the chantry, part deux [grace, kalen]

Kiara
[Gonna re-post my last post for reference!]

She should know, of course. What her resonance might mean to some. She'd been there, after all. That night in the park. Felt the agony of a spirit processing precisely how he'd died. What horror had been visited upon him. He'd been searching for his dog and then Kiara - the dark eyed pagan with that sensation that feeds under your skin - and she'd stood there and been a witness to it.

Solemn and quiet and in the aftermath - she'd removed herself from the moment.

But right now - she simply looks at Kalen and the composition of his quiet response and feels - what - something, some semblance of things that aren't spoken out loud. Kiara listens to what she's told and it strikes some recognition in her the way her mouth firms; not cruelly; into a line. The way she studies Kalen's face with this unrelenting intentness for a beat. It's hard, that. Being scrutinized by the woman who reminds you of things you'd rather forget.

Her eyes tick away eventually, her smile doesn't quite ebb but she returns it to Grace and tilts her head; that dark hair slipping free like waves of dark water over her shoulders. "I suppose that depends on your definition of other worlds. I just mean - seen across, to the place where Callisto lives. My - we tend to think of it in other terms but I guess - the Umbra." She says it slowly, Kiara, there's a sense of great respect to it; the way the devoted might murmur their Gods names to invoke them.

"C'mon, I'll show you something."

She collects her coffee, inclines her head. "Kalen, you're welcome to tag along if you fancy."

Kalen Holliday
Kalen permits Kiara to stare into his eyes.  He never felt the hunger that she and Alexander did; that particular threat he never faced in person.  And he waits, patient and still, until she is finished her study.  That stillness is broken not by turning from her but by sipping his coffee.

"There are a number of treatises on that subject, no few conflicting," he says, probably more for Grace than for Kiara, because as he continues something warmer threads through his tone.  "Shall I make a formal request for them?  Have you learned yet to read Latin?

"The summation of such as concerns your inquiry being whether the metaphorical ether the spirits inhabit is of a greater whole with ours or set apart can be rather a matter of interpretation.  What I believe offered at moment should be a great deal more familiar than our last excursion.  She is lovely, Callisto.  I would suggest that you take the chance to see her."

Grace
"I'm sure I can make my computer read Latin for me," Grace says, "If you think it would help. I don't know though, I don't have a great track record at learning from your books."

Especially if they are written in Latin. Good grief, how old those books must be?

She takes a sip from her coffee and looks up at Kiara from the mug's brim. Of course she'll go with. Of course she'll be shown this thing. What seeker of the new wouldn't? So she slips away from the table.

"Like I would pass up such an offer, eh?"

Kiara
The snow has stopped falling outside. It sets the world into a pristine white kingdom; snow dusted treetops and melting (deadly) frost on the patio as Kiara slips back outside; zipping her coat back over her clothing. She's reclaimed her bag en route and wound Kalen's scarf tighter around her neck; the ends neatly folded and tucked into her outer layers.

The coffee is drunk and left on the ledge in favor of better balance as the Verbena weaves a path through the newly-fallen snow to toward the rocky outcropping that doubles as a ledge for the Node. Kiara moves to the left, then. Toward the overgrown fountain; crumbling stone thriving with tall weeds; they're dotted with snow too, though there's less in this corner where the tall shrubs have provided some scant protection against the weather.

She turns a small circuit, the brunette and then drops her bag down; squatting and tilting a smile up at Grace. "The way I do this will probably seem a little strange, but just - go with it." The smile widens for a beat before Kiara rises to her feet holding a small packet of what looks (and after a moment smells) like sandalwood and sage, mixed with something vaguely spicy. She moves in a circle; carefully setting four long sticks into the earth and flicking a lighter extricated from her bag. Rising, she motions to Grace (and, if he's so inclined, Kalen).

"Make yourself comfortable inside the circle. It helps when I'm invoking." Kiara draws back her sleeves, then and settles down on her knees; palms flat on her knees. There's silence as she faces the direction of the meditation pool. Nothing but the sound of the pagan's breathing and then a quiet chanting. Kiara saying something softly, under her breath.

Apparently, she's calling to the elements.

Kalen Holliday
Kalen follows them outside.  He watches, curious, as Kiara begins her preparations.  The Order advises caution in dealing with spirits, so much caution and so much preparation and so much ceremony.  And Kalen knows that that caution and preparation and ceremony need not be exclusive of familiarity and affection, but in this he knows that he is advised to be so.

It is hardly the first point upon which he has deviated from the advised and the expected.  His fascination with Callisto would certainly be enough to give some who once taught him pause.  That he would, if pressed to name what The Message is call him friend...?  There is a reason he has not requested those treatises in Latin, and it is much the same as the reason that he studies Kiara's preparation so closely.

And he does, quietly and calmly, step into the circle when she gestures.

Grace
Grace goes to get her coat. Apparently this is a thing that cannot be done from the inside, like normal people would. And she is not braving the snow in a t-shirt. At least she has a new scarf and everything, right? Her neck's going to be the warmest part of her. In fact, she pulls the scarf up over her nose and mouth before stepping through the door, coffee still in hand.

She rolls her eyes at this 'little strange' that Kiara speaks of. It's a shame that scarf is covering up her smirk. Something about that amuses her. She goes inside the circle, but apparently doesn't want to make herself comfortable. Sit down? In the snow? Be comfortable? In the cold? She puts her free hand in her pocket and drinks coffee with the other.

But she does watch. The habits of others when doing their thing can be so interesting. It's strange how it works. There's the thought of what Kiara thinks she's doing, and what Grace thinks she's really doing. And then, a thought of who's right? Probably both.

Kiara
[Open the Doorway, Spirit 1, let's take a peek across. -1 Practised, -3 Node, we might extend this too]

Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (1, 9) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Kiara
[Once more! I think we'll go for at least 4 suxx.]

Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (2, 3) ( fail )

Kiara
[Ouch! Screw you paradox. -1 WP.]

Kiara
[Let's keep going.]

Dice: 2 d10 TN5 (3, 3) ( success x 1 ) [WP]

Kiara
[One last time.]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (6, 8) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Kiara
[The universe is mean.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )

Kiara
[Ouch.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (6, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 4 )

Kiara
It takes work.

There's a moment, after she begins that Kiara's will begins to crumble and she visibly tenses; the building energy surrounding the circle the trio are within seems to waver and ripple before, with a harsh breath and push of her will exerted -- that sudden sharp tugging at the Tapestry, the air itself being devoured, as if all the oxygen were sucked out of their circle -- before the sense ebbs and is replaced with -- wonder. Like a layer peeled back from the world in front of them; drawing in and over and the world seems -- brighter.

The trees are luminescent; the earth isn't simply snow covered but glittering; vibrant with life. Some skitter at the sight of them; others fluctuate as they stop and observe and then skim right out of reach and there, across the Node; her great coat gleaming as if rich with the stars themselves sits the great Callisto, the bear spirit who guards their source of greatest energy and renewal. She's a massive sight, the spirit, even at her ease. Over 7 feet of snowy white fur and a presence that seems almost transcendent; unfocused; as if some cosmic tuning where taking place.

She distorts then reforms; sits back on enormous paws and regards the Awakened as they behold her.

The world is the world but the doorway, as Kiara would deem it; opened. The outer layer shed and a deeper opened. There's a quality, to the other side, that their side lacks. A gleaming, unearthly presence. The world beyond the one they walk. The Verbena's chanting has stopped; though she remains as she is; eyes focused on the sight before her.

Her hold on the casting has been tenuous and Kiara seems intent on maintaining it long enough for Grace and Kalen to look across and take stock of the guardian where she sits; omnipresent in her domain.

Kalen Holliday
Kalen's curious study gives way to wonder when his perceptions shift.  Shimmer.  Gossamer threads and coccoons and-

No.  Focus.

There is Callisto.  He turns his eyes toward the great spirit-bear, wide and alight with wonder.  He can still remember when he first met her.  More than a year ago now, but the memory has remained sharp.  Full of the taste of crisp, cool starlight and celestial heights and something he has never been able to Name.

Kalen smiles, and watches her.  He can feel butterflies walking over his skin, the memories of them, the symbols of the them.  They remind him that he needs to find time to study with Alyssa.  That he needs to bring Trent his present.  Should he bring Grace?  I was partly her-

Grace.

He turns from Callisto to look at Grace looking at Callisto.

Grace
When the invocation to the elements ends, when the chanting ceases and the world stands before Grace, certain veils of perception removed, there's only one thing she can say: "Oh, shit."

Her eyes are wide and smiling as she looks out at Callisto, at the trees, at the Node which looks somehow even more watery than it used to. Everything looks so much more real than it truly is, which of course makes it all seem unreal. Grace doesn't just stare at the bear. It's as if she wants to catalog everything. When Kalen looks at her, she's looking at the stars peeking out from behind clouds.

And then, to the snow -- itself alive with the flow of energy. Then, to the bear now taking notice of all this magic going on.

"It's beautiful."

Kiara
Everything has a silvery sheen to it, looking across.

It's as if Kiara has worked to temporarily wipe condescension from the window between the Umbral planes and their side. The Gauntlet is thinner here, by the Node. The working, to stretch and encompass not merely her own perceptions but those of all within the circle has exhausted her. Her skin feels stretched tight; the whiplash of reality drawing back and pushing against her attempts to rework it.

She's paler than when she began; not simply for the chill to the air where they are. Still - her mouth parts in a smile as she takes in the sight of the bear spirit; listens to Grace's astonishment. Feels the vibration of her excitement near her. It feels like magic, in the moment, the subtle aroma of Kiara's incense burning around them; spirals of smoke rising in their respective corners; the ripple and roll of the edges to her casting.

The Verbena makes a noise of assent when Grace calls it beautiful.

"Yeah, it is. So is she." Kiara's eyes are on Callisto. The great bear is scenting the air much like a real bear would; a black nose twitching as she makes a low grunting and swings her weight around; prowling a little along the other side of the Node. The posturing is that of wary supervision. Kiara cants a look over her shoulder. "You can move around a little, if you want. Just don't break the circle." She takes a breath; discreetly wiping her hands along her jeans.

Kiara
[Condensation, not condescension, freaking auto correct.]

Kalen Holliday
Kalen remains mostly still.  His head turns, his eyes sweep across the umbral landscape, but he does not really seem interested in movement within the confines of the circle.

His attention settles back, soon enough, on Callisto.  He seems, for once, oblivious to the cold.

Grace
There should be more stars out tonight, Grace thinks. It's just not fair. Callisto looks like she belongs with stars.

Subconsciously, Grace begins to teeter her way back, away from the bear. Something about being suddenly presented with a very large polar bear like being seems to have struck a lizard-brain response in her.

Just don't break the circle

Right, okay. So maybe keep those shifting feet away from the edge. Grace doesn't know what will happen if the 'circle' is 'broken,' so. She stays. Her coffee gets sipped, without thought.

"How does that work?" she asks, as though Kiara might be able to explain in a way she'd understand. Probably not. But it does no good to never ask.

Kiara
"When you invoke the elements, you create a space." Kiara sits back, turning a little to face the others. They can see the strain the casting has had on her face, like this. She looks pale against the black of her coat; the dark waves of her hair standing out in greater contrast because of it. She seems alert, though. Her eyes don't seem dulled for the weariness working has had on her.

"I've drawn a - " The Verbena pauses; trying to frame the way her casting works. Translate it the way another might understand it. Especially one of Grace's ilk. " - it's like running a program inside a system that isn't native to it. In here," Kiara gestures around them. "It understands what I've asked it to do, out there - " She nods toward the edge, where the spirals of smoke still curl, burning down slowly. " - I haven't extended it to know. Once they burn out, or we step outside - " Kiara twists a little, looking back across at where Callisto is now resting; idly keeping watch on their small gathering; decided perhaps; that they pose no direct threat and resuming her respite.

" - It closes the door. It's easier, to close the circle from within."

Kalen Holliday
Kalen lets them discuss magic.  He listens, certainly.  But this time, for all he knows enough of cosmology to keep up with this discussion, he stays silent.  He has seen the Umbra here, but not since he was in that Mindscape.  He can remember this place, all too well, as empty and barren.

The Node gone, Callisto gone, everything coated in dust.  How far had they all come?  How far had he and Sid driven each other away?  What had it cost them all?

And so, he watches Callisto.  Tries to impress this memory over the others.  Tries to bind this one with falling asleep with Alexander on the lounges in the rain, with Shoshannah brushing something over his closed eyelids.  This world.  Here.  Perhaps not entirely now, but here and unruined.

Grace
"Hah! So like running a virtual machine? You're translating it for us inside. Cool," Grace says, grins over to Kalen. Kalen who is so distant right now. She smiles at him.

"I like her," she whispers, leans in so as to make it conspiratorial -- or to try to drag a smile out of him.

"This is so cool, Kiara. It's like another world, but it's really here too."

Kiara
For all that Sid and Kiara shared a commonality; shared aspects of the same understanding of the world; the way they perceived the World Tree and the quest to protect and nurture back the threads; they were very different creatures housed beneath the branches of their Tradition. Had they ever met, this might have seemed even more pronounced. For as much as Ms Woolfe carried a great reverence for the craft, for the working and protection of what the Verbena held dear -- she opposed just as much of it.

Boundaries laid down by generations before needed, in her own presumption of them, to be broken down; not rebuilt. There was so much, as they saw now, so much more to be known. The old ways were thus for good reason and it was the modern age; the adopted, brought under the re-imagined Verbena's wings, that helped them prosper after the Burning Times. Her mentor's people; her former coven, would not have approved Kiara's translating for another not of their midst.

But then, the Dreamweavers had always gone their own way. Pushed the acceptable into new dimensions. It's there, in the curling of her lip; the gleam in her eye before she winks at Grace that solidifies she's doing just that -- making her own path. Etching into the earth Kiara Woolfe's variation on what it meant -- connection.

Kalen is quiet; lost to memory and the moment and Kiara lets him be; lets the Umbra speak to him as it will. She carefully gets to her feet, brushing herself down. "It's always here. It's just -- " She tilts her head, the corner of her mouth giving into some expression of pleasure. " -- learning how to see it." She looks over, taking in Callisto, the softly shaking treetops; the glimmer of the water; the hazy glow of the Umbral reflection. "There's somuch there, though. So many things we can't see. Half of them I only know about in theory," Kiara's brows knit. There's a wistfulness, a yearning to her voice for a moment.

"I think if we could still walk there the way we used to be able to, we'd see things differently. But - " She shakes it off; shrugs thin shoulders. " - times change."

Kalen Holliday
"Has any of us ever told you about The Message?"  Kalen asks.  "And by extension, our adventures in the Umbra?"  His eyes stay on Callisto.  "Perhaps not, those were not, as such, the best of times.  But The Message is rather remarkable."

Grace
"Yes, we've been to the Umbra before. But it didn't look like this. It didn't look like our world at all," Grace says, and there a memory sparks. Kalen was there. He told her, 'welcome to the Umbra'. He still couldn't walk right back then. And she was still so new.

"It sort of... hurt a bit. But we all managed. Maybe if we ever see him again, we could ask him how he does it."

She ventures a look above, into clouds that do not merely obscure the sky, but seem to roil like you'd expect clouds to -- like they were fluid living things.

Kiara
Kiara tilts her head; breath misting a little as she does toward Kalen. "Grace might have mentioned it once, I think." There's an edging smile there, directed the Virtual Adept's way, as Kiara's hands find sanctuary from the bite in the afternoon air in her pockets. The sun is dipping lower now, late afternoon drawing out hues of orange and gold into the horizon, soon enough -- though perhaps not quite quickly enough for them to glimpse them through Umbral skies -- the stars will be out, winking through the cloud cover.

"I wish I'd been there to see it."

It's honest, that. For all that Grace mentions it had hurt, crossing the Gauntlet; being pressed and pulled apart on the journey. Kiara's heard stories from others, about the things that can go wrong, the ways an avatar can be torn apart trying to cross over. Folklore, some of it, probably. Truth to much of it, undoubtedly. The Verbena tenders hair behind her ear as she moves to carefully drop down into a squat beside one of the burners. The ash has scattered around the base and the amber glows faintly as it nears the end of its life.

"It's nearly time," she offers quietly and glances toward the other side of the Node; where Callisto's great eye is open; regarding them. Her enormous side rising and falling in her recumbency. Kiara's lips move, she mouths something and the air around them seems to shimmer -- it holds, for a moment, the casting, the Umbral reflection around them and then, slowly, it begins to recede; the silvery glow; Callisto; the otherworldly tinge to everything begins to fade as if a literal curtain were dropping.

The incense burns itself out; snuffing into a whirl of smoke on four sides and Kiara's soft chanting tapers out likewise. She pushes herself to her feet. Looking across to where there's now just empty snow-touched earth, but where altered perception tells Grace and Kalen Callisto remains, watching them from the other side.

Kalen Holliday
"The first place we were was actually rather beautiful.  Dangerous, perhaps, but incredible.  Mountains and a glorious sky.  And The Message is...he is not an Angel, but he is angelic.  It was a little sad, the way that he died, except that he didn't, exactly.  Just transformed and became what he is.  Which is...like but unlike a ghost?  I don't know.  I don't think there is another like him.

"Granted, Nephandic cemeteries were a little creepy, and I'm not fond of bodies of water than puddles in general, so even after that thing was no longer in control of that place the river of souls still unnerved me a bit, but...when it was the land of the dead as the land of the dead is meant to be it was rather peaceful.

"He's something, though.  The Message.  Hopefully you'll have a chance to meet him one day."

Grace
Grace is still staring at everything as the scenery changes, and the curtains drop again. She washes away the disappointment that it's all over with a sip from her mug.

"Callisto was pretty. I'm glad I got to see her finally. Thanks."

Kiara
She stands; a collection of burned offerings in hand as Kalen speaks; pushing the fall of her hair aside; looking across at him with an expression that was a mixture of interest and uncertainty. Some hint of bemusement when he mentions Nephandic cemeteries being unsettling. "I'd have guessed they wouldn't be a thrill," this, with a twisting smile; a glance around as she collects her bag and carefully zips it up; slings its weight over a shoulder and casts Grace a brief little expression -- contained acknowledgement; understanding.

"Anytime. It's great out here." She lifts her chin, the Verbena; the profile she offers is appealing; the cut of her jaw; the slope of her nose. She's an odd juxtaposition at times, the brunette. Seemingly delicate but with a thread of something harder; harsher; inside. A curling, contrary nature. She breathes in carefully, looks out over the Node and then nods back toward the illuminated house behind them.

"Coffee?"

Kalen Holliday
"Sure."  Kalen turns and heads back toward the House.  The coffee he made will be cold by now, but they can make more.  "Alexander is translating the journal he kept, the Archmage whose last spell consumed the last of his life and then merged with shards of the Avatar storm and became The Message.  If there are parts about the places he's been in the Umbra, I will see that you have the chance to see them."

Grace
Kalen speaks of The Message, explains how the being came to exist. It sounds so academic when he says it like that. But then, he can be academic when he wants to be.

Snow is beginning to creep in under her shoes. She's just now aware of that, after the wonder of Kiara's vision.

"Yes. We'll make sure. I made a promise that I'd share that book with everyone. Not that I needed to, but still," Grace says, heading to the door with quick but shuffling steps.

Kiara
"I'd like that," Kiara collects her empty coffee cup as they reach the patio; stamping snow off the edges of her boots where its gathered beneath her heels. "Thank you," she unzips her jacket as they shuffle back inside; warmth curling into their bones; it's a little startling; it prickles, after a length exposed to the winter's air outside.

Kiara shakes her hair loose of snow; plucking her gloves off and stowing them into the pockets of her coat as she hangs it up. "I was thinking I might stay out here a night or two every now and then. Get to know the area a little better." The edge of the Verbena's mouth draws up as she cuts a look back out the way they'd come.

"Maybe even commune with Callisto a little, if she's willing to."

There's a beat; Kiara's gaze slips between Kalen and Grace. "Assuming that would be okay, of course. I don't want to step on any toes."

Kalen Holliday
"No.  You're welcome.  People have lived here.  Shoshannah did.  Sid kept a room here.  Pan stayed here for a couple months.  I spent a week here after I escaped the hospital once.  It's...actually kind of empty-seeming now that no one is living here.

"There's...food and alcohol and pretty much everything you'd need.  I really should get around to picking up more things for when people crash here less expectedly.

"And, if you need anything, or get bored, Grace and I have our office not far from here.  We technically have other homes, but we're not so often in them.  So, one or both of us are generally close by."

Grace
"Yeah, nobody's going to care if you decide to stay. This is like, an everybody thing."

Grace decides that most things are everybody things, but that is Grace. She has a tendency to decide that other people's things are everybody things too sometimes.

"I lived here for a while. We were hiding from Thakky, and it was safer."

Kiara
More names for faces she's never known. Two she's at least heard before, one earlier today as a matter of fact, the other, the first Kalen mentions is unknown to the brunette. Kiara heads for the kitchen, sets her cup down in the sink and rinses it out with a meticulousness born more of consideration of what Kalen says than anything.

Turns and leans her weight against it, hands bracing the sink. The afternoon light is cutting in behind her; casting a strange halo over the crown of the Verbena's head, sinking the hollows of her eyes into shadow. The dip of her shoulders. "I don't really mind the solitude so much, being closer to nature is good for me, anyway, besides - " Here she lifts her face, Kiara, cants her head toward the empty rooms behind them.

"It's probably not the world's worst idea to have someone here. Just in case." She quirks an eyebrow. "I promise not to go through anyone's underwear drawer."

Kalen Holliday
Kalen turns to Grace.  "And this is why there are still Easter eggs somewhere in this house.  No one is committed to opening everything."

He turns back to Kiara.  "It isn't bad, I'm just used to someone living here.  It seems odd because I never expect it to seem unlived in.  If it had always been empty, I don't think I'd really notice it was empty."

Kalen starts water boiling on the stove again.  For yet more coffee.

Grace
"Oh, Kalen. Those candies will rot, you know. Am I going to have to run a scan on the place for egg-shaped plastic objects? For real?"

She knows he's probably joking. But probably is different from certainly.

She also knows there is a puzzle box on the table that's only halfway solved. And now that she's figured out part of the pattern, it should be simple, right? She sits at the table with it, keeping Kalen silent company as he makes coffee, her coat still on (because somebody wants to warm up after their little stint outside).

Kiara
There are questions Kiara wants to ask. They're there, on the tip of her tongue as she watches Kalen go about the process of brewing fresh coffee. Where these people were, that had once lived here but did no longer. Were they lost, were they still in the city, had they, like she had once, run away from something haunting their footsteps and dogging them, even in their dreams.

She doesn't, at least, not today.

Not as the afternoon light wears down into dusk; as they settle with refilled cups and the Verbena, at least, recuperates after her casting by the Node. Little by little; hour by hour, color will return to her cheeks, the shadows under her eyes will lessen. She'll take to exploring, Kiara, to venturing up the stairs and into bedrooms heavy with dust and disuse. She may, at some point, pick one as a potential bedroom on the nights she does stay over.

Not tonight, that being said. There's still a Virtual Adept to return home. Kiara has obligations to keep but it's a start. A beginning and she's not unaware that the wind that had been swirling and howling outside her apartment all the morning before she left for Grace's now seems silent.

Satiated, at least briefly. Onward and onward, Woolfe.

Kiara
[Yay, thank you for the scene, guys! And for letting me practice my magic-y stuff.]

the chantry. [kalen, grace]

Kiara
South of Denver is a place called Morrison. It's got the quaintness to it that easily transcribes it back into the day of black and white photography, of Western movies and times when making your fortune wasn't half as difficult as it seemed in today's age if you had a will, a way and a pistol in your holster. A railroad town by design, the touches of that past are still visible as a small red car navigates its way through the downtown region; tracing along Bear Creek, the lifeblood to the town; the same river that trickled through to Denver itself.

In truth Kiara had never ventured this far south of Denver, Colorado as much as it was her adopted state of residence, was still in large part a mystery to the woman. Though the lure of the Chantry property, the glimpses she'd heard through others was enough to prompt her to ask a favor of Grace.

Feel like a road trip? She'd texted, a few days shy of the New Year. Arriving to collect the Virtual Adept in a car that was, to put it kindly, well loved. Kiara's car was a small hatchback, decidedly not built for the mountainous regions of Colorado but it managed to zip along the highways, to weave along snow spotted streets and rumble, eventually, with the aid of Grace's navigation, to the base of the hill where the ranch house sat; windows dark in the overcast afternoon light; a light snow dusting the windshield as the Verbena cut her engine and peered over the steering wheel out at the impressive sight.

"This place is huge. And nobody is staying here?"

Her expression was some mixture of incredulity and surprise; it pulled her red mouth into a twist; remaining so as she unbuckled herself and stepped, with the soft crunching of freshly falling snow underfoot, out of the car; carefully slamming the door and standing with a hand raised over her hood; taking in the shape of the hill surrounding the chantry; the cobbled path leading away, curving around to the doors.

She took in a breath, the pagan and on the release, it misted in front of her.

Grace
"It's a bit far from the city. I guess people don't stay here because they'd have to drive a long way to get anywhere else. There's been times I've crashed here before, though," Grace says as she steps out of the car.

Grace's own mode of transportation is similarly well loved. She could always get something better, but what works works. Best not to improve on what isn't broken. So she seems totally content and at home with Kiara's car status.

The Chantry, however, gets no such kindness.

"Yep, too big, too ranchy, too out of the way. But I guess you can't choose where the Node is, eh?"

Grace is bundled up in her red coat. Kiara will remember it as the distraction-filled lightshow coat that she apparently wears whenever it gets the slightest bit cold outside. It's not just slightly cold right now, which has her making a shuffling beeline straight for the door. Someone is not from a chilly climate.

When Kiara gets there, she'll notice the Christmas decorations are still up. Kalen's doing -- and Kalen's presents still lounging beneath the tree.

Kalen Holliday
[For when we finally do post - how awake are we?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN8 (2, 3, 3, 5, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 1 )

Kiara
"It's perfect, though." This, said with a smile. A breath as much as a declaration. Kiara was a child of nature, after all. One supposed that for a Verbena, a witch of the natural world, being surrounded by rock and snow and trees was her notion of heaven -- or whatever passed for it, at the very least. She stood for another moment, Kiara and then took a few steps, dropped to her haunches and pried a glove off with her teeth; digging into the snow and lifting a small pile of it.

Whatever she was doing, she took some level of enjoyment in it.

Standing again after a moment and dusting off her jeans. Kiara's attire was suited for the climate; black coat; a hood half drawn up over her features; white scarf and soft leather gloves to protect her fingers. If anything about what she wore raised an eyebrow, it was perhaps her insistence on those high boots; laced up and with heels that sunk a few inches into the snow-packed earth. Grace heads for the door and Kiara, tracing her fingertips across the walls, follows at a more leisurely pace.

There's a sense of course, with the Node so near, of that hum of activity. Power and connection. It's heady, even the barest sense of it and the brunette is smiling even as she stamps her boots by the door; lowers her hood and allows her eyes to adjust to the indoors; sliding gloves off and unzipping her heavier outerwear. "My coven in New York, we gathered at a small place outside of the city, I used to think that was impressive but this place - " Kiara shrugs her coat off; she's wearing a knitted cardigan beneath; earthy tones of brown over a white blouse; that ever present silver jewellery around her neck.

"It might just be cooler." A gleam in Grace's direction. She takes note of the decorations, then. The tree. The symbols of the holiday season. "Santa's been visiting. Security breach." Teasing, that, as she drifts to take a closer look.

Grace
"Oh, Santa's one of us. Really? Hangs out with elves, has enchanted livestock... although the whole knowing who's been bad and good thing is pretty creepy, I have to say."

Grace kicks at the floor to release snow from her tennis shoes (no fancy boots for her) and hangs up her coat before heading further inside. Under the red coat is a green t-shirt with lemons printed on the front. It reads: 'If life gives you lemons, keep them. Because, hey, free lemons.'

"This is Kalen's doing. I'm sure if he could, flying reindeer would totally be on his list though."

She ambles on over to the tree, with Grace-like ungracefulness. There's a pile of presents still sitting there, some of which she helped wrap. None of which she helped pick out.

Kiara
There's a laugh at that, a thin eyebrow wings upward as the Verbena pulls her hair over a shoulder; bending low to read over the tags on the gifts strewn under the pine tree. "Touché, I guess if I had to pin the guy to a master of anything, it'd be Entropy. All that fate and prediction and guess work about naughty or nice." There's a flicker of surprise when Kiara's fingers slide over a green package with her name on it. A twist of something shy of pleasure as she picks up the gold tied gift and turns it over in her hands.

"You know there's a legend in pagan lore, predating the Christian idea of him, called the Holly King." Kiara settles on the arm of a sofa; her clever fingers making easy work of the gold ribbon. She unties it with a particular sort of care; setting it aside and tendering apart the wrapping with a deliberation no excited child on Christmas morning could ever have boasted. "He does battle with his brother, the Oak King and depending on the season, one prevails and the other goes into hiding."

There's a smile that twitches the edge of her mouth when she pulls out a small stuffed panther; tilting it up to eye level before turning it on Grace with that edged smile. "Cute. Is this suggesting I have plans to devour everyone?" The scarf invokes a quiet noise of appreciation; she winds it around a wrist; admiring the catch and play of the threads of color weaved throughout it.

"I don't usually get gifts around this time of year." She seems thoughtful, the brunette, one might have said touched. "That's sweet of him. Kalen."

Grace
Grace picks out her own presents, the ones she was not allowed to help wrap. Kalen has some sense of tradition, and, she suspects, would not have let her peek.

"He always gets everyone a stuffed animal. Mine was a lion, so apparently I am in the same boat there. Let's see what I got..."

She's not nearly as nice to the wrapping paper and ribbon as Kiara was. The first tear starts, and she finishes it, ripping through hologrammed snowflakes. And inside the first box is...

Another scarf. This one fading from white to gold to copper and back again. It's almost unbearably soft. Cashmere perhaps? In any case, it is warm, and that's really what Grace cares about.

"Neat. I got one too."

Kiara
Kiara folds up the wrapping into a neat square and sets the panther on top of it; absently scratching at the faux creature's head as if it were capable of registering the sensation. She draws her legs up; crossing one over the other and leans her weight against the spine of the sofa, watching Grace's progress with her own wrapping paper.

Kiara's scarf finds its way around her neck; the black thread with its tri-colored highlights settling and sparkling in the light. It suits her, which may say much for Kalen's eye for selecting such things. Grace's is greeted with pleasure too and Kiara's hand finds a way into her dark hair; she reclines on an elbow and observes the other female. Lounging as she is, there's an unnoticed likeness to the feline she's been gifted with; all that ease and confidence.

Ownership of her place, even as a newcomer to the Chantry's midst. "It suits you," she attests and then shifts awareness back to the tree; the decorations. "So does Kalen take care of the house? I'm going to assume it's protected by more than just jolly Saint Nick, right?"

Grace
There's a cubish box next, wrapped in geometric patterned wrapping paper, and she goes at it -- but not without first wrapping the scarf around her neck several times as if to try it on.

Just under the surface of the wrapping paper is another geometric pattern -- a box of lacquered wood. Unfortunately, this one doesn't seem to have a lid.

"Huh."

Grace flips it this way and that before realizing that there are panels on the sides that slide out. It's a puzzle box. Something Kalen knew she'd tinker with and try to figure out. She smirks at the thought.

"Kalen sometimes, yes. I think Pan still comes back and checks in on it from time to time. And just, you know, anyone. I come by every now and then and make sure it hasn't blown up. It could happen."

Kiara
There's a deliberation, of course, to the why of Kiara peppering Grace with questions. To why she asked to be taken out to the property in Morrison; to be given the chance to get familiar with the property; to fall into sync with its energies and, most likely, engage with the great bear spirit that protected its Node. If Kiara were the sort, one might have wondered at her intentions in inching her way into closer proximity to something that sacred to the Awakened Tradition Mages of Denver.

"Pan?" Another unknown name; Kiara's brow wrinkles with it. She sits up; slides off the sofa in favor of beginning a short examination of the living room; touching her fingers to the surfaces as if to read memories from the very surface of them. There's a fascination and curiosity to the brunette's movements; to the way Kiara's dark eyes take in every small detail, commits it to memory.

"I think I might have a look around." She calls from the doorway to the hall; leaning out into it. "There aren't any hidden doors around here, right? A trap door leading to the mysteries of the universe, perhaps?" Kiara's boots fall heavy on the floorboards as she creaks over into the dining room; skimming her fingers over the table; sliding them over the backs of the chairs.

Grace
"There's a locked door leading to the mysteries of the universe. I can open it for you. You'll have to talk to Pan for actual access though," Grace says. "Pan's an okay guy. He has a church in town. Usually I can't stand the moral majority, but he's not all preachy. And he tries."

Tries not to be overbearing. Tries not to come across as the patriarch he really is. Tries because he knows he has no claim to leadership.

"Other than that, nothing hidden. That I've found. And I have looked."

Kalen Holliday
[How distracted by Resonance are we?]



Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )

Kalen Holliday
It is, perhaps, because Pan has never tried that he gets to command Kalen.  That and that Pan reminds him of another man, who did a lot more to earn Kalen's obedience.  And, right now, Kalen is exhausted.  He would have liked nothing more than to find Pan here tonight.  Where Pan is, after all, Kalen worries less about what will happen if monsters come out of the ether to attack them; not him, but them.  In a crisis, Kalen trusts Pan to save everyone he cannot.  And he tries not to think about the fact that Pan isn't likely not to consider him one of the people to be saved, for the same reasons that he tries not to remember the man that Pan reminds him of.

He remembers, tonight.  He cannot help it.  He has been dreaming.  He remembers everything.  The things that have happened.  All of the possible futures for them he has glimpsed.

All of the ways in which they die.

He is quiet as he comes in, quiet as he hangs up his coat.  He knows that Grace is here.  That Kiara is here.  But he does not head immediately for them.  Instead, he heads for the kitchen and starts making coffee.  None of that drip coffee, either.  This is like a grinding hand-roasted beans for a French press kind of coffee making.

Grace
[Resonances?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 5, 8, 8) ( success x 2 )

Kiara
"He has a church." Kiara says it more to herself than Grace, though with the acoustics in the dining room being what they are, it's highly probable her voice carries. There's some unknown expression on the Verbena's face as she looks out over the patio. Some measure of wearied acknowledgement. "Of course he does." It's a private struggle, that. The sentiment of it, the reasoning. The why Kiara's eyes will always betray some element of mistrust to those of the established church.

It's tempered, always. She's not a creature to broadcast her feelings, but to cage and observe them; it; any situation. Smother it in smiles and measured looks. The quiet contemplation of a woman whose guidance is in the wind and rain; the elements converging. There's the catch of the door; a sense of another; Kiara turns a look over a shoulder and then opens a door and slips out into the back yard, her breath misting in front of her.

She's weaving a path down into the yard by the time Kalen begins the task of preparing coffee.

[Resonances and stuff.]

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

Kiara
[D:]

Kiara
[EVERYONE IS A TECHNOCRAT, RUN.]

Grace
There's the sudden sensation of static electricity -- not such an uncommon occurrence in winter. But Grace places the feeling just before the door opens. Kalen.

"Thanks for the box!" she yells, in the general direction of the door. "And the scarf is so warm!"

Kiara
Only the sense of another - is a lie. The wash of isolation drapes over the brunette's shoulders and she shivers; not merely for the chill in the air. The isolation is pressure and it's not simply that there's nobody close, for the moment, Kiara feels utterly alone. She wades further down into the yard; her progress cut into the packed snow; the scarf Kalen gifted her trailing after her like a black marker until she is blotted from clear sight by the incline of the hill; the trees and stones that line the Node itself.

Her resonance though; that cyclic pattern of hers, edged with something darker; base and visceral, its still felt.

Kalen Holliday
"Have you solved it yet," Kalen calls from the kitchen.  Water is heating.  Now he sets to taking out the other things.  Mugs.  He sets one of the rock candy stirrers in Grace's mug.  She sleeps now, yes, but she has not yet turned down coffee.

He knows this kitchen almost as well as the kitchen at the office, though things here are slightly more likely to be somewhere unexpected.  Even so, not much changes.  Mugs, coffee, tea kettle.  Everything is familiar.  As familiar as it was in his dreams.  As familiar as it was when he was pulled into a Mindscape.  As familiar as it will be when-

No.  We must not think about that now.

Kalen pours cream into a tiny pitcher.  He is almost as pale as the cream.  It makes the shadows under his eyes all the more evident.  There is, as there almost always is, reason enough Kalen is rarely without coffee.

Grace
"I just unwrapped it, dude!"

Right as she says that, her fingers are still working at the thing, trying to find the right combination of sliding panels to get it open all the way. And, with a click and a slide...

"Oh wait. Yes, I have. At least one of the sides. I think there's two."

She wanders into the kitchen after him, carrying her box, the scarf still wrapped around her neck. "Kiara's here, if you want to make her a coffee too. She wanted to see the Chantry. Though it seems more like she wanted to go outside and play in the snow..."

Kiara
She's visible as she re-appears from the kitchen window; Kiara, her dark hair snow-dusted; tracing a path back through the ankle high snow; hands around her body, tucked in low beneath her arms to keep them from the cold. There's an expression of mingled appreciation and uncertainty as she reaches the patio. Canting a sharp look over her shoulder as if she can't quite re-align herself with her location.

The door slides open; heavy boots sound on the floor and for a long moment; there's silence. Then: "There's a bear sleeping by the Node." The Verbena appears in the kitchen doorway, looks utterly startled for a moment by the appearance of Kalen; the smell of freshly brewed coffee; Grace at his side. As if she'd been perfectly alone, speaking to herself and then found the house descended on by unknown guests.

"Hey," offered when she recovers, the corner of her mouth drawn up in a smile; though the shadow of unease felt outside lingers in the pallor of her skin, even Kiara's mouth looks a little less vibrant for that foreboding sense to the world right now. She plucks the edge of the scarf.

"You shouldn't have." The snow is melting in her hair, she looks as nature-touched as you might expect.

Kalen Holliday
"Already on that," Kalen says to Grace.  He glances at the box in her hands.  "I was going to put something in it, like an extra surprise, but I couldn't open it."  Wait.  What?  Couldn't he-  "Without cheating.  Using magic on the box seemed like cheating.  Though, now that I think about it, also excellent practice.  I should get some more of them."

"Oh," Kalen says quietly.  "Next year perhaps I will just get everyone a copy of How the Grinch Stole Christmas.  Or, perhaps, coal.

"And, yes.  Her name is Callisto."  His eyes widen, just a little, even now.  There is pretty much nothing that can completely dampen his wonder about Callisto.  "You can see her?  I can't usually see her.  Sometimes people show her to me."

Grace
"The guard-bear. I've heard of that, but I've never seen it," Grace says, her fingers working at getting her puzzle box closed again. Little strips of lacquered wood on the side of the box slide slowly back and forth as she goes, making little clicking sounds.

"Kalen always does Christmas gifts," Grace says to Kiara, with a shrug, as if to explain that the sky is blue, the grass is green, and Kalen is Kalen. "You get used to it. It's his thing, giving stuff to people."

Kiara
Kiara leans more fully into the doorway. "I mean that in an entirely 'thank you, I love it' sort of way, for the record." Her dark eyes are brighter, in the moment. Her smile accompanies the easy gratitude and she slides into the kitchen proper with a rattle of heavy jewellery. Moving to hop up on the counter and help herself to a piece of fruit; rolling an apple between her hands.

"I can if I peek across, " Kiara rubs a thumb over a blemish on the fruit. The bruise of impact where it had been jostled at some point from tree to factory to bowl of fruit. "It's a little easier here, the energy out there, the trees. The earth. Callisto," the dark eyed pagan turns the apple over in her palms. "I'm guessing mentioning Zeus around her wouldn't make a girl popular." There's a twist of Kiara's mouth; humor banking there and gone before her expression smooths into something a little more sober.

"I could probably show you, if you want to see. She was watching what I was doing out there. I got a sense I was being scrutinized."

Kalen Holliday
"She does that, at first," Kalen says.  "I'm not sure where her name comes from in that regard.  And...maybe.  I'm not sure if falling asleep watching her is on my list of things to do again.  It wasn't, precisely, the first time."  There is a soft huff.  "I blame Alexander."

He pours coffee over the rock candy stirrer waiting in the mug, slides that mug and the cream across the counter toward Grace.  He could, by now, just fix it for her entirely, but he does not.  He pours another mug and holds this one out to Kiara.  If she takes it, he pours another for himself.  Whichever way he takes a sip of his coffee before he adds anything to it.

"And you are, of course, welcome.  I'm glad you like it.  You're one of the people I was less sure of."  He looks over at Grace, and there is, for a second, a touch of something mischievous in those pale green eyes of his.

"But we all have skills, no?"  His smile widens a touch.  "And considering the company I've been keeping, I have so few opportunities to practice."

Grace
Ooh, coffee. With a rock-candy stirrer like she likes, and the cream like she likes. She pours some cream in, and stirs it with the stirrer, then sticks the stirrer in her mouth like a lollipop. Coffee flavored sugar -- the best, right?

"Oh whatever. You get me things all the time. You get everybody things all the time."

She turns to Kiara. "Really? You could do that?"

Kiara
She takes the coffee, setting the fruit back down and instead drawing one leg over the other; those boots of hers a complicated affair of laces and leather; tied up beneath her knee. One of Kiara's feet moves a little; a tiny betraying motion. Unsettled, perhaps. A lingering uneasiness she's dragged back from her brief foray outside.

"Alexander. I met him, I think. Quiet guy, sort of intense." She muses on it; on him; holds on to mentioning what else he gave her an impression of. They all had their demons, after all and Kiara Woolfe is hardly without her own. It reads there, for a beat, in the subtle change and shift in her mouth, the supple shape of it reforming into some schism of understanding when Kalen mentions being unsure of what to gift her with.

She cups the coffee in both hands; warming them around it. She leaves it black, Kiara. No sweeteners or cream. Perhaps she savors the bitterness to it; the strength imbued in the purity of the coffee blend, or something along those lines. "That doesn't surprise me," she admits with an expression opening into something curling and bright.

"Most people take longer to get a handle on what impression I'm making." Dark eyes shift to Grace, Kiara's teeth flash before her smile vanishes beneath a sip of coffee. She sets it aside; slides off the counter with a careless sort of grace; one that spoke of confidence, if not certainty in landing on her feet. "Sure I could. Have you ever seen the other side before? It's better, the first time, out here. You can see things easier. The city is a wonder but - " Kiara looks thoughtful as she turns her gaze out the windows. Into the snowy afternoon.

" - she talks better to me out here."

Kalen Holliday
"You've met Alexander," Kalen says quietly.  And he does, from time to time, forget who has met who.  But Kiara and Alexander...there are reasons he remembers that.  "He can be quiet, yes.  And intense.  He is not always, but-"  You remind him of this cannibal cult, Kiara.  Of the woman neither he nor I could save.  You taste, in part, like their endless hunger.  "Sometimes he takes a moment to warm up to people."

"It is," Kalen says quietly, "Much nicer here."  So many memories to haunt people.  Kalen...Kalen is familiar with that kind of haunting, if no other.  And so he remembers the things that they cannot forget, the weight of their memory and his memory mingling to strike a balance with his futures and their futures.  Dizzying.  Precise.  Delicate.

He really does wish that Pan were here.

"And Callisto is magnificent."  He takes another sip of his coffee, then adds whiskey.  Two raw sugar cubes.

Grace
There are things Grace understands, certainly. Space, matter, the Code. The realm of spirits is not one of those things. She's been there, across the Gauntlet, and yet still doesn't know exactly what Kiara means by the 'other side'.

"Er. I've seen some things. I don't think I've seen the other side. Unless you mean like, other worlds?"

The rock candy stirrer is still hanging out the side of her mouth.

Kiara
She should know, of course. What her resonance might mean to some. She'd been there, after all. That night in the park. Felt the agony of a spirit processing precisely how he'd died. What horror had been visited upon him. He'd been searching for his dog and then Kiara - the dark eyed pagan with that sensation that feeds under your skin - and she'd stood there and been a witness to it.

Solemn and quiet and in the aftermath - she'd removed herself from the moment.

But right now - she simply looks at Kalen and the composition of his quiet response and feels - what - something, some semblance of things that aren't spoken out loud. Kiara listens to what she's told and it strikes some recognition in her the way her mouth firms; not cruelly; into a line. The way she studies Kalen's face with this unrelenting intentness for a beat. It's hard, that. Being scrutinized by the woman who reminds you of things you'd rather forget.

Her eyes tick away eventually, her smile doesn't quite ebb but she returns it to Grace and tilts her head; that dark hair slipping free like waves of dark water over her shoulders. "I suppose that depends on your definition of other worlds. I just mean - seen across, to the place where Callisto lives. My - we tend to think of it in other terms but I guess - the Umbra." She says it slowly, Kiara, there's a sense of great respect to it; the way the devoted might murmur their Gods names to invoke them.

"C'mon, I'll show you something."

She collects her coffee, inclines her head. "Kalen, you're welcome to tag along if you fancy."

TBC ...

two lives. [grace]

Kiara

It's hardly what most would deem park weather, Denver at present.

Though the lack of radiant warmth has never particularly held the Verbena back from doing whatever it was she pleased to do. And not infrequently, Kiara Woolfe liked to run. There was a peacefulness, one might have even gone so far as to term it tranquility, to running the pathways that zig-zagged throughout the expanse of Washington Park. At present, the walkways that she preferred were touched with frost; it gleamed in the afternoon sunlight and adventurer though she was, the brunette also had an uncanny sense of self preservation.

Which was why she wasn't found traversing the depths of the park as the sunlight desperately quested to warm what it could but situated under a tree; a blanket spread out beneath her and the lake glinting in the distance. The world was become December's, in all her icy power and while the pagan respected it enough to dress for nature's demands (coat, boots, gloves, the usual adornments of the season) she wasn't afraid of it. At least, not enough to keep her from coming to re-align herself with it.

The Verbena's back was situated against the tree; her legs crossed neatly beneath her and there was, playing on her lips, a rather contented expression as she pressed one hand; gloveless; back against the brittle bark. If a stranger didn't know better they might have guessed she was listening to the tree. Which, the way the air around the Verbena hummed with a particular sort of vibration of energy, might not have been quite so far from the truth.

[Doo de doo, we're just harmonizing with nature, no big deal. Bit of Life 1. Practiced. Coincidental. Unique Foci, etc.]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (3, 10) ( success x 2 )

Grace

[Awareness!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 4, 10, 10) ( success x 2 )

Grace

The last time they were here, they played basketball against Ian. If Grace had any idea what Kiara and Ian were playing for, she probably wouldn't have. But ignorance is bliss. This is so, even for Grace, as long as she doesn't know she's missing anything.

She's an odd beast in the park. Walkways are more of a guideline to her than anything, a signal that there might be such things as benches beside them. So, she's often seen making her own wandering path. Today, she's leaving a trail through the frosted grass that looks very much like someone didn't know where they're going. At one point, her trail turns sharply. Somebody feels like the cycle of life over there.

It might seem to Kiara that Grace is an unchanging creature. Does she always wear jeans, sneakers, and that red coat festooned with small plastic bits here and there? When she arrives at Kiara's tree, she's silent, watching, not wanting to interrupt.

Kiara

[Oh yes I should have done this before. Do I sense a Grace?]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )

Kiara

The last time Kiara had been here, or, quite near to where she currently sits, there'd been a spirit nearby and other Awakened. He'd been wary of her, the departed, with her resonance that called to the fore the notion of something destructive, something entirely devouring and inevitable. It wasn't anything that got simpler; being feared the way he'd feared her in the moment. Though it wasn't the first time something other had felt her to be an implied threat.

Such was that of a child of nature; that felt cyclinic like her whims could be. It was easy to fear that which you couldn't control.

Grace's presence isn't a strange one to the Verbena; that keen sense of something shifting; sands pouring through the hourglass but in the moment; she doesn't feel her approach. Not until she opens her eyes after a protracted moment; a blink. A tilt of her chin upward at the shadow canting across her sunlit afternoon. It takes the brunette a second to come back. To divert her focus from the Pattern of the world around her and latch onto another.

"Grace, hey." She doesn't sound unhappy to be disturbed, Kiara, rather entirely at her leisure. Relaxed, you might have said, despite the chill in the air. There's a thermos on the blanket beside the female, a small wicker basket beside it. Somebody had been enjoying a winter's day picnic, apparently. The brunette shifted her weight a little; straightening. "You caught me mid-conversation.
They're happy." This, a tilt back at the tree behind her; the touch of a smile gracing Kiara's red mouth. "Winter agrees with them." There's a stretch and Kiara unfolds her legs, gestures at the blanket. "Pull up a square of blanket."

Grace

Grace looks up. "Aww man, we're not stuck in a painting are we? Happy trees?"

"I'm trying to get the plants to talk to me too. Though it's more like..." she says, and trails off. Okay, so maybe tread carefully here? Sometimes people can be a bit put off by the techno part of technomancy.

"Like they're having a conversation with the sunlight that I'm trying to decode. To see if I can use it to send my own messages, if that makes sense?"

She takes up the offer to share a blanket, stretching out her gangly legs, leaning back on her hands, in order to continue looking up into the trees.

"I wish I could say my ivy was happy with me, but it keeps getting nibbled on by cats. I imagine there's got to be some animosity there."

Kiara

There's a sharp grin, at that. Kiara tucks one leg back under her body to reach over and unscrew the top on her thermos. Her glove hasn't been refitted and the Verbena's fingernails are painted a bold crimson that matches her favored shade of lipstick. "God, I hope not, as soothing as watching Bob Ross paint can be I think I'd rather something a little more exciting."

She lifts an eyebrow. "If I was going to be caught in some alternate universe. Picasso, maybe. Salvador Dalí. Now he'd be worth it."

She reaches into her basket, takes out a pair of small cups. "All those melting clocks and ships made of butterflies?" The top of the thermos steams with something warm inside and when she pours out one cup, it smells like sugar and spice; something with chocolate. She sets one out and inclines her head toward it in a help yourself motion. Pours a second and curls her legs up; resting an arm across a knee and turning over what the other woman says.

"Nature talks to nature, without question. Interpreting what they're saying and using it - " Kiara nurses her chocolate in one hand; lifting it to her mouth to take a sip. "Let's just say I'm still trying to figure out what she's saying half the time." Her ivy is being nibbled on by cats. There's a breath of laughter at that. "Beware the scorned house plants." She wiggles her fingers back into a glove. Offers a thoughtful look the other woman's way.

"You know I was in here the other night and met a few newcomers. They were feeding the homeless. There was a lot of talk of God's work." Oh, there's a hint of something wry, there, in the pagan's tone.

Grace

"Newcomers? Doing God's work, eh? Well, feeding the homeless is good, I guess," Grace says, shrugs, still looking to the trees. "As long as they're not doing the God of Murderous Rampages' work, that's fine by me. I'd ask if you meant Kalen and Danny, because apparently Danny wants to bring the joy of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to all of Denver, but they aren't new and they don't really ever speak of doing God's work."

Grace takes the offered cup just as she did the blanket -- no thank-yous. There's only a look of surprise at the offer itself, and then complete acceptance, as if she were fully engaged in making herself at home on someone else's blanket, drinking someone else's hot chocolate.
"This is really nice. Hot chocolate on a cold day in the park? Brilliant."

Kiara

"It was a man and a woman. She was -" Kiara pauses, her expression knitting into something a little uncertain. A flicker of some agitation at the very fact. " - captivating, in a way and he was - " There, again. A flicker of something. She's smiling throughout it, though it verges here and there on becoming less sincere. More a grimace. "Oliver and Lavinia, I think they introduced themselves as. Said they were settling into Denver. Kalen was there, though."

Her smile returns then, a little more sincere. A little less burdened by whatever it was that grated at her about the newcomers presence. "They called us townies." There's amusement painted into the Verbena's voice at that; some pleasing warmth like that of the hot chocolate she's offered Grace. It seeps under the skin, that good humor. "I suppose they get points for that. It's a first, for me." She flicks aside the heavy fall of her hair from her face so Grace can see the full weight of her amusement at the fact. She's foregone any sort of hat today, the Verbena and her dark hair falls in waves; spilling down over Kiara's shoulders.

It adds to the picture of her being some wild thing at times, the pagan. Perfects that combination of dark eyes and red lips. The clatter of jewellery around her wrists; her neck.

"Mm, it's an old recipe. The secret is to add a little chili." She takes another sip from her own cup, resettles against her tree. "I come in here a lot. Just to sit and - " she tilts her face upwards; toward the treetops. "What about you? What brings you to the splendor of Washington Park on a Friday afternoon?" There's a decided tease to the edge of Kiara's mouth as she says this. As if she knows it's unlikely the park lures everyone back the way it does herself. That, or she imagines Grace has some deeper reasoning for finding herself within it without company.

Grace

"I don't know. I sometimes just feel like I need to get on my feet and go somewhere, you know? Like, sitting in front of the computer all day is my main habitat. Good stuff comes when I can sit there for days with just my coffee and not have to bother with anything. But then I get all antsy," Grace says, her eyes tracing the outline of the lake. She sips some hot chocolate, noting that not all of the heat of it is thermal.

"This is good stuff," she mutters. "Like the chili. Gives it character."
Her gaze then shifts over to the mountains in the distance. "Townies..."

There is a wildness to Grace as well, though not in the way of animals and plants and the cycles of nature. It's more to do with being unrestrained. Her mussy hair has a twig stuck in it today, and she really couldn't care less about that. Twigs happen. But there is always something a bit unnatural about her, isn't there? The way she doesn't like to look at people. The way her eyes tend to follow lines.

Kiara

"I do." Kiara murmurs, with eyes focused on Grace's features, even as she casts her attention out over the lake. It's late afternoon and cool; the crisp wind cutting across their small shelter intermittently. They're half protected by the ancient tree Kiara's perched against but there's no total concealment from the elements. It sends occasional sharp gusts that flip over the edge of the blanket the Verbena had lain out earlier. Rustles the leaves high above and whips the surface of the water up.
Chopping and changing the otherwise serene lake.

There's something thoughtful; perhaps sympathetic to Kiara's attention for a beat. A contained consideration before she chimes in with: "I've never been too good at staying in one place for too long. Winter is - " The Verbena's features twist into something rueful. " - a challenge, for me. I don't like the way everything stops. Freezes over." There's steam slowly rising off the cup housed between Kiara's gloved palms, a reminder perhaps, of the very subject of her consideration.

"Hibernation isn't really something I understand. I guess there's a reason for it but, " Thin shoulders lift in a shrug; dismissive. "Give me Spring any day." She's quiet for a moment or two then, Kiara, eyes perhaps taking in Grace's presence. The twig in her hair is undoubtedly noticed; perhaps the reason for the brief suggestion of a smile at the edge of the other woman's mouth. Her eyes dip down then, away and she curls up against the tree like a child might have against a doting mother.

"It's odd how often I meet people and spend time around them and never really know a single thing about them. You, Ian, Serafine." Kiara's dark eyes rove over Grace's face. "I get the impression there's a lot that happened here before I found my way into it."

Grace

"Here? Well, I mean, just in this park alone... The Message occasionally pops up here in the form of a scarecrow by the lake. He's nice. There was this guy who got stuck in the 'spirit world' and he used the last bit of oomph that he had sending a message across to us, just so he wouldn't be forgotten. The Message kind of, I don't know. Gained sentience? Over here it looks like a scarecrow. Over there it looks like an owl-angel. Some people I know come to this lake and have picnics just in case Mr. Message pops in to say hi.

"Not everything here is so nice though. I mean, you have Ginger now. You can read. We have been through a lot. And no matter what the new guys like to say, we're all new guys here. The real old guard? They got wiped out about a couple years ago."

She sits up to balance herself while drinking the hot chocolate, because it wouldn't do to dump it all over herself on accident. Its heat is appreciated.

"There's one thing about Denver. It never freezes here, if you catch my meaning," Grace says, and there is a note of anger there. Not at Kiara, but at whatever force it is out there that seems to want to kill and/or torture everyone in existence.

Kiara

There is something very soothing to the hot beverage in both their hands. A strange juxtaposition to their conversation but it somehow works to anchor them in the moment. There's something very human to it, after all. The sweet yet spicy chocolate; a warm drink for a winter's day and all that's missing, really, are marshmallows roasted over a fire.

Call backs to utterly benign, mortal things. What tethers a person to the world while they're in danger of finding pathways beyond it, after all. Grace talks about The Message, the park, what's come and gone and picnics in their very spot. Kiara's expression suggests interest; curiosity; banked investment where she sits, curled up; hands clasped tight around her plastic cup in their soft leather gloves. "I don't doubt it's seen a lot, this place. I got that impression from what I saw. Looking across."
It never freezes in Denver, if she catches her drift. The way the brunette's smile fades a little; settles into something a touch more subdued, she does. There's a certain way she looks off into the distance; a certain way she breathes out carefully that says she knows it well. Kiara's mouth is mutable as it folds and arranges itself to suit her expression. Resignation, maybe. A shared anger banked there with it that matches that heard in Grace's voice.

"Yeah, you could say the same was true about New York." She looks back then, meets Grace's eyes and there's a suggestion there in Kiara's - Pain, commiseration, understanding of some unnamed horror that couldn't quite be shaken off like rain from an umbrella after a storm. "You know what they say about cockroaches, though," she considers her hot chocolate. "Persistent little buggers."

Grace

"Mmm," Grace says, nods, drinks some heat in.

"So far, at least going back a couple of years, we've had some level of weirdly good bad luck. Shit keeps going down and fucking with us, but we keep going. Really, yes, rather cockroach-like at that, I guess. Maybe we just make our own good luck by being so damn stubborn."
Grace walks the park alone, trying to find peace. Something inside her doesn't want to be tethered -- wants to find the paths beyond the here and now. It doesn't care about the danger. She does, though.
Some days that tether snaps taut. The need to go rises, though 'to where' isn't really a meaningful question. There is no where.

"I guess where you are doesn't really matter in the long run. Shit happens anyway. That's what I gather, at any rate. None of us seem to have simple, uninteresting lives. It just doesn't work."

Kiara

Kiara's eyes gleam a little at that. She laughs and - dipping her head, pours herself a little more hot chocolate from the thermos. The edge of her mouth is always hinting at something. That's Kiara, though. The eternal sense that for as much as she offers - she holds back, too. Perhaps that's a learned trait of the Awakened. When you never quite knew where the Technocracy was going to show up, you got accustomed to talking in half truths. In codes and veiled glances.

Kiara's people had made something of an art of it throughout history. Persecution did tend to have that effect.

"You know, I have to admit, before everything -" She sits back on her knees; her thumb toying with the rim of her cup. " - I would have called my life exactly that. Uninteresting. Predictable. And even for a while after it - " She glances at Grace, then away, smiling. Some faint impression of mirth at herself; her past. Her journey.

"I sort of clung to this idea I could do both. Be both. As if one wouldn't infect the other." She looks back; eyes searching the other woman's face. "But you're right. It doesn't really matter where we are. It all - " She curls her lip. "Finds you out, one way or another. At least we're in good company, right?"

Grace

"It's possible. To do both. There are some who make a real effort at that, and manage to make it work. A lot of us have professions in the 'real world' although I've never figured out how. Then there's the ones with children.

"There's no way to avoid 'infection' though. It's not like you're literally two people. Just one person with two lives."

She drinks the last of her spicy hot chocolate. It's no longer really hot by now, but the spice is heat enough.

"I've found it's simpler to try not to do everything at once, though."

Kiara

"I envy them that. I mean to an extent I have both but - not quite the same way. Not, mind you that I'd go back to the way it was before, but - " There's a sense of loss snarled in there, somewhere. Behind the easy smiles and dramatically painted dark eyes. The way Kiara speaks of her old life, as if it's a monument to time she can't quite recapture. Echoes and ghosts of the times that had come before.
Footprints in the sand long since washed away.

" - it's easy to remember it with a certain wistfulness on the other side, I guess." The Verbena finishes her second cup and carefully stows it back inside her wicker basket. There's a myriad of other things in there when she lifts the lid. Bunches of wrapped herbs; something in a glass that resembled misty water; a plastic baggie of what could have been dried leaves. Food items too, one supposes, somewhere.

Kiara carefully pushes herself to her feet; brushing down her jeans with gloved hands and shifting the basket to one side so its freed from the blanket. "Speaking of real world professions, I have a session tonight I should probably get back and set up, for." She'd mentioned it once before, what she did. How she made some use of the connections between who she'd been and what she was.

A healer, that's what she'd called herself. A practitioner of energies. "You should stop by one of my classes." She casts Grace a winged eyebrow, a briefly coy look as she sets to carefully folding a corner of the blanket up. "It's good for a little clarity of mind. Or if you prefer," she picks a few dry leaves from the folds of the fleece. "I do private healing sessions, too. It's not quite the same kind as hot chocolate, but," the brunette shrugs, smiles. It's a brief, contained thing. Easy, unfussed about the likelihoods of Grace taking up the offer.

"It's a way to calibrate yourself, so to speak."

Grace

The blanket is being folded, and so, Grace stands and removes herself from it. She's not a cat, to get upset when the blanket needs to move out from under her.

"That would be interesting. I've never seen reiki before. I wonder if I could see it work in the... you know, the 'Tapestry'. Or whatever you call it."

Some Virtual Adepts would scoff at the very idea of reiki. Pseudoscience at best, right? Too much woo, not enough foo and bar. The ones like Grace, who have seen far weirder things than palm healing and who have 'grown up' around the Traditional types, not so much.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that people have found so many different ways to hack the universe, really.

"It was nice to talk with you, fellow townie," she says, and her eyes flit to Kiara's just in time to perform the fakest of formal bows. "I look forward to the next time you give me a drink and conversation."

Kiara

"Reiki is about using the energy that already exists in the world. With the right intention, you can map it. Channel it. Use it to heal or conversely - " Kiara pauses folding her blanket, straightens, her hair scooped back from her face in a restless; impatient gesture. " - well, there's a lot of different kinds of will workers out there. The way I use it, it helps me see life. Articulate the patterns, understand them."

She tucks the blanket under the edge of her basket; picks it up to stow under an arm and smiles; a dimpled, bright thing as Grace mock bows. "Likewise. We should make a habit of it." Kiara tilts her head, motioning them toward the frost-bitten pathways. The sun is beginning to dip; the temperature shying as it does.

"After you."

In their wake; there's a small square of lawn warmed by their presence; the frost has melted away; but it won't take long for it to recapture the verdant grass. It was December's whim, after all, and one that brought with it a decided touch of ice.

a wild thing. [lavinia, oliver, kalen]

Lavinia

Her legs were long.

She did a good job at Thanksgiving. Ate food and kept it down, played nice with the people she had to go see, which happened to include her sister's husband. Her sister's husband that rolls his eyes every time that their little girl Macy emphasized that Lavinia looked like the angel they put on top of the Christmas tree last year, but prettier. And proceeded to brush her hair for the next two hours and try to "braid" it, which consisted of making it even more tangled.

Addison asked if Lavinia had somewhere to crash. Lavinia lied and said that she was apartment hunting. Addison didn't believe it, but she didn't press. Vinnie had a transient lifestyle, and had for years. It's why she was more comfortable out on a park bench, watching the smoke curl up into the sky while someone illegally set a fire in a nearby trashcan. The cops would show up, because eventually someone would be pissed off about the fact that there was some massively tall blonde womb standing around with a bunch of degenerates setting fire to public property. Some people don't like staying in shelters, that much she knew. She knew they didn't like it because there was something that you traded for a bed sometimes.

Occasionally it was dignity. Occasionally it was giving in on a principle, or sometimes it was the fact that a lot of people have a problem lying to good-hearted people. Saying I'll get clean or I'll dry out or any number of lies just is too much. So there she was, presiding over the forgotten like Santa Muerte herself- the one who looks after the outcasts of society.

If she doesn't start eating more, she might damn well start looking like the Bony Lady herself. She exercised like it was going out of style. Did push ups, sit ups, ran miles and sparred with whomever happened to be willing to take a hit. There was a backpack on the bench with her, and her coat was clearly for a person who was decidedly taller and larger and heavier than she was. She had on a short skirt and combat boots. If someone didn't know better, if someone wasn't rendered painfully aware of what they were looking at (and everyone was aware, mortals and awakened alike, that she was not entirely of this world), one might have mistook her for a lady of the evening. RIght down to the eyeliner. Right down to the comfort with the outcasts.

Kiara
[Be quiet, we're hunting Choristers. Mage-dar.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 8) ( success x 1 )

Oliver
[WP]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 6, 7, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )

Oliver
[IS THERE A VERBENA IN THE HOUSE??: awareness]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )

Kiara
[Just for flavor tonight, how are those nightmares treating you?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 4, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )

Lavinia
(other mages?)
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 4, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )

Oliver

Lavinia does have a place to crash.  Several places probably, but Oliver doesn't ask.  Just let her know when he found out where the house he'd been provided with was located, told her she was welcome to stay whenever she had a need.  After so long spent together on the road, maybe she'd want her time away from him and his slow sluggish days, the days when he couldn't be dragged out of bed, the days that make the bad days of most look like sunshine and rainbows and happiness.  And besides, Oliver isn't alone in that house.

He invited her to his own Thanksgiving, the one he shared not just with Iris but with the children of the foster home.  But she had to spend the time with her blood relation, so she didn't get to see the sullen way Iris refused to look at him.  She didn't see how the distance cut him more deeply than he could carve the donated turkey.  No, Oliver and Lavinia had their own Thanksgiving another night, in a diner somewhere, a single plate shared between the both of them because neither of them has an easy time getting themselves to eat some days.

Today, for Oliver at least, is not one of those days.  He is not with Lavinia when someone sets fire to the insides of a trash can.  He is not with Lavinia because he is on his way to Lavinia and her cohorts of the evening.  The lost, the forgotten, the dregs of society.  Oliver strides with strength and purpose and dignity all his own, both hands curled around the folded over tops of brown paper bags sporting the logo of a nearby deli.  The food inside is warm because the night, while not completely frigid, is cold enough and bound to get colder as it wears on.

The tall man in the dark, unbuttoned pea coat, is drawn to the light like a moth to flame, but not quite literally.  He is drawn to the radiance, the endless presence somehow contained within a slightly taller, much thinner frame.

"Oi!" he calls, and wouldn't you know it he almost (almost) sounds chipper.  He sounds lighter than he usually does, at least.  "Give us a hand here, love."  He holds one of the bags up in offering to Lavinia, his eyes moving around the shadowed figures without judgement.  There is a moment of distraction, though, as his heavy brows tighten over his pale eyes and he frowns beneath his beard. 

He gives Lavinia a familiar look.  Do you sense that?

Kiara

There are so many reasons it's a terrible night to be making first impressions.

The first and most pressing is, naturally, that it's cold. Denver's descent into winter is felt now as they tumbled into December. It's in the grasp of nature's whim just how far into the depths of freezing they'll plunge at any given moment. For those without a roof over their head, it's a far more perilous and death defying time of the year than for any other. Insulation comes for some by bundling layers of old newspaper inside ragged clothing, by warming hands over bin fires and trying to stave off the icy fingertips of sickness.

For others -- there are more astute and comfortable means.

To retrace again, terrible night for first impressions in part because the brunette picking her way across the expanse of the park is who she is. Especially to ones like Lavinia and Oliver. That prickling awareness of degradation under the skin; the tingling surge of energy restored. It's subtle but like so many things rooted in magic [and superstition, too], no less apparent and present. There's no black cats to mark Kiara Woolfe's appearance down the ways; moving shadow to feeble street lit illumination and back again like a grim slender phantom in the night but she does present a picture.
Boots; jeans and -- ears. Muffled from the chill, there's a hood drawn low over her brow; a vest made of what seems like fur. What made her seem like, quite possibly, a snowy wolf. A bag strung across her midsection; gloves keeping her fingers frost free and a coat undone and bracketing her movements like a gently flitting cape.

She slows her footsteps, some distance from the gathering; the distant noise of people, gathered and gathering because of the sensation(s) emanating. Radiant, boundless ... unwavering. There's a frisson of wariness then - her steps pick back up; her hands remain tucked into pockets but as she nears, this red lipped creature with dark hair and eyes; glinting out from beneath her strange mockery of a creature whose name she shares - she's searching for the source of her hesitation.

Oliver. Lavinia. They slide into focus eventually and Kiara blinks at them; once. The wind ruffles her furry vest.

"Evening."

Lavinia

That is the contradiction of her. She is very clearly a finite creature. She very clearly has ends and boundaries but when one stands too close, when one looks at her, she is the edge of the universe. She is the boundless edges of the cosmos. Every expanding, ever growing into something that is truly unknown. Her being rings of the Infinite. Beyond that, it runs risk of being overwhelming, too much, too much for one person and yet- there she is.

She turned her head slightly to left, leaning in a little to the sound and drowning out the ambient noises of the trashcan and the wind and the stars- because the stars could be chatty things, couldn't they?

Her gaze does follow, flitter until she noticed the other woman. She was smaller, but then again it wasn't hard to be smaller than Lavinia. She was over six feet tall and completely unapologetic about it. Her dark eyes take in the other figure, and there is something… angelic seems to be the most appropriate word, but it conjured an image softer than what she was. Lavinia had eyes that shone like beacons and the voice of a herald- intent. compelling. She had a smile that was infectious.
"Hey there," she said, and the smile reaches those dark, dark eyes. She had the kind of voice that would bring tidings of great joy. Something that would ring glories to the highest, and yet…
"Fuckin' freezing, am I right?" she took the bag from Oliver, adjusting her position just enough so that she kept the people she was talking to on her left instead of her right.

Oliver

Oliver feels a bit like something great, himself.  He seems like a champion, like a warrior, like a defender.  Unwavering, immoveable, resolute.  On his bad days that translates into a terrible stubbornness.  On his good days, well.  On his good days, he's still terribly stubborn, but sometimes when the light hits his eyes just right it seems half a jest.  Like his stoic look might suddenly shatter with a smile, but no.  Maybe once, but not anymore.

He looks from Lavinia and around as he opens up the bag he holds.  The smell of cooked meat wafts upward in a puff of steam.  When he locates the source of that cycle of rejuvenation continually devoured his expression eases, his brows lift and

Evening.
Fuckin' freezing, am I right?

There is a lightness in Oliver tonight.  It is not really lightheartedness, not really happiness or pleasure, but the lack of a heavy weight crushing him.  A weight he knows will come again another day, and so he does not get too terribly enthused when he finds it less than impossible to get out into the world.  But that lightness allows true fondness to shine through for a moment as he looks at Lavinia, shakes his head, and says, "Alright, you lot.  Who could use a sandwich?"  His voice is a growling rumble that seems to claw its way free of his chest.  It's a voice that bears an obvious accent, one Vinnie thinks makes him sound like John Constantine.  Which is funny when you think about it.

He reaches into his bag, one matched for heaviness with the one Lavinia holds, but a heaviness neither finds remotely difficult to bear, and begins passing out foil-wrappted sandwhiches, each one warm to the touch.

Kiara

Herald. Goddess. To the pagan perhaps even some manifestation of the Queen of Winter; some deity come to feel the ground beneath her feet and celebrate the turning of the season. She certainly keeps Kiara's attention for a good moment or two before her mouth brooks into a smile. Before she pushes at the ruffed edge of her hood and lifts it back enough to free the shadows from around her features.
Waves of dark hair surface around a heart shaped face. Kiara's features are delicate, though her mouth offers no mistake when it turns in good humor or displeasure and she appears, initial reservations aside, quite at her leisure to make the acquaintance of two strangers amidst the needy in the Park at night.

The Queen of Winter and her Guardian, perhaps.

"You would be right," she offers with a glance at Oliver; a considering beat before her eyes tick back. "I'm Kiara." The Verbena's lip curls a little further. "Woolfe. And you both are ... new, to the city?" There's the taste of a question within a question to the way she says what she does.

A test, of sorts. The dance of the attuned around those who weren't.

Lavinia

"Lavinia," she said, offered her hand like it was a normal interaction. Lavinia transferred the bag from one hand to the other, giving herself a little time to take a moment and just enjoy the fact that they were having a conversation. Like normal people. Like normal people by a trashcan fire.
"And Oliver," Lavinia clarified, "we just moved here. We're becoming domesticated, isn't that awful?"

Like domestication was something distasteful, but something that she could mock, and would mock, and would enjoy mocking.

"Duty calls and we answer, though."

Oliver

"The worst," says Oliver, turning his head and checking Lavinia's location to ensure that she hears him, maybe even catches the glimmer of his eyes before he looks at Kiara and throws her a wink.  It is the smallest reminder that he could be charming, once upon a time.

He empties his bag of sandwiches, passing them out all around.  Some of those gathered wander off, get some space between them and all these others so that they can eat this boon in peace.  Like animals.  Oliver does not look after their retreating shadows with pity.  He does not did not bring food to give away because he found them piteous, but because the night is cool and a warm, full belly can do a lot to lift one's spirits.  It can do a lot to restore a little faith, in the Lord, in humanity, in strangers.

He tosses the empty paper bag onto the fire, which eats it up right quick, flaring only a little when it licks over a small grease stain.  Then it is ash, and then it is forgotten.

Pushing his hands into the pockets of his coat, Oliver moves to stand opposite the can from Lavinia.  They are both tall, and imposing in their own ways.  Lavinia is spindly, all long thin limbs with a touch of the ethereal.  Oliver is bigger, broader.  His coat hangs from wide strong shoulders, the dark fabric of it and the plain t-shirt beneath it disguise the definition of him, but there is no hiding the bulk.  Oliver is built like a wall.

"You're one've the townies, then, eh?"

Kiara

Lavinia offers her hand and one of Kiara's slips from a pocket to grip it. It's housed in a soft leather glove; the slide of it warming and supple against bare skin. Where both the Choristers are tall, imposing in their respective ways Kiara seems slighter for the comparison beside them. She loses some few inches on their height; but she's no less present for it; a curious composition in her white coat and faux fur vest. Her mouth coated in glossy red lipstick.

It draws the eye, but perhaps that's the intent of it. Her eye makeup dramatic in its own respect; bold, dark lashes, underscored by dark liner. It enhances already dark eyes; makes the brown seem more intent on its target, somehow.

"Absolutely awful." She agrees easily, the corner of her mouth quirking when Oliver winks; gaze settling and following the hopeful, trudging progression of the weary with their hot food. "I'm - not sure if I'd go so far as to say I'm a townie," Kiara's expression shifts; she hedges; a wrinkle of her nose. "But I've been here a couple of months now. Swung around on the ropes."

She lifts a hand to a cheek and tenders back wayward strands of hair. There's something edging on wry, there. Contained in her voice. "There are worse places to pick if you're looking to set down roots."

Her eyes rove over the pair of them; return to Lavinia's face as if drawn. "Is that what you're doing out here now, then." Kiara punctuates it with a twist of a hand within her pocket; it flares the vest out; jingles something loose beneath the layers she's wearing. "Duty?"

Oliver

The women shake hands and for a moment Oliver keeps back and keeps quiet, hands tucked into the pockets of his own coat.  He is studying the woman, not intently, not lasciviously, but with a kind of detached curiosity.  She is just so perfectly composed.  The coat and the vest, the makeup, the, well all of it.  All so well put together.

He's still studying her when she looks at him, eyes roving over him.  He does not straighten, does not preen beneath her graze, but he does not study her any longer.

"Not looking, love," he says, looking quickily at Lavinia and then back to Kiara.  Maybe he, too, is drawn to the Divinity in her bearing.  "Found."  His voice is a touch too gruff, his look a hair too sharp.  It's obvious he at least has no intention of elaborating, at least not yet.

Kiara asks after their duty, or rather what they're doing out here tonight.  One of Oliver's brows quirks and he shifts his weight, rocking forward onto the balls of his booted feet while keeping his shoulders back.  "Feeding the hungry is hardly a duty, those who think it is are doing it, or looking at it, with the wrong eyes.  No, miss.  We answer to a higher calling than that."

Kiara

They answer to a higher calling.

There's a flicker there; surprise maybe; apprehension, who knew. Something that crosses the brunette's features; causes both her eyebrows to arch up and her eyes to tick back to Oliver with sudden, sharper clarity. Looking at him now as if she's making less polite considerations and more directly taking the measure of him. It can't be the first time such a reaction is gathered from words that belied the kind of meaning his do.

They aren't looking, they've found. It's not a duty.

"Right," of course you do, is the unspoken in her gaze; that steady, consolidating stare. It tracks away after a moment and whatever ghost of a thought; whatever was surfacing there on this unknown one's face is pressed back beneath a sliver of a smile; a ghosting tease housed somewhere in Kiara's voice.
All warm and sociable anew. "Well it's a nice gesture, whatever's calling you to it, I can't argue with that."

Lavinia

"We're kind of like the Blues Brothers, except I don't particularly like to wear pants and Oliver is shit on the harmonica," she said. it was true, they were a pair of sunglasses and a crappy car away from saying they were on a mission from God at one point. Or maybe that was just Lavinia. Whatever the case, the Chorister grinned, because she could be warm and she could be personable enough for the both of them and continue along in conversation.

"Anyway, the guys are pretty cool. Jake plays jimbe and I'm pretty sure if he will show up for rehearsal we can start a band or something," Lavinia half yelled at one of the men, who laughed and gave her the bird and yelled about something being just the one time but he was on her wrong side so Lavinia didn't actually hear him. She just laughed anyway because she knew she needed to.
"So, what's the city life like, daring wolf?"

Kalen Holliday
[How awake are we?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )

Kalen Holliday
[And how distracted by Resonance are we?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 6, 6, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 5 )

Oliver

Of course you do, says that look, a look that Oliver knows well.  She doesn't him, doesn't know them.  She only knows what she senses from them, she only has to feel that Lavinia is something holier than thou, but she hears a particular phrase and there goes Kiara, making her suppositions about the pair of them.

It's a nice gesture, she says, and Oliver looks like he would debate her on it.  God look at him, hands in his pockets yet obviously there's a tension that courses through his shoulders.  The lower half of his face is obscured by a thick dark beard, but even that can't hide the set of his jaw, the line of his mouth.  There is a heaviness and a hardness to his gaze, not angry.  Not hostile, not intentionally.  He just looks like he wants to debate.  When was the last time he had the chance to argue?  When was the last time he talked to someone...when was the last time he wanted to talk to someone who wasn't Lavinia?  When was the last time he felt okay enough to argue?

He looks like he would, but he doesn't get the chance.  Lavinia speaks up first, cutting easily through that moment of tension.  She brings up the Blues brothers and how they're kind of like them.  It's true.  There may have been a time (or two (or five)) where one of them set a hand upon the dash of the old car and said Our Lady of Blessed Acceleration, don't fail me now.  Lavinia calls out to one of the retreating figures, who gives her the bird which causes Oliver's eyes to narrow.

Then he looks away.  A hand frees itself from a pocket and rises to rub at the back of his neck.  Lavinia wants to know what the city's like and Oliver wants to know what Iris is up to.  So he lowers his hand, uses it to pull out an old flip-phone which he flips open and starts the laborious task of tapping out a text.

Kalen Holliday

Kalen is, very slowly, coming to something of a truce with the cold.  He still dresses as though the weather is colder than it is, at least by Denver standards.  Long heavy gray coat, pale purplish-gray scarf, boots, gloves; though, oddly enough, despite all of that the hood on the coat is down.  He is not carrying coffee, and the shadows under his eyes have faded a bit.  Still, you cannot undo the kind of long-running exhaustion Kalen is prone to with one good night of sleep.

He pauses for a second when he fist catches the sense of Lavinia, and then recognizes Kiara too.  Oliver.  He is curious enough that he does not walk all the way to the edge of the lake first, as he tends to, but instead toward the little gathering of Mages.  The Message, after all, is not here.  He knows that the same way he knows the others are.

He draws close at a steady, but not hurried pace.  He wants time to study them.  There are all kinds of creatures whose lineage is holy.  Some of them are devils.

Kiara

How much of the Verbena's reaction; that momentarily pause and sweep of her gaze over Oliver is a presumption is unknown. It's easily assumed they both carry distinctive [as yet unvoiced] notions on what a higher power might be, on how it might be. What form, what matter, what sort of power or deity possessed them to do, speak, react the way they did. It's not a decided hostility on either side perhaps but a recognized fracturing of the ways.

Raised by believers; Awakened by the dogmatic tenders of the Tree. There's so many opinions weighing down the moment for one, though Kiara, for her part, bides her time. Cuts away her eyes and when they return - she attempts some deviation on her instincts. Tamps down the urge to press at the wound to see the blood well.

The dark eyed pagan instead sets her hood fully down and under the swoop of it come the gleam of piercings in her ears; studs by the looks. Tiny winking suggestions of pink and green. When she gathers her hair over a shoulder; the rattle of chains suggests more adornments exist under the layers between her and the chill of the Denver evening.

Daring wolf, the radiant one calls her and the flash of teeth make it quite the apt description for Kiara. "Surprising. Unrepentant." A curve of her mouth. Challenging. Coiled. "Fun, if you enjoy a little cosmopolitan insanity in your life. You'll rarely be bored. There's always - " A gathering storm; the stir of it across the pagan's senses. She makes some subvocal noise of assent. "Something on the horizon."

Lavinia

"I missed cities," she admitted, unashamed and unswayed, but there is a spark, something that reads like glee in the woman's dark-yet-bright eyes. Something that urns a little brighter. Shines a little more like torches seeking, searching, finding something to grasp and hold onto. Something that would press her forward. THe promise of something on the horizon and for a creature whose energy is boundless, whose very being insists hat is shall not be contained, it can not be contained. All light and brightness and radiance smoldering, promising, insisting for eternity- how could she be anything but enthralled by the concept of something always being on the horizon.

A city whose possibility was infinite. Whose truth was infinite.

"But only a little cosmopolitan insanity?" she made a face that contorted to a playful pout, "I don't quite know what to do with myself if that's the case. I'm accustomed to full on bats hit-or-dead. I might have to try this whole moderation thing."

Moderation got finger quotes.

Lavinia

(bat shit, not bats hit. Thank you autocorrect)

Oliver

Oliver is texting.  There are young people today who would not understand the value of a good flip phone, of being able to feel each key as its depressed, of running one's thumb over the bump on the 5 and knowing precisely where to tap by feel alone.  Smartphones with their glossy sleek faces and their large, very readable screens may be easier to use, but easier doesn't always mean better.  At least it doesn't to Oliver, who does not mind fancy things but could (and does) do without them.
He is focused on his cell phone, not the conversation about the city.  It matters very little to him what the city is like, and it certainly doesn't matter as much as the textual conversation he's having.  Seems to be having.  Lavinia knows but the others won't, that Oliver's cell phone would ring or vibrate if the person on the other end was sending messages back to him.  To those not in the know, however, he seems to be having a rather heated session as he quickly taps out message after message.

He is not so absorbed in what he's doing that he doesn't hear Lavinia say she might have to try out moderation, which actually tugs a huff of a laugh from the man.  And he is not so distracted that he doesn't feel the prickle of an oncoming storm, coming from a direction he happened to face when he turned away from the fiery bin.  He glances up looks down looks up, brows lifting when he sees a shadowed figure outside the reach of the firelight headed their way.  Oliver closes his phone, straightens, and puts the phone into his pocket.

Kalen Holliday

That he has time to take the measure of them does give them some time to take the measure of him.  Such judgments from a distance are rarely terribly illuminating.Perhaps with more time.  It is not without some wistfulness that he remembers a time when it was easier to hide.  Of course, then he was a skinny child better at running than fighting.  He's been better at fighting, really.

These days, he is beginning to suspect he understands what Marcellus wanted him for.  It is more difficult than hitting something, and more than ever it makes him wish that the man was there.  Or, at least, somewhere he could be reached.

There is, he supposes, always the option to explore contacting the dead.  But that, in this case, terrifies him.

It does, however, seem a terrible shame to Kalen that every radiant, sacred creature he has encountered was after he could tell the old man.  And it is impossible to ignore the tugging at his memories tonight because even more than Pan this other stranger has a presence like Marcellus.  And it is, perhaps, that more than anything that lead his eyes to rest first on Oliver as he says simply, "Hello."  He looks from Oliver to Kiara, who get a nod so slight it could be mistaken for a trick of the flickering light, and then finally to Lavinia.

Kiara

"I wouldn't recommend it." Moderation. Kiara's smiling, right there. It flirts with the impression of dimples in her cheeks; throws back her appearance to that of someone a far cry sweeter than may be the reality of it. It's jarring to see that sort of aimable flair saddled to a woman who feels a little like she's a corrosive agent; agitating your skin.

Oliver is focused on his phone; or providing a very convincing impersonation of it. Kiara's eyes cut to it; then away; over and onto Kalen. He nods at her, she inclines her head in some wordless reciprocation before her gloved hands reappear. Shape the space between them with lazy precision. "Kalen, meet Oliver and Lavinia."

A beat; Kiara curls her fingers around the fur lined pockets of her vest. Her dark-edged eyes scoping the edge of the newcomer's profile. "They're here to live lives of moderate fulfilment. Or at least, to begin with." That, to Lavinia, Kiara's quip thrown down with a curled mouth; inviting the retort.
A denial. Agreement. Any of the above. Kiara tugs her hood back up; the fur trimmed edges frame her face and throw her back into the guise of some winter wolf. Except for that red mouth of hers, that remains the slash of bright focus.

"Kalen's one of the townies, too. I guess you could say."

Lavinia

It's hard to keep people on your good side.

Literally, she has a literal good side. One that functions and hears and catches the fine details and perhaps, at one time she did not favor her left over her right but in all things, she goes for the left first. A habit, she is infinite. Not chaotic. (But isn't there chaos in infinity? Just touching the surface, just dipping herself in, testing the waters there). There is a glimpse of order that she courts from time to time. A grander order that creatures like her were a part of- hierarchies and thrones and dominions and cherubs alike.

"We're here because work brought us out here- you know what they say, come for the backbreaking labor and Herculean tasks, stay because the view is pretty."

And the view was pretty.

She could revel in sensations. In the rebirth and devouring, a cycle in itself. Something born of nature and the natural. Something that mixed with the presence of her unyielding, insistent companion. What is and what always will be, which hit against the tempest of one Kalen Holliday.
"I figure it should be nice. I haven't been settled somewhere for, what, Ollie, ten years? One with you, a few with- anyway," she said with a little wave, "you didn't sign up to be my personal biographer."
That's just an added bonus, of course!

Oliver

He clears his throat like maybe that's why he's gone silent, there's something caught in it and sound literally can't come out.  Absently, he pats a pocket, then another.  His pack of cigarettes is found in the last pocket because isn't it always?  The last place one looks is the last place because there is no need to keep searching once a thing is found.  He taps out a cigarette, finds his Zippo lighter and takes a moment to light up, suck in a cleansing breath of not so cleansing smoke before exhaling.
They are introduced and still Oliver says nothing.  What is there to say?  His name has already been given to the young newcomer, the young newcomer's has been given to him.  And to Lavinia.  By Kiara.  He is not alone in this encounter.  "'ello, mate," he greets in that baritone rumble.

And he looks at Kiara, and he opens his mouth to say something, but at just that precise moment a high pitched voice chimes out from the pocket where he put his phone, "Doom doom doomdoom doom!"  Lavinia knows that text tone and who it belongs to.  "Christ almighty," he grumbles, finding his phone and flipping it open.  "It's about time."  Whatever he reads, it causes his expression to darken before he forces it smooth again, snapping the phone shut and looking to Lavinia.

"What's that, love?  Ah, yeh, this is already fourth longest we've spent in any one place.  I need to get.  You alright to get home?" he asks her, asks her about 'home' because unlike Lavinia he is protective of certain information, especially when it pertains to her or to Iris.  But the point is obvious, Oliver is making good his escape.  He gives a polite nod to Kalen, eyes lingering on him for perhaps a moment too long.  Then a slightly more genial inclination to Kiara.  "A pleasure," he says with a flat politeness that sounds perhaps less genuine than it truly is.

Then, with or withough Lavinia, Oliver makes his way away.

[and i am out alas, because i am falling asleep.  thanks so much for the scene!]

Kalen Holliday

Is he one of the townies?  He still feels like he just got here.  But then, by comparison.
There were Mages here before.  Eleanor had known them.  The chantry had first been theirs.  None of them have been here terribly long.  At least not and also Awake.

"For about a year," he says quietly.  "I was not, always, from here."  There is the implication that he is from here now.

"Well," he says to Lavinia, still quiet.  "Denver winters are usually cold, with a thirty percent chance of snow and or apocalypse.  Be prepared."  Is he joking?  It is, as it almost always is, not exactly easy to determine.

Oliver's accent gets a little blink, a faint dip of his head in a returned nod.

Kiara

The brunette doesn't vocalize her farewell to the Chorister male but she does return his look; watchful perhaps. Curious to a degree. He means to say - there's something and then there's nothing. And then he's setting off and Kiara's eyes linger on the shape of his back for a moment as if she can't quite account for what she makes of him before they resettle on the luminous figure of Lavinia.

She's enjoying the view. Kiara's mouth moves in the suggestion of something; a subtle tug of humor; recognition for what it is to just be. Enjoy. Live in the moment. Under her hood, her skin is finding a touch of warmth, it surfaces in the barest hint of color across her cheekbones. "Or you could stay for the view, figure the rest out later."

A lift of thin shoulders; Kiara bending into the motion; rocking in her boots. "What's life without a little uncertainty." A moment, it draws out, unfurls itself in the wake of Oliver's departure and then Kalen speaks on the cold. As if in accordance there's a stirring of the trees; the ripple in the air; mother nature brooking no amusement or offering some.

Hard to deduce. The brunette turns her face into it; seems distracted by the wind picking up around them. "That's on the unofficial tourist brochure," a smile thrown Kalen's way. The gambit thrown. "Denver, come for the freezing winters and high probability of untimely death."

Kiara's eyes are drawn into the distance again. Her hands reclaim pockets; sheltering from the bite in the air.

"If either of you need a ride," the offer is made in such an offhand way, it seems unlikely Kiara will take offense at whatever the reply becomes. "I was on my way to my car."

Lavinia

"One of those two is going to make me have to reconsider this whole pants thing," she only half-heartedly grumbled. It was easy to see why she might not be too keen on pants, where the Hell would she buy them? There wasn't necessarily a store that catered towards women who were built like runway models- impossibly tall and surprisingly slender. If she were more front heavy she might seem like a Barbie doll. Except, of course, Barbie didn't feel like the all enfolding cosmos incarnate.

It's cold, though, she can tell that it's cold, and the fact that she was wearing a skirt certainly wasn't helping. Thoughts of enjoying camaraderie with the guys by a trash can fire were replaced by the memory that she actuallydoes have somewhere to stay tonight. She's had a place to stay for years, but you never quite get over the uncertainty, checking for places that would be adequate shelter of buddying up with the right people just enough so that they don't kick you on your ass in the morning. Charm is what keeps bodies warm and bellies full. Given her frame, one could argue that Lavinia wasn't that charming.

Denver, come for the freezing inters and high probability of untimely death."I've got a punch card for a frequent near-death-experience card. Two more stamps and I get a free shot glass," the gambit was made, and the thought of nearly dying in some horrible fashion doesn't ruffle her feathers. Doesn't draw her ire but, rather, made her brows raise and a slight look of… something flicker across her features. "I think Denver is exactly where I need to be."

Lavinia
"And I would love a ride, if you wouldn't mind? I took the bus out here."

Kalen Holliday

"You're only to the shot glass?"  Kalen's eyes sweep over Lavinia, measuring.  "By spring I'd bet you'll be on to the full decanter set, if you're right about belonging here."

He looks between the two of them, ready to leave for...home?  Somewhere, at least.  "Good night, then, both of you.  Take care."

Kiara

It's hard to predict where the brunette is headed, other than to her car. There's the fleeting suggestion sometimes; in a winged look; a protracted glance that there's something else to Kiara Woolfe than what she'd prefer you to take notice of. Undress a person down and the baser layers are often the ones that yield the most telling artefacts.

Of course, delving that deep involves lingering in the afterburn of her presence. A task for some but - not all. Still, there's no rancor, no sense she's let down or impacted by Kalen's response. She does look at him, for the measure of a moment after she offers what she does as if she's testing some private experiment but her expression is too composed in the face of whatever it is to offer much in the way of insight.

He bids them goodnight; she moves a few steps; looks back. "Stay warm, Kalen."

--

Her car is bright red. Or was, at some point in its transgressions on this earth. Now its fading stickers on the bumper and dirt pasted to the windscreens. It smells like pinetrees and the radio is set to some soft rock soundtrack that highlights the strange juxtapositions of the woman behind it. Composed yet with an edge of something ungentle beneath the gloves and vest and coat.

A wild thing, acting at being some tamer creature. She's a safe driver, at the very least and Lavinia reaches wherever home is tonight without incident.