Elijah
[Am I getting drunk? Odds yes, evens no]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (5) ( fail )
Grace
So, technically, this counts as picking up cupcakes on her way back, but only because she never came back to the office last night. Whether she stayed at the Chantry or actually slept in her own bed for once remains a mystery.
But, if Elijah's paying attention, he'll hear the sound of her car pulling up in the driveway. If he's really
paying attention, he'll feel her approach as a subtly shifting
sharpness. But it wouldn't take a degree in noticing things to figure
out what's up when she busts through the door of the warehouse carrying a
big white box.
"Hey! Elijah! I bring gifts. Lots of teeny little gifts."
Elijah
What
did Elijah do when he had nothing better to do? What did he do with his
time now, especially since he didn't spend most of his Friday nights
out and about and getting royally shitfaced with other people, Elijah
spent his time doing copious amounts of research and getting shitfaced privately.
This was probably not the best of plans.
So, there he was, commandeering a table or spending time in his room and there was the sound of a car pulling up and there were people!
He skittered out of his room and headed off to the sound of people,
because Grace was a people, and Grace was a people bringing gifts. Which was better than drinking tequila and reading about the ancient Sumerians.
"Usually when I bring you teeny tiny gifts, there's a bribe involved, what am I doing?" he said incredulously.
Grace
Grace shrugs. "I don't know. What are you doing? Not every cupcake is a bribe. I just thought you might need a cupcake. Or five."
True
statement. Maybe she learned it from Kalen? Whenever people are upset
about the latest thing, you bring them food. And blankets.
"I'm not... I'm not saying you're too skinny. Or anything."
Elijah
he could use a cupcake… or five.
Elijah
reached tentatively for the box, his hands deft and he carefully
retrieved the nearest cupcake. He wasn't picky, but he did spent time
admiring the cupcake for what it was. What was he doing?
"Getting drunk and reading about the Sumerians," Elijah replied to her question. She thought he could use cupcakes.
Lots… and lots. Of cupcakes.
"It's been a shit month," he said.
Grace
"Yeah, it has."
Grace
takes her box and moves to the corner of the warehouse set up with a
table, chairs, and a couch. From the outside, you would never expect
such fine furniture to be here, but as Grace and Kalen are both
creatures of disjointed natures, neither of them seem to care.
Well,
Grace just doesn't care because furnishings are meant to preform a
function, not look pretty. But Kalen has other ideas, as evidenced by
the maps on the walls. All the personal homey touches come from him,
because Grace would be quite happy in a bare-bones white room as long as
it contained what she needed.
Like cupcakes.
"Maybe the cupcakes are because I still feel a bit bad for making your month that much shittier. I don't know."
Elijah
"You
didn't do anything to make me make stupid decisions, Grace, I was the
one who decided to not think about what he was doing before he actually
did it," Elijah replied, as though he were just accepting of this fact
by absolving Grace of her guilt because… well… Grace didn't do anything
wrong. He licked the top of the cupcake, taking some of the icing along
with him.
It was hard to be displeased or upset when someone was eating cupcakes, because cupcakes really did fix everything.
"I wasn't asking the right questions."
Grace
Grace
opens the box on the table, perusing the choices. They're all the same.
But still. Eventually she decides on one from the middle, and retreats
to a chair with it.
"Yeah. And then I bitched you out in the
most public of fashions. I just... I don't want you to get the idea that
everybody hates you. They don't. I mean, they really don't."
Considering
the sheer amount of flack Grace has racked up so far for the comment
asking how he manages to think? Yeah. The Mages of Denver give about a
thousand shits about Elijah. And they should.
She starts
unwrapping her little cake, trying to keep her fingers out of the icing.
It's something to do with the hands, something to focus on with the
eyes. A good distraction.
Elijah
"Everyone
doesn't hate me, people just don't trust me," he said matter-of-factly,
though it wasn't so much matter of fact as it was strangely accepting of
the fact that things… things were not good. He was displeased, yes, but
it as like he was expecting the kick to come or the hit to come there
or something to that effect.
"Can you really blame them? I don't trust me," he replied.
Grace
"Why
not?" she says, and it's an idle question, posed like she's not really
asking something that bad. She licks the cupcake wrapper for its
stuck-on icing bits before setting it down on the side-table.
Elijah
Why
doesn't he trust himself? Elijah doesn't have to think too hard about
this, "because I've already proven precisely how freaking amazing I am
at making decisions when I think I'm doing the right thing. There are
fifteen year olds that make better decisions than I do, Grace, if I
could be trusted to make the right calls then freaking Eleanor wouldn't
think I need a different mentor and I wouldn't have had to fucking move here and I wouldn't be talking to fucking technocrats and-"
He stops himself. Like he'd pushed on a bruise.
"Anyway, I've more than proven that my judgment is questionable, and intent doesn't really matter."
Grace
"You
know why I don't trust myself? Because I don't know how to be human
sometimes. Because when things go lopsided, I have a tendency to
calculate. I've killed people without thinking about it much before or after, just because in the moment, their deaths gave me better odds."
She takes a bite out of her cupcake. Closes her eyes.
"I think... I think that Kalen doesn't trust himself because he thinks he's not going to be there in time to save the ones he loves. And he loves just about everybody, so."
"I
think we all have some level of self-doubt. If we didn't, there'd be
nothing to grow out of. We'd be perfect already. Kinda boring, that."
Elijah
What
was self-doubt? She says something and elijah lets himself show
precisely how inexperienced he is because at that moment he stopped. He
faltered, he looked at her, and while Grace doesn't understand how to be
human, Elijah courts death but had never actually experienced it. Not
from anything outside of a first person perspective.
"Perfection isn't attainable, but it is an admirable goal."
Grace
"Oh
yes. But it's the path that really counts. All the bumpy bits too. I
mean, growth is beautiful in its own way, but being perfect is like
being static -- stuck. The path to perfection never ends, even if some
like to try to cut it in two and say that it ends."
She breathes in lets it go again, opening her eyes to the room again, to frosting. Frosting.
She licks it off the top all catlike, and manages to get some stuck on her upper lip.
Elijah
"You
want tequila?" he asked, may as well ask because he had been drinking
before there were cupcakes. He took a bite of cupcake, managing to keep
himself relatively clean. Relatively comfortably at that, The cupcakes
made him think of-
There was silence for a moment and-
"The
path is supposed to be the fun part, and if you think you're perfect
then… well, that just shows a lack of self understanding," he said, "I…
I'm just ready to quit feeling like shit, but I'm not, does that make
sense?"
Grace
Grace shrugs. "Yeah, I get that."
She
bites more cupcake before speaking. "I mean, not exactly, because only
you know you. But I've had that notion before like I just... needed to feel better like right now."
All of that? Said with her mouth full.
"So, let me understand. You're mixing tequila with the study of ancient Sumeria?"
Elijah
"It's
kind of a shitty feeling, I can't tell if I'm feeling this or if I'm
holding onto it, and if any of this really just riding it and being in
the moment because as shitty as this is it's fucking amazing that something can make a person feel like this," he said.
So... wait. Was he really mixing tequila with ancient Sumeria
"Humanities
is an interesting enough topic, but if it's anything like French you
actually do retain it all better when you're drinking. There's a
linguistic theory that-" he stops himself "-I'm trying to dope myself
into finding the ancient Sumerians interesting. I preferred basically
everyone else in the region to the Sumerians."
Grace
"You
don't find them interesting? Gilgamesh and Enkidu? The descent of
Inanna into the underworld? I mean, that one involves a goddess
performing a striptease, Elijah. Pheh. Not interesting..."
Obviously Grace has opinions about the relative interest of ancient cultures. And how.
She also has yet to get that icing off her lip.
"Try to see it as riding it and being in the moment, I guess. If you try, it might actually come true."
Elijah
[WP: DO NOT TOUCH GRACE, SHE DOES NOT LIKE THAT]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Elijah
he
watched. He watched and he observed and that icing was… still… there.
Elijah cocked his head to the side and he almost reached out to- nope this is Grace we are talking about. Elijah cleared his throat, "you… uh… are adorned. And I really, really didn't enjoy them. Life,
which you look for, you will never find. For when the gods created man,
they let death be his share, and life withheld in their own hands- they are taking all of the interestingness out of this and beating us to death with it and saying oh, hey, we have poetic devices, this is important, blehblehblehhh and the joy of it is- augh."
He huffed. Yes, huffed.
Grace
[int + academics = Does Grace know the specific part of the Epic of Gilgamesh that Elijah is talking about???]
Dice: 7 d10 TN8 (1, 1, 3, 4, 6, 6, 8) ( success x 1 )
Grace
[int+computer = Well, maybe we can find out more about that quote... Just because I want to break out the big dice.]
Dice: 9 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 5 ) Re-rolls: 1
Grace
"Huh. I never thought it was that
bad," Grace says, and wipes her lip off. Licks her hand too, because
sugar is nice. Then she abandons the cupcake and pulls out her phone.
Life, which you look for, you will never find. But Google finds
everything.
"Ahh. Well, it does continue a bit, doesn't it?
"Gilgamesh,
fill your belly. Day and night make merry. Let days be full of joy,
dance and make music day and night... Come, fill the cup, and in the
fire of spring the winter garment of repentance fling. The bird of time
has but a little way to flutter and the bird is on the wing."
The
first part of that was Gilgamesh. The second part something memorized.
She devours more cupcake again, filling her belly. "Does it ever make
you wonder why people keep saying that, over and over again in various
places and times and all?"
Elijah
"Fill your belly? Or day and night?"
Grace
"Eat,
drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. You know. The same thing pops
up everywhere. Myself, I'm more of a 'do do do, for tomorrow we die'
kind of person, but you know. If you're into that sort of thing," she
says, and shrugs. Maybe she just doesn't care.
"It's just a remarkably persistent idea, living."
Elijah
"I
hear that every morning," he says, but it sounds like a confession,
"I... you were right, I don't dream anymore, it's not that it's stopped,
it's just... it doesn't bother me anymore but... yeah, anyway.
LIve, live you bastard for tomorrow you die. Live, live child for
tomorrow it begins again. It's... at first, it really scared me, you
know? I thought... I thought that-anyway. Being alive and living are
difficult concepts, because living is a much less passive thing than it
seems."
[per+aware, does Grace care?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 6, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )
Grace
It's
never too difficult to determine the various moods of Grace Evans. She
doesn't really try to hide much. Usually. Elijah should have picked up
by now that she is not the kind of person who would buy cupcakes for you
if she didn't care. The whole night has been an act of caring.
"You hear it every morning? Like, what? Your Avatar?"
Elijah
Grace
Evans doesn't do this stuff for just anyone. She did this stuff for
people she cared about and, at that juncture, it was enough to make him
smile. Something genuine, something that reaches his eyes and lingers
there for a moment that was a long, long time coming. Cupcakes really
did fix a lot of things. Elijah finished off his cupcake and went in for
tiny cake numero dos.
"Yeah, it's... I'm gonna guess it's my
avatar, because it sounds like the Voice-" a capitalization in his
tone, something important, "before the dreams stopped, it told me I'd
faltered before... I guess it's all just been a big lesson?"
Grace
"Mine
doesn't really talk to me. Not like that. I mean, it's... it's given me
visions a couple of times, but it doesn't wake me up every morning.
Just sometimes."
She slides the phone back onto the table,
maybe a bit self-conscious of how it must seem to Elijah, that she
enjoys carrying on even important conversation with it in hand.
"So
it wants you to live. And you're right, it isn't passive, living.
Giving up is easy. Living is hard. But it's like that path toward being a
better person, yeah? It's the hard lessons that keep us going. If we
didn't have somewhere to go... it wouldn't be worth it to walk. We might
as well have never started. Like Siduri says, only the gods already
have life. They don't need to live. Death is given to us, so that we will strive to live."
Grace
picks up the heel of her cupcake and shoves the rest in her mouth. And
yeah, she's going to continue her spiel with a mouth full of cake.
"If
you believe in that sort of thing. It would be nice to be a god though.
To make my own universe with its own rules, and not have to die.
Something else to strive for, I guess."
Grace grins, almost
like she's kidding. But she's seen another universe -- rebuilt it from
its broken parts. The dreams of Mages are so rarely small.
Elijah
"It would
be horrible to be a god, I think, to have the entirety of a universe
looking at you for answers when, really, all you wanted to do was to
make something cool," he continued on listening, but was content to eat
cupcakes and dig in to cupcake numero dos and enjoy the fact that there
was frosting and deliciousness and something to muse over.
"And I wouldn't say giving up is necessarily easier. If you have the choice between living and existing, or living and dying, that's a big deal. Death is hard. Death isn't even really the end of things."
Grace
Elijah
says it would be horrible to be a god, and Grace tilts her head. He
doesn't want the responsibility. Well, sucks to be him. Maybe this is
why he gets those regular admonishments. Go. Live. Don't just exist.
"I
wish I could just believe you on that. Once I had someone tell me that
upon Awakening, she remembered all of her past lives, even their deaths.
I told her it must be a bit comforting, having that assurance that, you
know, death wasn't the end.
"She said I didn't understand
what dying felt like. If I did, I wouldn't say that. She was kind of
right. Even if we do recycle, I wouldn't like to remember it. I've had
way more than enough of that."
Elijah
"And
what if it is the end? I mean, the real honest-to-goodness end. I know
that ghosts are real, either that or I'm psychotic. These two things
might not be mutually exclusive, but still..." he paused, and had to
muse over what it was that Grace said. What she said, what she meant.
Elijah was a contemplative creature from time to time, and this was one
of those times, "wouldn't people kind of fall into the conservation of
matter category? LIke, if people have souls and souls are made of
something?"
Grace
"Data," she says, rather
final and succinct. Everything is data. Everything. "I don't know,
really, what souls are. Part of me wants to think it's like what remains
after you delete a file. The data's still there, it just isn't
referenced anymore. Until something else comes by and writes over it, it
sticks around. That's how you can still scrape a hard drive of its
contents well after someone decided to go on a delete-spree."
She
eyes the cupcakes again. They're looking a bit... necessary. Okay,
death and cupcakes go together so well, don't they? She leans over,
opens the box, picks another orangey-browny cupcake, and then inspects
it like she's looking for defects.
"That's ah, a little morbid though. Truth be told, I haven't the faintest actual idea."
Elijah
He's unphased.
Death and cupcakes went together marvelously.
And here he was, bright and young and engaged in the concept, someone
who believes, whole-heartedly, that there is something beyond. That
there is something that lingers, and he might not think it's data, but
he's interested in whatever it is that Grace thinks. He continues
munching along happily, taking something lemon and sugarry and tasting
quintessence on his tongue- something he could blame Kalen for.
"It's
okay if you don't have a real idea, I think the nature of the soul and
whether or not it's really real is a complex question. a lot of people
think there's an afterlife, a lot of people statistically believe that
reincarnation is a thing, and even more people think it just ends. If it
just ends, is it really important to be a good person? If it doesn't
just end, are people good just out of fear of punishment in the
afterlife? It's one of those things."
Grace
"I
think, anybody who's only a good person out of fear of some punishment
after death? They aren't a good person at all," Grace says, and takes a
big bite out of her cupcake.
"You do good because it makes sense here and now.
And let me tell you, if I am getting any punishment in this life, I
have to wonder what the hell kind of ass-backwards shit I got up to to
deserve it. We don't get what we deserve. It's kind of a relief that."
Elijah
"Now,
is a good deed with bad intentions still a good deed, though? Do our
intentions actuallly matter because, for the most part, I'm starting to
notice that the intention doesn't matter as much as the act and if I
intended on being a dick and if something good came out of it, then I
still pretty much netted a good action which doesn't necessarily make me
a good person, just a person who does good things. I guess it comes
down to the idea of what a good person is- is a good person the sum of
their deeds or their deeds and their intentions?"
He paused, "I'm not sure if our intentions matter."
Grace
"I
think intent matters," Grace says, licks her lips to get any frosting
off. "I also think it doesn't magically make things any better. If you
intend to do good, you're more likely to do good. And if you end up not, then it's a lesson for next time.
"But
it's not so simple as that. Good and bad, deeds and intentions. What is
a good deed, how would you define it? We all have our own ideas. I
mean, hell, even the Technocrats think they're doing the right thing, and they're little shitbags."
Elijah
"What
if the concept of good is just a social construct to mean beneficial to
people versus not beneficial. We think that doing things that seem
altruistic are good, right? And actions that are self-serving, or
harmful, are bad. So, if you intend on curing polio and you actually
end up making a super virus, you did a bad thing even if your
intentions were altruistic. The end result was still pretty shitty and,
therefore, not a good thing. you can't rely on intention for second
chances. Sometimes, you don't get those."
Grace
"Hmm.
Are we talking about this in a general sense, or in the sense of your
latest... you know... imperfectly executed plans? Because you didn't
make a super virus.
"And, I'd say, in the case of the super
virus, if you intended to make it and succeeded, you'd go about trying
to spread it. If you did not intend to do that, you'd go about trying to
cure it. That's why intent matters. Because sure, the thing that was
done was bad, but it's what you do with that that counts."
Grace curls her feet up into the chair, to get comfortable in ways that only Grace Evans could ever find comfortable.
"So, in your case, if you intended
to call down the Technocracy on your ass, you'd continue in that
fashion and we'd all be in big trouble. But you're not. You're right,
you don't get to throw up your hands and be like 'but I didn't intend to
do anything wrong, so it's all better now', because no. It doesn't
actually work that way. But you do get to learn and grow and not do that
next time."
Elijah
"You know, I did all of this shit, and I mean all of this
because the idea of losing Alicia or something happening to her or her
having a major breakdown over all the stuff that happened to her scares
the ever loving shit out of me? And that I didn't want to lose having
her in my life?" he says it like the idea is pushing on a bruise,
prodding at a wound that hadn't healed. That he didn't know how to start
bandaging.
"My intention didn't matter, still doesn't matter, because even though the last
thing I wanted to do was hurt her? I did that. It was the first thing I
did. I betrayed the trust that she put in me and I can't get that
back... and instead of telling her... I waited. Because I was a fucking
coward and I didn't know how to tell her and I was waiting to find a
way. she told me I should have just asked, because she would have told
me what I could say... but I didn't. And whatever was there? Isn't. Not
anymore, at least."
A beat passed.
"I miss my friend, Grace."
Grace
"I know," she says, and her eyes wander off of her cupcake, to appraise Elijah.
He's so sad. Like a puppy.
"So
now you know why you shouldn't do that sort of thing in the future,
right? I'm not saying you can fix what happened between you guys, but
someday somewhere, somebody is going to put their trust in you. And
you're not going to abuse it because of what happened here. You take a
level in growing up. And you fix yourself. That's all you can ever do."
Elijah
"I don't think I want people to trust me like that anymore, Grace."
Grace
"That's
really not up to you," Grace says, and shrugs. "Which is why it's so
important to grow and move on, and to borrow a term from your Avatar: live."
Elijah
The rest of a cupcake goes right down the hatch at the young man straightened himself out, "so, you don't
do tequila? I'm going to have to restructure how I do things, I don't
know if Kalen will get shitfaced with me and drinking alone blows, G."
Grace
"Huh? Oh. Right. Tequila. Sure, I'll have some," Grace says, as Elijah dodges... well, he just dodges.
Someone
is intent upon staying a child. Someone is intent on keeping
responsibility as far away from him as possible. Someone does not want
to be a god.
All of that would be more possible if this someone weren't a Mage.
Grace
gets up to go fetch a shotglass and get to this whole 'getting
shitfaced' thing, because man does she need to after all this. She isn't
going to push this issue, because unlike Elijah's Avatar, she is not
the pushy type. And he is not hers to fix. But still, it is concerning.
What do you do when you and your very connection to the Universe are so
diametrically opposed?
Well. Maybe give him time to think. Give him time to process. Maybe, eventually...
She pops her head back in the doorway, shotglass in hand. "You got the salt and limes?"
Elijah
Someone does not want to be a god.
Someone does not have a choice in that matter. Not anymore, at least.
he
headed back to his room, and sure enough he did retrieve a decent
bottle of tequile, and salt, and limes. And oranges and cinnamon because
why not? Because if someone was going to do shots, he was going
to do them in an unexpected way, or at least a way that he was excited
about.
"Of course I have salt and limes!" because he came prepared, this one. "Thanks for partaking in friday night rituals with me, by the way."
Grace
"Tequila
is your Friday night ritual? Mine is usually writing code until I pass
out and trying to keep a cat from eating my plant," Grace says. "So, you
know, maybe it could use some shaking up a little. I don't want to
write code while drunk though. Gets in the way."
And thus, she
explains the reason behind the relative lack of Grace drunkenness. It
gets in the way of hacking. There is one who cannot possibly understand
why Elijah does not want to go go go.
"Should I call you 'E'?" She asks, and sounds serious.
Elijah
"You
can call me whatever you want to call me. Kalen picked out a name, and
I'm not entirely certain as to his reasoning behind said name? But he
explained it once."
He paused, "normally, my friday night
involves going out, getting drunk, and dancing with someone. Or going to
a house party. Or waking up with someone whose name I only sort of remember. Friday and Saturday usually sort of blend together."
A second passed. "Or sometimes Thursday and Friday. I don't work on Fridays, I told my boss it was a religious thing."
Grace
Grace
snorts. There's something deeply hilarious about skivving off work by
telling your boss it's against your religion. Playing one boss against
the other, only in Elijah's case, the religion is himself. "Great way to
find your slack."
Yeah, he does tend to do a good job at that.
She
shares with him the ritual of getting shitfaced on a Friday. She won't
dance with him or wake up with him later, but that's to be expected from
the one who always keeps her distance. Even if she thinks distance is
an illusion -- something our brains made up. Something we could overcome
with the right perspective...
But there are different kinds
of closeness. Has she ever told anyone else how she killed a man? How
the one thing that really bothers her is that they killed Lena the day before, and she wasn't even thinking about that at the time? No fires of vengeance, only cool calculation.
He says that he doesn't want anyone to trust him like that again. And it's so not up to him. Not up to him at all.
Monday, September 29, 2014
Recharging.
Grace
Sid's green gift has departed this place, so the grass Grace is lying in crunches uncomfortably underneath. But it's no matter really. The sky still glows with sunset. It's peaceful (for now). There are no vampires, no Technocrats, just earth and sky and the hot spring Node into which her feet skim. Her shoes and socks have been dropped off by the edge, and she's got her jeans rolled up so they don't get wet.
Oh yes, earth and sky and cell phone held up to block the view of all that so that Grace can get on Hacker News and browse the awesome stuff the outside world is up to.
Somebody out there just posited that black holes don't exist. Singularities are impossible, says the math. Another scientist replies, "Yes, Virginia, black holes exist," with even more math.
Truth is in the eye of the beholder, you see.
Serafíne
If Grace's senses are open she will feel Seraf ne long before she sees her. They bend the world, afterall. Distant, (gutwrenching) and framed by the sunset world (enthralling), all these between-places (liminal) and hurtling ever-closer at the speed of, you know, a conversion van driven by someone Grace cannot sense at any distance, because he is himself ordinary, except vis-a-vis his capacity for imagination perhaps, or his love of the world.
--
So some time after the first inkling of that sensation and then some time after its arrival and then some time that remains as-yet undetermined, the glass sliders zip open and Sera emerges, boots solid on the flagstone patio. It's not the ordinary click of her heels; she's wearing her Doc Marten's tonight, and a gray hoodie repaired with patchwork that is longer than the buckle-covered leather skirt she has paired with it, over a plaid bustier. Hood pulled up to cover her hair, a bottle of beer in her right hand as she exits and exists and circles the patio, wreathed in mist rising from the hotspring, eyeing Grace's perch as she does.
"Just your feet?" Wry, her eyes dark and shadowed by the edge of the hood, the twist of her mouth at the edge of a smirk. Sera has lost a bit of weight recently. She is not yet gaunt as she was when she fasted, but there is a returned sharpness to her, somehow. "Why not go all-in?"
Grace
Grace lost a bit of weight recently too, although in her case, the thinness is on the mend. It's just hard to eat when you're in a coma after all.
She only snaps out of it when Sera speaks, her head swiveling in order to get an upside-down view of Sera's approach.
"Well, yes. Just the feet. If I went all-in, my clothes would get all wet."
That's really not what Sera was going for, and Grace knows it -- gives her a smirk back.
Serafíne
"Clothes come off," Sera, low-voiced. Left foot perched on a convenient little outcropping of rock. Her free hand is in the kangaroo pocket of her rather expensive hoodie, while the other - occupied with her already half-consumed beer - swings a lovely arc alongside her shapely right thigh.
"Or they dry, you give them time. How are you, Grace? Been awhile."
Grace
Grace just rolls her eyes at the mention of skinny dipping in the hot spring. Mind you, she was there that time Ian and Sera went and did just that.
It's just not Grace's thing.
Still, her phone falls in an arc down toward the grass again.
"How I am is a rather complicated state. I mean, between Alicia, Elijah, vampires, Technocrats, and Three Mile Island Bugfuck Elly, I don't know -- it's pretty interesting lately. Not all of that's good. But I did drink some wine that had had its atoms exploded and reassembled, so I suppose I can't complain.
"How're you?"
Serafíne
"How everyone is is a complicated state, Grace. All the pieces of yourself and all the pieces of everyone else like a whirlwind inside you," Sera has, by now, found a perch on a convenient stretch of boulder. The edge of her lovely ass, feet planted firmly on the slightly damp stones framing the spring. And her dark eyes are on Grace and they are framed by the outline of her hood and she has her usual raw confidence as well as a kind of reserve tonight, which sometimes comes over her, as if some indivisible part of her were at a safe and strangely contained remove.
There's a fond edge to the curve of her mouth, though.
Affection in its leading edge.
"I have no idea what the hell most of that litany means, or even what it means to you. Why don't you tell me.
"Pick one and start somewhere."
Grace's own question to Sera goes unanswered, for the moment.
Grace
Grace considers. Most of them are connected (like everything, but we know that). It all comes back to...
"Alicia. Her dad is, well, I don't have any proof, but I think he's some kind of super top-secret project to whatever brand of Technocrat has him. I mean, you know what's been said, right?"
Grace doesn't know how Sera mostly visits Ginger for the sexy-robot-voice, when she visits.
"So I went and poked around a little. Made a couple of pals. Asked a few questions. And now there's a guy from the Society of Ether in town who has a plan to find this family friend of Alicia's dad. He's going to track the Paradox that stuck to her. He's Elly, the guy with the exploded wine. Really. Amazing."
Serafíne
"You've talked to Alicia about all of this, right?"
That quickling look. Sera with her head canted. This angle, you understand, that allows her to watch the world unhinge itself. To see the seams.
Grace
Grace takes a deep breath, and the relative happiness in her voice at remembering Elly and his machines fades.
"That was the first thing I said to Elijah. Eventually, he let me talk to her. Originally, he just wanted me to read her diary and leave her out of the entire picture. I said no.
"Alicia did not want me to mount a rescue mission for her father, she just wanted information. And she wanted me to find Alethea, her family friend, so that's what I'm helping with. I took her with me to meet Elly. She seemed almost happy, you know?"
Serafíne
Sera takes a deep breath, drops her dark gaze to the edge light that cuts across the wake of the glass bottle like a blade. She is - remembering something, which is inside of her, half-eaten, half-consumed.
Darker than she often knows.
Ragged in her chest, as she takes in another breath.
Then another, glancing back up at Grace, eyes glittering in all that reflective half-light, the sunset or whatever a constantly changing pattern in the choppy surface of the water.
Another deep breath. "I know Elijah fucked up. Everybody knows that, you know? And I'm glad that you did the right thing, and made sure that Alicia had a choice in what happened next.
"But you can't hold that against him forever. Alicia can, maybe, if she fucking wants. But you've gotta give him space so that he can grow past his mistakes, you know? And part of that is - " A supple, liquid shrug. That wry curve to her mouth again. " - well, you can figure it out, what that means to you.
"The family friend. She's the one in hiding, right? What's the point of finding her?"
Serafíne
Grace and Sera are sitting out on the patio by the hotspring. Grace has her shoes and socks off, feet in the water. Sera suggested that Grace go skinny dipping. Sera is perched on a convenient rock, with a beer in hand. Dan's somewhere in the kitchen.
Here is the last post:
Sera takes a deep breath, drops her dark gaze to the edge light that cuts across the wake of the glass bottle like a blade. She is - remembering something, which is inside of her, half-eaten, half-consumed.
Darker than she often knows.
Ragged in her chest, as she takes in another breath.
Then another, glancing back up at Grace, eyes glittering in all that reflective half-light, the sunset or whatever a constantly changing pattern in the choppy surface of the water.
Another deep breath. "I know Elijah fucked up. Everybody knows that, you know? And I'm glad that you did the right thing, and made sure that Alicia had a choice in what happened next.
"But you can't hold that against him forever. Alicia can, maybe, if she fucking wants. But you've gotta give him space so that he can grow past his mistakes, you know? And part of that is - " A supple, liquid shrug. That wry curve to her mouth again. " - well, you can figure it out, what that means to you.
"The family friend. She's the one in hiding, right? What's the point of finding her?"
Grace
Grace (for the newly arrived) is currently lying down next to the hot spring Node, with her feet dangling inside, trying to soak up some quintessence and obtain pruny toes at the same time. Shoes, socks, and her phone have been discarded nearby.
"Yeah. I'm not mad at him really. I just wonder if he knows why what he did was wrong? That the root of all this was his willingness to reduce someone else's agency down to 'damsel in distress'? But yeah. He's torn up about it bigtime. It's hard to be mad at someone who is that miserable. Like he's doing enough chiding himself."
She raises a foot out of the water, lets the drops fall back to the water in order to make a pleasant sound. Toes wiggle.
"The point of finding Alethea is that Alicia wants to. Alethea is an Etherite. She's being hunted by Techs. From what I understand, Alicia was pretty close to her. So yeah, I put her in touch with someone who both has the capacity to help and wants to. Besides, Elly is awesome. Like I said."
Serafíne
"I don't know that it matters," quiet this, Sera. Strangely reflective and open yeah and spare in a way that perhaps matches the season.
Less than two weeks ago she killed someone.
With magic.
She still doesn't know precisely how to contain that knowledge.
So she doesn't contain it. She just is.
Eyes dark enough to be a bruise, her mouth wry, affectionate, tender as a wound, sliding now and then into an edgy little smirk, and right back out again.
It is a hard goddamned thing to be human.
"If he knows. Just that he asks himself the question. But I said that to you mostly because the way you just told me that story was as much about his fuck-up as anything else, yeah? And maybe you should be careful how you phrase that, or even think about it.
"Think about him the way he should've thought about Alicia. It;s just a thought."
A brief pause. Another swig from her beer bottle.
"This Alethea. How hard are the Techs hunting her?"
Grace
Grace's foot goes slipping back into the water again.
She thinks over Sera's words. Think about him the way he should have thought about Alicia. Like she's not thinking of Elijah like he's a fully-formed person who can handle his own damn shit? Like she's trying to protect him? Keep him in the dark, where it's safe? Not really.
The one thing that bothers her the most is how she had to censor him and tell him no, like she was some kind of 'crat herself. He can make his own choices, no matter what they might be, but when it comes to other people's continued existence, well...
She could stand to be a little less prickly about that. And that's... unfortunate.
"What it looks like? They want her bad, but can't find her," Grace says, at last, dodging the topic of Elijah. "At least I hope that's still the case, you know?"
Elijah
What does Elijah do these days?
He does all sorts of things, but he had something to do. Something big and important to do that started with an F and ended with a wrench Homework. He had things to do, and it felt a little odd to show up to the chantry with the expressed purpose of studying for a subject he already knew and not studying some of the vast depths and breadth of knowledge that he didn't already know but his grammar in French was pretty atrocious and the young man needed somewhere to study that wasn't going to promote falling asleep.
He'd been sleeping recently. He'd been sleeping a lot recently, and ever since he moved it became abundantly clear that the young man slept like a dead rock. Or a log. Or something else that was difficult to wake up because it wasn't something that woke up… well… ever. Elijah was content to be awake for now and coming to a place that he could actually get something done.
The door opened, and it was off to the inside of the chantry with him.
"Bonjour! C'est moi- Elijah. Je suis ici pour faire ses devoirs!" h pauses, "goddamn I am never going to pass this stuff."
Ian
They arrived on foot, Ian and Jae-shin. There was no sound of wheels on pavement or the rolling purr of an engine to announce their passage. Instead Grace and Sera would pick up the tell-tale drum of feet on the earth, and the papery crackle of fall leaves tossed up in the wind. When the runners reached the edge of the treeline, they slowed their pace to a loping jog, moving like a couple of graceful animals over the grass. When they neared the Node, Ian dropped back to a walking pace, resting his hands on his hips. His ribs moved in a steady rhythm of deep breaths. He had on running shoes and a pair of track pants. Sweat dripped from his forehead.
He nodded first to Grace, then Sera, but did not immediately attempt to join their conversation. The man with him (Grace had met him before, but Sera had not) was Korean. He looked even more athletic than Ian, and resonated like something of the ocean. (Fluid and Abyssal.) Jae-shin smiled softly at Grace, then fixed Sera with a reserved but curious expression.
"Evening," he said.
Ian tapped him on the shoulder. "I'm going to get some water."
Serafíne
Grace misunderstands Sera's purpose there. Which was mostly: hey. Deep breath, pull back. No need to tell everyone everything that Elijah did wrong. Consider the story and consider the purpose and consider the words. Sometimes those things can fucking hurt, even when you don't mean them too.
But Grace dodges the topic and Sera kind of assumes that Grace gets it and anyway; she's strangely circumspect about it. Perhaps a bit distant, bottleneck cool where it is wrapped between her fingers. The night strange all around.
--
And Sera doesn't speak French and Elijah's call-out is muffled as he enters the chantry by the closed doors butt there is enough noise from his called-out greeting to pull her chin up. She breathes out -
- looks back at Grace. That half-smile again.
"If they are that hot for her you might consider whether you guys finding her could increase their chances of finding her. Right now, no one knows where she is. She might not even exist.
"But when you know. And Alicia knows. And everyone else here knows, that near impossibility turns into a possibility, right?
"Maybe it wouldn't, but I think you and Alicia should think about why she wants to find this woman, and whether your plan places her in more danger, and whether the goal is worth the danger in which you place her, and yourselves, by contacting her.
"When she's hunted. You know?"
Another sort of agency.
--
A flick of her dark (bruised/ing) gaze up as Ian approaches with a stranger. The brief skim of Sera's smirk, a bit more flat and closed than you'd imagine it, but Jae-Shin doesn't just feel like the ocean (fluid), he also feels (abyssal) like other things still a crawling kind of knowledge in and beneath her skin.
"Hello," that smirk. And it's not unwelcoming, what she says next. It's just her way. "Who the fuck are you?"
Grace
"I'll talk with Elly about it. He's been around the block a few times, it seems. But you're right. Trying to find her could be dangerous for her," Grace says, with a sigh.
"That," Grace says, rolling her head around to stare at Jae Shin's feet. "Is Soccer Guy. Ian's friend. I forgot his name."
She waves at them, and gives an upside-down smile.
Elijah
He follows the sound of people, because it sounds like there are people. Because he thrives on people, because he thrived on the idea of getting to do something other than pour over a textbook he didn't really want to pay attention to. He deposited the messenger bag... uh... somewhere. He looked at his pocket watch and headed off towards the sound of people.
Ian
[Awareness]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 6, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 4 )
Ian
Jae-shin's smile cooled, but he didn't seem especially offended by the question.
"Jeong Jae-shin, of the Akashic Brotherhood." He paused to take in a couple of breaths, wiping the back of his hand across his forehead. "And you?" His accent marked him as a non-native speaker, but he seemed comfortable enough with the language.
Ian glanced back a moment as he walked toward the house, then pulled open the patio door and stepped inside, heading for the kitchen. When he saw Dan, he nodded, and the faint edge of a grin touched the side of his mouth. "Hey."
(The last time that Ian and Dan had seen each other, Ian had been naked in the hot-spring.)
Elijah was there too. Ian felt his approach before he came into view, and there was a slow, measured glance back in Elijah's direction. Something quiet and thoughtful that hovered over him for a few silent beats. Then Ian grabbed a couple of glasses from the cabinet and filled them with water, taking a long drink from his own.
Serafíne
Sera's gaze slides quick easily back to Grace. There's a gleam of compassion that, there slithers to the surfaces and turns and catches the light and sinks back down beneath the surface too. Grace sighs. Sera's gaze lingers there, for several long, passing beats.
"Cool." Murmured, with a tip of her beer bottle as if in a toast. "Just think about it."
--
Then back to "soccer-guy" to whom the creature's attention returns with a dark, wry sweep. She sees the cooling smile, how could she miss it? Somehow that always brings out the edge in her,
as it does now. This smirk, more surface than deep. She has a half-dozen mysteries floating beneath her skin and she's a terrible liar and here she is, standing see, as Jae-Shinn introduces himself.
"Seraf ne," she says, "Most people call me Sera. Nice to meet you."
--
And Dan, inside, is drying his hands on a kitchen towel and catches the edge of Ian's grin and you understand, grinning himself, through the rough blond beard. "Hey." to Ian. "Hey, man," to Elijah, before he kind of excuses himself and heads out to the patio to stick his head out for Sera.
"You ready or what?" Dan asks Sera.
And, "Ready." Sera responds.
"See you 'round," she says, by way of farewell to Jae-Shin. And, "Later, Grace. Be careful, okay?" then disappears back inside. They'll head down the stairs, to the walk-out basement. Start down through the fields. They're going hiking, at twilight.
Maybe they'll be back later. Maybe not.
Grace
Grace kicks her feet back and forth in the water. Everyone's always telling her to be careful nowadays, as if she didn't already know. As if she weren't.
"I always am," she says, as Sera leaves. Maybe she's saying it to Sera's back, but Grace wouldn't know. She's staring at the clouds.
Elijah
[I'm fantastique! subterfuge]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )
Ian
[Are you really? Empathy]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 4, 5, 5, 8) ( success x 1 )
Elijah
"Hey, Dan," he said. Smiled because he was content to smile, because the motion was practiced and it wasn't that he wasn't glad to see Dan, because he was glad to see Dan. Of course he was glad to see Dan. he was glad to see all sorts of people. He took his time, peeked out and around the kitchen and it looked awfully different when it wasn't filled up with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
"What's shaken', Ian?" Casual enough. Of course casual enough, pleased enough because he could be pleased. Happy enough because he could be happy. It would seem well enough that things were… well… back to normal. Ish. Normalish for Elijah.
Ian
Sera didn't offer her Tradition, and Jae-shin didn't press for it. Instead he accepted her name with a nod and watched as she left with Dan. Grace was still lying back with her feet in the pool, and Jae-shin eyed her a moment, turning his head at tilted angle to look down at her.
"It's good to see you again."
He picked up a foot and stretched his leg back, glancing over his shoulder when Elijah appeared in the doorway. Inside the house, Ian looked away from Elijah and refilled his glass. Elijah said what's shakin' in a tone that felt far removed from their last conversation.
"Jae-shin and I came out for a run." Ian carried both glasses to the door and pushed the handle with his elbow. For a moment he looked as though he might say something else, but then he turned and walked outside. When he reached the pool, he handed Jae-shin one of the glasses. Jae-shin took it with a soft smile.
"Thank you."
Ian nodded. His eyes dropped to Grace. "You know the water won't bite if you actually get in."
Grace
"You too. Soccer isn't really my natural element. You caught me at a weird time for our first meeting. Not quite as weird as some times, but you know," Grace says, rambling on and then trailing off. Maybe Jae-shin doesn't know. And what is it that he's supposed to know exactly?
Then, Ian arrives to save her from the awkwardness of long pauses and stilted conversation, to ask her (for the second time tonight) why she isn't all the way in the water. She rolls her eyes.
"It's like I told Sera. If I did, my clothes would get all wet."
Elijah
[I am 100% cool with water, willpower!)
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )
Elijah
The last time Elijah and Ian had talked, it ended quietly enough, with some kind of confession and then helping his companion off to go enjoy the library. It was one of the better features of the chantry, that and the fact that they had a hot tub of near infinite potential and power, and that was a pretty impressive thing when he had time to sit and think about it. Elijah had a lot of time to think about a lot of things, and he did. He did think about things, for someone who spent so much of his time not thinking about things, he spent an inordinate amount of time contemplating heavens-knew-what… like nodes and missing persons and things he barely remembered seeing.
There was an increase in the number of people who went missing.
There were people outside, and the fact that he had to be outside if he was going to be around them meant… well… that Elijah was going to park himself outside with everyone else. Grace said she would get her clothing all wet if she got in all the way.
"So?" he asked, "they're just clothes, they've got to have a dryer around here or something… I mean, you wouldn't be sitting around naked forever waiting for clothes to dry, or you could just… y'know… be soggy. It's not that bad."
Says the man who was going nowhere near the damn water because it was water and like Hell he was getting in. Hello, pot, I'm kettle.
Ian
Ian glanced between Grace and Elijah and smirked. "You're not supposed to wear clothes in a hot spring."
There were other things he could have said. Thoughtful, reverent things about water and healing. Or some wry joke about skinny-dipping. Jae-shin looked at Ian as though he expected him to do just that, but Ian just tipped back his head and drank a long gulp of water. The Akashic's eyes hovered on him a moment, landing somewhere near the curve of Ian's neck.
When Ian was done, he moved to sit atop the rock that Sera had recently vacated
"So how've you two been?"
Grace
"Same old, same old. Although for people like us," Grace says, huffs out a laugh. Doesn't finish.
"I'm here to recharge a bit after we had a run-in with a fucking vampire."
"And yes, you're not supposed to wear clothes in a hot spring, so I am soaking my feet. Not everyone is so comfortable to go strip down in a place that's nearly every Mage in Denver's favorite place to be."
She closes her eyes. The water feels so nice, doesn't it? Even if it's just her feet soaking.
"Hey, Elijah," she says, waves a little. They hadn't properly said 'hey' yet.
Elijah
[more subterfuge! Because we fake it 'til we make it]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 3, 5, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )
Ian
[Is Ian paying more attention this time?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 4, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Elijah
"'sup Grace? And hh, I'm getting by. French is kicking my ass, and I just moved so it's been pretty stressful, but overall things are pretty damned good," he says. he lies, because he wants to fake this until it is the truth. He pulls off the words with the rehearsed confidence of any actor, like he's had an answer for the question for some time. He cautiously approached the spring, a little uncertain as to how to approach this or if he should come closer (or if he's allowed to come closer, what was he supposed to do here? Was there a procedure? A protocol?)
He took a perch nearby, looking at the water cautiously before deciding to discard his vest. He was talking himself into something, of course he was talking himself into something, he was always talking himself into something, but this time it had less to do with- well, now, let's not talk about that.
"So, is it every naked person that bothers you, or is it just you being naked, because I kinda wanna get in now and if you're not supposed to wear clothes I'm not gonna fuck it up with… you know… clothes."
Ian
Grace mentioned the vampire, and Ian's brows furrowed into a slightly brooding expression. "Yeah, I heard about that." Jae-shin glanced at him and raised an eyebrow. The expression was subtly pointed, but Ian just looked at him and gave this small, almost imperceptible shake of his head.
Then Grace made that comment about Ian's comfort level with public nudity, and Ian looked at Grace and shrugged, as though to say: suit yourself. Jae-shin pulled off his shoes and socks and walked to the edge of the pool, lowering himself down next to Grace. He had on a pair of running shirts and a black singlet, and smelled a little of clean sweat. As he lowered his feet into the water, he leaned back and looked at the sky.
Elijah said that he was getting by That things were, in fact, pretty damned good. Ian's attention shifted back to him and hovered there for a quiet moment.
He didn't say anything. But when Elijah began to remove his vest, he raised an eyebrow.
Grace
[Perception + Awarepathy = Does Grace notice?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 5, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )
Grace
"I can close my eyes. Ask Ian," Grace says, to Elijah's question. Truth be told, it does bother her. A little. But she wants to use the Node, and she's not going to stand in anyone else's way.
Jae-shin joins her in the whole stick-feet-in-water-and-watch-the-sky routine. It's nice that they're not all going to strip down, eh?
Grace has seen Elijah completely going off. She's lived in the next building over from where he now sleeps in order to stay the hell away from the Technocrats he's contacted. So the happiness he has going on right now just serves to confuse.
Whatever. He can be happy if he wants to.
"Yeah. The Black Lotus is not as happy a place as the name would suggest. Which is to say, stay the hell away from there," she says, mostly for Jae-shin's benefit, as he does not have Ginger. Yet.
Elijah
[Raised brow? Awarepathy for the win!]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )
Ian
[Subterfuge]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 9 ) Re-rolls: 4
Ian
[Jesus christ Ian]
Elijah
[... O_O]
Elijah
He stops with his vest, and keeps it at that. Elijah looks at the water, wary but not thwarted for the time being, and he inhaled slowly. Something practiced, something calm, something that he could be relaxed with, "yeah, I should probably do my homework instead of jumping in a hot spring anyway?"
Because he could be reasonable, this one, he could muse for a moment and remember the actual reason he came here (or the reason he said he came here).
"So we are all spared the joys of my not-so-clothed self for today. If I'm here solo, though, I am making no promises, people will just have to deal."
Ian
Jae-shin glanced between Ian and Elijah, but he didn't offer any comment or advice. If he had any thoughts on what may or may not have been the proper way to use the node, he kept them to himself. Instead he finished off the glass of water that Ian had brought for him. Grace warned him about the Black Lotus, and to this he nodded, his expression drawn and serious. "I will keep that in mind."
Ian's attention was still fixed on Elijah. After a moment, he stood up. "I can help if you want." There was a casual air to the suggestion, and when Elijah agreed, Ian grabbed his empty glass and jogged over to the patio.
Which left Jae-shin and Grace alone in the hot-spring. Jae-shin watched Ian with a veiled expression, but he didn't make any attempt to stop him. After a few long moments, he pulled off his shirt and slipped into the pool, treading over to a far corner to give Grace some space. Then he leaned back and closed his eyes. And for the rest of the evening, he was quiet.
Elijah
"Hey, Grace, I'm gonna go do homework, see you at… y'know… place?" he wasn't sure what to call where he lived now. It was a warehouse. It was a literal warehouse, and while it was better than staying between couches and lying to Jenn, it wasn't better because now he had to tell Jenn that he was moving out of their apartment to go live in a warehouse because it's hat he wanted and-
Yeah, that was a pleasant conversation.
He tossed his vest over his arm and started to meander back to they door, "Ian, I could seriously use the help with composition. It's not my forte."
Funny, that was probably the truest thing he'd said all night.
Grace
"I can deal. I'm so good at dealing," Grace says. It's a lie. She just thinks she's good at it. "Goodnight, though. Maybe on the way back I'll pick up some cupcakes."
Yeah, at the all-night cupcake store. Surely the hacker knows she won't be able to find any? Or maybe she'll be completely horrified to learn that most bakeries close after a while.
Grace does not take her shirt off and join Jae-shin in the water. No, for the rest of her time there, she will be content with the lovely foot soaking that has taken her this far.
Her company is quiet, and that's fine with her. She goes for her phone again and resumes browsing Hacker News until the stars begin to blink into view.
Oh, and what does that remind her of? The phone slips down a little as her mind wanders back to a time when stars were winking out of existence instead. Yeah, Jae-shin, you have yet to catch Grace at the most weird of times, have you?
It's good that Elijah has Ian there to help. It's good to have someone else around to not talk to. Everything's okay right now, even though everything's all precariously balanced on edge. And isn't it always?
Sid's green gift has departed this place, so the grass Grace is lying in crunches uncomfortably underneath. But it's no matter really. The sky still glows with sunset. It's peaceful (for now). There are no vampires, no Technocrats, just earth and sky and the hot spring Node into which her feet skim. Her shoes and socks have been dropped off by the edge, and she's got her jeans rolled up so they don't get wet.
Oh yes, earth and sky and cell phone held up to block the view of all that so that Grace can get on Hacker News and browse the awesome stuff the outside world is up to.
Somebody out there just posited that black holes don't exist. Singularities are impossible, says the math. Another scientist replies, "Yes, Virginia, black holes exist," with even more math.
Truth is in the eye of the beholder, you see.
Serafíne
If Grace's senses are open she will feel Seraf ne long before she sees her. They bend the world, afterall. Distant, (gutwrenching) and framed by the sunset world (enthralling), all these between-places (liminal) and hurtling ever-closer at the speed of, you know, a conversion van driven by someone Grace cannot sense at any distance, because he is himself ordinary, except vis-a-vis his capacity for imagination perhaps, or his love of the world.
--
So some time after the first inkling of that sensation and then some time after its arrival and then some time that remains as-yet undetermined, the glass sliders zip open and Sera emerges, boots solid on the flagstone patio. It's not the ordinary click of her heels; she's wearing her Doc Marten's tonight, and a gray hoodie repaired with patchwork that is longer than the buckle-covered leather skirt she has paired with it, over a plaid bustier. Hood pulled up to cover her hair, a bottle of beer in her right hand as she exits and exists and circles the patio, wreathed in mist rising from the hotspring, eyeing Grace's perch as she does.
"Just your feet?" Wry, her eyes dark and shadowed by the edge of the hood, the twist of her mouth at the edge of a smirk. Sera has lost a bit of weight recently. She is not yet gaunt as she was when she fasted, but there is a returned sharpness to her, somehow. "Why not go all-in?"
Grace
Grace lost a bit of weight recently too, although in her case, the thinness is on the mend. It's just hard to eat when you're in a coma after all.
She only snaps out of it when Sera speaks, her head swiveling in order to get an upside-down view of Sera's approach.
"Well, yes. Just the feet. If I went all-in, my clothes would get all wet."
That's really not what Sera was going for, and Grace knows it -- gives her a smirk back.
Serafíne
"Clothes come off," Sera, low-voiced. Left foot perched on a convenient little outcropping of rock. Her free hand is in the kangaroo pocket of her rather expensive hoodie, while the other - occupied with her already half-consumed beer - swings a lovely arc alongside her shapely right thigh.
"Or they dry, you give them time. How are you, Grace? Been awhile."
Grace
Grace just rolls her eyes at the mention of skinny dipping in the hot spring. Mind you, she was there that time Ian and Sera went and did just that.
It's just not Grace's thing.
Still, her phone falls in an arc down toward the grass again.
"How I am is a rather complicated state. I mean, between Alicia, Elijah, vampires, Technocrats, and Three Mile Island Bugfuck Elly, I don't know -- it's pretty interesting lately. Not all of that's good. But I did drink some wine that had had its atoms exploded and reassembled, so I suppose I can't complain.
"How're you?"
Serafíne
"How everyone is is a complicated state, Grace. All the pieces of yourself and all the pieces of everyone else like a whirlwind inside you," Sera has, by now, found a perch on a convenient stretch of boulder. The edge of her lovely ass, feet planted firmly on the slightly damp stones framing the spring. And her dark eyes are on Grace and they are framed by the outline of her hood and she has her usual raw confidence as well as a kind of reserve tonight, which sometimes comes over her, as if some indivisible part of her were at a safe and strangely contained remove.
There's a fond edge to the curve of her mouth, though.
Affection in its leading edge.
"I have no idea what the hell most of that litany means, or even what it means to you. Why don't you tell me.
"Pick one and start somewhere."
Grace's own question to Sera goes unanswered, for the moment.
Grace
Grace considers. Most of them are connected (like everything, but we know that). It all comes back to...
"Alicia. Her dad is, well, I don't have any proof, but I think he's some kind of super top-secret project to whatever brand of Technocrat has him. I mean, you know what's been said, right?"
Grace doesn't know how Sera mostly visits Ginger for the sexy-robot-voice, when she visits.
"So I went and poked around a little. Made a couple of pals. Asked a few questions. And now there's a guy from the Society of Ether in town who has a plan to find this family friend of Alicia's dad. He's going to track the Paradox that stuck to her. He's Elly, the guy with the exploded wine. Really. Amazing."
Serafíne
"You've talked to Alicia about all of this, right?"
That quickling look. Sera with her head canted. This angle, you understand, that allows her to watch the world unhinge itself. To see the seams.
Grace
Grace takes a deep breath, and the relative happiness in her voice at remembering Elly and his machines fades.
"That was the first thing I said to Elijah. Eventually, he let me talk to her. Originally, he just wanted me to read her diary and leave her out of the entire picture. I said no.
"Alicia did not want me to mount a rescue mission for her father, she just wanted information. And she wanted me to find Alethea, her family friend, so that's what I'm helping with. I took her with me to meet Elly. She seemed almost happy, you know?"
Serafíne
Sera takes a deep breath, drops her dark gaze to the edge light that cuts across the wake of the glass bottle like a blade. She is - remembering something, which is inside of her, half-eaten, half-consumed.
Darker than she often knows.
Ragged in her chest, as she takes in another breath.
Then another, glancing back up at Grace, eyes glittering in all that reflective half-light, the sunset or whatever a constantly changing pattern in the choppy surface of the water.
Another deep breath. "I know Elijah fucked up. Everybody knows that, you know? And I'm glad that you did the right thing, and made sure that Alicia had a choice in what happened next.
"But you can't hold that against him forever. Alicia can, maybe, if she fucking wants. But you've gotta give him space so that he can grow past his mistakes, you know? And part of that is - " A supple, liquid shrug. That wry curve to her mouth again. " - well, you can figure it out, what that means to you.
"The family friend. She's the one in hiding, right? What's the point of finding her?"
Serafíne
Grace and Sera are sitting out on the patio by the hotspring. Grace has her shoes and socks off, feet in the water. Sera suggested that Grace go skinny dipping. Sera is perched on a convenient rock, with a beer in hand. Dan's somewhere in the kitchen.
Here is the last post:
Sera takes a deep breath, drops her dark gaze to the edge light that cuts across the wake of the glass bottle like a blade. She is - remembering something, which is inside of her, half-eaten, half-consumed.
Darker than she often knows.
Ragged in her chest, as she takes in another breath.
Then another, glancing back up at Grace, eyes glittering in all that reflective half-light, the sunset or whatever a constantly changing pattern in the choppy surface of the water.
Another deep breath. "I know Elijah fucked up. Everybody knows that, you know? And I'm glad that you did the right thing, and made sure that Alicia had a choice in what happened next.
"But you can't hold that against him forever. Alicia can, maybe, if she fucking wants. But you've gotta give him space so that he can grow past his mistakes, you know? And part of that is - " A supple, liquid shrug. That wry curve to her mouth again. " - well, you can figure it out, what that means to you.
"The family friend. She's the one in hiding, right? What's the point of finding her?"
Grace
Grace (for the newly arrived) is currently lying down next to the hot spring Node, with her feet dangling inside, trying to soak up some quintessence and obtain pruny toes at the same time. Shoes, socks, and her phone have been discarded nearby.
"Yeah. I'm not mad at him really. I just wonder if he knows why what he did was wrong? That the root of all this was his willingness to reduce someone else's agency down to 'damsel in distress'? But yeah. He's torn up about it bigtime. It's hard to be mad at someone who is that miserable. Like he's doing enough chiding himself."
She raises a foot out of the water, lets the drops fall back to the water in order to make a pleasant sound. Toes wiggle.
"The point of finding Alethea is that Alicia wants to. Alethea is an Etherite. She's being hunted by Techs. From what I understand, Alicia was pretty close to her. So yeah, I put her in touch with someone who both has the capacity to help and wants to. Besides, Elly is awesome. Like I said."
Serafíne
"I don't know that it matters," quiet this, Sera. Strangely reflective and open yeah and spare in a way that perhaps matches the season.
Less than two weeks ago she killed someone.
With magic.
She still doesn't know precisely how to contain that knowledge.
So she doesn't contain it. She just is.
Eyes dark enough to be a bruise, her mouth wry, affectionate, tender as a wound, sliding now and then into an edgy little smirk, and right back out again.
It is a hard goddamned thing to be human.
"If he knows. Just that he asks himself the question. But I said that to you mostly because the way you just told me that story was as much about his fuck-up as anything else, yeah? And maybe you should be careful how you phrase that, or even think about it.
"Think about him the way he should've thought about Alicia. It;s just a thought."
A brief pause. Another swig from her beer bottle.
"This Alethea. How hard are the Techs hunting her?"
Grace
Grace's foot goes slipping back into the water again.
She thinks over Sera's words. Think about him the way he should have thought about Alicia. Like she's not thinking of Elijah like he's a fully-formed person who can handle his own damn shit? Like she's trying to protect him? Keep him in the dark, where it's safe? Not really.
The one thing that bothers her the most is how she had to censor him and tell him no, like she was some kind of 'crat herself. He can make his own choices, no matter what they might be, but when it comes to other people's continued existence, well...
She could stand to be a little less prickly about that. And that's... unfortunate.
"What it looks like? They want her bad, but can't find her," Grace says, at last, dodging the topic of Elijah. "At least I hope that's still the case, you know?"
Elijah
What does Elijah do these days?
He does all sorts of things, but he had something to do. Something big and important to do that started with an F and ended with a wrench Homework. He had things to do, and it felt a little odd to show up to the chantry with the expressed purpose of studying for a subject he already knew and not studying some of the vast depths and breadth of knowledge that he didn't already know but his grammar in French was pretty atrocious and the young man needed somewhere to study that wasn't going to promote falling asleep.
He'd been sleeping recently. He'd been sleeping a lot recently, and ever since he moved it became abundantly clear that the young man slept like a dead rock. Or a log. Or something else that was difficult to wake up because it wasn't something that woke up… well… ever. Elijah was content to be awake for now and coming to a place that he could actually get something done.
The door opened, and it was off to the inside of the chantry with him.
"Bonjour! C'est moi- Elijah. Je suis ici pour faire ses devoirs!" h pauses, "goddamn I am never going to pass this stuff."
Ian
They arrived on foot, Ian and Jae-shin. There was no sound of wheels on pavement or the rolling purr of an engine to announce their passage. Instead Grace and Sera would pick up the tell-tale drum of feet on the earth, and the papery crackle of fall leaves tossed up in the wind. When the runners reached the edge of the treeline, they slowed their pace to a loping jog, moving like a couple of graceful animals over the grass. When they neared the Node, Ian dropped back to a walking pace, resting his hands on his hips. His ribs moved in a steady rhythm of deep breaths. He had on running shoes and a pair of track pants. Sweat dripped from his forehead.
He nodded first to Grace, then Sera, but did not immediately attempt to join their conversation. The man with him (Grace had met him before, but Sera had not) was Korean. He looked even more athletic than Ian, and resonated like something of the ocean. (Fluid and Abyssal.) Jae-shin smiled softly at Grace, then fixed Sera with a reserved but curious expression.
"Evening," he said.
Ian tapped him on the shoulder. "I'm going to get some water."
Serafíne
Grace misunderstands Sera's purpose there. Which was mostly: hey. Deep breath, pull back. No need to tell everyone everything that Elijah did wrong. Consider the story and consider the purpose and consider the words. Sometimes those things can fucking hurt, even when you don't mean them too.
But Grace dodges the topic and Sera kind of assumes that Grace gets it and anyway; she's strangely circumspect about it. Perhaps a bit distant, bottleneck cool where it is wrapped between her fingers. The night strange all around.
--
And Sera doesn't speak French and Elijah's call-out is muffled as he enters the chantry by the closed doors butt there is enough noise from his called-out greeting to pull her chin up. She breathes out -
- looks back at Grace. That half-smile again.
"If they are that hot for her you might consider whether you guys finding her could increase their chances of finding her. Right now, no one knows where she is. She might not even exist.
"But when you know. And Alicia knows. And everyone else here knows, that near impossibility turns into a possibility, right?
"Maybe it wouldn't, but I think you and Alicia should think about why she wants to find this woman, and whether your plan places her in more danger, and whether the goal is worth the danger in which you place her, and yourselves, by contacting her.
"When she's hunted. You know?"
Another sort of agency.
--
A flick of her dark (bruised/ing) gaze up as Ian approaches with a stranger. The brief skim of Sera's smirk, a bit more flat and closed than you'd imagine it, but Jae-Shin doesn't just feel like the ocean (fluid), he also feels (abyssal) like other things still a crawling kind of knowledge in and beneath her skin.
"Hello," that smirk. And it's not unwelcoming, what she says next. It's just her way. "Who the fuck are you?"
Grace
"I'll talk with Elly about it. He's been around the block a few times, it seems. But you're right. Trying to find her could be dangerous for her," Grace says, with a sigh.
"That," Grace says, rolling her head around to stare at Jae Shin's feet. "Is Soccer Guy. Ian's friend. I forgot his name."
She waves at them, and gives an upside-down smile.
Elijah
He follows the sound of people, because it sounds like there are people. Because he thrives on people, because he thrived on the idea of getting to do something other than pour over a textbook he didn't really want to pay attention to. He deposited the messenger bag... uh... somewhere. He looked at his pocket watch and headed off towards the sound of people.
Ian
[Awareness]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 6, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 4 )
Ian
Jae-shin's smile cooled, but he didn't seem especially offended by the question.
"Jeong Jae-shin, of the Akashic Brotherhood." He paused to take in a couple of breaths, wiping the back of his hand across his forehead. "And you?" His accent marked him as a non-native speaker, but he seemed comfortable enough with the language.
Ian glanced back a moment as he walked toward the house, then pulled open the patio door and stepped inside, heading for the kitchen. When he saw Dan, he nodded, and the faint edge of a grin touched the side of his mouth. "Hey."
(The last time that Ian and Dan had seen each other, Ian had been naked in the hot-spring.)
Elijah was there too. Ian felt his approach before he came into view, and there was a slow, measured glance back in Elijah's direction. Something quiet and thoughtful that hovered over him for a few silent beats. Then Ian grabbed a couple of glasses from the cabinet and filled them with water, taking a long drink from his own.
Serafíne
Sera's gaze slides quick easily back to Grace. There's a gleam of compassion that, there slithers to the surfaces and turns and catches the light and sinks back down beneath the surface too. Grace sighs. Sera's gaze lingers there, for several long, passing beats.
"Cool." Murmured, with a tip of her beer bottle as if in a toast. "Just think about it."
--
Then back to "soccer-guy" to whom the creature's attention returns with a dark, wry sweep. She sees the cooling smile, how could she miss it? Somehow that always brings out the edge in her,
as it does now. This smirk, more surface than deep. She has a half-dozen mysteries floating beneath her skin and she's a terrible liar and here she is, standing see, as Jae-Shinn introduces himself.
"Seraf ne," she says, "Most people call me Sera. Nice to meet you."
--
And Dan, inside, is drying his hands on a kitchen towel and catches the edge of Ian's grin and you understand, grinning himself, through the rough blond beard. "Hey." to Ian. "Hey, man," to Elijah, before he kind of excuses himself and heads out to the patio to stick his head out for Sera.
"You ready or what?" Dan asks Sera.
And, "Ready." Sera responds.
"See you 'round," she says, by way of farewell to Jae-Shin. And, "Later, Grace. Be careful, okay?" then disappears back inside. They'll head down the stairs, to the walk-out basement. Start down through the fields. They're going hiking, at twilight.
Maybe they'll be back later. Maybe not.
Grace
Grace kicks her feet back and forth in the water. Everyone's always telling her to be careful nowadays, as if she didn't already know. As if she weren't.
"I always am," she says, as Sera leaves. Maybe she's saying it to Sera's back, but Grace wouldn't know. She's staring at the clouds.
Elijah
[I'm fantastique! subterfuge]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )
Ian
[Are you really? Empathy]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 4, 5, 5, 8) ( success x 1 )
Elijah
"Hey, Dan," he said. Smiled because he was content to smile, because the motion was practiced and it wasn't that he wasn't glad to see Dan, because he was glad to see Dan. Of course he was glad to see Dan. he was glad to see all sorts of people. He took his time, peeked out and around the kitchen and it looked awfully different when it wasn't filled up with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
"What's shaken', Ian?" Casual enough. Of course casual enough, pleased enough because he could be pleased. Happy enough because he could be happy. It would seem well enough that things were… well… back to normal. Ish. Normalish for Elijah.
Ian
Sera didn't offer her Tradition, and Jae-shin didn't press for it. Instead he accepted her name with a nod and watched as she left with Dan. Grace was still lying back with her feet in the pool, and Jae-shin eyed her a moment, turning his head at tilted angle to look down at her.
"It's good to see you again."
He picked up a foot and stretched his leg back, glancing over his shoulder when Elijah appeared in the doorway. Inside the house, Ian looked away from Elijah and refilled his glass. Elijah said what's shakin' in a tone that felt far removed from their last conversation.
"Jae-shin and I came out for a run." Ian carried both glasses to the door and pushed the handle with his elbow. For a moment he looked as though he might say something else, but then he turned and walked outside. When he reached the pool, he handed Jae-shin one of the glasses. Jae-shin took it with a soft smile.
"Thank you."
Ian nodded. His eyes dropped to Grace. "You know the water won't bite if you actually get in."
Grace
"You too. Soccer isn't really my natural element. You caught me at a weird time for our first meeting. Not quite as weird as some times, but you know," Grace says, rambling on and then trailing off. Maybe Jae-shin doesn't know. And what is it that he's supposed to know exactly?
Then, Ian arrives to save her from the awkwardness of long pauses and stilted conversation, to ask her (for the second time tonight) why she isn't all the way in the water. She rolls her eyes.
"It's like I told Sera. If I did, my clothes would get all wet."
Elijah
[I am 100% cool with water, willpower!)
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )
Elijah
The last time Elijah and Ian had talked, it ended quietly enough, with some kind of confession and then helping his companion off to go enjoy the library. It was one of the better features of the chantry, that and the fact that they had a hot tub of near infinite potential and power, and that was a pretty impressive thing when he had time to sit and think about it. Elijah had a lot of time to think about a lot of things, and he did. He did think about things, for someone who spent so much of his time not thinking about things, he spent an inordinate amount of time contemplating heavens-knew-what… like nodes and missing persons and things he barely remembered seeing.
There was an increase in the number of people who went missing.
There were people outside, and the fact that he had to be outside if he was going to be around them meant… well… that Elijah was going to park himself outside with everyone else. Grace said she would get her clothing all wet if she got in all the way.
"So?" he asked, "they're just clothes, they've got to have a dryer around here or something… I mean, you wouldn't be sitting around naked forever waiting for clothes to dry, or you could just… y'know… be soggy. It's not that bad."
Says the man who was going nowhere near the damn water because it was water and like Hell he was getting in. Hello, pot, I'm kettle.
Ian
Ian glanced between Grace and Elijah and smirked. "You're not supposed to wear clothes in a hot spring."
There were other things he could have said. Thoughtful, reverent things about water and healing. Or some wry joke about skinny-dipping. Jae-shin looked at Ian as though he expected him to do just that, but Ian just tipped back his head and drank a long gulp of water. The Akashic's eyes hovered on him a moment, landing somewhere near the curve of Ian's neck.
When Ian was done, he moved to sit atop the rock that Sera had recently vacated
"So how've you two been?"
Grace
"Same old, same old. Although for people like us," Grace says, huffs out a laugh. Doesn't finish.
"I'm here to recharge a bit after we had a run-in with a fucking vampire."
"And yes, you're not supposed to wear clothes in a hot spring, so I am soaking my feet. Not everyone is so comfortable to go strip down in a place that's nearly every Mage in Denver's favorite place to be."
She closes her eyes. The water feels so nice, doesn't it? Even if it's just her feet soaking.
"Hey, Elijah," she says, waves a little. They hadn't properly said 'hey' yet.
Elijah
[more subterfuge! Because we fake it 'til we make it]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 3, 5, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )
Ian
[Is Ian paying more attention this time?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 4, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Elijah
"'sup Grace? And hh, I'm getting by. French is kicking my ass, and I just moved so it's been pretty stressful, but overall things are pretty damned good," he says. he lies, because he wants to fake this until it is the truth. He pulls off the words with the rehearsed confidence of any actor, like he's had an answer for the question for some time. He cautiously approached the spring, a little uncertain as to how to approach this or if he should come closer (or if he's allowed to come closer, what was he supposed to do here? Was there a procedure? A protocol?)
He took a perch nearby, looking at the water cautiously before deciding to discard his vest. He was talking himself into something, of course he was talking himself into something, he was always talking himself into something, but this time it had less to do with- well, now, let's not talk about that.
"So, is it every naked person that bothers you, or is it just you being naked, because I kinda wanna get in now and if you're not supposed to wear clothes I'm not gonna fuck it up with… you know… clothes."
Ian
Grace mentioned the vampire, and Ian's brows furrowed into a slightly brooding expression. "Yeah, I heard about that." Jae-shin glanced at him and raised an eyebrow. The expression was subtly pointed, but Ian just looked at him and gave this small, almost imperceptible shake of his head.
Then Grace made that comment about Ian's comfort level with public nudity, and Ian looked at Grace and shrugged, as though to say: suit yourself. Jae-shin pulled off his shoes and socks and walked to the edge of the pool, lowering himself down next to Grace. He had on a pair of running shirts and a black singlet, and smelled a little of clean sweat. As he lowered his feet into the water, he leaned back and looked at the sky.
Elijah said that he was getting by That things were, in fact, pretty damned good. Ian's attention shifted back to him and hovered there for a quiet moment.
He didn't say anything. But when Elijah began to remove his vest, he raised an eyebrow.
Grace
[Perception + Awarepathy = Does Grace notice?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 5, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )
Grace
"I can close my eyes. Ask Ian," Grace says, to Elijah's question. Truth be told, it does bother her. A little. But she wants to use the Node, and she's not going to stand in anyone else's way.
Jae-shin joins her in the whole stick-feet-in-water-and-watch-the-sky routine. It's nice that they're not all going to strip down, eh?
Grace has seen Elijah completely going off. She's lived in the next building over from where he now sleeps in order to stay the hell away from the Technocrats he's contacted. So the happiness he has going on right now just serves to confuse.
Whatever. He can be happy if he wants to.
"Yeah. The Black Lotus is not as happy a place as the name would suggest. Which is to say, stay the hell away from there," she says, mostly for Jae-shin's benefit, as he does not have Ginger. Yet.
Elijah
[Raised brow? Awarepathy for the win!]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )
Ian
[Subterfuge]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 9 ) Re-rolls: 4
Ian
[Jesus christ Ian]
Elijah
[... O_O]
Elijah
He stops with his vest, and keeps it at that. Elijah looks at the water, wary but not thwarted for the time being, and he inhaled slowly. Something practiced, something calm, something that he could be relaxed with, "yeah, I should probably do my homework instead of jumping in a hot spring anyway?"
Because he could be reasonable, this one, he could muse for a moment and remember the actual reason he came here (or the reason he said he came here).
"So we are all spared the joys of my not-so-clothed self for today. If I'm here solo, though, I am making no promises, people will just have to deal."
Ian
Jae-shin glanced between Ian and Elijah, but he didn't offer any comment or advice. If he had any thoughts on what may or may not have been the proper way to use the node, he kept them to himself. Instead he finished off the glass of water that Ian had brought for him. Grace warned him about the Black Lotus, and to this he nodded, his expression drawn and serious. "I will keep that in mind."
Ian's attention was still fixed on Elijah. After a moment, he stood up. "I can help if you want." There was a casual air to the suggestion, and when Elijah agreed, Ian grabbed his empty glass and jogged over to the patio.
Which left Jae-shin and Grace alone in the hot-spring. Jae-shin watched Ian with a veiled expression, but he didn't make any attempt to stop him. After a few long moments, he pulled off his shirt and slipped into the pool, treading over to a far corner to give Grace some space. Then he leaned back and closed his eyes. And for the rest of the evening, he was quiet.
Elijah
"Hey, Grace, I'm gonna go do homework, see you at… y'know… place?" he wasn't sure what to call where he lived now. It was a warehouse. It was a literal warehouse, and while it was better than staying between couches and lying to Jenn, it wasn't better because now he had to tell Jenn that he was moving out of their apartment to go live in a warehouse because it's hat he wanted and-
Yeah, that was a pleasant conversation.
He tossed his vest over his arm and started to meander back to they door, "Ian, I could seriously use the help with composition. It's not my forte."
Funny, that was probably the truest thing he'd said all night.
Grace
"I can deal. I'm so good at dealing," Grace says. It's a lie. She just thinks she's good at it. "Goodnight, though. Maybe on the way back I'll pick up some cupcakes."
Yeah, at the all-night cupcake store. Surely the hacker knows she won't be able to find any? Or maybe she'll be completely horrified to learn that most bakeries close after a while.
Grace does not take her shirt off and join Jae-shin in the water. No, for the rest of her time there, she will be content with the lovely foot soaking that has taken her this far.
Her company is quiet, and that's fine with her. She goes for her phone again and resumes browsing Hacker News until the stars begin to blink into view.
Oh, and what does that remind her of? The phone slips down a little as her mind wanders back to a time when stars were winking out of existence instead. Yeah, Jae-shin, you have yet to catch Grace at the most weird of times, have you?
It's good that Elijah has Ian there to help. It's good to have someone else around to not talk to. Everything's okay right now, even though everything's all precariously balanced on edge. And isn't it always?
Soccering.
Elijah
[nightmares?
Dice: 5 d10 TN7 (3, 4, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )
Kalen
[How awake are we?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Ian
It was around 1:00 in the afternoon when Grace, Kalen, Lena and Elijah got the text from Ian. And for once, it wasn't anything about some terrible danger or disaster. It was simply this:
Hey, my friend and I are trying to set up an impromptu soccer game at Crestmoor Park. Feel like playing?
He fired that same text off to a handful of other people, at least one of whom (Emma) texted back with a confirmation. Any positive responses would have been given directions and encouraged to 'bring a friend', which was likely how Alex ended up hearing about it. So it was about half an hour later when Ian and Jae-shin arrived at the park, dressed appropriately in soccer gear (Jae-shin had a thin green athletic shirt while Ian went shirtless) and kicking a ball around the field to warm up.
Emma showed up a few minutes later, and she waved at Ian from across the field as she paused to tie her hair up. Ian jogged over at tossed the ball at her chest, smiling when she caught it. "Hey you."
"Who's that?" she asked, nodding towards where Jae-shin stood.
"Just a friend. We train together a lot."
"Ah." There was a little smile at that, which Ian chose to ignore.
The weather was nice. It was sunny. Warm. A perfect day for a game, really.
Lena Reilly
Lena responded back with, I'll be there! I'm gonna play cheerleader. The woman isn't one for the kind of physical exertion that can lead to injuries, after all. She has to be careful about that. But she welcomes the opportunity to show up and hang out with some friends, especially when she's too damned good at making herself a hermit. So her green Ninja motors its way to Crestmoor, the woman dressed in the usual green and black jacket that she wears when she goes out and matching helmet. It may seem strange that a woman who is afraid of a little soccer-induced bruising is willing to zip around on a high-speed death machine, but anyone who knows a Cultist well would know how little their personal boundaries of "acceptably unsafe" vs. "too far" tend to make sense to anyone but themselves.
She steps off the bike and attaches the helmet to the back, unzipping her jacket as she walks over to reveal a T-Shirt that reads "GO TEAM (the one that currently has the ball." She smiles a little bit, hanging back slightly and taking a lean against a tree as she watches for now. More people here so far that she doesn't know compared to ones she does, and that means she doesn't impose herself yet...even if her Resonance does.
Elijah
There wasn't much dragging to be had. All Elijah had to do was mention that Ian said something about soccer and Jenn was there, carting her friend along in the civic and dressed ready forwhat was going to prove to be an actually athletic experience.
"I love soccer," Jenn announced.
Elijah, sadly, was not the kind of athlete that Jenn was. he was terrible at sports, he was largely unafraid of the fact that he was terrible at sports but practice made perfect and all that other stuff and it gave him an excuse to look at people while they were shirtless. Both partes were dressed and ready for soccer, and Elijah even bothered to not wear a vest this time. Which meant his pocketwatch was shoved in Jenn's purse along with a couple water bottles and some brownies.
"you've said that, like, four times," Elijah teased.
"Because I really, really, really, really love soccer," she said with a grin.
Grace
Ian's message came at a good time, yeah? It's a day when people desperately need some companionship and togetherness and all that bullshit that makes you feel human again after, say, talking to a Techocrat or dumping a Nephandus into his own Styx.
She responds back with an: okay. I'll try to drag Kalen with. No guarantees.
Because yeah, he needs to get out.
She met him at the office wearing a sky-blue tee that has a guy playing baseball on the front, with 'TOUCH DOWN' as the verbiage. It's the perfect shirt to go play soccer in. Which, let's say, Grace has not done since grade school, and even then she mostly stood staring off into nothing thinking about anything but soccer.
It's not really about the game is it?
Somehow, she managed to convince him that going and playing a sport in the outside would be at least tolerable. Maybe?
So they show up, Grace bright-eyed, if not exactly enthused about the whole sports aspect of the whole thing. At least her normal uniform of jeans and tee shirts is suitable for this.
"I think you aren't allowed to use your hands. Except sometimes. Like, the goalie can use their hands. And there are times when you throw the ball, but if you do that at other times you are in so much trouble..." Grace says as they walk.
"I think I'm just going to play it by ear. Not literally. Although maybe..."
Alexander
It’s a couple of days since they returned from… if a Sleeper should ask, somewhere out of town. After doing a little gardening for a friend, maybe. Either way, Alexander has been doing reasonably well. Oh, there have been bad dreams about a certain black river, waking with soaked sheets from cold sweats, but he’s looking reasonably awake and with it.
He’d just been arriving at the warehouse to check on Kalen – he didn’t seem to be doing so well after their… trip. Alexander had seem Kalen get a little twitchy around water before – he’d been worried that dipping his hand into the waters of the node was going to break it when he caught the reaction – but he didn’t know the reasons.
So here he is, arriving just behind Grace and Kalen. He’d stopped off at home to change before heading over, and the lack of delay in his arriving probably says something about his driving.
Alexander? Isn’t wearing anything particularly special once he changes out of his bike gear in the lot. Blue trainers, black shorts and a red vest top. There’s a rucksack holding it, slung over one shoulder, and he carries the helmet in the opposite hand. He takes a couple of moments to look over the Ninja parked in the lot nearby, but follows the others over to the field. There’s maybe a momentary pause when he sees Ian on the field. They haven’t so much as spoke to each other since that night by the reservoir. This could be interesting.
Kalen
Kalen had attempted to spend the day sulking in the library. He had tried to insist that there were things he had to do. Put together information on vampires for new Mages. Research the locations of weapons for hunting the undead. Research reanimation rituals. Update their computer model of Denver with current events. Historical events.
But Grace had started on him and then she'd been joined by Alexander and so Kalen has been dragged away from books into the sunshine. He has played soccer. He did attend school until he was fourteen, at least sporadically. He knows...you kick the ball. So he is convinced to come voluntarily instead of being dragged, which he wouldn't put entirely past either Grace or Alexander.
So he is there, listening to Grace explain a game he can't really explain any better, in a pair of loose grey pants and a white tee-shirt. He does grab them bottled water, because of course he has that in abundance. He lets them talk him out of excursions to buy things like soccer shoes or half of a bakery or coffee (who even brings coffee to a soccer game, Kalen?) or tangerines or whatever else he can think of as a stalling tactic because this game is in like five minutes Kalen just get in the fucking car.
Ian
Ian and Emma looked as though they probably moved in the same social and professional spheres. They were both beautiful. Both graceful and athletic in the way that dancers could be. They both had that same kind of untouchable air to them. Emma was tall and darker skinned, with long brown hair (now fixed in a loose knot atop her head) and large eyes. She had on dark blue athletic shorts and a black sports bra.
Jae-shin wasn't a dancer, but he wasn't exactly in poor shape. On the contrary, he looked as though he worked out on a daily basis. (It had, in fact, been his idea to have the soccer game.) He watched Ian and Emma for a moment before jogging over to join them. When he got there, he introduced himself to Emma in an accent that marked him as Korean, and the two of them held a brief conversation as Ian spotted Lena by the trees. It wasn't long before she was joined by the others, and Ian gestured to Emma and Jae-shin to join him at the side of the field, where everyone seemed to be congregating.
So it was that the group came together: seven mages and two sleepers. Jae-shin stood slightly behind Ian, rolling the ball skillfully between his hands. To those who could feel such things, he resonated like the depths of the ocean: Fluid and Abyssal.
"Hey," Ian greeted. He offered a smile to Lena, sweeping his gaze around to include most of the others present. Even Alex got a nod. "This is Emma," Ian introduced the two people behind him, "and Jae-shin." He didn't offer the latter's Tradition, because there were sleepers present, but Jae-shin nodded to the group in a slow, knowing gesture.
"I suppose we should pick teams," Ian offered, glancing around the group with an appraising gaze. Some of them were likely more familiar with the game than others. "Who wants to be captain?"
"I will," Jae-shin offered.
Ian eyed him for a moment, and something passed between them (some small spark of competition.) "Anyone care if I take the other one?"
Grace
It's just like Kalen to stall with the aid of tangerines and why they're a dire need. Nobody ever needed tangerines to play soccer, Kalen.
Still, it's nice to see that he's willing to be argued with. Nice to see Alexander is also arguing on her side.
Sometimes, along the path, you don't exactly stop. Never stop. It's always a help though, to make sure that you can continue putting one foot in front of the other. Sometimes, it's other people who you allow to convince you of this fact.
Grace smiles at Jae-shin when she and her pod of Mages arrives. "Pick me last. I have a reputation to maintain here."
Lena Reilly
"Hey." She says it with a little smile and looks around as she senses first Elijah, then the trio of Grace, Alex and Kalen. She raises her hand to wave at them all, including the ones she doesn't know--Jenn, Jae-shin, Emma--getting comfortable in her position against the tree.
"Nice to meet you," she says, directed to Emma and Jae-shin...and Jenn too, once she gets within the vicinity. Her introductions are made with a warm, easily friendly tone. "I'm Lena." Nice and simple, left there for the moment. "Hey guys," is her greeting to the Awakened that she does know. When the two guys step up to be captains she smiles and shakes her head.
"It's all you guys. I'm just spectating today anyway."
Elijah
"I'll be captain if no one else wants it," Jenn said. She was a pretty enough girl with a messy haircut and a tattoo of an iris on one of her thighs. She had a tank top on, so only part of a unicorn peaked out over her shoulder.
"That's Jenn. Jenn? That's Kalen and Grace and Alex and Lena-"
"I've heard, like, a ton about you guys."
Alexander
Alex jogs over to join Kalen and Grace. Ian gets a nod in return. The jury is still out on the final opinion on the man. Preliminary verdict: dick, but might be ok. Lena gets a smile and a, “Hey!” in return. Elijah, a nod and a wave. Kalen? A grip on the shoulder.
He’s about to introduce himself when Elijah does it for him. “Alexander,” he corrects, giving Elijah a look. He isn’t Alex to strangers. But otherwise it’s smiles and nods for the others.
He shrugs when they ask about captains.
Grace
Grace rolls her eyes at the 'Alexander' comment, because oh God, can he stop being so uptight for five minutes? Something about cops and sticks up their asses huh? But she doesn't say anything. She's in too good a mood to spoil it.
Instead, she waves at Lena, who's 'just spectating' and why didn't anyone tell Grace that spectating would be an option here? She's likely to kick someone. In the head. Somehow. It's bound to happen, despite the unlikelihood.
"Oh, man, Lena has the right idea. Spectating on our excursion to sportsball? Should be just hilarious."
Kalen
Kalen rolls his eyes when Alexander catches his shoulder. "Oh? You think you're already forgiven?" But there is definite affection in that tone, though he doesn't fit himself into Alexander's side or do anything cuddly. He does shake off Alexander's hand, but only so that no fingers are smashed when he bounces his shoulder into Alexander's. It's rougher than he is with Grace, but light enough. Playful.
Look! More people. He waves to them, and doesn't manage quite the show of being social he put on for Alexander. "Hey." But they all get a smile and a bit of a nod.
"However," is all he says about teams and captains.
Ian
"I care," Emma responded to Ian's suggestion with a teasing loft of her brow. "Just because the two of you called us here, don't think you get to run the show. Besides, I'd like a female captain." At this she smiled at Jenn, the expression delicate and wry. Ian glanced between the two, then offered a little huff of laughter that seemed intended mostly for Emma.
"Fair point," he conceded, gesturing to Jenn. "She can have it." There was a quarter stuck between the laces of one of his shoes. Ian retrieved it and flipped it into the air. When he caught it, he pressed his hand down over it, glancing back at Jae-shin. "Heads or tails?"
"Tails."
Ian revealed the quarter on his hand. It was heads. "Jenn gets first pick."
And Jenn's first pick? Ended up being Ian. So when it came time for Jae-shin to select his first player, he surveyed the group for a long moment, then nodded to Alexander.
Back to Jenn, who unsurprisingly grabbed Emma for her team.
Jae-shin's next pick was Kalen. And Jenn went for Grace, who, as it turned out, was not going to be the last picked on this particular day (despite her reputation.)
That honor was left to Elijah, who got to join Jae-shin's team by default. When they were all grouped up, Jae-shin turned to his team and asked, "which positions would you prefer?"
Assuming Jenn did the same, Ian and Emma both offered to take offense.
Lena Reilly
She watches the back-and-forth picking with a bit of a smile, keeping track of who's going where. The team makeups interest her; it's chemistry, or a recipe, or human dynamics. It's connections splitting, forging, reforging. There's a bit of a tilt to her head as she watches, and then they're done choosing and she grins.
"Unfortunately I couldn't bring my pom-poms with me on the motorcycle, but I'll throw out all the 'Go Teams' I can manage."
Alexander
And it’s almost like being back in the high-school gym again. Alexander had been pretty good at the more physical side of high-school, so didn’t often have the honour of being the last picked when teams were being formed. He walks over to stand near Jae-shin while the rest of the teams are picked.
“I’ll go offense.” There’s maybe a flash of a smile as he offers.
Grace
Ohh, so now it comes to it, eh? Grace makes faces at Alex (I'm going to wipe the floor with you!) and Kalen (look out, punk, you're going down!) as she walks over to join the other team.
Which, hello Jenn. Nice to meet you. Have a pale nerd wearing a shirt that displays all of her knowledge of soccer.
"Hi. I'm Grace," she says to the others, before going to stare at the grass. They already kind of knew that, didn't they? "I have no idea what offense means? Uh. I know not to use my hands!"
Elijah
"Okay," Jenn starts, "who wants to be what? Offense goes and takes the ball down the field and scores, defense keeps their people from kicking the ball into our goal. Goalie is in charge of defending the goal. You might wanna be defense? Besides, it's okay if you're not super sure what to do because I've got a good feeling that our offense is going to rock faces."
Jenn said this all with the kind of confidence that came with being team captain, even if she wasn't the best player on the field she certainly tried her best to inspire some kind of confidence in Grace.
--
Meanwhile, there was the question of where it was Elijah was going to play. He looked a little like a deer in the headlights, because this was very much like high school gym class and that usually ended with him getting sent to the nurse because he faked an injury well enough that he didn't have to do pushups anymore.
"Dibs on defense," Elijah said, eager to avoid having to actually make his way down the field.
Kalen
Grace's look gets a little flash of amusement from Kalen, but no return challenge, Jae-shin just gets a black look in return to his question.
"I may not have been into teams as a child. You're going to have to explain." That tone is flat, distant. He'll try for Alex. He'll try for Grace. He cannot be bothered to try for strangers. Even strangers he would otherwise take a stronger interest in. "But I'll do whatever."
Ian
"You can be defense," Ian offered to Grace. "It's easy. Just hang out by the goal and when the ball gets close kick it back down the field, preferably to me or Emma."
And that left Jenn as goalie. Hopefully her skills would make up for her small size.
On to the other team...
Jae-shin nodded to Alex and Elijah. When Kalen offered him that look, Jae-shin regarded him for a moment quietly. "I apologize. I should have explained. The goalie protects the goal." He nodded toward the large white net at the end of the field. "He or she must stay within the boundary of the goal, but within that boundary they can do whatever they need to do to catch the ball, including using their hands. No one else may touch the ball with their hands but the goalie. Defensive players remain on their side of the field, and they help protect the goal. Their job is to get the ball away from the opposing team and back to their offensive players. The offensive players do most of the running. They try to take the ball to the other team's goal in order to score points."
After this explanation, Jae-shin considered the options. "If you think you can run, I can take the goal. If not, I can take offense."
Presumably they would be able to work out who went where by the time they all assembled on the field, because Jenn's team seemed more than ready to get going. Maybe Jenn had some suggestions for them, or maybe she'd wait and see how things went. Either way, when they were ready, Ian and Emma jogged out onto the field and took positions near the center line.
Whenever Jae-shin's team finished debating positions, Jae-shin leaned in to whisper a final piece of advice. "Ian and I have played before. He'll be focused on me as the main threat. Use that to your advantage."
And with that, he led their team onto the field.
Ian
[Alright, in the interest of efficiency, I figured we could handle the mechanics of this scene as follows:
The field is 120 yards long. Each success on a Dex+Athletics roll equals a distance of 10 yards. (Meaning it will take 6 successes to get from the center of the field to the opposing team's goal.) So we will determine where players are located on the field based on their dice rolls.
All other actions (stealing the ball, blocking the goal, etc) are also Dex+Athletics. Easy-peasy. Most will be standard diff, but if you want to do something tricky then add one or two, as suits. We'll be rolling this like rounds of combat, with inits and declares.
Obviously we will not have time to play out an entire game (which would be like... 60+ rounds?) so I figure we'll just go until we have to crash and whichever team is in the lead at that point can be assumed to win.]
Grace
[Init +6!]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (8) ( success x 1 )
Elijah
Jenn: 5+1d10
Dice: 1 d10 TN7 (7) ( success x 1 )
Elijah
Elijah: 5+1d10
Dice: 1 d10 TN7 (9) ( success x 1 )
Ian
[Ian Init +7]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (4) ( fail )
Ian
[Emma +7]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (1) ( fail )
Kalen
[Init +5]
Dice: 1 d10 TN7 (6) ( fail )
Ian
[Jae-shin +6]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (1) ( fail )
Alexander
Alexander catches the look from Grace and pokes his tongue out at her before turning to the others.
[Init+6]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (5) ( fail )
Ian
[And the order is!
Grace: 14 (+6)
Elijah: 14 (+5)
Jenn: 12
Ian: 11 (+7)
Alex: 11 (+6)
Kalen: 11 (+5)
Emma: 8
Jae-shin: 7]
Ian
[Jae-shin: hang out in the goal, like you do]
Emma: Go for the ball and run!]
Kalen
[Let Alex fight for the ball. Get off and ready to take passes.]
Ian
[Who is going first?]
Dice: 1 d10 TN1 (3) ( success x 1 )
Elijah
{Jenn: Hangin' out at the goal, doobeedoo
Elijah: Chill out and wait for the ball to come this way. Block if necessary!
Alexander
[My ball, heading forwards!]
Ian
[Ian will run with Emma and wait for her to pass him the ball if she gets it]
Grace
[Stare at ball. Ooo ball.]
Ian
[Grace, Elijah and Jenn are holding action, so Ian's roll! Dex+Ath run-run-run]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 5, 5, 7, 7) ( success x 2 )
Alexander
[Run-kick-run-kick - Dex+Ath]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 6, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 4 )
Kalen
[Do not lose the ball and run]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 6, 6, 7) ( success x 4 )
Ian
[Emma split her action so 1a: running -2]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )
Ian
[Aaand she didn't catch him so the second split is moot]
Elijah
[Ahhhh! Block, block like your life depends on it!]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (5, 5) ( fail )
Ian
[New declares!
Jae-shin: still hanging out
Emma: Split 1a: run! 1b: steal the ball if she gets to it]
Ian
[Also, placement:
Alex, Kalen and Elijah are all 40 yards away from Jenn's goal
Emma is 50 yards away
Ian is 60 yards away]
Ian
[Oh my god, I can math.
Alex, Kalen and Elijah are all 20 yards away from Jenn's goal
Emma is 30 yards away
Ian is 40 yards away]
Kalen
[Do I have this ball? I will never get it in the goal. Give it back to Alex.]
Kalen
[Edit: Run-run-run. Watch this ball.]
Ian
[somehow I put Elijah on the wrong team and for a few minutes no one noticed. We will pretend that never happened.]
Alexander
[Can I boot it in from here? Let's give it a try.]
Ian
[Ian: run!]
Elijah
[Jenn: OMG block]
Elijah
[Elijah: Chill out at his end, soooo glad he's not Jenn]
Grace
[Stare at the ball and kick it back without regard to anything! Super focus!]
Grace
[Dex+Ath = 4!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 9) ( success x 1 )
Alexander
[WP?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 10, 10) ( success x 2 )
Alexander
[And evade?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )
Kalen
[Run-run-run]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )
Ian
[Alex keeps the ball! Ian runs!]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (4, 7, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 6 )
Ian
[Emma runs! -2]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (5, 7, 7, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )
Ian
[Emma gets to Alex, second split steal! -3]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 6) ( success x 1 )
Ian
[Emma has the ball]
Ian
[Positions:
Ian, Kalen, Emma, Alex, Grace = 20 yards from Jenn's goal]
Ian
[Jae-shin: waiting, waiting
Emma: Run with the ball!]
Kalen
[Let Alex fight for the ball, run after the ball and be ready for passing]
Alexander
[Split: Tackle Emma, Pass to Kalen]
Elijah
Jenn: PEOPLE ARE NEAR MY GOAL! D= Block if necessary
Elijah: Doobeedooo, so glad I'm not over there
Ian
[Ian will block Alex]
Lena Reilly
Lena actually knows the game of soccer quite well. One of her many little things she never happens to have shared; she played soccer as a teenager in high school. Her brother always told her that made her a bit of a cliche, but she didn't listen to him. She probably should have paid more attention to him at various times in her life.
But we're getting off-base. The point is, she knows soccer and she used to be a pretty solid center forward. So she can follow the game well and she's enjoying watching her friends, and the people she doesn't really know, having fun together. She cheers for both sides...whoever has the ball and whoever is defending, but more the attackers since that was her positional focus. She gets almost as much fun observing as they probably have playing.
Grace
[Blocking Alex with Ian!]
Ian
[Ian blocks]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Grace
[Blocking stuff! Dex+ath!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (6, 6, 8, 8) ( success x 4 )
Alexander
[Dex
Alexander
[Steal the ball? Dex/Ath -2]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (7, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
Ian
[Alex is blocked, yo]
Kalen
[Run-run-run]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 5, 6) ( success x 1 )
Ian
[Emma runs towards the other end of the field]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 4 )
Ian
[Alright, positions:
Emma = center-field
Kalen = 30 yards from Jenn's goal
Ian, Alex, Grace = 20 yards from Jenn's goal
Elijah = 40 yards from Jae-shin's goal]
Ian
[Jae-shin: block if necessary
Emma: run!]
Kalen
[Run after Emma]
Alexander
[Run!]
Ian
[Ian: run!]
Elijah
[Jenn: chill out, it's out of danger now
Elijah: OMG wait until you might not have to block again[
Grace
[Hanging out, waiting for need to defense again!]
Ian
[Ian runs]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )
Alexander
[Run! Dex+Ath]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )
Kalen
[Run-run-run]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )
Ian
[Emma runs]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )
Ian
[Positions:
Emma: 10 yards from Jae-shin's goal
Elijah: 40 yards from Jae-shin's goal (Heather if you want to say Elijah moved to meet Jenn last turn that's fine)
Ian: 70 yards from Jae-shin's goal
Kalen and Alex: 80 yards from Jae-shin's goal
Grace: back with Jenn at the other goal]
Ian
[move to meet Emma, that is. >_>]
[nightmares?
Dice: 5 d10 TN7 (3, 4, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )
Kalen
[How awake are we?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Ian
It was around 1:00 in the afternoon when Grace, Kalen, Lena and Elijah got the text from Ian. And for once, it wasn't anything about some terrible danger or disaster. It was simply this:
Hey, my friend and I are trying to set up an impromptu soccer game at Crestmoor Park. Feel like playing?
He fired that same text off to a handful of other people, at least one of whom (Emma) texted back with a confirmation. Any positive responses would have been given directions and encouraged to 'bring a friend', which was likely how Alex ended up hearing about it. So it was about half an hour later when Ian and Jae-shin arrived at the park, dressed appropriately in soccer gear (Jae-shin had a thin green athletic shirt while Ian went shirtless) and kicking a ball around the field to warm up.
Emma showed up a few minutes later, and she waved at Ian from across the field as she paused to tie her hair up. Ian jogged over at tossed the ball at her chest, smiling when she caught it. "Hey you."
"Who's that?" she asked, nodding towards where Jae-shin stood.
"Just a friend. We train together a lot."
"Ah." There was a little smile at that, which Ian chose to ignore.
The weather was nice. It was sunny. Warm. A perfect day for a game, really.
Lena Reilly
Lena responded back with, I'll be there! I'm gonna play cheerleader. The woman isn't one for the kind of physical exertion that can lead to injuries, after all. She has to be careful about that. But she welcomes the opportunity to show up and hang out with some friends, especially when she's too damned good at making herself a hermit. So her green Ninja motors its way to Crestmoor, the woman dressed in the usual green and black jacket that she wears when she goes out and matching helmet. It may seem strange that a woman who is afraid of a little soccer-induced bruising is willing to zip around on a high-speed death machine, but anyone who knows a Cultist well would know how little their personal boundaries of "acceptably unsafe" vs. "too far" tend to make sense to anyone but themselves.
She steps off the bike and attaches the helmet to the back, unzipping her jacket as she walks over to reveal a T-Shirt that reads "GO TEAM (the one that currently has the ball." She smiles a little bit, hanging back slightly and taking a lean against a tree as she watches for now. More people here so far that she doesn't know compared to ones she does, and that means she doesn't impose herself yet...even if her Resonance does.
Elijah
There wasn't much dragging to be had. All Elijah had to do was mention that Ian said something about soccer and Jenn was there, carting her friend along in the civic and dressed ready forwhat was going to prove to be an actually athletic experience.
"I love soccer," Jenn announced.
Elijah, sadly, was not the kind of athlete that Jenn was. he was terrible at sports, he was largely unafraid of the fact that he was terrible at sports but practice made perfect and all that other stuff and it gave him an excuse to look at people while they were shirtless. Both partes were dressed and ready for soccer, and Elijah even bothered to not wear a vest this time. Which meant his pocketwatch was shoved in Jenn's purse along with a couple water bottles and some brownies.
"you've said that, like, four times," Elijah teased.
"Because I really, really, really, really love soccer," she said with a grin.
Grace
Ian's message came at a good time, yeah? It's a day when people desperately need some companionship and togetherness and all that bullshit that makes you feel human again after, say, talking to a Techocrat or dumping a Nephandus into his own Styx.
She responds back with an: okay. I'll try to drag Kalen with. No guarantees.
Because yeah, he needs to get out.
She met him at the office wearing a sky-blue tee that has a guy playing baseball on the front, with 'TOUCH DOWN' as the verbiage. It's the perfect shirt to go play soccer in. Which, let's say, Grace has not done since grade school, and even then she mostly stood staring off into nothing thinking about anything but soccer.
It's not really about the game is it?
Somehow, she managed to convince him that going and playing a sport in the outside would be at least tolerable. Maybe?
So they show up, Grace bright-eyed, if not exactly enthused about the whole sports aspect of the whole thing. At least her normal uniform of jeans and tee shirts is suitable for this.
"I think you aren't allowed to use your hands. Except sometimes. Like, the goalie can use their hands. And there are times when you throw the ball, but if you do that at other times you are in so much trouble..." Grace says as they walk.
"I think I'm just going to play it by ear. Not literally. Although maybe..."
Alexander
It’s a couple of days since they returned from… if a Sleeper should ask, somewhere out of town. After doing a little gardening for a friend, maybe. Either way, Alexander has been doing reasonably well. Oh, there have been bad dreams about a certain black river, waking with soaked sheets from cold sweats, but he’s looking reasonably awake and with it.
He’d just been arriving at the warehouse to check on Kalen – he didn’t seem to be doing so well after their… trip. Alexander had seem Kalen get a little twitchy around water before – he’d been worried that dipping his hand into the waters of the node was going to break it when he caught the reaction – but he didn’t know the reasons.
So here he is, arriving just behind Grace and Kalen. He’d stopped off at home to change before heading over, and the lack of delay in his arriving probably says something about his driving.
Alexander? Isn’t wearing anything particularly special once he changes out of his bike gear in the lot. Blue trainers, black shorts and a red vest top. There’s a rucksack holding it, slung over one shoulder, and he carries the helmet in the opposite hand. He takes a couple of moments to look over the Ninja parked in the lot nearby, but follows the others over to the field. There’s maybe a momentary pause when he sees Ian on the field. They haven’t so much as spoke to each other since that night by the reservoir. This could be interesting.
Kalen
Kalen had attempted to spend the day sulking in the library. He had tried to insist that there were things he had to do. Put together information on vampires for new Mages. Research the locations of weapons for hunting the undead. Research reanimation rituals. Update their computer model of Denver with current events. Historical events.
But Grace had started on him and then she'd been joined by Alexander and so Kalen has been dragged away from books into the sunshine. He has played soccer. He did attend school until he was fourteen, at least sporadically. He knows...you kick the ball. So he is convinced to come voluntarily instead of being dragged, which he wouldn't put entirely past either Grace or Alexander.
So he is there, listening to Grace explain a game he can't really explain any better, in a pair of loose grey pants and a white tee-shirt. He does grab them bottled water, because of course he has that in abundance. He lets them talk him out of excursions to buy things like soccer shoes or half of a bakery or coffee (who even brings coffee to a soccer game, Kalen?) or tangerines or whatever else he can think of as a stalling tactic because this game is in like five minutes Kalen just get in the fucking car.
Ian
Ian and Emma looked as though they probably moved in the same social and professional spheres. They were both beautiful. Both graceful and athletic in the way that dancers could be. They both had that same kind of untouchable air to them. Emma was tall and darker skinned, with long brown hair (now fixed in a loose knot atop her head) and large eyes. She had on dark blue athletic shorts and a black sports bra.
Jae-shin wasn't a dancer, but he wasn't exactly in poor shape. On the contrary, he looked as though he worked out on a daily basis. (It had, in fact, been his idea to have the soccer game.) He watched Ian and Emma for a moment before jogging over to join them. When he got there, he introduced himself to Emma in an accent that marked him as Korean, and the two of them held a brief conversation as Ian spotted Lena by the trees. It wasn't long before she was joined by the others, and Ian gestured to Emma and Jae-shin to join him at the side of the field, where everyone seemed to be congregating.
So it was that the group came together: seven mages and two sleepers. Jae-shin stood slightly behind Ian, rolling the ball skillfully between his hands. To those who could feel such things, he resonated like the depths of the ocean: Fluid and Abyssal.
"Hey," Ian greeted. He offered a smile to Lena, sweeping his gaze around to include most of the others present. Even Alex got a nod. "This is Emma," Ian introduced the two people behind him, "and Jae-shin." He didn't offer the latter's Tradition, because there were sleepers present, but Jae-shin nodded to the group in a slow, knowing gesture.
"I suppose we should pick teams," Ian offered, glancing around the group with an appraising gaze. Some of them were likely more familiar with the game than others. "Who wants to be captain?"
"I will," Jae-shin offered.
Ian eyed him for a moment, and something passed between them (some small spark of competition.) "Anyone care if I take the other one?"
Grace
It's just like Kalen to stall with the aid of tangerines and why they're a dire need. Nobody ever needed tangerines to play soccer, Kalen.
Still, it's nice to see that he's willing to be argued with. Nice to see Alexander is also arguing on her side.
Sometimes, along the path, you don't exactly stop. Never stop. It's always a help though, to make sure that you can continue putting one foot in front of the other. Sometimes, it's other people who you allow to convince you of this fact.
Grace smiles at Jae-shin when she and her pod of Mages arrives. "Pick me last. I have a reputation to maintain here."
Lena Reilly
"Hey." She says it with a little smile and looks around as she senses first Elijah, then the trio of Grace, Alex and Kalen. She raises her hand to wave at them all, including the ones she doesn't know--Jenn, Jae-shin, Emma--getting comfortable in her position against the tree.
"Nice to meet you," she says, directed to Emma and Jae-shin...and Jenn too, once she gets within the vicinity. Her introductions are made with a warm, easily friendly tone. "I'm Lena." Nice and simple, left there for the moment. "Hey guys," is her greeting to the Awakened that she does know. When the two guys step up to be captains she smiles and shakes her head.
"It's all you guys. I'm just spectating today anyway."
Elijah
"I'll be captain if no one else wants it," Jenn said. She was a pretty enough girl with a messy haircut and a tattoo of an iris on one of her thighs. She had a tank top on, so only part of a unicorn peaked out over her shoulder.
"That's Jenn. Jenn? That's Kalen and Grace and Alex and Lena-"
"I've heard, like, a ton about you guys."
Alexander
Alex jogs over to join Kalen and Grace. Ian gets a nod in return. The jury is still out on the final opinion on the man. Preliminary verdict: dick, but might be ok. Lena gets a smile and a, “Hey!” in return. Elijah, a nod and a wave. Kalen? A grip on the shoulder.
He’s about to introduce himself when Elijah does it for him. “Alexander,” he corrects, giving Elijah a look. He isn’t Alex to strangers. But otherwise it’s smiles and nods for the others.
He shrugs when they ask about captains.
Grace
Grace rolls her eyes at the 'Alexander' comment, because oh God, can he stop being so uptight for five minutes? Something about cops and sticks up their asses huh? But she doesn't say anything. She's in too good a mood to spoil it.
Instead, she waves at Lena, who's 'just spectating' and why didn't anyone tell Grace that spectating would be an option here? She's likely to kick someone. In the head. Somehow. It's bound to happen, despite the unlikelihood.
"Oh, man, Lena has the right idea. Spectating on our excursion to sportsball? Should be just hilarious."
Kalen
Kalen rolls his eyes when Alexander catches his shoulder. "Oh? You think you're already forgiven?" But there is definite affection in that tone, though he doesn't fit himself into Alexander's side or do anything cuddly. He does shake off Alexander's hand, but only so that no fingers are smashed when he bounces his shoulder into Alexander's. It's rougher than he is with Grace, but light enough. Playful.
Look! More people. He waves to them, and doesn't manage quite the show of being social he put on for Alexander. "Hey." But they all get a smile and a bit of a nod.
"However," is all he says about teams and captains.
Ian
"I care," Emma responded to Ian's suggestion with a teasing loft of her brow. "Just because the two of you called us here, don't think you get to run the show. Besides, I'd like a female captain." At this she smiled at Jenn, the expression delicate and wry. Ian glanced between the two, then offered a little huff of laughter that seemed intended mostly for Emma.
"Fair point," he conceded, gesturing to Jenn. "She can have it." There was a quarter stuck between the laces of one of his shoes. Ian retrieved it and flipped it into the air. When he caught it, he pressed his hand down over it, glancing back at Jae-shin. "Heads or tails?"
"Tails."
Ian revealed the quarter on his hand. It was heads. "Jenn gets first pick."
And Jenn's first pick? Ended up being Ian. So when it came time for Jae-shin to select his first player, he surveyed the group for a long moment, then nodded to Alexander.
Back to Jenn, who unsurprisingly grabbed Emma for her team.
Jae-shin's next pick was Kalen. And Jenn went for Grace, who, as it turned out, was not going to be the last picked on this particular day (despite her reputation.)
That honor was left to Elijah, who got to join Jae-shin's team by default. When they were all grouped up, Jae-shin turned to his team and asked, "which positions would you prefer?"
Assuming Jenn did the same, Ian and Emma both offered to take offense.
Lena Reilly
She watches the back-and-forth picking with a bit of a smile, keeping track of who's going where. The team makeups interest her; it's chemistry, or a recipe, or human dynamics. It's connections splitting, forging, reforging. There's a bit of a tilt to her head as she watches, and then they're done choosing and she grins.
"Unfortunately I couldn't bring my pom-poms with me on the motorcycle, but I'll throw out all the 'Go Teams' I can manage."
Alexander
And it’s almost like being back in the high-school gym again. Alexander had been pretty good at the more physical side of high-school, so didn’t often have the honour of being the last picked when teams were being formed. He walks over to stand near Jae-shin while the rest of the teams are picked.
“I’ll go offense.” There’s maybe a flash of a smile as he offers.
Grace
Ohh, so now it comes to it, eh? Grace makes faces at Alex (I'm going to wipe the floor with you!) and Kalen (look out, punk, you're going down!) as she walks over to join the other team.
Which, hello Jenn. Nice to meet you. Have a pale nerd wearing a shirt that displays all of her knowledge of soccer.
"Hi. I'm Grace," she says to the others, before going to stare at the grass. They already kind of knew that, didn't they? "I have no idea what offense means? Uh. I know not to use my hands!"
Elijah
"Okay," Jenn starts, "who wants to be what? Offense goes and takes the ball down the field and scores, defense keeps their people from kicking the ball into our goal. Goalie is in charge of defending the goal. You might wanna be defense? Besides, it's okay if you're not super sure what to do because I've got a good feeling that our offense is going to rock faces."
Jenn said this all with the kind of confidence that came with being team captain, even if she wasn't the best player on the field she certainly tried her best to inspire some kind of confidence in Grace.
--
Meanwhile, there was the question of where it was Elijah was going to play. He looked a little like a deer in the headlights, because this was very much like high school gym class and that usually ended with him getting sent to the nurse because he faked an injury well enough that he didn't have to do pushups anymore.
"Dibs on defense," Elijah said, eager to avoid having to actually make his way down the field.
Kalen
Grace's look gets a little flash of amusement from Kalen, but no return challenge, Jae-shin just gets a black look in return to his question.
"I may not have been into teams as a child. You're going to have to explain." That tone is flat, distant. He'll try for Alex. He'll try for Grace. He cannot be bothered to try for strangers. Even strangers he would otherwise take a stronger interest in. "But I'll do whatever."
Ian
"You can be defense," Ian offered to Grace. "It's easy. Just hang out by the goal and when the ball gets close kick it back down the field, preferably to me or Emma."
And that left Jenn as goalie. Hopefully her skills would make up for her small size.
On to the other team...
Jae-shin nodded to Alex and Elijah. When Kalen offered him that look, Jae-shin regarded him for a moment quietly. "I apologize. I should have explained. The goalie protects the goal." He nodded toward the large white net at the end of the field. "He or she must stay within the boundary of the goal, but within that boundary they can do whatever they need to do to catch the ball, including using their hands. No one else may touch the ball with their hands but the goalie. Defensive players remain on their side of the field, and they help protect the goal. Their job is to get the ball away from the opposing team and back to their offensive players. The offensive players do most of the running. They try to take the ball to the other team's goal in order to score points."
After this explanation, Jae-shin considered the options. "If you think you can run, I can take the goal. If not, I can take offense."
Presumably they would be able to work out who went where by the time they all assembled on the field, because Jenn's team seemed more than ready to get going. Maybe Jenn had some suggestions for them, or maybe she'd wait and see how things went. Either way, when they were ready, Ian and Emma jogged out onto the field and took positions near the center line.
Whenever Jae-shin's team finished debating positions, Jae-shin leaned in to whisper a final piece of advice. "Ian and I have played before. He'll be focused on me as the main threat. Use that to your advantage."
And with that, he led their team onto the field.
Ian
[Alright, in the interest of efficiency, I figured we could handle the mechanics of this scene as follows:
The field is 120 yards long. Each success on a Dex+Athletics roll equals a distance of 10 yards. (Meaning it will take 6 successes to get from the center of the field to the opposing team's goal.) So we will determine where players are located on the field based on their dice rolls.
All other actions (stealing the ball, blocking the goal, etc) are also Dex+Athletics. Easy-peasy. Most will be standard diff, but if you want to do something tricky then add one or two, as suits. We'll be rolling this like rounds of combat, with inits and declares.
Obviously we will not have time to play out an entire game (which would be like... 60+ rounds?) so I figure we'll just go until we have to crash and whichever team is in the lead at that point can be assumed to win.]
Grace
[Init +6!]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (8) ( success x 1 )
Elijah
Jenn: 5+1d10
Dice: 1 d10 TN7 (7) ( success x 1 )
Elijah
Elijah: 5+1d10
Dice: 1 d10 TN7 (9) ( success x 1 )
Ian
[Ian Init +7]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (4) ( fail )
Ian
[Emma +7]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (1) ( fail )
Kalen
[Init +5]
Dice: 1 d10 TN7 (6) ( fail )
Ian
[Jae-shin +6]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (1) ( fail )
Alexander
Alexander catches the look from Grace and pokes his tongue out at her before turning to the others.
[Init+6]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (5) ( fail )
Ian
[And the order is!
Grace: 14 (+6)
Elijah: 14 (+5)
Jenn: 12
Ian: 11 (+7)
Alex: 11 (+6)
Kalen: 11 (+5)
Emma: 8
Jae-shin: 7]
Ian
[Jae-shin: hang out in the goal, like you do]
Emma: Go for the ball and run!]
Kalen
[Let Alex fight for the ball. Get off and ready to take passes.]
Ian
[Who is going first?]
Dice: 1 d10 TN1 (3) ( success x 1 )
Elijah
{Jenn: Hangin' out at the goal, doobeedoo
Elijah: Chill out and wait for the ball to come this way. Block if necessary!
Alexander
[My ball, heading forwards!]
Ian
[Ian will run with Emma and wait for her to pass him the ball if she gets it]
Grace
[Stare at ball. Ooo ball.]
Ian
[Grace, Elijah and Jenn are holding action, so Ian's roll! Dex+Ath run-run-run]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 5, 5, 7, 7) ( success x 2 )
Alexander
[Run-kick-run-kick - Dex+Ath]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 6, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 4 )
Kalen
[Do not lose the ball and run]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 6, 6, 7) ( success x 4 )
Ian
[Emma split her action so 1a: running -2]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )
Ian
[Aaand she didn't catch him so the second split is moot]
Elijah
[Ahhhh! Block, block like your life depends on it!]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (5, 5) ( fail )
Ian
[New declares!
Jae-shin: still hanging out
Emma: Split 1a: run! 1b: steal the ball if she gets to it]
Ian
[Also, placement:
Alex, Kalen and Elijah are all 40 yards away from Jenn's goal
Emma is 50 yards away
Ian is 60 yards away]
Ian
[Oh my god, I can math.
Alex, Kalen and Elijah are all 20 yards away from Jenn's goal
Emma is 30 yards away
Ian is 40 yards away]
Kalen
[Do I have this ball? I will never get it in the goal. Give it back to Alex.]
Kalen
[Edit: Run-run-run. Watch this ball.]
Ian
[somehow I put Elijah on the wrong team and for a few minutes no one noticed. We will pretend that never happened.]
Alexander
[Can I boot it in from here? Let's give it a try.]
Ian
[Ian: run!]
Elijah
[Jenn: OMG block]
Elijah
[Elijah: Chill out at his end, soooo glad he's not Jenn]
Grace
[Stare at the ball and kick it back without regard to anything! Super focus!]
Grace
[Dex+Ath = 4!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 9) ( success x 1 )
Alexander
[WP?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 10, 10) ( success x 2 )
Alexander
[And evade?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )
Kalen
[Run-run-run]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )
Ian
[Alex keeps the ball! Ian runs!]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (4, 7, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 6 )
Ian
[Emma runs! -2]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (5, 7, 7, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )
Ian
[Emma gets to Alex, second split steal! -3]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 6) ( success x 1 )
Ian
[Emma has the ball]
Ian
[Positions:
Ian, Kalen, Emma, Alex, Grace = 20 yards from Jenn's goal]
Ian
[Jae-shin: waiting, waiting
Emma: Run with the ball!]
Kalen
[Let Alex fight for the ball, run after the ball and be ready for passing]
Alexander
[Split: Tackle Emma, Pass to Kalen]
Elijah
Jenn: PEOPLE ARE NEAR MY GOAL! D= Block if necessary
Elijah: Doobeedooo, so glad I'm not over there
Ian
[Ian will block Alex]
Lena Reilly
Lena actually knows the game of soccer quite well. One of her many little things she never happens to have shared; she played soccer as a teenager in high school. Her brother always told her that made her a bit of a cliche, but she didn't listen to him. She probably should have paid more attention to him at various times in her life.
But we're getting off-base. The point is, she knows soccer and she used to be a pretty solid center forward. So she can follow the game well and she's enjoying watching her friends, and the people she doesn't really know, having fun together. She cheers for both sides...whoever has the ball and whoever is defending, but more the attackers since that was her positional focus. She gets almost as much fun observing as they probably have playing.
Grace
[Blocking Alex with Ian!]
Ian
[Ian blocks]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Grace
[Blocking stuff! Dex+ath!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (6, 6, 8, 8) ( success x 4 )
Alexander
[Dex
Alexander
[Steal the ball? Dex/Ath -2]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (7, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
Ian
[Alex is blocked, yo]
Kalen
[Run-run-run]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 5, 6) ( success x 1 )
Ian
[Emma runs towards the other end of the field]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 4 )
Ian
[Alright, positions:
Emma = center-field
Kalen = 30 yards from Jenn's goal
Ian, Alex, Grace = 20 yards from Jenn's goal
Elijah = 40 yards from Jae-shin's goal]
Ian
[Jae-shin: block if necessary
Emma: run!]
Kalen
[Run after Emma]
Alexander
[Run!]
Ian
[Ian: run!]
Elijah
[Jenn: chill out, it's out of danger now
Elijah: OMG wait until you might not have to block again[
Grace
[Hanging out, waiting for need to defense again!]
Ian
[Ian runs]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )
Alexander
[Run! Dex+Ath]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )
Kalen
[Run-run-run]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )
Ian
[Emma runs]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )
Ian
[Positions:
Emma: 10 yards from Jae-shin's goal
Elijah: 40 yards from Jae-shin's goal (Heather if you want to say Elijah moved to meet Jenn last turn that's fine)
Ian: 70 yards from Jae-shin's goal
Kalen and Alex: 80 yards from Jae-shin's goal
Grace: back with Jenn at the other goal]
Ian
[move to meet Emma, that is. >_>]
Saturday, September 13, 2014
Give a cat a tiny watering can...
Kalen Holliday
[How awake are we?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (1, 5, 6, 7, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Grace Evans
It's late by the time Grace gets back to the office that might as well be called home. She hums a little (off-key) tune to the door when it bleeps to let her inside. Today, she dressed for the occasion in the proper attire of jeans, sneakers, and a Tesla vs. Edison Mortal Kombat t-shirt.
Because, you know, mad scientist lightning battles are appropriate. Always.
As soon as the door clicks shut behind her, she yells out: "Kalen!"
Kalen Holliday
"Library!" Kalen calls.
He is peeking over a newspaper at her as she enters, although he goes fold it and set it on the table when he sees how excited she is.
"Sooooooooooooooo...?"
Grace Evans
The trip upstairs doesn't take long. Of course, Grace is skipping steps on her way and all. Soon she appears at the door, all smiles.
"Soooooooo, Bugfuck Elly is amazing. He's totally going to help. He thinks that what happened to Alicia's dad was some gigantic Paradox hit, and Alethea was there, so she'd have what he called 'Paradox particles' all over her.
And he's got a machine to detect them. He just needs a little time to get it working. We're going to find her. You should have seen Alicia; I've never seen her, you know, smiling?"
Grace pops over to her usual chair and kicks off her shoes. It's relax time.
Kalen Holliday
Kalen sighs. "I still think you should have let it go. There is almost no chance we can help her father. Chasing all these things...I don't think it will help anything. Not Alicia. Not her father. Not anyone involved."
Grace Evans
"We may not be able to help her father, but we might be able to help Alethea. As far as I know, they haven't caught her yet. And what do we do if someone gets on their radar, just abandon them? I think Alicia knows her father is gone by now. But he's not the only person involved in this."
Grace's unrestrained happy gets taken down a few notches at Kalen's admonishment. She curls her feet up and stops bouncing.
"Besides, I think by now this is Society of Ether business more than anything. They're their people."
Kalen Holliday
"And you're what, on science courtesy loan?" Kalen rolls his eyes. "Just be careful."
Grace Evans
Grace rolls her eyes right back.
"I'm always careful. You know that. I don't plan on taking on the Technocracy, I agree that would be suicidal."
Kalen Holliday
"Yeah. So. It went well then?"
Grace Evans
Again, the grin returns to Grace's face, because:
"Oh, Kalen, the lab! We met him at this place on East Colfax which looked sketch as hell, but inside. It was full of toys. Ceiling to floor in some places. They had proton packs and miniature jet engines and all kinds of stuff. Some of it was just really old, and some of it was really slick too. I just... It was cool.
"And Elly, he's so nice. He's a Utopian, and the way he talks about building a better world -- I think you'd like him."
Kalen Holliday
"I'd be lying if I said a mad science lab didn't interest me. But. East Colfax? And we've never heard from or of him? How long has he been in town?"
Grace Evans
"It wasn't his lab. It was one he said they used for meetings way back in the day, and it was pretty way back. Looked like the place hadn't been touched since the 90's. I don't know, maybe East Colfax wasn't so shitty back then?"
Grace shrugs. She knows what Kalen's on about -- why he asks the questions he does. And he has a point. Who knows who Elly really is?
Just, how could someone like that be anything but?
"He's been here for... since today. Kalen, he brought wine. Wine that'd had it's atoms split and put back together."
Kalen Holliday
"Well. I'm definitely sorry I missed that." Up arches one eyebrow. "Is there more? I can try not to act like a feral cat long enough to taste this fantastic wine." Pause. "Maybe."
Grace Evans
"I think there is some? Maybe?" Grace grins. "He has to fill up a quint battery in order to power the machine he found, and it needs repairs, so he'll be here a few days at least. You should totally meet him!"
It certainly seems as if Grace has found a new favorite person in the world, hasn't it? Like maybe there's a reason why their respective Traditions abandoned the same ship together?
"And what do you mean, act like a feral cat? You mean you're not actually a feral cat who Awakened and goes around looking like a guy all the time?"
Kalen Holliday
Kalen huffs. "That's like...super secret. Who told you?"
Grace Evans
"You did. In your sleep. You meow," Grace says, in fake victory pose. "And I speak cat."
Speaking of cats, now that there are two people in the library, it is about to become a cat magnet. They like to be where the warm squishy things are. Pomegranate starts the process by padding in and staring at Kalen with half-lidded eyes.
"Pomegranate says hi, obviously."
Kalen Holliday
"Pomegranate still thinks I'm hiding Shoshannah somewhere and would like me to return her. This cat doesn't even like me." Kalen says. He reaches out to scratch behind the cat's ears anyway.
"Probably only because cat and mad scientist are so close."
Grace Evans
"Are they? I should tell Elly he is akin to a cat," Grace says. "Also, I must have just mistranslated 'I want to draw your blood with my claws' as 'hi'. Those phrases are really close together in cat."
Grace yawns, and Pomegranate leaps up on the table, only to use it as a springboard to Grace's lap. Kalen is ignored after having been glared at.
"Shoshannah. I haven't seen her in forever. Didn't she move?"
Kalen Holliday
"I don't know what her deal is. I haven't seen her in ages." Kalen shrugs. "I don't think she's entirely forgiven me. Or, you know, her cat."
Grace Evans
Grace pets the cat in her lap -- a scritch under the chin which makes the purr reverberate. "I'm sorry, Pompom. I don't know where Shoshannah is."
There there, cat. Much like everyone else, we're all looking for something. Or someone.
"Maybe someday her cat will forgive you."
Kalen Holliday
"This is possible, I suppose. I'm glad she has someone here to not hate now. I think she was terrified she was going to have to call a truce just so she could get enough attention to live."
Grace Evans
"So that's why this one likes to hang with me all the time? Huh. Needs attention to live," she says, and gives Kalen a far-away look.
Yeah, he is like a cat, isn't he?
"Plants need attention to live too, unfortunately. Poor Chloe."
Kalen Holliday
"You killed another one?" Kalen sighs and rolls his eyes. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. If you can't remember you need to eat I suppose I shouldn't expect you can keep a plant alive. Can't you make a computer program to water it? Get your mad scientist friend to make some clockwork and springs contraption?"
Grace Evans
"I remember to eat. Just it's difficult when you're in a coma and dreaming about riding dragons," Grace says, giving him a subtle chiding. She's not that absent-minded. And noodles and energy drinks totally count as food. Right?
"I can make a robot to water it, I just don't know if water and robots work well together. They do make these bulb... things," Grace says, and stops scritching the cat to hold her hands in the shape of a sphere.
Pomegranate, however, needs attention to live, and grabs her hand and bites it. "Hey!"
Kalen Holliday
Kalen laughs. "Maybe you can trim the next one into the shape of a kitten, teach Pomegranate to love it, and then teach her to carry a tiny watering can around with her. There are lever taps on your sink. I think she could be taught to use it.
"I think motivating her to do it would be nearly impossible. And that she's more likely to water your electronics for spite than your plant. But you could always try."
Grace Evans
Grace snort-laughs. See, this is why she loves Kalen. The idea of a cat with a tiny watering can taking care of its plant-kitten? Yes.
"I think teaching her to use the sink would just result in the sink being left on for hours because she wants a drink," she says, and resumes paying the requisite attention to the cat.
They know how to train Mages. If they had any goals beyond food, water, and neck scritches, the world would be in trouble.
"And yes, my electronics would be in big trouble. Wouldn't they, Pompom?"
Pomegranate just purrs.
Kalen Holliday
"We should get you aquatic plants and fish in a self-sustaining system. Plants that take care of themselves and feed your fish are the best plants."
Grace Evans
"There's all kinds of things we should do. Trouble is keeping track of it all," Grace says, and sighs.
Still, this is the best night she's had in a while, no? her head falls to the back of the chair, a little smile on her face. Her lap is warm like there's a laptop upon it. Alicia has smiled today and meant it.
And here's Kalen, coming up with a sustainable plant-and-fish system.
All may not be right with the world, far from it. But in here? Maybe they can keep the unrightness away. For a little while.
[How awake are we?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (1, 5, 6, 7, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Grace Evans
It's late by the time Grace gets back to the office that might as well be called home. She hums a little (off-key) tune to the door when it bleeps to let her inside. Today, she dressed for the occasion in the proper attire of jeans, sneakers, and a Tesla vs. Edison Mortal Kombat t-shirt.
Because, you know, mad scientist lightning battles are appropriate. Always.
As soon as the door clicks shut behind her, she yells out: "Kalen!"
Kalen Holliday
"Library!" Kalen calls.
He is peeking over a newspaper at her as she enters, although he goes fold it and set it on the table when he sees how excited she is.
"Sooooooooooooooo...?"
Grace Evans
The trip upstairs doesn't take long. Of course, Grace is skipping steps on her way and all. Soon she appears at the door, all smiles.
"Soooooooo, Bugfuck Elly is amazing. He's totally going to help. He thinks that what happened to Alicia's dad was some gigantic Paradox hit, and Alethea was there, so she'd have what he called 'Paradox particles' all over her.
And he's got a machine to detect them. He just needs a little time to get it working. We're going to find her. You should have seen Alicia; I've never seen her, you know, smiling?"
Grace pops over to her usual chair and kicks off her shoes. It's relax time.
Kalen Holliday
Kalen sighs. "I still think you should have let it go. There is almost no chance we can help her father. Chasing all these things...I don't think it will help anything. Not Alicia. Not her father. Not anyone involved."
Grace Evans
"We may not be able to help her father, but we might be able to help Alethea. As far as I know, they haven't caught her yet. And what do we do if someone gets on their radar, just abandon them? I think Alicia knows her father is gone by now. But he's not the only person involved in this."
Grace's unrestrained happy gets taken down a few notches at Kalen's admonishment. She curls her feet up and stops bouncing.
"Besides, I think by now this is Society of Ether business more than anything. They're their people."
Kalen Holliday
"And you're what, on science courtesy loan?" Kalen rolls his eyes. "Just be careful."
Grace Evans
Grace rolls her eyes right back.
"I'm always careful. You know that. I don't plan on taking on the Technocracy, I agree that would be suicidal."
Kalen Holliday
"Yeah. So. It went well then?"
Grace Evans
Again, the grin returns to Grace's face, because:
"Oh, Kalen, the lab! We met him at this place on East Colfax which looked sketch as hell, but inside. It was full of toys. Ceiling to floor in some places. They had proton packs and miniature jet engines and all kinds of stuff. Some of it was just really old, and some of it was really slick too. I just... It was cool.
"And Elly, he's so nice. He's a Utopian, and the way he talks about building a better world -- I think you'd like him."
Kalen Holliday
"I'd be lying if I said a mad science lab didn't interest me. But. East Colfax? And we've never heard from or of him? How long has he been in town?"
Grace Evans
"It wasn't his lab. It was one he said they used for meetings way back in the day, and it was pretty way back. Looked like the place hadn't been touched since the 90's. I don't know, maybe East Colfax wasn't so shitty back then?"
Grace shrugs. She knows what Kalen's on about -- why he asks the questions he does. And he has a point. Who knows who Elly really is?
Just, how could someone like that be anything but?
"He's been here for... since today. Kalen, he brought wine. Wine that'd had it's atoms split and put back together."
Kalen Holliday
"Well. I'm definitely sorry I missed that." Up arches one eyebrow. "Is there more? I can try not to act like a feral cat long enough to taste this fantastic wine." Pause. "Maybe."
Grace Evans
"I think there is some? Maybe?" Grace grins. "He has to fill up a quint battery in order to power the machine he found, and it needs repairs, so he'll be here a few days at least. You should totally meet him!"
It certainly seems as if Grace has found a new favorite person in the world, hasn't it? Like maybe there's a reason why their respective Traditions abandoned the same ship together?
"And what do you mean, act like a feral cat? You mean you're not actually a feral cat who Awakened and goes around looking like a guy all the time?"
Kalen Holliday
Kalen huffs. "That's like...super secret. Who told you?"
Grace Evans
"You did. In your sleep. You meow," Grace says, in fake victory pose. "And I speak cat."
Speaking of cats, now that there are two people in the library, it is about to become a cat magnet. They like to be where the warm squishy things are. Pomegranate starts the process by padding in and staring at Kalen with half-lidded eyes.
"Pomegranate says hi, obviously."
Kalen Holliday
"Pomegranate still thinks I'm hiding Shoshannah somewhere and would like me to return her. This cat doesn't even like me." Kalen says. He reaches out to scratch behind the cat's ears anyway.
"Probably only because cat and mad scientist are so close."
Grace Evans
"Are they? I should tell Elly he is akin to a cat," Grace says. "Also, I must have just mistranslated 'I want to draw your blood with my claws' as 'hi'. Those phrases are really close together in cat."
Grace yawns, and Pomegranate leaps up on the table, only to use it as a springboard to Grace's lap. Kalen is ignored after having been glared at.
"Shoshannah. I haven't seen her in forever. Didn't she move?"
Kalen Holliday
"I don't know what her deal is. I haven't seen her in ages." Kalen shrugs. "I don't think she's entirely forgiven me. Or, you know, her cat."
Grace Evans
Grace pets the cat in her lap -- a scritch under the chin which makes the purr reverberate. "I'm sorry, Pompom. I don't know where Shoshannah is."
There there, cat. Much like everyone else, we're all looking for something. Or someone.
"Maybe someday her cat will forgive you."
Kalen Holliday
"This is possible, I suppose. I'm glad she has someone here to not hate now. I think she was terrified she was going to have to call a truce just so she could get enough attention to live."
Grace Evans
"So that's why this one likes to hang with me all the time? Huh. Needs attention to live," she says, and gives Kalen a far-away look.
Yeah, he is like a cat, isn't he?
"Plants need attention to live too, unfortunately. Poor Chloe."
Kalen Holliday
"You killed another one?" Kalen sighs and rolls his eyes. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. If you can't remember you need to eat I suppose I shouldn't expect you can keep a plant alive. Can't you make a computer program to water it? Get your mad scientist friend to make some clockwork and springs contraption?"
Grace Evans
"I remember to eat. Just it's difficult when you're in a coma and dreaming about riding dragons," Grace says, giving him a subtle chiding. She's not that absent-minded. And noodles and energy drinks totally count as food. Right?
"I can make a robot to water it, I just don't know if water and robots work well together. They do make these bulb... things," Grace says, and stops scritching the cat to hold her hands in the shape of a sphere.
Pomegranate, however, needs attention to live, and grabs her hand and bites it. "Hey!"
Kalen Holliday
Kalen laughs. "Maybe you can trim the next one into the shape of a kitten, teach Pomegranate to love it, and then teach her to carry a tiny watering can around with her. There are lever taps on your sink. I think she could be taught to use it.
"I think motivating her to do it would be nearly impossible. And that she's more likely to water your electronics for spite than your plant. But you could always try."
Grace Evans
Grace snort-laughs. See, this is why she loves Kalen. The idea of a cat with a tiny watering can taking care of its plant-kitten? Yes.
"I think teaching her to use the sink would just result in the sink being left on for hours because she wants a drink," she says, and resumes paying the requisite attention to the cat.
They know how to train Mages. If they had any goals beyond food, water, and neck scritches, the world would be in trouble.
"And yes, my electronics would be in big trouble. Wouldn't they, Pompom?"
Pomegranate just purrs.
Kalen Holliday
"We should get you aquatic plants and fish in a self-sustaining system. Plants that take care of themselves and feed your fish are the best plants."
Grace Evans
"There's all kinds of things we should do. Trouble is keeping track of it all," Grace says, and sighs.
Still, this is the best night she's had in a while, no? her head falls to the back of the chair, a little smile on her face. Her lap is warm like there's a laptop upon it. Alicia has smiled today and meant it.
And here's Kalen, coming up with a sustainable plant-and-fish system.
All may not be right with the world, far from it. But in here? Maybe they can keep the unrightness away. For a little while.
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