I have always known what we can become [Paused]

Kalen Holliday

[How awake are we?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (4, 6, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

Kalen Holliday

[And how distracted by Resonance are we?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 5, 5, 5, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )

Alexander

[Ooh, ooh, awareness!]

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

Alexander

Somewhere to the west of Denver, somewhere along I-70, is one of the city’s mountain parks. Home to buffalo and beavers and various other furry wildlife, it tends to turn into a bit of a tourist trap during the warmer months. During the winter, though, footfall drops. The visitor centre closes, the car parks are unchecked, and the only remaining staff are the park wardens charged with monitoring and guarding the park and its inhabitants.

And in this particular car park are a couple of SUVs, their tyre tracks still visible but their windscreens long frosted over. The snow has held off for a couple of days so has become hard on the ground as the shifting temperature allowed it to start to thaw before freezing again. The carpark overlooks the grazing ground for the buffalo – large, shaggy brown lumps in the distance, still managing to find food.

Behind the SUVs is a figure crouched by a bike, repacking pieces of clothing more suited to riding in places of the pieces intended for hiking that he now wears. Walking boots, black padded trousers cover his lower half, with a padded black and white jacket, scarf and hat cover the top. It would take a good eye to recognise the man from a distance, but there are other ways for people to recognise the man.

He sets the now-packed rucksack against the side of the bike as he leans on the saddle, apparently waiting for someone else to arrive.

Kalen Holliday

Kalen arrives, in a slightly battered Jeep that he ended up with because of both winter and zombies. He doesn't have to change, but he does pause to check the contents of the bag that comes out with him and to put on gloves. He has a scarf, he seems to love buying scarves, this one a of thick copper and ivory yarn; still, he doesn't seem to have learned to wear hats yet. Perhaps they muss his hair. He has traded out his favored long coats for a shorter brown one, which seems reasonable enough until you touch it and realize that Kalen is wearing a cashmere coat to go hiking, which is warm enough but slightly ridiculous.

He heads over to Alexander as soon as he's locked the Jeep, bouncing a little because despite the fact that he normally has to be coaxed out into forests, he does like forests. And friends. And for once he's gotten a reasonable amount of sleep.

"Hey, Alce."

Alexander

Alexander pulls a small bag out of a pocket and pulls a pair of sunglasses from it, polishing the lenses before putting them on, tucking the bag back into a pocket, and looks up to watch the exit from the Interstate. The sensation of the arriving storm – a contract to the currently cold, clear, blue sky currently overhead – announcing Kalen’s approach long before he comes into view. He watches the Jeep make its way along the road into the car park and into a nearby space.

He pushes up from the bike and swings up the bag from the ground, settling it onto his shoulders as Kalen gets himself sorted out. “Hey. Warm enough for you?” Alexander’s breath mists in the cold air as he speaks. “How far did you feel like going today?”

Kalen Holliday

"It is definitely not warm enough for me," Kalen says with a little huff and a roll of his eyes. Of course, he could determine he is just not interested in feeling the cold.

"I would say as far as you want, but I think that that might actually kill me." He laughs. "I have no idea. I'm still...learning where my limits are. And they change. Which is good, they were sooooooooo depressing for awhile. But I really don't know."

"I brought us hot chocolate. And marshmallows. I did not get the pink ones shaped like hearts, but mostly because they were raspberry flavored. If there were hazelnut flavored ones in pink hearts, I would totally have gotten them to spite you."

Alexander

“At least you dressed for the weather, although I’m sure you could be wandering around in whatever you happen to swim in without feeling the cold if you wanted to.” He nods towards the edge of the parking lot, towards the start of the hiking paths, and nudges Kalen with his elbow as he walks past.

Alexander smiles as Kalen suggests there could be death by outdoors. “Don’t worry, none of the trails here take more than a few hours to get round. Not unless you want to head off and make your own anyway, but that way lies buffalo. There’s one that’s a couple of hours, if you want to give it a try?”
“Hot chocolate is good. And thank you for not getting the marshmallows with Elsa stamped on them.”

Alexander stops and turns to look at Kalen while he catches up. “So... why don’t you? Stop feeling the cold, I mean.”

Kalen Holliday

"As though I can swim." Kalen laughs again. "I still haven't seen that movie. But, yes, I thought I'd spare you that too."

"That sounds fine. And survivable." He does not hurry to catch up to Alexander. Because Alexander will wait. Because he has no reason to hurry. Because he's about as calm as he ever gets.

"Because...I have always known what we can become, but this last year...Lucia Montanari and Victoria and that thing that we met...." For all that his voice trails off he does not look away from Alexander. "I think that to do something like that is to isolate ourselves from the world. It is an admittedly small degree of isolation, but most of us who become monsters do so by degrees. It may be different for you, you-" He shakes his head. "But for me, the two here who were monsters were of the Order. And we are well known for our arrogance and our isolation and our superiority. I can't be like that, not just because of what I might become but because I can't expect anyone here to trust me if I act like what power I am given to have exists to remove me from the world."

Alexander

“I could teach you. If you wanted me to. But I get that you might not want to. So, y’know. Let me know.” He lets Kalen catch up and then settles into a comfortable pace next to him as the snow-covered asphalt turns into snow-covered dirt path.

He looks Kalen up and down, squinting as he does it. “You’re not that big. I could probably carry you back if it turns out badly. As long as you face down any abominable snow buffalo. My gun’s at home.”

A couple of hundred metres go past without comment after Kalen explains why he doesn’t keep the cold away, when he’s previously commented – on several occasions – his dislike for the cold. It does make a kind of sense. “Do you think there was ever a point when they questioned what they were doing? Or someone asked if they thought that they were going that little bit too far?”

Kalen Holliday

"I'd protest, but it's reassuring that you'll have this if I start dramatically fainting like a Southern belle. Or, you know, from blood loss. But we can probably avoid both of those things today. Probably. I hear that snow buffaloes are prone to goring."

"I don't know. I would hope so. But I could not say."

Alexander

“Well you never know, those vapours might like to attack unsuspecting people in the middle of the mountains. Although I think they prefer victims with rather more cleavage. Maybe that’s where they hide. Do give me some warning if you’re going to swoon, though, and I’ll see if I can find something soft for you to land on.”

Alexander looks down at the trail for a few seconds. “I hope so.” Then there’s a smile and he looks round at Kalen again. “You shouldn’t worry too much, though. There are plenty of people around quite willing to throw things at you if it looks like you’re isolating yourself.”

Kalen Holliday

"Well. If I were trying to hike in a corset, I think I might swoon. But I'm mostly not so aware of the altitude anymore."

He reaches out and grasps Alexander's shoulder for a second. "I know. But Lucia had a cabal. They let her go. I contacted them, because I had hoped that they would help to save her. I thought if anyone could reach her....

"They did not come. And then we killed her. Still bound up with that thing. I wanted better for her. For all of us."

Alexander

“These days, I really wouldn’t be surprised to see Sera walking the other way in a corset and wearing heels. I can’t exactly see her swooning though.”

Alexander stops walking when the hand settles on his shoulder. “I know you did.” He looks down at the trail again, continuing. “You did what needed to be done to stop them.” Alexander looks up again, meeting Kalen’s eyes. “You did the right thing. Right?”

Because telling yourself that enough might eventually convince yourself that it’s true

“And what were you going to say? About it maybe being different for me?”

Kalen Holliday

"There was no better option available to us, and there was no time left to try to find another way. I do not regret that we killed, so much as that we could not free her from that thing first. As with Victoria...there are not so much prisons and rehabilitation programs for Mages. I think that we may have killed her, but still." But still, her soul. Their souls. Kalen is very concerned about souls.

"You're not of the Order. Inside the Order, I am rather an outcast for being rather radically against assuming our superiority and outside the Order I am rather an outcast because not enough of them are against assuming their superiority. If you use what power you have been given...I doubt it will be seen as so sinister.

"And no one was training you with the expectation that you would assume command in his place one day." He says that like its an afterthought, but it is not. Not at all.

[Paused, because I can't brane]