Surprise Party

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

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

Kalen Holliday
[How awake are we?]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"And then - "

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

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

Boundaries, Sera.

Other people have them.

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

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

And everything else they could ask for.

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

--

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

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

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

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

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

"Hey," he says quietly.

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

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

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

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

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

---

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

"Who's Beth?"

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

"Still not ringing any bells."

"Augh, Elijah."

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

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

"I did not just you people you."

---

And it was back outside with them.

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

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

it is a delicious drink.

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

Richard Kalen, Kalen Richard.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

--

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

towards them,

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

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

Of course you did, Sera.

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

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

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

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

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

"Heeeeeeeee."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Richard
"SURPRISE!!!"

yells Richard.

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

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

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

Elijah
Three?

"Surprise!"

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

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

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

SURPRISE!

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

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

beatific.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

oh, it feels like the sun is rising.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What would you have brought him?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

His watch cost seven thousand dollars.

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

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

No Hawksley: you don't need presents.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"And working out.

"And me."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And yes.

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

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

--

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

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

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

And he waits.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He rarely sees her.

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

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

Hawksley Rothschild
[DLP, rewriting]

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

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

Anyway:

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

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

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

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

Serafíne
"Shhhhhhhhhhhhh."

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

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

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

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

Hawksley waggles his brows at Richard.

Elijah loses it and cracks up laughing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

--

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There is a cake that Dee made.

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

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

Maybe they talk about Australia.

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

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

Some people have gone home.

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

--

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

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

Collins thinks Hawksley needs more friends.

Mermaids

Elijah
[how did I sleep?]

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

Elijah
[Is this going to freak me smooth the fuck out? Willpower]

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

Elijah
[Entropy 1: find the weak spot]

Dice: 1 d10 TN4 (9) ( success x 1 )

Elijah
OMG Max. There are mermaids at the aquarium.

It was what had spurred all of this. Elijah had a fascination with mermaids. Real, fake, it didn't matter, he knew they weren't real but he had a fascination with mermaids none the less because of the underwater grace and the skill of the performers to keep smiling while they were surrounded by a substance that was more than content to choke the life out of someone. Water was an intense thing, and this was bordering on good ol' fashioned exposure therapy.

It was a hard trade off, because Elijah had a fascination with mermaids but a genuine, seething, gripping something when it came to water. Every fiber of his being tensed up and wanted to be anywhere but inside of a place where he could literally tell each place on the glass that might potentially crack if someone pushed too hard or tried to tap one-two-three-four-forty seven times. Forty seven because that would cause a chain reaction that would piss off the-

"Oh fuck Chili!"

Which was about when Elijah remembered that he couldn't wait for Max inside of the aquarium because she had a dog and they had a problem- they couldn't leave chili inside, and the dog was too big to fit in a backpack… maybe. It was a hasty retreat to the parking lot.

"I'llbeback!"

Maxine
I'm so down.  That was the text message that Elijah had received back.  From there, a time and date was set-- possibly even later that very same day because whatever it was Maxine did it probably wasn't hold down a real job and make an effort at a typical life because by now Elijah had to have figured out that the girl slept out of her van.  He'll have seen the back of it by now, seen the fact that there's a hammock strung up and a few of those plastic mini-dressers stuffed with essentials.

He knew that the little black dog ("A schipperke," Maxine had informed helpfully if Elijah had ever wondered aloud) was never far from her or that van.  A faithful little transient animal with its transient mistress.  So it occurred to Elijah soon after cash had exchanged hands, that Maxine may still be trying to figure out what to do with Chili, and he fled to go greet them in the parking lot.

The big orange VW van is impossible to miss, parked near the front of the lot but as far off to the side as possible, with nose to a chainlink fence that had weeds and bushes creating green overgrowth through the wire crosshatch.  Maxine was standing outside with the passenger door open, cradling a lit cigarette to her face with one hand and holding the other hand on a slim hip.  She dressed in a bleach-bright white tank-top that cut off just above the navel and hung loose on her slender frame, and a pair of cargo shorts that were slung low on hips, held in place by a belt that probably sold along with the shorts themselves.  She wore pins in her hair to keep it from her forehead and face and had chalk dust dying patches gray-white where she'd touched with chalky fingers.  Marks on her shorts suggested she'd tried to dust them off rather than waste water actually washing them.

When Elijah strode up, Maxine puffed her smoke toward the green-grown fence and cast the tall blonde lad a smile.  "Well howdy, pard'ner.  You came to join us."

Us, being Maxine and Chili both.  The dog was standing in the passenger seat with her chin resting on the open window ledge.  She perked ears and watched Elijah's approach, but was far too middle-aged and crotchety to get excited over his approach.

Elijah
Thus far, his friends seemed to live out of suitcases. Elijah was an anomaly because he had an apartment he slept at somewhat regularly, if only because he was prone to escapades that required him to have some place to lay down and sleep afterwards. Or, you know, because he had the looming parental threat and couldn't very well sleep inside of Jenn's civic indefinitely.

Not that he hadn't tried before. During the great  oh fuck if we are moving into a place with bed bugs debacle, they'd spent a few nights in the civic before determining that they needed to live in a hotel instead. That was an experience he would have rather not relived.

"We should totally get Chili one of those little vests that says hi, I'm a service animal or something," Elijah said. he even reached out to pet the dog when he came over because… well… because Chili was awesome and gave precisely zero fucks about much of anything.

Maxine
Elijah's suggestion caused Maxine to blink big dark eyes at him through the miasma shroud that sprouted from the end of the cigarette she was keeping near her face.  It looked like she was trying to smoke it quickly so she could snub it out and get inside with him to see some goddamn mermaids.

"That's actually a really good idea.  Do you know where to get one?"  Her head tipped to the side, and the question was presented earnestly.

Either way, she'd wave her hand and hold the cigarette in her lips, freeing her hands so she could nudge Chili back away from the window.  The dog scrunched her nose but complied because she was left without much choice since her mistress's hand-heel was up against her snout.  The dog backed up onto the seat and Maxine swung the door open.  She stood then like a chauffeur, holding the door open for her boss, and swept a hand to gesture the little dog to exit.  With a huff she trotted on the seat a couple of times in place, then hopped down.  With a wheeze-groan, the stout little dog landed and walked away with a calm clackity-clack of claws to nestle into overgrown weeds and grass in the shade of the tree that Maxine had parked under (intentionally, hence the spot against the fence).

A final drag was pulled, and Maxine snubbed the butt out against her shoe and put it into a cup-holder ashtray that was sticky-glued onto the dashboard of the van.  She cranked the window back up to about 3/4ths the way up, then closed the door and said with a stage smile:  "Well, what are you keeping me waiting for?  Let's go see some fucking mermaids."

Elijah
Where could they get one?

"We could probably Google it? I have no idea, but then we could get Chili into all sorts of places, and just tell people she has to come with you in case we need to make sure you don't have, like, a seizure or something. Chili looks like she could smell seizures."

Because, apparently, that was a thing.

Elijah offered Max a grin, big and bright and his constant companion while he went to go and storm the castle with his current companion. Of course, that castle was full of water and the incredible possibility of drowning and the world would end right there but there were mermaids, so why would there not be a little peril when you were dealing with something that could be potentially awesome. He offered Maxine an art, all faux gentleman.

"Let's rock this shit," he replied.

And into the fray with them.

Maxine
An untraditional yet obvious solution to not letting your dog bake inside of a hot car was to let her out of the car.  Maxine trusted that Chili wouldn't go far because Chili was a faithful navigator and constant buddy.  She was an untraditional thing as a whole, Maxine, and though she hadn't shared this information yet were Elijah to know that she was aligned with a Tradition and to find which it was, she'd strike a whole new resonance of Abnormal.

The offered arm was looked at for a moment before being accepted with a one-sided grin.  Her small hand tucked into the crook of his elbow, and she kept pace alongside him, carried on a pair of (chalk)dusty Chuck Taylors.

"Hey, is Alicia meeting us too?"

Because, of course, she would ultimately have to ask.

Elijah
Was Alicia meeting them?

Elijah shook his head, no, and heaved a half-hearted sigh, "nah, she's been hard to get ahold of. We're square now, but we kind of had a falling out about her dad and me doing stupid shit."

Who knew why the sigh was half hearted, but the mention of Alicia kept the grin on his face. He was content to keep pace along with her, and even paid for them to get in (well, paid for Maxine because he already paid and it was rude to invite your friend who lived in her van out somewhere to do things when you weren't entirely certain she had the cash flow to live somewhere). Besides, Groupon is the shit and he did this with Jenn all the time.

We digress, "but, I texted a whole bunch of people so you might get to meet other people. So, it's kind of a plus."

but a minus, because no Alicia.

Maxine
"I didn't even know there was a falling out to begin with.  What'd ya do?"  She posed her questions in a way that were just so sincere and harmless that sometimes it was easy to forget that she was actually getting very out of line with her prying.  She smiled brightly at the girl who took Elijah's money, and onward and into the aquarium they went.

But other people might be coming too, and to hear that the petite example of androgyny perked right back up -- she'd seemed only slightly sombered to have heard that Elijah'd said something about Alicia's dad that had pissed her off (or that's what Maxine took away from the explanation, anyways).

"By a 'whole bunch of people', do you mean ones that Know?  I hope so."

It wasn't that Maxine was an elitist or anything, she just understood that nobody else really wanted them around anyways.

Grace
[Perception + Awareness!]

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

Grace
When Elijah sent Grace a text reading "OMG Grace, there are mermaids at the aquarium," the first thing she did was check the aquarium's website to see if the place was putting on a special mermaid show. He could have meant that actual mermaids had shown up at the aquarium, and that would be cause for a rescue mission of massive proportions.

Luckily for everyone involved, there was, indeed, a mermaid show in progress.

Mermaids eh? Sounds like an advertising stunt that has the puppy-like young Mage all worked up. Put some poorly-paid girls in revealing outfits, give them air hoses and fancy tails, and call it a windfall. It would be more interesting and less depressing if there were actual mermaids...

But she goes anyway, because Elijah is there and he thinks that this sort of thing is neat, and Elijah is a magical creature after all -- merman or no.

She gives the woman at the front her money and walks inside, and she can feel them. There's someone else here. Someone bright. She has to blink a couple times until she convinces herself it isn't actual brightness, but something else...

Maxine
[Perception + Awareness:  Good idea]

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

Elijah
[are there people?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 8) ( success x 1 )

Elijah
The question of what he did made him laugh the kind of laugh that indicated that there was a whole rabbit hole worth of disaster to delve into. It wasn't so much mirth as… something. Everyone's laughed that laugh. We know how it feels in the pit of your stomach.

"Iiii didn't answer my phone for, like, two days. I passed out in a chick's truck and Jenn couldn't find me. Jenn called Alicia. Both of them kind of freaked. When I called Alicia back, we ended up talking and I said I needed to see her and she said she needed to see her dad but she couldn't and she wasn't dying but I called bullshit and, anyway, I was kind of an asshole and now I'm trying to get people to help rescue her dad from a super secret quasi governmental organization."

Ah, that was the laugh that one can place. The one that you have because it keeps you form feeling utterly helpless and lost at sea. Or maybe that was all the water talking. he wasn't having any panic attacks at that juncture. he wasn't trying to flee in utter terror. No, instead, he was more interested in looking at a blue tang that looked remarkably like Dori. he feels something, but he's just a little too busy being distracted by the blue tang and the abundance of anemones.

"I texted a bunch of people who Know. And Jenn, but Jenn is cool… but not cool like that, but I think Jenn has a date."

Maxine
"Did I hear you say that Alicia said she wasn't dying but you call bullshit on that?"  Maxine looked up to Elijah with both eyebrows raised on her forehead.  She looked skeptical more than concerned, like she wasn't certain that he'd spoken correctly.  "Because if so, you just told me that you think she's dying."

She let go of his arm once they were past the counter where you pay for admission and instead folded her arms together at the small of her back.  Whatever the first tank was, she'd wander over and peer inside.  Maxine was the sort to take advantage of the establishment's air conditioner and take her time visiting each display if allowed.  She wasn't sure what time the mermaid show started, and figured Elijah would keep her on track in that regard.

Some freshwater animal was peering back at her through the glass when she sensed (she couldn't say felt, it was sort of like smelling bright lights and colors to try and explain) some other force, something stronger and shifting and bold.  Maxine straightened up and lifted her chin, turned her head to look in the direction that Grace would be coming around the corner from.

"A friend?"  As though she was going to just shift gears and let her attention be diverted from the topic of Alicia and her life expectancy.

Dan
Mermaids at the aquarium and god knows whether Seraf ne was one of the people whom Elijah might have texted but she's not here.  Not in the country or perhaps not sufficiently back in the country to respond but:

Dan does.

With a mild smirk and an "Oh really?" via text and later something about We might drop by. later and Elijah doesn't know whom Dan means by we but: he means Dee and a couple of Dee's roller derby friends and Rick who is in the band and This Guy Named Eddie whom everyone somehow knows - people meeting at the Aquarium before drinks or after, one or the other.

Dan has a lanky arm flung comfortably around Dee's shoulder and he might be willing to let that group envelope Elijah and Maxine without much of a second thought but then he sees Grace and sort of detaches himself from Dee with a kiss on her shoulder, pulls away from his larger group of friends and heads on over toward Elijah and Maxine alone, holding out a hand to Elijah to shake, with a "Hey man - " and a "Grace, hey," when the Virtual Adept is within earshot,

and then a glance at Maxine, the brief crest of a smile breaking through his blond beard.  "I don't think we've met."

Elijah
"Not, like, literally dying, more like she is figuratively- it's so complicated, basically I was a jackass and said she was realy messed up over her dad even if she said she wasn't, she totally was. Is. Still is, anyway, it's not like she's got cancer or something," that he knows of. Holy shit, what if she had cancer? That would be horrible. But, we digress, "anyway, she's not dying at a rate that is faster than the current rate we're all dying at. Blahblahblah gothkidrant."

was that a friend of his?

Elijah perked up, tearing his eyes away from the fish and turning just in time to see-

"Grace! Dan! Hey man," he said with a smile, bright and pleased, "Max, this is Dan, he's cool. Dan, this is Maxine, Maxine is also cool."

Because apparently being cool was slang for magical people.

Grace
Grace pops around that corner, and she's not really looking where she's going. She's looking at the walls of fish, not the people here to see the fish. But she knows that Elijah and Maxine are roughly in the direction she's headed, so eventually...

"Grace, hey," says Dan, and suddenly she's paying attention.

"Oh hey, Dan," she says, waves, and then notices he's here with Elijah and someone she hasn't a name for. She gets a wave too. And then Grace makes her way over.

She's wearing a red shirt with a screen-printed fish on it today. The fish is wearing a snorkel. It seemed appropriate.

"I see you have picked up the 'they're cool' thing from Sera, huh?" she remarks to Elijah, talking about the code word they seem to have for those in the Know.

"Also, hey Maxine. I haven't seen you around."

Dan
Grace greets Dan and he returns oh hey/i> with a mildly ironic smile.  He has, after all, just rocked up on an extended goth kid-style rant involving Alicia and whether or not she is dying at a rate any faster than the rest of us, which interests him enough that his eyes linger on Elijah's expression a beat or two or perhaps even three longer than necessary, even as Elijah is introducing Dan (who is Tall) to Maxine (who is very much Not Tall), and then Dan holds out a hand and though he's wearing a long-sleeved button-down shirt tonight fastened to the wrists hints of his tattoos creep up over his hands and his knuckles, peek up over the collar (and the bow-tie, he is hipster enough to wear a bow-tie with or without irony.  That's how he rolls.)

"Maxine," Dan repeats, because repeating the name of the person you just met helps you to remember it.  Because Dan doesn't have magic to help him remember this shit.  "Nice to meet you.  Also a fan of mermaids or did you just stumble on each other in an ordinary fit of mild coincidence?"

Dan
stop!

Maxine
All at once, two new people round the corner.  For a moment it was a hell of a lot more than that, and Maxine had made a 'Hmm' noise to see the posse that came around with Dan.  He peeled away from them, though, and joined the display of bland local freshwater pond fish (you know they love to put the local stuff up front).  Soon after came a woman with dark hair, not a hell of a lot taller than Maxine.  Not like how Elijah and Dan both were.

She smiled first to Grace, the expression genuine but not bubbly-- it was a little bit too sharp, too knowing to carry the sort of innocent mirth that typically brought 'bubbly' into the equation.  "Oh, well, I go where the wind goes.  There's just been a tunnel caught this side of the mountains the last few months."

Her arms had unfolded from behind her back, gone to her sides when she'd turned away from the fish to face the others that had come to see mermaids as well.  Dan had extended a hand that peeked hints of ink and design from under a shirt cuff, and it was accepted with an enthusiastic squeeze from a rather small hand.

"Mermaids are assholes.  But Elijah's alright."  She'd been summoned by a text, by someone else's idea.  Her acquiescence was on account of the company promised.

Elijah
"It totally works, too, I can say they're cool and people who are cool? Totally get what you're talking about. It's just precise and not precise enough that it works fantastically," he replied. And he was content to beam, yes beam, at the mention of people. there was a little bit of pride in that, and somehow he had managed to deliver exactly what it was that he said he would deliver- people. He'd told Maxine he would introduce her to people and now, with the promise of mermaids, he had delivered people.

He kind of wished they were real mermaids. At the same time, he hoped there weren't real mermaids at an aquarium. Quietly, he wondered if there was such a thing. If he could see them and if they did exist. if that would be the last sight he saw before plunging deep, down, downward into all of the water and being moored off and stuck in the water never to be seen again. Perhaps he was confusing mermaids with sirens.

Either way, it seemed dangerous.

"I may or may not have mass texted every cool person I know about mermaids and aquariums."

Grace
"Everyone? Geez, Elijah, you just do not know how to think small, do you?" Grace says, but she's not exactly chiding, just giving him a hard time because it's fun. "If Patience comes by with a net and trident because she misunderstood, I am blaming you, for the record."

Grace is not all that impatient to see mermaids. The local pond fish are pretty enough, as far as she's concerned. No, seems she's more than content to stand here talking to the cool people who are the true lure to this visit.

"Mermaids aren't assholes, it's the guys who don't pay the mermaids enough to swim around and get stared at by assholes who are assholes," Grace says, with a sniff. "Mermaids are just doing their job, yanno."

Dan
There is a sort of cross-conversation here.  Maxine goes where the wind blows and Dan - who is not just taller but who is also older than the rest - gives her the briefest of grins.  The spark of it slicing through his beard.  "Where the wind blows, eh?"

It is a subtle, and supple invitation to Maxine to elaborate, if she wants to elaborate.  Or to let it go, if she wants to let it go.  Easy as fuck.

--

Then, encompassing Grace and Maxine and Elijah all at once, Dan asks - quietly, "You ever seen a real one?"  Mermaids, he means.

Elijah
"I want to," he said with no small amount of awe. No small amount of wonder at the prospect of mermaids being real and genuine and even if there was the potential that it could mean his untimely demise, he wanted ever so desperately to see something magnificent. Unicorns were out. From what Elijah understood, they weren't keen on people who weren't exactly pure and while Elijah Poirot was pure as driven snow, that was more like snow that has been driven on instead of its actual intention. "Water freaks me out, though."

He says in the middle of an aquarium surrounded by water and aquatic things.

Maxine
"I've read about real ones.  Watched that shitty discovery channel 'exclusive', too-- which isn't the real ones, mind you, but it's not really that far off base."  Maxine looked the youngest by miles, even if she and Elijah were the same age.  He had the benefit of height and facial hair to help him out.  Maxine was petite, with the big eyes and narrow chin that wasn't uncommon down her heritage line.  She probably got carded every time she wanted to buy her cigarettes.

As for the wind:  "'Wind' is a figurative.  I'm no meteorologist, don't mistake me.  A 'current' is the better word for it."  She smiled up at the older man with the tattoos and black beard and jammed her hands into the pockets of her cargo shorts, where they remained up only by the grace of the belt having caught on her hip bones.  Her shoulders bunched up modestly as she went on.

"Y'know, put the feelers out, catch a vibration and go check it out."

And, following that, she glanced down at her naked wrist to check time on what must be an invisible watch.  She wondered aloud to anyone, but mostly to Elijah since he was the one that rallied them together:  "When does this thing start?"

Grace
Grace grins at Dan, and lowers her voice. "Nope. Never a real one. But I have ridden a dragon."

Granted, that occasion wasn't the best of times. She shot down a fighter pilot while riding said dragon. But there are still some good memories there.

"Maybe you don't really want to see one, Elijah, if the water scares you."

And, my word, could this guy be any more like Kalen? Probably not.

Dan
"How badly does it freak you out?"  Dan asks Elijah, rather thoughtfully.  "Does it rise to the level of I can't deal with the world right now freak out?  Or is it more cats and baths.  It doesn't matter much, really.  I doubt you'd see real ones anywhere these days.  This world would be harder for them than you - right?  Reality would snap its jaws closed on them so hard.

"Where they'd go or come from, I don't know.  But think about it - every myth you've ever heard about is real - someway, somewhere, somewhen.  Because, once upon a time, people believed in that shit."

--

A down at Maxine, white teeth in his blond beard.  This quiet huff of laughter when she explains that she meant figuritively, and that laughter crinkles the corners of his eyes.

"I didn't think you were deploying a windsock.  What sort of vibrations?  I mean, I get drifting, don't get me wrong.  I guess I'm asking whether you know what you're looking for, or if that question is part of the equation, too."

Then to Grace: "A dragon, huh?  And you weren't stoned at the time?"

Elijah
When did this thing start, anyway? "I think it starts on the hour," he said as he flipped through his phone. He had things to go through, and despite the cracked screen Elijah was trying to give the expensive phone a try again. he was going to have to figure out some way to replace the glass before his parents came to visit, presuming they ever came to visit, to try and give the impression that he was doing whatever it was. He nodded again.

"And it's somewhere between cat and fuck my life I can't deal with this shit, I mean I'll shower and stuff it's just.. y'know... anyway, mermaids. I'm sure there's somewhere that people still believe n them, somewhere that they would still exist, maybe in the amazon or something. there are places that haven't seen the modern world so there's probably still places where people believe in mermaids."

Did he sound... wistful?

Why yes, ladies and gentlemen, yes he did.

Maxine
Dan gets a raised eyebrow at first, and then a wry, slow and crawling sort of a smirk.  He asked what kind of vibrations and what she was looking for, and she answered by shaking her head (though she may as well be wagging her finger, given the tone of voice she answers in).

"Maybe it's not so much that I'm looking for something in particular, as much as it is that I want to just see everything."

But then, Elijah answered with the time and by flipping his phone out of his pocket, and Maxine leaned to the side to peek curiously at the screen to see the time.  Sure, she could See Time, better and more purely than most people in the world would ever be able to, but that didn't mean she couldn't suffice for checking a lit phone screen on occasion as well.

"There's a shit ton of people who believe in mermaids that live here in this city, thanks to that documentary.  A depressing amount of people believed it."

Though the rubber soles of her shoes stayed in place, spread apart from one another on the tile floor that ran throughout the place, Maxine twisted about at the waist and glanced over her shoulder at the fish through the glass behind her.  Eyes flicked quick to Grace's face on the way there, though.  That moment of interest was followed by a question:

"Where was the dragon?  And where'd it go?"

Grace
Oh, Grace had started something. Something about dragons.

"They're all far away from here. Catch me another not so public time, and I'll tell you all about it. And no drugs, Dan. You know I just say no," she says, sly and full of snark. She does not actually say no.

"I don't know if it's such a bad thing that people are willing to believe in the impossible. Sounds kinda promising, that."

Dan
"Yeah?"  to Maxine, quietly.  The yeah is simple inquiry.  There is not a shred of challenge in it, not a soup on of doubt.  "You looking high?  Or low."  The question has room in it.  Space to breathe.

--

A glance at Elijah, then.  "I think it's less Tinkerbell, you know?  It all has more to do with the genuine elasticity of experience - whether or not there's room for it all," and back to Grace, encompassing Maxine.  "But she's right, you know.  The more folks are willing to believe in miracles that have nothing to do with this rigidly defined, experiential world, well.  The more space there is within which people who are just a bit outside that rigidly defined, experiential world can work.

Maxine
Conversations to be saved for times when there were fewer ears about, and Maxine nodded her agreement to Grace's recommendation that they avoid the subject of her dragon mount for the time being.  She didn't think that people were paying what they had to say to one another too much attention, after all.

But then, Maxine didn't have a whole hell of a lot of experience with ears being all around-- the ones that were specifically listening for them, and would come for them if they knew they were out here to knock things out of balance and screw around with what wasn't meant to be screwed about with.  The slender-framed young woman turned back to face the man and woman standing ahead of her (she'd remained beside Elijah without being against his side-- she didn't need his protection or anything, she just knew him while the other two she'd just met).

"High," she answered, and flashed teeth bright for Dan when she did.  "Always and forever, High and Above."  Then, when it came to the subject of what people were willing to believe and if it was a good thing that they did, she wrinkled her nose just a little bit and shook her head.  "It's depressing when they believe schlock.  It's fucking elating when they believe The Truth."

Somewhere in the middle of her statement, Maxine's attention had shifted downward.  Her left hand pulled a small, simple, outdated cellphone out of her shorts pocket and she glanced down to the screen-- it was buzzing noisily and persistently, she was receiving a call.  How her mouth pursed when she registered the name on the screen was a peek into how (not) excited she was to take the call.  Apparently she couldn't ignore it-- the pursed lips betrayed that too.

"I'll meet you all at the mermaid tanks-- gotta take this."

And she parted from the trio to do exactly that, phone coming to her ear as she rounded the corner to go back out to the front of the building.

Eleanor
Eleanor has not heard from Elijah in some time.  He hasn't dropped by her office to chat about the nature of things both ephemereal and seemingly corporeal.  He hasn't run into her in the hallways, or at another bar.  Last time he saw her, she was making breakfast in her kitchen, and her enormously tall apprentice was helping her, and Elijah was most likely seeing them blearily as he woke up on her couch.  There were no sausages or bacon with breakfast, but there were avocados and eggs and yogurt and bright vegetables and, for good measure, piles of greasy hashbrowns to help with the hangover.

Eleanor drinks tea, but Eleanor makes good coffee.

--

Then he texts her to tell her there are mermaids in the aquarium.  And when Eleanor shows up, it is still raining outside, has been raining all day.  She is wearing thin jeans the color of a charcoal-rubbed twilight, and they follow her legs which seem longer when she is not in the company of a seven-foot-tall swimmer.  Over whatever shirt she has on she is wearing... well, it's sort of a jacket, and a bit of a cape, and it has a hood.  It flows loosely, and it is hard to tell where her arms are.  Her hair is in a braid, sweeping down her scalp and curving over her shoulder.

She has found him.  And whomever he's with.

Her eyes skip from Dan, who she saw the other night, to Grace, who she knows or has at least met a few times.  Then to Elijah.

"Mermaids?"

Grace
Schlock or not, it's the willingness that has Grace happy. Well, happy until the sudden sensation of drowning comes over her, and then...

Okay, so the walls are not crashing down and suffocating her. It's just Eleanor. She shakes her head as if to clear it, and then turns to see the expected woman.

"Mermaids. Because Elijah wanted to," Grace says, and shrugs. "Hi, Eleanor."

Elijah
[Awfuck!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )

Eleanor
[that reminds me]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 5, 5, 5, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )

Elijah
Mermaids?

"They're not real mermaids," he laments, yes laments, but he is old enough that someone must have told him by now that there were not going to be real mermaids at an aquarium, but there was the feeling of cold and ice and drowning and instead of being terrified (because it was so very, very scary to feel), he smiled and it was bright and pleased and, "hey Eleanor! Glad you could make it. You missed Maxine, but you might meet again at some point, because she's pretty freaking awesome."

Dan
Dan has a raw but oddly bemused little grin settled over his mouth as Maxine gives him that answer, that bright flash of her teeth.  Always and forever, High and Above -  and there is the passion skimming beneath it, as she announces that it is depressing when people believe schlock, elating when they believe The Truth.

"Somehow," he says, and he says this - really - to no one at all.  "I don't think her truths are my truths."  Then, a glance at Grace.  "Tell me someone has introduced that girl to Pan.  I don't know why she reminds me of fucking Joan of Arc."

Mermaids? Eleanor asks, and, "Swimmers in fishtails," Dan explains, though she must surely know that. Glances at Elijah, next, "Shows are every hour on the hour.  There's a restaurant down in Florida that has had them since the 1950s.  We had a gig nearby back when we were living in North Carolina.  Sera couldn't get enough of them."

Of course she couldn't.

They were wriggling around in the water half-naked.

But someone somewhere in the crowd is signaling to him and Dan makes his goodbyes, telling them all that he has to go see what Dee wants, exhorting them to enjoy the mermaids.  He'll see them around.

Grace
"Joan of Arc? Huh, maybe. She sure is bright like Pan is. Pan does not remind me of Joan of Arc, though," Grace says, and grins at a fish.

She waves to Dan when he leaves, but her eyes don't really leave the fish.

"I could believe that Sera would love watching mermaids, fake or real," she says, to no one in particular. "Shall we go gaze at the fish women then?"

Eleanor
In a place full of water, where there is much glass to break and rooms where there are sharks, there are turtles, there are even tigers, no one wants to feel anything sundering.  No one wants to feel like they are drowning, slowly sinking, suffocating not because there is no oxygen, but because that air is rushing into your lungs with a couple of hydrogen hangers-on in every molecule.

Dan departs.  Eleanor looks at Elijah as he explains they aren't real.

She sighs.  She seems to understand the disappointment.

"You had me worried," is all she says, and slides her hands into the pockets of her cape-jacket, hidden as they are in the folds.  She shakes her head, nods in some general direction.  "Let's go watch the not-real mermaids.  May as well get our money's worth."

Elijah
"People keep mentioning this Pan guy and I've never met him," he admits, though it wasn't much of an admission. it wasn't much of anything to be ashamed of, but really it was a tad surprising given that Elijah had managed to wrangle up so many people to see fake fish women, it was a wonder that there were going to be people he hadn't at least brushed past in acquaintance. he was a sociable sort. Gregarious was a nice word.

"Onward, to fish people," he pointed forward, and like Marco Polo, he was off to explore the aquarium.

Khaled Abandonado

Elijah
Elijah Poirot was not above bribery.

Of course, he wasn't above bribery and it wasn't his intention to have that much guile. How anyone could have assumed he was good at concealing anything was a mystery because he was a chronically honest creature. Problematic, really. Or, more accurately, he just managed to find people he didn't want to lie to. He found people who wouldn't believe his bullshit because they knew before he even started that it was bullshit.

So, when he showed up with a shit ton of cupcakes, his original intention genuinely hadn't skewed towards bribery. It was skewed towards cupcakes because cupcakes were delicious and he was pretty sure that he was going to eat them all at some point. Mildly, he wondered if cupcakes had a sound. he wondered if he could listen to them. Maybe he would ask Grace-

Oh! Right! Grace

"Grace! I have cupcakes!"

HDub @ 1:19PM
nightmares!
Roll: 4 d10 TN7 (4, 5, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )
HDub @ 1:20PM
Yaaaay! He can be productive with Grace!
niko @ 1:20PM

Woo!  Witnessed@

Grace
Elijah arrives like a twist in the air, like something that threatens to turn all the stuff on Grace's desk to the floor. Words filter up to her from below, and she manages to catch "Grace" and "cupcakes". Even if he does bring food, she's still not entirely certain cupcakes are enough of a bribe for what he's asking. Which, hey -- maybe he's just stopped by with cupcakes? Maybe this isn't some request for horribly dangerous missions? Maybe this time he won't be so exhausting to deal with? One can only hope, right?

"I'm in my office!" she yells down in response. "Door's unlocked!"

Elijah has never been to Grace's office before. The door was locked while she was away having her month-long dream of a new world. It's not locked now, and when Elijah ascends the stairs and opens the door to Grace's office, he'll find that someone took a lot of care with this room. And here's a hint: it wasn't Grace's doing. Grace would probably have been happy as a clam with a stark white room with concrete floors and a box for a desk. But no, her office is painted cobalt blue, with constellations of stars drawn on the walls. The only reason those stars aren't studded with real diamonds is that Kalen never had the thought that it would be a neat idea. The wood furniture is polished and well-made, including the large L-shaped desk that serves as her computing space and workbench. There's a couch along one wall that looks like it would be heavenly to sleep on (it is), and a little kitchenette with microwave and fridge along another. In short, one could easily live here. And really, her office is slightly larger than her actual apartment. She does have a tendency to live here, and it shows in the way her resonance [keen and shifting] slices through this place.

Elijah
Kalen had acquired an apprentice. An apprentice who was trouble, who poked his nose in where it did not belong- an apprentice who adored cupcakes. Elijah would live on sugar if he could. Truth.

But aside from the truth, Elijah had things he needed to do and people whose help he desperately needed. No, not that kind of help, either. No, the exhausting young man was still on a mission, having been almost given blessing (or lack of condemnation)  was good enough for Elijah.

He plodded off to her office messenger bag over one shoulder and his eyes widened with delight- that perpetual delight- when he was in her office.

"Oh... Are they accurate?" He smiled some bright smile. His eyes on the walls and hands on the box of cupcakes.

Grace
"Well, as accurate as paint on a wall can be, I guess," Grace says, giving him a smile that's aimed at the cupcake box.

Her smile then twitches a bit when she finally finds his face. "More bribes? Or is this visit purely because you enjoy my company?"


The office says artistic swank, but Grace herself is a thin, ruffled-haired thing in jeans and a black t-shirt that reads "Come to the nerd side. We have pi." Somehow, it all fits, though. This is her office. She's got a framework labeled "Chloe #3" with a potted English ivy growing inside, the vine using scaffolding (that holds small robot arms) to entwine around. She's got books on the shelves (very nice, leather-bound journals) with titles of "Teh Wall #1", "Teh Wall #2" and so on scribbled on the spines in Sharpie marker black. And don't forget the ubiquitous laptop, open on her desk.

Elijah
"Why can't it be both?" Elijah replies with no small amount of humor, "originally I was just going to eat cupcakes, but then I wanted to study, because magic has a taste and I would like it if it had an acceptable flavor like raspberry butter creme, but then I thought it would be dumb to eat half a dozen cupcakes by myself because that is a terrible lunch plan and before this explanation goes on any further I didn't think of using it as a bribe until I got here but I would have shared anyway."

The box is plunked down carefully and opened to reveal some surprisingly delicate looking flowers with some incredibly pale frosting. It would appear the cake, however, was marbled and rainbow colored.


"There's not pot in them, I swear."

Grace
"Damn, that's a shame," Grace says, and plucks a flowery cupcake from the box. "I get the feeling I'm going to need some."


"What's the bribe for this time?" she asks, then bites into the cupcake.

Elijah
"What makes better bribery? Baring in mind that I am financially strapped but not hurting for food things. Also baring in mind that I'm asking you to look up information about someone named Khaled Abandonato? The guy who I had zero information about before?"


Nope. No amount of innocent smiling made that okay.

Grace
"I've never heard that name. Sounds Arabic," Grace muses, mouth full of frosting. She is such an expert at talking with her mouth full.


"You don't have anything more to go on? Just his name?"

Elijah
"And the fact that he's Alicia's dad? Which would make her Alicia Abandonato, unless her parents were progressive and she has one of those cool hyphenated last names," he replies. He has a cupcake in hand, plucking off the flower from the top and popping it into his mouth. "So, he's probably in his forties, a mage, and he has a friend named Morgan. Really? I'm more interested in this Morgan person. I just wanted to find out who his friends are and if they are alive or not."

Grace
"Okay. I will do some looking," Grace says, and unwraps her cupcake so she can get at the cakey bits. "No promises."

She gives him a look of fake-seriousness, complete with eye-squinting, before devouring more cupcake. She also doesn't seem interested in starting on this whole looking thing right now. If Elijah was wanting to watch her work, he's in for a disappointment. She does, however, take out a pad of paper with her free hand and writes down the information he provided. Alicia Abandonato, Khaled Abandonato, Morgan.

"So how did you find out about all this? Last I heard, Alicia wasn't speaking to you anymore."

Elijah
Perhaps he had expected more. Perhaps, perhaps he had expected seeing her performing some of the strange voodoo she did with a command prompt; Elijah knew enough about computers to know that he knew nothing when he was compared to Grace. Nobody knew anything when they were compared to Grace- she could perform vulgar acts of coincidental programming on a rig like hers. In truth, it had less to do with the laptop and more to do with the operator. He was astounded by her.

Why shouldn't he be? Grace knew things on. Beyond that, Grace knew Things. Why not be astounded?

At the question of how he found this out, he rubbed the back of his head and gave a little laugh. Nervous, that. "We're talking now, but I got the name from my room mate. Jenn... uh... Alicia and Jenn are cool; Jenn's... not... aware... of all this... stuff. Jenn thinks he got snatched up by some super secret black ops organization and she kind of gave me the biggest ass chewing I've had from a non-family-member for this year."

Grace
"If he was abducted by the Union, he did get snatched up by some super secret black ops organization, only it's a lot worse than that. I suspect you deserved the ass chewing," she says, and lets her chair spin her in a slow arc as she gnaws another bit off of her cupcake. "A little bit."

"I have to tell you, I'm a little afraid to look into this. I'm not sure if I'm going to find anything. And I'm very sure if I do find something, I'm not going to like it."

She looks over Elijah as her chair slows to a stop. So young and new. And hell, it wasn't long ago that Grace was just as new. As much as Elijah obviously looks up to her, there are things that scare the shit out of Grace Evans. Like getting caught. There will be preparations made, and programs built to hide her actions well before she makes the trip out to the middle of nowhere to start prodding the hive of the 'net looking for Khaled Abandonato.

"You're a good person, Elijah. Just try not to get yourself killed before you learn anything, okay?"

Elijah
"This guy… I think he rewrote time once," he said cautiously, "that's… that's huge. I mean, this guy has to have friends, and he has to have been someone in the magical community. I feel like, if we find this Morgan person we'd be able to find help- real help. Maybe help with bigger resources than what we have, because-"

Because people here weren't going to help. People here couldn't help, there wasn't enough of them. Patience had brought up a valid point, that there would be casualties and this would reach further than Elijah had initially anticipated. If he pulls that string, he may lose an arm so to speak. He inhaled sharply, running a hand through his hair and refocusing himself. He had to refocus, his mind was everywhere- it was always everywhere.

"I'll try, but I don't make any promises," Elijah replied. His face lit up soon enough, though-


"Oh! Morgan! Her parents used to run a horse ranching operation in Kansas! That… I don't know if that will help, but it might narrow things down."

Grace
Grace raises a brow at the rewriting time part. Does he mean rewriting history, or the future, or rewriting the very rules that govern time? Grace has seen time slowed to a crawl, has felt how it tugs at you and tries to wrench you forward. Sounds like something that might draw attention, that.

She writes down the words 'Time writing?' on her paper, in typical Grace scrawl. Chances are, without some serious divination, nobody would be able to read it but herself. Her cursive makes it look more like 'lni wilig?' than anything else.

To that, she adds another scrawl of 'horse ranch kansas' to the side of Morgan's name.

Elijah is so animated, though, it quirks her brow up. What is he going to do when this fails, she wonders?

"Do you have any other pieces of information that might be useful?"

Elijah
"Morgan's parents are dead. Alicia wrote me a journal entry about a time that her dad and Morgan were talking and then she was just… like… gone. Alicia said most of what happened was really hazy, but he was really fucked up after that and got more than a little paranoid about… well… a lot of stuff. I don't know if that's helpful or not, but the journal was really-"

He paused, then looked at Grace with a degree of seriousness. Elijah didn't seem the type, didn't seem like he could be capable of being serious, but there he was, "if I showed you the journal entry, would you promise not to tell anyone about it? It's… what Alicia and I write in there is really personal, and I just want you to look at the one page. Please"

Grace
"Gone in what sense? Like disappeared while he was talking to her?" Because, you know, Elijah -- stranger things have happened.

She just blinks at Elijah when he tells her about the diary. On the one hand, secrets are fun to know. On the other hand, Grace has a personal privacy policy. Otherwise, why would anyone feel comfortable just handing her their equipment to install stuff on?

"Sure, you can show me the page, if you get Alicia's permission first. In fact, why not just... I should meet this Alicia I think."

Elijah
"I could see if you two could meet. Just… uh… if you're going to talk to her then I'm not showing you the journal," he said carefully, almost protectively, and relieved, too, because it meant that he didn't have to tell her everything he'd written there. Didn't have to risk that Grace was going to see some of the things he'd put in there, about his dreams or about Eleanor or any number of things. Elijah had feelings about things, that much was certain but the things in that journal?

Perhaps he shouldn't have mentioned it.

"Lemme text her," he dug out his phone and started typing something in. It seemed to be back to the Nokia, having cracked the screen on the nicer phone.

Grace
Grace finishes off her cupcake while he texts, and then blurts out: "Noffin aboud oua flans," through a mouth full of cake. Nothing about our plans, she means.

Maybe she's just being extra paranoid about you, Elijah, because you act like a puppy with a sugar high...

Elijah
"We have flan?"

Grace
Grace rolls her eyes and chews. "Pflans!"

Elijah
He finished on texting. His eyes on the screen and then he sighed. The response wasn't immediate, which may have meant that alicia was busy or had other things to do or wasn't glued to her phone at that particular juncture.

"She already knows about our plans, that's why she stopped talking to me for, like, awhile."

Grace
Grace plants a palm to her forehead and swallows. "No, that's not what I meant. I meant every time you send someone a text you have to consider that someone else may be listening in."

"So please tell me that you, in your exuberance, did not just text her something along the lines of 'Hey, I have a friend named Grace Evans who wants to help find your father, Khaled Abandonado.'"

Elijah
Elijah shook his head no, "I asked her what her schedule looked like? We've kind of kept our weird conversations about things that could potentially get people thrown into holes and forgotten about to being had in person."

He nodded again, and he took in Grace's expression, her tension her… Grace… ness… Suddenly he was overcome with the desire to pat her on the shoulder again but they are not shoulder-patting friends.

"We've been cool. She's… she's really on the outside of all of this. She said Lena said she would help but then all that shit with comas happened."

Grace
"So she's newly new, then?" Grace says, and sighs. Shouldn't be the case, but new mages and trauma seem to go hand in hand, don't they?

"Welcome to Mage life. It sucks so much. But sometimes, there's cupcakes," she says, and shrugs.

Elijah
"She's not new like I'm new... I mean that, like, she hasn't been awakened for, like, super long," Elijah replied, but his thoughts were everywhere and it took him a second to come back to focusing on Grace. A little too hard, a little too direct, but certainly present.

Grace
"Yeah, I understand. It's just a pretty rough thing for someone to deal with, and then Awakening on top of all that. Not that Awakening is something bad, just... Not easy."

She looks up at Elijah, meeting his direct focus with some of her own (sharp, like her resonance, even though those sharp eyes tend to wander). "I mean, you should know, right?"

Elijah
"We feel the same," he said, "me and Alicia... It's... like, when we do magic, she feels like a little park of chaos and I keep wanting her to do it again and I don't know what she believes or how she does it but she's smart and-"

He's smitten. She's smart and he's smitten and if it were ever more obvious than it was, it was obvious at that juncture. The way his face lights up when he talks about her, kind of like how he lights up when he talks about Kalen.

Grace
Grace quirks up a smile at how adorable Elijah just became, with the lit-up face and all. Well, it's pretty obvious why he's going to the effort huh? They're close enough to keep a secret journal between them, and the way he just described how they do magic together?

"I don't think I've ever met someone who felt like me. But then again, I know I'm not the most comfortable of Mages to be around," she says, as though listing off a fact. A skittering blade is what she feels like -- sharp, keen, honed, and shifting this way and that. Definitely not the warm sunlight of Hawksley or green joy of Sid.

Definitely not something to pat on the shoulder.

Elijah
"You should meet Eleanor," he said with no small amount of… trepidation. yes, that was the word for it. Though he had to take in what Grace had said. Grace had a feeling about her. Sharp, keen, like a knife to the ribcage. Like a moment he couldn't avoid, like an inevitability. Something sharp and swift and aching horrible feeling. He knew this, but he didn't know why. He didn't know why it didn't scare him, just like he didn't off settle him.

Elijah and Alicia felt like a right and proper mess together. If he could figure out how to work magic with her instead of next to her, he would.

"I'll bet there's somewhere, someone who feels similar to you. It's different when there's not this overwhelming feeling of magic to contend with."

Grace
"Eleanor who feels like drowning in an icy lake? I've met her, if that's who you're talking about. She saved my life once, you know? She's okay for a lawyer."

For a lawyer. Yeah, Grace will probably forever hold that against Eleanor, because who purposefully goes out and studies Law, and then teaches it to others? Like most cogs of the criminal injustice system, lawyers play their part don't they?

And sometimes they shoot demons with blessed bullets. Two sides to every coin and all that.

Elijah
"She feels like, arguably, one of the singlemost terrifying experiences of my life to date, but you meet her and she's... well... she's cool for a lawyer. And she's cool for... you know... not a lawyer. So, that said, you may not feel entirely pleasant or awesome in terms of resonance, but you rock pretty hard, so there's that."

Grace
Truth be told, being compared to Eleanor might not be the worst thing ever, even if the two women are nothing alike. Nothing. Grace's eyes return to wandering, but she smiles a bit at the compliment. "Thanks."

There's really not much more to say, really. Grace lets an awkward pause linger before coming up with a conversation topic that is not more about Alicia's dad.

"So yeah, this one time, this monster crawled out of a movie screen, and Eleanor just got her gun and shot it to death. Saved a lot more lives than just mine. She is kinda badass."

Elijah
"... what the fuck, that's a thing?"

He sat there, stood there, in that moment of trying to figure out precisely what it was that Grace had just said. He had no clue what Euthanatoi actually did, didn't get the whole death mage part, except that they were supposed to help move on some great sacred cycle and he wasn't entirely certain what all that entailed, but he knew he liked Eleanor and he was suddenly reminded of a dream he had and-

Inhale

He had this moment of near panic, something that came because his thoughts wandered and the world became too wide and too much for him to handle. Too much to really boil down into his mind. He exhaled, and it was back to reality with him.

"She just, like, freaking shot it to death? That's a thing?"

Grace
Grace blinks. Ahh yes, Elijah is new. Maybe not new to being Awakened, but new enough that this sort of thing isn't commonplace to him yet. And he's the one asking her to poke the Technocracy with a stick. Of all the things to be frightened of, the dead ghul barely registers on Grace's fear-o-meter.

"Don't be afraid of dead monsters. And yes, I would suspect that just about any regular Joe on the street could tell you that shooting things to death... is a thing. But I'm here to tell you that everything is a thing. Just... everything."

The good and the bad and mostly somewhere in between, right? Everything.

Elijah
"You don't think about lawyers pulling out forty-fives and shooting the ever living shit out of things that just crawl out of movie screens that is insane, Grace! What the Hell, am I going to be a weirdness magnet for the rest of my life now? I already get dead people that is weird enough, and-I-auuughhhh."

He retrieved a cupcake and took a lick of icing, as though eating cupcakes was going to make things better.

Grace
Grace has just gotten back from talking the AI-God of another universe out of kidnapping everyone from earth in order to save Herself. Insane?

She does seem to be actually thinking about it.

"You are the weirdness, Elijah. And no, it doesn't necessarily have to follow you wherever you go. Whatever pills Adam and Hawksley are taking, I want some, because those two never run into horrible monsters. I swear."

Elijah
"I haven't-"

he stopped there. He stopped immediately there and had to have a moment where he reframed what it was that he was going to say and what he was going to do because, as that juncture, things were going to get really cursed really quick if he said something.

"And gosh, way to call me weird, Grace, thanks."

Let's not hack the library.

Ian Lai
[Per+Awareness]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 7, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )

Grace Evans
[Per + Awareness]

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

Ian Lai
Ian had texted Grace earlier that evening. It was the first she would have heard from him since before they'd both gotten sucked into Bastion. And maybe she'd expect something a little more involved for that exchange. But all the text said was: Hey, you up for meeting at the House? I wanted to talk to you, and I need to get into the library.

Then again, these things were generally better not discussed in text. If Ian even knew that Grace had been trying to help him. Which, all things considered, he might not.

He'd been at the gym just before driving out, and his hair was still slightly damp when he arrived at the Chantry, with the longer section hanging over his forehead. When he got out of the car, he paused to stretch his tired muscles, working out the stiffness that had developed on the ride over. He rolled his head on the axis of his spine once, slowly. Then he locked the doors and made his way up to the house. Grace was already inside. Even if she hadn't told him, Ian would feel her presence the moment he stepped through the door. So he followed the trail of her resonance over to the library and rapped his knuckles firmly against the heavy door to let her know that he was there.

Whenever she let him in, she'd find him leaning against the wall in jeans and a white v-neck, glancing at the time on his phone. He smelled like expensive shampoo and body products, and he smiled lightly when she appeared. "Hey. Thanks for letting me in."

Grace Evans
Grace gets up from the couch (where she had been thumbing through a book) and puts it aside. Ian did say that he needed into the library, right? And while her sixth sense isn't exactly humming this evening, it's at least picking up on him -- that feeling like you're in the presence of a predatory animal, sleek and lithe.

But when she opens the door, she gets the burst of clean-smell. Cat fresh from a bath? She sniffs at the air like she's trying to place the aroma, and then realizes she's creepily smelling someone.

"Hey, Ian," she says, and pulls the door and herself aside to let him in. "Now that you're out of that coma, you should talk to Pan. I can't really give you library access, all I can do is open the door if you need. And give you Pan's phone number."

Ian Lai
Ian raised an eyebrow when he noticed Grace scenting the air, and for a moment it almost looked like he might say something, but then Grace mentioned Pan, and Ian slipped his phone back into his pocket and began to make his way down the stairs.

"Yeah, Kalen mentioned him. But he never gave me a number. What's the guy like?"

Because generally speaking, it was good to have a sense of who one was talking to before asking a question like, 'will you trust me enough to give me free use of an important resource?' When Ian reached the bottom of the staircase, he glanced over his shoulder at the entrance, then flicked his eyes to one of the tiny security cameras.

"I bet you could probably just hack the security, if you wanted to."

Grace Evans
Grace huffs out a little laugh. "Pan? He's like God's own personal interrogation lamp. But he's a good guy. You want his number, I can give it."

She walks over to the couch, flumps herself down upon it, and huffs again at his suggestion that she hack the security. "That would just get you in trouble when someone finds out that you have access to something you shouldn't. Somehow I don't think you want to be on the receiving end of Pan Echeverria."

Her eyes track Ian as he moves into the room, but it doesn't seem like she's paying much attention to him all the same. More like off in her own little world while her eyes chase something because they're bored.

"Hacking is great if you want to slip past some defenses and then skip out quick. Long-term hacks are much harder. You've got to hide and hide and hide some more. Which I can do, sure," she says, and there's a little smirk to that.

"But there's another thing about hacking, you know? You find a shortcut and you take it. You don't make things hard on yourself. The shortcut to library access is call up Pan and ask."

Ian Lai
Considering the overall level of involvement and technical aptitude within the Denver mage community, it was fairly likely that, were Grace to ever do something like what Ian suggested, no one was likely to catch her. It begged the question of just how long they were likely to last without someone finally getting a little bit greedy or careless or destructive. But then, it also said something about the people here that so far no one had.

Maybe they were a disparate group, but they were careful of the things that mattered.

Ian, maybe, less so. But he didn't presently have any reason to steal the library books or set the place on fire. And if he really had been serious about asking Grace to mess with the security system, he wouldn't have brought it up in front of the security cameras. Grace offered up her advice about Pan, calling him God's personal interrogation lamp, and Ian got this look on his face like someone had just stuck a plate of rotten food under his nose. His expression smoothed as he walked past the library shelves, trailing his hands over the book bindings.

Somehow I don't think you want to be on the receiving end of Pan Echeverria.

"Depends how hot he is." After a beat he asked, "Is he a Chorister?"

Grace Evans
Grace about cracks up at the talk about the relative hotness of Pan. Truth be told, Grace isn't exactly the best judge of human beauty, but she has eyes. That's not to say that Sera hasn't hit on the man relentlessly, but then again Sera is Sera. And Grace tries to keep the laugh in, because hey -- that is not cool. She's been the target of such laughter before.

"Pan's like, 50-ish? He was in the War. You could ask him to screw you, and he'd probably just not even care enough to tell you off. He's celibate, I'm pretty sure. He is so totally a Chorister."

Ian Lai
"I'm sure we'll get on beautifully." There was a heavy dose of dry sarcasm in Ian's voice. He left off looking at the books for a moment and sat down on the large office table in the center of the room. He slipped his phone out of his pocket again and unlocked the screen, navigating to the contacts list.

"Here, give me his number. And when you're done, you can install that thing you wanted to give me before." He held out the smartphone (a black Moto X) and looked at Grace with dark, steady eyes. He didn't say anything about why he'd changed his mind, or what it meant that he was handing over a piece of his personal property to someone he didn't know very well. "If the offer's still open, that is."

Grace Evans
She gives Ian the number she has for Pan, on the phone that Kalen got for him -- the phone that Pan can barely use. Or maybe by now the man's finally figured out what all the buttons do? Who knows.

It doesn't register as something remarkable to Grace. People hand her their phone all the time. But then he mentions Ginger, and her eyes rise up from the phone. "The offer's always open. What changed your mind?"

She finishes with the number, and then pulls her laptop out of its bag next to her on the couch. A cable gets connected between laptop and phone, it placed on one knee -- her laptop on the other.

"Also, I never asked. How are you doing since Bastion?"

Ian Lai
Grace would notice while entering Pan's number that Ian had a lot of names in his contact list - a fact that was not likely to surprise anyone. Beyond that, his phone was neatly organized, with the apps on his homescreen consisting of things like google calender and spotify.

"I weighed the potential merits and flaws and decided it was worth the risk."

It seemed an honest enough answer, if perhaps a bit vague. There was a longer explanation to be had there, but Ian didn't seem inclined to offer it. Perhaps it didn't really matter. Sometimes people just needed time to consider their options before committing themselves fully to a decision, and Ian didn't seem like the sort of person to make choices impulsively.

When Grace mentioned Bastion, Ian's expression shifted. His posture went still, and a crease of tension formed between his eyebrows. He didn't respond immediately.

"Did Kalen tell you about that?"

Grace Evans
"Well, no, not exactly," Grace says as she works, typing in the various commands to install the encryption on Ian's device. It's a nice one. Much easier than installing it on someone's Nokia brick.

"Me and a team of people went to Bastion after the event at Infinity. We went there to stop it. That incident wasn't the first time Bastion had tried to take people, and the number was growing exponentially. We had to do something. Did Kalen not tell you about that?

"We did look for you guys, but we kept ending up in different worlds. No way to find you, so we just had to keep moving."

Ian Lai
Ian was typically reluctant to admit when he didn't know something, but the longer Grace spoke to him about Bastion, the more evident it would become that in this case, there was quite a bit he didn't know. Someone sensitive to the subtle cues of body language might be able to tell how Ian felt about all this, but Grace, working as she was on the Ginger installation, might not pick up on those things.

She'd know that he'd gotten quiet though. That for the moment his interest in practical things like books and contact information seemed to have been put aside.

"No. He didn't tell me that." There was another reluctant pause, and then, "Was that her name? Bastion?"

Grace Evans
"I don't think Kalen really knows a lot about it either. He was in the same boat as you after all. By the way, Lena says hi. She was one of the ones who went with me. To, yes, Bastion. That was her name," Grace says, and there's a bit of wistfulness there, like she wishes many things had gone differently.

"She was the creation of a cabal of mostly Virtual Adepts who were trying to create a beta-scale Reality 2.0. Well, they succeeded. And then the Technocracy took them out. All but a guy named Maddoc, who wasn't a Virtual Adept. I guess the Techs just had it out for the 'traitors'. But of course, without the expertise of the people they had just obliterated, they couldn't do a thing about Bastion.

She was kind of desperate, I think. Reaching out, trying to repair herself by abducting people. We... we rewrote her. Put all the corrupt bits back to whole again. And you know, that sounds a lot like a weekend job at the server farm, but God, Ian. It was like being there at the moment of creation, writing the words that started it."

The tack of fingers on keys stops as Grace continues, obviously enraptured with her own memories, her own voice.

"I could see my voice in the air like it was encoded data. Hell, I wasn't me anymore, I was code -- no filters, none of this fleshy stuff in my way, and Bastion was all laid out before me. I had admin privileges to a universe."

Would that she could return to such a state, no? But she blinks, the screen registering its success in front of her. She unplugs Ian's phone and hands it back.

"It's done."

Ian Lai
The thing is, Ian had never once considered the possibility that he'd been inside a simulation. Maybe if he'd been more technologically savvy, that kind of thing would have crossed his mind. But who would have imagined that, really? Without the knowledge that Grace and the others had been given by Maddoc. (Well, Grace might have imagined it. She was an Adept herself, after all.) As far as Ian had understood, they'd been trapped inside a very, very realistic mindscape - its level of sensory detail reflective of the power and creativity of the being that created it. And he wasn't wrong, really. The answer was both - and more. (Another reality.)

When Grace looked up and handed Ian back his phone, she'd see in his eyes that he was processing what he'd just been told - fitting pieces together and analyzing them in conjunction with what he'd already known and experienced. He took the phone from her and set it down on the table.

"Lena? From New York? The hell is she doing out here?"

It was the easiest of the many questions he had. Something simple and grounded in reality. Admittedly it'd been a long time since Ian had seen or spoken with Lena. But he hadn't expected to run into her in Denver, of all places.

Grace Evans
"She's been in Denver for like, over a year," Grace says. "She was more asking the same question about you, actually."

Grace has been around enough weird shit to know this dissonance -- the way the mind so readily goes from reconstructing universes to getting in touch with acquaintances from New York. And yet, she's aiming to drag the conversation right back again, swinging the pendulum back and forth between mundane and cosmic.

"Kalen said that you guys had been sent to a nightmarish place. Some of Bastion's worlds are worse than others. I don't know why she did that, but maybe it was in order to learn about the sadness of loss. She was watching us all, you know. I don't think she really understood why abducting people was wrong until we showed her what it does when your connections to people are severed like that.

I don't know if that's any consolation to you for what you guys went through, but hey. Maybe you helped convince a Godlike being to quit being a dick."

Grace sets to work shutting down the laptop and stowing it again, and realizes that she forgot to tell Ian how to work his newly improved phone.

"Okay, so, in addition to Pan, I've added another contact to your list. Ginger. Call the number, and use the phrase 'Hello, Ginger'. That'll get you to the menu, and you can add or retrieve messages through there," she says, and the pendulum swings back again.

Ian Lai
Grace spoke about these things with much more ease than Ian did. Maybe if he hadn't been caught off-guard by it, he might have asked Grace more questions about what she'd been through and what she knew. But tonight he was struck quiet with the weight of truth and memories. He listened to Grace speak, and for what it was worth, he seemed clear and present through all of it. And he nodded when she gave him instructions on how to use Ginger, filing the information away in his head.

Finally he said, "It was post-apocalyptic, where we were. There were fucking zombies. Be glad you never found us."

That was as much as he was likely to offer at the moment, but it was something. Possibly more than Kalen had said.

"I'm gonna be here reading a while. You don't need to wait for me if you've got stuff to do."

And Grace could wait, if she chose. Occupy herself with whatever she'd been doing when Ian arrived. Or she could head out and leave him to whatever it was he'd come there to research. Either way, Ian was done talking for the night. And he had a lot of reading to do, so he stood up and began to sort through various titles, pulling a few volumes off the shelves to take with him to one of the sofas. He'd be there for the next couple of hours at least, sprawled out in a relaxed pose while he focused on the text and whatever unspoken thoughts were running through his head.