William
He's got a few more days in Denver before he ahs to catch another flight out of here back to Louisiana to deal with his family for, what William presumes, is going to be another awkward Thanksgiving where his relatives are nice, ask how things are, generally avoid talking about the big awkward thing in the room where they're fairly certain he shouldn't be living on his own (espeically since Jenn's gone- up and moved to Los Angeles, is actually having a pretty damned fantastic time, and avoiding the fucking blizzard that Denver is currently experiencing) .
Exhale.
He got to Sera's place through a buzz route, a train, and very careful navigation that didn't involve having to use a motorcycle. He was going to have to get a car now. Wasn't going to have to worry about covering the rent because he was the one who paid for the apartment anyway- had Jenn's back when things were a bit much for her but we digress again because it is a time for digression.
He stands on the porch, knocks because he always knocks, but actually waits to be let in this time. Takes in his surroundings and how much he can't stand the fact that it's cold and he can feel it in his lungs and how he keeps checking to be sure the sun hasn't burned out.
It hasn't, by the way.
Serafíne
The blizzard warnings were bloody well overstated thank you very much NWS with your aggressive forecasting. No need to run out day-before-yesterday on a desperate quest for milk and bread and cigarettes and beer and Tito's Handmade Vodka and cheap red wine and cloves and local honey and cloves and cinnamon and firewood and carrots just in case there was enough snow to build snowpersons each of whom would require: noses but what the hell. There's enough snow that the residents of 719 Corona Street can pretend that they are snowbound and throw a party. Or kind of a party.
Out front there are these maybe foot-and-a-half high snowpersons with raisin eyeballs and these pouty-red twizzler mouths and hot-pink shot glasses and a semi-frozen can of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Have to walk past them to get to the porch.
There's alcohol enough for whoever shows up. Wine mulling with spices on the stove. A red velvet cake cooling on the rack waiting to be iced and a bit pot of chili and this lovely jalapeno-cheese cornbread to be crumbled into some waiting bowl and inhaled along with the spices. For whomever shows up.
--
Elijah shows up.
Knocks, as he does. Takes a little while because the residents here never expect their visitors to knock but bare feet on warm wooden floorboards and then Dee opens the front door.
"Elijah! God I hope you aren't frozen to death, though honestly I'm a little disappointed in our mediocre blizzard. We haven't had a proper one since I moved back, and here we locked in supplies for days. Your timing's great, though. Sera got in this morning? Probably the last flight that landed at DIA before they shut it down. I'm making a red velvet cake as a welcome home." Stepping back to let him in, closing the door after. Shivering that inside shiver: like fuck, she forgot it was winter outside. Keeps chattering as she walks back through: the foyer and down the long hallway, past the empty front parlor, toward the kitchen and living room that are, in winter anyway, the heart of the house. Is he hungry? Does he want a drink? Does he like hot wine? Warms you up but good. Rick made the chili and Dee the cornbread, there's this grist mill in Golden that does the cornmeal, stone ground, artisinal, can't be beat.
William
"What is wrong with the mountains?! Dee, why is there snow? Louisiana doesn't have snow."
Said like someone who is not from here, and he is very much not from here. He would never get used to snow, just like he would never get used to the fact that Denver is a place that doesn't have any air and he's still making peace with the fact that his lungs are going to have to readjust to the fact that this place has nothing remotely resembling air since they're a mile above sea level.
He already misses home and he hasn't made it back yet. He already wants to be back in Denver, though, even though the time to realize homesickness isn't a real thing has passed him.
But he comes in, hugs Dee if she'll let him like he's a lost toddler trying to make sense of a world that makes abso-fucking-lutely no sense to him. Laughs after a point when he steps in and he's cold but he's not cold, because very rarely has Elijah's demeanor been anything other than warm. He goes through the checklist- he would like chili, mulled wine sounds fantastic, you can't go wrong with cornbread, and he might have water and a nap after that but he'll probably take the nap somewhere else. He just wanted to come by and see human beings whose company he enjoys.
Which, in case she has not guessed, includes Dee.
Serafíne
The first non-awakened person to see her was a bus-boy in the only remaining Howard Johnson's Restaurant on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and he had been avoiding (for some reason) clearing off booth 13 where she was ensconsed, reading Catalogue of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay, mouth moving with the words, picking at some stranger's leftover fried clams and slipping them underneath the table to Sid, crowded all gawky around the table legs, mostly out of the way, and truth: he didn't notice her, not right away. He saw the dog's tail sweeping out from beneath the booth and thought: maybe the shit is cousin got her two weeks ago really was LSD with some really delayed action; and then thought: fuck, a snake!; and then thought: what's a dog - ; and then realized the dog was actually there and was attached to a girl he couldn't take his eyes off, once he noticed her. Sunglasses and a weird, skinny book and a leather jacket and something about her that made his breath stop and his chest hum with something he couldn't really name. Not love or lust or anything, but something else entirely, something that made him want to: be, rise, change, wake.
Wake.
Wake.
--
"Shit I'm sorry. Let me clean that off for you."
He meant the table. She started crying. And he wanted to, but somehow he couldn't begin to ask her why.
That was less than twelve hours ago.
--
Elijah laments the presence of snow to a girl who was lamenting not 2.3 seconds ago the lack-of-it, so: perspective, you know. That's all that matters. She pats his poor tender head and suggests that he get a nice tobaggan. That's what she says: tobaggan. Dee has a friend who hand-knits them with slightly - well - racy takes on the traditional Fair Isle patterns and sells them on Etsy and maybe Elijah would like to buy one before the real snow comes? If it ever does?
He is loaded up with whatever he wants: mulled wine, chili, cornbread, a hot toddy, probably a goddamned napkin or three and hey! living room. There's a fire starting to crackle in the hearth and Sera and Dan on the couch and a dog kinda crowded-underneath the coffee table, part of her muzzle and part of her tail sticking out because PEOPLE ARE HERE AND SHE LIKES PEOPLE. Sera is curled up with Dan: hasn't left his side since she got home. He has arm flung around her body and her temple is resting on his shoulder and his head tilted towards hers, mouth close to her brow. She's too drunk to decide whether his beard is scratchy or ticklish but either way it makes her fucking happy. So happy she is still sometimes starts crying for no goddamned reason.
Dan lifts his free arm and gives Elijah a wave. Shifts and murmurs something into Our Sera's ear, enough to have her following suit. Waving: hi, hello, salut, what the fuck ever.
William
"Wait, what is a tobaggan?"
And thus there was the explanation, which made him laugh, and he was soon enough inside. Ditched the coat and the scarf and the gloves but doesn't take his vest off or anything else because Elijah was fucking prepared for the day that things were going to be cold and, truth be told, he was always dressed in too damn much clothing anyway because he liked the aesthetic. Could deal with being a little warm and now he could survive it.
So he sits down in the floor, where he can see Sera and Dan and seems... intent. Intent on looking at people and taking them in, perhaps odd because he'd want to be there in the middle. He'd wanted to pile in and be in her space and have moments of just talking and listening and conveying the world of things that he wanted to say but couldn't because-
Well, because. There were people, and she'd spent so long without them. Couldn't dare interrupt it to take that time for himself because, like Dee said, she just got home. He's eating, sneaks Sid a piece of cornbread.
"So, house is full again," he says, smiles, just takes it all in for what it is.
Serafíne
There are times when she looks harrowed. Walks herself to some invisible edge and just stays there for so goddamned long you'd think she would have no choice but to fall, and she has that look about her now, Sera. That bones-through-skin translucency. The too-sharp profile, the spare, fine-spun sense that she was created, not born, and from all the things that are disappearing from this world.
And yet: also a sort of fullness to her, that sense of repletion that opens beneath the breastbone at the first sight of a too-full moon. She's glossy and way-too-drunk and watches Elijah as he crosses the room juggling chili and cornbread and wine or whatever and sits where he sits and as he feeds Sid ('sneaks' hah) some cornbread and Sid is okay with cornbread but she would like chili much fucking better, thank you, and Elijah remarks that the house is full again and Dan's eyes stitch to him briefly then. Wry grin that touches his mouth but looks - well - weary when it gets to his eyes. "Yeah," is what he says in response, and it sounds so: solid that there's as much meaning in that one word as there is a whole damn tree, root to branch and back again.
He says something to Sera right into her ear, and whatever it is is enough to rouse her, to have her perking up like an adorable goddamned meerkat who could tear your body apart from the inside out, so incrementally you'd swear the world had started spinning backwards and then she's up, untangling from the throw she'd wrapped around her long, long legs, shaking it off one leg that is especially tangled, laughing as she stitch-hops and then, fuck it, sort of untwirling from it. She is wearing: a man's button-down shirt and black lace panties and her hair is still damp from the shower but only in the middle of the mass and Dan's trying to figure out what she's going for before she staggers into the fire but she's magick, she's not staggering into the fire.
So; lots of complications.
But she finds what she's looking for: a superbly battered fuzzy panda-bear backpack and pulls out something: a book!
Which she hands to Elijah as she bends weavingly down and kisses him on the temple.
Murmuring, "Proud of you, kid. Congrats."
William
He had once talked about wanting to know Serafine as a human being, wanted to know things like what her fond memories were and where she was from- never asked what her birth name was though it comes to him. Knows that perhaps he shouldn't ask that, especially now that names have such a significance. She is how she is, she is as she is. Not her complete definition but that bit of truth isn't his to actually touch. Wouldn't dream of knowing someone so intimately, but he certainly does have the fantasy of getting to know her. Past what she presents and, instead, the places that take her further from whatever box people use to define her.
He's earned his keep in this city, whatever weird and miraculous things he's witnessed have come in dreams or had the misfortune of crossing his doorstep. What he's capable of is often a question of debate, the general consensus being that he's still young, still inexperienced, still very much that deer on spindly legs and yet-
He just came back from an experience that said the opposite. Where his betters assessed and didn't find him wanting, where he was regarded as someone that people could see as a peer. Came back to Denver and things have changed, drastically so but not in a bad way. This is more of the same, but a welcome stability and who would have ever accused Serafine of being a source of stability in his life?
She swings by, has a book in hand which he then is holding, kisses him on the temple and he half whispers- words only for her- "It's William now," he tells her, "but you can call me whatever you want. Won't be salty."
Pulls back and looks back at her, smiles and looks at the book in his hands, "scout's honor."
Serafíne
The book in his hands is a small, slim book by a man named Ross Gay. It is the book she was reading this morning - slouched, slung low really, one the bench seat of Booth 13 of the last remaining Howard Johnson's restaurant on the Pennsylvania turnpike when: someone noticed.
--
The cover is a bright riot of color, like Claude Monet had sex with de Kooning and Frieda Kahla and made it: see? This. The name is: Catalogue of Unabashed Gratitude.
--
"William. I'll call you whatever the fuck you want me to call you."
then she is: standing up. Something about the way she does it suggests that remaining upright is a goddamned pleasure and a near-insurmountable challenge but she's taking it on with goddamned gusto. Balancing with an outflung hand on the crown of his head while also wiggling her fingers at Dan all come get me please, which he loves, and also: refuses to do. On principle, at least right now.
William
She'll call him whatever he wants her to call him, and it makes... it provokes and evokes a reaction that is not one other than pleasure, of relief. Like he expected it to be harder, like he expected her not to, like he'd expected a lot of things and it's a sign to him that there's acceptance of the newer parts of his life, that he's not drowning and someone accepts that about him.
He looks at the cover, holds it and turns to the page indicated and he looks it over. Eyes trail over words and he's reading, translating- a little known fact. Sometimes, English hitches in the back of his mind. Only occasionally, but it means when it comes to poetry he is mindful of what he is reading. Takes it in slowly and then perks up.
Flashes a bright grin at Sera-
"I wanna read this," he announces.
And so he does. Starts off with "Friends, will you bear with me today,
for I have awakened
from a dream in which a robin
made with its shabby wings a kind of veil-"
There's a way that he reads, a way that he presents things and a way that he seems aware of what he's doing. He's a storyteller, this one. Can convey what is in front of him and words come by with delight. Reads aloud for others to enjoy, but eventually settles again in to observing people. Trades stories with people about how Boston was- Dan knows which hulking details he's leaving out. Listens to the little bits of people's days and is just content to take them all in. The huamnity of it, the warmth of it, the way that this house feels more like a home than any number of places he's been.
He'll fly out again in less than a week, may think of being on Corona street instead of Baton Rouge
Showing posts with label dan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dan. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
Thursday, November 12, 2015
Phone calls to Dan
William
He was still in Boston, holed up in a room with a few recent-additions to the Tradition and William had gone through some effort to actually make friends and contacts that he can actually come back. He's got a legacy to uphold now, it's real. IT's really real, and he could have called any number of people and, perhaps with wishful thinking, he thought that maybe he could call Sera.
He should know better, knows that she's been unable to make calls. Knows that she's a spectre in the city, but he tries anyway, thinks that maybe he can leave her a voicemail. Leave her poetry and tidings and any number of things.
William misses Serafine. He's still having to get accustomed to which name he needs to sign when, but he calls her phone anyway.
Dan
Dinner has Dan sitting in a coffeehouse / cafe / bar called CASH ONLY with Rick and a few friends. There's a beer on the table in front of him that he's been nursing for an hour, and a half-decimated platter of "Irish Nachos" on the table between them. He sits back with enough of a view of the snow melting over the sidewalk, that strange, bright, burnt-orange blast of artificial light reflecting on snow that always feels like the first edge of a nuclear winter.
He's carrying two phones, these days, ignoring the constant little vibrations of texts sliding in in favor of sitting and having a conversation with friends he likes. The ringtone for a call is different, though. Is She Weird warbles Black Francis, which makes him shift his ass half-off the seat and pull out the phone, enough to glance at it and see who's calling. Then he stands up, waves an apology to friends and steps away, out into the chilly November night,
"Elijah." Male voice, baritone, too deep to be Sera. Affection wrapped up into the greeting, though. The suggestion of a beard brushing against the receiver. "What's up?"
William
The backdrop of Elijah's call seems pretty quiet, all things said. He hears the voice, the affection in it and while it isn't Serafine it is Dan, and Dan is a welcomed treat in and of itself. The smile is clear on his face, in his voice. There's the rustle of fabric, probably a blanket or a pillowcase or something to that effect.
"I'm in Boston! Got through all my sorting hat business and graduated from hogwarts or whatever freaking Harry Potter analogy you want to make," Dan can all but hear the young man wave something off.
"I'll be coming back pretty soon, do you want anything?"
Dan
"From Boston?" An inflected rise of the consor's voice, this quiet bemusement braided into his tone. It is only now that response to his question: what's up? has spilled into a breathless explanation that Dan can begin to decipher only because he has had years of deciphering Sera's fucked-up ramblings that he finds the tension in his spine starting to unknot.
And he tries, makes an effort, not to allow that tension to enter his voice. "Maybe snowboots. Not for me but for you. Winter's made an appearance."
A short breath out, which sounds like a smoker's exhale but Dan isn't smoking today. "So that means you're official? They give you a scarf and a coat-of-arms and everything? Anyone ask you to try out for the quidditch team?"
William
"Yeah, I've got the scarf and everything. I have been tagged, Named, and thrust upon the world. God have mercy on us all," he's excited. It's obvious he's excited because he's rambling and, frankly, unless someone was there with him it was a little difficult to catch what he was actually talking about.
"Turns out I'm shit on a broom, though," he laughs, "on a more realistic note I'm kind of sad winter has shown up, I thought it was just happening up north so I was vehemently trying to wish it away because it's fucking cold."
It dawns on him that Serafine isn't the one who answered the phone. There's a bit of silence there before-
"Hey, you holding up okay? If you're out with people I can call you back."
Dan
"I'm cool," Dan assures him, in that low-rumble, and these are things that one says. Over the phone, over wires or ether or whatever strange and agreed-upon magick allows us to be everywhere at once. He straightens up, takes in the street. Doesn't think the call will be long but he doesn't seem to be in a hurry to get back to the folks inside. Lets the music stay behind him, dulled to a low but present hum by the windowglass.
"Congratulations, though. You doing anything to celebrate? Have anyone to celebrate with?"
--
Doesn't ask the new Name.
Knows enough not to. Doesn't believe in that particular power but Elijah's belief in this matters more than Dan's.
William
"I've been trying to cram about as much partying in with my new housemates as possible- it's... We're not a giant house, but we're supposed to be diplomats, you know? So, like, actually interacting with each other and building a working relationship seems like a pretty good idea and thus far I've figured out I kinda like these people."
He asks if there's anyone he has celebrated with, and it makes William laugh a little at it, "so I did shots with a chick named Holly we've exchanged numbers and shit. I've actually been good, I'm trying to be a grown up and now... you know... promoting Hermetic good will by trying to get into my tradition mate's pants."
Even though, by the sound of it, he would really, really like to.
"It's pretty fucking hard. It's like I walked into a freaking American Apparel catalog or something."
Dan
This quiet noise, something close to gruff bemusement. The whole conversation would be better if the snow were still falling, but that storm has moved onward to ravage the east coast, to remind everyone in its path that winter means more than earlier, more spectacular sunsets. More than the Santa Claus house at the mall.
He focuses - his eyes anyway - on the closed headshop across the street. The patterned, maw-like reflections of hookahs lined up in the picture window. Gauges how much and how far he should-maybe caution a now-full-fledged member of the Order of Hermes, unAwakened friend of a low-penny mystic that he is.
Thinks about diplomacy, its meanings and its iterations. Thinks about the boundaries of nations ringing the world.
"Naw, man. You ever see the Magic Flute?"
Mozart. Dan means: the Mozart opera.
William
Has he seen the Magic Flute?
He actually has to think about this, though the reference isn't lost on him. Pulls through his memories and tries to think of the various times he's actually been to the opera and comes back with-
"Yeah," he replies, the lilt in his voice says that he's listening to Dan. That he's paying attention, that perhaps he isn't cut out to be a full fledged Hermetic because he's he hasn't ever given the indication that he thinks less of how Serafine and Dan view the world.
She'd said something about it once. He'd been shocked to say the least.
Dan
"It's like you've just walked out of the overture into the opera proper. The bells are starting to ring, everything's strange and it's up to you to figure out what all of this shit means. I mean, it's spectacular, right? But all that weird Masonic symbolism trips me out."
A short breath out, affection this crackle in his voice.
"So, celebrate. Seriously. Do. But remember that you're at the very beginning, and you have fuck-all of an idea of who's what and when and where. Caution, man. Especially now, when you're with your housemates, I think you need to have your wits about you at every step."
William
There has never been an instance where the young man has not listened to Dan. Dan knows what he's talking bout; the man has seen the world. He's seen what happens and seen more of the magical world and how people interact than Elijah has and now the young man is having to brave the world.
He pauses, nods and it's almost like Dan can hear the newly-minted Hermetic nodding.
"I've gotta make it through the whole opera, I'm feeling hoepful," purses his lips but smiles anyway.
"Thanks, man. I'll... you're pretty fuckin' smart, I kinda dig that about you."
Dan
"Cheers, kid." The low back of a laugh, still that scrawl of affection underlying it. Strain, too, sure, but only if you really listen for it.
"Be safe. Talk to you later."
Click.
--
He drops the phone from his ear, glances down at it in his hand. Rubs his thumb over the screen and watches as the icons shift and shiver. Glances at the unanswered texts, then thumbs them away. He thinks about lighting a cigarette, wouldn't mind the burn in his throat conjoined with the bright, belting cold.
But he doesn't have one, so he just breathes. In, out.
In, out. The only way to get into or out of this world.
He was still in Boston, holed up in a room with a few recent-additions to the Tradition and William had gone through some effort to actually make friends and contacts that he can actually come back. He's got a legacy to uphold now, it's real. IT's really real, and he could have called any number of people and, perhaps with wishful thinking, he thought that maybe he could call Sera.
He should know better, knows that she's been unable to make calls. Knows that she's a spectre in the city, but he tries anyway, thinks that maybe he can leave her a voicemail. Leave her poetry and tidings and any number of things.
William misses Serafine. He's still having to get accustomed to which name he needs to sign when, but he calls her phone anyway.
Dan
Dinner has Dan sitting in a coffeehouse / cafe / bar called CASH ONLY with Rick and a few friends. There's a beer on the table in front of him that he's been nursing for an hour, and a half-decimated platter of "Irish Nachos" on the table between them. He sits back with enough of a view of the snow melting over the sidewalk, that strange, bright, burnt-orange blast of artificial light reflecting on snow that always feels like the first edge of a nuclear winter.
He's carrying two phones, these days, ignoring the constant little vibrations of texts sliding in in favor of sitting and having a conversation with friends he likes. The ringtone for a call is different, though. Is She Weird warbles Black Francis, which makes him shift his ass half-off the seat and pull out the phone, enough to glance at it and see who's calling. Then he stands up, waves an apology to friends and steps away, out into the chilly November night,
"Elijah." Male voice, baritone, too deep to be Sera. Affection wrapped up into the greeting, though. The suggestion of a beard brushing against the receiver. "What's up?"
William
The backdrop of Elijah's call seems pretty quiet, all things said. He hears the voice, the affection in it and while it isn't Serafine it is Dan, and Dan is a welcomed treat in and of itself. The smile is clear on his face, in his voice. There's the rustle of fabric, probably a blanket or a pillowcase or something to that effect.
"I'm in Boston! Got through all my sorting hat business and graduated from hogwarts or whatever freaking Harry Potter analogy you want to make," Dan can all but hear the young man wave something off.
"I'll be coming back pretty soon, do you want anything?"
Dan
"From Boston?" An inflected rise of the consor's voice, this quiet bemusement braided into his tone. It is only now that response to his question: what's up? has spilled into a breathless explanation that Dan can begin to decipher only because he has had years of deciphering Sera's fucked-up ramblings that he finds the tension in his spine starting to unknot.
And he tries, makes an effort, not to allow that tension to enter his voice. "Maybe snowboots. Not for me but for you. Winter's made an appearance."
A short breath out, which sounds like a smoker's exhale but Dan isn't smoking today. "So that means you're official? They give you a scarf and a coat-of-arms and everything? Anyone ask you to try out for the quidditch team?"
William
"Yeah, I've got the scarf and everything. I have been tagged, Named, and thrust upon the world. God have mercy on us all," he's excited. It's obvious he's excited because he's rambling and, frankly, unless someone was there with him it was a little difficult to catch what he was actually talking about.
"Turns out I'm shit on a broom, though," he laughs, "on a more realistic note I'm kind of sad winter has shown up, I thought it was just happening up north so I was vehemently trying to wish it away because it's fucking cold."
It dawns on him that Serafine isn't the one who answered the phone. There's a bit of silence there before-
"Hey, you holding up okay? If you're out with people I can call you back."
Dan
"I'm cool," Dan assures him, in that low-rumble, and these are things that one says. Over the phone, over wires or ether or whatever strange and agreed-upon magick allows us to be everywhere at once. He straightens up, takes in the street. Doesn't think the call will be long but he doesn't seem to be in a hurry to get back to the folks inside. Lets the music stay behind him, dulled to a low but present hum by the windowglass.
"Congratulations, though. You doing anything to celebrate? Have anyone to celebrate with?"
--
Doesn't ask the new Name.
Knows enough not to. Doesn't believe in that particular power but Elijah's belief in this matters more than Dan's.
William
"I've been trying to cram about as much partying in with my new housemates as possible- it's... We're not a giant house, but we're supposed to be diplomats, you know? So, like, actually interacting with each other and building a working relationship seems like a pretty good idea and thus far I've figured out I kinda like these people."
He asks if there's anyone he has celebrated with, and it makes William laugh a little at it, "so I did shots with a chick named Holly we've exchanged numbers and shit. I've actually been good, I'm trying to be a grown up and now... you know... promoting Hermetic good will by trying to get into my tradition mate's pants."
Even though, by the sound of it, he would really, really like to.
"It's pretty fucking hard. It's like I walked into a freaking American Apparel catalog or something."
Dan
This quiet noise, something close to gruff bemusement. The whole conversation would be better if the snow were still falling, but that storm has moved onward to ravage the east coast, to remind everyone in its path that winter means more than earlier, more spectacular sunsets. More than the Santa Claus house at the mall.
He focuses - his eyes anyway - on the closed headshop across the street. The patterned, maw-like reflections of hookahs lined up in the picture window. Gauges how much and how far he should-maybe caution a now-full-fledged member of the Order of Hermes, unAwakened friend of a low-penny mystic that he is.
Thinks about diplomacy, its meanings and its iterations. Thinks about the boundaries of nations ringing the world.
"Naw, man. You ever see the Magic Flute?"
Mozart. Dan means: the Mozart opera.
William
Has he seen the Magic Flute?
He actually has to think about this, though the reference isn't lost on him. Pulls through his memories and tries to think of the various times he's actually been to the opera and comes back with-
"Yeah," he replies, the lilt in his voice says that he's listening to Dan. That he's paying attention, that perhaps he isn't cut out to be a full fledged Hermetic because he's he hasn't ever given the indication that he thinks less of how Serafine and Dan view the world.
She'd said something about it once. He'd been shocked to say the least.
Dan
"It's like you've just walked out of the overture into the opera proper. The bells are starting to ring, everything's strange and it's up to you to figure out what all of this shit means. I mean, it's spectacular, right? But all that weird Masonic symbolism trips me out."
A short breath out, affection this crackle in his voice.
"So, celebrate. Seriously. Do. But remember that you're at the very beginning, and you have fuck-all of an idea of who's what and when and where. Caution, man. Especially now, when you're with your housemates, I think you need to have your wits about you at every step."
William
There has never been an instance where the young man has not listened to Dan. Dan knows what he's talking bout; the man has seen the world. He's seen what happens and seen more of the magical world and how people interact than Elijah has and now the young man is having to brave the world.
He pauses, nods and it's almost like Dan can hear the newly-minted Hermetic nodding.
"I've gotta make it through the whole opera, I'm feeling hoepful," purses his lips but smiles anyway.
"Thanks, man. I'll... you're pretty fuckin' smart, I kinda dig that about you."
Dan
"Cheers, kid." The low back of a laugh, still that scrawl of affection underlying it. Strain, too, sure, but only if you really listen for it.
"Be safe. Talk to you later."
Click.
--
He drops the phone from his ear, glances down at it in his hand. Rubs his thumb over the screen and watches as the icons shift and shiver. Glances at the unanswered texts, then thumbs them away. He thinks about lighting a cigarette, wouldn't mind the burn in his throat conjoined with the bright, belting cold.
But he doesn't have one, so he just breathes. In, out.
In, out. The only way to get into or out of this world.
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Twenty-one, mulligan
Elijah
Of all the places that Elijah could sit down and read, Sera's place didn't seem like it was going to be in the top five. As it turns out, that was an incredibly incorrect statement, because there he was on the front porch, motorcycle parked somewhere inconspicuous and near another vehicle in the hopes of not getting it run over while he's off dallying with people whose company he enjoys.
Maybe it was a new leaf. Maybe he was trying to make good on things, trying to make good on the prospect of being a good student, or maybe he was just trying to avoid being in the middle of an Arbonne party.
That was the truth of the matter: Jenn had been conscripted into hosting a "party" for a friend, which consisted of getting facials and being pressured into purchasing things that she didn't actually want. Elijah had a problem with impulse buying, and there was going to be copious amounts of drinking. The girl selling brought enough booze to keep a small army well lubricated socially. Elijah knew that he tended to do stupid things when he was drinking, and somehow suspected that buying expensive skincare products might be one of them.
Also, he wanted to see Sera. And Dan. And Dee (he actually made a meet! Recently, too. Came with pompoms but was sans-fly away skirt because- well- he was no seamstress. He might have been thin, but he had no hips. Nothing pre bought was going to stay on)
But there he was, backpack slung over his shoulder and helmet deposited by the front door and he knocks- because he always knocks- and makes his way in. "Bonjour! Je errance à travers votre maison. I promise I'm not robbing you!"
Serafíne
Some ordinary Wednesday night. Strangers call it hump-day.
Which isn't a saying that has much resonance at 719 Corona Street. No one there has a normal job. Rick is still at the record store and part-time at a comic shop, filling in for a friend who is off trekking in Nepal. Dee's got the bakery, and that's morning work. Sometimes she stays up all night and heads in for a few solid hours of kneading bread. Sometimes she gets a later shift. Regardless: not a normal 9 to 5, which is pretty cool. Gives life a different rhythm, plus she - like Rick, has some hopes of something else, soon.
Dinner-ish time. Or lunch. Breakfast for some folks, like our heroine who tends to sleep until the ass-crack of four p.m. and wander down for a morning libation of tea-and-whiskey, thank you very much. Fasting - more intermittent, now, pressurized and experimental - doesn't really effect that schedule she maintains so assiduously.
Dinner-ish time. The windows are open and there's a breeze blowing through the house and music someone and meat-on-the-grill. Always a guest or three - like Emily, aka Honey Bunches of Chokes, who's dressed up for her evening shift at Saphistry and heading down the hall and out the front door as Elijah comes in.
"Hey hot stuff," Emily grins. Has half-a-sandwich wrapped in wax paper that she's consuming. Is dressed in a neat outfit that fits almost perfectly with Elijah's aesthetic: pinstriped pants, a shortsleeve button-down, bow tie, fucking suspenders, hair loose, finger guns. One-handed finger-guns her greeting as she passes by. "Everyone's out back, I think. Cooking out."
So they are: so he will find them. Dan at the charcoal grill, manning tongs and shit and drinking a beer. Dee in a lawnchair, Sera on her cabana bed with a guitar in hand.
There's something new back here, too.
A tire swing hung from one of the great arms of the big oak that dominates the back yard.
Elijah
They match. Almost, they almost match, because there he is in a pair of slacks and a shirt with three quarter length sleeves pushed up to the elbows, vest unbuttoned, but soon enough ready to be rebut toned- which was what he started doing when he looked at Emily- with her grin and loose hair and the fucking suspenders. He never learned how to tie a bow tie, figures he should ask at some point.
"Great match last week," he tells her, starts to meander outside because Elijah meanders, takes in details of the house, basks in the smell because it always smells fan-fucking-tastic. Can't imagine the place ever smelling like anything other than food or incense or herbs or a party or the various people who lived there. Elijah didn't talk to Rick much, but he had concluded this was a travesty- made note to do it again at some point. It helped to have friends who worked at record stores, he had his eye on a few vinyls. Maria Callas specifically. He had a beginner's guide to Italian shoved in his backpack because of the soprano. "Are they matches or are they meets? I don't know."
But eventually, he would meander again. Eventually, he would find himself in the back yard smelling charcoal and whatever else was on the grill. Resists the urge to hug Dan from behind because Dan isn't fireproof. (Note to self: become fireproof. He's learning a fair bit about Ars Essentiae and, frankly, he's been kicking himself the entire month because if he had fucking learned it first like he was apparently supposed to things would be a lot easier right now.)
"Holy shit, when did you get a tire swing?" Backpack gets shrugged off his shoulders, hung low in one hand. Grin bright and off to the grass with him.
Serafíne
"Don't worry your pretty head about it, sweetheart," Emily tells him, a spark in her eyes, a quiet little smirk ghosting across her mouth. "Show up with your pompoms again and you can call them whatever the hell you want."
--
"Fuck if I know," so says Sera, glancing up once as the sliding glass doors open. She is wearing sunglasses and a black Echo and the Bunnymen t-shirt and that appears to be it? The t-shirt is long enough to tuck beneath her ass on the cabana bed and cover the tops of her thighs but her legs are long and bare where they emerge from the bottom head. Criss-cross applesauce, that's how she's seated, body slung forward, not really hunched but the guitar's acoustic and she is, really, so startlingly slight when glimpsed like this: out of context, no heels around, no make-up, hair an "I just got out of bed" sort of mess.
Prettier, maybe, without all the stuff that goes with being Sera. Or perhaps: a different sort of pretty. Still arresting - the spare edge of her jaw, the elfin spike of her ears through the chaos of her hair. The hollow temples, the darting bits of ink as her fingers drift over the fretboard, framing out a chord progression pretty soundlessly - not strumming, not striking over the soundboard. Listening to the something something something somewhere in her head.
The Fuck If I Know from Sera makes Dee roll her eyes.
"Few weeks ago," Dee tells Elijah, "This guy we know is starting a business installing artisan tire swings in the yards of Denver's nostalgic rich assholes, needed a place to put one in to take a picture, and customer reference to add to his quotes. So.
"Tire swing." Quick grin of her red-red mouth.
Sera's eyes are on Elijah though, still. Marked, lingering, assessing.
Dan turns around too, glances at the kid, then back at Dee.
"Hey, guess who's legal now?"
Elijah
He takes in the people around him. There's Dee, with her lips ever-so-red and drawing attention to it, makes him watch the words she's saying before going back to her face and her eyes. There's Dan, who is cooking- because he was accustomed to seeing Dan cook, rather liked watching Dan cook, takes in the way light plays across the various colors etched across his skin. Then? Sera.
Sera, without her makeup. Sera, in a state that is very much her, very much appealing, entrancing, breathtaking, but… it's her. It's just another version of her, another part of her definition, another piece of Serafíne that was not always so edged but still edgy. Something where the corners were softer. She seemed some far creature, something that ruled the summer courts for half a year before giving way to winter. Something who made her bets and bargains for a year and a day.
"Yeah," he says with a smile, something bright and pleased, he's stepping off onto the grass, over to where the bed is so he can park it for a moment. At least give the appearance of someone who was not completely enthralled with the fact that his friends had a swing in their back yard. Let's face it, that was the only acceptable thing to do when you had a strong oak and plenty of space. "I had to get a new wallet, though, I left it at the mall. So! The fake ID has been laid to rest."
He sits down near Sera, leans a little against her for a moment, hi without saying it.
Serafíne
"We could make you a new fake-ID," Dan tosses back, turning something over, adjusting something else. In addition to the sturdy tongs he has one of those silicon-based oven-gloves, hanging from a hook beneath the charcoal grill, which he gets out when he really wants to manhandle the corn dressed with lime-butter, maybe, or the new potatoes which will be cooked in foil over the coals and then smashed and then grilled until they are crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside.
In other words, perfection.
"A stand-in, you know. Let you give it a proper funeral, maybe cremate it on the grill or in the firepit. Paper, you know. Don't wanna release toxic whatever-the-fuck fumes from actual plastic."
Sera: has a mug of cooling tea in a neat cup-and-saucer settled on the flagstones beneath the cabana bed. Real china, flowers and shit all over it. Elijah comes close and gives her that little lean and she kinda leans back against him, this side-bump of acknowledgment, awareness, this animal sort of understanding.
"We could just pretend like today's his fucking birthday. Give him a real goddamned party."
Dan: "I thought you were on him to study."
Sera, this not-precisely-abashed little shrug. "All things in moderation, yeah? Or, you know. Excess."
Elijah
"I'm down for both of those things, give the ID a proper send off instead of, you know, what actually happened which is probably it, and a bunch of other crap, living in a trash can because I don't carry cash-" which he should really start doing. Curbing the desire to be completely loaded with various illicit substances has really cut back on the need to actually carry anything more than a couple fives- maybe a ten.
"And if it helps make the case for a party- I successfully managed to actually study for the last ten days. That is probably my longest streak of academic excellence since getting here. It's either party or looking through the history of bookbinding and the modern printing press."
He actually sounded a little excited about that.
"I don't think I've had a real party since I was twelve. Pleeaaase can I be a delinquent student for, like, eight hours? Maybe four?"
Serafíne
"Four hours?" Dan gives Elijah a bearded smirk. "Do you really think you can get through one of Sera's birthday bashes and make it back to whereever the hell it is you are reading about the history of bookbinding in four hours?"
--
And Sera gives Elijah a banked look with a neat little shake of her head.
No.
--
"Let's have dinner first, at least." That's Dan again.
And so they do.
--
If Sera was fasting tonight, well: she's not anymore. It is Elijah's 21st birthday do-over and first there's the cook-out in the backyard as the edges of the sky sink toward dusk and the flames spark and meat and potatoes and zuccini and corn sizzle on the grill. Corn smothered in chili-lime butter and hand-made sausages from the charcuterie next to Dee's bakery, crusty rolls and whatnot. Makeshift cake (the cinnamon rolls Dee brought home for breakfast tomorrow) hastily done up with fondant and a quick-thrown-together buttercream to write as much of HAPPY BIRTHDAY as she can get on the surface, and 21!! on another one.
Candles, the trick sort that go out and spark back to life again and again and again.
A bottle of red and a bottle of white and a bottle of something sparkling or gin and tonics or whatever the hell it is Elijah would like to have. The night opening up, becoming wider, more expansive as whatever is consumed or smoked blooms wide open.
There's this point where the spare, artless, morning-after creature disappears upstairs to make herself over. Emerges in a cocktail dress with black-rimmed eyes and spikes through her ears and fishnets and combat boots and out they go - somewhere, everywhere, anywhere.
No reason to recall that a couple of weeks ago Elijah nearly died jumping in front of a bullet headed for the guy who had just served him his first legal drink of his life. No mention of that day, or that night, where they went, what came after. No one's looking for them, no one's come asking. The memories of the patrons fuzzed and muddled, their own bodies made-whole.
What matters is here, and now. The little mock funeral for his fake-ID, complete with black umbrella dug out from the left-overs in the foyer. The meal, shared with friends, around a table. The whatever-comes-next of it all.
Elijah
The do over, he concludes, is infinitely better than the actual twenty-first birthday.
There was food, there was food that he actually wanted to eat and he wasn't spending it in a seedy bar with half of his friends phoning it in because of prior engagements or being hungover. It was outside, with the air feeling fresh and there's fucking cinnamon rolls- an odd truth. he adores cupcakes but can't stand actual full-sized cake. There was some sort of care paid with little bite-sized things that didn't go into sheet cakes.
His ID gets a eulogy- a real, honest-to-God eulogy. Something with fond times mentioned (the first time they met at seventeen when a guy with biceps the size of his head asked Elijah in some gravelly voice what he wanted his name to be, and he'd picked Jason Johnson because there was a Friday the Thirteenth poster hanging on the wall in the guy's basement and there were mosquitos and fireflies everywhere.) Some close calls had- a near confiscation more than a couple times back home when the colors didn't seem quite perfect. Goodbye, dear friend, goodbye.
He still tells stories, though, if only because he likes sharing. Gives a recount of the match he'd seen recently and relayed his utter confusion with regards to roller derby. Talks about an operetta he'd wanted to see, which was pretty fucking hilarious for the time frame it was written in. Dances with people even when there isn't music playing because music was playing somewhere.
Doesn't forget to tell Dee he loves the way she blushes. Doesn't forget to tell Dan that he admires how incredibly fucking smart he is. Doesn't forget to tell Sera that she defies fucking words, that he fucking loves that.
Maybe he's just drunk. Falls asleep somewhere, at some point. Dreams of nothing instead of Nothing.
A lot has changed.
Wednesday, August 5, 2015
Escape
Serafíne
Chaos. One and then the other shooter stop shooting and take their guns and throw them into the small crowd listening to the Cherrybomb cover band. The tall old man and the skinny little kid both turn and run, this scramble for the door (skinny kid's gun goes off again and the blow-back is enough to free him from Dan's tackle) That big, dangerous guy has disappeared into the backroom and it has only been seconds, see. The drummer still hasn't figured out what's going on so there's still rhythm in the background when Sera sinks atop Dan and presses her hands to the wound pumping blood from his right chest and bends over and kisses him.
Abruptly, the ugly wet crackle of his breathing changes and he sits up, dazed, sitting her upright too and struggling to his feet. She's already scrambling away, flinging up the service hatch behind the bar. Magick again, wringing, spent. By the time Elijah comes back to consciousness (the astonishing ricochet of it - that blowback of pain like having the center of his spine seized and torn out of his skin, the slow-motion stagger, nanoseconds writ large inside the dome of his skull, the abrupt, seering recovery), the drummer has finally stopped. The bartender Elijah jumped in front of is slumped over the speedwell, bleeding and in shock but still alive.
Some patrons are screaming, others are scrambling for the doors. Others are caught between the two impulses. Dan is upright again, at the bar, reaching out a hand for Sera, mouth taut. Soon as he sees Elijah upright -
"C'mon, man. We have to go. Car's out back."
Elijah
Seconds.
This all takes seconds.
It was a good shot, and what he remembers is clearing the bar, hitting the peak over the air and something vital being struck. Body going limp, whatever pride he has that tells him don't make a sound is overcome by the fact that he wouldn't have been able to make a sound even if he wanted to scream. And he did. He wanted to, but his lungs wouldn't work and the world was echoing and dark and pinpoint quiet. Isn't this familiar? It's black. And his nerve endings and his brain and reason are insisting that he's dying, he's dying and was it worth it? He's dying and it's finally happened. He was going to die in some hole-in-the-wall bar, but not the way everyone expected him to.
But, then he's not. Then, the world is bright and sensations are loud and there's blood everywhere and the bits of the situation he remembered came with Sera screaming and now his shirt has actual bloodstains on it instead of syrup and beet puree. He's back on his feet, because he has to be on his feet. Looks at the bartender- breathing, vital. Looks at Sera and Dan-
"Oh, god," is all he can get out. Makes an exit with them, but doesn't leave their side. Doesn't hurry forward, doesn't leave them behind. "Is-" words escape him.
"Fuck."
Serafíne
(One more Rote b/c I realized that she has 1 more WP anyway: Mind 3 / Time 2 / Entropy 1 "Them? Uh, I think they left with the band." to soften up the memory of who was where. Targeting: the bartender primary, but add'l successes will open the circle to the closest other patrons.)
Difficulty: I think would be coincidental, if they hadn't been so much in the middle. But they were in the middle so. Hmmm. Still - too much blood for it to be coincidental. Dif: 8. -1 focus, -1 quint).
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 6) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Serafíne
And, extending, still spending quint, +1 dif.
Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (3, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )
Serafíne
Last quint, one more extension?
Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (1, 5, 9) ( success x 1 )
Serafíne
Paradox
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 7) ( success x 1 )
Serafíne
Soak it!
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 7) ( success x 1 )
Serafíne
They are far from the only people getting the fuck out of there and as they weave through the (tiny) (some people want to be heroes, some are paralyzed with inaction, some are running not toward the back entrance, but the Back Room, others are simply running - they have warrants or they're holding or they're scared or they hate cops) and they won't be the only people running away and as they go Dan has a solid arm around Sera who is doing something necessary enough that she stops him before they leave disappear into the long narrow hallway lined with old flyers leading past the filthy restrooms to the alley entrance.
Nothing wrong with her yet except exhaustion but Sera and Elijah and even Dan can sense the deep, buzzing throb of consensual reality stretched around Sera like a rubber band ready to snap back at any moment.
--
Outside, out back - Dan keeps it together, gives Elijah a solidly sympathetic clap on the back and uses that solid hand to turn the younger man the right direction. Other folks out here too, rumors passing, one girl yelling FUCK FUCK FUCK.
Dan takes them both down a cut-through parking lot backed up against the alley toward an old jeep parked near the next street over. Unlocks the doors physically with a key.
"You okay, man?" He's asking Elijah before Elijah gets into the backseat. It's not simply a check-in, it's a visual inspection, a meaningful question: is anything still bleeding, do we need to worry about more than your mental health right now embedded in those three words. Dan hasn't let go of Sera yet but he's about to put her in the back seat with Elijah.
(Note: that last soak doesn't apply, really. she's gonna get the paradox all-at-once so she gets only the one soak. I'll add that 1 success on instead of re-rolling.)
Elijah
The hand on his back makes him jump. tense, makes him aware of the fact that he's holding his breath.
He doesn't touch anything. Doesn't leave a bloody hand print on things, doesn't press outward, seek out additional sensory input because his mind is reeling and it's close to panic and the cops are going to show up and they need to do anything and everything in their power to try and cover the fact that there are three bloodied bodies leaving this place that aren't going to make sense once someone tries to piece together a crime scene.
He exhales hard, tells himself he has to keep his head together because this was probably just a fact of life. Things were going to happen hat people couldn't explain, and part of covering your tracks is keeping yourself out of situations where people might question your alibi. You okay, man? Dan asks. Dan keeps it together.
He can pretend to be Dan for a second.
"I'm cool," he said, hands raised does a quick twist to indicate that there isn't any damage left. Just… blood. Stuff that's left over, most of it is his own, some of it's the bartender's. "You good?" looking for confirmation, affirmation. Dan looked after Sera. Dan could take care of Sera, but… he couldn't figure it out. For a second, he couldn't figure out how Dan could be as collected as he was. It was into the back seat with him, slides all the way over. Still doesn't touch anything unless he has to.
"Where are we going?"
Serafíne
Where are we going?
Elijah asks. He's in the backseat now and Dan has helped Sera in behind Elijah, reminding her quietly 'seat belt' with a murmur, his bearded mouth against her hair. She gives him a reassuring little smile and he shuts the door then climbs in the front. The keys. That's it, Elijah. The keys: Dan's hands are shaking too, just a bit.
He takes a deep breath.
"Fuck if I know."
Head back, engine running one minute two minutes three minutes to tattoo a beat against the steering wheel with the heels of his hands.
They can't go home. Too many people, too many ordinary people. Too many ways to see and be seen. Can't go to the chantry - not yet, not now, just-in-case.
"Hogwarts."
Sera says quietly. Dan's mouth tightens and his eyes flick to the rear-view mirror.
"I know the codes, keys are in the glovebox."
Sirens in the distant.
A beat. Then two, before he relents. Puts the Jeep in gear. Pulls cautiously onto the street, using his turn signal and looking every which way.
"You can get cleaned up there," Sera is telling Elijah, "and we'll get you home," when the paradox hits her. She makes this whimpering little noise and her nose starts to bleed. It won't stop, for nearly the whole drive there.
--
Cautious on the city streets, every traffic code obeyed. He takes them away from thoroughfares, turns a corner, turns another, navigates neatly around the low-rise mess that is East Colfax until he finds an on-ramp to the highway, doesn't really matter which one. Something to get them away, and away from there.
The city opens beneath, changes, sharpens. Here are the mountains with the sun setting behind them, here the sparkling corona of the rings of neighborhoods surrounding the high-rises downtown. Away from the city, a smooth, solid ride over a handful of circuitous four-leaf-clover interchanges, these deliberate misdirections like the flight of a common housefly. Dan has no idea if they will ever matter but - he has to make their route as confused and confusing as possible. Eventually: Cherry Creek. Swank retail outlets where even the fast food restaurants look high-end, then tree-lined streets and fences and gates and mansions beyond the gates. If Elijah has been here before, it was a long, long time ago, but soon enough Dan drives up to the gate of one of the mansions, leans out and enters a code it something, who the hell knows, and pulls inside.
The place is a dark bulk against the skyline now, all shadowed. The sun has sunk further down. Dan closes the gate behind him, climbs back into the jeep and parks in the driveway right in front of the front entrance. Not a single light on inside. There's a garage, sure, but he doesn't have the remote.
The engine ticks quietly as he cuts it off. Reaches into the glovebox to root around for any keys he can find and hands the ring to Elijah.
"I'm gonna get Sera. See if you can figure out how to unlock the door."
Elijah
Her nose won't stop bleeding and Dan's hands are shaking and it's fucking terrifying but they're alive.
Elijah doesn't know who Sera reacts when she's hurt. Doesn't know if she needs comfort or wants space but he leans a little against her, ditches his shirt and some point because it dawns on him that using it to clean up blood is better than sitting there and letting it hold in a mess. He doesn't say much on the ride back, doesn't really place where they are or where they're going; if getting lost was the point, the point was made.
"Things will work out, it'll be okay," he says, says it like he means it. Like his wanting that to be true would make it Truth. He's holding it together with duct tape and delusions- it works for now, but who knew how long it would hold.
--
So, they drive, and it was the only thing he said. It'll be okay. It'll be okay because it has to be okay, because things weren't okay right now it didn't mean that things couldn't normalize out. That Sera would be fine and that Dan would be okay and that whatever heat was going to get thrown from the fact that there should be three dead bodies in that bar would fade out because- what? Because maybe cops have too heavy of a caseload to justify looking into it too heavily.
Delusions, you know. Things that taste like hope but don't keep us going. Things he could think about later but he's headed up to the door with keys in hand and he goes through the motions, pretends like he's supposed to be here and this isn't strange and this place is fucking opulent. Doesn't know the context, doesn't know why Dan was so tense before he acquiesced, didn't know why Sera sounded small- but maybe it was blood loss and what Elijah probably presumed was a reality-induced traumatic brain injury. But, unlocking doors wasn't something he generally had a problem with.
Unlocking doors to a fucking mansion, however, was something completely different.
He'd seen his share of nice places, sure, but that came when your father worked in construction and you occasionally got to hide in closets and occupy yourself in places you probably had no business while you got to listen to the owner whine about things like wanting granite counter tops- rip out the ones you have now and start over, I don't like this it's supposed to be perfect- when in all actuality granite was an inferior surface when compared to- hey, look, they have a balcony!
He unlocked the door with relative ease. Had to fumble with keys for a second to get the right one and in they go, presumably with the alarm silently whining away to alert the authorities that someone had the audacity to use the door instead of magically appearing in the fireplace like a right and proper fucking wizard.
"Where's the security panel?"
Serafíne
This place is opulent and a whole damn room is devoted to entering the goddamned house, and then after that is a whole damn room devoted to climbing up the ridiculously gorgeous stairs, and after that a whole damn room is devoted to ballroom dancing but they haven't gotten that far yet. Dan's unbuckled Sera from the back seat of the Jeep (she's half-asleep by now, semi-coherent. Elijah's assessment of reality-induced traumatic brain injury is spot-fucking-on) and when her shuffling up the front steps is too slow for Dan he simply picks her up. He's not especially athletic and she's kind of unwieldly but she weighs next-to-nothing so that's how they come in, Dan behind Elijah,
"Fuck if I know - " he mutters, jostling Sera awake to repeat the question to her, getting back enough to tell Elijah, "I don't think there is one."
There isn't. A wizard lived here. If some asshole bothered him he could zap them with lightning.
So, he didn't much worry about security.
--
"Find the light switch or something - "
Somehow one of them does. Enough to cast a corona of light from the entrance hall into the reception hall. Enough to give a sense of the scale and magnificence of the place, and its emptiness.
Oh, the furnishings remain.
Not the inhabitants.
"Let's go upstairs. We'll find a place for you to get cleaned up. Fifty million bedrooms in this place so we're bound to come up with something you can wear, too."
A brief stitch of a frown. "Sorry about the shitty start to your 21st birthday, man."
Elijah
This feels wrong.
Being here, that is. Being in a place that is very clearly furnished but no one lives here. There isn't bustle, there isn't life, there isn't something to indicate that there are people who care about the house beyond it being a shell. It's no one's home. It's… he doesn't even have context and the place feels lonely. he looks round, takes it all in and he would be taken back by the fact that this place is gorgeous but… He can't shake the feeling he had. Elijah exhaled slowly, managed to finally find a switch, and it was up the stairs with them. "Do you need help getting her up the stairs?" Elijah isn't particularly athletic, either, but Sera seemed a little like a semi coherent noodle at this juncture.
There's a frown, some silence, and Elijah smiled. The word, you see, is sardonic.
"I'm not surprised?" he said, "last year I had… y'know… a break with reality in the stairwell at the university and… yeah, anyway." He exhaled hard, focus. Back to reality, "Birthdays kinda just suck but I made it to twenty-one so I feel kinda like I won."
Like there was a score- Elijah: 2, Expectations of his ability to not overdose and die: 1.
Serafíne
"I got her."
Which is true. He does.
More or less. Carrying her up the stairs isn't effortless and he uses an assist or two from the sweeping bannisters (and by the gods, the bannisters sweep, old English manor style, from the cavernous reception hall to a remarkable open loggia overlooking an equally remarkable ballroom, downstairs. This view of the back gardens (formal, then informal) through elegant oversized windows - leaded glass, the lot of them - two stories tall. Low voltage lighting dotting the landscaping (still meticulously maintained) comes on at dusk, so there are these small points of light in the distance.
Dan is a little bit out of breath by the time he reaches the second floor. Has to stop to catch it while Elijah again acts as the light-scout, finding some switch somewhere to guide the way. "Right," he directs Elijah away from the master suite when he gathers himself again, but stops, pauses, listens as Elijah talks about what happened on his 20th birthday.
Dan's eyes are - damp right now, more bruised than you might imagine given how damned efficient he is being. He's still moving because someone has to. That's what happens. He's also listening, gives Elijah a brief, sympathetic grimace. "You're magick kid," Dan tells Elijah, as the young Hermetic details last year's psychotic break from reality, and he says it because, "Reality can go fuck itself. Right? That's what you have to remember."
Elijah
He starts to head one way, but does have the good sense to take direction that whatever is going on over there is not something he particularly wants to deal with. He half expects to walk in, see the walls splattered with gore. Or, more accurately, he expects that whatever is in that end of the house might be punctuated with the sterile feeling of a place cleaned too heavily to scrub out whatever was there before. There was something inherently offsetting about a place that was very clearly free of residents. When it's large and beautiful, it feels less like an escape and more like a memory.
"Sometimes, I think about it, and it's less of a departure and more of an interlude with something bigger," he says, "it's not all bad."
Stops for a second at a door. Third door on the right on the right, he knocks like he's expecting to be given entry before he actually going in. Lights are hit and he looks back at dan. At his damp eyes and the bruises and Elijah gets this feeling for a moment that he can put himself away for a second.
"You really hold it together," he said, "like…" A break, a beat, "you don't have to be okay all the time."
Serafíne
"I'm not," Dan tells him, this little short-circuit interruption. "Okay all the time. But I'm okay now."
This smile edging its way through his blond beard.
"Thanks, though. Go get cleaned up."
So: Elijah disappears into the third bedroom on the right. No one answers the knock and the door to the room he opens is clean, luxurious, quiet. Fine, really. Fine - real antiques and actual tasteful shit on the walls that matches both the tone and tenor of the furnishings and the space proper. Ensuite bathroom though first he'll blunder into a closet empty except of linens and then into the bathroom. Not the master but there's probably a tub deep enough that Elijah could go swimming or at least soak for days.
Serafíne
Dan: Int + Medicine.
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Elijah
Eventually, he does come out of the room he's in, once he's done having his Countess Bathory moment and is thoroughly convinced that and remnants of the bar or the night or he's done stewing over the fact that there's enough blood in the front of his pocket watch to make the inlay russet and gold. He doesn't know how to clean it off, though he may try later. The stubborn bits will remain, though, they always do. He knows something about blood stains. Spends more time than strictly necessary making sure that the tub was clean and there weren't spots or discolorations or drops or traces of the violence they'd seen earlier in the evening, not because he cared about the house, but rather, the prospect of having it linger. The places his imagination and memory wandered weren't particularly welcome.
Twenty hadn't been particularly fantastic. (Elijah ran the water again-)
Nineteen had been a disaster. (- hotter than the fucking sun-)
Eighteen's festivities ended with an orderly with a broken nose. (he rubs at a spot he was pretty certain he could still see, Lady Macbeth would be proud.)
Nineteen had been a disaster. (- hotter than the fucking sun-)
Eighteen's festivities ended with an orderly with a broken nose. (he rubs at a spot he was pretty certain he could still see, Lady Macbeth would be proud.)
Water turns off, he exhales hard.
---
He comes down stairs and is wearing clothes. Clothes that would probably be filled out by someone who is in decidedly better shape than Elijah, and that's saying something because Elijah isn't actually in bad shape. Things that are tailored for someone who is, well, most assuredly not the person wearing them. He's got V neck on, and jeans that were just the appropriate level of distressed that it took some designer care and attention to make nice work of them.
"We should probably eat something," he announces.
Serafíne
Dan doesn't take as long to get cleaned up. Showers, rather than soaking once twice three times in a tub the size of Texas. Wads up his short-sleeved plaid button-down as a lost cause and throws it in the trash can in the corner of one of the larger bedrooms. Eschews the remnants of Hawksley's closet in favor of scrubbing at the stains on his black skinny jeans. Leaves the jeans on - less of a lost-cause and the black covers up the blood.
--
He does take the time to stabilize Sera. Clean her up a bit. Check her airway and gently wipe away the blood crusted around her nostrils. To satisfy himself that she's settling into sleep that is healing rather than restless. To get her clothes off her and tuck her into the cool, crisp sheets.
--
Downstairs, though.
Easy to get lost in a house this size. Who the fuck needs something like it? And why do people gravitate to the kitchen in times of need and crisis? Because both of them head there, Elijah and Dan. Dan's shirt-less and barefoot and drinking a glass of water, leaning against the counter.
"Read my mind. Not much in the fridge but there are some steaks in the freezer. I'm pretty sure I spotted a tin of beluga caviar in the cabinets. No toast-points but we can make due with Triscuits, I bet."
Elijah
"I could do steaks," he told Dan, "I'll even cook, too."
Because there is mention of steak and he's already started on with scouting out something that he could actually cook on. He's not bad in the kitchen. Sure, he's not a chef and the quality of beef that in the freezer is probably weeping at the prospect of what is about to happen to it, but we digress.
"Not that you're not, like, a fucking fantastic chef, but seriously this is probably the only time I'm gonna get to cook steak this year and so long as we're recovering from whatever the fuck just happened I may as well," pans found! A second passed.
"What… did happen?" he asks cautiously.
Serafíne
That's a sub-zero range. Soon enough Elijah figures out that the griddle in the center can be removed and becomes an indoor grill. Probably there's some fancy system for hickory smoke or what the fuck ever to be infused into the fibers of the meet, but.
So: Dan stands back. Gets Elijah an some ice from the freezer and water from the filter and sets it on the counter by the range. Leans back. Gets up again to find the caviar tin and the stray box of Triscuits that lives in every uninhabited kitchen and settles for a snack. Doesn't give a fuck how much that caviar cost or that it isn't his.
"At the bar? You want our story, or the real one?"
Elijah
The middle comes out and it's a legit indoor grill.
"Oh holy shit," he said, brows raised and the tiniest bit of delight in his voice. Tired delight, but delight none-the-less, "cool." This gets settled into the things he is never telling his parents about, though he does wonder what the wholesaler's price is on a unit like this. He gets on to work with food prep. washes his hands like a surgeon before looking back.
"The real story," he said, "I figure the alibi's something we can figure out later."
Serafíne
"Big guy was headed toward the back, fuck if I know what for," Dan starts. This vaccuum-seal noise as he opens the caviar jar, which he totally got from the fridge not the cabinets like I wrote before, because why would you eat room temperature caviar, Dan. "Two other guys came in behind him I figure they weren't supposed to start a gunfight in the open like that, maybe they were supposed to intimidate or guard the door - but the one was trigger happy or thought the bartender was going for a gun and shot the bartender. Then you jumped in front of the bartender - " here a pause, a Tricuit dipped in caviar like a toast-point. No sour cream or dill or hard-boiled eggs for it, but what can one do.
" - which, by the way, I totally get the desire to save someone's life, but fuck. You put yourself in danger there. I wish you hadn't done that. Or that you instinct wasn't quite so run into the light of an oncoming train, you know? The other guy shot you. I charged him and I'm pretty sure he shot me too. The rest is sort of fuzzy - Sera was casting something, I don't know what. She must've healed me. I mean, quick enough that I hardly had time to register that I'd been shot. Then she scrambled over to you and got you on your feet.
"For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure the bartender is going to make it."
Elijah
There a moment when one realizes they aren't bulletproof. There is a moment, then, after that when Elijah concludes that the fact that he is not impermeable to bullets is bordering on unacceptable. Mouth sets in a fine line, but he nods. Nods because he is listening, nods because… well…
"I'm finding that there's kind of a fine line between trying to help someone and doing something irrevocably dumb," he says. "I'm glad he's gonna be okay but… like… fuck, Dan, that got bad. That got bad really fucking fast."
Stunned is the word.
Serafíne
"It did,"
Dan affirms. That's all. Doesn't reprimand, doesn't scold, he lets that observation live and steps back from it, listening, aware, non-judgmental, nothing more.
Elijah cooks. Dan eats the caviar, offers Elijah a taste if he wants. It'll take the steaks a while because FROZEN but magick and a big fancy kitchen have something to say about that. Somewhere in the middle of all this, Dan ducks back upstairs to check on Sera. Must go someplace else too because he returns with an expensive bottle of red wine (Chateauneuf-du-Papes) that opens to let breathe while Elijah finishes the steaks.
They eat, drink too. Maybe chat, maybe they don't. Dan offers Elijah a ride wherever he wants to go, whenever he's ready. That got bad, it got bad really fucking fast, but there is this too: they're okay.
Every sngle one of them. All okay.
Tuesday, August 4, 2015
Twenty-one
Elijah
East Colfax actually has some pretty great venues if you were wanting to listen to music in a hole-in-the-wall. The kinds of bands that would be playing on a Tuesday night were the kinds of bands that were committed. Sure, they might not have been fantastic, but they were the kinds of bands that played in holes in the wall on a Tuesday night because they yearned for stage time and wanted- desperately, frowningly, achingly wanted to be something. People who played in nameless bars on a Tuesday night weren't the kinds of people who were doing this because they knew the manager or had an in with someone at the venue. No, these were people who were out there because they wanted to prove themselves.
Sometimes, they fell flat on their faces.
Elijah was a really forgiving audience member. Didn't used to be, but then again he was usually in places like this to get trashed because the bar staff didn't check IDs too hard. Not that it mattered anymore, or not like it was going to matter within the next seven hours. Tonight there was to be a requiem. Tonight, he would be laying to rest a well-loved friend. A dear, loving enabler. He wouldn't actually need a fake ID in seven hours. Until then, it was time to reminisce with one Jason Elijah Johnson (age twenty-four) and lay the poor lad to rest.
Best hundred and fifty bucks he'd ever spent.
So, he'd invited people out. A mass text with several replies of WTF ELijah it's Tuesday, I have work in the morning or still trashed from Monday, love you anyway <3 he was there to just… well… Enjoy the night Jeffersonian Democracy had just gotten off the stage- a band that consisted of two rhythm guitarists, a man with an epic beard and an upright bass, a pixie playing the trap set, and a lead singer who occasionally played electric violin. He liked them, maybe wasn't too crazy about the music but he did enjoy the way that the lead singer would occasionally get this wild grin on his face and start off some instrumental that sounded classical. The way that you could just tell that the years and years of mom and dad paying for violin lessons were finally being put to a use the singer liked. He liked the way the drummer looked a little like Animal when they got going. He liked the rhythm guitarists' commitment to the piece and he loved that the bass player was a legitimate performer.
He'd talked to them once. Two customer service associates (rhythm guitar), a hair stylist (drummer), an elementary school music teacher (lead), and a janitor (bass.) They toured in the summer when the lead singer was on break. Opened for someone in Reno, once. Bass player got stabbed by an angry drunk guy, was content to share stories and show off the scar.
A Cherrybomb cover group was going on next, which Elijah took as an opportunity to slide off the dingy sofa in the back. He had on jeans today, left the vest at home for once (felt horribly naked whilst doing so) and shoved his pocket watch in his back pocket. It was, at last, too hot for the extra layers and he had, instead, gone for a tee shirt that had been splattered with fake blood that never quite came out (Evil Dead: the Musical, he'd said, did you know there's a splash zone?). So there were purple and red and maroon fading splatters on his shirt where he'd unexpectedly-yet-totally-expectedly been splashed with buckets (yes, buckets) of chocolate syrup and beet puree.
He meandered up to the bar, rested his elbows on it and waited.
Serafíne
Dan sidles up on his left side, Sera on his right. Not from the front but from the back where they were shooting the shit with Jeffersonian Democracy, helping them with their gear. Of course they know each other. Sera has her arms braced on the bar and she's already ordering something, but Dan eschews the barstools and gives the row of standard cheap American taps a doubtful look, glancing behind him at pair of guys in motorcycle leathers and stupid bandannas heading toward what appears to be a private back room.
Jeffersonian Democracy isn't staying - there are sitters and work in the morning and a broken-down Subaru Forester to tend to - and no one's really listening to the cover group, either. Maybe Elijah, okay?
"What the hell brings you out to a place like this?"
Asks Sera, with a neat little sidelong smirk at Elijah.
Asks Sera, with a neat little sidelong smirk at Elijah.
"I thought you were studying. Turning over a new leaf."
We know what she thinks about studying.
Elijah
[Per+alert!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 6, 6, 8, 8) ( success x 4 )
Serafíne
Guy behind you looks dangerous!
Elijah
"I'm a signed tee shirt and appreciative hand job away from being a Jeffersonian Democracy groupie… plus the people watching here is fucking fantastic," he says. Isn't even more than a shot in to the evening. "I'm having a requiem for my fake ID. Figure at midnight I can cut it up and have a burial at sea. I wanted to buy a drink and use my legal name at some point, just to see if it tastes different."
It doesn't. Moving on. His eyes travel to the guys in leathers, just a second. Then, another second- Elijah checks out his exits. Always best to know how fast you might need to get out of a place.
"I've got to go pitch myself again. I'm apparently kind of a hard sell. If things don't work out with people here I've been informed that they're not going to work out." He exhales, slow and deep and he turns to regard his friends. Takes a second to look at the guy behind him, back at the exits.
"I think maybe we should bail," he said. It didn't sound much like a request. The nerves didn't quite go away, either. Nervous for a different reason now.
Serafíne
"I'm wondering who is supposed to be getting a handjob in this scenario, because I'm pretty sure that the entire organism that is Jeffersonian Democracy is an organically committed group marriage with no provision for - "
That's Sera, nattering along and reaching for whatever it is she ordered as it is slung back across the bar. Slung because the barkeep is frowning the same direction as Elijah, though perhaps not with the same dimension. Beetled gaze fixed on the burly guy headed toward the back room.
"He's right." Dan mutters, pulling out his billfold and blindly peeling out a couple of twenties to cover whatever anyone here might think they are owed. His baritone deep enough to cut through Sera's chatter, expressive enough that she stops. Stops, and flicks him a glance and then she's sliding off the barstool.
--
Front door to the bar opens again. Tall old man with windburned skin and the ruined mouth of an ex-boxer or meth addict and a shorter, skinnier guy with the twitchy manner of someone jonesing for something. Bartender's bending low and reaching for something beneath the bar but the old guy pulls out a gun first.
Fires.
Serafíne
Inits!
Serafíne
Guys In the Back: +4
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (8) ( success x 1 )
Elijah
[5+1d10]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (10) ( success x 1 )
Serafíne
Dudes in the Front. +4
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )
Serafíne
Sera: +6
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (1) ( botch x 1 )
Serafíne
So:
Elijah: 15
Guys in the Back: (including bartender) 12
Sera (And Dan): 7
Dudes in the Front: 6
Serafíne
Old Guy's First Shot: @ Bartender.
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (5, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )
Serafíne
Damage!
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 4 )
Serafíne
Declarations:
1. Skinny Guy: draw weapon, shoot the first person who runs toward the front door (which he is blocking.)
2. Old Dude: shoot bartender again.
3. Big Guy Headed Toward the Back: curse beneath his breath, draw his weapons, keep going toward the back.
Serafíne
Dan: curse, duck, maybe grab Elijah and point out where the back exit is.
Sera: Mind 3 on shooter. Cause Hallucinations - that gun in your hand is a fucking cobra!
Serafíne
Dudes in the back: start grabbing weapons.
Bartender: crumple beneath the bar.
Elijah
Declare!:
Jump the bar and cover the bartender (because that guy is in crap shape)
Elijah
(Declare: clearing the bar and being an active meat shield)
Elijah
[dex2+athletics2=4]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 10, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Serafíne
Sera: Mind 3 Difficulty: 7. -1 because sympathetic magic (that dude is on drugs); -1 because of her resonance. -1 focus (she's gonna scream which is close enough to music so.)
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (6, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )
Serafíne
(Meant to include WP there! so: four successes!)
Serafíne
(Changing actions: Old dude drops the gun.
Skinny guy changes action to shoot Elijah. )
There's so much happening at once. Dan ducks, grabs Elijah's elbow, they have to get the fuck out of there, the band is playing and there's this strange little crowd listening and paying no attention and the music is loud so there's this initial refusal to believe your senses, that gunfire is going the fuck down, and then Elijah is leaping over the bar like a stupid little hero and there's a girl screaming and there's blood everywhere.
The old guy at the door doesn't just drop his heavy pistol, he throws it actively away from him and is reactive enough that the big guy headed toward the back door senses something going wrong and stops and starts to turn and the skinny dude beside the old guy guarding the front fucking door gets goddamned jittery and see, there's Elijah the perfect target, jumping over the bar -
he shoots.
Serafíne
Skinny dude: Shoot Elijah. +1 dif for changing actions.
Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (1, 1, 3, 10) ( success x 1 )
Serafíne
Damage
Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (2, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 6 )
Elijah
[uho!]
Serafíne
Okay, er. New Round.
1. Skinny guy - train weapon on bartender to keep him away from the gun behind the bar.
2. Old dude - push past skinny guy back onto street.
3. Big guy - push open door to back room.
Serafíne
Dan: you idiot. Charge the guy with the gun.
Sera: same Mind effect on skinny guy.
Serafíne
Guys in the Back: Grab the money and run.
Serafíne
Sera's effect: Vulgar with Witnesses: -1 sympathetic (dude is also a druggie) -1 (visceral resonance) -1 focus)
Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (3, 4, 8) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Serafíne
Dan: tackle dude?
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 7) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Serafíne
Skinny dude: shoot Dan? +1 for changing actions, +2 for Dan's tackling successes.
Dice: 4 d10 TN9 (2, 2, 8, 9) ( success x 1 )
Serafíne
Fuck. Damage.
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )
Serafíne
MIND GODDAMNIT. EXTENDING.
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (6, 8, 8) ( success x 4 ) [WP]
Serafíne
Chaos, blood, everywhere, and somehow the band is still playing and the ringleader of this little group is still charging through but strangers are starting to react, get on their phones, call 911 and the guitarist has stopped playing but the drummer keeps going like whoa and Sera is both screaming and shaking and crying and pulled in a thousand directions and there's Dan collapsed on the ground, bleeding as the skinny methhead struggles out from beneath him and she's cursing, cursing, cursing ("Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.") and shaking and sinking to her knees beside Dan, pressing her hands to his body where the blood is coming out, kissing him.
(Life 3: Vulgar as Fuck.) -1 Focus.
Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (3, 8, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Serafíne
(That was Life 3 / Prime 2: healing lethal.)
Serafíne
And Dan is now Okay. So: Elijah. Life 3/Prime 2. Same Dif: 7
Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (2, 4, 4) ( success x 1 ) [WP]
Serafíne
Extending: last WP.
Dice: 3 d10 TN8 (5, 8, 8) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Serafíne
Paradox.
Dice: 16 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 7 )
Serafíne
Soak.
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 3, 3, 9) ( success x 1 )
Serafíne
akc.
that is not her soak.
Serafíne
Soak.
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (7, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )
Elijah
[Prone to Quiet, because, y'know, sometimes nearly dying makes you lose track of reality]
Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (1, 1, 4, 5, 6, 9) ( success x 1 )
Thursday, May 7, 2015
And not a drop to drink
Ian
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!)
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!)
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