lawn elitism [kalen, danny, arionna, grace]

Danny
(Awareness)
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 9) ( success x 1 )

Arionna
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )

Danny
*He yawned while he was standing in line waiting for the books to be returned at the library.  All of them were there, he'd found what he needed fairly quickly when he'd put his mind to it.  The books were in a backpack he'd brought with him, part of an older life, part of a time before his being well, who he was now.

His hair was tied back at the nape of his neck again, it was too hot for jeans so he'd put on a pair of three quarter baggy jeans, a pair of flip flops and a t shirt that said. "Always be yourself, unless you can be Batman. Then always be Batman."*

Arionna
She had this magical skill of appearing. Well..maybe not really, but sometimes it seemed like she just popped up out of no where. She felt him when he came in, knew it was him, and curiosity got the better of her.

Arionna, in a long skirt and a T-shirt, stepped up behind him slowly, her long hair sliding around her face. She reached out and, with one finger, poked his shoulder. That was the extent of her greeting, and well..touching for that matter.

Danny
*He.... swayed, merely took the energy with a shiver at her icy presence, then swayed back slightly as he turned his head.* Returning the books, as promised.

*With his shades up on his head and the way he was dressed he could technically just fit in with the other students here. But now he smiled for Arionna he raised both eyebrows slightly in question.* And how are you today?

Arionna
"I can see." Arionna said softly, letting her eyes wander to the backpack and then back to his face. "You have more time." Though he might have already gleaned what he needed. The smile was an odd thing, though he never seemed the sort to not do so...even given their last encounter. "I have a midterm tomorrow." She said simply, as if that would somehow explain how she felt. "And the library is barren, for now."

Danny
*He sighs softly.* Yeah, that can be a killer. What do you need? I can't promise much but I can allow you access to my netbook, you can do some research on that?

Arionna
She canted her head a little. "I don't need it. I've been reading." She moved to slip her hand into her bag at her side, pulling out the hair she had put into a small container, and handing it to him. "As promised."

Danny
*He took the hair and nodded, then slipped it into his pocket.*
So, coffee after? *It was his turn suddenly and he just handed the books back with a smile, polite, easy going, the librarian didn't seem to mind this approach and he turned then looked at Arionna again.*

Well?

Arionna
"After?" Her brows furrow a little in question. "After what? My studying?" She considered that for a moment and then slowly nodded. "I think I will. And a walk in the woods. I think it clears my head sometimes." But then when he turned and gave her that sort of expectant look, she blinked. "Oh. You meant now?"

Danny
*That had him chuckling.* Yes, now... We'll go get some coffee, find a tree on campus and just sit, that okay by you?

Arionna
She pursed her lips a little, letting her eyes fall to the side for a moment. "Even with what you said before?" He seemed so...unhappy with her previously, it seemed odd that he'd be suggesting they have coffee together. "How is your friend?"

Danny
He's taking a rest. *He smiles, then slowly reaches out one hand, moving to the side of the line with her when the librarian reminded them they were in the way. One hand, and it had a big silver ring on his middle finger with what looked like a light switch on it. Then he smiled again.* That's kind of what I wanted to talk to you about actually, and no, it's not going to be another ripping. Okay?  You game with that?

Arionna
She stepped to the side just before he touched her shoulder, avoiding it. It wasn't a fear of touching, so much as being unaccustomed to it...still. Ari turned slowly to lead him out of the library at the very least. "I was unharmed by it. You're welcome to accompany me. I won't mind it. I certainly don't mind drinking coffee."

Danny
I figured as much, those midterms can kind of keep you awake for a few days. *He smiled though, following her and going with her to grab some coffee.* I know that you were unharmed by it, but I'm not Kalen, I don't just dismiss people without at least taking the time to try and see things from their point of view. I mean, people become what life makes them, and that means that sometimes you cannot control the things around you. Or you just plain old don't learn the same way other people do. *he shrugs.* Specially if you're not one of the kids that fits in to the societal niche that high school kids force upon themselves.

*What did he know? He was beautiful, he was popular, he was a musician, what's not to love?^

Arionna
The university campus is never without a coffee shop, and like all students, Ari knows where to find them. She leads them down the steps of the library, making their way along campus.  "Did you choose to be different?"

Danny
I chose to be me. *He shrugs.* I didn't want to play football, I didn't want to do much more than play music to be honest, that and to read when I could what i could.  But the music I guess helped... *he shrugged.* Did you?

*He kept pace with her, slipping the backpack onto his shoulder on habit, he just seemed to almost fit in, apart from the fact that he was walking with Arionna, and more than a few of the girls and guys on campus around them were turning and looking at the pair of them as they passed.*

Arionna
"No." She expected people to react poorly. The city was less of a problem than her own home. Diversity was tolerated and encouraged, though looks were not foreign.

"The entire purpose of sports is to mimic wartime. It's a method for humans to practice and engage in the centers of our minds which are dedicated to such activities. You're not missing anything important by disliking it."

Danny
See, I never thought of it like that. Mind you I guess the amount of testosterone has to have something to do with it. *He continued walking with her, the looks he just didn't pay any real attention to. But he smiled, just as they walked, he kept on smiling and talking to her. The looks appeared to be mostly of surprise, complete and utter surprise.*

You didn't choose it then. *he nods a bit more and even walked before her to open the door to the coffee place, waited til she'd gone through then went in behind her.* What do you want to drink, apart from soya?

Arionna
"MMA matches are obvious examples of this desire to replicate war as a means of practice. Modern society tends to steer away from blatant use of violence and attempts covert violence in the form of sports." Arionna stepped in, making her way to the counter. "Soy? I don't drink soymilk." The barista smiled at her. "Hey! Coffee like usual?" Ari nodded slowly, sliding out her wallet to slip a few dollars to her. With ehr cup in hand she moved around to decide on her coffee... Hm..what'll it be today...

Danny
*He puts his hand over hers, not making contact.* No, my treat as a thank you for your help the other day. *There's a smile on his face and waits for hers. He already knew what he wanted, coffee, cold, with cream and plenty of toffee syrup. Lashings of the stuff. He said so after Ari ordered.*

Yeah i didn't think about it to be honest but you're right. You're totally right.

Arionna
She put her money away and slipped the wallet back into her purse. "Thank you." Because she does understand basic etiquette. You don't come from a small town without having some form of it. With her cup, she moves to the door and waits, slipping through when they're both satisfied and begins to move to a tree away from the building. "What did you want to say?"

Danny
Well... *he took a suck of the drink and swallowed. Then steered away from people.* Firstly, I wanted to talk to you. Find out more about you and why you do what you do, secondly, you're kind of well. Unless you give me a reason to walk away. I just wont.  And you look like you could do with someone to talk to from time to time.

Arionna
She moved them to a tree that was shedding its leaves all over and hadn't been destroyed by the mower. Ari set her bag down among the leaves and plopped herself among them. She set her cup near her bag and laid back on the ground. "People prove the point often enough. "

"Talking is nice. I use to visit the trees when I needed to talk. That's a longer travel here."

Danny
*He nodded.* Feel at peace there huh? Feel like the world is just melting away in the susurrus of the tree's and the outer world, the world away from the city?

*Taking another sip he got comfortable, moving the pack to rest against the tree then leaned back on it.* You don't need to just spend time around the tree's though, you need to also be round people from time to time, people that can get to learn to understand you better if you give them the chance.

Arionna
"I don't like the term 'peace.' Peace is an illusion, a fallacy. It's better to say that a person feels complete or as they are meant to. Balanced. Yes, I do. They're my home. And the home of my ancestors."

"I'm here, aren't I? I don't like people very much. I only like a few."

Danny
Sometimes it's easier like that. *He nodded as he  swirled the straw in his coffee shake, eased his legs out to stretch in front of him, crossing them at the ankles. There was ink there, on one foot a musical bar with notes on it in a ribbon of ink across the top of his foot, on the arm nearest her was that time tattoo that turned into the birds, on the forearm on the left as well was that latin script in heavy bold and black.*

Why don't you like people? Or is it just harder to get to know them?

Arionna
"People are cruel, misguided. The world is dying, the balance is off...humans did it. Humans even hurt their own. Those that are 'kind' are naive to the way the world is. "

She sat up enough to sip at her coffee, then leaned back again in the leaves.

Danny
No... *he shakes his head and stares off into the middle distance, then sat up slowly.* No, we're not naive.  We just choose to see things a bit differently to everyone else. Some times, bad things happen and they can be complete game changers, it's how you choose to learn from it and move on, learn to live with it and yourself regardless of the actions of those around you.. some times it makes you want to do things, it makes you angry, it makes you hostile, it makes you so... *He shakes his head, speaking from the heart it would appear.* confused... and... *There's a sigh before he speaks again.* It's hard to live with.

So, you get to choose, you can either let it consume you and destroy you, or you can learn to deal with it, learn to accept all those things it makes you feel then slowly move on from each moment. Acceptance, grief, hate, those are things you need to go through in your own time... Its all rather personal you see?  *he turned his head and glanced at her for a moment, then looked off again.*
Or you can let the hate and the anger consume you. Let it destroy you by isolating you from people. Perhaps it's easier to just not be around them and deal with them, contempt as well is powerful.

Arionna
"That's where your trouble is. You and Kalen. You think I'm angry. I'm not angry. I understand my place. We can't choose which god favors us, which gives us ability and strength. We're born to them. I know where I am, who I belong to. If we want balance in life, we have to accept the parts of it that scare us the most. I always see people trying to be 'good' and embody the 'light' fearing what's in the shadows. But the sun hides villainy just as much, sometimes more, than the moon. The night has so much to offer, and so many don't see it."

Danny
Yeah, so many don't see it. *he nods.* The mountains at night, with the galaxy is incredible. I just love going up into the mountains, turning off the car and laying back with the roof down staring up at the sky.

*He smiled as he leaned back again.*  Someone once said what you said, years ago - A fool feels no fear, A sleeper remains shackled by it, A Master transcends it yet recalls its wisdom. It is good to be afraid. It is folly to bow to terror.

A sleeper is what you were.  *he looks around.* All those people out there, those you don't feel with that spark that makes us us, those are sleepers.  They are the unawakened.  You are now awakened. He also said - Some minds rest best asleep, stir not those who would not waken otherwise.

Arionna
"I was never asleep. Neither was my mom. Or my aunt. We've never been asleep. Who is it to created those words? Asleep, and awakened? What does awaken really mean? You'll say that you are awakened, that Kalen is too, but neither of you seem it."

Danny
Ahhh and now we get to the tricky bit. *He sighed and took another suck on the straw.* See... There's this balance as you say, it's how things are linked to each other, from the tree's to the people, to the insects and well.... *he shrugs.* It's the energy flows, we really are all linked. Being awakened doesn't mean that you're the most special people on the planet, it means you have a larger degree of responsibility to those around you.

It means what you do, can have an effect on things round you, like I dunno, plants growing better because of the way you talk to them, that's kind of mundane.. but perhaps unwittingly you're releasing something as you go through the ritual of the planting itself.  We are after all, creatures of habit.  Or perhaps you see things?

*he takes another sip and glances at her again.* What did you do that time, the thing that really 'worked'. *He kept his voice calm, just sharing a conversation with her by the looks of it. He even smiled as well. Those that still stared from time to time would soon enough drift away.*

Arionna
"My responsibility is to the gods. And to the earth, and the animals. I was responsible for them even before. It just makes more sense now. I wasn't sure when I was younger, why things were as they were. But now I understand."

She closed her eyes, taking in a breath of air, inhaling the scent of the leaves. "I didn't try. I wasn't trying to do anything but run. I thought I was being attacked. And then I just...flew. I was one with the crows. We were together, flying through the world. "

Danny
*He blinked and turned to look at her.* That wasn't what I was expecting. What did you think was attacking you?

Arionna
"A mountain lion." She said calmly. "It was beautiful. It went quiet. The trees were still. The crows were in the trees. They kept coming. I've never seen so many before. And then he was there. Beautiful eyes. Just watching me. I ran. He clawed me. I felt the pain in my back, knew he made contact. Then I was soaring, flapping my wings as if I were born to it. He wasn't there when I looked back. I never saw him again."
Danny
*Danny's eyebrows raise.* Well you were damned lucky.  And it's never happened since? Have you tried to do anything like it since?

Arionna
She frowned slowly. "I've tried. I can't." She sat up slowly, taking her cooling coffee in her hands and curling her feet in a little.

Danny
*He nodded at that.* Well, this is where knowing people like us can come in useful, we can teach you.  But you have to learn to meet us half way.

You don't have to like any of us, but to learn to work with us means learning how to fit in.  Learning that sometimes people take apart what you say a little too literally and they might get offended, or you might get offended.  Like well, last night.

You're entitled to your world view, everyone has one after all, but putting down someone elses in the need to prove yours to them can be rather uhm... difficult.  See, that's the other part of what we are, we have our set way of seeing things, because well, Thou art Miraculous, so are we all.

Arionna
"I didn't do anything wrong. You jumped to conclusions. Kalen didn't want me there from the beginning." She glanced to the side at Danny. "Why should I try to fit in? If people want to be friends, they accept the other as they are. You can't make a cat a dog, even if that would make it easier for the dog."

Danny
No, that's true enough.. *He sighs.* Oh well, how about this. If you see some of us, talk to us, but talk to us from the thoughts of I dunno... we might be just as anxious about you as you are about us, or intrigued.  *He shrugs.* He's worried that you're some kind of sociopath in the making I think.  And he's had enough of monsters.

Arionna
"Because he's prejudice. People think that. I was called a devils child once. Satan's offspring. Witch. Plenty of names for being different." She sipped her coffee slowly. "Sociopath sounds tame now. He should try something more flowery."

"I've seen people like him. Hundreds of years ago, people who acted like him would take people like me...and they'd put them through trials to make sure they weren't evil, or casting magic. There was nothing scarier than having a witch in the village. Monsters hide most often where people can see them, but never notice. And they make monsters by influencing everyone else to act like them."
She looked more fully at Danny, though still kept her eyes down just a little. "People forget that so many of the animals in the night...wolves...bears...mountain lions...they want to be left alone. It's only when you throw stones that they become 'monsters.'"

Danny
Sociopath is my word, not his. *he points out, then nods.* I've heard of the witch trials.  So is that how you see yourself? A witch?

*he nodded again at her words.* Yeah, some times that's what happens sometimes. But with people, it's more to do with how the person just is. And I don't think you're a monster, I think you've had some problems along the way and they've made you hard.

Arionna
"Then you should be more creative. I like to hear what new ideas people make up."

"It's what people use to call me. It's what my aunt calls herself. It's what those before me call themselves. I think that makes me one. Yes. I'm a witch. " She let out a small puff of a laugh. "I wonder if I weigh the same as a duck..."

Danny
*Now Danny stared at her and then laughed as he got the joke.* There you go... see?  I doubt you do weigh as much as a joke... but you've not got a bad nose. So so far, being simply different is working well enough for you.

I won't call you anymore names, you are who you are.  It's honestly just the lack of social empathy you project from yourself, its like... *he thinks about it.* No it's not like... your aura, your whole... resonance, how others "feel" you its frozen, it's real cold. And while that's useful, it can also make it harder for others to get along with you.

Danny
(Duck not joke)

Arionna
"I don't mind anymore if people get along with me. I don't mind if there are people like me who have their parties while I sit in the forest. Each person is favored by a god, and they carry that in them. Even gods have rivalries. Some get along better than others, some like to be alone. They're all important."

She sipped her coffee again slowly. "You seem happy enough all the time. You even feel that way. Too much like the sun. "

Danny
*He laughed again.* That's probably the California in me.  *Taking another suck of his drink he shakes it slightly then takes another drink.* You're right, they are all important.
Is it so bad I'm happy?

Danny
(Dun dun DUUUUUUN!)

Kalen Holliday
[How awake are we?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 10, 10) ( success x 2 )

Kalen Holliday
[And how distracted by Resonance are we?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )

Danny
*His hair was tied back at the nape of his neck again, it was too hot for jeans so he'd put on a pair of three quarter baggy jeans, a pair of flip flops and a t shirt that said. "Always be yourself, unless you can be Batman. Then always be Batman."*

Arionna
She was sitting in the leaves with Danny, under a tree, a long black skirt to her ankles, and a black T. Her hair was loose, hanging over her shoulder as she sat talking with Danny. "Maybe." She looked to her cup slowly. "Happy people miss the problems in the world. Or they think all is well around them. They're often first to point fingers at people who aren't as happy as they are."

Danny
No... we don't miss the problems in the world. *he shakes his head and smiles again, this time sadly.* We see them, they are as valuable to us as any other emotion that they bring about. All of it is important, not to feel any of them is to allow a chance for weakness to come.  All of it is important, feeling the fullest range of emotions that there are around us all is what makes us us... but how we choose to deal with those emotions is also important. Accepting them allows you to learn how to cope and grow.

Kalen Holliday
Kalen wanders around the university grounds and he looks like he might belong there.  Maybe a grad student.  He's wearing jeans and a moss green tee-shirt and a messenger bag and he could be on his way to a class or the library.  Technically, he is on his way to the library, just not for the reasons one might think.

And at first Danny's brightness and Arionna's coldness don't register to him as more than the sun and the approaching chill of evening, but as he gets closer he recognizes the sense of them for what it is.  And, Arionna alone he might have left, but Danny is not someone he ignores.  Danny is the kind of person he cancels coffee with repeatedly because he has to stop one apocalypse or another, but would never ignore.

And really, if there is no world left there won't be any coffee.  And then where would the uncaffeinated universe be?  One could only assume grouchy.  And whatever is left in other worlds...they certainly can't want that, now an they?

Arionna
She moved her eyes to look at Danny askance, once again. "You're more a preacher than a musician." Another slow sip of her coffee. When she felt Kalen approaching, she lifted her chin and looked off in his direction. "Your boyfriend is somewhere close." She moved, rising to her feet. "I'll leave.
"
Danny
*He sighed softly then lifted his head staring up between the branches.* You don't have to.   Tell you what, why don't you just stay and I dunno... maybe put yourself in his shoes for a bit?  I mean, you don't know if you don't try? But if you don't want to.... *he shrugged.* I won't make you stay.

Kalen Holliday
Kalen is not prone to hesitation, so he doesn't really seem to question whether he should be coming to join them, but he does pause when he reaches them, before settling onto the ground.  His eyes track from Danny to Arionna and then back to Danny again.

"Am I interrupting anything?  Because I can just go play with newspapers and old maps in the library."  He sounds absolutely unconcerned, though whether that is of the thought of interrupting or the thought of not being welcome, or even both is hard to say.  "It is, after all, a thing that needs doing."

Arionna
Her brows furrow and she looks at Danny a bit hard. "He's scared of what he doesn't understand. I don't need to 'be in his shoes' to know that. I've been around enough people who act the same."
But before she can grab her bag and saunter off, he's already there and taking a seat. Arionna settles back in her space, pulling her bag to her to pull out a book and sit it in her lap, open. "No." She says to Kalen, focusing on the pages in front of her while they talk about...maps.

And really why should she leave? She was there first. He tried to chase her off the other night, not the other way around.

Danny
*Danny smiles seeing Kalen when he sits down.* Okay, I'll bite. Why the maps?

Kalen Holliday
"Because one never knows when it will be advantageous to know about the current and historic location of sewers.  Or mines.  Or mysterious tunnels, though I haven't found any interesting mystery tunnels beneath Denver.

"Yet."  He settles beside Danny, leaving Danny between himself and Arionna.  And he does warily scan the grounds now and again, but really, this is rather open and populated for vampires or cannibals or most of the things that might ambush them.  And he is tired.

But look, also places that have been ambushed in Denver include movie showings and club openings.  Just because something sounds reasonably safe doesn't mean it is.
"How are you two?"

Danny
Me I'm fine.. *he smiles and lifts his drink to take another slurp of that lethal concoction of coffee, toffee syrup ice and milk, all topped with more toffee syrup and cream. What about up and around in the locale? I mean, this is Colorado, right? Gold country? What about old mines?

Danny
(Shit sorry, bloody fingers)

Arionna
"The word mysterious would indicate that you'll not likely find that they exist through the library. It wouldn't very much of a mystery if one only needed to look at the university library." She turned a page and sipped her coffee lightly. She glanced to Kalen, considering his question to one of politeness and less of caring. Still she gives him a small shrug. "Acceptable."

Danny
There's always the land register? *he looks between the pair of them.* Why wouldn't they exist through the library?

Kalen Holliday
Kalen rolls his eyes.  "Sometimes you find accounts of mysterious tunnels.  I;m not expecting any here.  But places like New York and some cities in other countries, you do.  Mysterious and secret are often different things.  I'm not expecting to find much for tunnels of either kind under Denver, though.  Granted, I may yet be surprised.  But Denver has very different historical build patterns that make that rather unlikely.

"And...yes.  There are land registers and such.  Old claims maps.  Not all the older records are terribly complete, but I am trying to put notes about where one might find...well...everything.  And mines and caves make good lairs for a number of things.  Grace and I occasionally cross reference them with locations for animal mutilations or missing people or missing animals or whatever else.  Just in case.  So...the more of them we have the better, really.

"And, at some point, perhaps I will want one.  For an underground fortress.  With shiny gold walls."  There is a slight pause.  "Please don't tell me that's not going to happen.  I am joking.  I realize you feel the need to tell me about every little potential thing that might be wrong with anything I say because I don't even know, but I am not even in the mood to wait for you to tell me mines make terrible underground fortresses and are not in fact walled in gold.  I know that.  Much like I know I'm almost certainly not about to find mystery tunnels."

Arionna
"Wouldn't be a mystery if you could find them inside of something so easy to access." She flipped another page, slowly crossing an ankle over the other. Kalen may be trying to nip her in the bud, but oh she's not having it."You could paint the walls gold. It will likely take you several coats to achieve the appropriate color, but if you're after something so gaudy, it's achievable. If you mean solid gold, it will be harder to create, and also would be unwise if you're attempting to maintain structural strength. Gold is terrible as a building material, fantastic as a conductor."

Danny
*He'd held his breath waiting for Arionna's answer... and then blinked before his shoulders began to shake as the silent laughter caught them. Then he chuckled shaking his head.* She's actually kinda got you there Kalen. You know... I bet that Arionna knows the terrain pretty well, and knows the caves too, places bears sleep, other ones.... *he eyed first Kalen, then Arionna. Still smiling her answer.*

(They're sat under a tree away from people.)

Grace
[Awareness!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 4 )

Kalen Holliday
"I have absolutely no desire for gold walls.  The fact that you somehow still think that after I stopped to actually clarify I wasn't serious qualifies as unfriendly in normal human interaction.  Despite the fact that Danny is amused.  I have no idea if you're honestly oblivious, or just a fucking bitch.  But, for the record, the fact that by any conventional reading you are a cold bitch is why I'm not trying to be extra nice to you.

"Perhaps you just are incapable of anything resembling normal human interaction.  In which case, I'm sorry I'm being kind of cool with you.  But, honestly, you seem to not like me and so I rather expect that like practically the rest of Denver, you also hate me.  That's fine.

"But on the off chance you're actually about as feral as I was when I got here, we could call a truce."
He huffs at Danny.  "Only if I were serious.  Which I wasn't.  Or if mysterious things did not get written about all the time.  Some mysteries are in the open just unsolved.  So, mysterious tunnels are unlikely for a variety of reasons, but might be found by research.  Secret tunnels no.  If we are going to pick apart everything I say for spite, lets do it properly, shall we?"

Grace
So, Grace is on point today. Then again, she always feels a little spiky. Or sharp. Or stabbing. Right now, her senses are wide open to the world, and Kalen is...
Not at the library. That much can be gleaned by the light hint of ozone that does not seem to be coming from that particular building. Oh yes, having trouble with a database (like he texted)? Or did he just get stuck gazing in wonder at a goose or something?

Hey. It's Kalen. He could easily get stuck.

A little wandering finds another resonance in the mix, one that beams and flashes. Ohhh, well now everything is making sense.

Those paying attention will have to pay a great deal of it in order to notice Grace walking up a path to the tree under which they sit. She goes silent. Even her resonance is a bit difficult to detect until she's gone and madeherself be seen.
She hears him, yeah? Cold bitch? You hate me? Sounds like Kalen made a friend.

Arionna
She feels like winter. That's the best way to explain it simply. The wind seeping into your clothes and the chill of the ice crawling into your bones to remind you that, yes, the cold of the night and the deep winter can kill you, and it won't be painless like some imagine it.

"Well... if we're going to call names." Arionna closed her book and looked slowly at Kalen. "You're a hot-headed, ill-tempered, judgmental dick. Perhaps I'm not 'friendly' but you're hardly approachable. I find you strangely egotistical to think that I have considered you so much that I hate you, and that the entirety of Denver has enough knowledge of your presence to know you're not just another man on the street. Only someone full of themselves would think they're so important that they could express even half of the perspectives elicited by the city. Unless of course you meant the very small select people that you know, in which case...You don't know me, and I don't know you, so the emotional connection we have is currently residing at 0. For clarification, that is not hate, in case you get the wrong idea."

"Now. We can call a truce." She put her finger back between the pages of the book and opened it up to continue.

Danny
She doesn't hate you....
*He again looked up at the sky. Squinting a bit as he did so then shook his head again.* Arionna, you could help out here.

*He turns his head downwards to look at her, restraining himself from wanting too hard for the pair of them to get along enough. He didn't notice Grace, his ping-dar didn't seem to be working so well today. Then Arionna spoke and he actually let his head fall back against the tree with a hollow thunk, then sighs heavily.*

 Kalen Holliday
And you see, it here that, for the first time, Kalen laughs.  "I'm not terribly approachable right now, am I?  I try.  I do.  But I spent a very long time on my own.  I sometimes forget I've learned to purr and take food from people's hands."  He smiles faintly.  "Speaking of which, I'd offer to shake hands but last we met you seemed intent on the not touching.  Which is fine."

He looks up at where Grace is approaching and grins.  "Hey, Kit.  I found someone else who thinks all other humans have cooties."  And then he waits, not for Arionna's likely response, but for Grace's.  Because, once he knows you, sometimes provocation is love.

"It's alright, Star.  I'm not actually as hot-headed and ill-tempered and judgmental as people tend to think.  You know-"  He settles against Danny's side,  "Quite."

Grace
"Well, everyone has 'cooties'. I mean, there's millions of bacteria on our skins. Some of which is actually beneficial, fighting the good fight against the baddies. I don't really care about it," Grace says, but there's a quizzical expression on her face as she walks up.
"Are you guys fighting or not?" she asks. Honestly curious. Maybe ready to bolt (in case someone starts throwing bolts of their own).

Arionna
"It's not cooties." She lifted her head just enough to look at Grace from behind the strands of dark hair. "We're in-between matches."

"She's right though. Humans are foul and full of germs. Not exactly the most cleanly animal." Another turn of the page and she looked back towards Grace slowly. "You're new. Weasel-face's friend, or Mr. Sunshine?"

Danny
*He let out the next breath with a large grin on his face.... then slipped his arm around Kalen giving him a hug one armed.* Thank you.... Thank you thank you thank you...
*Then Arionna spoke and he started to chuckle again, this time shaking his head.* Oh. My. God.
*Grace was greeted to that sight yes, he turns his head to look at Grace.* Grace!! Come sit down! How's it going?

*Yeah, now he just took another suck of the cold drink. His hair was tied back at the nape of his neck again, it was too hot for jeans so he'd put on a pair of three quarter baggy jeans, a pair of flip flops and a t shirt that said."Always be yourself, unless you can be Batman. Then always be Batman."* So, what are you wearing for the Halloween do?  Still going with the coat? I've gotten stuff sorted out for me, it's just right.... I juust need to find my Mardi Gras beads to complete it.
They're not going to fight, thinks are cool but okay. Come on, plant your ass.

Kalen Holliday
"We're not fighting.""  He rolls his eyes, but he can't really mean it because he doesn't even bother to sit up properly.  "Although, clearly, her eyesight is compromised because I do not look like a weasel.
"Anyway, Kit, this is Arionna.  Arionna, this is Grace."
He nudges Danny lightly.  "Look.  I sometimes have to interact with other humans without Serafine.  It can be done.  Clearly, I possess some ability to play nice."  He has more than some ability to play nice, but that...well that was practically another lifetime.  And that was less nice and more playing.

Grace
Grace waves at Arionna. "Both of them. And he isn't a weasel. Mr. Sunshine is more the weasel. A ferret, really. Kalen is an undomesticated cat. But he, obviously, thinks of me as a vulpine species, from the name he gave me."

Yes, Danny, you are a ferret. Congratulations.

"The coat? I suppose I could. But it's more of a laser tag thing than a costume. I don't know what I could go as with a light-up coat," she says to Danny. "I could make it blink really fast and go as a pulsar, but then I might give someone a seizure."
"I would plant my ass, but my butt could grow roots and that would be so uncomfortable. I think I'll just sit," she says, and plops down, not next to the trunk, but facing the others.

Arionna
She looks to Danny for a moment. "Mmm... no.. not a ferret. Unless he's a thief. Do you have a tendency to take things of little to no monetary value and hide them under couches? Do you do the weasel war dance when you become excited?"
"Kalen has a very weasel face. It's the bone structure. Pointed nose." She pointd at her own nose as if to make the point. Arionna closed her book again and lifted her attention to the group finally. "If you grow roots, I hope you have the courtesy to wait until I can document it. I've never seen a human grow roots before."

Danny
*Letting his arm remain there, he just let the smile stay on his face. What wasn't to love? It was getting darker, they were relaxing in the last rays of summer, yeah all in all, life wasn't too terrible if you ignored that there were a hoard of nasty evil cannibals on the rampage and who knew what else..*
Nope, you're not a weasel face.  Definitely a cat. *He chuckled a bit at that. Then stared at Grace in shock.* How the hell am I a ferret?
*He shook his head still smiling and chuckling.* No I'm not  thief. And what the hell is a weasel war dance? Kalen's beautiful.

Kalen Holliday
"Excitable, curious, fond of shiny objects?"  Kalen smiles.  "I could see it."
"Lots of animals have pointed noses."  The protest doesn't even sound serious.  Because he is calm, and not actually concerned about it.  Weasels are kind of cute.
And then Danny is calling him beautiful, so Kalen responds exactly as one might expect.  "Purr."

Grace
"You haven't? I have seen humans growing roots. It wasn't very cool. We managed to save one of them, but from what I gather, it wasn't easy," Grace says. Oh yeah, Arionna. Have we mentioned this is Denver yet?
"You are a ferret," she says to Danny, and shrugs. Like, that's the only evidence she has really. That he just is one.

Arionna
"The weasel war dance is..." Either youtube was going to explain it or Ari was going to be left to it. She took in a slow breath, tightening her lips a little. Slowly, she rose from her feet, setting her book aside. Arionna slipped her hands under her hair, pushing it out of her face. With a small shake of her limbs and a straight, poised stance, she began.
First, she bounced in place, then forwards and backwards, giving it a little spin. And maybe that would have been it, but oh.. oh no it wasn't. She ran forward, stopped, bounced, then jumped a bit in the air, wiggling as much of her body as she could. With another spin, she ran back to the group, bumping into Danny with a few bounces, giving another twirl and wiggle in the air before she bounced back to her place and stood there, panting from the exertion. "That...is the weasel war dance. And it's done when a weasel or ferret successfully takes an item. "
Her hands brushed at her skirt as if it might wash away the strangeness that just presented itself. "People grew roots?" A look of confusion sliding over to Grace. "How?"

Danny
*There was another sigh and he shook his head again with another chuckle, but this time it was to Grace..* Fine, Ferret then.  I guess I should see this whole war dance thing at least though before I accept it.
*He grinned even more at Kalen's purr.* It's true... I could scritch, your chin but I think that'd be pushing too far. Maybe... so..... Me and Ari were talking earlier.... just chatting shit. She's uh.... very new to the scene.
*And then Ari got up, and began to prance about, pronging around and bouncing. All he could do was stare at her, his eyebrows rising higher and higher, right before he burst out laughing. A proper full on laugh.* Oh. My. God. I do not do that!!  Do I? Ferrets gloat?
*But he settled down some more when Arionna asked the right question, if she saw his face, she'd see him nod in encouragement.*

Kalen Holliday
Kalen stretches and then resettles.  "Careful.  Grace did specify that I was undomesticated."  He watches the war dance, which is far from the strangest spontaneous demonstration he has seen without comment.  Random passers-by might be surprised, but it takes mythical creatures and being dragged into the Umbra, and other rather more extreme circumstances to surprise Kalen.
Like finding out someone was reading to your body while you were functionally comatose.
"So was Grace, when we met," Kalen says.  "Remember that, Kit?  And you were skeptical about coming out to my totally not creepy warehouse....?"  He sounds amused.
"Actually, unless you can think of an appropriate nature witch I was thinking maybe we should introduce her to Eleanor.  They'll be like instant wintery friends or someone will start hissing, I think.  But in the event of the first one I think the balance thing would be an ideal point of commonality.
"I picked up less from Jack and more from Kharisma, so I know some principals but...I'm more fate than balance.  Even if we actually got on and wanted to...I don't think I'd be any good for her."  Says the Flambeau who practically took Grace as an apprentice for awhile.  And, lo, it did it goeth more smoothly than his actual apprentice.

Grace
"I don't know how it happened," Grace says, to Arionna. "Not exactly. Apparently some plant 'spirit' or other got a little too into messing with people. Turned them into horrible shambling root monsters."
She doesn't say zombies. She doesn't want to unnecessarily set him on edge.
"Well, the warehouse is not creepy," she starts to answer Kalen, even though her eyes stay on Arionna. "But I didn't know that beforehand. Just there's this guy I just met and he's saying I should come to his warehouse to shoot guns, and that doesn't exactly inspire gobs of trust."

Arionna
She sat back down in her seat, stretching her legs out and acting as if the whole war dance had never occurred. "Ferrets gloat, yes. Very much so. I imagine they have very humorous personalities."
She cast her green eyes a little to Kalen. "No, I suppose it wouldn't. He does have a little of a serial killer look. Not very approachable either. Gives off a bit of an air. I wouldn't trust that either." Her book was placed right back in her lap and she crossed her ankles. "Suppose I can't blame the earth for retaliating. "

Danny
*He was relieved. Turning his head to Kalen as he spoke.* Hey, I like being bitten! *Reveal time?!!*
Yeah, that's probably the best way to go.  Right now, I'm keen on preventing things getting out of hand without her having any idea of what the cost is from the burn.  *Perhaps it was impolite to speak about Ari with her there, but it was better probably with her there rather than not.* And no, I don't think I know of any nature witches.
*He turns to stare at Grace then laughs as his head goes to Kalen.* You didn't!  Oh god, that's terrible! I'm surprised she didn't run a mile!
*He never knew what Arionna was going to say next,* I'd have never guessed that Ferrets gloat, but I'd hope I wouldn't do that... unless I really was right.

Kalen Holliday
"Oh, I totally did.  And she asked if she could bring a friend.  And then I told her that if she'd trusted me I would have been slightly disappointed in her and we've been friends ever since."  Not precisely true.  But he doesn't bring up what they've more technically been friends ever since.  But that first day she got her Name and they've been friendly since.  That counts, right?

Grace
"He did. But then, I don't know. He turned out not to be an axe murderer, and when I did go to the warehouse, we just drank coffee and talked about the true nature of the universe, so..." she shrugs.
"I can blame the spirit plenty. It tried to kill me. Strangely enough, that's still cause for blame. I don't know. I actually grew some roots there myself, but fought it off."

Kiara Woolfe
It's getting darker and the lights on Denver Campus have ignited, dull yellow orbs flickering to life and casting feeble attempts at lighting down upon the pathways that weave throughout the sprawling campus lawns. There's more than a single figure navigating said pathways at this time of day, when the sun retreats and the moon peeks from under the horizon, ascending into an inky black sky scattered with stars.

Kiara Woolfe is among those souls, a dark figure cutting across the lawn with her arms full of papers, a bag slung casually over a shoulder in some intimation of a perfectly acceptable college student and that bold mouth of hers painted as richly crimson red as ever. She's a striking figure, not merely for the mundane reasons, but also for the way she invokes a certain supernatural je ne sais quoi from those with the senses to detect it. It's very particular, that feeling of your skin being prickled and stripped, only to be pressed back into feeling with a sudden jolt. Like someone has torn a intangible bandaid off without the manners to forewarn it.
The Dreamweaver has no pressing business to her stride, her long legs are eating up the lawn with casual determination. Still, her path intends to lead her quite close to the small gathering under the trees.

Arionna
With the drop of the sun and the rise of the moon, she feels...more alive, rejuvenated...free. It's always with the coming dark that she feels stronger, better at everything. She curls her legs under her slowly, shoving the book back into her bag. "Nothing is getting out of hand. You're treating me like a child. As if I've never been prepared for this. I'm likely not the first in my line to be gifted."
"You killed it, didn't you? That's part of everything. Something is always trying to kill something else. If its motivations were just, then I couldn't be upset about it."

Danny
If I didn't know you, I'd say you were exaggerating, but I know you well enough by now I think. . *he laughed  softly to Kalen. Then looked to the girls as they talked. If he didn't see Kiara or didn't really pay attention to her was purely because he was having an off day as far as his ping-dar was working.
His head turned to Arionna as she spoke, then he gently hugged Kalen again.* You okay?  Getting enough rest or you need me to come over?

Kalen Holliday
"On the contrary, I spend a considerable amount of time either teaching or learning, and I've spent a decade learning already.  Having people who understand and can work with you is a good thing.  I think there is a good chance you might have that with Eleanor.  There is almost no chance you'll have it with me.

"I don't think you need someone to hold your hand while you cross the street, and you'll understand when you meet her...but Eleanor has never struck me as the hand-holding or coddling type.  She is one of the more intimidating people I have met, but she seems in my experience reasonable, fair, and dedicated to justice.
"If you were a different person, I'd introduce you to someone else."
He glances at Danny.  "I'm fine, Star."

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

Grace
"I don't know if its motivations were just, or if it even had a concept of what justice is, necessarily. I think that's the only thing that really gives it much of a pass in my opinion. Someone once told me that spirits don't really see things the same way we do. They only know their own natures, or something. So us complicated humans with our concepts of justice and right and wrong? They don't really get it. I mean, I wouldn't expect it. They're like automatons. Daemons. One job, one purpose. I don't know really. I've never had much contact with 'spirits'."

She leans back to look at the sky, and a touch of surprise crosses her when she feels Kiara. This surprise is directed at the last embers of sunset. She doesn't actually look to the source.
"I don't think it's that he's treating you like a child. Just in Denver, we tend to have to stick together. The world ends here about two or three times a season. We've had world-ending plague, world-ending viral plant things, a world-ending spirit of terror I like to call Thakky, another universe tried to eat ours from here. Just lots and lots of shit. Eventually, if you're unlucky, you'll want someone watching your back.

"Also... who is that? Someone's coming?"

Kiara Woolfe
Not everyone among the collection under the tree is familiar, but there's enough to slow the brunette's momentum somewhat as she nears, the heels of her boots sinking easily into the earth. Kiara pauses, tenders aside a lock of dark hair from her eye and with a small smile hinging the edge of her mouth, redirects her footsteps so that they fall into direct line with the grouping by the tree.

"Don't tell me," she offers, a thin eyebrow drawn upward, her gaze settling on one face she does recognize, slouched against the tree with Danny. "Stargazing Club?" The Verbena's eyes flick upward, musing. "You might get lucky." They drop. Shift between the various gathered Awakened. Grace gets a slightly longer look, more measured, a calculation perhaps of the odds of her being what Kiara assumes, given her company, she must be. Arionna gets the benefit of a wider smile of recognition before the dark eyes return to Kalen.

"Private party or can a girl pull up a square of lawn?"

Arionna
She knows Kiara from their moment in the herb shop. So when she approaches, Ari shifts her eyes to the woman, picking up her now cold coffee and sipping at it. There wasn't much left, but it still had a pleasant flavor.Her eyes flit among the group, and despite her own beliefs, she can't seem to accept that the world has nearly ended a few times...particularly since she didn't experience it herself.
"If you pull up a square of lawn, I don't think the university will be very pleased. They'll have to put it back, and I've learned that city people truly enjoy their artificial lawns."

Danny
*He nodded sagely to the pair of them when they spoke to Arionna, and no, there was no gloating what so ever, some might lift their hand and "air chalk" the wall, others might crow "I told you so!" Triumphantly, Danny smiles, but it's not so much as it was.
Then at Graces other words, he frowns slightly and starts to look out. Panning the area until he felt that something different.*
Uh, be my guest? *he was comfortable, his arm was draped around Kalen but his skin was cooling rapidly now that night had fallen in full and he wriggled just that little bit closer to Kalen.*

Kalen Holliday
"Figure of speech," Kalen murmurs to Arionna, but there is no venom or even really censure.
"They let me in.  I assume they'll let anyone."  He doesn't move from where he's settled against Danny's side, but his eyes track Kiara now, wary despite the playful tone.  "And...on occasion.  On occasion there is stargazing."  He doesn't offer introductions this time.  Of course, he doesn't actually know Kiara.  That does tend to put a bit of a strain on introductions.

Grace
[Reference for the adorables: http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/da/16/e9/da16e99efe497c00ecae599e2b9e4ec5.jpg]
Grace smirks at Danny and pulls out her smart phone. A few seconds later, she turns it around to show him a picture of a ferret and a cat cuddling each other. Kalen will probably see it too, as his vantage point is so close to Danny's.

Seems like they've been that way since the beginning -- touchy feely in a way Grace can't comprehend. But she can do a mean image search.

"It's totally private. I mean, where did you get the idea that people should be allowed to sit wherever? In the outdoors? We have rules and regulations like a mile long as to how you can socially interface with us. How dare you," Grace says, but the words are so blatantly full of jest at the very idea of private gatherings out in the open, it would take a miracle to miss the sarcasm.

Kiara Woolfe
"Grazie." She drops the bag to the ground with a heavy thunk, things inside rattle together before adding a pile of papers to the lawn beside it and setting a foot lightly on top to hold its position while she gathers together the heavy fall of her hair from her nape and shifts it over a shoulder.
For a (near) perfect stranger, the female has an odd degree of certainty about her acceptance to the gathering. That, or perhaps she takes a little pleasure in any discomfort that follows it. Arionna draws laughter, its warm, vital. It reaches the Pagan's eyes tonight. "Oh, I don't know, I think it could add character. A few missing pieces here and there, it might be exciting." She turns her attention back to Grace.

"Lawn elitism. I should have known. It's a college thing, isn't it?" Glib for glib. Then. "I'm Kiara, by the way. Kiara Woolfe. Newcomer, social interloper." She holds out a hand, ring laiden and with a wrist bound by clinking bracelets. "Woman of mystery, defier of social lawn etiquette." The last added on idly, as an afterthought.

Arionna
"If you remove just the right pieces, we can have a game of chess, much like Alice did. Though we'll never get anywhere because the whole world isn't quite right. "
"It wasn't so much that we let him in, but that he sort of appeared, and we didn't have the energy to kick him out. The sun has a way of doing that." She popped the lid of her coffee to examine how low the contents were and let her lips drop into a small frown.
"Arionna. Kalen is the weasel. Danny is the one with the long hair. Grace is the only other female present. Besides you."

Danny
*His eyebrows shot up seeing the picture and he laughs again in surprise.* That is sheer class.  Bravo.. *He grinned at Grace. He didn't know Kiara but was not giving off the prickles that Kalen almost exhibits, it was merely curiosity now. Even as he laughed again at Grace's words, the laugh still a chuckle at Kiara's words before he shifted slowly so's not to dislodge Kalen. His hand coming out to shake Kiara's lightly.*
Danny. *When he'd shook hands he nestled back again, this time with a shiver.* I'm going to have to go soon, I'm sorry.
*And again he had to laugh at Arionna with a shake of his head.*

Kalen Holliday
His eyes roll at Arionna's continued references to him as a weasel, but Kiara amuses him and there a picture of a cat and a ferret and they are so cute and-
...ahem.  Decorum.  Or something.
"Me too.  I did come here to work."  But he doesn't move from where he is yet, save for just enough to offer a hand to Kiara.
"Hey."

Grace
Grace does not offer a hand. She never offers that. But she does smile.
"Man, you do not even know about lawn elitism until you've lived in Phoenix. It's a status symbol that says just how much you care about the expense of water usage. Hell, the fountains-per-capita in that place is astounding. And then, the border towns about riot over the people crossing the border who have the temerity to drink from their precious lawn fountains. Like how dare they survive, right? It's like the border jumpers are attacking them right in the elitist status symbol," Grace says, obviously a bit on a particular side when it comes to elitism.
She shifts her attention back to Kalen. "Oh yes, Mr. I Had This Problem With a Database, who had to text me about it. Then I find you here being all with people."

Kiara Woolfe
"Arionna. Kalen, I remember. We had a tryst over ice cream. Or at least, meaningful dialogue, I think. Danny, I'm sure I've seen you before. I'd like to think I'd remember." The edge of her mouth again. Playful. Flicking to Grace and her speech on elitism. "Grace."
She slides down into a cross legged collection of limbs and reclines back on one hand. "I come from New York, I think anything not resembling a sidewalk is considered fair game." She jingles when she shifts her weight, Kiara, a collection of gems gleam around her neck, her wrist too. Beneath one leg the edge of her papers are slightly dislodged, though they appear far less any sort of college level work and more bold colored flyers advertising something or other.

Arionna
The reference will never die. Grace may see Kalen as a cat, but he will always be a weasel in Ari's mind. Always. Probably one of those little albino ones. She doesn't need to give an exit speech, or a mention that she needs to slip off into the night. Arionna rises from her seat, grabbing her bag and sliding it over her shoulder.
"I have studying to complete." Her hands wrapped around her nearly empty coffee cup. She stepped around  and out of the little group to make her way right back towards the library. [Ugh it's past midnight on my clock - and school calls]

Danny
Okay... Well... *he reluctantly shifts to move away from Kalen then stands up. T-shirt, three quarter length jeans which were fabulous in the heat of the day, but it was colder now by about ten degrees c.* I got to move on I'm afraid, I'm fucking freezing here.
*He laughed at Grace, then looked at Kalen with a fond shake of his head.* Kiara it was nice to meet you, everyone else? I bid you a fond farewell, and I shall see you all again soon. So take care of yourselves and each other.
*With that he began to make his way to where his car had been parked. Soon only his resonance lingered, then he was gone.*
(I'm really sorry, it's really early here... cars outside and I need to go to bed before the sun comes up.)

Danny
Sorry about having to bail, it's gone 5am

Kiara Woolfe
(No worries, guys! Thanks for playing. :) )

Kalen Holliday
Kalen rises too.  "As lovely as it is to see you again, I come from a nice southern sunny place and I might freeze out here."  He smiles.  "Did I give you my card last time?"
He glances over at Grace.  "You can be social.  I'll get set up.  And then fail at keywords until you get there.  There are only so many possibilities.  I might luck into something....."

Grace
"Kalen, databases don't generally have keywords. They have queries. Remember, 'select' whatever 'from' the database 'where' things are the way you want them," Grace says, and realizes upon blinking that he probably still has no clue what she means.
"I'll just go with you, okay? Sorry, Kiara. I do have to go help Kalen. He needs it."
With that, she stands from her plot of grass, thankfully not having grown roots into it, and joins Kalen. Not at his side. She's the type to keep a large bubble of personal space. But with him? That bubble is smaller than with most.

Kiara Woolfe
The departing figures receive a brief salute from the brunette, Kalen a winged smile and a nod, yes, she had his card before he and Grace stand to head on their way. "Don't let me keep you, I was just waiting you out to steal your piece of lawn, anyway."
There's a laugh and she watches the pair depart, her dark eyes following them until they vanish into the inky darkness.

Kiara Woolfe
(Thanks for letting me crash your scene, guys! Sleep well.)

on gods. [arionna, unfinished]

Kiara Woolfe
With Halloween drawing near, the store that Kiara Woolfe finds herself in one early Wednesday evening has, rather suddenly, become a sort of mecca for the uninformed (but eager) All Hallows Eve reveler. Herbs & Artsis a large, sweet smelling establishment in East Colfax that rather stands out on its block for the number of strange and wonderful statues standing guard in its window, back by silvery, gleaming curtains and surrounded by an arch of odd looking stars and glyphs which, the like minded soul would comprehend but, to others, gave it an eccentric, nearly off putting air.
Tonight, the glass doors stand open, lights ablaze well after its opening hours as figures mill about inside, seemingly just dismissed and loudly chattering after a class. Many with rolled up Yoga mats under their arms, perusing the towering aisles; floor to ceiling jars of incense, oils, unknown creams suggesting cures for everything from depression to a persistent foot fungus. It's here, between a marble bust of a young woman whose figure had been turned into a small fountain and a tall bookshelf full of dusty volumes that Kiara is found, her face buried between the pages, a mat obligingly under her own arm and her attire suited to a young woman just returned from some triumph of athleticism.
The owners are yet to round up the stragglers, and the till rings with various last minute purchases as the Verbana amuses herself in what appears to be an instructional volume on the best care of your soul.

Arionna de la Babin
[perc aware]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 4, 7) ( success x 1 )

Arionna de la Babin
New agey stores are both fascinating and appalling to someone like Ari. They're not the places she frequents, or at least she doesn't for anything other than the handful of items that are difficult to find elsewhere; grocery stores are not known for their handling of uncommon spices. Even their teas tend to be the sort that are already in little bags. So much to her chagrin, Ari is reduced to sliding into places where women with magical fascination in the foreign congregate to accumulate creams that will 'cure aging' or some other odd idea.
Melt this candle and your true love will find you! Please, as if it were that simple. The gods are hardly so petty.
It's cool enough now that she's dressed in a black long sleeve with her knee length skirt, leggings and boots. So cliche in her choice of black, though she accents it with an orange crystal at her through (the only jewelry she bothers to wear). She mills at the candles, trying to decide exactly which she wants, how many, and how she wants to pair things. It's all about the ritual, and it has to be just right.

Kiara Woolfe
[Let's see if the dice want to be kind tonight, Awareness, perhaps?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )

Kiara Woolfe
It's rarely so simple, indeed. True casting required far more than an intention to locate love. Though one doubts that a cheap candle with perfume fragrance would do much to inspire anything but the hasty location of a window to ventilate the smell. Still - there was magic to be found, for the right person, at the right cost - monetarily, spiritually ... Kiara already had in one hand a bag of what seemed to be dried leaves, inconspicuous enough since they could have been for any purpose, yet as she sets her reading material back on the shelf with a faintly derisive snort, they rustle as she moves along the asile and then --
The air seems to grow colder, losing its sweetness in favor of something far more base and destructive, crystallising and slowing the blood --
She pauses and glances at the dark haired girl loitering around the candle display. The barest suggestion of a smile twitches the corner of the female's mouth and she re-directs her path, her approach heralded with her own brand of atmospheric disturbance, it feels as if something is peeling back the layers of the room, corrosive and devouring, without motive or concern before it retracts and offers a balm to its own sensation. Like waves lapping, it cycles over as the Verbana appears at the smaller female's side and points at a black candle.
"That one's great for cleansing your rooms."

Arionna de la Babin
It's not as intense for her; likely she's focused on something else entirely and almost misses the sensation. Ari, who was considering a candle, pauses and casts a glance to the side of her as Kiara approaches. She's feeling more of this lately. Sometimes she runs into people who feel strange, or at least passes them by, but those have been uncommon in the past. Now almost every time she slips out of the house, she meets someone who doesn't feel quite normal.
Her dark hair slides around her face as she lowers her head just a little, keeping Kiara within her view and still keeping herself slightly shielded. Arionna is still unsure how to handle all these odd people.
"Or for cursing.I have a deep preference for red in that case, however."

Kiara Woolfe
"Mm." She's quite tall, the brunette who has planted herself beside Arionna. Tall and slender, with that same hard to place otherness she's been feeling from strangers. It's easy enough to assume you're going crazy, when the world suddenly seems to be talking back. The Verbana picks up a pink candle, fatter and bulkier than most others and lifts it to her nose, murmuring as she does, "people always assume red to be color of dark magic."
Kiara sets the candle back, her gaze settling on the Orphan beside her with an unsettling sort of weight. They're very dark, her eyes. Unerringly brown and at present, studying Arionna like she's an interesting new specimen the store's just imported. "Same with black, actually. I like to think there's more to them than that.
I'm Kiara." She holds out a hand, its devoid of any rings or trinkets tonight.

Arionna de la Babin
"Dark magic is a misnomer. The use of the term 'Dark' often suggests maliciousness or evil. The colors associated are not in conjunction with ones desires but the desires of that which they are appealing to." She peered to the side still, watching, and listening to the taller woman. "'Dark' magic is no more shallow than the rest of it. The emotions and place of which it derives is just as important to the functioning of the world."
Arionna looked to the hand but didn't offer hers in turn. She reached for the red candle instead, rolling it in her hands as if she expected something to happen right then. "I take it that you prefer the....lighter side of the world."

Kiara Woolfe
An eyebrow quirks in tandem with the corner of the stranger's mouth. It's not an altogether appreciative smile, but tinged with something almost pitying; perhaps a little mocking. Certainly the dark eyes seem to find amusement in the refusal of a handshake and Kiara lets her hand remain for a few longer moments as if it were, in and of itself, a test of some kind that, with a burgeoning smile, the girl has failed. To her mingled disappointment and perhaps, in some tiny part, expectation.
"I think I read that in one of these books somewhere, you know," Kiara returns with deceiving lightness, tracing her fingers along the spines of several nearby idly, as if she hadn't much care for what they enclosed. Arionna toys with the red candle and Kiara prowls around the other side of the display, smiling in passing at one of the owners, a large, red cheeked woman with several crystals hanging around her neck, rushing to aid a customer before she topples over a number of glass jars behind them.
I take it you prefer the lighter side of the world.
The Verbana's eyes flit to her again, she smiles, but it's a Mona Lisa Smile, full of half truths and unknowns. "Dark and light are part of the same whole. I prefer to remain in harmony with nature." She runs the tip of her finger over a dangerously sharp edge belonging to one of the candle holders. "There's some truth though," she permits, "to watching what you put out there." She glances sharply at the black candle, her expression turning thoughtful.
"The best of us can make mistakes, after all."

Arionna de la Babin
She grabs three of the red candles, somewhat content with her decision. Though there were a few other things she needed...incense perhaps. Something with a very particular scent; she'd know it when she smelled it. As Kiara moves to the other side, Arionna lifts her gaze to follow her, watching her movements with curiosity. Her attention only flits momentarily towards the owner, eyes dropping to the crystals around her neck. The tightness of her lips suggests her dislike of such excessive wears. It's likely that the woman hasn't a clue what she's wearing, or even how to use it right.
"There is nothing that is put anywhere. It's the will of the gods, and one only channels it. If the gods didn't wish it, then they will express their dissatisfaction. Whether it's ill or not. The world is not a kind place. It doesn't reward good behavior anymore than it punishes ill behavior. Many people live quite well who are otherwise vile and aberrations to the world. There are others who are contain greatness within them, and yet are provided with nothing. They suffer, and perish. "
She lifted her head a little to look directly at Kiara momentarily. "Villainy exists more often in what one perceives as 'light' than so many are willing to admit." Arionna inhales slowly, her attention drifting towards the others in the shop.

Kiara Woolfe
"You speak very certainly about your Gods." Kiara offers lightly, still tracing her fingers over the top of a holder, her eyes resting on Arionna over it, that same infuriating edge of a smile playing around her mouth. "Faith can be as much a danger as anything else. Too rigid a devoutness has offered the world a lot of pointless wars and bloodshed."
She draws her finger away, rubbing her thumb against it, there's a flash of red before she conceals it. "But you have a valid point, the world isn't kind, but it's not particularly cruel, either. It simply endures. People find cruelty in the indifference of it."
She moves around the display now, adjusting her mat under her arm, looking distracted for a moment as she searches out the owner, one imagines, to ring through her own purchases. "Don't be too sure about where the distinctions are, though. In my experience, they're more often than not blurred."

echoes [STed scene, elijah, lucy]

Echoes
Hello and good eeeeevening! *spooky voice*
1: This scene will be creepy and sad but not so terribly dangerous.
2: If you could both pm me with any potentially relevant merits and flaws, that would be cool.
3: No posting time limit. (I mean, you know, within reason.) I think we can probably get this scene done at a reasonable hour.
4: As always, I am here for questions and concerns. So if you have one, let me know.
5: Have fun! Mwuhahaha!

Echoes
It was a cloudy evening in Denver. The sky above Washington Park was darkly veiled. Even the brightest stars were little more than distant pinpoints, and the moon was shrouded in mist. When Lucy and Elijah arrived at the park, they'd find it mostly empty. A long stretch of grass and trees and now-hibernating flower beds was laid out before them, still and quiet apart from the sifting of dry leaves. It did not precisely feel ominous (not to these two - Lucy the Dreamspeaker and Elijah the medium,) but it did seem just... a little bit haunted. There was a feeling of whispers on the breeze.
But then, October evenings often felt this way. It was the nature of October.

Elijah
"So," he announces, "I met Delilah."
He didn't spend much time hanging out with Lucy, which was of course a fact that he was needing to remedy. It was occurrence that was he had intended on remedying. She was enjoyable, and honestly the last time Elijah had been really hanging out with Lucy was when he and Alicia and Sally had broken into an amusement park. The park felt quiet, haunted and haunting but enjoyable none the less.
It was october. Elijah had a fondness for October. A joy for the season and it felt… just a bit haunted. Just a bit strange. Just a bit of time where everyone felt the way that he felt every day.

Lucy
It started with a text, one to the other.  It ended with a trip to a nearby ice cream parlour.  It is a little bit of a walk from Bonnie Brae to the park, but Lucy was up for it if Elijah was and so they walked to this place, chatting amiably.
She seems a little off tonight, does Lucy.  Not in any terrible and easily pinpointed way.  Just...thoughtful.  Contemplative.  She is dressed in a tank top (Fortes Fortuna Juvat, perhaps that is appropraite), black pants with many zippers, and her black knee-high boots.  They are talking amiably about this or that when Elijah announces that he met Delilah.
One moment Lucy is happily eating her ice cream, the next a sudden burst of air from her wind pipe creates an opening whereby the ice cream tries to be eaten by her esophagus.  Cue coughing fit.
When she manages to collect herself, she wipes the back of her hand across her mouth and...keeps it there.  "Oh?" she asks, trying to sound nonchalant and failing utterly.

Echoes
They'd been to get ice cream. Elijah mentioned, casually, that he'd met Delilah, and a moment later Lucy found herself fighting off a coughing fit. The sound of her coughs echoed around the park, slightly marring the sense of eerie calm that had greeted them. Once she'd managed to dislodge the ice cream she'd inhaled, the quiet returned, creeping back in like a delicate fog.
As they walked through the grass, a gust of wind brushed past. Colder than the rest of the air (like a breath of frost.) It rifled through Lucy and Elijah's hair and crept over their skin.
There was that gust: sudden, biting. And then nothing. Silence.
And then? Something that fell only on Elijah's ears.

Lucy
[that was cold like me, murr? awareness!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )

Kiara
It was a terrible night to be out running. Cool, cloudy and with the creeping foreboding only October could muster for Denver. Of course, things as trifling as weather had never stopped Kiara Woolfe from doing whatever she desired before and they surely weren't going to begin now. The svelte figure was cutting a track through the park, her sneakers kicking up gravel and her breath puffing out before her.
There was the tinny sound of music coming from earphones, and while most women might have shied away from the practice of running after sunset, there was no coincidence to the fact Kiara was sticking close to lighted areas, falling into step with the lit pathways that veined throughout Washington Park.

Elijah
She chokes on nothing, and Elijah grinned. Caught the look on her face and made a decision at that particular juncture. He thought of Delilah- all dawn-kissed and the morning to Lucy's evening. He does not know the nature of what they are, only that they are close. Only that they share things, and how amazing it must be to-
He stopped walking. There was something over his left shoulder and he did turn. He turned and noticed that there was nothing there. His brows furrowed and the young man took a second to pat himself down. He had a jacket on, not entirely accustomed to the cooling temperatures but there was something cool there.
"Someone's coming," he said as he looked for his pack of cigarettes, "or he's already here."

Lucy
Elijah stops and then Lucy stops, looks at him first over her shoulder then turns to face him more fully.  She only looks at him a moment before she shifts that gaze to the nothing near him, brow furrowed, curious.
Then she is pulling her shoulder bag forward, which clatters and clinks a little oddly - too many pens maybe, or something.  She is rooting through it, careful not to spill what little remains of her cup of ice cream, searching for something when Elijah says that someone's coming.
"Uh huh," she says and then, "hah."  She has her lighter, that long thing silver thing that looks like a skinny thing of lipstick.  It isn't lipstick, though Lucy's lips are painted dark tonight and that could probably use a touch-up after eating.
There is someone coming.  Someones, actually.  Someone dead is nearby, but someone devouring and rejuvenating is drawing nearer.  Lucy will have to trust that this newcomer is not part of the problem.  She flicks on her lighter, the candle burning high, and says a silent prayer.
Dusk Handmaiden, show me the unseen.
[Spirit 1: Find the Spirit, diff 4-1 (practiced)]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (3, 3) ( success x 2 )

Kiara
Someone's coming. 
Kiara's footsteps don't falter as she rounds the bend and grows nearer to Lucy and Elijah. To one, her essence is not unfamiliar, to the other, she is a stranger. This night however, not a ominous one. A lighter is flicked on and as she catches sight of it; of two figures the Verbena's footsteps do slow a little, she turns her head, squints into the inky darkness and, after jogging on the spot for a moment, weaves a little closer.
[Awareness, hello out there?]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (4, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Echoes
Whatever Lucy saw when she invoked her silent prayer, Elijah and Kiara were not yet privy to it. Kiara approached the group at a fast clip, running up the trail nearby. Her earbuds kept her from overhearing whatever it was that the others were saying to each other, but she felt a brush of that lingering chill on the air.
And Elijah? He might not presently have Lucy's sight, but he could hear. (He always heard them, whether he wished to or not.)

Kiara
[*sweeps her post after STs*]

Echoes
[Something is there with them. Something spectral and cold. Kiara will catch a breath of it on the wind as she runs. The closer she approaches Lucy and Elijah, the more noticeable that sense becomes.]

Elijah
[Spirit 1 - Can I see who is there?]
Dice: 1 d10 TN4 (6) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Elijah
They were always there.
He remembered being young and being impressionable. he remembered thinking that his parents believed wholeheartedly that he just had an active imagination. That he just heard things that were fabrications in his own mind that became hallucinations because what else could the voices be other than a figment of an ill mind.
Elijah found his cigarettes, and the young man took a second to light up, a second to inhale and take it all i. He inhaled deep and long before he exhaled.
"Who is Jack?" he asks quietly and intently.

Lucy
Lucy looks and Lucy Sees and as she Sees the air around her grows colder, gelicide crawling over the pavement and brushing against toes.  Suddenly the October night feels a little more frosted, the air more bitterly cold.
"Elijah," she says, eyes on the man who shouldn't be there.  Before she can describe to him or advise him or any other such thing, Elijah is getting out his cigarettes and Lucy, aware, feels the tumult intensify.  Together they are the swirl of the snowstorm, the bite of it threading, stitching its way into the skin, seeking out the bone.  Lucy can't help but smile.  Didn't she tell someone earlier that none of them were helpless?
"I don't know," she says.  She looks away only long enough to see the newcomer hesitate.  Definitely another oracle.  Mage.  Whatever.  When she starts to come closer Lucy lifts her chin and seeks her out, then lifts it in a jerk, a come hither upward nod.
"Excuse me, sir?" she asks, striding toward the man.  "Are you looking for someone?  Maybe we can help?"

Kiara

For as in touch as she was with the earth, Kiara had long understood there was more to what dwelled on it, to what existed beyond simple sight and sound than many understood. She was a Life Mage by design, a Healer by calling but she felt and understood that the Goddess granted visions of things beyond for specific reason. A greater compassion for life could only be reached when one understood the trappings of different spheres of existence.
The body mattered, this mortal coil, but life did not lay trapped inside the cage of a physical being. It was everywhere. In the trees, in the soil, in the roots and leaves decaying on the ground underfoot. There's something with the two figures in the distance. She knows the imprint of Otherness enough to have it stall her run, to detach her earbuds and bend, for a moment, to stretch her muscles. She straightens and begins to move toward the other two.
The hair on her arms stands on end, her eyes flick upward to the moon, growing full with every passing night, nearly obscured tonight by the cloud. The Dreamspeaker notes her approach and if she's not mistaken, it appears that the brunette's lips are moving in some sort of private chant.
"Crescent one of the starry skies, flowered one of the fertile plain, blessed one of the gentle rain, hear my chant amidst the night and grant me open to your mystic sight."
[Spirit Sight, can we see what's going on? (-1 practiced)]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (6, 6) ( success x 2 )

Echoes
Who is Jack?
There was a pause, and that spectral chill grew stronger. Beneath Lucy and Elijah's feet, the grass frosted over, sparkling in the dim light. Lucy approached the source of that chill, and she, gelidus as she was, felt as much a part of that cold death as whatever ghost or spiritual echo had chosen to visit them that night.
Are you looking for someone?
Kiara sensed what the others already knew was there, and as she drew upon Lucy and Elijah, the quiet chanting of her voice joined theirs. She saw him too, now - this ghost in their midst. All of them heard him when he spoke.
"My dog. I'm looking for my dog. We were running together. I thought I had him..."
The voice trailed off.
"Didn't I just have him?"

Echoes
There in the shadows cast by Lucy's small, bright flame, was a man: pale and incorporeal. There and yet not there. He was tall (over six feet) and of mixed ancestry - asian and caucasian from the look of his face. Perhaps oddly, he seemed to be dressed for activity. His bare chest was muscled and athletic, and he wore a pair of running shoes and black drawstring sweatpants.
He wasn't running though. Instead he stood before the group with a confused, worried look in his eyes. He turned to take in the expanse of the park, looking in all directions. When he moved, his body shimmered like shadows and moonlight.

Elijah
Didn't he just have him?
He shook his head, slow because he… he had to say something. Elijah swallowed, something hard that stayed in a lump in his throat. There was a ghost in his midst. They were running together, and then-
"Were you running just now? What does your dog look like, maybe… maybe he got picked up?" The voice trailed off, and Elijah found himself trying to finish his cigarette for a completely different reason.

Lucy
Didn't he?
Lucy gives him an apologetic look.  "I don't know, we haven't seen any dogs around."  She watches him, and she thinks.  If his last business is finding his lost dog...is that something she can find out here?  Probably.  Bending at the knees, she lightly lowers to a momentary crouch so she can set down her ice cream cup.  When she straightens, she shakes her long, dark pink hair back off shoulders that are nearly bare despite the cold.  That's alright, though.  Cold doesn't bother Lucy like it does regular people.
"If you want," she says, glancing sideways at Elijah, "I have a Gift.  I can try to look backwards and see if I can see what happened to Jack, and we can find him that way."

Kiara
He's a runner, is the first thought she has, second only to, I know that kid. The one with the cigarette lit between his fingers that looked about as unnerved as you could expect someone to be when confronted by the very real reality of a ghost. Kiara's dark hair is pulled back in a ponytail, her skin is still sticky with sweat from her run and the longer she's stalled, the more the chill seems to creep over her.
"Hey," she greets both, slightly breathless. Her voice quiet in the moment, her eyes on the incorporeal figure fretting for his lost dog. "Kiara." A name, she nods at the ghost, offers quietly. "Maybe we could try calling the dog. It might be nearby." She scans the periphery as if expecting a dog to come rushing out to greet them. "It might be disorientated itself."

Echoes
"He's a husky. Black and white. Blue eyes." There was a gnawing panic growing in the man's voice now. He darted across the grass, disappearing and reappearing like smoke and fog. "Jack! Where..."
And then he stopped, staring directly at Kiara. The air got colder. And colder.
It felt like winter now. The mages' breath grew visible on the air.
Shaky. Quiet. "...No. Keep her away from me..."
And he began to drift backwards, but he did not run. Instead he hovered, frightened, about 20 yards away. Lucy offered to help, and perhaps that was what kept him present. The man looked at her and frowned in confusion."If you can help..."

Echoes
[Edit: Ack, that is supposed to say 10 yards, sorry. Damn typo.]

Elijah
The air got colder, burned his lungs and made his stomach knit together and ache. It hurt. It hurt a fair bit but mostly because there was a feeling of winter clinging to his skin too soon beyond the feeling that he felt with Lucy and-
"Hey, hey, just… just breathe… it's okay, just breathe, it'll be okay-" he said, hands up and he wasn't having the best of ways to keep people even. But he didn't know what to do. What to say next.
"Everybody just… y'know… stay where they are."

Lucy
Lucy nods to him, but she looks at Kiara, not so much wary of the woman's effect on the man as she is curious about it.  She doesn't let her gaze linger, she has work to do, and it is easy work for one such as her.  Not so much a job as it is a calling, a life's ambition, her eternal drive.  Lucy is the dusk-touched handmaiden, guardian of the gate to the Underworld.  She farwells the day and welcomes the night.
This is not a job, this is her duty.
Elijah tells everyone to stay where they are and Lucy turns apologetically to Kiara.  "No, just you.  Just for now.  My name's Lucy," she says, to both the Verbena and the ghost.  "I'm just going to sit..." she looks around for the closest bench and when she finds it points it out, "over there.  What's your name?"  She begins to stride toward the bench, which is hopefully located in such a way that she doesn't need to approach the man, threatening his personal space.  Before she gets there she pauses, looks back over her shoulder at him.  Voice crisp as an autumn apple she says, "And this is probably going to sound weird, but it's important, believe me.  I need you to tell me what year it is."

Kiara
[Let's see if we can ease that fear of the nasty resonance a bit. Charisma + Awareness, easy there, Casper]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5, 5, 6) ( success x 1 )

Kiara
It can't be the first time she's encountered someone (or something) that's reacted in a similar way when presented with Kiara Woolfe's presence. Her resonance was, in part, overwhelming, the push and sting of base destruction. The stripping away of matter only to reform it. The Verbana had no fear of what was, to her belief, the simple process of life. Things were born, they thrived, withered and died only to start the process anew.
A ghost, on the other hand -- she greets the fear with measured patience. She feels the cold snake over her body and raises her hands as if in supplication. "I'm not here to hurt you." It's a simple truth and she offers it out as such and remains, at Lucy's bidding, a safe distance from where the other Awakened moves to work.
Aside, to Elijah, Kiara murmurs. "It's fine. It's me."

Echoes
Kiara's words offered some small measure of calm, and for what it was worth, the man didn't run. Instead he watched her from a distance, his dark eyes wide and frightened. He didn't look like the sort of man who ought to be frightened of anyone, really. In life, he'd been strong. Tall and fit and powerful.
But he was not alive anymore (at least not in that sense) and if he was here, then something had happened to him. Something he had yet to resolve.
Elijah told him to breath. It would have been good advice, had he been talking to the living. Instead the ghost just looked at him quickly, barely registering his words, before fixating back on Kiara. She said she wasn't there to hurt him, but something about her very presence seemed to unnerve the man.
It was only Lucy's questions that seemed to pull him back to himself. Jack. He was looking for Jack. She was trying to help. After a pause, he drifted toward her. The motion seemed hesitant, and this, too, felt out of place on him.
"Jeremy. Jeremy Tran." Something about the way he said those words made it feel as though he was only just remembering them. "It's 2014."
He came to a stop a few feet away from Lucy's bench and looked back at Kiara. Jeremy didn't breath (he had no lungs, no need of air) but his chest gave the motion anyway, and his mouth parted slightly. Panting, almost. Not from exhaustion, but fear.
"I felt that before. Somewhere."

Elijah
[Int+Enigmas- do I know you?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 3, 9, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )

Elijah
There was something that Elijah remembered. Something that stuck with him and made his attention wander and he thought, he thought quietly and his vision went foggy and distant while he thought and remembered what was going on. He remembered Sera. He remembered blood and all that it made ]his stomach turn and he remembered-
He remembered hunger.
And a missing person's report. About the healthy, healthy people who seemed to be missing. About the healthy, healthy person who should not be dead in front of him. Elijah paused. Elijah ran his hands through his hair, forgetting about his cigarette and the hot ash that fell on the ground.
"It's… I think I know what happened," he said, "I… I don't think… You were running here, or walking Jack… and it was summer. Maybe we could see what happened that summer? It's October here."
There was no finesse, btu slowly, the cogs and connections formed.

Lucy
The name does not ring any bells for Lucy.  Perhaps if someone had introduced her to Ginger, but ah, wait, they have.  But Kalen only put it on her phone this afternoon and damn it if she isn't ever going to open that...what is it, an app?  Does it have a little icon?  Of sexy lips and a telephone maybe?  All Lucy knows is that it's somehow connected to a phone sex line and a mailbox and the rest is all Greek to her, or any other language for that matter, save of the language of the denizens of the Umbra.  She doesn't know what it is and so she's not going to open it, and thereby connect herself to the information network that the Hermetic wants so badly for everyone to have access to.
Lucy has access to it.  Kalen said she was free to use these resources or not as she sees fit and the technoilliterate Dreamspeaker chooses "Uh, what?  No way."
She doesn't have a computer and she doesn't read the paper, doesn't have Twitter or Tumblr or Facebook or even Myspace or a Livejournal.  She is disconnected from current events which is okay with her.  She goes to the bench and she nods to Jeremy Tran who died so young and so fit, like so many before him have died and so many after him will die, because at the end of the day everything turns to dust and it's up to Lucy to guide their spirits home.
It's up to her to find Jeremy's release so that he can go home, perhaps to his Jack.
She sits on the bench, folding one leg as she does so that the ankle is pinned beneath the opposite knee so that she can face the bench before her, her bag before her opened and she reaches in to retrieve a pair of velvety drawstring bags, one much bigger than the other.  She unties the larger first, listening to Elijah work through where he's heard of this ghost man before, and into her palm she pours her curved silver mirror.  If someone were to touch that mirror they would find it ice cold, is smooth silver surface seeming frosted, the cold of it biting needle-sharp against the skin as it stitches the user to the metal.  This mirror she sets down before her on the bench, then she opens the other bag and pours out blue stones into the mirror's surface.  They clatter-tink-clatter-clatter and form a pile that holds the same frosted sharpness as the mirror.  Lucy places her fingertips light upon the pile and begins to move the runes around.  Closing her eyes, she prays
Dusk Handmaiden, part the mists of time for me, show me what happened here in the summer of two-thousand fourteen.
[Look Backwards: Time 2, diff 5 -1 (practiced) -2 (unique foci)=3, needs I think 2 suxx to look back within the last few months?  Dropping a WP]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (6, 7) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Kiara
Jeremy is watching Kiara with clear apprehension and for her part, the Dreamweaver does little to perpetuate what he feels creeping, clawing outward from her presence. She stands, leans her weight easily against a nearby tree and crosses her arms over her thin chest, watching with a furrowed brow as Elijah closes his eyes and talks of past summer and what Jeremy had been doing when he --
"It was recent." She murmurs, acknowledging what the Apprentice was suggesting, eyeing him with clear interest before her gaze flitted to the other in the distance. Kiara's breath was still misting before her due to the ghost's presence.
"Whatever happened to him ...," she doesn't finish her thought aloud, but instead adopts a watchful silence.

Echoes
"What do you mean, 'what happened to me?'"
Jeremy frowned as he watched Lucy go about her work, looking between her and the others. Kiara's resonance was a cycle of hunger and rejuvenation. It was all at once healing and terrifying. And perhaps that confusion was enough to keep Jeremy's fear from overwhelming him, but only just barely.
It wasn't really her he was afraid of. Perhaps the memories her resonance threatened to unlock.
"Yes, we were running. Like we always do. And he was here, with me."
Stubborn, see? There was something there. Something he wouldn't (couldn't) look at.

Elijah
There's a dawning, a knowing, that he doesn't see what comes into the past but he doesn't need to. He knows how this story ends without having to see it. He inhaled, and his words were slow and he had something to say. perhaps it wasn't his place. Perhaps he should have been more gentle, but he reached out to the rather fit, healthy former young man. There was a quiet tension there.
"Jeremy," he starts, the tone says it all. The tone says that bad news is coming, "I think… I think that someone attacked you. And… I don't… think you made it."
He didn't know what to say, normally this seemed easier, but it still stuck with him.

Lucy
If only Lucy could gasp, cry out, cry, vomit, move.  But she is locked in the vision, her eyes on the past with her body unmoving in her present.  Her hands are rested on her knees, her eyes rolled back with her face upturned to the sky.  Sightless.
But not really.
Because on the other side of the mists of Time she Sees everything.  Sees the horror and the swift and terrible brutality.
It takes a few minutes, but finally the vision - her Avatar's power - releases her and Lucy can move.  She gasps, groans.  Then the bile rises in her throat.  It's one thing to deal with the spirits of the dead.  It's quite another to see how they got that way.  What she Saw...
Lucy claps her hands over her mouth, rises, scattering her mirror and her rune stones in her haste to get up and find - no, to get to -
She runs for the edge of the path, for the grass, and she drops, not caring that her touch will sear the blades, cover them with a frost that blackens and kills it.  On hands and knees, Lucy, kind and sweet Dreamspeaker, throws up into the grass.  The sounds she makes are awful.  Choking sounds, coughing sounds, and in between them sobs.  She continues until her stomach is completely empty, of lunch and water and ice cream and whatever else she'd had today.  Continues a little more as she continues to wretch, stomach heaving nothing.  She sucks in air in gasps, lifts her hand to her mouth to wipe away the spittle.  Sitting back, but head dipped forward, hair a dark pink curtain that hides her face, she says,
"I'm s-sorry," and her tone is miserable.  "I'm s-so, so sorry."  With a mighty sniff, Lucy tries to pull herself together.  Which of course isn't possible, not without a shower, a fierce scrubbing, and perhaps a few more days to cry into Delilah's shoulder.  She looks back, and there is spittle on her chin, vomit in her long hair, some splattered onto her hands.  Her face is a ruin of her dark and thick makeup, streaks of black running every which way down her face.  Her nose continues to stream.  But oddly, her skin is not flushed.  But that's not really so odd, Lucy's skin will never flush again.
"I'm sorry, Jeremy.  He's guh- he's gone."  Her shoulders hunch with the effort of holding back, no no no don't fall apart, you can do this, this is your duty, this is your life.  If this is a trial of the handmaiden, then she has to prove herself worthy.  Has to be strong.  "It was terrible.  But I promise you," she struggles shakily to get to her feet, but her legs, see.  Now that she's here and knelt they don't want her to get back up again.  Those legs that are so strong, so powerful, have sent her soaring through the air or twirling endlessly in place, they are weak as a newborn fawns.  "I will find you justice.  For both of you."

Kiara
Kiara's content to stay where she is while Lucy works, while Elijah tries to find the words to break to a ghost the raw truth -- how did you find the words to tell someone that they'd died? -- but when Lucy jerks back to the present, retching, struggling with her vision, it starts Kiara from her resting point. She's moving toward the other Mage without thought.
Guided, one imagines, with a deeper recognition of need. She stops when the other woman struggles to speak, Kiara's expression one of evident concern. "Are you alright?" She looks to Jeremy, then to Lucy. One might wonder exactly who she's addressing considering current circumstances. Her eyes track to Elijah. "I think she needs help. I don't want to -- " Kiara considers her position.
If she moves any nearer, its very probable the ghost amongst them will flee.

Echoes
I don't think you made it.
He's gone.
Jeremy looked at Elijah, and for a moment he seemed almost angry. Angry as any person might be when told that they were not alive despite their own assumptions to the contrary. But then Lucy came out of her trance and ran to vomit in the grass, and Jeremy's expression went from anger to concern.
He approached Lucy where she knelt in the grass. Where the echo of her resonance caused the green to wither and die beneath her. But he stopped a few paces away, silent and still. He wasn't looking at Kiara anymore. He was looking at Lucy, who told him that his dog was dead. And that she would find justice for them both.
Jeremy opened his mouth, but no words came out. Suddenly he dropped to the ground, landing on his knees with a shout of pain. When he looked down, a hole opened up in his chest.
Lucy hadn't seen this part. The part where Jeremy died. The part where his heart had been ripped from his body.
But she saw the scar now. They all did. Where Jeremy's heart should have been, there was just this red, gaping hole. Other wounds opened up on his flesh. Blood dripped down his arms as the skin peeled away. Bite marks showed on his face. His neck. His chest.
"They killed my dog..." he said, then he opened his mouth and screamed. The sound left a lingering, sepulchral echo as his body and his presence vanished from sight.

Elijah
This is a story about Jeremy Tran.
This is a story that Elijah only saw part of, only got to see Lucy drop and vomit and tremble and he wanted, he wanted desperately to go to her, torn between placating the dead (something he could not do) and comforting his friend. He looks from the man to Kiara and Lucy- "i-is she okay?"
Concern. Of course concern, because he couldn't help but wear concern, because he was unsure of what would come next and he stayed, and he watched, because sometimes when you are young and you are new all one can do is bear witness. It is all he could do at that juncture, see the story play out- because this was a story about  Jeremy Tran. Jeremy Tran who was fit and who loved his dog like he was a constant companion, who looked for him even after death.
There was a scar there, a gaping hole where his heart used to be, in a figurative and literal sense, and all Elijah could do was watch. All he could do was bear witness to the peeled back skin, to the dripping blood, to the bite marks, the bite marks, and he thinks of all the other people who may have been missing. To the frat boy who narrowly avoided a similar fate and he will think, later, that this must be a connection. That this couldn't be the vampires Kalen was so worried about but something else entirely.
"I'm so sorry," he insists, because it's all he can do. It's all he can bear to say.
There is silence, and he looks back between the two ladies. Skin pale and breathing shallow.

Lucy
They are all of them, including the ghost, concerned for the Seer.  A pretty young thing who is frost-touched, death-promised, Charon made flesh and blood and given a breath of life, but still cold.  The chill of winter imbues her very skin, keeps her cold from the inside out.  It is a cold that leeches warmth, that steals it as it grasps at life.  A blessing, she believes, for who can say that they were touched by their Avatar?  Who can say with the certainty that Lucy has the destiny that lays before her?  That doesn't change the fact that her touch is a bitter, deadly thing.
Something Jeremy Tran won't find out, though Lucy tries.  He kneels before her and she reaches for him, reaches through him, because she didn't ask for the ability to touch the dead tonight, to offer them what solace she could offer through physical touch.  She wants to hold him, hold him up, hug him, but she can't.
She can only watch.  Because sometimes even when you're not so new to this all you can do is bear witness.  And so Lucy bears witness.  Sees the scar open on his bare chest, gasps when she sees it, claps her hand over her mouth when the other marks begin to show.  They are not merely holes, they are tears, there are scalloped teeth marks.
They are watching Jeremy Tran's death and it is so much worse than what Lucy Saw.  She takes in the shakiest of breaths, and then her lungs refuse to release it.  The pale young woman watches, eyes wide, horrorstruck.
She lets her hands fall finally, tries to speak, but only gets to, "N-" before the last coherent words she hears from him followed by that terrible scream.  Lucy wants to be strong, she wants to prove her worthiness to the nameless, forgotten deity she serves, but Lucy is still so young.  She is still so tender.  Jeremy Tran opens his mouth to scream and Lucy's eyes squeeze shut as she claps her hands over her ears, trying and failing to block it out.  She asked her Avatar for the ability to speak with the dead.  Her hearing is not a physical thing, but a Spiritual one.
"I'm sorry!" she cries out, and then she's crying.  Curling forward as a wordless wail tears its way free of her throat to join with the dead's.
And then it is just hers.
And then she is silent, save for the not so quiet sobs.  "I'm sorry," she whispers, again again again.  She will find him justice.  She will find a way to put his spirit to rest, she has to.  But tonight she just...she can't.  She can't she can't she can't.

Kiara
It never got easier, bearing witness to the anguish of the dead.
Kiara's dark eyes watch Jeremy's ghostly body reform the marks of his passing and while her mouth thins and her eyes narrow against the horror of the retelling, she does not grimace, or glance away. She bears witness to that demise and when, with a scream of pain and diminished horror he vanishes -- fades from the moment and his personal spiritual limbo -- she glances at Elijah's pale face and nods once, curtly, but not unkindly.
"Yeah," she offers, looking toward where Lucy sits, sobbing, curled on the grass, undone by the glimpse of the past she'd borne witness to. "She will be." The Verbana frowns after the place the ghost had first materialized. "He said they killed his dog. Who were 'they', I wonder." Kiara moves then, folds her legs beneath her to kneel on the grass beside the other woman and sets a hand comfortingly on her shoulder.
Her touch is barely there, a gesture more than anything. "Here, let me help." She begins to collect together the discarded runes, tendering each back to their owner.

Elijah
[Per+awarepathy- can I hold Lucy right now?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 3, 6, 7, 7) ( success x 3 )

Elijah
She's crying, she's crying, and the last thing she can do is get some words out, some sort of apology, and all he can think of to do is hold her. So, he does. He bridges the distance and puts his arms around Lucy with the sort of protective familiarity that someone who has no power over the world around them should be able to exude. He can be present, he can be present, and in that moment he is present. In that moment he is awere, and Lucy takes in the shakiest of breaths.
this isn't easy.
It's never easy.
It's never going to be easy, and this is her calling in life. And he knows, knows with every fiber of himself that has convictions that she will make good on her word, because Lucy makes good on her word. He accepts what is there, tears and wailing, and all he can do is cling to the living, protective and caring regardless of how terribly cold the living can be. No matter how dusk can take the breath away from a man.
"Things don't have to be okay right now," he tells her, strokes her hair because it's what comes natural. He mouthes a thank you to Kiara, incredibly grateful.

Lucy
Later.  Sometime later.  Sometime much later.  After she's cried and had a shower or a bath and has curled up into the protective closeness of her sister, Lucy will be able to attempt to answer that question.
Who were 'they', I wonder.
Lucy saw, Lucy felt, Lucy knows a little bit of something.
But here and now in this moment all she can do is be horrified.  All she can do is cry as the images of what she's seen reply in her mind, over and over, stopping only when warm arms wrap around her and pull her close.  For a moment Lucy stops, hiccups, looks up at Elijah and for one brief second there is gratefulness as well as surprise.  And then she is crumpling, curling in, pressing her face to his shoulder as she begins to cry and sob in earnest now.  There is some stupid part of her brain that remains detached, tells her that she's going to ruin his coat with her makeup and her saliva as she cries.  There is vomit in her hair and on her skin.  The voice falls on a deaf consciousness.  She will be fine, eventually.  She will be fine, some other time.  But right now she is not, and neither is someone else somewhere not here.
Kiara bends to collect the fallen runestones as Lucy cries and cries until finally she starts to quiet as she begins to run out of energy.  Elijah can feel her begin to sag against him, her sobs losing their ferocity and vigor.  When at last she can sit up she sniffles, her pretty face a complete fucking ruin.  She cannot flush, but her eyes can still swell from the saltwater of her tears.  There is still make up and snot and everything else.  Lucy wipes sluggishly at her face.  "Thank you," she whispers to Elijah.
She turns to where Kiara is, and she slowly rises up onto her knees and makes her way forward, and helps her find the rest of the stones.  Lucy can feel them where they've fallen, they are almost as much a part of her as her own skin.  She collects them in a handful and starts to drop them into her bag.  Not their special velvety bag, just her own bag.  They will clatter together as they make their way to the bottom of it, but right now Lucy doesn't care.  She wants to go home, but she can't go home until she's collected all of her things.
Only when she has does she speak again.  To Kiara, "Thanks."  And to Elijah, "Can you give me a ride, please?"  She does not think she can handle the bus tonight.

Kiara
Kiara, for her part, only lingers long enough to see that Lucy has her belongings and the boy, Elijah, has an arm around her and the means to see her home. The brunette's earbuds are still hanging, loosely from around her neck and she smiles a brief, sharp thing at the Apprentice as she gets to her feet, brushing grass blades from her knees, where they cling to the fabric of her jogging attire.
"Pleasure. See her home, okay?" This, to Elijah, as Kiara feeds one bud back into her ear. She glances, somewhat lingeringly at the place Jeremy had materialized and if she has questions, she bites her tongue on them for the moment.
"I'll see you both around."
It's not a question, but an assurance. She starts back off into the shadowy depths of the park without another backwards look, taking with her that devouring essence that had startled the ghost. It fades out, along with her footsteps.

Echoes
[I believe that is a wrap folks! Thank you all for playing!]