provocation. [ian, arionna, elijah]

Ian
The day was pleasantly warm, if a bit cloudy. Above the trees, the sky was soft and grey. Only a week ago, there'd been blood splattered in the grass by the tennis courts, but it had long-since been washed away. Today there were no monsters hiding in the bushes. There was just the interwoven threads of urban and natural life that always existed here.

Ian wasn't by the tennis courts today. He was sitting lotus-style in the grass near Grasmere Lake underneath the overhanging branches of an oak tree. Above him, the leaves whispered softly in the wind, and he could smell the cool alkaline of the lake water. At present his eyes were closed; his body relaxed in its meditative pose. The grass tickled gently at his bare feet.

He was aware, of course, of the presence of other bodies. People walking, talking, playing. They passed him by on the trail or ran through the grass at his back. He let the presence of their patterns exist within his awareness without needing to look at them.

Grace[Awareness!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

SerafíneAlso: awareness.

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 8 ) Re-rolls: 2

Grace[ lol ]

SerafíneIan: meditating, lotus-posed, aware but also closed-off.  Remote, see.

Strangers divert themselves around them, drag blankets through the grass for a late-week picnic, change their choice of frisbee-lawn, come running after any toddlers who appear to be on a collision course.  We live with certain rules of behavior.  Among these: don't bug people who are doing yoga or whatever that shit is in the park.

Someone else here, not far away really, not so meditative either.  Still, there are similarities.   She is aware of every-fucking-thing and also sits with her legs crossed.  Not lotus-style though, plain old criss-cross applesauce.

Green smoothie on the worn wooden planks of the picnic table she inhabits, plastic cup sweating in the heat.  Leather journal laid open on her bare thighs, elbow digging into what meat remains, cheek cradled in the heel of her palm, an ink pen in the other hand, the shadow of the nib neat where it hovers above the page.

Caught between: between things, between places, between thoughts.

There.

GraceEvery now and then, Grace rides her bike. It's good to keep in shape, and apparently it's also good to throw at horrible dog monsters, in Jo's opinion. Grace won't be resorting to the bike-as-a-weapon principle any time soon, but hey, it's a great form of a getaway.

She seems to dodge people and things along the path without having to pay much attention, and perhaps people wonder -- if not that, what is she paying attention to?

Today, it's the weird.

Vampires, dog monsters -- this park has gone insane.

But it's not anything horrible she picks up on. It's Sera, sitting at a picnic table. Of course she pedals over. It's been a while. And the last time -- it wasn't a time for talking.

When she arrives, she tilts her head, as if trying to figure something out about the Cultist, and then: "Hi. What's up? Besides clouds."

Ian[Awareness]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 4, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )

SerafíneSera knows Grace is coming, has to know Grace is coming, always seems to know where everyone is, and there is a strange and rather precise sort of awareness livid in the air around her as the bike gets - closer and closer.  Climbs off the path and onto the grass - trampled here because so many people come to picnic.

Maybe Grace reaches out and balances herself against the frame with a spare hand on the picnic table.  More likely, she drops her legs from the pedals to the ground, sliding ever-so-slightly off the seat, straddling.

Creature that she is, Sera does not look up until Grace greets her, and then - she does look up.  Somehow she is already oriented in that direction, something about the cant of her chin, the angle of her neck.

Smiles: quiet, compressed, spreading, slow.

Lovely.

Which angles into a rather private smirk when Grace says besides clouds.  That joke doesn't seem to match Sera's particular brand of humor.  Neither does it surprise her from Grace.

"Hey Grace.  Writing a song, planning a trip, letting the world in.  How are you?"

IanHe'd been in the park for a while now. Probably close to an hour, though in his current state time seemed to pass differently. Fast, slow, standing still. There is a nexus at which all things intertwine. Ian wasn't so much not thinking about the time as he was not thinking at all.

But he wasn't asleep, for all that he might have looked it. (No, his posture was too straight.) And there were familiar notes of resonance dancing in the background, alongside the voices of playing children.

His coming out of the trance was gradual. First a slow roll of his neck, then he lay back in the grass and unfolded his legs. Then he opened his eyes and looked up at the sky.

After a while he rolled up to his feet and walked over to the picnic table where Grace and Sera sat, talking. He didn't say anything when he sat down on the opposite side, but he cupped his jaw in his palm and leaned an elbow on the table, smiling quietly. Watching them, as though he found their actions interesting.

Grace"Building a robot and playing with my office plant," she responds, as if those two had anything to do with one another.

"That doesn't exactly explain how I'm doing, more the what... I'm really good though."

She steps off the bike, lets it crash to the ground. Whatever -- it's a bike. If it weren't built to be used, Grace wouldn't have bought it.

Ian's getting closer, a thing she notes by the resonant feral sensation. She doesn't quite turn to greet him yet though, lets him sit at the table first. And what he is doing to her, she does right back. She looks at him, little quizzical smile on her face, cupping her jaw in her palm (though there's nothing to rest her arm on).

Serafíne"Mmm." The noise Sera makes is: warm, and quiet, and affectionate and just a little bit removed.  As if she were both here but elsewhere.  Floating  in the middle of the lake, perhaps, the sun warming her face, the world both expanded and constricted to the boundaries of water and sky, dampened, insulated, lapping - gently.

"I'm glad you're well."

That same reaction as the bike crashes, though it is sharpened.  Maybe surprised.  This bright-edged hook that darts to one spinning wheel then rises to bank off Ian's smile.

This flash of dark script, a rather chaotic hand, tangled with doodles ornate enough to be a match for the many dark tattooes framing Sera's hand as she drops the pen into the center of the spine and closes the journal around it.

There's Ian - looking and Grace being kind of weird and looking too, monkey-see, monkey-do style.

Sera: who is golden, sunbronzed, sweating faintly, sharper now - leaner see?  Huffs out this low laugh.

"Fucking hell.  You two know each other, right?  Or did you contract some brain-eating disease and lose all memories of each other and now need a new introduction?"

Elijah[oooh, people? I'm not looking for them, but if I notice!]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )

ElijahOne of the benefits of being blind was that Arionna didn't have to actually look at some of the things that Elijah eats, because let's face it- Elijah ate garbage. Delicious, chili covered garbage, but chili dogs had no nutritional value and despite the fact that he'd seen a documentary on what went into hot dogs he didn't seem to actually care. The thing about Denver was that it lulled you into a false sense of security that things might be of a higher quality than they actually were. They were not, in fact, of a higher quality. They were just a dollar more expensive than the dogs in New York City.

Not that he was aware of this. He'd never been to the big apple.

But he was, in fact, out with a friend and enjoying the fact that today wasn't completely crappy. He had a recital coming still, so it was nice to spend some time completely away from a harp. And darling dear, Arionna had likely learned her fill of what was interesting about harps (very little) versus what is pretty straight forward (most of it.) But? He was talkative. Always talkative. Clad in jeans and a V neck and a pullover sweater. Pocketwatch in the kangaroo pocket (because pockets). But, there he is, making his way down the nearest path when he feels…

Something.

It's enough that it makes him pause. Makes the blond a little confused as to whether or not he's noticing something magical or he's got indigestion.

Ian"I'd like to see that. The robot."

He was wearing a white v-necked t-shirt and a pair of dark jeans. Fairly standard casual clothes. Likely, he'd been walking through and stopped to meditate on a whim. (And point in fact, his hat and shoes were currently taking up residence inside the crook of a tree root.)

To Sera, he offered a lofted brow. Then to Grace (playing along) he said, "I'm not sure. What's your name again?"

Grace"He started it!" Grace exclaims, in mock-defense.

"Okay, Ian," she says, emphasizing his name because she does know him. "How are you today? I heard the last time you were here, you patched up some people? Good thing you were there."

Arionna de la Babin[awareness]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (6, 7, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 5 )

Arionna de la Babin[Alertness]

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

Grace"You can come see my robots any time." Robots. Plural. "And you know where."

"And, I am not telling you my name, you will have to guess."

Arionna de la BabinShe can smell it though. She wouldn't consider herself much of a snob when it came to food, but hotdogs were not exactly a food she found enjoyable. She had eaten plenty of them in her time, and if anything, she'd rather keep her distance. Except with Elijah is eating them of course, and she's walking along beside him.

Her hair had been cut to make it easier to handle now, and her eyes ventured off into the distance, looking through people instead of at them. Unlike those with some etiquette and care for others, Arionnna didn't bother to wear glasses to hide her lack of vision; she just expected people to handle it on their own.

When Elijah pauses, Ari stops a moment after, his footsteps having faded, and she tilts her head a little in his direction. "If you are sensing what I am, there are familiar people nearby." Because she just felt it, more powerfully than she could smell or hear right now. All of them just washed over her. Though even she recognized something different...something new.

Arionna simply felt colder. Sometimes, even her skin felt colder. She put a hand on Elijah's arm, sliding the red tip of her cane in the rough direction of where the sensation seemed the strongest. "That way, I think."

Ian"Chastity, right? It's something biblical like that." His lips widened into a grin, but he dropped the act quickly. Apparently Jo had spoken to Grace about the creature they'd encountered last week, and Ian's subsequent assistance. He pressed his lips together and made a soft sound. Serious and thoughtful.

"I think they would have been okay, regardless. Jo was in bad shape though. I guess it was lucky I was nearby."

(Not so lucky for him, really. He'd ruined half of a very expensive suit.)

SerafíneSomething somewhere in there makes Sera breathe out sharply, this quiet, self-contained little huff.  Whatever is going on, bouncing back and forth between Grace and Ian makes her skin prickle in a way she would struggle to define if you asked her to define it.  She doesn't like it though.  Gives them both a sharp line-of-a-look and reaches for her green smoothie and untucks her legs from her not-quite-lotus position.  Drops her feet to the bench seat in front of her.

Gladiator sandals in silver-trimmed leather criss-cross her calves right up to the middle of her thighs.

--

This: shifts, though slightly, when Ian's mien and demeanor change.  Softens, really - a note of passing concern that comes and then goes, rather without awareness or context.  Sera takes a sip of her smoothie, and reaches for her little leather book.

Elijah[Who am I looking at?]

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

GraceGrace flips Ian off. With a huge grin on her face, because that's how she does. "Yup. That's me. Chastity."

Although, let's be honest -- when's the last time she was unchaste? Long ago. Still, much like her real name, it doesn't quite fit.

"It was lucky. I think that was Jo's first taste of weirdness. She'd argued with me before about how some things just can't exist..."

Ian[Per+Empathy on Sera (Did I say something wrong?)]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 5, 5, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )

ElijahThere is a moment of redirection. He chooses to rely on what it is that Arionna is telling him, and also takes the opportunity to peer into the distance. There were people and when he finally squinted and tilted his head a little to the side he noticed that there was a Grace-shaped person, an Ian shaped person, and Serafine. He could recognize Sera anywhere because she just drew attentions. She was distinct. She was most assuredly herself.

He shot Arionna a glance, a smile that was heard more than seen and he used the corner of his sleeve to make sure he was presentable. Or at least not covered in chili.

"It's Ian and Sera and Grace?" he is already headed that way, "let's go be social."

And so, he walks. Perhaps a little slower than he normally would, but mostly because her legs were shorter than his. He continued on, called out and offered a wave, "was there, like, a meeting nobody told me about?"

A beat.

"Okay, that was lame, hey!" and he bridged the gap his voice didn't quite cover.

Arionna de la Babin"Seems to be the presence I sensed. Seems entirely like them." Though she was more familiar with Ian's because she had seen him lately. Her lips tightened, but Ari kept her hand on his arm as he walked, at least for the time being. Adjustments took time.

"Incredibly. If there were a meeting, I'd suspect you'd be the first to know. Is there anyone in Denver that you aren't friends with?" He always seemed to know people, or were at least, friendly enough to seem as if he knew them.  She was not, on the other hand, and knew it quite well, just as everyone else did.

"I'm not certain being social is an activity I generally engage in, you understand?"

Ian"She seemed like she handled it fairly well, all things considered."

Jo could have run, after all. Many people would have. She could have curled up into a ball and gone catatonic (no one would have blamed her, really.) But she didn't do either of those things. And Ian didn't say: I hope she's alright, because he already suspected that she was.

Instead he glanced at Sera and tilted his head a bit - this alert, animal expression. He wasn't as adept as she was at this sort of thing (at seeing into people,) but the look didn't escape him. Nor did her body language.

And again, he did not say: are you alright? Instead his eyes softened a little and he got up to walk around to her side of the picnic table. There he sat down beside her on the table, letting the warmth and weight of his presence say what he was not saying out loud. If she didn't like the proximity, he'd slide away a moment later. Otherwise, he set his hand lightly on her lower back.

"Hey guys." This, of course, was for Elijah and Arionna.

Grace"I heard she threw a bicycle at a dog-thing," Grace says, nods.

It feels... chilly. And this is not the season. So Grace sighs, at the 'hey guys,' and goes to look-see. It could be Alex, right?

But no, no such luck.

The ease with which she was handling the previous social interactions just goes flying out the door now that Arionna has arrived.

"Yeah, hi Elijah. I better, uh... I need to get back, actually."

With that, she goes to right her bicycle again.

SerafíneSomething about what she's doing: reaching for her battered journal, holding her long-neglected kale-and-pineapple smoothie suggests that she is gathering herself.  Then Ian is circling the picnic table to take a seat beside her.  She doesn't tense; there's no physical objection to his proximity, just a minute, curious flash of her dark blue eyes at his profile.  The frame of it against the park's impressionistic blur beyond.

Her lower back is warm on his palm.  The sharp little articulations of her spine evident beneath her skin.  You'd think she would have a tattoo there, something dark and curled given the tattoos all over her hands and arms, flashing even from her palm when she reaches for something with her left hand but no: merely skin.  A sun-born, sun-worshippers remarkably undamaged skin, but she's only 25, and she's magic.  Maybe she'll never grow old.

--

Elijah and Arionna arrive and Ian greets them and Sera gives them this spare, ghosting, half-framed kind of smile that stands-in for a greeting.

Then Grace goes from garrulous to, well, not.  Sera glances at her.  That glance lingers and sharpens, because really, she cannot help herself.

(Per + Empathy: WTF Grace?)

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )

Elijah[Per+empathy: WTF just happened? Grace?]

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

Arionna de la Babin[perc+emp - all the cool kids are doing it...and I totally suspect....]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

Elijah[Manip+sub: don't worry, Grace, I got your back. This is totally normal.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 5, 5, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )

Elijah"Hey," he does catch that something is up, that something feels up, but for once he resides fairly firmly in his realm as a young man in his early twenties. He is a beast that can be observant when he doesn't put his mind to it (and it is true, Elijah can't seem to risk paying attention to something. He notices things when hey aren't screaming at him.) All he notices is this: Grace is in a hurry to leave.

He does, however, catch enough to know that he needs to step up his game.

"Yeah," he says, tone convivial and like he had just remembered something, "oh yeah, you're doing, like, robot things." Even half warbles because Elijah… well… doesn't understand what it is Grace does in a magical sense. "That did seem pretty important, I'm surprised you took the breather as it is."

Arionna de la BabinArionna can hear it. Tones have shifted. Before she might not have heard it, might not have noticed. But now she must, and she does. Grace isn't just in a hurry to leave, she's in a hurry leave because of Ari. They never really got along, and they most certainly don't now, but she never truly picked up on such a....deep tone of dislike. There's a twitch of her lips, a lip of a corner. It's amusement, almost, though whether at Grace's reaction or at the little details she's picking up...

Ari pulls her hand away from Elijah's arm. "That won't be necessary, Grace." Because Grace may not acknowledge her, but she will acknowledge the woman. Ari lifts her hand to blindly pat at Elijah's shoulder. "It is, after all, your circle. Hardly seems appropriate for an outside to barge in when all the pleasant conversation was just starting."

"I'll get a cab." She turned, sliding the red tip of ehr cane in front of her lightly, careful of her steps on the way back. Though she does pause to tilt her head and body towards the group. "By the way. Ian. I appreciate the help you provided the other day. " That's really all she needs to say to him. It's a round about way of saying 'Thank You,' but it's how Ari does things.

Ian"I wasn't there for that part." (The bicycle-throwing.) Ian noted Grace's reaction to Elijah and Arionna's arrival with a look that might have been some combination of questioning and skeptical. He remembered, of course, how Grace and Arionna felt about each other. But he didn't call her out on it. Instead he said, "If you're still at the warehouse, I might come by sometime." Because he genuinely was curious about Grace's robots.

Sera was gathering herself. Perhaps she had somewhere to be or perhaps she was not happy with where she was or perhaps she simply liked to be on the move. Regardless, Ian stayed beside her for as long as she remained. Sat there and touched her in this way that was quietly and casually intimate. Like the way that cats will sometimes sit quietly in a person's space just to be there. (That's what it felt like, too. Like sitting next to a very docile tiger.) Her skin was warm under his palm. Just once, he slid the spread fingers of his hand slowly up and down her spine. Then he let the contact fall away.

"You don't need to go, Arionna." Neither of them did, but Grace hadn't left her departure as open to debate. "We're just hanging out. I like your hair, by the way."

Grace"Oh, yeah," she says, to Ian. "Come by. I'll make tea or something. We can play laser tag in the arena too, if you like."

Still no response to Ari, but she gives Elijah a nervous smile, and steps back up on her bike, walking it out, and feeling out the pedals first before hitting her stride.

She doesn't even look at Ari. Not once did she even notice that something was off, that she'd cut her hair or enjoys staring through people nowadays. It's as though she's making a clear effort to ignore the fuck out of the woman.

Serafíne"See you guys."

With all the arrivals and departures and offers of departure, Sera's is pretty low-key.  A supple arch of her spine, the bracing of her feet on the seat of the picnic table.  Then she's rising up-up-up and jumping (perhaps gracefully?) down-down-down, flatflooted tonight.  Green sludge sloshes around her in plastic cup but (clever girl) she keeps it lidded so it doesn't spill.

Another kind of magic.

Seems to include everyone in that see-you-guys though there is a different sort of awareness of Ian than the rest. Subtle, supple.  Another glance at Grace then, lashed and quietly banked, empathetic.  Love, see, even when Grace is being weird.

Hey, we're all entitled.

Sera lifts her cup by way of farewell as she saunters off.

Who the hell knows where she's going except: away.  Away from here.

Serafíne(Graceful jump?  Dex + Ath)

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

Serafíneish.  night y'all!

Elijah"You don't have to go," he says, he assures but she's walking and he doesn't reach out, doesn't impede Arionna's flight if only because he isn't sure if she's terribly aware of what her surroundings or where she was going. He runs his hands through his hair. Mouth quirked to the side, "I mean, it's not- you're not unwelcome."

He assures, he assures because he believes it.

Arionna de la BabinShe hadn't seen Sera's greet, and if she meant to say farewell to Ari, she hadn't picked up on that either.

Ian and Elijah, they try. They do. She's grateful, even if she doesn't say it. She stops enough, at least to begin with, to respond, if only because neither seem to get it. "It's goo to know that it hasn't been made into a mess. She reached up a little to touch at the strands. "Though I do miss it."

"Grace is not pleased by my presence. If anything, she seems rather disliking of it. I don't see a reason to break up your merry group. I can function quite well without others. She seems far more a social animal, regardless of her quirks."

"But to say that I am not unwelcome is not entirely true, though one can forgive you for thinking so."

IanThe truth was, Ian had about as much training with guns (laser or otherwise) as Grace did with swords. But despite this, and despite the fact that he'd once told Kalen that laser tag was decidedly not his thing, he laughed and said, "Sure."

Maybe he was getting soft. Maybe he was just getting more competitive.

Sera hopped down from the picnic table, and Ian regarded her as she turned that subtle gaze his way. He didn't say goodnight, but he watched her go for a few moments before letting the conversation pull his attention back.

"If either of you want to go, you can go. If you want to stay, you should stay. You're adults. It's your choice. I'm going to sit here and enjoy the last of the daylight." And with that, Ian lay back across the picnic table and folded his arms under his head, eyes turned up to the clouds. His bare feet rested lightly on the bench beneath him, and the edge of his t-shirt hiked up over the lower part of his stomach.

ElijahHe inhaled. It was slow and it was deep and it was like pushing on a bruise but this was Elijah we're talking about. He either lacks a self-preservation instinct or he is accustomed to pushing on bruises to see if they're still there, push past something that's intense and intent to remind him he's alive but this is a little different. Only a little. He grew to accept things about his friendship with Arionna. The first, of course, being that she was going to hurt him. The second being that he was going to deal with it.

That little reminder, that little note that she'd never be accepted no matter how vehemently someone accepts her (or does he accept her? Does he really? Or does he just pretend that there are truths about Ms. de la Babin that aren't really there?) it isn't ever going to be true. Exhales, eyes and attention wander and there is a slight grin on his face because he is shameless, heavens is he shameless because having a remarkably attractive person lounging in the last rays of sun being that close is enough to make a man's imagination wander.

And oh heavens does Elijah have an active imagination.

He contemplates, takes a look at Ian with a grin and then takes a seat in the grass.

"Sprawling in the grass, Ari… about… fuck… I don't know, seven? Eight feet to your right?"

A beat.

"Also, I've decided I'm going to finally start writing that shit Elijah does because he's bored blog. So, uh, pretty soon I'm gonna start rock climbing, because I will have run out of interesting drinking stories."

KiaraIt's the raised voices that probably alert them, first. A jogger becoming ensnared in an excited dog's leash and the tumble of limbs and paws and the high whine of a startled; injured animal punctuated with startled yelling and a flurry of spontaneous activity.

It's down from them; the distant catch on the late afternoon breeze; carried over. Somewhere close to it though; knitted through with the agitated cries of control your damn dog and if you looked where you were going is a heartbeat - no, not quite a heartbeat but something close. A skittering pulse and then, stronger, the prickling; soothing wash of rejuvenating energy.

Kiara was nearby.

She was appearing around the source of raised voices and agitation down the way; her dark hair sailing out behind her like a curling; heavy banner; dressed in black and navy; a hoodie tied around her lean waist; a set of earphones plugged in and her attention skirting the dilemmas of fellow runners with a private; chin-tucked-low smile. This ghosting glimmer that appears and vanishes as all Kiara's smiles seemed of a notion to do.

The dog; a golden retriever; untangled from its foe watches the Verbena's passing with great solemnity; nose lifted to the air as if it could scent her. A brief tensing of muscles; the stirrings of a growl but then - she's too far; too distant to be the threat she momentarily seemed to be.

Further on; the brunette's momentum slows; dawdles as she catches sight of familiar figures; feels the sense and surety of them. It slows her to a walk; the afternoon sun behind her; outlining the suggestion of flushed cheeks; the lean strength of her arms; the slope of her shoulders.

[Belated thingy!]

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

Arionna de la BabinIf there is one thing she can appreciate about Ian, it's his attitude. Most of the time. Sometimes even they don't get along. But the point is that his attitude almost makes her smile. Almost. He doesn't sway to one side or the other, doesn't beg or plead, and she can appreciate that quality in someone. Only prey beg.

Grace has gone. She can't feel her presence anymore, and Sera has vanished as well. Since the other has vanished, Ari sees no reason to leave. "Seven feet." She says to herself, turning her body to the right (though she doesn't know how far exactly) and beginning slow steps towards him. She waits until she can feel the bump of the cane tip against his shoulder.Ari waits, just in case she's hit someone else.

The other newcomer gets a lift of her chin and a slide turn of her head. Tonight she's attuned, though tomorrow she'll feel as lost as ever. Adjustments...take time. "Someone ...else?" Because she can't see Kiara. She doesn't know she's there other than what she can hear, smell, and sense.

"Are you ever bored Elijah? When is there time for your boredom?"

IanIf it was possible to create a circumstance in which Ian might be inclined to beg for something, no one in Denver had yet discovered it. Though he might argue that Arionna's understanding of predator and prey was rather lacking in nuance.

Not that he was thinking about that right now. In fact, he was thinking mostly about the shapes in the clouds, and the way the boards in the picnic table felt against his back: hard and rough and warm from the sun. The lingering effects of his meditation was still present, which perhaps explained his relaxed demeanor (though he often appeared relaxed, even when he wasn't.) If he noticed the way that Elijah looked at him (at the exposed V of his transverse abdominal muscle,) he didn't say anything. Didn't even catch his eyes, at first.

Then Elijah sprawled out in the grass, and Ian turned his head to regard the pair of younger mages as they got settled. At least, until he heard the distant sounds of an argument and felt the drawing presence of Kiara's resonance. Then he turned his head the other way, craning it slightly to get a good look at her as she jogged over. His eyes traced the length of her arms, the cut of her collar bones, the slope of her neck.

Finally he sat up.

"Busy evening," he commented. And when Kiara was within greeting range, he said, "Hey."

Elijah"I do get bored, that's the problem-" he said, looked up at Ari as she poked him. He tapped her cane back, just to make sure that she felt the vibration and didn't feel the need to poke any further lest he get a little red tip in the face. He had to make sure that he didn't get too terribly damaged, or even more damaged than just grass-stained. "I told Grace and Kalen once that I wanted to be Indiana Jones, but then I just figured I could settle for being a lifestyle writer. you know, fight the whole fear of missing out and going out and doing things. Good, bad, whatever."

He is still looking at people upside down, smile brightens and he has to resist the urge to look like a complete dork and wave while he's looking at Kiara upside down. It was a nice angle to see her from. There was a different feeling, yes, something that catches up with him once she does come up. It's more renewing, more living breathing renewing flushed skin lean strength lines and-

He can see why Jenn does things like this. People are different from a different perspective, or at least more themselves.

"Hey Kiara, what's up?"

KiaraWith Arionna's senses being what they are now, she can likely feel, when she realizes who has drawn close; the sense of the Verbena. There's Kiara's resonance of course; altered now from what it once was. The sense of caustic; inevitable deconstruction has gone from her presence; there's a not entirely unpleasant hum to her now; underlining that rejuvenative energy which has grown stronger since she'd encountered her last; a gentle thrum like that of the earth; as if her pattern were reassuring and reasserting its place in the bigger picture.

She smells like sweat and sunshine and tangled within in; something sweeter.

"Hey, yourself." It's a familiar enough echo to his greeting; Ian's; there's a way she meets his eyes as she tugs her earphones out; threads them around her neck; a dimpled smile that sharpens as she notes Elijah's repose in the grass and mellows, somewhat - adopts a briefly contemplative; concentrated interest in Arionna.

The study feels like something, no doubt. Surprise. Scrutiny. Something between both and yet - not without some degree of warmth; some persistence to break that glacier. "Hey, Arionna." She doesn't hesitate to step up onto the picnic table beside Ian; to nudge him over with this over-the-shoulder glance and settle down beside him; her skin warm everywhere it brushes against him.

"Oh, you know Elijah. Breaking hearts. Starting fights." There's the briefest cant of her head; the hook of slight breathless teasing embedded in there somewhere for him. "The usual."

Arionna de la Babin"That's who that is. I thought it was familiar." Ari lifted the cane, giving it a light toss to move it further in her hand so that she can sit. She crouches, sliding her hand out in front of her until it felt the grass, and bringing herself down onto it.

"Hello." She finally mirrors. They have both changed it seem, and she was quite alright with that. Denver felt like it was in flux. People were growing, building, changing...and she was starting to attune to it. "How do you get bored? There's plenty to do in the world. There are books, art, playgrounds, amusement parks, movie theatres, plays, dance recitals, live music, television, and of course the ever so stimulating conversations of your fellows. You could always take a moment to listen, you know. Nothing is ever boring then."

Elijah[Per+empathy- are you insinuating that I don't listen?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 4, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )

Arionna de la Babinman+sub

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 6, 6) ( success x 2 )

IanIf Kiara had not yet noticed the slim cane that Arionna carried with her, or the way her eyes refused to focus when she looked at things, she would likely figure it out soon. They'd all gone through changes these past months. Perhaps that was part of what it was to be alive in spring.

Kiara sat beside Ian on the table, and he looked down at the grass with this subtle little smile, leaning forward with his hands wrapped around the edge of the wooden plank. The outer part of his leg pressed against hers - contact that felt warm and a little bit electric. When he looked at her, he let his gaze linger for a long moment.

Then he looked away, and he rolled his lower lip between his teeth.

"If you're really that bored, Elijah, I'm sure I can think of something for you to do."

Arionna de la Babin[>.> What are you insinuating there Ian? perc+emp]

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

Elijah"However do you manage," he turns up the southern, grin widening and there he is comfortable and amused and ever-so-pleased, as if being in her presence, however lightly teasing that may be, "I've hit the level of vain that I'm writing an autobiographical travel blog. You wanna take part in the escapades? I still haven't eaten Korean food so I figure that's a good place to start."

But there was the question, as Arionna sits and levels herself into the grass and he looks from Kiara to the other woman to the clouds and he peers at them. They told stories, and even when you weren't looking at things from the other side they were expressive. He looked at the clouds and sthe spaces between into a beautiful, shining, fading blue ombre to something pale and chipper at the horizon during the day or perhaps it was coming close to yielding itself to orange now.  Or maybe it would be gray. It would do as it was.

"Listening would imply that I ever stop talking, Ari, and I'm pretty sure that we've already established I never really shut up," she can hear the grin on his face, the light poke. The complete lack of hurt feelings. He tossed his attention- butterfly fleeting fluttering little thing- to Ian. It was enough to make him sit up, to shake the grass out of his hair. Brows raised, expression somewhere between playful and amused and ever-so-pleased.

If you're really that bored, Elijah, I'm sure I can think of something for you to do.
"You promise?"a poke, a prod, the tiniest bits of joy at rising to a challenge of some variety.


KiaraShe does perceive it. There's a certain stillness when she does; a way she resettles her attention so wholly on Arionna with the faintest line between her brows. The change in the other girl's presence; the way she seems to draw the warmth from the day more potently now; the alteration to her hair; the unseeing; unfocused way she looks out - change was and ever should be, inevitable.

Kiara knew it; understood it powerfully but as much as she respected the progression of nature; the change of season and the cycle of life; sometimes; the cost seemed almost cruel. She doesn't ask why Arionna no longer has the use of her eyes; perhaps she knows, in some way, what the answer to that will be.

Perhaps, in her own way, it's a sign of respect. Who knew.

Still, she looks for a moment and then the stillness shifts back and perhaps only Ian, close enough to feel that nuanced shift will know she'd been made awareness; could cut a glance at Kiara's profile and see the registering of it in dark eyes; the tiny, protracted shift of facial muscles in sympathy. In consideration before she's returned; before she's smiling down at Elijah with something akin to bemusement; offered flirtation that feels unadorned; teasing for the simplicity of the gesture.

"You had me at vanity, kid. I'm in."

She pauses, then. "Arionna's right, though. You know sometimes turning down the excess and listening can be the best form of entertainment. Hell, in the right place, with the right company - " She feels, but doesn't look, directly at the man beside her. She feels his attention though, when it returns to her. " - doing nothing but listening can be downright erotic."

Kiara[*made aware, I can type ya'll.]

IanAlmost, he said: I'm creative like that.

But then Kiara spoke, and something about her words seemed to quiet something in him. He looked out at the lake, not too distant from where they sat, and caught the rippling glow of the setting sun on the surface of the water. Then he closed his eyes and exhaled.

It had been, all in all, a nice evening. Even with its brief moments of upset. There were too few of those (for all of them.) When he opened his eyes, he slid his arm around Kiara's waist and let the edges of his fingers play against whatever fabric or skin he found at her hip. Then he leaned in and whispered something that was intended only for her to hear.

Ian"You smell nice." And then, a moment later, "Can I follow you home?"

Arionna de la Babin"There are moments when you don't talk, Elijah. Your sleep, is one of them...most of the time. If you really do wish to know the beauty of silence, I'm certain any of us could acquire a roll of duct tape. They even come in fashionable colors now."

The flirtations between the lot of them, don't seem to cross along her features. Eyes, she thinks, tell more of what one thinks than anything else. The way they move from one side to the other, gliding over someone, moving away from them...they tell so much about one's internal state. Do her brows make up for that? If so, she could see the need to cover her eyes, mostly to add to the difficulty in reading her. Regardless of her wonders, she remains untouched externally. Internally, well that is another matter entirely.

"I wouldn't call it erotic. Though I'm certain we have different perspectives on what is erotic." Ari pulled her legs around to the side, a palm on the ground as she sat there, staring somewhere but never really...seeing the end of the sunlight.

Elijah"Well when you put it that way," brows raise and tried not to laugh. It was easy to put Elijah at a state where he could most easily be described as delighted.

At about that time, he did hear his phone ring, from the depths of his front pocket there was something vibrating, with a completely boring-yet-slightly-catchy lamb bleating with a little bell. Elijah looked at the sky for a minute, and ti was almost a literal minute. he counted the little rings before he finally took out his phone. Finally looked at it. Finally realized that whoever was calling him wasn't going to stop calling until he answered which meant it was all of twelve rings before he winced.

"Duty calls, I'll be right back," and he was up on his feet, pats Arionna on the side, fingertips graze over one of her shoulders and it was off to… somewhere.

"Salut maman ... eh bien, vous laisse généralement une messagerie vocale…"

KiaraNice evenings always felt like the precipice of something. As if the world balanced on the tip of a knife; ready to draw blood at the slightest provocation. At least, for them. They were a handful, if that, of Awakened in a city embedded in more wars than even they knew of.

Ian slides his arm around Kiara's waist and finds the edge of her shirt; it's Lycra; the bundled layers of her hoodie feel softer against it; the Verbena's skin warmer still beneath it. Perhaps, being what she was, the Verbena simply ran warmer than most or perhaps its just Kiara; the vitality that seemed so ready to spill from her lips and infuse her every look and gesture; that did emanate from her in some ways; transforming into some physicality.

I'm certain we have different perspectives on what is erotic. Kiara's tone is still warm; still fueled by that same lighter, teasing caliber she'd offered Elijah but perhaps a touch less so; dulled at the edges. "Oh, we absolutely do, but I suppose I consider it a natural state. I don't disconnect it. We live, we breathe, we connect with people, animals, nature.

What is eroticism anyway but a truer state of being. You feel desire more potently, you engage on a baser level. I suppose there's something a little beautiful to something that raw to me. Cut away the pretenses and we all want that, in our ways. To be connected, right?" Then, Ian leaning in; Kiara's attention is severed from Arionna and her contemplations by whatever it is he says.

She turns her eyes on him; they're very dark in the afternoon light; her hair still clinging to the curve of her neck; strands clinging to her nape, says something in an undertone; smilingly and then glances at Elijah. "Be good," his farewell.

Kiara"Flattery will get you places. Especially since I smell like sweat." A little smile. "Yeah. I'd like that."

IanElijah had to take a phone call, letting it ring for a long time before he did so. Long enough, in fact, that Ian glanced over at him and said, to no one in particular, "Sometimes I wonder how he manages to get through the day."

Arionna and Kiara talked of silence and eroticism, and if Ian had any opinions to add here, he kept them to himself. Perhaps he didn't feel that Kiara's statement needed any embellishment.

But there were words exchanged between himself and Kiara - whispered and murmured under their breath. And whatever Kiara said to him in return, it made Ian smile. He whispered one last thing, leaning in so his lips brushed against the cartilage of her ear. Then he unlaced his arm and jumped down from the table. There was a delay as he ran to collect his things from beneath a nearby tree, jogging across the grass with an easy, loping gait. When he returned, he had his boots on, and a black trucker's hat (one of those high-fashion ones made of soft fabric with a designer logo on the front that probably cost way more than that kind of hat had any right to cost) hanging from his hand. He slipped it back onto his head with a smile, then said, to Arionna (who was still waiting on Elijah to finish his phone call,) "I think we're going to head out. You guys have a good night."

Ian"I know. That's why you smell nice."

Arionna de la Babin"Do we?" She asks Kiara, tilting her head as Elijah rises, and shifting her 'attention' in the direction he seems to move and touch her shoulder. But soon enough her focus is back at Kiara. "Do we all simply want to be connected? I find that to be a rather generalist statement. Certainly there are those who wish not to be connected. Hermits, as an example."

The others moved, and Ari was to be left where she sat with whatever light had gone. She doesn't mind of course. "I'm sure we'll see one another soon enough."

Kiara"Do we have a choice, though? You're here. You're alive. Whether that's in a cave with bats or out in a park. You're connected to something. The ground. The air you breathe. The tiny organisms in your body. I don't think you can escape connection. Pursuing it, though." Kiara pauses; Ian's whisper in her ear; the brush of his body near hers like some punctuation to her cause; though an unseen one by Arionna.

"Maybe that's where choice comes in."

She's sliding to her feet, the brunette. Coiling those headphones around her hands like wire; looking in Elijah's direction for a beat as if to gauge just how distracted he really was. She doesn't ask Arionna if she'll be alright when they depart but she does consider her for a protracted moment before offering in an echo of Ian's farewell: "Have a good night, Arionna."

It's on the tip of her tongue to say more; there's commentary unspoken in Kiara's eyes but they meet Ian's for a beat and she refrains; hooks the edge of her mouth in a smile and turns instead; begins to move into the fast descending dusk; the lights in the park just now beginning to engage; casting soft; yellow pools of light over the pathways.

KiaraThere's no outright response to that but, she's distracted by Arionna. He does get this look, though. The tiniest little shift of her focus in the midst of a reply. She knows its fruitless to argue with her but - that's there, too. The underlying awareness of what they plan to share; the talk of sensuality in the build up before it.

Ian[alright guys, I think Jacqui and I are going to head out. Thanks for the scene! Have a good night!]

Arionna de la Babin[go!]

Kiara[Thanks guys!]