Kiara
[I'm just gonna roll Awareness up in here.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )
Delilah
It is cold cold outside cold as a witch's tit not quite that cold and how (how! declare it!) does one measure the precise frigidity of a witch's tit and does the heartlessness tip the temperature one way or another and it is cold in Denver.
It is as cold as a November evening in Denver, feels colder than it is, but so people are out in their winter coats, not their thickest winter coats oh no not yet, but coats for warmth, scarves, hats or hoods, because hail might strike or sleet or snow or some mingling of all three there is a gleam icicle pure on the hard ground it is winter wintering shh shh and here in Washington Park there is a young woman who is in a pair of rather worn rip-wrenched jeans and through the rips and rents she is wearing mustard yellow tights unless her skin has turned that barbaric gold (which seems almost possible: but wait for it wait for it). Her jacket is long and shades of blue and stitched in at the sleeves and stitched on the back embroidered swans or flowers but subtle not emblazoned and her hair is braided tightly around her head, barbaric gold that, too, but it feels brighter, feels as if it's been damped deliberately, feels as if look away and it'll be a creeping radiance from the corner of one's eye because --
Because, to the preternatural sense, the intuitive sense, this young woman is a threading radiance of a thing, and to anybody with eyes that see or ears that hear, she's familiar, she's just so obviously, she can't be anything except --
Dawn, dawn, dawn
[Dawn]
(in disguise)
(Listen up, this is a story)
And she's walking along with in that slow, meandery way people have when they've got nowhere they're hurrying to, and she's keeping an eye on the fleethound all pale-dappled creams who's exploring ahead of her on the path investigating the roots of a tree before lifting his leg, pausing after to look ahead and then --
a slow deliberate look. Not for a stick thrown, not December, but for something, some sign, some --
December wants to run. "Go on," Delilah says.
[Also Awareness!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 7, 9, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )
Kiara
It's cold in Denver. Not even the sort that's shrugged off with a scarf or sweater but the sort that burrows deep. That infiltrates and turns noses red, cheeks pink and brings about the stamping of feet at doorways, the rubbing together and blowing on palms. Washington Park is an example of seasonal change; the grass is less inhabited by lazing couples, the pathways that weave throughout find themselves devoid of joggers, more frequented by bundled commuters, traversing between point A and B on their travels; hastened by the licking wind; the clever wind that tickled necks and brushed skin to invoke shivers.
The wind has been, mercifully (though nature was never truly merciful, mercurial, yes, changeable and alien, always) busy elsewhere for most of the afternoon. Though the figure that's taking her leisure in the winding pathways of the park (with familiarity, there's no hesitation when she reaches crossroads, merely the polite contemplation of a known traveller stopping at two different roads) isn't taking chances with the weather's tendency toward two mindedness. She's bundled in a white coat that hits her legs mid thigh, accompanied with knitted gloves and a white cap that obscures but can't quite hide the spill of dark hair from beneath it; falling in waves around her shoulders.
She's a striking figure, the young woman, in so much as she's a vibrant white shape amidst the shadowy nooks and crevices of the park's winding pathways; the spill of light from lampposts high above but also because where Delilah feels like dawn and warmth and something radiant and becoming -- she feels like something potent; vital and visceral and devouring. But not just that, no, on the other hand, tied in to it, an oscillating cycle (life and death of course) comes the sense of rebirth; rejuvenation. The first shoots of the spring.
The hound knows it - December looks for the source because it's not right - and there's something about her (it, that presence) that upsets; startles; looks for a way to avoid (and what is it they say about witches - animals know the scent).
Kiara steps on a branch, it snaps and she's suddenly right there. Dawn, meet Nature.
Delilah
December likes to run. December, running, is as sharp and swift as the cold going through too-thin cloth when the wind blows just so, December, running, is -- oh, is not, is not, is looking around, is a quiet creature December, long-tufted ears longish coat (as longish as ever it gets; which isn't very, except at the chest and belly where the fur is glass-rippled all of it this insinuating drift-movement of snow) on end because December's hackles are rising and December arrows back to Delilah shying short of death and
The hound knows a witch is around and shifts restively uneasily and shows his teeth a suggestive rumble in his chest if Kiara gets too too close though otherwise silent silence and watchfulness watchfulness and
Delilah doesn't look startled, per se, though her blue eyes are wide with the memory of surprise from that first second she became aware of the oroborus circle cycle down and up and down again swallow and devour and heal again fresh unmarred and December came warily back to her and she remembered recent events with devourers and dogs and ghosts and
but those recent events are a story with the book shut-closed tight-fast and when here is Kiara here is Delilah and her eyes are no longer startled, but she unwinds some of the purple leash in the palm of her left hand and takes Kiara in for a second (the swan-line of her drawn sharper; drawn up, poised for- nothing; curiousity) and she says, "Oh!"
"Hey," in a tone that is ready to be pleased, as if running into an aquaintance she doesn't know well enough or a good aquaintance whose name she's just misplaced.
"Are you any good with riddles?"
Kiara
Kiara knows these pathways, she runs them often enough. Though of the last few days (weeks, perhaps), as the chill settled in, that's been less frequent. She comes to it often that being said. Comes and stands (or sits) amongst the old, old trees with their deep roots and long buried secrets and listens to them. Listens to the patterns of the earth and the sky and everything in between --
(and sometimes, there are other things too, things that are lost, things that need to be told, like that evening with a man who'd just lost his dog, caught between two worlds)
-- grounding, you see. It's important, for a creature as tied to nature (and everything between) as Ms Woolfe.
Hey, says Delilah as December seeks the safety of her legs and stares out at Kiara like he knows precisely what she is thank you and doesn't welcome the reminder and Kiara stops; a hand flying to her face to drag wayward strands of dark hair from her cheek. Her lips are painted a glossy red; dark eyes decorated to emphasise long eyelashes and when she recovers, a breathless moment, there's a smile for the stranger.
It's curling and warm, that smile. It brightens her face; even cold-bitten as it is, even as her eyes flick down to the elegant hound wrapped behind her legs. "Hey yourself," comes a voice just as ready to be pleased, if not already on the cusp. Contained and confident, that voice. Appealing, in a dark eyed, stranger in the park way. As if there were a qualifier for what sort of individual you'd prefer to meet that startled your dog in the dim illumination of Washington Park.
Are you any good with riddles?
The smile widens, hitches into the impression of dimples in at least one cheek. "I suppose that depends, do I have to answer correctly to pass?"
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