You have time

Alexander

[Because I have an idea! Arete, Base TN4, -1 for being near the Node, WP because this is already partly written and I don't want to redo it!]

Dice: 1 d10 TN4 (9) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Alexander

[Duh! Wrong diff on the roll, but doesn't make a difference anyway.]

Alexander

The afternoon slowly slides into evening, and the light is already starting to fade. The extra hours brought by Daylight Savings are being countered by low, dark clouds rolling in over The Rockies. Between the ominous cloud and the frequent storm warnings hitting suitably equipped phones and computers across the city, the outlook for the next few hours isn’t a pleasant one. The distant rumble of thunder promises things to come. For the moment, though, things are a little more peaceful. The calm before the storm, perhaps.

It’s not a pleasant few hours for most, at any rate. There are always exceptions to any rule. Alexander happens to be one of them. He’s sitting outside, on the patio just outside the dining room. One of the chairs has been turned to give a better view of the back, of the Node, and further out. There’s a cup of coffee, still steaming gently, sat on the table next to an unfolded makeup mirror. It’s been touched, but is still fairly full if anyone should happen to look in it. He’s in walking boots, dark green combats, and an old SPD sweatshirt. He appears to be watching something, or at least waiting distractedly. His gaze is off towards the Node.

Kalen Holliday

[Nightmares]

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (2, 2, 3, 3, 6, 8) ( success x 1 )

Kalen Holliday

[And how distracted are we by Resonance?]

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

Kalen Holliday

Kalen has been spending more time with some other things than at the chantry lately. He has projects with Grace and he has...other distractions which might be people who like to drop in unannounced at the house he until recently almost never even touched.

That and wandering around, now that he has more freedom to wander.

He comes into the chantry and heads toward where he can sense Alexander. Easy. Quietly. And, of perhaps more note to Alexander, completely on his own feet. No cane. Not even a limp. He takes in the sight of Alexander and the mirror and the way he looks out at something distant. He steps out onto the patio and sets a to watch the storm roll in. He may not be watching what Alexander is, but Kalen, in what must surprise no one given his Resonance, rather loves storms. He's content to just settle near Alexander and watch. And maybe doze a little, but that is neither here nor there.

Alexander

[Are we aware too?]

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

Alexander

The feeling of an approaching storm gets stronger, and it takes a little while for Alexander to realise that it’s coming from someone familiar instead of an act of nature. “Hey,” Alexander says quietly as Kalen comes out to join him and settles on another chair. He looks over and smiles as the other man sits and gets comfortable. “You’re looking... well.” Tired as always, yes. But the way he walks is noticed. “Did Sera finally get her hands on you?” Having been patched up by her before, it seems a logical conclusion to jump to.

He turns his head back to look out towards the Node again, and Kalen might notice a faint smile. Alexander is paying attention though.

Kalen Holliday

Kalen laughs at that. "No. This wasn't Sera's doing, although I am sure she would have if she could. I had...I had complicated old injuries. That kind of thing can be very difficult to heal, even for us." He settles into a casual sprawl over the patio chair.

"How are you? What are you watching?" He watches Alexander through half-closed eyes; even so, there is a definite weight to Kalen's full attention that presses against perceptions like wind or the feeling of the air just before lightning strikes. It may be for the best that he gives his full attention to anyone so rarely.

Alexander

“I’m surprised she hadn’t tried. She seems so keen on doing things.” At least, compared to most of the others he’s met. Thinking about it, has he seen Kalen work his will on anything since the trip to the Umbra..? “I kept meaning to ask, what happened to it? Anything to do with the vampire?”

Alexander looks over at Kalen when he asks how he’s doing, then picks up the almost-forgotten coffee cup and drinks a couple of mouthfuls. “I’m doing ok, I guess. Still working out where I fit in the grand scheme of things; working out what works for me. Oh – I finally caught up with Alyssa. I like her. I can definitely see why you’d want to team up with her.” Again, he looks back up the garden after putting the now nearly-empty mug back on the table. “She said she’d be up for teaching me about spirits too.”

He nods towards where he’s looking. “Did you know there’s one here?”

Kalen Holliday

"Callisto?" Kalen asks, his eyes widening and his voice softening with absolute awe. "The massive bear spirit that guards this place? Shoshannah let me see her once, but I can't on my own." He turns his gaze to where Alexander in looking. "She's there?" He watches that place, even though he can't see Callisto.

"And no. Nothing to do with the vampire beyond that everything is ultimately connected." He keeps his eyes where he thinks Callisto must be. "I was part of another chantry before this one, a Hermetic chantry out in Flagstaff. I lived-" He swallows. "There was an accident when I was young, and so my mother lost herself. She was lost before that, really, but more so after. I don't remember that much that happened before, because I was only six, but it wasn't much better before that because my mother was different it was better because of my sister.

"So, I spent a lot of time not being home. I guess, I mean with your job you see a lot of that. It wasn't so horrible, really. I mean, I figured out how to get money to pay for things she couldn't and I wasn't too drunk or too high to remember to do it and so, it wasn't like there was nowhere I could have been. I had a place to live, I just chose not to live in it. I didn't go back at all after I was fourteen.

"Because that's when the vampire thing happened. And I met Kharisma and Jack, and I mostly stayed with them after that. But they moved around a lot and eventually they were moving out of Flagstaff and they couldn't really bring me with them. So they introduced me to Marcellus, and Marcellus brought me back with him to the Hermetic chantry and it was the first place I'd every thought of as good or safe.

"And that was great until it exploded, and I managed to land under it. Anyway, I got out from under it, and I got my girlfriend out from under it. And she dragged me around for awhile before she dropped me off in some park and Santiago, which is how I met Ramon, and ah...he prayed. A lot. And, I didn't die. But I only got so much better because as it turns out, shattered bones don't heal really well if you aren't really in a place to treat them for a few weeks."

Alexander

He looks back at Kalen as he asks if it’s Callisto. The name doesn’t mean anything until he elaborates, but then he nods. “I guess that would be her, yeah. She’s lying down over by the pool, but I’m not sure if she’s sleeping or watching me watching her.” As Kalen seems to be looking in the direction, imagining where she is? He describes where the spirit bear is with a little more detail. “See that big rock? She’s just behind it, facing away from the water.” Shoshannah let him see her..?

But that train of thought is derailed slightly as Kalen talks more about his past. Alexander is quiet while the other man speaks, just letting him talk. And his attention is fully on Kalen now, watching him as he explains where he came from.

“Yeah, I see that. Kids looking after their parents because they’re too out of it to look after themselves. Some get help. Others..?” He goes silent. The system is imperfect, and it’s often those most need of help that refuse to even admit that there’s a problem. Then it’s only when things get really bad that the police, or Child Services, really get involved. And by then? It’s often too late, and the child follows the path laid down by the parent. But sometimes? People get out of the rut. He sighs, then asks, “I guess your father wasn’t around?”

He goes silent again for a few moment, thinking. The last of the coffee in the mug is drained too. Cold, but still drinkable – the coffee in the cupboard is apparently good stuff. “I think I get why you want to get Sid, Alyssa and me together now.”

He looks back out, but up at the dark clouds passing over this time. There’s a flash and a roll of thunder follows some seconds later. The storm isn’t all that close. “Do you feel safe here? With others around?”

Kalen Holliday

"Nothing is safe," he says softly. "Even mountains fall eventually. New ones will rise. Stars will turn into black holes and new stars will get born and one day the sky constellations people used to navigate ships will all be gone and there will be entirely new maps of stars.

"But it's my home now, and I love it for that." He pulls out a pack of clove cigarillos, lights one, and offers the pack to Alexander still without looking at him. "I like you all being here. It's sort of horrifying, caring about people, but I guess even I need them. I sleep better. When there are people. I just don't because...."

And then he switches abruptly to an easier topic. "I don't even know his name, my father. Considering the company my mother kept, it's probably only spared me further disappointment."

Alexander

Alexander doesn’t remember seeing Kalen this down before. He turns to look at Kalen again, as Kalen keeps looking away. “When you put it that way, no. But... how long were you planning on living for? Those mountains are going to be there for a good while yet. And the stars aren’t going to disappear tonight. Even if nothing lasts forever, sometimes it just lasts long enough for what you need.” He thinks for a moment about a conversation on the grass not too long ago, talking about how the stars themselves might already have winked out and how they were seeing them as they were thousands of years ago. There’s probably some clever metaphor there, but he can’t think of one.

“How long have you been in the city now, to start calling it home?” The offer of a cigarillo is turned down with a gesture. “And when did you start smoking?”

People are amazing things. On the one hand, they can be inherently good and reach out to each other. On the other? They can be cruel and selfish, unthinking of those they hurt. Alexander hasn’t personally experienced as much of the bad as Kalen seems to, but he’s certainly had his share. And an outsider’s view of much more. So he sounds sad when he continues. “You can’t protect everyone, you know. They need to look after themselves first, otherwise you just end up controlling them. And even then...” He shrugs. “Shit happens.”

Looking back out, he switches topic along with Kalen. “I know the name of mine from the cheques every month. That’s about all I remember, though.”

Kalen Holliday

[Per-Aware: Wait? Do I know what you're thinking there?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 5 )

Alexander

[Basically, Alexander is worried about Kalen. This really isn't the face that he's used to seeing on the man, and he can't help but wonder what's changed. The history certainly explains a lot about the further past, but nothing more recent that might be bothering him. He may not be doing much good at cheering Kalen up, but he's really just trying to get the guy to realise more that he isn't on his own.]

Kalen Holliday

"I don't know. Well before it was legal." He sighs. "Time is different for me. I just...I can see so much more of it than you do. Time and fate in this fucking unbelievable tapestry. How long I will or won't live is irrelevant, really. Probably not long, that's a rare thing for one of my House."

"And I-" Kalen suddenly half sits up and turns to look at Alex. "Oh. Fuck. I'm not sad. I know people think I sound like I'm about to fling myself off a bridge but I rather love my life. I probably will die sooner than later, but not because I think life is worthless. You can't do the things I do unless you know it's this brilliant, sacred thing. I didn't join my House because I wanted to die, I joined my House because I wanted people to live.

"And my childhood was great, with a notable exception. I got to actually go on adventures, and climb into forgotten places and explore and all kinds of things I should probably not tell you, but you know if you ever lock you keys in your car...." And now his voice is all rich with amusement and warmth again.

"I'm not sad all the time, I'm just fucking tired. And not like depression tired, like I have horrible nightmares and never sleep tired. I'm okay." He says, as though constant nightmares and okay are things that go together in the worlds of normal people.

He reaches out with the hand not holding a cigarillo and nudges Alexander. "Seriously, it's okay. I'm okay, you're okay, the sky isn't going to fall tonight. It's okay."

Alexander

[Alex's turn - are you really ok, or are you trying not to freak out the newbie?]

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

Alexander

“So how do you see time, then? Isn’t it something you can turn on and off like this seeing spirits thing?”

Oh. Fuck. Alexander turns back when Kalen stirs into life. The change is a little surprising because, apparently like a lot of people, he had thought something more than a lack of sleep had been bothering the man. “Ah.” He smiles, looking a little sheepish. “You... It just seemed like there was more to it than just a lack of sleep. I... well. Okay.” He shrugs. “We can make coffee, if you like. Not that helps with sleeping, but it doesn’t hurt with staying a little more awake.”

He sits forward and nudges Kalen back on the shoulder before relaxing back again. “I’m pretty sure there are statutes of limitations for most of the things you might have gotten up to. Although I guess anything you might get into trouble with the Order for is best left alone. Although,” he glances back at Kalen when he asks,” tell me about your House.”

Kalen Holliday

"In general, yes. You've seen me look through time, when we met the Message, when Sera and I reached back to let him know we'd come, when he was an Archmage and not really the Message, but was about to become the Message." Kalen smiles a little, because he adored the Message, who was all angelic light and warmth and definitely more the kind of warm golden light that is strawberries and not peaches like Hawksley and Sera thinks he's obsessed with raspberries, but it's blackberries he and Grace are on about and that's only because he needed to know if she was a fox or a leopard so he could Name her and the raspberry liqueur was only for-

Focus.

"Mmmmmmmmm....as tempting as never sleeping again is, I think my brain may actually melt." Kalen himself sort of melts back onto the patio chair like he might be impersonating a Dali clock. "And yeah. I don't think you care. That's never really worried me. Grace is freaked out as Hell, but she can't help it.

"So....House Adrenaline Junkie, more properly called House Flambeau is one of the noble Houses of the noble and glorious Order of Hermes." He laughs. "The Houses of the Order, are, of course, many and varied. Flambeau is perhaps the House most familiar to many outside Magi-" He doesn't say outside Magi like he means it dismissively, or as anything but Mages outside the Order. "-because if there is a crisis somewhere we are likely to get sent out to help. And even if the crisis is one that needs knowledge more than violence...well...not all of our librarians are secretly ninjas. But don't tell anyone I admitted to that.

"We're the sword of the Order, her Knights and her Hands. There are others who search through books or cast runes, on the whole. By and large, we are devoted to war. Ceaseless war, like...." He frowns. "Like the Hindu, you know. Endless reincarnations of struggle. But those are also endless incarnations of life and purpose and beauty and everything you fight wars for, but we're not...we're more off fighting and less why.

"I think you could be into it. You've got the temperament we need instead of the one we often get. You care about justice more than victory and peace more than glory. Some of us aren't like that. They're mostly not like me. They think I'm a mongrel, on account of my prior training, and my choosing a multi-tradition chantry and co-founding a cabal with a Hollower is not going to help that." He laughs. "But I learned from Marcellus, and even if they hate me they can only question his judgment so much. He lived for centuries and he's a fucking legend." There is respect in Kalen's tone, but more than that honest affection. "He picked me for all those things. He picked me because I was not like them in ways he meant to remind them of what they could have been and still might be. I still think it was a bit mad, thinking he could train some some car thief who didn't know how to let anyone near him to be a paragon of nobility and purity of purpose, but he was the most brilliant strategist I ever met.

"And, I don't know that I'm the best example. I'm probably not. I think you'd be a better one, really. I'm kind of like a monster sometimes. I don't mean to be, but I just...come with all the background that typically makes someone human in all the non-biological ways, you know. It makes me awesome at killing monsters that look like people, though. Which, my first partner couldn't and she died for that. So it may not be the best thing, but it isn't the worst one, either. But it's why I wanted you and Alyssa and Sid in the cabal. You can remind me when I forget."

Kalen Holliday

[DON'T. I just..._don't_ come with all the background that typically makes someone human.... I love when I forget words that completely change the meaning of a sentence.]

Alexander

“Yeah, I remember.” Alexander smiles too, at the memory of that encounter. So poignant – the end of one life, but the Archmage giving it up to create a new one. “You did something with a handful of dust. Is that for the link to the past? For, like... old, dusty books and tombs and stuff? Or for the flow?”

He listens as Kalen explains his house, and is thoughtful. He watches Callisto resting while he listens, then silence descends while he thinks about what he’s heard. “The House? When you put it like that, it does sound almost appealing. But..” he pauses again for a few moments, trying to put things into words. “The why matters, at least to me it does anyway. You’re right saying I care about justice, and that’s why it matters. I need to know what I’m doing is right, and I can’t get that if I’m told to go off and do something without knowing why.” He turns to face Kalen again, asking, ”What happens if you don’t agree? That you think the war you’re being told to fight is wrong?”

“There’s more to it, though. I hate the idea that I’d always be looked down on by the others in the Order. Just having been spotted before Waking Up doesn’t make anyone better or worse, and...” his speech gets a little louder, “that kind of elitism is wrong. It wouldn’t really matter, would it, what else I did. I’d always be...less.”

He takes a breath. “Sorry. I’m not trying to offend you. I just...” He pauses again. “I don’t think I’d be as good a fit with the Order as you think I might be. I just needed to hear more before I really knew, I guess. Alyssa said I should try to look more at the philosophy behind the teams.” He shrugs, looks back out at the darkening sky.

A few more moments pass before he carries on talking. “I think I could work with you and Alyssa, though. You guys know Sid much better than I do, so I guess... We could see how things work out, the four of us?”

Kalen Holliday

"I don't think you'll fit. God knows I don't. I think you're something they need, if they're going to be everything that they could be, and that is entirely different. I've told them to go to Hell a few times. They haven't kicked me out yet." He laughs. "You have time. And the snooty looks...they aren't so bad if you know who you are."

Considering the Dali clock imitation, Kalen doesn't really relax more when Alexander says yes to the cabal, but he does smile and let out a slow breath. "Good. You're not signing your life away. If you decide you want to leave, no one is going to stop you. I know it seems like we want you to make all the life altering choices, but...all of them are. You just make new ones constantly. No one thing can define anything. Not your Tradition or your cabal or any of that, not anymore than what flavor of ice cream is your favorite."

Alexander

Alexander rubs his hands over his face, groaning a little. “Still working on that bit. Figuring out who I am, I mean. I guess that’s why I’m so keen on trying to find a place for myself. Although I suppose that’s pretty much the same as people defining who they are by what they do.” The hands come down and land in his lap. “But never say never, I guess. But there are other Traditions I need a better look at and, like you say, there’s time to decide.”

“Oh don’t worry, I don’t have any problems with the decisions even if it can take a while to make up my mind about things. And what I said earlier, about trying to do too much for someone ends up controlling them? Just don’t, not with me anyway.” He snorts. “I don’t much like being controlled or manipulated. Or told to...” he smiles as he makes a shoo motion with his hands.

Kalen Holliday

He reaches out and squeezes Alexander's shoulder at the face rubbing. Only for a second, he doesn't really do sustained contact with Alexander. But he doesn't otherwise address that.

"If people know you're controlling them, at least in my experience, you are doing it very wrong. At least in the sense you're talking about."

Alexander

There’s no flinch or withdraw from the contact, whether or not Kalen is expecting one. It is appreciated, though. “I guess most people change so much through their lives that it’s pretty normal, right?” It’s more of a rhetorical question.

Kalen gets a look when he says that people knowing they’re being controlled means you’re doing it wrong. “One thing about the cabal. Don’t hide things from me. Even if you’re trying to protect me. I don’t mean everyone’s deepest darkest secrets. I mean... About things that come up. You want to be reminded of the why when you forget? Then I need to know. ”

Kalen Holliday

Kalen rolls onto his side so that he can really see Alexander. "What about the things I hide to protect other people?"

Alexander

Alexander sighs, thinking. Things to do with him are easy. Things to do with others..? “I don’t know. But I guess that comes down to trust. Trust that you’re hiding something for the right reasons. But, on the flip side, that you trust us enough to tell us what we need to know.”

Kalen Holliday

"Trust is weird," Kalen says. He is serious now, but also exhausted, so Alexander is being watched through solemn half-closed eyes. It is not entirely unlike being watched by a cat. "But I kind of get it now." And perhaps it is because he is less than fully awake that he adds, a bit wistfully. "I want to."

Alexander

Alexander laughs quietly. “Like anything much these days isn’t weird? Anything important, anyway.” The laughing fades, though, as Alexander stretches his legs out in front of him, leaning back on the chair and resting the base of his head on the top of the backrest . “Some clever guy once said ‘you have time’. It’s not bad advice.”

Kalen Holliday

"In the interest of full disclosure, which is apparently very important to you, particularly about things which involve you, that comment makes me very sad none of these cushions are easy enough to detach that I can throw one at you." He laughs, "Also I am probably going to fall asleep on you in like the next ten minutes. Fuck...."

Alexander

Alexander laughs too, looking back at the Node and thinking of something Kalen said earlier on. He looks at him, close to dozing off, and mentally shrugs. What the hell...

Alexander pushes himself back up in the chair. “Let me try something,” he says as he picks up the mirror from the table again. “No idea if this will work...” He looks into the mirror, concentrating, focussing on the other side. “But when was anything fun easy?”

[Ohgodohgod... Arete, spirit sight. TN4, -1 for the node. Need 2 succs? One for the effect, one for Kalen? ]

Dice: 1 d10 TN3 (6) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Alexander

Everything seems to freeze, just for a fraction of a second. And then..?

Callisto, in all her resting glory, is now visible to Kalen. At least for a short while. A deep rustling announces the arrival of rain, but Alexander is happy to sit there for as long as Kalen is. If the other man does fall asleep where he is, then there's a handy blanket inside that he'll use to cover him.

Kalen Holliday

Kalen smiles when he sees Callisto, because who wouldn't love her? All huge and majestic and so overwhelmingly not like anything else. But even for Callisto his eyes do not actually stay open long.

He doesn't say anything normal, like goodnight or thank you for showing me that awesome bear spirit I think is about the best thing ever. No, he is quiet for awhile, long enough that Alexander might think he is asleep, and then he murmurs, "wake me before you leave, would you?"

Alexander

“I will.” Alexander stands, but not to leave. He heads inside with the empty coffee mug and returns a short time later with it refilled. He’s also got the blanket and a cushion taken from the living room, which he puts on the table next to Kalen in case he wants them. There’s a bit of an overhang where the patio is, so they’re in the lea of the house when the rain – and, later, the storm – do arrive. Alexander is happy just sitting there, watching the guardian of this place, the rain, Kalen.

Just being.

Can you believe there's a storm coming?

Lucy

The day was sunny and warm, but everywhere people with the proper applications were getting the same alerts to their phones. Winter weather watch. A spring storm was crawling its way over the mountain ridge, oozing grey and ominous and heading straight for Denver. Would it last? Would it really snow? That remains to be seen. What matters is that the evening is cool and cooling further with every moment.

And those standing near to a certain tall woman with vibrant (bottle) maroon hair are colder still. The place is a little courtyard of shops. The Rocky Mountain Chocolate factory and Overland and others line the tiny square on two sides, with 16th Street and Lawrence making up the other two sides. Writer Square, it's called, and there are sculptures everywhere. Tall posts with lights atop them sprouting up from empty stone flower pots. Sculptures of children at play, with a bat, with a crown. One with several metal children climbed to the top of a small metal structure.

It's meant to inspire, but in the semi-darkness broken only by the street lamps and the storefronts, it seems a little ominous.

It doesn't help that there's the strange woman standing there, leaning back against the sculpture of the child holding the bat, a paper bag from the Chocolate Factory in one hand. She's dressed in a black lacy top with a deeply scooping neckline, and sleeves that flare out at her elbows. Beneath it is a bright aqua bra. Between the hem of the shirt and the waistband of her shredded skinny jeans her stomach is flat and pale.

She is watching people. Or maybe she's waiting for someone. Or possibly it's both or something else entirely. At the corner the 16th Street shuttle pauses, pouring out riders that push past those waiting to board. Lucy takes a bite of a chocolate bon bon and looks in that direction.

[sure why not try some awareness for the lulz]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (6, 6, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 5 )

Alexander

['Cos it might make a difference to the entrance - per+awareness]

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

Lena Reilly

[[Awareness too! Spec: Uncanny Instincts]]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 ) Re-rolls: 2

Alexander

The air is already cooling from the slowly setting sun, and the approaching storm promises things to get colder still. But Alexander likes to be prepared for the weather, moving from one city where “wet” is the usual order of the day to one where it can swing between extremes within hours. So he’s out today wearing gear suited for the cooler weather – thick grey hooded sweatshirt with a red t-shirt peeking out, dark green combats and walking boots. There’s a rucksack on his back, looking a little emptier since he pulled out the warmer top to wear. Why is he here? Judging by the Under Armour carrier bag he’s been shopping. Has been, but is now sat on a bench with a Starbucks take-out coffee cup watching the world walk by.

Those walking between Lucy and Alexander might be forgiven for feeling the weather has turned somewhat glacial. The clear air still, frozen for a moment as they pass by. Shrugging further into their thick coats, they hurry through onto warmer places. The coolness of Lucy’s resonance takes a while to notice, similar as it is to his own. But the extra feeling of threading pulls his attention towards the watching or waiting woman, rather than those fighting to get on or off the shuttle.

noel-lurk

[Would you folks like a fourth?]

Lucy

[go for it!]

Lucy

It is cold where the two Awakened stand, not all that far from each other. One is dressed for the oncoming cold, the other is, well, not. Lucy's boots are sturdy black leather with a two inch heel, they are comfortable and can withstand wakling a number of blocks, but they are not cold weather gear.

Whoever she might be waiting for must not have gotten off the bus or come around the corner into the square. The bus pulls away from the curb, the crowd scatters, and Lucy relaxes back against a metal child's chilly pate. The paper of the bag crinkles as she reaches in for another chocolate treat.

The close proximity of another who feels like a touch of winter has been noticed, but, uh. Lucy has been waiting for someone and she doesn't always feel terribly social. But since she has to wait a little longer anyway...

Tilting her head in Alexander's direction, she offers him a wide and friendly smile as she offers up a bit of small talk. "Can you believe there's a storm coming? It's practically swimming season."

Lucy

[HOO HOO HOO WELCOME GRACE TO THE STARBUCKS ROOM OF HORRORS]

Grace

[Grace -- ;O_O]

Grace

[Awareness!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 5, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )

Alexander

People come and go, Alexander watches them as they almost bounce off each other as they work their way through the crowd around the bus stop. Some, the stories behind them are quite obvious – the mother trying to shepherd her kids home for dinner and bed before the weather turns, the man in the suit running before slowing to a halt as a bus pulls away. Others are not so easy.

Alexander gives Lucy a smile in return, glancing down at her clothes and back up to her face. “You’ve not been here long, have you? The mountains can spit out all kinds of weather in a few hours, from sunshine to snow storms and everything in between.” He fishes out a mobile, turning the screen on to the weather warning showing over the lock screen. “A little warning helps. Or the ability to tell the future, but crystal balls are so unreliable. You might be able to get a couple of hours swimming in, but you probably want to avoid doing it up in the mountains for a couple of months yet.”

Lucy

Lucy's smile widens, and she shifts so that she's no longer watching the shuttle bus stop. She'll notice when the one she's waiting arrives, she's a lot like the two of them, after all.

"You know, there are more tools to divination than just crystal balls." Lifting her chin, she looks up at a sky that is blurred by the lights, with only one or two particularly bright stars shining overhead through a film of cloud cover. "Weather's usually pretty easy, actually, there are signs." With another shrug, she looks at Alexander again. "But if the weather here's really all that erratic...Cold doesn't bother me, personally, but it can certainly mess up plans for an evening.

"I'm Lucy. I'd offer to shake, but," she shifts her hands, one of which is occupied with the bag, the other with a shard of chocolate.

Alexander

Alexander takes sip from the cooling coffee – no longer hot, but still warm enough to be drinkable – as Lucy talks about divination. “Well there’s always a good piece of seaweed hung outside. If it’s wet, you know it’s raining. If it’s horizontal, it’s gotten windy.” He smiles a little then shrugs at the bad joke. “But whatever works for you, really. I’ll settle for the weather forecast and keeping something water-proof handy.” The smile widens again. “You don’t think rushing for cover when it starts hailing adds a little something to a stroll through the park?”

“Alexander. And not a problem.” He raises the coffee cup in greeting.

Grace

16th Street Mall is not Grace's favorite place in the world. Everywhere there is a memory -- some connection to a wound in her past that has scabbed over and scarred. The parking lot where she first saw it. That thrice-damned Starbucks.

So why is she here?

Perhaps it is because of those memories. She killed the beast after all.

About the only reason she would come to a temple dedicated to commerce would be to treat its bookstores like libraries and to watch people. Although today, it seems, she has been caught in the act (or just felt bad about it), and thus is carrying an actual plastic bag with a book inside when she arrives at Writer Square with its eerie human facsimiles.

The artificial people do not bother her. Real people bother her much more. People are a hard problem.

She can sense the others -- cold in different lights, and her eyes graze over the people -- people like trees, people without contexts -- to find them.

Alexander. Of course. A hard problem there.

She walks towards them, and they will feel her in return -- the muted but sharp and sudden displacement that she brings with her.

"Alex, hey," Grace says, gives him a smile, before turning to Lucy. "And you are -- oh... I met you once at that place with the thing..."

Lucy gets an awkward wave.

Lena Reilly

She's running. Lena doesn't run often. She might jog, she might walk, she might even dance her way down the street, but Lena rarely runs. Tonight she's moving quickly, sandals hitting the pavement hard as she races up toward the square. Her hair is slightly tangled in the collar of her jacket, some of it caught between the biker's jacket and the T-shirt underneath. She's breathing moderately hard, her jeans-covered legs pumping as she skids around someone, comes up toward where Alexander and Lucy chat.

Now here's the good news: she's not being chased. Rather, she's trying to make up time for being late. Lena is a little embarassed about not being on time; for someone whose Tradition specializes in Time magic, you would think being prompt isn't an issue. But even Time users get held up by other things, and that's what happened here. She slows to a jog and then a walk, heart still racing as she comes up to the two. That withering pulse is going a bit more rapidly now, her energy thumping like her heart is, and she gives an apologetic smile as she comes up.

"Hey, sorry I'm late," she begins as she's within conversation range. Alexander she knows, if only vaguely from that one time, and she gives him a smile and wave. "Hey Alexander. How are you?" And a smile to the Virtual Adept, who she knows very well. "Hey Grace."

She pauses there to catch her breath, presses two fingers against her neck to check her pulse. It's a habit when she's out of breath like this. "I was five minutes away from my apartment when I forgot I had something to do," she tells Lucy.

Lucy

The suggestion of a strip of seaweed is met at first with curious interest and then a genuine laugh. "It depends, really, on whether you're alone when the hail hits or after you've found cover. Then it could very well turn into a jewelry commercial."

She does sense something sudden, sharp, and shifting coming nearer. Coming from the direction of a bookstore, Barnes & Noble, perhaps. Their employees are so alert and hawkish, keeping an eye on their stock and products. Lucy tilts her head, but before she can turn and look to see who it is that's coming, that voice greets Alexander. Turning to look at Grace, Lucy returns the awkward wave with a vastly diminished smile and a lowering of her green eyes.

"Yeah," she replies. "Lucy," she reminds her, and before she can make good an escape from all that awkwardkness-

Lena races onto the scene. Lucy pushes off from her statue-perch and straightens, adjusting the fall of a slouching canvas bag resting over one of her shoulders. "Hey," she greets, warmth rising up in an otherwise cold woman. "There's no rush, really. It's not like we don't have hours and hours before the clubs close."

Alexander

Alexander has begun to wonder if mages have some kind of natural attraction to each other. In a city with a population of over half a million, the chances of accidentally bumping into other Awakened should be tiny. But time and again, something nudges the dice and brings them together. Alexander pulls a coin out of a pocket and rolls it between his fingers absent-mindedly.

Grace greets the two of them, her resonance only announcing her approach shortly before her physical arrival. He turns, smiles back at her, and answers, “Hey, Grace! How’re you doing?” The bag from the book shop? It’s noticed, but not commented on. Books – meh. The wave to Lucy? Grace being awkward around someone new, or something having come between them already? Either is possible, but not something Alexander can work out just yet.

Then Lena arrives, hot and bothered against the cool (cooling) background, and gets a smile of her own. “Hey! Um, Nina was it?” He raises an eyebrow as she checks her pulse. “You ok?”

Grace

Oh, Grace's eyes narrow, though it's not any one of them that she's suddenly glaring at. It's just -- it's happening again right? Surely, now, a mummy will fall from the sky. This is what happens in her world now. And perhaps the others will pick up on the fact that Grace no longer seems to know which expression to express.

Eventually, she settles on a smile for Lena, however. "Lena, hey. You guys were going to a club?"

Some might take that as Grace trying to invite herself, but Grace's idea of a good time is not an enclosed room with a bunch of people. If it were, she might be at Sera's party right now with Kalen, enjoying all those people. But no. Let's not.

"I'm doing good, really. Getting shit done, you know."

Lena Reilly

"I know, I know," she says with a grin to Lucy. If anyone knows that, it's Lena. "There's a lot of clubs to get to though, you know. What kind of DJ would I be if I didn't give you a proper tour?"

She pauses there a moment, pulls her hair back over her shoulder and composes herself. She isn't worried about looking out of sorts so much, it's just a matter of putting other people at ease. People are more relaxed around you when you're not looking like you just got finished escaping Jason Voorhees, after all. Alexander calls her Nina and she smiles, shrugs it off. "Close enough. Lena. Nice to see you again...and yeah, I'm okay." She nods a little bit. "I have a habit of keeping track of my vitals. It's...a thing." Odd? Perhaps, but who among them is really normal?

She notes the awkwardness, the bit of chill (no pun intended...or IS THERE?) between Lucy and Grace. She knows why too, there was some weirdness between them before at the place. Grace may be worried that they're about to be plunged into supernatural catastrophe and Alex may wonder if there's a natural attraction, but Lena knows the truth (which is to say, HER truth. They all have truths and they don't all match after all): the threads of Destiny weave them together when they're fated to be together. Maybe it's because Alex needs to get to know Lena and Lucy, and Grace needs to face the Starbucks where they got stung.

(Worth noting: Lena notices it. But she doesn't seem hesitant because it's a coffee shop, not a virus-filled bee. She doesn't fault Grace for feeling the way she does though. They all react their own way.

Whatever the reason, they're here now and it's because they should be. "Yeah, I'm going to show Lucy around to the best spots."

Lucy

There are many theories about why people with their eyes open to the secrets of the universe congregate together so readily. They are all in their own way true. It's Fate, it's something threading them all together, binding them into this moment however briefly. It's something about the resonances, the way they draw other Awakened to them even as the warping of the atmosphere pushes the Sleepers away.

Truth is, they'd probably all bump into each other even if they weren't Awake. Denver, for all of its size, is not terribly large. It's population sprawls out over miles, but there are certain places where people tend to gather and run into each other over and over until they give up and decide to become acquainted. It's just that kind of a place.

There is an awkwardness in the interaction between Lucy and Grace, and Lucy gets it. She is weird, even by their standards, as Spirit Mages tend to be. The very air around her chills, the ground beneath her feet seems to frost over, they can feel it creeping over any exposed skin. In Lucy's experience, the best way for her to handle someone who is so obviously uncomfortable around her is to remove herself from that person's space.

Stepping closer to Lena, who straightens and adjusts her hair. "I didn't realize we were hitting up more than one or two. We'd better get a move on, then. It was nice meeting you, Alexander." She offers the man a smile, nods to Grace, and looks to Lena to lead the way.

Alexander

Whatever the reason that the Awakened of the city continue to bump into each other, the occasional weird occurrence is hardly reason to avoid others. But Alexander is still fresh and relatively unscarred by the nightmares – figurative and literal – that some of the others have fought through. Hell, the worst he’s faced happened when he was on his own. If you don’t count the owl, that is.

He nods when Grace says she’s getting things done. They’re most likely things he doesn’t really understand – her way of working her will, the specifics of the high tech stuff that she’s working on with Kalen, that kind of thing. He does try to show an interest, though. “How’s the scanning thing going?”

“Ah, Lena. Yeah, nice to see you again too,” Alexander replies to her. “And, yeah – I’m keeping well, thanks. Finding my feet and all that. How about you? You seem... happier than the last time we bumped into each other. ”

Lucy suddenly seems to be in a rush to get going, quite a swing from saying they had plenty of time to make it through the clubs. So there is something between Grace and Lucy then? His eyebrows rise a little as he tries to work it out, but Lena and Lucy’s plans for the evening grab his attention. “Oh? Where are you guys headed to?” Alexander has tried some of the local nightspots at random, with varying degrees of success. But hearing from one of the locals – especially from one who works the club circuit – seems like a better way to find the good ones.

Grace

"Oh, did Kalen tell you about that? Yeah, we've got all of my books so far. Working through Kalen's takes a bit longer, and part of the reason is that he keeps collecting more," she says, and oh -- she is adding another to her own very small physical book collection tonight though, isn't she?

"So far, no bites on getting anyone else hooked into the project though. And nobody has any opinion whatsoever on what happens with the books at the House."

Which, of course, is the biggest shame ever. She should just sneak down one night and set up the scanner and do it, for fuck's sake. Nobody said anything, but they didn't say no, right?

"That sounds like fun," Grace says to Lena, and by that she means fun for other people.

Lucy, she's just ignoring for the moment. It's Grace trying to make the woman feel better, actually. She only knows that she sometimes doesn't play the role of 'normal human' very well at all. People have a tendency to take that and run away from it. She at least thinks she understands. She doesn't know that Lucy's thoughts right now are an imperfect mirror of her own.

Lena Reilly

Lucy moves closer and suggests they take off, and Lena seems fine with that. There's plenty of time for her to get to know Alexander better, and Grace has been a little skeptical about them hanging out together (though she's willing to try, Lena knows) so maybe smaller doses are best for now. And she doesn't plan on making Grace just hang out outside of the coffee place that bothers her anyway.

"I am...more me," she says in response to Alexander's observation. "Which is always a reason to be happier. I guess you could say I found myself again, or at least I found the road to get to where I am." Does that even make any sense Lena? I mean, really.

"I figured we'd start with the Church over on Lincoln and we'd wing it from there. Mr. Groove and DJ Tatiana are spinning tonight and tomorrow, and he's pretty good. Hip-hop's not normally my genre but I can appreciate it and he's actually opened for guys like Dre and Jay Z so that should give you an idea of how good he is at it. And Tatiana is just freaking amazing. She does this remix that uses "Twisted Nerve," the whistling song from Kill Bill, that I absolutely love."

She looks over at Grace when she mentions that no one's answered back and smiles a bit. "I'm still going through a lot of the updates that were posted while I was offline. There's a lot there. I'll try to offer some thoughts if I can."

Grace ignoring Lucy is a gesture that makes sense for Lena, but only because she knows Grace. Lucy doesn't and Lena doesn't want to guess at how she's taking it. "But for now, I'll see you guys later." She looks at Lucy and smiles. "Shall we?"

Lucy

The other three are obviously part of some sort of collective, though Lucy guesses that they're not part of a cabal. At least not with each other, not with all the catching up that seems to be happening. She does not interrupt, and she doesn't appear to be in a rush, at least not in the sense that she's trying to escape or run away as wildly as Lena rushed onto the scene. As she'd said, she hadn't realized Lena was taking her to more than maybe two places tonight, and there are only so many hours left until three or four when most of the clubs start shutting down.

As it so happens, Grace is ignoring her anyway, so best to give her space to relax. As the stranger, the outcast, the out of towner, Lucy is accustomed to giving ground to those who've been in the area longer. Which is weird, because Lucy had thought that things had more or less been settled between herself and Grace, but clearly they haven't.

But, just because she doesn't interrupt that doesn't mean that Lucy doesn't notice things. Kalen's name for one, is met with a lowering of her eyes as she looks away. Lena saying that she's more herself gets a curious look, but this is neither the time nor the place to, well, to pry, which is the only way Lucy would put asking about something that sounds personal like that.

Shall we?

Lucy nods and turns to go. "Want one?" she asks Lena, holding out the paper bag of chocolate treats as she starts away.

[and with that, Lucy is out! thanks for the scene!]

Alexander

“Oh, I completely forgot!” Alexander replies, when Grace says nobody else has been getting hooked by their work. “I was supposed to try to translate those scrolls, wasn’t I? Let me know when would be good to take a look and I’ll see if I can make any sense of them. I don’t know if there’s much else I can do to help you guys out, unless you just need someone to keep turning pages.”

“That does sound like fun,” he tags onto the end of Grace’s statement. “I’ll give the Church a try next time I’m on a night out. I’m really not dressed for it, or I’d ask if you guys wanted some more company.”

Lena’s statement gets her a closer look from Alexander. The statement might seem a little odd to the others, but it does make sense to him. Uprooting himself and moving to a new city, new job, new life has left him a little directionless. Oh, he’s finding his feet, but there’s still that feeling that he still needs to work out who he is. So finding the road? He gives Lena a warm smile, touched with something a little melancholy. “I’m glad you’ve found it,” is all he says though.

He raises his now-empty coffee cup to Lucy again, as a farewell instead of a greeting this time. “Nice bumping into you, Lucy. Hope to see you again.”

Lena Reilly

She smiles to Alexander and Grace and heads out with Lucy, intent on a good night. After all, they're heading for the clubs, and that's is where Lena lives to be.

Grace

Lena and Lucy going off together to dance to that whistling song for Kill Bill nets (at least Lena) a bright grin. Finding the road to get to where Lena is? "Roads like that are meant to be walked, I suppose," she says.

It is good to see Lena, and the more she sees Lena looking and claiming that she is doing better, the more Grace begins to actually believe it. There is that part of her that still wants to be so very sure that she's not pushing Lena off of her newly found road though.

"I'll see you guys around," she adds to the departing couple, because that's a veritable certainty.

And then, there is Alex. "Oh sure, you want to go now? It's okay if you don't have time or whatever. I always have time. At least, for that, I always have time, hah."

Alexander

And it’s just Alexander and Grace left there, in the fading light. The loss of Lucy’s resonance should have meant that those nearby felt a little less of a chill, but the promised storm front is starting to arrive and a colder wind circles the Mall, bringing the physical temperature down a few degrees from the wind chill alone.

“I’m guessing it won’t be a quick thing to do, so now’s not the greatest of times. But I’ll give you a shout in a day or two and give it a try.” He opens up his rucksack to stuff the shopping bag inside, before slinging it over one shoulder and slipping his other arm into the strap. “This looks like it could be a bad one,” he says while looking up at the sky. “You probably want to get back before it really hits.”

Grace

Grace shrugs, "I'm sure it'll be fine. Sometimes water comes out of the sky. It is strange thing, I know."

She just naturally feels more comfortable dealing with people one-on-one, but perhaps Alex will take it as her being glad to see Lucy gone. Whatever interpretation people make concerning herself and Lucy, she will go blissfully unaware of it until someone asks about it, at which point she will be thoroughly flummoxed as to why anybody thought that there was something not quite right between the two of them. Such is Grace.

As is, she leans in conspiratorially-like, and says: "Now is always the greatest of times, didn't you know? It's the only time when anything happens."

Alexander

Alexander laughs. “Well, yeah. But not everybody likes being out in...” he fishes out his phone – some kind of Android thing, Grace will probably be happy to see – switches it on to look at the storm warning.

HEAVY SNOW COMBINED WITH NORTHEAST WINDS UP TO 30 MPH MAY REDUCE VISIBILITY TO LESS THAN A QUARTER MILE AT TIMES.

Alexander turns the phone so Grace can see it better. “That.” Not everybody, no. Alexander will most likely go out walking in it later, though. He has his own strange little habits too.

He does take Grace’s increased comfort to be to do with Lucy moving on. He’s seen her with others without being particularly uncomfortable, after all. And he’s not aware of the hitches in Grace and Lena’s relationship, or their ongoing work to patch things up. But whatever the reason for the awkwardness to be there, that’s a story for another time.

Alexander looks again at Grace after what she says about now. He cocks his head to the right, considering her. “Have you been speaking to Sera? That sounds like something she’d say. Not that it makes it any less true, now that you mention it.” He nods towards an approaching bus. “But I really do have some things I need to get done. So until a later now...” He smiles and bows his head to her.

“And... yeah, call me Alex.”

Grace

"Okay, Alex. Good luck with the bizarre sky-water, and thanks for the heads-up," she says, waves. It is just as awkward as the one she gave to Lucy.

And then, it is off again. But not before Grace turns and gives a pointed look to the Starbucks direction and gives it a double middle finger.

It's... a thing

Alyssa Solomon

Alyssa Solomon primarily works out of her apartment. She doesn't take a lot of meetings for her job here but it is known to happen and, well, it looks about how anyone who knows Alyssa might imagine. The place is small, but small suits exactly what she needs; she neither requires nor wants fancy or luxurious. Those take too much upkeep and if you have to move, you've lost a lot. The place is cluttered, but it's an organized kind of clutter in which everything is separated in a way that generally makes sense to Alyssa mroe than anyone else. Someone who gives it a quick glance might think that it was just a mess, but look closer and you'll see a system to the whole thing.

looks like it hasn't been lived in all that long; maybe a matter of months, certainly less than a year. But the clutter is impressive for that amount of time, and she certainly hasn't organized the place in a matter for visitors. A full bed is off to side of the room, far enough away from both the entryway and the screen door to the balcony that she can't be surprised by anyone coming in either. (That might be a little paranoid, since she's on the third floor, but when you're a mage..) The floor isn't carpeted but laminate; she chose the apartment specifically for that because it's easier to get your security deposit back if you don't have a lot of bleach spots dotting the floor. Also, it lets her use spray paint and candles without the need for concern that it won't ever come up. She does have a spot where there's a coffee table, a couch, an old worn easy chair and an old (CRT, not LCD) television, though the area is the least cluttered and thus probably doesn't get a lot of use.

Everywhere you look there are strange knick-knacks or piles of books. Next to the bed is an assortment of old paperbacks with the covers worn thin or missing; next to her desk is a set of old tomes in Latin. On the wall is a map of Denver with lines drawn this way and that, a bunch of color-headed pins stuck in. Pictures of people are taped to the wall next to it. The kitchenette are appears to be a place where she goes to microwave stuff or get drinks. And there are more than a few ashtrays around, in various states of being full. Currently sitting on the coffee table are several folders and another, smaller map with various notes drawn on it in English and Latin. Highlighter marks. Alyssa's been busy.

Oh, and there are also the seals drawn on the walls around the room. They're old, retraced a few times from the look of it and it's probably best not to guess what kind of ink was used in them. Alyssa is currently sitting on the couch in a black tank top and jeans, distinctly dressed down and make-up free. She's looking over the papers, making a couple of notes and frowning to herself. She told Alexander once that he should drop by sometime, so they can get to know each other a little better. This may well be that sort of day.

Alexander Brandt

[Magedar, just 'cos]

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

Alexander Brandt

How long ago had it been since that invitation to stop by had first been made? Weeks, at least. Then the voicemail last month, after bumping into Mellie and the strange man, suggested that they might have more to talk about than just having a coffee and shooting the breeze. Schedules being as they are, it’s just taken a little while for a good time to appear. And now is as good a time as any.

So here Alexander is, having ridden over from home. The bike is parked – and chained up – out on the main drag, where the high footfall should hopefully mean that it’s not likely to vanish without a trace. He’s in his biker gear, although the jacket is open to the waist and showing off a Cascade Range t-shirt that a tourist might have picked up. In one hand he’s carrying a helmet. In the other? A cardboard tray, holding a couple of cups of coffee from just down the road. Just because they have things to talk about, doesn’t mean that coffee can’t happen too. Not that he’s an addict. He just likes to have something to offer when he first visits someone at home.

Whether this is somewhere he’s expect Alyssa to live is probably a little too early to say, given the limited contact they’ve had so far. But he does wonder if she meant West Colfax rather than east. The feeling of wings and blood, though? That still takes a little getting used to, and the shudders a little as he catches it. But at least he knows he’s in the right place. Hands full, he knocks gently on the door with a foot.

Alyssa Solomon

[[Awarness!]]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )

Alyssa Solomon

She recognizes Alexander's Resonance. That chill that descends over her wings, they are definitely familiar and while Alyssa may sometimes (on rare occasions) get names mixed up, she very rarely gets someone's magical feel wrong. And so she looks up from a passage she's reading from an EPA report, looks to the door just before she takes a drink from her Corona. Piss beer, Kalen has called it when he's gently teased (or mocked) her for drinking it. Once she explained why she does.

At any rate, recognizing that Resonance means that she doesn't pull her gun just in case. Alyssa is a careful woman, and she's never been one to discount the idea that the Union (or Nephandi, or others) might come kicking her door down one day. But she knows Alexander, and doubts she's about to get in trouble. So instead she walks to the door in bare feet and--after looking through the peephole (just in case) she opens it up, flashing him a grin.

"Officer, I swear I thought he was 18." There's a little wink and then she steps aside, pulling the door the rest of the way open. "Come on in. Forgive the mess. How are you?"

Alexander Brandt

“Well as long as you have a photocopy of his driver’s licence to prove it.” Alyssa gets a smile at the unusual greeting, as he holds the tray of coffees up for Alyssa to take one if she wants. If she doesn’t? Well a couple of bucks won’t kill the bank and he’d probably just drink it himself anyway.

He steps through the door and, for a moment, pauses as he sees the walls. Dried blood isn’t something he’s any stranger to, but usually in a puddle. Not intentionally painted in patterns that he doesn’t recognise. He assumes that it’s Alyssa’s blood adorning the walls – it would certainly fit in with her Resonance anyway – and walks the rest of the way in. Alexander takes a look around the rest of the room while Alyssa closes the door. The map on the wall grabs his attention and he takes a step closer to better see it. Glances at the photos, in case any of them look familiar. Given their respective lines of work, there’s likely going to be some crossover. But then there’s no knowing how old the photos or the lines on the map have been there. Cold cases, maybe?

“I’m doing ok, thanks. Happy that the world is crazier, rather than me. Keeping busy, and not just in the mundane sense. And still thinking about Kalen’s invitation from before.” The cabal? Yeah, he’s not forgotten about it. But learning to stand on his own feet without falling flat on his face has been more important. Besides, he said at the time that he needed to get to know the others better first. No time like the present. Alexander turns back to Alyssa. “How about you? Keeping out of trouble, Miss Solomon?” There’s a smile along with the gentle teasing back as he tilts his head down and looks up at her – all he’d need is the half-moon glasses to complete the impression of an old teacher.

Alyssa Solomon

The map that Alexander moves to and looks at contains what appear to be her private eye cases, but specifically the ones with potential supernatural implications. Hauntings, young men and women who are missing that may have been nabbed up by a cult, that sort of thing. Interspersed are various seemingly random locations...at least until you look closer and see how random they aren't. The Chantry in Morrison has a pin in it, unlabeled and uncolored. There's a pin that just says Millie, and one that reads Carnevale (the latter in the Santa Fe Arts District). The words are on little divider stickers that stuck by the pins. It's an assortment of random occurances and other such things...but then, nothing is really random to Alyssa.

"Sorry, I didn't clean up," she says with a little half-smirk when she sees him pause at noticing the walls. "I usually throw up posters when I know company's dropping by. Anyway, I'm good. Never keeping out of trouble, but always keeping busy. You know how it is. Thanks," she says, the final word intoned as she takes the offered coffee. Never look a gift of caffeine in the mouth.

She shuts the door and moves back over to the couch, stacking up all the papers to clear them away. "Still thinking about it, eh? I can get that. A lot of pros and potential cons there. Especially, I imagine, for a detective who's still figuring out where he stands in the magical mileu of Denver."

Alexander Brandt

Alexander smiles a little as he spots the Millie pin on the map. “She said that you guys had met. Millie, I mean. I bumped into her last month. She said I should ask you about a guy called Connor too. She seemed to have a bit of a soft spot for him.” The other pins – except for the Chantry – don’t have any obvious meaning to Alexander and pass without comment.

Alexander turns from the map to set his helmet down by the armchair. The tray is carefully put on the table, if there’s an empty spot away from anything that might not appreciate spilled coffee, and he shrugs out of his jacket which gets laid over the back of the chair. Sitting, he pulls his cup out of the tray and takes a sip. “Not a problem,” he says about not having cleaned up. “It’s your place, I just wasn’t expecting it. What are they for?” There’s another questions hanging, but which goes unasked. He’s happy with the assumption that the blood used to mark the walls is Alyssa’s, but what if it isn’t..? Does he really want to know?

“Oh, I’m no detective. One day, maybe, but I’m just a beat cop really. Any detecting I do is purely as an amateur. I pick up bits and pieces, catch sight of an occasional report or two. But that’s about it. I’m starting to get the feeling that there’s a lot more that goes on around here than the force really has its eyes open to, though. I guess that’s what Kalen meant about there being things that the police aren’t really geared up to deal with.”

Alyssa Solomon

She can't help but grin when Alexander mentions Connor. To this day it still bewilders her that she and the newly-Awakened drug dealer ended up in a mentor/student relationship. They're deeply different people, but that's the way it works sometimes. There's a little chuckle form the goth woman before she shrugs.

"Connor's a good kid. I think you and he would probably be pretty much oil and water. His activities are less legal than even most of us Awakened. Nothing really harmful though." And she leaves it there because ignorance is usually bliss for the cops.

She's used to being asked about the wards by people who know to ask, and she shrugs as she leans back. "They're protective. Keep the place free from being spied on, and there's one I can use in a pinch to get more on an even playing field if spirits come in with bad intentions. Basically, they're my version of an armory. You know, besides the physical weapons."

Alexander mentions that he's not a detective, and she grins a little bit. "I wasn't talking about what it says on your shirt, Alexander. We're not defined by how we pay the bills, after all. You're right though." There's a little less tease here. "There are worlds more than the authorities have their eyes on. And most of the few authorities that do know...well, we probably don't want them to know that we know. They're usually Technocrats as a rule."

Alexander Brandt

Ignorance does make things rather simpler at times, so he’s happy to let the conversation about Connor drop. If they happen to bump into each other, then they’d have to see what happens. But he does add one last piece to that train of conversation. “Well, meeting him couldn’t go much worse than my first encounter with our not-so-friendly neighbourhood priest.” Not unless guns and handcuffs became involved, at least.

Alexander looks a lot more interested when Alyssa mentions spirits, and getting on a more equal footing with them. “That was one of the things I’d been hoping to talk to you about, actually. Spirits, I mean. It seems that I have some... leanings in that direction, but none of the others I see around really know much about it all. It’s hard enough trying to figure out what’s going on when you’re trying to work with something that doesn’t have its own thoughts on the matter. How does that one work? Is it something I could learn to do?” The thought of that first day Awake, with a spirit trying to lure him through into the Umbra? That’s probably the kind of thing he needs his own armory to deal with.

“A lot of people do define themselves by what they do to pay the bills. I’ve probably been guilty of that myself, at least before everything came more into focus. But what you said about the Technocracy... Do you think that they’re involved with the DPD?” Not that he’d been shouting about the new view on the world that he’s picked up, but it’s good to know how cautious to be. A thought of the voicemail that Alyssa left comes to mind. “Speaking of detectoring, you mentioned something about a case you’re working on that my encounter with Weird might have something to do with?”

Alyssa Solomon

True story: guns have been involved when Connor's been around. They weren't because of him, though; they were because of Kalen and Alyssa being wary sorts and not having met each other before the Hermetic showed up at her door. That Connor was there had no impact on the weaponry. But still...guns.

She listens with interest when he talks about having interest in spirits, taking a sip from her coffee. "It is something you could learn to do," she says as she sets the coffee down and reaches for her cigarettes. "Eventually. I can definitely help you get there, though. Spirits are creatures of a very different color than people. There's a lot more variety. Some of them are completely single-minded, focused on one purpose or what aspect of life. Some are a lot like us...mostly the dead, really, like Millie. And then there are things like Thakinyan, the Umbral Lord that the others had to deal with. Don't know if they've told you about him. They can be far more complex than your average person. I can definitely help you with learning to use spiritual magic though, and the more mundane knowledge. Which is just as important.

"As for the DPD..." She shrugs, popping one of the smokes into her mouth. It's a regular cigarette; no menthol, no clove, no pot. "I have no idea. I've not been around to look, but it wouldn't surprise me at all. The Union likes being in positions of authority. Makes their job easier. It's important to realize that they aren't actually in control of everything though. They seem like it sometimes, but...they're not everywhere. So they might, or they might not." She looks at him then pointedly, as she flicks the lighter to life. "If I were you, I'd play it safe though."

He asks him about the case and the encounter, and her eyes light up in an entirely different way than her cigarette did. "Oh, right! So." She starts looking through her files. "You said there was something about decay, right? That sounds familiar. I'm tracking down a missing girl, an environmental activist. She was looking into some kind of toxin being dumped in the water and hasn't been heard since. I'm pretty sure there's something magical involved based on my preliminary investigations, and an element of decay...well, that sounds like it could fit. What did you run across, exactly?"

Alexander Brandt

Alexander sits up, sipping his coffee, as she skims lightly over the world of spirits. “I’ve met a couple, so far. Mellie. A... guy, I guess, goes by The Message. And something else.” He smiles at Mellie’s name, although it fades into wistfulness at the mention of The Message. It’s gone completely at the end. “When I Woke Up? There was something there, trying to get me to get closer to a tear into the Umbra. I don’t know what would have happened if it had, but Sera managed to... stop me, before I did anything too stupid. So I think I’ve been pretty lucky in who, or what, I’ve bumped into. But I have been completely clueless each time, and it’s something I do want to know more about. I’ve not heard of Thakinyan, though. What’s an Umbral Lord?” And so it begins...

The others had already told him enough to be cautious about where and how he talks about things, and that being spotted or overheard by the wrong person could bring a whole lot of attention that nobody wants to have around. So he’s under no illusion that turning into “that weird guy who thinks he can talk with ghosts” would be a very bad thing. “I’ll try to avoid anything overly odd during working hours, but I really can’t promise anything.” He shrugs, almost resigned to ‘whatever happens, happens’. “If nothing else, I’ve found that oddness does have a habit of grabbing us without warning, though.”

He settles back in the chair, getting comfortable. He may well have tucked his legs under him, but those boots aren’t comfortable to sit on. “I’m still not entirely sure what it was, you know. There was this... almost like the Resonance we all seem to have, but it didn’t seem to be coming from anyone or anything in particular. It was just this feeling of damp and decay. Almost like the forest in autumn, I guess, when everything is dying down for the winter. But there was this guy. I’d never met him before, no idea who he was and I’ve not been able to find out anything about him.” He laughs a little to himself, more of a detective then he gives himself credit for? “He looked normal, physically. But doing the spirit thing,” he wiggles his fingers, as he’d seen one or two of the others do when talking about magic, “he was covered in green dust, and looked like he was rotting.” He shrugs. “More than that, I can’t really tell you. Mellie was yelling at me to run away, and that seemed like a really good idea at the time. One thing she did say, though, was that this thing kills people. And that he wasn’t the first it’s taken.”

He thinks for a minute before continuing. “I have an idea where that water might be. I don’t know about anything toxic, but there have been some people missing down around Littleton. And some strange deaths down that way too, around Chatfield Lake and the reservoir to the north of it. From what I gathered, it looks like they had drowned but the actual cause of death hasn’t been identified. It wasn’t by drowning, though.”

Another shrug. “Any help?”

Alyssa Solomon

"It does," she says with a nod. She had listened quietly through the whole thing, taking in all the details. Her only activity was picking up a pad of paper and pen and jotting down some notes. Damp & Decay. Looked normal but Umbrally covered in dust. Rotting. "I already had an idea that it was Chatfield, but this definitely confirms that your situation and mine are connected. And that gives me something to go off of."

She lets that go for a moment, but just for a moment. She'll get back to it. First...questions. She flips a piece of paper on the pad to a clean sheet, smiling a little. "An Umbral Lord is exactly how it sounds. The spirit world...we call it the Umbra. The other world. The way history tells it, it didn't use to be separated from our world. The Gauntlet, the wall in-between...it was thing, or non-existent in some places. The more people stopped believing in the spirits, the thicker that it got. And there were other factors too, but...you get the idea."

She starts to sketch out a really quick drawing. A circle, labeled Earth. A fuzzy line scratched around it, with a line from it titled Penumbra. Outside of that the word Umbra is sketched. "This is, in very basic terms, kind of how it works. You have the spiritual world that is sort of a reflection of this one, called the Penumbra. Everything outside of it is the many reals out there. There's almost no point listing even a selection; they're infinite. The lands of the dead, the Astral Plane, everything else...it's out there. Far, far out is the Deep Umbra, where things are so alien that it's nothing we would even comprehend. Amidst all of this are little pocket worlds. Umbral Lords rule these realms, or live way out in the Deep Umbra. They're very powerful and often insane. Or at least, their way of thinking is so alien to ours as to seem insane."

Alexander Brandt

Alexander moves over from the chair to the empty seat on the couch, all the better the look at what Alyssa is drawing on the paper. He listens to the explanation, picking up on the parts that nobody had explained yet. “The Gauntlet – is that anything to do with the Avatar Storm?” He shivers a little at the memory of being dragged through it, even if he wasn’t affected as badly as others. “Although the way you said it, I guess the Gauntlet was there first?” That it became thicker? “So it’s like when we try to do anything too far outside of what people believe is possible? It gets harder, and reality hits back? So people don’t believe in spirits anymore, so it gets harder to get through to them.” See, this is why he prefers learning from people rather than books. You can’t try to work stuff through and then ask if you’ve done it right – books don’t answer back.

The lands of the dead... “I was wondering what happened when somebody died. I mean, what happens to the spirit? I guess they go somewhere, otherwise the whole city would be crowded when I’ve looked through the looking glass. But then why is Mellie still here? Is the spirit the same as the Avatar?” Hopefully Alyssa doesn’t mind answering questions, because there could be an awful lot of them. It seems like Spirit mages are a little short in the city, so the chance to begin figuring some of this stuff out? It’s too good an opportunity to miss. “Do spirits have the same problems coming here that we do crossing over to them? And those Lords? Why do they come here, if we’re as strange to them as they are to us?”

Alyssa Solomon

"They have any number of reasons. Usually known just to them." She smiles a bit and shrugs, tapping ash into a nearby tray. "In some cases they want to get back to this world, or maybe they want to destroy everything for some reason or another. Maybe they want to spread peace to the world through mental domination--or just spread peace through peace, though they're very rarely here for a good reason. What's important, and is fortunate to us, is that in most Umbral Lords' cases they can't get here. Paradox holds them back, as does the Gauntlet. All those stories you've heard of Faustian deals, or Things That Should Not Be...Lovecraft stories, all that kind of thing..."

She can't help it; she grins. "Well, most of them are fiction. But they came from somewhere, and the original stories...sometimes they're grounded in reality.

"As to their problems...it's a little different." She leans back and sets the pad down. "Like I said, Paradox says they don't exist, so they can't stay here long. Disbelief is problematic to them. Sometimes you'll encounter creatures from a different age....Bygones. They have that problem too. And the deadlands...well. I don't know where most of them go, but the ones that stay here? Near as I can tell, it's usually because they've got something tying them here. Strong attachments that keep them from shuffling onward."

She sighs then. The worst part...the Avatar Storm. "So, the Avatar Storm. That's relatively new. It's...sort of a long story." She stands up then, walks over to the kitchen to get herself a new beer. "Long story short, back at the end of the twentieth century a bunch of shit went down. We still don't understand a lot of it, but that's when the Avatar Storm happened. Several chantries in the Umbra were destroyed, and our Umbral headquarters Horizon was devastated. The Avatar Storm...we don't generally know why exactly, but fragments of countless Avatars were stuck in the Gauntlet. That's what happened there and why it is so dangerous to pass through."

A pause. "You want one?"

Alexander Brandt

“Please,” he replies to the offer of beer.

“So, that spirit when I Woke Up? The one that was trying to get me to come closer? That was its way of trying to get across into this world?” Which opens up a new trail of questioning. “What... would have happened if I had? Do they tie themselves to people to stay here?” Then, what happens to them after..? The more Alexander learns, the more he realises how lucky he was to walk away.

“Do ghosts want to stay, then? Unfinished work, wanting to see the kids grow up, that kind of thing? Or can they be forced to hang around, even if they don’t want to?” He’s wondering what it is that keeps Mellie around, and if there’s any way of asking that isn’t likely to upset her. But if it’s not always by choice that ghosts are hanging around, then presumably there are some that need help to find their rest. His thoughts drift towards The Message again, wondering what happened to him.

He looks back at Alyssa when he realises that he’s been wool-gathering. “Leonhard – have you met him? – tried explaining some of this. He said the Technocracy did something that caused the storm, but I don’t think he really knew what it was either. When you say our headquarters – do you mean the Traditions? Or... I dunno, are you with them? Or are you Orphan too? Do they.. we..? count as a Tradition? The way Kalen talks sometimes, it sounds like some of the cool kids tend to look down on the ones who haven’t picked a team yet.”

Alyssa Solomon

She pulls out another Corona for Alexander and lets the fridge shut behind her, walking over. She uses a ring around the middle finger on her right hand to pop the caps off, handing his over.

"I wish I could tell you for sure about what happened in your Awakening, but I don't know. It could have been a spirit trying that, or maybe your Avatar. It could have been a test, or some spirit taking advantage. If you'd managed to cross though, you probably would have been trapped until you found someone who could get you back to our side." A little smile. "That's tricky magic.

"I know Leonhard, yeah." There's a frown there...not disapproving, more curious. "There are rumors that it was Technocracy-done, but I don't think anyone knows for sure. That's a lot of speculation because it sure as shit helped the Union, who weren't as strong across the Gauntlet, as it did us. It's hard to say. And as to Traditions..." She laughs there. It's not bitter, like some Hollowers might in regard to the question. It's honestly amused.

"That's a complex question. Many of us Hollow Ones consider ourselves a Tradition, but the fact of the matter is that the other Traditions never let us into their little club. Didn't stop those Hollowers at the time from trying. And yeah, there are those in the Traditions who look down on Orphans. Including Hollow Ones, because we are basically a Tradition of Orphans. They think we're dangerous because we don't fit into their neat little boxes. Usually my response is a polite 'fuck off.'"

She sits down, takes a drink off her beer. "But I've also seen it from the other side, because I was brought up to be a Hermetic. So I have kind of the worst of both worlds, really."

Alexander Brandt

Alexander wedges his empty coffee cup back in the try and accepts the beer, taking a sip from the bottle.

“I’m pretty sure it wasn’t my Avatar. Saying that, I’m still not quite sure which part of that god-awful day was my Avatar making an appearance. Assuming it even did. I think you’re probably right about it being a spirit trying to take advantage, although I don’t really have any real way of knowing one way or the other. And yeah, getting stuck there...” His eyes go unfocussed, looking at the patterns on the far wall. “That would definitely suck.” A few seconds pause before he asks, “Is there any way of finding a particular spirit?”

He turns his head to look at Alyssa again when she talks about Traditions. Laughs at the ‘usual response’ she gives to the more closed-off members of the cool club. “So what is a Hollow One? I get that the Traditions all have their own ideas on what it is that makes the world go round, but how do you guys see the world?”

He gestures at the walls with the beer bottle. “Is that where these patterns came from? The Hermetic teaching? What made you leave them? Would you ever go back? To any of the Traditions?”

Alyssa Solomon

"Those are two involved questions." She says it with...not so much a smile this time. There's amusement, but it's a little uncharacteristically restrained. "Or several, I guess. Would I ever go back to the Order or switch to the others? No. Not a chance in hell. I am perfectly comfortable with most Hermetics. I have more in common with them than a lot of others. I don't like large parts of the Order itself though. They're arrogant and exclusionary and hoard their power like dragons in a Tolkein story. But that doesn't make them evil. Just a group I have issues with. And for the others...I don't need to. I'm part of a Tradition, whether they consider us one or not."

She sighs. "The reason that they don't like Hollowers and don't consider us a tradition is because we're very loosely organized. Even Virtual Adepts, new as they are in terms of not being Technocrats, tend to not be Orphan-heavy, or at least codified in terms of how they do their thing. Hollow Ones are more social in nature. We're ecletic and our magics aren't all the same. It's more about our oh-so-happy mindset, which is basically that the world is fucked. That makes some of us nihilists, some of us rebels, some of us very traditional in style. But all of us tend to get looked at in very askance ways. The reason I left..."

She falls silent there, shakes her head. "It's a long story, but the important part is that I found myself vulnerable at one point right after I Awakened and someone in power basically fucked me over seven ways to Sunday, in front of everyone at the Chantry. And while he was censured, he got away with it. It was a bit of an eye-opener for me." She's not still wounded over it; it's fairly blase in how she recounts it. A wound long since scabbed over.

"And yeah," she says with a nod, looking at the patterns. "That's from my Hermetic teachings. After I left I picked up a lot of other methods from other people, but most of my grounding is in Hermetic magical practice."

Alexander Brandt

He put the bottle on the table next to the coffee tray and sits back on the couch, quiet again for a bit. “I don’t think I get how anyone joins the Traditions without Awakening into them. If they all have their set ways of doing working, how would someone who’s been figuring it out for themselves ever fit in? I don’t want to be told that I’m doing it all wrong when what I’m doing works for me.” He sighs. “I get that this isn’t about picking a side in what’s left of the war now. The Union will try to steamroller anyone who’s Awake and not part of them. And I know that there’s a lot I still don’t know about most of the Traditions, so maybe it’s a bit early to say this, but I’m really not sure that I see myself fitting in with any of them. Not the ones I’ve seen anyway. I don’t think I’m... academic enough for the Hermetics. I’m not interested enough in tech for the VA’s. Not religious enough for the Choristers. Not stoned enough for the Cultists. I have no fucking idea what’s going on with the Etherites. There aren’t many of Them left.” He almost sounds resigned to staying as an Orphan. Alexander snorts, half amused. “Is eyeshadow part of the Hollow uniform then? I’d need makeup lessons.”

Her brief explanation of her history with the Order certainly doesn’t do anything to recommend it, but does give some insight into how un-Hermetic Kalen can be. Leonhard seems to fit the mould reasonably well. Was there another one..?

He nods at the symbols on the wall. “So are they like writing then? Magic words? Or is it the pattern itself that means something?”

Alyssa Solomon

The woman's expression softens a little bit when Alexander expresses his frustration over the Traditions. She gets it, because there was a time when she was lost and didn't know where she belonged to. She had to find her own path and luckily someone was there to do so for her. She leans over and puts a hand on his shoulder then, looking him directly in the eyes.

"Listen, Alex. First of all, if anyone tells you that you have to be in a Tradition, then you find the most phallic thing in the vicinity, point it out and tell them to sit and spin. You don't have to be part of any Tradition just in order to be in one. Find a place that's right for you, and if there isn't one then there's nothing wrong with not being in one at all. If they look down on you then fuck 'em. They don't run your life, okay?"

She smiles a little then, a quirked grin that lets the conviction and seriousness fade a bit. "As to the Traditions themselves...well, they come in all shapes and sizes. I've known some Cultists, for example--not many, but some--who are totally drug-free. They're adrenaline junkies instead, or maybe anarchists or anything that just doesn't fit in normal, boring society. And that's just one Tradition's example. Don't look at the people or their tools to do magic, necessarily. Listen to the philosophies, and find something that fits. If there's nothing, than make up your own.

"As to my makeup..." She leans back then and smiles, shrugs. "We're largely goths, yeah. But again, doesn't mean you have to be. The philosophy is what matters. And the seals are Enochian. It's a magical language, big among the Hermetics. I also use Santeria stuff, a touch of Voudoun, a bit of Zoroastrianism...a little bit of everything from here and there. Only thing that's a complete constant is my blood, and that's specific to me. It's...a thing." She leaves it off there for now.

Alexander Brandt

“Oh, I get that I don’t have to join any of them. And I wouldn’t want to join any just for the sake of bring in one. It’s just...” He sighs again. “You go through life without much of a direction, when everyone else seems to clear on what they want or where they want to head. Then this,” he makes the wiggly-finger gesture again,” happens, a whole new world opens up. I’d say that this could be where I was meant to be heading, if I believed in Fate. But now I’m here, it’s the same all over again. Not really sure where I fit in. ” He smiles, though, looking back at Alyssa. “But fuck ‘em, right? I’ll just chip out my own little corner of the world and go from there. That might not be so bad.” Right? “But there’s still a few of the Traditions to look at, and maybe it wouldn’t hurt to look at the Cultists again if a doctorate in DIY pharmacology isn’t a requirement.”

He looks at the seal again. “So how does that work? The language, I mean. I’m guessing there’s more to it than writing ‘I’m not really here’ in a difference language.” The blood thing? He is curious why that’s a thing, but it doesn’t seem that Alyssa really wants to go into any great detail at the moment. Maybe paradigms are more personal that he initially though, and that not everybody really likes to talk about them. Maybe with a bit more time spent together, he’ll find out more.

He turns his head to look at Alyssa again. “What do you want to do about your missing person? I’m going to guess that you want to look around down there some time. Want some company?”

Alyssa Solomon

"The language is just the form," she says in answer. "It defines and directs my Will. Language is power, put just scrawling the words...repeating the physical shape of it doesn't do anything other than make Hermetics look at you askance."

She grins there. She's received the suspicion of many a Hermetic for her use of their language. Entitled bastards. "But when you do it with intent, and put your Will to it...well, it's the language of the angels. The first tongue taught to humans by God, before Babel and all that shit. So there is more power in it than, say, text speak."

Alexander offers to help out with the missing person and she nods. "That might be good. I have a lead to follow up on first...a couple guys I need to get in touch with that knew my missing girl. Good news is, I'm pretty sure that her mother expects that she's dead and just wants answers. So I'm not going to disappoint her much when I find out that's the case, you know? But once I'm done with that than I'm totally down with enlisting you for a little romantic hike up through the woods to a magically toxified lake. I have the best date ideas ever."

That's when her phone rings, and she frowns as she pulls it out and takes a look. "Shit. Um...I hate to cut this short, but one of my other jobs just caught a break. Nothing special, just tracking down a philandering husband, but I gotta go." And they'll part ways there, and Alyssa will promise to call Alex when she gets a chance. Soon the apartment is locked up and Alyssa is driving off down the street, ready to catch some asshole and ruin his marriage.

Nuns having an orgy on a carousel

Alexander Brandt

The day in Denver had been warm and clear. The seemingly random bad weather that springs off the mountains to the west staying away, turning it into one of those days that promises that summer is not too far behind. But the day has passed through evening and into night. The sun has set, the sky is clear, and the city is cooling down.

It is the clear sky that brings Alexander outside tonight. He’s found a blanket inside, large and thick enough to spread out in the pasture to the side of the House. This is where he can be found – lying on his back, staring up at the stars. Morrison is not so far away from the city for the light pollution to be completely absent, but far enough that more of the universe is visible to those who would want to watch it.

So here he is. Grey long-sleeved hoodie on over a white t-shirt, dark green combats, walking boots. There’s an open bottle of beer sat on the grass, with the rest of the four-pack still unopened in its packaging. A leather jacket lies folded next to it, and an open pack of tortilla chips lies forgotten nearby too.

It’s cold outside. But not Frozen.

Serafíne

(Who is out there? Perception plus awareness)

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (2, 4, 7, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 6 ) Re-rolls: 1

Alexander Brandt

[Am I about to get company?]

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

Serafíne

Tires on the driveway. That's his primary warning that he is about to get company. The wash of headlights over the dark sweep of rolling, open land that surrounds the chantry proper. Someone's coming or going but isn't someone always coming or going out here. A communal house that houses only one or two inhabitants or an ordinary day, but there is always someone dropping by,

and Sera felt the chill in the air from miles and miles away, or so it seems to Dan, who is driving her here, to whom she announced Alexander's presence way back at the turnoff from the mainroad. She was leaning into the passenger's window of the old white conversion van, her forehead pressed to the glass, her breath warm enough to fog up the glass a bit, feeling everything, feeling the road beneath the tires, feeling the sky full of light, feel the point of contact between magic and the earth, the fount of the node. Feeling frozen, feeling feeling feeling,

and so whilst Dan does whatever it is that he is going to do, whatever it is that Sera brought him here to do, Sera wanders through the house and grabs a bottle of something and lets herself out of the glass slides and steps out of her spike heels there and grabs them by straps with her first two fingers and - barefoot in a short - shredded - red cocktail dress picks her way through the pasture.

It is not late enough that the grass is damp, and the chill in the air is bright and strangely unexpected against her skin, so Sera's shivering a bit by the time she makes it to Alexander's side. Nudges him with the bottle she has in hand to say hello.

Hello! says that nudge,

and the Sera, "Hey. Whatchat lookin' at. Mind company?"

Alexander Brandt

That’s one of the things he likes about the house – its location means that it doesn’t really get a lot of noise. So when there’s the sound of something – an SUV, van, or something else of that size – pulls up, it’s certainly warning that somebody is arriving. Not that it necessarily means that company is arriving. Alexander’s been out here before when the resonance of someone has arrived or left, without any physical contact between them. He’d actually been hoping to catch the owner of that defensive anger some time, but chance hadn’t brought them to the house at the same time just yet.

It’s only when Sera steps out from the house and heads towards the pasture that he feels her. He doesn’t get up or look round as she walks over, already confident that it is who he thinks. So he’s still lying on the blanket when she stops, nudges him with the bottle. Hello! says the nudge. Hello! back says the hand patting an empty bit of blanket.

He turns to look at Sera when she speaks, and when he replies. “Not at all,” he says to the company. “Grab my jacket if you’re cold. I don’t seem to mind it so much these days.” He looks back up into the sky again. “Nothing. Everything. Just looking, really. Trying to remember the constellations.” A few moments go by and Alexander looks back at Sera. “How’re you doing? And how’s the ass?” He smiles as he asks that last part, trying to make a joke of their previous meeting in the market.

Serafíne

"Brilliant." Sera breathes out, with a flash at Alexander's profile as she takes a seat on the blanket, feels the grass spongy beneath the blanket bend and even break a bit more as she sits. There is a bit of a shiver from her she's setting her teeth against the cold and of course she's wearing almost nothing, this slip of a dress that has been slashed through without much consideration for what is concealed and what is revealed about her body and, hey, without heels she is rather short but even barefoot she walks with a swagger as if she were seven feet tall. "My ass is always brilliant."

The truth is, Sera doesn't get the joke but she doesn't mind it either and perhaps she does not remember that piece of their encounter at the market the way he does. Her senses swim, oh, lovely, and she swims within them and she is cold she realizes then so she does take his jacket. Shakes it out and drapes it over her shoulders and brings her own bottle - larger than his, wine or whiskey, perhaps - between her legs.

Bare feet flat on the blanket, on the grassy field.

"I don't know the names of any fucking constellations. What ones do you remember?"

Head tipped back as she considers the stars.

Alexander Brandt

Alexander watches Sera as she sits, looking at her striking profile. Not from lust or any thoughts of romance. More to get a better look at the woman who always seems so sure of herself, who he doesn’t actually know all that much about. He pushes himself up a little, resting on his elbows, then holds out the beer bottle. “Cheers.” He takes a swig and then puts the bottle back on the grass.

“A few. That one up there, the three stars close together in a line?“ Alexander points up at the sky. “That’s Orion’s Belt. There are others that make up the rest of him and his bow, but I can’t remember which.” He moves his arm, pointing elsewhere in the sky. “That’s the Big Dipper, the group of seven. Looks like a cooking pot with a bent handle. And that bright one up there,” he points elsewhere again,” is the North Star. Favoured by sailors and people who have broken their compass.”

He lies back on the blanket again. “I was told once that it’s almost like looking back in time. We’re seeing those stars as they were hundreds of years ago. They might not even be there anymore.”

Serafíne

Sera takes a long-swig of whatever-it-is she brought out with her and leans back to look up as Alexander points out the most recognizable pieces of the constellations he remembers. Orion's belt receives a hmmm from her, recognition stitched into the timbre of her voice. Of the name or the stars or the line they define so sharply in the night sky. Once she sees the belt she recognizes the rest of Orion - who is so recognizeable - and it takes her a moment or two to pull herself away and then re-orient on the Big Dipper, and the North Star.

Favored by sailors Alexander informs her and that makes Sera remember another conversation she had once not far from here: a different night, a different season, the world still as it always is, framed by light. Now and then and never and will be all wrapped together at once.

"Time's just another fiction," Sera tells him, giving him a slanting glance as he remarks on how old the light of the stars actually is. "Everything is. Everything's just - "

And she breathes in, takes another swig, then flops back on the blanket as well, one arm crooked beneath the back of her head, the other on her bottle.

"You're figuring out how it works, right?" she asks him then, still looking at the stars. "For you? It's different for everyone."

Magic, she means. Of course she does.

Alexander Brandt

Sera might feel the move of the blanket as Alexander shrugs. A few moments pass as he thinks. Or, perhaps, doesn’t think but waits for inspiration. Those moments pass. “Yes. No. Both.” He looks back at Orion’s Belt, trying to make out the rest of the figure. “In general, yes. Right now, I don’t know. Maybe. I just used to do this as a kid. The looking at the stars? I always loved being outdoors. Still do.”

It’s not really much of an answer to her question, but it’s all he really has at the moment. It’s not like he’s been here for hours meditating on life’s great mysteries. Not that that’s how he’d have thought about it even if he had. He’s just been... here. Not really thinking about much of anything, which is as close to meditating as he gets.

He goes quiet again for a little while before asking, “How long have you been Awake for? Did you know what was going on when it happened?”

Serafíne

Yes. No. I don't know. Maybe.

Somehow altogether these add up to just the right answer and the shadow of it makes Sera grin, quietly in the darkness. She hums, too, beneath her breath or beneath her skin and cannot really drink from that bottle while she's laying back and looking at the stars so she tips her chin up for a quick swig, but mostly ignores the damned thing.

Quiet's okay. Quiet's fine.

Alexander's quiet and not really thinking about anything and really does Sera ever just think about anything? She must be just feeling: the brilliance of the sky, the cushion of the crushed grass beneath them. The chill in the air and the fading memory of warmth in the ground. The points of departure: where night becomes day and spring becomes summer, these places between all around them.

He asks what he asks her and she does think about it then. Holds that too against her tongue, in her throat, the idea-of-it, the knowledge beneath, and considers what she will say and how she will say it. Whether she will say it at all. But -

"I don't really remember waking up." Sera tells Alex, or perhaps confesses. Listen, she is quiet. This is an old fear and an old wound. "I'm pretty sure it was gradual, though, not all-at-once like it was for you. Wrapped up with a whole bunch of other shit, so I'm not sure I knew it was happening."

A beat.

"I'm twenty-four now, so. Six years? Seven, maybe."

Alexander Brandt

I don’t know. He’s no stranger to not knowing, but Alexander seems to be saying that an awful lot more these days. And not just about this new, brighter view of life that he’s woken up to. How are you? What happened? What are you going to do? The answers are slowly coming, but the questions seem to come so much faster. Sera feels. Alexander does. Not always the smartest thing, but usually something.

What he does now is listen. He’s good at that. Partly because it’s a good way to find stuff out from, and about, people. But the bigger part because he generally cares about people too. Alexander turns his head to look at Sera again while she speaks, quieter than usual. Asks, “did you have someone helping you figure it all out?”

A beat of his own. “You seem so much older sometimes. I don’t mean you look old or anything. Just... your mind or your spirit, I guess. It seems older than your body.” He looks up at the stars again, wondering if that actually made much sense.

Serafíne

"We're all older than our bodies."

Oh how she's fooled him, Sera. He hasn't seen her breaking down, broken down. He hasn't seen her crying, or shaking, or on her knees in his bathroom at 4 a.m. puking her guts out. He hasn't seen her as anything but someone who knows what the fuck is going on, which is also Sera, and also true.

"Our avatars. Our souls. Whatever the fuck it is that helps us connect with the universe and open our fucking eyes. We've been here before. We'll come back again, maybe.

"Different, but - "

Oh, she feels in that moment connected to everything. Neat little stitches drawn with a neat little hand through the stuff of her skin. Finely wrought, beautifully made. Her shoulderblades against the blanket over the grass, her hair arrayed around her head like a halo. Knees bent, bare feet flat, heels empty beside her left hip.

"I had someone. Yeah. I don't really remember her either. I know her name, though.

"Claire."

--

"You are gonna figure this all out, you know."

Ian Lai

[Awareness?]

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

Ian Lai

It was a quiet night at the chantry. Alexander and Serafine were out in the pasture, looking at the stars, and perhaps the presence of a third party might not be a welcome interruption (particularly given the nature of Alexander and Ian's previous encounter.) But as they spoke, the headlights of Ian's Audi cast a white glow over the ground as he pulled into the driveway behind Sera's Jeep. His engine idled for a moment before going quiet.

When Ian left the car, he stopped to look out over the darkened landscape, and a subtle wisp of combined resonance drew his eyes toward to pasture, and the two shadowed figured seated there. Ian watched them for a moment, giving his keys a little spin around his finger before pocketing them. Then he began to make his way across the lawn, ducking between the wooden slats in the open fence as he crossed into the pasture.

"No boots tonight?" he asked of Sera, offering a light smile if she happened to look in his direction.

Alexander Brandt

She was the one to find Alexander when he was convinced he was mad, ready to fling himself into oblivion. She was so sure when they were pulled into the Umbra by a sending. So he is... fooled? Does that imply deception? Mistaken then? Or maybe she is only as human as everyone else, and Alexander is yet to see her on a bad day. When that day comes? Well, she was there for him. So where else is he going to be?

“I didn’t know that. That the Avatars crossed lifetimes, I mean. How does that work, then? What happens to it when somebody dies?” Or to the spirit, for that matter. Now that he knows there is a spirit, that there is some kind of afterlife... What happens after?

Another look Sera’s direction as he says, “Claire. Could you find her? If you wanted to, I mean.” He knows there’s history he doesn’t know – and maybe she doesn’t know either – so would that even be something she wants to do?

The sound of the car goes relatively un-noticed. But the approaching resonance, familiar from the park not so long ago? Alexander rolls his eyes and sighs, not in the mood for games. He sits back up to rest on his elbows and looks towards the new arrival.

Serafíne

Sera shrugs quietly, still sprawled back, her hand splayed open beneath her skull, and there is a kind of surrender in the shrug, though she is as assured in her not-knowing as she is in her knowing.

"Fuck if I know - " and he can hear the half-smile soldered into the words, which in turn threads itself into this supple crescent of a grin as she turns her head and casts a lashed glance at his profile. Dark against the darkness, but distinct, see? A different sort of breathing shadow.

She means, it too. To all of that. Fuck if she knows how Avatars work, fuck if she knows what happens when we die, fuck if she knows what comes next or what came before or where we go when we dream, just that those things happen and each of us is our own sort of universe, this endlessly recursive series of worlds, and she is who and what she is, and she loves that,

loves that,

loves that.

"Might be some books in the library if you want to research it, though. Or you could ask one of the Hermetics. They usually like to read."

This brief, supple grin engages her quick mouth, hidden in the darkness.

"Some of them like to talk, too. And Claire?"

A shake of her head.

"Naw. I'm pretty sure she's dead."

--

Sera's senses are blown wide open tonight. She could feel Ian a half-mile away. A mile. Miles and miles, maybe, peripheral, like a satellite slowly spiraling back to earth at the edges of her awareness, then closer and closer to the center, and then he's here and he comments on her lack-of-boots and she lifts one long, bare leg to show him no, no, no boots tonight.

"Barefoot."

Barelegged too though her heels are on the blanket beside her and she is wearing a remarkably tiny red dress that covers just enough to avoid an indecency charge.

"Do you guys know each other?"

Ian Lai

Neither the sigh nor the roll of Alexander's eyes went unnoticed by Ian, but he didn't offer any particular reaction. Instead he regarded the pair thoughtfully, as though he wasn't entirely sure yet whether he intended to stay or to merely offer a quick greeting. When Sera lifted her leg to show off her bare feet, Ian let his eyes trail from the tip of her pointed toes to the hem of her dress, admiring the way the moon and starlight highlighted the shape of her leg.

"It's a good look on you."

Did he and Alexander know each other? Ian crouched down in the grass, leaving the blanket for its two original occupants, and perched there on the balls of his feet, dipping a hand down to splay his fingers in the grass. The ground beneath it was cold to the touch.

"Not really. We ran into each other once."

He didn't elaborate any further.

Alexander Brandt

Alexander was about to say that he’d ask the Hermetics that he knew, even though what little he knew of the Dreamspeakers and Euthanatos made them more likely to be able to answer his questions. But Ian is there, and the conversation changes onto a different track.

Alexander looks at the other man for a few moments. “Yeah, we’ve met.” His tone isn’t particularly warm. But he seems to make a choice and shuffles round on the blanket a little, bending his legs to make some space for the newcomer – if he wants it. “There’s beer if you want some,” he says, nodding towards the three remaining bottles. Alexadner isn’t going anywhere, at least not yet. And that meeting certainly wasn’t the worst first encounter with Mage-kind. He’s open to seeing what happens.

Serafíne

See? Alexander already knows more about how to figure shit out than Sera does or perhaps ever will. Hermetics have books and read them like whoa; therefore, ask them any factual question you might have and proceed to more or less ignore their answers because who the fuck cares is perhaps her philosophy of research.

And Ian's admiring the shape of her leg in the starlight and Sera's enjoying stretching the muscles, the balance of leverage, the pointed curl of her toes, and Alexander makes room on the blanket but Sera herself does not really think of that. She just makes a noise in the back of her throat and drops her leg after a time and plants both feet on the ground, flat, knees bent, the cocktail stress just covering her hips, still holding her bottle with one hand and cradling her blond head with the other.

"Every looks a good look on me," Sera informs Ian with a quick flash of her teeth in the darkness. "Even better off." The last delivered with a laugh that becomes open mouthed.

"We were just talking about the stars," Sera informs Ian. "How many constellations can you pick out?"

Ian Lai

Alexander shifted on the blanket, and Ian glanced at him for a long, silent moment. It wasn't entirely clear what he was thinking (Ian could be difficult to read even in the daylight,) but eventually he seemed to decide to stick around for a while, because he stood up and walked over to the open patch of blanket. After lowering himself onto it, he stretched his legs out into the grass, crossing them at the ankle, and lay back with his head on Sera's legs. If she seemed to mind his presence there, he'd move. Otherwise, he'd raise an arm and fold it underneath his head, letting his fingers graze the skin on Sera's calf.

Ian had on a white t-shirt underneath a light leather jacket. When he stretched out, the hem of the t-shirt rode up a little on his stomach, but he didn't seem to mind when the chilled breeze touched his skin.

"Maybe later," he answered when Alex offered him a beer.

Sera asked him how many constellations he could pick out.

"I don't really know astronomy. The dippers, I guess." (Everyone knew those.) "Someone showed me Scorpio once, but I don't think I remember it."

Alexander Brandt

Ignore what they say or, depending on the Hermetic, have trouble taking it all in and remembering it later. Some woman having visions on a mountain got together with a few other mages to create what would turn into the Traditions? Wasn’t that the basic gist of how the cool kids got together for survival?

Alexander shuffles again, booted feet flat on the ground with his knees up. He takes a last swig from the beer bottle, draining it dry, before lying back on the blanket again. “We could make our own up. Like looking for the shapes in clouds, just with the stars instead. There’s...” he turns his head round, squints a little, points to a random patch of sky. He smiles when he finishes the sentence, “Hera’s handbag.” The smile fades a little as he lifts his head to look towards the other man. “I’m Alexander, by the way.”

Serafíne

Here is a noise for Alexander, all back of the throat and bemused, the sort that lingers there and thrums beneath her skin and reminds her of the way hearts and mouths work, and god knows what-all-else. But listen: Alexander names Hera's purse and Sera breathes out through her nostrils this silent sort-of-laugh and Ian's stretched out now with his head resting on her legs and Sera is surprised by this but she is also: look and languid and she requires contact the way most people require oxygen and therefore, she does not shake him off. Just lifts her chin a bit to glance down the line of her body at him, starlight flashing across the surface of her dark eyes.

That look lasts just for a moment then her head is tipped back again.

"That one looks like a ballerina balancing on a rhino's horn," Sera proposes to Alexander, pointing at something in the sky that could be a star or maybe a satellite and certainly bears no resemblance to a ballerina balancing on a rhino's horn so either she's hallucinating or she's making a joke.

Then Alexander is introducing himself and Sera finds herself saying, to Ian,

"Alexander's awesome." Which is: true, although she doesn't know why she's saying it.

Ian Lai

Ian actually laughed a little at Alexander's suggestion, giving a light exhale. "Ian."

There. Now they'd met (officially.) And they'd actually managed to exchange a few words without lacing them with barbs or hidden meaning. Whatever was the world coming to? Perhaps it was Sera's presence that changed the dynamic, or maybe Alex was just a decent guy willing to give a relative stranger a second chance.

Sera imagined that she saw a ballerina, and perhaps she meant something by it (Ian didn't know how much of their encounter in the park she actually remembered,) or perhaps she said it without really making the connection. Either way, Ian didn't seem to care. He lifted his free arm and pointed at a spot in the sky.

"That's clearly a bunch of centaurs having an orgy."

Sera thought that Alexander was awesome. And Ian? Just smiled, all wry and one-sided, and abstained from comment.

Alexander Brandt

Alexander nods to Ian in greeting as they exchange names and relaxes a little. Perhaps Alexander is a decent guy, and maybe he reacts better when he doesn’t feel like he’s being played with by a complete stranger. Either way, he’s comfortable and had no urge to run off and leave the others behind. Again.

The suggestions from the others get him laughing, strangely without feeling like he has to hold anything back. There’s no imminent disaster, no bruised feelings, no floundering out of his depth or awkwardness at being the clueless new guy who barely knows enough to keep himself out of trouble. Who cares about baggage from the past, or the great unknowns of the future? For now, at least. Come the next disaster, mystery, other weirdness, or maybe even the next morning? They may well come back. But for now he’s feeling the happiest he has in a while.

The smile comes across in Alexander’s tone as he speaks. “That is not centaurs having an orgy. That is definitely a group of nuns riding a carousel.” He reaches for the tortilla chips and nudges the other two Mages with the bag, offering them.

Serafíne

Sera makes a noise when Ian suggests centaurs having an orgy. Bless Sister Mary Peter, who was her Antiquities instructor before Sera was kicked out of boarding school for being, essentially, a Sera, because Sera does know myths. Or myth. Some myths anyway: those hoary old Greeks, all the betrayal and infighting, all the incest and secrecy.

"Don't you mean satyrs?" she asks Ian when he proposes centaurs, nudging him a bit with her knee or her thigh, lifting her head to take a swig from whatever the fuck is in that bottle, then dropping it back again.

"Anyway, why don't we split the difference and call it a group of nuns having an orgy on a carousel?"

Ian Lai

Alexander was happier than he'd been in a long time, but Ian didn't have any frame of reference to understand what the moment meant to him. Neither was he fully aware of the degree to which Alexander had interpreted their last encounter as manipulative. Ian himself likely wouldn't have described it that way, but since his intentions remained difficult to parse, the only interpretation Alex had to work with was his own. It was a fair guess that the two of them might never be the best of friends, but for the moment at least, that night seemed a distant thing.

Sera found a way to combine the two constellations, and Ian grinned, his teeth gleaming like ivory in the darkness. "I like the way you play this game."

And he tilted his head to look up at her, offering some sort of silent exchange. (Like he was asking for permission to do... something.) Beneath his head, he let his fingers brush slow strokes along her skin.

Evidently the fact that Alex was sitting right beside them was not much of a deterrent from flirting.

Alexander Brandt

“Yeah, that works,” Alexander adds, still smiling. His presence may not be any deterrent against flirting but, then, it’s been subtle enough so far that it hasn’t made him feel awkwardly in the way and find a reason to leave. “Might need a less obvious name, though. Sister Mary’s Pleasure, or something like that?” Because aren’t all good nuns called Mary?

While he has no urge to run away, a certain urge to run to something has been building for a little while. Between the beer and the cold, it’s starting to become rather insistent. “I’ll be right back,” he says to the others as he rolls round onto his knees and stands. “Call of nature. And not the clawed furry kind. You guys want anything from inside?” He waits for the answers from the two still on the blanket before heading in to find the bathroom.

[And OOCly, it’s nealy 6am and I’m flagging – thank you for the scene!]