Apologies

Arionna
It was hard to say exactly how she felt about a lot of things. She knew she wasn't the best person, particularly when it came to other people, and that she pushed people away because...well she felt it was necessary. It saved them all really. But did it? She questioned herself, the more she interacted with specific individuals.

They had both lost their heads, even she could recognize that. She wouldn't have cared if it were most other people. So what if she hurt their feelings? So what if she upset them? They weren't important anyway. People were people, and she wasn't going to bother herself with caring about them. Ari had herself to think about,  particularly in a world that wasn't very kind to her. But Eli...she had admitted to his face that she saw him differently, and she wasn't entirely sure why that was. He was just... different. She liked being around him most.

Ari stretched her arms over the table of the booth, pressing her head momentarily against the cold surface. If she could curse people...

She sat back up, setting her hands in her lap slowly. The menus were sitting there, a cup of coffee for her while she waited. She had told him she was sorry, and that should mean something. Ari...didn't apologize. She wouldn't apologize for being her, but she -had.- Twice.  And she offered him food, of all things. Cheap, but food. So there they were, or would be once he arrived.

She pressed her elbow on the table and set her chin in her hand as she stared out the window. Her dark hair had been braided out of her face, the makeup left for some other night, and she dared to wear a deep green long sleeve with some old graphic on it. A band maybe? It was too faded. The point was, she wasn't feeling it, clothing wise.

Elijah
Eventually, he did pick up the motorcycle. It was parked outside of the Waffle House, and the herald to his arrival was its motor cutting off and the careful dismount of someone who's been riding for awhile. There are words to be had, careful words, but he wasn't a careful creature. Except for when he was.

He'd apologized, a little at first but he had to do it the first thing when he saw her.

The jacket was discarded, and his hair was a mess. His hair was always a mess. Elijah took a seat across from Ari, not beside her.

"I never should have invaded your space, it was wrong," he admits. He implores, he apologizes because words make it make more sense than just text messages.

Arionna
"Maybe." She said. A person can come up with a thousand different scenarios in their head, a thousand different ways they should act around someone, and never actually do them. Instead, they act as they've always acted because it's familiar...it's comfortable.

She kept her attention out of the window for a moment, then slowly look to him. "I understand why you did it. There's no fault given to you. It's how you would have acted with anyone. I may be cold, but I'm hardly ignorant. Though I think it might have gone better if you hadn't known discomfort, though I understand why you did that too."

Elijah
"You're not even cold," he said, insisted, "you're not distant, you're not... not unless you want to be, anyway."

He sighed. He looked at her and his attentions didn't meander and he was there for her. With her. Like she was the whole world there and the world could fall apart, the stars could blot themselves from the sky and he wouldn't notice because he had a singular focus.

"BUt it's your body though. Your body, your space, your rules. That's how it works"

Arionna
"You make it seem simple. A turn of the key and someone can be something they aren't. I want to tell you that I like how I am, and perhaps in some way I do, but I wouldn't know how to be any else. The warmth you and your friends provide...well I'm not really the sort to do that."

Arionna shrugged just a little, and when the waitress came over, she ordered pancakes for herself.
"I know it is. I suppose I meant only to say that I'm not angry at you for it, if that's a concern that you have. It was just....unexpected. I didn't have a moment to think really. " She pursed her lips slowly, considering her words and letting her attention fall to the table. "I didn't really have friends. Well, not after a certain age. I know that people here are a little different. But at home, they weren't very kind. I don't mean that in the, oh they spoke ill of me, sort of way. Mostly I was pushed away from most things, but as one knows, mistreatment rarely exists purely in the form of social ostracism. I don't think the details are all that important, suffice to say that I'm not very accustom to the sort of affection you give to others. At least not in the manner you mean it."

She lifted her gaze a little to look at him. "And I don't say that so you can pity me. I hate it when people do that. Just..."

Elijah
He ordered waffles.

A waffle, specifically. And hashbrowns with cheese. And a cheese burger with extra pickles. And chocolate milk.

The waitress looked at him as though she was fairly certain that Elijah, despite the fact that he seemed sober, must be incredibly high right now because his order was so achingly specific with the randomness there. It was something that was very clearly thought out.

"Friends don't pity each other," he said. "You can feel sad for someone, you can feel empathy for their bad experiences, but... friends don't pity each other. Pity is condescending."

He took a second, looked at the table and carefully reached for the sugar packets. Elijah idly started rearranging, "I get that it's hard to trust people, though. It's... everyone struggles with it."

Arionna
[wp]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (6, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )

Arionna
The look. The look from the waitress made her lips curl up in a slow smile. "Pregnancy does wonders doesn't it? Next he'll be craving onions and peanut butter." And she smiled a bit more as if she found her own joke amusing. She was never very good at them, but it was amusing to her, to think of Elijah having pregnancy cravings. Enough so that she let out a small laugh.

She waited a moment before they were left alone; waited for the amusement to die off. Then it was back to business, her attention focused on him and his...need to touch sugar packets.

There was no laughter anymore. Ari let her hand drop from her chin, and watched his hand for a moment, mulling over it...thinking, considering what she thought to do, and then she did it. And it felt like the easiest thing in the world to do. She reached over and set her hand on his.

"Do you struggle with it, Bacchus?"

Elijah
"Three months and I'm not even showing," he said, put a hand on his stomach and quirked a little smile, "nobody believes me."

He had to grin, knowing full well that he does eat like a pregnant woman, and he really... really does. If Arionna knew the number of cupcakes he ate on a somewhat regular basis she would be shocked that he was slender to begin with. Also, if she knew that most of his calories came from tequila and sugar she would probably be surprised he wasn't dead yet, but that was neither here nor there.
He looked at her hand on top of his, stayed still for a moment and it was enough to remind him that he didn't need to fidget. He looked up and nodded a little.

"You'd be surprised at how easy it is to keep people at arms length when you're social. Give people just enough to think they know you, and just enough that you are fun but you don't have to be more. It's hard being human and not a concept."

Arionna
She didn't move. Because if she did, she might not have the ability to do it again. It wasn't easy, even if it felt like it at the moment. It was only so easy because she was feeling alright. But if the mood shifted, she might lose her own control over herself; she'd put him at arms length again. Elijah...she didn't want to do that to.

"Fun is over-rated. Fun is just a set of neurochemicals released during specific activities. Fun is nice, sometimes, but I find comfort to be far more acceptable. Fun is far too short lived." She used her other hand to set her chin on the palm. "Then why do you do it? I realize how ...I can be, and how strange it must be to ask you that. But I find it strangest given your love of people. It's not simply a matter of sociality but joy. If you find joy in others, how is it difficult to give to them who you are entirely?"

Elijah
"I've made some bad choices before, and... I ended up in the ER a few times because people I thought I'd trusted didn't actually seem worthy of that kind of trust," he said, "giving people all of yourself requires accepting everything about who you are."

He inhaled again. He said he was going to try. He said he was going to try being more honest, he said he was going to give more, he said he was going to be there even if it didn't matter who he would be there for.

"And it's a rush, being around people and having that adoration and having those crazy times are a rush because of the moments and the stories but... the kind of people I used to be friends with? Spend time with? The kind of people Jenn couldn't stand after I awakend?"

He stops.

"It just turns you off of wanting to give all of anything, because there's parts you don't get back."

Arionna
"Being alone in a crowded room."

"I think that's the term used in situations similar to that. I wouldn't ever understand how that must feel of course, but I assume it's like putting on a show. Pretending to be something if only because you receive social praise. Humans adore social praise; everyone needs it sometimes to feel accepted."
"Though I can understand, truly, what it's like, what it feels like to require yourself to pull away because if you don't, you'll likely just be ripped apart. It's not an enjoyable feeling. Though...if you do it long enough Eli, you'll numb yourself to the effects, and it'll be harder to let it go." She tilted her head a little at him. "For someone like you, I imagine that turning numb to it will hurt you far more than others. You need people."

The orders came and Arionna slowly pulled her hand away to make room for the food, sitting back and taking in a breath as she soaked the sponges in syrup and cut into them.

Elijah
"I told you when we met that I was a good liar," he said, "it's a self-defense mechanism. It's second nature sometimes. It's not a good thing, but it is what it is."

he took the top off his burger and carefully started rearranging pickles, because they were never actually in the place that he needed them. Always just on one side, and how irritating was that?
"It's weird... because I need... I need people. I know I need people. I know that I need to give and I need to have friends and I need to be part of something bigger because I've been alone before and I almost lost myself. And when you're alone, you get to pick yourself apart, you know your flaws, you learn what kind of person you really are and you think would people even want to be around this person? So you lie. So you pretend, and then you're in too deep."

He put his sandwich back together, clearing his throat, "anyway, it's a load of bullshit and it sucks. It's really easy to think of why people shouldn't trust you so you have an excuse not to trust them, but it's important."

Arionna
"I don't think you're quite as good as you think you are. I saw how some of my words bothered you, and I saw how you attempted to keep it hidden." So Elijah was that sort hm? To rearrange the way the burger was to suit his own needs. Most people just accepted it.

"I think the worst of it, is when you become what people expect of you. They demonize you for something, or maybe they abuse you, doesn't matter really...people do cruel things." She took a bite of her pancakes, then poked them a little with her fork. "And you think, 'well, if you're going to treat me as it, I might as well be it. Then all of this will make sense. ' Then you start to wonder if they already knew you would be that way, and it wasn't that they molded you, but that there was always something off, and they simply knew it, you simply never did." There was a momentary pause and she followed up quickly with, "Well, for some people anyhow."

"If you believe you ought not to be trusted, I believe you're being far too hard on yourself. You've been reliable so far, far more than others who might consider themselves trustworthy."

Elijah
{Per+empathy- talking bout yourself?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )

Arionna
[man +subt]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 7, 7) ( success x 2 )

Elijah
"I told Grace once that I didn't want anyone to put their full trust in me, and she told me that it wasn't my choice if people chose to trust me or not."

A beat passed and the took a bite of the recently arranged burger. He listened, nodded along and took in what she was saying.

"You remind of of Elphaba from Wicked. The musical at least, I didn't read the book. But she's a witch and everyone thinks that she's not to be trusted because she's green, but she's very gifted. People use her for their own purposes, she's very passionate about the rights of the oppressed- anyway, I'm not doing it justice. There's a line that says was I really seeking good or just seeking attention?. That always stuck with me."

A second, "you know, some people go places and start fresh because they need to change their definition."

Arionna
"I suppose she's right in that. One can't force another to believe in them, anymore than one can force themselves to believe in something." She cut another lump, shoving it in her mouth and giving a glance to the window. "I'm not sure if I should be amused you compare me to another witch, given my predilection." She doesn't comment about attention, or good, or whatever he's trying to tell her. She lets that slide off. Or maybe she hasn't quite caught onto it.

"I didn't come here by choice. I was brought here because of my mother. I would have vanished in the forest somewhere if I had been given the option. "

"Were you always so intent on your free-love attitude? I like to imagine you were."

Elijah
"I'm really just telling you that I think you'd be able to pull off being green pretty well," he teased, nothing malicious just a little flirtatious. A little amused.

"Actually, yeah," he said, "it wasn't something that was, like, born of not giving a fuck about people because... even after everything I like people."

His lips upturned, something almost coy but not quite, "it just ended up having more meaning when I woke up. like, and it's not... it's not sex. Sex is different. Sex is sex- you don't have to care about someone to have sex with them, but like... love. Like actual love or caring or affection or whatever has always been something that I don't see a point in restricting because it just hurts people. It's stifling. It's like ignoring a vital part of yourself."

Arionna
"You're an idealist." She said softly. "An optimistic idealist. It's not necessarily a terrible trait. Many successful and influential people imagined worlds that would have seemed impossible at the time. Now we live in those worlds...somewhat anyhow. I've never been one much myself, but you seem to fit it quite well. Suits you, I think, with your golden attitude."

"Though I can't say I know much of either really. Both of them seem foreign to me. I know how I feel about mama. It's always been a mix with her, but I know that I care deeply about her well-being. That always made sense, despite her being the cause of so much. She is my mother after all, I ought to have some feeling for her. For people I've never known, or ever will know, it seems strange to simply...enjoy them fully with or without intercourse. Suppose I've never seen the need for it."
"It makes me curious, when you speak of it so freely. Like watching an exhibit through a glass wall. You can see the actions, watch the actors, understand the basic behaviors, and yet wonder as to the purpose of it." She tilted her head, looking at his burger and then him. "I'm...pleased you're content with it, no matter how little of it I understand."

Elijah
"I've heard a lot of fucked up stuff, I prefer to think of things that are better than what's already happened," he replies. "Like... caring about someone else, even if it's just in an abstract way, makes you more aware of things about yourself. It's finding the similarities, loving the differences, it's... it's poetry. It's language."

There's a way he says his words sometimes, with that faint southern twang and that quiet boyish reverence. He's a wide-eyed sort.

"It's more of a children's museum than the Smithsonian. We're supposed to touch the exhibits."

Arionna
"You remind me of artists, or our perception of them. Very...open. Expressive. Philosophical in their approach to life. " She set her fork down and slid her plate to the side, leaving most of the pancakes, even if she generally dislike waste. "Though I'm curious how someone can be cared for in a non-abstract way."

She likes his sunny disposition, but then, who doesn't? Everyone flocked to him. Everyone enjoyed being around him. It seemed only natural that she might too. Ari let out a small laugh. "I'm not sure if this has taken an erotic turn or not, though it seems like it has. Touching, as you say it, reduces objectivity. It turns it into a subjective experience."

Elijah
"It's me. Basically, everything devolves into eroticism if I stand around too long," he grinned, "but it's life. Living is supposed to be subjective because it's your experience. Nobody else can have it, nobody else can tell you what sand feels like or what air tastes like."

A second passes, "and okay, caring is abstract- you're right- but instead of caring I mean caring for the idea of a person, caring about the possibility of another person instead of an actual person."

Arionna
"That's not entirely true. There are generalizations of tastes and experiences based on the specific firing of neurons. Certain tastes are a response to specific chemicals. When we describe taste, we describe what the human organism senses. Barring those individuals who are considered outliers, it is likely that what a food tastes like to me is similar to what it tastes like to you. My preference for that food is what alters our experience. "

"I suppose there are some experiences best felt by the individual based on a number of variables that might influence the subjective aspect."

"I'm not...I don't understand how one can care for the idea of a person and not a person themselves. Doesn't that seem to ignore the individual as being important on their own? Or what the person is, rather than what they could be?"

Elijah
"You're over-intellectualizing the point instead of dealing with the idea of what I said- you have to write your own experiences. Defeats the whole purpose of the whole thought exercise of life being subjective instead of objective. Like... so you don't have to deal with the emotions or the feeling of it all."

How could someone care about the idea of a person?

"Like... caring about what happens to victims of war. You don't know these people, these people are an abstract concept, they're not individuals with wants and desires, they're ideas with something attached to them, and you can care about them by caring about certain topics. Being offended by injustice, for instance. And hell, you can care about a person's actuality and you can care about their potential because they're the same. Love people as they are, not for what they could be, but you can hope for that better outcome I'd think."

Arionna
Arionna cast a side glance to him, her lips tightening. "No, I'm explaining why your point doesn't work. I wouldn't read too far into my behavior or you might come out with the wrong interpretation, as many often do."

Ari slid her cup of coffee closer to herself and took a slow sip of it, thinking before she bothered to speak again. "Do you honestly care about them? Do you honestly love them? I imagine that it's not love that you're feeling. Love, I suspect, isn't a sensation that can be given to just any individual without knowledge of who they are. You may have compassion, but that's hardly the same as love Elijah."

Elijah
"I don't think so," he said, "because I don't think it's actually possible to know someone. You can try, but we're complicated. You learn to love someone in trying to know them. I don't think compassion and love are that different- you can't have compassion for someone or something that you don't, at least marginally, love."

A second passed, and he had a fork full of hashbrowns.

"I either honestly love people I've never met, or I've never actually loved anything. They're both two very real possibilities. "

Arionna
"Compassion requires only empathy. Love doesn't. An individual can love someone who is cruel, harsh, evil, due to continued exposure and familiarity...and of course their own innate insecurities. An individual can also have compassion without feeling the intimate connection of love. " She flicked the edge of her cup idly. "I think you're creating a false dichotomy. Those are not the only options available, but the ones you're creating yourself. "

Ari slowly set her chin back on her hand. "I can feel compassion for an individual. I can feel sorry for someone I've never met, yet I feel no intimate connection. I don't love them, but I understand them."

Elijah
[Per+empathy- what are you looking for me to say?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 7, 9, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )

Elijah
"It's not that you have to be all-or-nothing, it's that I think it's more complicated than that. I don't think love is this huge all-abiding, all-encompassing, warm-and-fuzzy-dove reaction. That's part of it, but that's more infatuation," he said, "and I don't think it's a false dichotomy, I'm just admitting to you that there is a good chance that I actually have no idea what love actually is and, as such, probably haven't actually done it of my own volition."

Arionna
"I imagined love to be more like Morticia and Gomez." She said over her coffee. "Dramatic but reliable. Passionate in its own way. Certainly there is that period of infatuation, where you obsess and can't live without them. But I imagine love to retain some aspect of that. You grow tired of them sometimes, but when you're far away for too long, you begin to feel as if something is missing." Arionna shrugged softly. "I imagined it like that anyway. Likely far more boring."

"Even if you don't, truly know love, in some ways I envy you, you know."

Elijah
"I think Morticia and Gomez have a type of love... think if all people were like that I'd become a damn monk, or I'd be downright intolerable. Because jesus, I'm already pretty insufferable as it is." He can't help but grin, take another bite of hashbrowns because he's slowly making his way through his food, picking at things not unlike a bird instead of descending voraciously on them like a teenage boy should.

"Why do you envy me?"

Arionna
Ari pushed her cup to the edge of the table to be refilled once the waitress came by. "I don't consider you insufferable." She said softly, letting her eyes watch out from the booth instead of looking at him. "Different, certainly, but not insufferable. There are those I might consider that term to be used for."
To Ari, the answer is simple enough that anyone could see it. Why would she envy someone like Eli? "You are my opposite, in many ways. It makes it easier for you to wander among everyone. You are loved and adored. Your friends care deeply, and you to them. I have little doubt that if you required aid, someone would come."

Elijah
"I have definitely tested the limits of their patience," he said, replied casually enough but so casually that it would seem his answer was anything but casual. Everyone has limits, everyone has edges that they can push and Elijah knows what those limits are... or at least thinks he does.
There are limits to Kalen's patience and he has yet to find them. he has been forgiven more times for things he can't barely begin to understand, finds himself astounded that his mentor hasn't washed his hands of his student despite the numerous times that it has been made clear that lesser people would be done.

"sometimes, if you just ask for help, people will offer it."

Arionna
"Tested isn't the same as losing. It's suppose to be normal to upset your friends sometimes. Because you're different.People are different in enough ways that they won't agree on everything." When the coffee was refilled, she pulled it closer and began to doctor it with cream and sugar.
Ask for help. Alex said the same thing, but she's not sure that's entirely what she even means."Who exactly would I ask? Kalen? Doubtful. Grace? I'd rather not. Kiara? She'll likely just suggest crystal healing and positive energy. Sera? And let us suppose that there is someone to ask. What wold I ask for help with?"

"From what I have seen, I survive best without interference from others. And what assistance can those like them give me that I can't provide for myself? At least on my own, it costs me less in the end. People expect things."

Elijah
"Of course people expect things, it's a two way street. Like- I asked you for help with Jenn. That was a big deal , and I know that's a big deal, so I always just kind of presumed that since I'd asked that of you then you'd know you could ask the same of me. If I can do something for you, I'm going to do it for you. I'd be a dick if I was just like thanks for going out on a limb for me, Ari. Deuces!"

He's run out of hashbrowns. That's the worst, because he likes hashbrowns. He likes things with cheese on them and he has half of a burger left and a rapidly cooling waffle, which he tears into quarters and starts to make a little puddle of syrup for. He's particular, this one. About his waffles, at least.
He does laugh, though. "Dude, you talk about Kiara like she personally burned down your village and murdered your puppy."

Arionna
"You think I actually believe that if I really wanted something, someone would give it to me? Even you?" Elijah, currently, is the only real person she can talk to, and yet she'd still doubt he'd ever be as reliable with her as he would with anyone else.

Ari set both of her hands on the table. "She the worst sort of witch. Neopagans, Wiccans, are the sort who misunderstand how the old ways were. They glorify our work only when it suits their hippy needs and reject the understanding that sometimes, you have to get your hands dirty. The conceptual framework of 'do no harm' is ludicrous. How does one measure 'harm' and how does one know that their magic won't harm someone in the future? Magic, our magic, is messy. It's cruel. There are moments of greatness and positivity, but one can't have the light without the shadows. They harm us by making our faith a fad. A fad that rejects half of what true magic entails. It's an insult to our ancestors, to my ancestors."

"Have you read any of their so called 'magical books.' Their rituals? They're...obscene. I imagine many of our gods scowl at these watered down attempts to commune."

Elijah
"You won't know until you try," he informs her, "Kalen told em that... at some point... you have to take the leap. And you have to jump and just trust someone is going to be there. Sometimes they will be, and that will feel fantastic, and sometimes they won't. But you don't know which it will be until you jump."

This was coming from someone who has literally jumped out of planes.

"Have you actually talked to her about her beliefs, or are you just assuming that she's like everyone else. I feel like you're making some pretty broad and sweeping statements about her," a second passed, and he dropped his voice to something conspiratorial. he was in the middle of drowning a waffle at that juncture, like it was some unwanted child of a former lover, like hew was La Llorona and that waffle was one of his long lost children he felt so bad about rending asunder (but would anyway, because syrup is delicious).
"You know that the majority of my magic works on the concept that True Words created the universe and were spoken by beings that defy our mortal brains, right?"

Arionna
"And if you leap at the wrong person, at the wrong time, you'll get hurt. You might even die in the process. There is a higher probability of my failure if I rely on someone else, than if I rely on myself. I know my capabilities. I know what I can and can't do, and how well I can do those. I know my own motivations and my own desires. I don't know any of them. I'd be just as likely to trust a stranger."

"We had a brief conversation in an occult store. It was enough. I don't need the bits of details to know that she likely burns candles and says 'Blessed Be' after every incantation, as if the gods care." She slowly put her chin on her hand again. "You believe what you want to believe. "

Elijah
[Is that haughty superiority towards my belief system or are you being genuine?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 10, 10) ( success x 2 )

Elijah
"If you walk out the door at the wrong time you'll get hurt. If you don't jump at the right time, you could die, sometimes... it's not a bad thing. Sometimes it's worth the risk... I don't regret the choices I've made, but I know that... I know that, for me at least? I'm ready to try."
He can believe what he wants to believe.

"It works for me, just like it works for her. Maybe her gods aren't your gods. And your gods aren't my angels."

Arionna
Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (2, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )

Arionna
Her fingers curl around the cup, tightening against the ceramic. "I'm not certain you realize the privileged position you're speaking from. Of course you're ready to try. If you falter, someone will pick you up somewhere. If I falter, I have only myself. If you make a mistake, someone will be there for you. If I make a mistake, I have only myself. So of course you're ready to try. The cost to you is far less."

"They're all the same. It might just be that someone happens to favor her. That doesn't make her perceptions correct. It only means that she's been graced by someone who sees some value in helping her."

Elijah
"I'm a cisgendered affluent white male. I never know the position of privilege I'm speaking from."

"Anyway," he sticks to the subject of trust. Trust they could talk about because the young man's trepidation to talk to Arionna about magic was almost palpable. "If you falter, you have me. You don't have no one unless I'm Odysseus."
Arionna
"It's very high. In case you need to be informed."

Ari sighed softly, closing her eyes for a moment. "Just never mind. It's not important. Any of it."

"I'd like to believe you Elijah. In some way I know that I should. But I have to remember that you're far more like a cat than I've ever known someone to be."

Elijah
[WP: No touching.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (5, 7, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Elijah
"Have I done anything that has indicated that you can't believe that?" he dropped his voice again, almost reaches forward but, instead, deliberately puts his hands on the table. Doesn't reach forward, doesn't invade her space, doesn't do anything that he knows will scare her off because they've had this conversation and he knows where it ends.

"Arionna, I wasn't kidding at the aquarium. What do I have to do to prove to you that I can be judged on my own merits?"

Arionna
"I don't think I can answer your question. I don't think there's an answer to it. I can't, nor would I, send you on some grand quest. That would be overly dramatic and besides, there isn't anything. You're kind Elijah, really. But people who are kind are always hiding something. No one is that kind unless they're saving face or trying to make people like them. Who people are when no one is looking...that's what they really are. "

"I've seen people go to church, profess goodness and morality, give to charities, hold potlucks, and then, when no one watches, they throw stones...sometimes literally...at the people they dislike. What does that say about humanity but that we lie far too often to save ourselves."

Elijah
[This does not bother me!]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 6, 6, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 5 )

Arionna
[liiies]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 5, 7) ( success x 1 )

Elijah
"And you're just trying to figure out what I'm hiding," the response was casual enough, "figure out if the church bleeds into every southern boy or not. Figure out whether or not I've got a weird Jeffrey Dahmer side or something."

Punctuated with a bite of waffle. Because waffles and people are about the same, right?
"Lying only buys you time, it never actually saves you. In the end it all falls apart."

Arionna
"I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, yes. The church is just, maybe, part of the problem. It's people, Elijah. Even your friends. Some of them were acceptable to begin with, and now? Now I wouldn't consider them so. Maybe.. maybe I'm not helping matters, but I shouldn't be the one who has to make all the important moves, now should I? That seems unfair."

"Yes, but by then...some of those people are dead and it matters very little. The lies too, sometimes others don't mind them, so long as the lies don't hurt them quite so much. And so long as they agree on why they lie."

Elijah
"It is unfair, but people aren't static creatures. Maybe time will go on and you'll get along better, it could be a number of things but I hope for the best. I mean, you gotta hope because if you don't then... well... what've you got, right?" Hope in one hand, you know how the rest of the statement goes. Elijah inhaled slowly.

"It's a cowards gambit, to lie, for that to be the default. Kind of hurts your spiritual growth because it limits your ability to actually take responsibility for your choices and actions. It's a thing."

Arionna
"I don't give much hope really. Not for people. Hope, most times, is really just lying to yourself about reality. I find it easiest to hold onto anger or disdain. You're less likely to be disappointed later." She set her hands on the table slowly. "Maybe it is, but that won't stop people from doing it. "

She tapped her finger lightly on her cup. "I dream, you know. Not stupid dreams. Dreams that sometimes mean things. Mama always thought of it as a gift from the dark, or my father, perhaps one in the same. I write them down, even if I don't know what they mean. Because some day...maybe they'll make sense. Of course they haven't been very pleasing in the last few years..."  Wait where was she going with this again? There -was- a point to it.

Elijah
"Dreams always mean something," he said, hands stayed on the table, he didn't reach forward, he didn't invade her space, but he wanted to. He wanted to hold her hand, wanted to feel the differences between her skin and the ceramic mug in her hands or how she might have been just the barest bit cold to the touch.

"What do you dream about now?"

Arionna
"I'm always a cougar in my dreams. Well..not always. But he's always there, somewhere. Sometimes I am him, and sometimes he is with me. But we are always together somehow." She closer her eyes for a moment. "Once I dreamed that I walked the earth before the trees ever came, and as I walked, the world was born. People came to inhabit it. They curled in their cabins, locked their doors at night to keep me from them. I've dreamt of preying on children, too young or reckless to know they shouldn't leave their homes at night. They hunted me after, of course, but the moment that I hunted...it was beautiful. "

"Last night, I was in my bath tub. I thought I had woken up from a dream, but I was in it. When I left, it was cold. The world was sleeping, and as I walked, it awoke. Leaves began to bloom, trees blossomed...the world was living again. It's not my world. Mama is far more like spring. She loved the flowers. He was there, my cougar. "

Elijah
"If a world that is living and breathing isn't yours, then which is yours?" he asks curiously. He pauses for a minute, dropping his voice and speaking quiet and conspiratorial. Interested, enthralled
"I think that cougar is you, or part of you, it's... it's a fundamental aspect of yourself, it's the part of you that guides you."

Arionna
"I've always felt closer to winter, when the nights are longest. Mama smells like flowers, feels like spring. She's always warm, but not the warmth of summer. Cooler. Refreshing in a sort of way."
Ari peeked at him slowly. "I don't know what he is. A past life, a spiritual animal, a god, a familiar of a god... difficult to know exactly what his purpose is. He doesn't speak." She curled her fingers against her lips, chin in her palm and looked back to the table. "We were both walking. Feeling the breeze, taking in the scent of the new season. The sun was rising, overtaking the world until all I could see were silhouettes of things. The further I walked, the more I realized there were people ahead of me. Ahead of him too. I..knew them somehow. I don't know who they were but I knew their voices. They felt...familiar.  They were happy. "

Elijah
"There's stuff I could tell you that I learned? But... it's kinda not something that we can talk about in public," he said, and for once he was trepidatious for a reason. It made sense. He inhaled slow and deep and centered. It felt strange to have things he knew, things he could impart to others. Things he could teach that would make things make sense.
Arionna
[wp]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )

Arionna
Ari pressed her lips tight, her brows furrowing slowly. She didn't need to be a genius to figure out what he was saying, or insinuating. Ari sat up slowly and reached into her bag for a few bills, sliding them on the table.  When she looked back to Elijah, she forced a small smile. "Then somewhere private."

Elijah
"Your aunt's house? I promise, I'll be a gentleman. I won't even remark on the fact that you look fucking fantastic today. "

Arionna
She nodded softly. Ari hadn't a clue where he lived, but since he suggested her place, she'd only assume he was comfortable with his own...or he had someone there. And the moment he complimented her, Ari blinked and her face burned a little warmer than it had a few moments ago. "Except you already did."

Ari slipped out of the booth, bag hanging across her body. "Can we....ride your bike?"

Elijah
He grins, and that is an expression that comes easily. That is an expression that promises all sorts of delightful, terrible things. That is an expression that has been places, reads people, pushes buttons and knows precisely where it would take him. That is the trouble with golden haired boys. That is the trouble with those gregarious, social sorts. The kind that thrive on people and hum in the heart of the party (but stand alone in the room, an interesting dichotomy, that) .
He stood, leaving some cash on the table but also? Offering her his helmet with that damnable grin of his. The one that's the constant companion. The one that makes promises he seems fully intent on keeping.

Except you already did," she says.

"Oh damn, oops," he nodded, "you're gonna have to hold on, but I don't mind taking you for a ride."