Serafíne
Wednesdays are the slowest nights in Lodo.
College students are still making some stab at studying or finishing
assignments due this week or maybe last or perhaps next and it's too
early and/or late in the week for the conventions and seminars that tend
to get bookended against the weekend so that middle-management types
can "make a weekend of it" somewhere other than home, and everyone else,
well. They have to fucking work. Can't really call in hung over on a
Thursday when you are a third year associate in a struggling law firm
who spends ten hours reviewing property deeds to answer obscure mineral
rights questions.
So: Wednesday, Lodo, The Summit House,
this hole in the wall place with a single tinted picture window and
green-painted door fronting the street and a weird dogleg shape to the
inside. Long narrow bar - classic, right? traditional, booths and
tables and barstools, a traditional wooden bar-and-mirror theme going
like something out of a saloon, connected to a larger, weirdly bulbous
space that is up a half-flight of stairs and definitely wider than the lower level bar, tucked behind
a small kitchen from which an up-and-coming young
never-went-to-culinary-school chef serves up a ridiculously delicious
menu of locally sourced sandwiches late-night. The little-back-room as
it is called features a small stage. Tuesday nights and Saturday
afternoons are open mic.
This particular Wednesday night is not
open mic. There's a band, a fourpiece. Ridiculously good guitarist
hanging back in the shadows, this striking, compelling mess of a Cultist
with her eyes closed and her long fingers wrapped around the neck of a
bottle of liquor, simmering her way through a cover of the Pixies Gigantic. One of those iconic songs it is almost impossible to resist covering.
The last one of the set, too.
Ian
[Oh right, Awareness!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Ian
There
were two people with Ian when he walked into the bar. Both of them (a
black woman and a pale man with ginger hair) looked like dancers. They
had that same graceful way of moving: that same brand of muscle tone
that Ian did. (The kind you only ever really saw specifically in people
who danced ballet.) The woman gave a bright peal of laughter as she slid
up to the bar, curling a long scarf from around her neck. The
ginger-haired man took a seat beside her, grinning at some joke that
only the three of them were privy to. Ian leaned an elbow on the bartop
as the three of them ordered drinks, but his attention shifted toward
the sound of drifting music that filtered in from the back room.
"I'm
going to check out the band." When his drink arrived, he pulled away
from the bar and his two companions, making a slow path up the stairs.
He knew, of course, who he would find there when he arrived. It was
becoming a bit of a habit with them - this passing in the night. At a
bar or a park or a party. Sera got around. Ian got around. They were
bound to run into each other periodically.
And of course,
there she was. On stage, crooning out that Pixies cover like she was
meant to be there. Ian found a table and sat down with his drink. His
eyes lit on Sera's form - on the way the stage light painted her face
and reflected all soft and golden off the bottle in her hand. He took a
sip from his glass and, after a moment, closed his eyes. Content for the
moment to absorb the lush sound of Sera's voice and the amber warmth of
whiskey on his tongue.
Kiara
Did things ever
happen without some degree of deliberation for any of them? A chance
meeting, a fork in the road, the path less taken ... it all amounted to
the same thing. Meetings. Points of connection. It's possible that the
brunette that slips into The Summit House is here for a reason.
It's possible that reason is currently jamming out a set on a stage
somewhere up the back -- up those stairs; past the winding;
laughter-strewn minglers and off to the right, in her own world.
Kiara Woolfe has never known Serafine any other way.
She
has a glass of wine in hand; the Verbena; this slim figure encased in
jeans and a velvet shirt. It's all jagged; theatrical sleeves that flare
out below the elbow and rich; royal purple in shade. She gleams a
little where she stands; back to the wall; half figment more than
identifiable woman but for those with the means to deduce her from less
mundane means. Glittering with her necklaces and bracelets; a coat
folded over one arm.
She hasn't been here long, by all
accounts. There's a heel pressed to the wall; the tilt of her head and
her focus; the red-lipped bohemian, shifts just so when another
joins the throng watching the band. The edge of her mouth shifts a
little but Kiara doesn't alter her orbit just yet.
Let the momentum build, you understand. At some point -- the roads will rejoin; it's what happens.
Serafíne
There they are, there she is: on this little wedge of a stage tucked up against one of the corners of the oddly-shaped little back room.
Just enough room for the equipment and the people and not much room to
move around, except that she does. Crooning, yeah - that's the right
word for the way she curls her voice through the mad, surreal little
verses: breatheless, internal, intense. But then the chorus explodes as
it was meant to into a great, messy celebration. The chick on the bass
(that's Dee, to those of us counting out the Corona Street houfsemates)
concentrating on that legendary bass line looks up during the chorus
and finds the mic in front of her and joins in, harmony. Hell, a
quarter of the audience does too.
Gigantic is almost as hard to resist as Sera. Especially in her element.
Then
the song ends because everything does, everything has to end, and the
set's done - for now and perhaps for the night, although it is
early, it should be noted. They don't start breaking down the gear.
Just hang up the instruments. Sera lifts the guitar she did not touch
at all - at least during that last song - up over her head and hands it
off to Dan and jumps down off the little stage onto the pockmarked floor
with the deliberate pleasure of a child jumping into a rainpuddle,
nevermind her goddamned heels, and somehow she catches herself, and
somehow you know that she would - catch herself before falling.
Somehow she always does.
--
The liquid in the bottle tonight is clear but it catches the light when she moves. Shines,
a bit viscous so you know it sure as hell isn't water, but you knew
that all along, really. Saunters over the little dance floor and
through the scattered tables until she gets to Ian. Waves hi with her
bottle.
Really wants to kiss him on the crown of his head but the bastard's standing up so she contents herself with wanting rather than kissing. Maybe she reaches out for Ian's hand.
"Ian! Come meet Kiara. You wanna shot?"
In
between sets music comes on the sound system. Whatever it is sounds
like the love child of Joy Division and Echo and the Bunnymen, came out
last week. Sera's in heaven.
Ian
The audience
cheered at the end of the set, and that was when Ian stood up. Truth
was, it didn't really matter whether or not he liked the Pixies. He was
an artist - a performer. And watching (or listening to) other artists in
their element was something he had a taste for. Of course Sera's band
killed that song. It was exactly the kind of thing Ian always imagined
her singing. So he smiled when the song finished, standing up to give
this high, appreciative whistle.
Kiara was there. He felt her more than saw her. Perhaps he might have looked, but then there was Sera reaching out for his hand.
Come meet Kiara.
He grinned. "You should invite me to one of your shows."
There
was an easy-going grace to the way he allowed Sera to lead him toward
the back wall where Kiara stood. In response to her question (did he
want a shot?) he lifted his still-mostly-full whiskey glass. "Maybe
later."
Kiara
"You sounded fucking amazing."
This, the first thing they're greeted with when they meet up with the
other woman. Kiara smiling through her emphatic declaration; leaning in;
pressing forward to tuck Sera (and those ridiculous heels of hers of
course) into a brief; intimate expression of satisfaction. There's easy
intimacy in the way Kiara kisses her face; this fleeting tilt-and-peck
of cherry red lips against her jaw; cheek; some point before she draws
back; smudges her thumb because lipstick.
Pulls back;
registers the man with her with this brief-but-intent charade of
surprised pleasure. She'd known; her eyes had strayed to him on the
approach; this tiny, tiny little bank of something there hiding in the edge of Kiara's lips (there was always something to her smiles, this woman).
"Ian, isn't it." This, with a cutting little look. A sharp-edged smile; her focus shifting to Sera. "We've met. Once or twice."
Elijah
The air is thin.
Nobody
warns you that the air is thin in Colorado, they just assume that if
you are in Denver that you know that the air is thin but, you see,
Elijah has been at sea level for awhile now. He's been at sea level
longer than he would have liked, really, and since school was starting
back up he had more than a few good excuses to be somewhere that wasn't
home and, instead, to be crawling through bars and remembering that it's
easier to get drunk when you aren't accustomed to taking the
appropriate amount of air into your lungs.
There are things
that he thinks about. Things that he ponders and contemplates and all
those other thinkie words, but he isn't thinking at that particular
moment, he is just doing. That doing includes going to a bar somewhere
in LoDo and being blissfully unaware that he missed one seriously badass
performance. Woe and misery abound, woe and misery indeed.
So,
there he is, making his way into the place like he belongs here,
because he does belong here, being all tall and blond and lanky and
be-vested- because he still carries a pocketwatch. He still carries a
very particular pocketwatch because even if he isn't attached to the hip
with the person who gave him said watch, it still meant something to
him. It was still important, still integral, still necessary for
symbolic communication because he talks in symbols and that's how the
world works. All mimicry and poppets.
Anyway, in with him.
Alone and turbulent and passionate and all those other things because he
is who he is and he is how he is and he isn't going to be anything
other than who and how he is.
He's been a non-presence for awhile. Bars are a nice welcome home, aren't they?
Serafíne
Oh Sera. What do you feel?
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )
Serafíne
Sera
smells like - well, that's tequila. A good tequila, but whatever.
She'd drink the rotgut shit too if that were the only thing on offering,
and she's wearing a short leather skirt and thigh-high fishnets held up
by garters and a purple-and-black lace bra with scalloped cups and a
sweet little black bow between them beneath an unzipped hoodie, wrist
cuffs pushed up her forearms. Red mark over her neck and shoulder where
the guitar strap lay, (bottle) blond hair dark at the roots, curling
and a bit damp from sweat.
Callouses on her hand and the cool
kiss of the bottle as she trades the bottle from left hand to right to
take Ian's hand and lead him onward, which he accepts with an such easy
grace.
And he tells her that she should invite him to one of
her shows and Sera laughs and throws a glance over her right shoulder,
long hair tangled in the hood of her jacket, the room spinning as she says, "Come to one of my fucking shows."
The edge of her smile, sharper than you'd think. That might've been a joke.
Then
Kiara, with her lipstick and red wine, and Sera accepts the kiss to her
cheek, her jaw, with pleasure. Eyes closing, inhaling, leaning in to
bump brows, never quite letting go of Ian's hand. Pulling him after her
and presenting him to Kiara and now (finally, yes) freeing Ian to do
whatever he will in greeting Kiara.
"It is Ian." A
bit emphatic - too far gone perhaps to get the sharp edge of Kiara's
smile or - no, probably not. Undercurrent there, right? Feel it
against her skin. "Ian this is Kiara. You've met. Say hi or
something."
Sera kinda drifts back. Takes a breath. Takes a shot, right from the bottle.
Closes her eyes and lets sensation bathe her being.
"Elijah's here, too. I'm gonna go get him."
She hasn't moved yet.
She will, soon.
Ian
"Three times, I think."
It'd been more than three. But Ian wasn't actually counting the times they'd met.
Elijah
was there. Sera was going to fetch him. Maybe she'd introduce him too.
Ian glanced briefly in the direction of the stairs, down to where they
led - where Elijah's chaotic resonance beat out such a familiar pulse;
where the two dancers Ian had arrived with were still chatting each
other up at the bar. They didn't seem especially concerned over his
absence.
Ian took a sip of his drink and smiled, subtly, at
Kiara over the lip of the glass. Some light, secret thing that might
have been: it's nice to see you. Or maybe just: you look nice.
"Hi," he finally said, as per Sera's request.
Serafíne
Then she is
moving. Long fingered hand sliding through her damp hair, lifting her
right shoulder to her right cheek, handing the tequila bottle as lightly
and neatly as if it were some cheap, mass-produced beer at a picnic or a
blockparty. Gives Kiara a glance and rolls her eyes a little bit when Ian says "Hi," just as instructed and hmmms (internal, entire) over his pronouncement that they had met three times, he thinks.
Sometimes
Sera can read everything in the room. Every vibe, every flirtation,
every feud, every desire. Sometimes, well, that shit is hidden from
her, or she's too wrapped up in her intoxicants to take stock of anyone
else's.
Tonight, Dan has finally finished stowing the guitars
and has jumped down (really rather easily overlooked) from the little
corner stage and crossed the bar and sauntered up behind Sera to touch
her waist, lightly, and murmur something into her ear.
That's
when she backs up a bit. Waves the bottle to say goodbye! or perhaps
see you when I have another one of these! or whatever and saunters back
downstairs in her Alexander McQueen heels. Five inches, stiletto,
black, the spine and heel wrapped 'round with coiled metal dragons, the
sides and toes covered in enough metal spikes that the damn things have
to be handed over to security when she flies. Gotta put that shit in
your checked baggage. Counts as a weapon in 71 countries.
--
Downstairs,
Elijah! Hello. Sera greets him and tells him that Ian and Kiara are
upstairs and he should go say hi and she's going out for a smoke, she'll
be back right? Or she won't. Maybe she'll be elsewhere, the next time
he turns around.
Kiara
Elijah is here. She's going to go get him - at some point.
Kiara
can feel it; feel him; the chaotic whirl of the young man's presence.
It touches her skin; chafes against the devouring nature of her own.
There's a beat there; where the Verbena doesn't speak but to
feel it. To part her lips and then compress them. It serves as much for
her agreement that yes, there's another here, as anything else.
"Only three? I'd have said at least five.
I could be getting a little ahead of myself, though." This, her eyes
swinging back to the present; to linger on Ian's subtle smile and retort
it with the wider aspect of her own. Always the element of the tease,
with Kiara. Her nature being such that it was a competition, of course.
It was a game; it was the wolf on the hunt. A woman who felt the
way she did -- yes, it seemed easy enough to see the flash of those
white teeth, the edge of humor; of challenge in her dark eyes and see
something a little feral. A little wild and untethered and it made
sense, of course it did because she was what she was.
Ian knew that much now, if not anything else about her.
And
then Dan -- and Serafine is being drawn away and Kiara's eyes follow
their progress for a moment or two -- "She may very well not come back.
If I've learned anything so far of Sera -- " There's a little table near
them; pressed right back against the wall; Kiara surrenders her coat to
the chair attached to it; abandoned by those who have wandered off now
the live music is no more. Keeps the wine glass, perhaps as much for a
distraction for her hands as anything else.
"It's that I'll be right back is a very abstract idea."
Elijah
There are people upstairs.
People!
Upstairs! People that he likes on top of that. or at least person that
he likes, he has met Kiara, but he doesn't remember that he's met her.
When he sees her face, he'll remember her. When he sees her face, he'll
be able to place her along with that growing and devouring feeling, that
cycle of death and rebirth and creation and destruction all bundled up
in one woman and he'd muse over it.
But, he goes, oh how he
goes! He goes up the stairs and takes them one at a time, double time.
Isn't mourning anymore. Isn't aching over the one that got away because,
while it would still ache, life would go on. People would be relegated
to the realm of memories and life would go on.
Up the stairs,
all snazzy and presentable, because he makes himself presentable. All
green-eyed confidence, because he could be confident. Life felt good.
It
was up the stairs, and there he was, taking the room in and taking in
people. He's tall and he's got a coat on and he's comfortable.
Comfortable because he chose to be comfortable. But now, he had to find
people and join people. It was a game, joining.
Noel-lurk
[Do you guys mind a Grace?]
Ian
I do not mind :)
Elijah
(Go for it!)
Kiara
[Yes! How dare you! *grins* C'mon in, girl.]
Grace
[Awareness!?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 5, 9) ( success x 1 )
Ian
"I
suppose that last one should count more than once," he conceded. By
then Sera was already on her way toward the stairs, so she'd miss the
way Ian's subtle teasing became ever-so-slightly less subtle. Kiara led
them to a table and Ian followed suit, pulling out a chair for himself.
"That's
a good way to put it." (Abstract.) And now that Sera was gone, his body
relaxed slightly, leaning back in the chair enough the rock the two
front feet just slightly off the ground. Ian could feel the beating edge
of Elijah's resonance at his back, and he looked over his shoulder long
enough to catch Elijah's eyes. It had been... a while. Since they'd
seen each other in person. But Elijah looked nice.
(Everyone looked nice, tonight.)
Ian,
of course, had on his Burberry leather jacket. The sleek lambskin one
with the high collar. He hadn't taken it off yet, but he did now,
shrugging his arms from the sleeves as he draped the thing over the back
of his chair. Underneath, he had on a black t-shirt. The air in the bar
was warm enough not to make him wish for something with more fabric.
"Join us?" he offered.
Grace
Elijah: Come out with meeeeeeeee
The text makes her smile. Elijah, out doing things? Anyone out doing things? And there is a place to be for her now, too.
Elijah
checked in to this place on FourSquare, Grace notes as she walks in,
head in her phone. Someday, he may learn why allowing somebody to know
exactly where he is at all times is not such a good idea. But it is such
an Elijah-like gesture, is it not?
She looks, and she feels
-- senses them above the din of people and music. And Grace seems
different tonight, for those who are paying attention. No, it's not the
outfit (does she ever change out of her uniform of jeans, sneakers,
t-shirt, and coat?) But there is something even more odd about her than
usual. It's as though a bird just landed in the doorway with giant
sweeps of sharp wings.
They're upstairs. Nice.
Grace weaves her way through the place, to climb the stairs.
Kiara
The
Verbena slides eventually into a chair across from Ian; it had been
owned by her coat a moment earlier and Kiara presses herself into it
with that sort of negligent grace that Ian had such a call to; being
what he was. He'd come with friends; colleagues perhaps; Kiara had come,
by all accounts, on her own. But that, as recent interludes had
suggested, never seemed to particularly bother her.
She's
housing her wine between long fingers; toying with the stem and idly
contemplating the direction the Cultist had vanished in when Elijah
appears. She doesn't know him overly well, Elijah. Their interactions
had been few and unusual, to say the least. She'd met him in a park, not
so long ago. With another female and a ghost, looking for his dog.
She
watches his approach from under the fall of that dark hair; long;
unbound tonight; it casts the pagan's features into some half-formed,
shadowy uncertainty. The edge of her mouth; red; bold. The cant of her
face; the thickness of her lashes where they're kohl-rimmed and lovely;
brushing the edge of a cheek when she dips them; her focus, just for the
moment, to breathe in with a sudden little catch. Lodged in her throat
because Grace is approaching and yet - it's not-Grace. A wholly
different version of the woman Kiara's gotten to know.
Shared space with; shown secrets.
Grace
appears and the trick of the minds-eye is that great; impressive wings
unfold themselves behind and above her; a sense of something dwarfing;
something winged. When she lifts her face again, her attention is
instantly on the stairs. "Hello, Elijah." Then: "Well, Grace." Because.
"Something to share?"
Elijah
[Manip_Sub: I totally remember your name, Kiara]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 4, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )
Elijah
He
grins. He grins because it's his constant companion, because it comes
easily to him and because it comes quickly. He's turbulent like that,
things come and go quickly, but he swings closer to jovial than he does
brooding and woeful.
"Grace should be coming soon," he said,
was peeling out of his coat that was a little bigger and a little warmer
than necessary (he never quite adjusted). His gaze turns, his
attention migrates from Ian- who gets a smile and a glance that is at
once appreciative and glad (but why glad? But why not?) to Kiara
(appreciative, curious, quiet- like looking at a painting whose artist
you can not place).
And then she says it. She says his name
and there is the momentary flip of his stomach and the flush of his
cheeks that says that it's cold outside and surely can't have anything
to do with the fact that he can't place her name. nope, noooo, not at
all.
"Hey Ian, hey Kee-" oh fuck, think think "-a Sedona?"
He takes a seat like he belongs. Because, as far as he's concerned, he does.
Ian
[Per+Subterfuge]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 5 )
Ian
Ian
lofted an eyebrow at Elijah and regarded him quietly for a moment. It
was a look that Elijah might have cause to recognize by now, for all the
times Ian afforded him with it - the same look that Ian had given him
that day at the Chantry when he'd pulled Elijah aside to supposedly help him with his homework.
It was the look of a man who was... entirely unconvinced.
He
didn't say anything though, choosing instead to leave Elijah to flail
awkwardly. And then... Grace appeared. And Ian let his chair fall neatly
back into place as she sat up (sat forward,) his attention briefly
zeroing in on her with the precision of a laser beam.
Something to share? Kiara asked Grace. Ian grinned lightly, this softly knowing expression, and held up his drink as though in acknowledgment.
"I guess we've all met."
Grace
Something
to share? A corner of Grace's mouth juts up, like she's got a highly
amusing secret she's keeping, and slips herself into a chair, legs going
where they will in the process.
"Hey, Elijah. I see you found company."
A grin at Kiara. "I don't know. Do I?" She totally does.
"Okay. Yeah. One could say that I sought something, and found it?"
Kiara
Amusement.
It
banks there in the weight of her eyes on his face; Elijah's; the flush
that rises in his cheeks; the stab and string together of words.
Sounding out some variation that might have been her name, but wasn't
quite. This, seen in the way her stare lingers on for a beat; the tap of
her heel against the chair leg beneath because momentum, you understand, for her was a necessity. She was not made to sit, idle and unstirring.
Give her choice, Ms Woolfe: it was the leap,
the unknown, the adventure blown in by the wind every damn time. She'd
jump out of a plane; spiral and plummet before she'd be weighed down so
long by stagnation. Winter was not her favorite time of year; too much
frozen; too much waiting; captured and unyielding; for the thaw.
She
does let him sit there, suspended in uncertainty; her own private
amusement painting him the hanged man before there's a purr of something
shying south of laughter rising in Kiara's throat. She shakes her hair
back; sifts a hand through it and tenders it back from an exposed throat
as she offers: "People call me Kee. You can be one of them, if you want
to be. Or - " the rings on her fingers gleam as she lays them on the
table.
Her thumb stroking one around; back to face the proper
direction. More silver; not real; these. "Kiara." She reprieves him with
a smile; twitching the edge of her mouth; suggestive of dimples that
might surface in a cheek in the right mood; caught at a particular
moment.
I guess we've all met.
"Mm." Kiara's eyes
carry over Ian; dart to Grace. Playful, for the former. Soften, just a
little, for the latter. There's some kind of fondness there, maybe. "You
did. You without question did." She cants her head. "We need to toast you, Grace."
Elijah
Names are hard.
He's
not old enough to drink, but he fakes it anyway. Comes to these
establishments often enough that when he shows his actual ID people are
starting to wonder if it's fake. Comes to these establishments enough
that he's not entirely trusting of his own papers. And why should he be?
They're just numbers, just affirmations that he commits at least three
status offenses an evening and the various people- because bartenders
and bouncers are people- happen to be privy to a great crime that they
let slide because of his charm and the fact that tossing him out was a
lot harder than letting him in and look at him.
Green eyes, blond hair, woiuldn't hurt a fly. Not the least bit dangerous but everything about him is impulsive.
"That's much better than calling you a minivan. My next guess was Susan,
but you're far, far too glamorous to be Susan," he compliments, "not
wispy enough to be an Audrey and more voraious than any Marilyn I've
known. Kiara fits."
But Grace has news, news he didn't know
about when he invited her out but he beams, brightens and content to
pass over his own screw ups with names (names are hard, okay?) to turn his attention to Grace and-
"Why
do I suspect this is way more important than finding your metaphysical
carkeys? What're you drinking? And don't say red bull, because that
stuff is basically crack and sweet tarts."
Ian
"Mm." Ian offered this subvocal agreement to Kiara's proposal and tipped his glass a bit more deliberately. "To evolution."
The word choice seemed distinct, when he said it. Deliberate. Meaningful.
And then?
"There
he is." The voice came from a woman who'd just appeared at the top of
the stairs. Pretty. Mid-twenties. Hair pulled back in a loose bun. The
same one that Ian had arrived with. She was followed momentarily by the
tall, ginger-haired man she'd been drinking with. The two of them slid
their way through the tables and surveyed the group with an air of
amused curiosity. "Friends of yours?" There was a wry edge to the
woman's question, but she didn't actually wait for Ian to give a
response. Instead she grabbed the hand of the man next to her and said,
"I swear if I sit still for one more second I'm going to go crazy."
Ian
laughed as he watched her drag the man out onto the dance floor. It was
a small space, but the two of them found enough room to move to the
music being piped in over the speakers.
He finished off his
whiskey. In a moment, he was on his feet. As he threaded around the
table, he turned to regard those still seated and, with a daring little
smile, beckoned the three of them to follow.
(Assuming any of them had the urge to try and show up a trio of professional dancers.)
Grace
Grace snorts at Elijah. "Well, it does give you wings."
She
leans in to him, to keep her voice down. She wouldn't invade his space
without reason. "You remember what it was like when you Awakened? It's
like opening your eyes for the first time. You can open them again
though. Each time the view's just a little less blurry than the last."
Their quiet talk gets interrupted. There he is. Friends of yours? No more talky time about secrets.
She
facepalms at Ian when he beckons. "Oh seriously? You're going to make
me dance? Before I've even had my Red Bull and vodka or whatever?"
But she stands, pushing the chair back with her legs. Someone has wings and needs to fly.
"I suck at this," she says, smiling and crazed. "But why the fuck not?"
Ian
[FYI: There are now pics of the NPC dancers in my gallery. Because why not.]
Kiara
[BRB, hitting on all Ian's NPC friends.]
Elijah
[per+aware, if I fistbump Grace, will she get it?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 7, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
Kiara
[Ahem, sorry guys. Denver had a moment on me. Typing!]
Ian
[lol, it happens]
Elijah
"Why the fuck not indeed madame," and thus, there if a fist produced for bumping. He trusts, perhaps incorrectly, that Grace will not leave him hanging.
There's a good chance he might be left hanging.
Kiara
There was the air of something perhaps a little sophisticated to Kiara.
A
certain element of charismatic grace; to put it another way. She was
not entrancing in the way Ian and his friends were but there was a
degree of easy, unfettered confidence to the way she put herself
forward, when the offer was extended. When Ian got up after his friends
brief cameo at the edge of their table; the draw out to dance brooks a
curling edge to her mouth and she leans over; drinking a long protracted sip of the last of her wine.
She finds Grace's
shoulders as she gets to her feet. Squeezes down on them with friendly
approval as she sweeps past; swallowed momentarily by the small crowd
making what use they could of the dance space. The Verbena is easily
spotted milling around the people; she sparkles and gleams where the
light finds her; her dark hair fanning out to every twist and throw of
her body.
Nobody can be a true challenge to the professionals;
but for those who took pleasure in it; their bodies; the music; the
rhythm; there's enough. Kiara touches someone's shoulder; brushes hands
with another; finds herself close enough to one to blink open dark eyes
and smile and at some point, likely, reach for Grace and take her hand
long enough to raise it up.
"You're another step up the
ladder, girl." She says over the music; smiling; bright eyed. The cyclic
presence of nature; the duality of death and rebirth. "Dance like you
know it." She laughs at the challenge implied in it and breaks away;
spins.
Ian
[Who is more impressive tonight? Mel: Dex+Performance]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7) ( success x 4 )
Ian
[Kane, ditto]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 9, 9) ( success x 5 )
Ian
[Ian: ditto, -1 diff for Ability Aptitude]
Dice: 8 d10 TN5 (2, 3, 3, 5, 6, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 5 )
Ian
The
three of them were a sight to behold, truly. Like Sera, with her
crooning, growling vocals. Sera who, not long ago, had been a force of
effortless presence on the now-empty stage. Now it was the
dancers' turn, and despite the fact that it was not really a proper
dance floor, and the lighting was far from the smokey atmosphere of a
night-club, and there was scarcely space for them to move about (they made
room - because who was going to stand in the way of three people who so
clearly owned the damn floor,) they were suddenly the most vibrant
thing in the bar. It was hard not to watch them. The way they moved. The
way they played off of each other. Speaking without speaking. Like they
could read novels in each other's muscle movements.
The
speakers were playing some kind of new wave revival. And for a few
moments Ian seemed to forget that he'd invited the others out there with
him. When he closed his eyes, the light struck his face and he
looked... different, somehow. Less... restrained. Beautiful in a
primordial way. He made it look like dancing was all instinct, despite
the fact that his kind of dancing took years of control.
When
he opened his eyes, he caught Kiara in his gaze and smiled. His jaw
parted softly when he breathed. But it wasn't her he went for first. Not
Elijah, either. Instead he slid up to Grace and fell in next to her,
shooting her a playful look as he did so.
Ian
[FYI, I'm going to have to fade out on my next post. Because bed time. But I have time for one more round. I think. *g*]
Grace
[Lol, Graaace, can you dance at all? Dex + Performance 0.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (4, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
Grace
Fistbumps are offered. Fistbumps are not to be left hanging. All smiles, she gives him his requested bump, and then?
Someone
has hands on her shoulders, and she freezes until she realizes who it
is. Not exactly a fan of being touched when she can't see it coming,
Grace. But then, she reaches up and puts a hand over Kiara's. Another
step up the ladder. Fears to leave behind, you see.
She takes
off her coat, leaving it on the chair behind her, and underneath is a
black tee with a Linux penguin on the front. Just so the cool people
know, they're willingly choosing to dance with an uber-geek. Then, she
takes Kiara's hand and lets her drag her off.
The actual
professional dancers are brilliant at what they do. So is Grace, but
what she does is not dancing. Still, she sways for a bit until she can
see what they're doing, tries to map out their movements in her mind
until it makes sense. When Ian slid up, she smiled, and though her eyes
were fixed upon him, it was more to copy what he was doing than anything
else.
She danced like someone who knew it, because she tried to dance like they did. And it worked.
Kiara
It's hard not
to watch them. The trio; the bend and flex and nuance of their bodies
in perfect precision. Kiara, hands in her hair at some point; pushing
and pulling at the heaviness of it as she feels the warmth of the motion
on her skin; the awareness of her body; the sweat on her neck; twisting
all that hair into a knot over one shoulder. She pauses, sort of
rocking on the spot; in her heels; dark eyes on the three of them.
Openly admiring; caught doing so; watching Ian with this particular kind of focus
that he catches; when he finally opens his eyes. When he comes back
down enough to register the where and when of his surroundings. She
threads her hands back through her hair; smiles across at him in that
same way she tends to. There's intimacy to that; the way she regards
him. The way her attention stays there just a moment too long to be
completely friendly.
There never had been much in the way of politeness
to their interactions. Dancing, the heat of it; the motion to it; the
way it was created to raise energy -- she rolls into that, the Verbena.
Lets her face tilt back and allows Ian and Elijah, even Grace to fall
away; to be lost in favor of the pulse of her heart; heavy in her ears.
At least for now.
Ian
Were
Grace a different person, Ian might linger there. Caught up in the
bright flush of enthusiasm that hung over her like an echo. Were Grace a
different person, he might try to do a whole lot more than simply dance
with her. But... people were who they were. And Ian and Grace were, in
many respects, from different planets.
It didn't mean they couldn't still take a moment to dance together in a bar - like friends.
Kiara
watched Ian dance, and her gaze was... of a rather different sort than
Grace's technical appraisal. Ian caught her eyes more than once. Trailed
his gaze down the slope of her neck when she gather up her hair. After a
time, he slid away from Grace's side and made his way to Elijah. And
there was something more familiar in the way they danced. Comfortable
and warm and easy. Ian hadn't tried to touch Grace, but he did touch
Elijah. Small, casual moments of contact. And then a pause to press his
hand to the small of Elijah's back as he finally drifted away.
There was something almost fluid
about the way he slipped into Kiara's space. As though it happened
without will or intention - though that was far from the truth (nothing
Ian did was without intention.) And when he looked at her he smiled and
put his hand on her hip. Leaned in. Spoke something softly against her
ear while the fingers of his other hand carded through her hair.
"We should go dancing for real, some time."
He
stayed with her for a while. Until the other two dancers slid in and
stole him away. Eventually the three of them left together. But not
before they'd all tired themselves out. (Or the music stopped. Whichever
came first.)
Grace
"That was... well, a different kind of fun, perhaps, than cracking a server open. But still -- she managed to convince everyone that she wasn't a complete loser when it came to bodily movement, and that is something.
Ian shares himself with others, and she does as well, going to Melissa and saying hello by giving her the same clinical gaze and copying routine. It's friendly enough, smiling and happy, enthused to be alive, Grace is.
In the end, all things wind down. But not before she turns to Elijah and 'dances' with him. By, of course, holding her arms up like a t-rex and making roar noises and bites. It's tiring, following the crowd for too long. She never was one for doing the customary thing."
[J: And then my wifi decided to hold a grudge against Denver yet again so we faded out here.]
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