Delilah

Delilah
[I feel like these greetings would be more appropriate for Lux/Verna. *g*]

Grace
[Hahahahaha. Poor Verna]

Grace
So it's a great day to get out of the office. For most people, that would be every day. But for Grace, the reason is more personal. She's one of those jealousy-inducing people who truly loves her work. So why is she so happy to be here?

Might be because Adam is there.

If he's going to spend much more time hanging around their place, Grace is going to have to at least try to get along, but for the time being, the lure of pho is a decent enough reason to flee that particular thorn of a person.

And a bowl she has, steaming up her little table by the wall. Like a good girl, she's even put her phone away for the time being in order to eat without risking the poor electronic device's early demise.

The place is mostly empty. It's not lunch time or dinner time, but somewhere in between. Two-ish. It's the middle of the day, when most people are between meals. Grace just eats when her stomach says it's time. Maybe that's why Kalen always says she forgets to eat?

It's the kind of place that tries very hard with very little. Between rent and upkeep and trips to Vietnam to see family and order spices in bulk, the decor suffers a bit. There's some silk orchids in vases on the walls, but also some peeling laminate in the corner. They're using the free version of Pandora as background music, but it's not loud enough to really pay attention to the advertisements. Just your average American dream, really. And at that table near the wall, a nondescript woman (man?) in black and grey (blue?) eats her lunch or dinner or whatever you want to call it, in relative peace.

Delilah
The door opens. Delilah enters. Delilah enters, alone and with an umbrella because the air is full of the presentiment of rain. Delilah, see, is a golden creature, a dawn-thing, hair a blaze of unburnished brightness even back in a braid, posture straight see as if that whole muscle sinew bone flesh body anatomy is poetry physicality is a spare story and a spare story can be made, which is to say she carries herself well, and Delilah is wearing jeans and tall boots and Delilah has on a brown leather jacket and there is something stolid about the Dawn-myth, Dawn-lady, Daybreak-hearted whatever -- young woman. Truly, she just looks so much like somebody'd want her to personify Dawn, see, that it's easy to when one does notice her accept it and define her (stamp her with that name) and that's all. That: not the broad features, airy ethereal delicacy only here and there, stolidity in the brow, whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever, the point is:

Door opens. Young woman comes in, with umbrella. And it's Aurora, Eosophoros, some other scrap of gold-story light-ritual, coming into the pho place, because gosh darn it sometimes one just wants pho.

Delilah breathes deep, approaches the host desk and follows a young asian woman with thick middling brown hair red glints in it to a table, sets the umbrella against her chair, looks around because she is in a new place! curiosity! settles her bag down, too, and smiles up at the waitress her eyes open see her gaze direct when she does it and here is the menu and now

Here is Delilah and here is a menu and

[here is an awareness roll, because who knows what evil might happen, mwahaha. -2 for Grace's Arcane.]

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

Grace
[Awareness too! Does Grace notice the dawn coming to rest upon Pho-nomenal?]

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

Grace
[Apparently, we're all about the 10s today.]

Delilah
[Seriously. We're using them all up before STed scenes, aren't we? D:]

Delilah
Delilah, marked as a myth, sure, but Grace can sense: radiance - that shining-forth, that beginning of luminous threading threading in and out and in and out and

Grace
Grace is in the midst of slurping noodles when Delilah walks in, dragging the sun with her to spite the rain, and it draws the gaze up, despite the fact that the mouth is full.

Not really a 'couth' person, this one.

Also, one trying to pay attention. Who is this?

Delilah
Who is this? Delilah looks around, see, and her gaze does land on Grace. Her gaze was direct when the waitress handed her the menu and her gaze is direct now, look, look, she sees you, she is seeing you, she is seeing you see, anyway, she looks not a touch startled and another touch curious, this careful sort of curiosity, but the carefulness cannot actually conceal the subtle little shift in her expression (open). Is Grace still looking at her? Because if so, their eyes will meet. Delilah alone, pausing with menu open in front of her a screen to look over bambi-lashed bright, that sense of cities walls barriers shifting quaking falling that keen edge keen incisivie strategic perhaps hm?

Grace
"I haven't seen you here before," Grace says, meeting Delilah's gaze with one that doesn't know what the rules are for staring at people. "You're new in town?"

Or perhaps older than Grace to the place. Who knows? Mages migrate sometimes.

Delilah
They will get along famously, at least when it comes to directness. Delilah, she knows one shouldn't stare, but when her attention is taken she gives it and it is difficult to hide it, far-flung from her nature, see. Delilah, she offers Grace a neat little smile, something demure but with a cheschire edge: any moment, it will be sweet mischief.

"Not really. Newish. I've been keeping to myself, mostly, but not out of any inherent unfriendliness, just - you maybe know how it is. Are you, I'd guess, one of the established clique?"

This is a conversation had across space and tables, Delilah rests her chin on the top of the pho menu, the better to talk. The waitress brings water with ice and also some jasmine tea and because of this Delilah has to look at the waitress and thank her because Delilah isn't rude (well). But her attention swings back to Grace. Little scrunch of her nose. The word clique isn't quite right.

Grace
If Delilah had only met Grace a few years earlier, she'd know just how wrong the word 'clique' is. There's Grace, and then about a few light-years away, there's the popular cheerleader archetype.

"Well, maybe? I suppose? I guess it depends on what you mean by that. I mean, we're hardly what you'd call 'established' here. Unless you mean something else entirely. Which, I don't know, maybe you do?"

Her gaze turns to awkward as she realizes she's rambling about, words coming out of her mouth rather haphazardly.

"I'm Grace. Hi."

Delilah
The blonde at the other table is a little cautious, but that demure Valentine mouth and its smile see - she lifts her chin from the edge of the menu and sets it down flat on the table because she isn't reading it anyway and when the waitress does return to ask her what she wants she will come alert and be not stricken with apology or terror or even exactly urgency just alertness just oh no the need to do a thing and then she will pick the first thing her eye falls on just as if she were a fairy tale king gone home after a long long walk. Caution means nothing when one's got a sunbeam flaring beneath their skin, see? It's only a shadow; passing, and Delilah says, leaning on her forearms, "Oh! I've heard about you. I'm Delilah, Lucy's my sister - you've met her? D'you wanna..."

Her eyebrows go up and her head is lowered like a bull's there's a certain bovine sensibility right as if she could have horns and catch the sun in them but no no just frame the sun in them it is just a presentiment of stubborness and here, now, welcome: yes welcome. Welcome with a hesitation, make it over into something delicate.

D'you wanna...

and she nudges out the chair opposite her. Sit is the word she doesn't say because the expression and the nudging of the chair and yes.

Grace
"Lucy... I think I have actually? No wait.... No, yes I have. Once. At that weird place with the chimes! Right, that was at least someone named Lucy. Geez, that was months ago," Grace says, proud of herself for having remembered.

She eyes the room a bit, calculating. She looks at the spread in front of her, the pho and accouterments thereof. Delilah gets a shrug, and then Grace starts the task of moving tables. First the big bowl of soup, then the plate of condiments, then the coffee and water, then the laptop bag which goes everywhere, and she still leaves behind a bit of a mess. Napkins and straw wrappers and a bit of disorder are what's left to show that there once was a person sitting at that table.

Once everything's moved, she slides into the chair opposite Delilah and gives a little joyous smile at being so welcomed.

"Does you sister feel kinda... cold?" she asks, voice low so as not to draw attention.

Hawksley
[awareness!]

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

Hawksley
There's a chime over the door, or a bell, and it goes off when that door swings open, letting in another blast of the cool-wet air that actually feels like autumn and warns of winter.  But there's less flinching this time when the door opens, less  hesitance at the thought of rain or prophecy of snow, because the man entering the establishment feels like laying on a beach in summertime, south of the equator.  The warmth is drenching, saturating, coating the skin in languid heat.  You think if you dared open your eyes like that, only half-shaded against the sun, you would see something flying overhead, wings outstretched to catch the breeze as well as the rays, but never quite blocking that central, burning light.

His eyes, which are an unrelenting blue, flick over the interior as he is standing there, regal, despite the fact that he's in nothing more elaborate than jeans and a hoodie over a plain white tee.

Granted, his outfit cost as much as some people's rent, and that's before the shoes.  That's definitely before the watch.  It takes a lot of money to look that effortlessly chill.  Let's not even discuss how he gets his hair to look like that.

--

He sees a friend, or someone he considers a friend.  And it's in her direction he walks, unzipping the hoodie as he goes.  He has noticed the woman Grace is sitting with.  There is not a cell in his body that hasn't noticed her.  But it's to Grace he directs his first attention, Grace with Those Eyes.

"Grace!" he bursts, and kicks the edge of a chair lightly with his foot.  "Are you on a date?  If you're not on a date, you should let me sit down."  He grins.

Delilah
Delilah keeps her forearms on the table. The waitress does come by, and it is just as predicted: that sudden alertness, a golden bow drawn - the string humming, just so, see - her attention thinned and readied and here is the strike, this plate right here, this one, #4 special. The waitress leaves, and Delilah sits straight again now that Grace has chosen to come over to her table with her bowl and her laptop and her many things. Does Delilah's sister feel kinda cold?

"Like winter," Delilah confirms, and her gaze is still direct direct not the kind of direct that becomes a staring contest or a bid for intimidation, oh no, just the kind of direct which is honest about how it is wondering, wondering, oh how i wonder what you are. "Or ice cream." Here here here a moment of focused concern: "You're not bothered by that, are,"

Grace! somebody says, because the door has opened and see in swoops this regal-godling raptor a golden man who looks like he's sun-drenched like he's just pretending to be a man like his skin actually belongs to something which flies high and drops sharp and swift and to kill

(or for the joy of it, eh?)

and anyway, Delilah: Delilah is not shy, and there is a tension at the corners of her mouth the beginning of another smile (see, her mouth purses like a kiss, and there is a sense of conspiracy: the most obvious, most non-conspiratorial conspiracy ever to be conspired, because even when she is almost almost sly it is only for the fun of it). Delilah is not sly.

Grace
"I am not on a date, and since when am I in charge of the chairs?" Grace asks, and looks to Delilah. Does she believe herself to be in charge of the chairs? Perhaps so, considering Grace had to be welcomed aboard.

Granted, Grace is never on a date. Never, especially in comparison to certain Denver denizens who seem to pick up a new delightful person every week. Or every day in some cases. But then, they can. They want to.

"And no, Delilah. I am not bothered. I mean, who am I to judge someone based on how they... uh... feel, eh?"

Hawksley
Oh he loves that smile.  He's looking at her for a moment, the purse of her mouth and glint of her eyes, but then back to Grace.  He has no idea whose table it is, only that no one is protesting his presence.  He does so like to pretend that he has manners.

Hawksley drags the chair out with his foot and drops into it, sprawls into it, hearing Delilah's name despite the lack of formal introduction.

"Delilah," he says, wrapping himself around the name as clearly and with as much entitlement as Grace's burst from his lips.  "Hawksley Rothschild," he says, offering a hand.

Delilah
Delilah is in charge of the chairs, but Delilah's charge is a benevolent one, hands-off, from-a-distant, beaming-down-from-above; a pale wash, the sweep of a glance here, touch of a glance there; all are welcome to the chairs as long as there are chairs, and see - she gives Grace a firm little nod, and Delilah's expressions are sparking things, and her answer sparked some stubborn-steadfastness some ease some oh good there is a puzzle piece and this is its place: snick! everything satisfied glint.

"Oh! Cool. I mean, I'm really glad you said that, Grace. I know it might sound weird, but I'll confess to weirdness. Who doesn't like ice cream in winter?" Here is a Hawksley's hand and how strange it is to shake hands with, oh, but it isn't, is it? He's just hawk-headed: the impression overwhelms her when she takes it. Her mouth curves further: conspiracy! "Hi, Hawksley. Delilah Swan."

"Have you both been around for ages and I've just been missing everybody?"

Grace
"I haven't been around for ages. A while, yes. I mean, technically I've been in Denver like five years, but a lot of that was before you'd probably even notice, and now it's even harder to notice me, so...

"Oh man, I am rambling again. I should stop that."

Grace attacks pho with her chopsticks, trying to cut the weirdness by just not talking for a while.

Hawksley
"My god, of course you are," Hawksley says, hearing her name.  He's almost swept up with the desire to lift her hand to his lips, quick and gallant, but he's not that easily overcome, even by his own desire.  There's one more reason he never considered joining the Cultists.  There's only one thing he wants that well and truly captivates his will.

"I don't know about ages.  But I'm always meeting new people.  Delilah, will you join me in ganging up on Grace to tell her that she absolutely should not stop rambling?"

Delilah
"Yes!" Delilah grins, and nothing Delilah does is sidelong: not really, maybe just-beginning, maybe flushing, blushing: that's as sidelong as she gets, coming at a thing from the side, welling up: nothing Delilah does is sidelong, so the grin is not sidelong, it is a broad stroke. "And I bet you get 'my god' all the time," because Delilah, see, she wants to lift his arm and check for feathers, but she does not. Because: the grin; and Grace. Delilah's grin diminishes a touch, because, oh, she wants to be careful, so she says this earnest as a penny as dew on grass as wet on water:

"Truly, ramble away. I myself find myself rambling quite often. Well! Especially around new people, before - you know? You fall into a groove with them, know who you are around them, who they are around you, find that - oh. The point is, ramble away. Especially about yourselves."

Little beat. And: "I like to hear it." Little lift of her shoulders, lean back in her chair, posture: straight again poise poise poise.

Grace
"Mmm. Mmkeh," Grace says, though she's still trying to get those noodles to go down, at least they're not trying to escape her mouth.

"Rambling. What do you want me to ramble on about? Because I can, about almost anything."

True statement, that. And something catches her eye on the side of the table. Oh! Oyster sauce. Yes, let's do that. She goes for it and squeezes a bit into the soup.

"And even if I don't know about a thing, sometimes I will just wing it anyway."

Hawksley
Delilah surely isn't meaning to puff up Hawksley's ego when she says he must get my god all the time.  But she does.  It sparkles down inside him, lights up his viscera.  He smirks.

He is leaning back in his chair; someone comes to see what he wants and he points to a couple of things on the menu and then returns his attention to the two women he sat down with.  "Are you flirting with me?" he says, interrupting the rambling to respond to Delilah's comment about his godhood.

Grace
[afk a bit! brb. Feel free to skip.]

Grace
[back! Continue!]

Delilah
Delilah startles. Not a lot. Just a little: see, it is in the tug of her wide-set oh morning clear gaze musing on Grace's face as if writ there is a perfect topic for rambling to Hawksley and Delilah is, indeed, a flusher, a blusher, rosy-fingered rosy-skinned air and sunlight whether or not she feels as if she should blush. The startle means she: blinks, her brow lowers.

"I didn't notice," she says, and then: that sly presentiment of a smile, Valentine heart of a thing. "Was I? I never flirt."

Be serious, Delilah: but see, the smile snicks up further becomes meditative a little because does she never flirt - she means it when she says it but as she thinks about it as she thinks about it and she looks Hawksley over and as she says it she turns to glass and it is not very true, is it, that she never flirts? Lucy would call her a liar.

"Why don't you ramble about skydiving?" Look between them. Delilah, blushing ol' clear as anything Delilah, is impartial.

Grace
Oh, there's a giggle from Grace. "I think you mean to ask Hawksley to ramble about skydiving don't you? It seems like the thing he'd do. I've never been, but then I did promise to wing it didn't I?"

She sips some coffee, accidentally dainty.

"Hmm. Did you know the first skydivers came before the first airplanes? People were jumping out of hot air balloons. I suppose it's always been this big human desire, to try to fly, to cut free and just go. Personally, I haven't the slightest interest though. I get enough adrenaline on the ground."

Hawksley
"Liar," Hawksley says, scarcely have the words I never flirt left her lips.  "I've seen the way you smile."

As though her smile, itself, is a flirt.  Which it may be.  He lets it go, smirking to himself as skydiving is brought up.  He feels a tug of his ego there, as well: he attributes the thought of falling through the sky to his presence at the table.  Who wouldn't, who can sense him?

"I've actually never gone skydiving," he chimes in, lifting a glass of water as soon as it is set down to sip at it.  "I'm not so entranced with the falling as with the flying."  He stops there, listening to Grace after she's sipped her coffee.  An expression of utter delight casts over his face: HOT AIR BALLOON SKYDIVING.  "Now that I would try," he mentions.  He's grinning.  Of course he's grinning.

And then his phone is ringing, and he is scowling.  He slips it out of his pocket, glancing at it.  It's something razor-thin and sleek, shiny, unmarred by dents or dings or being more than a few weeks old at most.  He frowns as he looks at it, then taps it and puts it away.  "I'm afraid I have to be going."  Taking out his wallet instead, he lays down a twenty on the table.  "Take whatever it is I ordered home, all right?  Sorry,"

he adds,

which Grace, at least, may have to wonder and realize she's probably never heard him say before.  "Delilah, a pleasure," he says, dropping a small card from his wallet next to the cash.  Grace has probably seen one of these before: a simple calling card.  A name, a number, an email address.  All for 'Davie Livingston', who introduces himself as Hawksley Rothschild.  "Grace, always a pleasure," he adds, and then he's moving -- quickly -- for the door, taking out his phone again.  Must be an emergency,

but to have those you have to have responsibilities, and Hawksley has so few.

Hawksley
[thank you for the RP!]

Delilah
Delilah: gives this little shake shake of her head. Did not mean to ask Hawksley to ramble, even if he did put the thought in her head: look at him; it drops your gut out; it makes you hear the slash of air. Delilah looks quite interested intrigued her mouth goes slack for a moment and then and then and then Hawksley is talking, confessing, no, admitting, and she adds, "I'd just like to go," oh, phone ringing: well Delilah ignores it because Delilah is talking, saying to Grace, "up in a hot air balloon. I bet it would be lazy and glorious."

Then Hawksley is taking his leave and putting down a twenty and Delilah, blushing still, pink diminishing, see, more light less pink, well! Delilah is not so flush even if she is flushed as to turn away twenty whole bucks worth of whatever the heck Hawksley ordered (did he order anything yet?), but she says, meaning it, "It's okay." Then laughs: "Back atcha."

And then he's gone, and the waitress comes with special #4 and Delilah looks at it with the same amount of pleasure she'd looked after this idea of hot air ballooning chased by a fleeting moment of hm is this healthy and then and then and then:

"What gets your heart pumping on the ground? Are you a jogger?"

Grace
Grace tilts her head at Delilah. She's been in Denver how long, and she has to ask that question?

"Uhh. Well, no, not necessarily. But more or less, you know, it's the..." Grace scratches her ear, turns her voice down again after a good look around to see who's listening. "More ground-based dangers. Vampires. Demons crawling out of the theater screens. The regular. By the way, stay away from the Black Orchid, it is a feeding ground."

She then takes her chopsticks in either hand and makes it look like she's attempting to be a walrus. If people get that idea, great.

Delilah
Delilah responds to the change in temperature (mood [low]), dawn-haired young woman lowering herself the better to listen and she was once stronger has let herself weaken slightly muscles have lost some definition but when she recalls she is still wearing a jacket and may be dripping the sleeve through things and takes it off there is a line of strength in her wrist, a woman with arms for expressing oneself: the body as expression, understand.

"Oh, I think I see. Just so much danger, so many Hellish events," faint smile on Hellish, not because the idea of Hell is pleasing, but because association connection see; it isn't a pleased smile, only a faint flex of internal acknowledgment, "that you don't have much of a taste for seeking it out?"

"I don't -- "

Pause. Delilah says, "Do you know about the hungry men?"

Delilah
ooc: "for seeking it, um, adrenaline that is, out?" even

Grace
"I know plenty of guys who are occasionally hungry, I don't think that's what you're talking about though, is it?" Grace asks, putting the chopsticks back to their intended use and going after some meat this time.

Apparently Grace is a hungry person as well.

"Do, tell."

Delilah
"Lucy, Elijah, an unnamed woman who feels like 'rebirth and destruction,' were all drawn to this ghost looking for his dog - " Delilah pauses. Earnest: "Stop me if this is familiar."

Grace
"Not familiar at all, and that's weird, because I live like right next door to Elijah. I assume we're talking about the same Elijah..."

Delilah
"He's got a reputation for being a good kisser?"

Grace
Grace blinks. What? Really? Elijah? Well, that's not the reputation she'd pin on him first, but hey, good for him.

"I... would not know. Young, has this kinda... hair?" Grace says, and makes a swooping gesture about her head, because Elijah's hair always looks like it's about to fly away.

Delilah
"I think they're the same," Delilah says. "He lives with somebody named Kalen?"

Brief pause, for confirmation; and see how serious her eyes are now, morning colored, mourning colored? They're gloaming blue, a bat-song spring. Still direct, because Delilah is always direct.

The she says, "So. This guy was looking for his dog. Turns out, four hungry men killed the dog, snap." One less person Lucy will have to explain what she saw to, fresh. That's what Delilah is thinking. Dawn: it is first. Goes out before dusk. Somehow, they've done the opposite in this city so far. "Then they, they got him. I mean they took him in a van. They got his legs. And they ate him, like. They took his heart. Elijah believes the ghost is one of many disappearances happening over the summer, that it's connected to something he and Sera ran into -- right? and Lucy," a pause.

"Lucy is going to find them. I think that's probably everybody's goal, because horror that bad, I think it's hard to leave. Don't you? I don't know. But that's what happened, the hungry men. Maybe it's not really a 'men' thing. Or a 'man' thing, you know. I don't know."

Grace
Oh, this is the perfect conversation to have over dinner/lunch/whatever, isn't it? Grace blanches a bit, eyes widen a touch. She's trying not to let it show.

Well, shit.

"That's really disgusting," Grace says, and the chopsticks drop.

"I'll have to bug Elijah to let everybody else know."

Delilah
"Yes," subdued, that, to the: that's really disgusting. "I'm sorry," and she is. The sorry encompasses their food, steaming; delicious. Devoid of human hearts, at least. Of hungry men, of any ravenning. "The 'feeding ground' thing made me think of it. And it just happened two nights ago. Not the best 'make a new friend' icebreaker, although," see, the beginning of a hopeful lilt of a smile again: not-quite-coy. "Well! 'Don't go here, possible death' is a pretty great friendly gesture, so thanks."

Grace
There are worse things to be eating right now. Worse things on this restaurant's menu even. Bun bo hue, with its cubes of congealed blood, for example. But Grace still gives a pause to her eating in order to digest.

Her mind goes to the description again and again.

"It's okay. I mean, thanks for the warning. That's always appreciated. There's a thing we use, and I'm surprised Elijah hasn't yet? But we share things like this through it. You should give me your number. I'll see about getting you access."

Delilah
"Uh, what is it?" Delilah asks. "Like a magic cabinet?" she brightens; even bright, it's clear she doesn't really truly think the magic cabinet scenario is likely. "Everybody's got a cool cabinet, you turn a key and hey presto, cool note inside? I've always wanted a magic cabinet, and I don't even know what movie from my childhood I should blame for my desire."

Grace
"Kind of. Like a magic... uh..." Phone sex line. "Well, my friend who helped set it up envisioned it like a super secret spy message drop. Open it up and you might find something really interesting. But most of the time, it's just horrific."

There's a little shrug, like 'Sorry, you live in Denver, not Super Happy Fun-Time Land.'

Delilah
Delilah considers. Taps her chopsticks, once, twice, the beginning of a rhythm. Delilah has an excellent ear for rhythm, for one-two-thre one-two-three, and it was never intrinsic: trained. "I get it," and this is still earnest, open. "We warn each other about horror so not everybody has to experience it, and, I guess, well! To stop it, too. The horrible things get more press." Wry. But let that fade: Delilah can only be wry for brief moments; it is natural, but it doesn't stay naturally. "Hey, on a less horrible note, can I ask you about -- well. People? Other people who are cool in Denver? I barely know anybody, you see, and," and. There is an and; this thorn of worry, see, something not quite dark but which underlies the question asked just out of curiosity.

Grace
"And...?" Grace asks, and it's such a hypocritical gesture from the one who constantly trails off in her conversation.

"Of course you can ask about people. Whether or not I answer depends on if the information is private or not. But shoot."

Delilah
"Information isn't private," Delilah says, with a grin - brief-blooming thing: "But people are, true, and I shouldn't want to upset them," the bloom fades as she continues on, see, into earnestness. "And is all. And I want to know about who's out there. Who's out there? Who's trusty? Is it true, the city's mostly full of people who won't like -- harry you on if you don't belong? Granted," academic this. "Nobody's harried yet, but - " here, a shrug; she bites the inside of her lip, finally ends with -- "Ramble?"

Grace
"Just don't go to this one place," Grace says, leaning down over the table. "An Arch Key books? Dude there is... well, he can be a total prick. You might get harried there. But he generally sticks to himself. And I wonder why, right?" Grace rolls her eyes.

"Mostly, though, nobody here really cares what your sign is. Or even if you have one. I thought I was going to get a lot more people breathing down my neck because of what I am, but so far? Everybody's been super nice."

Delilah
The natural response is: "What are you?"

Grace
Grace considers Delilah. She knows Elijah, that's a plus. But then, so does a Technocrat. Delilah has Lucy for a sister, she's helping... Okay. Probably not a threat, this one.

"Virtual Adept," she says, low-toned, but not said as though she's trying to hide something important.

She is, of course, being very careful who hears. The place is almost empty though, so that helps.

Delilah
Virtual Adept. They've got something of a reputation: the Virtual Adepts. Hot new kid on the block. New kid until somebody else joins the Council. Delilah is a knowing one, settled in her own skin, settling in her own skin; but she couldn't recite the history of the Traditions, and what she knows about the Virtual Adepts is gleaned from a smattering of experiences and - oh, who knows. But she accepts this piece of information as if it were a matter of course, though the shape of her there across the table: curiosity. Delilah is finally, finally no longer blushing: banish all pink.

"I don't know why people would breathe down your neck for that, but I am glad to hear that everybody's super nice. I might, um, breathe down your neck for a favor, I guess, if some jerk tried to post naked pictures of me or something, but - oh! and I guess I'd stereotype pretty hard about cool new or unreleased or special video games and you being the one with the potential hook-up."

Grace
Grace makes a face, a kind of nasty, smelled-something-bad look. Jerks posting naked pictures of people without consent? Try to do that here, jerks. Just try it. Grace will find a way to make your life hell, by the look of that scrunched-up nose.

"If somebody pulls some horrible shit like sharing your nude pics, I will definitely get on the case. Nobody does that to people I like and gets away with it."

People she likes, Delilah! You have made it to the list of people Grace Evans likes! Are you not proud?

Delilah
Delilah is already sitting up straight, but she puts her palms together, knuckles curled and kissing, a happy little gesture. Honestly happy, too. Because having somebody in your corner is a good thing, when it comes to the scum scurf of the world, and because: oh, the principle of the thing. Hands go down; chopsticks get taken up again and she gestures with them once.

"Okay then! I will call you in that case, with, I hope, minimal amount of breathing-down-neck." Oh. Hawksley's business card. Delilah remembers it: peels it off the table and flips it over, lofting her eyebrows. "Well, I will if I have your number."

If now is the time to take that down, Delilah will write it.

Grace
"Oh! Right. Numbers, numbers are important," she says, punctuating the air with a finger.

Grace fishes in her laptop bag for a pen. It's got a nubby rubbery end (capacitive, it's a stylus too) and goes for Hawksley's card. The thing is expensive, of course. Everything of Hawksley's is that luxe. And Grace is going to scribble on it.

314-1592 - G

Delilah
[ - and Jess's brain dies. But Delilah totally gives out her number, too. And the rest of the meal is enjoyed, and then they part ways, and it is very free of doom. Yay!]

Surprise Party

Elijah
[I swear to god, Elijah, if you botch this we are done professionally]

Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (4, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )

Kalen Holliday
[How awake are we?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 9) ( success x 1 )

Serafíne
So see it is some night it is some weekend night but the week doesn't mean a goddamned thing to Sera, not the rhythm of it, and the week doesn't mean a goddamned thing to most of Sera's friends, not the way it does to Working Professionals, because they all got degrees in art or pottery or philosophy or film and are therefore now stringing together a living bartending or working in the food industry and waitressing on the side and putting together the odd event or three and Sera has perfect timing and Perfect Time and she does not know precisely when it is right not, because she has chosen to be ignorant of such minor details.

There is a bouncy castle in the backyard of the three-story blond-brick building on Corona Street and an extraordinary mass of people spilling out of every goddamned entrance and exit of the building, proper.  Strings of lanterns and Edison lights everyplace and there's a stage wedged in somehow and sometimes there is a band.

Drinks of every sort (try the pitchers of Elderflower Collinses - gin and elderflower liqueuer and blueberries and rosemary and lime juice) and slightly more mind-altering substances always at hand.  Sera is on the front porch, perched on one of the wide bannisters framing the steps coming up from the front garden and she has something colorful in a martini glass in one hand and an ice cream cone (a cake cone) in the other and she is in the middle of a very emphatic story about Vincent Van Gogh but she is sometimes getting it mixed up with a story about the time she forgot whether the mushrooms in her fridge were shitakes or psilocybins and didn't know whether to make tea or pizza with them.

Serafíne
(Perception + Awareness because everyone else is rolling stuff!)

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8) ( success x 3 )

Elijah
"Who's Sera?" Jenn asked as she parked the civic.

Someone had to be responsible tonight and it would seem that it would fall on the tiny tattoo artist to be the one who made sure that Elijah woke up in time to be dragged lovingly home by his diminutive room mate. She was excited, there was something palpable about it that mixed well with the unrest that Elijah brought with him.

"Sera is pretty much made of amazingness," Elijah replied as he got out. He'd acquired vodka and he'd acquired brownies, mostly because he'd acquired Jenn and she had procured brownies with enough pot in them to make sure a rhino was stoned. Jenn might not have drank terribly much, but when it came to thinks with herbs, the little woman who smelled faintly of dirt and rosemary was a connoisseur.

"Who's the party for?" she asked.

"I have no idea," Elijah informed her, "but whoever he is? He's probably going to be trashed by the time the night's over."

It was up the steps with them, Elijah dressed as he usually is (like the missing fifty third member of Mumfort and Sons) and Jenn wearing a pair of shorts that showed off the irises on her thigh and a shirt that hung off one shoulder. The top of a very familiar unicorn peeking down, though the red bull was nowhere to be found.

It was up the steps with them, and Sera got a wave hi, not wanting to interrupt her story.

Richard
There's a big leather sofa on the lawn.  There's no real explanation for this: it simply is.  Maybe someone brought it.  Maybe someone dragged it from inside.  Maybe it fell out of the sky.  It's a pretty nice sofa, though, not rained-on yet, and right now it is occupied by a dreadlocked white girl who looks like she believes in granola and quinoa and free love and legalized MDMA, a college kid who's asleep, and a very tall ex-olympian who is smoking a toke meditatively, ruminatively, while the dreadlocked white girl lays her head in his and holds her hands up against the sky to see their shape.

Richard is listening to Serafine, even though she's a good ten or fifteen feet away.  Most people are listening to Serafine, because most people know Serafine, and those who don't know of her, and those who don't know, at least, that she's the ringmaster of this nonstop party.  Elijah passes by.  Richard nods at him, nods in that sort of slowed-down stately way of people who have partaken.  Granola girl waves.  Sleeping boy sleeps.

Serafíne
The bass is thumping from somewhere inside.  Early enough that they don't have to turn it down quite yet, and maybe they won't turn it down later, either.  Maybe someone will breathe a spell and wrap the house in a bubble that dampens the soundwaves so that Sera can have the music as fucking loud as she fucking wants without getting arrested for public  - for whatever the fuck she might get arrested for.

"And then - "

Sera is swaying.  The world is spinning.  The world always spins.  The world spins on the strangest of axes and Sera feels like they are all pierced through her body, and Hello!

Elijah does not want to interrupt her story; Sera does not remember any longer what the story was about.  She is Greeting People and flings open her loving arms and wraps them around Elijah (hands still full - drink in one, ice cream in the other) and inhales him and does the same for Jenn, whom she has never met, as if they were old, old friends.  The oldest of friends.  The sort of friends who might be more-than-friends.

Boundaries, Sera.

Other people have them.

Elijah has a gift in hand and Sera has a drink!  she gives Elijah the drink and Jenn the ice cream cone and takes the brownies and turns around and hands them to Dan, who is of course close to her, to take inside.

Then she takes back the drink (it is her fucking drink) but not the ice cream cone and, her voice a slurry of intoxicants, tells Elijah and Jenn that there's drinks inside.

And everything else they could ask for.

They should come find her once they are well-provisioned.

--

The story does not resume.  She's forgotten it, or perhaps that last bit before Elijah arrived was actually the end, or maybe she has just now noticed the leather couch in the front yard.

She has just now noticed the leather couch in the front yard.

And, still swaying, she totters over to investigate.  The first thing she does when she gets there is to lean over the back of the couch and clasp hands with the stoned granola girl.

Kalen Holliday
Kalen looks like he should be sleeping. Of course, he looks that way a lot.  He's dressed for a party, which means fitted jeans and a very, very soft moss green tee-shirt.  Normally there would be weapons - there are not.  Normally there would not be glitter or the lingering remains of a temporary tattoo of a butterfly on his face - there are.  He's been other places today already.  He hasn't bothered trying to get off the heart someone drew in red Sharpie on the underside of his left wrist.

He notes the couch, and then that Serafine and Richard are over there, and he wanders that way.  He smiles for Sera, and that smile is a bit tired but brilliant, because Sera.  He smiles for Richard who he recognizes but doesn't really know.  He even smiles for the girl, because why the hell not?

"Hey," he says quietly.

Richard
"Heyyy," Richard says, sleepy-stately-pleased, as suddenly both Kalen and Serafine manifest in his immediacy.  He reaches up as well, quirky-grinning, tweaking the ends of Sera's hair gently as she reaches over to clasp hands with his granola-girl friend.  Which is not the same thing as a granola girlfriend, not at all.

"Which mushroom was supposed to be pizza?" he wants to know, then.  Because he's honestly not too sure.  Shiitake tea sounds pretty gross, but then: psilocybin pizza sounds pretty awesome.

Elijah
Richard got a wave and a grin, enough that it made Jenn's attention flicker to the random leather sofa outside, but it was off to be inside with them.

There were hugs to be had. Other people have boundaries. Elijah, it would seem, was not one of them, because he gave Sera a hug like he hadn't seen her in an eternity because it could have been, or he could have seen her yesterday. It could have very well been both, but comfortable. He smells clean, and a little like whatever fabric softener he used, because the man used fabric softener. Fuck wearing scratchy clothes.

Jenn doesn't seem to know what to do at first, but it lasts for all of a second, because Sera is freaking gorgeous and she smells nice, so she is more than content to hug the woman before sauntering on along inside with Elijah.

---

"Oh my god,was that Beth on the couch?" Jenn asked.

"Who's Beth?"

"Beth, you know. Beth." Jenn gave Elijah a knowing look. Elijah didn't place her. "The Beth I kicked you out of the house for last week?"

"Still not ringing any bells."

"Augh, Elijah."

"I don't keep track of your people-" he said while he poured himself a drink. Eldersomething Collins. He didn't know, but it was delicious. It was to chase down something with a dolphin on it. Jenn took a sip of his drink before getting a grown up vanilla Dr. Pepper.

"That sounds so racist," she replied with a laugh, "I can't believe you just you peopled me."

"I did not just you people you."

---

And it was back outside with them.

"Kalen!" Elijah called out, and it was off with the two of them to go be sociable animals.

Serafíne
"Kalen," Sera greets the Hermetic, please wrapped around the thread of her voice.  She's standing behind the couch, leaning into it with a hip-centered sway, her torso cantilevered forward over the back of the couch to clasp the girl's hand with her left.  The right holds the drink and even in her state of polypharmacological intoxication, she is not so far gone yet that she neglects to hold it upright.

it is a delicious drink.

"Do you know Richard?  He's a fucking giant," and Sera means that literally.  Though right now he's sleepy-stately-pleased on a leather couch in her front yard and she's leaning over it from behind which makes her taller!  for the moment!  and Sera is aware of that in the same way the granola girl friend in Richard's lap is aware of the sky and the hum of the party from the house and the drifting, secondary impressions of traffic from some thoroughfare a few blocks away, and that peripheral awareness gives her a kind of pleasure as she looks down at Richard and the granola girl, then up at Kalen and the remnants of his temporary tattoo and she wants to reach out and touch them because except she has two hands and both are occupied just at the moment.

Richard Kalen, Kalen Richard.

"Neither," Sera tells Richard, without skipping a beat.  Her swimming attention drawn back to him when his hand skims her hair as it spirals and sways.  Something about gravity or - fuck.  Just another one of those laws meant to be broken.  "There were black fucking truffles for the pizza."

Then, to Kalen, with a kind of surprised pleasure, as she if she had just noticed him (again) standing right there - "did you get your face painted?"  And, more generally.  "FUCK.  We should've had face painting."

Kalen Holliday
Kalen laughs in response to Sera's question.  "Temporary tattoo.  I was in a tolerant mood.  Also, I thought it would be less stubborn about coming off and she was very amused.  I think she was disappointed I wasn't dressing up like I used to for parties, because then so much more glitter."  There is something warm under the tone, but it vanishes quickly into a very good impression of being serious.

"There may have been the wanton destruction of glitter trees, back in my youth."

He lifts a hand to wave to Elijah and nods a little.  "And I have met Richard, briefly.  Next time I come to these parties I will try to remember facepaint.  I'm certain it will end in stories, if nothing else."

Richard
"We have indeed met," Richard agrees, "and it was indeed brief.  But I veto the facepaint."  While he speaks, granola girl reaches up and borrows his joint.  Richard doesn't mind.  Emptyhanded now, he links his fingers behind his head, leaning back to look up at Serafine-looking-down.  They are antiparallel to one another, upside-down in both their worlds.

"Do you like the couch?" he wants to know.  "Clara bought it on craigslist.  The guy selling it offered to deliver, so she had it delivered here.  For now."

Clara -- granola-girl -- waves with her fingers.  And blows out a smoke-ring.

"I think the guy's playing mariokart inside now," Richard adds.

Elijah
Jenn's eyes widen at the mention of Mario Kart-

"I. Love. MarioKart- Elijah? Elijah, I'm ditching you to play MarioKart with a guy who delivered a couch," which was about when she kissed him on the forehead and sauntered off inside.



Which, given that Elijah was in the middle of drinking something, he couldn't really protest that his room mate was running away to go play MarioKart with people and go enjoy herself, because, well, this was a party. parties were meant to be enjoyed. Elijah just grinned.

"This is a fucking amazing couch," Elijah said as he plopped down in the grass, "and Kalen? I'd intended on introducing you to Jenn, because Jenn's like oh my gawd, who is Kalen, but then Richard said MarioKart and now my room mate has left me to fend for myself."

Serafíne
"I think you would look," Sera to Richard.  She's smiling.  She's inhaling.  She's looking down at Clara and sort-of-waving back at her, wiggling fingers, all finger wiggles and she wants to ask Clara if she can touch her again but she holds that question inside her with a million other mysteries.  " - fucking amazing with facepaint.  Hi Clara.  The couch is brilliant.  I think it looks just right, too.

"Like it's floating here.  Like it's a boat you sailed up the street.  Or like a fucking spaceship and you just appear and disappear like that dude on the BBC who rides around in a - what the fuck is it.  Dee watches that show all the time.  A fucking phone booth or some shit.

"Like in London."  Breathed out, all together, before she breathes in again, not remembering that one follows the next, inexorable and certain.  "Have you ever been to London?  I don't think Kalen has, because there aren't any goddamned glitter trees there."

Richard
"That's exactly why I vetoed it," Richard deadpans, "I'd look so amazing it wouldn't be fair."

Serafíne
"Fair point.  There'd be a run on magic fucking beans."  Sera tosses back to Richard.  Without explication.  Who knows how her mind works?

Kalen Holliday
Kalen starts laughing and then sprawls over the grass too.  "Yeah.  Best idea ever coming here tonight.

"Anyway, there used to be glitter trees in London but then I went to visit and now they're gone...."

Elijah
"Awww, where is the Lorax when you need him? Someone needs to speak for the fuckin' glitter trees."

Richard
"Fee fi fo fum," Richard replies, grinning.  And granola girl snort-laughs.

"I've never seen that movie.  The Lorax.  Or whatever he's from."

Serafíne
"I don't know why they're talking about glitter trees," Sera is saying to Clara, and she's straightening now, trying to remember how to stand, if only because she would ike to drink a drink of her drink because she has a drink and it is a party and this is the yard and the music has changed inside and the door has swung open and a window has been closed and there is a couple making out at the edge of the porch, where the porch light goes dark and the streetlight does not reach, and there are little violins in the ground or crickets or something and her heart is beating  and beating and beating and -

" - that's so fucking absurd Kalen.  And I know absurdity.  I'm wearing mirrors like glued to my fucking boobs."

Not that anyone can see them.  Because over the mirrors glued to her boobs: a black hoodie.  Zipped.

Kalen Holliday
He doesn't bat an eyelash at the knowledge that there are mirrors glued to her boobs.  "Look.  I can try to be less odd, but that just gets depressing."  He still sounds more amused than anything,

He says nothing about the Lorax.  Whether because he's as clueless as Richard or because he just is unmoved by Dr. Seuss is anyone's guess.

Elijah
"Whaaaat, you've never read the Lorax? It's, like, the world's saddest book written for, well, maybe not the world's saddest book, but it 's really freaking awesome and you need to read it, the end."

This was about the juncture that Elijah found himself really, really interested in the grass under him. Pupils dilating, heart beating steady, and there was a moment of glee because grass. Thank god for blue dolphins

Hawksley Rothschild
Last year he was going to throw a party for himself at his house (it's a mansion, Hawksley, let's be real) but he had to go East instead.  This year he forgets it is his birthday until he receives a text message from Sera, a mass text message inviting him to her house for a secret surprise party at Dee's house.  With a bouncey castle and ironically drug-induced signage and when he read that text he was charmed, and also confused, because surely it's not his b--

"Well fuck me," he'd said, realizing that the 8th was in fact his birthday.  Though he can't be faulted for forgetting, given recent events.

When he got Sera's text message, he'd been standing with his head 3 inches from the double-height ceiling of his library, his feet resting on air.  He's had his mind elsewhere these days.  The pursuit of knowledge never stops.  The pursuit of power doesn't, either.

--

Hawksley is coming late, as you do when it's your own surprise party.  The party is already going on.  Bouncey castle, drugs, drinking, so much music.  But they can feel him, Elijah and Kalen and Richard and Sera can, long before they see him.  There is no sensation of beating wings fanning the air but a lightness to the world, a lifting, as though they can all levitate if they think enough happy thoughts.  Something is soaring over them,

towards them,

coming down Corona Street in a dark car that gleams with flecks like gold, like it's being hit by sunlight even at night.

Serafíne
"I never read the Lorax," Sera is telling Clara-and-Richard-and-Kalen-and-Elijah, and by now she has taken the sip she wanted to take of her drink and then another and she has folded her arms on the back of the couch and is sort of leaning forward and she's short but: couches tend to be shorter and she is also wearing Serious Fucking Heels although they are starting to sink in the grass, " the way it started off was so fucking sad and lonely, that guy and his weird finger-tip full of bullshit and the payment.  I liked the Cat in the Hat."

Of course you did, Sera.

"And you - " to Kalen, "should be as weird as you fucking wanna be - and OH FUCK."

Sera is so happy she actually almost spills the last two drops of her drink.

"Feel that?  He's coming.  It's time to hide.  Okay.  Okay?  Can you," this to Clara and Richard, "hide or do I need to get Dan to bring you an afghan to hide under?  I'm gonna hide behind the couch," all rather stream-of-consciousness, this, while she is trying to text Dan one-handed, which means typing with a single thumb because she is also sipping her drink.  "And then when he comes up we all shout surprise.  See.  Okay."

Sera is briefly quiet, concentrating on texting and then texting is done and she gives in to the sensation of her own glee.  "Elijah and Kalen you have to come hide behind the couch you can't be in front of it.  Afghans would be fucking obvious on the grass."

Sera - wriggles a bit, with pleasure.  She'd stamp her feet but the heel have sunk a half-inch into the ground.  So she's stepping out of them, instead.

"Heeeeeeeee."

Richard
"The Cat in the Hat was the best -- wait.  What?"

People are hiding.  Sera is telling them to hide!  Richard looks mystified: is she for real?  This is a surprise party?  How can it be a surprise when there are bouncy castles and couches and music rolling out every window, door, and crack in the wall of the house,

but he doesn't argue with Sera's logic, which is sort of what you should do: not argue, that is, because it is futile.  "Um," and he kind of slithers down from the seat to hide behind the couch, "okay.  Should we yell surprise?"

Elijah
Oh, fuck! Right! This was a surprise party! Elijah scrambled to his feet, which was not a graceful thing, and made his way over to behind the couch, which was suddenly starting to get crowded and ever so suddenly starting to feel like a wonderful conspiracy and oh my god Richard smelled fantastic- wait, maybe that was Clara that sounded fantastic. Maybe it was Sera who smelled fantastic. Either way, someone smelled really good and his mind was starting to wander and he's just standing like a dork behind the couch before-

Oh, fuck! Right! This was a surprise party!

Elijah crouched, "of course we yell surprise, he's not going to know the party is for him unless we yell surprise."

Kalen Holliday
Kalen's eyes sweep the incredibly obvious party going on, and then, as though it had not registered to him at all, he says, "Indeed.  We will fool no one that way."  

He crawls over to join Sera behind the couch, because fuck standing up to walk like five entire steps, perfectly content to pretend that somehow Hawksley will be surprised.

"Of course, yell surprise," Kalen says, waiting until Hawksley is a little closer.  "On three.  One.  Two.  Three."

Richard
"SURPRISE!!!"

yells Richard.

Serafíne
How can it be a surprise party when she texted the guest of honor and said COME TO A SURPRISE PARTY, but here she is telling them to hide and she is so very excited about hiding and pleased to be hiding and when Richard slides his stoned ass off the couch and hides with her behind the couch she kisses him on the crown of his head (it is the only time in their respective lives that she will be able to reach the crown of his head) -

"That Sera is telling Richard as Elijah scrambles behind the couch in her front garden is what makes it a surprise.  The yelling-of-surprise.  See?  The naming it -"

By now Sera has kicked off her heels and she is ready to jump the fuck up and yell SURPRISE and Dan has even had enough time to corral some of the girls from Dee's roller derby team to come on the porch and take part in the surprise-shouting from behind the supports so their SURPRISE will be not just a handful of hoarse, stoned, drunk voices, but - you know - a chorus of them.

Elijah
Three?

"Surprise!"

Hawksley Rothschild
There are lights and people and so many cars.  There is music and noise and drugs and a couch on the front yard and people scrambling around.  Hawksley, still driving, sees it and smiles.  He sees it and thinks of the same thing that Serafine thought earlier: someone should create a Circle.  Someone, maybe someone with the power to do so, should create a boundary between those noises and the rest of the world.

Hawksley's Porsche slides to a stop across the road, parked at the curb as though it's normal, as though it fits in here, as though he is normal at all.  And he waits a bit, watching for the people on the lawn to hide themselves under afghans and behind couches.  And then he gets out.  And the car's lights blink and the car itself beeps a yes sir when he tells it to be locked, to be secure.

He comes across the black asphalt to the grey concrete and crosses those dark lines into everything colorful and ecstatic, smiling as

SURPRISE!

There are people!  Oh, his stars!  He had no idea!  He throws up his hands, affecting a look of total shock.  He is not surprised by the party but in fact he is a little surprised to see the mages he sees, Kalen and Richard who he has briefly met and Elijah who he can sense but does not know, and they all look... well.  Stoned and high and amused, and then Sera, who looks REALLY FUCKING HAPPY OMFG.  With disco boobs.  And Hawksley is not surprised but he is laughing, his face in a grin, his eyes crinkled at the corners, because he is truly pleased.

And it's hard not to laugh when he's laughing, and it feels like the sun has come up again and it's high noon here, shining down on them.  He has been using magic tonight.  It clings to him like a bright, golden aura that he brings with him across the grass, right to the couch, kneeling on it and reaching for Sera across the back, arms around her waist.  He gives her a kiss between her mirror-covered breasts and smiles up at her,

beatific.

The world hangs for a moment on that look, and then he's up again, he's grinning.  "Is that the giant?  Kalen, how've you been?  Who is this?  DEE!"  Waving to everyone, saying hi.

He is a man who knows how to be the guest of honor.

Kalen Holliday
Kalen is laughing too, from pretty much the second he cues a little surprise chorus from behind their totally not inconspicuous couch.

"Peachy," he says.  And that cannot be a real answer, because that isn't something he would ever actually answer, but he seems actually happy enough.  "Happy birthday."

Serafíne
SURPRISE everyone yells and Sera does that with them.  She pops up right along with them, a fucking foot and change shorter than poor Richard who really had to scrunch to hide behind the couch, and yes she looks so goddamned happy, and her hair is loose and (freshly) blonde and the undercut is freshly shortn and she's a little bit tipsy and a little bit more stoned and a little bit more something else and she is all caught up in the countdown and the compliance and it feels kind of magic to her, like a spell she's never heard the name of, to feel the world open and spinning around her and so many people and the way her heart beats in time with everything happening all around her and the way everything paces itself in time with her heart beats, and she feels swept along, as if she were caught in a rolling tide,

as she pops up behind the couch in a half-zipped hoodie over cut-off denim shorts so short that she had to cut out the pockets because they looked fucking stupid just kind of waving down below the hem so now when she puts her hands in the pockets, she can feel her garter belt.  But she does not have her hands in the cut-out pockets of her cut-offs, she is reaching up to yank down the zipper of her hoodie and reveal disco-boobs!  like, as a present see, so that by the time Hawksley has made it to the totally not inconspicuous couch they are revealed and he can kiss her between her breasts.

Her arms are around his neck and her hands are in his hair and he is smiling up at her and she is smiling down at him and -

oh, it feels like the sun is rising.

Then he's up again, and Sera lets him go and watches his pleasure as he greets everyone with pleasure of her own and she's feeling breathless and chatty and doesn't remember why she took off her heels and is kind of kicking her feet up and it telling both Kalena and Hawksley that, "Dan said I oughtta have a pretense like "Come open my mayo," but I told him that sounded like the shittiest innuendo ever and anyway you'd say tell Dan to open your fucking mayo.

"I bet you weren't expecting us to shout surprise though.  Happy birthday.  You want some molly?"

Elijah
"I have no idea who you are, I'm Elijah," he offers, and he smiles chipper and his pupils are blown out and he's fascinated with the texture of the couch, "happy birthday!"

Hawksley Rothschild
Kalen's peachy makes Hawksley's eyebrows hop, since that doesn't seem like the sort of word Kalen would apply to himself.  Kalen is, after all, a Hermetic.

"You live with a baker who has stronger forearms than I do," this is not true, as anyone who can see his goddamn arms can guess, "and two dudes.  I actually would have told you to have Dee open your mayo.  But I was absolutely expecting you to shout surprise."

He leans over, kissing her cheek.  It is a thank you, that's written all over him, but he doesn't say the words.

"I'll wait," he tells her, and turns to Elijah, to Kalen, grinning.  "Thanks, man," this is to Kalen, and "I'm Hawksley, the birthday boy.  Thanks for coming," to Elijah.  He glances over their heads, between them, spies some of the roller derby-ites and the normals, the plebs, the sleepers, so he adjusts his tone so only those Awakened, who are nearest him in both esteem and proximity can hear, "I'm going to take care of the noise level real quick.  Kalen," who is the only one he assumes has the necessary powers to help him, "want to help a brother out?"

Richard
"It's the giant," Richard, who was smooched atop his head and is now clambering back to his feet dusting grass-blades from his knees, affirms.  Belatedly.  "Happy birthday.  I had no idea, or I would've brought you something."

Which is the truth.  But this also is the truth: he doesn't seem terribly crushed by his own inadvertent lack of manners.  He drops back onto the couch, long limbs akimbo, reaching over to Clara-the-granola-girl to pluck his toke back.

Kalen Holliday
Kalen nods, lets his voice drop as well.  "Sure."  There isn't any hesitation, but there is a pause afterward because he doesn't know how Hawksley Works and almost nothing he does is exactly to a proper Hermetic paradigm.  He slid into Sera's Working as if it were nothing, but he doesn't know Hawksley.

"How?"  There are only so many clues to give here, only so many things that can work with company.  But he waits, watching Hawksley with steady eyes that don't entirely match the smile.

Serafíne
Sera accepts the kiss-on-her-cheek, the thank you with a tilt of her small chin that feels at once both precise and precocious and loving.  Because her eyes close as he bestows it.  Because she savors it, all quietly, lets it wash over her.

Hawksley and Kalen are going to do magic! and Hawksley turns down molly (for now) and Sera closes her palm around the drug and tucks it back into the kangaroo pocket of her hoodie and sits her hot ass back on the spine of the couch and asks Richard, genuinely curious,

"What would you have brought him?"

Grace Evans
Because the word got out, because Grace remembers from last year what the occasion might be, and she knows he likes books, Grace decides to show up (even though it is a party with a massive number of people and it's going to be noisy and crowded and all).

A little Toyota rolls up, getting added to the pile of cars (one of which glitters with sunlight and looks like it costs a hundred Toyotas or more).

Wait a minute... Is that a bouncy castle? Of course, Grace's brain goes immediately to an encryption framework called BouncyCastle, because that's how she rolls, and then it goes to Sera. Of course there would be a bouncy castle.

She steps out of the car carrying an (unwrapped) book. Wrapping paper is wasteful, and it's not like he wouldn't know what it is anyway. Book shaped. Book weight. What else would it be? But there's something else that goes hidden, for now.

Richard
"I don't know," Richard says.  "Something bright and flashy, maybe."  He gives his smoke back to Clara.  "I doubt there's anything I could get him that he needs, but he might like something like that."

Hawksley Rothschild
"I don't need anything," he says, which is true.

His watch cost seven thousand dollars.

There is an anniversary edition 911 across the street in a color that car was not offered in, because he wanted them to make it in that color.

Only Sera has been to his house, and seen how many of Dee's houses could fit inside of it.

No Hawksley: you don't need presents.

Kalen says he will, and this pleases Hawksley, who -- it's true -- does not adhere to most Hermetic paradigms and patterns, who has told at least one Hermetic that they're all -- self included -- assholes, and he drops a kiss on Sera's head this time, about to head off with the other member of the Order.  That's what he's doing, walking towards the side of the house with Kalen, when Grace arrives.  He's telling Kalen, though his voice is pitched not to carry,

"Just a Circle," as though Kalen should know automatically whatever Hawksley means by Circle, "as a boundary between the rest of the neighborhood and the house and grounds.  But then another circle, just inside of it -- maybe a few inches, it's easier the farther the gap is but more noticable, which I'd like to avoid.  Just making a field, see, of soundlessness.  Everyone inside the inner circle can hear everything inside the inner circle, and everyone outside can't.  Keeps the cops from getting called because of the noise level in here.  Granted, we can't hear tornado sirens if they go off, but it's not like we won't get alerts on a million phones anyway."

He's blathering.  "Anyway, to save time I was thinking you could draw the inner circle while I draw the outer circle.  I think your resonance is more attuned to the chaos of the interior, anyway."

He glances back, and that's when they hear him again, brightly: "YO, GRACE!"  He waves.

Kalen Holliday
It is easy enough to draw him off, and considering he needs to hear Hawksley there is nothing uneasy about the fact that they are close.  Or course, he did fucking ruffle Hawksley's hair that one time.  He might have been fine anyway.

Kalen nods to Hawksley, more a lowering of his eyes than any real movement of his head.  He doesn't need there to be circles, but he can make circles.  He takes a breath, closes his eyes, gets ready to draw a circle with nothing but power.

And then it occurs to him Hawksley might want an actual visual circle.  "You don't need it to be chalk or myrr-infused wine or anything?"  He asks softly.  "Just present?"

Serafíne
"It's Grace," Sera, pleased, when Grace is a block or three away because of course Sera can feel Grace and she is happy that Grace is out there ad happy that Grace is here and very, very happy.  She is supplying the name to Richard and to Elijah and to Hawksley and to Kalen, you know, just in case, and she does it as if it were a prophecy, even though it isn't. Sera is just in tune with the world in a way few people ever are.

And Richard is telling her that he doubts he could get Hawksley something he needs and Hawksley is saying that he doesn't need anything at almost the same time and Sera is smiling, and anything ironic about her smile fades to pure and unadulterated pleasure when Hawksley kisses the crown of her head.  She echoes Hawksley to Richard, because he doesn't need anything, and tells Richard, "He likes books.

"And working out.

"And me."

By now she is thoroughly perched on the back of the couch, her legs drawn up, her arms wrapped around them.

"Richard were you a wasp growing up?  Yacht clubs and all that shit?  Or did you just swim.  Did they just throw you in the fucking ocean."

Grace Evans
Hawksley is so exuberant, and he doesn't seem to worry about anything, least of which being the loudness of his voice. It easily carries across the street, and Grace gives him a wave back as she walks the distance up to the front yard with the leather couch and assemblage of mages.

She greets them all with a smile and a wave, and maybe Kalen gets some special warmth at seeing him all covered in face paint and glitter. Somebody's getting out of the office a lot lately. Somebody's trying to get over things. She knows.

Grace has been pretty much stuck to her own end of the office, working. Someone else has other ways of getting over things.

She perches herself upon an arm of the couch, because sitting on it would probably entail sitting on someone, and that's just not cool. To her anyway.

Richard
"Maybe I'll get him a bright, shiny book, then," Richard says, his grin lazy.  Clara reaches up.  That neverending toke smoking between her fingers: Richard parts his lips and she slips it between his teeth like it belongs there.

A moment later he has to take it out of his mouth because he laughs, bright and open and happy: "Oh, god, no.  I wasn't a wasp.  I was a hippie.  My parents moved to Berkeley when I was three.  They might've thrown me into the Bay, I don't know."

Hawksley Rothschild
"Well, it won't get in the way if you want chalk or wine or sacred smoke or seat salt or whatever.  You could piss a circle out but that's a lot of ground to cover and you'd probably run out.  But no: it doesn't need to be physical, concrete; sound is measurable but invisible to the naked -- and sleeping -- eye.  So it makes sense for a circle of this nature to be the same.  But like I said: you won't get in my way if you make a physical one."

Sera is telling truths about him, around the time that Hawksley is noticing Grace and waving.  That he likes books.  He likes working out, which is partly true -- he likes the effects of working out, he likes the effects of books.  He seeks self-perfection.  This is one thing he has in common with the Order of Hermes.  But too many of them neglect the body in favor of the mind, and Hawksley refuses to believe the two are distinct.

And yes.

He also likes Sera.  If the way he smiled at her when he embraced her, kissing her over her heart, was any indication, he is positively devoted.  But Sera knows better.

Sera knows what it takes for him to leave her behind.

--

"Hold up," he says to Kalen, and jogs back across the lawn to Grace, throwing an arm around her and crushing her to his side.  He is firm and warm and he is, simply, the feeling of the sun sinking into your skin on a long day doing nothing but lying on the beach.  "Graaaace," he says.  "Grace with the eyes," which has been his favorite part of her since the moment he met, when she was new and when Sera was fasting and they were all in Mutiny.

He looks at the book, and looks at her.  "Do I have to make grabby hands at you?"

Kalen Holliday
Kalen leans into the side of the house.  He does not go bounding back to the others, but he does lift one hand to wave to Grace.

And he waits.

Serafíne
"Hi Grace," Sera, all lazy affection and mirrored breasts and afterglow as Grace arrives at the couch and perches on the arm.  "Do you know Richard?"

Then: Hawksley.  Hawksley bounding back and Sera stretching her toes like she was bathing in - baking in - the sun, on some beach.  When is is this close she cannot help but watch him, and - well - she does not pursue introductions while Hawksley is hauling in his birthday booty.

"Fuck.  I wish I'd had hippie parents.  I'm from the goddamned Hamptons.  How hippie were your folks, anyway?  Cloth diapers, crystal deodorants?  Fucking yoga?  Jim's into that, man."

Grace Evans
Grace is attacked by a Hawksley, and okay -- she manages it with just a little tension and tries not to look as shocked as she really is. Which, let's face it, she's not at all shocked that Hawksley hugged her.

"Grace with the eyes?" she asks, not really knowing that the man had rated her body parts and placed her eyes at the top.

"You are already making grabby hands at me, man," she says, and hands over the book, which announces itself as a copy of Ancillary Justice.

"It's a story. I brought you that because I thought you might like at least a physical book, and I've already digitized that one. It's about a person who is a former starship made up of many minds linked into one being."

She then reaches into a pocket of her jeans and obtains something else -- a black, nondescript flash drive.

"This contains some more stuff. I put some interesting pieces on this one. So it's encrypted. Password's 'Happy Birthday'."

Grace Evans
[The flash drive has a bunch of Grace-style stuff, her short stories (including one that hasn't been written yet and may never be, now that she's read it before it existed) and also some things which Hawksley might find more intriguing, like the memoirs of a Master of the Celestial Chorus who was imprisoned behind the Avatar Storm, and an encyclopedia of bygone beasts]

Hawksley Rothschild
"Grace with the spectacular eyes," he clarifies for her.  "I never told you this?  I told Sera.  I kept telling her your eyes look like nebulae.  Like galaxies, universes, starry clouds of space... stuff."  A handwave, here.  And then he grabs the Ancillary Justice from her, grinning toothily, taking his arm from her to examine the book with both hands.  Then she hands him a drive!  And 'interesting' which means intriguing.  And,

"That's a horrible password," Hawksley says, cheerfully.  But he's distracted: "You mean you wrote this?"  He waves the book in the air.  "You're a writer?  What the hell, why didn't you tell me!"

He rarely sees her.

He leans over, plants a big comic cartoonish kiss on her cheek.  "You're too kind," but he's already looking at the book again, peering at it, and he's not really a big sci-fi reader but Grace writes books apparently and he is so intrigued he can't contain it.  He looks at her, then across at Richard and Sera and smiles, because he sort of likes the mental image he gives himself of those two fucking, then back to Grace.  "You want to help Kalen and I make a sound-dampening field between the house and the rest of the neighborhood?  I don't know if that sort of thing is your jam, but my style is pretty open, you could probably jump in if you know the basic premise."

By which he means: if she studies Forces.  If she can do things like repel certain kinds of energy.

Hawksley Rothschild
[DLP, rewriting]

Richard
"Protests on Sproul, marches on City Hall.  Pretty sure we had disposable diapers, though."

Richard looks up at Grace.  He keeps quiet on whether or not they've met before; frankly, he isn't sure.  The side effect and downside of meeting a lot of people, making a lot of friends: sometimes you forget.  Sometimes you also call out a name at a supermarket and everyone turns and stares but the person you were trying to call wasn't who you thought it was at all.

Anyway:

"Wait; so what you're saying is, you're actually a wasp."

Hawksley Rothschild
"Grace with the spectacular eyes," he clarifies for her.  "I never told you this?  I told Sera.  I kept telling her your eyes look like nebulae.  Like galaxies, universes, starry clouds of space... stuff."  A handwave, here.  And then he grabs the Ancillary Justice from her, grinning toothily, taking his arm from her to examine the book with both hands.  Then she hands him a drive!  And 'interesting' which means intriguing.  And,

"That's a horrible password," Hawksley says, cheerfully.  "You're too kind," but he's already looking at the book again, peering at it, and he's not really a big sci-fi reader but he is so intrigued he can't contain it.  He looks at her, then across at Richard and Sera and smiles, because he sort of likes the mental image he gives himself of those two fucking, then back to Grace.  "You want to help Kalen and I make a sound-dampening field between the house and the rest of the neighborhood?  I don't know if that sort of thing is your jam, but my style is pretty open, you could probably jump in if you know the basic premise."

By which he means: if she studies Forces.  If she can do things like repel certain kinds of energy.

Serafíne
"Shhhhhhhhhhhhh."

Sera shushes Richard, rather loudly.  Shhhh.  Shhhh.  Shhhh.

"Only Hawsley fucking knows." And she looks at Hawksley because she just said his name and actually catches him looking at her and Richard and she smiles to him and waves a bit and has no idea that he is picturing her and Richard fucking for a split-second there, and her drink is gone.  She wonders where it went.  "And I'm only half a WASP.  My mother was Miss Fucking Argentina, 1988.  That's how she ended up in New York and met my father.  What the fuck is a sproul.  And you don't seem like a hippie.  Maybe because you are so goddamned tall.  Are you going to rebel and become an investment banker?"

Hawksley Rothschild
Hawksley waggles his brows at Richard.  ONLY HE KNOWS.  Also everyone else standing nearby.

Elijah
He'd been really, really fascinated by the texture of the couch at that juncture, by the sound of people's voices and by the world around him and the way the air felt and the way the moon seemed and oh my god clothing is the biggest pain in the ass in the world and-

Hawksley waggles his brows at Richard.

Elijah loses it and cracks up laughing.

Grace Evans
Grace with the spectacular eyes? She doesn't quite know how to react to that. Compliments on her physical self are rare things, and she regards it as one might regard a giant, rainbow-colored caterpillar. Not exactly unwelcome, but not normal either. She smiles, but it's a confused thing. Eyes like a universe. Does she really?

"I can try. Probably. It might work," she says, and shifts the laptop bag off her shoulder. The large (but lightweight) laptop slides out, and she boots it up like it's a thing that everyone does -- set up their laptop in approximately 10 whole seconds.

Kalen Holliday
Kalen does not come back across the distance that separates them, even though Hawksley is lingering.  He stays by the house, watching them.  Watching wandering party guests.  Waiting.

He does not need to think of words while he is waiting.  It is hardly the worst thing.

Richard
"Nah."  Richard, at last, takes the last pull off that everlasting toke of his and bends down to crush it out against the side of his sole.  "Maybe a mathematician.  Maybe a theoretical physicist.  Something nerdy so I can wear tweed jackets and do a post-doc at Berkeley someday.  Maybe.

"And a sproul," he adds, "is the plaza where all the students protest everything ever.  Did your mom watch the world cup?"

Hawksley Rothschild
"Cool," he says, of the laptop.  "You come this way with Kalen and me.  He and I need to actually make the circles because we're cavemen or something.  I'll explain how we're doing this on the way over, but basically --"

and he is helping her carry the thing if she seems to need it, but otherwise it's time to move again, move with Hawksley back to Kalen, and on the way he's explaining how they mean to create the field, and his thinking behind it.  He isn't asking how Kalen will do his part, or how Grace will contribute; he knows they will.  That is all he needs to know.

--

Sera and Richard go on talking about hippies and WASPs, backgrounds, lives.  Elijah is a bit lost right now, so stoned he can't remember he was going to give Hawksley brownies and vodka.  Grace and Kalen and Hawksley are going to make sure that no one ever calls the cops on this party -- at least not due to noise.

This is how it is done: the drawing of circles, with whatever foci Kalen needs for the inner circle, with whatever parameters Grace helps them determine.  His is the storm, his is the chaos and light inside.  He is attuned to such things.  Hers is the gap in between, the sharp boundary of soundlessness, the space between the noise of one sphere and the noise of another; truthfully, Hawksley trusts that solidifying that gap will not tax her.  That's the thing: his expectation of their competence is entire, regardless of tradition, regardless of method.

The outer circle is his.  This is the line where the sounds of the outside world must stop, halting before the gap, just as Kalen is creating a pocket where the sounds of the house and its grounds can live and run amok.  Hawksley takes this one on.  He has to work first: those outside the circle will notice the party suddenly going silent if Kalen performs his magic first, but the sleepers in Sera's house won't notice the lack of sound from the outside world right away.  Still: you have to time these things closely.

Standing in the back yard, in shadows beneath some trees, beside a fence, he touches the sky on the other side of the house, the front of it.  He knows the point where he wants it to begin, opposite the point where he stands.  And his hands meet, thumb to thumb, index to index, a triangle of emptiness in the center. Spreads those hands, sweeping out and close to his face and together again, meeting seamlessly.

It's very simple, for Hawksley.  It is sealed.  He says nothing: no chanting, no Latin, no Enochian.  He has no wand, no external foci at all.  Later on, when it is time to remove the circle -- or even break through Kalen's magic -- he knows the gesture to break the seal and reopen the field.

For a moment, after Kalen is finished, he stands on the outside, watching a party that he cannot hear.  Watching people laugh, unable to hear them.  He smiles.  Then he steps through, experiencing a half-second of profound silence in the gap between circles, and moves into the noise and laughter and music inside.

There are high-fives for both Grace and Kalen.  Then there is booze, and maybe some molly, and he can go in the bouncy castle as much as he wants because it's his birthday.

There is a cake that Dee made.

There is a marijuana-fueled discussion between he and the swimmer about which one of them is taller.  Hawksley keeps cracking up, insisting he's taller, he's taller, he's like, UP IN THE SKY, and Richard is telling him THAT'S JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE STONED and someone says the word 'high' and no one can stop laughing.  Hawksley is fucking crying from laughing so hard.  At one point, later, there is dancing in the living room, furniture pushed out of the way and lights off and so much bass.

There is perhaps a debate about the intrinsic nature of Forces between Kalen and Hawksley over some booze, until they realize they actually agree on a few things and then Hawksley wants to high-five some more.

Maybe they talk about Australia.

Maybe Hawksley tells them -- Grace, Kalen, Sera, Richard, whomever -- that they should just grab a jet and go, y'know, stop talking about it and just go and he's looking for his phone to tell Collins that he wants to go to Australia, but this is not the first time in the middle of the night that Collins has gotten a call like this and Hawksley forgets he's on the phone because someone named Emily -- a Denver Roller Doll who goes by 'Boo Boo Radley' -- is leading him away.  He comes back later, missing his shirt and throwing himself back into the more social debauchery.

The party goes on all night, as you do.  People fall asleep in the bouncy castle and on the floor and on the steps.  Up in her room, Hawksley removes the mirrors on Sera's breasts piece by piece by piece, gently, gently.  He isn't saying anything, but he is also saying thank you for something else about the party with each mirror.  The book Grace gave him is nearby, sitting on a space of Sera's bookshelf that belongs to Hawksley, has belonged to him since his last birthday.  There is a bottle of vodka there as well, but he can't remember who gave it to him.

Some people have gone home.

Hawksley goes home the next day, midafternoon.  But only after he has gone to the front of the house, standing on the sidewalk, holding his hands in a triangle as before and then twisting, sharply, at the thumbs, one hand pointing up and the other down, breaking the seals that have kept the house silenced all night.

--

Roughly a week later, the four other magi who attended the party receive a small card, hand-delivered or mailed or left for them in the chantry, containing a thank-you note for their attendance and an invitation to, at their pleasure, visit with Hawksley at his house.  For lunch, perhaps.  Or tea.  Or what-have-you.

Let no one be deceived: this is Collins's doing, though most of them don't know Collins exists.

Collins thinks Hawksley needs more friends.

Mages Flock to Books

Proclus
[Ah, look.  A bookstore...]
The thick bandage hardly helps, wadded and wrapped as it is about his foot.  It hardly helps him cut a dash as suave or elegant, though he remains cheerful as he enters the bookshop crutch first.
"Adam?"  He asks into the interior, making his way inward.  Past the science fiction, the posters, the slight change in stock that breeds a slight smile.  Good.  Commoners buying books.  Good for the coffers, good for the soul...
About his waist as he moves, so too does his satchel.  One bound foot and a crutch to match, but a smile of business and familiarity.  Of purpose.  Yes, the Jerbiton has purpose.

A. Gallowglass
Ah, behold, the bookstore.
And in that bookstore, one A. Gallowglass, or Dominic Adam Julian Gallowglass, no III, no II, no IV, he is the first of that name, and it is his name, his Craft name, the name valiancy belongs to, and relentlessness.
Where is Adam to be found? He is not at the desk. He is not in the shadowy alcove full of old and rare books. He is -
Leonhard can hear him up the stairs on the second level. There's one stair in particular which makes a noise when Adam comes down; it sings like wind through the bone of a mythical sea-creature, a story-carved bone, a hollow sound.
"What happened to you?" he says, reaching ground level, his dark eyebrows rising and see he even paused a step when coming down before completing the descent.

Proclus
He is to be found at the desk, though the proper side for a customer.  Yes, somebody selling something.  An idea in his eye, a something-to-show...  The satchel is atop the desk and he is pulling out a pad, a pen, an idea, throwing a practiced look over his shoulder to ensure the continued privacy of his timing...
"Frere!  Hm?  Oh, this old thing," he mentions with robust humour of his sprained ankle.  He is speaking in Latin, the accent Rhaetian.  A dead language kept very much alive, it fits well on his tongue.  "Just something I picked up on a hike with an Orphan.  Alexander Brandt.  You Have Awakened 101.  (I thought we had Hollowers for that 'here in Denver,' but I guess not.)  Anyway..."
He finally lets his eyes fully alight on his fellow Hermetic.  His fellow magus.  "What do you know of dead letter drops and brush-pasts and the like?  Did, ah, your Mater teach you about such things?  You see, I have seen... how to put this?  A potential gap in the market."

A. Gallowglass
Time to block the scene. Adam crosses the floor to reach Leonhard and his desk. He doesn't take a seat. There is only one chair today: no convenient near-by stool or stepping ladder. No convenient box to sit upon. The typewriter has been pushed somewhat to the side although it's ice cream parlor mint façade can just be seen between a rather large stack of books of natural philosophy. There is a journal which looks as if it is being written in: something hand-bound. Actual business-related paperwork is not to be seen. There is a little flier for some anarchist's collective swap meet thing, dated to happen in a week.
Adam's expressions are usually quite self-contained, but he is far from expressionless. See? He is poised when Proclus mentions Alexander, but the expression in his eyes shifts; acknowledges recognition, wavers into something sharp and smirksome when Proclus mentions Hollowers, and anyway, and anyway.
"I am listening," says he, and also, raising an eyebrow with a touch of humour. "With complete attention, once you sit."
He doesn't look pointedly at the desk chair; he just points to the damned chair, and his gaze grazes over the satchel, like somebody who likes to have his desk just so, and God help anybody who moves stuff around by plopping anything on it.

Proclus
"Sit?  Oh, you..."  He was about to tease the younger magus for his concern but stops dead.  He smiles, and it comes as a friend who might acknowledge the concern.  As a friend who might barge into one's shop and begin prattling, whether with purpose or not, and threaten to make a mess of the grand order of the desk.  Purpose.  The contents of the satchel draw him back, and there is another acknowledgement: his paraphenalia is shepherded into less of a sprawl.  Tidied, if hurriedly, though he continues with it.  "Really, Frere, I'm fine here and the light's the key.  Better to see, not hunched over my little...  Well... You'll see."
He undoes the pen, almost incidentally, explaining his query somewhat:
"I've heard talk of some (presumeably) Virtual Adept telephone hotline message... thing... which is all well and good (and, I suppose, it is) but I was thinking about what we spoke of.  Of the Order being prepared to support the Council hereabouts.  You know... should... well, perhaps when...  Well, let's say if things go wrong in the face of some crisis or other.  Now," he says, growing less rapid in his speech, "I've not got the patience to dredge up all the tricks of the trade we used to use in the War, but I do feel that we magi should have some form of secondary infrastructure to fall back on.  Prudence.  Would you agree?"

A. Gallowglass
Adam does not answer immediately, though he'd supplied, when Leonhard mentioned a Virtual Adept telephone hotline message thing ("Ginger, I believe"), and otherwise been quiet. Of course he was quiet, Adam; quiet and watchful in spite of the sleepless shadows around his eyes.
When he does answer, it is with a faux-start, and a -  "Hmm?" - followed my a scratch of his head. His hair - well. His hair is always in the state his hair is in - except it needs a good wash, too. In some places that's fashionable, that greasy needs-a-wash snarl of a look. "Oh, I'm sorry," he taps his temple, "The attention, still seems incomplete..."
Now the pointed look at the chair. At Leonhard.
"...I'm afraid." But there's a bare smile; that's as far as Adam is going to go, it seems, because how seriously he says, "You knew my mater, if not the man who succeeded her." Plantagenet: labyrinthine. "I would agree. Secondary, tertiary, and perhaps a feint of a fake infrastructure at the same time: that would be ideal."

Proclus
    "Ginger, yes," Proclus notes, listening, reminded, though more concerned for at least a moment about the exhaustion or over-work the Bonisagan would seem to have been pressing upon himself.  And it is a moment that returns.  And then stays.  "Oh, will you sit down before you fall down?  I've got three legs.  Take the chair.  Please."
"Quite right, though," the Jerbiton agrees of talk of feints and blinds and so forth.  Wholly unsurprised that Bonisagi would be so familiar with levels and degrees and Mystery.  "Feints, fake blinds, yes, and towards that end...  A new twist on Steganography.  Forget inks and one-time pads (though the latter will be of secondary use to us in what I propose), and nothing that can't be handled with eyes, a decent pen and a pad of paper," he begins to explain.  Upon the desk, he demonstrates, beginning to write - though with regular flicks of the eye towards Adam.  (Will you sit before you fall asleep where you stand?)  His penmanship is a little forced and his hand appears to be mildly contorting as he writes.
    "It's not in the text, in the words used.... but... in how... you angle the nib, and the... depth, by pressure on the nib... to...  There.  To embed a particular sigil or series of sigils, so as to form in Low Enochian, a message.  To the informed eye, at least."    The message written is simple enough, a copy of the information on the anarchists' swap meet flyer.  But he's surely not come showing off his ability to read and write, at least not quite...    "And to better secure the hidden message, we... can quite easily... add a few additional marks... thusly making the whole thing... a different message entirely.  So, even if the first layer of code is broken and by somebody who knows Enochian, they will read an entirely different message.  Of course, randomising the second layer of indenting strokes will require a uniformity of that same randomisation; lucky for us, that's where a version of a one-time sheet comes in handy.  As for what the one-time pad is..."
    He darts off for a moment...  well away from the chair... insomuch as one might dart on a crutch, but he is certainly animated.  Stopping by one shelf of books, he rapidly spiders his fingers across the tops of the books...  "Could it be here?  No."    Again, he darts, crossing to another shelf.  He glances to the Bonisagan, clicking his fingers as if in annoyance.  "Damn, not here, either, but..."    He makes his way to the window.  Across the road, the names of the other stores in the street, no, no, not quite...  Ah, yes.  His fingers trace the phrases in those other stores' promotional posters.    "Temporary, simple, readily available and nothing that could be thought to be in our control.  The perfect single-use code-sheet.  Of course, it would be foolish to use those shops.  To close to home.  But anybody could quite innocently walk past a McDonalds, and see the order of vowels in their latest poster."    He returns to the desk and his example of the code.  "See here?  (Well, I expect you do, but just to be sure.)  What originally looked to you to be The Enemy Has A Small Penis is actually, thanks to the latest McDonalds poster...  It Would Take A Master To Crack This Code From Scratch.  Throw in some dead letter drop locations and we have the makings... or at least the beginnings... of a back-up structure when needed.  Or we could just use it ourselves in emergencies.  Or both.  Either way, I feel that it's something that we should make known to the other magi, in case of emergency."

Proclus
The curl of a C, it's lower half, ever so slightly indented by the nib.  The rise of an F, in the next word, similarly marked into the paper.  The C in one word, the F in another, and so on, in secretive collusion.  Composite sigillography.  The Enochian for Enemy.  But changed... made a mask for It Would Take, it would require, it may require, the demand would be, the demand shall be revealed...  The vagaries of Enochian made Low, conversational... but functionally communicative.

A. Gallowglass
He does not sit. Not Gallowglass. Never. No. Not now, not until Proclus plants his butt in a chair and stops hopping around like a broken-winged owl about to get hit by a truck (a simile which does not occur to Gallowglass but nonetheless has a certain poignancy - hm?). "You've got one leg doing the work of two, half a leg, and a stick."
But he looks with interest at the Jerbiton's hand as he writes. Is Proclus still speaking Latin? Perhaps Adam will switch to that tongue, too. A flick of black temper the next time Proclus looks at him and tells him to sit before he falls asleep, a side-eye like a bird might side-eye a worm, all subliminated by fascination. What are Adams for if not learning and observing, in the name of the quest? And he loves the language of angels. He loves it: and all its possibilities.
The a-slouched bookstore owner straightens when Leonhard darts suddenly, lurching from the desk to the bookshelf and then to the window and then: "Would it be much use to penny mystics without some familiarty with Enochian?"
"And what," asks he, interested, "put this bee in your bonnet? Simply inspired by Ginger?"

Proclus
"Penny-mystics.  I shouldn't like that, but it's been an age since I've heard that," the Jerbiton's snobby heart admits, enjoying the Latin phrase as it hits his ear.  Hits his ear so hard in fact that he stops flapping about like some sugar-fiend owl...  "In their case, a diluted version.  English.  Same principles."
Of bees, bonnets and he's not sitting down... The Jerbiton replies, making his way back towards the desk...a n d  t h e  c h a i r... and putting an arm towards THE CHAIR as he nears it... and leans on the desk, arranging his satchel to return its contents, "Not so much inspired as concerned, and wanting to have more than just drinks and Gustav to offer as hospitality at that get-together I was also proposing."
The bastard.  The leaning, sprained bastard.  He smiles.  He knows.

A. Gallowglass
"Hmm."
Adam; isn't he full of words? He hmms, and also continues to not sit down or lean on anything. He does not need to lean on anything because he is a man in possession of two legs. Neither of which needs must be propped up by a cane or is swaddled like an awkward baby-bundle in bandages.
"So what's this Alexander like? Kal was talking about him, not very lucidly. Said he might make for a Flambeau, however. I repeat again 'not very lucidly.'"

Proclus
"And not especially likely, I don't think," Proclus responds to the Flambeau's hopes, though with anything but satisfaction in delivering the words.  He may be enjoying the Latin but he's certainly not enjoying the realisation, in saying so, that he doubts the Orphan is headed for the Golden Path.  "I'd like to be surprised but... well, having spent some time with him, I'm not convinced Kalen may not be indulging in wishful thinking.  I would think him...  hm...  perhaps more likely to swing towards the Akashics.  Not so much for the Do, which I doubt is his 'thing,' but he's... well, I...  Orphans!  So confused as to be confusing, I suppose."

Grace
[Nightmares!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Grace
[Magedar!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )

Serafíne
How far are Leonhard and Adam from the window with the best view of themostly-deserted street outside the cluttered glories of Night Owl (An Arch Key) Books? Because the sexiest goddamned car just pulled up outside.  A 1961 Jaguar XK-140, British racing green.  Top down because the sun was bright and the day was gorgeous and, as someone said, might as well take the convertible.  She's curled up on the creamy leather of passenger's seat giving Hawksley directions and not telling him where they're going and they've been driving in a few different sorts of circles that could almost be ritualistic if Sera worked like that,
but Sera does not work like that.  That is not how she is put together.  Night Owl (An Arch Key) is sliding by and she's in the middle of some animate story-or-other fueled by a handful of substances and that's why she misses the place,
until she catches the swinging placard in the rear-view mirror.
"Stop stop stop!"  She tells him, gleaming.  "Here here here!"
It's not the Biblioteca National.  But it is a whole store full of wizarding wizards and books books books books books.
Sera waits for Hawksley to put the Jag in park and cut off the engine and pocket the keys and circle that long, sleek, amazing snout-of-a-front-end and open her door and offer her a hand then she is: rising and rising and rising until she is tottering at very close to his own height because those thigh-high suede boots she is sporting have 2.5 inch platforms and 4.5 inch heels or maybe more.
"That's it - " she's telling him, with a nod of her blond head toward the storefront, "but you should let me cover your eyes before we go it.  So it'll be like a surprise."

Serafi­ne
(And just for funs.  Awareness.)
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (2, 2, 5, 5, 6, 8, 8) ( success x 5 )
Grace
So, they have been talking about Virtual Adept hotline message things named Ginger, and perhaps it will be no surprise to anyone here that sometimes the universe simply summons the right person for the job, eh? Speak of the devil, etc. Truth be told, Grace has not been listening in to the bookstore, or performed any such technomagick in order to determine that people were talking about her (or her admin-level status with a certain dead drop setup).
Sometimes things just happen by coincidence.
So, she appears, the Virtual Adept (for real, no -ish anymore) at the door, wearing what must be her daily uniform of jeans, sneakers, grey turtleneck and laptop bag. The place feels like righteous knights in armor, the flash of steel (Adam has infused it so) but there, another hum to join the rest -- one she's not yet encountered. Perhaps Hawksley and Sera pulling up in their ridiculous car register as well -- the bright summer and in-betweenness.
"Huh," is all she says, not a 'hello' or a 'who's the new guy' or anything as she crosses the threshold. But she does smile. Gives a little wave. "'Sup?"

Proclus
[[Seems somehow suitable: Per+Awareness]]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )

A. Gallowglass
Adam absorbs this new opinion of Alexander with an expression that can best be described as pensive. He does not make a case for Kalen's insightfulness, keen and unmarred by personal wants or desires. Nor does he make a case for Kalen's wishfulness. Adam: He is a collector of opinions and he puts this one on a bookshelf in his memory palace beside who knows what other opinions. Tongue curled behind his teeth, the dark-haired Hermetic (forget him [but how?]) taps his fingertip against his elbow (his arms are still folded across his chest, after all, stalwart and planted, rooted to the spot, go ahead and tilt at him).
"Why the Akashics, of all people? He must seem rather like a soldi..."
The door opens; ring-a-ling, a-ling, a-ling, and the bells herald a Grace! Adam is standing in front of his desk, on the side of the store which contains that recessed room of rarities and stairs leading upward; Proclus is also standing in front of his desk, if by standing we mean leaning like a fool. Adam looks to see who just came in, ready to be a helpful nonentity, when -
Huh.
Well, well, well. He smiles; the smile has something of cat-and-cream to it. "You have good timing, Grace. I was just about to ask my friend here whether or not he'd managed to meet you yet."
A glance behind Grace, reflexive, to the street; some flash car, flashing by, and then the door closes behind her, no more bells ringing.

Hawksley Rothschild
[For Leonhard:Coinciding with the warm slide of that British racing-green vintage Jaguar outside is the sense of wings, soaring wings, a predator in a dive, smoothing to the ground with surprising delicacy versus the sheer power in the flying form.  Something outside is flying, brushes its talons across the earth but never. quite. lands, never quite submits to gravity's clinging and grasping.  Could not submit to it if he wanted, really.  Regardless of the weather here, which is changeable, the feeling that one must shade their eyes if they turn to the window is powerful.  The sensation of crawling, drenching warmth from that sunlight is slowly making its way up the body, soaking into the mind.  There are gods of the sky and gods of the sun and gods who are both incarnate and that sort of god, that sort of entity, is right outside Night Owl books, the supernatural equivalent of the opposite of 'Night'.
For everyone else who has felt Hawksley before, his resonance is:http://youtu.be/8ip8OsExLJs ]

Hawksley Rothschild
Sera didn't tell him where they were going but she gave him directions.  If he wanted he could have guessed, but he doesn't; he doesn't care.  Lovely day, it was, good for driving and driving and driving under the sun in the goddamned Jaguar convertible.  Good day for his aviators and Sera's hair flowing behind her, good day for long roads but they're not going toward the mountains, he doesn't give a fuck about the last good skiing days of the season.
He slides the car to a stop, slower than Sera's stop stop stop, and looks in his rearview.  He quirks a brow, looking at her, and then there's the business of parallel parking this car somewhere he can see it and yes, there are people who are staring at this thing, how can you not stare, you don't see one of these every day.  You don't see people like Hawksley or Sera every day, either.  They're so special, so sparkly, so shameless, and he wears his wealth the way he wears the sun on his skin: like he was born to it.
Which he was.
Hawksley would not open the goddamned door for many people other than Sera, but he does gallantly circle the Jag and help her out, wearing artfully distressed jeans and a tailored white tee and clipping his aviators to the front of that v-necked shirt.  His watch cost thousands, his shoes are flat but no less extravagant than Sera's, just... not made to look it, as Sera's were.
"I've been here," he tells her, as they stroll towards the door.  "The clerk is a snob."
He looks down the sidewalk and sees Grace and grins though.  "'Sup with you," he counters, and the door rings, and there he is, there they are, strolling inward, with Grace going ahead and Sera on Hawksley's arm like he's a goddamned gentleman which he is not.

A. Gallowglass
[I'm going to put this on the table:
Screw posting order. I mean, within reason. I am multitasking pretty hard and bound to be pretty slow, and Adam's a quiet watchful sort, so you know.]

Hawksley Rothschild
[fuck yeah]

Proclus
"Only just this minute," the sprained Hermetic says in warm greeting to Grace.  He hitches himself upward a little at the desk.  Continuing, he seems very pleased by her presence, or so says the lilt at work in his accent, "Grace.  A pleasure.  Leonhard Frick.  You'll, ah, forgive me if I don't bow, won't you?"
He completes the refilling of his satchel, though not so much in haste to hurry the contents from others' sight as in some form of politesse, turning to...  feel... "Lammergeier," or so he mutters, thinking of that most vibrant of birds, thought of in Hermetic circles as the one perhaps most representative of the mystic... and...such a soaring motif for the Order.  Ah.  Serafine.
"Popular place, Adam," he quips, though clearly wondering who the hell...?

Grace
"Friend, oh that's good," she says, and means it. Didn't look like there was fighting going on in here, but you never can tell. She strides up to the leaning fool, leaving Hawksley and Sera a brimming grin over her shoulder as she leaves them in her wake.
"Hi, I'm Grace," she says, without an extended hand. Just a hello. "And I think if you bowed to me, I might ask you to forgive me for whatever the hell I did to cause that to be a thing."
"I think it's happened again," she says, eyes roving around the complicated details of the bookstore, all full of symbols it is. "We've converged."

Hawksley Rothschild
"Don't look at me," Hawksley quips to Grace, regarding convergence, "Sera tricked me."

Serafi­ne
"He has a fucking lot of books," Sera is telling Hawksley, turning her head to rest her mouth against his shoulder, smiling, smiling.  My friends, she is on drugs.  "And a ferret named Ruse."
- and Sera is a little bit careful on the stoop and the steps but with a hand to help her out an arm to wiggle her own through she can actually walk in those things.  The heels and platform are covered with suede too so that heights to which they (make her) tower are not immediately obvious and you might just assume from the rather long limbs and the glassine eyes and the little black dress, 85% of which is see through) that she really just might be that tall.  A model or some fucking thing. Surely Hawksley catches them up or gets her close enough to Grace that Sera can ruffle Grace's hair and maybe he does that because she's reaching, reaching -
"Leonhard.  Hihihi."  Both greeting him with a rather smearily drunk grin and telling Hawksley the stranger's name.  "He's got a lot of other fucking names too.  He's from Liechtenstein.
"I did not trick you."  Also, to Adam, "Where's Ruse?"

Proclus
"Well, Grace, I would try a curtsey instead but it doesn't suit me so well," he says, jocular perhaps, but warm, and it is a warmth which spills over to the Ecstatic's entrance, too.  Even less likely to dance with her than when they last (first) (sometime) met in the shop. "Sera."
Talk of Ruse, but signs of... try it...  Can't look less meritable than the crutch...  It's not a guess, not really...  "Ah, you wouldn't be Hawksley, by any chance?"

Hawksley Rothschild
"She tricked me," he repeats, whilst Sera is denying it, but he's talking to Grace and to the room in general.
But that doesn't mean he didn't hear her.  He's got a lot of other fucking names too.  Which explains the snobbery.  He hasn't stopped providing a place for Sera to lean when she needs to so she doesn't fall over.  How amicable of him, to be moved around at her whims, though he doesn't look worried that she might fall.  He's seen her in higher heels than that.  Drunker, higher than this.  He's more worried about her falling when her feet are flat, because what if she forgets how to balance that way?
He raises an eyebrow at Leonhard.  "I wouldn't be, by chance," he says, because if he's hanging out with the shopkeep who runs this place and has A Lot of Other Fucking Names, he's already suspect, tarred with the same brush.  Hawksley is ignoring the shopkeep.  "But by careful planning, I might."

Patience Mason
[Anyone mind another? Or is it a little to full.]

Hawksley Rothschild
[come on in! let's make it a party!]

A. Gallowglass
Popular place, Adam. "Most people are welcome."
The dark-haired Hermetic (scruff-haired, he should wash it; stop combing it wildly with his fingers when he's doing whatever it is he does [here's a hint: it involves books], then he'd look less like Dream of the Endless) shrugs his shoulders. He is not clearly wondering who the hell; ah, if only. He inhales; exhales. Lammergeier, Proclus says, and Adam's watching Grace and Proclus interact, then lifting his chin in a nod to Sera when she comes in on Hawksley's arm.
He makes a private bet with himself.
He begins to count seconds.
I think it's happened again. We've converged.
Don't look at me, Sera tricked me.
I did not trick you.
(He's almost lost the bet!)
Where's Ruse?
Adam grins. "He's upstairs, sleeping. Do you want to visit him?"
He is not ignoring Hawksley, but he is also not speaking to him or greeting him or otherwise making him welcome. He looked at him; he knows he's there. Fine; he's there. When Leonhard says Hawksley, though, and around Adam's reply to Sera, Hawksley answers, and did -- ?
No way.

Proclus
Oh, that gets a smile, and one of rather welcoming acknowledgement.  By careful planning; Names; yes.  "Then it's bloody good to meet you.  The, ah, other names would be Proclus Vaduz bani Jerbiton... Ex Miscellanea...  Hawksley."
He repeats the name to enjoy it.  If he was pleased to meet Grace, he does little to contain an extra dose of it bubbling in his eyes to meet the other Hermetic.  "Brilliant."  It may be a comment upon Hawksley's Resonance, or also just an unguarded reaction to the meeting.  Brilliant.
He looks to Adam to comment, "And Bethlehem settled for three magi.  Got nothing on Denver."

Grace
Grace lets Sera ruffle the hair, if she wants. And Sera's probably the only one in this room who could get away with that, truly. But Grace has more or less accepted the fact that being in Sera's presence involves hair ruffling and kisses to her forehead and other such intrusions (they are intrusions, but she ignores that, for Sera's sake).
She snorts at Leonhard, obviously imagining him curtsying. "Oh, if you curtsey I will bow." Grin. Happy. "Oh but don't, really, your foot..."
Then, she snorts at Hawksley in turn, at his careful planning. Yes, he does seem like he might be the type to carefully plan out who he is.
"Ruse?"

Grace
[Mageparty! YEAH!]

Serafi­ne
"I didn't trick him," Sera repeats, this time more or less to Grace and there's pleasure in the repetition, see.   The opposition of it, perhaps. The tug-and-pull of it. Look at the way she's smiling.  Bet you want some of whatever the hell she took.
Adam then she finds Adam again how come she always forgets about Adam and then finds him again when she comes back to him; this small circuit of surprise.  "Awww." YOU CAN SEE HER SADFACE.  D:  "I don't wanna - "
Wait.  Leonhard is introducing himself with lo his many names and Sera's inclining her head to Hawksley's right shoulder again.  "I told you about him."  Which is a lie, isn't it, unless she means those confused texts about gerbils some weeks ago; after her seeking; before Rio.  She can't mean those?  Probably Hawksley has forgotten them, anyway.
Back to Adam.  Who has slipped her mind and returned to it, if only by association with his ferret.  " - wake him." To Grace, who may need some program just to follow the slipside of Sera's conversation: "He's a ferret."
Then, waveringly back to Proclus.  "What happened to your foot?"

Hawksley Rothschild
Hawksley and Adam are adamant about ignoring each other, including Hawksley not caring about the ferret named Ruse.  God.  Snobbery + a fucking ferret named Ruse and he may as well have a giant neon arrow pointing at him saying HEY Y'ALL I'M A HERMETIC HOW YOU DOIN'.  So he ignores him, and Adam ignores right back, and this Leonhard guy goes into his other names and Hawksley wears a that's nice expression but doesn't return the favor.
"Leonhard," he says, and offers his hand, whichever one is not currently holding on to Sera if she hasn't wandered off.  "Bethlehem got a bunch of shepherds and choirs of angels, too," he mentions, but not with a huff, a sniff, a toss of his hair, which was cut in a fashion that cost way too much.  Just a reminder, because it's true.  Bethlehem got way more than its three kings.  They just came the farthest.
Well.  Not counting the angels.  Now that was a road trip.

Hawksley Rothschild
"She didn't tell me about you," he adds to Leonhard, since he and Sera are talking over each other.  She means the gerbils; he has no idea what she's talking about because sometimes Sera just texts things, you know?

Patience Mason
Patience came here more then most might surmise after finding this bookstore many months ago she had shown up every couple of weeks to peruse the findings both old and new. She strode through the door as she often did, like a woman out of time, a person so stuck in an age gone by that it was almost impossible not to mark her passage.
With the warmer weather came the return of her usual attire, riding leathers and that old aviator's jacket both so time worn one might wonder how they still held that air of regality despite their utilitarian nature. An old motorists skullcap with googles was pulled from her head, letting the her blonde locks fall about her features, such things impossible to control after riding.
She took stock of the bookstore, and with a straight back and alert eyes she moved towards the new arrivals section, eager for a new discovery, or an old friend.

Proclus
"I may just hold you to that, when the foot's not being so awkward," he warns the Virtual Adept, quite without thinking, just loosely, perhaps a little charmed by her snort.  But he's not sitting down.  It can't be that bad, can it, Adam the Sleepless?  "And it's being awkward, Sera, because I had an accident hiking with Alexander... the Orphan.  Cop, as it happens, so a dab hand with the first aid."
"Perhaps it's just as well, Hawksley," he offers up, adjusting himself on his crutch a moment, mock-flourishing his spare hand down after shaking Hawksley's.  "To let it be such a wonderful surprise to meet me at my best.  Or very much not.  But, my manners!  Which House are you?  Oh, sorry, girls...  Can't help myself asking, getting all Hermetic, aren't I?  (No escaping it, I guess.)  But, really, which House are you?  I'm thinking... not Quaesitor or Bonisagus.  Miscellanea?  Are you with the Miscellany?"

Patience Mason
[blahh my brain fails me, wrong bookstore, scrap the part about her being there regularly >_<]

Proclus
[[Magedarorama!]]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 6, 6, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )

Grace
Alexander is a cop? That Alexander? Thursday Alexander? Grace frowns, but doesn't say anything, mentally filing that information away as a potential danger zone.
Well, he won't be getting an invite to Ginger any time soon, that's for damn sure. Likely to haul her away for computer crimes...
The others, well... "Hey, Patience! Long time no see!" There's another wave. Yep, they're converging, like a flock of birds to seed -- Mages to books, right?

Serafi­ne
Sera did tell him.  She knows she did and there's the argument in the sly flash of her eyes on his avian profile but she actually does not manage to continue the rather deliciously familiar bickering aloud because she has forgotten her part in the exchange and they're moving on.  Aren't they.  So she rests her temple against his bicep and turns her head on a lazy fulcrum to kiss Hawksley while they talk about shit she does not (care to) understand and the sensation of all that resonance - just swims around her and she thinks, thinks thinks thinks thinks thinks, knows that this is how the world was meant to be.
All potential.  A cauldron of creation.
Oh.  Sera lifts her head and glances behind and sees: Patience.  Who is lovely and surreal in ways that even Sera whose pupils are swallowing her irises can manage. Sera smiles over Hawksley's shoulder.  Hello, she says.  But she forgets to open her mouth, so there's just a slow blink and a half-hidden smile.
Her head swings back around.  Gaze grazing Hawksley's profile before settling - in that mildly startled way she has when she remembers that she has forgotten him because he is right in front of her - on Adam. 
"She talks like a fucking robot."  Sera non-sequitors to Adam.  She means Patience, of course.  "It's fucking amazing."

Hawksley Rothschild
[oh shit]

A. Gallowglass
Night Owl Books (An Arch Key) does indeed have a new arrivals section. It is very, very, very tiny, consisting of one woe begone little table near the front door, upon which absolutely nothing that is on the New York Times Bestseller list is to be found.
Gallowglass is reserved just now. He is reserved but that is not inexpressive. His eyebrows had winged up at the name Hawksley. He'd given that no way look. He'd confirmed Serafíne's identifying of Ruse as: he's a ferret. "He likes to sleep by the anarch sign upstairs. Don't feel bad about waking him. He wakes me up all the time." That's how he confirms it: by not denying it. By adding a detail. Insignificant unless one is looking for Ruse and an anarchy sign. He is a rumpled thing, Adam, dark shadows around his eyes from time spent burning the midnight oil until there is no oil and indeed midnight's a long forgotten dream, and when Serafíne looks waveringly at Proclus' foot the Bonisagus gives the older man a significant look. Sit down, old man. God damn it.
He had an accident hiking with Alexander the cop. Adam: he wonders what it was. Perhaps Leonhard tripped while talking? Adam would not trip while talking. He would just trip because he is clumsy. Doesn't stretch as much as he ought. All of that.
He is reserved. He is not too reserved to give Hawksley a flick of a: yeah, no, not Bonisagus, not THAT guy sort've look. Or maybe it's Proclus who gets that look -
"Ex Misc, hmm?"
- which slides away from the other Hermetic and the Bad Hermetic No Way to land on Patience. He looks pleased to see her; unfolds his arms. Sera's non-sequitor gets this reply, low-key:
"I know. It's fascinating. Hello, Patience. Come meet Leonhard; you two should talk." His attention slips from Patience to Grace, to see how she's taking the convergence: he seems to expect her to have something witty to say about it, judging from his faint smile.
He also has no manners today, for he is not jumping on the introduce himself properly bandwagon.

A. Gallowglass
ooc: That should be like,
"I know. It's fascinating. Hello, Patience."
In terms of loudness. *grin*

Proclus
Seattle Alexander is a cop, yeah, thinks the Jerbiton in noting the frown that happens across Grace's face upon hearing that little tidbit.  It's not that he doubts it was noted by the others, too, but the frown attracted some... sympathy?
Yet the mention of convergence has tugged at his own features a little.  He remembers the last time in the shop with a flock of Denver's Traditionalists forming... but Hawksley retains the lion's share of his attention.  Perhaps he's rude, not seeming to pay more attention to...  no, his impression of Sera has become a Mage not so lightly insulted in error.  Oh, no need to fret, Liechtenstein.  Sera's proximity, kissing Hawksley: it is met with a playfully faux-expression, of What's This?!  What's This Horrible Thing?!  And it is an expression which is as quickly flung from his face as dragged on in the first place, in receiving Adam's oh-so-valiant barb, doing little to hide his appreciation of the humour (even directed at his own flaws... for he's not so alone), but back to Hawksley.

Patience Mason
The store was a marvel, a place filled with knowledge crammed into every corner of every shelf, from the top of the shop likely to the very bottom one could find something to read, something to examine, something to learn. Of course such shops were becoming the exception rather then the rule, like the weight of the consensus upon awakened doings the weight of the big book stores was slowly crushing the life out of such places, leaving only the true gems to survive the immense pressures involved.
Patience pulled the old leather gloves from her long fingers as she moved slowly into the shop, the hobnailed ridding boots that encased her feet struck dully on the floor of the shop as she moved ever so slowly about the room. There were of course other people here, gathered to learn or to socialize or simply buy. But the etherite's eyes were for the written word, her reason for being here, and so the people were forgotten...at least until Grace spoke up.
At that point Patience drew herself from her wandering ways and strode to the gathering of people, her lips curling upward in a warm and pleasant curve as she spoke to Grace.
"Grace  Considerable  sociological, metaphysical, geographical and frotean formulae must have resolved and become affirmed to permit and actualize this highly improbably relativistic realignment of the concurrent dimensional plane." Her voice the tone of someone who was all to pleased to see a familiar face. Slowly she took in the presence of the others she knew, Sera, who drew a welcome wave, and Adam to whom the woman offered a raised and curious brow with a friendly nod before going on.
"I must reconsider the theoretical properties for this alignment it would seem that this is not simply a standard planar shift and realignment, but a proper metaphysical convergence. Appropriate and temporally accurate sociological salutations Adam, Sera, It is positively marked to visualize and actualize the concurrently nominal state of your biological carrier structures, I theorize that your encumbant noospheric and metaphysical states are equally nominal?" She inquires pleasantly before turning to Adam specifically and looking about.
"Subject Leonhard?" She inquired blinking for a moment in consideration. "I have not actualized and formally indexed and notarized an individualized personage with that precise identifier." She looked between Hawksley and Leonhard. "I currently possess insufficient markers and data forms with which to ascertain the individualized personage..." She pauses and tilts her head before extending her hand to both of them with a warm smile.
"My parentalogically assigned identifier is Patience Mason, it is a noted and indexed temporal framework in which to actualize your individualized personages."

A. Gallowglass
[INTELLIGENCE. What you say?]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )

Proclus
"Subject Patience, familial specificity: Mason.  Reference: Leonhard, familial specificity: Frick.  Both Frick and Leonhard not uncommon nomenclature in Liechtensteiner naming procedures.  (I'm not related to the old Prime Minister.)  I... ah... greet you with... well, a clear-hearted hope not to... ah... come across as a dick, is... this damaged biological unit believes is the, ah... vernacular.  You know what?  I should have curtseyed and have done with it, I think.  Hello, Patience."

Hawksley Rothschild
Hawksley has met Patience Mason all of one time.  It was also the first time he met Pan, the second time he met Serafine.  They were in a park, and he'd been kayaking.  If he gave it more than a moment's thought he'd recognize her, she doesn't exactly blend into the background, but he doesn't recognize her and just glances at her as she first enters.
All right.  Someone -- SERA -- told Leonhard about Hawksley, and that he's a Hermetic, and so instantly the guy is asking about his house and saying things like dab hand and Hawksley irrationally dislikes him for all of these non-reasons, right away, and that mock-flourish doesn't help and he's just staring at the guy all oh my god and Hawksley quirks a god-damn gold-colored brow at the oh, sorry, girls and presses the tip of his tongue against an incisor.
Sera leans against his arm and warmth floods through her temple into her brain, just as it floods from her temple into his arm.  Same with when she kisses him there.  'She' -- Sera means Patience -- talks like a robot, which is when he remembers her from the park, nearly a year ago now.  Adam's flicking eye and Leonhard's assumptions aren't out of line: hell no, he's not Bonisagus.  He isn't answering anybody anything, because he's pretty sure Leonhard and Patience should talk,
"That's a fabulous idea," he says, thankful for the number of people making his non-answering less obvious.  Well, he's hopeful.  Leonhard's attention seems hard to shake.  Hawksley has glanced down at Sera beside him, because even in her heels he's a mite taller than her, and there is
something
in the way he looks at her that is at once terribly obvious and also hard to discern.  It isn't simple fondness, it isn't evidence of ardent adoration, but there's an awareness in that glance that Hawksley isn't giving anyone else.  Ah, that's what it is: that is what Hawksley Giving A Fuck looks like.  And indecently, shamelessly, it's one more signal that he doesn't give much of a fuck about anyone else.  Well, maybe Grace, because have you seen her eyes lately?  She also told him he could flirt with Ginger if he felt like it and it wouldn't mess up the program (and also would not cause her to come to life and become obsessed with Hawksley, not that that's ever happened).
Patience speaks.  Hawksley looks at Patience, stares a moment, does not attempt to respond.
Leonhard says: not to... ah... come across as a dick.  His eyes bug.  He beams.  He grins.  He laughs.
He says: "Fuck," at the end of that laughter, to himself, and squeezes Sera's hand.  "Don't you dare abandon me here to run after a ferret," he tells her.

Grace
"Oh Patience," Grace laughs. "The universe, it relativistically converges us all the time. Improbability gets a bit stretched with how often, you know? More like, where there are two of us, five of us are already aligning, like clockwork."
She assumes, given the ease with which Leonhard speaks of things, with which Patience speaks of things (although if there were a Sleeper in the shop somewhere, would they be able to peel away any meaning from that robot speech? Perhaps not). So it's on to business.
"I'm actually here for a reason you know?" she addresses Adam. "I was going to offer you a piece of Ginger. But now, there's lots of people here now without it, I see... Anybody have no idea what I'm talking about?"

Serafine
Sera cannot understand a word Patience is saying.  Not a goddamned word.  First time they met Sera asked a certain priest to confirm whether or not Patience was simply a hallucination or actually present-in-the-shared-space.  Now again, months later, and Sera cannot answer these questions.  She closes her eyes and allows the strange, dulcet tones to wash over her without any attempt to decipher the message or the madness behind them.
So once again, Sera essentially withdraws from the actual conversation, allowing it to just swim over her consciousness, tasting the ebb and flow of magic in the air.  She is breathing so steadily.  She can hear Hawskley's heart beating.  She can feel his wings.  She can sense the shadowless brightness of Adam's unending pursuit.  Proclus the foundation beneath which Grace is slip-sliding and oh -
oh gods how it makes her smile.  Sera thinks about a knot stitched through the second knuckle of her thumb with a fine white thread and an iron needle.  She thinks about storms and sunlight and what it means to fly.  She thinks within and beyond the disordered boundaries of her own goddamned skin and some nights she can even feel the stars pierce her lungs and she's opening,
opening,
paying so goddamned much attention to the people and absolutely no attention to the conversation flying around her head, at least until Hawksley starts laughing, which she appears to find infectious although she has absolutely no idea what she's laughing about, and is still not paying any attention to the conversation at least until Hawksley tells her she better not abandon him to go running after a ferret.
"He's fucking adorable though.  Adam put him on my shoulder and he hid beneath my hair."
(And they can feel her magic, perhaps, back of the throat.  The tinge of it.  Sometimes Sera just texts things, you know?  Sometimes she just does things.  She can't help it.)

Proclus
[[Minor sprain, already well on the mend but still all swaddled up to (would be fairly assumed) avoid any backsliding.]]

Patience Mason
"A co-habitated theorem Leonhard, such duality of purpose in this temporal instance is pleasant."  Leonhard speaks in a manner not all that dissimilar to Patience, though to the educated the differences might seem astronomical. Regardless of such particulars the woman nods, seemingly pleased as Leonhard identifies him by his speech. Patience focuses on Hawksley then, and though the man did not speak it seemed to dawn on Patience that they had indeed met before, and she offered him another polite and friendly nod.
"Factual and intrinsically noospherical reparations sir, Your individualized personage is logged and notorized within my concurrent data storage, it is sociologically and personally positively noted to actualize your concurrent and ongoing existence in the realm of biologically actualized matter."
She then turned to Grace and stepped close a curious and conspiritorial smile on her lips as she said. "You theorize such intriguing formulae Grace, perhaps I need to realign and stress evaluate my own theorem given to my inherent nature and predilections towards individualized temporal allotment." She tapped her cheek as she considered that, her other arm folded beneath her chest as she thought before going on.
"We are dispersing and sharing the medicinal and caloric biological entity indexed as Zingiber officinale?" She inquired, seemly entirely perplexed. "I do not visually or olfactorally identify suitable nutrient substances be it solid or liquid concurrent with the use of Zingiber Officinale."
She briefly turned to look at Sera, her eyes searching the womans hair for signs of the afformentioned ferret, and then finding none simply blinked before looking amongst the others for answers.

Grace
"Ahh, Patience doesn't have any clue. I'm not talking about Zingiber officinale, I'm talking about a program named Ginger. It lets you leave messages for people -- for everybody really. It's as secure as I could make it, encrypted you know. And it's kind of stored on a phone sex line without their permission, so I'd really appreciate it if you guys make sure not to tell Alexander about it until we can be sure he's not going to run me in, thanks..."
She does frown at that last one. To be alone in Denver, freshly Awakened, freshly dealing with all the freaky shit and to be restricted from the 'water cooler' so to speak? But hey, it's not like she hasn't her reasons.

A. Gallowglass
Grace is actually here for a reason; he raises both eyebrows, the slouching dark-haired thing, giving her most of his attention. Not all of it; Patience requires quite a deal. Leonhard responding to her made the young man smile; smile so it carved dimples out've his cheeks. "I thought perhaps you'd come by to see if the book you signed sold yet or not."
The smile naturally fades when Hawksley asks Serafíne not to abandon Hawksley; or maybe it is just because that sun-stroked young man has spoken? He is just about to say, hopefully:
You can wait outside. Or maybe, You can leave.
When Patience begins to talk again, and Patience, talking, that is difficult to talk around, or at least isn't something Adam is willing to talk around. Nobody else saying they don't know what Ginger is, so Adam (relentless [always]) drags himself back to the point. A point that has been presented. And after Grace answers her, he says, glancing once at Leonhard,
"Ah, thanks. That's nice of you. How does it work? And, Sera," gear-switch, "I think Ruse might be afraid of your friend's shadow, so perhaps you should just let him sleep. He'll be here again on Tuesday."
Or any day Adam feels guilty about leaving him alone, but there is no reason to say as much.

Hawksley Rothschild
Sera and Hawksley are of a mind, when it comes to Patience.  He just doesn't engage, and doesn't try too hard to understand what's coming out of her mouth.  Nor does he, as Leonhard does, try to match her syntax and vocabulary.  Despite the far more steady, gratitude-inducing resonance of the mage who wants to know more about him and despite the resonance of the Snobbish Shopkeep which touches on something well-hidden but deeply entrenched in Hawksley's own mind, it's Sera's and Grace's and -- hell -- even Patience's that are most attractive to him, the ones that set his teeth on edge and get his heart beating faster, make those wings that no one sees but everyone feels beat faster, aching for the sky.
And it is Sera he keeps looking at, as she rests her head on his body and meanders her eyes about the room, as she smiles, as she thinks of things he cannot see but sees the reflection of on her face and in her eyes.  She laughs.  Tells him the ferret is adorable.
"Well, I'll get a dog then.  Something fluffy and white," he says, and you can tell by the way he says it he damn well would.  He'd go out and get a dog just for Sera to chase and snuggle when she sees it, also dogs are way better than ferrets, Sera, obviously.
At least he's not outright rude to Patience.  She nods at him and he catches it, nods back.  Smiles a little, even if it's because he thinks she's thoroughly unhinged and deserves a little mercy.  There are precious few people Hawksley thinks about giving mercy to, and next time Patience sees him, he might not.  Capricious asshole, you might call him, and you might be right.
"Deal," he tells Grace, regarding not telling Alexander.  "I also promise, just because I'm that nice, not to make my first Welcome to Ginger message for him 'Fuck the Po-lees'."  That's a hell of a promise, Grace, you'd better appreciate it.
Adam speaks to Sera.  Says her name.  And for the first time since he walked in, Hawksley actually looks at the shopkeep.  He knows what's being said.  His shadow -- his resonance, his bearing, even his face, resemble the sort of bird of prey he's named for.  Adam is right to think that the poor animal -- even if it's a totally stupid animal who has ferrets is this the 90s Jesus Christ -- would be frightened.  It's happened before.  Hawksley has had friends with gerbils and mice and rats as pets and they aren't too fond of him either.
His eyes remain right there on Adam a moment.  Probably longer than it needs to.  Dammit, he is thinking.  Or feeling.  It can be a feeling, too.

Proclus
It is difficult to shake, that attention on Hawksley.  All the moreso following his laughter.  He thinks of a lot of dead magi.  And laughter.  "Well, you're no Janissary.  I'll give you that."
Adam, oh, Adam.  Frere.  He doesn't even glance to the Bonisagan, at least not with his eyes which - though not pointedly - remain in the vicinity of Hawksley for a long breath.  A stand-in Pater, a ferret, and more... and not a question asked.
"Ginger sounds a bother to keep, well...  It would be to me, being a bit limited with that sort of thing," he says, admits, turns to Grace.  "All the moreso if it were blabbed outside the Council so, no, no telling Alexander Brandt from my lips, Grace.  Would it be possible to be added to it myself?"
He glances to Patience.  Wonders what kind of messages are left from her.  Smiles.  Turns back to Grace.  "You know, if that might be okay."

Patience Mason
Patience nodded as Grace explains what Ginger actually was, and from the look on her features it seemed obvious that to the woman, that made alot more sense after all who just ate ginger straight? "Direct and ongoing access to your established and decentralized data and informational points accumulator would increase ongoing and concurrent efficiency of metaphysical activities by fifty three point two six four percentiles Grace, immediate actuality would be positively aligned." She said with a nod. "
Inquiry, has to this current temporal identifier any individualized personage accidently integrated a data module or aural vibration with the copulatory stimulation service?" She inquired like it was a matter of scientific interest, but something glimmered in her eye, like it might well be a joke.
 But then her gaze is drawn to Hawksley and Adam once more, and those sky blue eyes moved slowly from one to the other, gathering data perhaps, or at the very least observing an uncomfortable encounter.

Grace
"How it works? You call the phone-sex line. I'm not going to lie. It'll show up in your phone records like that, but if you have my Ginger installed, you'll get something else instead. A menu, for you to leave a message or listen to existing ones.
"It's not really so much a bother to keep. So long as I'm not completely restricted from accessing my own computer and phone," she gripes, grumbles at that one. Perhaps such has happened before, and she's not so happy about that.
Then Patience speaks up, and Grace laughs. "I sure hope not! I mean, people could call the number without having Ginger on their phones, but that would be fairly obvious -- it wouldn't be at all like Ginger."
She turns to Hawksley, all stone-faced and serious. "Hawksley, assuming we ever invite him to the thing, I encourage you to leave him such a message. Hell, I will too. We can fuck the po-lees together."

Serafi­ne
Sera has no notion that Patience is studing the weight of her blond curls or perhaps the quarter of her skull that is shaved down to a soft dark fringe from brow to the nape of her neck looking for a ferret.  Patience's  conversation style is just absolutely beyond Serafíne's ability to process, so she does not even make the attempt.  Just allows the strange, lilting music of all those Very Long Words to drift around her.  Breathes them in, sometimes.  There's a point where Sera just inhales and sort of lifts her chin to rest it on Hawksley's shoulder and blinks and glances back and watches Patience framed against a crowded set of bookshelves, and she is glowing, luminous, a throwback and thinks to herself that Dee might like her.   The style see.
Dee would love the style.
The trail back to front-and-center and her eyes snag on Hawksley's profile and she watches him with a keenness and a kind of sagacity that is not brilliance, but a skin-and-bones wisdom, of sorts.   Breathes him in, a half-dozen layers and her posture against him slides from nuzzling to nestling and back again.
Adam suggests that she visit Ruse another time and Sera smiles, wide but close-lipped.  Nods and probably opens her mouth wide enough to say K, which stands for Okay, and the remaining letters of the word are sort of swallowed in the tide because Hawksley is promising her a dog, something fluffy and white, if that's what she wants, and she didn't know that she might want that until just fucking now and we hope that Collins is an animal lover, because he might have a new houseguest in the near-to-mid-future.
She wouldn't abandon him for a ferret, would Sera.  And she smiles really rather tenderly against him, and that tenderness is strongest for him but extends in these opening rings around him and then there's the pressure of her mouth against tailored white V-neck t-shirt.  She's planting small, rather thoughtful kisses at the tendinous insertion of his trapezius and informing Grace and Hawksley that Seattle Alexander "told me he was in security."
The nuzzling continues.  Sera breathes, all-in.  Shoots Leonhard a glance, favors him with the curve of a rather distracted, distractable smile.

Hawksley Rothschild
Let's be fair to everyone: it's hard not to stare at Hawksley.  He's attractive, sure, and he's sort of appealing the way that laying out on a beach in the sun for six hours at a time is appealing to just about everyone when winter is still trying to keep a hold on everyone.  The way his t-shirt is cut makes it clear that his upper-body is given a great deal of time and attention, and indicates that it would be unwise to get into a push-up contest with him.  His skin is tanned because he spent several days of February down in Rio and was mostly or entirely naked a great deal of the time, so his hair and his skin are golden and his eyes are that piercing, predatory blue.
Plus he's with Sera.  He is 'with' Sera in a very obvious way, at least in the sense that they showed up together and she's hanging off of him and he's looking at her a lot and so on.  And Sera captivates.  Everything about Sera welcomes worship.
How this fucker is of the Order of Hermes at all doesn't make much sense.  But no: he's not of Bonisagus.  Leonhard laughs that he's not Janissary and Hawksly swivels his eyes over, giving a faint smirk that may as well say but wouldn't it fuck with your head if I was?
This is about when he realizes that Leonhard kept giving him attention even when Hawksley didn't give it back.  And when he realizes that Patience has looked over at him and Adam even though he and Adam are decidedly not together.  And thank god for Grace right that moment, distracting him from taking all this in and frowning at people, because Grace makes him smile.  "You and me," he says, waggling a finger between their two chests, "are gonna get drunk one day and leave yelling messages on Ginger for every newb.  And it's going to be amazing."
Sera was nuzzling him.  His shoulders round down by a half-inch.  He doesn't notice.  He does notice her swiveling her head around and kissing him where she does.  Even though he's sober and she's Something Else he's not shushing her or trying to get her to stop, stop, like this should embarrass her.  He just brings his hand up, back of her neck, back of her head, her crown, the shaved fringe, fingertips pressing and rubbing slightly, mindlessly, all the better to horrify the others that this guy who doesn't even seem properly proud of his Hermetic-ness is also Involved somehow with one of the low, the carnal, the penny-mystics who don't understand how magic really works.
"I bet the priest would join in that," he says, still ostensibly to Grace.  "I bet if we could get him drunk enough he'd yell Fuck The Police with us.  In Spanish."

Serafi­ne
Hawksley mentions the priest and Sera smiles, and supplies "Pan!" all fondness and delight, quite pleased with herself that she was able to contribute to the conversation and it feels rather like she's surfacing right then; like she's waking up, waking again and by now she probably has wrapped both arms around Hawksley's rather remarkable torso and is both holding on to and hanging off of him, head tipped into the pressure of his hand against her neck, her skull, her temple.
"He means Pan."  Maybe that bit is directed to Adam and Proclus and Sera says it helpfully and a bit earnestly and there's a hint of adoration there.
Sera adores the priest.  Sera adores almost everyone.  In different ways.  For different reasons.
She really can't help herself.

A. Gallowglass
There are plenty of Hermetics who Adam does not like and who do not like Adam: plenty. Theirs is not a brotherhood of frolicksome House Gryffindor cosplayers. He does not usually arbitrarily decide (imperious [lofty]) not to regard them as Hermetic at all. Because that is silly: there is a code that one follows - there are practices one puts into use. Hawksley, though. Hawksley. Bah.
Grace explains that Ginger gets installed, and when she explains that, yes indeed, Ginger will show up on phone records as a phone sex line, there's a thoughts-swinging-elsewhere, far-far-far from this book shop sort of " - heh - " - or maybe it's more of a hah? Anyway, there it is.  "All right, thank you Grace, I'm happy to have her installed on my phone. Do you want to do it now or..."
Meanwhile, Serafíne and the making-out, casual-like, and - well. Adam must assume this is just something she does, after Pan. A Sera-thing.
THEN. Because there is another then. THEN, have a heart-attack, be prepared for it: a middle-aged man comes out've the backroom, shaved blue hair, piercings, but it's all faded, none of it is vibrant, old tattoos, and he says - "Kit, sorry I'm late, but - "
Then the tattooed blue-haired guy stops. Because: all these Willworkers, their resonances awash; he feels them.
" - but - " a waver, like: are these customers? " - uh, the guy with the thing. Aren't you supposed to be - ?"
And Adam: looks, briefly, blank. Blank, blank, blank, dreaming eyes like what his attention is a million miles away, followed by - how does Adam curse? Adam does not curse unless he means to curse. He says very specifically: "Yes." But it sounds a lot like:
Fuck. In tone. And cadence.

Proclus
"Oh, you shouldn't have worried, Sera," the Jerbiton gratefully, and immediately taking to his healed hoof.  He curtseys to Grace, "I warned you."
"There's just no stopping you sometimes, is there, girl?"  He directs this to Sera with a friendly lack of swagger but a clear gratitude for all the blatant-lie of his pretend-disappointment.  Ten years since the touch of Life Magicks on him.  Ten years of caution and solitude, and being so damnably careful to avoid the Awakened, Council and otherwise.  Ten years denied.  Ten year insisted.  Ten years!  "Ten years!  I haven't been healed by Will in ten years.  Of course, that was ten years avoiding the Order and Council because of a tribunal.  A punishment.  Kept from this."Elation.  The foot doesn't matter, but for the kindness of its healing - uneccesary but arguably all the more kind for that.
"Kept from this," he almost concludes, this elated outburst... or, at least, once elated outburst, turning back to Hawksley.  "But being kept from knowing if we share a House, Hawksley... if that is the case...  Well...  Why keep yourself from a House-brother if that's the case?  Really?  You're not shy and I know Interdiction, and it's not that.  So what is it?"

Proclus
[[Bugger my brain.  It's gone 5am for me so I've not got the Stats Leonhard would have!  Given the arrival of Mr Blue Rinse McTattoo, even Leonhard wouldn't have been so dim as to continue after "I warned you."  Please ignore the second and third parts of my last post.]]

A. Gallowglass
ooc: We can have that part happen after Leonhard's post, dude! :)

A. Gallowglass
ooc: My slow easing out of the scene need not interfere with Mageyness. *grin*

Proclus
[[Kind of you.  But I suspect I should work Leonhard out of the scene, too, before my brain entirely deflates.]]

A. Gallowglass
 ooc: No way man, Leonhard being all ELATION is too cute.

Proclus
[[I hate you]]

A. Gallowglass
ooc: :) <3

Hawksley Rothschild
Hawksley smiles.  It's such an endeared smile, as open and shameless as any other expression of his.  "Yes," he tells Sera.  "Pan."  Pan like the other god, the unchaste, the dangerous, the one who is as much of the earth as Hawksley is of the sky.  He doesn't think Pan thinks he's anything like the god-Pan.  But that doesn't mean he doesn't, in fact, share a bit in common with him.
Oh look.  A guy with blue hair.  Hawksley looks over, lifts his brows, looks around for who might be called 'Kit' here, finds Adam.  Grins, sort of savage and evil and delighted.  "Kit," he repeats, the way some people might lick their favorite treat on a hot summer day like Stranahan's Whiskey Brickle from Sweet Action over on Broadway in mid-July.
Delicious.
Then, Leonhard.  Hawksley exhales, rough, turns on him.  Not to him.  On him.  "She's not a 'girl'.  She's not sweetheart, she's not darling, she's not dollface, she's not 'girl'.  You sound like a slaveowner from the Deep South trying to remind the slaves that they're less than him, more worthless than he is.  Her name is Sera and whether you intend to or not, you're showing her disrespect she doesn't deserve and-or assuming a familiarity that you don't deserve.  If you think calling her by her name is too intimate or something, then call her Miss, call her Ma'am, call her something that shows a little decorum rather than revealing just how thick the stick up your ass is."
Anger.  Okay.  That's anger.  And whatever happened with him and Adam the first last and only other time he's been in this shop wasn't anger, Adam would clearly see that now.  This is anger.  This is dude I'm about to break you jaw if you call Sera or Grace or Patience 'girl' again so help me.
He's not done.  His voice lowers, levels.
"My name is Hawksley Rothschild, Crimson Guardian, Right Eye of the Sun," which is not even the whole of his shadow name, much less his true name, but is a step more than his craft name, "Initiate Exemptus bani Ex Miscellanea, former bani Shaea, on fucking probation, and I'll accept you as a 'brother' when you accept and treat my friends as your equals."
He takes a deep breath.
Sera's probably never seen him angry either.  He can't think if she has.
He exhales.
Hawksley lifts his hands, palms out.  "All right, that was a bit much, even for me.  I'm gonna go take a walk.  Maybe have a good cry.  Write a sad poem in my journal and move on."

A. Gallowglass
[Hey wait what are you daring to yell at someone I like in my frickin' bookshop PLEASE ROLL DO NOT FAIL I AM TIRED.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )

A. Gallowglass
[*HUGSTHEDICE*]

Hawksley Rothschild
[crude. YOUR jaw, not you jaw. come on, Rs, work with me.]

Grace
"Pan, ah, doesn't have a phone. And apparently I can't entice him to get a phone, because the last time I tried to show him Ginger, I hit him in the face with mine, and--"
Long story, apparently.
Then, Hawksley loses it in defense of Sera (and my what a loss, what a righteous fervor, and what's more -- he's right). Looks like the shine has worn off of this particular gathering, huh? Like something broke.
Then, a man in tattoos and blue hair comes in and the heart, it stops. "Sure, Kit, we can do that some other time, if you like."
Silence. Shut up, everybody, shut up shut up... Or have a fight about the word 'girl' being thrown around, better than other topics.
Oh, Christ. Hermetics and their names. And how posturing, preening, ridiculous. Grace eyes Patience with a weary look, like 'See, see what we have to deal with?'

Proclus
"If you're on probation, perhaps I can help," is the rather studied, if limited reply.  But not so limited is the attention.  Watchful.  Not notably judgemental, and perhaps a fair deal of sympathy there in the Jerbiton's creased eyes, but unimpressed, and quite able to let one exhibition of elation turn to one of a different stripe.
Of course, there is no apology in him.  Perhaps a little lack of timeliness is noted, but Girl clearly means something different to Leonhard.

Patience Mason
Patience has been remarkably quiet during much of this exchange, she had after all been quite divorced from the actions and goings on off the mage of Denver, her own research keeping her on that farm of her's well outside the city. She watches as a fight almost breaks out and when Grace looks to her with weariness in her eyes Patience offered her an agreeable smile before letting out a sigh and turning to the two hermetics with a shake of her head.
"Such socialogical friction and political placement disruption portrays and actualizes your socio-political-metaphysical amalgamation in a distressingly negative light stream gentlemen. Decorum and socially positive actuality is highly recommended in this juncture." She offers before turning to Grace and stepping up beside her, close enough to take her arm.
"Inquiry Grace, is it possible to actualize and implement the data accumulator on a static optical reciever? In a fixed geographically aligned structure? Or does it inherently require the utilization of a roaming access point?"

Serafi­ne
No, Sera has seen Hawksley in many places and in a remarkable number of states but she has never seen him angry and she can feel it tightening in his body, the ratcheting promise of it, the potential energy of it,  and she feels that like a premonition, like an aura, this halo all around him, and well, see, she's breathing that in too; feeling that anger and the way it beats in the heart and pulse, cracking it between her teeth, aware of so many things, including the way it makes her heart pound.  Heart in throat, heart on her tongue.  Sera is no longer hanging onto or off of Hawksley.  Her arms slid from their less-than-loose circle around his waist and she straightens a bit and regardless of the height of those heels, so does not really require his assistance to stand so, so, so -
- she stands up on her own, and still beside him but not all over him, frowning and a bit still and watching his profile more than anyone else's,  reaching to grab his right hand with his left, and to lace their fingers together.  This connection is thoughtless and necessary as any other.  There's nothing deliberate about it.  She just catches one of his hands as he drops them and Proclus and Adam this tight smile because her heart is pounding -
and a direct look for each.  Her pupils are huge and Proclus can see himself reflected therein.  Then, "you're welcome." Her voice is quiet, her hand tightens around Hawksley's and she's turning to go, "See you," offered to the room.  Grace, she reaches over to ruffle her hair because Sera cannot help herself and then Sera and Hawksley are headed out the door.
Together.
They will go for a walk or at least a drive.
He will not write any sad fucking poems in his journal.

A. Gallowglass
Kit. Hawksley repeats. Adam raises an eyebrow at him. But he says to the blue-haired man: "Go into the back. I'll be there shortly." Sure Kit, Grace is saying, we can do that some other time if you like. And the blue-haired man goes into the back with a lingering glance for the collection of people in the bookshop. This is not because they look like a motley assortment: Night Owl Books (An Arch Key) is full of motley assortments of customers when there are any assortments of customers to offer. It's because they are all Willful personalities. Because their resonance affects him - Grace, perhaps, less, with that Mystery that touches her, makes him forget a detail or two, or perhaps it's just the others are stronger. Regardless: a lingering glance, and then he is gone, and then Hawksley loses it, and Gallowglass
Has a terrible temper. Nobody here knows it yet. Today is not the day they find out. Still: for a moment it's like his heart stills, you know, the sound of it, and there's just this black rush pause the moment before black fury, and then he leashes it.
Of course that guy's on probation. Who'd want him? Of course he used to be ( - was probably kicked out of - ) House Shaea. Adam: teeth together. He's so focused on controlling himself that he doesn't say anything, and look, isn't he a reserved, sea-eyed, crazy-haired bookish thing? Adrift around so much emotion.
Hawksley lifts his hands, palms out. Maybe have a good cry. Write a sad --
"Don't talk about it. Go do it. Shoo."
If you're on probation, perhaps I can help, Leonhard says, and Adam does not scoff. He just raises his eyebrows again, and says, "I'll be in the back. Grace, erm, sorry, I'll - call you or - perhaps at the House? Or Kal will - well we'll be in touch. Patience, a pleasure. Sera," just her name, because well. She brought Hawksley, man.
There is another look for Leonhard, though. It's not a taking-care-of-you-look, but it is very aware; there might even be a question, like, come-with, or?
And then: he's gone. Nobody (except Hawksley?) is kicked out, per se. The blue-haired guy is on duty now, after all.

Hawksley Rothschild
There is so much energy in that body of his.  Not magically, but physically, he's the most powerful person in the room.  That's just... obvious.  Were he to let that anger get the better of him, well and truly define him in this moment, he could hurt someone.  He's not a monster, far from it, and there's plenty of people who could put him down and frankly, with a twist of reality in the palm of her hand Sera could drop him to the ground without doing a lick of damage to him, but she probably wouldn't.  He's dynamic, and he's forceful, and the person who knows him best right here has never seen him get mad like that.
Not that it matters.  Most people here have only met him once or twice, Grace excepted.  For all they know, this is who he is and what he does and what he's like.  This does define him, this sudden loss of temper, this blowup.
Including, of course, the way he hits some wall in himself and goes whoa, boy and backs off.  Decides to leave.  Is leaving, because if he weren't he'd just start yelling at Leonhard again and then probably Patience, too.  Sera is withdrawing physically, except for her hand, which he -- rather thoughtlessly, instinctively almost, lifts to his mouth and kisses but then lets go of, extricates himself from, walking to and out the door.  She doesn't have to leave with him.  She is anyway.  He's her ride.  But let's be honest: he would have come back to take her home, to take her wherever she wanted.  After his walk or his sad poem or whatever,
even though he doesn't even keep a journal.
This is what he leaves behind him in his wake, other than the memory of his blowup and his words about what it means to refer to someone as 'girl' when you know their damn name, regardless of what that word means to you:
- Adam, you're right.  He was kicked out.- You know his name now.  You could find out more about that without asking.- Or maybe he didn't get kicked out, just like he's not really getting kicked out of this bookshop.- He's the type that chooses to leave when he's fed up.- The bell over the door rings, and almost echoes.
A while later, Grace gets a text.
Sorry I didn't say goodbye.  Drinks sometime soon.
Sera is with him when he texts that.  She always seems to be with him.

Grace
Grace lowers her voice down a few notches, now that blue-haired guy has made his appearance and disappearance. "Yeah, Patience, I can put it on anything that has the ability to make phone calls and has a processor. So, if you have something like that, sure. I can write up an interface for it."
Hmm.. Fixed geographically aligned structure. "I do have to be there to run the install, though. Is that an invite to your house, then?" she grins.
Sera ruffles her hair. That's also okay. And soon as the Mages of Denver converge, they scatter to the winds too. Some pecking was involved, with these birds drawn to the bookstore's seeds of knowledge.
[OOC: By the way, anybody here can totally assume that Grace is going to live up to her promises and install Ginger if your character wants it. Update the Ginger Access thread on the forum if you like, or we can run further scenes where Grace installs stuff, I care not!]

Hawksley Rothschild
[that was my last post! you guys are awesome and this scene was great. :] thank you for the RP.]

Proclus
Leonhard catches the look.  Relentless.  Of course it is.  There are, after all, studies to be started.
"Please give my best to Dan," the Jerbiton says to Sera, her departure with Hawksley.  To Patience he... finds he can't must much more than a nod, though a warm creeps back into him as he does so.  For Grace, though...  "Glad there wasn't a cop around.  It was good to meet you, Grace."
And so the Jerbiton, too, leaves, intent on business with Adam.

Proclus
[[Much MUCH bigger scene than I was expecting.  Nicely played, everyone!]]

Patience Mason
[At that i think we can call it?]

A. Gallowglass
[ooc: Yes. Thank you everybody for coming in and playing. That went crazy places!]

Patience Mason
[Agreed, very fun. :) ]

Proclus
[[Right.  Me off.  See you later!]]