We can talk

Serafíne

Friday and what time is it? oh my God is it before noon? Somehow Sera got out here after being elsewhere and someplace else before that and there was a park and there was spinning and there was puking and there is also that mummy-curse woman and there are so many damned things and somehow she finds herself at the Morrison Farmers' Market on a Friday morning, loose and loosely framed, coming down and hung over and also still rather stoned, the acid lingers in her system, altering her perceptions, so much longer than the booze.

And here she is; colorful tents and the backs of pick-up trucks. hydroponic tomatoes and early spring greens like watercress and kale and spinach, cold weather crops and farmer cheese and the stranger booths where old ladies sell colorful hand-knitted berets and weird hippie cults sell paper-bead necklaces and other folks have bedding plants already out in a profusion of color and there are samosas that are more like turnovers and turnovers that are more like popovers and displays of whole-grain sprouted organic stone-ground gluten-free paleo breads so bountiful and vibrant they seem to be growing and on and on and someone is preaching about the Death of Our Lord because it is Good Friday and time to remember his suffering and death and Serafíne has had enough of suffering and enough of death and that is probably why she left the rectory so early, though the truth is that her memory of the evening-before is partial and particulate and strangely-written in her mind. The dark park and the fire of sunset and a panther or some fucking thing and light. Pan holding her hair while her body purged itself and the first edge of a long, shivering comedown asserted itself.

And morning now, morning here, still high. No longer drunk. Hung over but only just because she's magic, because she can make the worst of that go away, and does.

Wearing a short pink dress that has somehow been laundered since last night with a swirling skirt and torn diamond patterned fishnets and Doc Marten's so her feet are rather flat to the ground, a small, sugar-skull printed backpack/handbag slung across one shoulder. Blond curls and a half-shaved head. The most riduculous jewelry.

The way she deforms the world.

Bends it, like light through a prism.

Sunglasses hiding her eyes.

Shoshannah

And then there's her. She was a regular at the farmers' market last year from the time she moved into the Chantry - the girl with her bike, the storyteller, the witchy woman

she got the stars in her eyes

the ghost girl. They don't really like her, the general populace of Morrison, and those who come from farther out, from the more-likely-to-be-superstitious farms and country, like her even less but she moves through the space - in it but not of it - as if she doesn't care, as if she's above it all, distant from it. Removed.

Outside.

She's tall, this young lady (because she's too old and not the right bearing or attitude to be called 'girl', and all the other feminine descriptors seem too common, ill fitting, because clearly she's something else, something more, something less, something other) who dresses with rich but casual flair in her dark washed, tinged with something like sepia jeans riding low on her hips, the long, not-quite-tunic spring sweater with long, lace-knit sleeves that keep her wrists and arms neatly covered even without any of the usual cuffs or sleeves or fingerless mitts, the brown, flat boots that can only be the most supple of leathers, folded to reveal a lining of vintage-looking pink and cream and brown flowers and laced just so. In flats, she's as tall as the Cultist in her highest heels, but who's keeping track?

So often, Shoshannah feels small.

There is no comedown here, just the occasional hard and unforgiving smile of thanks when she accepts her bag of early spring peas, of greenhouse tomatoes, of early lettuce and herbs. Goodness knows the Dreamspeaker can (and does) cook - chances are good she knows her way around quality ingredients when she sees them, even this early in the season. There's that ghost-pale skin that's already tinging itself with bits of olive now that there's more sun to be out in when she spends as much of her day as possible outside, doing whatever it is Shoshannah does with herself when she's left, a nineteen year old girl alone, to her own devices at the Chantry. There are those blade-sharp blue eyes. The long fingers, the cool touch and voice.

And there's Serafine, so much opposite at least if one takes only the aesthetics into account, only the surface obviousness. And maybe true opposites, all things considered. One is life to excess, one is the grave.

"Hello," is what comes when Shoshannah finds herself in hailing distance of another known mage. "Out early, aren't you?" And a pause, eyes narrowed in consideration. "Or is it late?"

Serafíne

Sera makes this noise against her tongue, or perhaps beneath it. Somewhere in her body. Here is Shoshannah reflected it Sera's dark glasses, the rather ordinary humans milling all around them, the starbust glare when the glasses rise to a certain angle. The sun bright and hot overhead, for all that the air around them is still shadowed and mountain-cool.

Amusement, bemusement, some measure of both. Perhaps a strain of rue, though Sera does not and cannot rue her excesses. Sometimes it seems that she is nothing but excess.

Sera has the handle of a net market-bag nestled in the curl of the first knuckles of her left hand, but she has not purchased anything and does not seem to be browsing or assessing the produce and wares, so much as she is drifting through the moment.

"Either." Her mouth spreads in a wide, close-lipped sort-of-grin and the lights framing everything chase themselves in this starbright progression that Sera savors wholly and thoughtlessly every time she moves her head. She has no idea how she ended up here. That frightens her not at all. "Both. I don't fucking know."

Chin tilted up because like this Shoshannah has all that willowy height on her.

Sera is not looking her best; last night is chasing itself beneath her skin. Still she looks fine, just fine. Content to simply be. And to be here, and every other iteration of that contentment.

"Haven't seen you in a while. How're you?"

Shoshannah

"Well enough, thank you." Shoshannah speaks with the sort of grammar that only non-native English speakers (or English language majors, or certain classes of Brit) do; she's not 'good', or even 'alright', but 'well'. This is always the case, and on the rare occasion that people have seen her upset she's slipped into other languages, spoken with grammar as crisp and clear, rather than anything less than this. And it has been awhile since either of them has seen the other for any amount of time - since they were vigiling over Pan in the hospital, perhaps, or some time closer to then than now.

"And you?" It's careful, the question. Even when Shoshannah and Serafine are speaking the same language, there's a comprehension barrier. A cultural one, perhaps. The Dreamspeaker doesn't understand so much of what the Cultist says (and is) at all, and so she keeps the divide wide and strong. "Have you been singing lately?"

There's so much more she could ask, about zombie dogs and demonic films and so. many. things. But it's a farmers' market on a spring day when the air is cool and crisp and the sun is shining, and so it's small talk. It's little things. It's an attempt, which is more than Shoshannah usually makes for people she's reacted to as she had to Sera initially.

Serafíne

Sera makes another noise beneath her breath and reaches up to pinch the bridge of her nose. The gesture is thoughtless, her hand shields her sunglasses and casts a long, strange shadow over her sharp features, her aquiline noise and slow-crawling mouth. Sunlight this strong at this hour in this place is nothing close to Sera's friend and really, aren't they just standing at something-like-odds in the narrow lane between some bustling stalls, somehow more vivid and more real than everyone else around them.

With very little between them.

Not that Sera appears to give a flying fuck: about grammar or divides or proprieties or where they've encountered each other or what the hell has happened since.

So, shading her eyes, still smiling that rather-tired, there-are-tracers-everywhere-and-I've-been-awake-and-Awake-since-forever sort of smile, that humming smile that skims beneath her skin and sets her aligned with all the goddamned vibrations for good or for fucking ill.

"I'm fucking awesome," Sera returns, see. This slash of a grin. Maybe the same one that crossed her mouth the first night she meant Father Francisco Echeverría and asked him to make out in his goddamned confessional, because why the fuck not? The edge of her smile widens. There's a hint of teeth behind it. "I think I puked on a panther last night. And I'm still pretty sure that there's a mummy living at the rectory with the Padre right fucking now. There's a kick-ass food truck at the end of the market. You wanna grab some whatever fucking meal is appropriate at this ridiculous-ass hour of the day?"

Alexander

And what brings Alexander into town? Exploration, mainly. After a slow start to the day with a bit of a lie in, he had discovered a flyer for a certain farmer’s market running today. With not much else to do, and the prospect of a decent ride down to Morrison – and, after, beyond – he downed a coffee and rode on over.

So here he is. Two piece bike leathers, with the jacket undone to reveal a long-sleeved technical tshirt. It’s not all that cold, after all, as much as others he passes in the market may shiver and pull up their collars a little as they pass him. There’s a rucksack on his back, looking fairly empty at the moment – handy for carrying anything that might catch his eye. The (new, unbuttered) helmet is carried in one hand, containing a pair of leather gloves.

Given the time, and a certain peckishness, he’s looking over the menu at a food stand. Trying to decide what, if anything, really appeals.

Shoshannah

[For the record, this, minus superfluous accessories. http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/9c/42/20/9c42207186b25e45a81eff83e50dff77.jpg ]

Shoshannah

"It's noon, Serafine." This is almost gentle - is gentle, even, coming from the girl whose voice is smooth and clear and still feels like boulders rolling away from tombs. It's also spoken with one corner of her mouth curled up into something like a smirk - amused, perhaps, as one might be at a particularly engaging episode of Absolutely Fabulous. And of course that's what the Cultist seems like to her much of the time, when she isn't grating on every exposed nerve the younger Dreamspeaker has, intentionally or not. "I could have some lunch, yes."

Because of course the Ancient Wisewoman of the Mountain was up at a perfectly respectable hour and had a healthy, square meal for breakfast at a reasonable time, so of course it's now time for lunch. This is clear in both her attitude (sometimes one of smug superiority, even through everything else) and bearing.

And so it is that the study in contrasts that is Shoshannah and Sera's companionship heads for this kick-ass food truck, to wait in line behind Alexander. One of them may well give him goosebumps, may make the hairs at the base of his neck stand on end, may have him thinking of ailing (or dead) friends or family. That one is tall, and young.

The other is Serafine.

Serafíne

PERCEPTION PLUS AWARENESS WHO IS THAT I FEEL.

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (2, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 6 ) Re-rolls: 3

Alexander

[o.O Everyone and everything]

Shoshannah

[Per + Aware is a good thing, yes yes!]

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

Serafíne

"Yeah, I never get up before the ass crack of three p.m.," Sera returns with a quiet little smirk and a sidelong glance as they fall into a strange-sort-of-step while Shoshannah quietly disapproves of Sera's excesses and quietly approves of taking the measure of the day as it is meted out and Sera catches something of Shoshannah's bemusement beneath the skin of her beauty, the quiet - oh yes, can we call it condescension? beneath her skin.

Beyond that glance, that light-laced, brilliant, swimming look that is framed by the edges of her sunglasses and is threaded through with a kind of liminal awareness-of-other and awareness-of-the-other that is physical and metaphysical, implicit and implied, there is, in Sera, a kind of expansiveness that sees-but-hardly-notices Shoshannah's quiet brand of propriety. Perhaps even indulges it, see?

" - even then I'm wondering how much longer I can curl up in bed. I'm a lazy fuck."

--

And Sera and Shoshannah come up behind Alex in the line at the food truck and by then Shoshannah certainly has a sense of the new resonance. The new resonance that Sera is bleeding off in the morning light (visceral and enthralling and now liminal, too, all thresholds and passageways, all new) and Alexander's: frozen frozen frozen. Sera has felt the lick of that cold against the roof of her mouth all damned day long, anticipatory, beneath the immediate weight of Shoshannah's stark, angry, defensive core, and Sera is swimming in it the way she swims in the world, aware enough that as they come close to the food truck she shivers too, but then somehow they're in line and they're behind Alexander and Sera - who is high, let us remember - comes up behind him and wraps her arms around him and bends her forehead and her dark glasses to sort of ...

...well, commune with his empty rucksack, see. She smoke and shampoo for she has had a shower in recent hours, but somehow she still carries the ghost of a very long night beneath and around her skin.

"Alex." Sera is sort-of gleaming. She smiles; that smile is bright beneath her skin. The light moves strangely all around them and she is captured perfectly in the net of it. Less a greeting than a title, less a title than an introduction, the way she pulls him back around to show him to Shoshannah. Tugs a bit. "This is Shoshannah. Shoshannah, this is Alex. He's new.

"He's a fucking cop."

Says Sera, laughing. You don't want to know how many illicit substances are running through her goddamned veins right fucking now.

Alexander

[Meh, why not - Magedar too]

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

Ralph Aaron

He just stands there for a long moment, down at the end of one aisle where the sun reflects almost blindingly off brightly coloured tents and the gleaming shine of chrome and glass on trucks and cars and bikes. Ralph hasn't slept, he's a few hours past the wheels of his plane touching down and maybe a small hint of weariness bleeds into his features and the slouch of his shoulders. There is always an almost shy, half embarrassed smile given to anyone who bothers to pay him too much attention - and thankfully there are not many of them.

He's tall enough (6'2) and in another life could have played football (weighing in at nearly 91 kilos) but there's no sharpness to him, no edge that says there's cause for worry. His hair is brown and too long so it's tucked behind his ears. He's wearing glasses and a leather jacket that's dusty from his travels. The jeans he wears are the same and so are the dark boots. Closer inspection however might cause some to label Ralph an eccentric...the kind of guy that collects odds and ends or wears mismatched clothing with intent. An old compass hangs from one belt loop on his jeans and he's got an odd pair of sunglasses hooked at the vneck of his tshirt. There's worn lettering on the right front breast of his leather jacket and some odd crest that's faded on the back.

He's moving forward, toward the food truck, while considering his options with the food truck or the fruit just purchased in his bag.

Alexander

[Reacting without thinking - str+brawl]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )

Alexander

The menu of the stall he’s at is mainly fruit based. A selection of smoothies, fresh fruit, yoghurt, or ice cream. It’s the mix of fruit that he’s deciding on as the familiar sense of Sera arrives before her; the enthralling, the feeling, the moment of threshold. The familiar is accompanied, though, by the strange and new. The angry defensiveness. The feeling of strange, of mourning and passing on. The two get closer but, before Alexander gets a chance to turn around and see the newcomers, hands are coming around him.

As well meaning as the gesture had been, Alexander reacts without thinking. A wrist is grabbed, Alexander turns and pushes back against the owner of the arms. And then realises what he’s done as Sera topples backward. Shocked embarrassment follows recognition on his face as he follows to where she lands, to help get her back and steady on her feet. “I am so sorry! I didn’t realise it was you. I thought... There was something strange and I didn’t think...” He glances up to Shoshannah, the source of the new resonance. “Um, hi?”

Shoshannah

Yes, as soon as Sera's sent tumbling, Shoshannah's reaching to help; she may have her feelings about the older mage, but that doesn't mean she's the sort to just let her go flying. Alex even gets one heck of a glare for it, and never mind that he's a fucking cop. So there she is, reaching for one of Sera's hands just as Alex is apologizing, and then a wince. A flinch, even, and she steps back suddenly, her hands returning to her own space. When Alex looks at her sidelong and upwards as he assists Sera, he may or may not catch sight of that just-been-slapped expression -

There was something strange, indeed.

- before it's tucked away and turned to cool, separate indifference.

"Hello," is the answer, so simple that it isn't - all still, silent waters and things hidden in inky depths. There's no assertion of it being a pleasure, or any such things - just assessing eyes keeping an eye on Sera who is herself but high as a kite as is often her wont and thus in need of more regard than Shoshannah would usually grant her, or so the Dreamspeaker's perceptions of such things say. She's tall, this young lady, though the 'for a woman' modifier is of course required - she's nowhere near Ralph's 6'2, but rather measures in at 5'9 or so, and has the build of someone who might do well on a catwalk, or in a swimsuit shoot, all long, lean limbs and slight curves and just enough to her to not be considered too thin. "I'm Shoshannah, like Sera said."

Serafíne

So many things at once. See: here is Sera with her arms around Alexander and she's communing with his backpack or what-the-fuck-ever all HELLO BACKPACK. YOU ARE A PACK ON A BACK and I AM CULTIST OF ECSTASY but naturally there is more to the moment than that, and in Sera is often a sort of finite infinity, an awareness that is bothing within and outside of the stream-of-time. But she's small and they're at a fruit stand and he feels that strangeness and grabs her wrist without thinking and pushes her back either before she is aware of it or within the frame of her awareness or whatever. Sera is not skilled at the marshal arts and even if her wallowing impressionistic view of time means she is here-and-then and now-and-when sometimes, she also has no warning and the moment happens and Alexander sends her,

yes,

sprawling backwards and to-the-ground in that little pink dress. Hard enough to bruise her tailbone and knock her glasses loose and have her just sitting there like How did I get here? for a searching, jarred-loose moment while Alexander and Shoshannah are both reaching for her. One to one hand, the other to the other, and Sera accepts the help and allows herself to be pulled upright and smiles, oh smiles, at Alexander, as if she wanted nothing more than to be knocked on her ass, which is manifestly untrue but it also happened and who the fuck cares. Strange when Shoshannah reaches for her too, though.

So Shoshannah gets an extra half-second of regard as Sera gains her feet and dusts off her rear and rights her glasses and then lifts them from her eyes to the crown of her head.

Smiles again at Alex, "It's okay. I'm fine," and she means it, Sera. There's nothing tucked away there. Blown pupils and what-all that Alexander will certainly recognize as secondary signs of drug-use. "Seriously. You two, though. You two should totally hook up sometime. Alexander like tore a hole into the other side or whatever, when he woke his ass up one afternoon. Had these voices calling him and all that shit. I dunno, you two might have a helluva lot to talk about, you know?"

Ralph Aaron

There's a flex of worry that overcomes his features when Alexander sends Serafine sprawling. He had been close enough to bear witness but too far to keep delicate bones and fine skin from meeting unforgiving pavement in a way that must have at least been uncomfortable. A range of motions sprawling from concern to curiosity and all the way around to indifference work their way over his features until he falls into line like the rest of the paying customers waiting their turn.

His posture is no longer set in a slouch, he stands with shoulders slightly back and spine curved. His arms are long and hang loose at his sides, one hand clutching his bag of fresh fruits and vegetables. He looks awkward, with a thin moustache that is dark like his hair and pieces of long brown hair flying free from behind his ears. The glasses aren't exactly a fine fit either, it's what looking at Clark Kent must be like.....they're present and there and worn, but they just seem out of place and don't belong.

But for what it's worth he straightens them on his face and stands in line and waits. And watches.

Alexander

Perhaps he was feeling a little twitchier, because of Shoshanna’s radiating defensiveness. Or maybe surprising someone who’s used to having to watch his own back just wasn’t the greatest of ideas. Either way, Sera sprawls on the ground. He does notice Shoshannah reaching out to help then pulling back, although the glance is missed as he’s looking to the hand he’s trying to grab to help Sera up. He replies to Shoshannah’s greeting, though. “Alexander. Um, yeah. I don’t normally do this. Just... um, yeah.” He looks at Sera as he pulls her up. “Oops.”

When he’s happy that she’s not about to topple over – due to crazy shoes, various drugs, lots of booze, or something else that may have crept into the mix, he releases her hand. She does seem ok, though. But, then again, when doesn’t she? She’s either the easiest going person Alexander’s ever met, seen so much that nothing really spooks her, or is generally too stoned to care. But, in that moment, he realises that he doesn’t really know anything about her. The middle of a market, with lots of people looking at the crazy man pushing random women over probably isn’t the best of places to start that particular conversation.

Then Sera is trying to get Shoshannah and Alexander together to talk. If it hadn’t been for the whole crazy-Awakening thing, followed by trying to find someone else in town to talk to about Spirit stuff, it might have come across as rather clumsy matchmaking. Which it probably is, of a type. Given that it’s the Gauntlet-ripping and voices – yeah, the bystanders really do think he’s crazy by now - that she brings up, he assumes that she would be one of those good people to talk to. Embarrassment takes a back seat to curiosity and, maybe, a little hope. “I’d like that. If you don’t mind talking some time. Um, bring a body guard if you like.” He gives a crooked smile, trying to poke fun at himself and the slightly ridiculous situation.

Shoshannah

She can feel someone watching, but then Shoshannah can almost always feel someone watching from some plane or another, so it's not that that's got her slightly more overtly defensive than usual - arms move to wrap around her waist, holding herself together or protecting her core or maybe just standing that way because it's comfortable, who knows? - but something else. Sera mentions that she and this Alexander fellow should get together to talk, and she shrugs.

"I've heard voices as long as I can remember," is what she offers, quiet, see? Some of us are subtle once in awhile, Sera. It wouldn't hurt you to be, too. "But Awakening was different. We can talk, if you want. Have you been to the House yet?"

Because, of course, Shoshannah spends as much time outside, wild and free, as possible. She's not all propriety and repression, far from it. The glance around is to get a bead on who is doing that watching, if it's someone she can see here, and her eyes land on Ralph; one brow rises, sharp, questioning - not an invitation, exactly, but the closest thing to. He's watching, and she knows it. There are bound to be reasons - convergence is so often a thing among the Awakened, particularly here in Denver.

Serafíne

"Seriously, man." Sera says, all loose-limbed and loose jointed and loose. Scrapes on her palms where she reached back to brace her fall on her ass, and some bruising hidden beneath the dress and fishnets, probably, but nothing else, and nothing wrong, and more to the point, nothing she can't heal. Right?

She's goddamned magic. This brief slash of regard that seems sharper and deeper than any earlier glance and softens into some fucking thing. "It's cool. I mean, last night I puked on a panther."

Which, you know.

She seems rather secretly proud of, thank you very much.

Of course Alexander thinks that Sera is the most easygoing person he's ever met. He's never seen her on her knees in a priest's rather utilitarian bathroom at five a.m., puking her guts up and radiant with a dark and powerful energy, so fucked up she could not manage to do anything but hug the porcelain, shaking with revulsion and fear because a dark adept decided she just might be worth recruiting. That fearlessness. That willingness, also, to give herself over, entirely, to fear. That capacity for surrender.

She's just a stranger who found him on a two-lane road in the mountains, with a broken-winged owl and a whole head full of despair.

So, see. Clumsily matchmaking while Sera - not about to topple over - reaches up to pull her sunglasses back down over her eyes, which are more black than blue now, pupils so dilated that the radiant afternoon light makes everything in the world seem like it has a halo, which is just fine with Sera.

The line's moving and she has sort of stumbled her way out of it, which is also fine because Sera has no particular desire for fruit or yogurt or anything healthy right now. Maybe scrambled eggs layered over potatoes fried in bacon grease. Maybe thick sliced wholegrain bread slathered in butter. Carbohydrates and fat fat fat to soak up whatever remains of her hangover.

--

"You look like Wonder Woman," this to Ralph, behind them. Shoshannah's giving him a Look of Invitation while chatting up Alexander about voices and waking up and all the many boundaries it is their right and privilege and will to cross and Sera in her pink dress, with her tattooes and bracelets and necklaces and rings like brass-knuckles and with her reflexes like those of a doddering sloth or and the instincts of a particularly cuddly but Occasionally Badass koala has pulled back and crossed her arms and she's drawn by whatever it is she is drawn by and in this case it is Ralph's gesture. Reaching for the glasses.

Wonder Woman?

"You know before she did the twirl-thing to turn into herself, she'd reach up to take off the glasses and take down the bun and bam. Badass.

"Please tell me you're a fucking superhero."

Alexander

Some may think hearing voices is a sign of madness. So did Alexander on that very first day when he heard them. The quiet, female help-me. The hungy, desperate come-to-us. The two people who may have just been figments of a dream, but may have been something else, something more, entirely. So much so that he was convinced is was his mind that had broken, rather than the blacked-out windows keeping him from seeing so much more.

“Yeah, I know the house. I don’t get there often, but will try to stop by more if that’s the best place to catch you.” He doesn’t know – hasn’t been told – that she lives there, guards it. The random games that Chance plays in leading mages together occasionally pushes them apart, and their paths just haven’t crossed at the house before now. Although she may well have seen his note on the fridge, the one about the weird-death-thing and the ghost.

“Puked on a panther..?” The complete swerve in the conversation catches him for a second, wondering if he heard her right. He looks to Shoshannah, eyebrows rising. Asks, “Is that a euphemism for something?”

As Sera is starting to speak to Wonder Woman? Then? There’s a buzzing sound coming from somewhere on Alexander. He rolls his eyes, muttering something about it being a day off. The phone is retrieved, and with a slightly annoyed apology – annoyance directed at the phone, rather than either of the women – he steps to one side to take the call. He’ll be caught up for quite some time, by which time the others may well have moved on elsewhere.

[And now I’m overdue going to bed – thanks for the scene!]

Take it apart

Serafíne

After a positively frigid weekend, Monday afternoon is gray enough and cold enough that Washington Park is - if not supernaturally deserted - certain rather empty compared to the flood of people one might find jogging its trails on a more temperate spring day.

When Sera decides that she wants a picnic, though, nothing will keep her from it. Not weather, not wind, not cold.

On the rather green lawn overlooking the lake, with a sweeping view of the columned boat house reflected in the glassine waters of the little lake, Sera has spread a white blanket, which is weighted down with an ashtray and a guitar case. She's drowsing, or appears to be drowsing, wrapped up in another blanket (this one fuzzy and perhaps woolen, some sort of red and green tartan plaid wrapped around her body as she rests on her stomach, knees bent, both booted feet in the air. Dan she sent for hot chocolate because it's fucking cold out here and her teeth are chattering and he suggested oh hey, go inside, warm up, and Sera was all: fuck that, I wanna have a picnic.

So, picnic.

It is entirely possible that Alexander and/or Grace and/or others received texts from Sera inviting them to a picnic. Or perhaps they just find her by coincidence. Sometimes that is how the world works.

Alexander

[Magedar, just kicks and entrances]

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

Grace

Grace got a text, because that is how her world works. And perhaps Sera doesn't understand (or perhaps remember) why she got a text back reading:

YES I will be right there

Without punctuation and with a lot of haste.

Even if Sera did decide on a picnic in the cold, it doesn't matter. That's what coats are for. And other people's oddities rarely even scratch the surface of Grace's recognition. She's pretty certain, though, that Sera will be mostly unclothed anyway, because that's Sera.

So, the Virtual Adept strolls up, wearing jeans and a red suede coat against the cold that's cut in sharp angles. It was meant to go with a fox costume for Carnivale, and Grace keeps on wearing it because it's warm.

But, there's something different about her. Something new.

Maybe it's the way she cuts through the air, knife-like. Those angles of her coat reminiscent of a blade's edge -- a fine sort of sharpness.

Alexander

Cold it may be, but it can always get a little cooler – as those who pass Alexander walking along the paths around the park find for a moment. Alexander is reasonably comfortable. He’s dressed for the cool air in a thick grey hoodie with a couple of layers of long sleeved t-shirts underneath. Some dark green combats, a pair of walking boots, and a decent pair of fleecy gloves keeps the rest of him covered and decent.

The text was received, and replied to, which brings Alexander out today. But he was here a little early. Just... to try something out. To look around a little, in more than one way. He’s crouched by the lake, near to where they met a certain scarecrow not so long ago. He watches the water, looking at his reflection in it. Tries to remember how it felt that first time he pushed with his Will at the Chantry, trying to sneak a peek at probability before the coin landed. Tries to push in the same way, just peering through the ripples of this particular looking glass to See what’s there.

[Arete, peeking at Spirit: Diff 4, -1 for taking time]

Dice: 1 d10 TN3 (3) ( success x 1 )

Serafíne

Perception + Awareness - Things Are Happening?

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )

Serafíne

Prime 1: Watch the Weaving. -1 dif, focus.

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (3, 4, 6) ( success x 3 )

Serafíne

Things Are Happening and the truth is even wrapped up like that, like a peculiar Scottish mummy sprawled on her belly on a white blanket in the chilly, damp grass, breath misting or is that smoke she exhales? one or the other, anyway. Sera is not napping. She is not asleep. She is sprawled yes one elbow braced on the blanket, chin and cheek cupped in the palm of her hand, head listing in a way that makes a golden tangle of her wind-whipped blond curls and she is watching: the lake and the man who crouches by the lake and watching him with a back of the throat consideration and she is alive to the world in ways the few people are alive to the world, everything scrawls itself beneath her skin before most stranges have begun to recognize the surface truths, and she can feel - yes - Grace and something New and wasn't it just last night that it was Grace and something Old and isn't there a strange and fascinating symmetry to that and oh shouldn't she tell Hawksley about the mummy, she should assuredly tell Hawksley about the mummy, and Sera thinks about texting him -

I have something to tell you about Egypt

- and she would likely misspell half the damn words but iPhone, it would auto correct, but her phone is so Very Far Away and it is cold out here where is Dan with her hot chocolate she is going to dose it with whiskey. It would be better with Bailey's but it's not like one carries around a flask full of Bailey's, does one?

Sera bites down sharply on her inner cheek, the pain is incisive, see. It is singular. It is a pierce and a twist and an opening, oh, the world changes, just a little bit.

"Look at that," Sera says quietly, to Grace as Grace strolls up. Her voice is goddamned lazy. "He's doing something. Magic, do you remember the first time you did it on purpose?"

Grace

[Magedar! Does she notice anything with all this magic flying about?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )

Grace

Grace isn't so perceptive today, is she? But still, it doesn't hurt that the both of them are weaving reality around them at the moment, and Sera -- oh Sera is strong and gut-wrenching, isn't she?

Grace looks where Sera is telling her to -- over to Alex, who is leaning over the water's edge, looking for something.

She nods, and there's this slight bittersweet smile on her face. "It was soon after I woke up. I was in my apartment, and Gadfly popped in for a visit. He'd been watching me, which, okay a little creepy. But he guided me through the program I was already writing. Something to watch the watcher."

"My first time? I flunked," she smiles for real that time. "Got hit with 'dox."

"Sera?" she asks, then pauses a bit, sets down her laptop bag and flumps down on the blanket. "Something's happened to me. I don't think it's bad. But I feel different."

Alexander

A few ice crystals form along the edge of the shore by Alexander and, for a few moments, the world changes. Alexander sees the lake shore in a whole new light; a little faint, a little cloudy, a little more monochrome. And promptly falls backwards onto his ass as it actually works! He looks around quickly, before the effect fades. Looking for... someone who isn’t there. Who hasn’t been for a few weeks. Maybe he wasn’t really expecting The Message to still be hanging around here when he has an identity and the freedom to do as he likes. But it was worth a try. Normality reasserts itself and the vision fades.

Grinning to himself, Alexander stands and brushes himself off. He’d felt the arrival of Sera a short while before, while he was watching the water, so knows where she’s sat. The familiar Shifting feeling had arrived too, but with something different about it. Something new. Still smiling, Alexander grabs the rucksack he’d left on the grass next to him and wanders over. The smile’s still there when he arrives and greets them. “Hey! I brought soup.” He shrugs the shoulder with the rucksack as he says it, then settles on the blanket too. He looks at Grace and cocks his head. “You’ve changed.”

Adam

ooc: so where the heck are y'all! feel free to PM just me. :) :)

Adam

[Pre-Entry Awareness Roll -2 Dice for Grace's Arcane.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )

Adam

[+2 for everybody else]

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

Adam

[+ 2 re-rolled 10s since I hear there are Magical Effects wot are being Effected? Maybe?]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (4, 5) ( fail )

Serafíne

"Mmm." Sera hums beneath her breath. It is a hum of awareness and a hum of consideration and a hum of something that is not amusement. Perhaps bemusement. Perhaps consideration. There is something rich and lazy in her voice and even though it is cold cold cold something about Sera feels remarkably warm, in just this precise moment. "I don't remember my first time."

And Sera offers no context for that; just the statement. Maybe it is merely that one forgets the smallest pieces as the world changes and magic becomes not - well, not ordinary, but a matter of course. Hey, I can fucking change the goddamned world.

Grace though, Grace; a slant-wise look at Grace as she floomps her laptop down on the blanket. Here is Sera in profile: an impressive nose, all aquiline, her eyes remarkable light, with a sort of clarity in the side view on rarely sees when looking at her face-on. Some kind of magic there, right?

God she's striking. Arresting. The bones of her face; the sharp and fine-pointed planes of it. The delicacy of her jaw, the curve of her ear. The odd vulnerability she bears in repose.

Sera is still considering Grace when Alexander comes up to them, and he has brought soup. Sera flashes the cop a quick grin, rolls over on the blanket to make room. "What'd you see out there? When you were looking?"

And, a flashing glance, this line drawn from Grace to Alexander and back again. "And Grace, she went seeking. Why don't you tell us what happened?"

Grace

"Oh, I didn't go looking for anything," Grace says, completely missing the reference. She's never heard the term before. "What happened when?"

She looks up to Alex from her seat on the blanket. "Yeah, I know. You can feel that too?"

Then, it's over to Sera again, who has been the only other Mage she's known to do this: change how they are at a deep level. Enough that people can tell.

"It's like what happened to you, isn't it?"

Grace

"Oh, I didn't go looking for anything," Grace says, completely missing the reference. She's never heard the term before. "What happened when?"

She looks up to Alex from her seat on the blanket. "Yeah, I know. You can feel that too?"

Then, it's over to Sera again, who has been the only other Mage she's known to do this: change how they are at a deep level. Enough that people can tell.

"It's like what happened to you, isn't it?"

Adam

Look. (No, don't look. There is nothing remarkable to look at.) Dominic Adam Julian Gallowglass bani Bonisagus known to most of the Awakened populace of Denver as Adam who owns or clerks at or manages Night Owl [An Arch Key] Books. Look. (No, don't bother. He is not remarkable.)

Here he is in a dark coat, not black but rather a slate gray, wool to drive the cold winter away, but it is spring now. The coat is long and unbuttoned and if he had a scarf it is, why, there it is, trailing out've his pockets, because it's cold but the cold doesn't have a snap and if he weren't so susceptible to colds since he treats his body less like a temple and more like an inconvenience or a disappointment (come on now, body, don't be tired now! Almost to the end of this chapter! Almost at the top of the hill!), well. This is the kind of sentence that busybody family members begin and never finish properly because what it amounts to is a harangue. Here is Adam Gallowglass in a dark gray coat and, if one has not yet become familiar with Adam Gallowglass, he is particularly unworthy of note. A Mystery. Other. Don't bother.

Nonentity, practically: young man with wild hair. He has an apple in hand and he is biting into it while turning the page of a book which yes he is in fact reading as he walks down the trail, comes to a fork in a path, finds himself near [the woods of Arkady are dead, over is their antique joy; but the antiquarian's joy is -] a lake and a confluence of other Awakened individuals, one of them very familiar, the other half-familiar, the third not-at-all-familiar. What an irrestistible lure to a mind like Adam's.

So he takes the fork in the path that'll take him this-a-way, folding his book up so his thumb is a marker. He bites into his apple, crunch. No gloves. He's as pale as a vampire and should get more sun. Too bad it's such a skinflint day, such a graying still longing for winter day. This-a-way means he wanders out between the trees; he doesn't approach from the lake.

The most important thing is of course:

"Hello, Sera, Grace."

Adam is not a creature of hesitation; he approaches, he engages, his smile faint, a quizzical stitch between his eyebrows.

Alexander

“Nothing, really. I was just..” Alexander looks down into the rucksack, breaking the eye contact with Sera for a minute. A little embarrassed, maybe. “It was silly. I was trying to see if The Message was around.” A thermos and some disposable cardboard cups emerge from the bag, and he looks back up. “It’s only store bought, but it should still be warm.” Nice, smooth change of subject there. Chicken, should anyone be interested.

He loses track of the conversation a little when they start talking about seeking and looking for things – even less idea of what a Seeking is than Grace does. There is some concern in his voice, though, when he asks, “Something’s happened? Was it anything to do with that night in the library?” It’s the first time Alexander has bumped into Grace since he stormed out of the Chantry. “Are you ok?”

Before there’s an answer, someone new arrives. Although it’s only the voice that grabs Alexander’s attention – the other man would have drifted past without notice if he hadn’t spoken. He looks down to open the flask, then starts a little as he notices Adam’s presence again. And waits to see how the others react before saying anything. Assuming he doesn't forget again.

Serafíne

Oh, Alexander. He breaks eye contact and busies himself with soup-getting-out and soup-dispensing and Sera's now on her back and all rolled up still in her blanket (absurd! absurd) and she's like a turtle on her back her hair all a-tangle and the world is moving around her the way the world does move.

Oh! Here is Adam.

Sera tips her head back to espy him as he offers his hellos and it is strange to her the way he fades and then conjures himself up again but not so startling as it must be for Alexander, now, to forget and remember and remember and forget again.

So, Sera, create that she is turns her head in Alexander's direction and he can avoid her goddamned eyes all he wants with the busy-ness she'll just touch him, like a hand on his thigh. A certain slewing smile.

Maybe she's fucked up.

Probably she's fucked up.

"It's not silly. You need to see the world. Look for things. Take it apart and put it back together and feel the way it moves inside you, again and again and again, and if you're looking for something or someone or somewhy that has some fucking meaning to you, even better, but that's not any kind of shit to be embarassed about, you know? Rock on - "

She did say rock on without any goddamned embarassment.

"Seeking, Grace. You went seeking. Looking for another piece of the world; or a piece of your soul, or a new understanding of the world. Some epiphany, right? Something new that you can taste and feel. And Be and Know and all that shit.

"Yeah it's like what happened to me." Back to Alexander, then. "Nothing to do with what happened in the library, that night. Least I'm pretty sure it doesn't have anything to do with that."

Then back to Adam, smiling up at him, right? Practically angelic with that halo of golden hair.

"Hi."

Grace

"Hey Adam," she greets, though she didn't feel his knight-in-shining-ness approaching. It's Adam. She's cool with it.

Alex is the first to broach that subject, and as much as she appreciates the gesture, Grace has opted to try to forget that night ever happened. She only vaguely knows, second-hand that he was even there. Still, the comment has her first looking concerned right back, and then curious. "Maybe it did, though Sera. I mean..." she shrugs, "What happened in my seeking, it... very well could have something to do with that night."

"I slew a hydra," she says, and just lets it hang there. Says it like someone might say 'I mowed the lawn.'

Adam

He listens, intent and serious. Because direct as he is and unhesitating (unrelenting) as he is this doesn't mean he lacks social graces. The conversation swims around him: parts around him, stone-Adam, shadowless Magus. He listens, and he has opinions because he always has opinions. The quizzical stitch between his eyebrows smooths; those same eyebrows leap upward and the expression in his eyes stills, then shifts from one mood to the other. He regards Grace more fully now, but his attention is not complete.

"Why did you do that?" he asks Grace, of hydra-slaying. Then says to Sera, "Hi," because when a woman that beautiful says hi, if you're not distracted, you say hi back, and then he says to Alexander, "Who are you?"

He doesn't introduce himself, but Grace said hey Adam.

Adam who then says, "What happened in which library?"

Because of course that would interest him.

Kalen Holliday

[Nightmares]

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Kalen Holliday

[Awareness???]

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

Alexander

The gloves come off and a hand – a little cool, regardless of its time in the glove – is placed on Sera’s for a minute. “Thank you,” he says quietly. He still feels a little silly, a little sentimental. But he appreciates her words. The hands return to opening up the flask and pouring out soup, offering it to Sera. Because the third has slipped notice again.

There’s still concern in Alexander’s face – he likes Grace, and hearing what was going on in there? Well, he worried. “A hydra? That’s like a dragon? What happened?” He offers a cup to Grace.

Alexander is pouring soup for himself, and very nearly spills it when Adam speaks again. The man looks familiar, but... There is something odd going on here. He shuffles round a little to keep Adam in sight. The others don’t seem to be overly worried about the (re?)appearance of the man, so Alexander isn’t overly worried. Maybe a little puzzled. “Hi. Alexander.” He holds out the cup to Adam. “Nice to meet you.” There’s a slight narrowing of his eyes, as he tries to remember if he’s met Adam somewhere before.

Kalen Holliday

Kalen is not fond of the cold. But he is out in a golden wool coat and a ridiculously soft cream-colored cashmere scarf, and he is valiantly trying to ignore the last echoes of winter. He hasn't come for them, or for The Message (although, if pressed, he might admit he might have unconsciously chosen this place and cream and gold because of the Message). Recognizing such motivations is helpful, but that kind of self-reflection is not Kalen today.

Winter becomes colder on his tongue and he can feel the ground trembling beneath hooves. Feel the world shifting and falling through a thousand thousand possible worlds. If he could focus on them as they blurred past, he could draw them out one day, in the manner of star charts and the layered realms of the spiritual cosmologies that he has seen drawn in inks of precious metal and crushed gemstones. The grandest of them was inlaid around the circular gallery in marble. That one is shattered and buried now, but that one's legacy is Grace's office. For which he did not use sapphires or diamonds, but just paint. Grace probably wouldn't have wanted diamonds glittering on her walls in constellations, he would say. (But, let us be truthful, there are not diamonds glittering from those walls only because Kalen had no idea how to get them there.)

He cannot stop thinking of maps and of time and of all the ways in which fate twists in and around itself in Denver. There are are possibilities and warnings and wonder all vying for his attention. Those all lose out to the people he senses assembled, and he heads slowly in their direction.

Serafíne

"I don't think it had so much to do with the Library, Grace, as with what you endured and how it has been haunting you. Somewhere that shadow of the divine or what the fuck ever inside you - " other people us Names and Terms and Words that mean things for things like Avatar. Sera tends to avoid them, for reasons that are not wholly clear, " - wanted you to confront that; to overcome it. To break free of the chains that experience has forged around your soul, see?

"I mean, that could be what your Avatar wanted. Or maybe it was all a fucking metaphor."

--

And Sera takes the soup and holds it in her hands and does that to keep them warm. The steam drifts and she's still on her back and looking up and then then she sits up, scoots her ass around because soup, shakes out her tangled hair as the cold wind skims the lake and whips across the park.

"Grace and I," Sera begins to explain to Alexander and by extension Adam, quietly and rather seriously for a Sera, with a sort of spare sense of strangeness about her because she does not speak Easily about such things and it is perhaps only the constant iteration of it from Grace that allows her to do so so easily. " - were infected by this sickness that some people created to try to target mages last fall. It made us very sick; and caused us to hallucinate gory waking dreams of our own deaths over and over again.

"Grace has had nightmares ever since, and," here Sera glances up at Adam. There is something circumspect, somehow, about that look. Something framingly delicate. Something attenuated. There are so many pieces of all of this that Sera keeps - in whole or in part - inside herself, stitched into her skin, and she can feel that needle now. Is away of its warp and weave. " - it was bad enough one night in the library that she started having waking dreams, hallucinations, that it was happening to her all over again.

"So. Have you been to sleep since your seeking, Grace?"

Grace

Adam is oblivious. Wasn't around for the Hydra incident. He wasn't witness to Grace screaming in agony. He's innocent, and even still... It's embarrassing. She lost it. And everybody in the Chantry must have heard exactly how.

"I..." she starts, but can't finish. How do you even begin?

"Uh... Well," she looks to Sera, because this is her story too in a way. And Sera says what she will say about it.

"They called it Hydra. Because you couldn't just destroy it, it would multiply if you tried to kill it -- like cutting off a hydra's head," she adds, so they understand why hydras had become this massive thing with her.

Then, Sera asks if she's been to sleep since. That brings an honest smile. "Yeah. I have."

She smells the sudden ozone, the smell of storm in the air, and turns to see Kalen, still smiling. "I think I killed it but good."

Adam

He accepts the cup of soup from Alexander, and his expression shifts again: all nuance, Adam, all subtleties. The shift is a courteous shift; an echo and -- not surprise. But recognition: "Alexander. Nice to meet you at last. So many things heard."

But the courteous shift is off-hand, and the bulk of Adam's attention shifts back to Grace who is now sharp as a knife (just what one wants shifting, huh? tremoring like a quake) and Serafíne.

To him, a Hydra is a mythological construct. A relic of bygone days; of glorious days, in a way. A Hydra is a metaphor, and a Hydra is a nightmare. A Hydra is an enemy, a Hydra is self-replicating. A Hydra is water, the North, is child-of-beauty, is a first-gate second-threshold sort-of creature.

Do him credit. He listens with an air of grave consideration; smells the soup, and if it doesn't appear to be some sort of italian wedding soup monstrousity sips on it.

"Hmm," he says when they are both done. "Compelling," he says, because isn't it? He follows Grace's eyes over to Kalen, offers the other Hermetic a nod if not a smile. He's thinking, and Adam thinking means serious things. "What shape did your seeking actually take? A video game that felt real? Did you start out asleep?"

"I'm curious." A smile. "Needn't indulge me."

Alexander

Alexander settles back onto the blanket to listen to Sera’s – and Grace’s – story. He can’t even begin to imagine how it must have felt, being affected by that illness. And he doesn’t even try to make empty platitudes to fill the gaps in the telling. He does look back to Grace, though, still concerned. Although it eases when Grace smiles, obviously much more relaxed than she was. He does feel a little more of a connection to Grace than he does to most of the others – maybe because she’s not so far ahead in her experience of Awakened life that it seems like he’ll never reach that stage himself. Maybe because it’s obvious that things are still freaking her out, rather than the others who just seem to take everything in their stride.

Regardless, Adam seems to have heard of him. “Good things, I hope.” He smiles, now that facing the man seems to have fixed him in memory for the moment. “I think your name has been mentioned, but there have been so many new ones... “ He shrugs as the sentence hangs, a little apologetic that he doesn’t have more to say. He turns to greet Kalen as he arrives, but otherwise settles back to listen to the conversation.

Kalen Holliday

"Mmmmmmm...." Kalen says, a bit absently. "My little dragon slayer." He missed too much of the conversation to quite pick it up cold, but he sounds amused and proud of Grace all the same. He doesn't need to know what she killed but good for that. Adam is thinking and Sera is...not exactly happy and Alexander...Alexander looks fine. That last bit provides him almost no real information.

His pale eyes sweep over them slowly. Curiously.

It's a second before the word Seeking and the new keen edge to Grace's Resonance register and he grins. "Ah. Congratulations, Kit." He settles carefully onto the ground to join them.

Serafíne

Grace slept last night, and she beams and Sera favors her with another oddly spare half-smile. Inhales the scent of the soup and sips it, grateful more for the warmth than anything fortifying. Sera always seems to be on the verge of something, breaking apart or falling together or or or - anything but ordinary.

"Hey Kalen."

But here, look. Ordinary. She sips the soup wrapped up in a blanket and listens while Grace tells her story and somewhere on her person her phone vibrates so, Sera sets down the soup and does so carefully and and from somewhere deep in the wrappings of that blanket Sera digs out an iPhone and reads a text and then stands up and starts to unwind her blanket and beneath it she is wearing a tiny leather skirt and her Docs and black lace thigh-high tights and a small bandeau-style bustier, the cups of which are covered in tiny red satin roses, beneath a thin black hoodie, unzipped. Sera pulls the hood up because COLD but does not bother to zip the hoddie because SEXY and abandons the party with a small wave of her phone.

"Gotta meet my dealer. I'll be back in a bit. If Dan comes back with my fucking hot chocolate tell him to hang tight too. I need a ride over to the Church. Wanna see that mummy-lady again - "

Serafíne

(And... poof! Sorry darlings, but I need to sleep!)

Grace

Kalen knows what happened to her, of course he knows. And just congratulates her like that, like it's something he must have done before. But she's never done this before, has she? It's all new.

"'Kay, Sera. Say hi for me," she says, waves the departing Cultist goodbye.

And then, it's back to the others, because Adam asked a bunch of questions, and it's not even within her to withhold.

"It did kind of start out like a game. I got some random popup on my computer, and I thought it was my stalker, you know? But I guess it really wasn't.

"Wanted to play the games from Wargames, you know? Chess, checkers, Theaterwide Biotoxic and Chemical Warfare. I chose Wheel of Fortune, and then refused to play, because... hah. The winning move is not to," she says.

"Oh yeah, and it was like a vision. I wasn't sitting in front of my computer anymore, I was in a TV studio. And you were there," she says to Kalen. "And... another guy. We were contestants. I look down at the wheel, and it's all covered in the outlines of countries. Pat Sajak says 'Aww, looks like you were playing Global Thermonuclear War after all'.

"But then, I tried to get out of the studio, and... I ended up in this red hallway wearing platemail and with a sword and shield, and facing down a hydra," she says. "Because, yeah, that makes a whole lot of sense. It was like a dream, very much so."

Adam

Alexander lets the sentence hang; Adam does, too, and in spite of the Gallow in his last name does not twist it into a noose or make Alexander into the Hanged Man. Symbols, metaphors; aren't they everywhere? The echo that was accompanied by recognition becomes an echo of something indeed else; agreement, perhaps. Oh. No; a thought. He reaches into his coat, then into his back pocket which is where his thin leatherfold wallet is usually kept. Finds a businesscard and hands it to Alexander. "Come by sometime," he says.

The name Kit means of course that he gives Kalen a look of attention that dissolves once he realizes Kalen doesn't mean him; irritated pang, and a faint frown when Sera says she's gotta meet her dealer, or maybe, maybe, Dan or the Church or mummy-lady or who knows. Dispell it, Adam. Do not be grumpy.

The grumpiness does disappear completely because he's that interested in what a Technomage-Virtual Adept woman like Grace's Seeking would consist of. Do you see it? The shadow of fascination, a certain intentness?

"What happened after you faced down the Hydra? Did you get a sense of your Avatar throughout?"

A beat. "Do you feel glad?"

Alexander

Alexander shakes his head a little, a faint smile as he wonders how Sera manages to avoid freezing to death. He doesn’t really remember any encounter when her clothing could be described as anything other than, maybe, ‘sparing’. He waves to her as she leaves. The comment about the dealer? His eyes roll, but there’s not much more reaction that that. He knows she uses all kinds of drugs and must have some way of getting hold of them. But, at least here and now, he’s not overly stressed about it. He’s certainly not making notes. As long as it stays relatively discreet... He looks at the others when Sera leaves, asks “Mummy lady?”

Alexander accepts the business card, with thanks. He reads it before tucking it away in one of the pockets in his trousers. A book shop wouldn’t be his first choice for places to go, but he may well take a look at this one. Although more for the owner than the contents. The last of the soup is drained from the flask and offered to Kalen, if he wants it. Otherwise he keeps on listening to the conversation of those more experienced.

Kalen Holliday

Kalen blinks when Alexander offers him food. You might think for someone whose idea of a good time seems to be shoving food at other people it would be something that wouldn't surprise him. But after a few seconds of giving Alexander and the offered an odd look, He smiles and takes it. "Thank you,"

"And I have no idea about the mummy lady."

He leaves Grace to answer the host of Gallowglass' questions. You can't reallt dissuade Galowglass from questions. But he does give Gallowglass a smile. See, I haven't forgotten you. I'm just letting you interrogate.

Gallowglass.

"Dammit. I really need to tell her we're not a thing," he mutters, half under his breath.

Grace

More questions from Adam, and Grace gives Kalen a twist of a grin, saying something unspoken about Other-Kit's humorous interrogation tactics. A barrage of questions.

"It taunted me a whole lot, and I screamed at it and started slicing it. Got it in the heart, not the heads, you see? Then it... kinda..." she looks up at the trees, remembering. "Drenched me in blood, and... I woke up. For a moment there, I could swear it was getting a huge kick out of it, though. Like, every so often, it would break character and just grin for real instead of being all creepy-fucker.

"I think... I think the only reason why it was taking the 'evil' forms was so that I could have occasion to tell them to fuck off, if you know what I mean? It felt like Awakening, almost. Like I was touching that again..." her voice trails off, honestly a bit awed. As odd as the encounter was, as dream-like, the way it felt. So real. So immediate. Like touching the face of the universe.

"And yeah, I do feel glad," she says, lays down on the blanket, stares at the clouds. "I slept well," she says, and her eyes slide to Kalen. "Slept well for the first time in forever."

"Oh, yeah, and a few hours beforehand, Sera and Pan and Riley and I rescued a mummy from DMNS. She was walking around and all, but it turns out she was only from the 50's, not the BC's. Guess she went to sleep?" Grace shrugs.

"Anyway, she's at Pan's church."

Adam

Kalen's smile, Grace's grin-twist; they don't bother him. Not relentless, unshadowed Adam; never. His eyebrows leap up at Kalen's muttered aside. Head cocks, just so, the ghost of or suggestion of a smirk.

But like Alexander, Adam is ready for story time. He hmms aloud when she mentions that it would just stop and grin, for real. Adam: He's trying to place her Avatar, trying to figure out what its Essence must be based on what he knows of Grace, what he hears now. He's always trying to figure things out, Gallowglass. The awe makes him smile faintly, and look, he is out of soup. Glances around in that way people glance around when they realize they're holding trash, then just keeps ahold of it.

Mummy lady. An actual mummy?

"Sounds like an eventful week. What's your next project going to be?"

Slight chin-lift for both Alexander and Kalen. "Did either of you two do anything half as interesting?"

Alexander

For a moment, Alexander starts to think he’s done something wrong. Kalen’s peering at him and the soup, and it’s not clear why. But that moment passes, and the cup is taken. He nods at the thanks, and returns his attention to the conversation. Asks, “A thing?” when it’s not quite clear what, or who, he means.

He shuffles again, sitting almost cross-legged but hugging one bent leg with his chin propped on the knee. Listening. “It does sound a lot like Awakening. Did you... well, more awake afterwards? Like you did the first time?” Does that mean he’s going to have a rerun to look forward to at some point too? He winces for a moment, but the conversation has moved on again. That Grace slept ok last night? That does get a smile – she deserves a little peace.

“A mummy? Like, bandages and all? How on earth did you find her? Or... did you wake her up, or did that just happen?”

Anything as interesting? “Not quite as interesting, but a ghost saved me from... something? Some kind of weird taking-people-over-and-killing-them kinda thing.” He shrugs. “I don’t know much more than that, other than she said that she’s seen is happen three times now.”

Kalen Holliday

He smiles at Grace's comment that she slept well for the first time in ages. His fingers curl around the soup because warm. He has finally settled on a place to call home and it is unbearably cold for ridiculous portions of the year. Of course. Nothing is ever easy, is it?

"Only things you've told me never to elaborate about for you again," Kalen purrs at Gallowglass. He takes a sip of his soup and his eyes are still all amusement but his voice is mostly back to normal with just an undercurrent of that purr still threaded through it. Rich and golden and warm like sunlight streaming through breaks in clouds. "Although, perhaps to you. Grace made me the framework but I'm updating a map of Denver with events and places of interest from old maps and trying to get it set up so that we'll be able to actually link those things to relevant sections of books for explanation from the digital library. Want to help?"

Kalen laughs at Alexander's question. "So...I was having a horrible day and I may have been all over Gallowglass in this bar and Sera seems to think that we're-what?" He stares at Alexander like 'there is a taking-people-over-and-killing-them kinda thing and you didn't call me??!!??!!' Nevermind he can't actually do anything about that.....

Grace

Alexander has even more questions than Adam. It seems this is Grace's day to answer everything, but she's not tired of sharing. "Yeah, it did feel somewhat like the first time. There was this hum, this oscillating hum. I remember that from the first time, when I had that vision in the mountains? Said it was creation, destruction, and stasis in one breath."

Alex asks about the mummy next, and to this she laughs. "Oh, Alex, you know how it goes. You're just out somewhere minding your own business, and suddenly, boom! Mages everywhere! And somebody needs you. She wasn't like, wrapped up in mummy wrappings. She was naked. But she wasn't all rotten or anything. Just climbed up out of a sarcophagus like that."

Then, she sits up on her elbows, "Hey, did anyone at the police hear anything about like... a stolen mummy or anything? I think we covered our tracks fairly well, but you know. We didn't steal her, she just woke up and didn't want to be a display piece anymore."

Then, when Alex finishes, talking about his weird thing taking people over and killing them? Yeah, Grace does a double-take the same as Kalen. "What?"

Adam

A thing? And, I may have been all over -

The dark-haired young man looks bemused by this retelling. Bemused, surprised, restive; restless. Let's move on.

A wraith saved Alexander. Adam says, "Certainly still registers on the 'interesting o meter.' How did the wraith save you; rather, did you - 'something'?" He hmms, again: "Do you remember any details about the something?"

He isn't a spirit mage, Adam. But he knows an awful, awful lot about things that are going on in the spirit world. (Paranoia, paranoia...)

There are reasons for everything.

Absently, because Adam is well-able to follow-up on two threads of interest at once: "As for a missing mummy," bemused again, "I wager the museum would wish to keep things quiet if they knew their mummy was inauthentic. If she was. If it isn't an Ars Temporis paradox. If - hmm."

He leaves it there.

Alexander

He laughs a little as Kalen explains the ‘thing’. And looks from one man to the other. And shrugs. There have been stranger matches.

Grace asks about police attention. He thinks for a moment, but nothing really sounds familiar. “I can’t remember hearing anything about anything going missing from the museum, but I can see what I can find out if you like. Exhibits going missing should get a fair bit of attention.” Mummies don’t generally walk out under their own power, so people would be looking if they’d noticed her missing.

“I... left a note at the Chantry. “ He looks between Grace and Kalen. “It happened at the start of a night shift, and I got tired, and... didn’t think.” He shrugs again, looking sheepish. “There was a feeling of stuff rotting. I think I got a bit distracted trying to figure out where it was coming from. Then a window broke, a ghost was screaming at me to run, and some weird green guy started chasing us. Well, me, I think. She said something about the guy not being able to see her yet, so I guess he wasn’t quite dead.” He looks between all three of the other again as he finishes. “I went back again, the day after. Other than a boarded up window, there was no sign anything had happen. And that feeling of decay had gone too. Alyssa knows the ghost, though. Or knows someone who can get in touch with her, at least. Any of you guys know Connor?”

Kalen Holliday

"Hey. It's okay." He smiles a little. "No crazy green people got you and the ghost knows Alyssa so we can probably track it down. And yeah, he hasn't been around much though, I think he has like all the business things going on right now. But he might be around again at some point."

"You should probably talk to Alyssa though. I can tell you about spirits, but I can't interact with them."

Adam

"Knowledge is power," Adam says, deep in consideration-of-things mode, and then:

His phone buzzes. He slides it neatly out of his pocket because that particular buzz means someone in particular he cannot avoid, not even for interesting discussions of Awakened mayhem.

"I'm sorry, ah, thank you for the soup, Alexander. The stories, everybody else, but I need to take this. Ta. Oh, and of course, regarding the library Kalen, I've told you I'm at your service in spite of my reservations regarding - "

The phone buzzes again. Flash of irritation, and this time a wave which seems one-part waving off annoyance one-part just waving a fare-well, Adam bends his head and walks away. Throws the cup into a trashcan. Remembers the apple in his pocket and throw that away, too.

Alexander probably won't remember his face; will remember the basic jist of the conversation, considering the others, but not everything Adam said, not specifically. He's got the businesscard though: for whatever that's worth.

Exeunt, Gallowglass.

ooc: Sorry guys, I need to run super fast! Thanks for letting me into the scene though!

Grace

"Connor, yeah, he sells pot -- legally," Grace adds that last bit because, yeah, she's still a bit concerned, even though Alex knows Sera enough to tell she's rarely sober, and usually on something a bit more powerful than 'legal'.

"So he's really busy right about now I suspect. Why do you ask about him though?"

Adam wanders out, and Grace eyes the blanket beneath her, the spread. Oh, it's Sera's... huh. Will have to take it back to her so she doesn't lose a blanket and things. It's an idle though in between speaking of mummies and ghosts and hydras, all the rest of the paranormal backdrop to life.

"Reservations? What's his reservations?" she asks Kalen. Not to be mean to Adam, but hey -- maybe he has a point they hadn't considered yet.

Alexander

“I did think about calling for help at the time but... well, I ran away from it and I guess lost it, or left it behind. “ And he now wonders what happened to the green man. Had he been missed? “Yeah, Alyssa left me a voicemail about meeting up. We just haven’t quite gotten together yet.” Alexander had been hoping to bump into her again for a while. He has a fair bit he wants to ask about.

Adam heads away, fading from memory almost as fast as he fades from sight. The card is there in a pocket, though, and he may well be curious enough about how it ended up in his pocket to pay the shop a visit.

He looks at Grace for a moment or two before answering her, wondering if she’d ever get over her twitchiness about his career. Most people seem to ease up a little once they realise they’re not going to end up with a ticket from him for parking slightly too far from the kerb, or being a little too noisy at night. And given that he tends to treat speed limits more as guidelines – once out of residential areas anyway – getting lifts from people can turn into a rather slow affair. Yeah, most people. “Oh, Mellie – the ghost – seems to be a good friend of his. I don’t really know any more than that.”

Kalen Holliday

[Arete: Forces 2 because dammit cold soup is sad; D=4 (w/foucus)WP]

Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (2, 6) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Kalen Holliday

Kalen uncurls one hand from his soup to wave to Gallowglass as he heads off. "I'll call you then."

And then his eyes roll dramatically at the legally. And then he sighs, because Alexander needs to be on Ginger and Grace needs to stop being so skittish about him. Look, here he is, being totally fine and giving them food.

Right. Food. Kalen sips at the soup, realizes it's cold, and blows on it and murmurs something. It's not something in a language Alexander has heard before, but Grace has probably heard Enochian at least once by now. He takes another sip of soup and this time seems much more pleased.

"Connor is friends with pretty much everyone he has ever seen," Kalen says with a smile.

Grace

Kalen -- the man of words. He speaks a language she doesn't understand, couldn't grok if her life depended on it. But it works for him, and Works for him. He described it to her once as a kind of synaesthetic sensation. He feels those words in more than just sight and sound.

And, it does sound pretty. Even if she does squint at his eye-rolls, like 'whatever, dude.'

Grace doesn't worry about fucking parking tickets. She worries about Alex finding out about her many felonies. When the rapists get less time in jail than the hacker who exposed the rapists... Well. It's easy to see what side of things the Law favors. It ain't her.

That talk is going to be a tense one.

"You should totally get with Alyssa. She's really great at all that spirity stuff," Grace says, trying to hide her sudden awkwardness about Alex's occupation. "And Kalen, stop showing off," she says, with a wicked grin.

"Oh, who am I kidding."

Alexander

It’s certainly not in a language familiar to Alexander, but he listens anyway. Tries to make out the words. “What was that you said?” he asks, after steam starts to rise from Kalen’s cup again. Magic words? He’ll be waving a wand around next.

It may well be a tense talk, but not one that’s going to happen just yet. Alexander figures that Grace just needs more time to relax fully around him. Or maybe she never will. Kalen’s mentioned before certain... technical illegalities that can come up now and again, especially around Awakened life. Especially when you go hunting the things that go bump in the night. But is it murder when there’s no human left in there to kill? There can be haziness between the letter and the spirit of the law, but he does believe – or at least wants to believe – in justice. Although quite what that is, sometimes, is hard to define.

So he leaves the subject changed, and just laughs when Grace gives up trying to stop Kalen from showing off.

Kalen Holliday

"Just...showing off," he says to Alexander. "Pay it no mind. I may teach you one day, but it is traditionally not a shared thing outside of the Order." Well, there's something he never really told Grace.

"I should get back to work though. Let me know where you saw that guy later, and the ghost. I'll update the map with that too." He rises, and from off the ground and cold-stiffened with one hand occupied by holding soup that is not easy. He doesn't bother to try to make it look easy. He could. He could bend gravity to his Will the way he just did heat. But somethings are important and some things are just inconvenient.

"I'll see you both soon enough, I'm sure. Be well."

[Because some of us have to go sleep. :(

Thank you for scenes!!!]

Grace

Well, that gets a look, a little twitch of a smile. Kalen, you little rulebreaker you.

Of course, if he had met her with a 'no, Kit, that's not something you can learn outside of the Order' she probably wouldn't have taken it too well. Information wants to be free. Especially information that helps the cause, that brings good.

"Bye, I'll see you back at the office," Grace says. "Will likely be sleeping there, too." Because, you know, Kalen always needs to know where she lays her head.

"I should probably get going too," she says to Alex and starts packing up Sera's things. Sera just off and left without her blanket, and yeah... That's quite a Sera thing to do. But whatever. It'll float in Grace's car for a while, find its way back to Sera again. All will be well. All just.

There is a thing that Alex and Grace might agree on. They are both rather obsessed with justice, when you think about it. It's just that Grace doesn't trust the law to bring it. Mostly because it doesn't, in her opinion.

"Hey, Alex? Kalen told me you were there that night. I'm sorry you had to see that. Wasn't me at my best."

She gives him a smile anyway, as if to say 'But I'm really okay', and starts lugging the picnic blanket and things back to her car.

Alexander

Alexander doesn’t have any intention of getting Kalen into trouble, so that what he was saying wasn’t usually shared? Not such a big deal. He may get told about it at some point, but – other than a little curiosity about what the language was – he’s not overly concerned about the lack of sharing. Alexander says his goodbye to the man as he wanders away. He will given Kalen a call – or bump into him – later and give him the location he asked for.

And then Grace is starting to make a move too. Alexander helps her fold, roll or otherwise pack up the blanket and anything else that Sera had wandered off and abandoned in her search for a fix. His flask and the leftover cups get shoved back into the rucksack, and the bag slung over his shoulders. She mentions the night in the library, and he turns from what he’s doing to look at her. “I’m just glad you’re ok now. I wanted to do more to help you, but...” Again, the sentence dies. Alexander doesn’t really know how much she knows about what went on outside, or how well she gets on with Pan. He’s still puzzled about Kalen’s behaviour, too. But all he does is shrugs. “I guess Patience did a pretty good job.” He’ll help Grace carry stuff to her car, share the load a little.

Kalen Holliday

[And...night, peeps!]

Nothing Special

Ian Lai

Spring had finally seemed to settle in Denver (for the time being,) and the air outside was a thoroughly pleasant 67 degrees, which meant that Ian wasn't the only resident of the city who was out for a run in City Park. There were, in fact, a fair handful of people making the most of the warm weather in exactly the same manner that he was, jogging alone or in pairs through the winding trails that laced the manicured landscape.

Ian was alone tonight (he usually was when he ran.) The music from his earbuds played a steady rhythm of lush electronic beats that kept time with his footsteps and the pulse of his heart (elevated but steady.) He'd been running for a while by now, long enough that the heat from his active body was enough to keep his temperature elevated despite his relative lack of clothes.

Maybe Alex saw him first, or maybe he saw Alex. It didn't really matter. These things happened. Awakened wills passing each other in the night. Strangers who had one very important thing in common.

Ian kept a brisk pace. He was wearing a pair of black track pants with white stripes down the sides, and silver running shoes. That, and the earbuds.

Ian Lai

[Per+Aware -1 from Alex's Arcane]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 5) ( fail )

Ian Lai

[Nope, Ian does not notice Alex first]

Alexander Brandt

[Is Alex's magedar any better?]

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

Alexander Brandt

After crashing into bed after the sun had crept above the horizon and started burning off the low cloud hanging over the city, he work early afternoon. After a few attempts at rolling over and getting back to sleep, it just wasn’t going to happen. Breakfast eaten and coffee downed, he packed for work and threw some running gear into the bag along with the other bits and pieces that he’d need for the coming night shift. He’s working near City Park at the moment, and hadn’t really seen it yet. So what better way than to see it than go running through it?

So here is Alexander. White trainers with day-glow green stripes pound away at the asphalt, with long black shorts and a blue, long-sleeved running top the only other clothes he has on. An armband holds his phone, and there is a thin white cable running from it to a pair of headphones. Those paying attention might be able to pick out the regular beat of some kind of ambient dance music. As with Ian, Alexander’s efforts have been doing a pretty good job of keeping him warm. But, then, the cold doesn’t really bother him all that much.

There’s that strange feeling, of someone a little more nearby. It’s not a familiar sensation – and thankfully not that sense of decay reasserting itself – so he slows to a walk, trying to place it. It appears to be coming from a man coming from the opposite direction, crossing paths with Alexander’s. Maybe the face looks familiar from somewhere? He looks for any flash of mutual recognition – not for Alexander’s face, but for what he’s become.

Alexander Brandt

[[Spellfecker strikes again. "...he woke early afternoon."]]

Ian Lai

[Per+Alertness - does he notice Alex watching him? -1 die from arcane, -2 diff from acute senses]

Dice: 4 d10 TN4 (1, 3, 4, 9) ( success x 2 )

Ian Lai

[Re-rolling awareness now that he knows Alex is there. +1 diff (hah, try not to botch Ian)]

Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (1, 1, 6, 7) ( success x 1 )

Ian Lai

At first glance, there was no recognition in Ian's eyes. He was focused on the path ahead, his gaze fixed on some point over Alexander's shoulder in the distance. As they drew nearer, though, Ian's gaze shifted, attracted by the awareness of Alexander's attention in his peripheral vision. He looked, but still didn't recognize anything of particular interest, until...

Ah. There it was. Like a breath of winter air playing along his heated skin. (Ian, see... he didn't mind the cold so much either.)

Likely Alex was looking at him for the same reason - because he'd sensed the soft curl of elegant and cunning energy that followed Ian in his wake (a beautiful lie, gracefully rendered in primal motion.) That wasn't the only thing he'd sense, but possibly Alexander was too new to Awakened life to understand why, when he looked at Ian move, all he could think of was some feline predator loping through the grass.

Ian slowed his pace and came to a stop a few paces away, pulling the buds out of his ears and draping them over his neck. They were bluetooth earbuds, not connected to the phone in his arm-band as Alexander's were.

"You must be new," he greeted with a sly grin.

Alexander Brandt

The resonance, the way that each Awakened has a difference feel about them, is familiar to Alexander. Only a handful of the actual sensations themselves are familiar, even if the hows-whys-and-wherefores behind it all isn’t. So the impression of a stalking predator just gets tucked away in the same mental box as either some weird twist on it all.

But the other man is stopped too, and Alexander realises that he’s been a bit too obvious about staring at the other man as he approached. Although the face is still familiar somehow... Maybe the other man gets it a lot.

“Sorry, what?” Alex stops, keeping the distance between them, and pulls his headphones out to better hear the man. He’s looking a little sheepish at being called out for the attention, even though the resonance made the other man hard to miss. Alexander’s is cold, already frozen. Unchanging. Like a moment of time trapped in ice.

“New? Yeah, I guess. I’ve been here a few weeks.” Alexander looks around to see where the others in the park are. Working out how much it’s safe to say.

Ian Lai

Ian was indeed used to getting stared at. He had to be, looking the way he did. Beautiful in a way that made him a little unreal. He was in good shape too - lean but athletic. He obviously worked out a lot.

But that wasn't why Alex was staring, and Ian knew that. (Didn't mean he couldn't play with it a little.)

"Very new, then," he replied, stepping a few paces closer as his eyes traveled down the length of Alexander's body and back again, not so much flirtatious as curious and measuring. Alex stood a couple inches taller than him, so he had to tip his head back just slightly to make eye contact. Maybe Alex didn't understand the question, or maybe he did and was answering in the subtle way their kind often did when speaking in public. The exact time-frame of his Awakening wasn't that important.

Ian raised a hand and brushed a damp section of hair away from his forehead. His breathing slowed a little, causing the steady rise and fall of his bare shoulders to soften.

"Any particular reason you were watching me, or is it just because my reputation preceded me?"

Alexander Brandt

The headphones get wrapped around Alexander’s neck, the faint sounds of some lyric-less ambient music drifting faintly out of them, as he looks around. He notices Ian’s gaze and returns the favour, looking the rest of him over. Slim, lean. Probably sees the inside of a gym on a regular basis. Alexander? Fairly solid, although not overly so. No gymnast, but no football player either. Certainly no stranger to physical activity at any rate.

Breathing normally already, Alexander takes a small step backwards. Not out of any obvious discomfort. Just to save the other man having to look up too much. Some tall people develop stoops and hunches to bring them down into other peoples’ eye line. Not so with Alexander. It’s easier to move.

But comfortable that nobody is passing close enough to overhear even their slightly cryptic conversation, he elaborates a little more. “Well, yes. New to a lot of things since I got here. A change of scenery can really open your eyes.” There’s a little shrug. “A little of the reputation. A little that I can’t help thinking that I’ve seen you somewhere before.”

Ian Lai

Alexander didn't really look like the type to attend fashion shows or page through glamour magazines (though one never really knew what a person liked based on their appearance,) so when he mentioned that vague feeling of familiarity, Ian raised an eyebrow and smirked.

"Well, who knows. Maybe you have."

Of course, he didn't make any attempt to fill in the blanks, so Alex would have to go on wondering.

"Anyone snatch you up yet, or are you still flying solo?"

There was a public drinking fountain nearby. Ian eyed it for a moment before giving a gesture with his hand to indicate that Alex follow him. Whether Alex chose to do so or not, Ian made his way toward it. When he got there, he dipped down to take a long drink.

Alexander Brandt

Alexander gives another shrug – maybe he has seen him around somewhere, and the face stuck. Or maybe he looks enough like someone to seem familiar. Either way, not overly important. “Yeah, maybe. I imagine it won’t be the last time we bump into each other, though. Not with the way we seem to attract each other sometimes.”

Alexander does follow along with Ian to the fountain, leaning back against a fence while the other man drinks. He looks around the park as he talks, watching a group of women pushing strollers towards one of the lakes in the park. “I’ve had a fair bit of help from different people, but I don’t have anyone’s secret handshake and decoder wheel yet. Not sure if I will, if I’m honest. I don’t know that much about all the cool kids yet, but nothing much is standing out. But then I’m still figuring some of the basics out.”

“You?” he asks when Ian straightens from the drink. “Been at this long?”

Ian Lai

When Ian pulled back from the fountain, his lips were wet, and he brushed a thumb over his mouth to keep the water from dripping down his chin. He had this amused expression, like a part of him was deliberately reading the wrong (and yet to anyone listening - seemingly the most obvious) interpretation of their conversation.

(Not with the way we seem to attract each other.)

"We'll have to see about that."

But then Alex started talking about secret handshakes and decoder wheels and Ian's expression grew... thoughtful.

"Longer than you."

He wasn't being very open, but then one's paradigm was a rather personal subject. Ian glanced at the people nearby. At the women with their strollers. They seemed to exist in an entirely different world.

No one was close enough to overhear them. It didn't mean they shouldn't be careful. Nonetheless, Ian said, "So what can you do?"

Alexander Brandt

We’ll have to see about that. Alexander’s eyebrows rise, but the rest of his expression stays... neutral. He’s not a complete stranger to certain games, certain chases. Maybe not as familiar as Ian appears to be, but then Alexander doesn’t look like he should be spread across a magazine centrefold. He’s no prude either; there’s no frantic blushing at an embarrassing misunderstanding. There is simply no reaction in kind. There is a rather non-committal, “Maybe,” in response though.

Being at this for longer isn’t particularly difficult. Maybe Ian is just a private person, or maybe has something to hide. But, then, doesn’t everyone? That maybe the whole issue of paradigm should be so personal as to want to avoid talking about it doesn’t come to mind, though. Everyone else so far has been quite open about talking about theirs. So why the big secret here? Things just don’t seem quite... right.

“Nothing special,” comes the reply to Ian’s question. Two can play at vaguaries.

Ian Lai

Ian smiled at that, a slow spreading of lips that revealed a set of teeth which were very straight and very white and almost (just a little bit) predatory. It was a smile that offered some grudging respect, while still leaving a lingering sense of danger. (Sometimes cats liked it more when their prey fought back.)

As of the moment though, Ian hadn't made any deliberate move to appear threatening. Perhaps this was just his nature - like the way that Kalen always felt like a storm was about to break loose. Maybe he was dangerous, or maybe he just didn't like giving straight answers.

"Nothing special, hmm? Tell you what, I'll show you mine if you show me yours."

Alexander Brandt

For some things, Alexander has boundless patience. Minute after hour after day can be spent on those things. For others? Less so. Trying to pull him into a game when he’s already shown that he doesn’t want to play? That would be one of them. Especially when it almost seems that there’s a sense of superiority on display. Just like a cat playing with its prey.

And Alexander doesn’t like feeling like the toy in some game he doesn’t understand, where straight answers are the exception to the rule. Games like that can hurt. Pushing himself up from the fence, still with the neutral (Frozen now? How is that chill in the air?) expression, he replies. “Another time, maybe.” He turns back in the way he was originally heading and starts to jog away.

Ian Lai

Another time, maybe.

Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, Alex made the choice not to play, and Ian let him go, watching the man's retreating form as he ran down the path and, eventually, out of view.

Then Ian twisted his earbuds back into place, and the world was once again flooded with music, and the motion of his body as he resumed his own rapid, agile pace.

Like two creatures passing in the night.

(But they would probably meet again.)

Alone in the crowd

shade

Oh, chat. In this one case I totally know.....

Alexander Brandt

[Per+Awareness]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )

shade

It has been a long day.

The truth is, they are always long days. Even for the Enlightened, so much of the world falls under a cold kind of shadow. Invisible, but with that sudden loss of warmth and light as when clouds obscure the sun. Especially for the Enlightened.

They see the world for everything it could be.

They see the world for everything it is.

The street is full of people enjoying the spring. Warmth. Hope. Rebirth.

They jostle against each other on the crowded sidewalks, threaten to spill off the sidewalks and through parked cars into the streets at times like rivers swollen with melting snow overflowing dams.

But Alexander can sense something else. Something that isn't exactly at odds with the spring. Because everything that lay frozen and still over the winter starts to come alive in spring. So the rich, cloying scent of damp and decay isn't out of place. It isn't a physical smell, he's familiar enough with his newly expanded senses to know this is his mind trying to translate a psychic impression. Weave previously unknown sensory inputs into some kind of language that he can understand.

Alexander Brandt

The day may have been long, for those who have chipped away its hours through work or study and are now breaking free to enjoy themselves in the evening. For others, it is only just starting. Alexander, who has spent the day curled away in a darkened bedroom, is now out on the streets at the start of a night shift. A decent amount of shut-eye, followed by a decent amount of coffee, is easing the start of the transition into the city’s darker, mirror image.

And so here he is, slowly making his way through the crowds as people bustle and jostle and otherwise make their way through the early evening and onto their intended destinations. Alexander has no destination at present, simply pounding the beat. Perhaps people feel a little shiver as they pass, a little slide back into the Frozen depths of winter. But only for a moment, and the sensation is relatively mild at the moment.

The sensation of damp and decay does get his attention, though. Given a little more time in the city, and a few more encounters with its less mundane inhabitants, Alexander may become a little more cautious when such things appear unannounced. For now, however? He heads towards where the feeling seems to be coming from, pulled along by the force of curiosity.

Alexander Brandt

[Rollin' rollin' rollin'... Per+Alert]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 4, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

Alexander Brandt

[Rawhide! Arete too.]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (3) ( fail )

shade

It is like trying to pinpoint the center of a fog bank from within. Whatever is out there, whatever unseen unknown thing he can feel, it doesn't seem to have an easily defined center. Orienting toward it as it shifts around him seems impossible.

It is everywhere around him.

It is nowhere.

There is that sense of possibility and potential, that there is something just to the other side of some barrier he cannot see. Like the surface tension of water. Like stone.

Focused on extending all his senses, on searching out what is pulsing against his skin like a slow, failing heartbeat, he does see something. Someone.

A man in his mid-twenties. He has the athletic build that speaks more to endurance than strength, and one would expect him to have more coordination, but he staggers practically into an elderly couple, adjusts his course, and steps into a large window. He stops there, leaning on the glass without seeming to quite see the people around him or the mannequins on the opposite side of the glass.

Alexander Brandt

There is something there, that goes without question. Had one of the others been there – Sera, Kalen, maybe even Grace – then maybe they would have had better luck pinning down what and where its coming from. But they aren’t here, and Alexander is all alone in the crowd. Others may sniff unconsciously at a distant smell, but for him? It’s almost physical. Almost real. Or almost unreal?

So Alexander closes his eyes for a moment, trying to get some idea of where it could be. Pinches his nose, concentrates. But nothing, it’s simply... everywhere. Taking a step as he opens his eyes, he is bumped by a young woman rushing past and manages to stop dead in his tracks before he bumps into an old couple. Muttering apologies distractedly, he steps around them and out of the middle of the sidewalk. A mid-market women’s clothes shop has several mannequins wearing a selection of the shop’s offerings, trying to tempt window shoppers in. But Alexander isn’t looking at those. His attention is elsewhere – does this feel like that first day, with the open tear into the Umbra? Or the day he was dragged through the Gauntlet with the others? Neither of those were, intentionally, his own doing. So, he wonders, is this what the Gauntlet feels like when it’s intact. A barrier between the real world and... and its reflection?

He absent-mindedly notices the reflections in the glass, as people walk past behind him.

[Arete]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )

shade

Alexander can hear something. Soft and indistinct like conversations that have drifted on the wind. Like someone calling to him through water.

He is already leaning on the glass, it has already taken the soft impact and he has been pressed against it for a good twenty seconds when the glass shudders. A crack snakes its way across the surface. Slowly. Sluggishly. It stops inches from his nose.

Everything goes perfectly still for a second.

The glass shatters.

Shards rain onto the pavement like rain. Little drifts of them pile around the feet of the mannequins like the first, hesitant winter snow.

Alexander Brandt

The reflections in the glass pass by. Maybe there’s the reflection of another young man, dodging around another old couple, but he passes without notice too. Alexander’s eyes have closed again, forehead leaning on the glass. Straining to hear the words of the conversation.

Maybe if he tried hard enough..? Is it someone calling? Someone female? Her again?

His eyes flick open, in time to watch the crack slowly making its way up the glass. Seemingly in slow motion. There’s no new feeling in the air, no itch along his spine, as he got when Sera froze that coin in the air. So... that means there’s nothing new going on. Right? It’s all part of the same weirdness. Alexander takes a step back when the crack freezes, unconsciously holding a breath. Waiting for the moment to pass. And pass it does, in a swirling storm of glass.

Alexander Brandt

[Per+Alert]

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

Alexander Brandt

[And Arete]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (8) ( success x 1 )

shade

He sees a woman in the shimmering reflections of falling glass. He can see that she is screaming before he can hear her.

The man who was reaching toward him reaches into the falling glass instead as Alexander steps back to regain his balance.

He can see a different man in the reflection. Covered in a thin film of greenish dust. Green veins winding beneath sickly pale skin.

His eyes are all pupil.

His lips are moving, but his throat is so dry all Alexander can hear is dry rasping sounds.

Until he hears the girl. Finally hears her.

Screaming.

"Run!"

He can still see her now. See through her. Like a reflection on glass. Translucent.

Alexander Brandt

There’s a face in the falling shards and, for a moment, Alexander wonders if that’s Her. The woman he heard in a dream, calling for help. Why won’t you help me? And there’s another face. Not cloaked and featureless, but green and sickly. Maybe inhuman? Do those iris-less eyes have life in them? Silence settles, as it so often does after something completely unexpected occurs. A quick glance around sees people trying to look without being obvious. Looking without really Seeing – oh, there’s the broken glass (what on earth was that officer doing to it?), but their eyes are closed to the others there.

The moment passes, thaws, unfreezes, and the screaming starts. Not her, Alexander will realise later, but still someone needing help. Maybe naivety, maybe stupidity, maybe gallantry – Alexander can’t stand by and watch someone in danger. So not for the first time, and probably not the last, he puts himself in harm’s way without understanding what's happening or with a thought to the consequences. She screams run!, but he’s not going to leave her behind. Whether she’s translucent or not, he tries to move forward to grab her hand. Only then will he run, with her.

shade

Alexander cannot reach across the distance that separates them. It is only a few feet. It is a whole different place.

There was a time she would have given anything for someone to reach out and take her hand. While she was dying. While she lay in the spirit world too lost in her own death to do anything but relive it again and again and again.

Tonight Alexander cannot even glimpse the echoes of the wounds that killed her.

She understands what he means to do. She's met Mages before. She understands how they do not succumb to the same constrictions as other mortal creatures.

And so she remembers the feel of a hand around hers and she runs as though he had caught hold of her. She does not breathe so there is no quickened breath. Her footfalls make no sound on the concrete. Alexander cannot feel her. But he can see her, running.

She looks back at the man, over her shoulder. His steps, as he starts to chase after them, crunch over the glass.

Alexander Brandt

A few feet, and a whole world away. Alexander’s hand passes through the woman’s when he tries to grab her, to pull her away to safety. He stumbles back, glass grinding into the pavement under his boots, as his mine goes blank for a moment. But it is only a moment, as she seems to understand what he intended and starts to run. And so he follows.

As breathless as she may be, it’s not the lack of fitness that slows Alexander. His breathing is barely faster the normal, his heart? That’s been pounding away since the weirdness began tonight. No, it’s the people. Those standing, or milling around on the pavement without paying attention to anyone else. The window shoppers, the mobile phone tappers, the loved-up couples: all getting in the damned way. So he sees her running ahead, passing through them without a thought.

She looks back, and so does Alexander. The green man is starting his chase, with the sound of crushed glass. Does that mean he’s physical, then? Something that can be hurt and stopped? He has ways of trying to stop something like that, but... Not here, not now. Not in a crowded street, with too many people who could get hurt. So, for now, he’ll follow her lead. Doing his best to keep up with her through the pedestrians, he calls out to her. “What is it?” He rests a hand on his radio – partly to stop it bouncing around uncomfortably on his shirt. Partly because having an armed man running past having a conversation with himself tends to raise eyebrows, but calling to someone who he’s rushing off to help? That would seem a little more normal.

shade

She does not leave him, this ghost girl. She does not pull away through the crowded streets.

"I don't know! They just started showing up!" She looks translucent at his side. Solid in their reflections in the window. The man chasing them looks solid however Alexander looks at him. Normal save for glimpses of green dust and veins in the reflections.

Alexander Brandt

The street is just too crowded to get anywhere fast. Even shouting for people to move aside simply freezes them in their tracks, like little injured owls trapped in the headlights of an 18-wheeler. There’s an alleyway coming up – wide enough for delivery vans to drive along to restock the stops along the parade, but with little else to appeal to the people looking to enjoy their evening. Alexander nods towards it as they approach, letting the ghostly woman know what he’s planning. Before they turn, he looks back to see where the strange man is. And, possibly more importantly, to see if it’s having the same trouble getting through the crowds that he has been.

A few metres along the alleyway, still running but starting to speed up a little, he speaks to the woman again. “How many of them are there? And what do they want?”

And when did having a conversation with a dead woman while running away from a weird green man turn into a normal day for Alexander?

shade

The man has to dodge people as well. Only the girl seems to be truly and entirely a creature of the other side of the Gauntlet.

"I don't know! I can see...whatever gets them, I can see it. But I don't know what it is. This is the third one I've seen." She speaks easily. Unwinded. Of course.

She follows Alexander into the alley. Looks back over her shoulder. She is dead and this thing isn't after her. She seems afraid anyway. But she doesn't leave him.

Alexander Brandt

“What do you mean ‘gets them’?” Alexander asks as they carry on running along the alley, speaking easily too – barely breaking a sweat so far, plenty of stamina left to keep this pace for hours. He looks over his shoulder again, checking for the green man following. Then thinks of his mobile phone, deciding if there’s anyone he could call for help. Alyssa, maybe? She’s the only one he’s really sure knows anything about the spirit side of things. But if the green guy is battling through people is it really a spirit thing going on? Ah, hell.

Plan A, run away from it. Plan B, if you can’t run away from it then kick the shit out of it and then run away from it.

Best hope there isn’t a need for Plan C. Alexander speeds up.

shade

"It gets them," she repeats. "I can just feel it. I know what death feels like. It gets them. I can feel them dying. That one can't see me yet."

No one appears in the alley. They are alone, Alexander and the spooked ghost girl.

Alexander Brandt

“So there’s something killing people? What happens to them after that?” Yeah, after. Death used to be the end for Alexander. No afterlife. No unavenged spirits, out for vengeance. Now? After seeing a dead guy’s spirit searching for hundreds of years for the people who will, eventually, find him? The headache of temporal paradoxes has yet to come to Alexander, but the knowledge – rather than belief – that spirits do exist? That’s there.

The green guy, however, isn’t. Another look back, and the alley is still otherwise empty. He could have missed them turning, could have dropped dead. Or some other form of weirdness could be about to tear reality a new one and land in front of them. He slows to a walk, though. Turning to face the direction they’ve come from, he walks backwards. Concentrates on that feeling from earlier – is the decay still there? While he concentrates, he asks the ghost, “How do they get around?” Because having something walk through a brick wall right now would probably be a bad thing.

Alexander Brandt

[Per+Aware]

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

shade

Alexander can still sense that unsettling presence nearby. The scent of old damp leaves. Forgotten cellars.

"I don't know. I mean...Connor tries. But you guys are magic." She shrugs. Gives him a sad, apologetic smile. "I'm just dead. It was trying to touch you. I just thought...I don't know. That it would be bad. And you weren't paying attention and I didn't think you could hear and I panicked and the glass broke. I didn't hurt you, did I?"

Alexander Brandt

The strange resonance lingers without an obvious source. Assuming that it’s related to whatever affected the green man, it’s still nearby. So back to Plan A – turning away from the entrance to the alley and heading further away from where it probably is. Although... if it’s killed the man, would he still be chasing them? Or would he be a gently cooling corpse on the sidewalk? He looks back again, then over to the ghostly woman, having half-heard what she’d said.

“Sorry, what? Oh, no, I’m fine.” She gets more of Alexander’s attention, as the rest of what she says registers. “And... thank you. For helping me. It’s not that I wasn’t paying attention, I just don’t know how to yet. Y’know. I’m still new to all this.” He shrugs, unsure how much of it makes sense to her. Hopefully more than is making sense to him at the moment.

shade

"Um." She frowns. Now that they aren't running she doesn't look into his eyes though she does keep glancing to either end of the alley. Nervous. Skittish. "Have you met anyone else?"

Alexander Brandt

Surely if someone had just dropped dead in the street, it would have been called in and he would have heard it on the radio by now..? So, probably not then. Yep, Plan A. Alexander starts walking towards the other end of the alley, keeping up the conversation with the woman.

“A few. Not many. Kalen and Grace, but I don’t think they’d have been able to see you. Alyssa? Sera? Sid? Oh, and a guy called Leonhard.” Pan comes to mind, briefly, and Alexander snorts. “There was a new guy called Ryne, too. Have you met any of them? I don’t know that Connor guy. Is he still in the city?”

As they’re talking names, a thought comes to mind. “I’m Alexander, by the way. What’s your name?” He hopes she can remember it.

shade

[Well, Mellie?]

Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (5, 7, 9, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

shade

For most of those names, there is no flicker of recognition. She smiles when he mentions Alyssa. She looks up and her smile widens and transforms her face into something radiant when he mentions Connor. "He's still here. I met him and Alyssa at the club on Halloween. I haven't seem Alyssa since, but I see Connor."

She stops. Blushes a little, because even if she has no blood she remembers how to feel embarrassed. She looks down and then looks up again. Her smile is hesitant, shy.

She takes a deep breath into lungs she can only remember and holds out her hand very deliberately out to Alexander. And this time, if he takes it, he can feel it. "Mellie."

Alexander Brandt

Alexander smiles back, “It’s ok, we had other things to run away from. It’s not like getting to know each other was top of the list of things to do at the time.” He stops walking to turn to Mellie, takes the offered hand and grips it firmly. It seems these days that his hands are colder than they used to be but, hey – cold hands, warm heart. Right?

He resumes walking when she chooses to let go – or keeps hold as they both walk, if she wants. “I’ve only met Alyssa once, but she seemed like a decent person. I’ll keep an eye out for Connor, though.”

shade

She nods and resumes looking anywhere but his eyes, though she does squeeze his hand back. "Alyssa is good people. Connor...well...he's all over. So...he is the easiest or the hardest person to find, depending. Alyssa has his number, if you want. I should go, though. If I stay gone too long I think he worries I decided to try running into the light or something. Be careful, okay?"

Alexander Brandt

“I need to spend some time with Alyssa anyway, so I’ll ask after him. Oh, one thing before you go? Have you bumped into The Message at all? I don’t know if you would have, but...” He looks ahead, towards the end of the alley. “I wonder how he’s getting on.” He thinks about asking about the voice, but there’s no real way to describe who he’s looking for there.

shade

She frowns and shakes her head. "I haven't met anyone going by Message. But if I hear anything, I'll tell Connor and he can tell you or Alyssa. Or if I see you again. It's a big city, but it could happen."

Alexander Brandt

Alexander shrugs, not really having expected her to know anything. Maybe they will bump into each other again some time. Until then, he’ll keep asking after the spirit of Anastasius when he can. Maybe even try to find him himself at some point. Who knows.

“Thank you,” and he is grateful for the offer. “I’ll keep an eye out for Connor. And for you.” He turns to look at her face, even if she avoids eye contact again. “And I’ll try. To be careful.” Like the way he tried to save her before running away from the green guy? Yeah, real careful.

shade

She smiles, nods a little without looking up, and then starts out of the alley.