Danny
(awareness)
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )
Elijah
[awareness!]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 5, 5, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Elijah
One
has to wonder sometimes, in the brisk autumn, what it is that Elijah
does for a living that affords him the ability to loaf around so very,
very much.
The truth is that Elijah has an allowance and a
crappy job that is terrified of him being crazy so they let him do
basically whatever it is he wants so long as he doesn't have an episode
of decompensation in the middle of the university print shop. His
parents were paying a lot of money for him to go to school, the least
they could do was make sure that their son doesn't vomit up word salad
at his job, right? Of course right. So, he'd gotten off work early.
This, however, wasn't due to a fit of mental instability but, rather,
because there wasn't anything to print and he had time to meander around
the park and think.
Yes, think.
Something he has
been accused of not doing fairly often, but there he was, making his way
over a loop on the sidewalk and he spotted it. A tree. Not just any
tree, but a tree with a low enough branch that he could get a good foot
hold and he could maneuver himself upward into the branches and just be there- but first, there was a feeling. A feeling that caught his attention and slowed his approach to his new perch.
"Mn."
Danny
*Danny
was at a bench not too far away from said tree. Staring off into the
distance as he had his lips pursed in thought, a writing pad on his knee
and a pen in his left hand as he thought, thought, thought... and had
hit a dry wall mentally.*
Elijah
"Do you wanna climb with me?"
Because,
despite the fact that the other man also looked like he was immersed in
homework, it didn't mean that Elijah couldn't, wouldn't, and did not
want to bother him. Because soon enough he was distracted from said tree
and the young blond made his way over.
"You look like you could use a change in perspective."
Danny
*Blinking
a few times Danny came back to the now and present, then lifted his
head turning it to look at Elijah.* Oh, hey... How's it going? Change
in perspective? *he looked at the pad on his denim clad legs then
shrugged as he looked at Elijah again.*
Is this another parody of "D'ya wanna build a snowman?"
Elijah
[Willpower: Don't. Sing. That. Song.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 4, 6) ( success x 1 )
Elijah
The
mere mention of the song made him almost leap into the verse, it was
terrible. It was horrible. He actually liked Frozen, and the movie was
just full of ear worms to the point that there was nothing he could
really do to stop himself, but will workers could shape reality to their
whim. Being able to not sing Disney songs was hardly a roadblock.
"Nah, not a parody, just wondered if you wanted to climb a tree with me, you looked super intense."
A beat.
"And I'm okay. Just, y'know, communing with bottled nature."
Danny
*Both
his eyebrows rose slowly and the corner of his mouth began to lift into
a smile.* Communing with bottled nature? I actually prefer Let It Go.
If I were going to sing any of it, it'd be that one.
*He
chuckles and gets to his feet then slips the pad of paper into a small
satchel that was partially hidden on him.* In the past year or so it's
kind of taken on new meaning. I was trying to write but... *He shrugged
and stepped closer to Elijah, looking at the tree.* You want up huh?
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 5, 5, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
Danny
(WTF!! I wasn't going to roll dice!)
Elijah
[I am totally capable of climbing a tree. Dex+athletics+WILLPOWER!]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 8) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Elijah
"Yeah, a city park is kind of like nature, and it's nature in a city, but it kinda lacks the… I don't know… it's so planned,"
says the young man who feels like a disaster. It makes sense that he
would lean towards chaos. He looks at Danny and started on over closer
to the tree. There's a grin on his face.
"What all do you write?" he asks, curiosity on his youthful features.
Danny
Songs...
*he frowned at the satchel, picking it up and bringing it with him.*
Mostly... Notes on lyrics, half bits, sentances that make sense to me.
*He makes his way over to the tree and cups his hands.* Go on then... I'll give you a boost, but don't fall on me.
Elijah
"I
promise nothing," he tells Danny, and with that it was up into the
tree, or at least on one of the lower, sturdier branches. He offered a
hand down tot he other man, waiting almost expectantly. "You going to
join me? I'm pretty sure that the muse will still be up here, too."
Danny
*He
eyes the tree... then sighs again and sets the strap over his shoulder
and round his neck before he lets it hang there. Then seems to collect
himself before grabbing Elijah's hand with his own. On the middle finger
there was a large silver ring in the shape of what looked like a
workable light switch. A large enough one to cover the first phalanger
of that finger itself. Then he began to scrabble his feet up to sit on
the branch as well.*
(up you go Danny boy.)
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )
Elijah
So
there they were, two young men in a tree, looking out at the park with a
supposed new perspective, or at least a higher perspective. Elijah
adjusted his position, not quite nimble but certainly more comfortable
in the tree than he had been before. He's done this before, it wasn't
anything new now, now it was just something that he could practice and
become more accustomed to.
"Hav anything you like yet? Lyrically speaking?"
Danny
I've
always got something i like. *He shifts and gets comfortable, resting
both his hands on the branch.* There's always something just that
little bit more to be able to do, something else to tweak. Something
else to work on, twisting the lyrics in a song I've got to shift it on
it's axis and make it relevant to who I am now, or have it completely
mundane.
*he smiles and shrugs.* So how's your home work going?
Elijah
"Using
art to come from a place that talks about the universal experience
while still being personal?" he seems… strangely comfortable in the
tree. He certainly isn't a felinee creature, but he is comfortable in
his surroundings. Adaptable.
How was homework.
"Homework
is Hell. I have no idea where Kalen finds half of this stuff, but
seriously? If I haven't read every book in that library by the time I'm
twenty-one I will have failed at life."
Danny
Uh...
Kind of? *He frowns a bit at that description.* I'm still trying to get
my head round half of this stuff, most of it doesn't make any sense.
*He
smiled looking at the ground then turned his eyes to Elijah.* How does
that make sense? You've plenty of time to read, knowledge comes through
experience not just through a book.
Elijah
"It doesn't have to make sense," he starts, "and I'm like… okay, knowledge does
come through experience, and the idea that anything separates us from
everyone and everything else is kinda wonky, I don't know how to break
past that barrier between me, or what I think is me, and whoever
wrote the books I'm reading- because they felt strongly enough to put
their experiences to paper. It's a way to break down the idea that I'm
separate from the rest of the human condition."
A beat passed.
"I talk too much, I'm sorry."
Danny
*He
just stared at him. Stared intently and as he did so his eyebrows rose
higher and higher.* Hold up.. *One hand raised to stop the guy's
tumbling of words from his mouth. Just in time for Elijah to stop.*
Start again, but this time pretend I don't have a clue what the fuck
you're talking about?
Elijah
"The idea that
people and time and space are separate things, I think, is bullshit and
held up by self-imposed boundaries and limitations."
Danny
See,
that makes sense. *He laughs.* Okay... So, you think that everything is
essentially at it's purest level, linear? And the only reason people
don't see that is because they don't want to?
Elijah
"I would almost say everything is a point, here and now.
And the possibilities of here and now are at once infinite and can be
boiled down to a single, pure moment- which is totally a contradiction,
but! Anyway. I don't think people see that because the concept of the
infinite is terrifying."
Danny
Multiple moments, all in the same breath. infinte options of possibility..... *he mulls that idea over slowly in his head.*
A
thousand heartbeats on a pin head... *he finally came out with and
pursed his lips again then leaned carefully against the tree to pull out
his pad and write that down.*
That's kind of neat, but....
if that's all in one moment, doesn't that kind of mean that everything
and everyone's future is already predestined? I mean, all if it in one
purified moment, one singular event. *he turned his head and looked at
Elijah again.* Huh...
Elijah
"I talked to a
guy once who reconciled free will and destiny as a function of quantum
physics? Which I didn't get, but it was crazy, because if there are some
facets that you can control, then arguably there are some things you can't control or something like that. I don't know, I'd have to ask him to explain it again, I've slept since then," he admits.
Elijah
adjusted himself in the tree, "and I think that if every moment is now
then, arguably, our will is more important than anything. The future is
malleable because of free will."
Danny
*He frowns a touch and shakes his head.* Right, so kind of like that whole rabbit hole theory I came out with?
*Being
sat up a tree and discussing this was an odd blend.* I saw this show
once on tv were a shrink used smell and sound to put someone back to an
event they needed to relive to get evidence on something... like that?
Elijah
"I
don't know," he admits, "maybe? I'll be honest, I'm still trying to
figure a lot of this stuff out and... I just... some things just feel
right?"
Danny
*Now that he could get his head around.* Yeah... *he chuckles softly.* Like the music... the pulse.
Grace
[Awareness!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Elijah
"So, tell me about that,"
he says, with eyes alight and attention direct and he waited to hear
more of what was going on with this particular thing. The music, the
pulse, the inspiration for livelihood and the inspiration for whatever
it was that Danny did. His muse, his darling, what connected him to the
world and what connected the world to him.
Grace
It
is a no-so-secret that Grace is rather fond of bottled nature. Real
nature is too raw, and there is no wi-fi nor electrical outlets, so that
gets boring fast.
But the kind of nature one might obtain in a city park? It'll do. It's green.
Humans
are creatures of green, when it comes down to it. It's why, even in the
desert, they would pool resources to buy enough water to nurse a small
patch of grass here and there. Wasteful, but then, so was living in the
desert to begin with.
Grass, teased by wind into waves. Blades
like particles, carrying the visual effect of a force. Granular and
fluid -- the way things really are.
Like light on scattered excited photons.
In
her musing walk along the path, Grace's head pops up a bit more, starts
looking less at the grass and more for people, because that thought is
rather familiar isn't it?
Danny
What
do you want to know? *he asks quietly.* I've been playing guitar for a
long time, grew up playing it, started writing when I was twelve....
*One shoulder shrugs a little.* Inspiration is... it's everywhere man,
it's in the ether, some words just need to get put down on paper. It's
like they're meant to be, some times I can't keep up with the thoughts
in my head.
Others... *He frowns at the pad.* Other days are
slower, those are the days I work around the notes... or I go for a
walk, or... Oh... *Belatedly he realises that might not be what Elijah
had meant.* Right, you mean when it hit?
Elijah
There
is a familiar feeling, like a knife between his ribs. Something he
knows, something he associates, oddly enough, with a friend of his. He
peered out from the tree to try and see if he could see her, though his
current change in perspective did not make him more observant, it only
changed the myriad of sensory input he was taking in. It was all a
flood, a deluge, a mess of things to process.
"You gotta take
inspiration where you find it," he said, "it's… the world is pretty
fucking miraculous- good bad, all of it. Overwhelming and awe inspiring,
and thank everything for words, right?"
An odd sentiment, the
way he said it there was almost a capitalization in his voice, almost a
hint that words were something powerful, something miraculous,
something no less glorious than music itself.
"No way, dude, I mean, like, talk about whatever you want to talk about. I wanna get to know you, you're fucking magic incarnate."
Grace
After
they feel the strange, unsettling sensation of her, the two guys stuck
up a tree hear Grace's voice from below. "I see some people are
pretending to be fruits today. Or are you trying to flee from some
danger I don't know about yet?"
She strides up to the trunk and looks up at their feet.
Danny
*Danny
too had turned his head in the direction of Grace, peering through the
limbs of the tree they were sat in to see if he could find her. Then
Elijah's voice brought his attention back again.* Huh? *He turned in
surprise.* How the hell do you figure that out? How the hell am I magic
incarnate? *Then he shook his head slowly.* I am nothing of the sort my
friend. And yeah, there are things so beautiful that it makes your heart
ache, it brings you to your knees and makes you want to weep for the
shocking beauty of it all. Like the sky at night in the mountains not
too far from here. *he turns to look at the young man beside him then
lifts his hand to rub his chin a bit.* You should put your mind to
writing things down.
*Then Grace was there and he grinned down
at her.* Hey... How's it going? Strange fruit hangs from the tree,
Southern trees bear strange fruit, blood on the leaves and blood at the
root, black bodies swinging in the southern breeze, strange fruit
hanging from the poplar trees. Billie Holiday... and I hope that we
don't look like those.
Elijah
How the Hell am I magic incarnate?
"Because
you're alive and part of the cosmos," Elijah replied, as though this
was the most obvious thing int he world to him. Like the sky and the
grass and Danny being magic were universal truths that need not be
explained simply because they just were. He leaned forward, and tried to offer Grace a hand in the hopes that the Virtual Adept would join them literally in the middle of nature.
"C'mon, the view up here is great, and you have the added bonus of partial cover."
Grace
The
thing about Grace and being touchy-feely isn't so much a phobia of the
thing as it is a lack of understanding (not to mention the discomforting
sensation of pins and needles on her skin). Hugs don't comfort.
Handshakes don't engender trust. But a hand offered to help lift her up a
tree has an actual purpose behind it.
Purposes, now there's a thing she can get behind.
She takes Elijah's hand and tries to make her way up the trunk.
"I... uh, didn't actually mean it to be that morbid. So no," she says to Danny.
[Dex + Ath = Tree Climbing!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 6, 10) ( success x 2 )
Danny
So
existence is part of it all to your minds view? *he understood suddenly
a bit more about this young man, his open-ness and apparently
constantly questing mind. A thirst for knowledge. Sure... Come on up..
*He shifts a bit on the branch then with his hand holding onto the branch he leans over and dangles his arm and hand down.*
Ahh
be still my beating heart, a woman that knows the lyrics of Billie
Holiday. Madame, you have me at a disadvantage. *He grins moving along
again to let her be comfortable, then leans a bit to look at Elijah.* Do
you know to what she was talking about, Billie and her strange fruit?
We were talking about muses and music after all.
Elijah
So,
then, there were three mages in a tree. Three mages in a tree, like
that scene from the Hobbit. There may be something down below, lurking
in wait, waiting to eat them. Waiting to consume them whole, but they
weren't driven to the tree for any other reason than to be… well… in a
tree. To be because one could be. He smiled, because smiling came so
damnably easy to him. Because his eyes could light up and while it might
not be as easily as before it certainly did grace his features with
minimal effort.
"Yeah, existing, being present, if you're part of the world, then you're part of it. If you're of the belief that-" he stopped, realizing his mind was going faster than his mouth could process.
"And Billie Holiday, given the time frame, it sounds like it's a protest against racism and lynchings."
Grace
"At
least being in the tree makes us a little bit safer than on the ground,
considering what I've been hearing about the goings-on in parks
lately," Grace says, and makes a disgusted face. "My turn to be morbid."
"You were talking about muses?"
Her turn to change the subject, too.
Danny
*Danny
nodded his approval and smiled as well this time to Grace..* See.
That's what I see as my part of all this, my place in this whole
existence thing. Now I'm not saying I should be some ingenius lyricist,
however...... If what I can do adds just one more edge to the way things
go... foretellings, ensuring that people remember things that are
important.. It's not for everyone... But if it helps... if it makes a
difference.
*he shrugs and reaches into his pocket after
slipping the pad away, then pulls out a packet of cigarettes, takes one
out then slips it between his lips. He runs his hand with the zippo down
his thigh to light it, then puts it to the end of the cigarette.* I
mean, we've all got music in us. Our own inner spark.
Grace
"You
want to inspire others? Or inspire the universe? Or do you consider
both to be pretty much the same?" Grace asks, settling herself into the
crook formed by a branch against the trunk.
Danny
I
think so.. *he took drag on the cigarette and held it for a few
seconds, then let it go gently.* It's always one and the same. It's all
part of the same thing, the same dance. So maybe.. *he took another drag
off it.* maybe Elijah is right and we are all linked on some cosmic
level.
Grace
Grace looks to Elijah, smirk on her face. "Is that what Elijah thinks?"
"I kind of agree. That's the way I see it. Quite literally, in fact. Would you like to see?"
Danny
*He
was surprised by that question, leaning forwards to glance down at the
ground then back at Grace.* I uh... Sure!! *The grin came back quick as a
flash.* Just don't let me fall out of the tree.
Elijah
Is that what Elijah thinks?
"See, I do thIs that what Elijah thinks?
"See, I do
think every once in awhile, on a grand cosmic level," he said with a
playful grin, "but seriously, yeah, I seriously think that we're all
interconnected on a fundamental level."
A beat.
"Grace let me listen to walls once, it was z trip, like- if you seriously think there is music everywhere it's like a matter based whale song."ink
every once in awhile, on a grand cosmic level," he said with a playful
grin, "but seriously, yeah, I seriously think that we're all
interconnected on a fundamental level."
A beat.
"Grace let me listen to walls once, it was z trip, like- if you seriously think there is music everywhere it's like a matter based whale song."
Grace
[Corr
1, Matter 1, Life 1: Correspondence Sensing -- We're going to try to
see the connections between... stuff. Diff 4 - 1 (taking time) + 1
(concurrent effect)]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (1, 9) ( success x 1 )
Grace
Grace
nods to Danny and pulls out her cell phone. Looks for quite a while to
be playing a game upon it, perhaps, or having gone off and forgotten the
conversation -- too busy texting.
But they will both become aware of the fact that Grace is not playing Angry Birds. Or, if she is, it is in some awfully piercing fashion.
She
turns the phone around so that they can see too -- a black and white
landscape of the immediate surroundings, bristling with life (orange
outlined) and inert matter (blue tinged), all seeming to melt into each
other with fuzzy threads. It's almost as if everything is pulling at
everything else, but to what central point? There is none. Because that
point is everywhere. It almost hurts the eyes or the brain to try to parse the image, and in the corners, it fades.
Grace just smiles behind the screen. Show-off.
Dice: 2 d10 TN5 (3, 5) ( success x 1 )
Grace
[Also, whoops. I accidentally extended apparently. lol.]
Danny
*And
suddenly, it was like a faint thread of light trailing between things
and people, illuminating their traces and threads around well,
everything... as far as Danny was concerned. His hand with the
cigarette in was forgotten as he stared agape round him.* That
is......... *his voice was small, awestruck, his breath catching.* I
can't describe it. But...... Its incredible. It's all got its own
energy. Each one has it's own vibration. Its like seeing sound. *And
that in itself was a revelation.*
Elijah
He
could just take it in, the awe, the wonder, the excitement. There was a
lot to observe, a lot to feel, and there he was all bright eyed and
miraculous and wondrous because they were interconnected. Every place,
every second, every thing touched. Everyone was connected, and Grace could prove it. Elijah looked at her like she was something else, and it was a good thing.
Danny
(I am really sorry, I have to go, Danny will remain silent and gobsmacked to a degree until they go.)
Grace
It's
amazing, really, what can cause her friends to sit there, jaw-dropped.
It's not as though she reached into the screen and pulled out a rabbit.
But still. That's the magic of technology, right? The sharing potential?
The
image fades quickly. There's not much holding her effect together. The
data moves, you see -- fuzzes out. It takes effort to massage it into a
rendering of reality like that, and Grace isn't making the attempt.
"I think I broke Danny," she says, all smiles.
Elijah
"I'm telling Kalen," he said with a grin, something playful, "you gotta quit breaking people's brains, dude."
He climbed over to a different branch, taking the opportunity to observe his companions from a different angle.
"So, what's your muse, Grace?"
Grace
"The entire universe, including myself. I look. And I find," she says, and puts her phone back in a pocket.
She
climbs up to Elijah, to leave the broken Danny where he is,
contemplating the connections, lost in his thoughts. And once she's
settled herself, leans in.
"I heard that you ran into something not so nice recently. In a park?"
Elijah
"not
so much not nice as the echo of something that wasn't nice. There was..
You remember how the newspaper said that there was an increase in
missing persons? And how those missing people were healthy and strong
and generally free of, y'know, mental defects?" there was a moment to
either confirm or deny, but he did continue onward, "well, okay, so Lucy
and I were in the park and I heard a voice, right? So we take a second
and there's the ghost of one of those missing people- Jeremy Tran?
Anyway, he's looking for his dog and my dumb ass has the brilliant idea
of see if someone could see in the past and see what happened to his
dog- no big deal, right?"
Another beat passed.
"Okay,
so that's a big deal because Lucy looks back and sees that these people
just straight up ambushed him and knocked him out, and killed his dog
and the next thing we know Jeremy's screaming and it looks like his
heart was taken out and his flesh gets stripped and there's bite marks
and-" he stops, this time he stops because it's… it's not the most
pleasant of images to recount. Elijah is a creature with a vivid
imagination.
"So yeah, I think that some of the increase in missing people may be attributed to that."
Grace
The
more she hears about this, the worse it seems. These guys are more
'visible', more destructive than even the vampires, from the looks of
things. Or perhaps they are one and the same?
"Why don't you put what you know on Ginger? Alex ran into something too. Sounded connected to all this... cannibal shit."
Elijah
"I've
been trying to word it in such a fashion so that it doesn't sound one,
completely fucked up and two, so people will actually listen to it."
Grace
"Seems
to me like no manner of wording is ever going to make that not sound
completely fucked up, Elijah. Just it needs to get out there. People
need to know about this. It's a major threat, and holding back on the
info could mean the difference between life and death for somebody,"
Grace says, and breathes the tree in. It smells of bottled nature in the
heart of the city.
"The reason why I edited your post and
redacted all that info was to keep people safe, you know? And I didn't
strip out anything about the threat that it posed to Denver residents.
There's a reason I did that too. Information can kill, and it can also save lives. In this case, I think it's pretty clear cut."
Elijah
"Nobody said anything about it until
you redacted information. I'm not entirely certain how to get people to
acknowledge that they have heard or that they have listened or that
there is a problem and I don't want to be the boy who cried wolf.
I'm not going to post things until I have sources and I'm sure this is
something that needs to be posted, I'm not going to go run off at the fingertips and fuck things up," he insisted.
He paused, and then? Then he laughed, and shook his head, "fuckit, I really just need to get over myself."
Grace
"If
they don't listen, that's on them, isn't it?" she says, trying to pull
him back. "And I think people are listening. They might not always
respond, but they pay attention."
She looks up into the leaves, watches them play with the wind. "Everyone does. Need to get over themselves."
Elijah
There
was a second, and he adjusted again in the branches, comfortable but
never too comfortable. Never so comfortable as that he can hang out in
the branches of a tree and just be. No, he's more of an on-the-ground
kind of guy. He paused, looking back at Grace.
"Is Kalen okay? Last time we really, you know, talked, he seemed kinda off."
Grace
"Did
he? Like, more than usual? Last I checked, he was okay, inasmuch as he
is ever okay. He went through some bad shit lately. Lived out months of a
life where his worst nightmares came true, and then he comes back home
where it threatens to happen on a regular basis. You expect perfection
out of Kalen and you'll be just as disappointed with him as you'll be
with anyone else," Grace says, staring off into the sky. Somewhere, out
there, there are stars.
"He hides it well. Too well,
sometimes. Especially from those he thinks he needs to be strong for,
you understand?" Like, say, his apprentices.
"Sometimes, though, the mask slips."
Elijah
"I
watched a thing on youtube," here we go, the extent of Elijah's magical
understanding came from a youtube video, "about trust. It was… it was
pretty profound. The guy said that trust is important because it means
that we can stop being prepared to be disappointed, and we expend so
much energy. That there is something about letting go, it lets us stop
worrying that someone won't catch us when we fall. Trust is our
relationship to the unknown."
He paused, "where I was going
with this was that I want to be someone Kalen can trust, so that he
doesn't have to have those walls up. That he can relax because… y'know…
he's been through a lot. He deserves a break."
Grace
"Kalen's walls are Kalen's. There's nothing you can do about his hangups. But I find that T-Rex mechas help."
Grace
smiles, and there is the softness in her gaze that says just how much
she cares about the man. They're like siblings who somehow never quite
grew up with each other.
Elijah
"T-Rex mechas help everything, Grace, that's just fact."
he smiled anyway, big and bright and a little easier than it had been in the previous month.
Grace
"They really do. They're like cupcakes. We should make T-Rex cupcakes somehow..."
She
sighs a happy kind of sigh, in this calm. It's not going to stay like
this. Somewhere, people are getting dragged off and cannibalized.
Somewhere else, a vampire nest awaits burning. Denver never quits, never
quiets.
But in between, there are people and comfort and companionship. It's the way they all stay sane. Hopefully.
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