The weather out in Morrison was cool and slightly cloudy. At the Chantry, Annie was out on a riding lawnmower, cutting the grass in the front lawn. She glanced up when Ian's car wound up the country road and pulled into the driveway, watching him with half of her attention while she navigated the mower past the front steps. The sound of the the engine was a loud, echoing buzz through the otherwise still landscape.
When Ian got out of the car, he lifted a hand in greeting. She acknowledged him with a nod, strawberry-blond hair flickering around her in the breeze. She looked as if she'd been landscaping most of the day. Her skin was tanned, her forehead beaded with sweat despite the cool breeze. As Ian approached, she killed the engine and leaned forward onto the steering wheel.
"There's some beer in the fridge, if you want it. Dogfish Head I think."
"I might. Thanks. You should join me."
"Mm, maybe when I'm done."
She started the engine up again, and Ian hopped up the steps to let himself inside.
Elijah
He had come with the explicit intent to read. Elijah had a thing about libraries. A thing about burying himself in studying and feeling the quiet, bookish rush when he found something he didn't know, transcribed it somewhere personal for later. Quietly and neatly tucked away for his private use. Elijah didn't know there would be people here. He hadn't anticipated it, but then again he never really anticipates seeing people. It just happens. Kind of like showing up at parties and dancing and making bad choices with regards to women happens. Elijah just kind of accepted that some things happened.
When he pulls up, he notices a lady on a motor cycle. With strawberry blonde hair, and he's getting off his motor cycle and putting his helmet away and he gives a little wave.
"I haven't met you-" he says, but realizes that he isn't being loud enough over the mower. He's wearing jeans. Jeans and a shirt with three quarter sleeves that buttoned part of the way. He has a vest on, but it's buttoned tight. Pocketwatch nestled close against his ribcage.
"Hi, I'm Elijah!" he waved, "I've been using your crap-er-stuff! Do you need anything?"
Serafíne
Coincidence, something like it. Five minutes, maybe ten after Ian pulls up outside the chantry another vehicle rattles up the driveway. This one is larger and sketchier looking: an old conversion van with Colorado plates and a handful of peeling bumper stickets affixed to the back doors. The engine ticks quietly beneath the hood after the driver turns it off and it sits there still for a long moment before both the driver's and passenger's doors open. Dan hops out of the driver's side. Sera sliiiiides down from the passenger's side, careful in her heels.
The tall consor loops around to the back and opens one of the back doors to grab a brown paper back from the back. Handles that bag with both confidence (he asked them to double bag it) and care (that's top-shelf liquor in there) and lifts a hand to wave to Annie as he circles 'round to take Sera's arm. She doesn't really move until he's by her side, seems absolutely enthralled by the way her toes wiggles.
Then she takes this deepdeep breath and lifts face to the cool, cloud-scattered sky. Is: absolutely still for one long moment, marveling at its vastness and the way it makes her feel equally: immense and immeasureably small, grateful to have blood running through her veins, and - inexplicably, or perhaps not-so-inexplicably, briefly, spine-curvingly sad. All of that, all at once, all liquid through her.
Then she takes Dan's arm and cuddles close and then head in too. Why the hell not: their might be waffles inside, or lilies of the valley, or Ian, or whatever.
Serafíne
(Repost: to fix typos AND paragraph breaks.)
Coincidence, something like it. Five minutes, maybe ten after Ian pulls up outside the chantry another vehicle rattles up the driveway. This one is larger and sketchier looking: an old conversion van with Colorado plates and a handful of peeling bumper stickers affixed to the back doors. The engine ticks quietly beneath the hood after the driver turns it off and it sits there still for a long moment before both the driver's and passenger's doors open. Dan hops out of the driver's side. Sera sliiiiides down from the passenger's side, careful in her heels.
The tall consor loops around to the back and opens one of the back doors to grab a brown paper back from the back. Handles that bag with both confidence (he asked them to double bag it) and care (that's top-shelf liquor in there) and lifts a hand to wave to Annie as he circles 'round to take Sera's arm. She doesn't really move until he's by her side, seems absolutely enthralled by the way her toes wiggle.
Then she takes this deepdeep breath and lifts face to the cool, cloud-scattered sky. Is: absolutely still for one long moment, marveling at its vastness and the way it makes her feel equally: immense and immeasurably small, grateful to have blood running through her veins, and - inexplicably, or perhaps not-so-inexplicably, briefly, spine-curvingly sad. All of that, all at once, all liquid through her.
Then she takes Dan's arm and cuddles close and then head in too. Why the hell not: there might be waffles inside, or lilies of the valley, or Ian, or whatever.
Kalen Holliday
Kalen also drives up to the chantry. He hasn't really spoken to...really anyone who isn't living with him lately. And, even then, he's been gone a lot. Tango lessons and photography lessons and actual tango dancing and taking pictures, although never actually pictures of tango dancing. Mostly pictures of nature, but sometimes streetscapes. Abandoned places. Lost things.
He has a growing collection of pictures of sunrise. Some of the prints are tucked into the pages of books of poems in yet another place he can't bring himself to call home. A place with vegetarian cookbooks and notes on brewing kombucha. He brings echoes of that place with him though, echoes of something quieter and calmer and traces of the smoke from clove cigarettes and sage.
Annie gets a nod, but little other greeting. Elijah gets a smile. And then Kalen heads into the house itself.
Ian
Sera and Dan got a wave from Annie, a little more relaxed (more familiar) than she'd been with Ian. "You all decide to have a gathering I didn't know about?" The pitch of her voice rose above the buzz of the engine as the two made their way up to the house. The question didn't really seem to require an answer, as evidenced by the fact that she redirected her attention to Elijah a moment later.
He was trying to talk to her, so she cut the engine again (reluctantly) and got down off the riding mower. A pair of work gloves donned her hands, and she pulled them off one by one as she sauntered over to offer Elijah a proper greeting. "Elijah, you said? I'm Annie." She stuck out her hand for him to shake. "Feel free to head inside. I've got some work to finish up."
---
When Dan and Sera entered the house, they found Ian standing with Leah in the hallway. She had her back against the wall, lounging slightly as she spoke to him. She smiled a little. Tucked a section of her hair behind her ear. When she looked at Sera, her smile brightened momentarily. "Hey Sera." Ian glanced over his shoulder and nodded at them. He looked as though he was about to head into the dining room, but just then Kalen walked in the door, and he stopped.
He met Kalen's eyes for a long moment. Then he strode off toward the patio door.
Serafíne
WHAT WAS THAT IAN. (Per + Empathy)
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )
Elijah
(waaaaiiiit, WTF? +2, because he really wasn't paying attention. Per+empathy)
Dice: 7 d10 TN8 (1, 2, 5, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
Ian
[I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about.]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )
Kalen Holliday
[So many dice everywhere. Perception+Empathy]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 4, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
Elijah
"Awesome, thanks! It's great to meet you Annie-" he takes her hand and gives it a shake. His smile is bright, his eyes are too, "-I figure when you finish up we could play three man or something."
He grins, something playful, but frankly anyone who knows the game knows that you really, really don't want to play three man. Not if you loved your liver. Not if you wanted to remember how the evening ended- frankly the only thing that gets you drunker faster is an illustrious game known only as fuck the bus. He wasn't sure why it was called fuck the bus, but Elijah didn't seem to really care. It got you drunk fast and involved playing cards.
In he went, and he did as he usually did, paused in the hallway, acknowledged anyone who came by. Ian got a wave, Kalen got a smile (and a note shoved under his door, hastily written trying to memorize library, bbl because Elijah would try to memorize a library if given the opportunity.)
"Hey, Sera. Hey, Dan," voice warm smile brighter, whole being reaching for more than what he was. Restlessness given a direction. Chaos reaching the bounds of what he is and trying for more. Insistent we are more than this
Elijah
(Elijah wasn't in the house for that look, sweeeeeep that under the rug)
Serafíne
"Leah." That's Dan. Half-greeting, half-reminder murmured into the soft fringe of Sera's sidecut as they walk in and he disentangles himself from the tugging insistence of her arm, looped through his. It does seem to remind her. She pulls herself upright then, through the shoulders at the spine, and smiles warmly back at the girl.
Lifts up her hand - palm flat and open - and waves, this deliberate and segmented movement of her fingers that makes the tendons in her wrist move like the hammers in a piano as glissades down a scale. The dark ink on her skin: on her forearm, framing her hand, inside her wrist, following the delicate branches of her pale blue veins. The warm bronze of the little ring she always seems to wear on her right index finger.
She is wearing tiny little denim cut-offs, an expensive black bra beneath an unzipped black hoodie and strappy black sandals, sky-high heels, laces wrapped up her calves to her thighs, decorated with a scattering of butterflies. Why the fuck not?
Catches the look from Kalen to Ian, back again. Glances at Elijah and smiles at him when he greets her, then turns back to Dan as the latter unpacks the liquor they've brought onto the kitchen counter. Murmurs something against his shoulder.
Kalen Holliday
And everything was so perfect until he actually got here, wasn't it?
Everything is always perfect, until he actually touches it. And then...well...and then it changes. Transforms. Liquid and shimmering into something else. Everything is always doing that, though. Whether he touches it or not.
It doesn't always end badly, does it? Depending on at what point you consider a thing ended. What is an ending really, in a world where science advocates transformation over destruction and magic...well...magic indicates a world of infinite possibility? Just a pause? The space between heart beats?
He takes a breath and slips past Serafine and Dan, there is a light brush of his fingertips on Serafine's shoulder, and (if he doesn't move away or give some negative indication) Dan's. Welcome to being a person Kalen accepts into his world Dan. He mostly indicates this by touching you. Leah, whom he doesn't recognise, gets a little nod.
And then he is beyond them, and he too heads for the patio.
Ian
Elijah suggested they play a game of three man, to which Annie just snorted with dry laughter. "Yeah, no thanks kid." They parted ways, with Elijah heading into the house and Annie hopping back on the riding mower. Those inside would make out the muted growl of the engine as it came back to life. She'd likely be out there for a while yet. Even just the manicured part of the property was big enough to make grass cutting a sizable chore.
"I like your shoes," Leah offered to Sera (because Sera's shoes were amazing.) For a moment her attention turned to Kalen, glancing between him and Ian's departing figure. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. Fidgeted slightly with the hem of her t-shirt. After a pause, she began to follow Ian and Kalen outside, but seemed to think better of it when she reached the sliding door. She balanced on the balls of her bare feet, looking out through the glass, then she changed course and made for the kitchen.
Outside, Ian paused at the side of the node to pull off his shoes and socks. Usually when he did this, he stripped naked and actually climbed into the hotspring, but today he just pulled up the cuffs of his jeans and sat down on the rocks, letting his feet slide into the warm water. For a moment he closed his eyes, feeling the way the wind brushed against his skin. Taking in the scent of the spring and the nearby flowers.
Elijah
Let it be said that Elijah Poirot was clueless in many things.
He stood there, gave Leah a little wave, "hey, I'm Elijah. Annie said I could come in and chill." He clarifies, as if he needs to introduce himself to the people he doesn't know, because he does. Tries to be polite, tries to use the polite people skills he is ever-so-desperately trying to cram into a two week period. In truth, he was at the chantry because he needed a break. Jenn had him learning about salad forks and dinner forks and he didn't think this was the kind of etiquette that he was supposed to be learning, but she was really intent on making sure he could handle himself in some kind of social situation because once upon a time she was working with some elderly woman who was Order of the Eastern Star who ever-so-politely overlooked the fact that Jenn was something that old, rich, southern women called terrible names meaning them in the most polite of manners.
Jenn had a lot of tolerance for bullshit. It kind of makes sense how she can put up with Elijah.
So, he watches as Kalen heads out the patio, watches as things move around him and he just… blanks. Doesn't quite put things together and doesn't seem terribly concerned by not figuring things together. It was off to the kitchen and the unpacking of liquor.
"I have not seen you guys in for-fucking-ever, and that is definitely a fault on my part."
Serafíne
"I'll let you borrow them sometime." Sera to Leah: steadier now. Steadier because she is - well - concentrating. Eyes half-closed, her chin on Dan's shoulder, her spare frame a lean cipher against Dan's taller and only slight more solid frame. So: no. He does not look like he is going to be carried away by the wind, but he is whip-lean and dresses to emphasize it, in his signature hipster uniform of skinny jeans and some obscure band t-shirt. "Tell me when. They'll look good on you."
Quiet, then: "Leah, if you wanna go out there you should. There's no reason for you to hang back, you know? If they need privacy they'll find it."
Meanwhile: Elijah appears and announces that he has not seen them in for-fucking-ever and Dan grins at him over Sera's elfin left ear, which naturally bristles with hardware.
"Hey man," says Dan, grinning. "Been awhile. Good to see you." The bottles are out. He doesn't put them away because it isn't precisely a collective kitchen anymore: not as it was. Just folds up the brown paper bag for recycling and glances down at Sera as she says something quiet to him again.
"I think we're heading out, but we'll catch up soon."
Suddenly and quite as surely as she knows so many other things: Sera doesn't want to be here. So: they will go.
Kalen Holliday
Kalen steps out onto the patio, closes the door gently behind him. He doesn't so much approach Ian as the spring, and he leaves the pool between them, settling on the opposite side of the water. He does not put his feet in the water, but he does come reasonably close to the edge. Close enough he can reach out to skim the surface of the water with his fingertips, though he does not. Not yet. Maybe not at all.
Instead, he lets his eyes settle on its surface. He can see reflections in the water. Shimmery. Shifting.
He is so rarely sure he isn't dreaming.
"Hey," he says quietly.
Ian
"Oh, wow, thank you." Leah's appreciation of Sera's offer was both surprised and genuine. She paused in the kitchen to regard her with an uncertain smile, which fell a moment later when Sera mentioned Ian and Kalen. A soft blush of color appeared on her cheeks. "No, I just... wanted a drink." She glanced over at Elijah then, who was attempting to offer her an introduction.
"Yeah. I figured. I mean, people just kind of come and go sometimes." She was less warm in her greeting of Elijah than she had been with Sera, but that may have been because Elijah was new. (And her age. And a boy.) After a pause she added, "I'm Leah." Then she promptly turned around and grabbed a bottle of orange Izze from the fridge.
----
Outside, Ian both felt and heard Kalen's approach, but he didn't acknowledge it until Kalen spoke. Then he opened his eyes, gazing across the pool. The water was clear aquamarine, with just the slightest sensation of steam rising up off the surface. It smelled of alkaline and minerals. "Hi," he offered quietly. He felt different (stronger, more primal.) Maybe Kalen had already noticed.
"Haven't heard from you in a while."
(Ditto, Ian.)
Elijah
"That's cool," he tells Dan, "I'm taking piano and harp for non-majors, so pretty soon you will get the opportunity to see me shred on six and a half octaves worth of… well… harp." He didn't have a good word for it. Didn't have a lot of things there, because all he could think of was yep, it's a harp. But, you see, harkening back to a conversation he'd had with Dan in the grass once upon a time, he did remember telling the man about his awkward stringed-instrument skills.
Secretly, he was trying to convince Jenn to get a baby grand, not because he was terribly serious about playing, but because it would be cool. Then again, if you have a piano you'll actually play the piano and, since the first quarter, Elijah has found himself rather missing the instrument. It was meditative. A moment when he could think and be in the moment and think about the click of the metronome. Powering forward, driving to something, finding life in something written.
He liked sheet music, but he didn't talk about that. Most recently, he spent his time trying to figure out how to get a piano through the door of his apartment.
Elijah turned his attention to Leah and grinned, "wanna see an awkward harp recital in two weeks?"
Kalen Holliday
[WP]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 4, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )
Serafíne
"Awesome." Dan to Elijah, with a quick grin that verges on the engaging, but does not precisely get there because he has sort of already checked out of the conversation.
Sera flashes Leah a shark-scissors tattoo peace sign real-quick because: yeah, she means it, and yeah, they are awesome shoes, and yeah, what the hell, she's rich, not that most strangers or even friends or for that matter lovers have ever really noticed that about her but: see, it is an easy offer to make. But she has also kind of checked out, or perhaps: checked back in to whatever was wrapped up around her spine when the van pulled up outside and as they turn to go she grabs one of the bottles on the counter they just unpacked. Picks it up by its neck and carries it with her as she goes.
Doors slam open. Doors slam closed.
Dan in the driver's seat. Sera with her temple against the cool glass, the world smearing past her. Her heart beating in her body, her breath strange in her lungs.
Kalen Holliday
"I've been busy." It is more explanation than apology. "I had things to figure out. And then places to be."
Kalen reaches out, carefully. Slowly. Rests his fingertips against the surface of the water. His pulse quickens. He is not sure whether or not that changes the pace of the endings. Transformations. Creation dancing and reforming all around them.
He has to try not to pull his hand back.
"How have you been?"
Ian
Leah regarded Elijah for a silent moment. "Why would I want to see it if it's awkward?" She twisted off the bottle cap and tossed it on the counter, then walked off to the living room, where she eventually made herself comfortable on the end of the sectional, leaning over the arm rest with an open book in one hand. Maybe Elijah would follow her. Maybe he'd decide to join Ian and Kalen outside. Maybe he'd just grab a drink and make a beeline for the library. Leah, at least, seemed to think that the conversation was over.
----
Outside now. Ian and Kalen spoke in halting, low tones. Ian drew one of his feet slowly through the water, watching the smooth ripples that formed on the surface. The pool practically pulsed with life-giving energy. It was difficult to be near it and not feel at least a little awed.
"I went freeclimbing and fell off a mountain. But... hey, I survived." He smiled, just a little, and something lingered there in his eyes. A suggestion of unspoken things. He hadn't just survived.
"I'm glad you're okay."
Was there a concern that he wouldn't have been?
Elijah
Why would I want to see it if it's awkward?
"Because I'm looking for an excuse to see you again, and I was hoping you would humor me?"
He looked in, noting that she had a book and, uh, it would seem the conversation was over. Brows rose, he offered a tiny, awkward smile and Elijah was left to stand there, a little awkward, trying to figure out where he wanted to go and what precisely it was that he wanted to do. He was trying to be a good student, honestly, but there were people here and he wanted to do social things and what could it hurt if he just didn't say hi? Dallied for just a moment and maybe spent a little bit of time talking with his mentor or Ian (he had seen Ian, right?)
Elijah concluded that he needed to go somewhere, anywhere, and outside seemed to be a good enough place. He looked back to the living room, clearing his throat, "hey, I'm going outside if you wanna… y'know… hang out… or stuff."
And it was out the door with him to the patio.
Kiara
In the distraction of Sera and Dan leaving; the sounds of their car reversing out of the drive; headlights washing over windows, it's easy enough to deduce why the Verbena's approach may have been overlooked. Her dusty, well-loved red hatchback sliding in like some proverbial thief in the night to replace the other; a car door slammed with a hip; bags tended to; looped around wrists as she carries them up to the stoop.
She doesn't call a greeting this time, the brunette, but oh - that sense of her is there - it's there's but - altered. But stronger. The wash of rejuvenating energy so like that which Ian and Kalen sit against; dip fingers into the water of. There but accompanied with, like a gentle, persistent lullaby; a pulse. A thrum.
Kiara hangs a coat on a rack by the door and carries a bundle of things into the kitchen; her fingers skimming along the walls. There's flowers amongst her offerings; laid on the counter like gifts set beneath some grand altar as she begins to unpack other items idly. Perhaps Kiara believed her presence thereneeded no explanation and certainly, as far as the Cabal that lived here were concerned, it didn't. They'd seen her when she'd come to lay in the Node; heard the story; felt the change in her.
There's others nearby of course; by the time Kiara's in the kitchen; the boys are all ensconced outside.
The Verbena uncorks a bottle of Merlot, if she's aware of their gathering, her leisurely pace would suggest she's in no rush to join them.
Kalen Holliday
Ian moves and the water moves, lapping against Kalen's fingertips. It is warm and it is sacred but it is still water and he shudders.
"Well. I'm glad you're okay. I miss you already, I hate to think of how I'd miss you if you died." It is probably the calmest, most honest thing Kalen has said to him in a long time, horrible sensation of water moving against his skin or no. Possibly since the day that they were discussing Life magic.
"I'm probably better than I've been for a long time. It's hard to be sure." He laughs, and there is a breathless edge to it because there is water crawling over his fingers and because he still can't believe that he's come to a place where he makes time for things that are anything but preparing for the next crisis and because he is about to make this confession to Ian of all people. "I'm taking tango lessons." And perhaps, just perhaps some of that breathless wonder was because he understood again that he wanted to ask Ian to join him.
But then there is Elijah. And so he does not issue that invitation, not at the moment at least, just falls quiet.
Ian
Leah felt like a fire: bright-hot and scorching. But more than that, she felt like the cycle of it. Fire, to ashes, to fire again. Despite that heat, she had a rather particular talent for giving people the cold shoulder. Particularly when those people were boys or young men who may have been trying to hit on her. Elijah followed her for a moment, watched her settle onto the sofa. Leah was tall and lanky, with long legs that she tucked under her as she sat down. At first she didn't respond to his explanation. Then she said, quietly and without looking up from her book, "No thanks."
For what it was worth, she didn't sound angry. More like she was trying to retreat.
(Elijah didn't know who she was, did he? What had happened to her? Maybe the conversation would have been different if he had.)
Annie was around the side of the house when Kiara arrived, so she wasn't there to offer the other Verbena a proper greeting, but likely she'd wander in later to say hello. Her resonance, and the sound of lawnmower, were evidence enough of her nearby presence. At the node, Ian glanced over his shoulder toward the sound and a subtle wrinkle of displeasure appeared on the bridge of his nose. But of course, it was Annie's house, and grass needed to be mowed, so there wasn't much he could reasonably say to her about it.
Then Kalen said he'd missed Ian, and Ian looked back at him with an expression that wasn't quite guarded enough to hide the quiet note of surprise.
"I'm hard to kill."
Kalen was taking tango lessons.
"I can help you, if you want. You know I do dance professionally."
Elijah appeared at the node, and Ian glanced up at him with a smile that looked a great deal less weighty than he felt.
Elijah
[Per+empathy: OH GOD WHAT DID I WALK INTO?!}
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 4, 5, 5, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )
Ian
[Nothing Elijah, it's fine, we're just hanging out like people do]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 3, 6, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 4 ) Re-rolls: 1
Elijah
[also: WP. Water is not scary]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )
Kalen Holliday
[Totally hanging just hanging out.....]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
Elijah
There's an awkward moment there, when he comes out and suddenly realizes that he probably shouldn't be here, but Ian smiles and it suddenly doesn't seem absolutely terrible or like he shouldn't be there. He was missing context, didn't see the look that happened between the two and Elijah, darling dove, seems to think that he is on completely even ground and everything is fine. His eyes warily flickered to the water and he swallowed, exhaled hard an harsh andgrinned. Because that fear had a different context now.
Drowning and dying and falling and slipping, sometimes he could spin it some other way. Sometimes he could get himself to a different mindset and say that this was a transition. This was a new place for him to be, a new state, something that he needed to push past so he could see all the wonders that were available to him.
Sometimes he needed a push. Sometimes, he could push himself.
"I think I totally came in at a weird time in the conversation? But I'm pulling a Starbucks hipster and announcing that I'm doing homework. Or learning Latin, because fuck homework and Hell yeah Latin," oh Elijah, bless him because he is clueless. Just figures they're having a conversation. it's an awkward moment where it seems that mom and dad don't want to fight in front of the kids.
Kiara
Threads. They were all connected by them; to them. Bound to each other in strange, often undefinable ways. From the newest to the city to those who had harbored more storms than any. None of it; this; their lives; their boundless connections to each other; was easy. Often the threads were smeared with blood; with tears; with the mess that came with living beyond the kinds of lives most did.
Theirs were so much more (and yet, so many of the ways they came together were for utterly human causes).
Kiara, for her part, does not make an apology when the patio door slides to reveal her; she's dressed in jeans and a navy hoodie; her dark hair bound away from her face; pinned to the nape of her neck. There's rings on her fingers tonight; a long stemmed glass in her hand and she's smiling in Elijah's direction with what amounts, for the brunette, as easy affection.
"Did I just hear you cursing, Elijah. My delicate sensibilities are forever changed." So droll, that eyebrow as it cants up behind a sip of wine. "Been a while, kid." From most people, the title might seem condescending; threaded with disdain or dismissal. From the Verbena, it sounds fond. Considering as she runs her eyes over him; lets her eyes tick beyond to Kalen and Ian.
Ian
[Awareness - do I sense something different?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 5, 5, 9, 9) ( success x 2 )
Kalen Holliday
Kalen smiles a little, and despite Kiara and Elijah's presence it is still threaded through with something hopeful and vulnerable. Kalen has been practicing being someone else. Someone who could love without being afraid of what that meant. Someone who could spend time with books of poems and tango lessons and did not read failure in dozens of blurry pictures of kestrels. Sometimes that bleeds through.
"Yeah. That'd be good." Maybe he would have said something different, without company.
He smiles a little as Kiara comes out and says that she has delicate sensibilities about cursing. She has wine, and he thinks that maybe he could use some. Still, he's afraid if he breaks contact with the water he won't be able to touch it again tonight. If he walks away now he might instead slip through the house and out the door and away from all of this. Because who he wants to be and who he is have strange blurred edges and he is suddenly less sure he wants to be here so precariously balanced between the two.
He waves to Kiara and Elijah with the hand that isn't in the water.
Ian
"Oh trust me, he can curse like you wouldn't believe." There was a wry curl of humor in Ian's voice when he answered Kiara. Whatever heaviness he'd felt in Kalen's presence, he seemed to be letting it go. (Either that, or he was good at pretending. Perhaps it didn't much matter in the end.)
There was a rather remarkable change in Kiara's presence. Ian's attention hovered on her for a long moment as he leaned back on his palms, his head tilted in an expression of animal curiosity. His lips pressed together, and he uttered a delicate subvocal sound (more to himself than anything.) Finally he glanced back to Elijah. Then to Kalen. Then back to Kiara.
Then he just... breathed. Let the overwhelming wash of rejuvenating resonance wash over him.
"The water's nice, you know. If you ever feel like getting in."
Nice was not an adequate word to describe it. And when he spoke, he seemed to be directing his comment to both Kalen and Elijah. But there was no push to it. No insistence that they confront their fears. The tone was light. Reassuring. Funny how fragile they could all be, considering what they were capable of.
Elijah
"Heeeyyyyy not-susan-but-Kiara," he grinned, bright and shining and pleased. His hair's a mess, but then again when did Elijah ever seem like he was well put together when he rode a motorcycle? Even in his best intentions, he couldn't keep himself pristine most days given his preferred method of, well,existing. When he smiles it is bright, and his eyes are bright. They're green and glittering and pick up hints of amber, hints of the blades of grass recently shorn close.
Ian does say something about Elijah's foul language and he laughed, full-bodied and amused and was that color on his cheeks? Just a little just at the edges. Elijah looked at the water again, a little wary and he thinks, for a moment, that he should flee. He drew a long, slow breath, and cautiously he asked, "not too deep, is it?"
Then, with just the barest bits of humor and an impish grin, "I'm gonna strip down to, like, barely nothin' so be prepared to avert your eyes lest delicate sensibilities be offended." He turned his attention to Kalen briefly, brows rose, "you wanna?"
An assurance, unspoken, c'mon, you've got this. An utter faith in his mentor.
Kiara
She feels different.
She'd noted it the other night in the park; felt the change in Ian, too. Told him she had the sense she'd missed something. He senses the same, now. Feels the absence of that corrosive; devouring edge she'd always carried. Now, she's the surge of renewed life; the heartbeat of the new born foal. As if the Verbena had thrown loose some invisible shackles; shed a layer of herself she no longer belonged to.
And, in some days, she had done precisely that.
Her eyes linger on Ian for a longer moment than perhaps was necessary; dark and fathomless; they tick to Kalen and the smile that touches her lips is sincere, if perhaps restrained. Elijah gets - a noise; a throaty vibration as he threatens near-nudity. "Well, if I'm going to be debauched, it should be all the way or what's the point?"
She saunters closer, then. Stops to toe her sneakers off and carries them in hand; wine in the other to the edge of the Node. Settles beside it. This close; the sensation is manifold. The sense of the Node; of Kiara. She trails her fingers in the water; the stones set into her rings gleaming.
Kiara
[days, *ways. What are words.]
Kalen Holliday
[Kalen. Can you even, with the water? | WP because panic attacks with near strangers are bad.]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 4 ) [WP]
Kalen Holliday
"Well, on account of the water and I being so friendly tonight already...." Kalen slips out of his shoes, and then his shirt. Hesitates, less because he has any real problem with people seeing him naked and more because he isn't entirely sure about this in general. And so, when he slips into the pool for the first time ever, slips into any kind of water for the first time in more than a decade, he still has jeans on.
Most of the mages take to the node, but Kalen stays stiff in the water, eyes a little too wide. He does not put his head under the water. He does turn his head to regard Ian. He cannot quite bring himself to smile, but there is something lighter mostly buried under all the tension in his voice when he says, "Nice, huh? Apparently I have been defining that word all wrong."
Ian
Strange, perhaps, that Ian wasn't the first one to shuck his clothes and slip into the water. This actually had more to do with the teenage girl back in the house than it did with his present company. That, and the fact that he hadn't expected to stay long.
He smiled when Kalen stepped into the pool, pleased and surprised in spite of himself. To Elijah, he offered a canted look, one eyebrow lofted in amusement. He didn't say what he was thinking, but to Elijah, it would likely be fairly obvious.
"I... have to go, actually." For what it was worth, there was genuine reluctance in his voice. "I made plans to go hiking."
He let the moment hang for a few beats before slowly retracting his feet from the water. When he stood up, he passed through Kiara's space, trailing his fingers through the back of her hair.
"Don't have too much fun without me."
(This was directed at everyone.)
Finally, he collected his shoes and walked back to his car.
Ian
[I totally do not want to leave, but sadly responsibility calls. Have a good night guys!]
noel-lurk
[Damn that responsibility!!!]
Elijah
(wp: I. HAVE. GOT. THIS.)
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 10, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Kiara
[Aw, have a good one!]
Elijah
(Manip+sub: I am totally fine)
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 3, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Kiara
[I just feel like trying this to see what happens. Per + Emp]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 8) ( success x 1 )
Kalen Holliday
[murr?]
Elijah
(boop)
Kiara
Ian's fingers pass through her hair as he leaves; tugging strands loose where she's secured it; she doesn't lift her eyes from her water; where she's been dragging the tips of her fingers through it but there's a twist of her mouth. A vaguely thoughtful thing, that expression; caging thoughts she doesn't offer voice to. She does look up, once he's slipped inside.
A fleeting, considering beat before Kiara's attention returns to the pair in the water; her smile grows as she watches Kalen; head tilting just so. "You know usually when people get in the water to loosen tension, not the other way around."
The Verbena sits up; places her wine glass down and unfolds her legs; dipping her feet into the water. "Come here?" She beckons at him, Kalen, noting the stiff set of his shoulders; the way he holds himself. She's not aware of every facet of why; but the physicality - there's a certain comprehension of that much.
Kalen Holliday
"Short, tragic story that it may be best not to tell while in the water." Kalen says, and there is, lurking somewhere in that tone, an offer to tell it later.
There is a second of consideration. He is generally not averse to contact, but he is not terribly sure about the mechanics of moving in water. It is heavy. He half remembers that, heavy and cold and impossible to escape. But he does come to her, flinching a little as the motion sets water moving against his skin.
Elijah
(HAHA! SUCCESS!)
He laughed, could seem convivial enough. "How dare you have a social life, Ian," then there was the matter of actually getting in the water. He's doing a good job of keeping it together, seeming like this wasn't bothering him. Seeming like everything is fine but when it comes down to it Elijah was stalling.
He could stall all he wanted, but in the end, he said he was going to do something, and damn it all even if it was something as silly as get in a hot spring (not silly, terrifying) Also, let it be said that Elijah Poirot was shameless. Shameless as a man could be, though it should be telling to know that Elijah deals with his anxieties and frustrations and needs to mask concerns by getting naked.
The bait was set, the bet was there as well. The dare, that he shouldn't promise without delivery.
There's a moment when he thinks he can't do it. There's a moment when he looks into the water and he hesitates. Elijah exhales, long and slow. He's looking like this might be too much, only briefly, he remembers that he wanted this. That he wouldn't be defined by fear, he could conquer anything. All the mysteries of the universe, just under the surface, all he had to do was dive. (All he had to do was die, water brought him a number of things- he should be grateful.)
Elijah ditched the vest, being careful with it, treating it and its contents like precious cargo. The rest of his clothes (and Elijah wore a lot of clothing) did not get the same treatment. Shirt was pulled off, shoes gone, socks tucked into shoes (because let's face it, he was buying himself time) Jeans lost, because Elijah was not much one for wearing wet jeans and he still had intention of studying tonight.
He ditched, well, everything. Was there and a little cold and had given himself no other option- either stand there and be cold and naked or sit somewhere warm and comfortable and be naked. The naked didn't really didn't phase him, but it was the cold that did. It was the push and reminder that he was here and conjured darker times. Made his sternum hurt from where someone had pressed too hard (correctly) to try and do CPR. He fractured a rib or two, but he was alive.
"Oh thank god it's warm."
Elijah
(test)
Kiara
[Intel + Med, possibly with some WP because the dice are lean and hungry and I don't trust them; the Verbena knows tension.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 3, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 4 ) [WP]
Kiara
She's rolling her jeans up as he treads water over to where she's sitting; her legs parted enough that when he's close to her; she can gently coax him to turn around; her fingers warmer than they ought to have been for being in the water. "You are - " This, murmured close to his ear as Kiara's fingers skate over his skin; her palms sliding over the slope of both shoulders; returning and then pushing in - her thumbs finding the pinpoints of tension; her fingers manipulating.
" - way too tense. Your body is holding it all in. Right here."
So close to her; Kalen can feel the steady pulse of her resonance; the newness of it; the steady, static energy as it wraps around him; as the Verbena's hands carefully loosen coils of muscle; her hair tickles his cheek as she leans in behind him; her eyes traveling to find Elijah's in the water.
"How are you doing, do you need attention too?"
Kalen Holliday
He does not - cannot - swim. Instead he creeps around the edges of the pool. He may not like water, but he is in it now, and the sheer shock of that is wearing off a little. Even so, when he reaches Kiara he doesn't seem less tense for all that his breath is starting to even out a little.
"I'm tense on a good day," Kalen says. "And while I'm not saying this is a bad day, I think it pretty definitely qualifies as extremely stressful." He doesn't think this is a bad day at all, really. He has seen Serafine and he has seen Ian and he is somehow in the node pool and now he has contact he did not expect and all of those things are good. Some of them are also terrifying, but Kalen finds a number of things he loves terrifying.
"There is that," he says to Elijah. "Yes."
Elijah
[Per+empathy- Kalen, are you gonna be okay?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 6, 8, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 5 )
Elijah
Does he need attention? He seems to think about that, but the young man shrugged, shoulders rose and fell. Elijah was very much of the belief that one should fake it until you make it. He didn't back out, didn't run away, didn't make some excuse and, for his part, he could be content with that.
"Nah," he told Kiara, shaking his head and putting his hands up. He doesn't come closer, but he's tempted none the less. "I'll probably actually head inside in a minute? I thought they had a book or something of a third pero account of tensions between the Euthanatoi-" plural, because Eleanor had told him the plural because he'd asked what the plural was- if the Chakravanti were like sheep (singular) and sheep (plural) "-and the Akashic Brotherhood. I didn't know that was a huge thing, but apparently that was a huge thing. I kinda wanna know how the this is how we end a lifetimes old grudge thing ends. I dunno. It's either that or the great vowel shift. Which is also pretty fuckin' cool."
Did Elijah just say that reading about a vowel shift was cool? Why yes, yes he did. The young man turns his attention to Kalen, notes what is there, takes him in and asks, "hey, when you're good do you wanna come with. I'd like to practice being a respectable person for awhile? And you're pretty good at knowing when I'm faking it, so yeah." A second, then, "or you could study the great vowel shift with me, too, it's pretty awesome. Like, all of the vowels in the language shifted over one, so it's part of why Beowulf sounds so strange when you read it in the original Anglo-Saxon."
Elijah
(third *person)
Kiara
There's nothing overtly sexual in the way Kiara's hands ghost over Kalen's skin. Quite the contrary; though she harbors no pretense about enjoying the physicality of others; she coerces some degree of relaxation from his shoulders by lieu of practice and taught understanding of the way the human body moved; the structure and give of the musculature beneath her hands.
She massages into his skin for a few moments longer and then; with a brief squeeze to both; slides them off. "Mm, I've done what I can for those shoulders. They need regular attention." This, with a smile in her voice; an awareness that rests there as Elijah defers with intention to pursue historical documentation about inter-traditional squabbles.
"That," as the Verbena carefully withdraws her legs from the water; reclaiming her half consumed wine. "sounds like something you need to be drinking to fully absorb. Thankfully," this, as Kiara rises to her feet; shoes in hand. "I'm already half way there.
I'll see you boys inside."
Her progress is marked with a soft jangle of bracelets where they're housed around her wrists. The patio door clicking shut in her wake.
Kalen Holliday
"I...have no argument to that," he says to Kiara. "Thank you."
She moves away and he climbs out of the pool, then looks at Elijah. "Yeah. I'm off to get not wet things and wine, and then I'll join you in the library."
[And I will nap, because suddenly so sleepy. (Thus the tiny post, sorry.) Thank you both for scenes!]
Kiara
[Likewise! :D]
Elijah
(I think we have a good wrap! Thanks for the play!)
