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 ...
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