Social. Almost.

Serafíne
The bright washing sun competes with scudding clouds for dominance in the April sky and you'd never guess from the raucous game of ultimate frisbee on one of the big grassy swaths of greening lawn that there's a winter storm watch currently looming over Denver and its environs, that spring ski enthusiasts will have another foot or so of fresh snowfall if they go high enough into the mountains.

Right now: shorts and t-shirts and a frisbee that looks like a pink-frosted donut with a bite taken out.  Fringe and beads and bare feet and painted toes and gladiator sandals and the musky scent of marijuana in the air and it's too early (she just woke up an hour or so ago and she's still nursing a particularly intense acid hangover) for a certain Cultist to join her friends chasing around the donut-frisbee, but hey, she can watch.  Or pretend to watch?  Who fucking knows, her glasses are both ridiculously dark and remarkably large and she could very well be napping behind them.

There's a big bottle of orange juice parked in the cool grass beside her.  It is early evening.  The sun is only just starting to fall.

Grace
Ahh, Denver. It'll be warm today, sure. Then, the weekend brings a high temp in the 30s and more snow. This is Spring, for you. It can never make up its mind.

Grace has dressed herself in jeans, sneakers, a t-shirt, and her bite-proof grey jacket today, although the jacket is unzipped to let the air in -- so one can see the giraffe wearing ten neckties on her tee, with the text "Trust me, I'm super professional".

There is, perhaps, more of a spring to her step than there has been, of late. Winter's melting, for now. Water's flowing in rivers. Things are breaking free, and soon Summer will make that a little more permanent. It's a good day. One that has Grace walking the trails here where monsters tread, with her attentions place firmly into the trees and sky, and not, apparently at her surroundings. Monsters should be afraid of her, not the other way around.

[Awareness?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

Nicholas
It's become a habit, walking in the park after work while he tries to process and decompress from the day.  Nick finds his home to be a pleasant place, somewhere he looks forward to going to at the end of the day, but settling into his office or having dinner isn't a substitute for taking a few moments of silence where he doesn't have to listen to anybody else or try to project this air of detached competence or quiet empathy.

There aren't any winter storm clouds looming on the horizon, just the soft wash of sunlight that speaks to approaching summer.  That, and the smell of marijuana that usually lingers around places like this, in Denver.  He still isn't fully accustomed to walking out in public and seeking people smoke; and it doesn't bother him - it just is, and does.

The sailing frisbee catches his eye as he makes his way down the path.  No shorts and T-shirts for him, just light gray pants and a pale pink shirt, the color of a first blush or of a drop of blood in a puddle, slight intimations of color.  His hair was cut recently, which is to say that it's no longer as wild and overgrown as it had threatened to become last month.  As is the style at present, the back and sides are shorn more tightly than the top, which spills out in front of him.

He watches people throw the frisbee back and forth as he walks, and he would have nearly passed them by had a familiar face not caught his attention next.  Sera is behind a pair of sunglasses, but he makes note of her nonetheless and his trajectory changes.  He lifts a hand as he approaches.

Serafíne
Well: see? Her eyes must be open behind the dark glasses, because the creature lounging on the plaid picnic blanket lifts a hand to return Nicholas' wave.  There is a hint of a smirk in the curve of her mouth, or maybe that is simply a grimace.  Some little protest against the movement required.

She is as she always is: or at least as she always seems.  Long and lean and lovely.    Or: the intimation if not the fact of length; the suggestion of hunger, of desire, of want in both the concave curve of her bare stomach; and - well.  Not lovely.  Arresting perhaps, in that way that Grace, and even some of the sleepers around them, must certainly feel.  What else can Grace sense?  That sun-drenched, soaring resonance that that eminates from old bronze ring that Sera always wears on her right index finger.  Nicholas, of course.  And no suggestion of monsters.

Other than that wave, Sera doesn't much move or acknowledge Nicholas' approach until he is within actual hailing distance.  Then she turns her head - gingerly, gingerly.  This is the day-after.  Every part of her aches.  Every part of her welcomes the ache.  The spread of her neat little mouth beneath her glasses: a wide flat smirk and Nicholas mirrored in the convex surface of her dark glasses.

"You look like you're about to sell someone some goddamned insurance."

So says the creature resplendent in British-flag bikini top beneath a faded black hoodie over denim cut-offs and torn fishnets.  She has, at some point, taken off her battered combat boots and her almost-bare feet rest in the grass.

Grace
Mmm. Sera. That gut-wrenching feeling has her attention now, drawing her sight, making her change course. The trees, no longer the source of her fascination, don't honestly care.

Sera might.

"Sera!" she says, strolling up, sitting down next to her on the grass. There is also a wave to Nick somewhere in there.

"Do insurance salesmen wear pink shirts?" she says, honestly curious.

"I've been meaning to talk to you," she adds, quieter.

Nicholas
Nicholas has a talent for mirroring other peoples' expressions, for picking up on their moods and reflecting them back and sometimes twisting them just so.  He makes use of it in his job: it's how children learn to identify what they're feeling, having an adult frown when they are saying something sad or smile back when they are happy.  It's equally important for adults.

So: he sees Sera, and there is this quick cut of his mouth, this way in which the corner snicks upward as though hooked.  "That's because I am.  Have you heard about our new life insurance policy?"  A thought, a beat.  "...I might actually consider that if I were terrible.  I'd make a fortune."

He has stopped in front of her, though always always with an eye on the frisbee as it cuts the air.  Nick got a black eye from a frisbee once, years ago.

Grace catches his attention next when she comes up on the two of them, and almost without thinking he shifts his stance to allow her space into the conversation and also to face her, or at least pull her into his line of sight.  His brow furrows at what she says.  "To me?"

Serafíne
Oh, here's Grace.  Asking a very honest question about a very wry quip tossed off by a very hungover Cultist and again that sensation of arrest, of cessation as she shifts the direction of her dark, reflective glasses from Nicholas to Grace.  A: very slow lift of one of her flat blond brows, expressive enough that it rises above the curving frame of the glasses.  And lingers, because she's not really quite sure how to take Grace's question about insurance salesmen.  For example: is it the sort of question that requires an answer?

Something in her decides that it is not the sort of question that requires an answer.  Or: that she is too something-something-something after last-night and this-morning and hell, the last few weeks, the last few months, the last few years to have to answer if it does.

Her attention cuts back to Nicholas.  Something about the cant of her head suggests that she catches the hint of that smirk carved back to her.  And he cannot see her eyes but he can still somehow almost feel that flick of her attention: minute and precise and animal: to his mouth, then back to his eyes.  The gleam of the dying sun in her glasses, his shadow long over the blanket, the grass.  Might make another quip in that moment, but no.   Sera mirrors Nicholas' question, though she does so wordlessly.  Inquiry stitched into the lift of her chin.

Grace
"Well, not... I mean, sure I could talk to you, but I don't have anything specific in mind," she says, to Nick, as though that question caught her off guard. It can be rather hard to tell who Grace is talking to, considering she so rarely makes eye contact.

"Sera. I had a run-in with a sysadmin. I got traced, but I'm not sure how bad. I'm no good at looking back in time to figure out what happened, you know? But you..."

Are totally unaware of what a sysadmin is, or why one would trace her... Right. Grace frowns, tries to figure out a better way to say this. "I felt something. Subtle. A hint of resonance."

Nicholas
Nick shifts his weight to his other foot as he glances between the two women.  He, too, is rather unaware in any specific sense of what a sysadmin is, other than what conclusions he can draw from the words themselves, and so: he listens.

Serafíne
And here is Sera who can very well unhinge time.  Pull it apart.  Reel it backwards.  Create within it currents as slow as molasses or as rippling-fast as some ever-accelerating black and white montage of a movie-bender and who does not know what a sysadmin is and who, on some deep and really rather important level, does not even believe in them.

When her iPhone works, it works by magick.

Sometimes, some nights, it does not seem to want to work at all.

Her attention hangs on Grace.  She has been leaning back on her elbows, but now - a ripple of her flexible frame - sits closer-to-upright.  Ow.  Her head hurts.

"Like - "  here a furrowed V of thought appears between the enormous discs of her glasses.  " - yesterday?  Someone was spying on you?"

Grace
"No. It was a while ago. Month or so. When I was trying to figure out what happened to Alex," she explains, hopefully that's enough. Not going to go into specifics here in the park, is she.

She seems strangely okay with this -- accepting of the fact. What's done is done, and all. But what was done?

"But yeah. Possibly spying on me. I fought it off, but..." she trails off, waves an arm in the air.

Nicholas
Nick looks between the two of them again, his eyebrows cutting a delicate arch as he listens to the talk of spying and figuring out what happened to Alex.  It occurs to him that he has not yet met the man.

"Should I give the two of you some time?"

Grace
"Why?" she asks Nick. "I don't mind you knowing. You're as welcome here as cupcakes, man. Stay. If you want."

Kiara
Washington Park was a sort of nexus for the athletically inclined in Denver, as it happened. There were no small number of them tonight as the sun began to dwindle and sink into the horizon, cutting pathways around the lake and appearing only to weave a steady track over inclines and down again; vanishing into the distance.

Joggers. There was something so mundane and expected to them.

Amidst a world of chaos and uncertainty, lying on the grass surrounded by Frisbees and dogs being walked and the occasional carrying cry of laughter or the smack of a ball hitting the backside of a distant basketball court - there was an easy comfort in the banality.

Breaking away from behind a young couple pushing a stroller down by the glinting lakeside is a familiar figure; tall and lean with long dark hair sailing out behind her. Another runner by any other name but also - a Witch. The pagan known to some here as anything but a nameless addition to the Sleepers. She's slowing to a clipped walk, the Verbena; breathing hard and holding her hands against her side; her pace directing her toward a bench to warm down her muscles.

She's a surge of the Springtime Kiara, as she sets her leg up and stretches it out; a sweatshirt laced around a narrow waist; navy workout gear encasing her form. If she notes the presence of the others up on a shallow rise of grass, she's yet to make it clear.

Though the presence of earbuds and a small MP3 taped to her arm would suggest she's unaware - yet. Here then, was one half of their rescue team that had extricated Alexander from the Union. Nicholas alone perhaps knew the current condition of the other half - for her part, physically at least, the brunette seemed to be coping with the aftermath reasonably well.

Serafíne
There is rhythm behind them.  The slap of plastic against strangers' palms.  Bare feet against that solid spring grass, the cold soil beneath, warming yeah but still somehow in the grip of winter.  The whir of the discs through the air: the twin miracles of propulsion and flight.  Aerodynamics or what the fuck ever.

By now Sera is sitting forward, legs crossed beneath her, the picnic blanket rucked up beneath "them from the movement.  Golden curls a messy tangle in the failing light.  She takes off her sunglasses here and gives Nicholas a brief, apologetic flash of a glance.  Neat little compression of her mouth.  Her eyes are a little bit bloodshot and her pupils are still rather-too-large.  This hint of bruising beneath them: dark circles, something.  That ache more evident without the shield of the glasses, but what the fuck does one expect?  She's hung-over.

Breathes out here, Sera.  Tried to order her thoughts for Grace and then: a flicker of something else.    "You asked to talk to me," Sera reminds Grace, though there is something gentle in her tone.  The bravado of her greeting to Nick earlier is long-since drained away.  " - remember?  Not him.  So, you haven't made him feel quite as welcome as cupcakes, Grace.  You know?  Nick may not want to be a spectator to our conversation.  He might even need to get home to start dinner."

Brief curve of her mouth here: the lilt of her chin, this neat, apologetic little gesture toward Nicholas before her attention cuts back to and rests wholly on Grace.

"Have you felt the resonance since then?"

Kiara
[Oh yeah, we should do this for our next post. Mage-dar.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 6, 7, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )

Grace
"Oh," Grace says. It honestly hadn't occurred to her that she might be edging someone out. "I'm sorry. I'll just..."

She takes a breath. Sera asks her something. "No."

But, she's distracted, giving that no to Nick's face, as she radiates confusion with hers. This is one of those times, right? When the rules of social interaction seem to have been missed. It makes her uncomfortable. Makes her want to...

"I should go. You think about it, okay, Sera?" she stands up, gets the attention toward the trees again. Trees are easier to understand.

Nicholas
It doesn't take an especially perceptive person to note the confusion, as boldly as it has been sketched across Grace's features.  Nick reaches out toward her as she stands up, motions for her elbow and ends up not grabbing hold just letting his fingertips rest there on the back of her arm.  It's meant to catch her attention; little more.  "Don't leave, Grace.  I just stopped to say hello to Sera.  You two should talk."

Kiara
It's a slow progression up the hill when she does notice the others gathered.

The earphones curled around her neck; her face flushed with recent exertion. Kiara Woolfe approaches feeling like the whirl of energy she is, at her core. Thriving, pulsing with life and the promise of vitality and renewal. She smells like sunshine and sweat, the Verbena and somehow; the sheen of it; the essence of that - absolutely feels at home on her.

She makes a slight outward arc to avoid collision with the game at play nearby and approaches from behind a tree; her fingers chasing over the bark.

"Hey."

A breathless greeting that seems to encapsulate them all from the dark eyed female; her mouth bent into a small match for it. The corner curled upward. She settles back against the tree and resumes stretching.

Serafíne
Sera's quiet, as Nick stops Grace.  Doesn't pull her dark eyes with the too-large pupils from Grace except briefly, to greet Kiara with a wordless touch of her gaze as the Verbena approaches.  A flicker back, and the Cultist slides her dark glasses back over her eyes and rises.

"C'mon Grace, we'll go talk."  Except for the fishnets, her feet are bare.  Damp grass clings to her skin.  Tomorrow, they say, it will snow.  Tonight, the Cultist starts to walk, barefoot in the cool spring grass, ambling pass the ultimate frisbee game in the warm spring park.  She leaves behind: everything.  The orange juice and the plaid blanket and her favorite Doc Martens and her pack of unopened kreteks and her favorite lighter lost somewhere on the blanket, everything.

Maybe she plans to return.

Maybe she assumes: effortlessly, naturally, that someone will always be trailing behind her to clean that shit up.

Serafíne
(I am really sorry but as usual it is my bed time and I have to go to bed.  Sera will go off with Grace and talk.  Noel: IM me sometime and we can continue the scene.  Andrew and Jacqui: I want a real scene sometime soon!)

Grace
She doesn't tense up and tell him off, at least. There was a time when she would. But she does look down at her arm, still woefully unsteady about what's going on. Why is he touching her? Oh. He wants her to stay.

Well, right now, she just wants to get as far away from the awkwardness that is her attempting to interact with people and failing. These things have a tendency to snowball.

Then, Sera gets up to leave. Asks her to come with. No, no, no, this isn't right. Ugh, do they not understand at all? This is exactly what she wanted to avoid. Her hand goes up to her hair, like she's going to pull it out.

"Hi, Kiara. Bye, Kiara," Grace says, looking gut-punched. And yet, she follows behind Sera.

Nicholas
Tomorrow, it's supposed to snow; tonight, here is Kiara running into them while jogging.  Is there a chill in the air just yet, the way arctic winds will sweep down out of the north, a precursor to the gale?  Perhaps.  If so, Nick in the clothes he's wearing is probably better prepared than most of them.

His eyes trail Grace and Sera as they get up to go.  Nick: he can't imagine just getting up and leaving a pair of boots behind, in particular.  He'd caught that look Grace had flicked at him, read into it perhaps her uncertainty, whatever anger or irritation or frustration may be there to read, and his hand is quick to drop back to his side.

It is followed by a sigh, a furrow of the brow, a mouth that thins for a moment in what could be either concern or any number of other more subtle things.

"Hello, Kiara," he says, as the other two are departing.

@coolbar

Serafíne
Hole in the wall of holes in the wall.  The entrance is from the middle of a long alley behind some shallow galleries and the space is strange and there's a red door and a purple light above it that is intuitively menacing but a strange scroll-worked sign above that says simply: cool bar.  Then something like a bank big bank vault door and a long stairway down-down-down and: oh hello.


Bar and stage as likely to host impromptu walking productions of MacBeth written back into street slang as it is to have a band, but tonight there's a band.  Not much notice.  Folks who got the invitation late this afternoon only saw: pop-up show, @coolbar with a link to the location and a minute later come here are new stuff  thanks, auto-correct.


Pen
Here is Pen - come through the ominous purple haze, come through the big bank vault door and the long stairway, the echoing stairway, the stairway which echoes (it does echo, echoes and contains, a tunnel) like some kind of nautilus, and: oh hello.

Here is Pen, who came because she wanted to hear the band and see the band members, in an artist's smock doubling as a tunic. The effect is airy and winsome John Williams Waterhouse, some Spring-witch, cobalt blue embroidery at the edges of the collar which is a split that goes down to her sternum the laces left loose like that, and her hips are banded by a belt of braided leather.

Here is Pen - but where is Dan; where is Sera? Pen sweeps the place with a glance, aspiring (the soldier) to alertness, and if she sees either of them: she beelines. Or she joins the small crowd at the bar, ordering a ginger rye from the bartender.

Serafíne
Bright and warm and windy the next morning.  The snow mounded up so high yesterday now has a bright, granular crust and everything, everywhere is a paean to gravity, a lesson in watersheds.  Easy to get out and back on the road home, even at the immoderately early hour of ten-or-so a.m.  And she's curled up in the passenger's seat, knees drawn up, forehead against the glass, sunglasses yes, dark and huge, against the glare.  He doesn't imagine she's slept.  Doesn't imagine she's slept much, anyway.  He knows how much acid she took two days ago.  How long it takes to come down.

Well, hey!  Dan and Dee and Rick are setting-up on the small stage and there's something easy and companionable about it all, some return-to-rhythm, something necessary and organic that passes between them as they go about the work in an unfamiliar space.  Been forever since they 'played-out' after all.  Sera is sitting on the stage while the others work.  She wanted to wear her Easter dress again but it seemed that the skirt would be an impediment to the on-off she tends to do with her guitar, so she is back to one of her standards: a pair of tiny denim cut-offs and fishnets and filmy, lacy black bra beneath a ripped, worn, studded, shorn leather jacket.

Her legs are swinging, swinging, swinging and she sits while her friends work, and she has a beer and a shot and she's talking very companionably with an attractive young rather-earnest looking black guy sporting a pair of hipster glasses, worn jeans, and a distressed t-shirt which features a line drawing of an enormous sheep eating a tiny laser-eyed monster.

Sera waves and beams when she sees Pen making-a-beeline.  Her hair is worn differently than it often is, and when she turns to say something to Tre about who-Pen-is it becomes obvious why: she is wearing a crown.

"Hey!"  That smile.  "You came!"

Silas
Silas' pants are too loose for a true hipster, but other than that?  There is the stubble, the hair swept just so, the button down shirt (with sleeves rolled up to approximately the elbow, displaying tattoos on his arms) tucked into denim that moves well with him rather than constricting his movements, the bow tie that coordinates, contrasts, something.  It doesn't match, no, where would be the fun in that?

He drinks his whiskey neat, at least tonight, and of course he's here for the band.  Why else could he be?  But there are things that mark him out as different [as primal, as Other], and there are things that Echo from him, literal representations of the Ars Vitae with which he is so familiar.  His skin is warm to the touch on the occasion it's brushed - a sunlit glade full of riotous growth.  There is no jewellery but for one thin gold band on his right ring finger, and a paler bit of skin of a similar width on the middle finger next to it.

Sitting with drink in hand, his back is to the bar; his eyes on the assembled are a vivid blue, clear and vibrant, and observant.  He sees Pen enter, sees so much.

Serafíne
Awareness!

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 8 ) [Doubling Tens]

Silas
Same!

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )

Serafíne
Then, well.  This moment when she lifts her chin and looks and looks and oh: everything in that moment is sharp, heightened, intimate, surreal.  "Check that guy out."  So she says to Pen, a lift of her chin toward Silas.  "He feels like someone you'd know."

Pen
[?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 4, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )

Pen
Sera beams and it is Sera and it is that smile and Pen smiles back: a flash of a thing, burnished like a piece of silver, see, tarnished until suddenly: a rill of brightness, catching the day, and of course her entire expression is lit up by it and by Sera and by the prospect of music made by somebody fashioned and crafted by someones that she knows here on this particular night with snow a rim outside a créme brulee shell to be cracked get to the sweet within. "Of course!" - that rill of brightness in her voice, too: steadiness. "I feel as if I have been longing to hear you play, that it is exactly what I want to feel in my collar and my rib cage - Sera, I am very excited," and the flash of a smile and its left-over remnant pleasure becomes this curl of a grin. "Hello," to Tre. "I'm Pen."

And she might have said more, but there by the stage is Serafíne, observant, lifting her chin and Pen does check that guy out, turning so her back is to the stage and she can give that guy an assessing look (a weapon must be ready, always; she tries to be always ready).

"I don't, though. He seems as if he should have antlers, doesn't he?"

And if Silas meets Pen's eyes, she lofts her eyebrows and cants her head.

Pen
ooc: Er, make that the fancier and more Pen-like: "He seems as if he should wear a crown of antlers upon his brow, doesn't he?"

Grace
[Awareness!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 4 )

Grace
There's an invitation. Grace responds to that invitation, not so much because she enjoys going to bars for music, but because of the sender. Sera could make just about anything worth it.

The swirl of different in this place doesn't surprise much. She still blinks as she steps in the door, this be-winged thing, at everyone else's oddness. She wears her coat-of-many-colors -- red, with strips of LED lights sewn in. If it looks a little worn, perhaps it's just because she wears it everywhere in winter.

A bee-line, she travels, straight to Pen, head down, like she is trying to forget the rest of the crowd is here.

Silas
Eyes are met, yes, and a brow raised in return; questioning, perhaps, from the bit of the bar closest the stage.  Silas is not terribly far from where Sera and Pen met, and so after acknowledging their presence (and feeling their Presence) he takes up his drink, signals the bartender for two drinks of the women's choice to be added to his tab, and makes his way to where they stand.  Why not?  There is music, and there is quarry here, even if he chooses not to hunt, and there are people of interest.

Silas is brazen, he is bald, and when he moves towards where Pen assesses and Sera prepares his gait is sure, and nigh predatory.  It is not rushed but measured just right to give Sera chance to give answer before he's close enough to hail them.

"Hello," he says and his deep voice is familiar to Grace.  There's a slight accent there, as the Other carries itself from impression to reality; it's English, maybe, if you listen to it sideways, but the kind of upper class English that one hears in places that commoners aren't often about.  "I feel that you two may be people I should know.  I'm called Silas."

Grace
Silas is Arianna's friend. So is Pen. It remains to be seen if Grace will be able to associate with either of them once it comes out that she'd much rather punch Arianna in the face than give her prejudices credit by being nice.

For now, though...

"You don't know Pen? Really?" Grace makes a 'huh' face. Lets them introduce themselves. "Hey, Pen."

Serafíne
"You know we're loud," Sera-to-Pen, "right?"  And there is a moment there of introduction: Tre to Pen and Pen to Tre, perhaps.  Sera tells Pen that Tre is, you know, cool, which is code enough for Tre to understand that Pen, like Sera, is magickal.  And to Pen's comment about crowns and antlers, all Sera has to add is: "Don't look now, he's coming this way."

With a neat wink.  They can be all archaic together.

And: a twirl of Sera's fingers at Grace as she is bee-lining and this glance at Tre that includes a neat little smirk and this particular NPC might well shake hands with Pen and even Silas and also: Grace if she gets here soon enough but he also has a feeling that it is time to take his leave.  He's gonna go chat up the bartender/manager and work the crowd and he has enough easy, unselfconscious charm that he can really work a crowd.

"Serafíne.  Hey.  Everyone calls me Sera."

Nick
Here is Nick, who was likely gently persuaded into coming and ultimately came because he wanted to hear the band play.  He is come separate from Pen, though he went back to the house to change before coming out because he couldn't stand to be in his work clothes any longer.  He is wearing a collarless chambray shirt and a pair of dark brown khakis and boots: the effect is a simple one, contrasting neatly with Pen.

It will also let him blend in here, which is just as well.  Nick has the sort of air about him that could be a buzzkill in a place like this.

Nick gathers his bearings for a moment after he has stepped in the door into the haze and red and purple lights.  Pen is easy enough for him to see, and so is Sera, and there is Grace.  He lifts a hand to all of them, and he stops at the bar first, because damned if he is going to be at a loud concert without a drink in hand.

Pen
They can all be archaic together, and here come to roost two bird-things (winged quake herald of change dark crow reverent portent) in the cool bar as well. The cool bar really is cool; look how many cool people have come to it (because of Sera - core of gravity; center of the circle). Silas has Pen's attention, as a stranger and a stranger who feels as he does, but when Grace cuts through the crowd she is welcomed with a warm look. She offers the man-who-should-wear-an-antlered-crown her hand. Her wrist is clasped in a metal bracelet; there are rings on every finger, including above the knuckle of her thumb, and she says -

"Silas. From Silvanus, I take it?" with easy good humor, and in the middle of the question this perplexed look for Grace, which winds past Grace to rest on Sera: the question continues. Why should Pen know Silas and not Sera, hmm?

Grace
She waves back at Sera, the twinkle of fingers, a quirk of a lip. But she doesn't understand the weird look Pen gives her. Some people are easier to read than others.

"Hey, Nick too. We're freaking flocking."

Silas
"Yes, actually.  My mother is ever interested in the esoteric."  Grace is there and she waves her fingers, so Silas gives a nod of his head; it could be a bow but that it isn't at all, and while he may sound like it, look like it, he isn't quite that archaic.  Any hand offered is shaken, displaying his tattoo-sleeved right forearm - it is cloaked in symbols of Horned Gods and Hunts, lending still more credence to the thought that perhaps there ought to be horns on his person.  As stated, he is warm to the touch in a way that might be considered feverish, were it not so vigorous a sign of life.

"It's a pleasure to meet you both.  And to see you again, Grace - I hope all is well."

Serafíne
Grace says that we are freaking flocking and Sera favors the Virtual Adept (sorry: Grace, Sera has not adjusted to the name change.) with a neat liiittle smirk.  Grace and her propensity for commenting on the coincidences of mages-coming-together.  Well: no coincidence tonight.  It's the first time Sera's band has played out in...

...months.  Nine or more.  She has a shot and a beer and when Siles orders another one of whatever the women are drinking to be put on his tab, hell, she gets another round.  Of shots, not beer.  Stranahan's Colorado whiskey: goes down a treat.   She tosses it back like a pro.  Eyes Silas' tattooes when he outstretches his hand to be shaken.  Notes the warmth and goes, "Oh, your hands are warm!"  And she remembers: others with warm hands.  The passing wonder of it.

"I hope you brought your earplugs," Sera says this mostly to Grace, in a way that is teasing-serious, and reaches out to ruffle Grace's hair.   Whom Dan pauses in his  work doling out cords and setting up drums and amps and whatnot to greet with a grin framed by his blond beard.

Nick
When Nick appears behind all of them, it's without emitting a sound; a more forceful presence than his would be likely to startle other people.  Lucky he's not like that.

"Hello everyone," he says, and when he finally settles on a place to enter the little circle of Willworkers here it's next to Pen.  He has a whiskey and soda in hand.  Dan, where he is setting up amps and doling out cards, gets a wave.

Nicholas, curly-headed and solemn, offers a moment's quiet regard for the other man present: he had not arrived in time to catch his name.  "Hello.  I'm Nick."

Grace
Grace shrugs at Silas. He can hope all is well all he wants. She isn't going to explain why it isn't right now. But she leans into Sera's ruffling fingers, pulls out -- yes -- a pair of earplugs connected to each other by a wire from her coat pocket. Smirks.

"They are loud," she explains. Gives Nick a wave.

There's goodness to this. Coming together, waving at people, the meeting, the parting. Grace, for her part, is simply present. If her eyes go darting to some light fixture or other rather than a person, it's just the way she is.

Silas
"Silas," he says for Nick's benefit, offering a hand as well; there are Manners to this one, and they are deeper and stronger than just a handshake might seem.  And Grace's shrug is taken in stride - already he's come to realize that Grace tends towards the terse, at least with him, and that her reactions are not always what he would consider apropos.  Or polite.  Still, he reserves obvious judgement, and attempts to include her as much as the others, until it seems she'd rather be left alone.

"I've not been in Denver long, though if you are the Nick and Pen of whom I've heard, we have a friend in common."  He's not as secretive as his Housemate in some ways - in this way.  He doesn't much mind the assembled knowing who he knows.

Pen
Pen's gray as gloaming eyes gleam when Silas blames his name on his mother's love of esoterica, but she does not discuss it (or the fact that she believes likely his mother was inspired by the mien of him, the clear and present godhood in his shadow; what will Margot make of this one?). Only seems friendly enough, inquisitive but questions will keep.

She executes a small double take when Grace actually pulls out earplugs; her eyes gone wide. She measures their proximity to the stage (the scant few inches, since Sera was and perhaps is sitting still on the edge of the stage, her band busy about her), then finds the speakers.

"Should we move if we hope to preserve our eardrums then?"

There is a Nicholas; Pen reaches for and takes his drink because she has yet to order one of her own and she wants to drink something.

Pen is sharp enough to: "Oh, you are Ari's childhood friend. Sera, have you met Ari yet?"

Grace
[Manip + Subt = Ari? Oh no, I have no probs with her.]

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

Grace
Never let it be said that Grace has manners. Perish the thought. It's a rare day she remembers to thank people for gifts, and has a tendency to look at people oddly when they thank her -- because property is a bit distasteful when it comes right down to it. What are manners, except for the customs and rituals of tribes who've never claimed her?

"Well, we can," she says, to Pen. "I'm just not a huge fan of loud music, myself."

She tries not to let it show on her face the distaste in her when Ari's name is brought up. She licks her lip, snakelike, tilts her gaze to the side. Not paying attention anymore.

Nick
[Oh?  Perception + Empathy.]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )

Silas
[You think so, do you.  How droll.  Per+Emp]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (5, 7, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )

Grace
[Yeah, okay, so it's obvious that Grace's demeanor changed when Ari was brought up, you two. Grace looks like she's trying not to react to something that smells bad over there..]

Serafíne
"Tre always has extras," Sera assures Pen: of earplugs.  If she is intent on preserving her hearing.  "Dee too."  Because hearing loss is a problem for musicians.  Or at least: musicians who are not disciples of life.

They are indeed very close to the stage.  Sera is still sitting there, letting her legs swing and swing and swing.  She is excited, wired.  Perhaps she is on some-small-thing other than alcohol, in addition to alcohol, but the darkness in cool bar is deep enough that there will be no good view of her pupils.

Gives Nick a quick, chasing grin.  Shakes her head no to Pen: she has never heard of Ari and she takes no part in the examination of Grace who is trying-not-to-let-things show.  That shake jostles a few of the curls pinned up amidst the glories of her crown but the whole of the mass is well-secured.

Then Dan is there with a hand on her shoulder because everything's set up and they need five minutes to go over the set list, don't they?  In the past they've always done covers, or covers of their own shit that Sera-and-Dan have sold to other artists, stitched together by Sera's irrepressible and slowly raveling charm.  Tonight though -

"We'll be out in a few!  So glad you guys came - "

Nick
His drink is commandeered; Nick allows this with hardly a sideways glance.  This is the way of things.  It frees up his hand to shake Silas's, and there is this glimmer of recognition there as the man says his name that Nick doesn't bother to hide.  "Ari's mentioned you," he says.

His hand falls back to his side, and Nicholas is an insightful man and it's not difficult to notice the way in which Grace's gaze slants sidelong, how there is this slight wrinkling of her nose.  Nick marks it; for now, he says nothing.  His hazel eyes are for Sera, who is swing swing swinging her legs, and there is this crinkle of amusement at the corners of his eyes.  "I didn't realize you were in the band, Sera.  Thanks for inviting us."

Pen
Nick didn't realize she was in the band; that brings out Pen's dimples, for whatever reason, a mischievous glint.

Then: "I am glad too! Break the bone and chase the echoes down," Pen says, earnest and whole-hearted and here a quick flash of a smile again that winds up not being quick at all; flash bomb, the way it just dazzles (lake-light, shield-light) for a moment but there's the blinding blot after effect. That lingers; in the place of this metaphor, it becomes diffuse. Dan gets a tilt of her chin, a pleased hello acknowledgment; then courtesy: "I am for the bar."

It is an invitation, sure, because there are people now crowding in, and their area is a coveted one; funny how a crowd will eddy, will whorl like a river against a stone-strewn shore.

She hands back to Nicholas his drink; it has been considerably depelted. "It is good to meet you, Silvanus." Pause; "I meant to say Silas," and she sounds perplexed: because she did. (When one is marked, such things often happen. Especially if one is speaking to someone myth-seeped as Penelope.) "In some other venue, I shall want most dearly to ask you questions!"

And she is for the bar, so.

Silas
Silas marks the same shift in expression that Nick does, and he too lets it lie; he is the new addition, after all, and Arianna is more than capable of fighting her own battles when they're worth fighting.  And sometimes when they aren't.  More interesting is that Pen has labeled him a childhood friend, and that Nick's eyes sparkle recognition at his name.  The way he sips his drink, finishing it, is casual, as are his posture and eyes.

"Yes, she and I know each other of old.  If you'll pardon me - I promised my roommates I would remind them to be here for the show.  Break legs, Sera."

He says this with sincerity, in the way of far older performance arts than this - and with pleasantries traded, he makes his way for the door - where he'll be able to make his call in more favorable conditions.

Serafíne
This is a ridiculously small venue and those invitations went out to maybe one out of five people on Sera's normal invite-people-to-shit contact list (which is of course, managed by Dan-not-Sera) and the other magi may well have five-ten-fifteen minutes or more of conversation before the quartet come out of - er - the back office and the hallway down to the bathrooms with their instruments and plug in to check a few levels and channels and whatnot but they already tried out the space on Monday when the bar was closed and figured (most) of that shit out.  Dan and Sera with guitars, Dee with her bass, Rick on the drums.  And this is new work and it is collective work, brawny and rhythm-section forward.  Great big and (yes) loud as promised though the wave of noise has been modulated for the space, you see.  It is also: loud as in, full, driving.  The wall of instrumental sound and Sera's and sometimes Sera-and-Dee's or even Sera-and-Dee-and-Dan's voices a melodic cloud above it, floating through a river of noise.



(Er: thank you all for coming!  I gotta sleep!)

Grace
Grace huffs at Nick. Didn't realize Sera was in the band? Wait until the first time she does literal magic with that voice of hers. It is something.

Pen departs for the bar, and Silas departs for his roomates. "Want to follow Pen?" she asks Nick. "It's about to get loud right here. Might be better at the bar, eh?

She hefts her weight back and forth, clearly ready to move if he is. Clearly ready to wait with him if he isn't.

Nick
Does Nick want to follow Pen.  Does Nick want to retreat out of the growing crowd that is probably going to start jostling and pushing and spilling booze everywhere in the next fifteen minutes.  "Yeah, let's move," he says to Grace, as he begins to disentangle himself from a few college age kids who have pushed forward.  Sera: she'd gotten a wave and a smile before she'd gone backstage; Nick is the hugging sort but they just aren't all that familiar with each other yet.

He has his drink back, and he takes a swallow from it as he weaves back through the throng so he can reach Pen at the bar.  There is a glance spared backward for Grace; Nick is of the Leave No (Wo)man Behind variety.

He exhales as they come up next to Pen then.  "How have you been, Grace?  I haven't seen you in a bit," he says.

Serafíne
(Needed a transcript!)

Grace
She doesn't want to leave him alone either, and so walks with him through the crowd to the bar, eventually shrugging at him as she did with Silas. "I've been."

Been out to see Alex. Been wondering what to do next. Been arguing with people and been fed up.

She asks the bartender for a rum and coke, because at least it has a little caffeine, and there's just a little time yet before ordering will be made difficult over the braying of guitars and drums.

Nick
A quirk of Nick's mouth here, at that.  "I don't think people take the time often enough to just be."  He takes another swallow from his glass, which Pen mostly drained of its water and smoke and fire, and so he tosses back the rest.  He might as well get another one before the band starts to play.

"It sounds as though it doesn't sit well with you, though."  Is this the best place for this conversation?  Well, no, in all likelihood, and yet here they are.  It's Nick's way.

Grace
No, indeed. Simply existing does not sit well with Grace. She isn't, really, simply existing at the moment. There are things to be done. There are always things to do. And yet, with recent events being what they are, the right things to do are still up in the air.

Should she try to put together a new Ginger? Would anyone accept it if she did, knowing what happened with the first? Should her office remain abandoned as it is, its contents distributed in secret to some new place? Or is that just the fear talking?

Can't say she hasn't put thought into it. But for now, a shrug. Again. Her shoulders must be tired by now.

"I can never just be. Feels wrong."

Nick
This throaty, thoughtful noise.  He has stepped up to the bar next to Pen, set his glass down, and there is this casual brush of his fingertips between the Hermetic's shoulderblades as they arrive there next to her.  "Why is that, do you think?"

Pen
Pen does not seem to be particularly affected one way or another by the crowd. She is only made alert by it; she is constantly looking around, not rapidly, not nervously, but because there is so much to see. Because Pen is: clear-eyed.

The counter space Pen took (which is to say, arrived at and stayed with such confidence that it is clearly going to belong to Pen and her friends for now) is toward the end, but with a good view of the stage. Just two feet over, and hanging bottles and glasses would refract Sera's band a foam-lacery of light in the middle of dark dark darkness.

The promise of the ginger & rye is fulfilled and when Nicholas and Grace arrive, the bartender and Pen are just working out that Silas has already paid for that drink, that his tab is still open, that he had not specified closing it at any time, and here: Pen is often torn between letting people buy her things and refusing to let people buy her things.

Frugality wins out; she lets Silas's gesture pass.

Okay, now she has her drink, the cost of it has been determined, Nicholas's fingertips whisper between her shoulderblades, and Pen casts him a (lure) smile when she hands him her drink, turns back to them both and listens. What are they talking about? Time to jump back in.

Grace
"I don't know," Grace says, eyes on the bartender coming with her drink, for which she pays with enough cash to leave a decent-sized tip. Doesn't think to thank the woman.

"Feels like I'm missing out on something, I guess."

She tips the rum and coke, sipping at it.

Nick
Nicholas has a second whiskey and soda, which will not be pilfered by Pen as she now has her own drink.  He takes a sip of hers when she offers it, and then after making a pleased noise slides it back over to her.  Silas appears to have left them to make his phone call, but it's just as well; before long the entire place will just be noise.

After that, he glances over at Grace, and sweeps his eyes over her.  This thoughtful thing.  "You sound like you're feeling pretty discouraged about something."

Grace
"Well, the second there is something in my life to be couraged about, I'll tell you," she says, sips at her drink some more.

She sighs, looks up to the stage. Sera, okay, maybe she is something to be couraged about, eh? A little smile. There are still the wild ones here in Denver.

Nick
Grace says this, and there is this arch to Nicholas's eyebrows, subtle but present, as he leans into the bar next to Pen and takes a swallow from his glass.  There's no one on the stage yet, though perhaps there will be soon, and he too follows Grace's eyes for a moment.

"So there's nothing in your life to be couraged about, at the moment?"  He leans leans just to the side, bumping Pen's hip with his own, and eventually comes to rest there.  The bar is crowded; it's not like he needs an excuse.

Grace
She side-eyes Nick. "No."

Isn't that basically what she just said?

"Look, why talk about me? Sera's going to be playing soon, just..." You know, stop?

"It's a mood. It'll pass. Or it won't."

Pen
There are conversations one does not jump right back into. This seems to be one of them. Pen listens, of course. A sympathetic and compassionate ear, and she keeps a weather eye out (assessing [vigilance]), and she is not as impulsive and heedless (headlong, forward-flung) as she was once.

Pen sways when Nick bumps into her; hooks her foot around his ankle and begins to lean back against the bar counter. Her hair is loose and getting long (she'll cut it when it gets past the small of her back; another week and a half, maybe), so the tail end curls tangle over it all hooks and thorns. She should cut her bangs, too. They're too long, swept to the side almost like layers instead of bangs.

Pen blows them out of her eyes. They go whisking up, fwoof! Then flop again.

"What's her band's name, anyway? Does it have one?" Pen asks.

Nick
Grace says this, and Nicholas shrugs, taking another swallow from his tumbler.  "Sorry," he says, and might've said more or offered a change of topic of his own, but here's Pen asking about band names.  He casts another look over his shoulder at the stage, which has an air of waiting about it, between its silence and the hum of the gathered crowd.

At which point he looks over to Grace again, interested in the answer.

Grace
He's a consummate therapist, isn't he? Wants to help people even if they don't necessarily feel it at the moment. Grace knows about duties, the way they drive you. She just nods at him, says: "No worries."

"I don't know, to be honest. Band name, I mean. It's just Sera's band, I guess?"

She cares so much, pays so much attention to the posters and the billing, doesn't she? Not here for the music, is Grace.

Pen
"I wish I could play an instrument," Pen says. "I wouldn't mind if I wasn't a great musician," and see, she is presuming that Serafíne (enthralling, liminal) is going to be great. "But I'd like to know enough to carry a tune. Perhaps I should try to pick something up."

"Do you ever listen to that atonal stuff? Noise music? There's one of your people back in New England I remember meeting who messes about with noise music. Nietzsche's Schrodinger is the name they go by?"

There are weirder things than a Virtual Adept in New England and a Virtual Adept in Denver (Mercurial Elite: welcome to a new age) knowing one another.

Grace
"God exists in a superposition of dead and alive?" Grace says, snorts -- she finds that to be hilarious. "Never heard the name, but they sound fun."

"I've been told my taste in music is terrible though. I... don't really. I mean, I'm here for Sera more than I am to hear her sing?"

Nick
There are stranger things; Nicholas has encountered here in Denver someone who may have known one of his past incarnations, and besides, Awakened communities are small.  It's not hard to find a gu who knows a guy.

He listens to the two of them, sipping quietly at his drink in the pause between breaths.  "So you've heard her play a lot before, then?"

Grace
"A few times," she says. "She sings a lot outside of the band too. Works with it, you know."

Grace slips up onto a barstool, takes the earplugs out of her coat again, fiddles with them absentmindedly while she waits.

She remembers -- lullabies to help her sleep, when sleep wasn't possible. Sera's songs as a balm against the world. As she told Pen not too long ago, the strongest bonds between her and her friends were always forged in pain.

Nick
The hum of the crowd has grown, and Nick glances over his shoulder to note some stirring behind and backstage; perhaps it won't be long before they step on.  They can be heard back there now, tuning their instruments.  Every once in a while the note from a guitar drifts out, thrumming and discordant until it stabilizes into harmony.

"I've known people who used music to Work before.  It's interesting to me.  I'm looking forward to seeing her."

Pen
There's time yet for a little more conversation, but not much more of it.

This is around when the band returns, having set up: Serafíne in a crown, metal and red and beauty, and then all the rest of them: their sizzling charisma, their noise and their loudness. Somebody does the opening patter; maybe it is Sera, with that smile of hers, as she looks around.

But then they play.

--

And for a time, in this moment, in just this present instant, there's much to be 'couraged about: music. companions, drink, survival, even a reason for survival: that lovely cloud of sound thrown up above the rest.

Pen quite literally wears a pair of rose tinted sunglasses sometimes, though.

Pen
[TY for scene!]

Dancing around the fire

River
It is twenty-nine degrees outside. There is a light snow. There's a gentle breeze and it's starting to look a lot like an actual winter and not the kind of winter that people from southern California are accustomed to.

If winter is going to happen, they're going to do this right.

River's actually an old pro at setting things on fire in the most mundane of senses. She was the one who was in charge of the camp fire as a kid and she spent good chunks of her formative years burning various and sundry things outside in what she later determined was just what one did when you got cold and were bored and you didn't have an actual stove to cook dinner on. It's just a thing.

There's a ring of stones and pinecone-and-"you're late on the rent" notice kindling and whatever the fuck else one needs to start a fire. Text messages were sent out (recreating the Salem witch trials with marshmallows, want to come hang out?) and bags were set aside.

River took a hit off her flask and put it back in her gigantic purse. Exhales. Watches her breath take to the air. Tosses a sacrificial marshmallow on the pire to appease the camp fire gods.

Grace
Grace found out via Samir. Hanging out in the outside when it's below freezing isn't at the top of her list of great things to do, really. It's a good thing she likes Sam.

So she shows up, dressed in two pairs of jeans, her grey zip-up turtleneck on under her coat. Maybe overkill for 29 degrees, but you never know.

"Oh, nice. Fire's already started," she says, and rushes over, pulling her hands out of her pocket and warms herself at the fire.

"How's things?"

Sam Lakhani
Sam has been here for a few minutes by the time Grace arrives. That tendency of his to hemorrhage out of other folks' awareness is a pain in the ass sometimes. If he's going to be hanging out in the park when there's snow and it's colder than Hell then yes. Yes he did bring a bong inside of a backpack onto public transit.

The things he does for River.

He hasn't busted it out of his bag yet but it's sitting on a picnic table bench and unless he has a fully assembled clarinet in that thing there aren't a lot of objects that could drape the canvas like that.

"I told her we should wait until you got here to get it going," he says. Just because he's taken another step towards ascension doesn't mean he's going to stop busting Grace's balls.

Serafíne
Yeah, sure, alright, okay, thanks winter you fucking asshole, it is twenty-nine degrees outside and snowflakes are falling or not so much falling as drifting and drifting is okay too but: cold right?  November and we've still forgotten how-to-be-in-the-cold, the things it does to us, body and breath, skin and blood and bone.

She must've forgotten.  Little black dress that pretty much covers her ass and not-much-more.  Long (the suggestion of length, the illusion of height) legs bare except for ripped fishnets and black heels wrapped in sharp metal studs, leather jacket framed in studs, zips, a marching line of oversized silver safety pins down the center of the back holds the damn coat together and suggests the elegant symmetry of a bare spine.  So: not made for warmth any more than anything else she's wearing.

She doesn't seem to notice the cold though, or maybe each minute without shivering is another big fuck you to the cold front shivering flurries down over Denver at the moment.

--

Didn't get a text about a fire.  Has: about a bazillion texts she has received and not returned but for god's sake her phone is working again which means every time it buzzes she can slip it out of her pocket and glance down at the screen and feel: alive, connected, earthbound, and strangely free.

--

And she's walking on the arm of a tall guy with blond hair and a trimmed blond beard and she's wearing those heels and he still has several inches on her, but there they are, walking together like old, old friends, this animated discussion back-and-forth between them.  Coming from the city, circling the lake like it's a shortcut they know rather than a place-to-stroll.

Serafíne
(Awareness)

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (2, 4, 6, 6, 6, 8, 8) ( success x 5 ) [Doubling Tens]

Serafíne
(Awareness -3)

Dice: 4 d10 TN5 (2, 5, 9, 9) ( success x 3 ) [Doubling Tens]

Ihsan Ghali
Ihsan was sitting nearer to River than anywhere else, with a blanket spread out on the grass beneath them both.  She was from Los Angeles-- Southern California.  She had been experiencing heat waves and drought for most of the time that she'd been in this country, and she'd spent the majority of her life in Cairo before that.

Ihsan didn't like the flurries because they made her chilled.  She'd traveled, she'd experienced cold before, of course.  She would just probably never get used to it.  So she was bundled up with wool socks under her calf-high black boots, in dark jeans and a black coat.  She wore a hat on her head and her hair was out in curls (flat, curling ironed curls) beneath it.  No scarf, at least.  No gloves either.  She was warming herself near the fire, waiting to be able to shed the hat and open the coat.

She was leaned forward, toward the flame, reading some document or another off the screen of her iPhone with an expression of content-but-mild-boredom on her face.

When Grace arrived, Ihsan looked up and smiled fleetingly for a greeting to her.  "Hey there, Grace.  How are you?  Any more murders for me to investigate yet?"

Because who the hell was eavesdropping on them out here, after all?

Kiara
[Spidey senses roll.]

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

Grace
Grace squints at Ihsan. "No. I heard, finally, that your 'investigation' turned out well in the end, though. Good for you." There's a bit of exasperation in her tone, but she really means that last sentence. It turned out all right, at least.

"Oh, Sam, there you are," she says to him, gives a little wave. Truth be told, she didn't notice his presence until he spoke. Samir is like that, the fucking ghost... She moves over toward him, sitting on the opposite side of the obvious bong. At least there will come some good out of communing with nature or whatever the hell it is they're doing.

Grace can commune with some nature in the form of weed...

Kiara
So, here's the thing.

Kiara Woolfe, daughter of nature and walking manifestation of Spring (or so her presence feels like, so much pulsing, writhing life) actually rather enjoyed the coming of the cooler months. Less for the stagnancy of them, the way the world felt as if it slowed, preparing to enter a chrysalis before re-emerging on the other side of the dripping frost but for the progression of them. It meant change was (should always have been) coming. It meant that despite whatever happenings in the greater scheme - nature was not fooled, or halted.

She would (had to) find a way to survive.

Pattern and purpose to the cycle. An evening like this, after everything she's recently endured, felt cleansing. The air was crisp and flakes of snow are drifting in the air like a promise - landing only to melt in the Verbena's wild dark hair, the waves of which are loose and curling around her shoulders; over the (faux) fur lining of her coat. Hands folded into pockets, dark jeans and boots and that mouth, as ever, painted a brilliant, stark red.

She must have been sent an invitation - or perhaps River simply conjured her with the fire and mention of her ilk via text. Kiara Woolfe, a lean apparition leaning her weight against a tree with her eyes on the fire.

"If you're going to be faithful to the trials, that fire needs to be twice as large." Her voice curls out after a beat. "I could speak in tongues, though." A waspish tease. "To get things rolling."

River
[I totally notice people and resonances. Per+aware]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

River
River has planted herself near Ihsan and, on occasion, gets up to poke the fire and check to make sure said sacrificial marshmallow knows it is in a place of honor- you must burn so that others after you may be delicious. Thus far, she's been pretty happy to just be around people, hair shoved under a hat and her coat isn't pretty but god damn it, it looks like the kind of thing that you would wear if you're going to go out and wander aimlessly through the wilderness.

Laughs when Sam pokes at Grace. Tries to laugh a little less at the bits of exasperation in her tone when Ihsan mentions wanting another murder investigation to paw through.

Then? Kiara is there- someone River hasn't seen in awhile and she waves- fingers uncovered but the rest of her hands seem pretty well shielded from the weather in what can only be described as mittens having an identity crisis.

"I tried to come up with something witty to say to that, but I've drawn a blank," she offers, laughs anyway, "nothing makes marshmallows tastier than the gross misappropriation of justice?"

And, with that, she offers Kiara a coat hanger.

Sam Lakhani
It's too cold for him to even think about sitting down. He may or may not have thermals on underneath his street clothes. He has swapped out the leather jacket for a peacoat and has a ski cap tugged over his hair. His fingerless gloves have a mitten-type option in the form of flaps. It's difficult to strike a lighter when you can't feel your fingers but it's even harder with wool covering your thumb.

"You should," he says to Kiara regarding using glossolalia. "Speaking in tongues is metal."

Ihsan Ghali
"Thank you," Ihsan answered Grace's congratulations in working with River and Mike to bring down the Nephandus that had been melding people into two and triggering a murdering spree from someone entirely different, in a surprise twist ending.  She smiled and seemed pretty genuinely pleased with herself, then skewered a marshmallow and put it outside the reach of the fire to toast slowly.

Where this bundle of Mages sat must have felt like a goddamn magnet to other magical forces out there.  That many rifts in the hard laws of "reality" would make some waves for sure.  It was astounding that they hadn't brought trouble down upon their heads already (knock on wood).

Ihsan pulled her hat from her head and smoothed her hair with her palms, then unzipped her coat some to show the top of a charcoal colored shirt.  The fire was warming her and the boots and wool socks were starting to feel pleasantly toasty.

Like the marshmallow.

River
"I thought I was speaking in tongues once, but then it turns out I apparently knew Sanskrit at one point," she said with a shrug, as though this is a completely... no, she knows this is not a normal thing for people but she passes it off like oh, yeah, sometimes you just remember crap from a past life and have no idea why you know how to do something. Just roll with it, NBD. Sigh. Chakravanti problems.

Grace
"I thought yelling while you're simultaneously trying to clear your throat was metal. The things I learn..."

Yes, this many Mages might be a goddamn magnet. If so, let them come. There must be a few more royally stupid things out there who'd like to shove shadows down her throat or something. They could have an actual burning. Fun for the whole family.

Well, okay. Maybe not fun.

She laughs at River, thinking that's a joke she just made. Who doesn't know jack shit about past lives? This Elite.

"Hey, Kiara."

Kiara
The Verbena is still standing off a ways when River holds out that coat hanger, her lip curled up at the edge in a smile that verged on a few things but her eyes: they seemed wholly honed in on her. Watching River with a sudden, total, focus as if by staring long enough she'd be able to tease loose a beat on the other female's mental state.

This is the first time Kiara Woolfe has seen her since news came of Farrah's demise.

It's there, somewhere, in that look and the slow, stretching beat of silence - on the tip of her tongue, to say something of it. A heavy awareness lingers as the brunette eventually kicks off her leaning point and moves into the gathering proper. Ihsan receives a lingering tick of Kiara's eyes as she makes progress and comes close enough to receive the coat hanger.

"Thanks." She accepts it with, and studies River's face again, the firelight drawing gold patterns over the Verbena's neck. The warmth melting snowflakes in her hair. Then there's Samir - and there's Grace and the latter gets a quick, bright smile, but the former -

The regard lingers there.

"I'll keep it mind for a party trick later." She looks at Samir for another moment, then drops down to her haunches and her eyes return to Ihsan. "I don't believe we've had the pleasure yet."

Kiara
[Ahem. "keep it in mind," tyvm typo.]

Sam Lakhani
Just about any other person looking at him the way Kiara looks at him would normally have him wondering what the hell she was staring at. But Kiara is Verbena and he knows what she's staring at besides. His resonance is noticeable now. He is more of a presence than he was the last time they saw each other.

Granted the fact that she is Verbena means she could be staring at a pissed-off spirit hovering behind him or a blight on his aura or something and he wouldn't know until she said something but Sam has a pretty good idea what has her attention.

He throws up a set of rock horns with the hand not holding onto the backpack and drops into a crouch by the Chakravanti as Ihsan and Kiara get themselves acquainted. Time to light this sucker.

Ihsan Ghali
"No," said the North African woman to Kiara.  She'd watched the woman as people answered to speaking in tongues-- how it was metal and could be confused for Sanskrit.  Ihsan was busy regarding the new dark-haired woman with the bright red lips.  Watching her like a lion-- relaxed and assured but watchful none the less.

"I am Ihsan."  She smiled and lifted her hand to show her palm in greeting.  Hey, that kind of a wave said.  Her accent was dense and interesting, different to an ear that's grown accustomed to the Western United States especially.  Still, she spoke clearly and had a strong grasp of the English language.  She wasn't that difficult to understand.

The marshmallow was brought back and tested with a squeeze of her fingers.  It was a little underdone, but apparently that was how she liked them, for she plucked it with her fingers and popped it whole into her mouth.  She then pulled her hat back on and zipped her coat back up and rose to her feet.

"I'm going back to make a run to the store for hot dogs and buns.  Anyone wanna come with me?"

And whoever did or did not want to come with, so it would be.  Ihsan was set on getting hot dogs and returning later with brats instead ("yes, hot dogs, right?").

[Sorry, but I need to roll out early.  Bedtime comes quick when your alarm is set for 4:30am]

Grace
Oh, nice, Sam. Abandon Grace over there. Whatever. She looks over at Sam and River and gives him a little smirk.

Well, she knows how it is.

She turns her hands back and forth to the side of the fire, trying to warm the cold side (which is, of course, the side not nearest the fire at that second).

"Hot dogs too? Awesome," she says to Ihsan, but doesn't move to get up. Not going with.

River
She has good days, and she has bad days. There isn't much of a baseline for Kiara to work off of but today? Today seems like a good day. She seems alert and engaged and content to be aware of people. She hasn't punched anyone at work (in fact, she still has a job. The other dancers at the Diamond Cabaret are convinced she must be sleeping with the hiring manager, but realistically River came up in a couple of very positive Yelp reviews. She's a classy lady; classy ladies change the atmosphere enough that you attract clientel who spend more.)

River concludes that Samir is close enough to lean on for a minute, and so she does- it's a momentary breach of space until she realizes oh fuck, Samir is lighting stuff and she stops attempting to assert her manifest destiny on his space.

There is, however, something that stuck on her senses. Brows knit for a second as she remembers that there's a presence that she can't actually place.  Though, in the way, she does happen to place its source and finds-

"I'm gonna yell at people," she warns. And then, does raise her voice enough that it carries-

"Dan! Tenemos malvaviscos! Come say hi!"

Sam Lakhani
Living in a trailer by himself in the middle of goddamn nowhere must be doing him some good. A few months ago River would not have leaned on Sam. A slew of variables make today a different day than one plucked random from several months back. He doesn't seem like an individual who would react strong to unprovoked physical contact.

Ihsan takes off to go buy hot dogs and Sam doesn't offer to go with her but he does hand her a twenty out of his billfold before she leaves. Then River is leaning on him and he goes still a moment with the novelty of it. But then she pulls away again and he goes back to packing the bowl.

I'm gonna yell at people.

"Uh oh," he says before he plants the bong in the dirt and covers his ears with his gloves.

Kiara
I am Ihsan.

That ignites a flicker of recognition. Apparently, the name meant something to the brunette and she returns the greeting with little nod. An affirmative sort of gesture. Kiara's eyes follow the other woman when she rises to her feet and makes her declaration of a store run. The coat hanger is still being held between Kiara's fingertips, her nails are painted the same shade of red as her lips.

The firelight reflects in the varnish as she twists the wire hanger around in her grasp.

It's a habit, perhaps, watching other people. It's certainly one that the brunette seems to be making an attempt at, the way her dark eyes follow Ihsan and then return to Samir long enough to catch the gesture he makes, long enough to witness the way he positions himself by River.

The way she leans into his space.

The Verbena's gaze drops away, then. This brief constriction of her brows and she drives the edge of the hanger into the hardening earth below, wedging it there as she rises to her feet. Drawing the hood of her coat up so her features all but vanish beneath the furred lining. "I'm going to make a quick circuit for more kindling. There's bound to be some leaves around here.

I'll be right back."

Hard to tell what the pagan's expression is in the moment before she starts moving again, leaning over periodically to kick up leaves being buried by drifts of snow. Shaking loose the less saturated ones.

Sam Lakhani
[challenge accepted]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 4, 5, 8, 10) ( success x 3 ) [Doubling Tens]

Kiara
[I have a mighty 3 dice now. What? I'm inscrutable.]

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

Serafíne
Of course she's caught by the wild tangle of resonance surrounding the slow-growing (probably illegal but hey: world of darkness) campfire down by the lake and of course she stops, hooked (fish hook/open eye) right? and sometimes it makes her want to breathe: in and in and in and in like she could inhale the world, feel it bubbling in her lungs.  Tonight, instead, she feels skewered like those marshmallows on that coathanger and that hook is an odd little interregnum in their coming-from-someplace and going-to-someplace, an arrest, if you will, an institial moment that feels quite as between-things (places, deeds, names, definitions) as she does. 

It's a long-ass walk cutting through the park and the sun has set and the sky has that pillowed, shifting, dead-orange tinge from all the ugly lights reflecting off the close-cropped clouds, the fitful swirls of snow and in the midst of that walk is an exchange between them, all statement and query.  Her statement; his query evidence in the way he pauses and glances down at her, face on to her profile, sharp against the darkness.  Maybe it is that turn of his head that catches River's attention.  The beard and hint of tattoos on his ungloved hands.  Some lumpen shadow at his back that will resolve itself into a guitar case when he gets closer.

Which he will soon.

Because: River warns that she is gonna yell at people and then she yells at people and Dan lifts a hand by way of greeting (open palm, mildly ironic twist of his mouth) because what else can he do?  Drops his mouth to her ear and bumps his forehead against her temple as he does so: so familiar, so close, so careful with her right now.

--

Takes them longer than you might think when they leave the path.  Four inches of melting slush on muddy ground that has not yet been settled into a solid winter freeze and, you know, heels and bare legs do not mix very well but whatever.  She's solid on those long legs.  Knows how to walk on almost any surface in those heels, but here and there, he gives her a hand.

"Hey folks," Dan, when he gets there. Just a glance and a flash of his palm, as his attention returns to the girl-who-yelled, his mouth curves wider. "River."  And his attention hangs there for a lingering beat.  "I don't think you've met Sera, have you?"

Grace
"Hey, Dan," Grace says, through the fire's heat. He's a wavy-lined Dan to her. "Hey, Sera."

She smiles with her eyes at the newcomers to the circle of fire, but then returns her attention to the flames.

"You going to play for us?" she asks the fire. Obviously it's more for Dan than anyone, but who knows. Maybe she really does mean to ask the fire.

Sam Lakhani
Last time Sam saw Sera and Dan he was in Quiet. Which means the last time he actually remembers seeing them was at a house party. Which means he was stoned when he showed up and not in much better shape when he left around three o'clock in the morning.

Something in Kiara's gaze has him checking his own expression. He lowers his hands after River has yelled about marshmallows to the Cultist and her consor and lifts one to wave but it's an awkward sort of wave. A not-knowing-how-to-act-in-this-situation wave.

The bong is packed and ready to go. He is not the first one to light it. It sits like an offering beside the fire and then Sam stands from his crouch and takes a few steps back from the circle to light a cigarette.

River
"I have not," she carries things like she is used to carrying things because, well, this is just another social situation and River is a social creature. Sees a man with a guitar and his friend who is a spindly but striking creature.

She offers them a coat hanger, like this was a worthwhile offering.

"I told everybody that we were reenacting the Salem with trials with marshmallows, but I don't actually know how to hang a marshmallow so, uh, morbid joke completely lost."

Kiara
She does, in fact, return after a while with a handful of leaves cupped in her hands (trust the earth witch to deliver on such a promise) and carries them dutifully to the small fire; dropping them in a drift of crumbling pieces into the flames where they are greedily consumed and send up the vague, earthy aroma of foliage as it crackles and curls in on itself.

She's brushing her hands off when Dan and Sera make their approach and the Verbana's dark eyes, dramatized more-so by the liner she's applied to them turn to regard both, her hood pushed back far enough now that strands of dark hair are visible where they slither and curl at her neck, the thick waves of it half tamed by her coat.

"Good to see you, Dan. Sera." The latter's name offered with this quiet, delicate touch of meaning. The Verbena's supple mouth pulled into a little half-curl. She tosses the last handful of leaves toward the fire and and nudges at a stray, escaping one with a boot. Urging toward its demise.

A flicker of some darker, answering humor dawns in the Verbena's eyes as she watches the flames. "Burning them alive has always been a crowd favorite." There's this tiny shadow that falls over Kiara's face as she turns it into the treeline, as if searching for the source of a noise.

"Or so I've heard."

Serafíne
"Hey Grace," Dan-to-Grace, through the flames.  This quirk, like a smile but checked a bit, framed by the beard.  "We could, if you wanted.  Couple songs, maybe.  We've got a gig though, so we can't stay too long.  Sort of a welcome-back thing for Sera, so it'd be pretty shitty if we didn't show.  Any requests?"

--

Dan didn't see Sam when Sam was in Quiet.  He was waiting in the van, engine off but still ticking in the heat of the day.  Watched her leave and come back and knew something was hanging over her when she climbed back in the passenger door.  Didn't know how bad it was until she collapsed.  Took him forever to scrub the blood out of the upholstery, but he managed it.

Dan gives Sam the self-same quirk-of-a-smile-thing that Grace received and there's nothing awkward about it.  Something: prompting, quiet, solicitous in the way he handles Sera in the moment though, cutting a lashed glance down at her profile.

"River this is Sera.  Sera, River.  So, now you've met."

Sera takes in this: bright, crisp inhale then.  "Hey."  And it is all very, strangely self-contained, though River has no real context for this, but maybe she's simply: stoned, already, somehow.  When Kiara returns with her promised leaves, something a little more animate: warm, less constrained gets woven into her name, "Kiara."

"What about you, River.  Any requests?"

That's Dan,  he seems to think music is necessary right now and he's letting go of Sera long enough to lift the guitar case over his head and shoulders.

Sam Lakhani
As he traipses further from the fire he puts his back to it and the people around it. He meets Grace's gaze quick and continues his traipsing. They're all sitting around a fire that is giving off a good amount of heat and no small amount of smoke but he wants to keep his carcinogens to himself. What a guy.

He ends up over by Grace again anyway. She's the furthest away from the fire and she's sitting down and he's taller than her when she's standing up.

"You see that thing on Jitbit," he asks, "about the guy who would write cron-jobs for anything that took him more than ninety seconds?"

Grace
"Uhhh. No? Sorry. I'm terrible at music-y things," she says. "Something you like."

Her favorite 'song' at the moment is a guy screaming at people to install Gentoo over a throbbing beat, and there's no guitars in it. And if there were, you couldn't play it without a computer.

Samir saves her by talking nerdy at her. "Nope. Sounds fun though."

River
"Ukelele anthem!" because something with four chords was totally worth Dan's prowess as a musician. She has managed to piece together though that the bearded man is to music what she is to dancing.

River has made her way over to the communal bong, started on with the necessary prep work because she has no problems being the first person to take a hit for the evening.

"I have full intention of getting ripped and asking people to dance, so- does that inform your decision?"

Sam Lakhani
"You need to get a coffee maker with an SSHD. Then you could figure out how long it takes you to walk from the library to the kitchen and, like, have it start brewing and then wait before pouring it into a cup. The guy called it fuckingcoffee.sh or something equally poetic."

It's way colder over here than it is by the fire what the fuck Grace. He finds it difficult to bitch about the cold after the other night though so he digs his smartphone out of his jeans pocket and starts tapping buttons.

"Hang on, I'll send it to you."

Kiara
She moves a little closer to the Cultist, Kiara, her hands finding her coat pockets.

It's a dark navy form fitted thing that hugs in around her narrow waist with a zip and a hood that's lined with a mottled fur trim along the edges and sleeve-ends. The lining was synthetic but it cast the brunette with that twinge of something a little wilder none the less - something she seemed to be manifesting tonight. A certain aloofness in the way she held herself away from the others.

Standing rather than sitting as if her presence were as limited as the two en route to a gig.

She's watching the fire again, the pagan and there's something to that, the way the flames licking and curling into the air, the smoke and the tiny snaps and pops of burning debris, contain and hold her focus. They spoke enough of the Spirit Mages to allow for some assumptions to be made regarding the distraction of the Verbena. Perhaps she was meditating on the way the fire feels to her or senses some fluctuation in the Park itself.

It's the stillness, though. That makes it singular. Her eyes don't leave the fire to comment wryly: "As long as it's not Kumbaya."

Serafíne
"Couldn't even begin to compete with Amanda Palmer."  Dan tosses back to River with another supple, subtle expression rising to the surface and sinking back beneath.  "Plus I misplaced my goddamned ukelele somewhere between Raleigh and Denver - "

" - you left it in fucking Macon," Sera interrupts and Dan isn't expecting that and he cuts a sort of searching glance back down at her face and she's giving him a mildly pointed smirk that subsides as quickly as it arose in the first place, dark eyes cutting away from him.  Lingering on Kiara as the Verbena circles the fire and starts watching the flames: that singular stillness.

"Apparently I left it in Macon, which isn't between Raleigh and Denver at all.  Point is: never replaced. Closest I have is a mandolin and that's back at the house.  How about a country song, since we've got a bonfire.  Ever heard of Jason Isbell?"

Grace
Grace pulls out her own phone, and now -- true to stereotype -- the two Mercurial Elites of the party are staring into their phones in the great outdoors, communicating to each other with them while the rest get all sociable.

And it's about a shell script named fuckingcoffee.sh.

It is fucking hilarious though, and has Grace laughing at her phone. "Ohh, man. Kumar-asshole.sh. Lol," she says. And yes, she actually says the word lol as if it were one. In-jokes are a thing over here.

"He had a cron job for hangover excuses. I think I want to try that. Not that I need to call in at work, hah."

Sam Lakhani
By the time Grace receives the link Sam has moved onto other things. On his phone. They are living the dream over there.

"Yeah but still. You see the words 'vampire' or 'Washington Park' or 'police' on Ginger, you can just have that bad boy fire off and not have to deal with it."

He's joking. Hangovers aren't an excuse when you're BFF with a Verbena.

River
She's holding her breath while he's talking, nods. Pays attention because, no, one can't compete with Amanda Fucking Palmer. No, she has not heard of Jason Isbell and eventually she exhales. It's a long, slow breath like meditation because why the fuck shouldn't getting stoned be like meditation?

"We lived outside of Macon for two months during peach season," River clarifies, "you would think that I would have picked up something about country music in Georgia but it was all Willie Nelson."

Which is weirdly appropriate.

"So, you guys are in the same band?"

Grace
Grace snorts. "Yeah, that's what I need. A 'Handle Emergency' cron job. Just fire it off, and it will do everything that takes more than ninety seconds."

Which, you know, includes taking care of whatever the latest thing to happen in Washington Park is.

"I have never heard of Jason Isbell," she says, into her phone. If anyone were thinking she wasn't paying any attention...

Serafíne
"Willie Nelson is kind of a badass," Dan tosses back to River as she is getting high.  "He did this cover of Pancho and Left that is one of the most perfect things on the planet.  If that's what you took away from two months in Georgia outside of Macon, you could've done alot worse."

--

There's work to be done.  Like, you know: tuning.  The overtones of fingers-on-strings, that strange, patterned language, the internal tones as he listens to the acoustic he was carrying-through-the-park and it should've been an electric but: maybe magick?  There's a fire and no outlets and Sera doesn't even really quite understand that she knows Forces magick and she has been capable of it for two fucking years.

"Afterparty at my place," this to Kiara.  Supple, subtle thing, the invitation a coil of smoke from the strangely-reserved creature.  (Maybe: to River she will always be like this: first.)  " - when the bar closes.  Two, two-thirty? You should stop by."

--

"Yeah, we're in the same band."  Dan, to River.  "Don't usually do country but he's a killer songwriter and we always have a few off-the-wall covers up our sleeves."  Glances sidelong at Sera.  "Elephant, then Super 8?"

"Fuck, Dan, that's like tearing someone's heart out, shredding it, then smoking a bowl of the remnants, getting so stoned you wander into traffic and figure out how to make the stars shut down."

He favors her with a quick, quiet smirk.  Likes that spark of animation in her eyes and voice.

"Used to be with this band called the Drive-By Truckers," Dan-the-hipster tells Grace.  "It's more alt-country than country.  He doesn't sing about how sexy girls are when they hang out in trucks or how fun it is to hang out in trucks and get drunk in corn fields so he's probably not gonna get on commercial country radio."

Serafíne
(Hey I can has dice.  Dan - guitarishness?)

Dice: 8 d10 TN5 (1, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6) ( success x 3 ) [Doubling Tens]

Serafíne
(This is for mah next post, and oh Dan.  :(  Sera: singing?)

Dice: 9 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 5 ) [Doubling Tens]

Sam Lakhani
"You do. You need this so hard."

Break from reality over. Sam shoves the phone back into his pocket and wanders back over to the fire. That's where he left the bong and his backpack anyway. When he comes to stand beside River it's almost as if by coincidence. It's easy to forget he exists when he isn't talking.

"Hit me," he says and holds his hand out for the bong.

Kiara
It's been lightly snowing tonight, as if the weather hadn't quite settled on what it desired but the drifts of it come down, every so often. Can't penetrate far where the fire is of course, melt before they're close to that emanating source of heat but they find placement in hair, on sleeves. Kiss the edge of cheeks and it's after one of these finds Kiara's that her fingers emerge from her pockets and she sweeps a hand up.

Suddenly alert to the surroundings, tipping her chin up to stare up at the dark skies, at the clusters of trees. Touching her face as if she'd forgotten, momentarily, where the source was of the sudden dampness on her face.

She brushes it aside and turns her face, just slightly, at Grace and Samir's conversation. Her attention captured by the mention of vampires, by Ginger and Washington Park and handling situations. The Verbena's eyes drop away and she bends down to find a leaf, lashed to the side of her boot, pasted there by the snow. Squats there and peels it off, carefully uncurling the edges.

"They're amazing. You should hear them play a gig sometime." This, almost absently to River at her question as the Verbena twists the leaf around, sets it open on her palm and curls her fingers around it. Finds the other woman's gaze through the flames. Holds there a beat.

Pulls up, opens her fingers and crumbles up the leaf, smears it over the flames. Glances at Serafine as she offers an after-party at Corona Street. "Yeah." Those red lips quirk, give over to one of her smiles, the pagan. Flash of teeth. Curl at the corner that makes it that side of crooked.

"I'd like that." She doesn't offer more, say they should talk. Just - studies Serafine's face for a moment as if committing it to memory and then returns her eyes to the campfire.

Grace
Grace follows Sam, her face still stuck in her phone though. Light from the phone paints her face with blue, battling it out with the fire.

Well, maybe she won't be their chaperone or anything. Grace just wants a hit.

"I don't even know a thing about commercial country radio. Girls hanging out in trucks?" she shrugs. Whatever, to that.

River
"I'm not a pretty crier," she tells Dan and his cultist-friend, "Sam and Grace can attest."

And it's true. though she isn't sure if Grace has seen her cry from underneath the mountain of blankets beyond the little giggling whimpter of a happy ending amidst the zombie apocalypse. River is pretty committed to her makeup staying on tonight, though, because it's cold and her face can feel it and somehow being freezing bakes on your foundation.

She's standing, has the bong in hand and hands it off to him like this is some sacred rite- like this was the passing of the Olympic torch instead of, you know, just hanging a guy a bong and calling it good.

"And hanging out of trucks and getting drunk in corn fields is fun if you can find a cornfield... does colorado have corn fields?"

Bonus points if it's not your corn field.

Serafíne
Sera isn't wrong about that pairing of songs and Dan needs space to move to play and she steps away from him, careful in her ridiculous goddamned heels but god she can move in them, even on the spongy, half-frozen ground.

The cold, the goddamned snow mean that Dan's bare fingers are stiff as they skim over the strings but he pulls the first evocative chords out of the instrument and there is something quite remarkably intimate about the way they balance each other; about the way they watch each other, rhythmic, familiar.  This point where she takes in a breath like she's about to join him, but no, and he just repeats those opening bars, eyes on her face, the dance of reflected light in her eyes.

Elephant starts off all-quiet, reflective, nostalgic, but you get pretty early that the song's as close to a requiem as you can get for someone still alive.  Unsentimental, ("If I'd fucked her before she got sick / I'd never heard the end of it") clear-eyed - goddamned sad.  Sera sings it alternately watching Dan's hangs and staring into the fire and when her voice is supposed to soar, goddamned, it soars -

We'd burn these joints in effigy,
cry about what we used to be,
and try to ignore the elephant somehow.

I buried her a thousand times,
giving up my place in line,
but I don't give a damn about that now.

--

River is committed to keeping her make-up intact tonight but by the end of that there are tears in Sera's eyes and on her cheeks, and both her mascara and her eyeliner are waterproof but there's the eyeshadow too, which isn't.  Maybe it just adds to her rock-star vibe and there's no time to dwell on the chord that strikes up in her or how deeply and feelingly she sings or whatever is happening in her or anyone else because: Super 8's a honky-tonk barn-burner and yes, River, you can dance to it.  You could probably take off all your clothes to it, and there's not enough time to catch your breath between them:

Having such a sweet night
Audience is just right
Drinking like a pirate do
Don’t want to sleep yet
Buddy it’s a good bet
I’ll raise more hell than you -

And the song keeps going.  There's paramedics, pedialyte, and maybe a defibrillator. Haven't we all had nights like that?

So, yeah.  That's the impromptu concert.  When it's wrapping up, Sera-and-Dan aren't hanging around for hits from the bong, they're packing up.  Have somewhere to be: and soon.










Serafíne
(The songs:

Elephant:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dg1oYRo9yVk

Super 8: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Fr2Gv3HyqA )

River
[I'm totally good. Manip+sub]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )

River
She's a good audience member, though halfway through the first song she determines that she's going to need a second hit. There's silence, because she knows it isn't polite to applaud but eventually she does because it was really fucking good and she can appreciate a good performance regardless of the responses that it provokes out of her.

"Go have fun!" is what she says out of haze, eyes back to the fire for a moment.

Kiara
[Per + Empathy on River: is she?]

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

Kiara
Music has that way about it, of course. Good music can lift you. Inspire you. Tear you to pieces with nothing more impressive than the slow build of a guitar, a note sculpted and held. The Verbena's been witness to Serafine and Dan performing before - she knows they're that good.

She'd said about as much to River, only moments before.

Music has that way and at some point during the first song the Verbena's dark eyes place River's face again and she watches it; watches the way the firelight plays over it. Watches her the way she had when she first turned up, leaning against that tree in the shadows as if she were an interloper rather than one of the invited.

Whatever Kiara Woolfe does or doesn't see it takes until the end of the song for her to look down, to tip her chin down and draw her hood back up and bury her hands deep into her pockets. She's not inscrutable, the healer. Not accustomed to trying to be, to concealing whatever thoughts or feelings skim across her face.

She's only beginning to understand the ways she can protect her own mind from infiltration.

So maybe there's that glimpse before she draws it up, after she drags her eyes from River's face, where that's clear. What the music does to her. How it presses down on that bruise she's wearing, however deep it runs, however she's attempting to disguise it. A twist across her mouth, a haunted quality to fine dark eyes.

She stands there, hood drawn while the second number happens. That stillness settling back in. She doesn't applaud at the end of it but she does draw her hands out of her pockets, does move to press a hand against the Cultist's shoulder as she makes some bid for departure might not even understand how to articulate.

"You sounded great." She affirms and there's this brief glance back at the gathered. "I've gotta go guys. I'll catch you later."

Serafíne
Per + Empathy, River.

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (2, 3, 3, 3, 5, 6, 10) ( success x 4 ) [Doubling Tens]

River
"See ya," she says. Smiles and gives a wave and she seems fine. She seems fine and of course she is fine, because River has never given any indication that she is not anything other than fine, even when she has to turn off large portions of her brain to keep up the ruse. She is committed, you see. She is committed to any number of things, but right now she is committed to the idea that she is not going to be emotionally wrought over the fact that there was a song that moved her in such a fashion that she's waxing close to nostalgic.

She wears it well, that denial. She wears it like it's a shield and she carries a sword and in some other life she was some brave gladiator. still is.

she'll process later.

"Graaaaace," she says, offers her a hand, "do you know how to tango?"

Grace
Grace gives River a squinty-eyed look, and then makes a grab at the bong. Tango? The fuck, River. Going to break the poor woman. She takes a hit, holds it, lets out a smokey, creaky "No."

But still, she adjusts herself, hands the bong over to Sam, and stands rather stiffly as she holds her arms out -- one of them positioned like it might hold on to somebody, the other in the air above her head like it might be holding another's hand.

She's never really cared about looking ridiculous, Grace.

"Show me?"

River
River looks at Grace and the look on her face can only be described as delight. She steps in, holds her up arms and preens like she's an instructor because, at her core, she can be an instructor of sorts. She's a good enough that she doesn't seem to have a problem.

She beams.

Moves her arms down a little.

"This is probably going to come up again with me. Just for reference."

Serafíne
"Stop by later, yeah?"  Sera to Kiara, as Dan is packing up the guitar.  A longer glance at River, then, sharper.  This almost bruising awareness about her that gets honed in that moment until it gleams, and that's what she was made to be right there, bright, aching, in the moment.  A hitch of awareness that hooks, catches, dissipates.
Lovely as the edge of an ever-elusive rainbow.

--

Had she been aware of recent history, she might not have chosen that song.  She wasn't.  Isn't.  Couldn't've gotten on Ginger if she'd wanted to: her phone didn't fucking work.  Dan checks it anyway and he couldn't see her, and he kept it up but mostly he was looking for anything from anyone about her.  No dice.

All of that etches the air around them.  Frames out both the intimacy of their interactions and that strange reserve that Sera breaks out of only in these odd flashes of awareness.

--

"You should drop by too."

And she could be saying that to anyone or everyone, but she's not.  Mostly, she means River.  Unspoken in there: no more sad songs tonight.  "The Edgefield."

And off they go.