quicksilver. [kalen, grace, howl ST]

Quicksilver
Hello, and welcome to tonight's scene! Here are your warnings and guidelines for the evening.

1: This is not a combat scene. So expect the danger level to be very low. And by low I mean nonexistent. Unless you guys decide you want to start a fight. In which case, you know. That's on you.

2: I prefer that we stick to a posting order once it's established, though it's not quite so militantly important in this scene. If someone jumps the gun, I will probably just tease you good-naturedly.

3: Try to keep your focus on the scene and your posts timely, just so we don't stay up too late. Again, this is not a strict rule, just something I'd like us to keep in mind.

4: I may have lied slightly when I said this was a one-shot. I mean, it is a one-shot, but it will tie into later SL stuff. That said, there is no obligation to follow up beyond this one scene, and you don't really need to worry about your characters getting hooked into anything. When I'm ready to do more with this thing, I'll let people know.

5: That's really it. Have fun!

QuicksilverThe weather had cooled a little since the previous day. Not so much that it made hiking inhospitable, but enough so that Red Rocks Park wasn't as packed with visitors as it might have otherwise been. The sky was grey and cloudy, and a lazy wind occasionally gusted over the rocky scrubland. As the hour pressed on toward evening, many of the hikers filtered out of the park, leaving the winding trails empty. There was no concert booked tonight in the ampitheatre. A local folk band had been scheduled to play, but they'd canceled on account of one of their members having a baby. It meant that the park was quieter than usual, empty of the hum and echo of live music that could often be found here in the summer.

Perhaps they arrived separately, the three mages. Perhaps some or all of them came together. Regardless of how or when they arrived, the had a long stretch of the park all to themselves now.

Well, not entirely to themselves. There were the animals, of course. Up in the sky, a hawk soared lazily through the clouds, watching for prey. And a red fox sat atop one of the park's eponymous red stones, cleaning something out of its front paw. It was a few yards out from the main trail, but the shock of crimson fur made it noticeable amidst the sandy-copper and green hues of the landscape.

GraceThey're going on a wee trek today, into the wild. It's a place with poor cell phone reception, and that has Grace grumpy, but the promise of food and a bit of sun made that easier to deal with.

The folk band was canceled (oh, woe) which, honestly, made Grace's day. It's just them and some sky and the red rocks.

She has her hands in her jean pockets as she walks along, happy at the return of green. It's better than snow. Red and green make such a nice combination, don't they? Stop and go. Danger and safety. Christmas... Wait, okay, maybe that last one's not so nice.

"This place must have a ton of iron. All that rust," she says, kicks a rock on the trail.

"I wonder what it looks like out here, spirity-wise?"

She remembers the time when Kiara did that thing with the incense. The circle. The great bear of the Node. It was neat.

KiaraThe tinny radio in the Verbena's car was rarely tuned to anything save Top 40. It was, however, less to do with Kiara's tastes (though she had a very strong appreciation for chart music) and far more to do with the fact her car stereo had few stations it prescribed to tuning in with any decency and KOSI 101 was one of them.

Still, folk music didn't disagree with the brunette to the point that a night free of obligations and the casual offer of company out to the amphitheater wasn't taken up with appreciation.

Exactly who it was she wound up finding herself in company with, well - what was life without twists and turns, after all? It's cool enough to invite the jacket Kiara's wearing; a crimson red fitted thing with zips attached to the collar and sleeves; there's high black boots on the female's legs that dissolve into jeans at a point and a pair of sunglasses hold the thick waves of her hair back; save for the bangs that drift now and then into dark eyes and are impatiently tendered aside.

Her mouth matches her jacket. The synchronicity must appeal to her.

"It used to be a wonder of the world," this, from Kiara; her eyes set on the rocks far ahead; on the fox cleaning its fur. Her eyes slant toward Grace, twitch a touch as her boots leave dusty imprints in her wake. "Beautiful, I have no doubt."

[Awareness]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 10, 10) ( success x 2 )

Grace[Awareness!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 9, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

Kalen HollidayKalen has learned a number of things since arriving in Denver.  Not the least among them that despite the tradition set by your first formal dancing instructor who felt that picnics should be formal dining events with wine and linen and china, it is possible to just buy some sandwiches and some chips and some brownies and some sodas and cal it a day.  Of course, he's still not quite on the 'pick these things up at one place' space in his head, so there are sandwiches with ridiculous options, like truffle oil.  Because if you are going to use ridiculous sunflower bread, clearly you need truffle oil.  And roasted red peppers.  Similarly, by chips we mean sea salt and olive oil baked chips of various kinds of vegetables, not just potatoes.  And ridiculous sodas that involve words like 'small batch' and 'gourmet' and '{random herb} infusion.'  At least the brownies are just brownies.

Look.  At least there is no china.  And a perfectly serviceable not linen blanket.  For now all of the food is in a backpack.  With a surprisingly well-kept first aid kit.  And a map.  And...look.  You learn to prepare in the Order, okay.

"Are you going to go off learning to see other worlds on me?"

[Awareness ]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )

QuicksilverThe trio walked along the trail, admiring the stark beauty of the landscape. The concert had been canceled, but there was still a (more than adequate) picnic to be had, and let it not be said that the Enlightened of Denver did not know how to enjoy a Friday evening. Grace wondered, off-hand, what the spiritual reflection of the park might look like. Beautiful, Kiara had no doubt. (And it did. But they weren't looking at that side of the gauntlet right now.)

As they drew near the rocks, the fox glanced up from its paw and looked at them, dark ears pointed and alert. It's eyes were a very bright shade of gold.

Grace was the one who felt it first: the resonance coming from the fox. Perhaps because she'd felt it once before (though that was a long time ago now.) The sensation was one of quicksilver, swift and clever and ever-adapting. It felt the way one might imagine an ideal representation of a fox to feel. (As though this fox was not just a fox but all foxes.) The others felt it too, if a bit more muted.

The fox looked at them and tilted its head. Something about its eyes... they felt more intelligent than they ought to have. As though the creature were thinking; reasoning.

Off in the distance, someone exclaimed. "Oh bother this ridiculous thing..."

The voice belonged to an older male, but wherever the man was, he wasn't presently in view.

Grace"I know that fox," Grace says, stopping in her tracks. She waves at him, all smiles.

"I think. I mean, I'm not good with fox faces, but it feels like the fox that runs with this one Hermetic dude who gave us a book once."

She wanders up the trail a bit, toward the fox and the voice.

"Hello?" she asks, much louder. Maybe the disembodied voice can hear her now...

KiaraIt seems almost criminal that all of Kalen's preparation stowed away in that backpack isn't going to be taken advantage of (Kalen who felt entirely new and had drawn not a brief, considering stare from her at first sight [sense]) and it appeared that Kiara was scouting out a place along the trail where they might set up the perfectly serviceable blanket before - the fox, again. It's not the only creature worthy of attention out here, the proximity to so much natural beauty is intoxicating; at least for one like the creature in the blood red and midnight black but the fact that it feels - watchful.

Aware. Alert. It draws the hesitation; the parting of Kiara's lips as if she means to say something before Grace does. She knows that fox and waves at it. There's a voice and the Verbena is exchanging a glance with Kalen; a silent do-you-know-what-she's-talking-about look before moving after the Virtual Adept.

"It also feels like it's judging us." This, a wry commentary from the brunette; her fingers idly resting at her hips as if prepared in another era to draw a pistol if the situation turned ugly. "What kind of book are we talking about, here?"

Kalen HollidayKalen is expecting a Hermetic, at some point.  But he is expecting, in his way, an inquisition.  He is not expecting some Hermetic dude that hangs out with a fox and who once gave Grace a book.  He might be more wary, but the fox is bright orange against the green of the grass and the red of the rocks and the blue of the sky and Kalen remembers a storm of colorful wings.

That and Grace is far more suspicious than he is.  If she thinks this Hermetic is alright, perhaps it will not be terrible.

"Ah," he says quietly.  "The one who left the mushrooms?"  Kiara's inquiring look about the Hermetic and the book gets only a slight shake of his head.  He remembers that there was a book, and a basket of tass mushrooms, and that is...mostly all he remembers.  Maybe something about spiders.  "Aren't we all?"  Kalen murmurs, though he doesn't seem concerned about the fox judging.

His attention shifts toward the fox.  "Hello, fox," he says quietly.  As though he expects the fox can understand him.  But then, why shouldn't it?

Kalen follows after them, wherever Grace is headed.  Looking for an unknown Hermetic.  Perhaps accompanied by a (perhaps judge-y) fox that feels like the essence of foxes.  Fridays.  Denver knows how to throw the best Fridays.

QuicksilverIt also feels like it's judging us.

The fox gave a delicate sneeze and looked at Kiara as though vaguely offended. "I was trying to remember how I knew you. Or rather - her." He indicated Grace with a tip of his head, mouth parting with a flash of tiny, sharp teeth. It might have been a smile (or as close as a fox could get to one.) "I do believe we have guests, Henry." The fox gave a long stretch and hopped down from the rock, trotting over to meet them. He stopped a few feet away and looked up at Grace. "I'm sorry, I think I've forgotten your name."

Yes, the fox was speaking.

In the distance, a figure appeared from behind a slope of rock, dusting sand from a pair of old khakis. He was thin and grey-haired, and when he glanced over at them he smiled and lifted a hand in greeting. "Oh, hello my friends! Come, join me! I have a blanket."

He had a resonance too, this man. Warm and glittering with inspired possibility. (Ardent and Imaginative.)

"My name is Red, by the way," the fox offered to Kalen and Kiara. "A pleasure."

Grace"It's Grace," she says, giving an oh-so-fake bow to the fox. Red seems like he might either take offense, not get the joke, or find it funny. Any way that goes, Grace doesn't care.

"I thought it was you. Long time no see, eh?"

The last time they spoke, Grace was a person unused to the weirdness of talking foxes. This time? Well, reality is much stranger than talking foxes, and Grace knows it.

"We have a blanket too!" Grace says to the man off toward the rock.

KiaraThere were people (no fair few who had probably traversed these very trails en route to shows when twilight blanketed the rocky formations) who would have paid a handsome price for drugs that would offer what they were currently witnessing. A talking fox (one with attitude, no less) that is greeted; at least by Kiara when it casts her a look; with raised eyebrows and the edge of her mouth hooking into a lazy near-smirk.

It's a brief thing; encompassing so much before her dark eyes trace its movements away from the rock to greet someone. Henry.

The Verbena's hands emerge from her pockets; she observes the scene for a beat and then: "Henry. Red." This, with a little quiggle of her mouth; the slightest dip of her chin. "I'm Kiara Woolfe." There's a flash of her teeth as she offers a smile with it; the delivery of her name and at the sight of those sharp white teeth it seems rather perfectly befitting her with those dark, playful eyes and that wild hair; her sunglasses reflecting the afternoon sunlight as she moves a little closer.

"What brings you out here. Other than the great acoustics."

Kalen HollidayThe fox speaks.  Kalen has met mythical creatures and Sendings who became something part ghost and part angelic being.  He has summoned forth a host of possibilities for the world he knows and watched them unfold like the petals of a lotus.  Hundred-fold upon hundred-fold.  Infinite.  He has seen landscapes of the mind that were created and those that he created.  He has fallen in love with a creature he once would have considered incapable of love.  Still, for a second there is a little spark of wonder and delight and (even) surprise when Red speaks.

What does one do with a talking fox?  They do not shake hands.  Probably.  Instead he drops into a crouch on the ground and extends a hand toward Red, palm up, the same way he offered to feral cats to sniff.  Perhaps foxes are nothing like cats.  He could have offered it a greeting more like that reserved for people, but Kalen might love feral cats more than people.

Truthfully, he loves them all with the same intensity.  Expressions of God's Words manifest.  How could he not love them.

"Kalen Michael Holliday," he says.  "Bani Flambeau."  It is a formal introduction, abbreviated both because he has no love for ceremony in most cases and because he does not wish speak of his mentor any more than he wishes to claim his titles.  Doing either of those things involves an acknowledgement that the man will not return.

Once Red has either accepted his offered hand or chosen to leave that offer be, Kalen rises and takes the last steps to join the others.  He repeats his introduction to Henry, with a more conventional handshake offer in place of the substitution he gave Red.  And, perhaps, just a hint more wariness.

QuicksilverAs it happened, Red took Grace's gesture in stride, whether or not he realized her less-than-formal intentions. One would imagine that a talking fox who traveled with an eccentric old Hermetic might be used to that sort of thing. She bowed, and he dipped his head in kind, and if there was a touch of playfulness in his return gesture, it was subtle enough not to be mocking. Kalen kneeled down and offered his hand in a manner similar to how he might greet a dog or a cat, though he offered his name by way of formal greeting. Red glanced at the hand, flicked his ears and said, "I do hope you're not expecting me to lick you. I'd at least expect dinner, first."

To Grace he said, "Indeed, it has been awhile. A year, I think. Thank the gods we got rid of those wretched spiders." The fox turned and led the way toward the rock formation where Henry stood, taking the mages off the beaten path and over rough patches of scrubgrass. Kiara asked what brought them out to Red Rocks.

"Oh, Henry loves this place. Says he used to bring his kids here. I have to admit, it does have its appeal."

And speaking of Henry, the old Hermetic stepped forward to greet them with a smile. The lines on his face were soft and weathered, but his eyes lit up with life when he smiled. "Henry Calliergi bani Jerbiton, at your service." His bow was breezy and embellished, and he took Kalen's offered hand warmly within his own. "I don't suppose any of you three are good at puzzles?"

If they happened to walk past the man to see what he had hidden behind the rocks, they would find a large, soft blanket spread out over the ground. To the side of the blanket lay a large, open backpack, and spread out in a little pile at the center of the fabric were six intricately carved wooden spheres.

Grace"Puzzles? Sure. I like puzzles. Here I was expecting you to have food..."

Grace trundles up to the blanket behind the rock like this is just no thing at all. Meeting a talking fox and his friend and being invited to puzzle-solving? Much better than the world ending any day.

"I'm Grace Evans bani... I don't care. The cypherpunks had their eye on me, but I didn't like it," Grace says, shrugs. "Virtual Adepts though, if you care."

"Cypherpunks, by the way... love puzzles. I'm just saying. My initiation rites were -- well. Kalen can tell you how many books I filled up unraveling that particular knot."

KiaraKiara's footwear is suited for a rock concert; for city sidewalks. Out here, her heels sink down a little too readily into the dusty earth; she dislodges a cluster of pebbles and they scatter in little clouds of dust as she navigates a pathway through the scrub-land. For what it's worth though; she makes light work of it.

Those heels; her progress. Red mentions that the area has its appeal and there's a low noise from her; a hum of agreement, perhaps. Her eyes casting off into the distance for a beat. "That it does." Grace and Kalen offer their affiliations; of a sort; Kiara doesn't extend anything beyond her name but her interest does stretch to the wooden spheres on top of the blanket.

Grace is already crossing over to examine the intricate carvings so the Verbena instead directs her attention to Henry; scouring his lined features; noting the liveliness that thrived if not in his weathered hands, than in his gaze; his voice. "Depends on the puzzle. I'm not half bad at Tetris." The edge of her mouth shifts; curls. She sobers; blinking hair from her eyes.

"Where did they come from?"

Kalen Holliday"Why would I expect you to do that," Kalen asks Red quietly, though he seems not to really expect an answer.

Henry is warmth and alive and goes in for somewhat ridiculous bowing.  There is a whisper of a memory of a different embellished warmth; similar and different.  As foxes are similar to and entirely dissimilar from cats,  Kalen wonders, for a second, which of them is older.  But there is a steadiness in that memory, here the same way there was out on the ice and so Kalen smiles and the set of his shoulders eases a little.

"A pleasure to meet you both."

His eyes take in the wooden spheres.  "Where are we again, Kit?  We already have food, so of course they already have something else."  He glances at Red.  "And we will share.  But I still don't see why you would lick me."

He sets his backpack down, though he doesn't take out any food just yet.  There are puzzles and people asking about puzzles.  He's...really only a passing familiarity with puzzles.  But they sound enjoyable.  So far.

QuicksilverAnd there was Grace, completely unfazed by the scene they'd just walked into. Have to give the woman credit, she was adapting. Red didn't spare her much of a reaction upon mention of the Cypherpunks, other than to comment off-handedly, "Good. Maybe we can finally get these damn things open." He trotted over to the open backpack and stuck his head inside, grabbing a small plastic bag with his teeth. He carried it with him to a corner of the blanket and curled up there, holding the bag between his delicate paws as he ripped the top open. Inside, there were chunks of what looked and smelled like beef jerky.

"Yes," Henry smiled apologetically, gesturing towards the archaic-looking spheres. They were each about the size of a grapefruit, the wood old and stained in different shades. The designs carved onto them were a mish-mash of strange, chaotic symbols. Nothing that any of the mages here would find familiar (because they'd been invented by their creator.) "I'm afraid my mind isn't quite what it used to be."

Where did they come from?

"Ah," Henry smiled and put a finger to his lips. "That's a bit of a secret. They once belonged to a very old Bonisagus. He is, of course, long-dead. I may have liberated them from a secret stash." He winked knowingly. "One of them contains a map. I don't know which. The others will likely have objects of value, though given the length of time they've been preserved... we may wish to be careful about how we handle them."

Red snorted quietly, but didn't say whatever he was thinking. To Kalen, he looked up and regarded him with sharp amber eyes. "Perhaps I will like you after all." But he didn't answer Kalen's question, and he soon distracted himself by dipping his muzzle into the bag and tossing a piece of dried meat into his mouth. Henry, meanwhile, sat himself down slowly on the blanket. He picked up one of the spheres and eyed it shrewdly, before holding it up to the others. "Anyone want to give it a go?"

Quicksilver[For Kiara: 1-2 = diff 7, 3-5 = diff 8, 6-8 = diff 9, 9-10 = diff 10]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (3) ( fail )

Quicksilver[And for Grace]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (8) ( success x 1 )

Quicksilver[And Kalen]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (8) ( success x 1 )

Grace[Grace is totally going to try opening one -- WP because she doesn't want to break it!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN9 (4, 4, 6, 9) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Kiara[For when I post, speak friend and enter. Or - open. Adding WP for this one because reasons.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (1, 4, 4, 10) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Kiara[I open at the close. How many fantasy movies can I quote, that's the question. Wits + Enigmas again.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (1, 4, 5, 9) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Kalen Holliday[Pre-rolling, per the status quo.  |  Mellon.  |  Also, WP, because reasons.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 8, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Grace[Extending, because of course we don't give up! 2 WP spend]

Dice: 4 d10 TN9 (1, 4, 5, 8) ( success x 1 ) [WP]

Kiara[Doo de doo]

Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (6, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Grace[Again! 3 WP spend, 3 Successes so far!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN9 (1, 3, 3, 8) ( success x 1 ) [WP]

Kiara[Onnnce more.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (5, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Grace[Again! :( 4 WP spend, 4 Successes so far!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN9 (4, 4, 5, 8) ( success x 1 ) [WP]

Grace[AGAIN! 5 WP spend, 5 Successes so far!]

GraceDice: 4 d10 TN9 (4, 5, 9, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Grace[6 WP spend, 8 Successes so far!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN9 (6, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Kalen Holliday[You are really cool and all, puzzle.  But I would like to know if you have any magical traps.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (4, 5, 10) ( success x 3 )

GraceGrace takes one of the spheres at random. She doesn't grab at it, but gives it a light touch (for the time being) just examining and trying to figure out not the meaning, but the layout of the symbols.

They seem to be reflected on the opposite side of the sphere, and as she's turning it over in her hand to see the whole thing, one of the symbols on the side starts to glow softly. Now, not open yet (although she does try to shake it loose a little) but it's a start.

The one thing about puzzles though, is that you cannot be careful when solving them. You have to try and try and try again, see what different configurations are possible and then attempt them. Glowing seems to be a sign of 'correct' and so... We start figuring out how to make the most glowy for the least touchy.

Kalen Holliday[Time 2/Entropy 2/Mind 1: Find the most auspicious path | D=5 | WP]

Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (5, 6, 7) ( success x 3 )

Kalen Holliday[Extending, now D=6 | 4/10 | WP]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 8) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

KiaraSecret stash. Maps. Long buried treasure. There's a booty joke in there somewhere, Kiara's certain of it. As it is, Henry winks at her in this roguish way that draws a smile from her; she may well wink back and move after him as he situates himself on the blanket; holds one of the spheres out.

If she were another sort of Awakened, if she were a believer in the symbology of it; the serpent and the apple might occur to her. The carvings, instead, do. She reaches out to gingerly take up one of them in her hands and moves to perch on a low set rock; smoothing her fingers over the hewn surface. There are rings on the pagan's fingers; silver for the most part; one with a small blue-green stone set into tiny claws; it gleams as she bends her head over the sphere; sliding her nails into the grooves in the wood; the perfect edges of the symbols.

Lifts it for a beat to look over at Henry; the breeze sending ropes of dark hair tangling around her neck. "Valuable is a relative term. Are you sure whatever is inside them should be opened?" Kiara's thumb grazes against a symbol; if it offers a subtle flare of light for it; she misses it momentarily. "Most stories involving long forgotten treasures also have their fail-safes."

She doesn't stop feeling over the edges of the sphere in her hands, the Verbena, but she does return to it with the quiet consideration a scientist may an uncertain and probable pathogen.

Kalen Holliday[Extending, now D=6 | 6/10 | WP]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 8) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Kalen Holliday[Extending, now D=6 | 8/10 | WP]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 8) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Kalen Holliday[Ahem.  Or instead of some of those rolls.  |  Wits+Enigmas  |  WP (with the right target number of suxx he's spent 3 going into this; so now 4)]

Dice: 4 d10 TN3 (1, 1, 8, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Kalen Holliday[Extend]

Dice: 4 d10 TN3 (2, 3, 4, 10) ( success x 3 )

Kalen Holliday[Extend]

Dice: 4 d10 TN3 (5, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 4 )

Quicksilver"Oh, we are quite familiar with the dangers of opening forgotten treasures, I assure you," Red interjected, after having consumed his snack. His voice, high and pleasant and oddly articulate for a talking animal, sounded momentarily wearied. As though the two of them had been through a lifetime of adventures together. Indeed, perhaps they had. Certainly Grace would remember the mishap with the unstable tome they'd attempted to use in the woods last year.

Henry, of course, just smiled. As the others worked out the patterns on their own spheres, he played with the one in his hands, tapping at symbols here and there until he got one to glow. "I don't believe these will prove dangerous, but old magic does have a habit of being unstable, so care is never a bad thing. The map I'm after is... more than worth the risk."

GraceKalen is cheating. That much she can tell. It's not so much a distraction, but it is an awareness of a spike in the Kalen-ness. He gets a little squinty-eyed look.

"Well, I'm going to do mine without, so nyah," Grace says, totally joking. But, note, she does not go for the magic.

Call it playing on hard-mode. Or, just, she wants to figure it out the hard way -- find out if there is a method to the symbols. Besides, it's kinda fun.

Instead, she keeps on going, the pattern seems to be: squiggly grasshopper, copper piece, weird-ass cloud thing... What's next?

Kiara"Why do I get the impression, many a treasure-hunter has said the same," this, Kiara offers with some degree of humor; it's light; if on the drier side as she turns the sphere over in her hands. Feels as much as looks up to confirm that Kalen is - otherwise engaged. There's a protracted glance at that; her eyes on him for a minute; mouth firming before she shoots this hooded glance Grace's way; the edge of her mouth retrieving its smile.

It takes time. There's a deliberation to it; a pattern to be unwound and memorized.

On the fifth - sixth - circuit of it in her hands; Kiara's offers a luminescence and she stills; curves her palm around it and rebuilds the calibration over and again. Makes some quiet noise at some point, the brunette; her long fingers roving over the sphere in her hands.

The flares of light begin to map and spider out with greater frequency. Whether its progress or not - it's hard to deduce but she keeps going.

Kalen HollidayKalen picks up one of the spheres and turns it over in his hands.  Glowing symbols swim over its surface and he watches them.  His eyes are a little wide, because glowing symbols on puzzles and talking foxes and if that band hadn't cancelled.  But they did and here they are, on a soft blanket with a Hermetic only one of them has met before and a talking fox and these puzzles.

Soon enough there will be new twists of fate, new things that he must do because there are demand and there are promises and there is this incredibly beautiful world with puzzles and talking foxes and new friends.  Who wouldn't step between that world and monsters if they could?

The sphere does not easily give up its secrets and Kalen cradles it in his hands for a minute, murmuring softly in the tongue of angels.  Words that shaped Creation.  He reaches out to them, to their echoes like fading script.  There is power here.  Magic.  But nothing that seems it will harm him.  Or them.

Kalen reaches out with one hand, skims up a little bit of earth, and blows it over the sphere in hands.  His eyes trace the ways the soil traces over the sphere, the way the cloud-shadows fall.  He ignores Grace's taunting, though as he begins to murmur again in Enochian there is just the slightest trace of a smile for that, amused and fond, layered on the wonder and reverence.  Because more than it is power to Kalen, magic is communion with the Divine.

And then he stops murmuring.  He takes another breath.  And this time when he starts to slide his fingertips over the surface of the sphere there is a different kind of awareness.

This time the sphere's symbols glow more readily.

QuicksilverIt took time, those spheres. Henry, for all his age and wisdom, seemed to be uncovering his slower than the others. Perhaps it was his eyes. Perhaps, as he'd said, his mind simply wasn't what it used to be. And he didn't have Kalen's trick for seeing into the threads of time and fate. (Or at least, if he did, it hadn't occurred to him to try. But one would imagine that if he could, it would have.) Perhaps they could break them. But that... seemed an inadvisable course of action. Or at least like tempting fate.

Red seemed content for awhile to feast on his bite-sized dinner, eviscerating tiny chunks of dried meat between his sharp teeth as he watched the others work.

Kiara would be the first to solve her puzzle. Already she was nearly there, finding patterns in the strange symbols. The marks briefly glowed with a soft silver light as she touched them in the right order. As she added more to the sequence, the glow brightened, shining through the pores in the wood until, finally...

A crack broke across the center of the sphere, and it fell open in her hands. Inside, it held a beautiful silver necklace with a large, natural ruby set into a pendant. The necklace didn't feel magic (it didn't resonate) but even so... the ruby alone had to be worth several thousand dollars.

"Oh how wonderful, you got one!" Henry exclaimed in a pleased tone.

GraceGrr. It sucks being beaten, doesn't it? A little bit of friendly competition stokes the fire under Grace, as she looks up and finds Kiara finished.

"Ooo, nice. I'm going to beat Kalen though," she says, a smirk on her face, as she goes at it again.

Hairy eight. Wiggle-head. The-thing-with-a-tail. It all seems pretty close now, right? She keeps making mental notes, remembering the symbols by the strange names she gives them. She's even mumbling them out now...

"Weird-ass cloud thing... hairy eight..."

KiaraWhen the sphere opens; Kiara sets it carefully on her knee and draws the necklace out; holding it up between her fingers so that the ruby winked and twisted slightly from the length of chain. It spurs Grace on and Kiara offers the briefest sound of amusement; gathering the broken halves of the casing in one hand and rising to offer the necklace to Henry.

To look at; to keep; any and all seem plausible.

"Good for fighting exhaustion, mental or otherwise," there's a touch of something thoughtful, perhaps even bemused to Kiara's voice as she adds softer: "They used to wear this stone to banish evil. Though mostly all it did was banish emotional injury and open their minds to things they were scared of.

It's also a healing stone." The Verbena rubs a thumb over it before she offers it out. "With the right intention."

Kalen HollidayKalen's fingers trail over the surface of the sphere.  More and more of those glowing symbols begin to radiate from it.  Kiara's sphere is open, but Kalen barely glances over.  Grace is locked into a struggle with her sphere.  They are in a race that is like racing the tide.  The tide will ebb and flow up the shore, but it has no real stake in whether you finish your sandcastle before it reclaims that space.  Smooths it into flat, wet sand. Kalen's sphere will open, and it will be before or after Grace opens hers.  To that, he is as indifferent as the sea.

He is using magic, but that is only because magic is, as much as anything else, perhaps more than anything else, his.  It is no less a part of who he is than his ability to reason or his memories or his heart.  He cannot comprehend why, in a situation like this one, there is any reason to refrain from using magic.

There is a slight shift of his attention as he hears what Kiara says, but for now his attention is largely on the puzzle sphere.  He can look at the ruby later.  If he decides he wants to study a ruby, he can simply buy a ruby.  Still, rubies sound...auspicious.  Good.  If he were not engaged in puzzle-solving, if they were not here with a new Hermetic and a talking, perhaps he would ask her about stones.  They are not though, and there is a library at the chantry.  There is a library he needs to buy more books for, too.  There is-

Focus, Holliday.  Focus.

The sphere.  Its light.  This moment.

Now.   

QuicksilverKiara could have taken the necklace. She'd won it, after all. And surely an old man and a fox were not a terribly intimidating match for her, should they try to insist upon its return. Instead, she offered it to Henry, explaining the stone's symbolism. He gazed at the ruby with an admiring glint in his soft eyes, marveling at the way the sun struck the flaws buried deep in the stone. "You should keep it. I have enough treasures." He waved his hand toward her to indicate that she hold onto the necklace.

Kiara was first, but Grace and Kalen were not to be deterred. Kalen worked at his effect, and when it had shown him the answer, he set about recreating the pattern with his hands. Even knowing what to do, it was tricky business (so easy to touch the wrong mark by mistake, so easy to lose focus.) As it happened, Grace did beat him, but only barely.

Finally, after all her efforts, the puzzle came together. The symbols, in their proper order, glowed brightly and then... crack. The sphere fell open, and into Grace's hands slid an ancient-looking glass vial filled with black liquid. It smelled... quite unpleasant. Like something rotten from the ocean.

Red made a face. "Oh that's awful. Don't open it."

Across from him, Henry laughed. "Yes, give it here. That'll be an old potion. They lose their magic after awhile."

Kiara found a ruby. Grace... found an expired potion. Apparently luck wasn't on her side today.

"I think I may have something for you, in exchange." Henry set down the sphere in his hands and moved to rustle about in his backpack.

And that... was when Kalen's sphere finally cracked open. It happened the same way, with that bright glow and then the sudden split.

And there inside was a small, rolled piece of parchment, sealed on one side with a spot of wax and an Enochian symbol.

GraceEww. "Expired potion? Not my day," Grace says, looking quite tired. Something about that just -- well, it's anticlimactic, you know?

"Well, hey. You know? It's not the destination, it's the journey, right?"

Right?

"At least I beat Kalen," she says, grins, looks over just in time to see his pop open with a piece of parchment.

Henry says he has something for her, in exchange, and she perks up a bit. "In exchange? For a rotten potion? Hah."

KiaraShe could have claimed it as her own without offering it first, it's true. Either it hadn't occurred to the pagan to try or offering it seemed - natural. The correct order for things. There was very old adages for one of Kiara's beliefs that what was given freely and without underhanded intention would be returned. If not in the clearest, most evident way - in other, more subtle workings.

It's less that she's innately honest, perhaps. A woman with a code more likely. An understanding and respect for the way things like discoveries and ownership worked. Should, work. She offers it - it's given back to her and after a pause; the Verbena accepts it back into her hands; unclasps it and carefully sets it around her neck; where it settles; lighter than it ought to feel for the size of the stone and cool against her skin.

The ruby matches her jacket; her lipstick. Synchronicity; serendipity.

(Did Kiara believe in fate?)

She resettles in time to witness Kalen and Grace crack their spheres, to crane forward and offer some brief quirk of sympathetic disappointment for the spoiled potion and a longer, far more intrigued look at what was housed inside Kalen's. Parchment. Very old. Sealed.

Reminiscent of a map.

"Is that it?" She registers Henry's expression. "The map?"

Kalen HollidayKalen doesn't look up, but he does laughs softly when he hears Grace's pronouncement that at least she beat him.

It's not the destination, it's the journey.

Kalen came into the Order under the wing of a man who meant to remake the world in practically the image of Camelot.  Kalen had always assumed that Marcellus would succeed and then, naturally, would be the wise and just king.  Perhaps he would take the position of councilor, more Merlin than Athur.  Kalen...Kalen had expected that, in this analogy, he might get to be one of the knights if lived to see it at all.

There is only so long one can spend on a journey while refusing to acknowledge its destination.  It would be a different world if that band had not cancelled and it would be a different world if the chantry outside Phoenix was not in ashes.  They have only this world, and it is a world where one day Kalen will have to admit that either he walks away from his mentor's dream or he gives up on pretending that taking up that quest involves some mantle of responsibility.

His sphere opens, in the ways that fate revealed to him.  The truths of its patterns, as meant for his fingers to trace as he was meant to be here to trace them.  He smiles until he turns the little rolled paper over and reads the sigil.

Crown.

Kalen's eyes widen and his fingers go still.  He was smiling (was just laughing, even) but now all of the expression ebbs out of his eyes, leaving them back at something colder and farther away.  The map may be in his hand, but Kalen does not break the wax seal to find out.  He does not look up from the sigil.

"What was the map to?"  He asks, very softly.

Quicksilver"For your help," Henry corrected. "Wouldn't do to let you go away empty handed. Where's the fun in that?" (He did seem to like giving gifts, Henry did.) After a moment, Henry seemed to find what he was looking for. "Aha!" He pulled a zippered black nylon pouch out of the bag. "Red pulled this off the body of a Technocrat in... oh, where was that..."

Henry suddenly stopped still, his eyes fixed on the rolled paper in Kalen's hands. The old Jerbiton inhaled a slow, awe-struck breath. "You found it." He crawled forward and set the pouch at Grace's feet, almost as an afterthought. Forgetting, of course, to explain to her what it was, or why he thought it might be useful to her. He reached out his hands toward Kalen, moving to take the map from him (if he allowed it.)

"An artifact," he admitted quietly. "Very old. Very powerful. Lost in the Umbra many lifetimes ago. Banished there by our own Order." Henry put his finger to his lips. "You must not tell. It's a risk I told you this much."

GraceTechnocratic tech? Grace has never been so lucky as to get her hands on any. But then, Henry is off, going on about the map. She peers into the pouch, looking to see what 'this' is exactly, until he says more things...

Banished by the Order.

You must not tell.

"Hmm. Yeah. Last time I heard of something that the Order wanted hid away and never actually dealt with, it was an Umbral Lord summoning device. Guess what got loose, and we had to deal with? I'll give you three."

Kalen Holliday[Find the most auspicious path | WP | 2Q for D=3]

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (2, 5, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Kalen Holliday[Extending | WP (for now 6 of 7) | 1Q for D=5]

Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (8, 10, 10) ( success x 4 ) [WP]

KiaraThe Verbena for her part watches this interplay silently; her expression shifting from open curiosity to something far harder to scrutinize. She sits and observes the open hunger and exhilaration that transforms the older man at the sight of the parchment.

Has the briefest inclination to shift her focus to Red; to take in what the clever fox makes of this latest development. Lost in the Umbra many lifetimes ago has her fingers curl absently around the jewel now pressed over her heart.

It's wordless, her involvement in the moment; in the interplay between the two men but she watches it very closely; with an inherent stillness that betrays if nothing else; that she knows the degree that old, forgotten artifacts can change the course of things. That not every treasure was intended for discovery.

Kalen HollidayKalen takes a deep breath, his eyes still on the little roll of paper resting on his palm.

Henry moves toward him and Kalen's hand curls around the map.  Gently enough.

Especially considering that the next thing he does is take one more breath and then practically bite through his tongue.  His blood starts to drip from his mouth, falls in a pattern that is as random as the scattering of stars.  Which is to say that the only randomness lies in an inability to see the entirety of the pattern, radiating outward from one moment of perfect intention.

Again, he begins to speak in the language of the angels, Words and blood spilling from his tongue.  There was a different quality to his magic before, he was trying to figure out a puzzle, he was chasing the threads of fate but he was not consumed then by this same focus.

And then the last Words are spoken.  Kalen's head drops forward a little as the last of those Words and the last of that breath are spent.  There is a pause before he breathes in again.  Lifts his head.  Meets Henry's eyes with his.

His fingers uncurl from the map until it lies on his open palm.

QuicksilverInside the pouch in Grace's hands were five injection needles, capped and sealed and laid out in a neat row, and three small glass vials filled part-way with clear liquid. One was marked: Speed. Another: Strength. And finally: Health. There was probably only enough in each vial for one injection a piece.

Kalen would not immediately allow Henry to take the map from him, and Henry, for his part, allowed Kalen his moment of hesitation. And surely he felt the push of Kalen's Will. Surely he recognized the words that Kalen was murmuring under his breath, even if he was not familiar with the rote itself. But to his credit, he trusted Kalen enough to let him do what he felt he needed to do. And he waited. And when Kalen opened his fingers and offered him the map, Henry smiled.

"Thank you."

He took the roll of parchment, but he didn't break the seal. Instead he placed it carefully with his things. Through it all, Red watched them, and his eyes on the map were as gleaming and fascinated as Henry's had been. For all that he may have been the more sensible of the pair, he was still a fox. And foxes were curious creatures.

"I have something for you as well." Henry looked through his belongings once more and pulled out a book. The old leather bindings did not carry a title, and if Kalen looked inside, he'd find the pages filled with an neat, flowing script. Handwritten and dotted here and there with ink-blotches. A journal of some kind? There were dates on the entries. And if he read into it, he'd find a collection of stories - real life accounts of a Flambeau's adventures from around the 1920's.

"Less useful, perhaps, but I found her stories made for a very nice bedtime tale."

It was getting late. Above them, the sun was dipping low in the sky, and no one had yet stopped to eat besides Red. Henry packed up his things, placing the unopened spheres and the old potion and the map (he was careful with the last two to make sure they would not touch each other) within his bag. Then he began to roll up the blanket.

"I'm afraid it grows late, and I must find a place to rest. I get tired early. But I will see you again. I have plans to stay in the city for a while. Perhaps, when I am ready, you might wish to accompany me on my quest. But until then... you have my immense gratitude for your assistance. And I bid you all a very good evening."

KiaraIt's about a half hour's drive give or take back into the heart of Denver.

By the time they navigate in the dusk back down to where they'd parked; Grace is dead on her feet; had been, before they began. The Virtual Adept asleep in the backseat of Kiara's car nearly the instant she's settled; her new found bag of tricks grasped between her fingers on her lap; guarded even in sleep. At another point in time, Kiara may have found it a touch comical; might have smiled into the rearview at the sight.

She doesn't, right now. Smile, that is.

Rather focuses with an unusual degree of intensity in driving them clear of the park; flicking headlights on as dusk darkens and evening settles in around them; the vague uncertainty of the inky twilight flying past outside the windows; mountains stretching away to one side of them as they hit the I-70 back toward the city. The Verbena is quiet for a while; though it's not a tense silence, per say, but thoughtful.

Kiara's expression bears the same considering expression it had during Henry and Kalen's last exchange. The ruby around her neck glitters in the light. She does speak; after a time; her fingers flexing around her wheel; gaze shifting to observe Kalen's profile beside her.

Perhaps he's been lost in his own thoughts, too. "What were you looking for? When you saw that map, before you gave it to him," Kiara's voice is muted; quieter for the woman sleeping in the backseat. "What did you think it might have been."

Kalen HollidayKalen is exhausted.  Even so, his newfound ability to sleep has not entirely robbed him of the ability to press through that.  He lets Kiara drive without protest, settles quietly and a little pale in the passenger seat of the car.

He remains quiet, eyes closed, but there is nothing about the way he is positioned to indicate sleep.

"Power," Kalen says quietly.  "It does lead to a powerful artifact.  Power is...."  His eyes open, but they do not seek out Kiara's.  She is driving and he not interested in looking into her eyes while he tells her the truth about any of the things he suspects he may very soon.  Instead, he watches the darkness beyond the parts of the world framed by light.

"Complicated.  Particularly for me.  All the same, I needed to know what he would do with it.  Whether I wanted to claim the thing or not, I needed to know what it would mean if he did."

KiaraThey've both changed, recently.

Even Grace as she sleeps feels like a newer version of herself lately. It's twofold for Kalen who feels utterly altered to Kiara. It had, in truth, set the hairs on her arms standing the first time she'd been in his space. The Verbena's very singular, cyclic resonance has shifted itself too; tilted the axis more potently toward the energy befitting someone in her line of work; who viewed the world with the earnest desire to restore it; to heal that which she considered broken.

Both changed and yet - there are still traces, there. Aspects that persisted, that spoke to Kiara of the Kalen she'd begun to know; in fragments and shards; like assembling a shattered mirror. The reflection was true enough but - distorted. She feels that now, that sense of him, as he speaks. He opens his eyes but she doesn't see it; her own on the road ahead of them.

He can feel her attention is on him, though. Sense that she's listening despite this. "And what would it mean?"
Quieter. "Something sealed and sent to the Umbra isn't power you want in the wrong hands. That much, I do know. The things out there - some of them are better left lost, you know?" She glances at him; a brief; considering thing. Back to the road.

"If he asks you to go with him to find it, will you?"


Kalen Holliday"Yes.  But only because I saw him giving it away."  He sighs.  "There is only so much I could really know.  But that was not really mine to take to begin with, and I saw no malice in the crown or in the giving of it.

"I may not have been able to bring myself not to look before I surrendered that map, but why should we have any more right than he does to decide what must become of a thing like that?  The only one of us I would have handed something like that to once is gone.  The other...is not ready yet.  Not just to hold something like that, because he is.  But he is not, not yet anyway, strong enough to defend it.  And that is as important.

"Even if they are imperfect, nothing stays hidden forever.  Better imperfect than evil."

There is a slight pause.  "Though that does not answer the question about why it is complicated for me.  There is, of course, the balance between what the world might demand and what the perceptions of those here are.  This is not a city that loves the Order.  I am, to the eyes of no few who are or were here, powermad by nature.  Unfeeling.  Proud."

Kalen smiles, though that is barely visible, even should Kiara be looking.  "Granted, I may be proud.

"But that is not it either.  That is more frustrating than complicated.  Complicated is because of my mentor, who meant to lead everyone into a better world.  I think, had he lived, he would have.  There was a greatness to him.  Nobility.  Purity.

"We became very close, before he died.  I did not ever know my father, and Marcellus was...the first family figure in that sense I can clearly remember.  His dreams, to some degree became mine.  I never wanted to lead though.  It was, to some degree, what he was training me to do.  What I was trained to do.  What I am occasionally yet tempted to do.

"But I have never been sure enough that I am the kind of person that should have power.  My intentions I do not doubt.  I know, very well, what I want and those things in themselves are good.  But I can barely manage not to fuck things involving other people all to hell on a good day.  I should hate to think what my missteps would mean if there were more weight behind them.  And no few of us here already voice enough doubt about what they mean with the weight that they have now.

"Which I am sorry you got caught up in, by the way.  Of all the people I would have expected to trust me, you were not one of them.  That was never about you.  Though I did appreciate what you said."

KiaraThey aren't so far outside of the city limits, now. The flat emptiness narrowing out; cars appearing with more frequency; traffic beginning to gather; the outline of the city growing larger as they crest a small hill and begin to descend. It's always a sight; the way the city looms before it swallows you whole; the way the landscape alters; trees and scrubland falling away; replaced by roadways and signs; buildings and gas stations and towering skyscapers.

As deeply as Kiara Woolfe was a creature of city living; she was likewise a daughter of nature. Needed it, the contact with something wilder, something more primal and base. Kiara's eyes on the road are a constant as Kalen speaks; she doesn't interrupt him but at the last she does flick a glance across at him; the shadows drawing across his cheeks; his brow as they pass under lights; the shadows shifting and altering the planes of his face in quick succession. By the time they're exiting and drawing to a halt in heavier traffic; he's finished speaking and Kiara's eyes find his not directly; but in the mirror.

Hers very dark; tipped with heavy lashes.

"The best intentions can still make demons of men. For what it's worth, I know who I trust, Kalen and you've never given me a reason to lack it in you." There's a twist of Kiara's mouth, then. A smile that ghosts, there and gone. "Never say never, the world is - " The traffic moves again and Kiara's eyes divert. She lets out some noise, a strained breath of laughter.

"Things get messed up. We do, too. As weird and occasionally frustrating as it is being bound to other people the way we are, I think it's better than doing this. Any of it, on our own." A beat; the Verbena's fingers slide across the wheel; turning it. She's a careful driver, Kiara.

"Besides, there are worse things to be than proud. Believe me, my mentor was - " She cuts a look at him, not cruel but - direct. Honest. " - I understand wanting to hold on to that, after they're gone. I did, for a long time."

Shadows draw across Kiara's throat; like shadows snaking around it; her jaw tightens a touch. "Probably for too long."

Kalen Holliday"I spent a long time doing things on my own.  Not this.  I've rarely been alone since I Awakened.  There was a brief time.  While I was pretending to be dead, which was far less deliberate than it sounds.  But even for much of that I had Ramon.  But...I would not want to go back to doing things alone again, not any more than I have any desire to impose anything more like order here.

"There are things it might grant us that are not terrible.  Things I miss, on occasion.  But as with all things, it would have a price."  They arrive back where they met, at a cute little house that does not bear any real traces of Kalen's Resonance at all.  And there, in that moment, so many things he might say to her.  There are probably, somewhere, worlds in which he said some or all of them.

Other futures.  Other ways that things unfold.

But in this one, tonight, all he says is, "You should come by the Library sometime.  So that you know how to find it, should you ever need to."  He writes out an address, and even this tired his writing is precise.  "You can call ahead, but either Grace or I tend to be there.  Or Elijah."

the deep and meaningful shit. [elijah] [in progress]

Kiara Woolfe
[Okay, awareness, ya'll. Just because.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (4, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Elijah[Awareness, totally not looking for people]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )

Kiara Woolfe[And because Kiara might be doing a little somethin'. Life 1, I think I called this talking to the goddess, -1 Foci, -1 taking her sweet, sweet time, -1 practiced, coincidental, yadda]

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (8, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )

Kiara WoolfeThe York Street Botanical Gardens. You know where that is?

A beat later.

Meet me there at 2. I want to show you something.

That had been the text Kiara sent out; to Elijah; possibly to a few others too, on a lazy Saturday afternoon. The Botanic Gardens in the Spring were nothing short of bustling. Schools liberated of their pupils for the summer vacation meant there were kids everywhere; families milling through the York Street branch of the Gardens, most content to admire the walkways that threaded throughout; botanical collections of Western natives; the tenderly cultivated Japanese bonsais in the tea garden; the gurgling backdrop of artificial rivers that wound throughout the gardens; pastel pink and white lilies floating atop all.

There was an Orangery, housed inside replica french planters; the tang of citrus potent as visitors milled throughout; Herb gardens, greenhouses and a section dedicated to conversation. The Verbena, however, was to be found inside the tropical conservatory. Housed inside a climate controlled building; the doors opened to a rush of humid; sticky air. Strong with the scents of earth and water; food plants were cultivated here. There was the sweetness of pineapple, the cacao for chocolate; heavy bunches of bananas and the arabica for coffee.

Frogs sang in the heavy undergrowth and standing with her arms folded on top of a walkway that threaded and wound around the display was the Verbena. Her dark hair drawn on top of her head; perspiration gathering at her temples and nape from the warmth. Kiara had been there long enough to discard layers; her arms bare but for a shirt; a pair of denim shorts left her legs on display and her sneakers sat beside a small pile of her belongings; bare toes peeking from the edges of the bridge.

The scene was one of vibrant; verdant growth and in the midst of it; Elijah could sense something else. Something revitalizing; beating and alive and oddly entirely befitting the location. The swirl and rejuvenation of Kiara's presence. Stronger in the moment as she stood; hands closed around the side of the bridge; eyes unfocused; fixed on some distant point.

There were ducks gliding along a river; water trickling somewhere unseen; feeding the enclosure and in the midst of all of it; Elijah's host for the afternoon.

ElijahThere is a text on this lazy, lazy Saturday. There is a text and he responds:

I know where that is, see you at 2:00!

And he is there. He is there promptly because he has a sense of time. Because he has a feeling about things, and like some wizard he arrives precisely when he means to. Not too early, not too late. It is a skill he is trying to cultivate, being aware of his relationship with the now, in what place of a moment he is occupying and whether or not he can pass on to the next. The Botanical Gardens are the destination, and the only delay that he experiences is the one because of his own attentions.

Someone loves this place. Someone actively loves this place because he can hear them, quiet and in the distance, can't see them but knows they are there by some tenderly cultivated bonsai and he knows, because he can hear her humming to herself. He can feel serenity, he can tell by the voice that lives between the worlds that this was a good place. This was a place where a passion had not run violent. Sometimes, he does seek silence but the thought of it still makes his stomach hurt and makes his fingertips cold and the memory presses that even in the void You Are Not Alone. The humming was nice, that was enough distraction, past babbling waters and artificial bounties.

He considers, for a second, checking. He considers lighting some cigarette just only enough to breathe in smoke, take it into his lungs and exhale, bring down the walls and play with symbols- it's all a sham. A ruse, there is no separation, As Above- So Below. It was a reflection within a reflection but he couldn't' bring himself to do it, not here. Not here because it was beautiful. Because he couldn't light sage or swish incense or anything of the sort. He'd have to profane something lovely, he'd have to tarnish the carefully groomed landscape with something vulgar because today's tobacco isn't the true thing. Doesn't pay credence to its spirit but we digress.

Kiara has something to show him.

It's off to a place that is radiant, it is tropical and he knows they're going to be somewhere warm. As such, he didn't layer, not like he usually does. Jeans and a tight-fitting tee shirt. Something that was meant for running, something that was meant to breathe and be more a second skin than a hinderance. It's white, there's the hints of blue at his side, obscured by the fabric's presence. He's got a pair of jeans on and a messenger bag. Pocketwatch tucked away. He comes up on the bridge with rhythmic steps. Metered and measured and aware, he doesn't quite feel her at first, not until he's upon the bridge and he'd been playing Marco-Polo with her resonance only to realize he's not quite as in tune has he had thought.

Her eyes are unfocused, he takes a seat beside her and he exhales, long and deep. His heart beats steady. Solid. Doesn't say a word.

Kiara WoolfeStepping inside that space; feeling the first push of heated air against your face; it steals the breath. Forces the gasp of sudden, needed oxygen. It's instinctive; instinctual. It's why travelers to warmer climates need time to adjust; to let their bodies soak in and adapt to the change in air quality; the potency of it.

The rush. It feels much starker here. The sticky residue that clings; the fine mist of damp that adheres itself almost instantly to Elijah's skin. Everything and everyone around them feels amplified. Greener; lusher; more vital and with nothing but the sounds of frogs and water and the distant hum of humidifiers at work - it's easy to see why she asked him to come. Why she said to listen can be a thing as seductive and overwhelming as any other preoccupation.

Elijah sits down by her legs and after a moment; he feels the stir of movement; feels a hand; hot; solid on his arm and Kiara's dark eyes swim into focus as she crouches down; sits beside him cross legged. The hum of her working clings; lingers like intangible crackles of electricity where she's touching him.

She smiles, this slow, satisfied thing like a sleepy cat stirring. "Do you like it?" She asks softly; voice reverent as she cranes her head up to watch a pair of brightly colored butterflies flutter overhead.

"I come here sometimes to think."

Elijah[I swear, Elijah, your perception specialty is ADHD. per+alert]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 3 ) Re-rolls: 1

ElijahHe's begged for silence before. Pleaded, insisted, bargained away for a moment where there wasn't everything pushing in and being loud and vibrant and he just wanted it all to stop. But he's learned to live with it, learned to enjoy it because sometimes? Sometimes the rush of everything reminds you that you are here. That there are sounds and sensations and they all point to some place of being, some place where there is no difference between yourself and another. Maybe he could push here, maybe he could test the bounds and reach, reach for something more because that's how he is. That's how he is now, the unrest in men's hearts before revolution. A living, breathing, beating disaster that wants to be more than what it is.

Funny how chaos craves.

He can feel it, bright and living and vital and a smile crosses his face and it's hard to think of Elijah as anything but genuine. He smiles because he wants to smile, does because he wants to and there is nothing that impresses outside of his own desires, or the desires of others, or anything because- again- his concept of the division between himself and the universe is thin. A manmade boundary. A barrier for which he has no time to entertain when he remembers that it's there.

He doesn't seem like he'd fit with his chosen path. He's doubted. We are not discussing it.

"There's nobody talking," he says, revels in the lack of voices and Voices, "it's nice enough here that I almost don't want to peek."

She sometimes comes here to think and his attention flickers to her. He has a butterfly attention span, flitting from place to place and just striving to take it all in. When he isn't looking for something, he sees everything. The butterflies flitting overhead, the ripple in the water, the cadence in Kiara's breath but for now it isn't too much. He focuses on the singular- his current companion- and lets the rest of the world deal. "Whatcha think about?"

Funny, how chaos sounds like the south. Like Katrina. Just at the edges, how he feels a little like a conceptual hurricane. Not the real thing, just an idea, just the feeling of what a feeling might be.

Kiara WoolfeThere's nobody talking.

He can feel as much as see Kiara's smile when she answers that: "Mmhm. Most of the people who come through here go to the other gardens. I like this one." She's breathing deep; settling herself into the Lotus position; her hands on her knees; palms turned up; her shoulders pushed back. There's a sheen of moisture clinging to her skin; it offers her cheeks a deep flush; his too, given enough time here.

"I like the warmth. It feels ... distant. Like you could be anywhere in the world, not Denver, not New York, just - " The edge of her mouth hooks in that familiar; teasing way of hers. " - somewhere." The smile flickers; her eyes leaving his face to journey beneath them; there's gaps in the bridge they're seated on; it's made with bamboo and tied together with some sort of rough, strong rope; water runs somewhere beneath it; under draping leaves and shadowy nooks.

Her gaze, when it resettles on his face, is considering; searching as her eyes rove his features; taking some silent measure of his interest, for better or worse. "The deep and meaningful shit," it's a joke, it comes across as such (it's easy to forget sometimes she's a New Yorker by birth, much as Elijah's accent betrays the South, Kiara's occasional deadpan sarcasm does her Manhattan roots) but then her head tilts a touch.

Expression softens, sweetens. Lets Elijah in.

"But also - people. The ones I've met here. The ones I've lost. It's a lot easier to figure out where you're going and where you're coming from without all the - " She gestures absently. " - white noise. Sometimes I look across, too. You've never really seen nature until you look at her from the other side."

Elijah"Louisiana gets this kind of hot… not quite, but the air gets thick and you feel like you're chewing on it and it's so damn hot," a second, but he continues, "makes me think of fireflies."

He does turn his attention her way, his eyes are bright and green and glimmering. He's young, that seems to be his defining feature, that he doesn't quite have a beard (he possibly keeps close shaven but, more accurately, Elijah can't grow a beard to save his life). He's present, and that is the biggest merit to him. He's not lost somewhere, thinking of what could be (it's quiet, he'd said, he'd meant it so many different ways. He could appreciate the lack of distraction.) He's looking at Kiara and he's looking at her. He's got the hints of a tan coming in; he likes being outside, all things told. Likes the sun, likes the grass, likes being somewhere out in every sense of the word.

Clubs. Raves. Rocks. Trails. Out.

The deep and meaningful shit, she says. It gets a grin, a little lopsided but his constant companion. He has mischief at the edges. She clarifies and he converts to a look more pensive.

"It's one of my favorite things," he tells her, "looking across and seeing things and it used to scare the shit out of me- but sometimes it was beautiful and-" he inhales sharp, recanters, you're rambling, "-anyway, looking through and things seem genuine."

Kiara Woolfe"Oh, have mercy. A Southern boy." It's a drawl, a wink and the appreciative flit of dark eyes over his frame.

Elijah feels like movement to her. The embodiment in many ways of a city. Ever moving and changing, never content for stagnation or idleness longer than it took to get the job done. To move on. In some ways, it calls to her. On a level, one that sends her moving across countries and changing lives; shifting interests; onward and onward - out of planes and boats and God knew what else.

Kiara's energy contains that of the pulse of things; his the battle for it; the vortex and the hurricane.

Maybe it was why she understood what he meant; maybe it was why she invited him to join her in the first place. She'd said it to Kalen last night, she knew who she trusted and it wasn't a wide circle but there were people inclusive to it. Those who received the benefit of Kiara's attention; her thoughts; her consideration, sometimes even her body.

She offers that now, in a way. Wiggles the fingers of one hand at him, her mouth returning the lopsided invitation in his. "Why don't we? Let's look across."

Elijah[Let's see if I can share. Spirit 1: Peeking across the gauntlet. base 3+1 (sphere)= 4 +3 (no foci) = 7 -1 (practiced rote!) -1 (taking his sweet-assed time)= 5!]

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

Elijah[Aaaand a little more, +1 diff]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (1, 7) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Kiara Woolfe[Let's see if this helps. Spirit 1, let's peel back a layer or two. We'll say she's going to get her chanting on so -1 Foci, -1 rote she totes knows and -1 for taking her time. We may extend this shiz.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (8, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

Kiara Woolfe[And once more, +1 Diff cuz magic is hard you guise.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (3, 3, 4) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

ElijahElijah laughs, and it comes easily. He isn't tentative when he makes contact with people, though he should be. He should be aware that some people might not be quite as candid with their touches, that it might mean something different to them than it does to him. He's free with his affections, but guarded with truths and facts and details.

Elijah's figured out that he can talk for a long, long time and not say a damn thing worth noting. Nothing that pays out with something that might hurt, that might get used later. His honesty, something that seems so natural for him, is a currency. A sign of trust- he is a young man who wanted to learn everything, so the giving of anything was an act of vulnerability, but isn't it that way for anyone? Giving of yourself to another.

And that was what it was. That was what made him want to do this, because he knows, because he thinks for a moment and slips his hand close to hers, something almost chaste, as if anyone could ever call Elijah Poirot chaste. It's a connection, because he needs it.

but he focuses. This isn't easy, and it's clear enough that there isn't anything really aiding him save for his sheer want of it. And perhaps that will serve him well in a tradition that believes their Will is law. That it is strength, that through one's will all things are possible. He pushes, and there is a feeling. He pushes, and it's the insistence, the striving, the desire and the want and the railing against the walls and the edges more. This is bullshit, this isn't true.

There is a world ahead of theirs, and his green eyes are keen and focused at a point that is nebulous, but he insists. His Will insists that the world yield, that the Truth become clear.

Kiara WoolfeHe wasn't prepared, not to work his will the way she invites him to. Elijah's intent is what pushes; raw and unadorned by any conduit. Kiara feels it; feels where it exerts; feels the squeeze of his fingers as they close around her own and she watches him for a moment, the brunette; watches the way he works. Feels her body reacting to it; parts her lips and then -

There's a gentle thrumming (soothing) jolt as her magic joins his. Kiara's lips uttering phrases under her breath; the barest whispers but they swirl and form and collide with his intent; were one to bear witness to that; to watch the way the threads of their energies collide and wash over them; the garden; the insects and windows and frogs and water. They'd see a vivid pulsing; an undulating pattern; twisting and warping the air around them in greens and golds and brightest; purest white.

She keeps his hand, Kiara, presses her warm palm against his and lets the walls bleed away; the flicker and then illumination of the Umbra; the hazy glow of it. The other side beyond the Gauntlet. Her chanting grows softer after a point and then stops and they can both feel it.

Sense it and when Kiara's eyes re-focus: see it, too. The way the garden is alive in ways it hadn't been minutes ago. There's a beauty to the other side that can be easily forgotten when you don't glimpse it often (or, for some of them, at all). But for those who could see - it wasn't a beauty you could replicate. Kiara makes a quiet noise after a beat.

"Beautiful."

imperfections [ian]

Kiara
Her apartment hasn't changed overly much since the last time he'd been there.

There's the same stark white walls with their large canvases of bold red and black abstracts dominating most; the same tidy, tiny kitchen and large windows overlooking the intersection of the city below; the curtains left open so that the first glimpses of moonlight will spill across the floorboards.

There is one change, however. The bedroom door belonging to Kiara's often absent room mate stands open, now. The room within sparse; furnishings that spoke of another presence within it recently removed. The bed made but untouched; there's a sense of departure about it; an unspoken, perhaps recent change.

There's more of Kiara here than ever, though. From the stacks of magazines and empty coffee cups to the bottles of wine on the counter and a single; solitary wineglass. There's more greenery perhaps, too. An over sized fern on a small side table beside one window; its leaves vibrant and thriving; the reach of it suggestive of encouragement; a needling by the Verbena's hands. There's herbs lined up along her counter top; wildflowers in a vase on her coffee table and a small space cleared in a corner; the makings of some sort of home made shrine; a low table with a velvet cloth drawn over it; a mortar and pestle set on it; blades and bundles of tied tried herbs; an assortment of crystals and chalk.

To the uninitiated; to the unknowing who come to Kiara simply for mundane healing; she must seem a fascination; this dark eyed woman with hands that seemed to know where to press (or not press, as the case often was) and how to soothe their bodies. To some in her past; she'd been a source of both amusement and trepidation.

She makes no move to disguise it, though. That much was a constant with her. She bore no hesitation or shame for what she was or how she believed. Perhaps it was why she had yet to find the situation where she resisted the urge to needle the likes of Arionna. To push and provoke and ask - why, why not.

-

She sets a lamp on when they arrive; lets it bathe her apartment in soft; warm light and toes her sneakers off by the door; drops a set of keys in a dish and tears an ipod from her arm with the soft rending of Velcro. "I didn't ask but - Arionna." Kiara moves into the lounge and sets a second lamp on; it bathes her in light; casting starker shadows beneath her eyes as she looms beside it; the dip of her collarbones; the consideration in her eyes at mention of the other girl.

"That's recent. It's - harsh."

IanIan removed his hat when he stepped through the door, sliding a hand through his hair to smooth out any lingering flatness. He tossed the hat somewhere (a hook, a table, a counter, and took a moment to let his eyes roam over the interior of Kiara's apartment. It was bigger than his own. Ian had never mentioned that. Nor had she ever been to his place to see it for herself. Perhaps one day she would ask about it. Perhaps one day he would invite her of his own accord. Perhaps not.

The space was mostly as he remembered it. The second bedroom got a sparing glance though (the feeling of emptiness it contained.) Ian regarded the open door quietly for a moment before letting his eyes refocus on Kiara.

She mentioned Arionna (her blindness) and Ian nodded. The gesture had a subtle gravity to it. Arionna herself might not claim the sacrifice as a tragedy, and perhaps it wasn't. But Ian understood the weight that a loss like that could carry. "She said she gave it up willingly. A sacrifice, like you hear in folk tales." He came up behind Kiara, but did not try to touch her. There was a certain draw, though. A fascination with her space.

"She's handling it better than I would."

Kiara"That's quite the sacrifice." There's a measure of admiration in it; of a kind that could almost seem begrudging and probably not anything she'd outright say in the other woman's presence. Her feelings about her are not quite yet in the same extreme as Grace's but - there's a definite edge of bemusement as she turns; finds Ian in her space there; housed between a low side table and the overstuffed cushions of her well loved sofa bed.

She'd offered it once, in passing, to Kalen. To any of them, when they'd still mostly been strangers to her.

"Is it cruel that part of me isn't surprised? She's - " She pauses; her smile gathering potency as she sinks down onto the sofa; cups the back of her neck with a palm; presses her elbow into the back of the sofa and slides her other hand around his; pulls him down without force; the subtle suggestion that he come; if he chose to.

" - There are worse things to lose, I suppose." She traces his face; sets some internal measurement by the slope of his cheekbones; the strength of his jaw. The shift and play of his body beneath his clothing. "You feel different, too." She doesn't say what strikes her the most about him in the low lamplight. Doesn't say you're beautiful, but there's the suggestion that she's admiring it. Him.

The change. The way he seems starker; more in focus than before.

"Must be the season for it."

IanShe pulled him down with her onto the sofa, and Ian relaxed into the cushions as though he belonged there, facing her with one arm slung over the back. His skin had a warm tan that hadn't been there over the winter. At close proximity it radiated soft heat (as hers did.)

"There are," he conceded. "But I hope for her sake that she finds it again, some day."

Kiara traced the lines of his face; said that he felt different too. Did not say, but thought, that he was beautiful. Surely someone like Ian didn't need anyone to tell him that. He had to know, of course. He heard it often enough. Saw it in the way that strangers' eyes sometimes lingered on him. Surely he looked in the mirror every day and recognized what he saw there, objectively. It wasn't really a question of whether or not he knew. Because there was a difference between being told by some modeling agent or a stranger in a bar that you're beautiful, and having someone you'd been intimate with look at you and touch you the way that Kiara was doing now. A difference in weight (in meaning.) A difference in the way he felt it.

"I am," was his quiet reply. He tilted his jaw into her hand and closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he looked at her (watched her watching him.) "So are you."

Once - the first time they'd come back here like this, the first time they'd been together - he'd told her that it wasn't the rejuvenating part of her that he was interested in. Perhaps she remembered that. But whatever he'd meant by it then, he hardly seemed disinterested now. A lot of things had changed since then.

"I like the way you feel now."

His hand found hers - the one cupped at the back of her neck - and he traced a finger along the line of her wrist and up over her knuckles. Then he asked, as though the thought had only just occurred to him, "Does anyone ever offer to give you a massage?"

Because Kiara gave them, surely. Given what she did for a living.

KiaraObjectively, they were both attractive people.

Neither one of them struggled to draw attention in a crowd, in a bar, at any given time they could pull focus; in both the most flattering and unwanted ways. It could be said that Kiara, for her part, pursued it; played with the fact she knew she possessed the power to; draw eyes; hold attention. But for all her outward flirtations and confident, easy manner - there was far more beneath it that was not wholly without flaw; there were cracks that ran through her.

Chinks and bruising and vulnerabilities; she was just better at disguising them than some.

Like this, though, in private, without curious eyes or games to play; with her own personal armor removed; softened at the edges somehow; she seemed comfortable with allowing the uncertainties their room to exist, to flit across her face; find temporary refuge in her eyes; the edge of a smile. Maybe with Ian, it seemed safe to be imperfect. "Beltane was interesting this year." She concedes as he touches her wrist; feels the delicate bones and tendons beneath the skin when she shifts just so; feels the skitter of her pulse; sees the tiny veins mapping beneath the surface.

There's a smile that blooms across her mouth when he asks if anyone ever gives her a massage and she shifts; draws her wrist out from behind her neck enough to catch the edge of his hand; to stroke a thumb delicately across the surface of his skin. "Once, as part of a proposition." Her eyebrows wing upward; there's a gleam set in her eyes that suggests exactly what kind of proposition that had been.

"I was younger, naive enough to think that would never happen. But generally - no. I think people are too scared I'd judge their technique." She tilts her head; her hair still bound back in a ponytail; but strands coming loose through wear; catching in the edges of her running gear.

"Why, are you offering?"

And if there's a hint of a challenge to that, it may not be without intention.

Ian"I am." The edges of his lips turned up (almost a smile.) He might have made a joke there. Almost did, actually. But something about the softness of the moment made it feel... like the wrong thing to say. Perhaps they were both more willing to be imperfect. "Given what you just told me, I wish I'd offered sooner."

Nobody deserved that - to be deprived of a healing touch. Though he wasn't trained in it the same way that she was.

"Turn around. Take off your shirt."

There was a soft glimmer of flirtation in his eyes, but he let it stay muted.

KiaraWhat she doesn't say, of course, is that there's an implied intimacy to it.

Laying your hands on another person's body to heal them, even a stranger's, requires a certain degree of trust. To believe that the one who you let yourself be, even temporarily, vulnerable before wouldn't take advantage; wouldn't cause more harm than good. Physically or otherwise. There is a beat there, after she poses the question (challenge) to him that something flickers across her eyes when he says yes.

Something like surprise, perhaps. Something like uncertainty.

It's there and gone so fast that; after she complies with that challenging little smile lingering on; it could be mistaken for something else. A mistake; a misinterpretation of the moment.

"Well, it's definitely one way to get my clothes off."

She does twist, though. Resettles with her back toward him and draws her skin tight shirt over her head; unties the hoodie around her waist and tosses both off to the side where they snag the edge of the coffee table. Beneath; the Verbena's shoulders are criss-crossed with marks where the fabric had sat; snug against her body. Her tattoo is revealed; the black ink standing out against her complexion. He's seen it before of course; no doubt traced the familiar curl of it; the choku rei; the power symbol of the reiki healer.

Kiara settles herself cross legged in front of him and dips her chin; turning to half-glance over a shoulder at him; in many women; it would have been the moment for a beguiling, coy look. A flirtatious invitation to come closer, or put his hands on her. She doesn't do that, at least, not right now. But he can see the arch of her spine as she straightens it; see the way her body shifts as she breathes in.

There's something anticipatory about it; the way she sits. Expectant but not demanding. As if it were an offering, her trust. And maybe it was.


Ian

“I don’t think I need to make up an excuse for that,” Ian pointed out, quietly amused. If he noticed the look that flashed across her eyes, he didn’t draw attention to it. Instead he toed off his boots and shifted into a crouched position on the sofa, sliding forward so his knees pressed in at either side of Kiara’s hips. The proximity felt intimate, and he took a moment to bow his head and look at her; at the curling tattoo inked into her skin, the fading marks left behind by her running clothes, the angled lines of her shoulder blades and the subtle shift of muscle and vertebrae. He ran the backs of his knuckles slowly down the length of her spine. On the way up, he traced a finger over the strokes of her tattoo. Then he leaned back and pulled off his shirt.

As something of an afterthought, he undid her hair and let it spill down over her back, brushing the length of it away from her neck so that it lay across one shoulder (out of the way of where his hands needed to be.) Then he pressed his thumbs into the muscle at the base of her spine and slid his hands up, slowly. He used the contact as a focus, concentrating on the shape of her pattern, the balance of scents on her skin, the steady pulse of her heart beneath her ribcage – until he could feel the lines of tension in her muscles as clearly as though they were his own.

There was a care to the way he worked that spoke – not of training, exactly – but of knowledge and focus. They were both Life mages. They were both intimately familiar with the workings of the human body. Where to push, and where not to. When to apply pressure and when to touch softly. He was quiet (meditative, even) as he worked his hands over her back and up onto her neck and shoulders. There was a rhythm (a pattern) to it: long, slow sweeps of his hands followed by more intense, isolated pressure in the places that needed it. Gradually, a sensation of calming warmth began to spread out from the places where his fingers touched, radiating across her skin and deep into her muscles.

Perhaps she’d used that trick before too. It was a natural progression, as instinctive as the stroke of his thumb over her skin (touching her with his mind as well as his hands.) If anyone asked, Ian would never think to define himself as a healer. It wasn’t an identity that he cared to step into. But in isolated moments like these, when the weight of expectation drained away and his attention was captured completely by another person, it no longer became an issue of how he saw himself – but of what he wanted to express.

(And he could heal. He’d proven that much with Jo and Lavinia in the park last week.)

When he was done, he slid his hands up into her hair and massaged the base of her scalp, moving slowly up over the crown of her head and down to her temples. Then he bent forward and kissed the back of her neck gently.

Ian

[Life 1, diff 4 (coincidental) -1 (practiced)]

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (3, 4, 9) ( success x 3 )

Ian

[Life 2, diff 5 (coincidental) -1 (also practiced) -1 (taking time)]

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (1, 5, 9) ( success x 2 )

Ian

[one extension]

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (1, 7, 7) ( success x 2 )

Kiara

She's very still under his hands at first.

He can trace the tension in her frame; the careful way she's holding herself all along the curve of her spine; feel the resistance in the slope of her shoulders; the tightness in her neck before he draws the elastic from her hair; lets it spill forward in heavy waves over her shoulders, when he sweeps it out of his way, she gathers it together; twists it and keeps it; twines it into a loose spiral to contain the wild tenancy of it. The willfulness to drift and fall and arrange itself as it saw fit when unbound.

She takes a breath when he starts to work; ribcage expanding underneath the journey his palms take; her heart beating a steady time to the mapping of his fingers over the shape of her shoulders; feeling the size and breadth and shape of the tension, coiled within each muscle. The trapezius, the deltoids, smoothing down to the latissimus and returning. Kiara knows each one he sets his palms to; presses in with his fingertips against; draws a tiny, subvocal sound from her on, just once, a small aborted movement that somehow encapsulated so many things (there, yes, keep going).

He doesn't consider himself a healer.

But he can heal, though this feels starkly different to the last time. There's no desperation; no panic; no blood and bruising. He sets his hands on her and loosens the knots of tension; feels her body shift and bend like a reed in the wind; slides his fingers into her hair when he's done and deposits a kiss to her neck. There's no mirror in Kiara's lounge room to easily glimpse her face where it's turned from him but the lamp casts its own reflection against the window; throws back the impression of them; his body curled behind her; twined shadows; one with her arms folded against herself; keeping herself. She leans back; cranes her face back until she can find the edge of his jaw; chases the suggestion of a kiss there with her words; a quiet susurrus breathed against the slope of it.

"Thank you."

Her fingers find the slope of his arm; trace lightly along the curve of it. The caress is absent; familiar and intimate. "My sister left." Her confession too, is absent. A quiet admission. "There was a time not that long ago I'd probably have gone with her."

Ian

There was something about Kiara’s hair that reminded him, a little, of someone he used to know (though he would never have mistaken the two of them otherwise.) It hit him sometimes when he was touching it – this faded echo of sense memory. Funny, the things the mind chooses to hold onto.

Some people melt under the influence of the right kind of touch; go all loose and limp and vocal in their enjoyment. Ian wasn’t really expecting that from Kiara. She was… more like him (subtle, contained.) But something about her body language, and that quiet trust she placed in him, hit an answering note somewhere below his sternum.

When she leaned back, he closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the butterfly weight of her lips and the whispered utterance of her thanks against his jaw. There was an equally subtle suggestion of a smile when he hummed his reply.

Ian shifted on the sofa, untucking his knees so that he could slide in close with his chest to her back and his legs folded on either side of her body. One of his arms snaked loosely around her stomach. Kiara would be able to feel the slow drum of his heartbeat.

“What made you stay?”

Kiara

There's a silence after he asks what made her stay. In many ways, it's a dangerous question. In years gone by, the posing of it would have been enough to cause her to draw away; to bank the light in her eyes and slide back into steady place the intangible (but so very real) walls she'd long since erected around herself to keep certain things at bay. There's a necessity to it, the distance; the shielding between the emotions and the rest of the world. For as open and vibrant and alive a creature Kiara was - she was so very careful about the ways she gave of herself.

So much of her was there, presented without pretense or presumption but the darker sides; the hurt and the rage and the shadow that lived and breathed under her skin; built by loss and fostered by fear; was caged somewhere behind the bright smiles and quick flashes of wit and she kept it hidden from nearly all of them.

In some ways, the pretenses were so easily mistaken for reality.

Her fingers slow on the upward stroke along his skin; opening it to the briefest abrasion of her fingernails; then resume. She can feel the heat of his skin pressed along her back; his heartbeat; the solid anchor of his arm around her. There's something infinitely frightening in it to her; the weight of his arm around her; keeping her stationary; holding her there. Here. With him. Perhaps the same reason she trusted him to put his hands on her to heal is the reason the panic doesn't intensify; is nothing more than the momentary pause before she answers.

"Sadie asked the same thing. She was here after I - after Beltane. I came home and her suitcase was open on the bed. She knew, already. She'd felt it. We're connected, in this way." She slides the tips of her fingers down over his knuckles; tracing the rise of each. "We always have been. I can feel her out there. She said she wasn't going to ask but she wanted me to go with her, I knew she did."

A beat; he can hear the twinge of regret in her voice. "She's still looking for a reason to stop running. Leaving felt too easy." She smiles, just a touch and he can hear that, too. "I guess I like a challenge."

[reposts so we can have them in transcript form]

IanHe was still cued in to the subtle shift and response of Kiara's pattern. Her heartbeat was a rhythmic cadence beside him, so perhaps he noticed the brief tick of not-quite-fear that rose when he put his arm around her. Did it make her pulse jump? Did her body go still, the way her fingers ceased their steady caress of his arm? There was an equally subtle response in him, not a retreat but a relaxation of posture. His hold on her was loose, despite the proximity. The muscles in his body were quiet and still. It would have been easy to push him away - to nudge his knee or lift his arm.

For the moment, she let him remain. Perhaps it meant something, perhaps it didn't. There was a time when Ian would not have done this. It was too close to a kind of intimacy that he often found... suffocating. Just then, he wasn't thinking of it so consciously. Perhaps that was intentional. Moments of vulnerability could be so easily shattered.

Especially for him. And for her.

Ian didn't like to talk about family. Even the word: sister was hard for him to utter. Kiara spoke about Sadie - about what it felt like to realize that the two of them might be headed down different paths. And it was, in some respects, an alien feeling to him. But in other respects, he understood her all too well (the loss, the distance... having to learn to let go.)

She said she liked a challenge. He tilted his head against the sofa and smiled. The expression was tinted with subtle complexities.

"I think I figured that out about you a while ago." There was a beat as he breathed. Thinking. Listening to her heart.

"What were you like when you were younger?"

Kiara"Stubborn. A little arrogant. Impulsive." There's a pause, he can hear the huff of amusement as she breathes out; the catch in her breathing as she does. "In some ways that hasn't changed, but - " She opens her palm over his arm, let's the heat seep into his skin where she lays it flat against him. "My father was - is - a doctor. My mother was this Manhattan socialite. They got married as much because they were a financial match as they even remotely tolerated one another. They had me because it made sense."

The way she speaks of them; her parents; her past; there's a disconnection that's tangible. Not quite disgust, but close. Incomprehension (it strayed rather close to pity).

"But I never really fit them. I was just another fancy toy they wanted for the sake of appearances." She shifts, then. Twists lightly in the cradle of his body so that she's half on top of him; her hair falling over her shoulders; it pools over his chest and the Verbena's eyes focus on the mapping of her fingers over his heart; there's a smile that plays at the edges of her mouth, feeling the steady pulse of his heart beating beneath skin and muscle and bone.

"They said jump and how high and I - refused." She lifts her chin, meeting his eyes. There's a flicker of old grief in them but she doesn't conceal it. Doesn't seem as if she's trying to. At least this time. "I spent a lot of time in clubs. Some of the first people I met after I joined the Verbena were - not that unlike Sera." Kiara's mouth tugs into a brighter smile as she slides her other hand along his shoulder. The physicality of it; of laying her hands on his body as she talks of her past seems to help.

Grounding her in the now. "I was a little wild. And then I got wilder." She skates her fingers over the base of his neck; slides it down to rest across the flat of his belly. "Just in ways that made more sense. What about you?" She punctuates the question with laying her chin down near his stomach; braced on her arms.

"Something tells me younger Ian has all the stories."

IanAlmost, he said: so you haven't changed much. But then Kiara beat him to it. She spoke of her parents, of the fundamental disconnect between her life and theirs. One could speak of these things as one would any other fact of one's life - cool, observational. But what kind of revelation was that for a child to have? To not truly be seen as a human being by their own parents? To not be wanted and loved in the way that parents are supposed to want and love their children? Ian knew someone else like that once. It had made her detached and destructive. (One could argue they'd been rather a good match for each other, at the time.)

Kiara shifted on the sofa, turning to face him. His gaze slid down the planes of her chest for a moment, then back up to her eyes. Her hands on his skin had a grounding effect on both of them, and not for the first time he found himself immediately aware of the similarity in the way that they spoke (not just with words, but with touch.) She finally settled lower, and his eyes cast down to watch her.

Something tells me younger Ian has all the stories.

There was a ghost of a smile at that, but it didn't reach his eyes.

"It depends on when you would have met me. When I was young I was... moody and stubborn and independent. I took ballet and, briefly, piano lessons, and shockingly that did not make me seem cool among the preteen boys of central Chicago. So I mostly made friends with girls. When I got older I was... kind of a handful. Typical teenage shit, I guess. I snuck out. Got into fights..." he shrugged lightly. There were pieces missing from this story, the way he was telling it.

"I was cruel, later. Fucked up and self-destructive. That isn't really a story you want to hear."

There was a long beat of silence. Almost, he looked like he might say something else, but then his expression changed and he said, "I was in a band for like three seconds. Anyway, after high school I got into Rutger's and moved to New Jersey. I tried Juilliard but... couldn't afford it. Even with the scholarship. Rutger's was a good school though. Even if it was in Jersey." His mouth turned up into a smirk there. "I met some Verbena out there."

KiaraThere are things they leave out. Phantoms of their pasts that dance and twist around the parts of their prior lives they do share; they do give voice to. Like shadows flickering and cast back by the fire; reflecting nothing more or less than what existed and was tangible but distorted; misshapen and misleading, with the right circumstances; at the right moment. Kiara's not insensible to the fact he doesn't say it all. That there are moments of silence; protracted beats where it feels like there's indecision; an internal coin flip about what to admit and what to abstain from sharing.

There's a recklessness to it, after all. Letting another person in. As contained and private and careful as she is (as they both could be) there's part of her that relishes it. Letting go of the tight grasp she has on those facets of her past; giving temporarily; fleeting glances into the shadowy aspects of herself. It's not the whole truth; it's hand picked pieces from them both but - she watches him tell it. Looking up at his face in the lamplight; the slide of shadows where they fall across his brow; cheekbone.

Looks down at one point; dark lashes fanning her cheeks; her hand still working over his body with light; cursory intent.

I was cruel, later. Her eyes shift back to his face; there's something inscrutable about the way she reacts to that; this tiny, fractional gleam in eyes that seem nearly black where she's stretched out; the way she's not quite smiling but there's the idea of something around her mouth. That isn't really a story you want to hear and she's staring up at him; that expression on her face momentarily turns to rapt focus (potentially even something darker; a crude hunger to hear more about the destructiveness under his skin).

"Maybe I do want to." She leans up; sits up and looms over him; hair spilling to blot out the warm light; her voice close; quiet; hands bracketing him beneath her weight and there it is again, with Kiara. The sense of the predator; for all that he was one himself, in his own ways.

"When you want to tell it. The fucked up parts don't scare me."

IanThe fucked up parts don't scare me.

Ian's eyes seemed unreadable. He held her gaze, dark irises reflecting the lamplight. Gradually, he shifted to dislodge her weight. When he got to his feet, he paced slowly toward the window.

This was a way of speaking too, perhaps. Finding his space after they'd been so close. Creating this buffer of distance in which he could collect his thoughts without being overwhelmed by the warmth and the nearness of her. When he got to the window, he looked down at the city. The lights cast shadows over the planes of his chest.

"I killed someone right before I met you. I don't know if you heard about Victoria Drake. Alexander shot her. He probably would have killed her if I hadn't, but she was trying to kill him too and I wasn't going to wait to give her that chance." He turned around; looked at Kiara with this quiet, measured gaze. "She felt like you did. Hungry. Devouring. And then I saw you in that gallery and all I wanted to do was fuck you until I forgot who I was. I'm pretty sure a shrink would have a field day with that."

He paced back to the couch, but didn't sit down.

"I used to have scars." He touched a place on the inside of his right forearm, then his shoulder, his bicep, his chest. "They were gone after I Woke Up. I guess we get good at erasing those things." This time when he met her eyes, something in his gaze changed. "I want to fuck you now. But for different reasons."

KiaraHe shifts her and she doesn't fight it; just sits back; somehow no less composed and comfortable for the fact she's half naked; the low light in the apartment bathing her skin; the hollow dip of her collarbones; the high arch of a cheekbone; the point of her chin. There's something altogether sharp about Kiara; the way she's put together; as if honed to be just this side of wild; a little too beautiful to be sweet; a little too reckless to be wise.

Clever, perhaps. In the ruthless, capricious way nature could be.

He turns his back on her at the window but he cannot, for all the physical space he puts between them, escape the weight of her gaze; the intensity of her attention. It's completely his in the moment and that was - too much. He killed someone before he met her and she's so quiet and still that when he turns back to meet her eyes it could have been mistaken for shock. He could have anticipated mistrust; betrayal; disgust.

He doesn't get any of them from her; just those dark eyes and that same keen, attentive look.

He paces back to the couch; doesn't sit but stands in front of her and touches points on his body that once bore scars. Forearm. Shoulder. Bicep. Chest. That stirs her; brings her chin up. "I saw my mentor just after she was killed. Her body was still warm. There were feathers everywhere. They tore up the pillows and they were just floating there. I put my fingers over her eyes to close them. I buried her." She's measured as she says all this, each point like a weight; balancing some scale.

Tipping it in someone's favor; perhaps neither of theirs.

She uncurls herself from the sofa; gets to her feet but doesn't touch him. He can feel the warmth radiating from her body; the insistence of her eyes. "I've had blood on my hands. People I cared about. You killed her before she did you. Or Alexander. I would have done the same thing."

He wants to fuck her now.

"I would have killed the person who took Aisling's life if I could have. I don't think I'd even have hesitated." She runs her eyes over his face. "For the right person, I don't think I would. Maybe that makes me as bad as they are." Her eyes drop to his mouth. "Maybe it just means there's no good side."

Ian[WP - stay present, Ian]

Dice: 7 d10 TN8 (1, 4, 7, 7, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

IanHe didn't really expect shock - not from her. Betrayal... perhaps. But neither of them had been under any illusions about what that night meant. It was many things: wild, visceral, liberating in a sense. Sensual, exploratory. All of those things that good sex can be. But neither of them had said, at the end: we should get coffee. Or: tell me about your life. People exorcised all kinds of demons in the throes of physical release.

And yet, they were talking about their lives now.

Kiara saw her mentor's body. In that moment, painting this picture of torn pillows, she was braver and more honest than Ian had ever been with her. (Than he ever was with most people.)

Almost, he had to look away. Not because of what she said, but because of what it reminded him of. Different images. Ghosts of things he was never actually there to see, but painted such a vivid picture of in his mind that he remembered them now as though they'd really happened. Somehow he didn't. Somehow he kept his eyes on hers and did not drift into that other place.

"I'm sorry."

It didn't sound like pity or platitude. It sounded like empathy - like respect for the value of life, and of family.

"There isn't a good side. We just do the best we can with what we have."

Ian lifted his hand and touched the back of Kiara's wrist. His fingers found hers slowly, threaded through them, but did not hold. If she'd been anyone else he would have put his arms around her. Instead he put his other hand on her hip and leaned forward until his head rested against hers. Only then did his fingers tighten their grip, bringing their hands tightly together.

"We don't have to." he said quietly. As though to dismiss what he'd said a moment ago (I want to fuck you now.)

KiaraIt's in her to say something dismissive to that.

To say isn't that why you came here, to bite the hand of someone trying to penetrate her defenses. If he'd been another person, another lover, she might have. Might have dealt cruelty to spare herself (spare him) the potential for attachment. The potential for vulnerability when it came to another person.

Maybe it's that he doesn't put his arms around her; doesn't coddle her admission with denials that she could be as bad as the ones who killed and were killed at their hands; at others hands. Maybe it's that he doesn't take her in his arms and make the presumption that he can. Maybe it's purely that she understands the want to. The need to remind yourself that you were alive; that the present counted; that the past couldn't be changed.

We don't have to.

She sets a hand on the small of his back; slides it up; tracing the curvature of his spine; feeling the shift and play of musculature beneath the surface. "I know." Her hand finds his face, then. Pulls back far enough to cup the side of his jaw; trace a thumb over his mouth.

Tightens her fingers where he'd taken hers; squeezes down and then leans in and kisses him; her hand on his face like a brand.

"I know we don't."

IanShe wouldn't have been wrong in saying it. And he wouldn't have faulted her. Though he probably would have changed - become more the person he was when she first met him. (The person who didn't think his soul was in need of rejuvenation.)

There was always a hint of claiming to the way that Kiara kissed. As though her lips and her hand could proclaim: this is what I want, now, in this moment.

They were balanced now on the edge of so many emotions. Grief, affection, desire. There was no guidebook for how to navigate that kind of chaos. And yet, they grounded each other.

And Ian thought, but did not say: You feel like gravity.

So he kissed her back, exhaling against her lips. When they leaned into each other, her breasts touched his chest, this subtle soft press on his skin. When he pulled back, he kissed the place where her pulse beat at the hollow of her throat. Then he turned and led them into her bedroom, keeping hold of her hand as they walked.