Grace
Something shifting and sharp walks into
An-Arch-Key Books (or Night Owl Books as the case may be). It's a store
with two names, and sometimes Grace wonders whether there's a Point to
that. Like, some kind of mystical symbolism behind it. But then, maybe
it's something as simple as not being able to decide on a name. And
then, maybe there's some kind of symbolism to that. Hermetics always
have too many names. This from the one with at least four in regular
use, but no mind the hypocrisy.
She's wearing that red coat that
Kalen got her -- soft red suede, the color of fox fur. It almost seems
out of place on the woman who otherwise doesn't seem to care much about
how she looks, or the relative expense of what she wears. She wears that
coat with jeans and sneakers and a mess of hair and a laptop bag slung
around her that was also chosen for substance over style. And yeah,
there's something symbolic there. It's a sign of just how much Kalen
rubs off on her.
And Grace rubs off on others. Even Pan now has a
phone through which he can send ALL CAPS messages to the rest of the
Denver mages like some kind of freakish, glowing grandfather. She's sure
he's going to start spamming them all with 'FW: FW: FW: FW: FW: GOD'S
LOVE REVEALED IN POTATO CHIP' any time now.
Someone recently told
her to focus on the goal at hand. Don't go after all the distracting
heads. They're part of the goal, but not the goal. Keep your eyes on
that, please. Go for the heart. And the heart? To birth the future. To
be a beacon of information as much as Pan is a beacon of God's Love as
revealed in potato chips or whatever his game is.
Delivering Ginger? It's not just a software installation. It's a calling.
"Hey, Kit? You here? I texted you earlier."
Adam
The
front door to An Arch Key is unlocked. The pages of the books are
beginning to saturate with his resonance he spends so much time here.
Turn a page and it is valiant. Turn a page and it is relentless.
Unfolding, the story. Never-ending, ceaseless, so brave, a flashing of
-- the place is beginning to, very faintly, feel like Adam. Like the
smell of fresh-sap in a maple forest or a candle after it's been
blown-out somewhere, a lingering.
Bells,
bells, bells as she enters. He had responded favorably to her text but
at first her voice doesn't get an answer. Even after, when Adam wakes
up, he is slow to stir, and he doesn't throw a shadow down the stairs
when he drags himself off of the lovesac on the second floor, rolls
across the well-trodden carpet and trips over a paperback somebody left
on the floor, catches himself on the stair's balustrade which wobbles
(entropy [soon]) as he leans down, and Grace:
Once
he calls attention to himself, he's just a mass of dark hair,
red-rimmed just-woken up eyes, "'Allo," he says, and then lets his body
come down the stairs too, combing his hair back with his fingers,
smothering a yawn.
"Is it, erm," mumble, "thirty already?"
There doesn't seem to be anybody else in the store.
Grace
After
a life-and-death battle with her own Avatar while arrayed like a
knight, Grace doesn't exactly find Adam's resonance quite so... out of
place anymore. She is sharp and intense herself now. Perhaps not
chivalric, though, because who interrupts the dragon mid-speech with a
scream and a sword-slice? You're supposed to wait, to let them speak
their last words or whatever other nonsense. There's lots of things that
you're supposed to do that Grace just doesn't understand.
The place feels kinda all right, you know?
And
then Adam descends in sleepy unsteadiness, and it puts a grin on
Grace's face to watch. "Yeah, mumble thirty alright. Listen, you have a
back room or something, so I don't get pestered by people who are
actually here to buy books?"
"And ah, you're okay with this right? No... reservations? If you have questions, now is the time to ask."
As
much as Grace does want everyone to adopt her systems, she's not going
to force the issue on anybody. To free people is her goal, not control
them. Not force them. Just... show them what they could be doing with
her distributed networks, and let convenience do all the work. You don't
win a revolution at gunpoint. Oh you can, but they rarely last. You win
this kind of anarchy by it simply being the easiest, simplest, most
beneficial course to take. Let water flow downhill. Let people access
the network. Let the walls come down.
Adam
The
Virtual Adept wants to go into the backroom just in case patrons come by
who might pester her. There are no crickets in An Arch Key Books, not
right now, but one could imagine crickets chirruping in response. How
quiet it is; used bookshops just don't get the foot traffic they did
once, if ever they did have a lot of foot traffic. His eyebrows are up
the way people who just wake up lift their eyebrows, as if by doing so
they can tell their eyes to stay open, they can stretch their faces into
wakefulness. Sleeping doesn't make one need to shave in and of itself,
but the shadow of Adam's facial hair is thicker now than it was before.
He could stand to trim it, neaten the edges, so it's less coaldusty. How
he yawns again, or wants to yawn, but exerts some determination to
avoid it.
If he has questions, now is the time to ask.
"Can
you or will you use Ginger to do mass castings on those connected by
her or track our movements?" He's wary, isn't he. "Say someone on the
network disappears. You go into Ginger, do your," he wiggles his
fingers, hacker-style, "thing, and approximate a location? Of the device
she is installed on at least I suppose."
Yawn, again, although
his eyes are more alert now, the sea-colour gleaming forth. "Yeah.
There's a back room. This way," and it's toward the door behind that
desk of Adam's, the one that says employees only.
Grace
Grace looks thoughtfully (at the books, not Adam). "It would be difficult even for me. I mean, I can
do such things now, but the way Ginger's designed, there's no direct
connection between any two people, only to the server, and the server
doesn't broadcast. It doesn't reach out to your device, your device
reaches out to it.
"That's intentional. It's meant to stop such
types of attacks, where one could use Ginger to suss out our entire
network. That would be bad."
It's a common explanation. Lots of people ask her that question. Few implicate her as the one with nefarious intent, however. It puts out a bit of the lightheartedness she may have had in coming here.
Grace
follows him into the back room, pulls out her laptop and starts setting
up. Her laptop bag is also stuffed with cables of varying types. USBs
for Androids and iPhones and whatever else someone might come to her
with. When her rig boots up, it's got a colorful background wallpaper
that looks like tangled string or carefully twirled smoke, although it
was clearly mathematically generated.
"I've already had to tell
Eleanor that she couldn't set up private messaging for that reason.
There can't be a direct connection between two users. Now, if I really
tried, could I? Probably. I mean, if someone were to go to the other
side or whatever, and I needed to boot them off the system, I have a
couple ways I could go about it. Could kill this version of Ginger and
start over. She has a kill switch. I could change the encryption, and
only give trusted people the right password again. I could also try to
find the one device and kill its installation, though that would be the
hardest method, and I'd probably use something else to trace it. Emails,
or phone calls or whatever. Does that make you feel better?"
Grace
spits out the technical details and fixes like Adam can actually
understand all the topics. That might be stretching it a bit, especially
since he just woke up and is missing coffee. But still.
Adam
[Does he follow? Adam is tired. Intelligence +1 diff, just to see.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (2, 3, 5, 6) ( fail )
Adam
"Do you want something to - ?"
Eat or drink.
The
backroom has more bookshelves, but they are less organized (there's
organization out there?) than in the other rooms and only against two of
the walls. They are also less stocked. There are boxes everywhere,
haphazzard, a labyrinth of a maze of a thing, a curio cabinet with all
sorts of curious things in the wooden niches, a bulletin board with a
schedule and some handwritten notes, post-its, detritus; just what you'd
expect. There is a couch that looks good for napping on, though Adam
wasn't napping on the couch. A round table with rings of old
coffee-stains, and, if Grace looked, perhaps some sigils scribed into
the wood near the bottom, grooves on the floor scratched. He doesn't
practice back here but somebody did once upon a time and there are signs
of this practice in the strangest places.
There is also a sink
and a counter with an electric kettle and a mess and a refrigerator. Box
of ferret treats. Bowl of chocolate covered espresso beans, a handful
of which Adam crunches on.
His eyes hood as Grace explains how
Ginger works. "I didn't feel poorly before," Adam says, and then he
smiles; it's a contained smile, and sweet, and also very solemn, but it
filters towards his eyes while he scruffs his hair again. "But I was and
am curiou... Hm, here?"
Focus, Gallowglass. He holds out a
handful of chocolate-covered espresso beans as if he just realized he
hadn't actually given her anything yet. There are mugs, too. He's
filling the mugs with coffee instead of tea. There's a pot. It's kind of
cold, but it's coffee.
Why is it sticking to the bottom of the? Hmm. Maybe a fresh pot is in order.
"What do you recommend if something happens to you? Does Kalen have a, erm, way to shut it down or..."
Grace
It
takes Adam's offer of chocolate before Grace looks up from her laptop
(now settled in on that napping couch) and lo her face does light up.
"Solid caffeine! Oh you're the best."
That does help her mood
somewhat. Chocolate and coffee? Yes please. She takes his offered
handful and munches it with a satisfied expression.
And then, her
eyes wander back up from her screen again when he begins talking about
what would happen were something to happen to her. "Kalen's an admin.
For that reason. So yeah, I gave him instructions."
It's never
easy to talk about disaster plans. Oh, if you die, how will we do X?
It's tempting to respond with some kind of solipsistic remark about how
the universe will stop if that happens, so no-one need worry. Grace's
actual response is solemn and true, but her mouth's still full of
chocolate-covered espresso beans.
Adam
"Very
well," he says, and his expression shifts off to the left.
Far-searching, far-seeing, seeking; a considerate expression, which
shifts into something blacker, wryly amused, private. He is an
expressive creature: Adam. Especially when he has just woken up.
"I
suppose you will want the, erm, hardware, just a moment," and is there a
warning? Does Adam grin at her? No. Adam leaves the backroom.
Disappears out front.
He
returns with his vintage mint-green typewriter, which he sets down on
the table with its coffee-stained rings, and he pats it fondly. "This
will work just as well, won't it? It has keys just like a cellphone."
An old cellphone.
"More elegant."
Grace
Grace
slowly bends her laptop screen down to give Adam a fake withering
glare. Hers is a sarcasm-laden face. "It's precious. Wouldn't want to
corrupt it with programming. Heaven forbid.
"Actually, it is rather interesting. I could build
you a keyboard out of it," and at that, she gives him a wicked grin.
Yes Adam, let me take your keyboard apart piece by piece, infect it with
electronics, and then piece it back together.
"Alas, even a keyboard isn't enough to house Ginger. Needs a processor of some sort. Some memory to hold the program."
Adam
He
puts both hands over the typewriter's platen knobs, as if those knobs
were ears, and he could shield the typewriter from Grace's harsh words.
His eyes are still hooded, eyelids purpled from sleep, but there's an
amused edge to the slant of his mouth now.
"A keyboard? What would I do with that? She works just fine as she is."
He
takes his hands away and pats his pockets down. Brings out a cellphone,
instead. An iphone, of course. There aren't even any keys.
"Tech,
tech, tech," he says, and hands it over. "Don't you want to separate
yourself from it? I don't mean go back to the farm and medievalism," a
self-aware almost-smile here, "but something else. Something other. Oh
erm," a blink. "Should I hold my tongue while you do your thing?"
Grace
She
snorts at his trying to protect his poor typewriter from hearing evil.
Yes, she does the same to her computers sometimes. Gives them a gentle
pat when they're being good, etcetera.
She takes his cellphone, inwardly peeved at the Apple-nature of the thing. Why
do so many Mages use iPhones? Are they being purposefully obtuse? She
digs into the laptop bag for the white cable (has to be white, couldn't
possibly have a cable that looks plebian, can we, Apple fans?)
It's
not really the focus on looks that annoys her the most about this. It's
just that Apple devices are the hardest to install Ginger on. Takes
forever. And all because the company is a prick. Proprietary as hell.
They have a term for Apple products: the Walled Garden. Fuck that shit.
Almost as bad as Micro$oft. Worse, if you consider that they've conned
everybody in to believing them the good guys.
"No, I really
don't want to separate myself from it. I spent a good few weeks
separated from it when I joined the Virtual Adepts, and I just about
drove myself crazy."
She's suddenly very focused, very busy, as
she plugs Adam's phone into her laptop and starts typing away. She's got
to trick the damn thing into accepting an unauthorized program. Good
thing she's had lots of practice with this on varying styles of iPhone
so far, because Mages in Denver love the hell out of Steve Jobs.
Adam
[Hee. Does Adam sense the inward peevement re: Apple things? Percept (People) + Awarepathy]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 4 )
Adam
He
smirks; it's a faint smirk, almost more of a suggestion than an actual
expression. But it touches his eyes; changes the way they look, if one
is paying attention.
"You spent weeks separated from it when you
joined the Virtual Adepts? Virtually a hacker wizard, I suppose. Virtual
tools. Why don't you want to separate yourself from it?"
He goes
to check the coffee. Putter around, while watching Grace every now and
then, keeping her in his eye but trusting that she's not going to
suddenly cast some sort of shifting wall-crumbling revolutionary wall
that'll strike him at his heart and turn his bones to gold. Or
something. Coffee smell begins to fill the room. He pours into one mug.
Pauses; was that mug clean? He can't remember.
This miniscule
shrug: see? He pours into a clean mug, hands one off to Grace,
eventually takes a seat in one of the chairs on the table by the
typewriter.
Grace
"Because, it would be like
cutting off a limb," Grace says, absently, like she's not talking to
Adam, but to herself. Off in her own world now, with just her and the
problem at hand. Focused, but not on him.
"Why don't you want to separate yourself from how you do magic?" she says, with similar intonation to the last statement. "No more sigils, no more of Angelic tongues..."
She puts it in terms he can hopefully empathize with.
"Why separate yourself from anything at all? It's not even possible, I don't think. Everything's connected, whether you want it to be or not."
Adam
He breathes the coffee in. Holds the mug in front of his mouth; skulks over it, not at all like a bird of prey, but more like a vampire - that pale skin, those shadow-bruised sleepy eyes, that wild dark hair, that clear need for sunlight. Or maybe an owl, night owl's own wizard. Just smelling the coffee is waking him up, and Adam is not very diplomatic. He attempts to be, but he isn't.
"Because angelic tongues are sigils don't add to the wonderlessness of today's world; and who's to say the goal - one of many - isn't to transcend the need for sigils and angelic tongues?"
"'Everything's connected,' well, certainly, but use that idea as you just did and why not say sacrifice babies to demons because somebody somewhere is probably doing it and why bother separating yourself from it."
Beat. "Obviously I don't think using technology is synonymous with baby-sacrifice but relying on tools developed by the Union for sleepers in order to do magick - " a sigh. "On the one hand, bravo. Fuck them. Watch their ideas be turned into wonder regardless of intention. On the other hand, chancy. Helpful to them."
Grace
"Developed by us, you mean. The Virtual Adepts created the computer to begin with, back when we were called the Difference Engineers," Grace says, obviously hooked into at least some of the history of her people by now. "And then the Union killed Turing."
"Technology is a wonder, Adam. As much as you might hate to think so. They killed Turing not because he was corrupting their wonderless shit, but because Turing was trying to liberate tech. To free it. To make it what it truly is. They are the corrupters."
She looks up at Adam then, little humor in her eyes, because he's being somewhat of a little annoyance with his obvious anti-tech. "Yes. Fuck them. They try to take technology and science and put them in a straitjacket. They try to control it. It's outrunning them, but they don't even see it. They think they have some kind of easily tamed, linear beast on their hands, when it's headed for an asymptotic singularity.
"Are you sure you want Ginger? Or do you really want to burn your cell phone? I'm not going to force anything on you that you don't want."
Adam
"If I didn't want you to install the doohickey, I wouldn't have said 'install the doohickey,'" Adam says. His voice is wry; the mug of coffee now held two-handed, because he's taken a long draught of it. "Technology is a wonder. It's a wonder that is so taken with itself that it has stifled other wonders. I'm not an uncivilized bastard," Adam says, a certain emphasis on uncivilized.
"I'm not unsympathetic to the Virtual Adepts - or 'Difference Engineers' - plight in wanting to be separate from what they see - you see - as a stultifying atmosphere. Heck, I enjoy being able to skype with mum and dad, for a given value of 'enjoy.' I like driving." Which is something he'd never say if he'd driven recently or was thinking about how may stupid drivers are on the road. "But I'd better enjoy being able to say a word and talk to them in a pool of water - harder to bill, wouldn't you say? And I simply don't understand how a complete reliance on tools that the Conventionalists use and develop is..."
He trails away. He's relentless, Adam, however: he's also fresh woken. "Well, isn't something you'd want to work around. That's all I mean by... Why don't you want to separate yourself from it? I thought separating yourself from it was the point. Transcend. Ascend."
Grace
She had gone back to typing while he was talking, but then her eyes flick up to his in a glare when he says 'That's all I meant by...'
No, Adam, that is not what you meant by it. You didn't mean Ascending through technologic means, you meant abandoning technology as a means. Say what you mean.
"If we all worked around it, then we would have no one with any idea of how to keep them at bay. It's not the tools that are inherently evil, it's the control. We free the tech, we free minds. We free people. And we can only do that through breaking the Union's control over it. You want to break that hold, you have to use the kinds of methods we do. Illegal downloading of television shows is how a growing segment of the population gets its media anymore. People are now allowed to create their own media and distribute it themselves, and thattoo is getting more popular. People who are really free to think are capable of doing amazing things, like talking through water puddles. If we don't dismantle their system from inside, the Traditions may as well give up entirely, Adam."
As she... well, let's put it bluntly, rants to Adam about how backward his ideas are, her voice gets progressively tenser. He's getting to her, to be certain, but also getting her riled up about the evils of Technocracy. A double whammy if ever there was one. She despises Them.
And then, she grunts and stares at a proprietary bullshit interface, trying to convince it that she's totally the App Store.
Adam
He sets his coffee cup down at some point during her rant. He folds his arms across his chest, planting his feet more firmly on the ground. Grace's glare had met a pair of unrepent eyes; after all, he meant what he said. Perhaps he isn't eloquent enough for diplomacy; certainly, he isn't. Ask his father. Ask most of the Hermetics who know him, and the other Traditionalists too.
"For the love of," he says, irritation a sharp edge that exasperation gleams on, somewhere after 'it's not the tools that are inherently evil.' He doesn't try to talk over the rest of her rant; he seems interested, not least because he doesn't feel she's engaging with what his ideas are. He's not that eloquent. And after she's said her piece, grunted, stares at his phone, he preserves silence for a space. He's diplomatic enough for that.
Grace
She types away, a grimace on her face at Adam and at Apple. It's hard to say which is more annoying at this juncture. Probably Apple. It has farther reach, more adherents, more actual danger in its ideals.
And it's also losing to her. She's jailbreaking the thing without it even knowing. Such a great term that -- jailbreaking.
Anyway, her program installs quickly after that.
"It's done," she announces, and unplugs the vile thing to hand it back to Adam.
And then, she starts packing up, sour of mood. It's not that she didn't know there were Mages who would hate her whole shebang because Virtual Adepts use technology. She knew that. They have their reasons, too. But still.
Adam
He knows himself well. He doesn't want to provoke himself into a similar rant, so he takes the phone back and plays with it a little, running his thumb over the screen and: "So how do I - ?" Unless it's self-evident, in which case Adam reads some of the older Ginger posts.
"Is there a way to see who all has access to Ginger? So if, say, one posts to her, one knows who did not receive the word?"
Grace
"I've set it up so that you have the contact in your list. Just call Ginger, and then say the password. It's 'Hello, Ginger'. From there, it's pretty self-explanatory. She'll tell you what to do," she says, cold and still quite annoyed. "There's a list of people with access in the Ginger archives once you get there."
She's putting the laptop in her bag, wrapping the cord up and... And then it's over.
No reason to stay where she's surely not wanted. Not even sure why Adam even wanted Ginger in the first place, unless he's the worlds largest hypocrite. Heh. Probably.
When Adam calls the number, he gets Ginger on the line, in all her sexy robot glory. She'll tell him to remember that 'Love is just a dial away' and proceed to list the numbers he can press to read, listen to, or leave messages. It's the voice she hears, tinny and distant, that gets to her in the end. Gadfly was going to make her sound more real...
"The guy who decided she should speak with that voice, he was the one who taught me how to do magic in the first place. He was being hunted by the MIB because his ideas were dangerous," Grace says, and the tone of her voice is a hard thing -- sharp. "They played cat and mouse with him for weeks, and he always stayed a step ahead, until he didn't. I fucking hate them. Don't get on to me for using 'their' tools again."
Adam
[Temper, temper.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Adam
"You - " Adam says, and his voice is heated: could cut skin from a body and leave the body beneath the skin whole. He leashes his temper quite forcibly; yanks it back.
"I wasn't 'getting on' you; I was asking you why. Why you don't want to separate yourself from technology, as it seems your own vaunted revolutionary people gave you the opportunity." He has mostly leashed his temper. "When I don't understand somebody's position, I ask them to explain it; I ask why, and try to reveal some of my own fucking thoughts, but since a technophile like you can't seem to listen to any thoughts that don't -- "
No. He leashed his temper. "Look, let's just agree never to discuss Foci again, I'll continue to not presume that you love the Union, and I'll thank you not to presume that I'm anti-progress or anti-technology just because I don't look at people downloading free movies as a big fuck you to the Techs. Thank you for installing Ginger."
"And I hope you find the guy who first taught you again; there's nothing worse than not knowing what happened to your teacher."
He hustles her out. Well. He is trying to hustle her out; he's easy prey for hitting, though.
Grace
She slings the laptop bag across her body as she stands, as he hustles her out. And she's not fighting him in such hustling. But she's also not shutting up.
"I don't think you're anti-technology, I know you are, because you said tech adds to the wonderlessness of the world, and don't try to tell me you didn't. Your point is not about transcending the need for Foci, it's specifically about how you don't think technology makes a good one, because some assholes fucked up the world with it. I got your point about the sacrificed children, thank you very much," she says, and maybe Adam isn't the only one with a short fuse. Maybe it's just that he's stepping ungracefully on each and every one of her nerves whilst having the temerity to own Apple products.
"Well, excuse me for trying to put it back to rights the best way I know how, huh? Screw me for not just fucking burning my laptop and walking away, right? I'll just cut off my damn arms, that'll show them. They'll really be scared then, huh?"
She actually hustles her own self out. Maybe the last bit of her rant falls on deaf ears, because she's out the door by then. But she doesn't really care if he's around to hear by that point.
Adam
[Doo-dee-doo.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 5, 5, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )
Adam
You said tech adds to the wonderlessness of the world.
"It does."
Your point is not--
"Don't tell me what my point is. I know what my point is."
I got your point about sacrificed children, thank you very--
"Clearly, you did not."
He starts to hustle her and she hustles her own self and there is some mutual hustling; this they can agree on. This also means that, although Grace is hustling herself out, Adam is still present, part courteous host and part just: time for us to go to our separate corners, so clearly I will be walking you to yours.
Well, excuse me for trying to put it back to rights the best way--
"Will you stop leaping to conclusions?"
Screw me for not just fucking burning my laptop and walking aw--
"Tell me, does the chip on your shoulder control you 100% of the time or only 100% of the time somebody isn't stricken by the wonderful possibilities of technomancy?"
And there's the door. The door to the backroom and the front door. Adam doesn't follow her all the way to the front door; he stops at his desk. Maybe she slams it and the bells ring in her wake. Maybe she rounds on him to glare once more before leaving.
"Fucking crazy women," Adam, his player is very sad to report, says once Grace is actually gone.
Showing posts with label Adam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Adam. Show all posts
Thursday, May 1, 2014
Monday, April 28, 2014
What's a Seeking?
Serafine
After a positively frigid weekend, Monday afternoon is gray enough and cold enough that Washington Park is - if not supernaturally deserted - certain rather empty compared to the flood of people one might find jogging its trails on a more temperate spring day.
When Sera decides that she wants a picnic, though, nothing will keep her from it. Not weather, not wind, not cold.
On the rather green lawn overlooking the lake, with a sweeping view of the columned boat house reflected in the glassine waters of the little lake, Sera has spread a white blanket, which is weighted down with an ashtray and a guitar case. She's drowsing, or appears to be drowsing, wrapped up in another blanket (this one fuzzy and perhaps woolen, some sort of red and green tartan plaid wrapped around her body as she rests on her stomach, knees bent, both booted feet in the air. Dan she sent for hot chocolate because it's fucking cold out here and her teeth are chattering and he suggested oh hey, go inside, warm up, and Sera was all: fuck that, I wanna have a picnic.
So, picnic.
It is entirely possible that Alexander and/or Grace and/or others received texts from Sera inviting them to a picnic. Or perhaps they just find her by coincidence. Sometimes that is how the world works.
Alexander
[Magedar, just kicks and entrances]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (6, 7, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )
Grace
Grace got a text, because that is how her world works. And perhaps Sera doesn't understand (or perhaps remember) why she got a text back reading:
YES I will be right there
Without punctuation and with a lot of haste.
Even if Sera did decide on a picnic in the cold, it doesn't matter. That's what coats are for. And other people's oddities rarely even scratch the surface of Grace's recognition. She's pretty certain, though, that Sera will be mostly unclothed anyway, because that's Sera.
So, the Virtual Adept strolls up, wearing jeans and a red suede coat against the cold that's cut in sharp angles. It was meant to go with a fox costume for Carnivale, and Grace keeps on wearing it because it's warm.
But, there's something different about her. Something new.
Maybe it's the way she cuts through the air, knife-like. Those angles of her coat reminiscent of a blade's edge -- a fine sort of sharpness.
Alexander
Cold it may be, but it can always get a little cooler – as those who pass Alexander walking along the paths around the park find for a moment. Alexander is reasonably comfortable. He’s dressed for the cool air in a thick grey hoodie with a couple of layers of long sleeved t-shirts underneath. Some dark green combats, a pair of walking boots, and a decent pair of fleecy gloves keeps the rest of him covered and decent.
The text was received, and replied to, which brings Alexander out today. But he was here a little early. Just... to try something out. To look around a little, in more than one way. He’s crouched by the lake, near to where they met a certain scarecrow not so long ago. He watches the water, looking at his reflection in it. Tries to remember how it felt that first time he pushed with his Will at the Chantry, trying to sneak a peek at probability before the coin landed. Tries to push in the same way, just peering through the ripples of this particular looking glass to See what’s there.
[Arete, peeking at Spirit: Diff 4, -1 for taking time]
Dice: 1 d10 TN3 (3) ( success x 1 )
Serafine
Perception + Awareness - Things Are Happening?
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )
Serafine
Prime 1: Watch the Weaving. -1 dif, focus.
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (3, 4, 6) ( success x 3 )
Serafine
Things Are Happening and the truth is even wrapped up like that, like a peculiar Scottish mummy sprawled on her belly on a white blanket in the chilly, damp grass, breath misting or is that smoke she exhales? one or the other, anyway. Sera is not napping. She is not asleep. She is sprawled yes one elbow braced on the blanket, chin and cheek cupped in the palm of her hand, head listing in a way that makes a golden tangle of her wind-whipped blond curls and she is watching: the lake and the man who crouches by the lake and watching him with a back of the throat consideration and she is alive to the world in ways the few people are alive to the world, everything scrawls itself beneath her skin before most stranges have begun to recognize the surface truths, and she can feel - yes - Grace and something New and wasn't it just last night that it was Grace and something Old and isn't there a strange and fascinating symmetry to that and oh shouldn't she tell Hawksley about the mummy, she should assuredly tell Hawksley about the mummy, and Sera thinks about texting him -
I have something to tell you about Egypt
- and she would likely misspell half the damn words but iPhone, it would auto correct, but her phone is so Very Far Away and it is cold out here where is Dan with her hot chocolate she is going to dose it with whiskey. It would be better with Bailey's but it's not like one carries around a flask full of Bailey's, does one?
Sera bites down sharply on her inner cheek, the pain is incisive, see. It is singular. It is a pierce and a twist and an opening, oh, the world changes, just a little bit.
"Look at that," Sera says quietly, to Grace as Grace strolls up. Her voice is goddamned lazy. "He's doing something. Magic, do you remember the first time you did it on purpose?"
Grace
[Magedar! Does she notice anything with all this magic flying about?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )
Grace
Grace isn't so perceptive today, is she? But still, it doesn't hurt that the both of them are weaving reality around them at the moment, and Sera -- oh Sera is strong and gut-wrenching, isn't she?
Grace looks where Sera is telling her to -- over to Alex, who is leaning over the water's edge, looking for something.
She nods, and there's this slight bittersweet smile on her face. "It was soon after I woke up. I was in my apartment, and Gadfly popped in for a visit. He'd been watching me, which, okay a little creepy. But he guided me through the program I was already writing. Something to watch the watcher."
"My first time? I flunked," she smiles for real that time. "Got hit with 'dox."
"Sera?" she asks, then pauses a bit, sets down her laptop bag and flumps down on the blanket. "Something's happened to me. I don't think it's bad. But I feel different."
Alexander
A few ice crystals form along the edge of the shore by Alexander and, for a few moments, the world changes. Alexander sees the lake shore in a whole new light; a little faint, a little cloudy, a little more monochrome. And promptly falls backwards onto his ass as it actually works! He looks around quickly, before the effect fades. Looking for... someone who isn’t there. Who hasn’t been for a few weeks. Maybe he wasn’t really expecting The Message to still be hanging around here when he has an identity and the freedom to do as he likes. But it was worth a try. Normality reasserts itself and the vision fades.
Grinning to himself, Alexander stands and brushes himself off. He’d felt the arrival of Sera a short while before, while he was watching the water, so knows where she’s sat. The familiar Shifting feeling had arrived too, but with something different about it. Something new. Still smiling, Alexander grabs the rucksack he’d left on the grass next to him and wanders over. The smile’s still there when he arrives and greets them. “Hey! I brought soup.” He shrugs the shoulder with the rucksack as he says it, then settles on the blanket too. He looks at Grace and cocks his head. “You’ve changed.”
Adam
[Pre-Entry Awareness Roll -2 Dice for Grace's Arcane.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Adam
[+2 for everybody else]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (1, 9) ( success x 1 )
Adam
[+ 2 re-rolled 10s since I hear there are Magical Effects wot are being Effected? Maybe?]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (4, 5) ( fail )
Serafine
"Mmm." Sera hums beneath her breath. It is a hum of awareness and a hum of consideration and a hum of something that is not amusement. Perhaps bemusement. Perhaps consideration. There is something rich and lazy in her voice and even though it is cold cold cold something about Sera feels remarkably warm, in just this precise moment. "I don't remember my first time."
And Sera offers no context for that; just the statement. Maybe it is merely that one forgets the smallest pieces as the world changes and magic becomes not - well, not ordinary, but a matter of course. Hey, I can fucking change the goddamned world.
Grace though, Grace; a slant-wise look at Grace as she floomps her laptop down on the blanket. Here is Sera in profile: an impressive nose, all aquiline, her eyes remarkable light, with a sort of clarity in the side view on rarely sees when looking at her face-on. Some kind of magic there, right?
God she's striking. Arresting. The bones of her face; the sharp and fine-pointed planes of it. The delicacy of her jaw, the curve of her ear. The odd vulnerability she bears in repose.
Sera is still considering Grace when Alexander comes up to them, and he has brought soup. Sera flashes the cop a quick grin, rolls over on the blanket to make room. "What'd you see out there? When you were looking?"
And, a flashing glance, this line drawn from Grace to Alexander and back again. "And Grace, she went seeking. Why don't you tell us what happened?"
Grace
[Pasted from above!] So, the Virtual Adept strolls up, wearing jeans and a red suede coat against the cold that's cut in sharp angles. It was meant to go with a fox costume for Carnivale, and Grace keeps on wearing it because it's warm.
But, there's something different about her. Something new.
Maybe it's the way she cuts through the air, knife-like. Those angles of her coat reminiscent of a blade's edge -- a fine sort of sharpness.
-------------
So: Keen as in sharp, as in finely-honed. Blade-like. Intense. Focused.
Grace
"Oh, I didn't go looking for anything," Grace says, completely missing the reference. She's never heard the term before. "What happened when?"
She looks up to Alex from her seat on the blanket. "Yeah, I know. You can feel that too?"
Then, it's over to Sera again, who has been the only other Mage she's known to do this: change how they are at a deep level. Enough that people can tell.
"It's like what happened to you, isn't it?"
Adam
Look. (No, don't look. There is nothing remarkable to look at.) Dominic Adam Julian Gallowglass bani Bonisagus known to most of the Awakened populace of Denver as Adam who owns or clerks at or manages Night Owl [An Arch Key] Books. Look. (No, don't bother. He is not remarkable.)
Here he is in a dark coat, not black but rather a slate gray, wool to drive the cold winter away, but it is spring now. The coat is long and unbuttoned and if he had a scarf it is, why, there it is, trailing out've his pockets, because it's cold but the cold doesn't have a snap and if he weren't so susceptible to colds since he treats his body less like a temple and more like an inconvenience or a disappointment (come on now, body, don't be tired now! Almost to the end of this chapter! Almost at the top of the hill!), well. This is the kind of sentence that busybody family members begin and never finish properly because what it amounts to is a harangue. Here is Adam Gallowglass in a dark gray coat and, if one has not yet become familiar with Adam Gallowglass, he is particularly unworthy of note. A Mystery. Other. Don't bother.
Nonentity, practically: young man with wild hair. He has an apple in hand and he is biting into it while turning the page of a book which yes he is in fact reading as he walks down the trail, comes to a fork in a path, finds himself near [the woods of Arkady are dead, over is their antique joy; but the antiquarian's joy is -] a lake and a confluence of other Awakened individuals, one of them very familiar, the other half-familiar, the third not-at-all-familiar. What an irrestistible lure to a mind like Adam's.
So he takes the fork in the path that'll take him this-a-way, folding his book up so his thumb is a marker. He bites into his apple, crunch. No gloves. He's as pale as a vampire and should get more sun. Too bad it's such a skinflint day, such a graying still longing for winter day. This-a-way means he wanders out between the trees; he doesn't approach from the lake.
The most important thing is of course:
"Hello, Sera, Grace."
Adam is not a creature of hesitation; he approaches, he engages, his smile faint, a quizzical stitch between his eyebrows.
Alexander
“Nothing, really. I was just..” Alexander looks down into the rucksack, breaking the eye contact with Sera for a minute. A little embarrassed, maybe. “It was silly. I was trying to see if The Message was around.” A thermos and some disposable cardboard cups emerge from the bag, and he looks back up. “It’s only store bought, but it should still be warm.” Nice, smooth change of subject there. Chicken, should anyone be interested.
He loses track of the conversation a little when they start talking about seeking and looking for things – even less idea of what a Seeking is than Grace does. There is some concern in his voice, though, when he asks, “Something’s happened? Was it anything to do with that night in the library?” It’s the first time Alexander has bumped into Grace since he stormed out of the Chantry. “Are you ok?”
Before there’s an answer, someone new arrives. Although it’s only the voice that grabs Alexander’s attention – the other man would have drifted past without notice if he hadn’t spoken. He looks down to open the flask, then starts a little as he notices Adam’s presence again. And waits to see how the others react before saying anything. Assuming he doesn't forget again.
Serafine
Oh, Alexander. He breaks eye contact and busies himself with soup-getting-out and soup-dispensing and Sera's now on her back and all rolled up still in her blanket (absurd! absurd) and she's like a turtle on her back her hair all a-tangle and the world is moving around her the way the world does move.
Oh! Here is Adam.
Sera tips her head back to espy him as he offers his hellos and it is strange to her the way he fades and then conjures himself up again but not so startling as it must be for Alexander, now, to forget and remember and remember and forget again.
So, Sera, create that she is turns her head in Alexander's direction and he can avoid her goddamned eyes all he wants with the busy-ness she'll just touch him, like a hand on his thigh. A certain slewing smile.
Maybe she's fucked up.
Probably she's fucked up.
"It's not silly. You need to see the world. Look for things. Take it apart and put it back together and feel the way it moves inside you, again and again and again, and if you're looking for something or someone or somewhy that has some fucking meaning to you, even better, but that's not any kind of shit to be embarassed about, you know? Rock on - "
She did say rock on without any goddamned embarassment.
"Seeking, Grace. You went seeking. Looking for another piece of the world; or a piece of your soul, or a new understanding of the world. Some epiphany, right? Something new that you can taste and feel. And Be and Know and all that shit.
"Yeah it's like what happened to me." Back to Alexander, then. "Nothing to do with what happened in the library, that night. Least I'm pretty sure it doesn't have anything to do with that."
Then back to Adam, smiling up at him, right? Practically angelic with that halo of golden hair.
"Hi."
Grace
"Hey Adam," she greets, though she didn't feel his knight-in-shining-ness approaching. It's Adam. She's cool with it.
Alex is the first to broach that subject, and as much as she appreciates the gesture, Grace has opted to try to forget that night ever happened. She only vaguely knows, second-hand that he was even there. Still, the comment has her first looking concerned right back, and then curious. "Maybe it did, though Sera. I mean..." she shrugs, "What happened in my seeking, it... very well could have something to do with that night."
"I slew a hydra," she says, and just lets it hang there. Says it like someone might say 'I mowed the lawn.'
Adam
He listens, intent and serious. Because direct as he is and unhesitating (unrelenting) as he is this doesn't mean he lacks social graces. The conversation swims around him: parts around him, stone-Adam, shadowless Magus. He listens, and he has opinions because he always has opinions. The quizzical stitch between his eyebrows smooths; those same eyebrows leap upward and the expression in his eyes stills, then shifts from one mood to the other. He regards Grace more fully now, but his attention is not complete.
"Why did you do that?" he asks Grace, of hydra-slaying. Then says to Sera, "Hi," because when a woman that beautiful says hi, if you're not distracted, you say hi back, and then he says to Alexander, "Who are you?"
He doesn't introduce himself, but Grace said hey Adam.
Adam who then says, "What happened in which library?"
Because of course that would interest him.
Kalen Holliday
[Nightmares]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Kalen Holliday
[Awareness???]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 4 )
Alexander
The gloves come off and a hand – a little cool, regardless of its time in the glove – is placed on Sera’s for a minute. “Thank you,” he says quietly. He still feels a little silly, a little sentimental. But he appreciates her words. The hands return to opening up the flask and pouring out soup, offering it to Sera. Because the third has slipped notice again.
There’s still concern in Alexander’s face – he likes Grace, and hearing what was going on in there? Well, he worried. “A hydra? That’s like a dragon? What happened?” He offers a cup to Grace.
Alexander is pouring soup for himself, and very nearly spills it when Adam speaks again. The man looks familiar, but... There is something odd going on here. He shuffles round a little to keep Adam in sight. The others don’t seem to be overly worried about the (re?)appearance of the man, so Alexander isn’t overly worried. Maybe a little puzzled. “Hi. Alexander.” He holds out the cup to Adam. “Nice to meet you.” There’s a slight narrowing of his eyes, as he tries to remember if he’s met Adam somewhere before.
Kalen Holliday
Kalen is not fond of the cold. But he is out in a golden wool coat and a ridiculously soft cream-colored cashmere scarf, and he is valiantly trying to ignore the last echoes of winter. He hasn't come for them, or for The Message (although, if pressed, he might admit he might have unconsciously chosen this place and cream and gold because of the Message). Recognizing such motivations is helpful, but that kind of self-reflection is not Kalen today.
Winter becomes colder on his tongue and he can feel the ground trembling beneath hooves. Feel the world shifting and falling through a thousand thousand possible worlds. If he could focus on them as they blurred past, he could draw them out one day, in the manner of star charts and the layered realms of the spiritual cosmologies that he has seen drawn in inks of precious metal and crushed gemstones. The grandest of them was inlaid around the circular gallery in marble. That one is shattered and buried now, but that one's legacy is Grace's office. For which he did not use sapphires or diamonds, but just paint. Grace probably wouldn't have wanted diamonds glittering on her walls in constellations, he would say. (But, let us be truthful, there are not diamonds glittering from those walls only because Kalen had no idea how to get them there.)
He cannot stop thinking of maps and of time and of all the ways in which fate twists in and around itself in Denver. There are are possibilities and warnings and wonder all vying for his attention. Those all lose out to the people he senses assembled, and he heads slowly in their direction.
Serafine
"I don't think it had so much to do with the Library, Grace, as with what you endured and how it has been haunting you. Somewhere that shadow of the divine or what the fuck ever inside you - " other people us Names and Terms and Words that mean things for things like Avatar. Sera tends to avoid them, for reasons that are not wholly clear, " - wanted you to confront that; to overcome it. To break free of the chains that experience has forged around your soul, see?
"I mean, that could be what your Avatar wanted. Or maybe it was all a fucking metaphor."
--
And Sera takes the soup and holds it in her hands and does that to keep them warm. The steam drifts and she's still on her back and looking up and then then she sits up, scoots her ass around because soup, shakes out her tangled hair as the cold wind skims the lake and whips across the park.
"Grace and I," Sera begins to explain to Alexander and by extension Adam, quietly and rather seriously for a Sera, with a sort of spare sense of strangeness about her because she does not speak Easily about such things and it is perhaps only the constant iteration of it from Grace that allows her to do so so easily. " - were infected by this sickness that some people created to try to target mages last fall. It made us very sick; and caused us to hallucinate gory waking dreams of our own deaths over and over again.
"Grace has had nightmares ever since, and," here Sera glances up at Adam. There is something circumspect, somehow, about that look. Something framingly delicate. Something attenuated. There are so many pieces of all of this that Sera keeps - in whole or in part - inside herself, stitched into her skin, and she can feel that needle now. Is away of its warp and weave. " - it was bad enough one night in the library that she started having waking dreams, hallucinations, that it was happening to her all over again.
"So. Have you been to sleep since your seeking, Grace?"
Grace
Adam is oblivious. Wasn't around for the Hydra incident. He wasn't witness to Grace screaming in agony. He's innocent, and even still... It's embarrassing. She lost it. And everybody in the Chantry must have heard exactly how.
"I..." she starts, but can't finish. How do you even begin?
"Uh... Well," she looks to Sera, because this is her story too in a way. And Sera says what she will say about it.
"They called it Hydra. Because you couldn't just destroy it, it would multiply if you tried to kill it -- like cutting off a hydra's head," she adds, so they understand why hydras had become this massive thing with her.
Then, Sera asks if she's been to sleep since. That brings an honest smile. "Yeah. I have."
She smells the sudden ozone, the smell of storm in the air, and turns to see Kalen, still smiling. "I think I killed it but good."
Adam
He accepts the cup of soup from Alexander, and his expression shifts again: all nuance, Adam, all subtleties. The shift is a courteous shift; an echo and -- not surprise. But recognition: "Alexander. Nice to meet you at last. So many things heard."
But the courteous shift is off-hand, and the bulk of Adam's attention shifts back to Grace who is now sharp as a knife (just what one wants shifting, huh? tremoring like a quake) and Serafíne.
To him, a Hydra is a mythological construct. A relic of bygone days; of glorious days, in a way. A Hydra is a metaphor, and a Hydra is a nightmare. A Hydra is an enemy, a Hydra is self-replicating. A Hydra is water, the North, is child-of-beauty, is a first-gate second-threshold sort-of creature.
Do him credit. He listens with an air of grave consideration; smells the soup, and if it doesn't appear to be some sort of italian wedding soup monstrousity sips on it.
"Hmm," he says when they are both done. "Compelling," he says, because isn't it? He follows Grace's eyes over to Kalen, offers the other Hermetic a nod if not a smile. He's thinking, and Adam thinking means serious things. "What shape did your seeking actually take? A video game that felt real? Did you start out asleep?"
"I'm curious." A smile. "Needn't indulge me."
Alexander
Alexander settles back onto the blanket to listen to Sera’s – and Grace’s – story. He can’t even begin to imagine how it must have felt, being affected by that illness. And he doesn’t even try to make empty platitudes to fill the gaps in the telling. He does look back to Grace, though, still concerned. Although it eases when Grace smiles, obviously much more relaxed than she was. He does feel a little more of a connection to Grace than he does to most of the others – maybe because she’s not so far ahead in her experience of Awakened life that it seems like he’ll never reach that stage himself. Maybe because it’s obvious that things are still freaking her out, rather than the others who just seem to take everything in their stride.
Regardless, Adam seems to have heard of him. “Good things, I hope.” He smiles, now that facing the man seems to have fixed him in memory for the moment. “I think your name has been mentioned, but there have been so many new ones... “ He shrugs as the sentence hangs, a little apologetic that he doesn’t have more to say. He turns to greet Kalen as he arrives, but otherwise settles back to listen to the conversation.
Kalen Holliday
"Mmmmmmm...." Kalen says, a bit absently. "My little dragon slayer." He missed too much of the conversation to quite pick it up cold, but he sounds amused and proud of Grace all the same. He doesn't need to know what she killed but good for that. Adam is thinking and Sera is...not exactly happy and Alexander...Alexander looks fine. That last bit provides him almost no real information.
His pale eyes sweep over them slowly. Curiously.
It's a second before the word Seeking and the new keen edge to Grace's Resonance register and he grins. "Ah. Congratulations, Kit." He settles carefully onto the ground to join them.
Serafine
Grace slept last night, and she beams and Sera favors her with another oddly spare half-smile. Inhales the scent of the soup and sips it, grateful more for the warmth than anything fortifying. Sera always seems to be on the verge of something, breaking apart or falling together or or or - anything but ordinary.
"Hey Kalen."
But here, look. Ordinary. She sips the soup wrapped up in a blanket and listens while Grace tells her story and somewhere on her person her phone vibrates so, Sera sets down the soup and does so carefully and and from somewhere deep in the wrappings of that blanket Sera digs out an iPhone and reads a text and then stands up and starts to unwind her blanket and beneath it she is wearing a tiny leather skirt and her Docs and black lace thigh-high tights and a small bandeau-style bustier, the cups of which are covered in tiny red satin roses, beneath a thin black hoodie, unzipped. Sera pulls the hood up because COLD but does not bother to zip the hoddie because SEXY and abandons the party with a small wave of her phone.
"Gotta meet my dealer. I'll be back in a bit. If Dan comes back with my fucking hot chocolate tell him to hang tight too. I need a ride over to the Church. Wanna see that mummy-lady again - "
Grace
Kalen knows what happened to her, of course he knows. And just congratulates her like that, like it's something he must have done before. But she's never done this before, has she? It's all new.
"'Kay, Sera. Say hi for me," she says, waves the departing Cultist goodbye.
And then, it's back to the others, because Adam asked a bunch of questions, and it's not even within her to withhold.
"It did kind of start out like a game. I got some random popup on my computer, and I thought it was my stalker, you know? But I guess it really wasn't.
"Wanted to play the games from Wargames, you know? Chess, checkers, Theaterwide Biotoxic and Chemical Warfare. I chose Wheel of Fortune, and then refused to play, because... hah. The winning move is not to," she says.
"Oh yeah, and it was like a vision. I wasn't sitting in front of my computer anymore, I was in a TV studio. And you were there," she says to Kalen. "And... another guy. We were contestants. I look down at the wheel, and it's all covered in the outlines of countries. Pat Sajak says 'Aww, looks like you were playing Global Thermonuclear War after all'.
"But then, I tried to get out of the studio, and... I ended up in this red hallway wearing platemail and with a sword and shield, and facing down a hydra," she says. "Because, yeah, that makes a whole lot of sense. It was like a dream, very much so."
Adam
Alexander lets the sentence hang; Adam does, too, and in spite of the Gallow in his last name does not twist it into a noose or make Alexander into the Hanged Man. Symbols, metaphors; aren't they everywhere? The echo that was accompanied by recognition becomes an echo of something indeed else; agreement, perhaps. Oh. No; a thought. He reaches into his coat, then into his back pocket which is where his thin leatherfold wallet is usually kept. Finds a businesscard and hands it to Alexander. "Come by sometime," he says.
The name Kit means of course that he gives Kalen a look of attention that dissolves once he realizes Kalen doesn't mean him; irritated pang, and a faint frown when Sera says she's gotta meet her dealer, or maybe, maybe, Dan or the Church or mummy-lady or who knows. Dispell it, Adam. Do not be grumpy.
The grumpiness does disappear completely because he's that interested in what a Technomage-Virtual Adept woman like Grace's Seeking would consist of. Do you see it? The shadow of fascination, a certain intentness?
"What happened after you faced down the Hydra? Did you get a sense of your Avatar throughout?"
A beat. "Do you feel glad?"
Alexander
Alexander shakes his head a little, a faint smile as he wonders how Sera manages to avoid freezing to death. He doesn’t really remember any encounter when her clothing could be described as anything other than, maybe, ‘sparing’. He waves to her as she leaves. The comment about the dealer? His eyes roll, but there’s not much more reaction that that. He knows she uses all kinds of drugs and must have some way of getting hold of them. But, at least here and now, he’s not overly stressed about it. He’s certainly not making notes. As long as it stays relatively discreet... He looks at the others when Sera leaves, asks “Mummy lady?”
Alexander accepts the business card, with thanks. He reads it before tucking it away in one of the pockets in his trousers. A book shop wouldn’t be his first choice for places to go, but he may well take a look at this one. Although more for the owner than the contents. The last of the soup is drained from the flask and offered to Kalen, if he wants it. Otherwise he keeps on listening to the conversation of those more experienced.
Kalen Holliday
Kalen blinks when Alexander offers him food. You might think for someone whose idea of a good time seems to be shoving food at other people it would be something that wouldn't surprise him. But after a few seconds of giving Alexander and the offered an odd look, He smiles and takes it. "Thank you,"
"And I have no idea about the mummy lady."
He leaves Grace to answer the host of Gallowglass' questions. You can't reallt dissuade Galowglass from questions. But he does give Gallowglass a smile. See, I haven't forgotten you. I'm just letting you interrogate.
Gallowglass.
"Dammit. I really need to tell her we're not a thing," he mutters, half under his breath.
Grace
More questions from Adam, and Grace gives Kalen a twist of a grin, saying something unspoken about Other-Kit's humorous interrogation tactics. A barrage of questions.
"It taunted me a whole lot, and I screamed at it and started slicing it. Got it in the heart, not the heads, you see? Then it... kinda..." she looks up at the trees, remembering. "Drenched me in blood, and... I woke up. For a moment there, I could swear it was getting a huge kick out of it, though. Like, every so often, it would break character and just grin for real instead of being all creepy-fucker.
"I think... I think the only reason why it was taking the 'evil' forms was so that I could have occasion to tell them to fuck off, if you know what I mean? It felt like Awakening, almost. Like I was touching that again..." her voice trails off, honestly a bit awed. As odd as the encounter was, as dream-like, the way it felt. So real. So immediate. Like touching the face of the universe.
"And yeah, I do feel glad," she says, lays down on the blanket, stares at the clouds. "I slept well," she says, and her eyes slide to Kalen. "Slept well for the first time in forever."
"Oh, yeah, and a few hours beforehand, Sera and Pan and Riley and I rescued a mummy from DMNS. She was walking around and all, but it turns out she was only from the 50's, not the BC's. Guess she went to sleep?" Grace shrugs.
"Anyway, she's at Pan's church."
Adam
Kalen's smile, Grace's grin-twist; they don't bother him. Not relentless, unshadowed Adam; never. His eyebrows leap up at Kalen's muttered aside. Head cocks, just so, the ghost of or suggestion of a smirk.
But like Alexander, Adam is ready for story time. He hmms aloud when she mentions that it would just stop and grin, for real. Adam: He's trying to place her Avatar, trying to figure out what its Essence must be based on what he knows of Grace, what he hears now. He's always trying to figure things out, Gallowglass. The awe makes him smile faintly, and look, he is out of soup. Glances around in that way people glance around when they realize they're holding trash, then just keeps ahold of it.
Mummy lady. An actual mummy?
"Sounds like an eventful week. What's your next project going to be?"
Slight chin-lift for both Alexander and Kalen. "Did either of you two do anything half as interesting?"
Alexander
For a moment, Alexander starts to think he’s done something wrong. Kalen’s peering at him and the soup, and it’s not clear why. But that moment passes, and the cup is taken. He nods at the thanks, and returns his attention to the conversation. Asks, “A thing?” when it’s not quite clear what, or who, he means.
He shuffles again, sitting almost cross-legged but hugging one bent leg with his chin propped on the knee. Listening. “It does sound a lot like Awakening. Did you... well, more awake afterwards? Like you did the first time?” Does that mean he’s going to have a rerun to look forward to at some point too? He winces for a moment, but the conversation has moved on again. That Grace slept ok last night? That does get a smile – she deserves a little peace.
“A mummy? Like, bandages and all? How on earth did you find her? Or... did you wake her up, or did that just happen?”
Anything as interesting? “Not quite as interesting, but a ghost saved me from... something? Some kind of weird taking-people-over-and-killing-them kinda thing.” He shrugs. “I don’t know much more than that, other than she said that she’s seen is happen three times now.”
Kalen Holliday
He smiles at Grace's comment that she slept well for the first time in ages. His fingers curl around the soup because warm. He has finally settled on a place to call home and it is unbearably cold for ridiculous portions of the year. Of course. Nothing is ever easy, is it?
"Only things you've told me never to elaborate about for you again," Kalen purrs at Gallowglass. He takes a sip of his soup and his eyes are still all amusement but his voice is mostly back to normal with just an undercurrent of that purr still threaded through it. Rich and golden and warm like sunlight streaming through breaks in clouds. "Although, perhaps to you. Grace made me the framework but I'm updating a map of Denver with events and places of interest from old maps and trying to get it set up so that we'll be able to actually link those things to relevant sections of books for explanation from the digital library. Want to help?"
Kalen laughs at Alexander's question. "So...I was having a horrible day and I may have been all over Gallowglass in this bar and Sera seems to think that we're-what?" He stares at Alexander like 'there is a taking-people-over-and-killing-them kinda thing and you didn't call me??!!??!!' Nevermind he can't actually do anything about that.....
Grace
Alexander has even more questions than Adam. It seems this is Grace's day to answer everything, but she's not tired of sharing. "Yeah, it did feel somewhat like the first time. There was this hum, this oscillating hum. I remember that from the first time, when I had that vision in the mountains? Said it was creation, destruction, and stasis in one breath."
Alex asks about the mummy next, and to this she laughs. "Oh, Alex, you know how it goes. You're just out somewhere minding your own business, and suddenly, boom! Mages everywhere! And somebody needs you. She wasn't like, wrapped up in mummy wrappings. She was naked. But she wasn't all rotten or anything. Just climbed up out of a sarcophagus like that."
Then, she sits up on her elbows, "Hey, did anyone at the police hear anything about like... a stolen mummy or anything? I think we covered our tracks fairly well, but you know. We didn't steal her, she just woke up and didn't want to be a display piece anymore."
Then, when Alex finishes, talking about his weird thing taking people over and killing them? Yeah, Grace does a double-take the same as Kalen. "What?"
Adam
A thing? And, I may have been all over -
The dark-haired young man looks bemused by this retelling. Bemused, surprised, restive; restless. Let's move on.
A wraith saved Alexander. Adam says, "Certainly still registers on the 'interesting o meter.' How did the wraith save you; rather, did you - 'something'?" He hmms, again: "Do you remember any details about the something?"
He isn't a spirit mage, Adam. But he knows an awful, awful lot about things that are going on in the spirit world. (Paranoia, paranoia...)
There are reasons for everything.
Absently, because Adam is well-able to follow-up on two threads of interest at once: "As for a missing mummy," bemused again, "I wager the museum would wish to keep things quiet if they knew their mummy was inauthentic. If she was. If it isn't an Ars Temporis paradox. If - hmm."
He leaves it there.
Alexander
He laughs a little as Kalen explains the ‘thing’. And looks from one man to the other. And shrugs. There have been stranger matches.
Grace asks about police attention. He thinks for a moment, but nothing really sounds familiar. “I can’t remember hearing anything about anything going missing from the museum, but I can see what I can find out if you like. Exhibits going missing should get a fair bit of attention.” Mummies don’t generally walk out under their own power, so people would be looking if they’d noticed her missing.
“I... left a note at the Chantry. “ He looks between Grace and Kalen. “It happened at the start of a night shift, and I got tired, and... didn’t think.” He shrugs again, looking sheepish. “There was a feeling of stuff rotting. I think I got a bit distracted trying to figure out where it was coming from. Then a window broke, a ghost was screaming at me to run, and some weird green guy started chasing us. Well, me, I think. She said something about the guy not being able to see her yet, so I guess he wasn’t quite dead.” He looks between all three of the other again as he finishes. “I went back again, the day after. Other than a boarded up window, there was no sign anything had happen. And that feeling of decay had gone too. Alyssa knows the ghost, though. Or knows someone who can get in touch with her, at least. Any of you guys know Connor?”
Kalen Holliday
"Hey. It's okay." He smiles a little. "No crazy green people got you and the ghost knows Alyssa so we can probably track it down. And yeah, he hasn't been around much though, I think he has like all the business things going on right now. But he might be around again at some point."
"You should probably talk to Alyssa though. I can tell you about spirits, but I can't interact with them."
Adam
"Knowledge is power," Adam says, deep in consideration-of-things mode, and then:
His phone buzzes. He slides it neatly out of his pocket because that particular buzz means someone in particular he cannot avoid, not even for interesting discussions of Awakened mayhem.
"I'm sorry, ah, thank you for the soup, Alexander. The stories, everybody else, but I need to take this. Ta. Oh, and of course, regarding the library Kalen, I've told you I'm at your service in spite of my reservations regarding - "
The phone buzzes again. Flash of irritation, and this time a wave which seems one-part waving off annoyance one-part just waving a fare-well, Adam bends his head and walks away. Throws the cup into a trashcan. Remembers the apple in his pocket and throw that away, too.
Alexander probably won't remember his face; will remember the basic jist of the conversation, considering the others, but not everything Adam said, not specifically. He's got the businesscard though: for whatever that's worth.
Exeunt, Gallowglass.
ooc: Sorry guys, I need to run super fast! Thanks for letting me into the scene though!
Grace
"Connor, yeah, he sells pot -- legally," Grace adds that last bit because, yeah, she's still a bit concerned, even though Alex knows Sera enough to tell she's rarely sober, and usually on something a bit more powerful than 'legal'.
"So he's really busy right about now I suspect. Why do you ask about him though?"
Adam wanders out, and Grace eyes the blanket beneath her, the spread. Oh, it's Sera's... huh. Will have to take it back to her so she doesn't lose a blanket and things. It's an idle though in between speaking of mummies and ghosts and hydras, all the rest of the paranormal backdrop to life.
"Reservations? What's his reservations?" she asks Kalen. Not to be mean to Adam, but hey -- maybe he has a point they hadn't considered yet.
Alexander
“I did think about calling for help at the time but... well, I ran away from it and I guess lost it, or left it behind. “ And he now wonders what happened to the green man. Had he been missed? “Yeah, Alyssa left me a voicemail about meeting up. We just haven’t quite gotten together yet.” Alexander had been hoping to bump into her again for a while. He has a fair bit he wants to ask about.
Adam heads away, fading from memory almost as fast as he fades from sight. The card is there in a pocket, though, and he may well be curious enough about how it ended up in his pocket to pay the shop a visit.
He looks at Grace for a moment or two before answering her, wondering if she’d ever get over her twitchiness about his career. Most people seem to ease up a little once they realise they’re not going to end up with a ticket from him for parking slightly too far from the kerb, or being a little too noisy at night. And given that he tends to treat speed limits more as guidelines – once out of residential areas anyway – getting lifts from people can turn into a rather slow affair. Yeah, most people. “Oh, Mellie – the ghost – seems to be a good friend of his. I don’t really know any more than that.”
Kalen Holliday
[Arete: Forces 2 because dammit cold soup is sad; D=4 (w/foucus)WP]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (2, 6) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Kalen Holliday
Kalen uncurls one hand from his soup to wave to Gallowglass as he heads off. "I'll call you then."
And then his eyes roll dramatically at the legally. And then he sighs, because Alexander needs to be on Ginger and Grace needs to stop being so skittish about him. Look, here he is, being totally fine and giving them food.
Right. Food. Kalen sips at the soup, realizes it's cold, and blows on it and murmurs something. It's not something in a language Alexander has heard before, but Grace has probably heard Enochian at least once by now. He takes another sip of soup and this time seems much more pleased.
"Connor is friends with pretty much everyone he has ever seen," Kalen says with a smile.
Grace
Kalen -- the man of words. He speaks a language she doesn't understand, couldn't grok if her life depended on it. But it works for him, and Works for him. He described it to her once as a kind of synaesthetic sensation. He feels those words in more than just sight and sound.
And, it does sound pretty. Even if she does squint at his eye-rolls, like 'whatever, dude.'
Grace doesn't worry about fucking parking tickets. She worries about Alex finding out about her many felonies. When the rapists get less time in jail than the hacker who exposed the rapists... Well. It's easy to see what side of things the Law favors. It ain't her.
That talk is going to be a tense one.
"You should totally get with Alyssa. She's really great at all that spirity stuff," Grace says, trying to hide her sudden awkwardness about Alex's occupation. "And Kalen, stop showing off," she says, with a wicked grin.
"Oh, who am I kidding."
Alexander
It’s certainly not in a language familiar to Alexander, but he listens anyway. Tries to make out the words. “What was that you said?” he asks, after steam starts to rise from Kalen’s cup again. Magic words? He’ll be waving a wand around next.
It may well be a tense talk, but not one that’s going to happen just yet. Alexander figures that Grace just needs more time to relax fully around him. Or maybe she never will. Kalen’s mentioned before certain... technical illegalities that can come up now and again, especially around Awakened life. Especially when you go hunting the things that go bump in the night. But is it murder when there’s no human left in there to kill? There can be haziness between the letter and the spirit of the law, but he does believe – or at least wants to believe – in justice. Although quite what that is, sometimes, is hard to define.
So he leaves the subject changed, and just laughs when Grace gives up trying to stop Kalen from showing off.
Kalen Holliday
"Just...showing off," he says to Alexander. "Pay it no mind. I may teach you one day, but it is traditionally not a shared thing outside of the Order." Well, there's something he never really told Grace.
"I should get back to work though. Let me know where you saw that guy later, and the ghost. I'll update the map with that too." He rises, and from off the ground and cold-stiffened with one hand occupied by holding soup that is not easy. He doesn't bother to try to make it look easy. He could. He could bend gravity to his Will the way he just did heat. But somethings are important and some things are just inconvenient.
"I'll see you both soon enough, I'm sure. Be well."
Grace
Well, that gets a look, a little twitch of a smile. Kalen, you little rulebreaker you.
Of course, if he had met her with a 'no, Kit, that's not something you can learn outside of the Order' she probably wouldn't have taken it too well. Information wants to be free. Especially information that helps the cause, that brings good.
"Bye, I'll see you back at the office," Grace says. "Will likely be sleeping there, too." Because, you know, Kalen always needs to know where she lays her head.
"I should probably get going too," she says to Alex and starts packing up Sera's things. Sera just off and left without her blanket, and yeah... That's quite a Sera thing to do. But whatever. It'll float in Grace's car for a while, find its way back to Sera again. All will be well. All just.
There is a thing that Alex and Grace might agree on. They are both rather obsessed with justice, when you think about it. It's just that Grace doesn't trust the law to bring it. Mostly because it doesn't, in her opinion.
"Hey, Alex? Kalen told me you were there that night. I'm sorry you had to see that. Wasn't me at my best."
She gives him a smile anyway, as if to say 'But I'm really okay', and starts lugging the picnic blanket and things back to her car.
Alexander
Alexander doesn’t have any intention of getting Kalen into trouble, so that what he was saying wasn’t usually shared? Not such a big deal. He may get told about it at some point, but – other than a little curiosity about what the language was – he’s not overly concerned about the lack of sharing. Alexander says his goodbye to the man as he wanders away. He will given Kalen a call – or bump into him – later and give him the location he asked for.
And then Grace is starting to make a move too. Alexander helps her fold, roll or otherwise pack up the blanket and anything else that Sera had wandered off and abandoned in her search for a fix. His flask and the leftover cups get shoved back into the rucksack, and the bag slung over his shoulders. She mentions the night in the library, and he turns from what he’s doing to look at her. “I’m just glad you’re ok now. I wanted to do more to help you, but...” Again, the sentence dies. Alexander doesn’t really know how much she knows about what went on outside, or how well she gets on with Pan. He’s still puzzled about Kalen’s behaviour, too. But all he does is shrugs. “I guess Patience did a pretty good job.” He’ll help Grace carry stuff to her car, share the load a little.
After a positively frigid weekend, Monday afternoon is gray enough and cold enough that Washington Park is - if not supernaturally deserted - certain rather empty compared to the flood of people one might find jogging its trails on a more temperate spring day.
When Sera decides that she wants a picnic, though, nothing will keep her from it. Not weather, not wind, not cold.
On the rather green lawn overlooking the lake, with a sweeping view of the columned boat house reflected in the glassine waters of the little lake, Sera has spread a white blanket, which is weighted down with an ashtray and a guitar case. She's drowsing, or appears to be drowsing, wrapped up in another blanket (this one fuzzy and perhaps woolen, some sort of red and green tartan plaid wrapped around her body as she rests on her stomach, knees bent, both booted feet in the air. Dan she sent for hot chocolate because it's fucking cold out here and her teeth are chattering and he suggested oh hey, go inside, warm up, and Sera was all: fuck that, I wanna have a picnic.
So, picnic.
It is entirely possible that Alexander and/or Grace and/or others received texts from Sera inviting them to a picnic. Or perhaps they just find her by coincidence. Sometimes that is how the world works.
Alexander
[Magedar, just kicks and entrances]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (6, 7, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )
Grace
Grace got a text, because that is how her world works. And perhaps Sera doesn't understand (or perhaps remember) why she got a text back reading:
YES I will be right there
Without punctuation and with a lot of haste.
Even if Sera did decide on a picnic in the cold, it doesn't matter. That's what coats are for. And other people's oddities rarely even scratch the surface of Grace's recognition. She's pretty certain, though, that Sera will be mostly unclothed anyway, because that's Sera.
So, the Virtual Adept strolls up, wearing jeans and a red suede coat against the cold that's cut in sharp angles. It was meant to go with a fox costume for Carnivale, and Grace keeps on wearing it because it's warm.
But, there's something different about her. Something new.
Maybe it's the way she cuts through the air, knife-like. Those angles of her coat reminiscent of a blade's edge -- a fine sort of sharpness.
Alexander
Cold it may be, but it can always get a little cooler – as those who pass Alexander walking along the paths around the park find for a moment. Alexander is reasonably comfortable. He’s dressed for the cool air in a thick grey hoodie with a couple of layers of long sleeved t-shirts underneath. Some dark green combats, a pair of walking boots, and a decent pair of fleecy gloves keeps the rest of him covered and decent.
The text was received, and replied to, which brings Alexander out today. But he was here a little early. Just... to try something out. To look around a little, in more than one way. He’s crouched by the lake, near to where they met a certain scarecrow not so long ago. He watches the water, looking at his reflection in it. Tries to remember how it felt that first time he pushed with his Will at the Chantry, trying to sneak a peek at probability before the coin landed. Tries to push in the same way, just peering through the ripples of this particular looking glass to See what’s there.
[Arete, peeking at Spirit: Diff 4, -1 for taking time]
Dice: 1 d10 TN3 (3) ( success x 1 )
Serafine
Perception + Awareness - Things Are Happening?
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )
Serafine
Prime 1: Watch the Weaving. -1 dif, focus.
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (3, 4, 6) ( success x 3 )
Serafine
Things Are Happening and the truth is even wrapped up like that, like a peculiar Scottish mummy sprawled on her belly on a white blanket in the chilly, damp grass, breath misting or is that smoke she exhales? one or the other, anyway. Sera is not napping. She is not asleep. She is sprawled yes one elbow braced on the blanket, chin and cheek cupped in the palm of her hand, head listing in a way that makes a golden tangle of her wind-whipped blond curls and she is watching: the lake and the man who crouches by the lake and watching him with a back of the throat consideration and she is alive to the world in ways the few people are alive to the world, everything scrawls itself beneath her skin before most stranges have begun to recognize the surface truths, and she can feel - yes - Grace and something New and wasn't it just last night that it was Grace and something Old and isn't there a strange and fascinating symmetry to that and oh shouldn't she tell Hawksley about the mummy, she should assuredly tell Hawksley about the mummy, and Sera thinks about texting him -
I have something to tell you about Egypt
- and she would likely misspell half the damn words but iPhone, it would auto correct, but her phone is so Very Far Away and it is cold out here where is Dan with her hot chocolate she is going to dose it with whiskey. It would be better with Bailey's but it's not like one carries around a flask full of Bailey's, does one?
Sera bites down sharply on her inner cheek, the pain is incisive, see. It is singular. It is a pierce and a twist and an opening, oh, the world changes, just a little bit.
"Look at that," Sera says quietly, to Grace as Grace strolls up. Her voice is goddamned lazy. "He's doing something. Magic, do you remember the first time you did it on purpose?"
Grace
[Magedar! Does she notice anything with all this magic flying about?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )
Grace
Grace isn't so perceptive today, is she? But still, it doesn't hurt that the both of them are weaving reality around them at the moment, and Sera -- oh Sera is strong and gut-wrenching, isn't she?
Grace looks where Sera is telling her to -- over to Alex, who is leaning over the water's edge, looking for something.
She nods, and there's this slight bittersweet smile on her face. "It was soon after I woke up. I was in my apartment, and Gadfly popped in for a visit. He'd been watching me, which, okay a little creepy. But he guided me through the program I was already writing. Something to watch the watcher."
"My first time? I flunked," she smiles for real that time. "Got hit with 'dox."
"Sera?" she asks, then pauses a bit, sets down her laptop bag and flumps down on the blanket. "Something's happened to me. I don't think it's bad. But I feel different."
Alexander
A few ice crystals form along the edge of the shore by Alexander and, for a few moments, the world changes. Alexander sees the lake shore in a whole new light; a little faint, a little cloudy, a little more monochrome. And promptly falls backwards onto his ass as it actually works! He looks around quickly, before the effect fades. Looking for... someone who isn’t there. Who hasn’t been for a few weeks. Maybe he wasn’t really expecting The Message to still be hanging around here when he has an identity and the freedom to do as he likes. But it was worth a try. Normality reasserts itself and the vision fades.
Grinning to himself, Alexander stands and brushes himself off. He’d felt the arrival of Sera a short while before, while he was watching the water, so knows where she’s sat. The familiar Shifting feeling had arrived too, but with something different about it. Something new. Still smiling, Alexander grabs the rucksack he’d left on the grass next to him and wanders over. The smile’s still there when he arrives and greets them. “Hey! I brought soup.” He shrugs the shoulder with the rucksack as he says it, then settles on the blanket too. He looks at Grace and cocks his head. “You’ve changed.”
Adam
[Pre-Entry Awareness Roll -2 Dice for Grace's Arcane.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Adam
[+2 for everybody else]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (1, 9) ( success x 1 )
Adam
[+ 2 re-rolled 10s since I hear there are Magical Effects wot are being Effected? Maybe?]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (4, 5) ( fail )
Serafine
"Mmm." Sera hums beneath her breath. It is a hum of awareness and a hum of consideration and a hum of something that is not amusement. Perhaps bemusement. Perhaps consideration. There is something rich and lazy in her voice and even though it is cold cold cold something about Sera feels remarkably warm, in just this precise moment. "I don't remember my first time."
And Sera offers no context for that; just the statement. Maybe it is merely that one forgets the smallest pieces as the world changes and magic becomes not - well, not ordinary, but a matter of course. Hey, I can fucking change the goddamned world.
Grace though, Grace; a slant-wise look at Grace as she floomps her laptop down on the blanket. Here is Sera in profile: an impressive nose, all aquiline, her eyes remarkable light, with a sort of clarity in the side view on rarely sees when looking at her face-on. Some kind of magic there, right?
God she's striking. Arresting. The bones of her face; the sharp and fine-pointed planes of it. The delicacy of her jaw, the curve of her ear. The odd vulnerability she bears in repose.
Sera is still considering Grace when Alexander comes up to them, and he has brought soup. Sera flashes the cop a quick grin, rolls over on the blanket to make room. "What'd you see out there? When you were looking?"
And, a flashing glance, this line drawn from Grace to Alexander and back again. "And Grace, she went seeking. Why don't you tell us what happened?"
Grace
[Pasted from above!] So, the Virtual Adept strolls up, wearing jeans and a red suede coat against the cold that's cut in sharp angles. It was meant to go with a fox costume for Carnivale, and Grace keeps on wearing it because it's warm.
But, there's something different about her. Something new.
Maybe it's the way she cuts through the air, knife-like. Those angles of her coat reminiscent of a blade's edge -- a fine sort of sharpness.
-------------
So: Keen as in sharp, as in finely-honed. Blade-like. Intense. Focused.
Grace
"Oh, I didn't go looking for anything," Grace says, completely missing the reference. She's never heard the term before. "What happened when?"
She looks up to Alex from her seat on the blanket. "Yeah, I know. You can feel that too?"
Then, it's over to Sera again, who has been the only other Mage she's known to do this: change how they are at a deep level. Enough that people can tell.
"It's like what happened to you, isn't it?"
Adam
Look. (No, don't look. There is nothing remarkable to look at.) Dominic Adam Julian Gallowglass bani Bonisagus known to most of the Awakened populace of Denver as Adam who owns or clerks at or manages Night Owl [An Arch Key] Books. Look. (No, don't bother. He is not remarkable.)
Here he is in a dark coat, not black but rather a slate gray, wool to drive the cold winter away, but it is spring now. The coat is long and unbuttoned and if he had a scarf it is, why, there it is, trailing out've his pockets, because it's cold but the cold doesn't have a snap and if he weren't so susceptible to colds since he treats his body less like a temple and more like an inconvenience or a disappointment (come on now, body, don't be tired now! Almost to the end of this chapter! Almost at the top of the hill!), well. This is the kind of sentence that busybody family members begin and never finish properly because what it amounts to is a harangue. Here is Adam Gallowglass in a dark gray coat and, if one has not yet become familiar with Adam Gallowglass, he is particularly unworthy of note. A Mystery. Other. Don't bother.
Nonentity, practically: young man with wild hair. He has an apple in hand and he is biting into it while turning the page of a book which yes he is in fact reading as he walks down the trail, comes to a fork in a path, finds himself near [the woods of Arkady are dead, over is their antique joy; but the antiquarian's joy is -] a lake and a confluence of other Awakened individuals, one of them very familiar, the other half-familiar, the third not-at-all-familiar. What an irrestistible lure to a mind like Adam's.
So he takes the fork in the path that'll take him this-a-way, folding his book up so his thumb is a marker. He bites into his apple, crunch. No gloves. He's as pale as a vampire and should get more sun. Too bad it's such a skinflint day, such a graying still longing for winter day. This-a-way means he wanders out between the trees; he doesn't approach from the lake.
The most important thing is of course:
"Hello, Sera, Grace."
Adam is not a creature of hesitation; he approaches, he engages, his smile faint, a quizzical stitch between his eyebrows.
Alexander
“Nothing, really. I was just..” Alexander looks down into the rucksack, breaking the eye contact with Sera for a minute. A little embarrassed, maybe. “It was silly. I was trying to see if The Message was around.” A thermos and some disposable cardboard cups emerge from the bag, and he looks back up. “It’s only store bought, but it should still be warm.” Nice, smooth change of subject there. Chicken, should anyone be interested.
He loses track of the conversation a little when they start talking about seeking and looking for things – even less idea of what a Seeking is than Grace does. There is some concern in his voice, though, when he asks, “Something’s happened? Was it anything to do with that night in the library?” It’s the first time Alexander has bumped into Grace since he stormed out of the Chantry. “Are you ok?”
Before there’s an answer, someone new arrives. Although it’s only the voice that grabs Alexander’s attention – the other man would have drifted past without notice if he hadn’t spoken. He looks down to open the flask, then starts a little as he notices Adam’s presence again. And waits to see how the others react before saying anything. Assuming he doesn't forget again.
Serafine
Oh, Alexander. He breaks eye contact and busies himself with soup-getting-out and soup-dispensing and Sera's now on her back and all rolled up still in her blanket (absurd! absurd) and she's like a turtle on her back her hair all a-tangle and the world is moving around her the way the world does move.
Oh! Here is Adam.
Sera tips her head back to espy him as he offers his hellos and it is strange to her the way he fades and then conjures himself up again but not so startling as it must be for Alexander, now, to forget and remember and remember and forget again.
So, Sera, create that she is turns her head in Alexander's direction and he can avoid her goddamned eyes all he wants with the busy-ness she'll just touch him, like a hand on his thigh. A certain slewing smile.
Maybe she's fucked up.
Probably she's fucked up.
"It's not silly. You need to see the world. Look for things. Take it apart and put it back together and feel the way it moves inside you, again and again and again, and if you're looking for something or someone or somewhy that has some fucking meaning to you, even better, but that's not any kind of shit to be embarassed about, you know? Rock on - "
She did say rock on without any goddamned embarassment.
"Seeking, Grace. You went seeking. Looking for another piece of the world; or a piece of your soul, or a new understanding of the world. Some epiphany, right? Something new that you can taste and feel. And Be and Know and all that shit.
"Yeah it's like what happened to me." Back to Alexander, then. "Nothing to do with what happened in the library, that night. Least I'm pretty sure it doesn't have anything to do with that."
Then back to Adam, smiling up at him, right? Practically angelic with that halo of golden hair.
"Hi."
Grace
"Hey Adam," she greets, though she didn't feel his knight-in-shining-ness approaching. It's Adam. She's cool with it.
Alex is the first to broach that subject, and as much as she appreciates the gesture, Grace has opted to try to forget that night ever happened. She only vaguely knows, second-hand that he was even there. Still, the comment has her first looking concerned right back, and then curious. "Maybe it did, though Sera. I mean..." she shrugs, "What happened in my seeking, it... very well could have something to do with that night."
"I slew a hydra," she says, and just lets it hang there. Says it like someone might say 'I mowed the lawn.'
Adam
He listens, intent and serious. Because direct as he is and unhesitating (unrelenting) as he is this doesn't mean he lacks social graces. The conversation swims around him: parts around him, stone-Adam, shadowless Magus. He listens, and he has opinions because he always has opinions. The quizzical stitch between his eyebrows smooths; those same eyebrows leap upward and the expression in his eyes stills, then shifts from one mood to the other. He regards Grace more fully now, but his attention is not complete.
"Why did you do that?" he asks Grace, of hydra-slaying. Then says to Sera, "Hi," because when a woman that beautiful says hi, if you're not distracted, you say hi back, and then he says to Alexander, "Who are you?"
He doesn't introduce himself, but Grace said hey Adam.
Adam who then says, "What happened in which library?"
Because of course that would interest him.
Kalen Holliday
[Nightmares]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Kalen Holliday
[Awareness???]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 4 )
Alexander
The gloves come off and a hand – a little cool, regardless of its time in the glove – is placed on Sera’s for a minute. “Thank you,” he says quietly. He still feels a little silly, a little sentimental. But he appreciates her words. The hands return to opening up the flask and pouring out soup, offering it to Sera. Because the third has slipped notice again.
There’s still concern in Alexander’s face – he likes Grace, and hearing what was going on in there? Well, he worried. “A hydra? That’s like a dragon? What happened?” He offers a cup to Grace.
Alexander is pouring soup for himself, and very nearly spills it when Adam speaks again. The man looks familiar, but... There is something odd going on here. He shuffles round a little to keep Adam in sight. The others don’t seem to be overly worried about the (re?)appearance of the man, so Alexander isn’t overly worried. Maybe a little puzzled. “Hi. Alexander.” He holds out the cup to Adam. “Nice to meet you.” There’s a slight narrowing of his eyes, as he tries to remember if he’s met Adam somewhere before.
Kalen Holliday
Kalen is not fond of the cold. But he is out in a golden wool coat and a ridiculously soft cream-colored cashmere scarf, and he is valiantly trying to ignore the last echoes of winter. He hasn't come for them, or for The Message (although, if pressed, he might admit he might have unconsciously chosen this place and cream and gold because of the Message). Recognizing such motivations is helpful, but that kind of self-reflection is not Kalen today.
Winter becomes colder on his tongue and he can feel the ground trembling beneath hooves. Feel the world shifting and falling through a thousand thousand possible worlds. If he could focus on them as they blurred past, he could draw them out one day, in the manner of star charts and the layered realms of the spiritual cosmologies that he has seen drawn in inks of precious metal and crushed gemstones. The grandest of them was inlaid around the circular gallery in marble. That one is shattered and buried now, but that one's legacy is Grace's office. For which he did not use sapphires or diamonds, but just paint. Grace probably wouldn't have wanted diamonds glittering on her walls in constellations, he would say. (But, let us be truthful, there are not diamonds glittering from those walls only because Kalen had no idea how to get them there.)
He cannot stop thinking of maps and of time and of all the ways in which fate twists in and around itself in Denver. There are are possibilities and warnings and wonder all vying for his attention. Those all lose out to the people he senses assembled, and he heads slowly in their direction.
Serafine
"I don't think it had so much to do with the Library, Grace, as with what you endured and how it has been haunting you. Somewhere that shadow of the divine or what the fuck ever inside you - " other people us Names and Terms and Words that mean things for things like Avatar. Sera tends to avoid them, for reasons that are not wholly clear, " - wanted you to confront that; to overcome it. To break free of the chains that experience has forged around your soul, see?
"I mean, that could be what your Avatar wanted. Or maybe it was all a fucking metaphor."
--
And Sera takes the soup and holds it in her hands and does that to keep them warm. The steam drifts and she's still on her back and looking up and then then she sits up, scoots her ass around because soup, shakes out her tangled hair as the cold wind skims the lake and whips across the park.
"Grace and I," Sera begins to explain to Alexander and by extension Adam, quietly and rather seriously for a Sera, with a sort of spare sense of strangeness about her because she does not speak Easily about such things and it is perhaps only the constant iteration of it from Grace that allows her to do so so easily. " - were infected by this sickness that some people created to try to target mages last fall. It made us very sick; and caused us to hallucinate gory waking dreams of our own deaths over and over again.
"Grace has had nightmares ever since, and," here Sera glances up at Adam. There is something circumspect, somehow, about that look. Something framingly delicate. Something attenuated. There are so many pieces of all of this that Sera keeps - in whole or in part - inside herself, stitched into her skin, and she can feel that needle now. Is away of its warp and weave. " - it was bad enough one night in the library that she started having waking dreams, hallucinations, that it was happening to her all over again.
"So. Have you been to sleep since your seeking, Grace?"
Grace
Adam is oblivious. Wasn't around for the Hydra incident. He wasn't witness to Grace screaming in agony. He's innocent, and even still... It's embarrassing. She lost it. And everybody in the Chantry must have heard exactly how.
"I..." she starts, but can't finish. How do you even begin?
"Uh... Well," she looks to Sera, because this is her story too in a way. And Sera says what she will say about it.
"They called it Hydra. Because you couldn't just destroy it, it would multiply if you tried to kill it -- like cutting off a hydra's head," she adds, so they understand why hydras had become this massive thing with her.
Then, Sera asks if she's been to sleep since. That brings an honest smile. "Yeah. I have."
She smells the sudden ozone, the smell of storm in the air, and turns to see Kalen, still smiling. "I think I killed it but good."
Adam
He accepts the cup of soup from Alexander, and his expression shifts again: all nuance, Adam, all subtleties. The shift is a courteous shift; an echo and -- not surprise. But recognition: "Alexander. Nice to meet you at last. So many things heard."
But the courteous shift is off-hand, and the bulk of Adam's attention shifts back to Grace who is now sharp as a knife (just what one wants shifting, huh? tremoring like a quake) and Serafíne.
To him, a Hydra is a mythological construct. A relic of bygone days; of glorious days, in a way. A Hydra is a metaphor, and a Hydra is a nightmare. A Hydra is an enemy, a Hydra is self-replicating. A Hydra is water, the North, is child-of-beauty, is a first-gate second-threshold sort-of creature.
Do him credit. He listens with an air of grave consideration; smells the soup, and if it doesn't appear to be some sort of italian wedding soup monstrousity sips on it.
"Hmm," he says when they are both done. "Compelling," he says, because isn't it? He follows Grace's eyes over to Kalen, offers the other Hermetic a nod if not a smile. He's thinking, and Adam thinking means serious things. "What shape did your seeking actually take? A video game that felt real? Did you start out asleep?"
"I'm curious." A smile. "Needn't indulge me."
Alexander
Alexander settles back onto the blanket to listen to Sera’s – and Grace’s – story. He can’t even begin to imagine how it must have felt, being affected by that illness. And he doesn’t even try to make empty platitudes to fill the gaps in the telling. He does look back to Grace, though, still concerned. Although it eases when Grace smiles, obviously much more relaxed than she was. He does feel a little more of a connection to Grace than he does to most of the others – maybe because she’s not so far ahead in her experience of Awakened life that it seems like he’ll never reach that stage himself. Maybe because it’s obvious that things are still freaking her out, rather than the others who just seem to take everything in their stride.
Regardless, Adam seems to have heard of him. “Good things, I hope.” He smiles, now that facing the man seems to have fixed him in memory for the moment. “I think your name has been mentioned, but there have been so many new ones... “ He shrugs as the sentence hangs, a little apologetic that he doesn’t have more to say. He turns to greet Kalen as he arrives, but otherwise settles back to listen to the conversation.
Kalen Holliday
"Mmmmmmm...." Kalen says, a bit absently. "My little dragon slayer." He missed too much of the conversation to quite pick it up cold, but he sounds amused and proud of Grace all the same. He doesn't need to know what she killed but good for that. Adam is thinking and Sera is...not exactly happy and Alexander...Alexander looks fine. That last bit provides him almost no real information.
His pale eyes sweep over them slowly. Curiously.
It's a second before the word Seeking and the new keen edge to Grace's Resonance register and he grins. "Ah. Congratulations, Kit." He settles carefully onto the ground to join them.
Serafine
Grace slept last night, and she beams and Sera favors her with another oddly spare half-smile. Inhales the scent of the soup and sips it, grateful more for the warmth than anything fortifying. Sera always seems to be on the verge of something, breaking apart or falling together or or or - anything but ordinary.
"Hey Kalen."
But here, look. Ordinary. She sips the soup wrapped up in a blanket and listens while Grace tells her story and somewhere on her person her phone vibrates so, Sera sets down the soup and does so carefully and and from somewhere deep in the wrappings of that blanket Sera digs out an iPhone and reads a text and then stands up and starts to unwind her blanket and beneath it she is wearing a tiny leather skirt and her Docs and black lace thigh-high tights and a small bandeau-style bustier, the cups of which are covered in tiny red satin roses, beneath a thin black hoodie, unzipped. Sera pulls the hood up because COLD but does not bother to zip the hoddie because SEXY and abandons the party with a small wave of her phone.
"Gotta meet my dealer. I'll be back in a bit. If Dan comes back with my fucking hot chocolate tell him to hang tight too. I need a ride over to the Church. Wanna see that mummy-lady again - "
Grace
Kalen knows what happened to her, of course he knows. And just congratulates her like that, like it's something he must have done before. But she's never done this before, has she? It's all new.
"'Kay, Sera. Say hi for me," she says, waves the departing Cultist goodbye.
And then, it's back to the others, because Adam asked a bunch of questions, and it's not even within her to withhold.
"It did kind of start out like a game. I got some random popup on my computer, and I thought it was my stalker, you know? But I guess it really wasn't.
"Wanted to play the games from Wargames, you know? Chess, checkers, Theaterwide Biotoxic and Chemical Warfare. I chose Wheel of Fortune, and then refused to play, because... hah. The winning move is not to," she says.
"Oh yeah, and it was like a vision. I wasn't sitting in front of my computer anymore, I was in a TV studio. And you were there," she says to Kalen. "And... another guy. We were contestants. I look down at the wheel, and it's all covered in the outlines of countries. Pat Sajak says 'Aww, looks like you were playing Global Thermonuclear War after all'.
"But then, I tried to get out of the studio, and... I ended up in this red hallway wearing platemail and with a sword and shield, and facing down a hydra," she says. "Because, yeah, that makes a whole lot of sense. It was like a dream, very much so."
Adam
Alexander lets the sentence hang; Adam does, too, and in spite of the Gallow in his last name does not twist it into a noose or make Alexander into the Hanged Man. Symbols, metaphors; aren't they everywhere? The echo that was accompanied by recognition becomes an echo of something indeed else; agreement, perhaps. Oh. No; a thought. He reaches into his coat, then into his back pocket which is where his thin leatherfold wallet is usually kept. Finds a businesscard and hands it to Alexander. "Come by sometime," he says.
The name Kit means of course that he gives Kalen a look of attention that dissolves once he realizes Kalen doesn't mean him; irritated pang, and a faint frown when Sera says she's gotta meet her dealer, or maybe, maybe, Dan or the Church or mummy-lady or who knows. Dispell it, Adam. Do not be grumpy.
The grumpiness does disappear completely because he's that interested in what a Technomage-Virtual Adept woman like Grace's Seeking would consist of. Do you see it? The shadow of fascination, a certain intentness?
"What happened after you faced down the Hydra? Did you get a sense of your Avatar throughout?"
A beat. "Do you feel glad?"
Alexander
Alexander shakes his head a little, a faint smile as he wonders how Sera manages to avoid freezing to death. He doesn’t really remember any encounter when her clothing could be described as anything other than, maybe, ‘sparing’. He waves to her as she leaves. The comment about the dealer? His eyes roll, but there’s not much more reaction that that. He knows she uses all kinds of drugs and must have some way of getting hold of them. But, at least here and now, he’s not overly stressed about it. He’s certainly not making notes. As long as it stays relatively discreet... He looks at the others when Sera leaves, asks “Mummy lady?”
Alexander accepts the business card, with thanks. He reads it before tucking it away in one of the pockets in his trousers. A book shop wouldn’t be his first choice for places to go, but he may well take a look at this one. Although more for the owner than the contents. The last of the soup is drained from the flask and offered to Kalen, if he wants it. Otherwise he keeps on listening to the conversation of those more experienced.
Kalen Holliday
Kalen blinks when Alexander offers him food. You might think for someone whose idea of a good time seems to be shoving food at other people it would be something that wouldn't surprise him. But after a few seconds of giving Alexander and the offered an odd look, He smiles and takes it. "Thank you,"
"And I have no idea about the mummy lady."
He leaves Grace to answer the host of Gallowglass' questions. You can't reallt dissuade Galowglass from questions. But he does give Gallowglass a smile. See, I haven't forgotten you. I'm just letting you interrogate.
Gallowglass.
"Dammit. I really need to tell her we're not a thing," he mutters, half under his breath.
Grace
More questions from Adam, and Grace gives Kalen a twist of a grin, saying something unspoken about Other-Kit's humorous interrogation tactics. A barrage of questions.
"It taunted me a whole lot, and I screamed at it and started slicing it. Got it in the heart, not the heads, you see? Then it... kinda..." she looks up at the trees, remembering. "Drenched me in blood, and... I woke up. For a moment there, I could swear it was getting a huge kick out of it, though. Like, every so often, it would break character and just grin for real instead of being all creepy-fucker.
"I think... I think the only reason why it was taking the 'evil' forms was so that I could have occasion to tell them to fuck off, if you know what I mean? It felt like Awakening, almost. Like I was touching that again..." her voice trails off, honestly a bit awed. As odd as the encounter was, as dream-like, the way it felt. So real. So immediate. Like touching the face of the universe.
"And yeah, I do feel glad," she says, lays down on the blanket, stares at the clouds. "I slept well," she says, and her eyes slide to Kalen. "Slept well for the first time in forever."
"Oh, yeah, and a few hours beforehand, Sera and Pan and Riley and I rescued a mummy from DMNS. She was walking around and all, but it turns out she was only from the 50's, not the BC's. Guess she went to sleep?" Grace shrugs.
"Anyway, she's at Pan's church."
Adam
Kalen's smile, Grace's grin-twist; they don't bother him. Not relentless, unshadowed Adam; never. His eyebrows leap up at Kalen's muttered aside. Head cocks, just so, the ghost of or suggestion of a smirk.
But like Alexander, Adam is ready for story time. He hmms aloud when she mentions that it would just stop and grin, for real. Adam: He's trying to place her Avatar, trying to figure out what its Essence must be based on what he knows of Grace, what he hears now. He's always trying to figure things out, Gallowglass. The awe makes him smile faintly, and look, he is out of soup. Glances around in that way people glance around when they realize they're holding trash, then just keeps ahold of it.
Mummy lady. An actual mummy?
"Sounds like an eventful week. What's your next project going to be?"
Slight chin-lift for both Alexander and Kalen. "Did either of you two do anything half as interesting?"
Alexander
For a moment, Alexander starts to think he’s done something wrong. Kalen’s peering at him and the soup, and it’s not clear why. But that moment passes, and the cup is taken. He nods at the thanks, and returns his attention to the conversation. Asks, “A thing?” when it’s not quite clear what, or who, he means.
He shuffles again, sitting almost cross-legged but hugging one bent leg with his chin propped on the knee. Listening. “It does sound a lot like Awakening. Did you... well, more awake afterwards? Like you did the first time?” Does that mean he’s going to have a rerun to look forward to at some point too? He winces for a moment, but the conversation has moved on again. That Grace slept ok last night? That does get a smile – she deserves a little peace.
“A mummy? Like, bandages and all? How on earth did you find her? Or... did you wake her up, or did that just happen?”
Anything as interesting? “Not quite as interesting, but a ghost saved me from... something? Some kind of weird taking-people-over-and-killing-them kinda thing.” He shrugs. “I don’t know much more than that, other than she said that she’s seen is happen three times now.”
Kalen Holliday
He smiles at Grace's comment that she slept well for the first time in ages. His fingers curl around the soup because warm. He has finally settled on a place to call home and it is unbearably cold for ridiculous portions of the year. Of course. Nothing is ever easy, is it?
"Only things you've told me never to elaborate about for you again," Kalen purrs at Gallowglass. He takes a sip of his soup and his eyes are still all amusement but his voice is mostly back to normal with just an undercurrent of that purr still threaded through it. Rich and golden and warm like sunlight streaming through breaks in clouds. "Although, perhaps to you. Grace made me the framework but I'm updating a map of Denver with events and places of interest from old maps and trying to get it set up so that we'll be able to actually link those things to relevant sections of books for explanation from the digital library. Want to help?"
Kalen laughs at Alexander's question. "So...I was having a horrible day and I may have been all over Gallowglass in this bar and Sera seems to think that we're-what?" He stares at Alexander like 'there is a taking-people-over-and-killing-them kinda thing and you didn't call me??!!??!!' Nevermind he can't actually do anything about that.....
Grace
Alexander has even more questions than Adam. It seems this is Grace's day to answer everything, but she's not tired of sharing. "Yeah, it did feel somewhat like the first time. There was this hum, this oscillating hum. I remember that from the first time, when I had that vision in the mountains? Said it was creation, destruction, and stasis in one breath."
Alex asks about the mummy next, and to this she laughs. "Oh, Alex, you know how it goes. You're just out somewhere minding your own business, and suddenly, boom! Mages everywhere! And somebody needs you. She wasn't like, wrapped up in mummy wrappings. She was naked. But she wasn't all rotten or anything. Just climbed up out of a sarcophagus like that."
Then, she sits up on her elbows, "Hey, did anyone at the police hear anything about like... a stolen mummy or anything? I think we covered our tracks fairly well, but you know. We didn't steal her, she just woke up and didn't want to be a display piece anymore."
Then, when Alex finishes, talking about his weird thing taking people over and killing them? Yeah, Grace does a double-take the same as Kalen. "What?"
Adam
A thing? And, I may have been all over -
The dark-haired young man looks bemused by this retelling. Bemused, surprised, restive; restless. Let's move on.
A wraith saved Alexander. Adam says, "Certainly still registers on the 'interesting o meter.' How did the wraith save you; rather, did you - 'something'?" He hmms, again: "Do you remember any details about the something?"
He isn't a spirit mage, Adam. But he knows an awful, awful lot about things that are going on in the spirit world. (Paranoia, paranoia...)
There are reasons for everything.
Absently, because Adam is well-able to follow-up on two threads of interest at once: "As for a missing mummy," bemused again, "I wager the museum would wish to keep things quiet if they knew their mummy was inauthentic. If she was. If it isn't an Ars Temporis paradox. If - hmm."
He leaves it there.
Alexander
He laughs a little as Kalen explains the ‘thing’. And looks from one man to the other. And shrugs. There have been stranger matches.
Grace asks about police attention. He thinks for a moment, but nothing really sounds familiar. “I can’t remember hearing anything about anything going missing from the museum, but I can see what I can find out if you like. Exhibits going missing should get a fair bit of attention.” Mummies don’t generally walk out under their own power, so people would be looking if they’d noticed her missing.
“I... left a note at the Chantry. “ He looks between Grace and Kalen. “It happened at the start of a night shift, and I got tired, and... didn’t think.” He shrugs again, looking sheepish. “There was a feeling of stuff rotting. I think I got a bit distracted trying to figure out where it was coming from. Then a window broke, a ghost was screaming at me to run, and some weird green guy started chasing us. Well, me, I think. She said something about the guy not being able to see her yet, so I guess he wasn’t quite dead.” He looks between all three of the other again as he finishes. “I went back again, the day after. Other than a boarded up window, there was no sign anything had happen. And that feeling of decay had gone too. Alyssa knows the ghost, though. Or knows someone who can get in touch with her, at least. Any of you guys know Connor?”
Kalen Holliday
"Hey. It's okay." He smiles a little. "No crazy green people got you and the ghost knows Alyssa so we can probably track it down. And yeah, he hasn't been around much though, I think he has like all the business things going on right now. But he might be around again at some point."
"You should probably talk to Alyssa though. I can tell you about spirits, but I can't interact with them."
Adam
"Knowledge is power," Adam says, deep in consideration-of-things mode, and then:
His phone buzzes. He slides it neatly out of his pocket because that particular buzz means someone in particular he cannot avoid, not even for interesting discussions of Awakened mayhem.
"I'm sorry, ah, thank you for the soup, Alexander. The stories, everybody else, but I need to take this. Ta. Oh, and of course, regarding the library Kalen, I've told you I'm at your service in spite of my reservations regarding - "
The phone buzzes again. Flash of irritation, and this time a wave which seems one-part waving off annoyance one-part just waving a fare-well, Adam bends his head and walks away. Throws the cup into a trashcan. Remembers the apple in his pocket and throw that away, too.
Alexander probably won't remember his face; will remember the basic jist of the conversation, considering the others, but not everything Adam said, not specifically. He's got the businesscard though: for whatever that's worth.
Exeunt, Gallowglass.
ooc: Sorry guys, I need to run super fast! Thanks for letting me into the scene though!
Grace
"Connor, yeah, he sells pot -- legally," Grace adds that last bit because, yeah, she's still a bit concerned, even though Alex knows Sera enough to tell she's rarely sober, and usually on something a bit more powerful than 'legal'.
"So he's really busy right about now I suspect. Why do you ask about him though?"
Adam wanders out, and Grace eyes the blanket beneath her, the spread. Oh, it's Sera's... huh. Will have to take it back to her so she doesn't lose a blanket and things. It's an idle though in between speaking of mummies and ghosts and hydras, all the rest of the paranormal backdrop to life.
"Reservations? What's his reservations?" she asks Kalen. Not to be mean to Adam, but hey -- maybe he has a point they hadn't considered yet.
Alexander
“I did think about calling for help at the time but... well, I ran away from it and I guess lost it, or left it behind. “ And he now wonders what happened to the green man. Had he been missed? “Yeah, Alyssa left me a voicemail about meeting up. We just haven’t quite gotten together yet.” Alexander had been hoping to bump into her again for a while. He has a fair bit he wants to ask about.
Adam heads away, fading from memory almost as fast as he fades from sight. The card is there in a pocket, though, and he may well be curious enough about how it ended up in his pocket to pay the shop a visit.
He looks at Grace for a moment or two before answering her, wondering if she’d ever get over her twitchiness about his career. Most people seem to ease up a little once they realise they’re not going to end up with a ticket from him for parking slightly too far from the kerb, or being a little too noisy at night. And given that he tends to treat speed limits more as guidelines – once out of residential areas anyway – getting lifts from people can turn into a rather slow affair. Yeah, most people. “Oh, Mellie – the ghost – seems to be a good friend of his. I don’t really know any more than that.”
Kalen Holliday
[Arete: Forces 2 because dammit cold soup is sad; D=4 (w/foucus)WP]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (2, 6) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Kalen Holliday
Kalen uncurls one hand from his soup to wave to Gallowglass as he heads off. "I'll call you then."
And then his eyes roll dramatically at the legally. And then he sighs, because Alexander needs to be on Ginger and Grace needs to stop being so skittish about him. Look, here he is, being totally fine and giving them food.
Right. Food. Kalen sips at the soup, realizes it's cold, and blows on it and murmurs something. It's not something in a language Alexander has heard before, but Grace has probably heard Enochian at least once by now. He takes another sip of soup and this time seems much more pleased.
"Connor is friends with pretty much everyone he has ever seen," Kalen says with a smile.
Grace
Kalen -- the man of words. He speaks a language she doesn't understand, couldn't grok if her life depended on it. But it works for him, and Works for him. He described it to her once as a kind of synaesthetic sensation. He feels those words in more than just sight and sound.
And, it does sound pretty. Even if she does squint at his eye-rolls, like 'whatever, dude.'
Grace doesn't worry about fucking parking tickets. She worries about Alex finding out about her many felonies. When the rapists get less time in jail than the hacker who exposed the rapists... Well. It's easy to see what side of things the Law favors. It ain't her.
That talk is going to be a tense one.
"You should totally get with Alyssa. She's really great at all that spirity stuff," Grace says, trying to hide her sudden awkwardness about Alex's occupation. "And Kalen, stop showing off," she says, with a wicked grin.
"Oh, who am I kidding."
Alexander
It’s certainly not in a language familiar to Alexander, but he listens anyway. Tries to make out the words. “What was that you said?” he asks, after steam starts to rise from Kalen’s cup again. Magic words? He’ll be waving a wand around next.
It may well be a tense talk, but not one that’s going to happen just yet. Alexander figures that Grace just needs more time to relax fully around him. Or maybe she never will. Kalen’s mentioned before certain... technical illegalities that can come up now and again, especially around Awakened life. Especially when you go hunting the things that go bump in the night. But is it murder when there’s no human left in there to kill? There can be haziness between the letter and the spirit of the law, but he does believe – or at least wants to believe – in justice. Although quite what that is, sometimes, is hard to define.
So he leaves the subject changed, and just laughs when Grace gives up trying to stop Kalen from showing off.
Kalen Holliday
"Just...showing off," he says to Alexander. "Pay it no mind. I may teach you one day, but it is traditionally not a shared thing outside of the Order." Well, there's something he never really told Grace.
"I should get back to work though. Let me know where you saw that guy later, and the ghost. I'll update the map with that too." He rises, and from off the ground and cold-stiffened with one hand occupied by holding soup that is not easy. He doesn't bother to try to make it look easy. He could. He could bend gravity to his Will the way he just did heat. But somethings are important and some things are just inconvenient.
"I'll see you both soon enough, I'm sure. Be well."
Grace
Well, that gets a look, a little twitch of a smile. Kalen, you little rulebreaker you.
Of course, if he had met her with a 'no, Kit, that's not something you can learn outside of the Order' she probably wouldn't have taken it too well. Information wants to be free. Especially information that helps the cause, that brings good.
"Bye, I'll see you back at the office," Grace says. "Will likely be sleeping there, too." Because, you know, Kalen always needs to know where she lays her head.
"I should probably get going too," she says to Alex and starts packing up Sera's things. Sera just off and left without her blanket, and yeah... That's quite a Sera thing to do. But whatever. It'll float in Grace's car for a while, find its way back to Sera again. All will be well. All just.
There is a thing that Alex and Grace might agree on. They are both rather obsessed with justice, when you think about it. It's just that Grace doesn't trust the law to bring it. Mostly because it doesn't, in her opinion.
"Hey, Alex? Kalen told me you were there that night. I'm sorry you had to see that. Wasn't me at my best."
She gives him a smile anyway, as if to say 'But I'm really okay', and starts lugging the picnic blanket and things back to her car.
Alexander
Alexander doesn’t have any intention of getting Kalen into trouble, so that what he was saying wasn’t usually shared? Not such a big deal. He may get told about it at some point, but – other than a little curiosity about what the language was – he’s not overly concerned about the lack of sharing. Alexander says his goodbye to the man as he wanders away. He will given Kalen a call – or bump into him – later and give him the location he asked for.
And then Grace is starting to make a move too. Alexander helps her fold, roll or otherwise pack up the blanket and anything else that Sera had wandered off and abandoned in her search for a fix. His flask and the leftover cups get shoved back into the rucksack, and the bag slung over his shoulders. She mentions the night in the library, and he turns from what he’s doing to look at her. “I’m just glad you’re ok now. I wanted to do more to help you, but...” Again, the sentence dies. Alexander doesn’t really know how much she knows about what went on outside, or how well she gets on with Pan. He’s still puzzled about Kalen’s behaviour, too. But all he does is shrugs. “I guess Patience did a pretty good job.” He’ll help Grace carry stuff to her car, share the load a little.
Monday, March 31, 2014
Karaoke???
Serafine
Bet you didn't know that Denver has more live music venues than fucking LA. Well, so it does, and on a certain Thursday night in late March - spring spring spring, how can you feel anything right now except spring - a four-piece band without a goddamned name is playing a pop-up show at Whiskey River, which does not actually feature whiskey any more than any ordinary hipster-oriented bar might, and does not contain a river.
It does have a bar and a bit of an outdoor spill-over patio area where smokers and Smokers can retreat mid-show to indulge in their chosen vice and a lanky sort of architecture and a close, warm feel. And it is more or less constructed in the space left behind by an old movie theater turned porn theater in the 1970s turned strip club in the early 90s, turned legit dive bar circa 1999, turned "We have 23 microbrews on tap" style dive circa 2005.
The bar is cramped, yeah, but there's a marquee out front all lighted up in neon and the stage is pretty goddamned awesome, a good 2.5 or even three feet off the ground, higher than it is in most of the tertiary sort of places unknowns get to play. Sera sent out a mass text - of course she did, of course she would - without much warning, spur of the moment, as these things always seem to be with her. And here she is, and here they are, and the bar is maybe three-quarters full - it's Thursday right? not the weekend, but far enough along that some of us want to start our weekend, and the stage is bathed in the sort of sweeping lights that make you look like a goddamned rock star even if you don't already look like a goddamned rock star and Sera,
well, she looks like a goddamned rock star. Feels like one too. Three other people on stage and some of them are good and some of them are really fucking great but when she's up there, how can you take your eyes off her?
Gallowglass
[Awaare?]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Kalen Holliday
[Nightmares]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 1, 2, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Gallowglass
Mr. Gallowglass is not very good at being social. That is a lie: of course it is. Gallowglass can be social. There are indeed cities and chantries where Gallowglass is thought to be quiet and a good listener (trust in me [confidant]), if, of course, arrogant - unrelentingly. But everybody knows his Tradition so they forgive him that (or they don't forgive him that - he doesn't know and he doesn't care because he is arrogant and this is a cycle). He is good at knowing people and intuiting what they feel or think or want to do. He often understands them even if he doesn't like them or is the sort of bookish sleep-deprived young man with vampire-pale skin and shadow-haunted eyes, a gawk with a too-long neck, thin shoulders, a hunch, then that thatch of uncombed Sandman-wild dark hair, you know, which could be in style but probably isn't. He's just got stubble tonight like maybe he shaved the other day and the beard is taking a day to get back to its former brisk villainous glory. Scruff. That's what he is and what he's got: scruff, scruffyness, dishevelledment. Fortunately people at bars do not care. Fortunately also Gallowglass does not care.
Most people don't really keep him in their minds when they look at him. Most people don't look at him all that much. Going to a bar to pick up a date: Probably not Adam's scene. Probably not something he's even good at.
He doesn't look awkward, just: okay. He is here. He is here with Kalen Holliday, for whom he opens the door like the nice guy he isn't, asking what he hadn't asked on the drive over (the chilling, perilous, holy fucking shit Adam do not kill us drive over: guess who has road rage? Guess who has bad road rage when it comes to parking downtown? Somebody's car came this close to being keyed), "Have you heard Serafíne's band before?"
Where is what's-her-name?
There is Serafíne. He could've just looked at the stage, probably: could've just had his gaze drawn there naturally, but even before he opened the bar's door, he was feeling that gut-instinct place-between be enrapt be enthralled lick that is associated with the Ecstatic.
Kalen Holliday
[How distracted are you by Resonance tonight, Kalen?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 6, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
Kalen Holliday
He's breathing in Serafine's Resonance before they're inside. Before there is that wash of music when the door opens and the sound feels like something he could fall into and float in. Heavy and rich and washed in something that begs yo to keep falling closer, deeper. There the soft fluting sounds. Here the rhythmic base of the sound like the spine of it, anchoring it and holding it and-
And Kit has the door open and is probably already impatient and how long was he there? A few heartbeats? Eternity? There are mathmatical reasons to accept that some infinities are larger than others and each of these people he's passing carry their own and each place they intersect the others near them have...and...and...and....
Serafine. Whose presence is spilling off of her and over everything. A whole bar full of possibility and all of it enthralled together in one shimmering moment with her. It is a kind of communion, even if they don't understand it. A blessing.
He can taste tequila, and it is memory from things that have happened and will happen and he doesn't even try to untangle any of those moments. That is for some other time. Instead he orders two shots of ridiculously expensive tequila and slides one of them toward Adam.
Gallowglass
[I sip this right? We're gonna stamina tequila. I don't even know the drinking rules but it's gonna happen.]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (8, 10) ( success x 2 )
Gallowglass
[Adam: o/]
Serafine
(Performancing? + charisma)
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 4, 5, 9, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Serafine
also how good is Dan?
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (4, 5, 6, 6, 8, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 7 ) Re-rolls: 1
Serafine
(Okay: Dan gives a masterclass in guitar. Sera may be too wasted to keep up.)
Serafine
The show unwinds. Did you know that Sera plays the guitar? Sera plays the guitar, she plays the guitar sometimes, and sometimes the guitar is slung over her back, the strap bisecting her breasts, the fretboard tangled in the sweatdamp mass of her hair. A bottle of something either in hand or maybe, sometimes, when she bothers to play, when she deigns to play, when she remembers that there's a fucking guitar on her back, against her spine, on the floor beside the mikestand.
But only for a minute or three or seven or who even remembers to count them when she's in the middle of the stage, right? Urging and breathless and sweaty and urgent. They mix covers and originals and sometimes its hard to tell the difference because the covers are obscure and the originals you might've actually heard someone else play once, somewhere, even if when she does them it feels like no one else ever really could. They segue from the Beatles to the Breeders and back again, play Springsteen (I'm on Fire) and Johnny Cash and the Raincoats and Cool as Kim Deal and PJ Harvey and if you're a critic, if you can shake off the tangled impression of her presence, the lick of her resonance, the spectacle of her digressions and recursions, all of it, somewhere beneath it all is the persistent sense that Jesus Christ these guys are awesome. Because Jesus Christ that guy is.
And Sera's wearing a short pink dress and her usual fishnets and half-way through decides she's so goddamned sweaty that she stops singing mid-song and just... you know. Starts to strip off her dress. Sera manages it just half-way and just sort of hums her way through the rest of the Violent Femmes song they're doing. Which is fine: the crowd hums and sings too. That's what Violent Femmes songs are meant to do.
Near the end everything quiets down and girl (pale skinned, dark-haired, all rockabilly) on bass steps back, stops playing, and it's just the guitar and the feedback loop, the shoegazy noise that Dan creates, crouching down and fiddling with his Macbook before he straightens and they launch into a mesmerizing, breathless cover of the Jesus and Mary Chain's psychocandy.
The drone at the end goes on and on and on.
Kalen and Kit can drink and drink and drink. Oh drink Kit, drink.
By the time the set's over, she'll have sensed them both, surely. And while the rest of the band start cleaning up their kit, well. Sera's excused from all that work. So, she jumps down from the stage and starts pushing her way through the crowd. Beeline. Guess where the fuck she's headed.
Gallowglass
Look at Kalen. All dreamy, all willing to be enthralled. Gallowglass is not very demonstrative, but the corners of his mouth tense with the possibility of a smile. He scratches the underside of his chin, does not quite eddy in Kit's dreamy wake even though he is not the kind of young man who often goes to bars. He heads straight for the bar, and perhaps he gets there before Kalen or perhaps not. Do you know how hard it is for Adam to get a bartender's attention? Not that hard: he could just drop the cowel, drop the Mystery, and even Mysterious somebody'll notice him and just forget. He could take somebody's drink and they'd be annoyed and angry but if their attention was distracted for a minunte --
But Adam wouldn't take somebody else's drink unless he was going to poison it. He is not a poisoner. So he's happy enough for Kalen to order whatever the fuck he orders. Tequila? Adam would not know expensive tequila from cheap tequila (or thinks he would not [delicate WASP stomach]). He doesn't down it right away.
Because he's listening to the band. Adam claps and 'woos' after Johnny fucking Cash, but looks sober his eyes hooded during any Beatles songs, seems content during PJ Harvey covers, and it's when Dan's guitar work is particularly amazing, amazing enough that Adam is watching the consor's fingers, attentive, sharp, that he throws back the shot, nudges Kalen, a gleam that touches on mischief in his eyes but might be poised toward conspiracy instead, "Cheers, Kal," and
and
and
holy shit. He's totally fine. The burn is good; his head does not swim; his eyes barely water at all, so he grins - pleased. Pleased enough that he's not even paying attention when the band starts packing up and Serafine beelines in their direction because he is ordering another two shots of the same thank you very much one for him and one for his buddy. Yes.
Kalen Holliday
Kalen, who tolerates only a handful of people using diminutives on him, grins back in response to Adam's look, raises his shot glass, and downs the tequila. There are schools of thought that you should savor such a thing. Linger. Hoard.
But Kalen has touched the face of eternity. He knows that life is forever twisting back into new forms but forms are fleeting and moments are fleeting and there is only this. Right now. This moment. This instant. Only this.
Sometimes he forgets and gives in to nightmares and shadows but tonight he remembers and the world is so dizzyingly beautiful that he can taste transcendence. It is a little like blackberries and sweet champagne and the scent of lotus blossoms and blood and earth threading through underneath it.
And this why he called Gallowglass. Relentless and sure and unyielding. Solid.
He accepts another shot, but he rests his head on Gallowglass' shoulder while they wait for it. His skin is warm but the echoes of armor in Kalen's mind are cold. Both things are equally real. He closes his eyes and breathes out softly.
Perfect.
Serafine
Kalen?
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 5 )
Serafine
Adam?
Dice: 4 d10 TN5 (2, 3, 4, 9, 10) ( success x 2 ) Re-rolls: 1
Gallowglass
[Okay brah. Is shit up with you? PERC AWARE + SPESHULTEE. Watch this botch. *suspicion*]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 7, 7, 9, 9, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 7 ) Re-rolls: 1
Serafine
"Hi." Sera can beeline through the crowd with the best of them. She was made to beeline through crowds, in heels, half-dressed, sweat gleaming on her skin. She was made for crowds and here she is, see, slicing through one that is starting to both come-down and break up, or at least, break itself back into the factions from which it was manufactured when they took the stage. No longer a crowd but a noisey animal, un-segmented, opened up, conversations picking up and lingering and changed all around, opening, opening.
And Sera, "Hiiiiii." with an arm around Adam's waist and another around Kalen's, this little squeeze that somehow encompasses them both as a couple, right? Then lets them go and swings 'round them pair of them like a whip. Bottle in hand and she sets it on the bar.
Only half-empty but that is a fifth of Stranahan's, so.
Slow down, Sera.
She's still half-humming beneath her breath, skimming on fumes and the energy of the crowd.
Gallowglass
He doesn't push Kalen away and say anything like: c'mon man. Doesn't flush or blush or get all what the fuck. Maybe a little what the fuck for a moment. What the fuck isn't the right word to use. The Flambeau called him to come see Serafíne play at a bar and Adam didn't think anything of it except perhaps brooding thoughts on Serafíne and his desk and Ruse and that scene at the bookstore. He does give the other Hermetic something of a keen look: what are you doing; his expression is occulted, considering. He says, "Man, you are going to chase the girls away. Oh, here's one."
His accent is stronger than usual: hear it? That muddle of time spent abroad.
"Hi Serafíne. Dan is very good." This is Adam's greeting: sea-eyed, exhausted, weary-as-fuck. A beat later, he's regretting the missed opportunity to say: hey, girl, with a grin. Because Adam is a jerk. He is arrogant and he is mean and he doesn't actually think Serafíne minds.
And a beat later, he's regretting it again, blinking once and then twice, drawing himself up just a little, because Kalen's head on his shoulder and Serafíne's arm around his waist: it's way too much for Adam, who is rather aloof, composed, self-contained. "Erm, you were all right too."
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 7, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
Kalen Holliday
"Serafine?" Kalen murmurs, without opening his eyes, as if to confirm that Gallowglass is referring to Serafine and her larger than life presence as if she could ever be wholly encompassed by a word like girl. "I doubt she'd be scared off. Try not to break her poor heart like you break Kharisma's with your ridiculous standards and rules and customs and limitations and whatever else." He makes a soft sighing sound that might have been a laugh under other circumstances. "But if you really like her...."
He opens his eyes and they are pale and luminous and mischievous and suddenly he is grinning, even if he doesn't pick up his head.. "Hey, Sera. You want to learn all about how people spoke with flowers in Victorian England? And by with I mean using them in a complicated secret language of signals between lovers, not actually communing with the flowers themselves."
Serafine
"I know." Sera hums around the thought of Dan's brilliance; god, she's still feeling that in her bones, between her teeth, beneath her pulse, in the way her heart pounds, and the I know is for Dan being very good and if she were the sort to take offense at damning with faint praise well, she might do so right after that but no. Her hand slides across Adam's waist and she lets him go. She's smiling, inhaling, the way one does when the world has gone star-mad and cross-eyed, amazed by the way her body moves as she sliiiides up to the bar and loops an arm around her bottle and rests her cheek on her fist and her elbow on the wood. "He's a fucking genius, isn't he?"
The sort of genius even someone like Adam might appreciate. Serious on stage, a virtuouso, really, intent and aware of the rest of the players. Especially aware of Sera, in all her sloppy glory, particularly when she starts to fall apart, to lose the thread of the line, ready to come in where needed, to keep the band going so that she can fall to pieces without anyone else coming to harm. While the rhythm section keeps the beat and the -
Sera blinks, lazily, from Kalen to Adam. Blinks back again. Considers asking Adam where Ruse is and does not really understand that she hasn't asked the question aloud because her dark blue eyes have snagged on Kalen and linger there. Linger, linger -
then Kalen's moving, mischievous, asking her if she wants to learn the secret language of secret lovers and of fucking course she does, says everything about her, but -
"Hold that thought." She tells Kalen, unfurling, unsteady, aware. "I gotta pee."
And so she ducks away, leaving behind her bottle like a flag claiming new territory, sliding expertly through the crowd. Girl's gotta pee.
Grace
[Nightmares!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )
Grace
So Grace wanders in, and by that we mean, she wanders aimlessly with her head shoved into her phone, because she Googled the address and got lost anyway, and then started looking up reviews of the place to see where the entrance might be, and...
Anyway, how much does this surprise anyone, that a Virtual Adept appears with her face lit by phonelight? Something must draw her attention though once she's inside, and she looks around the place. No Sera, singing from the stage. Must be too late.
And how does this Virtual Adept wander in, except for wearing what she always wears? The grey turtleneck, the jeans, the sneakers, the laptop bag thrown across a shoulder... it must be a topic of conversation behind her back sometimes, about how she never really changes her outfit.
Gallowglass
Kalen mentions Kharisma and Adam shrugs. He shrugs with malice aforethought: don't get too settled there Kalen. There's a chuckle layering his voice but he isn't actually chuckling; it's just the suggestion of one. "Phée would not have been well pleased with me if I'd done anything with your Kharisma. And marriage is not a ridiculous custom, rule, limitation, or standard, though I'm not prepared to argue the point right now. How is Kharisma doing anyway?"
The last part of the sentence is said hastily, with something of temper beneath it: look, the other tequila shots have arrived. Adam picks the shot up and prepares to throw back.
First, though, Serafíne wanders; Adam resettles, glad not to have her arm around his waist (because Adam is a cat: secretly, a cat - who just got pet by a stranger), he says, "Ta," and then grins at Kalen: "I guess that line only works in bars near the universities, eh?"
Kalen Holliday
Kalen makes a soft, protesting sound at the shrugging, though whether because he is that ridiculously attached to being in contact with someone or because now he wants to torment Gallowglass is generally unclear, he stays there anyway.
"Come now, if anything, I'm hers. Let's not even pretend where and how that falls." There is something in tone, for all he doesn't directly address it, that hints at apology.
"'Kay. Remind me me later." And he's saying it to Sera for all he's murmuring half into Gallowglass' shoulder, but he probably should be saying it to Gallowglass anyway as he's the one of them that will definitely remember, though he probably wouldn't be inclined to cooperate considering. Or no, he would, but likely not gently.
And then Adam is moving again and Kalen sighs because on one hand amazing tequila and on the other he needs contact right now like he needs oxygen. But he pushes back off Gallowglass a little, though he leaves the hand he'd braced on Gallowglass' ribs there as he picks up his shot.
"Hey, Kit. We need a third?" To Grace-Kit. Of course. Because that is not confusing at allllllllllll....
Grace
Ahh, she notices. The 'Kit' comes at her from seemingly nowhere (in the crowd, Grace is a lost cause) until she finds the voice. "Oh, Kalen! There you are," she says, like she'd been looking.
She slides her way up into a barstool beside Kalen. "Need a third what? Me?" Because that is not confusing at all either.
"Hi, Other-Kit," she says, and waves to Adam, once her brain processes that he's even there.
Gallowglass
He does begin to react to Kalen's hey, Kit as if Kalen was saying his name. Because he is; he has answered to Kit longer than he has answered to Dominic Adam Julian Gallowglass, after all, and more people call him Kit than any of those other (more important [more precious]) names. So:
He begins to react as if to his name. Then here's Grace, Other-Kiting him, and he looks bemused. The bemused expression is touched with something else, too; call it gladness, perhaps.
"Adam," he says, even though he knows Grace knows. "If anyone is the Other-Kit, it's you. I have the rights of a first-born." He sounds like he is joking; he is joking. He has had one shot of tequila and it hasn't mellowed him but he is relaxed enough, Adam is. To answer her question, he holds up the shot he hasn't yet had.
"How are you, Grace? And Kalen, do not think your sleepy murmurmings and general laidbackness will put me off. How is Kharisma? Are you still in contact with her?"
Kalen needs contact. Physical contact, right now; but Adam, he thinks about other contacts. Friends.
Kalen Holliday
"Yeah. She's in Denver when she isn't off with her band. I told you she sings now? She sings now." He holds his shot of tequila, waiting to see if Grace will join them.
He can't really drop his head back onto Gallowglass' shoulder, but he leans into his side a little. Sure, he's already searching for ways to pawn Kalen off onto someone else, but right now he's here. And for Kalen, who just figured out that friends were a thing he could have, just that seems magical.
Grace
"Okay, fine, you're Kit and I'm Other-Kit. I wasn't the one who came up with the Name," Grace says, poking Kalen in the rib with an elbow (not hard, not violent -- call it pretend violence).
"I'm fantastic. Or at least somewhat fantastic," she says, draping her arms across the bar as though she owns it. "Surviving. It's great, really."
But do note, she does not reach for a glass with those flopped arms. It's not something she has against alcohol, really. Honest.
"Oh, none for me. You go on ahead," she says.
Gallowglass
[Stamina, yo!]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (2, 10) ( success x 1 )
Gallowglass
"Perhaps she and Sera will play together," Adam says, of Kharisma's current occupation; and then he downs the shot, such a waste of good tequila, but not really a waste, no. This time his eyes water more furiously, and blinks once. Twice. Three times. Three times to be certain of himself. He does not have the urge to vomit. This is excellent; he can hold his liquor now! Wait until dad finds out. Adam looks quietly pleased with himself and says, "You missed her set," to Grace.
Follows it with, "And oh, reminded, I've wanted to schedule a Ginger date with you, but I've been very busy. Can you come by the shop tomorrow by any chance?"
Kalen Holliday
Kalen takes his shot and his eyes close for a second but because it is amazing. He doesn't drop his head back onto Gallowglass' shoulder, but he stays close, one hand and a little of his weight still resting on Gallowglass' elaborately engraved armor side listening to the sounds of the tides of battle shifting - surging - flowing back and forth like tides Gallowglass and Grace make plans.
He almost does drop his head back onto Gallowglass' shoulder for a few seconds, because there are half-remembered bits of dreams and blood and screams and this image of battle and the scattered glimpses into battles that will happen and memories of battles that have happened...he really should stop closing his eyes.
There. Open. Open is better.
Grace
"Sure, sure. I'll make a note of it," she says to Adam. There's no way she'd turn down such a request.
"Who are we talking about?" Grace adds, because she is somewhat lost in the topics of conversation. Also, it seems like Kalen is trying to drape himself over Adam and fall asleep. There are two secret cats in this place, because Kalen wants to curl up.
He twitches in his sleep. Sometimes (often) more than that. When he opens his eyes again, she smiles.
Sometime, she's going to have to tell him. That's going to suck. Come July he might try to lock her up for her own protection -- no, he would never. But wouldn't she want him to is a question.
Gallowglass
"Kharisma," Adam says. The answer isn't meant to be short, but Adam is a quiet young man usually, and Kharisma is Kalen's story. "I'm rather surprised you two haven't met yet if she's in Denver." He's surprised because he presumes Kalen and Grace hang out a lot.
Kalen is drifting; Kalen is closing his eyes, is beginning to sink back onto Adam's shoulder, and Adam frowns slightly, reading whatever it is he reads in the other Hermetic's posture. Adam has been leaning against the bar, the C of his back just against the edge of it. Now he straightens, clapping a hand against Kalen's back; against his shoulder. His grip is firm (relentless), direct (of course), and he says, "Why don't we go try this karaoke thing instead? You can sing that awful song, what was it, the one with the fire."
The 'we' included Grace.
Kalen Holliday
Kalen laughs. "That song is amazing. You're just jealous there are so few bad ass songs about books." He straightens as well, giving Gallowglass a light push just before he takes his hand off his side. Look at that. The not trying to curl up into him may or may not last, but for at least right now Kalen looks...well...still exhausted, but better. Less haunted.
Gallowglass
[FADE... to karaoke? DUNDUNDUNNN.]
Bet you didn't know that Denver has more live music venues than fucking LA. Well, so it does, and on a certain Thursday night in late March - spring spring spring, how can you feel anything right now except spring - a four-piece band without a goddamned name is playing a pop-up show at Whiskey River, which does not actually feature whiskey any more than any ordinary hipster-oriented bar might, and does not contain a river.
It does have a bar and a bit of an outdoor spill-over patio area where smokers and Smokers can retreat mid-show to indulge in their chosen vice and a lanky sort of architecture and a close, warm feel. And it is more or less constructed in the space left behind by an old movie theater turned porn theater in the 1970s turned strip club in the early 90s, turned legit dive bar circa 1999, turned "We have 23 microbrews on tap" style dive circa 2005.
The bar is cramped, yeah, but there's a marquee out front all lighted up in neon and the stage is pretty goddamned awesome, a good 2.5 or even three feet off the ground, higher than it is in most of the tertiary sort of places unknowns get to play. Sera sent out a mass text - of course she did, of course she would - without much warning, spur of the moment, as these things always seem to be with her. And here she is, and here they are, and the bar is maybe three-quarters full - it's Thursday right? not the weekend, but far enough along that some of us want to start our weekend, and the stage is bathed in the sort of sweeping lights that make you look like a goddamned rock star even if you don't already look like a goddamned rock star and Sera,
well, she looks like a goddamned rock star. Feels like one too. Three other people on stage and some of them are good and some of them are really fucking great but when she's up there, how can you take your eyes off her?
Gallowglass
[Awaare?]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Kalen Holliday
[Nightmares]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 1, 2, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Gallowglass
Mr. Gallowglass is not very good at being social. That is a lie: of course it is. Gallowglass can be social. There are indeed cities and chantries where Gallowglass is thought to be quiet and a good listener (trust in me [confidant]), if, of course, arrogant - unrelentingly. But everybody knows his Tradition so they forgive him that (or they don't forgive him that - he doesn't know and he doesn't care because he is arrogant and this is a cycle). He is good at knowing people and intuiting what they feel or think or want to do. He often understands them even if he doesn't like them or is the sort of bookish sleep-deprived young man with vampire-pale skin and shadow-haunted eyes, a gawk with a too-long neck, thin shoulders, a hunch, then that thatch of uncombed Sandman-wild dark hair, you know, which could be in style but probably isn't. He's just got stubble tonight like maybe he shaved the other day and the beard is taking a day to get back to its former brisk villainous glory. Scruff. That's what he is and what he's got: scruff, scruffyness, dishevelledment. Fortunately people at bars do not care. Fortunately also Gallowglass does not care.
Most people don't really keep him in their minds when they look at him. Most people don't look at him all that much. Going to a bar to pick up a date: Probably not Adam's scene. Probably not something he's even good at.
He doesn't look awkward, just: okay. He is here. He is here with Kalen Holliday, for whom he opens the door like the nice guy he isn't, asking what he hadn't asked on the drive over (the chilling, perilous, holy fucking shit Adam do not kill us drive over: guess who has road rage? Guess who has bad road rage when it comes to parking downtown? Somebody's car came this close to being keyed), "Have you heard Serafíne's band before?"
Where is what's-her-name?
There is Serafíne. He could've just looked at the stage, probably: could've just had his gaze drawn there naturally, but even before he opened the bar's door, he was feeling that gut-instinct place-between be enrapt be enthralled lick that is associated with the Ecstatic.
Kalen Holliday
[How distracted are you by Resonance tonight, Kalen?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 6, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
Kalen Holliday
He's breathing in Serafine's Resonance before they're inside. Before there is that wash of music when the door opens and the sound feels like something he could fall into and float in. Heavy and rich and washed in something that begs yo to keep falling closer, deeper. There the soft fluting sounds. Here the rhythmic base of the sound like the spine of it, anchoring it and holding it and-
And Kit has the door open and is probably already impatient and how long was he there? A few heartbeats? Eternity? There are mathmatical reasons to accept that some infinities are larger than others and each of these people he's passing carry their own and each place they intersect the others near them have...and...and...and....
Serafine. Whose presence is spilling off of her and over everything. A whole bar full of possibility and all of it enthralled together in one shimmering moment with her. It is a kind of communion, even if they don't understand it. A blessing.
He can taste tequila, and it is memory from things that have happened and will happen and he doesn't even try to untangle any of those moments. That is for some other time. Instead he orders two shots of ridiculously expensive tequila and slides one of them toward Adam.
Gallowglass
[I sip this right? We're gonna stamina tequila. I don't even know the drinking rules but it's gonna happen.]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (8, 10) ( success x 2 )
Gallowglass
[Adam: o/]
Serafine
(Performancing? + charisma)
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 4, 5, 9, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Serafine
also how good is Dan?
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (4, 5, 6, 6, 8, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 7 ) Re-rolls: 1
Serafine
(Okay: Dan gives a masterclass in guitar. Sera may be too wasted to keep up.)
Serafine
The show unwinds. Did you know that Sera plays the guitar? Sera plays the guitar, she plays the guitar sometimes, and sometimes the guitar is slung over her back, the strap bisecting her breasts, the fretboard tangled in the sweatdamp mass of her hair. A bottle of something either in hand or maybe, sometimes, when she bothers to play, when she deigns to play, when she remembers that there's a fucking guitar on her back, against her spine, on the floor beside the mikestand.
But only for a minute or three or seven or who even remembers to count them when she's in the middle of the stage, right? Urging and breathless and sweaty and urgent. They mix covers and originals and sometimes its hard to tell the difference because the covers are obscure and the originals you might've actually heard someone else play once, somewhere, even if when she does them it feels like no one else ever really could. They segue from the Beatles to the Breeders and back again, play Springsteen (I'm on Fire) and Johnny Cash and the Raincoats and Cool as Kim Deal and PJ Harvey and if you're a critic, if you can shake off the tangled impression of her presence, the lick of her resonance, the spectacle of her digressions and recursions, all of it, somewhere beneath it all is the persistent sense that Jesus Christ these guys are awesome. Because Jesus Christ that guy is.
And Sera's wearing a short pink dress and her usual fishnets and half-way through decides she's so goddamned sweaty that she stops singing mid-song and just... you know. Starts to strip off her dress. Sera manages it just half-way and just sort of hums her way through the rest of the Violent Femmes song they're doing. Which is fine: the crowd hums and sings too. That's what Violent Femmes songs are meant to do.
Near the end everything quiets down and girl (pale skinned, dark-haired, all rockabilly) on bass steps back, stops playing, and it's just the guitar and the feedback loop, the shoegazy noise that Dan creates, crouching down and fiddling with his Macbook before he straightens and they launch into a mesmerizing, breathless cover of the Jesus and Mary Chain's psychocandy.
The drone at the end goes on and on and on.
Kalen and Kit can drink and drink and drink. Oh drink Kit, drink.
By the time the set's over, she'll have sensed them both, surely. And while the rest of the band start cleaning up their kit, well. Sera's excused from all that work. So, she jumps down from the stage and starts pushing her way through the crowd. Beeline. Guess where the fuck she's headed.
Gallowglass
Look at Kalen. All dreamy, all willing to be enthralled. Gallowglass is not very demonstrative, but the corners of his mouth tense with the possibility of a smile. He scratches the underside of his chin, does not quite eddy in Kit's dreamy wake even though he is not the kind of young man who often goes to bars. He heads straight for the bar, and perhaps he gets there before Kalen or perhaps not. Do you know how hard it is for Adam to get a bartender's attention? Not that hard: he could just drop the cowel, drop the Mystery, and even Mysterious somebody'll notice him and just forget. He could take somebody's drink and they'd be annoyed and angry but if their attention was distracted for a minunte --
But Adam wouldn't take somebody else's drink unless he was going to poison it. He is not a poisoner. So he's happy enough for Kalen to order whatever the fuck he orders. Tequila? Adam would not know expensive tequila from cheap tequila (or thinks he would not [delicate WASP stomach]). He doesn't down it right away.
Because he's listening to the band. Adam claps and 'woos' after Johnny fucking Cash, but looks sober his eyes hooded during any Beatles songs, seems content during PJ Harvey covers, and it's when Dan's guitar work is particularly amazing, amazing enough that Adam is watching the consor's fingers, attentive, sharp, that he throws back the shot, nudges Kalen, a gleam that touches on mischief in his eyes but might be poised toward conspiracy instead, "Cheers, Kal," and
and
and
holy shit. He's totally fine. The burn is good; his head does not swim; his eyes barely water at all, so he grins - pleased. Pleased enough that he's not even paying attention when the band starts packing up and Serafine beelines in their direction because he is ordering another two shots of the same thank you very much one for him and one for his buddy. Yes.
Kalen Holliday
Kalen, who tolerates only a handful of people using diminutives on him, grins back in response to Adam's look, raises his shot glass, and downs the tequila. There are schools of thought that you should savor such a thing. Linger. Hoard.
But Kalen has touched the face of eternity. He knows that life is forever twisting back into new forms but forms are fleeting and moments are fleeting and there is only this. Right now. This moment. This instant. Only this.
Sometimes he forgets and gives in to nightmares and shadows but tonight he remembers and the world is so dizzyingly beautiful that he can taste transcendence. It is a little like blackberries and sweet champagne and the scent of lotus blossoms and blood and earth threading through underneath it.
And this why he called Gallowglass. Relentless and sure and unyielding. Solid.
He accepts another shot, but he rests his head on Gallowglass' shoulder while they wait for it. His skin is warm but the echoes of armor in Kalen's mind are cold. Both things are equally real. He closes his eyes and breathes out softly.
Perfect.
Serafine
Kalen?
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 5 )
Serafine
Adam?
Dice: 4 d10 TN5 (2, 3, 4, 9, 10) ( success x 2 ) Re-rolls: 1
Gallowglass
[Okay brah. Is shit up with you? PERC AWARE + SPESHULTEE. Watch this botch. *suspicion*]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 7, 7, 9, 9, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 7 ) Re-rolls: 1
Serafine
"Hi." Sera can beeline through the crowd with the best of them. She was made to beeline through crowds, in heels, half-dressed, sweat gleaming on her skin. She was made for crowds and here she is, see, slicing through one that is starting to both come-down and break up, or at least, break itself back into the factions from which it was manufactured when they took the stage. No longer a crowd but a noisey animal, un-segmented, opened up, conversations picking up and lingering and changed all around, opening, opening.
And Sera, "Hiiiiii." with an arm around Adam's waist and another around Kalen's, this little squeeze that somehow encompasses them both as a couple, right? Then lets them go and swings 'round them pair of them like a whip. Bottle in hand and she sets it on the bar.
Only half-empty but that is a fifth of Stranahan's, so.
Slow down, Sera.
She's still half-humming beneath her breath, skimming on fumes and the energy of the crowd.
Gallowglass
He doesn't push Kalen away and say anything like: c'mon man. Doesn't flush or blush or get all what the fuck. Maybe a little what the fuck for a moment. What the fuck isn't the right word to use. The Flambeau called him to come see Serafíne play at a bar and Adam didn't think anything of it except perhaps brooding thoughts on Serafíne and his desk and Ruse and that scene at the bookstore. He does give the other Hermetic something of a keen look: what are you doing; his expression is occulted, considering. He says, "Man, you are going to chase the girls away. Oh, here's one."
His accent is stronger than usual: hear it? That muddle of time spent abroad.
"Hi Serafíne. Dan is very good." This is Adam's greeting: sea-eyed, exhausted, weary-as-fuck. A beat later, he's regretting the missed opportunity to say: hey, girl, with a grin. Because Adam is a jerk. He is arrogant and he is mean and he doesn't actually think Serafíne minds.
And a beat later, he's regretting it again, blinking once and then twice, drawing himself up just a little, because Kalen's head on his shoulder and Serafíne's arm around his waist: it's way too much for Adam, who is rather aloof, composed, self-contained. "Erm, you were all right too."
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 7, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
Kalen Holliday
"Serafine?" Kalen murmurs, without opening his eyes, as if to confirm that Gallowglass is referring to Serafine and her larger than life presence as if she could ever be wholly encompassed by a word like girl. "I doubt she'd be scared off. Try not to break her poor heart like you break Kharisma's with your ridiculous standards and rules and customs and limitations and whatever else." He makes a soft sighing sound that might have been a laugh under other circumstances. "But if you really like her...."
He opens his eyes and they are pale and luminous and mischievous and suddenly he is grinning, even if he doesn't pick up his head.. "Hey, Sera. You want to learn all about how people spoke with flowers in Victorian England? And by with I mean using them in a complicated secret language of signals between lovers, not actually communing with the flowers themselves."
Serafine
"I know." Sera hums around the thought of Dan's brilliance; god, she's still feeling that in her bones, between her teeth, beneath her pulse, in the way her heart pounds, and the I know is for Dan being very good and if she were the sort to take offense at damning with faint praise well, she might do so right after that but no. Her hand slides across Adam's waist and she lets him go. She's smiling, inhaling, the way one does when the world has gone star-mad and cross-eyed, amazed by the way her body moves as she sliiiides up to the bar and loops an arm around her bottle and rests her cheek on her fist and her elbow on the wood. "He's a fucking genius, isn't he?"
The sort of genius even someone like Adam might appreciate. Serious on stage, a virtuouso, really, intent and aware of the rest of the players. Especially aware of Sera, in all her sloppy glory, particularly when she starts to fall apart, to lose the thread of the line, ready to come in where needed, to keep the band going so that she can fall to pieces without anyone else coming to harm. While the rhythm section keeps the beat and the -
Sera blinks, lazily, from Kalen to Adam. Blinks back again. Considers asking Adam where Ruse is and does not really understand that she hasn't asked the question aloud because her dark blue eyes have snagged on Kalen and linger there. Linger, linger -
then Kalen's moving, mischievous, asking her if she wants to learn the secret language of secret lovers and of fucking course she does, says everything about her, but -
"Hold that thought." She tells Kalen, unfurling, unsteady, aware. "I gotta pee."
And so she ducks away, leaving behind her bottle like a flag claiming new territory, sliding expertly through the crowd. Girl's gotta pee.
Grace
[Nightmares!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )
Grace
So Grace wanders in, and by that we mean, she wanders aimlessly with her head shoved into her phone, because she Googled the address and got lost anyway, and then started looking up reviews of the place to see where the entrance might be, and...
Anyway, how much does this surprise anyone, that a Virtual Adept appears with her face lit by phonelight? Something must draw her attention though once she's inside, and she looks around the place. No Sera, singing from the stage. Must be too late.
And how does this Virtual Adept wander in, except for wearing what she always wears? The grey turtleneck, the jeans, the sneakers, the laptop bag thrown across a shoulder... it must be a topic of conversation behind her back sometimes, about how she never really changes her outfit.
Gallowglass
Kalen mentions Kharisma and Adam shrugs. He shrugs with malice aforethought: don't get too settled there Kalen. There's a chuckle layering his voice but he isn't actually chuckling; it's just the suggestion of one. "Phée would not have been well pleased with me if I'd done anything with your Kharisma. And marriage is not a ridiculous custom, rule, limitation, or standard, though I'm not prepared to argue the point right now. How is Kharisma doing anyway?"
The last part of the sentence is said hastily, with something of temper beneath it: look, the other tequila shots have arrived. Adam picks the shot up and prepares to throw back.
First, though, Serafíne wanders; Adam resettles, glad not to have her arm around his waist (because Adam is a cat: secretly, a cat - who just got pet by a stranger), he says, "Ta," and then grins at Kalen: "I guess that line only works in bars near the universities, eh?"
Kalen Holliday
Kalen makes a soft, protesting sound at the shrugging, though whether because he is that ridiculously attached to being in contact with someone or because now he wants to torment Gallowglass is generally unclear, he stays there anyway.
"Come now, if anything, I'm hers. Let's not even pretend where and how that falls." There is something in tone, for all he doesn't directly address it, that hints at apology.
"'Kay. Remind me me later." And he's saying it to Sera for all he's murmuring half into Gallowglass' shoulder, but he probably should be saying it to Gallowglass anyway as he's the one of them that will definitely remember, though he probably wouldn't be inclined to cooperate considering. Or no, he would, but likely not gently.
And then Adam is moving again and Kalen sighs because on one hand amazing tequila and on the other he needs contact right now like he needs oxygen. But he pushes back off Gallowglass a little, though he leaves the hand he'd braced on Gallowglass' ribs there as he picks up his shot.
"Hey, Kit. We need a third?" To Grace-Kit. Of course. Because that is not confusing at allllllllllll....
Grace
Ahh, she notices. The 'Kit' comes at her from seemingly nowhere (in the crowd, Grace is a lost cause) until she finds the voice. "Oh, Kalen! There you are," she says, like she'd been looking.
She slides her way up into a barstool beside Kalen. "Need a third what? Me?" Because that is not confusing at all either.
"Hi, Other-Kit," she says, and waves to Adam, once her brain processes that he's even there.
Gallowglass
He does begin to react to Kalen's hey, Kit as if Kalen was saying his name. Because he is; he has answered to Kit longer than he has answered to Dominic Adam Julian Gallowglass, after all, and more people call him Kit than any of those other (more important [more precious]) names. So:
He begins to react as if to his name. Then here's Grace, Other-Kiting him, and he looks bemused. The bemused expression is touched with something else, too; call it gladness, perhaps.
"Adam," he says, even though he knows Grace knows. "If anyone is the Other-Kit, it's you. I have the rights of a first-born." He sounds like he is joking; he is joking. He has had one shot of tequila and it hasn't mellowed him but he is relaxed enough, Adam is. To answer her question, he holds up the shot he hasn't yet had.
"How are you, Grace? And Kalen, do not think your sleepy murmurmings and general laidbackness will put me off. How is Kharisma? Are you still in contact with her?"
Kalen needs contact. Physical contact, right now; but Adam, he thinks about other contacts. Friends.
Kalen Holliday
"Yeah. She's in Denver when she isn't off with her band. I told you she sings now? She sings now." He holds his shot of tequila, waiting to see if Grace will join them.
He can't really drop his head back onto Gallowglass' shoulder, but he leans into his side a little. Sure, he's already searching for ways to pawn Kalen off onto someone else, but right now he's here. And for Kalen, who just figured out that friends were a thing he could have, just that seems magical.
Grace
"Okay, fine, you're Kit and I'm Other-Kit. I wasn't the one who came up with the Name," Grace says, poking Kalen in the rib with an elbow (not hard, not violent -- call it pretend violence).
"I'm fantastic. Or at least somewhat fantastic," she says, draping her arms across the bar as though she owns it. "Surviving. It's great, really."
But do note, she does not reach for a glass with those flopped arms. It's not something she has against alcohol, really. Honest.
"Oh, none for me. You go on ahead," she says.
Gallowglass
[Stamina, yo!]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (2, 10) ( success x 1 )
Gallowglass
"Perhaps she and Sera will play together," Adam says, of Kharisma's current occupation; and then he downs the shot, such a waste of good tequila, but not really a waste, no. This time his eyes water more furiously, and blinks once. Twice. Three times. Three times to be certain of himself. He does not have the urge to vomit. This is excellent; he can hold his liquor now! Wait until dad finds out. Adam looks quietly pleased with himself and says, "You missed her set," to Grace.
Follows it with, "And oh, reminded, I've wanted to schedule a Ginger date with you, but I've been very busy. Can you come by the shop tomorrow by any chance?"
Kalen Holliday
Kalen takes his shot and his eyes close for a second but because it is amazing. He doesn't drop his head back onto Gallowglass' shoulder, but he stays close, one hand and a little of his weight still resting on Gallowglass' elaborately engraved armor side listening to the sounds of the tides of battle shifting - surging - flowing back and forth like tides Gallowglass and Grace make plans.
He almost does drop his head back onto Gallowglass' shoulder for a few seconds, because there are half-remembered bits of dreams and blood and screams and this image of battle and the scattered glimpses into battles that will happen and memories of battles that have happened...he really should stop closing his eyes.
There. Open. Open is better.
Grace
"Sure, sure. I'll make a note of it," she says to Adam. There's no way she'd turn down such a request.
"Who are we talking about?" Grace adds, because she is somewhat lost in the topics of conversation. Also, it seems like Kalen is trying to drape himself over Adam and fall asleep. There are two secret cats in this place, because Kalen wants to curl up.
He twitches in his sleep. Sometimes (often) more than that. When he opens his eyes again, she smiles.
Sometime, she's going to have to tell him. That's going to suck. Come July he might try to lock her up for her own protection -- no, he would never. But wouldn't she want him to is a question.
Gallowglass
"Kharisma," Adam says. The answer isn't meant to be short, but Adam is a quiet young man usually, and Kharisma is Kalen's story. "I'm rather surprised you two haven't met yet if she's in Denver." He's surprised because he presumes Kalen and Grace hang out a lot.
Kalen is drifting; Kalen is closing his eyes, is beginning to sink back onto Adam's shoulder, and Adam frowns slightly, reading whatever it is he reads in the other Hermetic's posture. Adam has been leaning against the bar, the C of his back just against the edge of it. Now he straightens, clapping a hand against Kalen's back; against his shoulder. His grip is firm (relentless), direct (of course), and he says, "Why don't we go try this karaoke thing instead? You can sing that awful song, what was it, the one with the fire."
The 'we' included Grace.
Kalen Holliday
Kalen laughs. "That song is amazing. You're just jealous there are so few bad ass songs about books." He straightens as well, giving Gallowglass a light push just before he takes his hand off his side. Look at that. The not trying to curl up into him may or may not last, but for at least right now Kalen looks...well...still exhausted, but better. Less haunted.
Gallowglass
[FADE... to karaoke? DUNDUNDUNNN.]
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