Unbreakable [retro]

Aidan
"I know." Aidan said, pulling back enough that they could look at one another. "I know." And to what exactly?

Aidan knew that it wasn't how it was suppose to go. He might have been distant or finding it difficult to navigate human relations, but even among spirits, one did not take without giving in return, and you always asked. To not do so would stoke their ire, make them feel abused and betrayed. If you cared about something, you asked first. You asked, and you gave in return. It's why he was so kind to the spirits when others might try to twist them to their bidding. They were his family.

He used his sleeve to slide over his red face and pull the liquid from his eyes. It took a moment.. just a moment and he was lifting his face up, giving Elijah a smile as if nothing at all had happened. "You should eat. You wanted to dance tonight, right?" How easy it was to slide from one space t the other, to move from sadness to a smile, even if he was feeling torn.

"I...got your shirt dirty. I'll get you a new one." No, he didn't touch his dinner, but moved to the trunk to find a shirt that Eli could wear.

Elijah
"You should eat, too. C'mon, I'll even feed you," he said, small and mischievous smile but it's tinged with something. He was careful, now, maybe not uncertain but certainly tuned in. Aidan said he knew, he knew…

It didn't stop. Two years and it didn't stop. something about that hurt.

But they should eat, if there was dancing to be had, a tiny grin. He moves and tries to lean to grab Aidan's hand.

"It's just a shirt, I'll be okay," he said, "I could pair down to the undershirt if it makes you feel better, though."

Aidan

He wiped his sleeve across his face to get the lingering wetness from them. When Elijah took his hand, he was forced to stop. Aidan looka t him, dropping his brows in concern. "But...you can't dance in that. " He turned fully and held out his other hand. "I'll clean it for you. Maybe I can talk the dryer into drying it faster."

Aidan never ignored Elijah, even if it seemed like he had. Often he'd smile warmly, a recognition that he had heard, or give a tiny, brief giggle. "I'm just not really hungry. If i'll make you happy, I'll eat it though. But you have to let me clean your clothes."

Elijah

"It would make me incredibly happy if you are something," he did let go of Aidan's hand, taking a moment to unbutton his vest and carefully retrieve the pocket watch out of the pocket. He's so careful with it, so cautious, not at all cavalier with the thing. Odd for him, when one things about it, because Elijah was hard on so many other things. Furniture, clothes, motor vehicles. he put them to the test, to say the least.

"But I'm pretty sure this is all a ploy to get me shirtless," which he told Aidan with a grin. And a wink. He was in the middle of pulling off his over shirt and, in that moment, it became clear that Elijah? Wore a lot of clothing. Things stripped aside and he didn't even pop a button off. Elijah has a tattoo now, just the one- something in cobalts and indigo and navy up his side.

Aidan

"I'll eat." The smile lifted, glad to see that his friend would lift just a little if all he did was eat something. Aidan's head tilted just a little. "Why would I try to make you shirtless?" Because despite his past he still found it an odd thing to be concerned about. It wasn't that eh couldn't admire something for its beauty, but that he didn't feel overly stimulated like everyone else. It was a wonder...

He leaned in and down as the tattoo came into view. "Oh! This is pretty. Did Jenn do this?" He doesn't ask, but traces it, almost as if he's looking to see if it's completely smooth or not; Aidan's experience with tattoos was limited. "What does it mean? Did you gain status among your people?" And he means it in the sense of the magical. Aidan assumes...assumes that Elijah is in a tradition, though he hasn't asked or probed about which one, and how he's doing.

Elijah

And it was smooth, well past the point of being healed and sat on his skin like it had always been there, "yeah, Jenn does some pretty fantastic work. When we first moved to Denver, there was this guy who was going to pay her five hundred bucks for a tattoo, but he wasn't going to pay her if she fucked it up and she was super nervous- this is actually her practice piece. I might ask if she could do another one? I don't know, just let her do whatever it is she wants to do this time. People are picky about tattoos, sometimes I think you should just be happy with the art."

he doesn't seem to mind, doesn't flinch, doesn't lean in. Just, well, waits.

"They don't actually know what the serpent stone in Aberlemno was for. Some people think it's an astrological thing?" he said, "I haven't gained any status though. Hell, I don't think I'm even technically an apprentice in the Order? Like, legitimately? It's complicated."

Aidan

"I'll have to ask her to do one on me too. Maybe I can get Granna's face. Then she'll always be there to tell me when I'm not 'living to my capabilities.'" It made him give off a small laugh in delight. "I think she would hate it if I did that though. She'd think I was being silly and sentimental." He tapped his own chin, taking the clothes from Elijah slowly and setting them to the side. He held out a hand for his plate. "I promised I would eat." And Aidan never broke his promises. Promises were sacred.

"Order...Order.. Order.." He bobs his head as he thinks. He knows what that means, knows the word, and Oh, it finally hits. "Hermetics? The intellectuals?" He blinks, tilts his head to regard Elijah and then smiles brightly. "I told you that you were smart! Didn't I?"

Elijah

"Portrait tattoos are always for sentiment. Or, at least, usually. If you asked her, I'd bet she'd do it," he's conversational, and he sat down. Picked up the plate and handed it over to Aidan, "I'm pretty sure that, someday, you can swing it to where you don't have to eat anymore. Just kinda subsist off of the sun and the world. I don't know how it would work, but I'll figure out if it's possible."

He muses over this, settles back onto the floor and gets comfortable. Comfortable enough, at the very least, as one could be in the floor. "Yeah, like… like legit, the Order of Hermes kind of thing. I'm hoping that they'll actually, you know, keep me. Because I met this guy and he was basically like, hey, you seem like the kind of person that wants to save the world because you love it. And.. yeah."

He did. Maybe Kalen hadn't been completely wrong.

Aidan

Aidan takes the plate and he does eat, though he's eating slowly, forcing it down as he said he would. "Granna doesn't like sentiment. I think she's just old and she's seen a lot, and she's just sad she's not with her friends anymore." He put away all the fruit and was left with the beans and rice, and the vegetables. He could onyl imagine how people ate more than this every day, it was hard enough just to eat half of it.

"They'll keep you." He said, smiling and taking a bite. "Why would anyone not want to? You're smart, energetic, and I hear you have a really good punch. You'll do great. I know you will." Aidan leaned in a little, pressing a finger to his head. "My psychic powers say so."

"If you don't though, I'll still love you. Jenn will still love you. It just means you fit best somewhere else."

Elijah

"There was a Euthanatos in town who took an interest once, she was pretty cool… but I don't think I've got it in me to… y'know… do what they do," he doesn't seem terribly uncomfortable with the thought, but he laughed when he took a look at Aidan and his psychic powers.

He looked over, covered his face and leaned back on the floor. Elijah was a strangely physical. Perhaps not strangely so, he was attached to his body. The way it moved, the things it did. The things that he could feel under his skin and on his muscles and for a second he was pretty content to be laid up on the floor

A second, he looks, there's a small smile on his face.

"You'll still love me?"

Aidan

"Hmm.. No. I don't think it's you. I couldn't do it. I'm not much of a hedge trimmer though. I cry whenever the city folk come around to keep the plants nice and pretty. Even if they like it, I cry a little. And people.. I think people always have good in them. You just have to find it and have faith. They just don't feel it themselves." He managed the beans and then put the plate down for a moment. He had to breathe if he was going to eat anymore. 

Aidan admired Elijah. He was a pretty man. "I think it fits you. The tattoo. And the order." Because the ornament seemed like it only enhanced the art that was Eli. He liked Eli's eyes the best, but Aidan also believed that eyes really -were- the window to the soul. The deader the eyes, the deader the soul, but souls were never completely dead. Someone just had to heal them.

"Yes!" He said brightly. "I'll still love you. Being in a family isn't really...it doesn't really matter which family you're in, though it does help to have a family that's more understanding of you. If you want something Eli, you can do it with or without them. If they don't want you, it's because they didn't see how great you are...and it's better to be with a family that sees who you are and what you could be."

Elijah

His eyes were green. It was one of those things that got picked up in grass and plants and occasionally in nature when the world was springing forward into something. Green when something russet red cropped up and played off the contrast of it there. Sometimes in the shirts he wore, or sometimes against cherrywood floors. They weren't always bright, though. He was doing well. he wasn't scared, and that was saying something. He wasn't scared and he wasn't angry and for a lot of people in Denver it was hard to imagine him scared or angry or anything other than a young man filled with wide-eyed wonder.

"I don't have to be anywhere, but sometimes, I want to be somewhere," but he'll still love Elijah. So will Jenn. That… the mattered for something.

"Gah, have you always ben so zen?" he asked, "it… nothing seems to get to you. You're just… you're fucking unbreakable. You're like Jenn." Maybe there was admiration there.

Aidan

"You are somewhere Eli." He said softly. "You're here. You're on our planet. In a universe. And we're all here with you. You'll always have a place somewhere, even if you have to make it. You have your family, and Granna and me when you're here. You're somewhere with us. And Jenn is somewhere with you in Denver right? You've always got a somewhere." He pushed the plate aside and laid down on his stomach, putting his face near Eli's. He was staring at his eyes, staring at the color with that soft smile on his face. 

Aidan giggled. He never chuckled, he giggled or he laughed, but he never did anything half way, not when it came to expressing himself. "I'm not zen! But I don't know if I have or not. I don't remember a lot before meeting you. Or.. or before being in the ward. I guess I was! Why would I be anything else?"

"Unbreakable? I have bones. I can break. Is that what you mean?"

Elijah

Elijah was not at an age or a place where he could, or did, keep his hands to himself. He laid there, face close to Aidan's and his imagination wandered for a second, fingertips graze the line of his jaw, from his chin up past his cheekbones over and through his hair. It's a slo sort of appreciation, a delicate observation and a hand that was steady.

"You are zen, or… I dunno, I hope I'm using the word zen right there… you're try comfortable with the universe," his voice travels the scant distance necessary to be heard, he comes a little closer and his nose almost touches Aidan's for a moment before he pulled back, "and yeah, unbreakable… like… the sort of indomitable will that one has when they're poking reality's buttons. You… shit happens, and you know that it does… and you haven't fallen apart. And you aren't stuck. And… yeah. A different kind of unbreakable."

Aidan

Aidan was not sensitive about touching. He was not the sort of person that got upset when someone was in his space. Someone was always in his space, even if others didn't see it. Sometimes he even forgot that he was separate from other things, or that he had his own mind - so close they were. He did not take it personally either, not in the way others might. He found Elijah's hand to be warm, comforting. There was a reason he told Elijah what he did, and there was a reason that, no matter what, he didn't mind of Elijah was close with him. He didn't connect the two experiences. 

Aidan nuzzled into the hand, much like a cat. He closed his eyes and let out a small sound of joy. It made him feel loved, though there were no shortages of things or people that did that, whether they realized it or not.

"When your watch breaks, do you hate it? Does it feel uncomfortable? If you lose a gear, does it make you so sad that you can't love it anymore? The universe is missing gears, and some just need to be tuned right. It's broken, in a way, but that doesn't mean there aren't parts in it that are in good condition, that can't run for years. The universe is broken but I still love it. It's because it's broken that we get to be different people."

When their noses touch, he shrinks hi head with his shoulders momentarily. "Eskimo kiss!" 

He blinked slowly, letting his eyes slide to the floor. "What should I be doing? There has to be hope right? If there isn't hope then there's no point. If we lose that, then how do we keep going?"

Elijah

"Sometimes… I don't think the universe is broken. I think that it's becoming something else… I think pats of it are falling off… but I don't think anything… really, truly, breaks. I think it becomes the pieces we rebuild from… the universe is missing some gears, but only because they need to become something else… sometimes I don't think I like what the missing gears become, but that's not my choice," he says. Hand stays in Aidan's hair. His attentions are lazy, but intent. Content. Any number of things with a positive connotation.

"Maybe it's just because I don't like to think about it as being broken. If something's broken, really and truly broken, you can't rebuild. It's just… gone," a little sadness there. Something that tinges the edges of his voice. Something that touches his tone and gets to spark in his eyes.  "I dunno."

"There has to be hope, and that's… I think that's the thing, it's that you still have hope, and you don't let anything or anyone or whatever the universe has in store steal that. And it is one of the things that makes you so fucking beautiful, Aidan," which was when he pulled in. leaned in and softly (not not tentatively) pressed his lips to Aidan's. Of course, only if he'd let Elijah do so. Something that was quick, something that was filled with a sort of adoration that Elijah couldn't put into words, couldn't figure out how to put into words but there it was.

Aidan

"Is anything ever really broken? Or do people just give up? Everything can be fixed. Even the stuff that looks all broken and unfixable." 

"Did you lose hope Eli? Did someone steal what the universe has for you? I've seen you when something you really love is taken away, but you don't seem that way now. That means you have hope too." Aidan gave Eli a small smile, one tinged with affection. "Really? When everything happened after you left, I just told myself that I had to leave someday, and maybe I'd see you again. I always tried to remember that, so I think that's why I was OK."

The kiss was unexpected, but he didn't move. These are tokens people give, to show they care. He's observed them enough to understand that, so he returns it easily. It was appropriate for Eli. He was someone important.

Elijah

Elijah was surprisingly affectionate. One couldn't be terribly surprised, he'd been affectionate before he'd been in the hospital, though more desperate, more terrified, more heart-poundingly nervous finding the nearest person to hold onto that would make all of this stop for five minutes. People that knew Elijah weren't surprised to say that he was affectionate, that he didn't quite know strangers. He'd been a small, wide-eyed child who tried to wander off with whomever happened to be around at the time. His parents had been convinced that it was going to get him kidnapped someday.

Did he lose hope?

"For awhile," he said, "for awhile I did… being somewhere else really, really helped. I don't know what would have happened if I'd stayed here."

He doesn't, but he doesn't even understand how bad things could be. Doesn't understand that the world could have slipped away, that he could have skipped irrevocably into a kind of madness mages don't come back from.

"I might come back and stay at some point… Probably not soon, it's… it's really fuckin' loud, ya know?" like anywhere else would be quieter. He's a lot easier with Aidan than he is with other people, a lot less forward, a little more considerate of space. Gestures given like tentative chiminage to a spirit whose bans he doesn't quite understand. He pulls back enough to breathe, pulls back and his cheeks are flushed and his eyes drop. "I'm glad that Baton Rouge is good for you. And I'm happy that you have Granna and a place and… y'know, you're doing okay."

Aidan

"I know." He says. He knows how 'loud' the place can get, knows that it's not just the humans lingering around that are chattering. There are other things, more things that want to stop in for a chat whenever you're around. Then there are the people. Aidan understands, better than most people, but it's become life for him. It's become how the world works. It's difficult for him to imagine a world without all the chatter. How lonely it must be.

"You should stay in Denver." He says warmly, acknowledging that, while he'd love to have him around all the time, he knows how painful it is to be there; Elijah never come back for long. "It's good for you. That's where your people are now, right? It's the place for you. You'll always have a place here, but it's not a place for you."

There's a pink color to his cheeks when Elijah pulls away and he cants his head to the left, observing him curiously. "But?" Because he knows there is something else. He can hear it, in the phrasing. "I'm happy anywhere, as long as there is someone to talk to."

Elijah

"It's nice to have options," he admits. Having places for himself, that is. Having the option to be places; he doesn't know that he might have the option to go to Boston in almost a year, doesn't know that he'll turn it down because Denver really is a place for him. Doesn't realize it's a place for him even then, either. He can't see the future yet, probably for the best.

There's a but in his statement. There's a flush to his cheeks, and Aidan isn't stupid. Aidan isn't clueless, either- he doesn't really try to hide that there is something else there but Elijah can't figure out for the life of him- loquacious creature that he is- what words to use to articulate it.

"But.. yeah… I didn't realize I missed you as much as I do," he said, "and it makes me… y'know… not want to leave."

But he's going to leave. That much goes without saying.

Aidan

Aidan leaned in and kissed Elijah on his forehead. "You have to. This place isn't a place where you can grow. You need a sunny place, not one that's in the shade." He pushed himself up off the floor slowly, picking up his plate to shovel in what he had left, and putting it away. Aidan popped open his trunk to pull out another long sleeve, loose but not as loose the one he wore, and made of pale pink yarn with a white bunny in the middle. "This good for dancing?" Because only Aidan would go dancing in rabbit long sleeve pink sweater.

He sets it on the bed and peels off his own shirt, showing off his scrawny frame. He dropped the shirt with Elijah's pile so he could at least get them all together. Aidan scooped the laundry in his arms."If I could come with you, I would."

Elijah

He looked up from the floor, still sprawled and still content to be where he was because the floor was cool and he was comfortable and there were a number of things he could be doing front he floor but he was rather pleased with the angle that he was looking at Aidan rom. At the new way that light played off his features and the way that his hair fell.

"I think so, so long as you don't think you're going to overheat," he told Aidan, "hydration is pretty important? Like, if you're not careful you might pass out."

a beat.

"Also, don't take any pills anyone gives you. They're not sweet tarts. They are pretty much never sweet tarts."

Aidan

"Oh." So he'd need something lighter, something not so warm. Did he have much of that? Aidan had never really been the sort to show off skin all that much. "Pills?" It was wise of Elijah to tell him now. If he hadn't told him, the chances were high that he would likely consume whatever was handed to him without a second thought. Could anyone really trust him in a building full of people?

"I'll get these in the wash." He left the apartment quietly, taking several moments before he popped back in and exposed his teeth in a bright smile. "Won't take long!" He closed the distance between them and sat on his knees next to Elijah, leaning over him. "So what neat people did you meet in your new home?"

Elijah

"There's a woman named Sera who has… I don't know… she's just fucking striking and her hair is blonde and brown and she showed me the heartbeat of the universe. It.. it fucking blew my mind, made me rethink whether or not there is anything to being separate beings or if we're all interconnected and it was beautiful beyond measure, to the point that I think that beautiful doesn't even fucking cut it," he grinned bright, still on his back, gesturing at the ceiling and outlining various and sundry things while he thought.

"And there's this guy named Ian who is, like, a legit ballet dancer. He took me winter camping… then, there's Grace, who is fucking amazing with computers but has this ultra personal space bubble and Kalen-" his voice catches when he mentions Kalen. Fondness, yes, but something… a little more complicated.

"Kalen's, no joke, the first person I met in Denver and he gave me my pocket watch. I remember we were sitting on the floor in his house and it was covered in piles of things and stuff and there were crystals and playing cards and tarot decks and a wand and cigarettes and lighters and incense and, like, things. And every bleeding one of them had a story and he explained that sometimes when you do magic you have to have something that focuses the effect, and something that keeps you grounded and held onto the idea and you have to find what works for you," he said. There was a second, "the place wasn't substantial, like… I remember seeing the barrier between worlds fade and it's like… there wasn't enough investment in the house to make it real and there but I wanted to show him the stars there."

He wanted to show Kalen a lot of things, wanted to share what meager world-shattering things he had with him. Wanted to make him proud. There was a fondness in the tone.

"He's really great."

Aidan

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 6, 6, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )

Elijah

Elijah Poriot loves Kalen Holliday.

It's not something small, not something tiny and understated and unspoken. There is a love there that forgives any number of things, a love and a desire for acceptance and a desire for companionship that Elijah actively sabotages on a regular basis because he can not handle the idea that someone cares about him unconditionally. Something that he can't handle, can't get that Kalen isn't going to abandon him even though he has done a number of things to try and push the other man away.

There is distance, things Elijah can't quite communicate. A strange desire to be near and be a source of pride while, at the same time, acknowledging that he can't actually be that. Understanding and playing up to the idea that he's a failure, that there are limitations, that there are barriers he can't begin to surpass.

There is distance, like a wound healing. There is distance, like a creature unsure. He loves Kalen, yes, and he wants to trust him but…

He doesn't trust easily. Not in the way that a student has to trust their mentor. There is something immature in their relationship, at least on Elijah's end. A fear of disappointment, the expectation of rejection. There is something that is fractured there, and Elijah believes he has broken it. Doesn't know how to fix it, so instead he leaves the proverbial vase taped together. Doesn't touch it lest it fall apart again.

But he loves Kalen. Adores him in the way a student does their mentor, admires the skills he has. Admires the vision he has, the things he can do and the things he wants to do. There is an attraction, most assuredly, but it is overshadowed by the person behind it all.

Aidan

He leaned over Elijah, putting a palm on the other side of the floor by his neck. He blocked some of the light from the apartment, almost forming a halo of light around Aidan's head. "We are all connected." He wanted to say that they were all the same, but he usually forget that part, only because the idea of separation feels strange to him. "These are all your people? They sound beautiful. Did you tell them you see places they can't?"

"Is he your teacher?" Like Granna was his. She had found him after he was discharged, homeless, talking to something, someone on the street....though she knew, could see. She could feel him there, as he sat, having a conversation without any care for anyone else. He had been much thinner then, as he had given what food he had to others who had been on the street longer. Aidan never minded helping. 

"He sounds like Granna." There was a knowing smile on his face, the sort that said he understood how Elijah felt. "Sometimes I think our teachers are really just a part of ourselves that manifests, or maybe we're a part of them, and they're just connecting with the part they've lost. He brings it out in you. The shine." Aidan curled his arms on Elijah's chest and set his chin on them. "That's why you're doing better."

Elijah

Is he your teacher?
"It's not permanent," he says, perhaps a little sad. A little reluctant to leave Kalen but he knows it will happen. Knows that, at the end of things, he'll go study with some other mentor in some other house and it'll be for the best but he'll miss Kalen. Even though it didn't necessarily mean that Kalen was going to be going anywhere. "But, for now… yes."

There were things he could say, but there were issues of impulse control. There were things he could say, but they weren't coming to mind because Aidan was right there and so lovely and just… he wanted to be with someone he could shower in adoration, he wanted to elicit delight in the younger man, he wanted to map and trace every vertebrae, every inch of skin, and he'd been attracted. Of course he'd been attracted.

There was a question that lingered- if they knew what he could hear? If they knew how his world worked on some fundamental level, but he didn't answer it, instead doing a little repositioning, letting his hands trace down Aidan's spine. Over the lines of his frame and his mind wandered. He let out a long, shuddering breath. Self control waned and he explored details.

"How long do we have until laundry's done?" he asks, trying his best to sound casual. Couldn't quite manage.

Aidan

"You're close with him. More than the others. I think that's good. Why will he change? Is something wrong?"

Aidan did not consider himself a sexual creature, and those who knew him might have felt the same way. He never showed an interest in either sex, other than to admire how beautiful they were. Love was not the same for him as it was for others. He didn't need sex. That did not, however, mean that his body didn't react, it just didn't react as quickly as others. 

Elijah was beautiful, and they shared something that others didn't. They saw things, heard things. They shared vulnerable moments with one anther, even if Elijah didn't realize how vulnerable even he had been. Elijah shudders, strokes Aidan's spine and Aidan let's out a soft 'mm' sound to show his appreciation. There were others parts that were responding in kind, though he was enjoying simply having Eli back in town, and touchable. 

"Hm? You know I'm not good with time." He let out a small laugh. "Um. twenty minutes? Then the dryer for.. time. I don't know how long. I just check it when I remember."

Elijah

There were things he wasn't even ready to say to Aidan, for fear it may upset him. He doesn't mention trying to kill himself, he doesn't mention the attempts, but the two didn't need to. Aidan could probably guess that Eliah was self-destructive. He knew him well enough, he was in the hospital with Elijah. If he didn't have something outward to focus on, he'd turn inward. He wasn't the picture of coping skills.

"We're not going to be part of the same house," he explains, "there are things I can't learn from Kalen. It's… it's just a thing, is all."

His hands continue along his spine, down along the contours of his hips. He's careful, exploring, but there's a quiet delight in his features. A quiet delight in wanting to be close and wanting to be there and with someone he'd actually given a shit about. Truth be told, that was rare. Truth be told, Elijah's had an abundance of sex, but only very rarely connected with people. Only rarely was it an exchange of something other than physicality. And there is a reaction, a physical one, the tinge of something insistent. The press of the hints of arousal and that delight that Aidan was there and wasn't very adamantly opposed to such attentions.

"I don't want to hurt you," he admits, "I don't want to push and fuck things up so.. if you're ever like… well… you realize you can tell me to knock it off, right?"

Cautious, searching, this is okay, right?

Aidan

"Oh." Each family was different, he understood that much, and that some people had different skills. Granna could teach him because she could see the spirits just as he could, but others had to use magic. Granna could understand his oddity, his weird behaviors. In that way he could...maybe.. understand why Elijah couldn't stay with his mentor. That was a little sad to him, having to leave someone behind. 

That wasn't as important now. The color rises into his face. He likes the affection, and where it would normally be simple, and benign, it was instead arousing. His hips shifted a little under Elijah's touch, though not away from him, only into it. 

But what he says is a little surprising even to him and Aidan can't help but give him a reassuring smile. He slipped his hands up and placed them along either side of Elijah's face. Aidan leaned into him. "You can't hurt me, remember? I'm unbreakable."

Elijah

There are so many analogies for kissing, for the way that someone presses their lips to another when they want nothing more, but it isn't as though Elijah is drowning. it isn't as though he can not think of a world where he would not be kissing Aidan, instead his lips are against his, something small and quick at first. Something small and testing and tasting before coming back a second time, then a third- that third time he does lean in, comes close and it is more than tasting. He is more than testing the waters he's there because he wants to be there. Like he needed to kiss Aidan, like the world might fall out from under him if he didn't.

He rolls his hips, presses into the other young man before slipping his hand around his waist. Aidan's thin, he knows this much, knows he could stand to eat more than he does, but he doesn't press. No, more than that he is reveling in the differences there. Acting on something that had, at once, been a passing thought. Something Elijah hadn't realized was an option but all he could think was that he wanted to give praise, pay attention, give the hints of worship and adoration and exaltation to someone so clearly deserving.

There is a moment when he pulls Aidan close, puts an arm about his waist to hold him steady so he could turn enough, maybe coax the other blond onto his back. He pulled back long enough o breathe, ragged and eyes closed but there was a smile on his lips. Not a word from his lips, though.

Meetings.

Elijah
[Manip+sub: Of course I sound calm, Kalen! You probably want me to sound like I'm totally prepared, so- tada!]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 8) ( success x 3 ) [Doubling Tens]

The Hermetics
The Order's presence in Denver had been rather sparse, of late. Particularly now that Trent was gone, there wasn't much in the way of chain of command. So one could not fault Elijah if his response to Kalen's news of an impending visit from two high ranking Hermetics was... perhaps a little on the anxious side. Seeing to the proper placement of someone else's apprentice hadn't exactly been on the agenda for Richard Oenomaus and Orrin Zephyr when they'd landed at the airport, but nonetheless here they were: pulling up to Elijah's building in a silver BMW. The two men were dressed in professional attire (as befitted their rank and status.) The younger of the two had a flair for bold colors, and as such he paired his black suit with a brilliant azure silk tie. His companion (who looked to be somewhere in his early 40's,) had chosen a grey suit and tie with a simple white shirt (though the make and quality of the material were quite high.) When they exited the car, they cast a long, appraising glance over the building before making their way to the door. One of them pressed the buzzer on the intercom to alert Elijah to their presence.

Elijah
Kalen gave him a call. Kalen gave him a call stating that he was going to be having company soon.
"Oh," Elijah replied, voice casual and the sound of a running sink on the other end, "okay. I'll look forward to it."

There may or may not have been pleasantries exchanged, but the phone was hung up shortly enough. His eyes drifted back to the dining room table, where Jenn had holed up with all of her books and resources and brownies and cappuccino and cereal (why does she have so many cereal bowls? Why can't she just wash the one cereal bown instead of building a freaking cereal bowl fortress?) Then his attention went to the living room.

They'd both been studying, between Jenn deciding she wanted to finish her bachelors degree a year early and trying to independent study her way into an applied art degree and a minor in psychology so she had hit the books hard. Got bored and occasionally picked up.... whatever it was that Elijah was reading. Going over notes that were scattered all over the place into stations where things are scrawled in French on brick in chalk- diagrams drawn and wiped out and drawn again (and redrawn by Jenn with very explicit instructions as to how something was supposed to look because she had an eye for space and depth when he had theconcept of what was there, yammered on about why something had to be a certain color or a certain size the same way he talked about an offset press or handmade paper)And sometimes notes were taken on the floor as well. If he'd been able, one could assume Elijah might have let musings filter to the furniture; he'd never grown out of drawing on walls. It just evolved.

Elijah had just grown to accept that if he was going to keep his butterfly attention moving he had to keep moving. He had to go from place to place and subject to subject and going back and revisiting and going to something else when he could feel his attention start to slip so it made the apartment a disaster. Not even organized chaos, he had to explain what took him where, at what point he got interrupted by something or someone talking to him. Or talking near him. Anything to be a distraction.

"Shit," Elijah hissed. The young man immediately went to picking up the various bowls of whatever it was Jenn was eating- a one woman soggy cereal buffet, which was enough to get the recently blonde woman to  poke her head out of the bathroom. She had somewhere to be in an hour; she'd spent the last twenty minutes doing her hair and the last three dreamily brushing her teeth while her mind wandered to things like how nice it would be to blow off this client and go to sleep. Hashtag tattoo artist problems. At least she'd already gotten dressed.
"What are you doing?" she asked from behind her toothbrush, Jenn meandered to the sink and spit, "I was gonna finish that."
"They're coming, like, right now," Elijah was dumping things into the sink, heedless of whether or not they had a garbage disposal (they did not), and haphazardly shoving dishes in the sink.
"Who?"
"Them," Elijah replied whileawkwardly flailing towards the living room.
"Oh!" she made a rush for the living room to pick things up.

He was trying to take care of the kitchen until he realized exactly what it was Jenn was doing. "Waitwaitwait! Don't move things, there's a system."
"There is not a system," she told him flatly.
"There is a system, there has always been a system-"
"Ugh, trade me," Jenn told him as she stoped her way back to the kitchen and Elijah went to... doing whatever it was Elijah had to do to get chalk off the walls. And the floor. And pick up papers, and get distracted by-

"Elijah. Papers," Jenn snapped.
"Oh! Right!"

Back to cleaning.

The kitchen was done and-

There was a buzzer on the intercom. They both stopped, staring mortified at the little intercom like it was some harbinger of doom. Elijah swallowed hard. Jenn straightened herself out.

"How much time do you need?" she asked.
"Minute and a half."
"I can do a minute and a half."

---

The apartment was on top of a florist shop called Floral and Hardy- they had a decent amount of foot traffic and while one could call the building charming it had seem better days. It had definitely seen better days and while someone once loved this place, that time has long since passed. 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 attemtps at break ins hinted at the door frame but the door was still there. Still solid.

There was a feminine voice on the other end of the buzzer, "Laurent-Poirot residence."


The Hermetics
"Oh how charming, he's got a roommate." Jenn might be able to pick up Orrin's faintly murmured background comment before Richard addressed her properly.

"We're here to see Elijah."

He did not offer their names (not to Jenn, at least.)

Elijah
[Elijah: Time 1- Perfect Time. Diff 4 -1 (because he's totally practiced this) +1 (because JESUS TRYING NOT TO PANIC)

Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (1, 4) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Elijah
[Aaaand one more]

Dice: 2 d10 TN5 (1, 3) ( botch x 1 )

Elijah
[Ow, Paradox, why?]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (1) ( botch x 1 )

Elijah
She lets go of the button and looks at Elijah. He's looking at his watch, the one with the hairline crack in the face, the one with the little bit of blood stuck in the floral filigree. She thinks he should be working, and he is. Just not the way she thinks.

"Minute and a half?" she repeats.

He looks at the watch again, bridges the gap and places a kiss on the top of Jenn's head. Lingers there for a minute when nerves get in the way and things slip and-

"You need to breathe," she tells him, arms around his waist for a second, "if you panic you're gonna blow it."
"I know," he tells her. Default and unfocused. She squeezes his ribs a little.
"Just let there be a fucking mess," Jenn says, "someone needs to judge you based on the quality of what's here, not whether or not you are weird when you study. Maybe they like weird studiers. They took Kalen. Kalen's kinda weird."

-and he can't stop thinking about how he's screwed up and-

Jenn takes the opportunity to bite him. Face in his chest, on her toes, teeth to his collarbone.

"-Owww!"
"Be in the moment," she grinned and took a step back, "minute and a half."

And it was down the stairs with her, taking two at a time.

The door opens and the gentlemen are met with a small bottled blonde with a couple eyebrow piercings and eyes that were warm and dark all at once. She's got a tattoo of some irises on one of her thighs that peeks out slightly under the gray dress she was wearing. These guys are old enough to be her dad, Jenn pretty well assumes looking at them that they're not going to be total creepers.

--

Elijah took a second and watched Jenn bound down the stairs, rubbing the place on his collarbone where she bit him. Jesus, he said, cheeks flushed, she's like a damn terrier. He looks back at the living room, a little less frenzied, a little more thoughtful, a little more meditative going over papers and making sure most of the books were put... somewhere.

Be in the moment, he thinks. He muses.

--

"Sorry," she apologizes with a little tilt of her head. "The buzzer system doesn't actually work right. Let me show you to the apartment."

and she takes the stairs one at a time this time, precariously perches herself in such a fashion that one can't necessarily pass her without being awkward.

These guys aren't stupid; she's stalling. She might even know why she's stalling.

"Did you manage to find parking okay?" it's finally to the door, B52. She reaches for the door knob, only to have it opened by the person they were actually here to see, which also happened to be blond, but naturally so. Jenn took a step back, Elijah gestured for the gentlemen to come in.

"Glad you could make it," his cheeks are flushed, his shirt is a little rumpled. There are books stacked neat inside of an open-legged coffee table. Because finally,finally they had another coffee table.
"Elijah, do you need anything?" she asked, brows raised, but something vaguely protective lurking there. Do I need to worry about them murdering you? that tone says at the very back of its chipper melody.
"No, I should be fine," Probably not? He hands her a purse and her car keys.

She smiles- wary, he smiles- tense but steady. She departs.

Elijah
[Awareness!]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 4, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 3 ) [Doubling Tens]

The Hermetics
When Jenn opened the door, she'd find herself being stared down by a couple of tall, distinguished-looking brunettes in very expensive suits. One of them - the taller of the two, with piercing eyes and a hawkish nose - was, in fact, old enough to be her father. The other (he had warmer brown eyes and a layer of facial hair) was actually only about a decade her senior. He slid his hands into the pockets of his suit jacket and tilted his head, regarding her with an expression that lingered somewhere between amusement and casual interest.

The older gentleman was entirely unmoved. But if he felt any annoyance at the delay, he didn't say so. Instead, he and his companion followed Jenn up the stairs. When she asked about parking, he replied simply, "We did."

Elijah opened the apartment door, and when he did he felt a wash of resonance pool over him like a tidal wave. The younger of the Hermetics was as flashy as one would picture a Flambeau: bold, dazzling and swift. The older had a static aura of authority to him: focused, refined, piercing, commanding and judicious. A Champion and a Judge. The Hermetics observed the exchange between Elijah and Jenn without interrupting, only stepping inside once the latter had departed.

"Adept Major Richard Oenomaus, bani Quaesitor. My companion is Adept Major Orrin Zephyr, bani Flambeau." Richard kept the introductions short this time. "Thank you for having us." There was a tired and slightly haughty tone lurking beneath Richard's polite words. Elijah could not have refused them entrance even if he'd wanted to, a fact that everyone in the room was likely well aware of. "We're here because we were told that you were looking to apprentice to House Shaea. Is this true?"

Elijah
He just has to stand there for a minute. Not a full minute, not an actual minute, but he does stand there. Not blank so much as just... processing. Like this was some age old wine and he's some would-be sommelier who is going to be asked about its undertones later. There's a second where he looks intimidated, doesn't back away just yet, but there's a second when it's clear, a flicker of something that makes him think he's in over his head. What was he thinking, these two are-

Stop.

It only lasts a second, and there is the panic and the tension and like it's all just something he could turn off with a switch it stops. It's like the name hits him, it's like the rank hits him, it's like the situation hits him and he seems to realize that fear and respect aren't the same thing and he doesn't need to be afraid of this. He needs to respect them, yes, but he doesn't have to be afraid of that moment.

Some of the tension drops. Maybe he just cons his way into thinking it shouldn't be there, but something does drop. Elijah could be confident if he needed to be, Elijah could be polite if he needed to be, he could be a lot of things if he needed to be but he never let himself because... well, because. He regards these two with perhaps a little bit of awe, just a little, because they were standing in his fucking living room and they were paragons of where they came from. A Judge and a Champion.

Respect and fear weren't the same thing. Respect and hero-worship weren't the same thing, either. He keeps it all tempered, at least, for now.

"That is correct," he says, confirms, "from what I understand, things traditionally go very... differently. Than the way they have now."

No good, no ill, no judgment. Just a statement of fact. Elijah came about to this situation differently.

The Hermetics
"It's not entirely unheard of for an apprentice to change Houses." Orrin walked through the living room as though he were a prospective buyer, inspecting the space with a casually interested gaze. He made note of the furniture, the books, the general sense of the place that made it seem very much the apartment of two eclectic, intellectual, artistic young students. "Though for the life of me I can't imagine why anyone would leave Flambeau in order to go live out their life in some dusty library." His tone, unlike Richard's, was warm and playful. (Teasing, perhaps.) Richard glanced at him, but did not immediately respond. Instead he gave the room a cursory glance and took a seat on Elijah's sofa.

"The situation in Denver is not ideal for prospective students of the Order. Your apprenticeship should have been given more consideration than it was, and if you truly are meant for Shaea, you should have been sent to one their libraries - not kept here under the care of an entirely different House. However, I am less interested in dissecting the process by which you were recruited than I am in determining what the course of your future with the Order should be. Bearing that in mind, Orrin and I will be asking you some questions. Please have a seat."

Richard directed that last comment to Elijah, but his eyes swept over to Orrin a moment later, as though to include him in the request. Orrin dutifully took a seat beside Richard on the sofa, leaving a cushion between them. He unbuttoned his jacket as he got comfortable, crossing one leg over the other and leaning back to stretch one arm across the spine of the sofa.

Elijah
[Per+empathy- am I supposed to sit on the couch?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 5, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )

Elijah
He takes a seat in a nearby chair, one that he pulls away from the front door that is usually home to various bags and coats and whatnot that should probably exist on a coat rack but neither Jenn nor Elijah believe in coat racks as an institution and have only recently begun to believe in coats (because Colorado gets cold, what the Hell?)

"The book smell sells it a little," he told Orrin with a grin, "but it does that because the chemical compounds start to break down? So it's kind of like, oh, here, have all of this information, by the way it's slowly decaying into a pile of dust, have fun!"

He sits down, but he does not get comfortable. Briefly conversational, but his posture doesn't let down. This is an interview, he doesn't slouch at interviews, either. There are notes that he would rather be doing any number of things, that his posture is prone to sprawling but his vest stays straight and he hasn't wrinkled his pants but he's still got half a dozen bracelets on one hand and a necklace he can't actually take off because it's tied on and he can't get the knot to give (tucked into his shirt, but the cord peaks out).

He knows things about space, about body language. He knows that people who are confident misuse space, take up more of it. Elijah is watching, taking note of cues from body language. He's watching like this is the first test he's actually studied for and the only one that ever mattered. But it's taking every. Blessed. Fiber of his being to sit still, because he doesn't fidget but he doesn't seem, doesn't feel, doesnt' radiate the feeling that he should keep still. At his core there is unrest, at his core there is something that rails and insists against complacency, a revolution with direction.

"Alright," he says. They'll be asking him questions. Alright is a perfunctory word, a useless word, and he knows it. They're going to ask him questions, and he's going to answer them. He doesn't need to give his affirmation that this is something he's going to do. Not resentful, but... perhaps a tad eager.

The Hermetics
You could tell a lot about a person based on the way that they took up space. Orrin radiated the kind of inborn confidence one might likely expect from a champion of the Order.  More than that, though, his posture was relaxed. He took up residence on a perfect stranger's couch as though that couch belonged to him. Richard, on the other hand, sat straight-backed and serious, with one hand perched upon his knee and the other resting lightly on the arm-rest. Looking at him, one would be hard-pressed to imagine him lounging anywhere.

"First I'd like you to tell me," Richard asked, "why you'd like to join the Order, and what it is you think you have to offer us."

Elijah
"Okay," an awkward pause while he looks for a place to dive off of, "it's words. More importantly, it's language. The Order's view on language- that there is power and beauty and strength and everything essential to being in language. In words, in definitions because they're freeing and they give things a shape, empower them, make things real because it was given a name- and then you have the entire idea that the being informs the definition and the definition informs the being. I am, that I am, that words and a Voice could come out of the Void and bring everything into existence.

"It's... Back with words and names, it's-it's like..." he's gesturing, hands nopt wild but he is trying so desperately to not get up and pace and ramble as he is prone to do and being still is just antithetical to who and how he is. Movement creeps in.

"It writes our being into poetry, or really just helps hammer home that our being is poetic. And I think," he pauses, like he's hesitant to share that, as though that sentiment is personal, "I think that's beautiful. That's really what drew me in, I wanted to explore and expand and embrace symbolic communication and metaphor and something where every movement and every thought and every step has a process and tells a story."

BUt what did he have to offer? That one made him think, mouth quirked to the side for a minute, "that's probably the big one, I mean. Say too much and you're full of yourself, pick the wrong words and the details get lost." YOu're stalling, he hears. Exhales hard. Once. Focus.

"What do I bring to the table..." a second, "acting as an impartial third party in dealing with dead people doesn't quite seem to be the Order's thing so I don't think my whole Haley Joel Osment situation quite applies here."

He realizes he's rambling, clears his throat, takes a second. He's nervous, anyone who has ever been in a job interview knows that he's nervous, probably can tell that he's a nervous talker. Has to remind himself to focus.

Then, evenly, like a promise, "if something is to be done, and I have given my word on what that something is, even if it takes twenty years or a lifetime, if I am still drawing breath in my lungs, I will make that happen. Devote every resource, every second, every waking and dreaming moment I have to making that promise happen because you do not give your word lightly."

The Hermetics
One of the more frustrating things about the interview process was the lack of clarity when it came to the opinions of the people asking questions. In the face of cryptic and enigmatic silence, it was difficult to maintain one's confidence. But Elijah answered Richard's questions, and despite the pervasive intensity of the man's gaze, he managed to mostly hold on to his composure. Richard and Orrin listened while Elijah spoke, and only the latter gave any indication of approval. Even that was subtle, just the smallest lift of one corner of his mouth. Richard, on the other hand, seemed to neither approve nor disapprove. He simply took in Elijah's response and nodded. There was a brief pause before he continued, a few beats of potentially awkward silence for Elijah to stew in his own thoughts.

"Tell me what Enlightenment means to you, and how does one achieve it?"

Elijah
"Enlightenment is... it's a process. Enlightenment, to me, is what happens when you have moved forward and built up and torn down whatever is standing in your way, even if it's yourself. Especially if it's yourself... in fact, I might even go as far as to say specifically yourself. Strictly speaking, it's a gaining of insights or understanding or awareness. But those are just, you know, synonyms- they don't actually encompass everything that Enlightenment is they just hint at pieces of it because their definition comes close-" he takes a breath and seems content to continue "-I think, though, that at its core Enlightenment, to me, is Truth. It's becoming aware of what that Truth is and you get there through stripping off layers and challenging yourself and what you thought Truth really was."

He puts his hands in his lap, exhales, "I think you seek Enlightenment by refusing to believe that you are static, or that things are just good enough. But then you get into the ideal of Perfection and its pursuit and I think it gets kind of muddy there- is perfection an unreachable star, a goal to aim for? Or do you let the idea and whatever it embodies weigh you into inaction.

"There's no place for inaction when you're talking about Enlightenment. Enlightenment comes in doing. It's not passive, it doesn't just happen to you one day because you pushed a button forty thousand times unless you found some immutable, irrevocable, world-defining Truth in pushing a button forty thousand times. But... yes. Did that answer your question? I can always clarify."

The Hermetics
Richard shook his head, his expression still frustratingly difficult to read. "No need. Your response was adequate."

Beside him, Orrin cocked an eyebrow and fixed his colleague with an amused expression. He sat forward, placing his elbows on his knees, and regarded Elijah thoughtfully. "Where are you at with your study of the Ars Essentiae?"

Elijah
[WP: I am totally owning this.]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (6, 7, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )

Elijah
"Nowhere," he says honestly, and where there should be embarrassment there isn't. Just frank, genuine admission that he had made a questionable call. He could have been falling over himself at that juncture, "which I recognize isn't a wise decision."

And he's braced for reprimand, or for them to stand up, say that they would thank him for his time but there wouldn't be a place for him in the Order and he doesn't seem shaken. He doesn't seem like he's going to fall apart, he just seems ready. Accepting, yes, but ready for the worst.

"It's not a passive art, so conceptually I understand but not in its actual application, which will be remedied."

The Hermetics
Funny how sometimes a person could walk into a test and ace the tricky questions, only to fall flat on something incredibly basic. It happened more often than you might think: brilliant minds reaching for the stars only to forget where they've placed their feet. The Ars Essentiae (more correctly the Ars Virium) was indisputably the cornerstone of the Hermetic practice. The idea of it lived within their very paradigm. Strength. Energy. Light. Naturally, it was the Flambeau who asked this question. One could debate the finer points of Ascension all night, but what use was it without the practical skill to wield Ascension's tools?

Orrin's eyebrows lifted. His expression fell into something akin to both surprise and... offense, almost. "You've been studying with Kalen for how long now? A year? And you haven't even mastered the most basic sensory awareness?"

Richard glanced at his companion, a crease forming between his eyebrows. When he looked back at Elijah, he seemed to be weighing something in his head. (You could practically feel the scales shifting back and forth.) "I wonder who should take the blame for that deficit. But, truthfully... if he does begin an education with the Scribes, I've no doubt they will wish to teach him according to their own rituals. If you haven't yet grasped the Ars Virium, what is it that youcan do?"

Elijah
"Any gaps there would be my fault, you can teach someone something until you're blue in the face but it's up to them to learn it and I let- look, I'm not easy to deal with sometimes," he's quick to defend Kalen, and eager to take blame in that regard. To take ownership, at least. (Perhaps of something he didn't have complete purchase of, but he might not realize that.)

Inhale, recenter, exhale and continue. Things aren't hopeless, but things... don't look good. He'd have to be deluding himself to think that things were looking good at this point. One can tell that Elijah knows something is off, he's being still.

"Initially, I came to this city with a rudimentary knowledge of Ars Fati, Ars Spirituum, and Ars Temporis, which then expanded outward towards Ars Animae, Ars Mentis, and Ars Potentiae. When the capacity to expand towards more than just sensing things came, my attentions went elsewhere- I'll be honest, it was almost a case of ooh shiny instead of finishing out the entirety of the most basic understandings."

"I chose, instead, to my attentions to ars spirituum- because I found the parallel between how our world informs the umbra to be fascinating and I was interested in how one could affect change in one land by influencing another. You can see the impact of one on the other," now, there is a moment when he realizes he shouldn't be talking about this because the Order is a little gunshy about that particular art. Exhales and powers through, "though I recognize that one shouldn't actually go around poking otherworldly forces because there are consequences. But the knowledge of how one would be tempted to poke said forces seemed vital to not making future mistakes."

You've faltered before, he remembers, quiet and it lingers there with a thrown chair and screamed threats at a Voice who he never saw, something that was always behind some wall or some way hidden. Always, always, but he continues on.

"Then Ars Temporis, because I found it important to understand the potential consequences of our actions and inactions, so we can inspire ourselves to make choices or understand if the consequences of our actions are worth the cost- or to inform ourselves of events past so we don't have to rely entirely on second hand information, you can be in the moment, and more importantly you can tell when someone has altered the truth of that moment."

Exhale again, stillness reigns.

"Then I decided to focus more closely on Ars Potentiae because it's... it's the first thing I'd encountered that was perfect. That was in everything, the thing that all things can be yielded into, and I'll be completely honest the idea that, in a worst case scenario the fact that it can be broken into a consecrated, legitimate means of defense- with a cost mind you, but still- appeals. Because I've found myself in situations where things were going south and people were in danger and all I could do is stand around and try to unwrite whatever some terrifying Awakened murderer was throwing at people and getting nowhere... The creative and destructive and defensive potential appealed to me.:

The Hermetics
[(From Richard) Perception+Subterfuge - is there anything you're trying to hide from me right now?]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 8 ) [Doubling Tens]

Elijah
There are things that he learned from Kalen, and there are things he did not learn from Kalen. That much comes across, hinted that perhaps that interest in Ars Spirituum and the study therein had been largely independent, formed of his own intentions and his own interests because he wanted to know something. No one else was invested in that bit of information but him, but he wasn't going to broadcast it. Wasn't going to brag, wasn't going to fixate.

The rest is a little more of an issue of pride. He's putting on a brave face, putting up a frank ownership of what he's done (or hasn't done), but there's the tension, there's the stillness, there's the nerves creeping in and the doubt, and oh god, doubt is terrible. He's convinced this isn't going well, fighting for the urge to try and salvage what may or may not come and the easier desire of just abandoning ship, taking the easy way out, but he's staying the course. There's conflict there, he's committed, but he's young.

He might talk a big game, but this is a lot harder than Elijah is letting on.

Beyond that, there is mention of Ars Potentiae. There's a story there. He gave enough information but what he doesn't say is glaring. Something happened (and it was terrifying, and it shouldn't still scare me) and people were in danger (and I felt helpless) and Things Happened. (And I couldn't do enough/And I didn't know what to do/And nothing I could do was good enough.)

And I just stood there. (Coward.)

The creative and destructive and defensive potential appealed to me. (Because I'm not going to just stand there again)

There are things he doesn't say. Doesn't talk about vampires and his own cluelessness. Doesn't mention lovers' spats and being told to go home so the big kids could handle whatever problem was going on.

He doesn't mention the rest of the incident with Victoria. Doesn't mention finding bodies- or what was left of them- and trying hard to hold it together and not knowing how to try and take care of the people around him. Because he didn't know what to do.

Coward.

The Hermetics
Richard pursed his lips together, watching Elijah with an intense stare. It was the kind of gaze that was difficult to look away from, yet paradoxically overwhelming. Maybe that was a trick of his resonance, or maybe that was just a quality that all judges possessed. The sensation of it was of a razor slicing through whatever subterfuge or mental defenses Elijah might have had. Whether that was actually true (he wasn't employing that kind of magick here) didn't lesson the impression that here was a man for whom lies were little more than spider webs to be cut through and burned. He made a low, subvocal sound in his throat.

There were things, of course, that Elijah did not know about Richard Oenomaus. Such as his reasons for being in Denver (which, despite his present company and his current preoccupation, had little to nothing to do with either Elijah or Orrin,) or his connections to certain figures. He had no way of knowing just how deeply the powerful Quaesitor understood feelings of human frailty.

"The greatest conflict each of us must face is within ourselves. To that end, fear and failure are not character flaws, but teaching devices. The measure of a mage is his willingness and dedication to own up to his frailties, challenge, and ultimately transcend them. Even if it takes a lifetime to do so. You have a quick mind, Elijah, and your stated commitment is admirable. I think it remains to be seen whether you're capable of manifesting those lofty ideals in real work. Which is what it will take if you wish to survive your apprenticeship. But that's something for your next mentor to judge."

Richard got to his feet, smoothing the creases in his suit with one hand. "I'll speak with House Shaea. You should hear back from me within the week."

Orrin looked up at his colleague, but for once he kept his thoughts to himself. When he stood up, he nodded to Elijah, fixing the button on his jacket. Then the two men showed themselves out, leaving a trail of potent resonance in their wake.

And not a drop to drink

Ian
The weather out in Morrison was cool and slightly cloudy. At the Chantry, Annie was out on a riding lawnmower, cutting the grass in the front lawn. She glanced up when Ian's car wound up the country road and pulled into the driveway, watching him with half of her attention while she navigated the mower past the front steps. The sound of the the engine was a loud, echoing buzz through the otherwise still landscape.

When Ian got out of the car, he lifted a hand in greeting. She acknowledged him with a nod, strawberry-blond hair flickering around her in the breeze. She looked as if she'd been landscaping most of the day. Her skin was tanned, her forehead beaded with sweat despite the cool breeze. As Ian approached, she killed the engine and leaned forward onto the steering wheel.

"There's some beer in the fridge, if you want it. Dogfish Head I think."

"I might. Thanks. You should join me."

"Mm, maybe when I'm done."

She started the engine up again, and Ian hopped up the steps to let himself inside.

Elijah
He had come with the explicit intent to read. Elijah had a thing about libraries. A thing about burying himself in studying and feeling the quiet, bookish rush when he found something he didn't know, transcribed it somewhere personal for later. Quietly and neatly tucked away for his private use. Elijah didn't know there would be people here. He hadn't anticipated it, but then again he never really anticipates seeing people. It just happens. Kind of like showing up at parties and dancing and making bad choices with regards to women happens. Elijah just kind of accepted that some things happened.

When he pulls up, he notices a lady on a motor cycle. With strawberry blonde hair, and he's getting off his motor cycle and putting his helmet away and he gives a little wave.

"I haven't met you-" he says, but realizes that he isn't being loud enough over the mower. He's wearing jeans. Jeans and a shirt with three quarter sleeves that buttoned part of the way. He has a vest on, but it's buttoned tight. Pocketwatch nestled close against his ribcage.

"Hi, I'm Elijah!" he waved, "I've been using your crap-er-stuff! Do you need anything?"

Serafíne
Coincidence, something like it.  Five minutes, maybe ten after Ian pulls up outside the chantry another vehicle rattles up the driveway.  This one is larger and sketchier looking: an old conversion van with Colorado plates and a handful of peeling bumper stickets affixed to the back doors.  The engine ticks quietly beneath the hood after the driver turns it off and it sits there still for a long moment before both the driver's and passenger's doors open.  Dan hops out of the driver's side.  Sera sliiiiides down from the passenger's side, careful in her heels.
The tall consor loops around to the back and opens one of the back doors to grab a brown paper back from the back.  Handles that bag with both confidence (he asked them to double bag it) and care (that's top-shelf liquor in there) and lifts a hand to wave to Annie as he circles 'round to take Sera's arm.  She doesn't really move until he's by her side, seems absolutely enthralled by the way her toes wiggles.
Then she takes this deepdeep breath and lifts face to the cool, cloud-scattered sky.  Is: absolutely still for one long moment, marveling at its vastness and the way it makes her feel equally: immense and immeasureably small, grateful to have blood running through her veins, and - inexplicably, or perhaps not-so-inexplicably, briefly, spine-curvingly sad.  All of that, all at once, all liquid through her.
Then she takes Dan's arm and cuddles close and then head in too.  Why the hell not: their might be waffles inside, or lilies of the valley, or Ian, or whatever.




Serafíne
(Repost:  to fix typos AND paragraph breaks.)

Coincidence, something like it.  Five minutes, maybe ten after Ian pulls up outside the chantry another vehicle rattles up the driveway.  This one is larger and sketchier looking: an old conversion van with Colorado plates and a handful of peeling bumper stickers affixed to the back doors.  The engine ticks quietly beneath the hood after the driver turns it off and it sits there still for a long moment before both the driver's and passenger's doors open.  Dan hops out of the driver's side.  Sera sliiiiides down from the passenger's side, careful in her heels.
The tall consor loops around to the back and opens one of the back doors to grab a brown paper back from the back.  Handles that bag with both confidence (he asked them to double bag it) and care (that's top-shelf liquor in there) and lifts a hand to wave to Annie as he circles 'round to take Sera's arm.  She doesn't really move until he's by her side, seems absolutely enthralled by the way her toes wiggle.


Then she takes this deepdeep breath and lifts face to the cool, cloud-scattered sky.  Is: absolutely still for one long moment, marveling at its vastness and the way it makes her feel equally: immense and immeasurably small, grateful to have blood running through her veins, and - inexplicably, or perhaps not-so-inexplicably, briefly, spine-curvingly sad.  All of that, all at once, all liquid through her.


Then she takes Dan's arm and cuddles close and then head in too.  Why the hell not: there might be waffles inside, or lilies of the valley, or Ian, or whatever.




Kalen Holliday
Kalen also drives up to the chantry.  He hasn't really spoken to...really anyone who isn't living with him lately.  And, even then, he's been gone a lot.  Tango lessons and photography lessons and actual tango dancing and taking pictures, although never actually pictures of tango dancing.  Mostly pictures of nature, but sometimes streetscapes.  Abandoned places.  Lost things.

He has a growing collection of pictures of sunrise.  Some of the prints are tucked into the pages of books of poems in yet another place he can't bring himself to call home.  A place with vegetarian cookbooks and notes on brewing kombucha.  He brings echoes of that place with him though, echoes of something quieter and calmer and traces of the smoke from clove cigarettes and sage.

Annie gets a nod, but little other greeting.  Elijah gets a smile.  And then Kalen heads into the house itself.

Ian
Sera and Dan got a wave from Annie, a little more relaxed (more familiar) than she'd been with Ian. "You all decide to have a gathering I didn't know about?" The pitch of her voice rose above the buzz of the engine as the two made their way up to the house. The question didn't really seem to require an answer, as evidenced by the fact that she redirected her attention to Elijah a moment later.

He was trying to talk to her, so she cut the engine again (reluctantly) and got down off the riding mower. A pair of work gloves donned her hands, and she pulled them off one by one as she sauntered over to offer Elijah a proper greeting. "Elijah, you said? I'm Annie." She stuck out her hand for him to shake. "Feel free to head inside. I've got some work to finish up."

---

When Dan and Sera entered the house, they found Ian standing with Leah in the hallway. She had her back against the wall, lounging slightly as she spoke to him. She smiled a little. Tucked a section of her hair behind her ear. When she looked at Sera, her smile brightened momentarily. "Hey Sera." Ian glanced over his shoulder and nodded at them. He looked as though he was about to head into the dining room, but just then Kalen walked in the door, and he stopped.

He met Kalen's eyes for a long moment. Then he strode off toward the patio door.

Serafíne
WHAT WAS THAT IAN. (Per + Empathy)

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )

Elijah
(waaaaiiiit, WTF? +2, because he really wasn't paying attention. Per+empathy)

Dice: 7 d10 TN8 (1, 2, 5, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

Ian
[I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )

Kalen Holliday
[So many dice everywhere.  Perception+Empathy]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 4, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

Elijah
"Awesome, thanks! It's great to meet you Annie-" he takes her hand and gives it a shake. His smile is bright, his eyes are too, "-I figure when you finish up we could play three man or something."

He grins, something playful, but frankly anyone who knows the game knows that you really, really don't want to play three man. Not if you loved your liver. Not if you wanted to remember how the evening ended- frankly the only thing that gets you drunker faster is an illustrious game known only as fuck the bus. He wasn't sure why it was called fuck the bus, but Elijah didn't seem to really care. It got you drunk fast and involved playing cards.

In he went, and he did as he usually did, paused in the hallway, acknowledged anyone who came by. Ian got a wave, Kalen got a smile (and a note shoved under his door, hastily written trying to memorize library, bbl because Elijah would try to memorize a library if given the opportunity.)

"Hey, Sera. Hey, Dan," voice warm smile brighter, whole being reaching for more than what he was. Restlessness given a direction. Chaos reaching the bounds of what he is and trying for more. Insistent we are more than this

Elijah
(Elijah wasn't in the house for that look, sweeeeeep that under the rug)

Serafíne
"Leah."  That's Dan.  Half-greeting, half-reminder murmured into the soft fringe of Sera's sidecut as they walk in and he disentangles himself from the tugging insistence of her arm, looped through his.  It does seem to remind her.  She pulls herself upright then, through the shoulders at the spine, and smiles warmly back at the girl.

Lifts up her hand - palm flat and open - and waves, this deliberate and segmented movement of her fingers that makes the tendons in her wrist move like the hammers in a piano as glissades down a scale.  The dark ink on her skin: on her forearm, framing her hand, inside her wrist, following the delicate branches of her pale blue veins.  The warm bronze of the little ring she always seems to wear on her right index finger.

She is wearing tiny little denim cut-offs, an expensive black bra beneath an unzipped black hoodie and strappy black sandals, sky-high heels, laces wrapped up her calves to her thighs, decorated with a scattering of butterflies.  Why the fuck not?

Catches the look from Kalen to Ian, back again.  Glances at Elijah and smiles at him when he greets her, then turns back to Dan as the latter unpacks the liquor they've brought onto the kitchen counter.  Murmurs something against his shoulder.

Kalen Holliday
And everything was so perfect until he actually got here, wasn't it?

Everything is always perfect, until he actually touches it.  And then...well...and then it changes.  Transforms.  Liquid and shimmering into something else.  Everything is always doing that, though.  Whether he touches it or not.

It doesn't always end badly, does it?  Depending on at what point you consider a thing ended.  What is an ending really, in a world where science advocates transformation over destruction and magic...well...magic indicates a world of infinite possibility? Just a pause?  The space between heart beats?

He takes a breath and slips past Serafine and Dan, there is a light brush of his fingertips on Serafine's shoulder, and (if he doesn't move away or give some negative indication) Dan's.  Welcome to being a person Kalen accepts into his world Dan.  He mostly indicates this by touching you.  Leah, whom he doesn't recognise, gets a little nod.

And then he is beyond them, and he too heads for the patio.

Ian
Elijah suggested they play a game of three man, to which Annie just snorted with dry laughter. "Yeah, no thanks kid." They parted ways, with Elijah heading into the house and Annie hopping back on the riding mower. Those inside would make out the muted growl of the engine as it came back to life. She'd likely be out there for a while yet. Even just the manicured part of the property was big enough to make grass cutting a sizable chore.

"I like your shoes," Leah offered to Sera (because Sera's shoes were amazing.) For a moment her attention turned to Kalen, glancing between him and Ian's departing figure. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. Fidgeted slightly with the hem of her t-shirt. After a pause, she began to follow Ian and Kalen outside, but seemed to think better of it when she reached the sliding door. She balanced on the balls of her bare feet, looking out through the glass, then she changed course and made for the kitchen.

Outside, Ian paused at the side of the node to pull off his shoes and socks. Usually when he did this, he stripped naked and actually climbed into the hotspring, but today he just pulled up the cuffs of his jeans and sat down on the rocks, letting his feet slide into the warm water. For a moment he closed his eyes, feeling the way the wind brushed against his skin. Taking in the scent of the spring and the nearby flowers.

Elijah
Let it be said that Elijah Poirot was clueless in many things.

He stood there, gave Leah a little wave, "hey, I'm Elijah. Annie said I could come in and chill." He clarifies, as if he needs to introduce himself to the people he doesn't know, because he does. Tries to be polite, tries to use the polite people skills he is ever-so-desperately trying to cram into a two week period. In truth, he was at the chantry because he needed a break. Jenn had him learning about salad forks and dinner forks and he didn't think this was the kind of etiquette that he was supposed to be learning, but she was really intent on making sure he could handle himself in some kind of social situation because once upon a time she was working with some elderly woman who was Order of the Eastern Star who ever-so-politely overlooked the fact that Jenn was something that old, rich, southern women called terrible names meaning them in the most polite of manners.

Jenn had a lot of tolerance for bullshit. It kind of makes sense how she can put up with Elijah.

So, he watches as Kalen heads out the patio, watches as things move around him and he just… blanks. Doesn't quite put things together and doesn't seem terribly concerned by not figuring things together. It was off to the kitchen and the unpacking of liquor.

"I have not seen you guys in for-fucking-ever, and that is definitely a fault on my part."

Serafíne
"I'll let you borrow them sometime." Sera to Leah: steadier now.  Steadier because she is - well - concentrating.  Eyes half-closed, her chin on Dan's shoulder, her spare frame a lean cipher against Dan's taller and only slight more solid frame.  So: no.  He does not look like he is going to be carried away by the wind, but he is whip-lean and dresses to emphasize it, in his signature hipster uniform of skinny jeans and some obscure band t-shirt.  "Tell me when.  They'll look good on you." 

Quiet, then:  "Leah, if you wanna go out there you should.  There's no reason for you to hang back, you know?  If they need privacy they'll find it."

Meanwhile: Elijah appears and announces that he has not seen them in for-fucking-ever and Dan grins at him over Sera's elfin left ear, which naturally bristles with hardware.

"Hey man," says Dan, grinning. "Been awhile.  Good to see you."  The bottles are out.  He doesn't put them away because it isn't precisely a collective kitchen anymore: not as it was.  Just folds up the brown paper bag for recycling and glances down at Sera as she says something quiet to him again.

"I think we're heading out, but we'll catch up soon."

Suddenly and quite as surely as she knows so many other things: Sera doesn't want to be here.  So: they will go.

Kalen Holliday
Kalen steps out onto the patio, closes the door gently behind him.  He doesn't so much approach Ian as the spring, and he leaves the pool between them, settling on the opposite side of the water.  He does not put his feet in the water, but he does come reasonably close to the edge.  Close enough he can reach out to skim the surface of the water with his fingertips, though he does not.  Not yet.  Maybe not at all.

Instead, he lets his eyes settle on its surface.  He can see reflections in the water.  Shimmery.  Shifting.

He is so rarely sure he isn't dreaming.

"Hey," he says quietly.

Ian
"Oh, wow, thank you." Leah's appreciation of Sera's offer was both surprised and genuine. She paused in the kitchen to regard her with an uncertain smile, which fell a moment later when Sera mentioned Ian and Kalen. A soft blush of color appeared on her cheeks. "No, I just... wanted a drink." She glanced over at Elijah then, who was attempting to offer her an introduction.

"Yeah. I figured. I mean, people just kind of come and go sometimes." She was less warm in her greeting of Elijah than she had been with Sera, but that may have been because Elijah was new. (And her age. And a boy.) After a pause she added, "I'm Leah." Then she promptly turned around and grabbed a bottle of orange Izze from the fridge.

----

Outside, Ian both felt and heard Kalen's approach, but he didn't acknowledge it until Kalen spoke. Then he opened his eyes, gazing across the pool. The water was clear aquamarine, with just the slightest sensation of steam rising up off the surface. It smelled of alkaline and minerals. "Hi," he offered quietly. He felt different (stronger, more primal.) Maybe Kalen had already noticed.

"Haven't heard from you in a while."

(Ditto, Ian.)

Elijah
"That's cool," he tells Dan, "I'm taking piano and harp for non-majors, so pretty soon you will get the opportunity to see me shred on six and a half octaves worth of… well… harp." He didn't have a good word for it. Didn't have a lot of things there, because all he could think of was yep, it's a harp. But, you see, harkening back to a conversation he'd had with Dan in the grass once upon a time, he did remember telling the man about his awkward stringed-instrument skills.

Secretly, he was trying to convince Jenn to get a baby grand, not because he was terribly serious about playing, but because it would be cool. Then again, if you have a piano you'll actually play the piano and, since the first quarter, Elijah has found himself rather missing the instrument. It was meditative. A moment when he could think and be in the moment and think about the click of the metronome. Powering forward, driving to something, finding life in something written.

He liked sheet music, but he didn't talk about that. Most recently, he spent his time trying to figure out how to get a piano through the door of his apartment.

Elijah turned his attention to Leah and grinned, "wanna see an awkward harp recital in two weeks?"

Kalen Holliday
[WP]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 4, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )

Serafíne
"Awesome."  Dan to Elijah, with a quick grin that verges on the engaging, but does not precisely get there because he has sort of already checked out of the conversation.

Sera flashes Leah a shark-scissors tattoo peace sign real-quick because: yeah, she means it, and yeah, they are awesome shoes, and yeah, what the hell, she's rich, not that most strangers or even friends or for that matter lovers have ever really noticed that about her but: see, it is an easy offer to make.  But she has also kind of checked out, or perhaps: checked back in to whatever was wrapped up around her spine when the van pulled up outside and as they turn to go she grabs one of the bottles on the counter they just unpacked.  Picks it up by its neck and carries it with her as she goes.

Doors slam open.  Doors slam closed.

Dan in the driver's seat.  Sera with her temple against the cool glass, the world smearing past her.  Her heart beating in her body, her breath strange in her lungs.

Kalen Holliday
"I've been busy."  It is more explanation than apology.  "I had things to figure out.  And then places to be."

Kalen reaches out, carefully.  Slowly.  Rests his fingertips against the surface of the water.  His pulse quickens.  He is not sure whether or not that changes the pace of the endings.  Transformations.  Creation dancing and reforming all around them.

He has to try not to pull his hand back.

"How have you been?"

Ian
Leah regarded Elijah for a silent moment. "Why would I want to see it if it's awkward?" She twisted off the bottle cap and tossed it on the counter, then walked off to the living room, where she eventually made herself comfortable on the end of the sectional, leaning over the arm rest with an open book in one hand. Maybe Elijah would follow her. Maybe he'd decide to join Ian and Kalen outside. Maybe he'd just grab a drink and make a beeline for the library. Leah, at least, seemed to think that the conversation was over.

----

Outside now. Ian and Kalen spoke in halting, low tones. Ian drew one of his feet slowly through the water, watching the smooth ripples that formed on the surface. The pool practically pulsed with life-giving energy. It was difficult to be near it and not feel at least a little awed.

"I went freeclimbing and fell off a mountain. But... hey, I survived." He smiled, just a little, and something lingered there in his eyes. A suggestion of unspoken things. He hadn't just survived.

"I'm glad you're okay."

Was there a concern that he wouldn't have been?

Elijah
Why would I want to see it if it's awkward?
"Because I'm looking for an excuse to see you again, and I was hoping you would humor me?"

He looked in, noting that she had a book and, uh, it would seem the conversation was over. Brows rose, he offered a tiny, awkward smile and Elijah was left to stand there, a little awkward, trying to figure out where he wanted to go and what precisely it was that he wanted to do. He was trying to be a good student, honestly, but there were people here and he wanted to do social things and what could it hurt if he just didn't say hi? Dallied for just a moment and maybe spent a little bit of time talking with his mentor or Ian (he had seen Ian, right?)

Elijah concluded that he needed to go somewhere, anywhere, and outside seemed to be a good enough place. He looked back to the living room, clearing his throat, "hey, I'm going outside if you wanna… y'know… hang out… or stuff."

And it was out the door with him to the patio.


Kiara
In the distraction of Sera and Dan leaving; the sounds of their car reversing out of the drive; headlights washing over windows, it's easy enough to deduce why the Verbena's approach may have been overlooked. Her dusty, well-loved red hatchback sliding in like some proverbial thief in the night to replace the other; a car door slammed with a hip; bags tended to; looped around wrists as she carries them up to the stoop.

She doesn't call a greeting this time, the brunette, but oh - that sense of her is there - it's there's but - altered. But stronger. The wash of rejuvenating energy so like that which Ian and Kalen sit against; dip fingers into the water of. There but accompanied with, like a gentle, persistent lullaby; a pulse. A thrum.

Kiara hangs a coat on a rack by the door and carries a bundle of things into the kitchen; her fingers skimming along the walls. There's flowers amongst her offerings; laid on the counter like gifts set beneath some grand altar as she begins to unpack other items idly. Perhaps Kiara believed her presence thereneeded no explanation and certainly, as far as the Cabal that lived here were concerned, it didn't. They'd seen her when she'd come to lay in the Node; heard the story; felt the change in her.

There's others nearby of course; by the time Kiara's in the kitchen; the boys are all ensconced outside.

The Verbena uncorks a bottle of Merlot, if she's aware of their gathering, her leisurely pace would suggest she's in no rush to join them.

Kalen Holliday
Ian moves and the water moves, lapping against Kalen's fingertips.  It is warm and it is sacred but it is still water and he shudders.

"Well.  I'm glad you're okay.  I miss you already, I hate to think of how I'd miss you if you died."  It is probably the calmest, most honest thing Kalen has said to him in a long time, horrible sensation of water moving against his skin or no.  Possibly since the day that they were discussing Life magic.

"I'm probably better than I've been for a long time.  It's hard to be sure."  He laughs, and there is a breathless edge to it because there is water crawling over his fingers and because he still can't believe that he's come to a place where he makes time for things that are anything but preparing for the next crisis and because he is about to make this confession to Ian of all people.  "I'm taking tango lessons."  And perhaps, just perhaps some of that breathless wonder was because he understood again that he wanted to ask Ian to join him.

But then there is Elijah.  And so he does not issue that invitation, not at the moment at least, just falls quiet.

Ian
Leah felt like a fire: bright-hot and scorching. But more than that, she felt like the cycle of it. Fire, to ashes, to fire again. Despite that heat, she had a rather particular talent for giving people the cold shoulder. Particularly when those people were boys or young men who may have been trying to hit on her. Elijah followed her for a moment, watched her settle onto the sofa. Leah was tall and lanky, with long legs that she tucked under her as she sat down. At first she didn't respond to his explanation. Then she said, quietly and without looking up from her book, "No thanks."

For what it was worth, she didn't sound angry. More like she was trying to retreat.

(Elijah didn't know who she was, did he? What had happened to her? Maybe the conversation would have been different if he had.)

Annie was around the side of the house when Kiara arrived, so she wasn't there to offer the other Verbena a proper greeting, but likely she'd wander in later to say hello. Her resonance, and the sound of lawnmower, were evidence enough of her nearby presence. At the node, Ian glanced over his shoulder toward the sound and a subtle wrinkle of displeasure appeared on the bridge of his nose. But of course, it was Annie's house, and grass needed to be mowed, so there wasn't much he could reasonably say to her about it.

Then Kalen said he'd missed Ian, and Ian looked back at him with an expression that wasn't quite guarded enough to hide the quiet note of surprise.

"I'm hard to kill."

Kalen was taking tango lessons.

"I can help you, if you want. You know I do dance professionally."

Elijah appeared at the node, and Ian glanced up at him with a smile that looked a great deal less weighty than he felt.

Elijah
[Per+empathy: OH GOD WHAT DID I WALK INTO?!}

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 4, 5, 5, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )

Ian
[Nothing Elijah, it's fine, we're just hanging out like people do]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 3, 6, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 4 ) Re-rolls: 1

Elijah
[also: WP. Water is not scary]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )

Kalen Holliday
[Totally hanging just hanging out.....]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

Elijah
There's an awkward moment there, when he comes out and suddenly realizes that he probably shouldn't be here, but Ian smiles and it suddenly doesn't seem absolutely terrible or like he shouldn't be there. He was missing context, didn't see the look that happened between the two and Elijah, darling dove, seems to think that he is on completely even ground and everything is fine. His eyes warily flickered to the water and he swallowed, exhaled hard an harsh andgrinned. Because that fear had a different context now.

Drowning and dying and falling and slipping, sometimes he could spin it some other way. Sometimes he could get himself to a different mindset and say that this was a transition. This was a new place for him to be, a new state, something that he needed to push past so he could see all the wonders that were available to him.

Sometimes he needed a push. Sometimes, he could push himself.

"I think I totally came in at a weird time in the conversation? But I'm pulling a Starbucks hipster and announcing that I'm doing homework. Or learning Latin, because fuck homework and Hell yeah Latin," oh Elijah, bless him because he is clueless. Just figures they're having a conversation. it's an awkward moment where it seems that mom and dad don't want to fight in front of the kids.

Kiara
Threads. They were all connected by them; to them. Bound to each other in strange, often undefinable ways. From the newest to the city to those who had harbored more storms than any. None of it; this; their lives; their boundless connections to each other; was easy. Often the threads were smeared with blood; with tears; with the mess that came with living beyond the kinds of lives most did.

Theirs were so much more (and yet, so many of the ways they came together were for utterly human causes).

Kiara, for her part, does not make an apology when the patio door slides to reveal her; she's dressed in jeans and a navy hoodie; her dark hair bound away from her face; pinned to the nape of her neck. There's rings on her fingers tonight; a long stemmed glass in her hand and she's smiling in Elijah's direction with what amounts, for the brunette, as easy affection.

"Did I just hear you cursing, Elijah. My delicate sensibilities are forever changed." So droll, that eyebrow as it cants up behind a sip of wine. "Been a while, kid." From most people, the title might seem condescending; threaded with disdain or dismissal. From the Verbena, it sounds fond. Considering as she runs her eyes over him; lets her eyes tick beyond to Kalen and Ian.

Ian
[Awareness - do I sense something different?]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 5, 5, 9, 9) ( success x 2 )

Kalen Holliday
Kalen smiles a little, and despite Kiara and Elijah's presence it is still threaded through with something hopeful and vulnerable.  Kalen has been practicing being someone else.  Someone who could love without being afraid of what that meant.  Someone who could spend time with books of poems and tango lessons and did not read failure in dozens of blurry pictures of kestrels.  Sometimes that bleeds through.

"Yeah.  That'd be good."  Maybe he would have said something different, without company.

He smiles a little as Kiara comes out and says that she has delicate sensibilities about cursing.  She has wine, and he thinks that maybe he could use some.  Still, he's afraid if he breaks contact with the water he won't be able to touch it again tonight.  If he walks away now he might instead slip through the house and out the door and away from all of this.  Because who he wants to be and who he is have strange blurred edges and he is suddenly less sure he wants to be here so precariously balanced between the two.

He waves to Kiara and Elijah with the hand that isn't in the water.

Ian
"Oh trust me, he can curse like you wouldn't believe." There was a wry curl of humor in Ian's voice when he answered Kiara. Whatever heaviness he'd felt in Kalen's presence, he seemed to be letting it go. (Either that, or he was good at pretending. Perhaps it didn't much matter in the end.)

There was a rather remarkable change in Kiara's presence. Ian's attention hovered on her for a long moment as he leaned back on his palms, his head tilted in an expression of animal curiosity. His lips pressed together, and he uttered a delicate subvocal sound (more to himself than anything.) Finally he glanced back to Elijah. Then to Kalen. Then back to Kiara.

Then he just... breathed. Let the overwhelming wash of rejuvenating resonance wash over him.

"The water's nice, you know. If you ever feel like getting in."

Nice was not an adequate word to describe it. And when he spoke, he seemed to be directing his comment to both Kalen and Elijah. But there was no push to it. No insistence that they confront their fears. The tone was light. Reassuring. Funny how fragile they could all be, considering what they were capable of.

Elijah
"Heeeyyyyy not-susan-but-Kiara," he grinned, bright and shining and pleased. His hair's a mess, but then again when did Elijah ever seem like he was well put together when he rode a motorcycle? Even in his best intentions, he couldn't keep himself pristine most days given his preferred method of, well,existing. When he smiles it is bright, and his eyes are bright. They're green and glittering and pick up hints of amber, hints of the blades of grass recently shorn close.

Ian does say something about Elijah's foul language and he laughed, full-bodied and amused and was that color on his cheeks? Just a little just at the edges. Elijah looked at the water again, a little wary and he thinks, for a moment, that he should flee. He drew a long, slow breath, and cautiously he asked, "not too deep, is it?"

Then, with just the barest bits of humor and an impish grin, "I'm gonna strip down to, like, barely nothin' so be prepared to avert your eyes lest delicate sensibilities be offended." He turned his attention to Kalen briefly, brows rose, "you wanna?"

An assurance, unspoken, c'mon, you've got this. An utter faith in his mentor.

Kiara
She feels different.

She'd noted it the other night in the park; felt the change in Ian, too. Told him she had the sense she'd missed something. He senses the same, now. Feels the absence of that corrosive; devouring edge she'd always carried. Now, she's the surge of renewed life; the heartbeat of the new born foal. As if the Verbena had thrown loose some invisible shackles; shed a layer of herself she no longer belonged to.

And, in some days, she had done precisely that.

Her eyes linger on Ian for a longer moment than perhaps was necessary; dark and fathomless; they tick to Kalen and the smile that touches her lips is sincere, if perhaps restrained. Elijah gets - a noise; a throaty vibration as he threatens near-nudity. "Well, if I'm going to be debauched, it should be all the way or what's the point?"

She saunters closer, then. Stops to toe her sneakers off and carries them in hand; wine in the other to the edge of the Node. Settles beside it. This close; the sensation is manifold. The sense of the Node; of Kiara. She trails her fingers in the water; the stones set into her rings gleaming.

Kiara
[days, *ways. What are words.]

Kalen Holliday
[Kalen.  Can you even, with the water?  | WP because panic attacks with near strangers are bad.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 4 ) [WP]

Kalen Holliday
"Well, on account of the water and I being so friendly tonight already...."  Kalen slips out of his shoes, and then his shirt.  Hesitates, less because he has any real problem with people seeing him naked and more because he isn't entirely sure about this in general.  And so, when he slips into the pool for the first time ever, slips into any kind of water for the first time in more than a decade, he still has jeans on.

Most of the mages take to the node, but Kalen stays stiff in the water, eyes a little too wide.  He does not put his head under the water.  He does turn his head to regard Ian.  He cannot quite bring himself to smile, but there is something lighter mostly buried under all the tension in his voice when he says, "Nice, huh?  Apparently I have been defining that word all wrong."

Ian
Strange, perhaps, that Ian wasn't the first one to shuck his clothes and slip into the water. This actually had more to do with the teenage girl back in the house than it did with his present company. That, and the fact that he hadn't expected to stay long.

He smiled when Kalen stepped into the pool, pleased and surprised in spite of himself. To Elijah, he offered a canted look, one eyebrow lofted in amusement. He didn't say what he was thinking, but to Elijah, it would likely be fairly obvious.

"I... have to go, actually." For what it was worth, there was genuine reluctance in his voice. "I made plans to go hiking."

He let the moment hang for a few beats before slowly retracting his feet from the water. When he stood up, he passed through Kiara's space, trailing his fingers through the back of her hair.

"Don't have too much fun without me."

(This was directed at everyone.)

Finally, he collected his shoes and walked back to his car.

Ian
[I totally do not want to leave, but sadly responsibility calls. Have a good night guys!]

noel-lurk
[Damn that responsibility!!!]

Elijah
(wp: I. HAVE. GOT. THIS.)

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 10, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Kiara
[Aw, have a good one!]

Elijah
(Manip+sub: I am totally fine)

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 3, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )

Kiara
[I just feel like trying this to see what happens. Per + Emp]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 8) ( success x 1 )

Kalen Holliday
[murr?]

Elijah
(boop)

Kiara
Ian's fingers pass through her hair as he leaves; tugging strands loose where she's secured it; she doesn't lift her eyes from her water; where she's been dragging the tips of her fingers through it but there's a twist of her mouth. A vaguely thoughtful thing, that expression; caging thoughts she doesn't offer voice to. She does look up, once he's slipped inside.

A fleeting, considering beat before Kiara's attention returns to the pair in the water; her smile grows as she watches Kalen; head tilting just so. "You know usually when people get in the water to loosen tension, not the other way around."

The Verbena sits up; places her wine glass down and unfolds her legs; dipping her feet into the water. "Come here?" She beckons at him, Kalen, noting the stiff set of his shoulders; the way he holds himself. She's not aware of every facet of why; but the physicality - there's a certain comprehension of that much.

Kalen Holliday
"Short, tragic story that it may be best not to tell while in the water."  Kalen says, and there is, lurking somewhere in that tone, an offer to tell it later.

There is a second of consideration.  He is generally not averse to contact, but he is not terribly sure about the mechanics of moving in water.  It is heavy.  He half remembers that, heavy and cold and impossible to escape.  But  he does come to her, flinching a little as the motion sets water moving against his skin.

Elijah
(HAHA! SUCCESS!)



He laughed, could seem convivial enough. "How dare you have a social life, Ian," then there was the matter of actually getting in the water. He's doing a good job of keeping it together, seeming like this wasn't bothering him. Seeming like everything is fine but when it comes down to it Elijah was stalling.

He could stall all he wanted, but in the end, he said he was going to do something, and damn it all even if it was something as silly as get in a hot spring (not silly, terrifying) Also, let it be said that Elijah Poirot was shameless. Shameless as a man could be, though it should be telling to know that Elijah deals with his anxieties and frustrations and needs to mask concerns by getting naked.

The bait was set, the bet was there as well. The dare, that he shouldn't promise without delivery.

There's a moment when he thinks he can't do it. There's a moment when he looks into the water and he hesitates. Elijah exhales, long and slow. He's looking like this might be too much, only briefly, he remembers that he wanted this. That he wouldn't be defined by fear, he could conquer anything. All the mysteries of the universe, just under the surface, all he had to do was dive. (All he had to do was die, water brought him a number of things- he should be grateful.)

Elijah ditched the vest, being careful with it, treating it and its contents like precious cargo. The rest of his clothes (and Elijah wore a lot of clothing) did not get the same treatment. Shirt was pulled off, shoes gone, socks tucked into shoes (because let's face it, he was buying himself time) Jeans lost, because Elijah was not much one for wearing wet jeans and he still had intention of studying tonight.

He ditched, well, everything. Was there and a little cold and had given himself no other option- either stand there and be cold and naked or sit somewhere warm and comfortable and be naked. The naked didn't really didn't phase him, but it was the cold that did. It was the push and reminder that he was here and conjured darker times. Made his sternum hurt from where someone had pressed too hard (correctly) to try and do CPR. He fractured a rib or two, but he was alive.

"Oh thank god it's warm."

Elijah
(test)

Kiara
[Intel + Med, possibly with some WP because the dice are lean and hungry and I don't trust them; the Verbena knows tension.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 3, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 4 ) [WP]

Kiara
She's rolling her jeans up as he treads water over to where she's sitting; her legs parted enough that when he's close to her; she can gently coax him to turn around; her fingers warmer than they ought to have been for being in the water. "You are - " This, murmured close to his ear as Kiara's fingers skate over his skin; her palms sliding over the slope of both shoulders; returning and then pushing in - her thumbs finding the pinpoints of tension; her fingers manipulating.

" - way too tense. Your body is holding it all in. Right here."

So close to her; Kalen can feel the steady pulse of her resonance; the newness of it; the steady, static energy as it wraps around him; as the Verbena's hands carefully loosen coils of muscle; her hair tickles his cheek as she leans in behind him; her eyes traveling to find Elijah's in the water.

"How are you doing, do you need attention too?"

Kalen Holliday
He does not - cannot - swim.  Instead he creeps around the edges of the pool.  He may not like water, but he is in it now, and the sheer shock of that is wearing off a little.  Even so, when he reaches Kiara he doesn't seem less tense for all that his breath is starting to even out a little.

"I'm tense on a good day," Kalen says.  "And while I'm not saying this is a bad day, I think it pretty definitely qualifies as extremely stressful."  He doesn't think this is a bad day at all, really.  He has seen Serafine and he has seen Ian and he is somehow in the node pool and now he has contact he did not expect and all of those things are good.  Some of them are also terrifying, but Kalen finds a number of things he loves terrifying.

"There is that," he says to Elijah.  "Yes."

Elijah
[Per+empathy- Kalen, are you gonna be okay?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 6, 8, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 5 )

Elijah
Does he need attention? He seems to think about that, but the young man shrugged, shoulders rose and fell. Elijah was very much of the belief that one should fake it until you make it. He didn't back out, didn't run away, didn't make some excuse and, for his part, he could be content with that.

"Nah," he told Kiara, shaking his head and putting his hands up. He doesn't come closer, but he's tempted none the less. "I'll probably actually head inside in a minute? I thought they had a book or something of a third pero account of tensions between the Euthanatoi-" plural, because Eleanor had told him the plural because he'd asked what the plural was- if the Chakravanti were like sheep (singular) and sheep (plural) "-and the Akashic Brotherhood. I didn't know that was a huge thing, but apparently that was a huge thing. I kinda wanna know how the this is how we end a lifetimes old grudge thing ends. I dunno. It's either that or the great vowel shift. Which is also pretty fuckin' cool."

Did Elijah just say that reading about a vowel shift was cool? Why yes, yes he did. The young man turns his attention to Kalen, notes what is there, takes him in and asks, "hey, when you're good do you wanna come with. I'd like to practice being a respectable person for awhile? And you're pretty good at knowing when I'm faking it, so yeah." A second, then, "or you could study the great vowel shift with me, too, it's pretty awesome. Like, all of the vowels in the language shifted over one, so it's part of why Beowulf sounds so strange when you read it in the original Anglo-Saxon."

Elijah
(third *person)

Kiara
There's nothing overtly sexual in the way Kiara's hands ghost over Kalen's skin. Quite the contrary; though she harbors no pretense about enjoying the physicality of others; she coerces some degree of relaxation from his shoulders by lieu of practice and taught understanding of the way the human body moved; the structure and give of the musculature beneath her hands.

She massages into his skin for a few moments longer and then; with a brief squeeze to both; slides them off. "Mm, I've done what I can for those shoulders. They need regular attention." This, with a smile in her voice; an awareness that rests there as Elijah defers with intention to pursue historical documentation about inter-traditional squabbles.

"That," as the Verbena carefully withdraws her legs from the water; reclaiming her half consumed wine. "sounds like something you need to be drinking to fully absorb. Thankfully," this, as Kiara rises to her feet; shoes in hand. "I'm already half way there.

I'll see you boys inside."

Her progress is marked with a soft jangle of bracelets where they're housed around her wrists. The patio door clicking shut in her wake.

Kalen Holliday
"I...have no argument to that," he says to Kiara.  "Thank you."

She moves away and he climbs out of the pool, then looks at Elijah.  "Yeah.  I'm off to get not wet things and wine, and then I'll join you in the library."

[And I will nap, because suddenly so sleepy.  (Thus the tiny post, sorry.)  Thank you both for scenes!]

Kiara
[Likewise! :D]

Elijah
(I think we have a good wrap! Thanks for the play!)