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!]
