Distractions

Kiara Woolfe
[Dexterity + Athletics: playing hoops! Can you play, Ms Woolfe?]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 10) ( success x 1 )

Kiara Woolfe
[That was terrible, let's try that again.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (2, 3, 3, 4, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )

Grace
[Awareness!]

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

Kalen Holliday
[How awake are we?]

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

Ian
[Awareness]

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

Kalen Holliday
[And how distracted by Resonance are we?]

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

Alexander
[Awareness too]

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

Kiara Woolfe
Washington Park at dusk is captivating.

The days are growing a little colder in Denver, winter's claws are neatly beginning to sink in, inch by inch, into the air, into the earth. Hardening it, turning it into a slumbering beast awaiting the warming rays of the thaw to come. The female on the courts is alone, but not, in a broader sense. There's joggers doing the circuit of the park, stepping in unison.

There's a couple entwined on the grass some distance from her, a woman walking her dog, figures moving through the grand expanse on their travels elsewhere. Heading home, most likely. Most pay little attention to Kiara as she moves across the court, bouncing a ball and weaving it this way and that, stopping short of one hoop and neatly tossing it toward the net.

It sinks through, dropping and bouncing away to collide with the fence.

The Verbena walks over to it, rolls it back into her hands and begins anew, flicking the hair out of her eyes as it sticks to her brow. There's no judge, no jury and surely no need for finesse when you train alone. Only the surety of the rhythm of your heart, the air expanding your lungs and the sound of your breathing. She enjoys it, the push and strain of her muscles as she runs, twists, throws the ball.

Muscle memory expanding and encompassing until its forgotten -- where body begins and ends -- where the line is drawn. Until there is no line. She's been at it long enough to be breathing hard and fast, to have discarded her jacket, laying with a pile of belongings on top of a wooden bench beside the court. The sun is banking the horizon now, it'll be dark save for the lighting the park provides, but the brunette has little urgency to her steps as she repositions herself to try for another hoop.

Grace
Parks are cool. Especially parks in the city where one can still get a good wi-fi signal. Nature is fine, so long as you don't completely detach, right? Or at least, that's how Grace sees it.

She's walking along with Kalen in tow, wearing the coat he gave her (red, sharp, and a whole lot more fashionable than Grace would ever do to herself). The coat is covered with little additions -- doodads and plastic strips sewn into the fabric. What purpose they serve? Who knows. If one gets a very close look, one might see that they're all electronic.

She notices Kiara first, not the person, but that sense of her that's so reminiscent of... Ah, yes.

Don't ignore the signs of the snake which shall appear in your daily life, before the messenger appears, they said. There was the boy with the ouroboros tattoo. There were the Auryn keys, there is Kiara.

"Hey, come on. I think I see somebody," Grace says, and starts walking down toward the court.

Ian
It was evening in Washington Park, so of course Ian was running. His feet beat out a steady, rapid pace along the path, keeping time with the lush pulse of music coming from his earbuds. He'd been at it long enough to feel the low, steady burn in his lungs and the flush of heat on his skin. Exertion kept him warm, despite the season - though the temperature in Denver had not been nearly so chilly as it had in days past.

The park was busy tonight. There were other runners. Dog-walkers. Couples. Mostly, Ian ignored them. But as he approached the basketball court and felt a stirring of cyclic (rejuventating, devouring) energy, he slowed his pace to a loping jog and cut across the grass, finally coming to a halt beside the court. He pulled the earbuds out of his ears and draped them loosely over his neck. For a moment he grew still, catching his breath as he watched Kiara toss the ball through the net.

"Need an opponent?"

He had on black drawstring track pants, silver running shoes and a short-sleeved black athletic shirt. His cell phone was strapped around his left bicep.

Kiara Woolfe
[How are our Mage senses tonight?]

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

Alexander
The park is attracting Alexander a lot at the moment.  Part of that is the hope that The Message will make another appearance.  Part of that is simply because it’s a large open space in the city, a space with a whole load of potential for getting out and doing things.

And so the pleasant weather and the wide open space pulls Alexander out running.  His route so far has taken various turns from the Downtown area towards the park – still learning the lay of the land, the shortcuts and backstreets that can make the journey from Point A to Point B that much quicker.  Call it useful knowledge for his current career, or old habits from an old job.  Either way, it’s fun to explore the parts of the city that the tourist trails avoid.

So he’s pounding the path through the park when he feels the coming-together of their kind.  Kalen, Grace and Ian are close – to Alex and to each other – and their resonances begin to merge.  But there’s another, an unknown sensation in the air.  Not exactly unknown.  Certainly reminiscent of someone else not so long ago, that Devouring sensation.  He slows, breathing steadily, and slowly makes his way to where he can see what’s going on.  His red running tee is wet with sweat, even in the cool air, and black shorts and black-and-red running shoes clothe him for the moment.  A cable runs from his headphones and into his pocket, although the headphones are pulled away when he notices the feelings in the air.

Kiara Woolfe
She's got her stance down and shoots, but the ball rebounds off the back of the board and ricochets behind her, rolling gently in the direction of the man who's appeared, blackclad at the edge of the court. She feels the stirring at the edges of her awareness, that prickling over her skin that's more than just the fact she's suddenly stopped after long minutes of exercise.

He's in black, she's in gray and white the female, her track pants tied loosely around a narrow waist, shirt short sleeved, cut close to her shoulders and leaving a fair expanse of her arms bare. For once, Kiara's devoid of her jewellery and it's striking how notable that is. She's stripped back, casual and flushed from exertion.

"Hey," is the quick greeting he gets, though she couples it with a breathless smile and moves closer, one hand on her waist as she lets her breathing even out. "Sure, if you think you can keep up." There are others nearby, Grace and Kalen are approaching and another, one Kiara doesn't yet know is on his way, too. But her senses aren't that keen tonight, distracted by the game. Focused, for the moment, on reclaiming her ball and gently lobbing it at Ian.

Grace
Grace huffs a little laughing breath at Kiara's "if you think you can keep up." To Ian?

Ahh yes, they're playing sportsball. Grace plops herself down by the side of the court in the grass, waves at Ian and Kiara. But it doesn't look like she's going to be playing tonight.

Nope, her cell phone comes out.

Kalen Holliday
Kalen is dressed warmly and carrying a cup of coffee.  Like Grace, he is wearing a tailored coat.  His is also long, but gray and not covered with any extra bits.  Not that he has not implored Grace to male him a technocoat, he so has, he is just not wearing that tonight.

He trails behind Grace until he registers not only Kiara but Alexander.  He does not settle into the ground beside Grace, just glances quickly to where Ian is joining Kiara and then toward where he can sense Alexander.

"I'll be back, Kit," he says.  But her phone is already out.  Ian is right here.  He and Alexander will not be far away.  Grace is certainly not the inexperienced Orphan he met a bit more than a year before.

And so he doesn't even remind her to be careful before he starts toward Alexander.  Ian and Kiara, if they look toward him, get a wave.  But apparently Alexander gets his attention first tonight.

Ian
Kiara tossed the ball at his chest, and Ian caught it with a wry smirk. Did he think he could keep up? "Guess we'll have to see."

He tucked the ball under his arm and reached over to unstrap the arm-band from around his bicep, setting it and his earbuds down on a nearby bench. There was a brief glance tossed back at his things, then at the park at large, as he walked onto the court (as though he did not entirely trust that someone might not try to make off with his phone.) Grace walked up with Kalen and sat down in the grass, and Ian shot them a quick greeting.

"Hey." He nodded at Grace, but Kalen was already on his way to talk to Alexander, so Ian let his focus shift back to Kiara. He rolled the basketball out from under his arm and tossed it between his hands once, then gave an experimental shot over her head at the opposing hoop.

[Dex+Athletics, wee!]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )

Alexander
That feeling in the air – the feeling of inescapable consumption – is similar, but still different, to that Ravenous hunger that had been plaguing the city.  He’d thought that it had ended, but...  Well, he’ll see.  That there are several familiar others gathering, and that there doesn’t seem to be any conflict – not yet, at least – is slightly reassuring.  As is the feeling of the approaching storm.

“Hey,” he greets Kalen with.  “Somebody new in town?”  Kalen gets a smile, but Alexander’s attention keeps getting drawn back to the basketball court.

Kiara Woolfe
[Dex + Athletics, he's totally showing you up, Kiara. At least get it in the hoop.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 5, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

Kiara Woolfe
Kiara's presence does take getting used to. It's not overwhelming, not in the way some resonances are but it's distracting, at first. For some people, it might even be a little upsetting. Certainly the sensation of being devoured and then restored, brought abruptly back into the moment was unsettling in its own way. It was the beginning and end of a cycle. The woman it belonged to however, was not by any immediate impression, a creature to be feared.

Distrusted, perhaps. Wary of, certainly, any Awakened meeting another for the first time carried with them that inherent hesitation but Kiara Woolfe didn't strike you as the type to devour anyone beyond what her pattern's imprint conjured up. At the present moment that being said -- she was also feeling rather competitive. Ian gracefully lobs the ball over her head and it sails into the net with a degree of precision befitting someone with his natural athleticism.

Grace is acknowledged, as is Kalen as she turns on the spot to watch it arc through the air. She glances at him. "Show off." The jib isn't hostile, not with the way the corner of her mouth curls up. If anything it's playful. She jogs over to reclaim her ball, bounces it once and walks toward him, balancing it against her hip.

She nods at the net over his head and taking a moment to recalibrate her footing, aims for the hoop and lets the ball sail, watching it intently as it hits the board, teeters for a moment as if in deliberation about whether to score or not and eventually sinks through.

Grace
She nods to Kalen, and smiles at Ian. "Hey yourself."

Ian can be a bit distracting can't he? And so he distracts her away from her internet to watch him be all perfect.

"He is a show off. Oh very much so," she says with a roll of the eyes. As if she herself didn't show off with regularity. Is it a Mage personality quirk perhaps?

Kalen Holliday
Alexander's attention is drawn toward the court.  And, in all honesty, so is Kalen's, but not for Kiara.  Ian is something to watch, when he's moving.  Kalen's attention returns to Alexander rather quickly, but then, this is hardly a show to Kalen.

"Yeah," he says to Alexander.  "I haven't spent much time with her, but she is very willing to do tequila shots and seems very friendly.  I find her lack of suspicion suspicious, but then...I'm kind of terrible like that, huh?"  He leans into Alexander for a second, casual and not really cuddly, as if Alexander is a nice convenient column.  Yeah...he definitely doesn't need more sleep.

"Come meet her?"  And there is, in that tone, an invitation.  One that if Alexander turns down will likely be followed up with invitations to donuts.  Or Thai.  Or whatever thing Kalen thinks of that sounds interesting for the moment.

Ian
It was a perfect shot through the net. Better than he'd expected, if we're being honest. But Kiara and Grace didn't need to know that. From the outside, all they saw was how absolutely effortless he made it look.

Show off.

Ian grinned. Kiara grabbed the ball and tossed it into the other net, and maybe it wasn't a perfect shot, but it was still pretty good. She wasn't exactly out of her element.

"I can stop if you want." He shot another look over at Grace and raised an eyebrow teasingly. When Kiara's ball dropped to the ground, he jogged over to grab it.

"Feel like playing for stakes?"

Kiara was feeling competitive. Evidently, so was Ian. The look he shot her was confident and flirtatious. Like a dare. He spun the ball in his hand and bounced it on the pavement as he walked back to the center of the court, turning around to shoot her another look over his shoulder. This one felt more like a temptation. (Like thinly veiled secrets.)

Alexander
“Well, everybody’s up to something.  Maybe she just doesn’t care.  But sure, I’ll come and say hello.”   Alexander fishes around in his pocket for his phone, turning off the music.  He knocks into Kalen, nudging him with his elbow, as he starts the walk over to the basketball court.  He wraps his headphones around a hand before tucking them back into the same pocket as the phone.

He settles at the side of the court, near Grace.  “Hey, Grace.  How’re things?”  She gets a smile, although maybe not as open and warm as it would have been a few weeks ago.  Not for anything she’s done.  More for other things.

And speaking of other things, how does he greet Ian?  Ian will get a wave if he looks towards Alexander, but he doesn’t call out to him.  Mainly because he doesn’t know what to say.  And so he stays quiet.

Kiara will get a hand raised in greeting if she happens to look over.  Her resonance isn’t the easiest to get used to, and between that and the awkwardness of not quite knowing how to interact with Ian?  He’s not looking all that comfortable, and it’s nothing to do with the surface that he’s sitting on.

Kiara Woolfe
Kiara shoots Grace a smile that is accompanied with a dramatic roll of her eyes heavenward when Ian decrees he can stop. She's flushed, but the exertion suits her, somehow. It makes her more focused, for one thing. Her smiles come freer, there's less calculation to the manner she approaches the world when she's like this. Surrounded by nature. Grounded by it, thrilling in the physicality of the moment.

"Ante up, buddy," she calls as she approaches, there's amusement in her voice; a gleam in her dark eyes that matches Ian's. The flirtatious banter comes easily, apparently. So does getting in his space as soon as she's near, crowding up close and trying to steal the ball out of his hands in a dirty maneuver.

As she does, two new figures appear on the sidelines, Kalen she recognizes and he gets an acknowledgement of sorts and Alexander -- a curious look, a brief incline of her head toward him in unspoken hello before she returns her attention to the stakes at hand.

She wants her ball back. Nobody would ever say Kiara Woolfe was above trickery in sports.



Grace
Grace's eyes flit up from her phone to Alex. "Things are ridiculous. We've got White Knight problems again," she says, keeping her voice low. "He, she, it, whatever seems to like contacting apprentices and telling them all about the wonderful fuzzy goodness of the Techs, and how they just want to help. Which, yeah. No."

She bites her lower lip, looking at the court, but not really watching the players. "Something's going to go boom again soon, I can feel it."

Ian
[Dex+Ath keep the ball!]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Kalen Holliday
Kalen settles next to Alexander, opposite Grace.  He looks over at Grace, and his eyes are serious.  But he doesn't really address the question about their (self-proclaimed) White Knight.  He has a different read on that situation, but he does think it's dangerous.  Still, for someone who can laser focus on the thought that they are besieged by monsters and evil, he seems oddly willing to let it go.  Technocrats and vampires and things that are not the five of them in this park.

All he says, without any real sense of urgency, is, "That's always how this place is.  But, at least I hope, not tonight.  Let's get to know our new friend shall we?  It would be a shame if we lost sight of doing that just because the world threatens to end once or twice a season."

Ian
Back on the sidelines, Grace started talking about technocrats, and Ian... chose not to let it distract him. Not because it wasn't a valid concern (of course it was - there was always some kind of potential threat looming) but because it wasn't a matter that immediately involved him, and sometimes one just needed to play a fucking round of basketball without worrying about the world ending.

Kiara tried to steal the ball, but Ian held it close and rolled it around his torso, keeping it teasingly out of reach. She answered his challenge with one of her own, and he grinned broadly enough to show a flash of teeth. Then he leaned in and whispered something in her ear.

And there was Kalen suggesting that they all get to know each other. Whatever Ian was up to, it probably wasn't appropriate for a larger game. But of course, they didn't need to know that.

"First to five wins?"

Kiara Woolfe
Say what you would about Kiara, the girl certainly knew how to throw herself into the thick of things. Drinking tequila into the early hours one night, keeping pace on the basketball court the next. That sort of general exuberance for life was almost exhausting to watch, but, looking at her now, half arguing, half smiling at Ian as they fought over possession of the ball -- it seemed fitting, somehow, for who she was.

Or at least, the impression she offered (rejuvenation).

"That's my ball you're getting handsy with, Sir." She calls loudly, her voice carrying across the court as she quests relentlessly for it, twisting around Ian, one hand still half tangled around his torso when he leans in and whispers something in her ear. It's hard to imagine (or maybe not at all considering) what it is he says from her expression. It's still taunting, still bright and set with determination but she does lift her chin a little.

Says something in return that doesn't carry and then, lifting her eyebrows, makes another play for the ball.

"Deal."

[Dex + Subterfuge, only diff 7 cuz Kiara can't be stealthy at all.]

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

Alexander
Truth be told, Alex hasn’t been on Ginger for a couple of weeks.  Not since those last updates before they went to confront Victoria.  So he’s a little out of touch when it comes to people being contacted by the Technocracy.  He knew that was why Elijah had moved into the warehouse, but developments after that are still to be discovered.

There isn’t even a sigh when he pushes himself back up from the ground, although it’s not to follow Kalen over to the basketball match.  He sounds tired when he tells Grace, “there’s always a boom tomorrow.  Law of the universe.  But I should really be getting back before it gets too late.  Grace.  Kalen.”

With a look back and a wordless wave to Ian, Alexander heads back towards the exit to the court and pulls his headphones back out.  If he’d been in a better mood, if Kiara wasn’t so reminiscent of that hunger, if he was more sure of how to be around Ian... It’s just better that he be somewhere else right now.

Grace
"Mmm. Okay, I'll see you later, Alex," Grace says, warmth in her smile (yes, even toward the cop). He's had his troubles lately.

"Also, yeah, I know. We can't stop living just because the world wants us to so very much," she says to Kalen, gives a little sigh. "Look, who do you think's going to win? I'm thinking Ian. Because that guy can jump."

See? Grace can lay down her troubles too. Sometimes.

Kalen Holliday
Kalen tilts his head back to look up at Alexander.  "Hey," he says quietly.  "Call if you need me.  Have whiskey.  Will travel."

And then he turns his attention back to Grace.  "Mmmmmmm...I don't really even know much about basketball.  Or...you know...sports.  Soccer was kind of neat.  But I think my sport is laser tag."  He takes a sip of coffee and looks to where Kiara and Ian are playing.  "I may miss the end.  I have errands, yet."

Ian
Alexander didn't know how to talk to Ian. And Ian... wasn't terribly focused on Alexander at that moment. He was more aware of Kalen, who he'd yet to really acknowledge beyond that initial hey as Kalen walked over to see Alexander. But in either case, it was difficult to pay attention to both the basketball and the other conversation at once. He did notice when Alexander got up to leave, and there was a brief moment of distraction when Ian glanced over and returned the man's wave with a nod.

Only a moment, but it was enough to give Kiara a chance to steal the ball out of his hands as she leaned in to whisper something to him. And Ian? He just laughed. There was a strong implication in the fact that he didn't attempt to debate the matter with her.

But there wasn't time to dwell on these things. Kiara had the ball, and Ian darted in to try and steal it from her before she could shoot.

[Dex+Ath Can he steal the ball?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 5 )

Kiara Woolfe
[Gasp! Rudity. Keep the ball, Kiara.]

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

Kiara Woolfe
Kiara does spare a moment to notice Alexander's departure. She doesn't know the guy, but it didn't take much to gauge some level of discomfort, however surface it was. She doesn't have time to consider it beyond a brief measure of curiosity about who he was however, because she finally finds her triumph in stealing the basketball out of Ian's hands.

She dances out of his reach, the ball above her head and jogs backward a few steps --

"Thank you very much."

-- before twisting around and jogging toward the opposing net. Of course, momentary distractions aside, she's still trying to keep pace with Ian. Who, in all fairness, could probably lap her a few times over. They dart around the court, though. Kiara's eyes on him, she feints one way and then another. Smiling over her shoulder as she denies a grab for the ball and twists, aiming to shoot -- when its snatched from her grasp and she breathes out what sounds decidedly like a curse.

Pushes the heavy fall of her hair from her face and gives chase.

"You play dirty," she calls, though it sounds less like a reprimand and more a compliment.

Grace
"I think mine is laser tag too," Grace says, appraising the stealing of balls and the general sportiness going on. Huzzah, Ian.

"Errands? Really? You going to pick up some cupcakes for Elijah or something? Just no red ones. You know. He's a lot like I was about this time last year, if you get my drift."

Elijah's been very vegetarian lately. He's staying away from anything that might remind him of flesh. Grace remembers a pancake breakfast wherein the bacon was avoided for similar reasons. She remembers how red sauces and fruit juices were abhored as well. It doesn't result from a desire to save the animals, exactly.

Kalen Holliday
Kalen nods.  "I probably should get cupcakes too, yes.  And groceries.  And cookbooks."  He laughs, tired but warm.  "Alexander and I are going to learn to make cookies."

There is a pause.  "Maybe also another fire extinguisher.  Or three."  He rises and looks over at Kiara and Ian again.  There is still something warm in his expression, though maybe, for a second, a bit wistful.  But then his smile widens a little and he waves to Ian again.

"Am I forgetting anything else," he asks Grace.

Ian
"Always."

Whether or not Kiara meant it as a compliment, Ian certainly seemed to take it as one. And it was an easy enough statement to believe, coming from someone whose very essence radiated cunning. They raced down the court, Kiara fighting to keep the ball while Ian tried to snag it from her grasp. They were both such agile creatures. Beautiful to watch in their own way, if one had an eye for athleticism. But ultimately Ian managed to wrest control of the ball back into his own hands. He dribbled it quickly as he turned back to run for the other goal. And as soon as he had a shot, he took it.

Maybe Kiara would catch him by then and try to block it. Either way, he caught the ball in his hand, leaned back and tossed it toward the net.

Kalen was leaving. Ian didn't spare him a glance until after he'd thrown the ball. He caught the smile Kalen offered him and returned it, though his expression seemed reserved.

"Later, Kalen."

Ian
[Dex+Ath - does he score?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 5, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

Kiara Woolfe
Ian steals the ball, Kiara gives chase.

It's not a question of which of them is innately the better athlete. One has all the cunning and grace of a jungle cat and the other, well, she gives as good as she gets. Which is more than some might expect. Kiara's no athlete, not the way Ian Lai is but she is a runner. Keeps pace with him surprisingly well when he moves after the opposing net.

She's not necessarily as quick as he is, but she's opportunistic which can make up for many shortcomings, especially in competitive sport. Ian throws the ball, she attempts to block it and snag it back into her grasp, succeed or not she's panting lightly, bent forward a little with her hands on her thighs when Kalen gets up to leave. Night has well and truly fallen around them.

The park is inky black beyond where the dim illumination of the lamps cast light and for a moment, Kiara is distracted by it. She straightens and reaches to reclaim the ball. "Sure you don't want to join in, Grace?" She directs a challenging look Ian's way.

"We're playing dirty anyway."

[Block that shot, grab that ball.]

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

Grace
Grace laughs at the need for three fire extinguishers so that he can learn to make cookies. "Kalen, if you set fire to the kitchen while baking cookies, I will never let you live it down. But I am not against homemade cookies, oh no."

She seems to think for a bit. What do they need?

"Mirrors. For the laser tag."

She laughs at Kiara when she suggests Grace join in. "I'd get owned, no contest."

Kalen Holliday
Ian gets a little nod in return.  "Later."

"I think, Kit, that she is suggesting she needs you to level the playing field.  Or possibly that you should take this opportunity to demonstrate who you love most.

"Anyway, fuck if I know what mirrors we need.  Can you text me part numbers or something?"  But whatever her answer, he is already walking away.

Ian
Ian took the shot, standing up on his toes to avoid Kiara's attempt to block his path. And just like before, the ball sailed right through the net and bounced off the asphalt. Kiara caught it.

"I don't know..." Ian contemplated the possibility of a third player. "Two against one? You might get lucky." He winked at Grace and grinned as he jogged down the court, aiming to get in front of Kiara to block whatever throw she was about to make.

Kiara Woolfe
Kalen opines that Kiara wants to level the playing field. She grins, dimples surface in her cheeks that suggest all of their own that he's not so far from the truth of the matter. There's a shrug of slender shoulders and she bounces the ball once, for good measure.

"I'm just looking to maintain my reputation on the court." She cusps the ball under one arm as Kalen departs, waving after him before steadying it back between her hands. Ian jogs down to block her play and she narrows her eyes at him, body curling forward slightly. "Not this time, buddy." Her eyes glint under the lights of the court.

She darts around him, throwing the ball toward the net.

[Dex + Ath, shootin' for the net!]

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

Ian
[block!]

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

Kiara Woolfe
[We're in a fight, dice roller.]

Grace
Grace rolls her eyes. "Fine, fine! I'll send you some mirror links, then."

Kalen walks away. He cannot pick his own mirrors. For laser tag. As if she needs to curate every single decision about anything slightly technical. Then again, left to his own devices, he might have gone out and bought mirrors framed in solid gold or some ridiculous thing.

At least she'll go with the wholesale type. Maybe she can find some first-surface ones...

Oh yeah, sportsball.

"I don't know if I'd be a benefit or a disadvantage, really. But whatever," she says, and ditches her phone in the laptop bag next to her seat so she can stand and join them. "It's official. I love Kiara more than you, Ian."

Ian
It really wasn't a fair fight, truth be told. Ian had a good five inches of height on Kiara, which... in basketball? Was definitely an advantage. Ian certainly seemed to enjoy the competition, but it wasn't only because he was winning. He watched the way Kiara moved with the ball, feeling her resonance brush against him as they dodged around each other. She took her shot, but...

Ian's arm shot out and slapped the ball back to the ground. He caught it on the way back up and immediately took off for the other end of the court.

"Ouch, I'm so wounded." Ian clutched his free hand over his heart in mock injury when Grace stepped in to join Kiara. But now that there were two people trying to wrest the ball from him, there wasn't much time to contemplate the change of odds. So Ian stopped running and took the shot.

[Score?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 7, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )

Kiara Woolfe
Grace loves her more. The smile flashed her way at that pronouncement is toothy. Wolfish and satisfied and she turns a very self assured glance down the court at their mutual enemy who, presently ... was about to attempt to score again. Kiara gestures for Grace to dash in and cover his other side as she attempts to block his access to the net.

There's a certain determination to the set of the brunette's jaw. Competitiveness, yes. Playfulness, absolutely. But also resolution. Tireless resistance to the idea that she can't find a way to beat Ian. There's a lot that says about who she is, when you strip it all away.

[C'mon dice roller! Block that shot, snag that ball.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 7, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

Grace
[Oh! Oh! Stop the Ian! Dex + Ath!]

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

Grace
Grace harries Ian off to his side, trying to keep him from shooting anywhere other than where Kiara waits to grab the ball away. Amazingly, she does not trip all over herself in doing so, but it's a close one.

She doesn't have much of what you might call raw athleticism, or... well... grace. But she makes up for it with a certain agility.

"Haha! Go Kiara! Woo!"

Ian
Kiara put up a valiant fight, and inevitably her efforts paid off. Ian ought to have been disappointed, but he wasn't really. Well, maybe a little, in the way that Ian was always a bit annoyed with himself when he wasn't able to succeed at something he'd set out to do. But mostly? He was just quietly impressed. He started to take the shot, but Kiara leaped up and blocked him as Grace harried him from the side, and the ball fell into Kiara's hands.

"Oh fuck you," Ian laughed. There was warmth to his voice, despite his words, and as Kiara inevitably ran to make her next shot, he called after her, "Changed my mind. Whoever has the most points after this shot wins."

Which... either meant that they'd tie, or that Ian would win.

[Block Kiara's next shot?]

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

Kiara Woolfe
[Doo de doo. One last try!]

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

Grace
[Manip + Performance = 2, spending WP -- Dazzling lights, Ian! What's that? Look over here!]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (2, 7) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Ian
[I'm going to say that Grace's performance gives Ian a distraction penalty to his difficulty, and so, he actually only got 1 success. Kiara totally scores.]

Grace
[Woo!]

Kiara Woolfe
She does try for the last shot, of course, so does he. There's something invariably about knowing its the last attempt of a game, even one without any real pressure behind it that make you want to press harder, dig deeper, throw better. Feel the sweet burn in your muscles and the sting of sweat in your eyes.

It also helps a lot when you have someone there covering your back.

Kiara goes for the final hoop and Ian's right there in her space with her as he has been the entire game, dogging her footsteps when she isn't his. He can feel the sharp inhale as she throws the ball, the quiet catch of a laugh as it snags in her throat, breathless as she is from hard play. Grace does something which, in the moment, Kiara can't quite glimpse aiming as she is for the net.

Apparently, it's enough to sufficiently distract Ian, though. The ball sinks through. Kiara's breathing right into Ian's face. "Game, then." Her hair is wild, now. Dark waves loosened in a riot around her face as she smiles over his shoulder.

"Thanks for the distraction."

Grace
Grace has a trick up her sleeve. Literally. That coat of hers, the red thing with tiny metal and plastic things stitched upon it, is no ordinary coat.

It's a coat modified for laser-tag. It's got infrared sensors and strips of brilliant LEDs which suddenly burst into rainbow brilliance just to Ian's side. The lights scintillate. She waves her arms. She's showing off.

The ball finds its home, as Ian can't help but be a little off-kilter at the sight of something that unexpected.

Grace laughs, and gives Kiara a rainbow-hued thumbs up. "No problem."

Ian
Ian wasn't generally the type to be easily distracted, but a light-up coat wasn't something he'd been anticipating (who would?) There was an involuntary flick of his eyes away from Kiara at just the right moment, and then the ball sailed over his head, evening the score at one to one.

Ian shot grace a pointed look, then leaned towards her and said, "I'll get you back for that."

Precisely when, or how, he planned on doing that, would have to remain a mystery. But he followed up the threat with a broad grin, catching his breath, and in a moment he turned back to Kiara. "Good game."

His smile remained, but it shifted to something else. Something a little more genuine, a little less playful. And when it slid away, he wet his lips briefly with his tongue.

"I should get back to my run. I'll catch you later, Grace."

Ian jogged over to the bench where he'd left his phone and his earbuds. The latter he stuffed into his pocket while the former he strapped back onto his arm.

He did not say goodbye to Kiara. Instead he shot her a meaningful look as he turned around. Then he started to run, loping off down the path toward the parking lot.

Kiara Woolfe
She reclaims her ball, hugging it against her chest as Ian catches his breath. She's doing the same, breathing hard, red cheeked, smiling in a sort of exhausted elation as he turns back to her. His expression shifts, schools into something else and for a minute, she looks on the brink of saying something but he's heading back to his run and she drops her eyes to her ball, twisting it in her grasp and frowning.

It's momentary, though. The flicker-catch of something there and gone. A ghosting expression before her smile resurfaces and she's all curling smiles and careful, easy camaraderie. "Thanks for the game," she calls, holds the meaningful look he casts for a beat and then turns her attention on Grace, offering her the same.

"And that coat is -- wow, it's a thing. Is that available on order or ..." she engages, moving to collect her belongings from the bench where she's left them. Re-zipping her jacket. Shouldering a bag easily over one shoulder. A set of keys jangle in her pocket.

"I'll walk you back if you want." Dark eyes appraise her coat. The flashing lights. "I might need you to navigate my way."

Grace
"Oh, I made it," Grace says, and turns off the lights. It's probably not the best idea to walk around in the park at night looking like a mobile Christmas tree.

"Well, not the coat itself. But I sewed the special pieces on. It's for laser tag, which you can totally come play with us if you want," Grace says and goes to retrieve her things at the edge of the court.

"Kalen will likely insist upon buying you your own special coat, which I will fix up for the game. Kalen is like that. Thanks for walking with me. It can get a little weird at night, you know."

They walk together, these two with their somewhat uncomfortable resonances twining.

To puppies.

Kiara
[Repost!]

Kiara

There's something to be said for immersion.

El Chapultepec or The Pec as the locals call it dated back to the prohibition era in Denver, standing on its corner for 55 years and it has, with rightful fervor, defended its title as a cornerstone for Jazz and Mexican food in the city. Music was frequent after 8:30 most nights and while the leather on the booth seats was old and creaked when you moved and it smelled questionable at the best of times there was an authenticity to the way it operated, to everything from the broken public phone just inside the door to the neat row of black and white pictures hung along its walls denoting legends that had graced its tiny stage. It was one of the Verbena's more favored locations for what she liked to consider submersion in the depths of the city.

What made it whole. What made it part of the pattern of the universe. There were only so many places humans pulled together the threads anymore. A Jazz bar that served burritos and music wasn't exactly top of the list for it, but sometimes it was exactly what the occasion called for. Kiara Woolfe has a booth near the tiny stage all to herself just at the moment, there's a plate of something that smells invitingly spicy in front of her and a glass of beer beside it she's yet to touch. Behind her the stage stands empty, a piano and drum-set have been squashed onto it behind a microphone stand and a mirror behind it throws back the length of the bar in what is clearly meant to offer the impression of space there isn't. It almost works, though. It gets points awarded for a valiant effort.  It's sinking into evening outside and the real rush has yet to surface but there's a few stragglers at the bar, seated on stools with pints of beer and newspapers spread out before them.

The brunette is the sole occupant of a booth, with a knee drawn up and her back braced against the wall while she eats, a collection of books open on the table in front of her and what resembles a newborn fern daringly protruding a few fronds from a bag of groceries she's pushed into partial invisibility across from her. A woman, her plant and a plate of Mexican food. It could be the beginning of a rather tragic party joke.

Serafíne
Not long after Kiara's meal arrives the narrow interior of The Pec starts to fill up again - these groups of people arriving in twos and threes and fours, folks who caught a ride together.  Young, mostly women though perhaps a quarter to a third of them are men, many tattooed, with plugs and piercings and all of the attendant signals that someone is part of the counterculture.  They fill up the booths closer to the door than the stage, staking out new territory as someone new arrives.   Something about the way conversations rise and crest and shift and ebb and flow between the tables and the bar suggests that they all know each other, and a quick visual check confirms that more than a few of the young women are wearing the same or similar t-shirts, sporting scrapes and bruises.  A roller derby team out for drinks and dinner after either a heavy practice or maybe even a match.

So, early though it is The Pec now has something like a rush, vibrant and shifting, the sort of buzzing hum that often fills a space after the first round or three, when the lights are starting to glide together and everything is bathed in a golden glow.

--

That's when Sera walks in.

She belongs with the folks she comes here with.  Has an arm around a taller, rather pneumatic brunette with creamy-pale skin and red lipstick and is being followed by a much taller, skinny hipster guy, arms covered in tattoos, skinny jeans and a short-sleeved plaid button-up, tossing his keys then sliding them into one of those tight pockets of his jeans.  They're laughing about something and there's no reason for Kiara to pay attention to any of them more than anyother except: this group walks in and the atmosphere changes, at least, for those keen enough to feel it.

That sensation (visceral, enthralling - and liminal, see.  between states, somehow, outside of definitions, thresholds and doorways, a moment of becoming) is like a haze or a halo in the background for a few minutes before a certain creature kind of swims out of the crowd.  She's carrying a beer.

Actually, she's carrying a beer and two shot glasses and this impression of the tattoos inked on her slender hands, blackwork, script mostly, and no color, and then she's setting all three down on Kiara's table, kind of breathless and clearly ready to slide right in across from her.

"Hi."  Dark blue eyes framed in black liner and heavy mascara.  This half-shaved head haloed with a cascade of bleached blonde curls, dark roots beneath though.  Sharp, striking profile and a mobile little mouth curling into something half-way between a smirk and a grin.  "I bought you a shot.  Mind if I join you?"

Kiara
She looks like she's been on a visit to her local library, Kiara. She could be the type but -- no. She's got that edge about her, not merely the twin sensation of decay and renewal (for one has to be devoured to be rejuvenated, death must always follow inevitably from birth, it's the cycle, it's what nature predicts and requires of all things, she is the ouroboros, this witch, she's the descended daughter of who knew what, but hers is the presence of infinity, the last gasp of the dying and the first drawn breath of the newborn) but a certain appearance that suggested deviation, shall we say, from the norm.

Her hair is tied back tonight but its cut into bangs that frame her face regardless, her ears glittering with piercings apiece (two studs, from casual appearance) and the hand that is braced on top of a drawn up knee is impressive with bracelets, silver and stone and who knew what. There's a ring on her finger too, an opaque bluey green crystal.

She's perhaps toeing the line dangerously close between hipster chic and haphazard alternative groupie. Especially with the dramatic smokiness she's given her eye makeup. The crimson red she's painted her lips tonight. She might almost have belonged to Sera's crowd as they trip into the bar, laughing and bright and glorious. A riot of visceral sensation.

If you understood what you were seeing, that is.  What you were feeling. Most of the people in the bar don't, not quite the way Kiara registers it, senses it enough to lift her eyes from the page open in front of her, fingers toying with the last vestiges of her meal. She looks, the corner of her mouth hooks into some sedate expression registering the moment before her attention is restored.

Momentarily.

Sera manifests, bearing shot glasses. Kiara lifts her eyes, brown meeting blue and her mouth curves into a generous expression. There are dimples, it's a little ridiculous that a woman who feels as if she's responsible for stripping the flesh from your bones only to mend them has the sweet mouth of some age ago schoolgirl. Not the voice, though.

That's warm. Inviting and at its ease. "Alcohol definitely buys you my company, be my guest, please."

She nods at the empty spot across from her, slips the book she's been reading shut and rests her fingertips on top of it idly, watching Sera instead. The volume is slim, the spine printed with bold white lettering spidering along it predicting its contents are some vital clues to Working with Universal Life Force Energies. A collection of two others are buried beneath the napkin holder, apparently Tadao Yamaguchi and Mikao Usui are after meal endeavors. "I was wondering when we'd bump into each other again."

A subtle assumption, but there, none the less. "This city is a little intimate that way."

Serafíne
The invitation's a good thing.  Yeah, Sera was probably going to slide in across from Kiara without it because she is the sort of creature who was made for sliding into places without invitation but: Kiara welcomes the alcohol, with that warm voice and that girlish mouth, the dimples, and Sera grins. Sets down her beer and two shot glasses, and sliides right in, crowding Kiara's fern.

There's this disconnect between how tall the creature seems standing by the table and how much space she seems to take up and how much space she actually does require.  Which isn't much.  Sera isn't tall and she isn't broad and she's eating again now, but she was fasting for quite some time this fall.  Purging herself of a darkness that felt animate and liquid, corruptive, corrupting, for much of the fall so her bones are so very close to the surface - this framed and almost delicate physicality at odds with everything else about her.

Like the compelling eyes and the quick mouth and the glimpse of the tiny leather skirt stitched together from belts, covered in buckles, matched with a bustier and an unzipped gray heathered hoodie and a wristful of bracelets to match Kiara's.

Well, not to match Kiara's but they seem to have similar sensibilities when it comes to piling on, though Sera's wrist is full of leather and spikes broken up here and there by the odd paste-and-mirror Moroccan sort of bangle.  She has a half-dozen earrings in either ear, from little diamond studs to great big spikes, a three-fingered knuckled ring on her left hand, and a small bronze shield ring on her right.

"We met before?  Well goddamn.  I'm sorry I don't always remember everything.  You'd think I'd remember you."  This quick, engaging grin.  "I'm Seraf ne.  Everyone calls me Sera."

The shuffle of the drinks and then the left hand offered across the table.  She has a tattoo on the palm, which the curve of her fingers mostly conceals.

Kiara
The fern was an impulse buy, some sad neglected bargain bin creature that had inspired her sympathy. When you lived too high from the earth, you had to make allowances for the ways you stayed connected. A half dead pot-plant didn't account for much to many but she'd make it work. Gift it with sunshine and a corner spot in her highrise apartment to find its slice of redemption.

Kiara's certainly no petite woman, her body has the build of a runner, lean and competitive, yet it stays within the bounds of feminine, quite absolutely and with deliberation. She's well composed and, by suggestion of the steady way she watches Sera and doesn't shy from roving her figure to visually digest the leather, the buckles ... the bustier, certainly no blushing beauty.

She feels ... inviting. Curious and quick of mind, if maintaining a sort of permanent awareness of herself in relation to what she says, every smile, every flick of her eyes. The way she reclines in her portion of that booth as if she's so aware its hers.

Every laugh. Which she offers now, sliding that shotglass between her fingers with an idle caress. "Well, you were there. In the moment but I think you were busy. I noticed, though." It's there again, that slow tugging smile, the shape and surety of it curling cherry red lips for a moment before she slides a hand out to grasp the proffered hand. The Verbena's are warm, the jangle of her bracelets a simpatico to the easiness by which Kiara offers her greeting. "Kiara. It's nice to officially meet you, Sera. Thank you for the - " she retrieves her hand in favor of grasping the shot and raising it.

Downing it and twisting the tiny glass to set it down in reverse fashion.

Grace
[Awareness! How good is the Magedar today?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )

Serafíne
Kiara downs that shot without asking what it is, which makes Sera smile.  Picks up her own and tosses it back with a curl of her shoulders beneath the hoodie.  Her eyes are bright, attentive.  There's a bit of a gasp with the burn but that is mostly pleasure.  The shot itself is little more than cacha a with a twist of lime and a hint of sugar around the rim, which Sera licks with some after she has down the alcohol.

"That happens sometimes," Sera allows, when Kiara notes that Sera might have been busy.  "I could've been fucking stoned, though.  That happens sometimes, too."

That smile slides wry again.  The movement of Kiara's fingers around the base of the overturned shotglass draws Sera's gaze.  There it lingers.

"Believe it or not."  A quick, darting glance back up - first to Kiara's mouth, and that is a choice, and then to Kiara's eyes.  Not coy but - there is a kind of awareness there.  Of watching, and of being watched.

"What are you reading?"

Grace
After talking with Alicia about the fucked-up-ness of Technocrats, Grace had to get out of the office. It's a strange thing, when one's mind is ripped forcibly out of the Zone and into the crap of reality. Makes you realize how hungry you are. Makes you realize how little you've gotten out recently. And the ever-impending doom hanging overhead makes you realize how little you've been living.

Never let it be said that Grace does not like music. She might not get much out of it, but she enjoys it. El Chapultepec was not where she was headed, really. But for the lure of Sera's enthralling nature, she wouldn't be stepping in the door right now. It's not her kind of place.

She bears no outward mark of a counterculture. In fact, she's so plain and normal in her jean-and-tee-shirt uniform she goes without attention half the time. All such marks reside elsewhere anyway. A nose-ring doesn't pierce deep enough. Grace herself, however, feels as though she slices but good.

Her eyes scan the crowd, looking for the one who cannot possibly be missed, and walks a wavering path over to Sera.

Kiara
The bar is beginning to fill up, now. The regulars returning, others making way for the evening crowds, lured no doubt by the notion of live music served with food and a side of electric atmosphere, the vibrancy amplifies as voices turn raucous. There's something to that which has always struck Kiara as almost premeditated on nature's side, draw together the right elements and watch the ricochet as they meld. Voices, bodies ... there's something there.

It's half way why she likes the occasional venture into the heart of Denver's social scene. That and, as present company was proving -- it can be a good place to meet like minds. The shot burns, twisting down her throat but she likes the sensation. It's sharp, a potent reminder of the moment. Sera mentions she might have been fucking stoned, Kiara's mouth edges a smile, a shoulder lifts as if to say what's that in the scheme of things, being stoned. 

"Mm, if the ride is memorable, no judgment here." She keeps toying with the rim of the shotglass, then surrenders it in favor of the book pressed under her wrist. She eyes find it, thin brows drawing up as if surprised its still there and not vanished when her attention shifted from it. "Homework, in a manner of speaking. Or - well," she looks back across at Sera, her eyes full of some humor.

"A continuing exploration of things I know reinterpreted by men with impressive titles after their names." She pushes it across the table so the other woman can glimpse it. Makes some quiet noise of amusement as she studies the book from a distance, leaning back a little to rub a thumb over her mouth. "I like to hear other theories." The title on the table is a theoretical exploration of the energies inherent in the universe, or so it pronounces. How to work it, how to find and anchor it. It says a lot, perhaps, about Kiara's leanings. Or maybe, it says very little it all but the way she watches Sera's reaction suggests she has some appreciation for what talk of life and energy might mean to the other woman.

Her eyes flit over Sera's shoulder, recognition is there in the slight cant of Kiara's head. The way she shifts a little. "I think someone is looking for you."

Kiara
[*Her eyes find it, typo be gone.]

Serafíne
Grace will see a few other people she knows from Sera's life in The Pec tonight.  People she's met at Sera's parties or Sera's gigs, or at least, people she's seen there.  Sera's housemate, Dee, is sporting a blooming bruise on her cheek and around her left eye and is being toasted by Emily Honey-Bunches-of-Chokes for her first real roller derby black eye and Dan's standing there now that the place is filling up, bottle of beer in one hand, the other splayed across the back of the booth.  He lifts the beer bottle in greeting as Grace comes wavering in and shoots a glance over his shoulder, just in case Grace was unable to follow the unmistakeable feel of Sera into the bar.

Meanwhile in that booth, Sera is wishing she had brought over more than two shots and taking a pull of her PumKing and her body is shifting upward as she brings her right leg up and tucks in beneath her ass to give herself a bit of a lift.  Enough to look over the surface of the table at the title Kiara shifts toward her.  Enough to catch the two books beneath the title, which together have Sera's dark eyes skimming back toward Kiara's.

"You read alot?" This quick curving mouth, "I'm not much of a scholar.  You know?  I mean, I kind of don't give a fuck what people with a million letters behind their names think, which doesn't mean I don't give a fuck about the universe or the energy in it - just I'm not so fucking sure we have to define it a million times over, yeah?

"I like to - "

But then Kiara's eyes are lifting over her shoulder and Sera is turning, catching the glimpse of Grace as she feels her resonance slicing through, and Sera smiles, geunine see, the way her smiles always are, and lifts a hand.

"That's Grace," she is telling Kiara in an aside.  "Have you guys met?"

Grace
Grace lifts her head to Dan, gives him a little smile, a little wave, and looks to where his gesture leads. Sera, yes.

Sera who's not fucking sure if we have to define the universe a million times over.

Well, no. Of course not. That would be highly inefficient.

"You only need to define a universe once," she says, behind Sera's shoulder. "I've done it before. And then the millions of minds within all go defining it again so that they can witness it. I don't think you can get away with not defining a universe."

She smiles at Kiara. Ahh yes. The lady of the lawn.

"We met once. She horribly butted in to a secret, private gathering where she totally wasn't welcome at all. Because we are all a bunch of elitist snobs," she says, lacing every word with sarcasm.

Kiara
Sera doesn't give a fuck about what people with a lot of titles after their name think and it makes Kiara's mouth quirk, then she ducks her head a little, tendering aside a fall of dark hair with an impatient flick of her fingers and laughs. It's a bright, vivacious sound, it suits her. "Oh, the more titles they have the more I genuinely disdain their existence," Kiara offers honestly.

"But - " She slides her beer between her palms, rolls it back and forth and studies the depths. "- sometimes amongst all the bullshit, there are moments where I'm forced to think. I suppose I'm less a scholar and more an avid fan of intellectual stimulation." She looks up then, this brief, measuring look. A bright red mouth curving in a smile to match.

"Or really, any kind. I work with energy though so all this - " the hand wave, it encompasses the books with a casual dismissal. "It's a sort of hobby. Some people collect stamps ... " she doesn't quite finish that thought as Grace is upon them and Kiara's attention shifts gears. Especially with what Grace has to offer about the universe.

Defining it. "I think people just like to be able to stick a neat description on things," she takes a sip of her beer, it leaves faint imprints on the glass. "Nothing terrifies more than the unknown." She smiles a little wider when Grace recalls their first meeting. "What can I say, I defy definitions and college lawn hierarchy."

Serafíne
"I can get away with whatever the fuck I want Grace."  This is suffused in a smile, wrapped around it, braided into it - but, beneath that, there is a kind of (yes) genuine resistance to Grace's declaration that no one can get away without defining a universe.  Sera does not particularly like definitions - the words they inhabit, yes, and the way those words make her feel, absolutely.  But look at her even now, mute, raw, defiant.  Not really even stoned yet tonight, just a bit of an early buzz livening her mind and bringing a hint of color to her sharp cheeks.  "Have a seat."

"I'm afriad I'm not going to be able to offer much intellection stimulation.  I don't read much.  Mostly poetry. "You should meet Hawksley, though.  He's got the most enormous library. You guys could probably talk for hours.  Day.  What do you do with energy?"

Kiara
"Poetry counts." She's looking intently at Sera over the rim of her glass of beer, smiling, dark eyes making some map of her features. "Where the human race thinks it would be without their poets to offset the existentialists, I have no idea. But Hawksley, sure. We'd probably get along well. Unless he folds the corners of the pages and then it's all over."

A gleam and then she sets her glass down, unfolds her palm on top of the table. Her eyes shifting from Sera to Grace. "Everything has energy, right? We're all made up of it, we each have it inside us, we expend it, we take it in. Talking. Walking. Sex." The corner of Kiara's mouth turns up. "Every vital part of us is energy, however you wanna define that. I work with that basic principle." She runs her fingers over her palm, tracing her own life line, a fingernail skimming the heartline.

"That's what I do. I rebalance. Heal." She sits up a little straighter. "It goes by different names, it always has but it's probably easiest to consider it healing. Reiki." Kiara's fingers slide over her hand one last time. She picks her beer back up.

Grace
"I'm sure you get away with everything, Sera," Grace says, and slides into a chair. There's no resistance there to Sera's proclamation. She sees it as a joke, right?

"Well, I wouldn't call it 'neat' exactly. That suggests conciseness. When you really look at it, it's so far beyond 'neat'. Infinite, intricate, beautiful, cruel. Everything. But even looking is a kind of defining process, even though our eyes lie. You form an image in your brain, a definition of a thing. To avoid defining something, you'd have to close your senses to it and never experience it.

"Which I suppose you could do, if you wanted," Grace says, and shrugs. "Maybe I should try that sometime. It might be kind of destructive though, if I un-defined something. Cut it off from the rest of the universe? Oh that would be..."

Grace starts staring off into space at that point.

"I think I could do that. Something small."

Serafíne
"See, I don't have to follow your rules, Grace.  I just think things are.  I don't think looking at something means I'm defining it.  Maybe experiencing it or sharing it or some fucking thing, but - I don't know.  I only care about words that make me feel something."

This slantward look in Grace's direction before her attention lifts and slides back to Kiara, or rather to Kiara's hand, palm up, open, as Kiara's explanation of her work -

- and Sera has laced her own hands together and is watch watch watching the way she sometimes does, resting her sharp chin in the sling created by her joined hands and she's considering Kiara, considering reaching for Kiara's hand when Kiara instead reaches for her own beer and Sera is remembering a line, a handful of lines when,

"Reiki?  Did I see some flyers for that?  I think Dee kept talking about going to do it."

ix-is-peeking
[How awake are we?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (1, 2, 3, 5, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )

Kalen Holliday
[Not awake enough to remember we signed in with OOC tags!

How distracted by Resonance are we?]

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

Kiara
"You did. I've been plastering Denver with my wares." Kiara says it after another mouthful of beer, after swallowing and discreetly wiping at the edge of her mouth, rubbing her fingers together somewhat consideringly as she brings them away with a touch of bright red smeared to them. Her tone is playful, theatrical even with the way she crooks one thin eyebrow.

Like she knows what some people think of that sort of thing. Hocus pocus. Witchcraft. New Agey ridiculousness. No doubt in her line of work she's heard everything at least once, maybe more. "Dee should call me in that case, I'm a master." She flashes teeth with that, because it sounds so -- "Which means I can teach what I know." -- and she knows it. Kiara's eyes shift to Grace after a moment though, she back tracks with a brief -- "I don't know about unmaking, but you're right, neat isn't the word I'd use to describe it. I just think there's a preoccupation with the label sometimes."

Kiara muses on that, runs her tongue over her teeth, wets her lips. "The universe likes her mysteries, why deny her them, right?"

Kalen Holliday
Kalen is outside.  It is cold and there are stars and there are streetlights and maybe streetlights dream of being constellations.  He should ask one.  Probably, not many streetlights are awake.  Maybe more of the ones that had to be lit were.  Had Denver had those?

He does not know but he thinks that it totally should have.  All those lights.  And lighthouses, some of those must be awake.  And that seems incredible to him even if lighthouses are all regrettably close to the sea.  They're very symbolic.  So is the ocean.  He should stop hating water one day.

Are constellations awake?  Do they know they're constellations.  Names have power.  Did Naming-

He takes a deep breath as he senses Serafine and Grace and Kiara.  It takes him a second to place Kiara.  It takes him a second to get over the feeling of being swallowed whole and devoured and then alive again.  Is this what it felt like?  When he was caught between life and death and his heart had stopped but his soul had not fled.  Sometimes he wishes he had been awake for that.

Perhaps Serafine knows.  About the streetlights?  Constellations?  Being caught between worlds?

And so he walks into the place and wanders up to the bar for tequila, because tequila tastes like memory and magic and Serafine drinks tequila.  Kalen never really did, before her.  Whiskey, yes.  Rum, yes.  Tequila, not really.

When he starts over toward them, he has four tequila shots.  Because of course he does.

Grace
Kalen arrives, and she sniffs the air for the familiar scent of storm -- clean, bright air, washed with rain and tinged with ozone. Smells like home.

"I look at a mystery, and I consider it a shame not to play with it," Grace says, eyes wandering the crowd again. "They're like puppies bringing me a ball, looking so cute..."

There's a bit of wistfulness to her, in remembering puppies gone by.

"You do Reiki? I know nothing about that," Grace says, and the eagerness with which she seems to chase after mysteries shines through. Reiki is a mystery to her.

Then Kalen appears with tequila shots, and ahh yes. Tequila reminds her of something. Or someone, actually.

"Hey, look, he brings teeny gifts."

Serafíne
"I'll tell her," Sera is promising Kiara, and something about it is a promise.  The set of her mouth, maybe.  She says the words liek a pledge and her eyes have dropped to Kiara's fingertips then risen again to her mouth and beneath it Sera is offering a sort of curve shrug that would be elegant were she wearing something that made her seem close to elegant.  Her collarbones are so sharp beneath her skin.  "I don't know that she'd come?  If she did, I don't know that she'd believe, you know?

"Even if she's on the verge of believing in magick, that's mostly only when we're stoned and she can't help but believe, you know?

"But she'd be interested.  Maybe she'll come.

"Is that what you do for a living?"

Once again Sera half-turns and glances over her shoulder.  She can feel Kalen entering the bar and then: sees him stopping to pick up more shots.  If she catches his eye before he leaves the bar, she's going to try to mouth to him that he should bring the bottle.

Then a double-take, as Grace talks about puppies and balls -

"Wait, Grace.  You like puppies?"

Kiara
Kiara had planted her fern across from her when she'd first arrived, it's housed in a plastic bag and the fronts have been keeping Sera's shoulder company for a while now. As Grace appeared and now Kalen. Kiara reaches over, draws it out of the way a little more. There's a gentleness to the way she treats the plant that might be surprising. She tenders the fronds out of the path of destruction and then her eyes drift -- lock to Sera.

Shift a little and she might be considering the outline of her mouth. It's an intent look, whatever it is, tracing her face and then her own lips curl. There's that hook, like she's suggesting something that can only be read in half smiles and lingering stares. "Interest is a start, you'd be surprised what an interest can unlock."

Is that what she did for a living. "Yes and no. Not where I started but -- it's where I want to be. The human body interests me, what can I say." Kalen is approaching and he has shot glasses. Kiara inclines her face in his direct, scoots inward a little to make room. "Welcome to the party," she engages with a flick of her wrist. Lazy, at its ease.

"Shots buy you a seat."

Serafíne
"Believe it or not I really wouldn't," Sera tosses back to Kiara, right across the table.  Tucked up against the clearance-priced potted palm the other woman bought for a song and brought with her to a jazz bar for an evening of beer-drinking and learning the mysteries of the universe, or at least: some small slice of them.  "Be surprised, I mean."

And as Kiara is shifting the fern out of the way and Kalen arrives with both shots and a bottle of tequila solely because Sera told him he should, Sera is digging something out of an inner pocket of her hoodie.

It is her iPhone.

She is not so drunk, in just this moment, that she has forgotten how to work it as she sometimes does.

"What's your number?"

Kalen Holliday
He slides into the booth to join them, not seeming at all concerned about having known Kiara for five entire minutes of his life.  "Some of the best parties work that way," he says as he starts to pour out a round of shots.

"Do you think constellations know they're constellations?"  He asks Serafine as he slides one of the shot glasses toward her.  "Or do they just know they are stars?  Maybe they have their own alliances and we've got it all wrong because we want to see a dolphin.  Maybe those stars are at war, or something."

You're not making sense, Holliday.  "I was thinking about streetlights-"  No.  Not better.  "Lighthouses?"  He smiles, and it is not really at all self conscious for all there are traces of apology in it.  "You know, I think that made more sense before I tried saying it out loud...."

"Oh look, tequila.  Quick, someone come up with a toast."

Grace
"I like puppies. It's hard not to like puppies, they're adorable," Grace says, matter-of-factly.

She giggles at Kalen, at the way his thoughts come spilling out disconnected, as though his brain and his mouth had a direct connection going on.

It's one thing she likes about him, to be honest.

"To puppies!" Grace says, and lifts a shotglass.

Serafíne
Sera takes one of the shots as naturally as an infant takes its mother's milk, and smiles at Kalen, smiles just for Kalen, the brief and lovely flash of her teeth reflected against the smooth shotglass distorted by the heavier sheen of the tequila inside.  Smiles and tosses it back and is ready for another before the toast (to puppies! Grace declares) has been made.  She wants another.

The shot hits her.  Warms her up and makes her shiver, makes her blood feel like mercury and her limbs feel like god knows what.   Something delicious.

"I don't think much about constellations, Kalen."  Sera says.   She is still: quite nearly sober tonight.  "But I figure, like people stars know that they have an audience, you know?  They just have no idea how they seem to everyone else.  So they probably don't know that they're in constellations.   At least, not the ones you see from all the way down here."

And Sera, she waits long enough to get that number from Kiara, long enough for Kalen to fill her shot glass and let her do another shot.  Then she's making Grace scoot, and scooting her own ass out of the booth.  Excusing herself to go to the ladies' room, where she is probably going to either use the facilities or take advantage of the facilities to do a line or something.

Swaying as she goes.

Kiara
Kiara takes Sera's phone when offered in both hands and apparently knows how to navigate it because in a minute or two it's passed back with a new contact -- Kiara Woolfe. There's something to a name, one supposes and there is something to the brunette as she offers the phone back, the way her eyes shine, the way she smiles in a manner that's at once suggestive and secretive -- her name fits her. It slides easily, off the tongue, into the memory.

"I'm easy to find, I'm usually the last on most phones."

Sera now knows a Woolfe (or maybe it's both and she knows a wolf, too). Kalen is lamenting about streetlights, or lighthouses or -- Kiara takes her shot, lets her shoulders tremble a little with silent laughter when Grace makes the toast to puppies and downs it. Turns to glance at Kalen and asks with easy curiosity -- "When did your party start tonight, exactly?" -- then follows it with -- "Lighthouses are great for acoustics, though." A beat, Kiara is watching Sera slip out.

"Ghosts, too."

Kalen Holliday
"Puppies, yeah," Kalen says, and then takes that shot.

He listens to Serafine and nods  Stars know they're watching but not what they're thinking.  That makes perfect sense. He returns her smile because who wouldn't, and there is nothing razor-edged and taut under that smile tonight.  Kiara can hardly be blamed for her assumptions, but his hands as he pours another shot for Serafine are steady.

He turns to Kiara and raises an eyebrow. "Huh?  Oh.  Just now, in that sense."

Grace
Grace downs her tequila in the name of puppies, and she makes the most twisted face in doing so. Apparently someone here does not consider the stuff mother's milk.

"Uhhgh," she says, and shakes her head.

"Yeah, Kalen is just like that, Kiara. No 'partying' necessary for him to go on about the various different light-pattern-forms," Grace says, giving Kalen a smile.

Kiara
"Duly noted." She's sliding the book she'd had resting across from her back with its brethren beneath the napkin dispenser, her eyes having followed Sera's form before she's swallowed by the crowd milling around the bar for service before sliding back to Grace.

The smile recalibrates, alternating with the turn of her profile between the two sharing her booth now. "Not that I'd argue over any man, or woman's, right to discuss constellations. It's a free world. C'est la vie and all of that." She finally picks up her tequila, hammers it back and swallows; exhaling a sharp breath as she does and lingering for a moment in the afterburn.

"So, the obvious question." Kiara's eyes open, she's still enjoying the feeling of alcohol navigating its way through her system, licking the edge of her thumb to taste the remnants. "What exactly," here she shifts, tilting her body so she can capture Kalen's profile more precisely. "do you guys do. I think I've glimpsed you both on the campus." Her eyebrow wings upward suggestively. "Academics? Students?"

Kalen Holliday
"Mmmmmmmm...I just needed to do some research.  But my fascination with learning this is...more passion than structure.  I'm not enrolled in classes or anything.  I just pick up projects, here and there."  He pours another shot of tequila for himself and for Kiara.  He lets Grace not do more tequila shots.  He does love her, after all.

"And sometimes have strangely complicated thoughts about streetlights."  He takes his new shot.  "And...various other things." Kiara and Grace both get a smile.  "Anyway.  I have very important conversations to have with streetlights.  Or stars.  Or possibly that guy I date that makes snow seem like stars."

He slides back out of the booth.  "If you guys take off before you finish that, bring the bottle to Dan, huh?" He says to Grace.

Grace
"Oh, sure. I'm sure he won't mind. And Sera will be delighted," she says. "Oh, are you and Danny dating now? Like, you really officially went so far as the D word? Have a nice... uh... time, then!"

Grace gives him a thumbs-up as he leaves, waves her empty shot glass at him, before turning back to Kiara.

"I used to be a student. Not so much anymore. They didn't understand and I couldn't explain how I kept disappearing for weeks on end. They thought I was lazing out, when I was actually... well you know. And then, I don't know. It just seemed like academia stopped being my goal at some point. There's just so much to learn that I can't in a classroom."

Kiara
Kiara makes a study of Kalen's face much the way she had Sera's. There's interest in the way she does it, though at present it's tempered by rather an impressive amount of alcohol so she may appear to simply be staring for the sake of it at his ear, or some close approximation. She had said she was, in so many words, a student of the human body, perhaps she's making a case of his.

Or she's just curious and makes no real bid to conceal it. He says he takes on projects - it's unspecific and the fact that it is draws a smile to her face. She doesn't push, there's little need, he's on his way again anyway. "Thanks for the tequila party and good luck untangling the mysteries of the universe," that's his farewell from her as she slides her fingertips around that shot he'd poured out.

Balances it there between them lightly as Grace talks about vanishing for weeks on end. On the college not quite grasping, you know. The absence. The reasoning. "I do know," she offers, sympathizes. "I spent too much time trapped inside walls before I realized, well - " she smiles, lifts a thin shoulder. "You know. The bigger picture. That's about when I broke away."

She looks over at her newly bought plant, at its drooping fronds. "There are things they couldn't begin to teach if they tried." A beat. Kiara downs that shot, scoots over to begin gathering her stuff. Digging into jeans for bills. "I should probably head home. Are you going to survive with that bottle or should I take it over to this Dan guy for safe keeping?"

Grace
"I can deliver it to Dan. It's okay. Do you know Dan?" she says, as she gets up out of her seat. There's not much reason to stay anymore, now that everyone's disappearing. Maybe she'll go sit with Dan, wait for Sera? That sounds like a thing to do.

"Dan's cool."

By that she means a lot of things, right?

"Have a good night with your uh... plant!"

Elijah's Homecoming

Elijah
He did come home.

He came home and it was late and he wasn't sure if he should knock or if he should say something, because maybe Kalen was sleeping. Maybe he shouldn't be waking his mentor up on account of bad dreams bad realities. It didn't help the sinking feeling he had that they had done something wrong, even if they had all done something that would have saved dozens of people, stopped a trail of horror and bloodshed that was hard to really tell the standard authorities about. That's what Alexander was for, right? Covering matters with the mundane authorities.

Elijah came home, stood in the warehouse by a door to one of the empty rooms and he waited. He stared at his phone, something with the barest smudge of blood across the screen and he couldn't stop thinking about the feeling in his stomach or the ghosts that were there or the question of whether or not reincarnation fixed misdeeds, whether or not it really did cleanse the soul or if they'd just damned a corrupt woman to an eternity outside of the natural cycle.

He didn't know what to do, so handing in his own home, he called Kalen.

Ring ring.

Kalen Holliday
[Yeah, you would totally do that.  Sometimes, Kalen, you don't suck.

Arete | D=3 | WP]

Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (6, 8) ( success x 2 )

Kalen Holliday
Kalen was at the office.  Elijah could probably sense that.  And both the office and the warehouse have started to pick up traces of ozone and lightning.  It clings more strongly to the little stuffed puppy Kalen left on Elijah's bed, though that gift Elijah may not notice yet.  There is a little leather pouch on a ribbon around its neck, stuffed with lavender and a little rose quartz sphere.

Look.  Kalen needed something to do.

He answers his phone almost immediately, in the manner of (not exactly theoretically speaking) someone who has been watching their phone.  Of course he has.  How could Kalen possibly be sleeping right now, Elijah?

"Hello."

Elijah
"Everyone made it back alive," it's the first thing he says. It's the first thing he can think of to say, but he doesn't sound okay. He doesn't sound tired, either, even though by all rights every inch of him is exhausted. He has feelings at that moment, an abundance of feelings. He starts to wander, he hasn't made it back to his room yet, even though he wants to. Even though he wants desperately to crawl in bed and go to sleep and wake up and all of this never, ever happened but… but he can't do that. Take the good and the bad. The horror is part of the wonder, inseparable.

He wanders.

He wanders and eventually in his wandering does start to make it to the office. His stomach turns, and it finally dawns on him whose blood is on his phone and Elijah could feel his stomach turn again.

"Sera made sure everyone we brought with us is okay… and… and everything's okay."

Everything isn't okay. It doesn't sound okay in the slightest.

Kalen Holliday
"I suppose by some definitions of everyone, yes," Kalen says softly.  His tone is gentle enough, but distant.  There was a time that might have been different, when Kalen would have been waiting to meet him instead of leaving him adorable stuffed animals.

"I'm glad you all are safe.  Or, at least, safe from Victoria.  I assume that is over now, one way or another."

Elijah
He eventually does end up at the office, knocks on the door and waits to see a familiar face because he needs someone right now. He takes gentle, even if it comes with distant because it's the voice he wanted it hear.

"I'm worried about what's going to happen to her," he admits. He waits.

Kalen Holliday
Kalen opens the door and regards Elijah seriously for a few seconds.

After that pause he asks quietly, "Serafine or Victoria?"

Elijah
"Both of them," he replies.

He's physically fine. A little pale, a little distant, a little shaky, but physically there's no sign of injury and no sign of anything other than emotional distress. He wears it openly, looks like he might get sick but he hangs up his phone and looks at the other man.

"Sera really extended herself making sure everyone was okay… and… it took a lot out of her. And I don't know what is going to happen to Victoria… I… I think she's supposed to come back, to move on and that's supposed to fix her, right? She died, so she gets to start over in the next life."

… right?

It sticks with him, he has a hard time saying that she died, that it was hard and harsh and he keeps thinking of the reality of what happened, about how her head left her neck and...

Kalen Holliday
"I don't know.  I don't know what became of Lucia, either.  In a general sense, you can start over, but the soul remains the soul.  The weight of what it has done remains.  It may be that it will balance out, before her final judgment.  I have heard that the rituals that make the Nephandi can cause them to remain twisted and wrong, but the kinds of things that Victoria was doing?  There are more kinds of corruption than just the Nephandi.  There are many ways to fall.

"I don't know what the one she chose will mean for her."

Elijah
He's quiet. He's quiet for longer than he should probably stay quiet, just nods because there isn't a sense of closure and there isn't… he just stands there, like he'd just stood there before, no will left to burn through and everyone walked away unscathed

He opens his mouth, like he was going to say something,but words don't come out and, instead, Elijah looked at the ground. He exhaled.

"I've never seen anyone die before," he admits.

Kalen Holliday
It has been a long time since the first person Kalen saw die.  He was not six, it was not Melody.  He was unconscious for that.  He did not see his sister drown.  It was only a few years later, but it was a stranger.  A stranger whose death he had no part in but for happening to be present.

He doesn't say anything.  Instead he turns and heads back toward the library, pausing just long enough to grab two wine glasses and a bottle of wine on his way.  The glasses chime when he picks them up, the clear ringing chime of crystal.  The bottle is pulled not from the bar but from a wooden case in a lower cabinet.  Amber glass.  Label hand-written in Spanish.

He sets the glasses on the table.  Opens the wine.  Pours two glasses.  Holds one out to Elijah.

"The man I know who knows the most about souls would tell you that whatever things Victoria has done, whatever you had to do to her, there is no sin for which there can be no absolution.  Victoria, Lucia, you, me, all of us...we will be judged by a God whose love and whose mercy is Infinite.

"I see no reason not to believe him."

Elijah
There is silence. It sits with him, and he doesn't know whether or not things are going to be okay. He knows, cognitively, that things will eventually be fine. That he will be fine and that the shock of this evening will wear off into something that rings true like… like the sound of crystal chiming against itself. Something that rings clear, a memory to be had. Another first that he got to log away into a whole world of first things he has yet to experience.

Why would this be no less sacred? Why would this be no less memorable? He's spent twenty years close to death. Twenty years hearing stories and hearing people intone their own ends, seeing the aftermath but never actually witnessing the act. Never being present for the final end of it all. It was not peaceful. It was nothing more than climbing and clawing and fighting the whole way thought.

He didn't want to go peacefully, either, all things said.

He holds the glass, looks at the liquid inside and his hands aren't shaking, but his gaze is transfixed on the color and the texture. His reaction times are slowed, and when he looks at Kalen, he smiles. Tired, mournful, but smiling.

"You can have absolution if you want absolution?" a second,  then, "so… things… things are going to work out."

He wants to believe that, it creeps into his once, that aching want to believe in something good. So, he does believe it.

Kalen Holliday
"Well there are some other parts of it like repentance and asking for forgiveness, but yes.  It is possible for everyone."  Kalen sits and picks up his own glass of wine,

"But yes, things will work out."  And he sounds absolutely sure.

Elijah
He just holds it. It's not like him to not drink whatever is in front of him. It's not like him to to try and consume to forget, but at that juncture something told him that this wine was special. Still standing, the young man just took the time to be in the moment. Shaken and unsure, but in the moment none the less. He doesn't have to be sure, though. Kalen is sure. Kalen is sure and he can take that for what it is, that he knows some absolute truth that Elijah was still figuring out, but that truth was still there.

"If it counts for anything, you're the first person I came to tonight," another thing he could be unsure about.

Elijah does finally the a sip of wine.

Kalen Holliday
"Well," Kalen says after a moment, "I suppose that's something."

Elijah
He doesn't say anything after that. Instead, he just takes a seat somewhere and he takes  drink of his wine. Another, more full bodied drink. There's the awkward silence, the stilted pauses, the moments when he is uncertain. He'll have to find that strength in himself, even when it's hard. Especially when it's hard.

Kalen Holliday
"She's dead, you've destroyed or at least taken anything that would let anyone else do the rituals, and this is over?"  Kalen asks quietly.

Grace
[Awareness?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )

Elijah
"Yeah," he says, "we made sure that the place was clean and that whatever was there was taken care of. I think… I think we need to go back tomorrow… and make sure that we didn't miss anything."

Back to business, he could focus on that.

Kalen Holliday
And then, even more quietly.  "Was there any sign the Hermetics who came might be alive?"

Grace
Grace was in her office down the hall when the others swept through it on the way to the library. The twisting raucous that is Elijah -- she felt it.

What she didn't pick up on was everything else.

There's been no epilogue posted to Ginger, and there was no hint that Elijah just returned from... Well, from that.

Eventually, she decides it's time to stop being antisocial and join the others, but when she appears in the doorway, all smiles, it's apparent that for once, the information hound knows nothing.

"Hi Elijah," she says, and her face falls upon seeing and actually processing the two.

"What happened?"

Elijah
"There were some people I didn't recognize from the papers, so… I think… I don't think they made it," he told Kalen, "how many people came? I'm very sorry."

Apologetic, yes, mournful, certainly. But there was something tender about that, gentle as though he wasn't sure if these were friends of Kalen's. If these were people he would have wanted to see again, if they were more than tradition mates but Elijah was certain that… well… that they were no more.

But, then there is Grace, and he files, though mournful, because Elijah is capable of smiling. He is capable of being present, with a wine glass in hand and some silence. It took a moment. He starts from the beginning.

"Sera, Ian, and Jae-Shinn- he's an Aksashic friend of Ian's, came with me and Alexander to deal with whatever was at the house. Lucy met us there with the spirits of the departed. We intervened and stopped whatever was going to happen, rescued a hostage and… Victoria's dead, but whomever we brought with us came out alive."

Not okay, he doesn't make that assumption.

Kalen Holliday
"I don't know," he says in response to Elijah's question.  "But none of them have contacted me."  He rises, with a little nod to Grace.  "I'm going to go inform the Order.  They'll want to know."  [And Ix has a cold and sucks at awake, and so will let you two play.  Thank you for scenes.]

Grace
Oh. It was that bad. And that good. Why did Elijah go?

Why did you go trying to stop a bunch of mad biologists when you were still a freshly awakened student, Grace?

The memory of that comes to her, all of those realizations hitting her one after another.

"Oh, Elijah."

With that, she crosses the room, tension-tight. People (who are not her) like hugs during times like this, don't they? Yes. They do. Sometimes, it's not about doing unto others what you would have done to you.

She spreads her arms suddenly, like she's just realized that a hug is going to require doing something with her arms.

Elijah
He hugs Grace.

He isn't even thinking about the fact that Grace is not a hugging person, or the fact that Grace does not hug or doesn't really do physical contact, but he hugs her anyway, wine glass in hand and he closes his eyes and he just revels in the fact that there is someone close and warm and he doesn't even care that there is the feeling of something honed and keen and stuck in his lungs. Almost painful. A little awkward, but very Grace.

"It's not okay right now," he said, "but… it'll be okay sometime."

Grace
"Yes. It will be," she says, soft so as not to hurt his ears. They're so close. Since when are ears so close?

She breathes in a breath of him, deals with the strangeness of the smell. It's just an odor. Pretend it's oranges.

Someone else's warmth, someone else's scent, someone else's body. It's not exactly hated, but not exactly comfortable either, is it?

"But you don't have to be okay right now. You don't have to ever. You just feel what you need to."

Her arms wrap around all loose. She's trying to let him have his space if he needs it. He probably doesn't. But hey. She taps lightly on his spine with a fist. It's something like a pat. There there, it's not okay.

Elijah
[OMG don't start crying]

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

Elijah
To his credit, he didn't throw top all evening. He found he didn't have anything in his stomach, now, except for a little bit of wine but that was either here nor there. He inhaled the smell of Grace, which wa probably something that he could just revel in for the time being and the fact that GRace was there and she was present and she was giving him permission to not be okay. inhaled a harsh, shuddering breath. There were indications that the human body made when they were coming up on tears, but he didn't give way to them. Not yet, anyways.

"It's… of god, it was horrible," he admits. He admits like he should be ashamed of that.

Grace
Memories of watching Eric die -- the way he melted from the inside -- well up. The way he screamed. Oh, God the screams. She takes a sharp hiss of a breath.

"I know," Grace says. Creaks it out, because while Hydra doesn't haunt her dreams anymore, it's always going to be her first time.

She doesn't ask for details. She just knows.

Elijah
She know. Something tells him that she knows, and Elijah, knowing that he can't hold onto Grace like he'd wanted to, finally does let go and he finished off his wine. It was something special, something that had a nice flavor on his tongue, that lingered there.

"Thanks, Grace," he says, quiet.

Grace
He lets go, and she backs up, puts her hands behind her back because she's still so conscious of having hands and not knowing what to do with them.

She nods in response to his thanks.

"Well, this place is safe," she says. "Big thick doors, you know. And we'll bring you food and whatever you need. If you want to stay away from people for a while. I know I did. Maybe you don't. And that's okay too...

"I'm rambling. I'm sorry."

Elijah
Sometimes, it's difficult to know what one should do with their hands. Elijah has an easy way out. He has something to do with his hands because he, lucky bird, has a wine glass to contend with. Grace rambles and, for his part, he is content to listen. Content to take it all in and absorb the rambling for what it was and take comfort in the cadence of another person's voice. He needs people. He desperately needs people. He has a stuffed puppy waiting for him in his room, but he doesn't know that yet.

"Don't be sorry, you didn't do anything wrong," he said, he even smiled and it curls at the edges and there is something pleasant about it, "I think… I think I might not want to be around people for awhile… but I think I need to be around people. Reminders of life and living and… ya know?"

Grace
Grace looks down at the floor. "Yeah. I know. I had to be coerced a bit, myself. But I know."

Yeah. It was Kalen who did that for her, all that food gathering and making her be sociable again. He didn't lead her out of the darkness. She did that herself. But there is such a thing as clearing away a path.

"If you need anything... I'll... We'll help. Just don't be afraid to ask."

Elijah
He nods again, and puts his wineglass down on a table. Gives him something to do with his hands. He inhales something long and deep. He doesn't want to be around people, he needs to be around people. he likes being around people. he actually enjoys human interaction, he just… needed…. something. he didn't know what he needed. Elijah ran a hand through his hair.

"I'm gonna go take a shower. I'd invite you, but I think you'd appreciate me not inviting you to take a shower way more than you would actually appreciate being in awkward human space while taking part in methodical cleansing ritual."

Grace
Usually such words would provoke something. A raised brow? A shocked expression? But she knows how it is, right? People under such stresses say strange things.

Like: 'I'd invite you to shower with me'.

"If you want, I could sit outside. That way you'd know someone was there?"

Elijah
"I'll holler at you when I get out," he said, "I… uh… figure I should eat something that isn't wine."

He's quiet for a little while. It's odd, to have these pauses, these moments of silence, of being shaken, of feeling like all of this wasn't really real, because it wasn't really real to him yet. He was still in denial, it'll hit him later, probably when the water's run cold and he realizes he has to get the blood off of his phone.

A beat.

"I recognize, on a cognitive level, that I need to eat something… because I haven't eaten anything all day…. but I don't want to think about meat or pork or people," and his stomach turns, and he remembers that parts of those people were missing and he knew good and well what happened to them.

Grace
"Yeah. I've been there. You don't want any food that might be remotely... that might bring up memories. How about a salad? I know how to make them safe. Nothing meat or... reminiscent," Grace says, tripping over words that themselves might bring up memories.

For Grace, the wine would have been a trigger.

It looks too much like blood.

So you know, that salad will absolutely not have tomatoes. Or Catalina dressing.

Elijah
"I think I am involuntarily becoming a vegetarian," he said, lamented, almost grinned too. He straightened out the front of his shirt, instinctively reached for his phone- because he's young and those of his generation can't seem to leave their damned phones alone for more than a few moments before he immediately pulled his hand back and shook his head.

"It's probably for the best. I'm… uh… I don't think I am going to be too keen on eating anything with a semi human consciousness for awhile."

Or at all. Or ever.



"Or soup. Pho is pretty-" nope, pho has beef in it and his stomach turned at the mention.

Grace
Grace nods. "I've never been back to Starbucks. But that's not much of a sacrifice for me, really."

"Listen, you go take that shower. And then you can have a salad. You might not even really notice it, but it'll feel just a little sliver of a bit better to be clean and not hungry."

The cleanliness, well... it's symbolic. She knows about the methodical cleansing too. You want to feel clean on the inside, so you clean on the outside, trying.