Are you sure you're Arionna?

Grace
The office. This place doesn't look like much from the outside, which is just fine by the ones who run it. There's an unkempt quality about these buildings that share a driveway between them -- but it's all for lack-of-show. Hidden cameras abound here. The doors are thick steel things with biometric locks.

It's a fortress, built against the apocalypse that everyone knows is coming and refuses to admit. Kalen was always truthful with himself about that. The world ends every day if not for the efforts made to keep it together. Someday, those efforts might fail. And then?

Of course, Arionna can't see it. She can hear it though -- the distance they are from the city center. The relative quiet here. She might be able to feel the deep, entrenched essences of those who spend the most time here. Elijah's tumult, Grace's winged razors, Kalen's shifting sky-colors.

Grace bides her time by watching the camera feeds every now and then, while keeping abreast of the latest in network security. She knows when Elijah and Arionna have arrived. So she's there, opening the door with a heavy metallic crunch of machinery.

Arionna
[awareness[

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 7, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

Arionna
[alertness]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )

Arionna
She and Grace are not exactly friends. Ari doesn't have a fondness for her, and Grace doesn't for Ari. They've simply agreed that it was acceptable, and kept their distance. Ari had no problem with that. But now she had word to give, and she'd rather give it herself...mostly because she told Atreyu she would. Ari, if she gives her word, executes it. Mostly she didn't want to be in his debt.

She stepped out, putting her cane together and shifted towards the sensation of, well, Grace, and that of the building. She was slow, as it was unfamiliar, tapping the cane from each side as she progressed. It was when the door opened that she paused and tilted her head just a little towards Grace. "Grace..." She said, waiting for the response as if she knew exactly who it was. "Elijah has a phone call. He'll come in later, if need be."

Grace
This is the first time Grace has seen Arionna blind -- that she knows. There was that time at the park, but she'd hightailed it before she could tell.

She steps out of the way. Doesn't offer a hand just yet. "Right, okay. Well, here you are. Do you want to go sit down or... Whatever?"

Arionna
Arionna listens to her tone. It's the voices that tend to tell her things, the tones and way the words are inflected. She cats her head to the other side, her eyes hidden behind the sunglasses. "I suppose we can." She said evenly, stepping forward with the cane shifting from each side. "I doubt it'll take very long but I've never been very fond of heat anyhow. Somewhere cooler would be more...comfortable."

Grace
The door shuts behind Ari with another grinding crunch, like the shutting of a vault door.

"Okay. There's a  room in here," Grace says, her voice trailing off to the left.

Then, a little closer: "Would you like a hand finding a place to sit?"

Arionna
Ari is following her voice the best she can, pausing when she hits something with her cane and using the tip to find out where it ends so that she can move forward. She had an urge to decline the offer, but then Ari tended to hold onto spite and anger much longer than some. Instead she paused, considered it and gave in. "Yes." She said, knowing full well that this place was new and confusing. It sounded less like an actual building and more like something else...

"Though, verbal directions will suffice."



Grace
"Okay. About ten steps forward, you'll find the back of a couch," Grace says. "Can just follow that around to the right -- there's no side table. There is, however, a cat sleeping on the left side."

Grace sets her own self down in a chair for one -- so there will be no closeness with other people or things.

Arionna
Ari stepped forward and reached out her hand. When she felt teh fabric, she began to follow it to the right as directed and around. She sat easily enough and collapsed the cane. She set her purse next to her and slipped her hand in to find the phone. "Someone came looking for you. I'm here to bring the message." She felt the smooth metal between her fingers and pulled the phone out, and extended it for Grace to get it, wherever she was. "He took a picture to affirm his identity. He went by the name Atreyu."

Grace
Grace is silent for a while. She doesn't go for the phone for a few seconds after it's offered, because -- quite frankly -- Atreyu was the last name Grace was expecting to hear.

Atreyu was a part of Bastion.

Her heart rate climbs a bit, as she comes to grips with the notion that the last year or so may have been spent in Bastion still, and here comes the living portal, chasing after her for once.

She grabs Ari's phone, skims through it until she finds the picture gallery, and the last image taken -- of a man she remembers.

"Atreyu. What did he say?"

Arionna
"Only that he was looking for you. He mentioned others but the names escape me. They were people I'm unfamiliar with."

"We did encounter someone he seemed to know. A lead scientist at the...Technocracy, I believe. Briefly of course, but since I've never seen these individuals, and they did happen to appear at the same time and place I met Atreyu, it's something to keep in mind."

"He didn't provide me with a number or place of contact, but said he'd be in the city. "

Grace
"WHAT?" Grace says, and you can just hear the wide-open eyes in her tone of voice. If she'd been drinking, that would be the time of the spit-take. "You. Met with Atreyu. And encountered a lead scientist with the Technocracy. And how the fuck are you alive? That's an explosive combination there, Ari..."

She sighs while looking at the picture on Ari's phone. "I'm going to send myself this picture if that's okay with you?"

"I didn't even know the Techs had a lot of activity going on here. That's new..."

Arionna
"He pulled us out quickly and drove us away when he noticed their arrival. He'll be better suited to explaining it. He seemed to know them, after all. There were two of them though, I think."

There's a small dip in her chin. "It's acceptable. I would have sent it myself had I been able to contact you. Might have been more comfortable than meeting in person." Ari canted her head a little. "I do find it suspicious that they appeared at the same moment, at the same place... all of us converged at once. The gods rarely place with coincidence. There was a reason. Since I know so little about him, I assume you have a better understanding of the likelihood of his connection with them. I doubt they were after me." Her doubt of course was based solely on her lack of connection. What would they really gain from her?

Grace
"It's something I noticed soon after Awakening, Ari. The gods or the universe or the machine or whatever you want to call it -- loves herding Mages together in one place at one time. About 50% of the time, it means some huge nasty shit is going down within five minutes. The other 50%, it means we're going to chat a bit and go home.

"The Technocracy is an organization built by Mages, even if they refuse to call themselves that. They use scientific methods -- badly -- and infiltrate government, corporate, and media organizations in order to exert control over people. They're little shits. But powerful little shits.

"I'm going to tell you a story, and you don't have to believe it -- it is pretty unbelievable. But anyway... A while ago, I ran into one of the Technocracy's little oopsies. A group of Mages had decided to make a Reality 2.0 -- like a reality simulation. Another universe, basically -- based on this one, but better. The Technocracy considered it a threat, and decided to neutralize it by killing everybody who knew about it. But they found that they couldn't get admin privileges to Reality 2.0, and they'd killed everyone who did. Oops. So they abandoned it. Which was so brilliant, I can't even begin to describe, right?

"Bastion -- this other universe -- got desperate. She'd been under attack by the Techs and had been damaged severely. So she started abducting people in the hope that she could either feed on them or get help. She abducted Kalen and Ian and Sid one night. So we went in to 'save' them. Atreyu was... he was Bastion's security protocol. So he was fighting Technocrat attacks from the beginning. And the part of him that was semi-sane was helping us get to the place where we could fix things. We did, and everyone came back to this Reality okay, except for one...

"I guess what I'm trying to say is that this picture looks like a guy I knew from another universe. A guy who spent his existence fighting the Technocracy. A guy who I'm pretty sure was never born. If he's here, that's legit weird. I wonder if it's Bastion trying to send us a message? Or maybe I'm still in Bastion? I just don't know."

Arionna
"What you're attempting to say is that Atreyu is a computer program that has spent his life assaulting the Technocracy." She is quiet and she doesn't seem to move from her space. Ari is merely thinking.

"I'm sure my perceptions aren't all that important. Whether I believe you or not is irrelevant. Now nothing terrible happened when we left, and we weren't followed, but if I were a scientist studying magi, the best approach would be field observations first. If you're not aware of your prey's movements, it's best to learn them first, so that your method of acquisition or termination is efficient and effective. Tha is my perspective of course."

"The question remains... if I see him again, before you're able to meet, is there a method of contact you would like me to forward on?"

Grace
"You're right about the field observations bit. If we contact each other, I want it to be as clandestine as possible. No phone numbers or emails. If you see him, tell him to come here. But I'll be trying to get in touch with him in my own way..."

She sighs, flipping through menus to get to the one where she can share the photo via email. Sends it off to a burner account that's going to get burned immediately after this...

The phone gets handed over, and it stays stuck in midair because Grace has forgotten that Ari can't see. "Oh yeah. Here's your phone back."

Arionna
It hung in the air momentarily until Ari put her hand out, palm up, for Grace to drop it in. "I'll let him know."

Ari put her cane back together and rose slowly, slipping the phone back in her purse. "The particular place we met the technocracy is a bakery near the campus. Naturally I don't know the name. I don't know if they are regulars, but it is something to keep in mind."

Grace
"Are you sure you're Arionna?" Grace says, a little amusement in her. "I mean that in a good way."

"I never thought I'd have to thank you for doing something for me," she continues, her voice moving back toward the door. "But thank you."

Arionna
She stands still, thinking over Grace's words, then began to follow her slowly, keeping in mind the things in front of her. "Thank you isn't required. I have my reasons for helping as I have, and they are hardly in the interest of you or him. I'm not adverse to either of you benefiting, of course, but my intentions aren't innocent."

Grace
"Ahh, there it is. The Arionna I am used to," Grace says, though she doesn't sound upset, more amused again. It's strange to her, that Ari is even doing this. But then, maybe having a mentor is doing good things?

"This place is a safe place. If you ever have troubles, if the world is ending, whatever... You can come here. It's for everyone. I've been working on a text-to-voice translation of our digital books, because Kalen found out about your... condition. We figured that would be nice. If you'd like, you can stay for a bit and listen to some books?"

Arionna
[empathy, increased dif for voice only]

Dice: 5 d10 TN7 (1, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Grace
Grace is rarely dishonest. If anything, honest to a fault might be the case for her. She, after all, told Ari exactly how she felt the last time they had a meaningful conversation.

She means what she says. There are conversations that have happened between herself and Kalen, specifically about making their shared library accessible to Arionna (or any blind person, for that matter). The mission -- one Grace resolutely believes in, from the tone of her voice -- is inclusive. Even for those who adamantly don't want to belong.

Arionna
"About my being blind. Don't try to be sensitive. I have no eyesight. It isn't a condition. It's a choice. One I believe to have been the correct, no matter the cost." She's always hated people trying to be nice so as not to hurt someone's feelings. It always felt artificial. Besides, when people lied it was generally for their own benefit, not of the other person.

"However." She said, standing near, what she thought, was the door. "I appreciate the effort." Because there was nothing wrong with saying 'Thank You.' It was part of growing. They were attempting to be kind, and that was worth something, even if she suspected it was for some other reason than her own sake.

"Eli is likely waiting for me. I didn't anticipate this taking long. "

Grace
There is another creaking crunch sound as the door swings open. "Your choice. However, it is an open offer. If you feel like doing the audiobook thing, be our guest. Kalen's got a load of books on magic up there, and I'm trying to train the voice machine in mystical terminology so it doesn't try telling us all about the Elastic Records and Geeno Stick theology."

Ahh, the limits of translation software, eh? It's like the autocorrect on your phone keyboard only out loud...

"Tell Elijah I said hi."

Arionna
Her lips quirk into a small grin. "Elastic Records. I'd be far more entertained on the discrepancies between the text and the voice." She moved forward slowly. "I will, of course."

There wasn't much else between them. They were not pals, they did not share some sort of bond that would entail further conversation than a snide remark or a sarcastic joke. They didn't really need it.

Arionna made her way out slowly, orienting herself to the smell of the car and the sound of it when the engine perked. She had done what she said he would, and perhaps even learned of a place to further her own education. That was good enough.

Arionna Strikes Again

Ian
The day was pleasantly warm, if a bit cloudy. Above the trees, the sky was soft and grey. Only a week ago, there'd been blood splattered in the grass by the tennis courts, but it had long-since been washed away. Today there were no monsters hiding in the bushes. There was just the interwoven threads of urban and natural life that always existed here.

Ian wasn't by the tennis courts today. He was sitting lotus-style in the grass near Grasmere Lake underneath the overhanging branches of an oak tree. Above him, the leaves whispered softly in the wind, and he could smell the cool alkaline of the lake water. At present his eyes were closed; his body relaxed in its meditative pose. The grass tickled gently at his bare feet.

He was aware, of course, of the presence of other bodies. People walking, talking, playing. They passed him by on the trail or ran through the grass at his back. He let the presence of their patterns exist within his awareness without needing to look at them.

Grace
[Awareness!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Serafíne
Also: awareness.

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 8 ) Re-rolls: 2

Grace
[ lol ]

Serafíne
Ian: meditating, lotus-posed, aware but also closed-off.  Remote, see.

Strangers divert themselves around them, drag blankets through the grass for a late-week picnic, change their choice of frisbee-lawn, come running after any toddlers who appear to be on a collision course.  We live with certain rules of behavior.  Among these: don't bug people who are doing yoga or whatever that shit is in the park.

Someone else here, not far away really, not so meditative either.  Still, there are similarities.   She is aware of every-fucking-thing and also sits with her legs crossed.  Not lotus-style though, plain old criss-cross applesauce.

Green smoothie on the worn wooden planks of the picnic table she inhabits, plastic cup sweating in the heat.  Leather journal laid open on her bare thighs, elbow digging into what meat remains, cheek cradled in the heel of her palm, an ink pen in the other hand, the shadow of the nib neat where it hovers above the page.

Caught between: between things, between places, between thoughts.

There.

Grace
Every now and then, Grace rides her bike. It's good to keep in shape, and apparently it's also good to throw at horrible dog monsters, in Jo's opinion. Grace won't be resorting to the bike-as-a-weapon principle any time soon, but hey, it's a great form of a getaway.

She seems to dodge people and things along the path without having to pay much attention, and perhaps people wonder -- if not that, what is she paying attention to?

Today, it's the weird.

Vampires, dog monsters -- this park has gone insane.

But it's not anything horrible she picks up on. It's Sera, sitting at a picnic table. Of course she pedals over. It's been a while. And the last time -- it wasn't a time for talking.

When she arrives, she tilts her head, as if trying to figure something out about the Cultist, and then: "Hi. What's up? Besides clouds."

Ian
[Awareness]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 4, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )

Serafíne
Sera knows Grace is coming, has to know Grace is coming, always seems to know where everyone is, and there is a strange and rather precise sort of awareness livid in the air around her as the bike gets - closer and closer.  Climbs off the path and onto the grass - trampled here because so many people come to picnic.

Maybe Grace reaches out and balances herself against the frame with a spare hand on the picnic table.  More likely, she drops her legs from the pedals to the ground, sliding ever-so-slightly off the seat, straddling.

Creature that she is, Sera does not look up until Grace greets her, and then - she does look up.  Somehow she is already oriented in that direction, something about the cant of her chin, the angle of her neck.

Smiles: quiet, compressed, spreading, slow.

Lovely.

Which angles into a rather private smirk when Grace says besides clouds.  That joke doesn't seem to match Sera's particular brand of humor.  Neither does it surprise her from Grace.

"Hey Grace.  Writing a song, planning a trip, letting the world in.  How are you?"

Ian
He'd been in the park for a while now. Probably close to an hour, though in his current state time seemed to pass differently. Fast, slow, standing still. There is a nexus at which all things intertwine. Ian wasn't so much not thinking about the time as he was not thinking at all.

But he wasn't asleep, for all that he might have looked it. (No, his posture was too straight.) And there were familiar notes of resonance dancing in the background, alongside the voices of playing children.

His coming out of the trance was gradual. First a slow roll of his neck, then he lay back in the grass and unfolded his legs. Then he opened his eyes and looked up at the sky.

After a while he rolled up to his feet and walked over to the picnic table where Grace and Sera sat, talking. He didn't say anything when he sat down on the opposite side, but he cupped his jaw in his palm and leaned an elbow on the table, smiling quietly. Watching them, as though he found their actions interesting.

Grace
"Building a robot and playing with my office plant," she responds, as if those two had anything to do with one another.

"That doesn't exactly explain how I'm doing, more the what... I'm really good though."

She steps off the bike, lets it crash to the ground. Whatever -- it's a bike. If it weren't built to be used, Grace wouldn't have bought it.

Ian's getting closer, a thing she notes by the resonant feral sensation. She doesn't quite turn to greet him yet though, lets him sit at the table first. And what he is doing to her, she does right back. She looks at him, little quizzical smile on her face, cupping her jaw in her palm (though there's nothing to rest her arm on).

Serafíne
"Mmm." The noise Sera makes is: warm, and quiet, and affectionate and just a little bit removed.  As if she were both here but elsewhere.  Floating  in the middle of the lake, perhaps, the sun warming her face, the world both expanded and constricted to the boundaries of water and sky, dampened, insulated, lapping - gently.

"I'm glad you're well."

That same reaction as the bike crashes, though it is sharpened.  Maybe surprised.  This bright-edged hook that darts to one spinning wheel then rises to bank off Ian's smile.

This flash of dark script, a rather chaotic hand, tangled with doodles ornate enough to be a match for the many dark tattooes framing Sera's hand as she drops the pen into the center of the spine and closes the journal around it.

There's Ian - looking and Grace being kind of weird and looking too, monkey-see, monkey-do style.

Sera: who is golden, sunbronzed, sweating faintly, sharper now - leaner see?  Huffs out this low laugh.

"Fucking hell.  You two know each other, right?  Or did you contract some brain-eating disease and lose all memories of each other and now need a new introduction?"

Elijah
[oooh, people? I'm not looking for them, but if I notice!]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )

Elijah
One of the benefits of being blind was that Arionna didn't have to actually look at some of the things that Elijah eats, because let's face it- Elijah ate garbage. Delicious, chili covered garbage, but chili dogs had no nutritional value and despite the fact that he'd seen a documentary on what went into hot dogs he didn't seem to actually care. The thing about Denver was that it lulled you into a false sense of security that things might be of a higher quality than they actually were. They were not, in fact, of a higher quality. They were just a dollar more expensive than the dogs in New York City.

Not that he was aware of this. He'd never been to the big apple.

But he was, in fact, out with a friend and enjoying the fact that today wasn't completely crappy. He had a recital coming still, so it was nice to spend some time completely away from a harp. And darling dear, Arionna had likely learned her fill of what was interesting about harps (very little) versus what is pretty straight forward (most of it.) But? He was talkative. Always talkative. Clad in jeans and a V neck and a pullover sweater. Pocketwatch in the kangaroo pocket (because pockets). But, there he is, making his way down the nearest path when he feels…

Something.

It's enough that it makes him pause. Makes the blond a little confused as to whether or not he's noticing something magical or he's got indigestion.

Ian
"I'd like to see that. The robot."

He was wearing a white v-necked t-shirt and a pair of dark jeans. Fairly standard casual clothes. Likely, he'd been walking through and stopped to meditate on a whim. (And point in fact, his hat and shoes were currently taking up residence inside the crook of a tree root.)

To Sera, he offered a lofted brow. Then to Grace (playing along) he said, "I'm not sure. What's your name again?"

Grace
"He started it!" Grace exclaims, in mock-defense.

"Okay, Ian," she says, emphasizing his name because she does know him. "How are you today? I heard the last time you were here, you patched up some people? Good thing you were there."

Arionna de la Babin
[awareness]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (6, 7, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 5 )

Arionna de la Babin
[Alertness]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 5, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )

Grace
"You can come see my robots any time." Robots. Plural. "And you know where."

"And, I am not telling you my name, you will have to guess."

Arionna de la Babin
She can smell it though. She wouldn't consider herself much of a snob when it came to food, but hotdogs were not exactly a food she found enjoyable. She had eaten plenty of them in her time, and if anything, she'd rather keep her distance. Except with Elijah is eating them of course, and she's walking along beside him.

Her hair had been cut to make it easier to handle now, and her eyes ventured off into the distance, looking through people instead of at them. Unlike those with some etiquette and care for others, Arionnna didn't bother to wear glasses to hide her lack of vision; she just expected people to handle it on their own.

When Elijah pauses, Ari stops a moment after, his footsteps having faded, and she tilts her head a little in his direction. "If you are sensing what I am, there are familiar people nearby." Because she just felt it, more powerfully than she could smell or hear right now. All of them just washed over her. Though even she recognized something different...something new.

Arionna simply felt colder. Sometimes, even her skin felt colder. She put a hand on Elijah's arm, sliding the red tip of her cane in the rough direction of where the sensation seemed the strongest. "That way, I think."

Ian
"Chastity, right? It's something biblical like that." His lips widened into a grin, but he dropped the act quickly. Apparently Jo had spoken to Grace about the creature they'd encountered last week, and Ian's subsequent assistance. He pressed his lips together and made a soft sound. Serious and thoughtful.

"I think they would have been okay, regardless. Jo was in bad shape though. I guess it was lucky I was nearby."

(Not so lucky for him, really. He'd ruined half of a very expensive suit.)

Serafíne
Something somewhere in there makes Sera breathe out sharply, this quiet, self-contained little huff.  Whatever is going on, bouncing back and forth between Grace and Ian makes her skin prickle in a way she would struggle to define if you asked her to define it.  She doesn't like it though.  Gives them both a sharp line-of-a-look and reaches for her green smoothie and untucks her legs from her not-quite-lotus position.  Drops her feet to the bench seat in front of her.

Gladiator sandals in silver-trimmed leather criss-cross her calves right up to the middle of her thighs.

--

This: shifts, though slightly, when Ian's mien and demeanor change.  Softens, really - a note of passing concern that comes and then goes, rather without awareness or context.  Sera takes a sip of her smoothie, and reaches for her little leather book.

Elijah
[Who am I looking at?]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 4, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )

Grace
Grace flips Ian off. With a huge grin on her face, because that's how she does. "Yup. That's me. Chastity."

Although, let's be honest -- when's the last time she was unchaste? Long ago. Still, much like her real name, it doesn't quite fit.

"It was lucky. I think that was Jo's first taste of weirdness. She'd argued with me before about how some things just can't exist..."

Ian
[Per+Empathy on Sera (Did I say something wrong?)]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 5, 5, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )

Elijah
There is a moment of redirection. He chooses to rely on what it is that Arionna is telling him, and also takes the opportunity to peer into the distance. There were people and when he finally squinted and tilted his head a little to the side he noticed that there was a Grace-shaped person, an Ian shaped person, and Serafine. He could recognize Sera anywhere because she just drew attentions. She was distinct. She was most assuredly herself.

He shot Arionna a glance, a smile that was heard more than seen and he used the corner of his sleeve to make sure he was presentable. Or at least not covered in chili.

"It's Ian and Sera and Grace?" he is already headed that way, "let's go be social."

And so, he walks. Perhaps a little slower than he normally would, but mostly because her legs were shorter than his. He continued on, called out and offered a wave, "was there, like, a meeting nobody told me about?"

A beat.

"Okay, that was lame, hey!" and he bridged the gap his voice didn't quite cover.

Arionna de la Babin
"Seems to be the presence I sensed. Seems entirely like them." Though she was more familiar with Ian's because she had seen him lately. Her lips tightened, but Ari kept her hand on his arm as he walked, at least for the time being. Adjustments took time.

"Incredibly. If there were a meeting, I'd suspect you'd be the first to know. Is there anyone in Denver that you aren't friends with?" He always seemed to know people, or were at least, friendly enough to seem as if he knew them.  She was not, on the other hand, and knew it quite well, just as everyone else did.

"I'm not certain being social is an activity I generally engage in, you understand?"

Ian
"She seemed like she handled it fairly well, all things considered."

Jo could have run, after all. Many people would have. She could have curled up into a ball and gone catatonic (no one would have blamed her, really.) But she didn't do either of those things. And Ian didn't say: I hope she's alright, because he already suspected that she was.

Instead he glanced at Sera and tilted his head a bit - this alert, animal expression. He wasn't as adept as she was at this sort of thing (at seeing into people,) but the look didn't escape him. Nor did her body language.

And again, he did not say: are you alright? Instead his eyes softened a little and he got up to walk around to her side of the picnic table. There he sat down beside her on the table, letting the warmth and weight of his presence say what he was not saying out loud. If she didn't like the proximity, he'd slide away a moment later. Otherwise, he set his hand lightly on her lower back.

"Hey guys." This, of course, was for Elijah and Arionna.

Grace
"I heard she threw a bicycle at a dog-thing," Grace says, nods.

It feels... chilly. And this is not the season. So Grace sighs, at the 'hey guys,' and goes to look-see. It could be Alex, right?

But no, no such luck.

The ease with which she was handling the previous social interactions just goes flying out the door now that Arionna has arrived.

"Yeah, hi Elijah. I better, uh... I need to get back, actually."

With that, she goes to right her bicycle again.

Serafíne
Something about what she's doing: reaching for her battered journal, holding her long-neglected kale-and-pineapple smoothie suggests that she is gathering herself.  Then Ian is circling the picnic table to take a seat beside her.  She doesn't tense; there's no physical objection to his proximity, just a minute, curious flash of her dark blue eyes at his profile.  The frame of it against the park's impressionistic blur beyond.

Her lower back is warm on his palm.  The sharp little articulations of her spine evident beneath her skin.  You'd think she would have a tattoo there, something dark and curled given the tattoos all over her hands and arms, flashing even from her palm when she reaches for something with her left hand but no: merely skin.  A sun-born, sun-worshippers remarkably undamaged skin, but she's only 25, and she's magic.  Maybe she'll never grow old.

--

Elijah and Arionna arrive and Ian greets them and Sera gives them this spare, ghosting, half-framed kind of smile that stands-in for a greeting.

Then Grace goes from garrulous to, well, not.  Sera glances at her.  That glance lingers and sharpens, because really, she cannot help herself.

(Per + Empathy: WTF Grace?)

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )

Elijah
[Per+empathy: WTF just happened? Grace?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 5, 5, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )

Arionna de la Babin
[perc+emp - all the cool kids are doing it...and I totally suspect....]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

Elijah
[Manip+sub: don't worry, Grace, I got your back. This is totally normal.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 5, 5, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )

Elijah
"Hey," he does catch that something is up, that something feels up, but for once he resides fairly firmly in his realm as a young man in his early twenties. He is a beast that can be observant when he doesn't put his mind to it (and it is true, Elijah can't seem to risk paying attention to something. He notices things when hey aren't screaming at him.) All he notices is this: Grace is in a hurry to leave.

He does, however, catch enough to know that he needs to step up his game.

"Yeah," he says, tone convivial and like he had just remembered something, "oh yeah, you're doing, like, robot things." Even half warbles because Elijah… well… doesn't understand what it is Grace does in a magical sense. "That did seem pretty important, I'm surprised you took the breather as it is."

Arionna de la Babin
Arionna can hear it. Tones have shifted. Before she might not have heard it, might not have noticed. But now she must, and she does. Grace isn't just in a hurry to leave, she's in a hurry leave because of Ari. They never really got along, and they most certainly don't now, but she never truly picked up on such a....deep tone of dislike. There's a twitch of her lips, a lip of a corner. It's amusement, almost, though whether at Grace's reaction or at the little details she's picking up...

Ari pulls her hand away from Elijah's arm. "That won't be necessary, Grace." Because Grace may not acknowledge her, but she will acknowledge the woman. Ari lifts her hand to blindly pat at Elijah's shoulder. "It is, after all, your circle. Hardly seems appropriate for an outside to barge in when all the pleasant conversation was just starting."

"I'll get a cab." She turned, sliding the red tip of ehr cane in front of her lightly, careful of her steps on the way back. Though she does pause to tilt her head and body towards the group. "By the way. Ian. I appreciate the help you provided the other day. " That's really all she needs to say to him. It's a round about way of saying 'Thank You,' but it's how Ari does things.

Ian
"I wasn't there for that part." (The bicycle-throwing.) Ian noted Grace's reaction to Elijah and Arionna's arrival with a look that might have been some combination of questioning and skeptical. He remembered, of course, how Grace and Arionna felt about each other. But he didn't call her out on it. Instead he said, "If you're still at the warehouse, I might come by sometime." Because he genuinely was curious about Grace's robots.

Sera was gathering herself. Perhaps she had somewhere to be or perhaps she was not happy with where she was or perhaps she simply liked to be on the move. Regardless, Ian stayed beside her for as long as she remained. Sat there and touched her in this way that was quietly and casually intimate. Like the way that cats will sometimes sit quietly in a person's space just to be there. (That's what it felt like, too. Like sitting next to a very docile tiger.) Her skin was warm under his palm. Just once, he slid the spread fingers of his hand slowly up and down her spine. Then he let the contact fall away.

"You don't need to go, Arionna." Neither of them did, but Grace hadn't left her departure as open to debate. "We're just hanging out. I like your hair, by the way."

Grace
"Oh, yeah," she says, to Ian. "Come by. I'll make tea or something. We can play laser tag in the arena too, if you like."

Still no response to Ari, but she gives Elijah a nervous smile, and steps back up on her bike, walking it out, and feeling out the pedals first before hitting her stride.

She doesn't even look at Ari. Not once did she even notice that something was off, that she'd cut her hair or enjoys staring through people nowadays. It's as though she's making a clear effort to ignore the fuck out of the woman.

Serafíne
"See you guys."

With all the arrivals and departures and offers of departure, Sera's is pretty low-key.  A supple arch of her spine, the bracing of her feet on the seat of the picnic table.  Then she's rising up-up-up and jumping (perhaps gracefully?) down-down-down, flatflooted tonight.  Green sludge sloshes around her in plastic cup but (clever girl) she keeps it lidded so it doesn't spill.

Another kind of magic.

Seems to include everyone in that see-you-guys though there is a different sort of awareness of Ian than the rest. Subtle, supple.  Another glance at Grace then, lashed and quietly banked, empathetic.  Love, see, even when Grace is being weird.

Hey, we're all entitled.

Sera lifts her cup by way of farewell as she saunters off.

Who the hell knows where she's going except: away.  Away from here.

Serafíne
(Graceful jump?  Dex + Ath)

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 5, 5, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )

Serafíne
ish.  night y'all!

Elijah
"You don't have to go," he says, he assures but she's walking and he doesn't reach out, doesn't impede Arionna's flight if only because he isn't sure if she's terribly aware of what her surroundings or where she was going. He runs his hands through his hair. Mouth quirked to the side, "I mean, it's not- you're not unwelcome."

He assures, he assures because he believes it.

Arionna de la Babin
She hadn't seen Sera's greet, and if she meant to say farewell to Ari, she hadn't picked up on that either.

Ian and Elijah, they try. They do. She's grateful, even if she doesn't say it. She stops enough, at least to begin with, to respond, if only because neither seem to get it. "It's goo to know that it hasn't been made into a mess. She reached up a little to touch at the strands. "Though I do miss it."

"Grace is not pleased by my presence. If anything, she seems rather disliking of it. I don't see a reason to break up your merry group. I can function quite well without others. She seems far more a social animal, regardless of her quirks."

"But to say that I am not unwelcome is not entirely true, though one can forgive you for thinking so."

Ian
The truth was, Ian had about as much training with guns (laser or otherwise) as Grace did with swords. But despite this, and despite the fact that he'd once told Kalen that laser tag was decidedly not his thing, he laughed and said, "Sure."

Maybe he was getting soft. Maybe he was just getting more competitive.

Sera hopped down from the picnic table, and Ian regarded her as she turned that subtle gaze his way. He didn't say goodnight, but he watched her go for a few moments before letting the conversation pull his attention back.

"If either of you want to go, you can go. If you want to stay, you should stay. You're adults. It's your choice. I'm going to sit here and enjoy the last of the daylight." And with that, Ian lay back across the picnic table and folded his arms under his head, eyes turned up to the clouds. His bare feet rested lightly on the bench beneath him, and the edge of his t-shirt hiked up over the lower part of his stomach.

Elijah
He inhaled. It was slow and it was deep and it was like pushing on a bruise but this was Elijah we're talking about. He either lacks a self-preservation instinct or he is accustomed to pushing on bruises to see if they're still there, push past something that's intense and intent to remind him he's alive but this is a little different. Only a little. He grew to accept things about his friendship with Arionna. The first, of course, being that she was going to hurt him. The second being that he was going to deal with it.

That little reminder, that little note that she'd never be accepted no matter how vehemently someone accepts her (or does he accept her? Does he really? Or does he just pretend that there are truths about Ms. de la Babin that aren't really there?) it isn't ever going to be true. Exhales, eyes and attention wander and there is a slight grin on his face because he is shameless, heavens is he shameless because having a remarkably attractive person lounging in the last rays of sun being that close is enough to make a man's imagination wander.

And oh heavens does Elijah have an active imagination.

He contemplates, takes a look at Ian with a grin and then takes a seat in the grass.

"Sprawling in the grass, Ari… about… fuck… I don't know, seven? Eight feet to your right?"

A beat.

"Also, I've decided I'm going to finally start writing that shit Elijah does because he's bored blog. So, uh, pretty soon I'm gonna start rock climbing, because I will have run out of interesting drinking stories."

Kiara
It's the raised voices that probably alert them, first. A jogger becoming ensnared in an excited dog's leash and the tumble of limbs and paws and the high whine of a startled; injured animal punctuated with startled yelling and a flurry of spontaneous activity.

It's down from them; the distant catch on the late afternoon breeze; carried over. Somewhere close to it though; knitted through with the agitated cries of control your damn dog and if you looked where you were going is a heartbeat - no, not quite a heartbeat but something close. A skittering pulse and then, stronger, the prickling; soothing wash of rejuvenating energy.

Kiara was nearby.

She was appearing around the source of raised voices and agitation down the way; her dark hair sailing out behind her like a curling; heavy banner; dressed in black and navy; a hoodie tied around her lean waist; a set of earphones plugged in and her attention skirting the dilemmas of fellow runners with a private; chin-tucked-low smile. This ghosting glimmer that appears and vanishes as all Kiara's smiles seemed of a notion to do.

The dog; a golden retriever; untangled from its foe watches the Verbena's passing with great solemnity; nose lifted to the air as if it could scent her. A brief tensing of muscles; the stirrings of a growl but then - she's too far; too distant to be the threat she momentarily seemed to be.

Further on; the brunette's momentum slows; dawdles as she catches sight of familiar figures; feels the sense and surety of them. It slows her to a walk; the afternoon sun behind her; outlining the suggestion of flushed cheeks; the lean strength of her arms; the slope of her shoulders.

[Belated thingy!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (5, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )

Arionna de la Babin
If there is one thing she can appreciate about Ian, it's his attitude. Most of the time. Sometimes even they don't get along. But the point is that his attitude almost makes her smile. Almost. He doesn't sway to one side or the other, doesn't beg or plead, and she can appreciate that quality in someone. Only prey beg.

Grace has gone. She can't feel her presence anymore, and Sera has vanished as well. Since the other has vanished, Ari sees no reason to leave. "Seven feet." She says to herself, turning her body to the right (though she doesn't know how far exactly) and beginning slow steps towards him. She waits until she can feel the bump of the cane tip against his shoulder.Ari waits, just in case she's hit someone else.

The other newcomer gets a lift of her chin and a slide turn of her head. Tonight she's attuned, though tomorrow she'll feel as lost as ever. Adjustments...take time. "Someone ...else?" Because she can't see Kiara. She doesn't know she's there other than what she can hear, smell, and sense.

"Are you ever bored Elijah? When is there time for your boredom?"

Ian
If it was possible to create a circumstance in which Ian might be inclined to beg for something, no one in Denver had yet discovered it. Though he might argue that Arionna's understanding of predator and prey was rather lacking in nuance.

Not that he was thinking about that right now. In fact, he was thinking mostly about the shapes in the clouds, and the way the boards in the picnic table felt against his back: hard and rough and warm from the sun. The lingering effects of his meditation was still present, which perhaps explained his relaxed demeanor (though he often appeared relaxed, even when he wasn't.) If he noticed the way that Elijah looked at him (at the exposed V of his transverse abdominal muscle,) he didn't say anything. Didn't even catch his eyes, at first.

Then Elijah sprawled out in the grass, and Ian turned his head to regard the pair of younger mages as they got settled. At least, until he heard the distant sounds of an argument and felt the drawing presence of Kiara's resonance. Then he turned his head the other way, craning it slightly to get a good look at her as she jogged over. His eyes traced the length of her arms, the cut of her collar bones, the slope of her neck.

Finally he sat up.

"Busy evening," he commented. And when Kiara was within greeting range, he said, "Hey."

Elijah
"I do get bored, that's the problem-" he said, looked up at Ari as she poked him. He tapped her cane back, just to make sure that she felt the vibration and didn't feel the need to poke any further lest he get a little red tip in the face. He had to make sure that he didn't get too terribly damaged, or even more damaged than just grass-stained. "I told Grace and Kalen once that I wanted to be Indiana Jones, but then I just figured I could settle for being a lifestyle writer. you know, fight the whole fear of missing out and going out and doing things. Good, bad, whatever."

He is still looking at people upside down, smile brightens and he has to resist the urge to look like a complete dork and wave while he's looking at Kiara upside down. It was a nice angle to see her from. There was a different feeling, yes, something that catches up with him once she does come up. It's more renewing, more living breathing renewing flushed skin lean strength lines and-

He can see why Jenn does things like this. People are different from a different perspective, or at least more themselves.

"Hey Kiara, what's up?"

Kiara
With Arionna's senses being what they are now, she can likely feel, when she realizes who has drawn close; the sense of the Verbena. There's Kiara's resonance of course; altered now from what it once was. The sense of caustic; inevitable deconstruction has gone from her presence; there's a not entirely unpleasant hum to her now; underlining that rejuvenative energy which has grown stronger since she'd encountered her last; a gentle thrum like that of the earth; as if her pattern were reassuring and reasserting its place in the bigger picture.

She smells like sweat and sunshine and tangled within in; something sweeter.

"Hey, yourself." It's a familiar enough echo to his greeting; Ian's; there's a way she meets his eyes as she tugs her earphones out; threads them around her neck; a dimpled smile that sharpens as she notes Elijah's repose in the grass and mellows, somewhat - adopts a briefly contemplative; concentrated interest in Arionna.

The study feels like something, no doubt. Surprise. Scrutiny. Something between both and yet - not without some degree of warmth; some persistence to break that glacier. "Hey, Arionna." She doesn't hesitate to step up onto the picnic table beside Ian; to nudge him over with this over-the-shoulder glance and settle down beside him; her skin warm everywhere it brushes against him.

"Oh, you know Elijah. Breaking hearts. Starting fights." There's the briefest cant of her head; the hook of slight breathless teasing embedded in there somewhere for him. "The usual."

Arionna de la Babin
"That's who that is. I thought it was familiar." Ari lifted the cane, giving it a light toss to move it further in her hand so that she can sit. She crouches, sliding her hand out in front of her until it felt the grass, and bringing herself down onto it.

"Hello." She finally mirrors. They have both changed it seem, and she was quite alright with that. Denver felt like it was in flux. People were growing, building, changing...and she was starting to attune to it. "How do you get bored? There's plenty to do in the world. There are books, art, playgrounds, amusement parks, movie theatres, plays, dance recitals, live music, television, and of course the ever so stimulating conversations of your fellows. You could always take a moment to listen, you know. Nothing is ever boring then."

Elijah
[Per+empathy- are you insinuating that I don't listen?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 4, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )

Arionna de la Babin
man+sub

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 6, 6) ( success x 2 )

Ian
If Kiara had not yet noticed the slim cane that Arionna carried with her, or the way her eyes refused to focus when she looked at things, she would likely figure it out soon. They'd all gone through changes these past months. Perhaps that was part of what it was to be alive in spring.

Kiara sat beside Ian on the table, and he looked down at the grass with this subtle little smile, leaning forward with his hands wrapped around the edge of the wooden plank. The outer part of his leg pressed against hers - contact that felt warm and a little bit electric. When he looked at her, he let his gaze linger for a long moment.

Then he looked away, and he rolled his lower lip between his teeth.

"If you're really that bored, Elijah, I'm sure I can think of something for you to do."

Arionna de la Babin
[>.> What are you insinuating there Ian? perc+emp]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )

Elijah
"However do you manage," he turns up the southern, grin widening and there he is comfortable and amused and ever-so-pleased, as if being in her presence, however lightly teasing that may be, "I've hit the level of vain that I'm writing an autobiographical travel blog. You wanna take part in the escapades? I still haven't eaten Korean food so I figure that's a good place to start."

But there was the question, as Arionna sits and levels herself into the grass and he looks from Kiara to the other woman to the clouds and he peers at them. They told stories, and even when you weren't looking at things from the other side they were expressive. He looked at the clouds and sthe spaces between into a beautiful, shining, fading blue ombre to something pale and chipper at the horizon during the day or perhaps it was coming close to yielding itself to orange now.  Or maybe it would be gray. It would do as it was.

"Listening would imply that I ever stop talking, Ari, and I'm pretty sure that we've already established I never really shut up," she can hear the grin on his face, the light poke. The complete lack of hurt feelings. He tossed his attention- butterfly fleeting fluttering little thing- to Ian. It was enough to make him sit up, to shake the grass out of his hair. Brows raised, expression somewhere between playful and amused and ever-so-pleased.

If you're really that bored, Elijah, I'm sure I can think of something for you to do.
"You promise?"a poke, a prod, the tiniest bits of joy at rising to a challenge of some variety.


Kiara
She does perceive it. There's a certain stillness when she does; a way she resettles her attention so wholly on Arionna with the faintest line between her brows. The change in the other girl's presence; the way she seems to draw the warmth from the day more potently now; the alteration to her hair; the unseeing; unfocused way she looks out - change was and ever should be, inevitable.

Kiara knew it; understood it powerfully but as much as she respected the progression of nature; the change of season and the cycle of life; sometimes; the cost seemed almost cruel. She doesn't ask why Arionna no longer has the use of her eyes; perhaps she knows, in some way, what the answer to that will be.

Perhaps, in her own way, it's a sign of respect. Who knew.

Still, she looks for a moment and then the stillness shifts back and perhaps only Ian, close enough to feel that nuanced shift will know she'd been made awareness; could cut a glance at Kiara's profile and see the registering of it in dark eyes; the tiny, protracted shift of facial muscles in sympathy. In consideration before she's returned; before she's smiling down at Elijah with something akin to bemusement; offered flirtation that feels unadorned; teasing for the simplicity of the gesture.

"You had me at vanity, kid. I'm in."

She pauses, then. "Arionna's right, though. You know sometimes turning down the excess and listening can be the best form of entertainment. Hell, in the right place, with the right company - " She feels, but doesn't look, directly at the man beside her. She feels his attention though, when it returns to her. " - doing nothing but listening can be downright erotic."

Kiara
[*made aware, I can type ya'll.]

Ari's Seeking (Noel ST)

Arionna
[Do you think the chat is onto us?]

Arionna
She had spent the previous night with Lavinia. It was a strange relationship they had now, one that was tentatively mentor and student, though Arionna resisted such tutelage while Lavinia struggled not to push her away. But they were growing together, whether Arionna wanted to believe it or not. Lavinia had been honest with her, she knew that much, and had told her blatantly that she believed in her, not just as a person, but as a person who could be something. Something beautiful, something devout, something akin to the Morrigan.

The event was going to stick with her, no matter where she went, and sit in the back of her mind while she tried to go about her normal activities.

Sundays were sometimes quiet because people often had religious services. Cafes were not as cramped, libraries weren't as full until the evening... it was, for the most part, enjoyable. Ari, for her part, had decided to venture out for more enjoyable things to read. Since the semester was over, she had plenty of free time.

So she stood in a bookstore, moving among the shelves casually, in search of something that had caught her eye. Anything really...she wasn't even seeking a particular subject this time.

Arionna
[perc + alert]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (6, 6, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )

Untamed
The bookstore isn't where one goes to find crowds. There's still a woman behind the counter, bored and sneaking a glance at her phone every now and then. There are the few others who find themselves wandering the aisles with Arionna, but they are easily ignored and not currently in view. It's so quiet here she could imagine herself completely alone. Quiet and cold, in the graveyard of trees.

Because, this is a place of tree-memory. It has a distinct smell of old paper, and it wants silence.

Around a corner, there is a new smell -- something fresh. Pine needles and rot. It's almost as if the books are coming alive again. And she sees, on the placard (which usually tells which section of the bookstore you're in -- Self-Help, Religion, Fiction...) says "Forest".

Drifting through the air, small as dust motes (and they could be dismissed as such, if she were not quite so sharp)  a few tiny flakes of snow.

Arionna
And were it any other thing, she might have dismissed it.

But while Arionna was a wary creature, she was also a curious one. The scent of pine drifted in her nose; she inhaled even deeper, closed her eyes briefly even. She might have mistaken it for perfume, or some other scent, but no...it was unmistakable. The scent was real. The flakes were real..

Her fingers drifted along the spines of the books as she stepped along her aisle and turned to make her way towards the Forest aisle. Arionna inhales, and not just because of the scent, but because she's not even sure if she's dreaming anymore. And if she's dreaming...

Ari stops briefly to glance at the ground, to make certain she isn't stepping into another brea trap in her own head, and then she progresses into Forest. Not all dreams are bad Ari..

Untamed
Not all dreams are bad. Some are, though.

Stepping into the Forest aisle, Arionna finds that the carpeting has turned into springy pine-needle litter, the lights dim, the air colder than she remembers, fogging up with her breath. Books are twisted into strange shapes around her, caught halfway between tree and word, until she progressesand all semblance of civilization vanishes.

The woods sit in twilight, in silence like only the lonely places of the world can bring. Most of the time, such lonely places are not quiet -- they hum with the activity of a living organism, but right now it is as if every cell of this organism is holding its breath, watching, waiting. Some wait out the moment in fear, others because of the promise of scraps. The trees wait because that is the way of trees.

The air is icy cold, ground crunches underneath with a crust of snow. Whatever happened to spring? It isn't here, and never was.

Arionna finds herself on her back (and wasn't she walking before?) There is something heavy on top of her -- something alive and terribly fast, with a familiar scent. She's been here before. Somewhere like here. Only then, she got away.

These are the sensations that Arionna might have time to process before the cougar's fangs penetrate her eye sockets. She can see through her removed eyes still -- can watch her own bleeding face through his maw of teeth, until he closes his mouth, blotting out her sight.

The pain is, momentarily, the most excruciating that she has yet experienced, until it, along with the weight on her chest sublimates into the frigid air, leaving her to lie on the forest floor.

The trees are all she can hear, creaking in the wind.

Arionna
It's comfortingly surreal, at least in the beginning. The forest generally was. It felt like home most of the time, especially when the cold sank in. She shivered a little against it, but let out a soft sigh of relief. That didn't, of course, mean it wasn't worrisome. Wait, was she dreaming? Did she never leave the house? Fall asleep in the store?

No time for that. Move forward. Dreams had purpose after all, as your mother would say. Remember them. Write them down. They will whisper truths to you.

Maybe that's true. It it was, she would have to wonder at what point the dreams felt she needed such violence from her own to tell her something. She might wonder that later. Maybe.

But for now, as she lay on her back, uncertain of how exactly she found herself there, she felt pain. It was more intense than the bear trap, and that said something. Ari screamed. Her lungs expressed her pain with all their might and Ari just screamed.  She screamed until the lights went out, until she was alone.

Darkness.

Arionna lifted her hands, lightly pressing her palms against her eyes as if to question if that had just happened or maybe... maybe she was about to wake. Elijah had said her cougar was her guide. Something that helped her along her path, but now she felt betrayed. Why would she need that? In what way would that help her now?

She rolled on her side, pressing her palms into the ground to slowly push herself up. She's never felt more afraid. She can't see. The thing she relied on most was gone, and there was no one to help. Suddenly she had the desire to cry, to give up and accept it. Was that the purpose? To tell her to give up?

No.

Arionna has never given up. No matter what, she's always tried to live...just long enough.

Arionna
[perc +aware]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Untamed
Something smiles. Arionna can feel it inside her chest as she rises, defiant. Apparently, something else inside her doesn't want her to give up either.

There is no one around to help, she thinks, but then -- she was just in a place with people, wasn't she?

And she can hear them now. Low, whispering.

"Is she okay?"

"Just ignore it. Probably just tired, come on."

People's disembodied voices surround her, some more compassionate than others. They can tell that something's not quite right, but they don't seem to realize that her eyes are bleeding. Nobody mentions what should be painfully obvious.

Elijah -- she has him in her thoughts. He said her cougar was her guide? Maybe it is. Maybe...

"Ari?"

It's his voice. She can smell the maleness of him. There is no sight to tell her anything else.

"What's up?"

He doesn't seem to notice either.

But Ari -- she can feel her own eyes. They're a piece of herself, and they are moving. The frozenness that she is feels like it is receding into the forest. If she wants them, she must claim them. If she is weak, she will not.

It is that simple. Life is a struggle, is it not?

Arionna
Somehow she had hoped, expected even, that she'd be completely alone. Completely. But no. She's not. She's not as alone as she had hoped, originally. She's accustom to being the odd one out, the one people comment on...and it doesn't phase her as much as the fact that no one seems to notice. Is she mad? Is it all in her head?

Her breathing grows shallow, labored as she attempts to come to grips, rather quickly, with the loss of her eyes, the blindness of people around her and...

Elijah? "I can't see." It's soft. A whine almost. But she has no time. They are still there.

Her eyes aren't gone. They're just somewhere else. She needs those. She could rely on someone else to help her, but she needs them now. Ari orients herself in the direction she can feel them moving, and she begins to run. "I have to find them." That's all she gives in return, all she says as she takes off, trying to use her own hands to steer her in their direction. That's what has always driven her. What she needs to continue. She wants to ask for help, just as he told her once, but there is no time.



Untamed
She leaves Elijah, and oh -- one can only imagine the poor lost puppy look he gives her in response. He also seems content to let her flee, in a rather un-Elijah-like fashion.

She runs. Blindly. And she is unused to blindness. Perhaps, given time, she might become accustomed to a lack of sight -- might fashion for herself a cane or learn to hear the shape of things, but this is not a thing that has happened yet.

In fear, like prey, she runs. Like a weak thing, she runs. A predator should know better, she thinks -- or is that her thought? Something else's?

Her strength is right there, and she denies it.

And the forest is not kind. It is no kinder than life. It shelters no weakness. Ari falls, her foot tangled in a root she didn't see, momentum carrying her no further than the ground, filling her nostrils with snow and dirt, knocking the wind out of her.

Arionna
[Life magic - sensing life, Correspondence - sensing spatial relations - Dif 3 +1 fast casting] -wp

Dice: 1 d10 TN4 (10) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Arionna
[extend] +1 dif

Dice: 1 d10 TN5 (10) ( success x 1 )

Arionna
It's the fear. The fear that has pushed her forward. The fear of losing something so important. But something tell her, reminds her that it's fear that defines who we are. The predator only becomes the prey when it is fearful. Predators, true predators, never run. They struggle, they limp, but they never run. They live or die. They take the life of the runners.

She sits on the ground momentarily, enough to get her breath back, then rises to her feet. Her lips tighten as she breathes in. The blood she can feel along her face. The blood she knows rests where her sight use to be, and it's this that she uses to speak out quickly to her gods. "Nomino ventum se apud me nunc circumdederunt me, et in terram oculi mei neque vestigium . Manibus vestris ut ambularetis ego vobiscum." It's the cold of her ski, the cold of her self that she sends out into the land and into the wind, asking it to carry her, and to guide her, lest she give in to her instinct to run.

Untamed
She speaks words of power, names the wind, calls out for help from without -- and something answers from within.

Arionna cannot see, but she can sense the presence of life about her with a clarity that rivals sight. The trees sway, there are animals here that she knew were there to begin with -- a rat tunneling away from the noise, an owl watching in the high branches, annoyed about the disturbance that cause the rat to hide.

It's not far to where the cougar, almost a beacon in the darkness (from how very much she wants to find him) has carried his prize. He stretches his limbs, looks at her, stares into her empty face, and turns to walk away again.

There is another behind her, approaching slowly. Human in form.

Arionna
She turns a little where she stands, almost looking over her shoulder, even if she can't see the one who approaches. Ari turns back to her game, shifts between the trees to take her away from her straight path. Diagonal, zig zags, never straight. She wonders if her follower is hunting her as she is hunting the cougar, or if he is someone she knows. But she presses forward, no longer running but following the feel of the puma, and her eyes.

But Ari keeps the presence of the other close to her mind, keeps her focus on him. The cougar has no need to run, so he won't, she thinks. But they will meet, because she will find him. He must sleep sometime. He must rest. And when he does...

But for now, the human. Hunter? Friend? Tourist? No. They are in a forest now, not the store. Anything here must be in the same world as she. Arionna drops her bag, pushes off her shoes from her feet and keeps walking, pressing her feet carefully into the ground. Who is stalking who, she wonders.

Untamed
She walks, this time being careful, this time using her brain and her skill and her will. She can 'see' the life around her as an echo, and it is everywhere. The trees are no longer a thing that stand in her way to trip her up.

There seems to be a break in the trees ahead of her, and that human-shaped creature still follows her. Whoever it is, they don't chase and they don't threaten, but they keep going.

With her shoes gone, she can feel the snow's cold cracks and the spines of pine needles. Perhaps she doesn't care about the discomfort. Perhaps it's a good thing that she decided to use another sense, because the pine litter and snow gives way to slick rock, and then?

There is a tug at her back. The human-shaped thing has her by the fabric of her dress, holding her.

"Stop. You will fall," says Lavinia from behind her. Her voice echoes as if from the depths of a chasm. The yawning thing she nearly lept into, devoid of life with which to see.

Arionna
The snow was a fascinating thing. It was cold, wet, and it hurt sometimes, but it kept you awake, aware. Your feet became your sensors, even if they felt half numb. She liked the pain of it, the reminder that she was exactly where she thought she was, and a reminder that this is her time.

She walked, ever mindful of the presence behind her, especially when it took hold of her clothing. Arionna stopped. She hadn't noticed it before...the chasm. She hadn't see the drop even with her senses. But now...now she saw it, in a manner of speaking. Arionna didn't move, except to give a look over her shoulder at the woman behind her. "How did you find me?" But it feels like an odd question, if only because Lavinia was not entirely normal. She was something else.

Her lips tightened, and she felt a momentary burst of defiance, but...

But there was a hole right there, and while she could thrash and cry, and yell about how Lavi can't tell her what to do...it was in her best interest not to. Arionna stepped back slowly, enough that she was not in so much danger anymore. "Did the cougar go in there?" Because she doesn't know. Did he? Did he leap in?

Untamed
How did you find me?

"I have always been here," comes the response.

Did the cougar go in there?

"No," she says, terse, and to the point, that. "He is beyond this cliff."

So much for finding her eyes, then. Not unless...

"Would you allow me to help you?"

Strange words. Not, 'Do you want help?' or 'I could help you.' but something else: would Arionna allow it?

Arionna
Allow.

She could see, enough, she knew. But somehow she had missed where the cougar went. A few months back her response would have been an immediate 'No.' She would have said it harshly, even stalked off to do it on her own, as she always has. But times have changed and now she hesitates, unsure of how she feels about it.

Lavinia has promised that she would help her. Train her well enough that she won't need Lavi anymore. Promised to help her find a closer path to The Morrigan. And she's said all this without lying. That much Ari knew. Lavinia hadn't lied to her. Elijah hadn't lied to her. There were two whole people in the world she could trust, mostly, because they had always been honest, or honest enough.

Her lips tighten, and she reminds herself that through all of this, she has to live. She can be defiant, she can struggle, she can even yell and scream at the people around her, but if she does it just because, she's hurting herself. Lavinia could have let her fall. She could have pushed her. She could have been quiet while Ari walked right in.

But she didn't. Isn't that the definition of someone you can trust? A person who, at your weakest, won't take advantage of you? Won't let you fall? All the others had turned away when she wasn't compliant. She didn't bend to their wishes; didn't do what they wanted, and they left. They didn't deserve her trust because they only wanted to be friends so long as she did what they wanted.

Lavinia...Elijah...

It wasn't about bending to them. They bent to her.

She turned slowly to face Lavinia and held out her hand slowly, palm up. "It's obvious I can't find him on my own. You've hunted worse creatures and lived. I'd like your assistance." Saying it was still hard. It was always hard. But at least she could say it now.

Untamed
"You're getting stronger," says Lavinia, and her hand comes up to hold Arionna's, slides down her arm, grasps her around the waist. Apparently, that's all that she needs to do to hold the young woman aloft.

Wings erupt from Lavinia's back, like the wings of a great black bird. It seems to complete her friend, in a strange way -- those wings fit, like they were always a part of her. And then?

Lavinia leaps.

And the dark place where there is no life to see does not drag her down.

It doesn't take Arionna either. Lavinia, once trusted, does not drop her.

To the angelic being, such a jump is like a hop over a puddle, but to Arionna it would have been death, that much is certain. Once on the other side, Lavinia lets her, gently, to the ground.

"Pride is a weakness," Lavinia says.

"And I suffer not the weak," says another voice, deep and dark.

Like that, Arionna's sight returns. From her eyes, under a cougar's mouth, she can see herself and a winged Lavinia side by side.

Arionna
She remembers, clearly, the first time she ever flew.

It was also the first time she could ever, truly, do magic. She had felt the wind at her wings, saw the world with the great, powerful eyes of the bird. She knew that this was what she had always wanted; to be a part of the world, not just as a human, but as everything. But flying... she longed to fly again.

Lavinia brought those memories back. And while she couldn't see as the bird did, and could only see through the eyes of her magic...and while she could not fly herself, she felt...

It felt wonderful again, even if it was only very brief.

It was a strange feeling to see herself from a third person. To act as if she were in control of some character not her own. Arionna knelt down slowly onto her knees. For her to give in, for her to really understand how much she needed someone else, she had to lose something so obvious and important to her. Something about that was telling.

"Pride...has it always been pride, Lavinia?" She lifts her head as if to look at her, but she can only see her across the way, from him. "I don't know how to not be proud. But..." Her face moves a little in the cougar's direction.

"Keep them then." She said, and it took effort to say it. She needed it, or did she? "Give them to The Morrigan." A devotion that Lavinia was trying to instill in her. Conviction to serve her goddess. Her lips tighten, thin out as she realizes what she's doing. But no... that's precisely it. She overcame herself when she lost what was most important. And to give it to the deity she's meant to serve...

Blood almost seems like such a ridiculously small gift to any god. "As my gift to her. My thanks."



Untamed
"You have come all of this way, but not for your eyes, have you? I think you see that now," says Lavinia, who strides up to the cougar, black-winged and elegant.

She takes Arionna's eyes from the ground, slides them onto a cord that she ties about her neck, like living jewels.

"In order to gain, you would suffer. To see, you must be blinded first. So be it. I accept your gift, that you might continue to grow in understanding."

The cougar pads over to Arionna's kneeling form, nuzzles her, marks her with his scent. It's a strange kind of cat-ritual. You are mine, he says, in body language. You are family. You are loved.

And oh -- the power courses through her. She feels the change come over her -- a bolt of raw strength infusing her soul.

"We will meet again."

The ground melts. Its coldness is replaced with warmth and the conformity of carpeting. The scent of pine needles leaves her, and the smell of dust and books returns. She is kneeling in between the stacks of books. And when she opens her eyes?

There is only the blackness of the deep forest.

"Is she okay?" someone says.

"Just ignore it. Probably just tired, come on," says someone else.

They don't see how powerful she is now.

Giving up is hard to do.

Arionna de la Babin
The weather isn't entirely nice yet, though it's warm enough that those who have been through the winter recently feel it acceptable to wander around in nigh nothing. Some people anyhow. Others are more sensible and keep to their hoodies until the weather warms up.

Arionna is not one of those people who finds it acceptable to wander around in very little, despite finding a great deal of pleasure in the cold. Though it's not cold, not anymore. It's too warm really, but it's not likely to cool off anytime soon. It's going to get warmer, and she'll be back to feeling double the misery, especially when the days grow longer and the nights shorter. Despite that, she takes to the park, resting on the grass with a series of books and papers on the ground in front of her. Some weighed down should the wind pick up. Her dark hair lays over her shoulders as she peers over a book.  Her legs are out to her side, hidden only partway under a knee length skirt and a pair of spider-like stockings. It's her long sleeve that keeps her warm, simple and black to go with her skirt. As usual, the three ravens rest on a necklace at her throat.

A small turn of the page shows her deep interest in the book at hand, though she's not without attention elsewhere. Ari is always wary of those around her, for reasons so few understand, and so while she seems engrossed, she's not half as she ought to be. But she is there, with her tools at hand, just off the path.

Ian
[Awareness]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Grace
[Awareness too!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 6, 7, 7) ( success x 3 )

Ian
It was 63 degrees in Denver, and the landscape around Washington Park had the look of early spring: soft earth, muddy in patches where the snow had only recently melted, and a carpet of old grass that was just beginning to sprout fresh shoots of green. Ian took the path today, running in wide loops around the lake. Unlike Arionna, he absolutely was the type to dress lightly - especially when the weather (and the activity) called for it. Tonight he had on a pair of black and white track pants with a tapered leg and a basic white tank top. A black armband strapped around one bicep held his phone and keys.

His expression was focused while he ran, zeroed in on some fixed point ahead of him. His breaths came in a steady rhythm, keeping time against his pulse. Inhale. Exhale. Blood moving in his veins, drumming against the inside of his head.

At some point he passed the point where Arionna was lying in the grass. The ground sloped up to one side, opening up to a dry patch. Ian's rapid pace slowed as he drew closer, ramping down to an easy, loping jog. After a brief moment of consideration, he turned off the path and approached her, finally ending in a walking pace as he came up to stand beside her. He set his hands on his hips while he caught his breath, tilting his head to look down at the book in her hands.

"What are you reading?"

Grace
It might seem strange for Grace to return so soon to the park. The last time she was here, a vampire made shadows dance and flow and suffocate her. But that vampire hasn't been back to this park since. Grace knows that for a certainty. Chances are, no vampire who knows what happened will be back to this park for a while, if they're all so terrified of Mage attacks, thank you very much Sera.

Which is a good thing. This is a nice park, and one of Grace's favorite places in the city. The Message 'lives' here. It's not all vampires and creepy shit. And it's not nighttime -- yet.

She goes along as she usually does, meandering pathless with her face in her phone. With all this nature, why wouldn't she be looking at it? But when she catches the familiar hint of the catlike Ian, she bends in that direction, puts away her phone, and finally looks.

Oh, dear. He's with Arionna. This could be interesting. As in interesting times.

Still, she walks up, albeit without a smile.

"A book, apparently. Dead tree."

Arionna de la Babin
Arionna shifts slightly in her place on the dirt as a figure seems to approach. She stiffens, moves a little to the opposite side, and then seems to recognize, through voice, that it is Ian. Ari lifts her head, letting her attention slide over him. Ian had the benefit of looks, as did Elijah, when talking to Ari; she was still not accustom to well...being a young lady. Her brows lifted just a little. "I've never understood why individuals willingly move out of their own way to just run." Ari pulled her legs in slowly to straighten herself. "Conservation of Large Felines. Part of a course."  Her head tilted a little to the side. Ok, maybe she could understand it, in a way.

Ah but then there is Grace, who of course, speaks with honesty. Ari might even come to like her for that, but for now, Arionna shifts her attention to the other individual. "If you want to speak simply, then yes, it comes from dead plants." She curls her legs in further until she's sitting on her knees.

Ian
Ian gave a small nod of acceptance when Arionna responded to his question, his expression shifting slightly to indicate lazy interest. Her previous commented elicited a delayed smirk as Ian reached up to card his fingers through his hair. His visual attention shifted to Grace as she appeared at his side, taking her in for a moment with an air of relaxed greeting. As though her showing up out of the blue no longer surprised him (which it didn't, really.)

"I've never understood why some people don't appreciate the bodies they inhabit."

One could probably make a fair point to Ian that many people were not born with the kind of body that he had.

"Running is freeing. It focuses you and makes you feel more alive at the same time. Assuming you don't mind a little pain."

Ian
[Edit: Her previous comment elicited a delayed smirk...]

Grace
Grace, for the record, is wearing her grey jacket today, zipped up to the neck. It's not the cold, but hey -- a bite-resistant shirt is never a bad idea, right? It works wonders on all kinds of undead threats. Unless vampires don't really bite -- that guy she found didn't have any marks. Maybe they're like the salt sucker from Star Trek, all suction cups and... eww. Gross.

"A vampire attacked me in this park not too long ago," Grace says, apropos of nothing, and to Arionna. Ian already knows. "I think it's scared off, but still. Might do to be careful."

She then turns to Ian. "Hi. I do mind a little pain, for the record."

Arionna de la Babin
"Do you assume that those who don't engage in such activity are those without appreciation of their forms?" She closed her book slowly, focusing on the conversation at hand instead of her book. Besides, there wasn't much she could accomplish at the moment. "Appreciation is never limited to one method. A fault in thinking on the part of many." Grace, Ari had decided, looked the most normal in a city. She just seemed to fit in a way. Her brows furrowed slowly, though more in interest at Ian. "Well I can't deny running feels enjoyable, though best when there is a reason to run, I find."

Oh Grace, Morrigan bless her. She's abrupt, to the point. They may not agree on much, but the bluntness she has... "Must not be a very capable vampire."

Ian
"No," Ian countered Arionna's question easily enough. "I assume that about people who say they don't understand the point of it." His smile was an easy thing though, playing at the edges of his mouth while he watched her. Grace's advice was sobering, but it didn't seem to concern him in an immediate sense. There was no coil of tension or sudden darting of his eyes to check for hidden shadows.

"I don't think it's quite late enough for vampires yet. But yeah, being careful is never a bad idea." The topic seemed to bring something else to mind though, as Ian tipped his head in question, glancing between Grace and Arionna. "Is she not in the loop yet?"

(He meant Ginger. The Chantry. Someone to explain... all of the things that the new kids usually needed to know.)

Grace
"I have my grave concerns about loops," Grace says to Ian, giving him a pointed look that says: caution.

Truth is, Grace is still halfway convinced that Arionna isn't merrily traipsing her way down the same road as that cannibalistic Hermetic they had to deal with. The other truth is, she's not going to say that in front of Arionna.

"And yeah, I'd say any vampire who went about their nights trying to be as showy and gaudy as inhumanly possible, drawing the ire of not one but two Mages, with absolutely no backup? Yeah. That counts as being a not very capable vampire."

Arionna de la Babin
"Possibly not the best assumption to make. Though, maybe those who appreciate their own bodies less are more capable of appreciating the bodies of others. " The interaction between him and Grace warrants a calm, quiet observation, at least until Grace has said her piece.

"If you mean am I aware of whatever it is that all the rest of you are aware of, Alex has been kind enough to provide hints. Whatever knowledge you have, seems to be well guarded." Ari pushed to her feet, lightly dusting off her skirt. "Probably well. Anyone who admonishes me for lacking trust, only to do the same, seems unlikely to be worth the trouble. Seems I've discovered a few good apples, and not the other way around."

Ian
"Or maybe just young and cocky."

Maybe there was a double meaning to that, but if so Ian didn't draw attention to it. Grace got a silent stare in response to her statement, but he seemed to take the hint because he let the subject drop, allowing Arionna her misinterpretation.

"Yes, Alex is... helpful, like that." (Alexander would most assuredly have less complimentary things to say about Ian.) "Trust isn't a binary. You get to know people, and gradually you learn the ways you can trust them and the ways you can't. That takes time. But you can be wary of people and still enjoy their company. I do it all the time." This seemed to be directed equally at both Grace and Arionna.

"And I don't think I need much help appreciating the human form in any capacity." His smile there was self-aware, but he let it linger on Arionna a moment - acknowledging the obvious innuendo inherent in her choice of words.

Grace
Grace rolls her eyes at Arionna -- hard. Apparently, there is much reason to work out the eye muscles lately.

"Ari, you talk about the world as though it's dying and you want to watch. You want people to stop saving it and let nature take its course. And you're a Mage. You talk about people as though they were a plague of locusts that you'd love to squish beneath your feet. And you're a Mage. You might not be much of one yet, but as you grow into your power, you become more you. What you say and believe becomes what you actually do. And it makes me wonder -- are you going to watch the world burn? Or are you just talking out of your ass? I trust people fine -- when they're not assholes."

Talk about bluntness. Grace holds no punches. Ian will get the picture here -- the reason why Ari is not, and will not, be in the loop. The loop is about discussing threats and handling them. Ari wouldn't even be slightly interested in that anyway.

Arionna de la Babin
If she has caught onto Ian's innuendo, it has become slightly apparent with the shift of color to her face, and a small quip of her lips into a grin that fades almost as quickly as it arrived. Ah but it was there. "I guess you're right." She says to Ian. "I admit, I've seen little reason to trust much of any since I've met them. Judgmental, most of them. Blindly heroic, to a fault I'd say."

"I'm a witch, and I engage in witchcraft. If Mage is your word for it, then by all means. As for my perspective on the world, I think very few individuals...no... no one has the capacity to express my view accurately. It reminds me of the poor individuals who read Dostoyevsky once and think they understand the point of it. The truth is there are layers, and those who think they understand from a cursory read, are those who are shallow and lack the motivation to tear it apart. What you know, or think you know, is based primarily on perhaps...two encounters with myself. Limited sample, don't you think?"

"Personally I think you overstate your importance, and the intensity of the situation with the world. But then..." She held her hands up lightly in a small shrug. "What do I know? What I learn I learn of my own accord, with my own will, as has always been the case. Alex seems to think it best I build some sort of network with all of you, but I see no reason."

"Do you know the difference between small town, religious bigots and most of the... mages... I've met thus far? One is wrapped in technology, and the other in false civility. Admittedly, at least you're honest about it. I prefer the honesty. Far less skulking required."

Ian
"Oh for fuck sake, Grace, do you have any idea what a monster I was when I was a teenager? Being likable doesn't make someone inherently trustworthy." Ian let out an irritated breath and rolled his eyes skyward, as though asking for patience.

"This is a stupid argument. You're making assumptions instead of talking. I fail to see how that's helpful to either of you. But if you want to sit here and pick at each other all night, be my guest. I'm going to finish my run."

And with that, he turned around and jogged back to the path.

Grace
"I've tried talking with her. It's like talking to rather uncaring rocks," Grace says, to Ian's retreat.

"Well, it is," she says, to Ari. Now this is gone uncomfortable, but again -- Grace doesn't much care.

"And you're right -- I don't know you very well. But from what I have been able to parse, you don't particularly want to be trusted. Either that, or you don't see the need for trust. You like arguing with people, and not by attacking their ideas, but attacking them. I get the feeling you like making people uncomfortable, whether that's intentional or not. And it really really works. I realize I'm doing a bit of arguing and prickling at you right now, but you seem to like it. So. We can do that."

Arionna de la Babin
There's a small tightening of her lips as Ian starts to jog away. There is little for her to say in what he said. In her perspective, it wasn't her that was the brunt of the problem.

"Rocks lack the capacity to care to begin with. " She leans over to begin gathering her items up and slide them in her bag. "And why do you think that? Because I don't agree with your perspective? Perhaps I don't find your ego to be engaging. Maybe it's because I don't find the concept of playing nice with those who judge me to be rather appealing. "

"You give your trust where you like it. I'm no more in control of it than anyone else. If you don't give it, then you've chosen not to. And you'll have to live with that. I'll survive with, or without the group of you. A choice you make. But if you think that I'll hand over my trust so freely, you're mistaken." Ari slid the strap of her bag on her shoulder and straightened. "As it stands, it is a greater cost to me to trust you, than it is the other way around. And given what I've seen so far, you don't come across as a particularly happy bunch, or an enjoyable one. Not very giving, certainly."

She shifted a little, tilting her head. "Do I make you uncomfortable? Have you considered that perhaps it's not entirely a choice?" Her brows furrow slowly, and her tone darkens a little at Grace. "Some of us were not gifted with plainness. How easily you would have fitted in where I come from. No one would have suspected anything, and how I envy you for it. Must be a lovely feeling to blend in."

Arionna de la Babin
[OMG being able to blend in]

Grace
Grace raises an eyebrow. "Okay, now you're making assumptions about me that aren't true. I know exactly what it's like to be completely alien -- to have nobody in your life, even your parents, who consider you human. I still don't talk to them. They should have known better.

"When I was growing up, I had nobody, Ari. The reason why I like technology so much is that I found that the only way I could talk to people was through an interface where they couldn't figure out how old I was or what my gender was or any of that shit.

"You don't have a monopoly on solitude. Maybe the reason why I'm so hard on you is because you remind me of the very worst parts of what I became when I was alone. I hated people. And I wanted a release for that hate. But then, I grew up. I had to come to a realization that was I was doing to myself wasn't beneficial to me."

Arionna de la Babin
"Then you should know better yourself. If you profess understanding such concepts, then perhaps you should recall that the methods of interaction most of you employ is not endearing. Why should -I- chance my own safety when it's likely you're no different than anyone else? Solitude has benefits. Benefits that I see no reason to relinquish to individuals who have given me no reason to do so."  Her brows stayed knit, focused on the woman in front of her, though she slowly began to cross her arms over her chest. "What you have to offer I can find on my own. It'll take me longer, most likely, but at least I'll have the satisfaction of completing it myself. "

"Though it seems you have one distinct advantage. You were able to interact with people. "

Grace
"I gave you all the chances, and opened myself up to you in the beginning, Ari. You've shot me down enough times since then that now you've got me on the offensive. That's why my method of interaction with you isn't endearing. Anymore.

"And it won't be, up until the point when you learn to treat people with the respect you now reserve only for yourself.

"You will find, that interacting with people comes a lot easier when you want to. I don't think you do. I don't think you see the point. Or the benefit. So I don't know why you even try. Do you?"

Arionna de la Babin
"Is there a point? Other than dancing around n the middle of the park, is there a point to our engaging in any sort of conversation? The truth is I see very little point to most of you. Alex seems to think that making friends is somehow important, and that somewhere along the way, the lot of you might be helpful. Thus far, I don't see how that's even possible."

"There are ...certain.... individuals I've grown to enjoy being around. For them, perhaps I do, a little. But then, they've given me cause to give them what little I have. For the rest? I know how it will end. Why put effort into something that will only end with a great cost? I'm better off channeling the effort into something more useful."

Grace
Okay. Grace is the kind to let people do what they want to do. And Ari wants to be alone. She doesn't want to engage in conversation, so that's where Grace ends it.

She won't even say goodbye, just nods, and turns around -- starts meandering away. Likely this will be the last time Grace will even acknowledge her presence.