Serafíne
Per + Awareness. Someone here?
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )
Serafíne
Chilly but not cold, not frigid, not freezing
(in fact, above freezing - astonishingly, surprisingly, in a way that
anywhere else in a winterbound world would feel like the early edge of
spring) which is markedly different than the last time they were here,
piling in through air so bright and crisp and bitter-sharp it could snap
the breath in your lungs right in two.
Here is the
commotion, the cough-and-sigh of an old engine being silenced. The turn
of a key. The turn of a screw. The turn of a day well into night and
the sprawl of the stars spackled against the sky's vault where the
clouds do not hold sway, the low bright wedge of a waning moon wrapped
with mist or the trail of a passing plane or something is enough
to interrupt her chatter as Dan comes round the side of the old
conversion van and opens the passenger's door for her because she cannot
quite manage it.
One of those sprawling nights and
tonight she takes a stutter-step or two and rights herself mostly by
making Dan start to stumble and he catches her, of course he does, he
always does, and she looks up just then and breathes in sharp and aching
and has this sudden sense, this seizure of the infinite that she
hardly knows how to place, but he's talking to her low, amused and
they're in motion: the door, the chantry. Familiar.
Empty now mostly but not all the time.
The
kitchen first, the clatter of her heels on the hardwoods. He's
promising her tea and she's asking for whiskey, not that she needs
anything else layered onto her high when she: stops. They: stop. She breaaaaathes in.
"Someone's here." Hums around the thought-of-it. Holds that sensation against the back of her tongue. Shivers, see, consumed and then reborn. "Kiara."
Kiara
Someone is here. It's telltale, that awareness. That sense of the pull-apart-and-renew
that speaks of Kiara. Here, it's doubly so because she feels, the
Verbena, so alike the Node in its imprint. It's a double serve of that
energy she brings to the fore.
Rejuvenation, which, in the heart of winter feels like a hit of the most appealing kind of adrenaline.
She's
been here off and on over the course of the week. There's wildflowers
in a vase on the kitchen counter; a splash of yellows and reds and
purples, primarily. Arnica and zinnia, echinacea and bellflower; natives
to the Denver area, invoked no doubt to the vibrancy they offer by the
urging work of a child of nature such as Kiara considered herself to be.
Dan is promising tea and the kitchen, the whole house, really, has an intoxicating blend of scents to it tonight.
Something
prepared earlier; a cutting board set down; fresh herbs and small
containers of spices littering the space; a used tea towel; the makings
of a meal not quite cleared and a half open bottle of Merlot, see and
the fire is lit; it cracks; emanating heat and the aroma of
newly thrown in logs. There's nobody in the kitchen of course but she's
nearby. The creak of worn in places floorboards and feet padding down
from above.
Kiara, in a soft grey sweater with the sleeves
rolled up to her elbows; in thick purple socks and sky blue leggings;
her dark hair drawn up with messy deliberation; piled atop her head.
There's a book in one hand; the spine tilted as its examined and she
slows to a halt in the foyer; eyes drifting. There's voices. She
appears, then. Leans her weight into the doorframe between dining and
further into kitchen.
"There's leftover soup on the stove."
This, her easy, called greeting. A thumb tracing the spidery lettering of the title in her hands.
Serafíne
The
two of them: Dan - tall, lean, in an old plaid sportcoat with
leather-patched elbows over a Pixies tee and a pair of black skinny
jeans, tattoos evident on his hands, around his throat. A skim of blond
hair cropped fairly short. An easy manner, a loose confidence that
feels broad, aware, bemused, protective. He looks up first, as Kiara
appears in the doorway. Smiles an easy smile that crinkles the lines
around the edges of his eyes. Still has an arm around Sera's shoulders,
mouth half-hovering over the tangle of her hair.
He's kind
of holding her upright. She is still deciding whether she wants to take
off her shoes and teeters between the extraordinary heights her
Alexander McQueen's give her and the strangely welcome flatness of the
ground beneath - a moment of indecision that she is noodling through and
wavering over and hovering around, all threshold-like -
"I
see you found the place," Dan says, his voice all a-rumble, more to Sera
than Kiara because Sera has an ear near his sternum, and he is sort of
steering her forward, holding her elbow when he needs must as she
decides whether to be tall or whether to be not-tall. He glances at the
counter, back to Kiara in the slidingly comfortable sweater. "And
you've settled in. What kind of soup?"
Meanwhile, "I was right,"
Sera murmurs in the vague direction of Dan's shoulder, taking pleasure
in both the presence and the shape of it. Pleasure, too, in the frisson
of sensation up and down the column of her spine. Of course she was,
she always is, she is alive to the feel of the world in a way few people are, feels every so keenly, cries without reservation. "I was riiiight."
Reaches out to steady herself on Dan's shoulder then. Needs those shoes fucking off
suddenly and entirely so off they go, and she looks up, this toss of
her golden curls finds Kiara's eyes and flashes her a grin and "Hi. Hi
hi hi." Pupils the size of dinner plates - god only knows what she's
on.
"Do you know what you feel like?"
Kiara
"I
did," Kiara's returning the taller man's easy smile with her own;
though hers is a drifting; subtle thing. The shift and play of it; humor
surfacing in the corners of her mouth as her eyes travel between him
and the woman; half tucked up in his hold. Her mouth isn't red tonight;
the brunette. Her face washed and cleaned and the vaguest hints when she
eventually shifts closer of soap and sandalwood and the woodsy
afterburn of tending to the fire.
"Or well - I did with a
little help from a certain Virtual Adept." She pushes off from the
doorway, then, skirts the dining table; slides her fingers over the back
of a chair; rests them there when Dan asks and then Serafine - who
draws Kiara's focus keenly; the brief touch of something more intimate
housed in the way her dark eyes settle there, on her face; on her
too-bright eyes - "Ratatouille," she supplies with a little flourish
back of one sleeve, where its sliding down. The twist of impatient
fingers pushing it back. She has the long fingers that suggest artistry,
or could have, in another lifetime.
"With a little twist." Kiara's smile can't help but grow a little at the pronouncement. At Serafine. Because of course she knows but - "Tell me what I feel like to you." That, with a brush outward; a hand with book in tow; an invitation to indulge her.
Serafíne
"Where on earth did you get fresh tomatoes - " This time of year -
he is asking as Sera finds her feet and wriggles and/or is set free,
the ease between the pair of them that feels as well worn and perfectly
broken in as a pair of fitted riding gloves. Supple, close,
encompassing. Dan's asking that question and then he is not
asking the question, he's swallowing it with a laugh that is
half-voiced, a flicker of a glance from Sera to Kiara and back again.
Then he's off to the stove. "Smells divine," he is telling Kiara as he
picks up the kettle and carries it to the sink. Water rattles in the
tin as it starts to fill. Glances back over his shoulder at them and
takes in the sweep of invitation with that hand-and-book.
"Okay
so." This is how Sera starts, eyes closed, smile carving its way
across her mobile little mouth as if there were a secret melting on her
tongue. There's laughter in her voice and beneath it something else,
akin to buoyancy but without the lift. Somehow, it seems a little bit
removed. "There's this museum in London with all these marble things
like frescoes and whatever. Reliefs - "
"The Victoria and
Albert - " Dan supplies or perhaps asks and she doesn't really respond
except for a contained shrug, because she doesn't know the fucking name,
and doesn't care but -
"Right, see. That or something, all
this shit they stole from wherever. Greece and Egypt and everyplace
else. And they've got these statues of this dude and he's a face on
both sides of a column, you know? like the rising and setting sun, or
the past and the future, or what the fuck ever." Sera's eyes are still
closed and that smile lingers and she's walking sort of forward but
doing so in a way that makes her seem so very aware of her body and its
balance and also its imbalance. The pleasant way she sways, the way the
world tilts itself on an unseen axis and staggers its way right round
again.
"Except not like dudes. You know? Two women
instead. And they have snakes for hair and they're both breathing,
except in different ways. You wanna know what they're like?"
Kiara
"I could tell you," she begins, Kiara, to Dan, on tomatoes and where
but she doesn't quite finish the thought because - Serafine. Kiara's
voice was heavy with laughter as the other woman begins her story and - okay so
- Kiara sets the book down on the dining table in favor of both hands
being loose and free. Potentially, perhaps, free enough to catch her if
she needs to.
Free enough to take an arm; a hand; some part into her possession if the moment calls for it. She's on something, of course and Kiara knows it but somehow her voice contains and controls that laughter and it's not really at
Serafine. She doesn't take satisfaction in the altered state of another
human being so much as she enjoys the spontaneity of it. The bends and
twists of Sera's narrative.
The breaks and pauses.
The
way she's moving forward with her eyes closed as if in total
co-operation and trust with the universe not to present a tripping
hazard while she swims around her memory. A hand grazes Sera's elbow at
some point; the voice of the Verbena; Kiara's warm, receptive voice
close to an ear. "Mm, I remind you of a two headed snake fresco?" This,
the murmur of quick amusement; the cut and catch of Dan's eyes briefly;
the rush of laughter captured in her throat as Kiara's fingers fall to
Sera's side; one sliding to capture a wrist.
To hold it just gently; an anchor point, perhaps. "Okay, tell me - " A pinch of fingers tighter, dark eyes bright. "What else."
Serafíne
"Column."
Inhale
and exhale and the rattle of water from the faucet into the kettle.
The chill from the cold night outside still bright on her skin but
receding as the warmth of the house ticks through. Eyes still closed,
wholly aware of the world all around her, smiling as she feels rather
than sees Kiara approach. Turning her head to follow the beat of the
other woman's resonance, harrowing and restorative all at once, in a way
that makes her chest cave in on itself, carve in on itself when she
gives herself over to it.
As she does know, see. Half-smiling
in Kiara's periphery, the edge of a cheek, the tangle of dyed-blond
curls piled over the crown of her head from the sharp part defining the
sidecut.
"It was a column," hand on her elbow and then her wrist. Sera inhales deliberately
and catches the edge of her lower lip between her eyeteeth and and
cracks open one and turns her wrist within Kiara's grasp to clasp
hands. Anchoring isn't precisely what she ever wants, is it? But see,
Sera's hand slides down to match Kiara's, to grasp Kiara's, palm to
palm. "One opening her mouth, breathing in, just inhaling, this
great, terrible drawing-in and the edges of things becoming all jumbled
and distorted, cracking down the spine, marrow rich between her teeth
and none of it every enough.
"Behind her, the other face and
she's breathing too, but out, not in, and her mouth is pursed, see.
This warm stream of breath that remakes the world. Like one of those
chicks who comes back from the underworld. Makes everything bloom."
Bareish
feet now. Long (for her) legs, fishnets, this pair of denim cut-off
shorts so short the pouch of the pocket is sometimes visible below the
threadbare hem. T-shirt and hoodie, half-zipped, leather jacket left to
hang open over both.
"So," Dan supplies over a shoulder as
he finds the cabinet where the tea is kept. Measures out some into a
stainless steel teaball. Wry. "Nothing at all like a Janus-face, in the end, hmm?"
Sera
just hums what could be assent or could be dissent and clicks her
tongue against the roof of her mouth because it gives her pleasure to do
so and brings Kiara's hand up to press her mouth to its back. Smiles
against the other woman's skin, the whisper of her own mouth, the hint
of her own teeth.
"Grace brought you here, hmm? I brought Grace here. When she was brand new."
Kiara
There's
something to the way Kiara listens; the intent tilt of her head; the
frame of her mouth in that supple; subtle smile. The long lashes that
dip to fan against her cheeks. They're long naturally; dark and quite as
expressive as much of the Verbena's features tended to be. They give
her eyes an almost doll like quality; the deceptiveness of a face that
could seem entirely too delicate for whom and what it belonged to.
Here,
at the ranch, in her oversized knitted sweater and winter socks; she
plays at the embodiment of an easy, careless young woman.
There's
something to the way she listens, the way her expression opens up and
she smiles; toothy and bright in the instant after Serafine brings her
hand to her mouth; a thumb flexing aside to brush at the edge of a
knuckle; the hint of the other woman's jaw. Some briefest of tactile
reminders. "Destructor and remaker of the cosmos, hm," Kiara's eyes
linger on the point where her hand is greeting Sera's lips. The edge of
her mouth toys with that smile; it lingers.
"That sounds
about right." Grace brought her here, she brought Grace here. Kiara
reclaims her hand; twists the palm a little as she does to brush it
against the slope of the Cultist's face. "She did. I've been out here
talking - to Callisto - to the trees," a beat; the brunette's face draws
in; sobers just so.
"It's too quiet, you know? It needs people, here. So I'm giving it some personality back."
Serafíne
Sera
has never spoken to Callisto, never seen the Node's guardian spirit and
the only conversations she has ever had with trees have all been
drug-induced hallucinations. The lingering, pleasant sort that razor
open the skin of the world and allow her to slip inside it.
"Al
ot of people have come and gone." This from Dan, behind them. He has
turned and is lounging back against the countertop, tall and lean,
waiting for the water to boil for the tea. "It does seem quiet,
though."
Sera hmms against the back of her throat once more,
lifts her chin to catch the edge of Kiara's expression - that lilting
sobriety, whatever lays behind it, too. Something in that expression
arrests her. Actually arrests her, stops her from offering to tell
Kiara the tale of the chantry-before, the cabal incinerated in the blink
of an eye by a girl awakening with terrible power and a ruinous
legacy. So, sobriety and an answering sort of sobriety that is tenterhooked and not-quite-sober, because she never is, Sera. You know, quite sober.
"What have you been doing?" she inquires instead. Aware - suddenly, acutely - of the shadows rimming the room.
Kiara
It's on the tip of Kiara's tongue to say nothing drastic. She's not entirely sure why, only that for as many hours as she's spent here, surrounded by the trees and water and that faint, humming buzz of energy - it doesn't feel like hers.
Like anything she holds a true right to. She's merely a traveler, a
guest like so many of the others who have passed through its doors,
slept in its beds no doubt were. Or considered themselves.
So she
has not stripped down walls or rearranged furniture or done much but
bring in her own particular essence; stoke the fire (quite literally of
course) and reinvigorate the ranch the way a tenant might care for the
dust-smeared windows of a room they newly let. There is, all said, a
sort of considering way Kiara takes in the house; her eyes shifting
beyond Serafine in the moment and then return; briefly resting on Dan
beyond; tall and lean against the kitchen counter. The Verbena slides
her fingers over the back of a chair; rests them there; long fingers
closing around the polished wood.
"Places have ... memory." The
brunette's attention seems to narrow on that beneath her hands; she
caresses the length of the chair; twists her mouth in some brief,
catchall smile that reads for her appreciation, her fondness for the
fact. "I feel the trees, the earth, this house. I listen to all of that
and let it soak me in. My presence here." That curling smile returns to
Kiara's mouth; she turns; leans her hip heavily against the table and
shrugs a thin shoulder; the sweater drops over it; baring a slash of
skin.
It's a few sizes too large for her but it adds to her air of
casual negligence. The unconcerned manner her hair has been bundled up;
the frayed knees on her leggings. "It's hard to describe. Properly.
It's like - " There's a noise; some sub vocal dismissal of her words.
"- checking the vitals of a place." There's more to that, of course. But
the sense of her presence is gleaned, too. The flowers scattered around
the premises; the fire; the food prepared and simmering on the stove.
There is the makings of home and comfort to
Kiara's tendings here; swaddling the chantry but briefly into layers of
her own devising. The hint of her perfume; the cloying sweetness of
sandalwood and sage having been burned at some point.
"What brings you guys out here?"
Serafíne
Sera and Dan are both listening to Kiara, each in their own way. Sera so obviously altered
drifts through the narrative, this smile on her face that is equal
parts sharp and keen and lovely and private. Contained somehow, even
when so little about her is anything close to containment. She is aware
suddenly of the rooms and the transitory imprint of those who have come
before and who have since slipped away. Of the dead and of the living,
and the memory of the former makes her shiver, and the thought of the
latter, well, sometimes makes her sad.
She doesn't say anything though. Just watches Kiara through half-lashed eyess and inhales and exhales and feels Kiara's presence, allows herself to feel the new layers settling like new skin over the old.
It is Dan who answers.
"Sera
wanted the node. And to have a look at the wards. There used to be a
guardian of sorts out here. Prickly kid named Shoshannah, close with a
Chorister. Have to assume that she moved on of her own accord, since we
never found a body."
He isn't joking, not precisely. Or perhaps
there is a thread of it, a spare humor that acknowledges the transitory
nature of their lives, and the way they intersect.
"You should do
whatever you want with the place." Sera cuts in, suddenly. Dark eyes
opening, her sharp little chin rising with this defiant curl of her
mouth. "Whatever the fuck you want. I don't think anyone's made it a
home since the folks who held it before us. Not even Shoshannah. She
just kind of - draped herself over the spine, sometimes. I mean it,
whatever the fuck you want.
"I'll look into freshening up the wards."
Kiara
Sera wanted the Node.
This
tips Kiara's focus her way for an instant. There's something very ...
intimate, quietly so, in the way she looks at her for just that moment. A
shared beat of something that passes across her face; that softens her
mouth and the cant of her head. Perhaps it's the consideration of one
lover to another, who knew.
"It's beautiful out there. I showed
Kalen and Grace Callisto the other day." Something curls the edge of her
mouth then, she drifts beyond Sera; catches and cups her elbow as she
passes. Brief; deliberate touch. Comfort, there and gone. "I don't think
Grace had ever seen her." Kiara moves toward the stove, collects up a
dishcloth and pries the lid loose; a cloud of steam rises up and she
sticks a spoon inside the contents; stirs it around for a moment and
then taps the edge off; returns the lid. Turns, wiping her hands off to
settle in against the counter.
All this, while Dan says they don't
think the prior Guardian of sorts is dead; that she was friends with a
Chorister. Something like brief amusement banks in the look Kiara casts
his way; though its tempered by the way she draws her shoulders in;
braces her hands against the counter.
"Choristers, hm." Oh, them, says her tone.
Serafine
cuts in, then. She should do whatever the fuck she wants to with the
Chantry. Kiara's smile re-surfaces; she drops her face forward enough to
half conceal some unvoiced reaction; a spasm of laughter, perhaps. The
protracted way the title of another Tradition seems to fuel some
irritation beneath her easy smiles and candor. "Ian said it was a waste,
too. I guess it is. All this space, though. It feels like something should be here. Even passingly."
Serafíne
The kettle is starting to rattle, not quite whistling, just on this
side of boiling when Dan joins Kiara at the stove to take it off; to
tip it over the teapot pour out the hot water for the tea. Another
cloud of steam, this one rather less fragrant.
Sera reacts to the
touch - quite as one would expect her too - this coronal flare of a
look, framing Kiara's profile, an intent awareness that has that dilated
gaze tracing the line Kiara's throat, lingering on a certain tender
point tucked just beneath the ear.
"I don't think it's a waste,
exactly. Just that it never really felt like it was mine. Or
anyone's. I don't know how the people who held it before handled the
house, whether they lived here or just visited, but they were closer
knit. You know? A cabal. Probably the place was pretty empty then too
since they wouldn't let even consors in but maybe a couple of them made
it their home."
"Shoshannah tried, I think. You know? But it
always felt like she was playing house." This is Dan, a brief
interruption as he returns the kettle to the stove.
Sera makes a
back-of-the-throat noise. "I think Shoshannah hated me. Or something.
Fuck. I couldn't do anything with the house. I mean, I need people,
you know? To make a moment sacred. You're already settling in. I'm
serious about what I said. You should do whatever the fuck you want
with the place. If it feels like something should be here, do it. Let us know if there's anything we can do."
Kiara
"I
have that tendency." This, Kiara's response, the beginning of it as she
motions with her chin toward a small fern that's taken up residence in
one corner beneath a window; the fronds are very vibrant green; it looks
... thriving; perhaps too much so for the season. Her gaze cuts back;
those dark eyes; that expression of contained mirth.
"I've moved
around so much I forget to wait before I make myself comfortable." She
runs the edge of her tongue across her lower lip; wets it; draws it
between her teeth for a beat as she watches Dan's progress with the tea.
Lets her eyes tick back to Sera, frees her lip to say: "But I might
start coming out here every so often, pay it a few compliments. At
worst, everyone will get tired of my company.
At best - " She
tenders aside hair where its falling free; the motion as impatient as it
always seemed. Careless; adeptly so. " - make it defensible."
She
rucks up the sleeves on her sweater where they're draping low; the
material bunching. "If you want company when you go soak, my schedule is
wide open." This, with a hint of something. The suggestive tilt of her
face; the capture and curl of her mouth. That same unconcerned air she
seemed to offer the world at large.
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