her goods and calling it a day by the time some irate woman with blonde highlights managed to call over the manager and complain that her Big Mouth Burger had an inadequate amount of mustard on it.

People were going to be looking for her- sure, no problem. A corrupt company had someone doing their IT work without a problem. A patent troll? He certainly thought himself savvy, but at the end of the day fell into the trap of thinking himself too clever (CorrectHorseBatteryStaple? We've all read XKCD, it won't protect you from hackers Mr. Patent Troll.)

That third target,t hough. That was going to be the interesting one.

GraceTarget number three. Vivid Xxxtreme. (Seriously? Yes, it's that awful.)

Grace has never understood pornography. It's not that she disdains it, or thinks that people who watch it are scum, no. It's just never done anything for her. Not the in-your-face type, not the kind used to sell handbags and perfume, not the bits and pieces that you find in novels, no. Human mating rituals are simply bizarre. And yes, she engages in them from time to time, but it doesn't make them any less freakish.

But people pay for that. Some pay more than others. Like the anonymous flood of women warning others against Vivid Xxxtreme, or how they're known in the model business, "Professional Model Management". The girls sign up, are flown out to California on a modeling contract, and told they have to pay back their travel expenses by doing way more than was initially agreed to. The rumors fly about this place, but their victims are poor enough, and they are rich enough for it not to matter.

Hopefully, not today. Today, the tables turn. Won't they?

She sets her sights on their servers. It's time for some paying back.

fluxShe sets her sights ont he serves and she knows that this place shouldn't be terribly hard. I mean, sure, they're a porn distributor, but they're not too much worse than some of the complaints lodged against Kink.com or a particular company that had a lawsuit levied against them on account of one of their directors ignoring the fact that the model was using her safeword to bail out.

When she was doing some of her digging, though, Grace would have found something. Some models lodged some complaints against the company or the way that they acquired their talent. Another thing she might notice was the fact that some of their models just....

Disappear.

Disappear like Bambi Woods disappeared after she did Debbie Does Dallas. It might have been common in the industry; sex workers are a vulnerable population, but one would think that models would be a little more protected from that sort of thing.

Grace sets her sights on their serves, though, and soon enough things would be underway.

(gimme your initial computers roll. Base diff 8, but her -3 totes applies here as do her specialties)

Grace[Int/Computers Diff 8 - 3 (Chloe IV), specialties count. Cracking open a server, yes!]

Dice: 9 d10 TN5 (1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 6, 6, 6, 7) ( success x 4 )

flux[because we are trying, too]

Dice: 8 d10 TN8 (3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 7, 9, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 ) Re-rolls: 2

flux(oops, mage doubles 10's not rerolls it)

Dice: 8 d10 TN8 (4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 ) [Doubling Tens]

fluxThere's too much here. She knows that when the walls crack and give 'way, and she knows that for the size of operation that they have that the company shouldn't have servers this nice. She gets the impression that she got through a front door and a store face from the inside in the United States, but that the back end operations must be enormous.

Like going into a video store and seeing a small lobby and an enormous Employees Only section.

An Employee's Only section that looks like it just lost 17% of its operational capacity.

Someone else seems interested in her target, too.

GraceOkay, so this is interesting. Like going to rob a bank and running into the punks just climbing into their getaway van.

First things first -- hide. Abort mission. Cover tracks. And... maybe, watch? Because maybe great minds think alike and all?

She switches from her suite of personalized tools back to the flat black of the interface between herself and the universe, which soon explodes in data on her screen. Hooking into her own connection to the server, she fuzzes her own presence there, settles down into random bits that hopefully look like nothing.

[Entropy 3, Forces 2, Corr 2 = Clean up the mess! Diff = 6 - 2 (taking time, personalized instrument)]

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (4, 4, 7) ( success x 3 )

flux[Maintenance guy-0 wtf our server noooo)

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 6, 6, 8, 8) ( success x 4 ) [Doubling Tens]

flux(You assfuck, don't undo my work!)

Dice: 8 d10 TN8 (1, 2, 4, 4, 8, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 6 ) [Doubling Tens] [WP]

fluxShe doesn't have a problem with covering her tracks. Just cleans up the mess like she always has and her presence seems to be written off as little more than a server glitch or something of the sort.

So, she watches. Or at least gets to work. The sys admin seems to be patching things up as quickly as they went down. Grace gets to observe the servers take a hit and the load gets readjusted to a farm across South Africa, only for additional support to get reapportioned. Two more major data hosting services seem to go offline, and the load is again reapportioned to the same server farm.

This goes on for awhile. The sys admin is good, but whoever they are? That admin is clearly outclassed by the other hacker trouncing along on this particular farm.

GraceDamn. They are good, whoever they are. An administrator has caught on, which sucks. But Other Hacker keeps beating them down. Break out the popcorn time, huh?

Except, no. There's something extra fishy going on here. Vivid Xxxtreme shouldn't be big enough for this kind of technology, and the fact that someone else is already on the case is stranger still. It's riveting to watch, but more interesting to participate.

Let's go fuck with an admin.

[Int/Computers Diff 8 - 3 (Chloe IV), specialties count. FU, Admin.]

Dice: 9 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 4, 4, 4, 6, 6, 8, 8) ( success x 4 ) [Doubling Tens]

flux(Admin- ack! Noo! (gotta beat 4 successes to even attempt to stay in your own system))

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 5, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 5 ) [Doubling Tens]

flux[Ladida break stuff]

Dice: 8 d10 TN8 (1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 5 ) [Doubling Tens]

fluxGrace is capable of doing a damned good job, and she knows that she is doing a good job, but this is jarring. This is intense in ways that she likely wasn't expecting because she pushes to cause problems for the systems administrator and she- a person who knows the ins and outs of computers better than she knows how to breathe or order Thai takeout- couldn't even push this person off their servers.

There is something going on here.

She gave the other hacker enough room to work. But not Work, there isn't much magickal about this person's interference with the servers of Vivid Xxxtreme; this is a labor of loathing.

Operations seem to flicker and go out, only for them to be returned. The servers in South Africa are near to overloading, routes have been changed, damage has been done. The interesting thing is that, while the data has been mined, the company's accounts don't seem to be dry. A couple grand is missing, sure, but it didn't look like the person did much monetary damage to the company.

They seemed more interested in all of the processes and protocols related to an apparent sister site: 6d6f7274697363616665.onion

GraceHidden site, eh? TOR? If that is the interesting bit, let's look at that, shall we? After we've dealt with this Admin being a pain in the ass.

The good thing is, with this other hacker in the works being so very visible, Grace might just go without being noticed -- all her activity blamed on this other one.

Who they are is a good question, but so is all this other bullshit. What's that onion site? Something even worse than Vivid Xxxtreme?

[Int/Computers Diff 8 - 3 (Chloe IV), specialties count. FU, Admin.]

Dice: 8 d10 TN5 (1, 1, 2, 4, 6, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 4 ) [Doubling Tens]

flux[Admin: nooooo]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 4 ) [Doubling Tens]

fluxGrace pushes the admin, which shouldn't be a big problem, but either they have a very good team or this is a world-class operation, certainly not the kind of IT department that a skeezy porn company should have.

She pushes and the admin pushes back, tries desperately to fundo the damages that have been done and route things away from the South African servers or at the very least get rid of this person who keeps trying to knock him (or her) out of the system.

Grace[Grace: Yesssssssss]

Dice: 9 d10 TN5 (1, 1, 3, 5, 6, 6, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 7 ) [Doubling Tens]

flux[Noooo!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 6 ) [Doubling Tens]

fluxcorrect horse battery staple, motherfucker. 

GraceThis admin is serious business. They're drinking their Jolt Cola or whatever, geez. Grace has to work hard at shutting them out, but in the end, nothing stands up too well against someone who can break encryption within a few seconds.

At last, it looks like she's got the upper hand here.

But why on earth would a company like this have such a... competent IT staff? It makes no freaking sense. None.

fluxIt's password security every time. The very basics of keeping someone out or letting the right people in. And Grace, darling devilish Grace, successfully worked her mundane magic and managed to successfully shove the systems administrator out of the working space while, simultaneously, shutting doors and rerouting works in such a fashion that it would take the rest of the admin's shift to get back into the system.

Things are a right and righteous mess. Perhaps in not the wisest fashion, there were files uploaded to each of the South African servers, replicated across to the other servers when the loads rebalance.

Lydia1.jpg
Lydia2.jpg
Lydia3.jpg



GraceThe first thing that comes to mind is 'payload'. This is what that other hacker was trying to accomplish? Uploading files? Uploading a huge clusterbomb, perhaps? She's going to analyze those files first, to see if they are legit JPEGs or something... else.

Lydia. Hmm.

[Int/Computers Diff 8 - 3 (Chloe IV), specialties count. JPEGs?]

Dice: 9 d10 TN5 (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 8 ) [Doubling Tens]

fluxThe first and third files are actual .jpegs, but the second file appears to be a video with a pretty nasty trojan attached to it. The video itself three minutes and twelve seconds long.

GraceSo, she opens the JPEGs. The ones that are actually pictures, and not a virus.

They're probably of something horrible, she knows. But curiosity has its purposes. What would that hacker have risked all to upload this for?

fluxThe first picture is a collage. There's a young, pretty brunette with dark eyes with some blond-haired young man with blue eyes and a bit of a beard. Sometimes no beard. They look happy. There are pictures of the pretty brunette at a party, some pictures of her with some old woman. Her with a puppy. Her with sad, mournful eyes in some black dress but a smile anyway holding some envelope. The shock and surprise and utter joy taken not three minutes later when she's holding plane tickets.

A picture of her beaming holding a letter from a modeling agency that was linked with Vivid Xxxtreme's casting agency.

The third picture is a screen shot of a browser session. Inside the browser is what appears to be a shot from a low budget horror movie. There is a chair and there is some kind of smudge on the dark wall behind the chair. There's an abundance of horrible requests written in the chat, depraved and violent and awful at the very top followed by a hoard of praise and applause. Tune in next week- blonde or brunette, you decide!

GraceThis looks like revenge. Justifiable revenge. That .onion site is probably where they sell the really horrific stuff. That hacker was either Lydia or knew her. Maybe that blond-haired young man with the blue eyes? To be honest, Lydia probably disappeared.

Grace is going to keep the Trojan where it sits, where it can be downloaded by the assholes who visit the place.

If any company ever deserved to die a horrible death, it would be this one. And, she might be able to get some names for Mike to check out too. He lives in California after all. It wouldn't be too long of a 'business' trip.

She'll peruse their files, get names, get email, suss out their organizational structure.

Social. Almost.

Serafíne
The bright washing sun competes with scudding clouds for dominance in the April sky and you'd never guess from the raucous game of ultimate frisbee on one of the big grassy swaths of greening lawn that there's a winter storm watch currently looming over Denver and its environs, that spring ski enthusiasts will have another foot or so of fresh snowfall if they go high enough into the mountains.

Right now: shorts and t-shirts and a frisbee that looks like a pink-frosted donut with a bite taken out.  Fringe and beads and bare feet and painted toes and gladiator sandals and the musky scent of marijuana in the air and it's too early (she just woke up an hour or so ago and she's still nursing a particularly intense acid hangover) for a certain Cultist to join her friends chasing around the donut-frisbee, but hey, she can watch.  Or pretend to watch?  Who fucking knows, her glasses are both ridiculously dark and remarkably large and she could very well be napping behind them.

There's a big bottle of orange juice parked in the cool grass beside her.  It is early evening.  The sun is only just starting to fall.

Grace
Ahh, Denver. It'll be warm today, sure. Then, the weekend brings a high temp in the 30s and more snow. This is Spring, for you. It can never make up its mind.

Grace has dressed herself in jeans, sneakers, a t-shirt, and her bite-proof grey jacket today, although the jacket is unzipped to let the air in -- so one can see the giraffe wearing ten neckties on her tee, with the text "Trust me, I'm super professional".

There is, perhaps, more of a spring to her step than there has been, of late. Winter's melting, for now. Water's flowing in rivers. Things are breaking free, and soon Summer will make that a little more permanent. It's a good day. One that has Grace walking the trails here where monsters tread, with her attentions place firmly into the trees and sky, and not, apparently at her surroundings. Monsters should be afraid of her, not the other way around.

[Awareness?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

Nicholas
It's become a habit, walking in the park after work while he tries to process and decompress from the day.  Nick finds his home to be a pleasant place, somewhere he looks forward to going to at the end of the day, but settling into his office or having dinner isn't a substitute for taking a few moments of silence where he doesn't have to listen to anybody else or try to project this air of detached competence or quiet empathy.

There aren't any winter storm clouds looming on the horizon, just the soft wash of sunlight that speaks to approaching summer.  That, and the smell of marijuana that usually lingers around places like this, in Denver.  He still isn't fully accustomed to walking out in public and seeking people smoke; and it doesn't bother him - it just is, and does.

The sailing frisbee catches his eye as he makes his way down the path.  No shorts and T-shirts for him, just light gray pants and a pale pink shirt, the color of a first blush or of a drop of blood in a puddle, slight intimations of color.  His hair was cut recently, which is to say that it's no longer as wild and overgrown as it had threatened to become last month.  As is the style at present, the back and sides are shorn more tightly than the top, which spills out in front of him.

He watches people throw the frisbee back and forth as he walks, and he would have nearly passed them by had a familiar face not caught his attention next.  Sera is behind a pair of sunglasses, but he makes note of her nonetheless and his trajectory changes.  He lifts a hand as he approaches.

Serafíne
Well: see? Her eyes must be open behind the dark glasses, because the creature lounging on the plaid picnic blanket lifts a hand to return Nicholas' wave.  There is a hint of a smirk in the curve of her mouth, or maybe that is simply a grimace.  Some little protest against the movement required.

She is as she always is: or at least as she always seems.  Long and lean and lovely.    Or: the intimation if not the fact of length; the suggestion of hunger, of desire, of want in both the concave curve of her bare stomach; and - well.  Not lovely.  Arresting perhaps, in that way that Grace, and even some of the sleepers around them, must certainly feel.  What else can Grace sense?  That sun-drenched, soaring resonance that that eminates from old bronze ring that Sera always wears on her right index finger.  Nicholas, of course.  And no suggestion of monsters.

Other than that wave, Sera doesn't much move or acknowledge Nicholas' approach until he is within actual hailing distance.  Then she turns her head - gingerly, gingerly.  This is the day-after.  Every part of her aches.  Every part of her welcomes the ache.  The spread of her neat little mouth beneath her glasses: a wide flat smirk and Nicholas mirrored in the convex surface of her dark glasses.

"You look like you're about to sell someone some goddamned insurance."

So says the creature resplendent in British-flag bikini top beneath a faded black hoodie over denim cut-offs and torn fishnets.  She has, at some point, taken off her battered combat boots and her almost-bare feet rest in the grass.

Grace
Mmm. Sera. That gut-wrenching feeling has her attention now, drawing her sight, making her change course. The trees, no longer the source of her fascination, don't honestly care.

Sera might.

"Sera!" she says, strolling up, sitting down next to her on the grass. There is also a wave to Nick somewhere in there.

"Do insurance salesmen wear pink shirts?" she says, honestly curious.

"I've been meaning to talk to you," she adds, quieter.

Nicholas
Nicholas has a talent for mirroring other peoples' expressions, for picking up on their moods and reflecting them back and sometimes twisting them just so.  He makes use of it in his job: it's how children learn to identify what they're feeling, having an adult frown when they are saying something sad or smile back when they are happy.  It's equally important for adults.

So: he sees Sera, and there is this quick cut of his mouth, this way in which the corner snicks upward as though hooked.  "That's because I am.  Have you heard about our new life insurance policy?"  A thought, a beat.  "...I might actually consider that if I were terrible.  I'd make a fortune."

He has stopped in front of her, though always always with an eye on the frisbee as it cuts the air.  Nick got a black eye from a frisbee once, years ago.

Grace catches his attention next when she comes up on the two of them, and almost without thinking he shifts his stance to allow her space into the conversation and also to face her, or at least pull her into his line of sight.  His brow furrows at what she says.  "To me?"

Serafíne
Oh, here's Grace.  Asking a very honest question about a very wry quip tossed off by a very hungover Cultist and again that sensation of arrest, of cessation as she shifts the direction of her dark, reflective glasses from Nicholas to Grace.  A: very slow lift of one of her flat blond brows, expressive enough that it rises above the curving frame of the glasses.  And lingers, because she's not really quite sure how to take Grace's question about insurance salesmen.  For example: is it the sort of question that requires an answer?

Something in her decides that it is not the sort of question that requires an answer.  Or: that she is too something-something-something after last-night and this-morning and hell, the last few weeks, the last few months, the last few years to have to answer if it does.

Her attention cuts back to Nicholas.  Something about the cant of her head suggests that she catches the hint of that smirk carved back to her.  And he cannot see her eyes but he can still somehow almost feel that flick of her attention: minute and precise and animal: to his mouth, then back to his eyes.  The gleam of the dying sun in her glasses, his shadow long over the blanket, the grass.  Might make another quip in that moment, but no.   Sera mirrors Nicholas' question, though she does so wordlessly.  Inquiry stitched into the lift of her chin.

Grace
"Well, not... I mean, sure I could talk to you, but I don't have anything specific in mind," she says, to Nick, as though that question caught her off guard. It can be rather hard to tell who Grace is talking to, considering she so rarely makes eye contact.

"Sera. I had a run-in with a sysadmin. I got traced, but I'm not sure how bad. I'm no good at looking back in time to figure out what happened, you know? But you..."

Are totally unaware of what a sysadmin is, or why one would trace her... Right. Grace frowns, tries to figure out a better way to say this. "I felt something. Subtle. A hint of resonance."

Nicholas
Nick shifts his weight to his other foot as he glances between the two women.  He, too, is rather unaware in any specific sense of what a sysadmin is, other than what conclusions he can draw from the words themselves, and so: he listens.

Serafíne
And here is Sera who can very well unhinge time.  Pull it apart.  Reel it backwards.  Create within it currents as slow as molasses or as rippling-fast as some ever-accelerating black and white montage of a movie-bender and who does not know what a sysadmin is and who, on some deep and really rather important level, does not even believe in them.

When her iPhone works, it works by magick.

Sometimes, some nights, it does not seem to want to work at all.

Her attention hangs on Grace.  She has been leaning back on her elbows, but now - a ripple of her flexible frame - sits closer-to-upright.  Ow.  Her head hurts.

"Like - "  here a furrowed V of thought appears between the enormous discs of her glasses.  " - yesterday?  Someone was spying on you?"

Grace
"No. It was a while ago. Month or so. When I was trying to figure out what happened to Alex," she explains, hopefully that's enough. Not going to go into specifics here in the park, is she.

She seems strangely okay with this -- accepting of the fact. What's done is done, and all. But what was done?

"But yeah. Possibly spying on me. I fought it off, but..." she trails off, waves an arm in the air.

Nicholas
Nick looks between the two of them again, his eyebrows cutting a delicate arch as he listens to the talk of spying and figuring out what happened to Alex.  It occurs to him that he has not yet met the man.

"Should I give the two of you some time?"

Grace
"Why?" she asks Nick. "I don't mind you knowing. You're as welcome here as cupcakes, man. Stay. If you want."

Kiara
Washington Park was a sort of nexus for the athletically inclined in Denver, as it happened. There were no small number of them tonight as the sun began to dwindle and sink into the horizon, cutting pathways around the lake and appearing only to weave a steady track over inclines and down again; vanishing into the distance.

Joggers. There was something so mundane and expected to them.

Amidst a world of chaos and uncertainty, lying on the grass surrounded by Frisbees and dogs being walked and the occasional carrying cry of laughter or the smack of a ball hitting the backside of a distant basketball court - there was an easy comfort in the banality.

Breaking away from behind a young couple pushing a stroller down by the glinting lakeside is a familiar figure; tall and lean with long dark hair sailing out behind her. Another runner by any other name but also - a Witch. The pagan known to some here as anything but a nameless addition to the Sleepers. She's slowing to a clipped walk, the Verbena; breathing hard and holding her hands against her side; her pace directing her toward a bench to warm down her muscles.

She's a surge of the Springtime Kiara, as she sets her leg up and stretches it out; a sweatshirt laced around a narrow waist; navy workout gear encasing her form. If she notes the presence of the others up on a shallow rise of grass, she's yet to make it clear.

Though the presence of earbuds and a small MP3 taped to her arm would suggest she's unaware - yet. Here then, was one half of their rescue team that had extricated Alexander from the Union. Nicholas alone perhaps knew the current condition of the other half - for her part, physically at least, the brunette seemed to be coping with the aftermath reasonably well.

Serafíne
There is rhythm behind them.  The slap of plastic against strangers' palms.  Bare feet against that solid spring grass, the cold soil beneath, warming yeah but still somehow in the grip of winter.  The whir of the discs through the air: the twin miracles of propulsion and flight.  Aerodynamics or what the fuck ever.

By now Sera is sitting forward, legs crossed beneath her, the picnic blanket rucked up beneath "them from the movement.  Golden curls a messy tangle in the failing light.  She takes off her sunglasses here and gives Nicholas a brief, apologetic flash of a glance.  Neat little compression of her mouth.  Her eyes are a little bit bloodshot and her pupils are still rather-too-large.  This hint of bruising beneath them: dark circles, something.  That ache more evident without the shield of the glasses, but what the fuck does one expect?  She's hung-over.

Breathes out here, Sera.  Tried to order her thoughts for Grace and then: a flicker of something else.    "You asked to talk to me," Sera reminds Grace, though there is something gentle in her tone.  The bravado of her greeting to Nick earlier is long-since drained away.  " - remember?  Not him.  So, you haven't made him feel quite as welcome as cupcakes, Grace.  You know?  Nick may not want to be a spectator to our conversation.  He might even need to get home to start dinner."

Brief curve of her mouth here: the lilt of her chin, this neat, apologetic little gesture toward Nicholas before her attention cuts back to and rests wholly on Grace.

"Have you felt the resonance since then?"

Kiara
[Oh yeah, we should do this for our next post. Mage-dar.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 6, 7, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )

Grace
"Oh," Grace says. It honestly hadn't occurred to her that she might be edging someone out. "I'm sorry. I'll just..."

She takes a breath. Sera asks her something. "No."

But, she's distracted, giving that no to Nick's face, as she radiates confusion with hers. This is one of those times, right? When the rules of social interaction seem to have been missed. It makes her uncomfortable. Makes her want to...

"I should go. You think about it, okay, Sera?" she stands up, gets the attention toward the trees again. Trees are easier to understand.

Nicholas
It doesn't take an especially perceptive person to note the confusion, as boldly as it has been sketched across Grace's features.  Nick reaches out toward her as she stands up, motions for her elbow and ends up not grabbing hold just letting his fingertips rest there on the back of her arm.  It's meant to catch her attention; little more.  "Don't leave, Grace.  I just stopped to say hello to Sera.  You two should talk."

Kiara
It's a slow progression up the hill when she does notice the others gathered.

The earphones curled around her neck; her face flushed with recent exertion. Kiara Woolfe approaches feeling like the whirl of energy she is, at her core. Thriving, pulsing with life and the promise of vitality and renewal. She smells like sunshine and sweat, the Verbena and somehow; the sheen of it; the essence of that - absolutely feels at home on her.

She makes a slight outward arc to avoid collision with the game at play nearby and approaches from behind a tree; her fingers chasing over the bark.

"Hey."

A breathless greeting that seems to encapsulate them all from the dark eyed female; her mouth bent into a small match for it. The corner curled upward. She settles back against the tree and resumes stretching.

Serafíne
Sera's quiet, as Nick stops Grace.  Doesn't pull her dark eyes with the too-large pupils from Grace except briefly, to greet Kiara with a wordless touch of her gaze as the Verbena approaches.  A flicker back, and the Cultist slides her dark glasses back over her eyes and rises.

"C'mon Grace, we'll go talk."  Except for the fishnets, her feet are bare.  Damp grass clings to her skin.  Tomorrow, they say, it will snow.  Tonight, the Cultist starts to walk, barefoot in the cool spring grass, ambling pass the ultimate frisbee game in the warm spring park.  She leaves behind: everything.  The orange juice and the plaid blanket and her favorite Doc Martens and her pack of unopened kreteks and her favorite lighter lost somewhere on the blanket, everything.

Maybe she plans to return.

Maybe she assumes: effortlessly, naturally, that someone will always be trailing behind her to clean that shit up.

Serafíne
(I am really sorry but as usual it is my bed time and I have to go to bed.  Sera will go off with Grace and talk.  Noel: IM me sometime and we can continue the scene.  Andrew and Jacqui: I want a real scene sometime soon!)

Grace
She doesn't tense up and tell him off, at least. There was a time when she would. But she does look down at her arm, still woefully unsteady about what's going on. Why is he touching her? Oh. He wants her to stay.

Well, right now, she just wants to get as far away from the awkwardness that is her attempting to interact with people and failing. These things have a tendency to snowball.

Then, Sera gets up to leave. Asks her to come with. No, no, no, this isn't right. Ugh, do they not understand at all? This is exactly what she wanted to avoid. Her hand goes up to her hair, like she's going to pull it out.

"Hi, Kiara. Bye, Kiara," Grace says, looking gut-punched. And yet, she follows behind Sera.

Nicholas
Tomorrow, it's supposed to snow; tonight, here is Kiara running into them while jogging.  Is there a chill in the air just yet, the way arctic winds will sweep down out of the north, a precursor to the gale?  Perhaps.  If so, Nick in the clothes he's wearing is probably better prepared than most of them.

His eyes trail Grace and Sera as they get up to go.  Nick: he can't imagine just getting up and leaving a pair of boots behind, in particular.  He'd caught that look Grace had flicked at him, read into it perhaps her uncertainty, whatever anger or irritation or frustration may be there to read, and his hand is quick to drop back to his side.

It is followed by a sigh, a furrow of the brow, a mouth that thins for a moment in what could be either concern or any number of other more subtle things.

"Hello, Kiara," he says, as the other two are departing.