A Chaosphony of Mages

Kalen
[Before I forget - Kalen, are you sleeping?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN7 (1, 4, 5, 6, 10) ( success x 1 )

Shoshannah
[Nightmares]
Dice: 5 d10 TN7 (3, 9, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Connor
[DO I NOTICE THINGS TODAY?? (probably not): awareness]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (6, 7, 7) ( success x 3 )

Shoshannah
[How observant of mystical things are we today?  Per + Aware]
Dice: 6 d10 TN5 (1, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )

Kalen
[Yeah, about noticing the things.....]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 4, 8, 8) ( success x 2 )

Kalen
Kalen has found a couch upstairs and is curled up at one end with a book, or as curled up as you can be when one leg is curled up and one leg is still straightened.  Still, he's managed to curl up at least enough to obscure the title of whatever book he's reading.  It's fairly warm, but he's wearing a relatively heavy tawny gold hoodie anyway.  And the usual jeans and hiking boots.  His eyes are open, and he is looking at the book, but there is relatively little sign he's actually reading it.  His eyes aren't scanning side to side and pages are not turning often at all.

Shoshannah
They say nowhere in Denver is too far for a bike ride, and in Shoshannah's case that can extend to it's never too cold or generally inclement as well.  Long pants, long sleeved shirt, newly (or recently, anyway) procured winter coat, hat and gloves keep her more or less hidden from any prying eyes, though that doesn't really help her much.  She can never help drawing attention, whether she wants to or not.  Now, though, she's feigning indifference as well as she ever does - the most reaction anyone gets is a glare.

And look, there's a book store.  That one that's practically a magnet for mages.

Inside Shoshannah goes, and she's instantly treated to the feeling of Kalen, and she stills where she is for a moment debating the merits of turning around and leaving.  Which may or may not help if he's noticed her as handily as she's noticed him.

Connor
Connor is walking, because Connor is downtown and Connor is always walking downtown, at least until the snows come.  The weather is just on the brink of turning, the skies are grey and dreary, and there's a wind that will eventually worm its way through to the bones of anyone not wearing a proper coat, but Connor is sunny.  Today is the kind of day that makes him seem annoyingly bright, like a lance of sunlight piercing through the pupils of someone suffering a hangover.

He takes his time getting from one end of the Mall to the other, stopping to chat with shopkeepers and make a little money, himself.  Someone is playing one of the brightly painted pianos between the two bus lanes and Connor stops to listen for a bit, smiling and tapping his foot completely out of rhythm with the music.  He stops to talk to a friend sitting on a bench for a bit, and as they talk Connor pulls a matching knit cap and scarf from his bag and hands them over.  Just before he leaves he promises to bring a blanket before the snow comes.  The woman doesn't know it yet, but he'll make good on that promise.  Connor always makes good on his promises.
When he gets to the end of the street, still some ways before the light rail station and the sailboat building, he feels a pull that is unrelated to the angry defensiveness or the storm on the horizon, though he'll get to that.  No, the pull he feels is to a house of learning.  A bookstore!  Since his Awakening not so many weeks ago, Connor's had a sudden thirst for knowledge, a kindled curiosity for knowing but mostly for learning.

Which is sort of a problem, but a good kind of problem to have.  Connor knows that if he walks through that door into that large bookstore he's going to walk out of it with his arms heavily weighted by bags full of books about planes, the city, ghost stories, knitting, whatever he happens to glance at that seems interesting.

He gets a little closer and then he feels it.  He feels that odd tingle at the base of his skull, feels it more keenly than he has thus far.  Storm, that's close.  Someone's angry, someone's defensive.  What is that who is that let me go see.

And so it is that Shoshannah is unwittingly followed into the building by a young man of average height and a build hidden by a large overcoat, with dark skin and bits of black hair sticking out beneath the hem of his own knit cap.  He has a bookbag slung over one of his shoulders, which he adjusts, slipping his other arm through the strap so that both of his hands are free.

He sees the girl, the one that is trying to be indifferent - or maybe really is indifferent, Connor doesn't read too closely.  He offers Shoshannah the exact same smile he offers one of the people behind the counter, which is warm and friendly, the kind of smile that suggests they've been friends since the womb, though that's obviously impossible.  They're different ages!  He's older, but just looking at them one might question which is the wiser.  He smiles at Shoshannah all friendly-like, but he doesn't linger.  Instead he heads over to the coffee shop in the corner of the first floor.

Kalen
He recognizes Shoshannah's presence easily enough.  It's familiar, if not precisely comforting.  Connor...Connor he doesn't place at first, though he does notice.  He looks up for a few seconds, glances around.

There is space near enough that at least a few of those drawn in by the weird karmic attraction of Mages to this place could join him.  Perhaps they will.  He doesn't have that kind of gravity.  If anyone here does have the power to draw people in like the sun it's Connor with all that Apollonian light.

For now, curious and a little wary, he waits.

If they don't appear, perhaps he will wander downstairs in search of them.  Or coffee.  Both.

Shoshannah
In fact, Shoshannah's stopped directly in front of the door which means that Connor nearly trips over her when he comes in behind her - earning him a Look, but little more before they're both heading towards the cafe portion of the store.

Shoshannah, too, has a draw - that much is made obvious by the way people react to her, either magnetized to her side or completely repulsed, and seldom anything in between.  She's a girl who evokes strong feelings in nearly anyone she comes near.  She may be unlikely to be the center of a clutch of mages, but there's little chance of denying, or even ignoring, her presence.  And so it is that Connor knows she's matching his pace, a few steps behind, and that she's stepped into line behind him.  If he looks back, she musters something like a smile - and when it's her turn to order she says, "Espresso, please.  No, just espresso.  Yes, I know what it's like."  Her temper is short, and her snarkiness escalates quickly.

With luck, she'll get her drink as she ordered it, with no additives.

So it is that they wait together, she and Connor, and after a moment or two she even offers a quiet (but still somehow hard, sharp), "Hello."  There's uncertainty there, inherent, but it's an overture.  It's better than most people get.

Connor
Shoshannah stops so abruptly Connor has to quickly sidestep her to avoid a collision.  His smile is apologetic, then, but no less warm or friendly.  The light of him is less a glow of warm sunshine and more like a light that shines in the darkness, illuminating the truth among the shadows.  When he realizes she's behind him he steps aside again, letting her go first.  It may seem a strange sort of chivalry at first, but actually it's a courtesy.  As Shoshannah starts to get through her order, Connor leans to look past her shoulder at the barista, offering him a smile.  "'Sup, Shane!" he greets, but otherwise does not interrupt.  It's perhaps good he does, too, at least that little bit.  Shoshannah's presence is a creepy creeping crawling one, which to the barista feels like someone walking over his grave.  Connor's smile from behind her brings a little warmth back into the man behind the counter, giving him the presence of mind to offer the girl a smile, despite her sharpness and her shortness.

When it's Connor's turn the real reason he let her go first becomes even more apparent.  He strikes up easy conversation with this barista named Shane, asking him about his band and when they're next gig is, so on, so forth.  He doesn't say an order, but Shane punches something into the register anyway.  Then someone else is coming up behind the young man and he grins from barista to customer and back again, says, "Later, man," and finally steps to the side.

And now this would probably surprise Connor's sorta-kinda mentor-person.  He puts his hands in his pockets and though he is obviously aware of Shoshannah's presence, he glances her way only once before directing his eyes toward the ceiling, away from her.  He leaves her alone because he's not entirely obtuse.

But then she goes and says that terse greeting and he twists his head to regard her fully and his mobile features arrange into a comfortable and familiar sort of smile.  "Hey!" he says far more brightly than she.  "How's it going?"

Lena Reilly
Lena has been incommunicado since she left Luke Morgan's little private practice.  She hasn't said anything on Ginger, she hasn't been to the Chantry.  She even broke the lease on her apartment and left it.  The latter, at least, was a matter of practicality; she couldn't stay in that place that was filled with sickness and bad memories and she knew that it would be thoroughly scrubbed before someone else moved in, so better someone else have a chance to be happy there.

Wherever she's been since then, she hasn't slept much.  Luckily she doesn't need a lot of sleep, but possibly more than she's been getting.  Lena's been called a caffeine addict before and the truth is that the label is more accurate than people might realize.  It probably doesn't help matters overly much, but she is at least functioning on a moderately high level as she makes her way down the street.  She's put herself together fairly well: she's not half-dressed or smelling of several days without a shower, she isn't staggering drunkenly down the street.  It is smaller things that might be noticed; the way that her eyes are red-rimmed and looking hollow, the weight she hasn't even begun to put back on following the Hydra virus (and indeed, might have lost a little more).  The wired/tired combination of her demeanor, the bit of jitteriness that suggests a bit of caffeine overdose, and the way she's not wearing a jacket over the straight black tank top and low-slung jeans that she's got on.  The way she's shut down (consciously or not) her own sixth sense, even if she can't shut down the vibes she gives off to others.

She's not really heading anywhere in particular as she exhales a drag of cigarette smoke, stubs the butt out on the wall of a building and then flicks it into a nearby garbage can.  It's perhaps mere coincidence that she's heading down the 16th Street Mall.  (But when is anything "coincidence" for the Awakened?)  Whatever the case, she needs coffee.  And as she walks up, she seems to vaguely recall this book store.  It had good coffee.  And so, with a furtive look around her vicinity, she runs a hand through hair that could (perhaps) use a slightly more thorough combing and pushes the door open to slip inside, heading without a second glance around her, head ducked, toward the coffee counter.  She's not paranoid, she's just trying to keep her profile low.  Just in case.

Connor
[I have awarepathy?]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (4, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )

Connor
[that was on Lena, btw, and mostly to see if doofus happened to notice anything is awry]

Kalen
Kalen sighs, uncurls from his place on the couch, and sets his book down.  Even if he doesn't end up spending any time with the Mages he can sense downstairs, coffee is going to be required.  Some things he could read about for days; sadly, the history of Austria is not one of them.

And so, eventually, he too joins the little gathering at the coffee counter.  He gives a wave in Shoshannah and Connor's general direction.  If Lena turns toward him enough to be recognizable she gets a wave as well, even a hello if they're close enough in line.  It is entirely possible he is more interested in coffee than in people today.

Shoshannah
"Alright," she says with a shrug, and for a moment it seems like that might be all she says - as if her normal social interaction function is rusty, somehow, but then, "And you?"  There's an accent there, obviously foreign, somewhat exotic.; it matches her skin tone and those astounding eyes of hers, the ones that see life and death and souls and worlds, or appear to.  It's not a warm voice, though, and even when she tries to be friendly it doesn't necessarily come off that way.

Today, it's boot cut jeans that fit well to her hips, a thin but apparently warm cable knit sweater with a cowl neck, under a puffy ski-type jacket that's now open in deference to the very different level of warmth inside as compared to out.  She's long and lean (she grew up tall and she grew up right . . .) and very, very pretty, for all her lack of social grace.

".....I'm Shoshannah," comes last, as if she's uncertain that it should.  "It's nice to meet you."

Shoshannah
And somewhere in there, there's a glance Kalen-wards, and an answering waggle-fingered wave.  No glare, but no smile either.  It's simple acknowledgement.

Connor
Connor is not yet fully aware of the magnetism that comes with being in Fight Club, but he'll figure it out soon enough, surely.  There was that night at Alyssa's, when suddenly two new Magi materialized out of the ether to knock upon her door.  And now, today, there are four of them converging not only on this bookstore but on this particular corner of it.  Shane's counterpart, a young lady barista with short dark hair, a ridge of piercings through her left eyebrow, and more ink than skintone on her bare forearms, is busy making the drink orders and so is spared the slight warping of reality as those resonances start to converge on the other side of the counter.  Shane, though, poor Shane.  It's all right there and he doesn't understand it but he really wishes he could switch places with his coworker right about now.

Connor, on the other hand, wouldn't trade places with anyone else in the world ever ever ever.  For one thing, there is Kalen making his way toward them.  Connor's face lights up when he happens to look in that direction and see the Hermetic.  He lifts his hand in an exuberant wave before returning his attention to his coffee waiting partner.  Who doesn't have much warmth to her, but Connor imagines (and perhaps it really is his imagination) that she is trying for whatever reason.  In any event, her mouth is opening and closing and words are coming out in Connor's direction and Connor will return them as though it is his sole responsibility in life.  That sort of determination changes his expression to something more thoughtful.  "Good," he says, "good."  He's noticed that she's very very pretty, those eyes that hair and oh man they're the same height!  He doesn't ogle her, though, doesn't stop to let his eyes travel over that sweater and the fit of the jeans all the way down to her shoes and back up again.  For one thing that's just rude, she's talking and he is naturally engaged in the conversation.  For another he imagines (and this is mostly likely not in his imagination) she would claw out his eyes if he did.  Connor likes his eyes, they're big and dark and warm and friendly.  They make his face complete, and he likes being able to see.

"I saw there's a new Grisham," he twists to jerk his thumb back over his shoulder in the direction of one of the front displays through one of the main entrances, and in doing so notices Lena heading in their direction.  Lena who is wearing a tank top even though it's cold and windy.  Lena who hasn't called him up in a while and in that time has apparently lost weight and perhaps something else, some part of her that he does not know enough to place.  "Uh," he says, and turns back toward Shoshannah.  He blinks at her, then gives his head a shake as if to clear it.  In that time she says her name and his

whole

face

transforms

into a bright beaming light of transcendant joy.

Lena is for a few moments more left to her own devices, at least until she makes it to the line.  "You're Shoshannah?" because it has to be her, how many Shoshannah's are there likely to be in the Denver chapter of Fight Club?  And of course her identified as Shane the barista calls her name out and places a cup on an open counter space.  "I'm Connor!" he says, as though they've been internet chat buddies for years and have just accidentally been revealed to each other in meatspace.  A half second later he goes, "Oh, wait you might not know that.  Those, uh," his eyes dart side to side, and he leans a little closer to Shoshannah in a conspiratorial way, "spirits," he whispers, before quickly straightening again, "you sent them, right?  Sorry I couldn't help, I don't know who those people are, I'm still pretty new to all this," his eyes lift, and he waves one hand around aimlessly, the other reaching toward the counter to pick up his own beverage.

"Lena, HEYyyyyy," he does not shout, but starts with his usual brightness that immediately drops away along with the pleased look on his face when he sees her all up close and really sees the Cultist.

Lena Reilly
Mages all around, and for once Lena is none the wiser.  Again, that's by choice...though whether it's conscious choice or a subconscious defense mechanism is anyone's guess.  She gets to the counter, crosses her arms over her chest and waits for the person in front (the guy who was after Connor) to finish his order.  Truth be told, there's probably a bit of a corrolation between Shoshannah's guardedness and Lena's right now.  The difference is that where the Dreamspeaker's walls are feuled by heat, Lena's are done with the opposite.

She stands there quietly, eyes pointed toward the ground and hands wrapped around the outside of her arms as she waits for her turn to step up.  She has as much acknowledgement of Shoshannah (or Connor or Kalen, for that matter) as Shoshannah has of her at first; the Ecstatic is too shrunken inward to notice visual indicators in the corners of her periphery, so Kalen's potential wave goes unnoticed.

It isn't until she's stepped up to the counter and given Shane the barista the phantom of a long-passed smile that she hears something that strikes her attention: I'm Shoshannah.  Her spine straightens then and she pauses in her greeting to the man behind the counter, for just a moment.  When she picks back up it's in a quieter voice, quickly ordering a quad Mocha and a triple cup.

And then...Connor.  Good old Connor, they guy that she calls up when she's running low on her...let's call them herbal supplements.  And to be fair, it's not THAT often; Lena isn't a really heavy pot smoker.  But she does use it, both recreationally and magically.  And thus, it might certainly be noticeable that she hasn't called him in easily a month.  She hears Connor introduce himself to Shoshannah, and she thinks Oh good.  My world needed more colliding.  She shakes her head a little as she slips away from the counter, steps back and tries to keep a low prof--

Lena, HEYyyy...

Well, so much for that.  She shuts her eyes a moment, steels herself and then opens them.  Puts up a pretense of a small smile and looks at Connor.  A quick, sidelong glance is given to Shoshannah, before she looks back.  And in that amount of time, Connor's smile is gone and she realizes how she looks.  That's something you can fool yourself with: the idea that Oh, I don't look so bad.  I can pass as totally normal.  It's only when you're staring in the face of someone who clearly sees something else that you're faced with the cold, hard truth of the matter.

She sighs, and tries for that little half-smile again.  "Hey, Connor."  And then another look to Shoshannah, and a little nod.  "Hi.  Small world, I guess?"

Connor
[edit: ...her identified... should be ...her identity is verified...]

Lena Reilly
[[My own edit: Quad mocha IN a triple cup.  Even Lena doesn't order THAT much coffee all together.]]

Kalen
Lena is oblivious to his presence, Shoshannah is largely indifferent, and Connor...well he's friendly enough but more interested in Lena and Shoshannah.  It's just as well.  Whether he's fond of the history of Vienna or not, he wants some context before he starts trying libraries.  Search terms.  Keywords.  He could do the beginning stages of research in a library, but librarians are angered by things like coffee near their books.
Coming here had seemed like the perfect idea.  Until other Mages started arriving.  It does seem he could slip away after his coffee without anyone really caring, but he'd still sense them, fluttering at the edges of a sense most people didn't even have.  Perhaps he should just accept that being out where other people were was lovely while it lasted, buy a handful of books and go home where it would only be cats distracting him?

He orders a coffee anyway, because he's here now.  No frothed milk, no flavors, just coffee - to go.  There is a glance over the others, but he does not move to join them.  He moves slightly into the little seating section instead of nearer the coffee bar, so he can be out of the way and leave them their space.

Shoshannah
"Yes, I'm Shoshannah."  She's puzzled at first, and then there's Lena only barely looking at her and Kalen walking away (and it's almost amusing how she both deflates and gets larger than life in response to these things - 25% hurt teenaged girl and 75% I-don't-give-a-shit-about-anyone, and a clarification of how or why it is that this stranger knows her name.  It draws her attention back to him, at any rate, which is probably a good thing for everyone that isn't . . . well, you know, the ray of sunlight that is this newly Awakened fellow after a brief, terse, "Hey," for Lena.

A step is all it takes to retrieve her drink from the counter when her order is called, and one arm wraps around her middle.  Both wrists are well covered with warmers that are actually warm, for perhaps the first time, and she holds her cup like it's a lifeline.

Connor is new (of course he is), but older than she is, and he already knows Lena so her impulse is to leave the two of them alone to their conversation, but there was a question levelled at her, and so she answers it, all full of stiff distance.  "Oh - yes, I sent them.  With little result at all, not just from you - got a phone number from some girl, though.  Alyssa?  You know her?"  It's intrigued, but not much more, and her eyes have flicked after the Hermetic who's decided not to join them.  Given that her face is expressive, even Connor who's just met her may well notice that she looks like she's been slapped.

Connor
One of the many things about Connor is that though he may be an open book, making absolutely no immediate attempt at hiding his dismay at Lena's thinned, slightly disheveled appearance, he's not cruel about it.  He sees the way she steels herself to face him and his heart cracks a little for her, and that shows.  Even so, he doesn't close the distance between them and fuss all over her.  She may be one of his dear friends, but he knows even from their infrequent meetings that she's not the sort to be fussed over.  He's always kind of admired that about her.

And even though she looks like maybe she could do with some utterly-against-her-will fussing, Connor isn't going to be the sort of person who does it.  Instead he finds his easy smile and offers that to her, teeth almost painfully white against the darker cast of his skin.  "Well it is Denver.  I told you about that guy I know, right?  Who is like the Kevin Bacon of Denver?  Turns out someone I met who was visiting from another country had already met him."  He shakes his head, amused and awed.  The world can be so small, even as it is so large and huge and vast.

Kalen thinks he can get away without much notice, and in that he is incorrect, but he will at least go without being accosted by Connor.  He has not yet noticed the line of tension that travels from the Hermetic to the Dreamspeaker, but he knows well enough when to leave someone to their own devices.  Same with Lena.  He will not force his presence on them if they want to be left alone, despite his obvious concern for his friend slash customer.

He draws Shoshannah back to him, and she draws his attention back to her.  Not like it's hard.  He's never experienced a girl like her before.  So out of this world gorgeous, but so strange too, it's like she radiates some kind of chill but also there's that angry heat?

She asks if he knows Alyssa and his smile turns fond as he nods his head virgorously in the affirmative.  Yes, he does he does he does.  He takes a sip of his coffee, then turns a little to follow her gaze over to...Kalen?  She knows Kalen?  He looks back and he sees that look on her face.  It takes him a moment to puzzle it out, but when he finally puts the pieces together there is no disguising it (or there could be, but Connor tends to display his feelings on the brightly lit billboard of his face).  He looks a little crestfallen.

Still, he shores himself up against a brief and short-lived disappointment.  Some day something will get Connor down and keep him down, Denver has that effect on its Magi, but for now his spirit is buoyant.  "You wanna go somewhere else?"  He asks it gently, quietly, for Lena's and her ears only, the former because she seems like maybe she doesn't want to be here, and the latter because maybe she'd like to step away from her boyfriend to give herself a chance to recover from whatever slight she's feeling.

Lena Reilly
Bless that friendly, warm little open book of a human being that is Connor, he manaages to turn the conversation to something that isn't quite awkward; combined with Shoshannah's focus elsewhere and Kalen walking away, it means that she doesn't have to talk about her or how she's doing.  She doesn't have to try to smile and say Oh, I'm doing better, thanks for asking.  Connor brings up his Six Degrees of Denver friend and it's something that allows Lena to curve the left side of her lips up a tiny amount.  It's not a smile, but it's at least the slightest raising of temperature behind those hefty walls.  "Yeah, I've noticed that happens in this city."

And then Shoshannah's talking about spirits.  And Lena is struck with a realization: she's talking about spirits with Connor.  That in itself is like a splash of cold water to the face and she almost gasps.  "Wait. Connor, did you..."  She blinks, looks at him, and then looks at Shoshannah and--

And notices that Shoshannah looks like she's been hit with something herself.  That brings Kalen into her attention finally.  She looks at Shoshannah.  Looks at Kalen.  Her eyes narrow a little.  It's not quite anger.  She's not feeling emotions quite strongly enough for that yet.  More frustration.

"Maybe in a minute," she says in response to Connor, as she turns to follow the Hermetic to the seating area.

Shoshannah
[Wait, haha, Shoshannah has Awarepathy too.  On Connor, cos WTF?  =D )
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (6, 6, 7, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 6 )

Kalen
Kalen is really only barely watching them, for all he's close by.  It isn't unlike Connor looking at the ceiling instead of at Shoshannah earlier.  Most of his attention remains on waiting for his coffee, which he steps forward to accept with a quiet thanks just before Lena heads over.

There is a second, when Lena starts to cross the short distance toward him, when he smiles and starts to raise the hand holding his coffee in a little salute in place of a second wave.  And then he registers the expression and he lets his hand fall and the smile vanishes.  It takes with it about any other sign of emotions.  It leaves behind a lot of distance.

“Lena,” he says.  Quiet.  A little wary.

Shoshannah
For a long moment, Shoshannah studies Connor.  That gaze is prodding, probing, and whatever she sees confuses her greatly, enough that she takes an unconscious step back.  The arm around her middle tightens and her cup rises, and it's so. damned. clear that her first instinct is to lash out, to make this new guy that knows all the people she knows and talks to spirits and does all the things just go away.  It's equally clear that the step away is at least as much for his benefit as hers - to help her resist the urge, perhaps, or to make sure he keeps those aforementioned eyes in his face.  They look nice there, after all, in more ways than one.

And there's Lena walking away too, which gets a lesser reaction than Kalen had, but it's there nonetheless - so maybe Connor takes note of that, too.  She feels creepy-weird, this girl, and a logical train of thought would garner that most people don't like to be around her all that much - if it even had to work that hard.  In the time they've been standing here, other customers (because there have been, though of course the Dreamspeaker had the sense not to do anything so ridiculous as talk about spirits to a newbie with 'danes close enough to hear) have either given her a wide berth, repulsed, or come entirely too close to ask her things, to tell her things, just to be near.

So what happens is this: ".....I'm not with anyone, never have been.  You can stop thinking that."

Ah, Shoshannah - she has all the subtlety of a bulldozer.

Connor
[these are my "play it cool, bro" dice: manip+subt]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 5, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

Connor
"Hm?"  He waits a moment for Lena to finish her question, but it doesn't come.  Instead, she, too, sees the way that Shoshannah looks, but the connection she makes is different.  She goes to confront the source.  Connor stays with Shoshannah.  Even though Lena is so...the way she is right now, and so frustrated, it makes Connor feel pretty good for a moment.  He doesn't know this particular friend half so well as he might like, but that doesn't matter.  In this moment they are united in a cause, even if that cause is dividing them in different directions.  They are a team, sort of.  That is just so awesome.

But she's off, and Kalen's over there, and even though they haven't taken a single step Shoshannah has been given her little bit of space.  Too wrapped up in his conversation with two of his present friends, Connor hasn't yet noticed the way the strangers react to Shoshannah.  Then again, he doesn't give much thought to how people react to other people, unless it's negative and looks like it might lead to some sort of trouble, and so far that hasn't happened.

Someone finally does, though, comes close to her.  And for a moment Connor looks at this stranger, and he sees the way she looks at Shoshannah, like she might rush forward to cling to her arm and gush at her like she's found herself a real live saint.  And Connor thinks that's all well and good, Shoshannah is clearly awesome, he even feels a bit of hero-worship blossoming in his heart of hearts, but there are limits.  He holds out his arm and shifts his weight just enough to bump this newcomer with his backpack.  They physical contact, though brief, draws her attention away from Shoshannah.  "Hey do you mind?  We're trying to have a conversation."  His tone is still friendly and full of politeness, but the intent is clear.  Go away.

Looking back at Shoshannah, he tips his chin up and to the side, indicating they should maybe at least put a little distance between themselves and the people looking for their caffeine fix.  Even if they only go a step or two, he adjusts so that he becomes a protective barrier between the Dreamspeaker and these other people.  He wonders for one brief, shining moment, if that makes him seem cool or something, or if she like Lena is the sort of person who can take care of themselves just fine, thankyouverymuch.

That cool feeling bursts like a bubble when Shoshannah says that to him.  His eyes widen and he stares at her a moment, mouth slightly agape.  "What?"  And then, "Ah."  It's obvious, of course, that he is both embarrassed and relieved and a little hopeful.  The extent of these, however, he diminishes, because Don't be creepy don't be creepy don't be creepy you just MET this girl don't be creepy.

"Sorry," he says.  Then he clears his throat and he takes a sip of his coffee and he looks around because suddenly all the books become oh so interesting.  For the first time in what feels like ever Connor has found himself at a loss for words.  It doesn't last, though.  Connor always finds his words, or they find him.  "So what kinds of books do you read?"

Lena Reilly
Lena doesn't notice the look that Shoshannah gives, and that's probably best.  The DJ really doesn't need any more frustration, and it might come out in an entirely different way toward Shoshannah.  A way that she doesn't intend, that would do more harm than good.  And she doesn't see the way that Connor feels better because of how they're working together, intentionally or not.  She doesn't notice the exchange between the Dreamspeaker and the newly-Awakened Orphan and Connor's attempt to play it cool.

She doesn't see these because she is focused entirely, 100% on Kalen as she walks up to him.

It's fair to say that few people in Denver have really seen Lena when she's completely focused.  Focus is a difficult task for Ecstatics to achieve; they are creatures of passion and can often be distracted either by the directions those passions take or the tools they use to harness those passions.  Sid, Grace and Serafine have seen her focused, as she willed herself step by step toward what she hoped would be a confrontation where she would press her thumbs into Callum's eyesockets until he screamed and gurgled and died.  There was a pure, unrelenting focus of hatred there, utter rage and wrath.  It was shockingly different than the gentle, distant and somewhat reserved woman that most people saw.

Kalen, it is good to know, is not focused on with hatred.  Not with rage, and not with wrath.  Even the frustration is bleeding away, leaving a sort of neutral, numb intensity behind.  That intensity may still be unnerving for him because of how lasered it is on the Hermetic.  He might just feel like a target in crosshairs despite the lack of violent aggression.  It's not emotionless, exactly; it's more that she has so many emotions combating each other that they form a sort of white noise.

She walks up to Kalen, moves to put a hand around the back of his neck to rest there so that she can lean in.  It's not hostile at all and whether he pulls away from the touch (itself a shockingly rare thing from her) or not, she still leans in to murmur to him.

And as soon as the words are spoken she's pulling away and trying to turn to walk away.  The only reason she got that close is because these words aren't for anyone but him.  She's already getting a panicked look in her eyes at having put herself that close to someone.

Kalen
Kalen does not, for all he seems less then sure about what the Hell Lena is doing in his space, pull away.  He is reasonably certain that Lena is not about to attack him in coffee shop and generally unopposed to contact.

His eyes widen, very slightly.  He was prepared for one thing and Lena offered him something completely different.  Lena's already walking away before he can really say anything though.  He could reach out and grab her, she did just come up and grab him by the neck.  But he saw her face, her eyes, when she did that.  He knows what she just went through.  There aren't many people in the world who give Kalen credit for caring much about anything, but he does.  He does not reach out to stop her.  He will not capture her and force her to listen to him.

Instead, Kalen just watches her walk back to join Connor and Shoshannah.  He sets his coffee down after a few seconds of thought and pulls out his phone, tapping lightly at it.

Shoshannah
"I'm an impulse reader.  If the cover copy catches my attention, I'll probably pick it up."  There's a pause, and Shoshannah isn't at all used to carrying on conversations - not one bit.  It's a struggle to come up with what to say next, what to do, and the part where she holds herself so very closed off and separate doesn't help any.  And given her overabundance of fight instinct?  Her general insecurity and uncertainty does, indeed, come off as standoffish, aloof.  ".....but I do a lot of folklore, particularly Hebraic.  Stuff about ghosts and afterlife and . . . you know, that kind of thing."

Given how she feels, that can hardly be a surprise.

"What about you?  Are you looking for college books or something?"  Connor is the person closest to her age (by appearances) that she's met in awhile, but she can tell he's still older.  Something about his bearing, perhaps, or the lessened baby roundness in his cheeks, or the look in his eyes beyond the brightness, or any number of little cues and clues.  Which isn't to say that she isn't college aged, because she is - if she had a high school diploma, she could well be at any of the local universities.  And the way she asks isn't just polite; behind that coolness and heat, that distance, she's interested.

Connor
[alertness!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (5, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Connor
For the most part, Connor has no idea what's going on over with Kalen and Lena.  His focus is almost entirely on Shoshannah.  It's not an intense focus, Connor isn't a very intense seeming fellow and in most cases it's not even a seeming.  He just isn't that intense, not like Lena is intense.  Certainly not like Shoshannah is intense.  And that's why his focus is there, on her.  Despite his moment of embarrassed silence, he doesn't find it difficult to carry on conversations with people, strangers, friends, shy, introverted, whatever.

He finds her fascinating, and not in the way of someone who's found some interesting new bug to examine.  She likes impulse reading and for a second his eyes dart away, searching like he might happen to see neat cover she might find interesting.  They're in a bookstore, afterall, if she doesn't walk out with a book...well, that's okay, because Connor will probably walk out with twenty.

There's a laugh for the question about college books, and he looks back to her, nothing having grabbed his attention just yet.  "No.  No, I tried college, but we didn't really get along."  Before he can elaborate, however, he does finally notice something about the other two.  He notices that Lena is walking away.

"Oh hey hang on," he says to Shoshannah even as he turns his head to say, "hey Lena hang on a sec!"  Connor doesn't run her down, he is not the athletic type, but he does sort of trot-shuffle-speedwalk to close the distance between himself and the Cultist.  As he goes he rips the hat from off his head, and suddenly his dark and unruly hair goes puffing out in all directions, only a little flat from being kept under a hat all morning.  He does not ask Lena any questions, and he does not tell her to call him or any such thing.  He doesn't know what she's been through, doesn't know what any of them have been through or even that being Awakened is not always all that it's cracked up to be.  For now that's probably a good thing.

"It's cold outside, at least take this," he says, tilting his chin down a little as he stands there, holding out a knit beanie hat with black and blue and orange stripes.  If she takes it - and if she doesn't he will absolutely not be upset - she might notice that it smells a bit like stale marijuana and shampoo and something that is distinctly Connor.  "I got that Maui Blue in recently."  So he does tell her she can call him, in the most indirect and unobtrusive way possible.

Lena Reilly
She reaches out and picks up her coffee, and the truth of the matter is that she is fully intending on bolting out of the bookstore once she has it.  She looks at Shoshannah a moment, watches her but it's brief before she shoots her eyes quickly away.  The look there is apologetic, haunted and maybe even a little shamed.  But she can't stay and she doesn't even pick up the iPhone in her pocket (newly obtained with the old number, though Ginger-less) when it chirps the standard sound of an incoming text.

But then Conner is there, and she turns suddenly as he comes up.  It's a sudden spin, her body fully tensed before she realizes who it is and then she half-relaxes.  He's offering out her hat, and she stares at it and then at Connor.  She smiles, and it's one of those smiles that is both warm and grateful, and deeply saddened.  The kind of smile that comes not long before tears might.

She takes the hat with a little nod, and then puts a hand out to touch his arm.  "It's nice to see you woke up," she says with a little shrug.  "And thanks."  Whether it's for the heads up about the pot, the hat or just coming over, hard to say.  And then she turns to head out.  It is after she leaves that Kalen's phone will chirp with a response.

Connor
[be cool be cool be cool!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 6, 6, 7) ( success x 3 )

Kalen
Kalen watches Connor approach Lena to offer her his hat.  Watches Lena startle and then take the hat and then leave.  He sets his phone down and picks up his coffee, which is apparently the cue for his phone to buzz.

His eyes roll, and he drops into one of the chairs at the table so he can have one hand for coffee and one hand for his phone.  He takes a drink, reads his message, and rolls his eyes again.  After another drink of coffee he resumes tapping at the phone.

Grace Evans
[Awareness for all these Mages!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )

Shoshannah
Oh, hey, hang on, says Connor, and Kalen won't talk to her, and Lena is still non- (or barely) functional and Shoshannah . . . is not terribly well adjusted, as one might expect of someone like her.  Everything about the Dreamspeaker tightens, tenses, and she's unsure what to do now that she's just standing here, waiting on a boy when she'd really just intended to come in and browse, maybe buy a book or two, and get back on her bike and head back to the House.  Very rarely, though do things go as she intends, especially now.  Especially with boys.  Suffice it to say, she's sorely tempted to wander off.  Instead, she shoots a glance Kalen's way, and then hones in on Lena, who is obviously more interesting than she is, for obvious reasons.

Whatever, the Cultist is still her friend even if she can't handle being to close to Shoshannah right now.  So that look, that might be weighty or otherwise uncomfortable on someone else, is as comforting and supportive as the younger girl knows how to be.  it's not much, but it's an attempt anyway.  And yes, she's hanging on.

Grace Evans
[Nightmares! Must remember this!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Connor
When Lena whirls around there's a second where Connor leans back, just a little, just enough to say through body language that he's more afraid of her than she should be of him.  It's not fear, really, but though Connor can maybe make his way through a scrape, he'd really rather not.  Especially with Lena.  He only wants to offer her a little warmth.

And then several things happen at once.  Lena takes the hat and there's relief, and then she smiles and Connor starts to ascend to somewhere around cloud five or six, and he's well on his way to nine when she reaches out to touch his arm.  There are a couple layers of fabric between her fingertips and his skin, but the gesture, the meaning is still very profound to him.  This is Lena, who he knows at least well enough to know that she doesn't do physical.  Not a handshake, not a fistbump, not a gentle knock in the shoulder.  He knows because at some point or another he's tried one or all of those types of physical contact with her.  He does them with everyone, though he does try to read a situation before he engages on a level that to him is no big deal.  But he knows that for Lena it is a big deal, and so he holds perfectly still and he tries to keep the widening of his eyes to a minimum.  He does not want to spook the stray cat whose finally decided to sniff his outstretched fingers.

His brows lift when she mentions waking up, and then realizes that it's her.  She's the source of the withering pulse, the feeling at the moment like a dying heartbeat, or perhaps one that's on the brink of resuscitation.  And he smiles at her, warm and friendly and kind despite the fact that his heart breaks a little more at the sadness in her own smile.  He nods, and for a moment he watches her go the rest of the way out the door.  Then he runs his hand over his hair, first from forehead back and then back to forehead, mussing it up completely.

He looks around, not sure really if Shoshannah stuck around or if she's wandered off.  He wouldn't blame her if she did, how does it look that this interested yet not terribly flirtatious boy ran after her friend right in front of her?  She's there, though, and he looks relieved to see that she stayed.

"Sorry about that," he says, "you know Lena, though, that's cool.  Is it because she's, y'know, like us?"  And there again is that conspiratorial bend to the way he gets the words out, leaning closer but keeping to what he hopes is a comfortable distance for her.  "Or some other thing?"

Grace Evans
It's like this: their kind tend to... what is the word? Flock? Congregate? Like moths to flame, Mages to books and coffee. And while Grace makes a crazy long detour to get around the Starbucks in this place (it is anathema, it is horror itself) she knows where to find the one she's looking for.

It's not by mystical scrying or anything, though. Just a text message, received a while ago. And it's taken her this long to drum up the courage to get out. To go there again.

Kalen: Kit.  At Tattered Cover.  In danger of falling asleep reading about the history of Vienna.  May require rescue from Morpheus.  Hurry!  ;P

If it weren't for recent events, she'd take that 'requiring rescue' bit quite a bit differently. He's just trying to get her out again, socialize again, she knows that. But still. 16th Street Mall? The Mall of the Apocalypse?
So, it's with massive amounts of trepidation and looking around herself that she manages this. And so, she doesn't exactly miss the mixture of sensations on the back of her brain. There are others here, and all of them known. And one, she finds imminently surprising. Shoshannah?

She looks, and finds. Kalen off to the side, Shoshannah with Connor. And while she's ostensibly here to see the Hermetic (and save him from sandmen) she instead walks up to the other two. "Um... Hi. Hi, there," she says to them both, trying a very strange-looking smile on. It doesn't reach her eyes, and it looks like she might actually be choking on something, but damnit, she's trying.

"You're looking... Well," she adds, to Shoshannah. Which, she is. Considering.

Grace is looking better too. At least, better than near death. She's almost back to normal levels of winter paleness, but those dark circles under her eyes haven't left. She's thinner than Shoshannah remembers her being. And quite a bit stranger. To Conner, this is the only Grace he's known.

Kalen
Connor's antics, specifically the mussed hair, get a faint smile from Kalen before he returns his attention to his phone.  Shoshannah even gets a tiny smile, Lena earned that much.  But then his attention returns to his phone.

Until Grace arrives.  He watches her walk up to the two other Mages with a little tilt of his head.  Curious.  There is nothing annoyed or jealous or possessive on his face.  And after a few seconds of watching Grace trying to be social he smiles and settles back with his coffee to watch a minute.

Shoshannah
"It's alright," she says to Connor first.  "You can . . . no, wait."  She'd been about to add something heavy handed and antagonistic, but she knows how well that's gone in the past.  And she's trying, see?  So there's a deep breath, and she starts over.  "It was nice of you to make sure Lena had something to keep her a little warm, anyway.  And yes, that's why I know her.  I met her fairly close to when I landed in Denver."  Of course she isn't a local, not with that mish-mash of accents.

And then there's Grace, who gets a hint of smile-smirk - not warm or welcoming, exactly, but again, she's trying.  And Grace, well, Shoshannah's alright with her, more or less.  ".....thanks.  I'm back at the House and riding my bike and sleeping a little better, so that helps.  You look . . ." there's hesitation, and Shoshannah can hide things, but she can't outright lie.  "You look terrible.  You should come let me cook for you - Grandmother's lips would bring anyone back to health, no matter what they suffered."  But it's not authority, that, not telling Grace what to do - just suggestion, and the only kind of friendship Shoshannah really knows how to offer.

"But I guess you'd have to like middle eastern or Arabic cooking for that to work.  Do you?  The Halloween party thing didn't happen, obviously, so we could make another thing.  Connor, you could come."  She's rambling and uncomfortable, uncertain, and solves this by finishing her espresso in about a gulp and a half, taking away the need to continue.

Connor
Maybe there will come a day that Connor realizes, Hey, all these people are looking at me with pity and he will finally ask, What's up with that?  Or maybe the day will come when he realizes it on his own.
For now, though, he's still bright.  He still has that newly Awakened smell, or maybe it's the faint pot smell that will always cling to his clothes, regardless of whether or not he smoked earlier (for the record, today he has not (yet)).  And when they show up, tattered and torn and weary and downtrodden, that's alright, because Connor has more than his fair share of upbeat lightheartedness.

He waits, smiling kindly through Shoshannah's hesitation as she stops, rewinds, and tries that again.
And then there's Grace, who also knows Shoshannah.  How tightly knit is this Fight Club, anyway?  Little does Connor know that once one has met one of Denver's Awakened, one then opens the floodgates to meeting more of them.  If he did know he would find that utterly fantastic.  More people!  More friends!  More minds from which to draw knowledge!

Grace is hesitant, Connor is not, though like with the others he does not reach out to touch her in any way.  With Grace he's less afraid she's going to claw out his eyes and more concerned she'll shrink in on herself until she disappears from sight.  Shoshannah says what he's thinking, that Grace looks pretty awful.  This may be the only Grace that Connor knows, but he knows people and he knows that Somthing's Up.  Though he grimaces when Shoshannah broaches the subject of Grace's appearance with all the subtlety as a stampeding elephant, he does offer the other Apprentice a hearty, "Hey!"  Shoshannah talks about Arabic cooking and the mention of Halloween gives Connor a small flicker of nostalgia.  And then he's being invited to a something.

"I could?" he asks, not even a little bit sarcastic and all surprised and pleased.  "If you're wanting to do some kind of holiday thing I know a bunch of people are having Christmas and holiday parties as early as next week."

Grace Evans
"I love it," Grace says. "Food. Uh. Middle Eastern food, sure." There's something distracting her. Grace looks around the room like she's about to be attacked, until she finds Kalen's watchful gaze, and that stops her eyes for a bit.

No robot wasps yet. But then, it would just be something else, wouldn't it? She doesn't know what she's looking for, just that she's looking. The last time she was in this mall...

Okay. Calm down. Deep breaths. There's people talking. Right. There's a reason why she's here, and that's not to be an anxious wreck. Her face settles down into blankness again.

"I know I look pretty bad. But I'm really... " Better? No. "I'm not sick anymore. And, for the record, I'm sorry I had to miss Halloween. We've both kind of... had it rough, huh?"

"Christmas, already?" she says to Connor. She wants to say something like 'screw Christmas' or expound on the horrible commercialism and... well, it's just a shitty holiday, isn't it? "I think I would have preferred Halloween. Had I been there," is what she says instead.

Kalen
He winces, just a little, when Grace looks around like that.  And then he rises slowly, takes up his cane in one hand and his coffee in the other and crosses the fairly short distance between them in the time it would take any of them to get practically anywhere in the building.  His steps are heavy enough that even in a building like this they're audible, and he stops beside Grace, close but not touching her, with a deliberate little thump.  See, that sound seems to announce, I am right here.  I will shoot any monsters that appear.  Even if I have to drop my coffee to do it.

"Hello, Kit.  So kind of you to come and rescue me."  His voice is warm and amused and relaxed.  "Even if you seem to have been distracted."  He nods to both Connor and Shoshannah, still smiling because...well right now both because he adores Grace and because he's put that smile on like a mask.  It doesn't quite distract from the dark smudges under his eyes, but at least he seems a little more animated than when the extent of the greetings anyone got were half-hearted waves.

Shoshannah
"Hanukkah starts on twenty-seven November," Shoshannah offers not-quite-shyly, but without the attachment that comes when she speaks of those darker holidays (holy days) - she likes the idea of a gathering wherein they all interact or at least are around each other and come to a point where they can identify each other (if they haven't reached it already), but is far less personally attached to the gift-giving days.  "And yes, you could.  We have a super secret base, but you know enough of us to get the password."

She knows when Kalen gets up, of course she does, even if it's a peripheral kind of thing - and she definitely knows when he stops next to Grace so, and it's the second time tonight that she nearly flinches, only this time it's paired with a not particularly becoming flush of her cheeks.  "KalenandGracethisisConnor,ConnortheseareKalenandGrace."    There's sullenness in her tone, in her bearing, in everything about her - she reads as so hard and angry and ready to blow at the least provocation even as she emanates that Death chill.  She stays where she is, though, holds her ground.  Even Connor, who's known her for like five minutes, has probably gathered that she's the kind of person who will fight tooth and claw rather than back down.  "But I think you already know that, don't you?"

Connor
Connor gives Grace a curious look, head tilting in a way that makes him look more like the oversized puppy that he generally is.  Brows lifting, he lifts his coffee toward his face, but before his lips make contact with the lid he asks, "What's wrong with Christmas?"

He grins around the cup, super secret base with a password and everything.  Well, maybe everything.  Just to be sure, he asks, "Does it have a moat?  Every secret base should have a moat filled with crocodiles, unless it's a tree fort."  He tips his head again, thinking, "I guess in that case the air would be the moat, but I can't imagine flying crocodiles, I mean my god we'd all be so fucked."

Whether Shoshannah and Grace find his musings, intended to be humorous, funny or not gets lost.  Kalen makes slow progress to join them and Connor half wants to shift their little group to lessen the distance, even if it's only by a step.  But there's Shoshannah, though.  Connor had intended to keep her preoccupied until she had a chance to settle and maybe go see Kalen under her own power, or perhaps be a little more bolstered in the event of this exact scenario, but then there he is.  The object of her very strange (to Connor) ire and frustration.  And is that a blush on her face?  Connor's benevolent expression becomes clouded with a slight frown.

The frown doesn't last, though.  As unsure about this situation as he is, Connor still likes Kalen.  "I do," he says brightly in a vain attempt to lighten the mood.  He is one spot of light in a small crowd of shadowed darkness; eventually it will swallow him up.  "I met them at Alyssa's.  Does everyone here know Lena?" he asks, and his tone is a little bit awed.  For the Ecstatic, believe it or not.  To Connor she has become the central hub in the wheel of Awakened.

Grace Evans
"Hey, yeah... I... wanted to see how Shoshannah was doing," she says to Kalen when he arrives, though the girl's reaction to that arrival is confusing.

At some point, Kalen told her how he'd had a talk with Shoshannah about why they couldn't date. At the time, she hadn't slept for days, and was too wrapped up in her own business to parse much of anything else. So Shoshannah going sullen and dark and such... it doesn't make sense. Perhaps Kalen's pissed her off like he did Sid, or something.

"Yes, we met, once before," she says, her voice quite flat and distant. "Connor pointed a gun at me, and then offered me beer and pizza." Okay. So there's a story there perhaps, but she just leaves it at that.
And then, he mentions Lena.

"Lena?" she asks, her face suddenly going... worried? "Yes, I know her. You know her?"

Kalen
"You just missed her, Kit.  She was here.  She may not have looked precisely well but she did grab me by the back of the neck like I was some errant kitten to give me unsolicited advice, so there's probably hope."  Which does make Kalen happy.  He always liked Lena.

He glances around to see that no one is too close and makes a soft huff of a laugh.  "Circumstances being what they were, you'll have to forgive him.  Besides, as you mentioned, he did order us pizza.  It's hardly as if they actually shot at us.  And I did try to let you skip that part of the meeting once it started.  You just decided to jump in for no apparent reason.  Or possibly because you were afraid they would shoot at me."  Kalen's eyes roll, but he is smiling.  "Both of which are hardly sufficient excuse for breaking good cover."

Shoshannah
"I'm fine," Shoshannah says and it's a standard sort of answer - it doesn't matter if she really is or not, that's what she says.  "Thanks for thinking of me - Kalen said you were having a rough go, but were getting better.  I figured I'd give you time and space."  She's not exactly the most comforting of presences, after all; little does she know that the one who is such hadn't had any better luck than she expects.  "It's good to see you out and about, though.  You should come over to the House when you're feeling up to it," she finishes, and for a moment it seems that that bit of talking has exhausted her store of things to say.

And there's Kalen ignoring her, so it's likely a surprise to all of them when she pulls a pen from her pocket and steps closer to Connor, into his space, and takes hold of the hand that isn't holding his coffee with her left, tracing a series of numbers over the palm with the pen in her right.  "That's my number," she says of the first set, "though I'm really bad at remembering to keep the phone charged and stuff.  This is the House number.  The moat . . . is less literal than you have in mind, but there are things that make it difficult to get to.  You should give me a call if you want to come out - I'm almost always there."

And she, the pretty girl whose touch isn't literally death-cold but seems like it should be (and my are those pesky mental impressions strong where she's concerned), let's her touch linger, and even smiles a smile just for Connor.  For a second, if it weren't for that whole feeling of being Death's daughter, she could be just a normal, pretty girl smiling at a normal boy.

"I should head out before it gets too late.  Darker earlier these days and all."  She'd said something about riding her bike at the very beginning, naturally.  "I'll see you all around, I'm sure."  And before she lets go, Connor's hand gets a little squeeze.  Goodness only knows what that's all about.

Connor
[beeeeee cooooooooooool]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 7, 7, 9, 9) ( success x 5 ) [WP]

Connor
Those who've met Connor have seen what he's like.  He's bright and friendly and kind, with the lightness of someone either very young or very much untouched by the troubles of the world.  For the most part this view is absolutely correct.  Until it isn't.  Connor isn't perfect, he's no saint, and, as it turns out, his patience is finite.

For a second his eyes narrow at Grace.  His chest puffs with an inhale and he may be about to give the woman an earful, but Kalen speaks up first.  Connor's eyes jump to the Hermetic, dark and full of a sense of betrayal.  He glances at Shoshannah because the last thing he wants is for something to sour this budding friendship before it even has a chance to see if it might possibly glance in the direction of something more.  To his surprise, she's right up in his space, taking his free hand so that she can scrawl not one but two numbers across his palm, to make doubly sure he gets hold of her.  The corners of his mouth lift in a brief smile that he tamps down because for one thing her touch is unsettling.  Not that he lets it show, not even a little, of course.  For another, he glances over at Kalen.  Whatever Shoshannah may have said, there is something going on here, even an oblivious dunderhead like Connor can see that.  He can feel the tension in the air, at least around the Dreamspeaker.

Whatever he sees, and certainly whatever he feels, Connor keeps it firmly under wraps.  "Oh hey, let me walk you out."  He looks at Grace and his expression is sympathetic, perhaps even pitying.  "Grace," he says with a nod of farewell.  His look at Kalen is slightly warmer, though not quite so bright and pleased as it he's seen.  "It was good to see you, Kalen.  Take care, both of you."

Grace Evans
Oh. Well. The new Grace strikes out again, with Connor this time. And well, maybe next time she'll have to apologize and not suck at talking so damn much. But she doesn't even seem to care about that right now. No, she just stares at Kalen like he's showing off his new second set of eyes or something. "Lena was here? Here? Are you sure?"

Connor and Shoshannah leave, and Grace glances over at the two with the fleeting thought that hey... they were kind of cute together. It would be nice to see Shoshannah happy. If she survives. Obliviousness, thy name is Grace.

And then, it's back to Kalen again. "I missed her... shit." Grace looks rather far away, lost in thought, or memory. "The last time I saw her, she..." Left the clinic. Had told off Luke like he was an enemy. Wouldn't let anyone near her. "She hasn't been in contact. I've been worried about her."

Grace fidgets, like she's breaking a rule or something. Guilty. "You know, as bad as I have it, she's been through worse. I can't imagine..."

Kalen
Kalen waves as Shoshannah and Connor head off.  Connor gets a faintly apologetic smile in return for his look.  "G'night."

"She didn't seem really excited to see us.  And...you're right.  She's had a hard time.  Her life isn't over any more than yours is.  She even sent me a text after she left.  Look.  Sometimes you just can't cope with people for a bit.  I'm sure she'll talk to you as soon as she can."

"What do you say we buy some books on the history of Vienna and then we get takeout and I read those and you can study whatever you need to study?"

Grace Evans
"Why are you looking into Vienna? Is it... you-know-what related?" she asks. "Maybe I could help you."

She knows about Vienna. She's the one who first traced the film there, who traced someone named FracturedDawn to a cafe half a world away, with receipts and plane tickets and emails. Whatever he's looking into, it has to be something like that.

He can study books. She can study the web. And maybe, over takeout and (hopefully) something heavily caffeinated, they might find something. It's a goal at least. Something to tear the mind away from blood, and toward something else -- saving their friends. Possibly the world. All over again.