Hello, Claudia

Claudia Cole

It's late evening in Rocky Mountain National Park. Above the trees, the sky is dimmed with twilight's gloaming. Most of the hikers have gone home for the day, but for some people, sundown is the time when the world comes alive. Claudia has never paid much mind to things like closing hours. The forest and the mountains are there for her to explore. This place has been her home now for over a year, and she's beginning to map out the shape and feel of the land. At some point earlier in the evening, she slipped off the designated path. For a time she stood in a field at the base of the mountain, running her palms over the tips of the tall grass while she watched the sun set. The air around her hummed with a chorus of crickets.

After that, she slipped into the trees. Followed the smell of running water until she found a little stream. She had to crawl over a scattering of rough-hewn stones to reach the bank. Now she is seated atop one of them, dipping her bare feet into the current of the moving water. Her hair is down. Her clothes are simple: denim shorts and a black cotton tank top. There was a soft flannel overshirt, but she discarded it about twenty minutes ago, leaving it to hang on one of the dryer boulders along with her shoes and her pack.

Elijah Poirot

[Hey, water! I'm totally cool with you! WP]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 5, 10, 10) ( success x 2 )

Elijah Poirot

Water has its own sound. Water is its own entity- moves land, weathers mountains, renders the mightiest boulders into little more than sand and silt in one's hands. Water rushed, flowed, bubbled, seeped- it's the life blood of the earth. It's the life blood of everything, a powerful and unforgiving. There is no malice in water, not that he could find.

It isn't making peace with it, it's understanding innately that he is small in comparison to something to vital to the rest of the world. He is drawn to it, hesitant and tentative and any number of things- the most meaningful parts of his life are punctuated by water. Frozen rivers. Oceans that exist only in the back of his mind so deep and filled with wonders he can't even begin to describe the things he saw. It was always water.

So, there was a sound, and his instinct was to stop. He'd set up camp… uh… somewhere. He had lost track of space and time and everything was cast aside for a feeling. The need to chase a sound and see where it came from and revel in the actuality of water. There was the instinct to stop, to turn back, to stay away because water was not forgiving (living, living- dying, dying- living again- endings, beginnings. Commas, pauses)  but-

But.

He slung his backpack off his shoulders- he was wearing a tee shirt. Tee shirt and shorts, hiking boots that were actually getting broken in. Follows the sound of water. Comes upon- a shirt?

"Hello?"

Claudia Cole

[Awareness - how soon does she notice him?]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 5, 5, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )

Claudia Cole

There is a creature by the water who feels very much the way one imagines encroaching darkness. Coiling, tenebrous shadows and the primordial heartbeat of the elements. Upon first meeting, it is not a terribly reassuring sensation. There are people who know Claudia who never stopped feeling unnerved by her, despite her small size and reserved nature. But darkness is like the water. It too holds no malice. It is only men who give it that (who see in the infinite abyss a reflection of their own fears.)

It is not the shadows, but the possibilities that terrify them.

She feels Elijah approach before he sees her. Takes in the tumbling tumult of his striving resonance and thinks, for a moment, that he must be rather like the river at her feet. The light is very dim now. Dark blue cast with early slivers of moonlight.

Hello?

"You sound lost." Claudia glances over her shoulder and regards Elijah. Some of her hair hangs over her face, but even in the dark Elijah can see how big her eyes are. There's something soft and disarming about her face. She looks younger than she is. Fae-like, almost. Like a resting dryad.

"You shouldn't be out here this late."

(Neither should she.)

Elijah Poirot

[Per+aware- do I place that resonance?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 7, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

Elijah Poirot

He shouldn't be out this late.

"It's a beautiful night, I don't want to miss the stars," he tells her, complete stranger to complete stranger. He should stop moving, but it's Elijah. Elijah has a very hard time not moving. But he does stop, puts his backpack down with an unceremonious plop. She was right, though, he did sound like he was lost. It wasn't that he just sounded like he was lost, he was a little lost.

But there he was, looking at some woman with large, bright eyes. Dark hair, disarming features. She was lovely. She was more than lovely, she was breathtaking but Elijah… wasn't sure. He was content to be at the edge of the water because some fae-creature told him that he shouldn't be out so late. There was a feeling, something coiling, something tenebrous, something like the water or the fire or the space between the stars. Something dark, yes, but she was so-

Surely, she couldn't be trouble, could she? (Trouble's the best kind of fun)

"And besides, I'm pretty sure that it's not in the cards for me to be actively mauled by an apex predator."

Claudia Cole

"Probably not." There's a faint slip of a smile when Claudia turns away to look down at her feet in the water. She can't see her toes beneath the surface anymore. It's getting colder, too. After some consideration, she lifts her feet and stands up, balancing on the rock. "Would you like me to read your fate and see?"

She looks back at him now. The wind rustles her hair as she hops to the next rock, then down to the pebbled river bank. "I'm Claudia." She leans over to the boulder where she stashed her things, peeling her over-shirt off the stone and giving it a light shake to free it of detritus.

Elijah Poirot

Would he like for her to read his fate?

"Of course," he says, without a moment. Without a beat, without hesitation because why not? There are things one could do, press to see a potential future, a possible path, but he was always curious, always looking at things that happened instead of what could be. No, generally he preferred to throw himself in and see what came when he resurfaced.

He smiles at her, for her- because that smile isn't for any living creature out here. That smile is not for the stars or the water (the water could have what it wanted of Elijah Poirot, it could take what it needed and it didn't need his curiosity or his excitement)

"I'm Elijah," he offers.

Claudia Cole

[Per+Awareness (Intuitive) - Oracular Ability]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 4 ) [Doubling Tens]

Claudia Cole

[Int+Occult]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )

Claudia Cole

"Be careful what you wish for, Elijah" she warns, casting him with a sly smile. But for all her ominous portents, she is in good spirits. The bare earth is cold and real beneath her feet, and the night is fast descending. The presence of the shadows and the stars enlivens her. She slides the flannel over her arms, rolling the sleeves up to the elbows loosely. It's a boy's shirt, confiscated months ago from a visitor who left it behind. When she's through, she opens up her pack and pulls something out of it: a soft black pouch filled with what sounds like marbles or small stones.

"Come sit with me." She leads Elijah away from the stream, seeking out a level piece of ground in which to sit. She finds it beside a fallen tree. The earth there is dry and dusted with pine needles. She sweeps the worst of them aside with her toes and lowers herself to the ground cross-legged. Once Elijah has settled in across from her, she opens the bag and pours out a handful of small, polished black stones. These she cups in her hands and shakes once, twice, three times, closing her eyes as she does so. Then she tosses the stones out in a scattered spray across the ground. In the moonlight, Elijah can just make out the engraving of Greek letters etched into each stone.

When Claudia opens her eyes, she gazes at the stones for a long time, head canted slightly as she reads the symbols; the pattern of the stones, divining insight from what she finds.

"You're attracted to dark things," she says. "Even though sometimes they hurt you."

There's a break. A thoughtful pause as she takes another look. "Ghosts follow you. They like you because you see humanity in them instead of death. You're a good person. There is warmth and generosity in you, but you're also reckless. You take your life for granted. It could get you killed some day, but that is for you and not for the fates to decide." She pauses, tilts her head the other way. "There was a flood, when you were young. Now you're afraid of water. Sometimes our external fears are manifestations of internal qualities. A tumultuous boy, afraid of the tumult of the sea."

Finally she leans forward and taps one of the stones with her finger. "Your life is going to be filled with exploration."

When she finishes, she sits up and regards Elijah. For a moment her eyes look dark and glassy, but when she blinks her focus returns. "No mention of bears. Looks like you're safe tonight."

Elijah Poirot

He follows along with the woman, the one with all her mystery and promise of what fate sees for him. There's dry pine needles and he feels the difference under his boots. Takes a seat across from her, gets comfortable- as comfortable as one can when they're sitting on the dirt. Which, well, is pretty comfortable. He settles in, takes his watch out of his pocket and sets it aside. There's still blood on the inlay, staining it more maroon and gold than the actual shade. Couldn't get it clean, doesn't think much of it but he should. It's his blood in there, not pulled forth through some ritual, it's there because of choices he's made. Risks he's taken that he shouldn't have.

Elijah wonders what they feel like, the stones anyway. He can barely make out the Greek letters there, thinks of the few words in Greek that he does know. (The word for justice sounds remarkably like the English word decay. The connection isn't lost on him.) And he listens. Keeps his mouth shut because someone told him once when he was young that you don't interrupt someone while they're working, he's familiar with superstition. Knows that the woman in front of him isn't just some random woman, knows and trusts that when she says she sees fate than she really does see his fate. Trusts because he has no reason not to trust.

His attention goes at some point from the stones before them to the look in her eyes- dark and glassy- she's there she's seeing and at that moment it's like she knows because… well, because fate ordained that this knowledge be known. These weren't things that people could tell just by looking at him. And he keeps quiet, watches her, is hanging on her words, if this was a con she could have taken him for all he was worth but it wasn't a con.

And there he was, elated, started, unsure of what to say for a moment.

There's silence, and finally he says something, "why is it that when someone you've just met tells you secrets about yourself, the first inclination is to give context to make it all make sense? Do you ever get sick of it?"

A second, because he thinks he should stop but god damn he's impressed. He wants to talk because some part of him feels as though he's been given permission, "because if you are, I solemnly swear I will not regale you with stories of Katrina or the listless dead."

Claudia Cole

"I don't mind." Claudia is quiet now that her work is finished; now that the threads of fate have crept back into the shadows. The surge of power that helped her see truth in those stones dissipates, and she feels... more human. She reaches out to collect the stones off the ground, giving them a light blow to clean them of dust before depositing them back in the suede pouch. "I'm a writer. I like stories."

Truthfully, more of a student of writing than a proper writer. But one does not need to be paid and published in order to claim a craft as their own.

She leans forward with her elbows on her knees. In the moonlight, her skin looks very pale. "Occasionally I also like people."

Elijah Poirot

"I gave you a chance to tap out," he said with a grin, bright and playful. Of course he would talk to people he randomly met at a park, but he seems delighted none the less. He was gregarious, had never been accused of being anything other than attached to the concept of people and enthralled with the actuality of their being, "it's nothing but hours of my autobiography now. I might end up testing that occasional like of people."

He adjusts, seems comfortable and focuses on the person in front of him, odd since he'd been so interested in the stars at that moment. They would stay but people? They were fleeting in comparison, left echoes in their wake.

"I'm an only child. And I grew up in New Orleans, generations of Poirots just settled and cemented there- we didn't actually branch out until everything was either under water or too raw to stand, but before Katrina things were fine. My mom didn't get kids… she didn't really quite know what to do with me until I was a teenager and sneaking out and doing damn near everything , but that's a different story… when i was little, it was just us. Dad worked a lot, starting up a construction company so he was gone a lot, didn't have the crews that you need so he'd come home smelling like the kind of pitch you use to tar a roof and sawdust.

"I kinda got left to my own devices, but it was fine because I had Annabelle," he says casually, but continues onward, "now, at the time, my mother and father were thoroughly convinced that Annabelle was just a friend I had invented to keep me company but… she was always there. I don't remember a time that we didn't have Annabelle and I remember being very confused that nobody could hear her.

"She was real nice… real nice, most of the time. Sang, told stories, was really particular though about things that were hers. I just figured Annabelle was invisible, because sometimes things broke and sometimes things happened like the windows would shake and… she was kind of like having a nanny. That's- I guess that's what you'd call it?" he shrugs, but continues on, "anyway… I had this old antique dresser… vanity… desk… thing. I don't know what it was, I used it as a desk. At the time my mom had this thing for antiques at the time- and it was this nice art deco thing with the big mirror and the mirror wasn't attached right and it cracked.

"And something snapped. Like… I don't know what happened, or at least I didn't know what happened then? But I remember the windows shook and the glass cracked and Annabelle lost. her. shit. Like… threw books at my mom, trashed my room, lost. her. damn. mind. I just remember  my mom shutting us in a closet and waiting until things died down. I didn't- I had no idea how to ask Annabelle what happened, because in my mind I'm thinking that we can just replace it. Mirrors break, right?

"No." A flat. Definite no. "Someone explained to me when I was older that there are things that keep you here- passions that drive you and things that keep you held to the place that you are, let you be a little closer to the people who were alive and I guess that mirror was Annabelle's. When those things break, or get damaged, or whatever it's like… it's bad.

"Anyway, the next week after that my mom had this gigantic-assed yard sale. Sold every antique, every pre-owned anything in the house, tried to get my dad to move us to an apartment because she didn't want to stay there anymore. I don't really blame her. You ask her now and she acts like none of it ever happened."

Claudia Cole

I might end up testing that occasional like of people.

Claudia smiles quietly. It's the kind of smile that speaks of secrets.

Elijah relates his story, and Claudia remains still as she listens. Her attention fixes on him and doesn't waver. Not even when the sound of some animal moving through the forest causes a twig to break. Whatever it is, it's small enough not to be a concern (and the fates already told her that they would escape those primal threats tonight.) Her smile fades, but an expression of calm, lucid curiosity remains.

When he's finished, she folds her hands in her lap and regards him thoughtfully.

"People are afraid of things they can't explain. For what it's worth, I'm sorry you lost your friend. I was alone a lot growing up too, though my nanny was of the living variety." She pauses a moment before asking, "Can you summon ghosts, or do they just find you?"

Elijah Poirot

Fate said there weren't any bears. He does stop when he hears a twig break, but it's small, that one moment when he occasionally lets his breath catch in his throat, exhales long and gets back on his topic. He had no problem telling stories, seemed to take a great deal of pleasure in it. He's animated, invested. there's an occasional hitch- it isn't just a story. It's personal.

There's silence between, that moment when she's regarding him thoughtfully and he's trying to read her expressions, trying to figure out precisely what it is that might be going through her head but the silence is broken. "I'll bet you can pull a lot of crazy stuff with an actual living nanny.  Not gonna lie, I would have been all over that," with a little grin, hands in his lap. Keyed in is the word.

He supposes this is kind of what going to summer camp is like. Church camp was decidedly different from summer camp, not that they didn't have the same number of lanyards, but you were generally discouraged from spending terribly much time in the company of people whose boobs you might actually end up feeling. We digress.

Though, there was the actual question, and he has to think, looks up at the stars like they might have the answer there, "possibly? I haven't tried, but summoning things get messy because, like, you're compelling something to show up. I figure it's like being summoned for jury duty. I've summoned other things, but not ghosts. They usually just kinda show up, word gets around sometimes that you've got a captive audience.

"It's really loud, sometimes. Like… if you're out somewhere, and people are talking, it's hard to tell who is talking. I like being out here because it's quiet."

Claudia Cole

There's a faint huff of laughter when Elijah ponders the possibilities of misbehaving with a living nanny. Something about it suggests that such a concept might never have occurred to Claudia. And in fact, she confirms as much a moment later. "I was a pretty quiet kid. I didn't start getting into trouble until I was older." (Even then, it was hardly the kind of trouble that most people her age aspired to.)

Elijah hadn't tried to summon a ghost yet.

"I understand. You're exerting your Will onto another being. That's not something one does lightly. Or shouldn't, anyway. I've always been curious about spirits. I haven't learned to speak to them yet. Some day." Her mouth curls up into a little smile. Elijah liked being out in the wilderness because it was quiet. In truth, so does she.

"I moved here because of all this. The mountains. The space. The quiet. It's so different from where I grew up. And UCB isn't a bad school. Do you go there?"

Elijah Poirot

"Where'd you grow up?" he asks curiously, cocks his head to the side and… well… perks up. He radiated delight, not unlike an eager puppy or something else that basked in the presence of others. Arionna called him a sunflower once- it wasn't far off the mark, truth be told. "I'm at DU right now- successfully survived to my upper division courses, I actually have to study now. What are you majoring in?"

Claudia Cole

"Creative Writing." She doesn't tease Elijah for not making the obvious connection. (After all, she might have been a writer who also happened to major in electrical engineering. People don't always go to school for the things they love.) "I grew up in LA. My mom lives in Portland, so I've spent some time there too. But... mostly I lived with my dad. He's a producer."

Her voice goes a little flat when she says that last word. Bad associations, maybe.

"What are you studying?"

Elijah Poirot

Creative writing
"Oh, duh, you're a writer," she might not tease him, but he sure does. Of course it makes sense that she would major in creative writing. He breezes on, looks up and laughs. Always to the stars, like they might have something to tell him that he just can't quite figure out. He'd spend hours  staring if he could, past the gauntlet and off towards some spiral galaxy where we're just sitting pretty on an arm somewhere.

"I'm a French major right now? But I'm actually considering changing to being a harp major," completely serious, too, "I don't think I could actually make the pitch for you totally want to spend the equivalent of buying a house on me learning how to play the harp because why the fuck not? I think the general consensus is that eventually I'll get bored of being a French major. People keep asking if it's cheating to be a French major when you already speak french, which it isn't."

A pause.

"Are you more of a novelist or a poet?"

Claudia Cole

I'm actually considering changing to being a harp major.

"Well, if you love it and you're good enough..." she shrugs lightly. "You can get a job with the symphony. I don't have a place to judge. Even published writers make a pretty poor living, most of the time. I think maybe that's... almost part of the appeal for me. Its lack of glamour."

One could probably piece together Claudia's story fairly easily: a quiet girl from a privileged but lonely background who longs (or thinks she does) for a more honest life. The world is filled with young people like her - people who don't fully understand what it really means to go hungry. Perhaps some day she will, and it may or may not change how she feels.

"Right now I mostly write poems and short stories. I'd like to finish a novel some day." She stops there, sitting up on her knees as she leans forward. There's something about the way she looks at Elijah now that feels a bit like the way an animal might watch someone they aren't sure if they want to eat or be friends with. "You didn't come all the way out here just to sit and talk though, did you?" She hops up onto her feet, brushing the dirt from her bare legs.

"Let's go running."

She's still barefoot, but she doesn't seem to care.

"Maybe if you catch me, I'll give you a kiss. Maybe."

With that, she turns and takes off into the trees.

Claudia Cole

[Forces 1 - Darksight diff 4 -1 (practiced)]

Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (6, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Claudia Cole

[Dex+Ath, +1 diff from rough terrain]

Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (2, 4, 9, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Elijah Poirot

[Forces 1- I'm totally not going to barrel into the darkness and run into a tree]

Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (1, 10) ( success x 1 )

Elijah Poirot

[Dex+athletics, diff+1 because rough terrain]

Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (1, 2, 3, 10) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Elijah Poirot

[aaaaand extend, because seriously? You just learned this.]

Dice: 2 d10 TN5 (2, 10) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Elijah Poirot

Elijah Poirot is a developmentally-appropriate young man.

Claudia Cole is an engaging, quiet young woman who was looking for something quiet. Something that followed her passions and was more honest than whatever life one had when they lived in Los Angeles and spent time around producers. She seemed to be a lot of things, but what we seem and what we are happen to be two different things. Let's go running, she says, and she hops to her feet and he's a little slow to get up.

"I'm good with maybe," he says, and she bounds off. His first instinct is to follow, traipse blindly through the woods until it hits him that he doesn't have to.

Elijah takes a moment, breathes low and deep and crouches. The dirt's fresh enough, and maybe he talks to himself, says things that aren't just intended for his ears, but rather, are an imperative to the universe. Facts. An attunement to the way that light plays and reflects and refracts. A dedication to the basic makeup of things. It's more ordered than he was originally accustomed, because no matter how much he bucks them the universe has laws and truths- you have to know the rules before you can find the loopholes.

After a few beats, after sigils and Words and words are exchanged, he stands up, catches more than he usually would. Dark, light- subjective, really. He hears movement, and bounds off into the dark of the treeline, a little less likely to run headlong into a branch this time. Something tells him that he should know better, chasing after dryads for a maybe has been the downfall of many a traveller.

Elijah Poirot is a developmentally-appropriate young man; he's bulletproof.

Claudia Cole

It could get you killed someday.

Elijah Poirot isn't bulletproof. Maybe he even knows it, beneath the youthful abandon. Claudia isn't any more invincible than he is, but still, she runs. The dark forest welcomes her into its embrace as though she belongs there - because she does. Sticks and stones and needles scrape the skin on her feet as she runs. It hurts, and she feels it. Knows that she'll be bleeding before long. But she welcomes the pain like she welcomes the darkness; like she welcomes the way her heart pounds in her chest and her lungs ache for air. Blood is part of living.

As she runs, she listens to her heart and whispers an incantation in ancient Greek. For a moment she spreads her arms like wings and looks up at the sky through the gaps in the trees. She imagines how bats see the world. Not by light, but by sound. (They are as much at home in the shadows as she is.) Her senses sharpen, and then the sound of her treading feet and her gasping breath come back to her - bouncing off the trees and the ground. The landscape takes shape around her. She can hear Elijah running at her back and knows with his longer legs that it's only a matter of time before he catches her. But she runs anyway, laughing as her hair billows behind her like liquid shadows.

And for a time, she keeps her lead.

Claudia Cole

[Dex+Ath again]

Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (6, 6, 7, 7) ( success x 2 )

Elijah Poirot

[Please don't run into a tree]

Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (3, 5, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )

Elijah Poirot

The day he turned twenty-one, Elijah took a literal bullet to the spine standing in front of a bar tender in a robbery gone bad. On some level, he's aware that he's mortal. Knows more than he likes to admit that he's alive because Serafíne didn't want him to die, and that is probably the only reason. That might actually be the push to get him to be more careful; most of the blood staining his pocket watch is his own. Not born out of ritual, but rather brushes with fate. He rides a line a little too close, n those quiet moments he knows that something has to change.

But, not yet. Always operating under the prospect of next time, knowing full well that next time doesn't always happen.

But he runs, because his overarching thoughts towards the future encompasses now. Mostly, now. His backpack and his pocket watch are a ways back and he isn't gaining ground but he certainly isn't losing it. Through brush, over what might be a trail, and doesn't let next time get in the way of right now because this? This was fun. If someone had asked him what he was going to be doing with his evening, he wouldn't have thought he'd be running through the forest with some dark-eyed author laughing out loud, taking in cooling air and pine scent.

It's only a matter of time before he catches up, he's betting on her getting tired before he does. Doesn't quite know that for sure, but he keeps up. Pushes because he likes the way that everything looks and feels and… well, why bank on next time?

Claudia Cole

[Dex+Ath one more time]

Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (1, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )

Elijah Poirot

[Come on, go go go!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (2, 3, 4, 9) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Claudia Cole

[Dex+Stealth]

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

Claudia Cole

Sometimes the winner of a race isn't the person with the longest legs or the greatest Stamina. Sometimes, it's the person who wants it most.

Perhaps fate is on Claudia's side (she who can so expertly read its threads.)

Whatever the cause, she keeps her lead. After a while the trees stop feeling familiar. She can hear Elijah at her back but she knows they're both beginning to tire. Games are only meant to go on so long. So she slows her steps to walk and catches her breath, gazing up at the stars through the breaks in the tree branches. It feels good - the way her body aches. The soreness and the exhaustion. The cuts on her feet have numbed to a dull sting. Briefly she considers hiding, as Elijah's form approaches through the trees. But when she darts for cover a branch breaks beneath her step and she laughs. Changing plan mid-course, she turns around and waits for Elijah to catch up.

By the time he does, she's smiling. "Better luck next time."

It's a taunting promise that she leaves hanging in the air. Then she begins to make her way back to the river (and her things.)