After spending three weeks in Australia in the middle of their Summer, returning to Denver after a massive snowstorm? Well, it's just plain wrong. This snow shit is the kind of thing Grace was trying to get away from.
There is only one thing to do (besides layer oneself in thermal clothing topped with a baby penguin t-shirt) to fix this. Pho.
Her bowl of spiced broth, noodles, and beef steams in front of her while she prods it with a fork (because she is a heathen) and the rest of the table is covered with a tray of add-ins and a condiment turntable. This kind of food is highly customizable, like a sandwich shop that sold you an open-faced bread-and-meat plate along with a separate spread of veggies and a selection of cheeses and ten different sauces in squeeze bottles. Very do-it-yourself. And most importantly, hot. Grace has, perhaps, overdone it on the hot. There's some chili paste in there and some jalapeno slices and sriracha, like capsaicin is going to make up for the temperature outside.
But enough about the soup. Let's talk about the woman who doesn't seem to try very hard to look like one. Wind-tossed hair of about three different colors is a mess on top of her head that she doesn't care about as long as it stays out of her eyes. In her ears are two stud earrings in the shape of coffee beans, and around her neck, a chain with a flat metallic pendant. The jeans-and-t-shirt uniform has been augmented with warm layers and a coat that's slid across the back of her chair sideways. If you could see it properly, it is actually a decent-looking, expensive, red wool coat with black plastic strips sewn into the hemlines, increasing its sharpness. She herself is a sharp thing. The way she locks her keen eyes on rice noodles and strips of brisket make it seem like there's really a bird-of-prey feasting atop the table, about to make a mess of the fish sauce with the beat of majestic wings.
She seems happy, if quite alone at her table. No end-of-the-world scenarios have popped up yet. The vacation did its job but good. Who could complain?
Nicholas Hyde
They say it takes around a year to fully settle into a new job. Technically this job was a step up for Nick: better pay, fewer crises, and greatly reduced chances that he will have to assist with putting someone in restraints. None of this takes away from the fact that Nick still works with dying people and their families (when they have families) day in and day out. He works with a lot of other people who do this, too. In fact, since he is a counselor, he is very frequently also the one who makes sure his team is operating smoothly. This is an unspoken part of his job description.
One perk of a hospital, though, is that it's better staffed; he has time to take a long lunch occasionally when he needs one (he skips lunch often enough.) He is alone today. There are coworkers who would have come, if he had asked, but right now he just wants to not talk about his clients.
So: pho. It's not too far from the hospital.
He pushes his entire body against the door to get it to open: not totally necessary, but it perhaps betrays his enthusiasm to both get out of the snow and cold and to get something in his stomach. Nick's hair is tumbled in a way that suggests the wind has been running its rough fingers through his curls; snowflakes are scattered in among its dark mass like clusters of stars. He walked here. He regrets it. He is pinching his heavy coat closed at the collar to keep the wind out; for him, not even his scarf is helping. He's mostly neutrals: his wool overcoat and gloves are a deep charcoal grey, his skin a light brown. But his scarf is a purple slash of color at his throat, his cheeks ruddy with cold.
There is something unsettling about Nick, even with the sweet, if somewhat wan, smile he directs at the staff. Something of his work lingers about him, a sense of otherness; he is Hallowed, in the manner of virgin forests and burial mounds. The staff respond to his friendliness, though; before long he has a large bowl of broth and pork and his own estimation of a healthy amount of capsaicin, which is a thing he and Grace seem to share.
He has no sooner stuffed a large bite of meat and noodles into his mouth than he's noticed her. His eyes draw toward her; perhaps they make eye contact just then, and then he's not likely to get away. So he just inclines his head, the soul of easy courtesy.
Grace Evans
When the two make eye contact, Grace has noodles hanging out of her mouth, and pauses in the midst of shoveling them inside with her fork to widen those eyes. Oh. Someone new. Curious.
She resumes shoveling noodles in her mouth and regards the new guy as if she's trying to figure him out. Well, he doesn't feel much like a Technocrat. One would expect them to seem less... mystical. It's a point in his favor. She can't yet tell if he's wearing a suit, that would be a point in his disfavor.
Well, okay. Maybe not everybody who wears a suit is awful, right? Mike wears them all the time, just because he understands fashion about as well as she does, and he thinks suits are the easy way out.
These are the things her mind focuses on while she chews and stares at Nick -- suits and whether the people who wear them are automatically wrong and to be considered Technocrat until further notice. Eventually, she decides on a waggle of eyebrows. Yeah, you're spotted, Nick. If you weren't already very well aware of that.
Even if he is a 'Crat, the setting isn't one for a battle. There's people here. It's lunchtime. And if he expects to brainwash her, he'll have another thing coming, right? Right.
Nicholas Hyde
There is a handgun stowed away in the glovebox of his car that he has never used. This would surprise many people who know him, perhaps even people who know of the Tradition he keeps: Nick just does not seem like the sort of man who would want anything to do with weaponry, or who would keep a pistol on hand. There is perhaps even some distaste he himself feels for the fact that he has it. Yet - it is the only weapon he has even a remote understanding of how to use, and he knows the world is dangerous.
He thinks of this now because he is realizing, not for the first time recently, that he is alone in a new city with an unknown mage in the same room with him. There is no version of reality in which Nick could be considered a coward, but he is aware of his vulnerability; he is aware that if she is not his friend, he'll need to talk his way out, and if she is, well, he'd just like to talk.
Grace waggles her eyebrows at him, and Nick smiles, in spite of himself. He chews through a mouthful of sprouts and noodles and cilantro, and then, having made a decision, picks up his bowl and moves across the room to Grace's table. He sets the bowl down and gives it a gentle nudge to center it in front of one of the chairs, more to soften how abrupt the gesture could seem than anything.
"Hello," he says. "I think we might be coworkers. Mind if I sit?"
If she gives assent, he reaches up to tug his scarf free, unknot it, and hang it over the back of his chair underneath the coat, which he unbuttons and sets on top of it. He is wearing a dark blue V-neck sweater, and under that a mustard yellow T-shirt: no suit.
Grace
Grace, well. She has a gun. Kalen has about fifty thousand of them, and they're all basically anyone's, because that is the nature of Kalen. She has enchanted bullets before, but never had to actually use them. Her weapon, the one she's used to kill more often than anything else has been information. The worst possible thing for your human smuggling operation would be her, breaking into your emails and giving them to your enemies and a few Hermetic Chantries. I mean, why think in terms as small as a bullet and a gun when you can go big?
She doesn't look much like it. The baby penguin t-shirt is that disarming, honestly. But she feels like a thing that isn't afraid to go rampaging.
Coworkers. That word has her grinning when he says it, at some private joke she's about to make public. "CoWorkers?" she laughs. "Never heard it put like that before. Sit where you like."
She loads her spoon with noodles and meat and broth, starts to take a bite, but pauses. "I haven't seen you before."
Nicholas Hyde
Grace grins at him, at the turn of phrase he uses, and as Nick pulls out the chair to seat himself he flashes a smile back in her direction. Some slightly conspiratorial thing. Some magi enjoy being part of a world that is invisible to the other people around them, who enjoy keeping their secrets: Nick is one of those.
The other mage has loaded her spoon with noodles, and Nick is occupied with adding more sriracha to his. He looks up at her as she comments that she hasn't seen him before as he's gathering some noodles up in his chopsticks. "I only got into town at the end of December," he says. "I started a new job last month, so I haven't had as many chances to get out as I would like."
He takes a bite, chews thoughtfully, and then says, "Nick Hyde, by the way. It's nice to meet you."
Grace
Grace doesn't wait until her mouth is but half-empty to mumble out "Mmm Grace." Not really one for manners, she...
"I've been in Australia," she adds, when more articulation can be made. "Escaped the cold for a while, at least."
And everything. She escaped from everything, for a short while.
"It is almost always nice to meet someone new," she says, gives him a little smile. Almost always. When it isn't nice, it tends to be horrid, but you know, such is the way of things.
Nicholas Hyde
There is a noise that Nick makes that ranges somewhere between sympathy and a sort of dryly humorous understanding as Grace says that she was in Australia to escape the cold. "I'm from Arizona," he says, "and I've never gotten used to it."
Nick is a person who doesn't appear to mind pauses in conversation, even with someone who he has only recently met. There's something natural and unhurried in how he speaks: he is a man who does not force topics, and does not speak merely for the sake of having words out there in the wind. Grace says it's nice to meet someone new; he nods, accepts that for what it is, and spoons up some of the broth.
It helps that he was just really hungry when he came in, and that his cheeks are finally warming to room temperature.
"So what's Denver like? Have you been here long?" Perhaps easily interpreted as smalltalk, and it is half that. Nick's eyes are striking in their way, the same light brown color as his skin, and there is an intent sort of look that he gives her then that implies he might be asking for reasons other than simple politeness. "I haven't had a chance to make it to the chantry yet," he adds, perhaps as a means to make the questions less off-putting.
Grace
"I'm from Phoenix originally? So I totally get you there. You don't get used to it," she says, shakes her head sadly. "You just learn to tolerate it."
She goes back to her food, and it might seem to Nick that she's way more interested in it than in him, but she is listening at least, such that when he mentions the Chantry, her eyebrows raise and she sniffs, happy at having made the correct guess.
"Denver is a hellmouth," she says, with the air of someone still discussing the weather, like she is making with some kind of casual hyperbole. She isn't. "It's about to get a lot worse, too. But, that's part of the reason why I stay, you know? There's always a challenge here to be undertaken."
Nicholas Hyde
Denver is a hellmouth.
This is something no one recently arrived in a city wants to hear. And yet: the same could have been said for small town Connecticut, or for New York or Boston. Nick has to remind himself of this in the seconds in which he feels his heart sink into somewhere near his lower gut. This is the world in which they Awakened into: it is brutal, and it is dangerous.
"I'm from Tempe," he offers first, because it is easier to cleanse his palate with that lighter topic.
He appears to be processing what she has said as he chews. Finally he asks, not without humor, "So on a scale of 'Los Angeles at rush hour' to 'precipice of darkness,' how much of a hellmouth is it? I have heard," he takes a sip from his drink, "that things are going to get worse, but no one has been very specific as to why."
Grace
"Well, there was the time when an Umbral lord of terror summoned creatures out of a movie theater screen. That was pretty 'precipice of darkness'," she says, again with the air of someone discussing the weather.
Speaking of the Umbra...
"You know, the Storm has passed, right? Things that have been stuck behind it for many years, they're coming back," she says, and then stuffs some more noodles in her mouth.
Nicholas Hyde
Ah, yes. There is just enough surprise on his face that perhaps Grace can tell that he is not used to other magi often having much knowledge of the Storm or the Umbra. It is a topic that many often speak of in generalities, mainly because it can't be seen, partly because many people (even Willworkers) have some trouble wrapping their minds around that Otherness.
"That's another thing that I've heard said," he says, "though mainly just from what I've gathered from spirits, so far."
Nick is not quite as cavalier in speaking of these things as Grace; there is a natural weight to many of the words he says, a sort of gravitas that is always present in his mein. She may notice that often when she is speaking to him, his attention seems to drift inward, or elsewhere, and he rights himself again to focus on her each time she speaks. "Has any effort been made to strengthen the Shallowings in the city?"
Grace
There is a difference between them. Grace does not often take anything seriously, save when something is actively hurting the ones she cares about. That Umbral lord of terror, she renamed "Thakky" in order to give it less power to terrify. It's hard to be afraid of Chibi Cthulhu.
"I wouldn't know. You could ask Kiara about that, she does spirit-y things," she says with a little wave of her fingers. "But I don't think that it would help much, with the kinds of things that I've... got intel on. Beware of inhuman, spirit-y Black Hats. The Borg, you get it?"
Oh, man. Pho broth is just the best...
Nicholas Hyde
There is no sign of familiarity there, when she mentions Kiara. Nick has not yet been able to meet many of the magi who call Denver home, though this will come in time. For as much as some of them disdain the Disparates, the Traditions themselves tend to be rather scattered when it comes to organizing and communicating. It's to be expected, among so many strong personalities and unshakeable Wills.
"I get it," he says, letting some of the broth flood into his spoon around a nest of noodles. Nick exhales a breath he had not realized he'd been holding, down in the lower depths of his lungs.
"Thanks for being straight with me, Grace," he says, and his tone is genuinely appreciative. "It sounds like you know a lot about what's going on." Pause. "So how was Australia?"
Grace
Her mood raises when he brings up Australia. A little light of joy in her eyes as wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. "We went and took a lot of pictures of animals. My friend, he's going to hold a charity auction of his photographs, right? Did you know Australia has teeny penguins?"
She digs around in her pocket, makes a scrunched-up face about it because the pocket is holding on to her cell phone. But soon enough, it is freed, and a few finger slides later, she has up a gallery. It is nothing but little penguins. That is, in fact, the literal name of the species -- little penguin. Some of them are wearing tiny sweaters.
She shows Nick the front of her cell phone, with a look of manic glee. She is just the type of person to go from talking about horrible things to talking about penguins with the flick of a switch, almost.
"They're actually really hard to take pictures of, because they're nocturnal. We got there right when the chicks come out, so there's lots of teeny tiny fuzzy ones," she says, and it's obvious someone is in love, and also that she probably won't stop talking about them.
"They're also called fairy penguins. Isn't that just... eeee?"
Nicholas Hyde
Grace becomes visibly excited when she talks about the tiny penguins. There is a way in which Nick's brows animate, as though something has been lifted off of them, that indicates that he shares her excitement, that he isn't just pretending to be interested in something this stranger likes because it's polite. He leans over to look at her gallery as she scrolls through, showing him small penguins, and small penguins in sweaters, and small fuzzy penguin chicks.
He is the sort of person who can process someone, without warning, switching from horror to a topic that gives them joy, and can reflect it back. "They are very cute," he agrees. "Who put the sweaters on those penguins? Do they like the sweaters?"
Nick does not know a thing about penguins. "Are they specifically what you went down to see?"
Nick also asks a lot of questions. He asks them almost without thinking, gives the impression he'd keep asking as long as she has answers.
Grace
"The ones in sweaters I just swiped from Google. That's for if they get in an oil spill, right? Keeps them from eating oil when they clean themselves. But they were so cute!" She grins.
"They were, pretty much, what I went to Australia for. A totally spiritual pilgrimage to meet the original Linux Penguins? Yes," she says, with fake grandiosity. "They taught me all sorts of lessons about myself and the world, and I have come back from my holiest site with great wisdom to share: Penguins are adorable."
Grace is a woman who likes making fun of the grandiose. But she isn't exactly lying per se. She did come back from her vacation with lessons about herself and the world, and studying the penguins helped.
She nods a Nick, like he is a fellow pilgrim. "I don't think they like sweaters, though."
Nicholas Hyde
There is a sage nod as he acknowledges that in all likelihood the penguins do not like the sweaters, among the other answers to his questions. Perhaps he can tell that for all that Grace uses humor and hyperbole to express a truth, it still remains a truth. "I'm glad you got to see them," he says, and means it. "It sounds like getting away from Denver was a good thing, too."
He has picked up his chopsticks again, has gathered up another bunch of noodles and vegetables between them. "So do you keep a Tradition?" He transfers the whole lot to his mouth, his gaze flicking up at her briefly to hear her reply.
Grace
"Mercurial Elites," she says, soft into her bowl. "Huh. As if I 'keep' them, right? Keeper of the nerds?" she laughs.
She mostly keeps them out of her shit. This is more an unspoken rule of mutual destruction than it is anything solid. Their kind aren't much for rules, really.
The phone with its pictures of penguins gets snatched away, and placed by her bowl of pho.
"I'm glad I got to see them too."
Nicholas Hyde
Nick lets out a quick little laugh as she offers up her Tradition and her commentary; it's a short sound, spontaneous. "I think most Traditionalists are kind of nerdy in one way or another," he says, fishing a piece of pork out of the broth. "Esoteric, for sure. Chakravanti," he offers, because this is the polite thing to do.
There is a second in which he regards Grace where it's clear that something is going unsaid, that he is trying to connect a -
"Ah!" His eyes light up, just a little, the physical translation of the lightbulb moment. "My wife - Pen - she was very excited about the possibility of the battle-ring. That was you, wasn't it?"
Grace
"Pen pen pen, pen pen," she says, thinking. "Oh! That lady! You're her husband?"
And a Chakravanti, at that.
The way Grace seems more excited about meeting the other half of a unit suggests that she isn't very put off by that fact. He is also doing a great job of not minding the fact that she is a technomancer. Some do.
"That was me, yes. I have a robot turtle that needs a sparring partner."
Nicholas Hyde
"I am," he says, and he is obviously pleased with himself for having been able to recall the details of that conversation, for being able to connect the discussion of Grace's Tradition and her mannerisms and her name might belong to another Tradition. Grace doesn't know it, but Pen woke him up in the middle of the night to tell him about her.
"Well, I can't promise," he says, "that anything you tell me about the robot turtle won't be used against you. In the interest of fairness." This, said with some levity, with an air of sportsmanship. "Are there not any other Elites in town?"
Grace
"There is a guy, Sam. He's kinda being antisocial right now? I don't know. Maybe he'll come out and say hi?" She sighs, at Samir and the world for fucking with him.
"We're all a bit... sometimes antisocial perhaps. Goes with playing on our computers too much."
Nicholas Hyde
"I don't remember ever meeting very many in Connecticut," Nick says, though: Grace's explanation certainly makes some sense. He, too, has run into his fair share of Traditionalists who look askance at technomancers, who see them as a step away from Technocrats or at the very least some gross bastardization of the Conventions and "true" magic, children who aren't willing to put away their iPhones to learn something new. Perhaps it's that they don't feel especially welcome. "Which is a shame."
Sam's name he files away. He's been hearing a lot of new names. This, to be expected when one moves to a new city. "I won't say anything so trite as 'we all should stick together,' but if it's getting as bad as you're saying, it's good to know people."
Grace
"Yeah," she says, in assent to his suggestion that it is a good idea to know people. The connections between people like connections in any system make them more resilient. It's why they were formed in the first place, survival. And now, the big bad wolf comes.
"You want to swap digits? If anything happens, I'll let you know."
Nicholas Hyde
"Sure," Nick says, and reaches behind him to pull his phone (one of the larger Androids that has the look and size of a mini tablet - the better to read on during breaks at work) from the pocket of his overcoat. He offers his number to Grace - it's a 480 number, evidently one that he has never switched over since apparently acquiring it in Arizona. Many people carry their phone numbers with them that way these days, as much a mark of where they're from as photos, souvenirs and old scars.
He'll take Grace's number too, when he gets a chance. "Get a hold of me anytime. Pen and I are still getting to know people around here."
Grace
"Get a hold of me anytime. I have a safe place to be, if needed. There's cats and laser tag. Not to mention all the defenses," she says, bright and cheerful.
Defenses are a happy thing, right? Everybody loves a place with security cameras, thick steel doors, fantastic locks, and dehydrated food...
Well, okay, when she'd first Awakened, she'd thought Kalen might be a survivalist nutcase, but it's not nutcase behavior when they really are out to get you, is it?
Nicholas Hyde
Grace: she's hard to dampen. Perhaps her name could have belonged to another Tradition, and yet in a bizarre way she seems to embody it all the same. There is a way in which this cheerfulness, her ebullience, reminds Nick of another person, but these things are far away and not as long ago as they seem. "Good to know," he says. "Especially since we're still in the process of securing our place."
Or: Pen is, at least. Nick's usefulness when it comes to things more grounded in the material realm is in doubt.
Nick glances down at his watch, a metal and silver affair with the gears visibly working inside the face. "I was actually on my lunch break from work, and I should get back soon. I'm glad we ran into each other."
Grace
Grace crinkles her eyes at him and gives him a little wave with her fingers. "I'm glad too. Glad you are who you are. Stay you!"
This is followed, of course, by the crunching into a jalapeno slice, which crunches up the rest of her face and starts turning it red. She doesn't really care though. Heat is good, heat to counter the cold to which she, too, will soon return.
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