Elijah
The building is old.
That's the first thing that one can say about the building. It was old. It was old and it came up while the city was growing. It was eaten when the city came up and urban sprawl decided to erect more impressive structures around it. The building had its own charm. brick, clear enough windows. Some interesting glass work, and no discernible modern conveniences. Elijah's apartment is situated above a florist's shop that had since seen better days. His landlord wasn't a particularly attentive sort, but he gave a discount so, for that, Elijah was grateful. These types of places only do business during two times of year- when people having weddings or having funerals. Denver hadn't seen nearly enough dead people to warrant a lot of foot traffic, but the shop was doing okay enough.The door that would have let someone come upstairs to the apartments above was solid and wooden. Painted blue, chipped and fading. Kicked at the bottom a few times, signs of attempts at break ins hinted at the door frame but the door was still there. Still solid.
Getting to the front door wasn't difficult, and the door had most assuredly seen better days, but in truth the buzzer system was often a hit-and-miss situation. Sometimes it worked, other times it didn't, and it largely hinged on whether or not the blue door leading up to the apartments was shut all the way upon entry. Unlike the doorway, the carpet in the hallway was actually new... ish. Something that was a reject from a hotel surplus sale, the carpet was some obnoxious red and green and blue and gold pattern. It did a good job of covering up the wood floor that was never going to be brought back into good repair (not without kicking all the tenants out of the building for a couple weeks, at least). Once upon a time, someone had loved this place. Whatever happened, someone fell out of love with Floral and Hardy real damned quick once somewhere newer came along.
The door to B52 was in a decidedly better shape than the other doors. Jenn had painted it, again, but this time it was a vibrant green that actually matched the terrible carpeting in the hallway. The number on the door was new and shiny gold- B52. The doorknob and lock were also in good repair, but not new. Shined up, yes, but nothing new. It's not like they could really replace the hardware without running into hot water with management.
Steel
[Awareness?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 3, 10) ( success x 1 )
Elijah
There is the most vague sense of something... odd in the building. Nothing that one can really put a finger on, just that magic has been done here. Not loud or overwhelming, just the barest feeling of unrest.
Steel
[Dex+Larceny - your locks have no power over me, -1 diff for Aptitude]
Dice: 8 d10 TN5 (1, 3, 3, 3, 6, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )
Steel
Trust. There is a saying that it’s earned rather than given away. But when you’re a complete stranger in a new city, a reality deviant who certain organisations would like to see eradicated, it gets a little harder to know who could – or should – be considered for trust. Simply walking up to someone who feels like they see more of the world than your ordinary Sleeper is too risky. The fans of mirrorshades and black suits radiate their own resonance as much as the Disparates. Or the Traditions, for what they’re worth.
Not so long ago, Steel had found herself in possession of a certain Awakened’s wallet. Well, ok, she’d stolen it to get a better idea of who he might be and where he might be found. The usual cash and cards were accompanied by a driver’s licence, registered to a certain Elijah Poirot in an apartment somewhere about the florist, and a different ID for Jason Elijah Johnson. The second isn’t a bad fake, but it’s not quite right. Good enough, maybe, to slip into a club when there isn’t much light for the bouncers to spot to irregularities.
So she’d come to take a look around and, possibly, make contact with the guy. Proper contact this time, rather than the ‘accidental’ bump which had gotten her the wallet in the first place. She’d spent a little time outside, just watching to door. It was the middle of the day, so most people were likely to be out at work or running errands rather than being tucked away in front of the TV burning away brain cells. There was a vague sense of some Awakened work, but nothing specific. Nothing screaming out that there might be wards or alarms or other, more painful, effects hanging over the place.
So what the hell. It’s not the hardest place she’s busted into before. There are no cameras, no guards, no dogs, and no real security. This should be a piece of cake. Pushing away from the wall she had been leaning again, she moves to the main door to the apartments. Stepping close to the door to mask what, exactly, she was doing, she takes a look at the lock and pulls a couple of picks from a pocket. A few moments, looking to the world like someone struggling with a reluctant key, she jiggles the tumblers into submission. There’s a clunk as the lock gives and the door opens.
So far, so good. Now to find the apartment and work out if anyone is inside.
Elijah
[1d10- is someone home?]
Dice: 1 d10 TN2 (10) ( success x 1 )
Steel
[Per+Alertness, got an aptitude for this one too]
Dice: 5 d10 TN5 (3, 6, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 4 )
Steel
[Dex+Larceny again. -1 for aptitude, nimble dex spec which I completely forgot about.]
Dice: 8 d10 TN5 (1, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 6 ) [Doubling Tens]
Steel
She spends a little time walking slowly on the landing outside the apartment, just listening. There are sounds drifting in from outside: traffic, the occasional shout, a cry from a small child not getting their way in the world. There’s a creak from upstairs, someone moving around their apartment doing whatever it is that needs doing. She pauses where she stands, waiting to see if the door opens and someone approaches. No, but there is the sound of a vacuum cleaner firing up.
Great, make it easy for me.
It’s a little more obvious, but Steel leans against the door and rests her ear against the wood. She holds her breath and listens. And nod, happy that the place is empty. There’s little risk of people spotted here, so she’s less worried about trying to hide what she’s doing as she pulls out the picks again and works the lock. There’s a puzzled look for a moment before another tool is unearthed and used to pull out the tip of a broken paperclip wedged in the lock.
Amateurs.
The lock pops and another door opens.
Elijah
The lock pops easily enough, because she's a professional. Beyond that, it's really not a place built for security. Not really known for having security, either; Steel saw the front door to the place. It's been kicked in before, and no one really wants to bother getting it fixed. The apartment itself, however, is actually a decent looking place.
When she walks in, one could notice a few things about the area. There were high ceilings and the original wook floors. On one of the walls there's an abundance of paintings. Some large, some small. All colorful and bright and others still that seem... different. Like some otherworldly place that exists between what is real and what is True. The couch is a little beat up, but it's comfortable. The coffee table is an antique and actually looks like it could take a figurative (or literal) beating if it needed. To the right, there's a staircase, and higher up there is a loft area with a bed. (Solid metal, like branches reaching up and a light hung somewhere in there. Someone spent quite a bit of time making that. It probably cost about the same as a cheap car, or a couple months worth of rent on this place. Odd- not the best location but there's the occasional element of something rather nice.)
Before the stairs, there is a kitchenette area with a breakfast nook. The counter is tiled and the cabinets are a bright, gleaming white. The refrigerator is new and on the counter there's a houseplant and a betta fish. There's books on the table- standard text books, it looks like. The occasional notebook. There's a set of double doors that lead out to a nice little balcony with a rather splendid view of a wall.
When she walks in, she smells the scent of incense and sage burned not too long ago. The smell of plants and dirt and lavender from behind a closed door leading to what can presume is the only bedroom in the place. The door to the bathroom is partially open- blue and sand and brown colors. What draws the most attention, though, are the things that are cleaned up.
The apartment is clean. Very, very clean. Despite that, she can see things that only someone with an obsessive need for cleanliness would be able to pick out. There's chalk left in the exposed brick. There's words, symbols, things that defy human language and details scrawled and then near-expertly washed away. They aren't a mural, they're notes. The organization of things, though erratic and hard to follow, are very clearly some spider web train of thought, marked down to the floor and only the tiniest hints stuck between the floor boards indicate that those musings ran their way underneath a rug by the sofa/coffee table combination.
Steel
[Awareness again, consciously doing it this time.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 5, 9) ( success x 1 )
Elijah
Still, there's that feeling that something happened here. That something happens here, but it's pushing to be more. That reach, that drive, that feeling of needing to find the next best thing seems to stir just beneath the surface but there's not anything concrete to hold onto.
Steel
Steel nudges the door closed behind her as she enters and takes a slow walk around the apartment. It’s a nice place. Clean, decent stuff. But it feels like people actually live there. Some, especially the wealthy who spend a lot of time moving between their various expensive pads, don’t leave much of an imprint. The places look like showrooms for overpriced, uncomfortable furniture that values cost and look over practicality. They don’t look lived in, though.
She returns to the living room and pauses, closing her eyes and just feeling out for what was around her. Feeling with the extra sense that their kind develops through frequent contact with the abnormal. It’s something that the occasional Sleeper develops, getting a sixth sense for when something strange walks into the room, but it’s rarer.
The notebooks are picked up, idly flicked through to see if anything grabbed her attention. The first one she tries? She recognizes that it’s French, but it’s not something she understands. Several more random pages, also with French writing, leaves her to return that one to where she’d found it. The other one? That one she spends more time looking through. The drawings are good, lifelike – assuming that the subjects are, or were, alive. A picture of an astoundingly attractive person, until you looked at the eyes. Another, more ordinary face with the same eyes. And some…thing with too many arms and legs in strange places to have happened naturally. It almost looks like something from a horror film. Or something created by a disturbed mind.
The faint chalk marks on the wall get some attention. Given the way the rest of the apartment looks, it seems odd that someone would write on the walls like that. Perhaps it was a previous occupant? Or the guy she wanted to meet, maybe lost in the flow of some chain of thought. Genius or insanity? She’s a little curious, now, to know what was so important that it couldn’t be contained by pen and paper. She’d hoped to avoid doing any kind of Work that might get attention, but there are ways to make it all less obvious.
[Matter 1, scanning for the chalk in the walls. Coincidental. TN4, -1 for time. Going for a couple of successes for subtlety.]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (2, 10) ( success x 1 )
Steel
[Extending +1]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (9, 10) ( success x 2 )
Steel
[One last time]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (3, 8) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Steel
[2 to the effect, reading what's on the walls. 3 to subtlety. I think?]
Elijah
One can make sense of things once they know what they're looking for, and at that moment the general feeling of what few bits of matter remained became bright and apparent to the woman looking at the walls. The first thing of note is the order in which things are written. It starts at eye level, one piece written clean and clear- veritas. Something scrawled in French below that, and then followed in English with Essentiae, nominative plural - essentia. Essentia - esse (to be) sum (I am). Essentiae (we are)
It goes further ( virium- v+s- force, power, strength, vigor.) And there are lines and circles and sigils that seem to have meaning but the context makes it difficult to follow, like a mathematical equation but it's damned clear that this escapade into linguistics has very little to do with linguistics. She can put it together with the bits of English here and there, the dalliances into Latin and the important passages always reinforced with English (like the author is trying to strengthen that particular skill, as if the author still had to translate a little from time to time).
The art of being, the art of force/power. Forces = self empowerment?
The rest goes on as diagrams and lines go, thoughts on the sphere of forces, thoughts about how it interconnects, particularly with prime (potentiae, from possum- I am able. Potentia- force, power, capacity. virium- v+s- force, power, strength, vigor. If potential =(ish) v+s, quintessence = all things = power, then are elements building blocks of all things? redefine and revisit later.) It's all a mess to read, yes, but the overaching message is clear- this person has been actively piecing through awakened magic and breaking it down into pieces. The author goes through, and the web seems to make more sense as the study goes on, where Forces touches other spheres, how it interacts, how it may theorhetically interact in the future if the same logic applies.
Steel
So she concentrates and focuses her will and she fights. Arms hanging loosely by her sides, her hands ball into fists as she works and she Works. To some, it may look like she’s doing this the hard way. Working without focus, a sheer act of will. But she is her focus. Or, rather, the marks on her skin. Some of the tattoos that cover her are more than simple artwork. They were put there by others of her calling, those with a gift for art and for Prime. The memory of the blend of pain and pleasure as the work as done, the marks left, skirt around her awareness. But it’s all a tool in her fight with the world to get what she damned well wants.
Her vision alters, deepens, as the tiny traces of chalk left in and on the wall start to appear and glow in her vision. It takes some time to puzzle it out, to work through the spider’s web of notes and lines and links that the author left as they worked through how their world was put together.
She doesn’t think that the author is of the Technocracy. From what she has picked up along the way, they really don’t seem like the kind for using magic words, or the kind of people who are into voyages of discovery into the inner workings of the world. She could be wrong, but it doesn’t feel as if this guy is likely to be an agent. What he is remains to be seen, but she’s perhaps seen enough to feel a little more comfortable in making contact.
If it comes down to it, she can always vanish again. It’s harder to do when the people looking for you are Awake but it’s still doable. But for the moment? She sits on the edge of the couch and waits, idly flicking through one of the books sat on the coffee table.
Elijah
It was up the steps with the little woman on the phone, taking one step at a time but bounding with an arm full of groceries. Her room mate(s) weren't meat eaters. Or, at least, one of them recently stopped eating meat. Elijah had tendency to stop eating meat whenever something catastrophic happened. They hadn't talked about it. She figured it had to do with his most recent request for artistic renderings.
There was a problem with Jenn, in that she was almost as curious as Elijah was, but not exactly magically adept. She's talking on the phone perching groceries on her hip and yammering, "Well, when are you coming home?... okay, I'm actually going to cook... chicken I don't think counts as meat... nope... It was on sale... look,. they were giving away chicken, will you at least please try it..."
She laughed and almost hit the top step, "well, we could smoke before chicken. It's not like it's illegal... you are too weird, okay, come home and I'll make you a salad... okay... okaybye."
She hands up in time to reach her front door, to fumble with her keys that gave the herald to her arrival. There was a quiet jungle, and then... no give on the lock. She turns the key and nothing happen. Jenn pushed the door open, and the firsst thing Steel notices is that she's short. Short and a fake blonde whose national origins are indeterminate. She's got a tattoo of irises on one of her thighs and some of the other work is either covered by her hair or by the hoodie she was wearing.
The next thing she learns is that Jenn squeeks at a pitch that makes dogs cringe.
"Ohmigodwhoareyouareyoufromthegallery?!"
Steel
There was warning that someone was coming. Jenn wasn’t exactly trying to be stealthy as she shoved the front door closed and made her way up the stairs, chattering away on the phone. There’s a moment where Steel hopes that the woman will pass the door and keep on walking, heading to one of the other apartments. The moment died when there’s the sound of a key in the lock. The book that she’s flicking through as simply something to pass the time, not something that she’d investing any great concentration or interest in, is set back on the table as Jenn pushes the door open and…
And finds a woman sat on their couch. A woman dressed in black, if somewhat worn in places. Black combats, hoodie (hood currently down) and, instead of the usual DM’s, a pair of battered, black trainers. All the better for keeping quiet than heavy, hard boots. Steel’s hair is also dyed, but black rather than blonde, and is hanging loose around her shoulders. Brown eyes watch, and wince, as Jenn squeaks. Perhaps the most memorable feature, inasmuch as Steel is memorable, is some scarring around the right side of her neck and jawline. Tattoos are also visible on the palms of her hands. Eyes.
The reaction to the unexpected – unwanted? – arrival is swift, though. “No, I’m not from any gallery. I’m looking for Elijah. Or maybe Jason. He dropped his wallet at the mall a couple of weeks ago.” She fishes it out of a pocket and tosses it on the table. I wanted to give it back to him.”
Elijah
"Uh... That's... fine-" she stopped, still standing close to the door and looking incredulously at the woman in black who happened to be standing in her apartment. Jenn held onto her groceries a little tighter, uncertain if she needed to really run away or if she should say something. Her eyes are also brown, dark and sparkling.
"Hey, um, how did you get in here?"
Eyes flick to the table, "I think Elijah will be pretty pleased that his wallet got found, though. He'd been looking for it."
Steel
“I didn’t want to leave it in the mailbox or outside. There are a lot of dishonest people around these days, you just know someone would have stolen it.” There’s a smile. Open, honest. (Really?) “Losing these things is a bloody nightmare, so I just wanted to make sure he got it back.”
“I tried the other buzzers until someone was nice enough to let me in, and your door was unlocked.” Well, technically unlocked. It’s not like it had been any kind of challenge. “I wanted to make sure nobody robbed the place while you were out.”
The accent? English, mostly, although distorted a little by time in the US.
Elijah
"Yeah, I guess Elijah or Aidan left it unlocked, I don't think Aidan has a key? But Elijah forgets these things sometimes," she is content to talk, heads off to her kitchen and have a conversation with the woman who was kind enough to actually make sure nobody stole their things.
"If you wanna talk to him, he should be home soon? Or, you know, you could stay for dinner, kind of as a thank you? I have no idea how long you've been waiting here so the least we could do is feed you," she said casually. Bright smile, southern accent, pleasant demeanor.
Steel
Another smile crosses Steel’s face as Jenn turns and heads out to the kitchen, apparently unconcerned about having a complete stranger sitting in her living room. Which could say something about how often it happens?
“Oh, that’s very kind but I don’t want to put you out and I’ve not been here long. But if you don’t mind me making the place look untidy, I would like to at least say hello.” She turns back to the wall, although paying more attention to the art than the workings this time.
“Who’s the artist?”
Elijah
[Per3+empathy2, do I buy all of this?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 2, 8, 8) ( success x 2 )
Steel
[Man+Sub: hey, you can trust me! ]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 4, 4, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )
Elijah
[ROLL AGAIN!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 4, 4, 6) ( success x 1 )
Steel
[Man+Sub no, really]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 3, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )
Elijah
Seriously, dice?
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 5, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )
Steel
[Man+Sub, no, really]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )
Elijah
"Me, mostly? Elijah helped me with some of them, he's very much... a.. muse kind of... figure..."
Jenn is a smart girl, really, and her sense of self-preservation seems to kick in and she looks at the woman in the living room. Waits... looks back at the groceries. Then, looks back at the woman in the living room.
There is this moment of horrible guilt that washes over Jenn when she realizes what she's done- she's profiling this nice young woman! So what if she's sitting in the living room dressed in mostly black? So what if things seem a little far-fetched, it hits her that her first instinct was the correct instinct and how dare she think that good, upstanding people not exist in this world? How dare she go against her better nature and doubt? As a fellow tattooed person, she understood what it was like for people to think the worst of her and yet here she was!
Shame on you, Jenna. Shame on you!
Jenn turns a shade of bright pink, clearing her throat.
"Sorry, it all just kind of hit me as weird, but you do seem really nice... I painted most of the things here? There's a couple little ones from a friend and-" she meanders into the living room, gestures to one of the ones that seems like the world is coming apart. Real, but not real. Familiar but entirely alien, "Elijah helped with this one. He rattled off a description and I thought I need to paint this so... here it is." It looks almost like how one would expect the near umbra to look, all things said and done.
Steel
[WP, because reasons]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 4, 6, 10) ( success x 2 )
Steel
The paintings hadn’t really registered before. Not until Steel had really started looking at them as another way to kill time while she waited. The work really was impressive. A moment’s thought runs along the lines of how much the works could raise, but Steel doesn’t know enough about the artist, or the work, or whether there would actually be any demand for it.
“Oh, don’t worry. I’d be just as surprised if I found someone hanging around my place too. You’re got a tal…” The sentence is neatly derailed as Jenn brings attention to one particular painting. The subject seemed to be one that she was familiar with. If Elijah had seen it, then maybe that’s how he was able to describe it. Steel’s breathing changes to something short and panting as she backs away, knocking her leg against the coffee table and setting the notebooks that she’d been flicking through earlier falling to the floor. It was tempting to leave, now. To get away from that painting and what it represented. So very tempting. But the fear was controlled, this time.
Steel clears her throat and walks to look out of the window. She takes some seconds to slow her breathing, to calm her mind, and clears her throat again before talking. “Sorry.”
Elijah
Jenn is a sharp girl, at least when it came to people. She noticed the tension, the step, she sees it all and her stomach tenses, she reaches out for a second before pulling her hands close to her chest. There is a second where the artist doesn't seem to really know what to do.
Down in the city below, cars bustle about and people continue with their daily lives. It's a very mundane world down there, a very placid sense. Even if the streets were a little dirty the view wasn't terrible. It was pretty in its own way.
"It's okay," Jenn offers, "would you like a glass of water."
She is quick to change the subject, smiles something encouraging, "I think my tattooing works better anyway. Where did you get yours done, from what I can see they look fantastic."
Steel
The mundanity of the street helps. It’s grounding, an anchor to use to be sure that she is in the real world, stood in this room, hoping to make contact with another Awakened in the city. She sometimes looks down at the little people leading their little lives without any real awareness, but at the moment it’s reassuring.
Water? “No. Thank you.”
Jenn changes the subject to tattoos. Or, at least, tries to. Steel looks down at her palms and the eyes staring back up at her. In another life, she’d stay and talk and show off her other ink. But in this one?
“I should go. Would you…” Let Elijah know that the woman you’re not likely to remember much about was here? “Do you have a pen and a bit of paper? I’d like to leave Elijah a note.”
Elijah
"Oh! Sure," she looks around for a second, plucks a notebook off of the table and grabs a pen. Nothing interesting, just another pen from the university. Something from the art department, one of those little promotional items that students walk off with because college is the time when you never have to buy office supplies.
She walks forward, offers the notebook and the pen. This one has chemistry notes in it.
Steel
Steel turns from the window and, careful not to look at the painting of the Umbra again, takes the notebook and pen from Jenn. She scribbles a note:
I found your wallet. Would like to meet in person to discuss things.
There’s a location, some dive bar on Colfax, and a time. There’s more to the message she wants to leave, though. Tearing the page from the book and folding it in half, she closes her eyes and feels the anger rising as she fights the world again.
[Mind 2: Psychic impression on the paper. Shadowy. Think this is coincidental, so diff 5. Think I need 3 successes (effect, duration, target)]
Dice: 2 d10 TN5 (9, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Elijah
(and for giggles, can you make it up the stairs because you're reckless and taking two or three at a time?)
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )
Elijah
There is a word, you see, because the man who lives in this apartment and pays the rent has a thing with Words.
The word is serendipity- the occurrence and development of events by chance in a beneficial way.
He's making his way up the stairs, takes two at a time because he's bored and wanted to get up the stairs quickly. he's a little disappointed there isn't a legitimate banister to slide down, notices that there's new carpet, which makes the initial bounding a little more difficult, but soon enough he's up the stairs and off to his apartment.
Another fact about Elijah Poirot- he is an obnoxious apartment tenant. He threw parties, had weird people coming to visit him, and was rumored to be legitimately off his rocker. (Shame on people for stigmatizing the mentally ill, he might say. There's an official diagnosis floating around out there that he can't necessarily confirm or deny. Wonders if he really has lost it and this is a delusion. Decides that he doesn't care if it is or not, because it's his life.)
Rounds the corner in time to see Jenn and... uh... Person?
"Oh, hey, should I bail?" is this a date? he says without saying.
Elijah
[per+aware- do I notice magic paper? Passive observation as specialty]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 2, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 5 ) [Doubling Tens]
Steel
The note written, Steel crouches and picks up the notebooks that had been knocked off the table. She slips the folded note into the one with the drawings, rather than the one with whatever work had been written in French. Notebooks back on the table, she turns to the door and…
Oh, hey, should I bail?
He finally arrives, just as Steel was ready to leave. She glances back at Jenn, to see if there’s any reaction there, before offering, “Hi. And no. I was leaving.” She looks back at Jenn again, offering a small smile. “Nice meeting you.”
Elijah
[manip+sub: I totally don't notice magic]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 4, 6, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Elijah
There's no reaction to the effect from the bottled blonde, so either she didn't notice or she's very good at lying (she's not- Jenn still can't pick out instances of reality subtly tearing). Elijah for his part, seems content to come into the house, ditch his backpack at the door and he meanders over to the couch that has been vacated not too long ago.
Idly, Elijah picked up a notebook- and oh serendipity he's opening up a sketch book, flipping idly through the pages before finding the piece of paper. Holds it for a moment while carefully holding it between his fingertips.
"It was nice to meet you, too," Jenn said with a pleasant enough smile. Gives a little wiggle of her fingers, "oh, Elijah, she brought your wallet back."
"Really?" brows shot up and he finally seemed to notice that his wallet was on the table, "hey, thanks! I was looking for this."
Steel
There’s a short silence as Steel watches Elijah pick up the note and runs it through his fingers. There may be a chance that he’s just not paying attention and hasn’t picked up on the effect, but given how he went straight for that particular book and pulled it out? Yeah, he knew.
“You’re welcome. You got lucky, there are a lot of dishonest people out there.” She glances at Jenn again before looking Elijah straight in the eye. “I should be going, though. Come find me, the address in the note.” There’s another glance at Jenn. “We should talk.”
The wallet, when Elijah checks it, will have been stripped of cash. Everything else is still there, though.
Elijah
"It's a date, then," he says, playful enough. Lips upturn and he seems gregarious enough. Though, admittedly, there was a caution to it. The way that his breath drew in a little more slowly. The way that he seemed to regard her though he had no clue that her visage would likely fade from view as soon as she left, just a vague memory of a woman who left him a note. "Jenn's got class until then so it should just be me on my lonesome."
Fingertips trace against the edges of the paper, lingering on the sensation. Something shadowy. Something sharp, like the feeling of a needle quick in your veins. It makes him pause.
"Welcome to the neighborhood," Elijah offers. When he makes eye contact he doesn't flinch, doesn't falter, doesn't shy away. He looks at her like he's looking for something, trying to piece something together. Truth be told, she's the one who has the information here, he has to take the leap. He hasn't been afraid to do it before, so why the hesitation now? "I think I've been there before," the address, that is.
Steel
Steel nods once, happy that they will meet again. Somewhere that they should be able to talk without too much worry about being overheard.
Welcome to the neighbourhood. This get a brief snort of amusement. Things hadn’t exactly gone smoothly so far, but maybe things are looking up. “Nice to finally meet one of the neighbours.” There’s a brief consideration of offering something that hasn’t been passed yet. It’s something new to her, something that came with the loss of the old life and the start of this new one. “The name’s Steel.” Not that anyone here is likely to have heard of her, especially by that name.
“Enjoy dinner,” she offers to Jenn before opening the apartment door.
Sunday, August 30, 2015
Monday, August 24, 2015
Return to the Park
Ian Lai
The evening is warm and mild in Washington Park. Autumn hasn't quite crept into the city yet, and Ian can smell the heady perfume of the nearby flower beds. He's lying back in the grass, running one hand over the tips of the blades as he watches the sky dim to a darker shade of blue. There's a squirrel chittering at something a few yards away in a tree. When the breeze hits, there's a rustle of leaves and the animal sound goes quiet.
He'd been running earlier, a fact made obvious by his state of dress: shirtless with running shoes, black shorts and a tight band around his left bicep where he kept his phone and his keys. His skin is still damp with sweat. There's a meditative quality to the way his chest rises and falls with each breath; to the way he listens to the sounds of the world around him (feels the earth - warm and alive beneath his back.)
Kiara
[Awareness and all that]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 6, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Aidan
[nightmares]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 6, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )
Aidan
[awareness - perc spec Intuitive]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 8) ( success x 3 ) [Doubling Tens]
Aidan
Aidan doesn't need reasons to wander, he just does. He wanders because he likes to see new things, and because listening to the same things over and over again can be exhausting; the world is never silent. It's always talking. He dresses in clothing that is too big for him, that he likely knitted himself, and that should be too hot for him at this moment, yet he enjoys it. A loose pink 'sweater' though he knitted it from some light fabric, and a pair of jeans with sneakers. Money, or the need for it, is still strange to him, despite living a world that requires it, so he wanders with almost nothing...and he's content.
When he sees, and feels Ian, there is a bit of excitement that surges through him and he gravitates towards it. Aidan is...energetic. Whatever it is that slides out from him is so...enthralling, as if it knew the smallest little desires of the people around it, and it played to it..promising more with a sweet smile and a cheerful attitude. And it was touched, no saturated, with the pulsing feeling of life.
Kiara
It had only been a few nights since the last time Kiara Woolfe had set foot in Washington Park. Then, it had been evening and she'd come toting flashlights and trashbags to help dispose of the remains of something inhuman that had attacked two of her friends. Then, it had been weighting down remains and pushing them into the lake; sweat-covered, dirt-smeared.
It's only been one night since Grace called her to say she'd found Samir wandering, incoherent and paranoid in Federal, struck by Paradox trying to unweave reality to battle the very thing she'd helped Elijah conceal from the Sleepers of the world. One night since she'd put her hands on another Awakened's face and healed bite marks savaged there and in return - there's still a dull ache set behind the Verbenae's temples.
She hasn't been running tonight, Kiara, but she has been sitting at the lake's edge; looking out over the water and listening to the gentle rhythm of it as it lapped against the shore. It's a warm enough evening not to require layers but the brunette has a sweater on; has her arms curled around her chest. There's a pensiveness to the set of Kiara Woolfe's jaw that suggests her focus is anywhere but near.
The distraction enough to make the sensation of others a gradual realization; she drops her eyes from the water when it comes, though; gathers her bag and slides to her feet; pushing dark strands of hair from her eyes and lifting a hand to shield her eyes from the last vestiges of sunlight cutting across the grass; dappling light into the water's surface and looks out across the stretches of grassy lawn and winding pathways.
Somewhere, she can feel the primal hum of Ian's energy, another she cannot place. She sets off across the park's grounds, the pagan, cutting a solitary figure across the park.
Ian Lai
[Awareness]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 4, 6, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )
Ian Lai
There's a new sensation on the air. Someone Ian doesn't recognize. It makes him sit up, knees bent as he rests his weight back on his hands. A few blades of grass cling to his back until he brushes them away. When his eyes land on Aidan's approaching figure, he watches the boy quietly, taking in the picture of him - his clothes, his gait, the almost fae-like effect of his resonance. Ian doesn't rise to his feet right away. Instead he cuts his gaze across the park toward the lake when he catches a hint of Kiara's rejuvenating pulse. It's then that he rolls up to a standing position, shaking the stiffness out his limbs with a roll of his neck and a light hop from one foot to the other.
Both of the others are wearing sweaters. Ian cannot possibly imagine being dressed that warmly in August, and for a moment his eyes are drawn back to the pink strands of Aidan's knitted shirt. "You look hot."
(And for once he actually means it in the literal sense.)
Aidan
He curls his lips in a warm and pleasant smile. "Me? Oh. " He lightly touched at his neck, exposed given the size of his shirt. "Oh. A little. Maybe." But he doesn't seem to be bothered by the potential revelation; Aidan likes his clothes, hot or not. Aidan moves in close because he has no understanding of space, and clasps his hands in his own lap as he does. "Are you hot? The wind hasn't been by has it? Maybe that's why?"
"I'm Aidan." His lips curl into a brighter smile, pleased to meet someone new, someone different. "You're different too."
Kiara
Kiara's sweater is an earthy brown; the neck loose enough that it slides over a thin shoulder; offering a glimpse of a white camisole beneath. The brunette's hair left to its own devices tonight; it falls in waves around her shoulders, bangs cut low across her brow half conceal the lilt up of her eyebrows as she crosses over a small incline and sights Ian with - a stranger.
A boy. Kiara's eyes slide over Aidan; feel the enchanting, engaging thrum that surrounds him before ticking back to Ian. "Hey," she calls as she nears; her closing presence accompanied by a wash of rejuvenating, pulsing energy. There's a bag slung over one of Kiara's shoulders; her right wrist heavy with beaded bracelets tonight.
There's a touch of something restrained to the Verbanae tonight; a subtle sense of sobriety; the smile she cuts Ian slighter, a degree less brighter than usual. She touches his shoulder when she's closer. A sweep of her fingers over his bare skin as she turns her dark eyes on the stranger.
"Making friends?"
Ian Lai
"I'm all kinds of different."
There's enough of a breeze in the park to keep the air moving. A brush of it stirs at Ian's hair as he watches Aidan step into his space. For a moment he doesn't respond to the intrusion, though he is acutely aware of it. Aidan is short enough that Ian has to look down to meet his eyes, and there's a steadiness to Ian's dark gaze that feels subtly challenging. The way a larger animal might look at a smaller animal that's infringing upon its space.
"And yeah, you know. Running in the heat has a way of doing that." (Raising one's body temperature.) There is evidence of it still on his skin, a glistening sheen at the base of his neck and a slow drop of sweat that winds its way down to his stomach.
When Kiara draws near, Ian's attention cuts away. He looks at her when she touches his shoulder, and the weight of his attention feels different than it had a moment earlier. Softer, more familiar. She even gets a little smile, though it's sobered in response to her own.
"Don't know that I'd go that far. This is Aidan." His eyes meet Aidan's again, and he finally offers his name. "I'm Ian."
Ian Lai
[Empathy on Kiara]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 4, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )
Aidan
Aidan is undeterred by Ian's look, doesn't even seem to mind or recognize what the amn is trying to say. His smile brightens and Aidan let's out a laugh. "You both are!" His eyes shift and he looks off in the direction the wind seems to travel. "There it is! I wonder if it found a leaf. The leaves are going on vacation now. Sometimes the wind tries to catch them before they go."
He looks towards Kiara and beams at her. "Yes.They call me Aidan! You must be something herbal...like lavendar, but with more energy, like mint! Mint isn't like you though. You don't feel like mint. Mint is more..more..numbing I think. Like a rainstorm before winter. Hmm..What is that...what is that.." He scratches behind his neck lightly, ruffling his artificially dark hair. "Oh! Cinnamon! Like cinnamon!"
Kiara
You both are.
If Ian eyes Aidan with the steady challenge of one sort of predator; the pagan does it with the curious (if wary) regard of another sort. There's less direct challenge in Kiara's dark eyes as they take in the boy and his chatter and more, as he goes on to declare she's something herbal and cinnamon - rising confusion and a flicker of something close to agitation.
It's brief, though. That flicker, a register of something like a recurring irritation before it clears and she manages a smile; brighter than the last. A flash of teeth, deliberately so. Her mouth is painted a very bold shade of red, the Verbenae, as it so often is. Her eyes dramatized with black liner and her presence; with that wild hair and the touch of vitality; that of something dynamic and engaging. "Kiara, actually."
She glances at Ian, then. A brief, questioning look before continuing: "How long have you been in town, Aidan?" A beat, the brunette's eyes consider the boy. "Are you here on your own?"
Ian Lai
The truth is, Kiara's presence probably saves Aidan from the worst of Ian's sharpness. There are times when having the full weight of his attention is not a wholly enjoyable experience (as a few of the other mages in the city could probably attest to.) Instead, what Aidan gets is a lofted eyebrow and long, silent look. Ian doesn't back away (doesn't relinquish his ground,) but he does finally reach out and put a hand to Aidan's chest to give him a gentle push back.
"You should be careful about walking up to strangers in parks."
Whatever Ian notices in Kiara's eyes (in the cues of her body language,) he doesn't draw any obvious attention to it. Instead he sets his hand on her lower back, brushing slow, gentle circles with his fingers. The touch feels grounding (comforting - I'm here.)
Aidan
Aidan steps back a few paces, confused by the clear gesture. He's trying to figure out what it means, even rubbing the space on his chest Ian had touched, and looking down at it. "But you're not a stranger." He says with the sudden beam of pleasantness. Aidan is happy to see them, even if they aren't happy to meet him. "Not really. The grass knows you. The trees know you. That means I know you. Maybe. A little."
And then he blinks, shifting his attention to Kiara momentarily, furrowing his brows at her question. "On my own?" Another brief look of confusion tinted with thought. "Here in time? Here in place? I have lots of friends so I'm not alone. I'm never really alone. none of us are. People just don't hear the things around them all that much. Too busy, sometimes. Sometimes they don't want to."
"Do you mean did I come here with someone? I did! And I have a friend coming sometime. Granna will be here soon I think. She's never late. Always at the right time." He nods affirmatively, agreeing with himself on the matter. "But we came in... we came in.." Aidan was terrible with time. He was either early or late (more often late). "I don't know." There's a moment of disturbance as he realizes he doesn't quite recall; it's not because he can't really remember but because it's never been important. Did it matter -when- he came to Denver? "Elijah would know. He's better at time than I am."
Kiara
There's something about the way Aidan reacts to Ian's gentle (but firm) reaffirming of space between them that refocuses the brunette's attention on him. It's not the same sort of disconnection from the present she'd seen in Samir last night but a fracturing of the here and now. Aidan speaks of time (and Time) the way Seers did, the way Kiara had heard Serafine talk of it.
Speaks of nature like an elemental of it might. The trees, the grass.
Ian can feel the stillness that creeps into Kiara at the registering of that, that and the mention of Elijah. "Nature knows us but we still need to make ourselves known to each other. It's - how we make sure. Sometimes things aren't as they seem." She chooses her words carefully, the Verbenae and then, a beat, a sort of sharp interest: "You know Elijah."
Kiara's eyes cut away, over Aidan's shoulder as if she half expects to see the Initiate wandering up to them with cheerful aplomb, apologizing for letting his friend wander off on his own. "He's not with you tonight?"
She sounds as if she hopes he might be.
Ian Lai
It isn't really the fact that Aidan approached him that gave Ian cause for concern. Plenty of other mages have done that. People come and go in Denver. Sometimes they stick around. Sometimes they don't. Just as often as not, he's the one who approaches them. Because they're something new and curious. Because he's bored or hungry or both.
It's the fact that Aidan seems both oblivious and vulnerable. (Kid might as well paste a sign onto his back that says: Reality Deviant.)
But then he mentions Elijah, and Ian looks at him with momentarily renewed focus. "You're friends with Elijah." It comes out at exactly the same moment that Kiara's statement does, which has the effect of making them seem... well. Even more in sync. Ian glances at her and gives a little exhale - amused.
He didn't sound as though he was even remotely surprised. Somehow the pieces fit together - Aidan and Elijah.
"I'm sure I'll see you again, in that case."
Elijah
[per+aware: Do I notice people?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 4 ) [Doubling Tens]
Elijah
There's a thing with people who study time. An oddness of being where one is supposed to be at the exact time that they are supposed to be there. Elijah wasn't quite remarkable enough for his presence to be because of an advanced knowledge of where his presence (or lack thereof) would make the most difference. No, sometimes things just sort of… fall into place.
Like now.
He had come to the park with the intention of walking the same path he had the night Samir had his tiff with reality. Elijah had to think, had things to think about, too. The the football field and assailants who went too far for his senses to pick up. Grace said that if he didn't have more than what he did- a few hazy images and a picture of what happened- then she couldn't quite help. She couldn't work her magic (or Magic) without some jumping off point. She wasn't a miracle worker. So, there he was, trying to piece together a motive for people who weren't necessarily people.
Had a lot to think about. Had to have more than an inkling and a thought before he brought anything up to Henry, had to have more substantial leads and what-have-you. That was neither here nor there, he was walking a circuit, something that got progressively larger until the spiral reached out, touched a different set of senses and-
There's a thing with people who study time. An oddness of being where one is supposed to be at the exact time that they are supposed to be there. Right now, things seem to fall into place. Stacked like card's in a crooked dealer's deck, it comes up aces and he feels something. Someone. More than a couple someones and there he is. Speak of the devil and he doth appear, maybe twenty or twenty five yards out. Trots to close the distance.
Aidan
"Oh. OH! Right." He bobbed his head with a smile, lightly ruffling his own hair in a sort of semi-embarrassment. "I forget sometimes." He said as if it was no different than forgetting to put on underwear in the morning; an inconvenience but hardly something for the world to burn over. "Granna says I do that. Forget. I think she uses a different word." There's a moment of contemplation, as if he's trying to think about exactly what she might have called him.
"Oh! Yes! I do!" He's excited that someone else knows Elijah, but not surprised. Of course, he's not far himself, and his resonance is closing in; it tingles at the edge of Aidan's senses. "He didn't come with me." Is his response to Kiara, because he's somewhere nearby, but Aidan had no intentions of them meeting. But the universe, and the energy within it, had a tendency to pull things together... like pieces of a clock. You needed the right ones to get it working and maybe..maybe it needed them together for... something.
Kiara
There's a way that Kiara's attention shifts back when Ian echoes her; this small edging smile that curves into being at the corner of her mouth.
She leans her weight into him, into the palm pressed to the small of her back. It's a nuanced gesture, a physical reaction to the synchronicity of their words. The similarity in their thinking. Aidan was vulnerable - in more ways than one. There was a certain naivety about the way he perceived the world and his place in it that seemed nothing more than a blinking neon sign to Technocracy.
He didn't come with me.
The brunette's eyes search the gathering dusk and after a beat, they return. "Well he does have a knack for timing, I'll give him that." She gestures beyond Aidan, toward the figure closing on them from a distance. The last time Kiara had seen the Initiate, it had been covered in Samir's blood, it had been Elijah attempting to keep his cool in front of her while they dealt with the remains of what had once been two women - or parts of them, at the very least.
There's a subtle tension thrumming in Kiara tonight that seems to pick up as Elijah approaches. A certain set to her shoulders, a little tilt of her mouth at the edges as he grows nearer.
Ian Lai
"Speak of the devil." Ian grins when Elijah draws near. There's an easiness to the gesture that speaks of a mood he doesn't entirely feel, but Elijah has a way of drawing that out of people (and Ian is rarely precisely what he seems.) He tips his head to indicate Aidan. "I think you lost someone."
Perhaps another day, they will have more time to talk. About nature. About spirits. About any number of things. Perhaps - but not today.
"I have a thought," Ian lowers his voice to a more intimate tone when he leans into Kiara's side, sliding his hand around to her hip in order to draw her closer. "How about you and I go back to my place. We can drink wine and watch a Wong Kar-Wai movie."
Or they can talk. Or... not talk, as is so often the case with them. Given her physical and emotional state, wine and a movie might not be the most appealing offer, but whether or not he actually means it is fairly irrelevant. The real offer is there under his words.
Elijah
(Manip+sub: TOTALLY nonchelant]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )
Elijah
"I have been summoned."
A grin is met with one in kind. Weariness at the edges of his expression, a slowness in movement but not in purpose. He's comfortable, or as comfortable as one could be given the fact that a good chunk of the present company spent their day dredging up ways to dispose of a body (it was human. Was being the operative word. There are things he could tell people later, recent developments and a determination to see things through to the end. He wants to do this right. He wants toprove that he can do this right.)
Gives Aidan a look, brows raise and he seemed pleased, "yeah, oh! Hey," he nudged Aidan, "Jenn said she was going to flay you if you missed dinner. My words, not hers, but she made vegetable curry. I think I'm rethinking my philosophy on meat."
He smiles, something right and charming because he could spring back. Pretend that nothing had happened and that he was just here instead of being out in the park on some personal mission to make something make sense. He knows he probably shouldn't be in the park, thoughts roll around in his head. Grace detected a virus, but he hadn't seen any indication… how did things overlap? He plays his thoughtfulness as absentminded.
"Which, on that note- Kiara, I am indebted to you, at your beck and call for precisely one favor. I would say dinner at some point, but I don't want you to think I'm trying to poison you and you don't seem the bluebox type.."
Aidan
[empathy because... >.> Yeah this isn't weird at all]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )
Aidan
He turned a little to look at Elijah and smiled warmly. "I thought I took a right at the Pho place but I think I took a left and then... I got distracted." Aiden fluffed up his own hair again, giving a sheepish smile now to the group. "I really do get lost. One time I got lost trying to save a butterfly. Another time I chased a plastic bag two streets and I didn't know where I was. I guess....I guess I still don't know where I ended up. But I did save the butterfly!" He felt a bit like a hero in that regard at least.
"Jenn made me curry? With vegetables?" There was a small sound of pleasure that rose from his throat. Aidan, not detecting the faintest hint of any sort of oddity from...at the very least...Elijah, clapped his arms around the man to give him a hug. "You won't regret it. The pigs will be happy. And the cows too! They'll be your best friends. Really. Chickens are very loyal." He nodded a little and let go. "They're birds after all."
Aidan likes to see people happy, he really does, so he clasps his hands behind his back and stretches them out a little as he leans forward. "What's a bluebox type?"
Kiara
There's a way that the Verbenae and the Orphan interact with one another that speaks to a level of familiarity and intimacy most people observing them would have no hesitation applying a label to. The way Kiara allows herself to be drawn closer with a hand curled around her hip, her focus shifting to Ian's face and the smile that's been a rarer occurrence than usual for her re-appearing as she sets a hand over his chest in a casual, bracing gesture.
She rubs her fingers over the bare skin there and seems ready to respond when - there's a pause, the smile ebbs just so, it's a tiny flicker, like surfacing from a dream to face starker reality - "It's okay, Elijah." She sounds a little weary, the brunette. There's a certain sobriety to the way her eyes search the Initiate's face that reads it. "You don't owe me anything. I'd have done it regardless." Quieter, then. "I'm just glad you were okay."
Aidan starts to speak of pigs and cows and Kiara eyes tick over to him, there's a flicker of something close to concern there. Or perhaps it's just a reminder of another man she's just seen, pressed against a brick wall; smeared with dirt and blood and running from people he knew because his reality had fractured inward. The fragile grip they all held on sanity.
There's a tiny give at the edge of Kiara's mouth, a certain gleam in her dark eyes, empathy and strain and something else, something volatile and unnamed. "Although I suppose okay is a relative term." They tick back and she smiles; a brief, bright thing that doesn't seem entirely honest.
"I won't say no to dinner sometime, though. Somebody has to be a bad influence in your life." Her hand skirts over Ian's chest, she slides her fingers around one hand; her attention slipping back. "You had me at wine. Let's go." She turns, half twisted in the loose capture of Ian's hold to find Aidan.
"It was nice to meet you, Aidan. Keep an eye on this one for me." A nod at Elijah, a hint of the Verbenae's typical humor.
Ian Lai
If Ian has any concern about the way he and Kiara appear to others, he doesn't indicate such. Though there is a certain amount of calculation in the way he orchestrates their escape (using those assumptions to cover for something deeper and more complicated.)
Something passes between Kiara and Elijah that feels weighted, and Ian looks between the two of them with a quiet expression. He doesn't ask, though. (Later.)
Then Kiara bids a goodbye to Aidan, and Ian looks back to offer the newcomer a nod of acknowledgment. "We'll catch you guys later." Elijah gets a lingering smile as Ian turns away, then the pair of them walk off together towards the parking lot.
[Alas, it's bed time for me. Thank you for the scene guys! Aidan is adorable. Have a good night!]
Elijah
Aidan hugs him, which makes Elijah let out a little sound of surprise, but he certainly doesn't push Aidan away. He takes a second to clarify, "blue box macaroni and cheese, it's instant food. And, uh, really an acquired taste that you have to acquire early in life."
He looked back to the other two, shrugs and seems content to just, well, be. For now, at least, doesn't behave like any of this is abnormal, doesn't act like things could be strange or that his present company is anything other than just people he's friends with.
"Small miracles, right?" he says to Kiara, smiles something that's almost reassuring. Calm, confident because he has to be, a depth of things that Ian knows Kiara and Elijah aren'tsaying, but can definitely be said later. But, for now, there was a parting of ways, a little wave and the indication that the young man in perpetual motion was going to stay here with Aidan. "I'll hit you up later, I look forward to dinner."
Aidan
"Oh. Elijah doesn't need me to keep an eye on him. Everyone else is watching." No, that isn't creepy in the slightest, but it's true. To Aidan there is so much watching that it's hard not to know what's going on, if you know who to talk to, and how to. "Enjoy your bluebox! Oh.. wait.." No, no Eli had said that. "Or your.. have fun!" Because he hasn't really a clue what they're going to do, whether it's because he didn't hear, because he was too distracted, or simply didn't recall (so much happening at one time!).
"Oh...OH! With the orange dinosaur on it?" That sounds familiar to him...the macaroni and cheese in a blue box. "I've seen that before, when Granna took me grocery shopping. Why do people want to eat dinosaurs in orange sauce?" It was meant to be cheese but... but orange cheese still seemed so odd.
Aidan brought his finger to his lips, chewing on a nail there absently as the two wandered away and left them alone. "They're nice friends." He said, casting Elijah a smile. "You have nice friends."
Kiara
[Thank you for the scene, guys! <3]
Aidan
[ <3]
Elijah
"Generally, you don't eat it because you want it? You eat it because it's cheap, easy to make, and abundant. There's a lot of things that are better for you, but when you first make it? That shit is delicious, or at least I like it, but I'll put a lot of things in my mouth that I probably shouldn't," as though this was a matter of fact. He grinned, slipped his hands into his pocket and started on to ambling again. He figured that Aidan would come along with him. he figured that they would have space and time to walk, and he could spend some time not thinking about-
Well, now. Things went from bad to worse, didn't they?
"I like 'em, I think I'll keep 'em," he replied with a grin, "they're pretty solid in a tight situation."
Aidan
"I think I understand that. You eat it because you have to. I wonder if most people eat bad things because they have to?What would happen if people didn't need to eat bad things? Would the world be happier?" One has to wonder if all the animals would run wild and free if people didn't feel they needed to eat them...or at least that's what Aidan wondered.
"I like them." Who didn't Aidan like? "Kiara seemed a little..." Tense? Off? He didn't know Kiara. Maybe she was normally like that. Aidan spun, hands clasped behind his back, following Elijah along the path. "You're going to eat curry with us right?"
The evening is warm and mild in Washington Park. Autumn hasn't quite crept into the city yet, and Ian can smell the heady perfume of the nearby flower beds. He's lying back in the grass, running one hand over the tips of the blades as he watches the sky dim to a darker shade of blue. There's a squirrel chittering at something a few yards away in a tree. When the breeze hits, there's a rustle of leaves and the animal sound goes quiet.
He'd been running earlier, a fact made obvious by his state of dress: shirtless with running shoes, black shorts and a tight band around his left bicep where he kept his phone and his keys. His skin is still damp with sweat. There's a meditative quality to the way his chest rises and falls with each breath; to the way he listens to the sounds of the world around him (feels the earth - warm and alive beneath his back.)
Kiara
[Awareness and all that]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 6, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Aidan
[nightmares]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 6, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )
Aidan
[awareness - perc spec Intuitive]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 8) ( success x 3 ) [Doubling Tens]
Aidan
Aidan doesn't need reasons to wander, he just does. He wanders because he likes to see new things, and because listening to the same things over and over again can be exhausting; the world is never silent. It's always talking. He dresses in clothing that is too big for him, that he likely knitted himself, and that should be too hot for him at this moment, yet he enjoys it. A loose pink 'sweater' though he knitted it from some light fabric, and a pair of jeans with sneakers. Money, or the need for it, is still strange to him, despite living a world that requires it, so he wanders with almost nothing...and he's content.
When he sees, and feels Ian, there is a bit of excitement that surges through him and he gravitates towards it. Aidan is...energetic. Whatever it is that slides out from him is so...enthralling, as if it knew the smallest little desires of the people around it, and it played to it..promising more with a sweet smile and a cheerful attitude. And it was touched, no saturated, with the pulsing feeling of life.
Kiara
It had only been a few nights since the last time Kiara Woolfe had set foot in Washington Park. Then, it had been evening and she'd come toting flashlights and trashbags to help dispose of the remains of something inhuman that had attacked two of her friends. Then, it had been weighting down remains and pushing them into the lake; sweat-covered, dirt-smeared.
It's only been one night since Grace called her to say she'd found Samir wandering, incoherent and paranoid in Federal, struck by Paradox trying to unweave reality to battle the very thing she'd helped Elijah conceal from the Sleepers of the world. One night since she'd put her hands on another Awakened's face and healed bite marks savaged there and in return - there's still a dull ache set behind the Verbenae's temples.
She hasn't been running tonight, Kiara, but she has been sitting at the lake's edge; looking out over the water and listening to the gentle rhythm of it as it lapped against the shore. It's a warm enough evening not to require layers but the brunette has a sweater on; has her arms curled around her chest. There's a pensiveness to the set of Kiara Woolfe's jaw that suggests her focus is anywhere but near.
The distraction enough to make the sensation of others a gradual realization; she drops her eyes from the water when it comes, though; gathers her bag and slides to her feet; pushing dark strands of hair from her eyes and lifting a hand to shield her eyes from the last vestiges of sunlight cutting across the grass; dappling light into the water's surface and looks out across the stretches of grassy lawn and winding pathways.
Somewhere, she can feel the primal hum of Ian's energy, another she cannot place. She sets off across the park's grounds, the pagan, cutting a solitary figure across the park.
Ian Lai
[Awareness]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 4, 6, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )
Ian Lai
There's a new sensation on the air. Someone Ian doesn't recognize. It makes him sit up, knees bent as he rests his weight back on his hands. A few blades of grass cling to his back until he brushes them away. When his eyes land on Aidan's approaching figure, he watches the boy quietly, taking in the picture of him - his clothes, his gait, the almost fae-like effect of his resonance. Ian doesn't rise to his feet right away. Instead he cuts his gaze across the park toward the lake when he catches a hint of Kiara's rejuvenating pulse. It's then that he rolls up to a standing position, shaking the stiffness out his limbs with a roll of his neck and a light hop from one foot to the other.
Both of the others are wearing sweaters. Ian cannot possibly imagine being dressed that warmly in August, and for a moment his eyes are drawn back to the pink strands of Aidan's knitted shirt. "You look hot."
(And for once he actually means it in the literal sense.)
Aidan
He curls his lips in a warm and pleasant smile. "Me? Oh. " He lightly touched at his neck, exposed given the size of his shirt. "Oh. A little. Maybe." But he doesn't seem to be bothered by the potential revelation; Aidan likes his clothes, hot or not. Aidan moves in close because he has no understanding of space, and clasps his hands in his own lap as he does. "Are you hot? The wind hasn't been by has it? Maybe that's why?"
"I'm Aidan." His lips curl into a brighter smile, pleased to meet someone new, someone different. "You're different too."
Kiara
Kiara's sweater is an earthy brown; the neck loose enough that it slides over a thin shoulder; offering a glimpse of a white camisole beneath. The brunette's hair left to its own devices tonight; it falls in waves around her shoulders, bangs cut low across her brow half conceal the lilt up of her eyebrows as she crosses over a small incline and sights Ian with - a stranger.
A boy. Kiara's eyes slide over Aidan; feel the enchanting, engaging thrum that surrounds him before ticking back to Ian. "Hey," she calls as she nears; her closing presence accompanied by a wash of rejuvenating, pulsing energy. There's a bag slung over one of Kiara's shoulders; her right wrist heavy with beaded bracelets tonight.
There's a touch of something restrained to the Verbanae tonight; a subtle sense of sobriety; the smile she cuts Ian slighter, a degree less brighter than usual. She touches his shoulder when she's closer. A sweep of her fingers over his bare skin as she turns her dark eyes on the stranger.
"Making friends?"
Ian Lai
"I'm all kinds of different."
There's enough of a breeze in the park to keep the air moving. A brush of it stirs at Ian's hair as he watches Aidan step into his space. For a moment he doesn't respond to the intrusion, though he is acutely aware of it. Aidan is short enough that Ian has to look down to meet his eyes, and there's a steadiness to Ian's dark gaze that feels subtly challenging. The way a larger animal might look at a smaller animal that's infringing upon its space.
"And yeah, you know. Running in the heat has a way of doing that." (Raising one's body temperature.) There is evidence of it still on his skin, a glistening sheen at the base of his neck and a slow drop of sweat that winds its way down to his stomach.
When Kiara draws near, Ian's attention cuts away. He looks at her when she touches his shoulder, and the weight of his attention feels different than it had a moment earlier. Softer, more familiar. She even gets a little smile, though it's sobered in response to her own.
"Don't know that I'd go that far. This is Aidan." His eyes meet Aidan's again, and he finally offers his name. "I'm Ian."
Ian Lai
[Empathy on Kiara]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 4, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )
Aidan
Aidan is undeterred by Ian's look, doesn't even seem to mind or recognize what the amn is trying to say. His smile brightens and Aidan let's out a laugh. "You both are!" His eyes shift and he looks off in the direction the wind seems to travel. "There it is! I wonder if it found a leaf. The leaves are going on vacation now. Sometimes the wind tries to catch them before they go."
He looks towards Kiara and beams at her. "Yes.They call me Aidan! You must be something herbal...like lavendar, but with more energy, like mint! Mint isn't like you though. You don't feel like mint. Mint is more..more..numbing I think. Like a rainstorm before winter. Hmm..What is that...what is that.." He scratches behind his neck lightly, ruffling his artificially dark hair. "Oh! Cinnamon! Like cinnamon!"
Kiara
You both are.
If Ian eyes Aidan with the steady challenge of one sort of predator; the pagan does it with the curious (if wary) regard of another sort. There's less direct challenge in Kiara's dark eyes as they take in the boy and his chatter and more, as he goes on to declare she's something herbal and cinnamon - rising confusion and a flicker of something close to agitation.
It's brief, though. That flicker, a register of something like a recurring irritation before it clears and she manages a smile; brighter than the last. A flash of teeth, deliberately so. Her mouth is painted a very bold shade of red, the Verbenae, as it so often is. Her eyes dramatized with black liner and her presence; with that wild hair and the touch of vitality; that of something dynamic and engaging. "Kiara, actually."
She glances at Ian, then. A brief, questioning look before continuing: "How long have you been in town, Aidan?" A beat, the brunette's eyes consider the boy. "Are you here on your own?"
Ian Lai
The truth is, Kiara's presence probably saves Aidan from the worst of Ian's sharpness. There are times when having the full weight of his attention is not a wholly enjoyable experience (as a few of the other mages in the city could probably attest to.) Instead, what Aidan gets is a lofted eyebrow and long, silent look. Ian doesn't back away (doesn't relinquish his ground,) but he does finally reach out and put a hand to Aidan's chest to give him a gentle push back.
"You should be careful about walking up to strangers in parks."
Whatever Ian notices in Kiara's eyes (in the cues of her body language,) he doesn't draw any obvious attention to it. Instead he sets his hand on her lower back, brushing slow, gentle circles with his fingers. The touch feels grounding (comforting - I'm here.)
Aidan
Aidan steps back a few paces, confused by the clear gesture. He's trying to figure out what it means, even rubbing the space on his chest Ian had touched, and looking down at it. "But you're not a stranger." He says with the sudden beam of pleasantness. Aidan is happy to see them, even if they aren't happy to meet him. "Not really. The grass knows you. The trees know you. That means I know you. Maybe. A little."
And then he blinks, shifting his attention to Kiara momentarily, furrowing his brows at her question. "On my own?" Another brief look of confusion tinted with thought. "Here in time? Here in place? I have lots of friends so I'm not alone. I'm never really alone. none of us are. People just don't hear the things around them all that much. Too busy, sometimes. Sometimes they don't want to."
"Do you mean did I come here with someone? I did! And I have a friend coming sometime. Granna will be here soon I think. She's never late. Always at the right time." He nods affirmatively, agreeing with himself on the matter. "But we came in... we came in.." Aidan was terrible with time. He was either early or late (more often late). "I don't know." There's a moment of disturbance as he realizes he doesn't quite recall; it's not because he can't really remember but because it's never been important. Did it matter -when- he came to Denver? "Elijah would know. He's better at time than I am."
Kiara
There's something about the way Aidan reacts to Ian's gentle (but firm) reaffirming of space between them that refocuses the brunette's attention on him. It's not the same sort of disconnection from the present she'd seen in Samir last night but a fracturing of the here and now. Aidan speaks of time (and Time) the way Seers did, the way Kiara had heard Serafine talk of it.
Speaks of nature like an elemental of it might. The trees, the grass.
Ian can feel the stillness that creeps into Kiara at the registering of that, that and the mention of Elijah. "Nature knows us but we still need to make ourselves known to each other. It's - how we make sure. Sometimes things aren't as they seem." She chooses her words carefully, the Verbenae and then, a beat, a sort of sharp interest: "You know Elijah."
Kiara's eyes cut away, over Aidan's shoulder as if she half expects to see the Initiate wandering up to them with cheerful aplomb, apologizing for letting his friend wander off on his own. "He's not with you tonight?"
She sounds as if she hopes he might be.
Ian Lai
It isn't really the fact that Aidan approached him that gave Ian cause for concern. Plenty of other mages have done that. People come and go in Denver. Sometimes they stick around. Sometimes they don't. Just as often as not, he's the one who approaches them. Because they're something new and curious. Because he's bored or hungry or both.
It's the fact that Aidan seems both oblivious and vulnerable. (Kid might as well paste a sign onto his back that says: Reality Deviant.)
But then he mentions Elijah, and Ian looks at him with momentarily renewed focus. "You're friends with Elijah." It comes out at exactly the same moment that Kiara's statement does, which has the effect of making them seem... well. Even more in sync. Ian glances at her and gives a little exhale - amused.
He didn't sound as though he was even remotely surprised. Somehow the pieces fit together - Aidan and Elijah.
"I'm sure I'll see you again, in that case."
Elijah
[per+aware: Do I notice people?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 4 ) [Doubling Tens]
Elijah
There's a thing with people who study time. An oddness of being where one is supposed to be at the exact time that they are supposed to be there. Elijah wasn't quite remarkable enough for his presence to be because of an advanced knowledge of where his presence (or lack thereof) would make the most difference. No, sometimes things just sort of… fall into place.
Like now.
He had come to the park with the intention of walking the same path he had the night Samir had his tiff with reality. Elijah had to think, had things to think about, too. The the football field and assailants who went too far for his senses to pick up. Grace said that if he didn't have more than what he did- a few hazy images and a picture of what happened- then she couldn't quite help. She couldn't work her magic (or Magic) without some jumping off point. She wasn't a miracle worker. So, there he was, trying to piece together a motive for people who weren't necessarily people.
Had a lot to think about. Had to have more than an inkling and a thought before he brought anything up to Henry, had to have more substantial leads and what-have-you. That was neither here nor there, he was walking a circuit, something that got progressively larger until the spiral reached out, touched a different set of senses and-
There's a thing with people who study time. An oddness of being where one is supposed to be at the exact time that they are supposed to be there. Right now, things seem to fall into place. Stacked like card's in a crooked dealer's deck, it comes up aces and he feels something. Someone. More than a couple someones and there he is. Speak of the devil and he doth appear, maybe twenty or twenty five yards out. Trots to close the distance.
Aidan
"Oh. OH! Right." He bobbed his head with a smile, lightly ruffling his own hair in a sort of semi-embarrassment. "I forget sometimes." He said as if it was no different than forgetting to put on underwear in the morning; an inconvenience but hardly something for the world to burn over. "Granna says I do that. Forget. I think she uses a different word." There's a moment of contemplation, as if he's trying to think about exactly what she might have called him.
"Oh! Yes! I do!" He's excited that someone else knows Elijah, but not surprised. Of course, he's not far himself, and his resonance is closing in; it tingles at the edge of Aidan's senses. "He didn't come with me." Is his response to Kiara, because he's somewhere nearby, but Aidan had no intentions of them meeting. But the universe, and the energy within it, had a tendency to pull things together... like pieces of a clock. You needed the right ones to get it working and maybe..maybe it needed them together for... something.
Kiara
There's a way that Kiara's attention shifts back when Ian echoes her; this small edging smile that curves into being at the corner of her mouth.
She leans her weight into him, into the palm pressed to the small of her back. It's a nuanced gesture, a physical reaction to the synchronicity of their words. The similarity in their thinking. Aidan was vulnerable - in more ways than one. There was a certain naivety about the way he perceived the world and his place in it that seemed nothing more than a blinking neon sign to Technocracy.
He didn't come with me.
The brunette's eyes search the gathering dusk and after a beat, they return. "Well he does have a knack for timing, I'll give him that." She gestures beyond Aidan, toward the figure closing on them from a distance. The last time Kiara had seen the Initiate, it had been covered in Samir's blood, it had been Elijah attempting to keep his cool in front of her while they dealt with the remains of what had once been two women - or parts of them, at the very least.
There's a subtle tension thrumming in Kiara tonight that seems to pick up as Elijah approaches. A certain set to her shoulders, a little tilt of her mouth at the edges as he grows nearer.
Ian Lai
"Speak of the devil." Ian grins when Elijah draws near. There's an easiness to the gesture that speaks of a mood he doesn't entirely feel, but Elijah has a way of drawing that out of people (and Ian is rarely precisely what he seems.) He tips his head to indicate Aidan. "I think you lost someone."
Perhaps another day, they will have more time to talk. About nature. About spirits. About any number of things. Perhaps - but not today.
"I have a thought," Ian lowers his voice to a more intimate tone when he leans into Kiara's side, sliding his hand around to her hip in order to draw her closer. "How about you and I go back to my place. We can drink wine and watch a Wong Kar-Wai movie."
Or they can talk. Or... not talk, as is so often the case with them. Given her physical and emotional state, wine and a movie might not be the most appealing offer, but whether or not he actually means it is fairly irrelevant. The real offer is there under his words.
Elijah
(Manip+sub: TOTALLY nonchelant]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )
Elijah
"I have been summoned."
A grin is met with one in kind. Weariness at the edges of his expression, a slowness in movement but not in purpose. He's comfortable, or as comfortable as one could be given the fact that a good chunk of the present company spent their day dredging up ways to dispose of a body (it was human. Was being the operative word. There are things he could tell people later, recent developments and a determination to see things through to the end. He wants to do this right. He wants toprove that he can do this right.)
Gives Aidan a look, brows raise and he seemed pleased, "yeah, oh! Hey," he nudged Aidan, "Jenn said she was going to flay you if you missed dinner. My words, not hers, but she made vegetable curry. I think I'm rethinking my philosophy on meat."
He smiles, something right and charming because he could spring back. Pretend that nothing had happened and that he was just here instead of being out in the park on some personal mission to make something make sense. He knows he probably shouldn't be in the park, thoughts roll around in his head. Grace detected a virus, but he hadn't seen any indication… how did things overlap? He plays his thoughtfulness as absentminded.
"Which, on that note- Kiara, I am indebted to you, at your beck and call for precisely one favor. I would say dinner at some point, but I don't want you to think I'm trying to poison you and you don't seem the bluebox type.."
Aidan
[empathy because... >.> Yeah this isn't weird at all]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )
Aidan
He turned a little to look at Elijah and smiled warmly. "I thought I took a right at the Pho place but I think I took a left and then... I got distracted." Aiden fluffed up his own hair again, giving a sheepish smile now to the group. "I really do get lost. One time I got lost trying to save a butterfly. Another time I chased a plastic bag two streets and I didn't know where I was. I guess....I guess I still don't know where I ended up. But I did save the butterfly!" He felt a bit like a hero in that regard at least.
"Jenn made me curry? With vegetables?" There was a small sound of pleasure that rose from his throat. Aidan, not detecting the faintest hint of any sort of oddity from...at the very least...Elijah, clapped his arms around the man to give him a hug. "You won't regret it. The pigs will be happy. And the cows too! They'll be your best friends. Really. Chickens are very loyal." He nodded a little and let go. "They're birds after all."
Aidan likes to see people happy, he really does, so he clasps his hands behind his back and stretches them out a little as he leans forward. "What's a bluebox type?"
Kiara
There's a way that the Verbenae and the Orphan interact with one another that speaks to a level of familiarity and intimacy most people observing them would have no hesitation applying a label to. The way Kiara allows herself to be drawn closer with a hand curled around her hip, her focus shifting to Ian's face and the smile that's been a rarer occurrence than usual for her re-appearing as she sets a hand over his chest in a casual, bracing gesture.
She rubs her fingers over the bare skin there and seems ready to respond when - there's a pause, the smile ebbs just so, it's a tiny flicker, like surfacing from a dream to face starker reality - "It's okay, Elijah." She sounds a little weary, the brunette. There's a certain sobriety to the way her eyes search the Initiate's face that reads it. "You don't owe me anything. I'd have done it regardless." Quieter, then. "I'm just glad you were okay."
Aidan starts to speak of pigs and cows and Kiara eyes tick over to him, there's a flicker of something close to concern there. Or perhaps it's just a reminder of another man she's just seen, pressed against a brick wall; smeared with dirt and blood and running from people he knew because his reality had fractured inward. The fragile grip they all held on sanity.
There's a tiny give at the edge of Kiara's mouth, a certain gleam in her dark eyes, empathy and strain and something else, something volatile and unnamed. "Although I suppose okay is a relative term." They tick back and she smiles; a brief, bright thing that doesn't seem entirely honest.
"I won't say no to dinner sometime, though. Somebody has to be a bad influence in your life." Her hand skirts over Ian's chest, she slides her fingers around one hand; her attention slipping back. "You had me at wine. Let's go." She turns, half twisted in the loose capture of Ian's hold to find Aidan.
"It was nice to meet you, Aidan. Keep an eye on this one for me." A nod at Elijah, a hint of the Verbenae's typical humor.
Ian Lai
If Ian has any concern about the way he and Kiara appear to others, he doesn't indicate such. Though there is a certain amount of calculation in the way he orchestrates their escape (using those assumptions to cover for something deeper and more complicated.)
Something passes between Kiara and Elijah that feels weighted, and Ian looks between the two of them with a quiet expression. He doesn't ask, though. (Later.)
Then Kiara bids a goodbye to Aidan, and Ian looks back to offer the newcomer a nod of acknowledgment. "We'll catch you guys later." Elijah gets a lingering smile as Ian turns away, then the pair of them walk off together towards the parking lot.
[Alas, it's bed time for me. Thank you for the scene guys! Aidan is adorable. Have a good night!]
Elijah
Aidan hugs him, which makes Elijah let out a little sound of surprise, but he certainly doesn't push Aidan away. He takes a second to clarify, "blue box macaroni and cheese, it's instant food. And, uh, really an acquired taste that you have to acquire early in life."
He looked back to the other two, shrugs and seems content to just, well, be. For now, at least, doesn't behave like any of this is abnormal, doesn't act like things could be strange or that his present company is anything other than just people he's friends with.
"Small miracles, right?" he says to Kiara, smiles something that's almost reassuring. Calm, confident because he has to be, a depth of things that Ian knows Kiara and Elijah aren'tsaying, but can definitely be said later. But, for now, there was a parting of ways, a little wave and the indication that the young man in perpetual motion was going to stay here with Aidan. "I'll hit you up later, I look forward to dinner."
Aidan
"Oh. Elijah doesn't need me to keep an eye on him. Everyone else is watching." No, that isn't creepy in the slightest, but it's true. To Aidan there is so much watching that it's hard not to know what's going on, if you know who to talk to, and how to. "Enjoy your bluebox! Oh.. wait.." No, no Eli had said that. "Or your.. have fun!" Because he hasn't really a clue what they're going to do, whether it's because he didn't hear, because he was too distracted, or simply didn't recall (so much happening at one time!).
"Oh...OH! With the orange dinosaur on it?" That sounds familiar to him...the macaroni and cheese in a blue box. "I've seen that before, when Granna took me grocery shopping. Why do people want to eat dinosaurs in orange sauce?" It was meant to be cheese but... but orange cheese still seemed so odd.
Aidan brought his finger to his lips, chewing on a nail there absently as the two wandered away and left them alone. "They're nice friends." He said, casting Elijah a smile. "You have nice friends."
Kiara
[Thank you for the scene, guys! <3]
Aidan
[ <3]
Elijah
"Generally, you don't eat it because you want it? You eat it because it's cheap, easy to make, and abundant. There's a lot of things that are better for you, but when you first make it? That shit is delicious, or at least I like it, but I'll put a lot of things in my mouth that I probably shouldn't," as though this was a matter of fact. He grinned, slipped his hands into his pocket and started on to ambling again. He figured that Aidan would come along with him. he figured that they would have space and time to walk, and he could spend some time not thinking about-
Well, now. Things went from bad to worse, didn't they?
"I like 'em, I think I'll keep 'em," he replied with a grin, "they're pretty solid in a tight situation."
Aidan
"I think I understand that. You eat it because you have to. I wonder if most people eat bad things because they have to?What would happen if people didn't need to eat bad things? Would the world be happier?" One has to wonder if all the animals would run wild and free if people didn't feel they needed to eat them...or at least that's what Aidan wondered.
"I like them." Who didn't Aidan like? "Kiara seemed a little..." Tense? Off? He didn't know Kiara. Maybe she was normally like that. Aidan spun, hands clasped behind his back, following Elijah along the path. "You're going to eat curry with us right?"
Sunday, August 23, 2015
Follow up
Grace
Grace puts the car in park and turns to Elijah. "Okay. You know where the thing is."
The thing. The body. What they're after. She's not going to give it an actual definition. Might make it more real.
"I don't want to get out shovels and draw attention to the place. I can scan it without digging it up," she adds, because yeah -- getting caught by some normals in the process of unearthing a hell-beast in the park probably wouldn't be a great idea.
Elijah
"Okay, so, uhhhhh… that's good? Because I figure we're gonna need more of a paddle than a shovel to go get to the body," he swallowed, flashed Grace a reassuring smile- it's not for Grace, though. He ran a hand through his hair, then unlocked the door.
"Most of it is in the lake, but part of it is under a pine tree- I can show you where that part is, but I figured it shouldn't be all in the same place."
vicissitude
Once this was a historic neighborhood with well-maintained historic buildings and ambling pathways that spoke of horse-drawn carriages and long post-prandial constitutionals. Trails wind around the park's perimeter and ponds and outdoor sports fields cluster around the indoor recreation center and in the dark one can almost ignore the decay that has taken hold of this place same as it has taken over every other place.
There's a boathouse. A launch dock. In the daylight the water tosses back the sun's rays creating a twinkling effect and the air has an oppressive feel to it. Joggers trot along the paths miserable in the pursuit of fitness and dotted along the benches are the homeless and the degenerate.
No one pays attention to the two mages sat in a parked car.
Somewhere in the distance a siren screams.
Grace
"Mmm. Maybe good," Grace says, and thinks that perhaps the next time they drain that lake to retrieve another body, they find something they didn't expect.
She pops open the door to the car, and steps out into the day. People are out walking their dogs, being normal. They don't know what the two weirdos are up to, and wouldn't even be able to guess.
"A piece of it is all I need to do some basic analysis. Let's go."
Elijah
Elijah stepped out of the car, exhaling a long and deep breath as he tried to remember which pine tree he buried the thing under. There were a lot of pine trees, this sort of thing is difficult when you had to think of something. the point was to be nondescript. Who was going to mark what tree they buried something under? It would draw suspicion.
Mostly, he remembers trying not to throw up, and failing. He had to bag things up with Kiara, when you've attacked something's very essence of being, it tends to fall apart.
"Let's get to moving, if we can avoid going over to the boathouse the better."
vicissitude
Maybe Elijah feels eyes on him. Trauma has a funny way of leaving the nerves wrung and ringing from the aftershock. Just because he feels them doesn't mean they're there.
A hacking cough rings out in welcome as the two mages step out of the car and seek to recreate the steps one took with another several nights ago. The siren whoops once twice and then falls silent.
Beyond the trees a child is crying. They cannot see where the child is and its distress is none of their concern anyway.
Whichever path Elijah chooses they will find it unobstructed.
Elijah
[Per+alert, what am I hearing?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 4, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 3 ) [Doubling Tens]
Grace
She walks with Elijah, purpose-laden, but looking up into the sky, at the clouds, at the people, at anywhere except for where she's going. Elijah leads, she follows.
The sirens don't bother her. Sirens go off all the time.
"Just get me in the general area. I should be able to find it."
Elijah
He notices everything. Not overwhelmingly, not like he has before, but there is a moment where he can hear someone coughing, almost feels like he can hear whether or not it is a smoker's cough or if it is born of allergies. He hears some child crying in the distance, but can't quite tell if the crying is because of a lost balloon (remorseful) or a scraped knee (sharp, agonized) or simple fear (high, shrill). He knows the sound, can place the siren's pitch on a keyboard.
He walks, ambles by the tree line and it really is just that- ambling. Off to a tree that he knew he had chosen. Elijah remembered why he picked that tree, he remembered climbing that tree, falling out of it and falling on to Dan. He remembers saying a few words, like it would be right to give whatever had died a eulogy (it had eyes that were blue and sparkling with eyelashes that were thick and curled effortlessly set against a face with a flat, non-existent nose and a mouth that was too damn big.)
He stops at a tree, then exhales.
"I think this is it?"
Grace
Grace looks at the spot he specifies, and keeps right on walking. "Okay. I'm going to go find a bench."
Locations aren't a thing to her except a variable. Now that she knows where, she could scan that spot from anywhere else.
Partly, she just doesn't want to be found futzing on her phone over something's grave. Partly, she wants to find a decent place to sit down that isn't the ground.
Elijah
he follows along to a bench. Hands loose at his sides and then, off to a bench. He plops down with Grace, though he does choose, instead, to sit on the grass. He liked sitting in the grass, he liked feeling the ground. He liked the way that it had the tiniest bit of give underneath his bodyweight.
"After this," he tells her, "I need to go to where it all happened. I have to actually be somewhere to stare at the timeline."
Checks his pocketwatch, carefully winds it.
Grace
"Okay. I don't know how it works for you, but me..." she trails off and pulls out her phone, looks off in the direction of that pine tree, then back to the phone. Totally normal this.
She's only opening up the connection she has to the source code of reality and using that to determine the general aspect of the buried corpse of a thing with four arms that attacked her friends. Nothing to see here, normal people. Nothing.
With that, she opens up her special program, the one that looks like some weird cell phone game -- twisting lines, deep connections, colors that all mean something -- and starts filtering through it to find what she wants.
[Corr 2, Life 1, Entropy 1 (because we've suspected vampires) = What's buried under that pine tree? Diff 5-1 for taking time.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (4, 4, 10) ( success x 3 )
Grace
The first results she gets back suggest humanity. Here's a chromosome. Another. Tightly-packed data in the stream, twisted amino acids piled upon each other. The branched fractalline crystal of life. She has to separate it out from soil bacteria, but suddenly a burst of tissue, all alike, and yet broken down. Two people with two different sets of XX chromosomes. Women, pieced together? Would explain the four arms. Wouldn't explain the how or the why or the what the fuck.
"It was made of two women," she says, under her breath. Looks at Elijah with a disgusted air about her.
Elijah
[Stamina: nope, that totally doesn't make me want to throw up!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 8) ( success x 1 )
Elijah
(what am I thinking, that's not willpower)
Elijah
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )
Elijah
He pales. He pales and he looks like he might just get sick for a second because all he can think about is the sound, how it made sense (screaming, screeching like two voices and there's a kid crying in the background and he still can't place how or why) the eyes and the hands folded delicately across the mismatched torso (there's a lawn mower going off in the distance and there's people jogging and he can pick out the rhythm.)
Elijah looks at his watch again, inhales slowly and deeply- the kind of breath that gets forced out again. The kind of breathing one does when you're trying to will away reality.
"How the fuck is that even possible?" he asks, stands up because he's not sure if he wants to be staring at the tree now, thinks about the kinds of things he could have done, hopes that between Samir and himself it was quick. Thinks about the way its (her, their) hand came down and cut across his neck but it felt more like something desperate. He thinks of the situation, tries to piece it together differently. "Do you know how that happened?"
Grace
"Somebody with a really amazing amount of control over living tissue? Could have been an Awakened person," she says, and hey -- could have been. How is that even possible? Lots of things are possible, Elijah. Anything, really. Even the horrific things.
She dashes away the working she had, goes back to the fuzz of lines and data, the meaningless feed of it. Starts filtering down again, looking for the lingering effects of reality manipulation upon it. She knows that Elijah and Samir tried to take 'them' apart. That's not what she's after. She's looking for what held 'them' together in the first place.
[Corr 2, Prime 1 = What magic is this? FFS? Diff 5-1 for taking time.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (4, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )
Grace
Grace mutters to herself: "Bloodborne virus," and then a memory triggers. Some time ago, it was a virus that made her bleed in order to spread itself. There, a frown furrows her face.
"I'm going to scan you, Elijah. Just to be sure. This looks viral," she says, and it's floundering and rather suspect. Viruses can lie dormant for long periods of time before they strike. Could be asymptomatic, but trying to spread?
Again, she fuzzes the data on her screen, points in Elijah's direction, starts looking for some evidence of the same... defilement in him.
[Life 1 = OMG NO NOT ELIJAH YOU ASSHOLES. Diff 4 - 1 for taking time.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (2, 2, 9) ( success x 1 )
Elijah
He stops, turns around. She says something looks viral and it makes him slow to a stop and just… regard Grace. She had her phone on her, pointed at him and said that this looked viral. His breath was held and he put his hands up, like he was waiting to get scanned with a metal detector.
"So, uh… true story, pretty sure this is scarier than a pregnancy test."
Grace
There is evidence of a virus. Okay, it's the cold Elijah might have had two years ago. That is not the viral information we're looking for. She quickly loses track of Elijah's living code, but that's okay. She saw enough while she was in there.
"You're clear. I don't see it in you. Whatever the fuck it is... Could be something Technocratic, even though I don't know why they'd release a thing like that in a park. Then again, I barely understand half of the fucked-up things they do as is. Could have been after the two of you specifically."
Not a great thought, that. Grace fairly well burns with a passionate distaste for the 'Crats after what they've done, after what she's seen. It's true that unleashing horror-beasts into the populace isn't their style, but they did also try to wipe out the population of Earth with a strand of genetically engineered Ebola at one time too. Nothing goes without question.
She slips her phone back into her pocket, stands. "You want to try looking at the timeline, as you said?"
Elijah
He's already walking, watch in hand and setting the time back, slowly and purposely to the time that he was supposed to meet Samir… and then winding it backwards.. .back more… back more. Five minutes, two hours, five hours. Exhales slowly and nods. Grace is seething, he looks up in time that he can catch expressions- disgust, anger, distaste. He doesn't know all the context, but he knows part of it- the Union that Elijah has encountered in the form of a dude on a forum is incredibly different than the condors who released a virus into the population.
"Well, you know, any day that I don't have a debilitating death virus," he gives a half laugh, more nervous than anything. But, it's back tot he scene of the crime, so to speak. There's going to be a bench nearby, an overhead light. Pretty little path and a nice, disheveled set of bushes that were thick enough to mostly hide an eight foot tall amalgamation of human parts.
Grace
She walks along, and anybody looking in might tell that somebody's in a bad mood. Grace hates whatever it was that did this. But, it's pretty much as she feared -- there's not much here that she can find. Just evidence that yes -- it was magic what made the monster. And it's dead now. We already knew that.
Elijah, though...
"Yeah. You're alive. Good going there."
They arrive at the bench where Samir got his head nearly taken off, and Grace questions what 'business' occurs on a park bench at night, but keeps her mouth shut about it. Whatever. Keep your secrets, Elijah.
She keeps an eye out for him, though. Ready to disarm somebody wondering about whatever odd behavior ensues with a: "Oh, he's coming down from a bad trip. Don't worry, got it handled..." She's never seen how he does this. It might involve weirdness.
Elijah
He doesn't sit down. Elijah holds his pocket watch, says something under his breath, an affirmation of intention. 'We gather here just as those who gathered at the edges of Mnemosyne- to remember."
His fingertips trace the circle on the face of the watch, an unbroken circle. Graze over the glass there and he is careful, he is cautious. He does not falter there, even though- in truth- this is the first time he's looked to the past in a manner that actually mattered. He took his steps forward, then in a metered breath he stopped. Held his hand over where he knew he wanted the effect to end.
Circle tarnished, but unbroken. All points a beginning, all points an end. He exhales, breathes, and steadies himself.
[Time 2, life1, entropy 1, prime 1, mind 1: okay, guys, see the past. All magic, all decay, all things living and having a consciousness.
diff 5 - 1 (taking the Hell outta some time]
diff 5 - 1 (taking the Hell outta some time]
Dice: 2 d10 TN5 (8, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Grace
He's muttering while holding his pocket watch like it's extremely important. Yup, Grace smiles at some passers-by like chill -- this man is totally cool. She doesn't want to break his concentration by speaking, though. There lifts a tumult on the air as he Works, and she knows what that's like. Like being in the Zone, dead to the world.
She waits, to hear what he has to say.
vicissitude
Nobody in this park gives half a fuck what Elijah is doing. They're all staring at their smartphones or listening to music as they trot along the trails or arguing with their significant other with whom they're pushing a stroller over whether they're going to press charges against the neighbors.
The child finally stops screaming.
vicissitude
Three days ago the creature was one entity. Melded and mindless and miserable. The creature had found itself a bag of bones to slake its thirst and it had dragged the man behind the bushes the man a vagrant too drunk to scream for aid or mercy either. Silent in carrying her meal and not so silent in its consumption. The man was dead with the first bite.
Elijah can see how her jaws and mouth work. She could have taken Samir's head off with a single snap. She could have raked Elijah's face clear through to the gray matter. That night could have gone a lot worse than it actually did. He is not seeking out alternate paths that encounter could have spawned. He wants to know what brought her here.
She had not gone far. Stumbled naked and awful through the park headed north no sense of direction or purpose. Nothing but rage fueling its steps. Its steps led away from East Louisiana Avenue. From the football field at South High School.
That was where their forms fused. That was where their screams went unheard because it's hard to scream when a young man beautiful and alien with cruel eyes is in the process of fusing your mouth shut with his bare hand as another young man same cruel eyes but average in appearance looks on.
He can try to keep looking but their paths go too far away from the scene of the crime by then and so does the path of the one who did this to them.
Elijah
He stops. He's still. It's strange, because he's still and he pins something in the distance as though he could see that thread of reality, that train of thought. He sees the world in moments, pieces that get dropped and picked up, like you're skipping through the chapters on a DVD backwards. This could have been bad. This could have been more than bad- Elijah and Samir are lucky that things didn't go from bad to dead. He could extrapolate what if later, when his mind has quieted and he has seconds to himself.
He's still, looking at something that doesn't quite seem to be there before he turns and starts headed towards East Louisiana Avenue. There were limits to how far he could see, limits to how far he could pick things up. If it didn't happen within his own backyard, Elijah could hardly keep track of it. When he stops again, he's focused. Present.
"This wasn't your mirror shaded buddies," he says, first thing that comes out of his mouth, "they came through here, three days ago, ate a homeless guy, snapped his head off- easy. Flash back over at some football field around here, two women end up-"
He stops there. Decides Grace doesn't need the details of how in that particular juncture, or rather just concludes that he doesn't want to share that little bit of cruelty just yet, "anyway, there were two men- one young and fucking gorgeous and the other was pretty average. One of them… have you ever seen something or someone that is beautiful, but… inhuman? I mean, bipedal and shit, but… something doesn't fall into the realm of natural fucking human beauty?"
He shakes his head, getting tripped up, "that one- smoothed over one of their mouths with his bare hands, like it was modeling clay. I don't think that the two guys made the whole fusion of people thing at the football field, but… but our victims were subdued and taken from there. After that, I can't see far enough to know where they went.
"That's not…" he bridges the gap and comes back to talk to grace. Low, quick, intent. "That can't be awakened magic. If it was, reality would have wiped that guy off the face of the planet, he did the initial work out in the open- the level of difficulty and the fact that it was in public means that it would have been extraordinarily difficult. It's more plausible to think we're dealing with something that isn't human."
A pause, "I can see if I can get Jenn to draw me a composite of those guys? But, you know, if one of them can mesh two people into one, I really doubt that appearance is something that is permanent for him."
Grace
Grace listens as he describes the reality of the situation. Not a virus. Not mirrorshades. Two guys at a football field, one of which has probably gone to town on his own face like it was made of putty. Well, great.
She's not having the greatest day, is Grace. It shows.
"Listen, Elijah, I know what you're thinking, right? But unless you can get something a little better than that, like where those guys live? There's not much else we can do but -- as you said -- draw up a picture, spread it around, and tell people to watch out. I can't pull anything more out of it, I mean honestly, I got 'virus' out of that. Don't think it's a virus anymore..."
People act like this whole 'looking into shit' is easy when you've got nothin'. They always look to her, like she's the information fairy. And, well, yes, sometimes she can indeed pull the magic strings and get what she needs. Not always.
Elijah
"I can..." he takes a second, listens to Grace, looks at Grace... she was the type of person who could get information, and when Grace Evans tells you it's a cold case there are two options- prove her wrong (which is really fucking difficult) or accept her wisdom (which is difficult for different reasons.)
"I can't think of a way to go about this safely. If I can get to the football field from here, that's one thing, but once it's out and about we're out of good territory. I'll hit the books, and maybe ask Henry if he has any ideas?"
Because if there is one thing he has finally learned, it's this- ask your mentor when you don't know what the Hell to do.
Grace
"Ask Henry. That sounds like a great idea," Grace says, starts walking back on the path to her car again.
At least then, he can be warned away. Or maybe Henry actually knows what the fuck that was, being a guy who's been at this whole Mageing thing for a while. Maybe he has ideas. Maybe he'll take care of this...
Grace has Samir to take care of, a guy who's still having extreme issues and refusing to eat unless she practically makes him. One thing at a time, mmkay?
"Don't do anything without asking Henry, okay. I mean it."
Elijah
"Dude, I just got the Order to kind of like me, I'm pretty sure if I do something stupid they will kick me out." And, obviously, he did not want to get kicked out, "and Henry said we were gonna go do stuff in the umbra. I want to be alive to do things in the umbra."
And, with that, he headed along to the car.
Failed comforts
Arionna de la Babin
Arionna was doing her best to focus on her studies. She had braille to finish before school was out, lest she require a tutor (Ari was not a fan of people, and so she was particularly motivated do it on her own). Then there were magical studies. It wasn't as...scholarly...as Elijah's, though she might have thrived in such an environment, but it still required concentration and work. This meant that she was busy. She had taken time to help Eli with his parents, but then it was back to work.
Ari was getting increasingly focused. She liked her studies, and if she truly wanted to dedicate herself to her worship...
Wouldn't that mean that much of life in general was a distraction? How did Lavi effectively live on the road without an education and secure job?
The house was quiet, mostly, with only her uncle and herself present, though her aunt would be home soon. She moved around the house in a pair of pajama pants and a tank top, glasses left away because she didn't need them, and her stick held against her body while she tried to move around the house without using it. She didn't know, yet, that Eli was coming, but when he did, she would find it a bit surprising.
Elijah
The house was quiet, mostly. The house was about to get louder, because with Elijah there came sound. There came movement. There came motion. He hadn't seen Arionna since his parents had left. Maybe on campus, if she was ever on campus. He still worked there, he still had studies to go through. While the Order had quite a number of things that he had to learn, he didn't seem to be drowning in his studies. It was actually something he could look forward to-
Even if he did end up dusting a lot of things that Elijah was pretty sure might be cursed. One had to be careful with other peoples things, you never know quite what you're handling.
So there he was, at the front door, motorcycle in the drive way and his backpack slung over his shoulder. He knocked, hard, sharp fast. Three times and then done.
"Aaaaaarionnaaaaaaaaa, I brought you strawberries."
Arionna de la Babin
[alertness]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 4, 4, 5, 9) ( success x 1 )
Arionna de la Babin
She is... out of it. Or maybe she's tired. She doesn't move as deftly around the house as she would like, though she does manage if only because of memory. It takes the third knock for her to hear him, and Ari begins the progression to the door.
Lily, and her lovely perfect car, slides into the drive way, parking neatly behind his motorcycle without much care. When she steps out, her dark hair is pinned back perfectly on her head, and her head held high as she clicks her way on her heels towards the door. Ari opens the door when Lily is halfway to the door, giving a cold look at Elijah.
"Strawberries?" Her brows furrow a little because she smells nothing (are they something you can smell easily?). Ari steps to the side, and Aunt Lily is right behind Elijah, her purse held in her thin, bony hand. She doesn't say anything but expects Elijah to move one way or another; Forward or back... he will decide eventually, though she expects now.
"You're in high spirits, Elijah." Ari tilts her head a little and she reached out for Eli's arm t pull him in. "We can go upstairs."
Elijah
Lily gives Elijah a cold look, and he can't help himself. he literally can not help himself, because he looks at her and beams at her, for her, because she is there and he's pleased to be there and how dare he be anything other than pleased to be in good company. He even waves, "hi. Want some strawberries?"
But then, there's Ari, she steps aside and he steps on to take Ari's arm since she's pulling him in, "I survived to twenty-one. I feel like I've accomplished something."
Arionna de la Babin
She is unphased. Lily looks towards Ari as she pulls him in. Lily steps past the two of them as if they didn't even exist. "I will be having guests later this evening. I expect you'll be on good behavior." And then she was gone, wandering past the kitchen and livingroom to the beyond.
Ari closes the door behind Elijah. "Twenty one is hardly an age to be celebrating. Most people in the western hemisphere make it to that age." But now she was moving slowly, making her way in the direction of the stairs.
Elijah
[Totally chipper and good!]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 5 )
Elijah
He drops his voice, steps in to Ari and whispers as though he were the narrator of some great epoch, "I expect you'll be on good behavior, she said. Her voice like strings held taut for so long that they knew no slack. But only the dark haired maiden knew if she could trust her companion to make good on such an imperative."
But it was off to the right places, and he stood straight and tall again and he followed. Lily was unphased and he, bright and chipper, continued on to wherever it was that Ari was taking them. Truth be told, she could have left him in the basement and he wouldn't have particularly cared. He just seemed to go… wherever. Perhaps a little distracted, perhaps too chipper for all the things that have happened.
"I got shot. It was kind of iffy."
Arionna de la Babin
Ari snickered.
She snickered and then she laughed. "You'll get me in trouble, you know. I swear she hears nearly everything." At the top, she closed her door and locked it as she often did. Ari was protective of her space; she liked having a private place to work on her magic, or in some cases, have a friend (her only friend) over and talk about matters that she felt Lily ought not to know about. "There couldn't be two individuals more different than you and she."
Elijah got shot. Ari's brows dropped again and she lifted her cane to give him a whack on the leg. "What did you do?!"
Elijah
"If you don't see me after this, presume your aunt buried me in the basement or something," he paused, "do you have a basement? Basements are imperative for nefarious plans. Besides, if you get in trouble here, it just means we have to go out- which is exhausting, so I suppose I should keep my subversive activities on the down low."
He came to the room and took a quick look around. he left his backpack at the door, which was dropped with a quiet thud. He was careful with it- it actually did have strawberries in it, you know. Though, he does get to the part about being shot, and he does draw a sharp breath when she whacked him; he needed that shin, thank you very much!
"I went out to see a band, Sera and Dan were there- then, the place got shot up because- I don't know- some drug deal or something, I guess?" he shrugged, "that's what the news said. But anyway, shots were fired- I thought the bartender was going to die, ended up catching a bullet between the shoulder blades when I tried to vault the bar?"
he's pretty calm about this, and there are things he's leaving out. He's not talking about the fact that it nearly killed him, and would have had Serafíne not been there, "the bartender lived, though, so I think that was a plus."
Arionna de la Babin
"I suspected you had been the cause somehow. You're reckless." She moved to her bed and sat down, packing up her cane to put away. Ari knew where everything in her room was, she didn't need help. "I don't much care about anyone else really. Wouldn't you have had some inkling that the bar wasn't a place to be? I'd find it unlikely the more upscale establishments to have a shoot out over drugs. The people around here are more likely to quietly dismember you and drop you in the lake at their vacation home."
"And yes we have a basement. She's smart enough to know that burying you in her own home would be unwise. Best to bury someone in a place you're not known to visit. "
Her lips had pursed, displeased. But she sighed a little. "At least you're well now."
Elijah
"I prefer to deal with people who are going to outright shoot me than people who are going to steal my livelihood. There's honesty in turf wars, and I get being desperate enough to do something stupid. I mean, I'm not mad about it- I figure I could be, but… what's the point? It's done," he said with a shrug, "if I'm gonna do something to deserve getting shot, I'd be a lot more cavalier."
He does settle down, takes a step and sits with his back against the bed on the floor. He's close enough, but takes a second to just observe and take her in, take a little bit of joy in that. He doesn't think of things, though maybe this is a distraction. Maybe he's in good spirits because he wants to be instead of being mortified that the month has decided to try and kill him twice.
"But yeah, I'm here. I'm breathing, I'm… yeah, I'm good," he says, like that convinces him. Saying it makes it so, words have power and all that. "What's new? I haven't seen you in awhile."
Sounds an awful like I missed you.
Arionna de la Babin
She pulled her legs up slowly onto the bed, curling them in and crossing them. It gave her a place to put her hands since now, she could rest on her knees, or play with the fabric of her bed. Ari rarely blinked, and she knew it was upsetting to normal people (though normally she cared little) but here she didn't have need to cover them. Sometimes she wondered what she actually looked like. Where did she have a tendency to look exactly? How blank did she seem?
"I've never understood the appeal of drugs really. I understand the use as a means of escape, but they don't really provide that. The world still exists, and you still have a place in it. When you return, you'll only return to a bigger mess. Ignoring a problem doesn't really make it go away, it often times makes it worse. If a problem is too great, you'd be better served simply leaving. Then escape is possible."
Ari cants her head, her soft locks swaying just a little as she listens to his movement. "Being alive doesn't constitute being good. The two aren't very well connected to one another. Which tells me you aren't really at all."
But he's curious as to her life, and if she noted the way his comment might have sounded, she didn't say anything about it. "Nothing." She states simply. "My life is considerably less exciting than yours. No shootings. No parents...just all the things I have been doing for months. Did you expect something different?"
Elijah
He reached over to the side, hand on her knee and trailing down her shin for a moment. A nice contact, a reminder that, yes- he was sitting in the floor, and yes- he was content to be precisely where he was. "Sounds like advocacy for responsible suicide," he tells her, "if the problem is too great, you're better served by leaving… except, sometimes, you don't actually get to leave but, y'know."
He shrugs, leans back against the bed. His thoughts travel, because he's always wondering when his thoughts are wandering, and soon enough he stretched his legs out in front of him, crossed at the ankles.
"I was hoping for something about what you've been studying, what you've found that sparks your passion, what words and thoughts and actions have pushed you forward and driven you on… as for me, I'm not always good. I'm not good right now, but I want to be, so I'm here. Which makes right now good."
Arionna de la Babin
"I suppose that is one way to leave a situation, but no, I meant the relocation of an individual. Moving, as an example. There might be new problems, but it does help escape the previous." Her chin tilts down a little at the affection, and at least now she knows his location. Exactly. "If someone wants to end their life, it is a choice that is theirs to make. It is a choice that can be criticized but ultimately understood and respected. It's no different to me than choosing to live. There is no right nor wrong answer. We all return to the same place eventually." Maybe Lavinia was rubbing off on her more than she realized. "Then we will be reborn, and returned again in time. "
Ari reaches out to lightly touch his hand, to let him know she noticed. "How to read with my hands, how to understand the composition of the universe, and whether or not my path is true. If you really want to know, the question exists as to whether I am dedicated as much as I ought to be, or if I'm allowing interference."
Then Ari's brows furrowed slowly and her head tilted. "I wouldn't consider my home the pinnacle of joy. No one comes here to be happy or good. Unless your concept of 'good' involves impressive silverware, fancy meals, and proper english."
Elijah
Ari furrowed her brows, tile her head, and she can hear the grin on his face. "Tell me again why we are not going downstairs and being on our best behavior, then?"
Oh, there is a way he says it. There is a way that he says it that makes it sound like he means it, like he genuinely means that they could go downstairs and be bright and lovely and charming little children except there is a hint, an edge- an edge Elijah uses and uses well that tints his words. He's had to play nice and play perfect for awhile, stressed over it and picked through everything he believed to boil it into something that his potential tradition mates would buy.
Lily is not a Hermetic. Elijah could really give two shits about being perfect for her.
Arionna de la Babin
"I have no interest in those people." She says as simple and matter-of-factly as she can. "And for the moment, she controls the money. Both for myself and my mother." She uncurled her legs slowly. "We have time until her people come, most likely. Were you wanting something?"
Elijah may be trying to be playful, but Ari doesn't seem to take the bait. "In the end, you can leave. I can't. I have to return here each night, and I'd rather do it in peace. Hardly any fun, I know, but we both live in different situations it seems."
"You didn't come here to wreck a dinner party anyhow."
Elijah
"I never come to wreck a dinner party, but when the opportunity presents itself I have been known to wreck dinner parties," Ari doesn't take the bait though, and he sighs an overly dramatic sigh. He calms, less dramatic, "I actually do like dinner parties. If you can believe it, I actually like the almost high ritual aspect of it- rules and protocols the players in the game know. Courses brought and cleansing completed, like you're paying chiminage to some great and powerful spirit because if you play by their protocols, then they accept you as one of their own. The slightest break, a well-timed breath and a look are points made and challenges thrown. All done with this veneer that nothing is amiss. It's all languages spoken in flowers and fans and I kinda want to get good at it sometimes."
A moment passed again, an odd pause.
"Do you get along with your aunt? Like, do you like her?"
Arionna de la Babin
"I find some beings acceptable to come to mutual terms with, and others I think best to dominate. Appeasement should only be offered to those who deserve it. So I hate dinner parties. I hate the rules, the fake etiquette, and the forced dramatic conversation that always skirts around issues worth talking about for the more mundane gossip. In the case of her parties, it will be about business. Business is boring, dull, tiresome. The men aren't exactly worth speaking to."
"But you are a different person than I. You enjoy the presence of others, I don't. You approach the world with a far nicer perspective, I don't. You perceive people as being better than they truly are, and worth more of your time than they are...I don't."
"We coexist. I like her more than most people and less than a select few. I don't hate her, if that is what you're asking. We are similar in a lot of ways, and dissimilar in more. She is capable of limited magic, and that places her beneath me in many respects. " She pursed her lips for a moment.
"Anyone who proclaims true loyalty to your own personal cause and your own personal welfare is suspect. Everyone has their motivations, and they rarely align perfectly. In that vein, she and I are not...connected. So your question has a complicated answer. The simplest answer I can give you is, I don't mind her mostly."
"Why?"
Elijah
"The etiquette isn't fake, at one point it actually did have a purpose. There's symbolism and history in all of it, and it's not the ritual's fault that some people are too dumb to understand the purpose- if you're versed, you can spot a poser a mile away. It's training wheels for dealing with spirits, who really do require that many rules," he stops, he rethinks.
He softens, "I didn't get it, I mean, I talked to Sera when we were talking about, like etiquette and the way the Order works and ritual and protocol because I was fucking tripped up over this and it wasn't that things don't have meaning- it's that some things have shit tons of meaning and you have to be open to it.
"A well-done dinner party is fucking art."
There was other stuff, things he needed to wonder, things he needed to field. He takes in what it is Arionna's saying and he inhales again, his breathing is measured. There are things he's not saying, but there are always things Elijah isn't saying. there's the problem, she knows well and good that he isn't all sunshine all the time, but what was his angle today?
"I just wanted to know," he says, "because I wanted to know if you guys cared about each other… because the way that it sounded, you guys just kind of tolerate each other."
Arionna de la Babin
[empathy -Bull]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 5, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )
Elijah
Elijah has suspicions. He has questions because he wants to know the dynamic of the place that he is in and all he can feel or see is resentment. The status differences on multiple levels- Arionna's perceived (or actual, depending on where you are) superiority towards a hedge mage. Her aunt's clear use of status as a means of control followed by Arionna's flaunting of conventional status to focus, instead, on the magical where she has power and she has pull. He wonders what the dynamic is like, because what he sees is a power struggle that remains unspoken.
Arionna de la Babin
"Dinner parties are fake. The people at them, are fake. It isn't genuine. Any person who sits at a dinner party and engages in the banter they provide is nothing like they appear to be, and yet, they do it all to save face. "
Ari listens. She's not as attuned today as she often was, and she might blame that on her studying. But she listens to him, tries to feel the weight of him from where she is without even moving. "Tolerate is an acceptable term. Her feelings are unknown to me. She has always been as she is now, even when she located me. A sudden appearance I find very...suspicious."
"I...have very few individuals I care about. I may be able to count three that I find important enough to consider close to my person and worthy of my ...affection." She shifted a little in her seat to get comfortable again. "But you're probing at something else. If you want to know something, Elijah, then you should just ask it. You know I dislike subtlety in words."
Elijah
"I feel like your assessment of pomp and circumstance and falsehood-" there's something almost biting the way he says it. Elijah has a way with words, knows what he says sometimes, knows how to use them, wields things like daggers or poetry when he needs. Falsehood needed to be biting, because it was- the very nature of the word, "it doesn't matter what I feel."
Brushes it off, "that isn't why I came anyway. Talk about family dynamics because I'll just sound naive and I don't feel like being judged."
"You know I'm not as sunshine and rainbows and doesn't know how the world really works as I seem, right?" he's tense, rides across in his tone, "and sometimes, I don't think you mean it, but it comes across like you're judging me and I can't figure out what I did to deserve it or why I give a shit but I do." He shouldn't be talking, but he keeps going, "do you know that I killed something a couple days ago? Used True fucking words and Will and wrote something out of existence. Left it in a pile of charred flesh and ashes."
He's quiet after that. A long, awkward quiet.
"That's… why I came over. I nearly died on my birthday because I decided to save someone's life, and two weeks later I used magic to unmake something and it was all really fucked up and I wanted to spend time with you because I really fucking missed you."
Another moment, something raw, like… like pushing on a bruise or skin rubbed raw from rope too tight.
"I came over because I wanted to be around you, listen to the things that you love studying and make you happy, and affirm life because that's important because things can be really fucking dark and I just-" and thus, the young man with all the words, all the precision… lost them, "I don't know."
Arionna de la Babin
There's a sigh that lifts in the air.
"Is it sad that I find amusement in you coming to me to feel better? I'm not skilled in comfort or appeasement. I don't even like it often times."
"Everyone judges us Eli. Even when they say they don't, they are. Everyone watches everything we each do, and they form opinions based on that information. Those are judgments. I can stop it no more than a frog can stop hopping. It's what we do. It's how we understand one another. Form our connections.. or whatever it is humans seek out. The only reason it's not so apparent from others is that they are kinder, gentler, and not aware of it. You don't need to be naive to miss that. Normal people just think that friends never think badly of them, never look at their decisions and make opinions of their character. Normal people trust enough to over look the fact that each moment we're assessing each other to keep each other within the confines of the 'rules.' "
"But I don't believe that anyone truly trusts me,, and I find it difficult to do it myself. You want us to talk, to exchange, and you want me to be nice about it, knowing I don't do that. You expect me to be someone I'm not. I use to do the same to you, and I've learned to move beyond it. "
Ari has an idea of how this is all going to end, but she keeps going. "I'll do a lot of things for you Eli, a gift I don't give to very many. If I have to choose between you and someone else...the odds are more than likely in your favor. I will even defend you, if I have to, and keep you safe from others like me. But I can't soften my words to make you feel better. Maybe that will hurt, and you'll feel judged...maybe you'll feel like I don't care. But I'll never lie. I will be honest because I believe in honesty. I'll tell you everything you don't want to hear, criticize your ideals, and push you. You're not naive, most of the time, you're not unaware of how bad the world can be, but you don't see everything. So when everyone else sugar coats their words and tries desperately not to hurt your feelings, I'll tell you exactly how I feel, and exactly what I think if you want to know it. I assume you do when we talk, but maybe I've been wrong."
She lifted a hand to pull a strand of hair from her lips, sliding it back behind her ear. "I'm sorry you had a rough time. That things didn't go the way you hoped, and it made you feel horrible. I'm sorry about your birthday. I didn't even know when it was. Or I might have visited. I can't even understand how you feel in 'unmaking' something, as I find the concept strange. I appreciate your sentiment. I find it puzzling, but I appreciate it anyway."
"Just don't expect happiness from me. It's not something I look for. I don't expect it. The world doesn't work that way. I can't give you that, no matter how much you want it. And I can't tell you about what I've been studying unless you anticipate looking at pages of raised dots or talking about how the world is put together or...whatever. I doubt that is a good idea given our past conversations."
"But I find it odd that I'm a person you come to when you aren't feeling as exuberant as usual. I've never been very cheery, or optimistic, or loving, or affectionate. And I have no reason to suddenly become that."
Elijah
[Manip+sub: I'm fine! +2, because seriously, no I'm not]
Dice: 7 d10 TN8 (1, 1, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )
Arionna de la Babin
[buuull - empathy]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 7, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )
Elijah
She can't see the way he looks right now, the way that his stomach tenses the way that he just looks at her like this was all some sort of expected. Like this was a punch he knew he'd walk into, but did it anyway. Even rubs his jaw as his breath catches in his throat.
"I'm… I'd better go," he says, stands up and starts to head for the door, towards his backpack, to rummage through whatever was there and determine whether or not he was actually going to leave produce for Arionna, "I'm not good company right now, I should let you get back to your studying."
"I'm a little too fake right now to be good company," which sounds like something conversational. Which sounds like just a matter of understanding when he isn't in a good headspace, "I wanted to try and be honest with you."
Arionna de la Babin
"Good company is boring company. I'd rather have your 'terrible' company than to study anymore braille. I know that may be difficult to believe, that I like something other than reading."
Ari senses something below the surface but.. nah it's probably nothing. He just sounds like Eli. "Were you? Were you completely honest? You sounded honest. You sounded genuine. I trust that you were. If you weren't, then you should be. Did you really visit because you felt bad and 'missed' having me around? Because if you did, I can't help but wonder why."
Elijah
"I'm never completely honest. I try to be, because I don't like lying to people, but I lie to people when I'm afraid of things hurting. It's funny, because at the core of magic I believe that there is Truth- pushing that aside negates the potency of our will and our desires," he says , contemplates for a moment before pushing forward. He hasn't finished picking up his things. Stalled.
"I came here because I like hearing you laugh, and I like seeing you happy, and I like making you happy. I ask about your family and the things you like and your passions and your goddess because I hate the idea of you being lonely."
this was honest, and he does sling his backpack over his shoulder at that point, "but I'm pretty sure you've told me before about how you don't need people and how you're fine being alone so... I guess that's kind of dumb of me. It's not born out of a need for you, it's for me."
Arionna de la Babin
"No. I need people, some people. I learned that. Sometimes you need someone there. Maybe just to keep you alive. But someone needs to be there. But I'm use to being alone. I'm use to it, so I accept it. There's no sense in being upset about what is an inevitable truth."
"You will never be alone. You will always have friends and people willing to do everything for you. I am the opposite. One day, Lavinia will probably die, and I'll have no mentor. You are only part here. And my mother is miles away, in body and in mind. So I am alone. "
There's a forced, small smile. "You shouldn't worry about me. I make up my own stories to entertain myself. And if I need someone to talk to, I can just look in the mirror. Or..well..you know what I mean." Ari slid off the bed slowly, stepping towards the door to unlock and open it.
"I think, if you want someone who is good at listening...Ian will help. If you want someone to make you feel better, Kiara will be there. Maybe even Grace. I'm just here to balance that." She stepped passed him, putting her hand on the railing and slowly making her way down with him. On the bottom step she paused, sliding her foot from left to right and then lightly tapping the floor to be certain it was solid. Ari made her way to the front door slowly to open it for him. "Drive safely."
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