virtual crash course, P2 [samir] [in progress]

Kiara
She offers to give him a ride, in the end.

The Verbena's car is this well loved (see: dusty and scratched) red hatchback with band stickers and something about New York peeling off the back bumper. It's cluttered inside; there's a coffee cup with lipstick marks around the rim still sitting in the holder; stacks of CDs and bags in the back and it smells like some faint combination of lavender and pine trees.

A tiny crystal hangs from the front rear view mirror on a piece of wire; it catches the late afternoon sunlight as they make the journey out toward Red Rocks; dust kicking up behind the car as the pagan guides it into a mostly deserted parking lot.

There's no concert on tonight and the trail is largely theirs; theirs and the wildlife that called the area home; most hikers having long since turned back for the day as the sun began to bank low over the rocky outcroppings.

She'd told him it would be easier to show him and the instant they're outside; the Verbena pushing a set of sunglasses up into her hair and gathering a small backpack from the car, Samir can probably hazard a guess as to why someone of Kiara's ilk finds it preferable to try and see beyond the Gauntlet out here instead of inside city limits. The air feels crisper, the sky overhead just beginning to turn gorgeous shades of dusky pink and red; sliding into golds and purples and beyond it, the first glimpses of starlight winking above where it darkens again into blues and black.

"You ready?" She straightens, the brunette, casting him a brief; surveying look. The edge of her mouth quirking into a smile at anticipated uncertainty. She jingles her keys in her palm and tilts her chin up to take stock of long, last rays of sunshine. "It's supposed to be a clear night, not that it strictly matters but - it's easier, when it's clear. C'mon."

She hikes the strap of the pack over her shoulder and starts off toward the trail; her sneakers leaving tiny whirls of dust behind her. It's inclining toward a warm evening and there are crickets singing in the undergrowth; the points of the rocks up ahead looming large and alien as shadows draw across them.

SamirIn the end Samir swallows whatever causes his knee to jerk towards a polite refusal and accepts Kiara's offer of a ride.

He directs her to pick him up outside the Starbucks on the corner of Colorado and 40th. He doesn't have a coffee in hand though he'd asked if she wanted anything when they made this arrangement. It was an easily recognizable landmark and the parking lot was easy to find and he was banking on the fact that she wouldn't remember what he looked like even though he had provided a physical description in one of his earlier emails. Young man of average height and Indian descent. Not a lot of them frequenting Starbucks in this part of town.

A half hour drive from the city to the sticks and Sam wants to know about the crystal hung from her rearview mirror and what makes her Work easier out in the wilds versus there in the city. Ignorance in part but she said it herself: how he and Grace view the world is different than how she herself views it. Hence the demonstration.

Half an hour is long enough to tell that Samir would rather listen than speak. He stammers until he gets comfortable with another person and maybe halfway through the drive he stops stammering in conversation with Kiara. But if she gets the impression he doesn't want to touch anything of hers and doesn't want to look anywhere but straight ahead she can make of that what she wants. He has a bit of a germ problem and gets motion sick sometimes. Good thing they aren't going to California.

Half an hour and then here they are. An open sky overhead and Venus and Jupiter burning bright in a clear sky and Samir takes a deep breath before stepping out of the car and following the witch into the dark. Toward the trail.

Samir looks as if he's ready to trawl the urban trails but not one filled with dust and dirt and dangerous things. Shit-kicker boots and sturdy jeans and a henley underneath a leather jacket and whatever gear he has stashed in the pockets of the jeans and the jacket. His hair tied back in a knot at the nape of his neck and he's trying to keep track of his breathing so his eyes don't look anxious-wide. Trying. Sometimes trying is all you need.

"What..." Christ. At least he didn't just ask why and leave it at that. He hasn't been explicit about his lack of understanding of what the Umbra even is but Samir is a sharp enough cat to fill in some blanks himself. "What makes it easier?"

KiaraShe doesn't seem inclined to mind being asked about her Craft. It's how she refers to it often, when it's broached in conversation. Samir will quickly get the impression that who Kiara is seems tightly entwined with how she Works. There's already that sense about her that speaks to her beliefs; a certain wildness to her person, the way she speaks, the manner in which she puts herself forward into the world.

It's an easy, unapologetic confidence; borne in her carriage; the way she holds herself as much as the way she seems to possess little hesitation in making herself known to strangers, in voicing her opinions. Perhaps the manner she met Samir tells him that much about her. She engages him in easy conversation on the drive out; her eyes rarely straying from the road to flit toward her passenger but every now and then they do. She cants him a vaguely assessing look from under her lashes; catches his eyes in the mirror before they return to the road ahead.

Her wrists are decorated with silver; two of her fingers where they'd been curled around the wheel, too. Large stones cut into smaller pieces set into both. One on her index finger; another her thumb.

The clear quartz helped amplify and awaken energy, she offers at one point, the crystal in question gently rocking with the momentum of the car. It was a healing stone and cleansed her car of negativity, especially in the city, with so many people's energies twining around her at any given moment. She wears some around her neck, too, Kiara; a smaller stone of the same. Her pace slows a little when he asks why it's easier out here; with the stars clear above and the sounds of a city a distant memory.

"There are places where it's easier to look across. Pockets where the energy is different, where the barrier is thinner." A beat, Kiara's eyes gleam in the gathering dusk. "For what I want to show you - it'll be better if you can see things." She turns a little as they near an incline; starts to walk off the track toward a small rise where the ground flattens out; a rocky ledge overlooking a dramatic drop down the other side.

Kiara spares Samir a look over her shoulder as she makes for what must be her intended vantage spot. "Have you ever looked across before? Seen what's out there?"


Samir
Calling it a Craft suits Samir just fine. She is more confident than he is in general and as they drive and the conversation weaves itself between topics it may begin to strike Kiara that plenty suits Samir just fine. If he doesn't understand something or something strikes him as novel or interesting he withholds judgment. The most she gets out of him in the way of judgment is the occasional Oh okay cool or Right on. Acceptance and additional questions.

Lots in the car and lots in Kiara's experience that they can fill the drive without difficulty. That isn't the present moment. Sam has to remind himself often to stay in the present moment. His mind wanders otherwise.

His hands are in the pockets of his jacket when he falls into step with Kiara. If he were the sort to find eye contact easy meeting hers would be no trouble for the nearness of their heights. A few times as she speaks he does tear his gaze away from the trail to find her face but he's afraid of stepping on a snake nest or falling off a cliff or whatever the fuck happens outside so when he does Samir only glances at her for a second.

Has he ever looked across before.

A mayfly of a laugh and Samir says, "Ah... not exactly. There's something called the Digital Web, I've been there lots of times, but it's not... it's not otherworldly. It's... kind of hard to explain, actually--" He'll start rambling if he doesn't stop himself so he clears his throat. "No. No, this is my first time. Be gentle."

Try not to faint. Samir can try and be funny sometimes.

KiaraHe's been to something he calls the Digital Web and that sends one of Kiara's finely groomed eyebrows rising as she finds a spot and sets her backpack down on the ground with a faintly metallic clinking suggestive of heavy items within it. What exactly did her demonstration comprise of, anyway? "How very Matrix of you." She says with a glinting little look his way and then she's crouching, unzipping her bag and casting a lingering look over their heads where the stars are beginning to appear, tiny pinpricks of light scattered across a sky fading black.

She shakes out a blanket first, it's patterned with blue and purple diamonds and there are holes in one corner that look suspiciously as if they've been burned into the fabric. "Some creature comforts, first." There's a torch set down beside her, tiny bottles of water and as she sets things out (a bundle of what looks like dried herbs tied with string and sticks of incense come next) the pagan begins to speak, her tone not quite as teasing as before. There's a touch of somberness to it, now.

"What you see when you look across is the world without limitations. If you think of the Gauntlet as a sort of doorway - " She pauses, taking a few items out of her bag and unrolling them; the sticks of incense are slotted into tiny holes in the middle of each and the brunette sets them down with careful deliberation. Her dark eyes moving to Samir's face for a moment and holding there. "I explained it to Grace once as trying to run a program inside a foreign system, you have to find a way to make it function. The Gauntlet is your firewall," she shifts to her feet and moves to set one of the burners at the four corners of the blanket.

Passing one to Samir to set behind him and brushing her hands off on her jeans as she reached for a bundle of sage leaves; reworking the twine around them.

"You can teach yourself how to see beyond it. For me, it's seeing Nature as she truly is. When you open your perceptions to that, you can see the energy that transcends all of this." She gestures around them, at the earth and dark, protruding rockface. "People believe that there's nothing beyond what they can see but - " She takes a lighter out of a back pocket, flicks it on and the flame bathes her face in soft, flickering light. The slope of her throat; the curve of her cheek and the intent regard of dark eyes.

"We know better." We, she must mean those like Samir and herself. Or perhaps not. She doesn't elaborate, the Verbenae, but she does light the edge of the herbs in her hand; the earthy aroma of sage rising into the air. "I'm going to start, now. Try and stay inside the circle while I'm casting." She nods toward the four points marked by the incense, moving toward each and touching the burning tip of the sage to them.

The sweeter punch of rosewood joins the sage; curling up around them as the pagan starts to chant.

[Okay, let's start dis rolling'. Spirit 1 - Looking Across the Divide, Diff 4 -1 practiced, -1 taking her sweet time.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (2, 7, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Kiara[I think we may extend just a little. +1 Diff, more WP because the dice are fickle gods.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN4 (3, 4, 4, 10) ( success x 4 ) [WP]

Kiara[AHEM. That was 3 Arete, not 4. Calm down me. RE-ROLL.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (3, 3, 6) ( success x 1 )

SamirIn the moment when Kiara is crouching and unpacking her gear Samir is looking up at the sky. They came out here so she could show him the Umbra not so he could study her habits like some slack-jawed anthropologist gone into the jungle to study Amazonian cannibals or whoever the hell lives out in the middle of nowhere and oh shit it's way easier to see Venus and Jupiter out here than it is on the roof of his apartment building.

Some creature comforts, first.

He tears his eyes down from the sky and wavers between staying where he is and crouching down beside her. Takes his hands out of his pockets ultimately and does crouch down nearby. When she looks over to catch his gaze he's looking at the incense with a studious sort of frown written onto his brow. His eyes flick away from her foci and light on her face.

A half-a-smile at the translation from Pagan to Technomancer.

"Firewall's called the Gauntlet. Got it."

Oh. Shit. She's handing him something. Samir actually flinches like he'd managed to get lost in his own thoughts in the time it took her to situate the first burner but the flinch passes and he takes and sets the burner down in the opposite corner of the blanket.

Try and stay inside the circle.

His eyes are wide in the dark or maybe they're just bright. He doesn't blink much. A nod of understanding and a shiver cut up his spine with the awakening of the sage some unbidden thought let in with an old memory's shifting maybe but the memory stays where it is.

Samir pays attention to what Kiara is doing.

KiaraFor all the ways that Kiara Woolfe bucked the more traditional aspects of her Tradition; for all the capacity she seemed to hold to translate her Working into a language that Samir understood there was no concealing that in other ways - she was the manifestation of why historically, her kind had been both loathed and feared. The chanting, the pungent swarm of burning herbs circling around them; the female's positioning square in the middle of that blanket; her eyes closed; lips moving in a quiet undertone that sounded like an incantation.

"Crescent one of the starry skies

Flowered one of the fertile plain

Blessed one of the gentle rain

Hear my chant amidst the night and grant me open to your mystic sight."

It would almost seem fitting if she took a knife out and sliced her palm to complete the ritual and perhaps, if the need had been there, she might have. Though there'd been no sign of a blade amongst the items the brunette had removed from her bag. It was at once unsettling and fascinating, to bear witness to what was in any language and interpretation; a ritual. Samir can feel the pulse of the pagan's resonance as it builds; the wash of something entirely rejuvenating spreading over him; rising the hairs on his arms. As if Kiara's pattern were spreading; washing over him and beyond him, into the distance.

The edges of his perception shifting. The sky was the sky but suddenly - it was more than blue; it rippled with reds and purples and greens. Shadows flocked across it; indescribable shapes that didn't belong to any determinable creature on their side of the Gauntlet. The trees were luminescent; the low scrub grass seemed to fluctuate where it moved gently in the evening breeze. Even the wind itself seemed wholly other and strangely alien where it rolled and bucked and wound around the rock face.

There was the world as he'd known it but somehow reshaped; as if a dream had worked itself around his perception of what the world resembled; colored by the woman who had opened the doorway.

After a few minutes, Kiara's chanting ceases and she sits back. Leans over to snuff the tip of the sage bundle out between her fingers. "There," she offers quietly and he can hear the tinges of a smile somewhere buried in her voice. "Beautiful, isn't it?"

SamirIf Kiara had pulled out a knife and opened up her palm Samir would have been out of there faster than the blood could well. Possibly. He might give some other forewarning of his impending escape like thanking her very much for the ride out here but he thinks he left a window open in his apartment k bye. Or maybe he would have sat and watched in silence so long as she didn't flick any of it at him.

There's no chanting in his Tradition. Sometimes he mutters to himself when he's Working and there's more than a little swearing when he fucks something up. She would find his typing and swiping alien too probably. Maybe not. She does know Grace already.

His heart is in his throat regardless of how accepting he seems of the weirdness on the outside. This is the most adventurous thing he's done since he tried that new pho restaurant that just opened on Federal and he was about half convinced he was going to get food poisoning from that.

When her chanting courses over him like a tide rolling in she can hear it. Samir takes a deep fast breath startled by the strength of it and his attention hones in sharp on the shape she cuts in the dark. His eyes lift to the sky again watching it waver and give way to a brighter more infinite expanse of galaxy and he would have grabbed her arm if he didn't want to interrupt her so he puts his hand down on the blanket to steady himself and then decides ah fuck it he might as well sit down.

So he plunks himself down cross-legged next to her that breath he'd taken let go in an awed rush. The hand that isn't flat against the blanket rests across his lap and his fingers rub together like to assure himself that he is not actually tripping right now.

He didn't take anything. Kiara just bartered with the air and the air went Yeah okay sounds good girl and shucked itself out of the way. He has no idea how she did that.

Then he looks down from the sky and everything else around them is brighter. Infinite. That's a word rings in his head when he tries to describe what it is he's looking at. As Kiara ceases her chanting Samir looks back over his shoulder to confirm his sight's gone sideways.

"Holy shit," he says in a hush. Rakes a few errant strands of hair back off his brow and holds them there at the crown of his head and laughs a little. Reverent somehow. "Yeah." He lets go his hair and looks over at her. "I haven't seen anything like this since..." Ah, fuck it. He looks back up at the sky and the shadows swimming in it. "... ever."

KiaraShe's looking above them as Samir tries to process what one of his senses are suddenly informing his brain he's looking at (without the aid of anything remotely chemical). Kiara's focus on the two points of brightest light above them; the celestial conjunction of two planets. They feel brighter still looking at them from this side; the convergence somehow befitting the otherness that was the mirrored reflection this part of the Umbra offered back.

Holy shit.

She tilts her face toward him, a smile ghosting at the edges of her mouth. "Yeah." She echoes him a moment later softly and then: "The first time I was shown it I thought I was going to pass out. Or vomit." She makes a low noise of amusement, a hum and resettles herself beside him with her legs folded beneath her; a palm resting back on the blanket. "Or both. It's - something. It's our world but it's also not. Things that exist on this side don't necessarily understand things on ours."

A pause, Kiara's focus shifts into the distance; there are shadows moving across the lower scrubland beneath them; foxes, perhaps. Something else, too. "You have to be careful. Spirits, elementals. The essence of things here can be as potent as we are.

My - the Verbena, we've been walking pathways in here for a long time but even those of us who can fully step across don't do it without certain protections in place. Out here the walls between are easier to push through but there are places where it's nearly impossible these days." Kiara's expression turns thoughtful; she glances at Samir.

"You have to respect it. It's - " She lifts her chin. " - infinitely worthy of it."

SamirTonight marks the closest those two planets have come to each other in nearly a quarter century. The significance is lost on Samir but then Samir thought for a moment he had come undone from his body. Later on he might contemplate the date and the astronomical event if he is feeling introspective or philosophical but right now he is just thinking about right now.

His hand had returned to his lap after completing its purposeless task. Now his elbow is near to but not touching Kiara's thigh. The faux leather of his coat too thick to allow for anything but the imagination of body heat. Even if he did happen to accidentally touch the Verbena he would be too distracted by the enormity of what he's witnessing to pay attention to his own thoughts faulty and fucked-up as they are. No room for his own rituals while he's witnessing hers.

With her focus shifting Samir's shoots. What the fuck was that. His hand anchors itself on his knee now and his arm does brush against Kiara. You have to be careful. Respect it. It's infinitely worthy of it.

"Umbra," he says like the whole of existence gives a shit about him if it can even hear him, "I promise I will not throw up on you."

KiaraThat, his very solemn promise not to retch on the Umbral plane has Kiara's chin dropping forward; a little tremble starting in her shoulders. He can feel it, the vibration of her laughter. The way her eyes ignite with it and shift to encompass him, the cut of his profile in the faint traces of light the incense are throwing back; glowing orange and gold embers; whirls of smoke curling out of each.

"I'm sure it appreciates the gesture."

She's smiling as she says it, the dark-eyed pagan. Leaning back a little to fetch a bottle of water where she'd set it out on the blanket. She offers the other to Samir and as if anticipating the question offers as she untwists the cap. "It's just spring water." Taking a sip and sitting up; her jewelry offering a harmonious accompaniment to the movement of her body, the easy way she re-situates herself and crosses her legs beneath her.

"You can move around, if you want to. I only needed you to stay inside the circle while I was invoking." She sets the bottle of water aside. Reaches to collect the bundle of herbs and tuck them away inside her pack for safe keeping.

"So, you met Grace and she introduced you to Ginger. She must like you."

haunted. [annie, howl ST]

Annie Pierce
[General info about this SL:

These early scenes are mostly about introducing little pieces of a broader scenario, so everyone's scene is going to be a bit different and it may or may not initially seem as though there's any connection between them. I'm not sure yet how fast this thing will progress, but don't feel as though there's anything in particular you're expected to do. However this thing develops (or doesn't develop) organically is fine.

About this scene in particular:

Threat level is low to nonexistent.

The tone of this one is pretty sad.]

Annie PierceIt was the afternoon of June 29th, a day that most people in Denver would not think to mark as anything worthy of note. So many of the Awakened had come and gone over the years, a steady migration that inevitably left the land bereft of those who might remember its history. There was one who remembered though. One who had witnessed much of that history unfold with her own eyes. Annie was alone at the house today. She sat beside the node with her legs crossed, watching the shimmering reflection of the sun on the water. She wasn't meditating or channeling the node's rejuvenating energies. Today she was just... thinking. Remembering.

She'd been gardening earlier, and though she'd rinsed the dirt from her hands there was still a sheen of sweat covering her sun-kissed skin. Her hair, a bit wild (like her nature,) was left loose in drifting strands of strawberry-blond. A patch of red and a smattering of freckles marked a spot on her nose where she'd spent a bit too much time in direct sunlight. She had on jeans and hiking boots and an old white tank top marred with patches of damp sweat and a streak of grass-stain on the back. There was a knife strapped to her belt - both a ritual and a work tool.

Kiara WoolfeKiara had become a semi-regular visitor to the Chantry of recent days.

While she had neglected to stay overnight often with the return of Annie and her sisters (whether out of respect or other reasoning Kiara's own was anyone's guess) she frequented it to tend to flowers she'd pressed into the earth out near the node while the ground had still been hard and unyielding with winter's touch. She'd tended to the small smattering of color as much for her benefit as to offer vibrancy for the great spirit she'd made herself known to.

It wasn't anything she'd explained to the others; why there; why for Callisto. Perhaps they assumed it was best not to ask the intentions of one who dabbled with the spirit world. Perhaps none had paid them much mind. But - she came, the pagan, came when the summer solstice was high most recently and carried a box of summer fruit into the Chantry for Annie's Cabal. If any would understand the reasoning for the offering; it would; perhaps; be the woman who felt like the unbreakable, enduring strength of nature.

Last she'd stood in on their land, it had been to offer the ashes of the midsummer fire to it; to invoke and strengthen the ground beneath them. Today, she doesn't visit for any reason other than the weather had been warm enough to draw her out of the city limits.

The door to the patio slides open on her and Kiara's presence washes out to accompany her footsteps. That gentle beating energy, the stronger essence that seemed to harmonize with the Node itself. "Am I interrupting?" The brunette jingles, the bracelets on her wrists offering a dull, metallic score to her progress as she picks a path toward the spring; a pair of sandals dangling from her fingers.

Annie PierceShe hadn't expected visitors today, and there was an edge of that in the way Annie turned her head to regard Kiara, her expression a little more raw than she perhaps meant for it to be. Despite the stillness of her body, her resonance crackled around her - wild and untamed as the forest that stretched out past the house. She'd never been very good at hiding her emotions - if in fact she even cared to try. But whatever volatility the Verbena may have felt, it wasn't directed at Kiara. After a moment, she offered a small, tight smile of greeting. Getting to her feet, she brushed the grass from her jeans and turned around.

"No, you aren't interrupting. I was just taking a break. It's a good day for work, but I'm afraid I'm not getting much done." Annie wiped the back of her arm over her forehead. "I suppose I'm glad its you. It's fitting, actually. I think you and I are the only Verbenae left in Denver. Though... you never really know with us, do you? Might be some old crone hiding out in the mountains."

Annie glanced at the sky, squinting against the bright rays of the afternoon sun. The weather didn't seem to know that it was a day for storms and sorrow, though the sun could be unforgiving in its own right.

"I was about to head out. Is there anything I can do for you?"

Annie Pierce[Edit: How did I even do that? That should say "You and I and Leah."]

Kiara WoolfeThat crackling energy and the expression on her face draws the other female up short. She pauses, Kiara, the folds of the summer dress she's wearing settling around her legs. It's printed in bright blues and greens and yellows against white; a splash of almost violent color to contrast against all that dark hair of hers; those eyes that seemed to study and file away Annie's reaction; the open emotion like a tender bruise there, blossoming in her eyes, the smile she casts Kiara.

She hesitates; the edge of her mouth offering a hint of some amused thing, the bare suggestion of a smile in return, the lift of a slender shoulder upward in easy acknowledgement. "I'd personally be let down if there wasn't at least one of us out there, in some form or another." She leans down to set her sandals on the ground; toeing back into them and adding with deceptive lightness for the way she felt as if she'd imposed her presence on something entirely personal.

"I was just coming out to sit by the water, actually, but - " She flicks hair from her eyes with an absent; unhurried sweep of her fingers across her brow.

"Everything okay?"

Annie PierceSasha would claim that Annie was the world's least effective liar, an assertion that probably had some basis in accuracy. When Kiara asked if everything was okay, Annie's lips thinned. The wind gusted past, tossing wild strands of hair over her eyes. Annie barely seemed to notice, brushing them away absently as she contemplated an answer to Kiara's question.

"Today is a haunted day," she said finally. "I'm just... remembering." Annie glanced at Kiara's dress; at her bare feet in the grass. "There used to be more of us here. Before the war."

Annie started to move, striding out past Kiara, but a few paces in she paused, glancing over her shoulder. She seemed to consider something for a long moment. "I'm driving out to Roxborough State Park. If you want to come... I suppose that would be alright. I've probably got some better shoes I could lend you."

Kiara WoolfeToday is a haunted day.

To say that to some would have raised eyebrows, would have likely resulted in differing reactions, depending on belief, depending on the individual. The shape and surety of how they perceived the world and such things as ghosts, things less tangible and clearly mapped. To say it to Kiara Woolfe was to draw her attention wholly and with clear interest; the shift of her expression from something veiled in polite consideration for the owner of the land she was on to open curiosity.

Annie was an ineffectual liar, Kiara was not inclined to curb her interest, when drawn in.

The Verbena's eyes dip to her feet when she mentions the war; there's a faint line drawing her brows together; a schism between interest and settling respect; for the losses the memory invokes. For the awareness of what exactly it might have been Annie mourned in the afternoon sunshine. She looks after the other female when she pauses and there's the catch of the wind in Kiara's hair; dragging it across her throat, sweeping it away again as she turns.

She doesn't ask if she's being invited because perhaps Annie wants the company. Just lets a smile settle at the edge of her mouth and starts after her.

"Sure, I'd like that."

Annie Pierce"You may not like it so much when we get there," Annie warned quietly. "But I wouldn't mind the company."

There was no explanation given as to why Sasha and Leah were not present to make the trip with her. Perhaps this was the kind of journey that Annie did not wish to visit upon them. She nodded once, almost more to herself than to Kiara, before leading the two of them inside. In the kitchen she filled a couple of canteens full of water before disappearing upstairs. When she returned, she carried an old canvas backpack - faded and frayed in a few places, but still strong.

"I'll drive. We can take the SUV."

The car in question was in the garage: a black Ford Expedition hybrid with a few splatters of mud marring the pristine paint job. Annie tossed the bag into the back seat and unlocked the passenger door for Kiara. When they were ready, she pulled out into the driveway and started them down the road.

The journey to the park was fairly quiet. Annie was kind enough to flip on the radio, so the silence never got too awkward. Old bluegrass and folk music filtered in through the speakers as they drove. If there was any conversation, more than likely it was Kiara who initiated it. Annie was... mostly lost in her own head, staring out at the country roads as though she half-expected a ghost to appear. But none did.

It took about half an hour to make it out to the park. When they got there, Annie fished a pair of hiking shoes out of her pack and offered them to Kiara, should she need them. They were about the right size, and still fairly new. If Kiara didn't want (or need) them, they'd get tossed back into the car. Then Annie locked the doors and paused to gaze up into the sky. A few clouds had formed since their departure, but the sun was still bright and hot. Ahead of them, the landscape stretched out into beautiful rolling hills, rocky outcroppings and verdant forests. Looking at it from a distance, it was hard to imagine anything terrible ever could have happened here.

"We need to hike for about an hour. There's a trail for part of it. If you need anything, let me know. I've got the water, and some food."

Kiara WoolfeSomewhere between Annie's warning and their arrival at the park, Kiara's mood shifts to something if not quite somber; far more attuned toward it than whatever lighter variation it had seemed in at the Chantry. She stops only to secure keys, her phone and a jacket before following the other woman into the garage and sliding in across from her.

Annie was quiet on the drive and Kiara seemed to slip easily into the role of contemplative companion beside her; cutting the other woman only the occasional glance when they slowed for what little traffic was present so far out; for uncertain terrain as they journeyed out into the depths of nature. When they arrive, the pagan accepts the proffered hiking shoes and tosses her sandals into the SUV, twists the heavy fall of her hair into a knot at the base of her neck to keep it out of the way and, with a brief pause only to take stock of their surroundings; to breathe in the crisp air and admire the way the sunlight dappled over the rocks; the way the trees offered a shadowy canopy to the hillside; falls into an easy trek behind Annie.

She's not dressed for hiking, Kiara, but her footing is confident; she's a runner by inclination and her endurance is built such that she maintains pace with Annie without complication; save only for moments when she drags the hem of her dress away from snagged branches and obscure; hidden catches underfoot. "The place we're going," she asks after a few minutes; her tone quieter for the sense of solemnity she's sensing from her companion.

"Is it the reason why today's haunted?"

Annie PierceThe first length of the hike was easy-going and picturesque. Annie led them to a trail-head that wound out through the open grass along the side of a rock-strewn hill. The stones weren't as red as the ones in Red Rocks, but they still possessed an arid, rough-hewn beauty that contrasted against the bright green of grass and the tiny white wildflowers that grew along the edge of the trail. Around the bend, they crossed a flat section of ground and entered a forested area. Annie's footsteps were light and agile, barely making a sound as they traveled across strewn twigs and pine needles. She seemed to know where she was going. There was an instinctive quality to the way she moved. Like maybe she could have shut her eyes and led them through the park on sense memory alone.

Is it the reason why today's haunted?

Annie stopped moving for a moment, turning back to glance over her shoulder at Kiara. After a moment, she nodded and kept walking. "I used to come here, when I was a kid. My parents were Hermetics. They didn't like me hanging around with the heathens." In spite of her grim mood, there was a soft, defiant smile at that. "But I was never meant for the Order. I doubt they would have taken me, even if I'd wanted them to. So I ran away and came here and found... a different kind of family. They let me sit in on some of their rituals. It's how I met my first girlfriend."

It was the most Annie had spoken since they'd left. Certainly the most she'd ever spoken of her past around Kiara.

"How was it for you, when you joined?"

Kiara Woolfe"Difficult, at first."

She admits, perhaps a little uncertainly. "My Mentor was a nurse, the night I met her she was standing over the bed of a stranger I saw get hit by a car - " There's a beat, a fleeting shadow that settles over the brunette's eyes; an old hurt, briefly twinged. "She told me she'd been waiting for me. I was scared of it, of her, at first. I hated my family so any excuse to get away from them was welcome but - "

There's a flicker, an edging, suggestive little twist of her mouth. Kiara's eyes met Annie's when she glanced back at her.

" - Aisling, she was a Gardener of the Tree. To say she took a risk bringing me in would be a gross understatement." She skirted a small dip in the otherwise flat, grassy ground and for a moment grew quiet, as lost in her thoughts and memories perhaps as Annie had been for much of the afternoon. "The coven didn't like it, the loss of pure bloodlines, the heritage. Still, I learned a lot from them. Even if I didn't agree with half their methods most of the time.

Denver, being out here - " Kiara's eyes shift to some point in the distance. " - it's the first time I've been alone since I joined. There's always been someone with me but - she's gone now, too."

 Annie Pierce
She's gone now too.

Annie slowed her pace a bit, falling in next to Kiara. Her eyes were softer when she looked over, the cool blue of her irises limpid and clear. Not exactly gentle, but certainly understanding. They passed by a tree with an overhanging branch, and she reached up passively to run her fingers along the bark.

"Some of us need to learn the difference between preserving history and being bound to it."

A beat, and she glanced up at the sky. "We lose so many, don't we? Too many." Kiara hadn't said what happened, but she spoke of Aisling in the past-tense. A person could make assumptions from that.

"Here. This way." Annie nodded to a spot ahead where the trail forked, picking up her pace again. The two of them traveled down the smaller of the two trails, heading steadily deeper into the trees. The further they went, the more wild and tangled the landscape seemed to get. Until finally Annie stopped and looked around. "We're off the trail from here."

Annie led them through a gap in the trees, moving more carefully now that they had no path with which to guide themselves. She seemed to know where she was headed though, picking her way through the undergrowth as they headed West - toward the slowly sinking afternoon sun. At one point she stopped to watch as a doe picked her way through the trees a few yards away. The animal stopped when she saw them, lifting her head to stare at them through the scattered foliage. She flicked her ears twice, then trotted off in a different direction. She was the last animal, aside from a few insects, that they saw or heard from that point on. That alone had the effect of making the woods feel... wrong. There ought to have been birds. Squirrels. Mice. Perhaps more deer.

Instead there was silence.

Eventually the trees began to thin. More and more of them looked dead or dying. Up ahead, they could see a place where the forest opened up into a clearing. Annie kept her head down. She didn't look at it. Just kept walking.

Finally they arrived at their destination, and Annie looked up.

Perhaps this place used to be a Grove, but now there were dead and blackened stumps where the trees once were. The ground was dry and cracked, and everything about the place felt wrong. Dead. Static. The life and energy and resonance of the forest was gone. The largest of the mangled stumps was at the very center of the clearing. Once there had been a great tree here. Now... there was nothing left but broken, gnarled roots.

"We're here." Annie said softly.

Kiara WoolfeThe undergrowth makes Kiara's progress challenging. They slip off the trail eked out by years of regular use and into thicker, wilder tangles of forest. Branches hanging lower; dried debris crunching underfoot. Her clothing snagged and held up by old; decaying logs and curled, drying leaves. For all of it though; her bare legs scratched where the thin cotton of her dress offered scant protection against twigs and close hanging branches, she doesn't seem inclined to mind.

Sets her hands against trunks as they navigate through them, Kiara, sliding her palm over the rough bark in a passingly tender way, her senses attuning themselves to stirrings of something - different. All of nature had a pattern, a heartbeat, every tree and plant and animal its own energy signature. When she listened, Kiara could hear it; the pulse; the gentle susurrous of nature around her. The fundamental weaving of the elements that drew everything together, held it in place.

Both Annie and Kiara were children of nature, in their own ways. They felt and understood and tended to the earth in ways the other Traditions did not. Could not, perhaps. The pagan's attention is captured by the slow, ebbing sense of nothingness. The traces of life becoming fainter the longer they walked. The silence beginning to press in and suffocate the pagan.

Kiara could feel her skin prickling; tiny hairs lifting; her heart beating against her chest as if to protest the lack of any stirring of life around them. The verdant growth gone, the absence of birdsong, the singing of insects. Annie announced they were here and Kiara stops and stands; her hands uncurling at her sides; that sense of stifling stagnation like a vice around her throat; choking off her breathing.

It looked like a fire had ripped the heart out of the grove; the twisted, mangled stumps draw some tiny sound from the woman slightly behind Annie. She looks down as she takes a step forward; carefully lowers herself to her haunches to gather up the dry, cracked earth. Closes her fingers around it in her palm and lets out a slow, measured breath.

"What happened?," she asks very gently, still crouching, weighing the earth in the palm of her hand as if she could deduce some sliver of it from this alone. "Nature's been bled dry from this place."

 Annie Pierce
Sanitized. That's what the place felt like. Not merely destroyed, but erased. What must the spiritual reflection look like? Did the Grove's penumbral counterpart even still exist?

What happened?

Annie's expression was grim as she looked out over the land. Her body was alive with grief - a tension she held in her shoulders and her sternum and the pit of her stomach. Her eyes were crystal-bright and slightly bloodshot in the hot afternoon sun.

"The Technocracy happened."

Annie stepped out into the clearing - into the graveyard (for surely that's what it was.) Her gaze swept slowly over the scorched remains of the great tree and the bare, cracked earth. Perhaps she saw something there that Kiara could not see. (Perhaps for a moment she saw the place as she remembered it.)

"The war happened. Not that it ever really stopped. Not that anyone really remembers when it fucking started." There was disdain in her voice; barely contained disgust for the senseless violence and destruction that had been wrought here. "They came here with their soldiers and their machines and they slaughtered everyone and everything they found." She walked to the mangled stump at the center of the circle, crouching down beside it. For a moment there was silence as she reached out to touch the blackened remains. And here, finally, a tear fell across the slope of her cheek. "Including the Node. Of course they had to destroy it. It was too wild. Too alive. They could never use it."

Kiara Woolfe[Apparently Kiara hates herself and wants to see how bad it really is. Spirit 1, looking across the divide. I think that's a base of 4, -1 for practiced rote and -1 for taking her time.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (6, 7, 10) ( success x 4 ) [WP]

Kiara Woolfe[And extending once. More WP because this isn't a fun thing to look at and the dice are fickle.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (3, 9, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Annie PierceThe gauntlet here was thick and heavy. Much more than it ought to have been, out here in the wilderness. It took a great deal of Will for Kiara to see past it, and when she finally managed to break through the veil, what she saw was... emptiness. Just this bare, dead space where nothing - not even the spirits of the long-dead trees - could live.

And in the center of circle, where the node used to be, there was... it was difficult to describe, exactly. It had no real form, but it looked like some kind of black hole. Like a scar in the umbral reflection where the light could not reach.

Kiara WoolfeShe wants to see it. The full scope and shape and size of the cancer eaten into the earth beneath their feet. The total destruction wrought by the Union because they could not fathom something that could not be cut and dissected and re-worked into their configuration of the universe. Annie starts toward the warped and blackened stump in the middle of the clearing and Kiara - opens her palm around the handful of dirt in it - feels a shiver run down her spine and allows the granules to run between her fingers.

Perhaps Annie won't understand the necessity of it, the desire to look something that awful in the face for what it was but then again - maybe she could understand why and how Kiara, attuned as she was to the heatbeat of everything around them, would need to see. To understand the totality of Annie's grief. She doesn't have the skill to cast her senses back the crouching brunette, not yet, but she does reach them out; across; pushing and casting her will against the barrier between their worlds.

Opening her eyes and rising to her feet to look into - a void. This airless, lifeless stretch of space. She breathes in, a sharp little motion of anguish, her eyes bright. "God." She clenches her jaw; looks away for a beat. Her presence here feels like the strangest, most heartbreaking falsity. A washing, soothing balm that cannot do anything for the absolute absence of life around it.

"I've only felt - I only got a taste of it once." Kiara moves toward the twisted remains of the tree; what she sees; a jagged wound. The end result of War. The ultimate cost paid by not by them, or the others but - the world. "I never saw them but I could feel it. Not like this - this is -" She reaches out to set a hand against the surface of the tree.

Looks at Annie's tear stained face, finally. Grief narrowing the pagan's mouth into a line; her eyes brilliant with mingled empathy and rage. "They tore the heart out of the world here and I don't understand why. They're so - " She breathes out again, slides her hand away from the tree. " - I want to make them feel this hurt."

Kiara looks away, across the clearing.

"Some day, I want them to know how it feels."

Annie PierceThere weren't enough tears in all the world for the casualties of the Ascension War. (Of any war.)  This was an old wound for Annie, and the tears she shed now were not those of fresh, ragged pain but of an ache and emptiness that could never really be cured. She closed her eyes and bowed her head and let her tears fall silently to the dead earth. She didn't respond to Kiara's words for a long time.

Finally she picked her head up and looked at the sky. "I wonder... if they even can feel."

She pulled the knife free from her belt, twisting it slowly in her hand. "It was... seventeen years ago, today. I was fifteen. Hadn't even fully woken up yet. I wasn't here when it happened, but I made my father show me. The Coven was named the Daughters of the Crescent Moon. Some of them were old and powerful, but they weren't warriors. Even if they had been..." She shook her head, letting the sentence trail off.

"I remembered all their names. When I can, I come back here and I say them. Because someone needs to remember."

Annie took the knife and cut a shallow line down the center of her palm. Standing up, she reached out over the ruined stump and let her blood fall onto its surface. A sacrifice to the departed. Each time a drop hit the wood, she spoke a name. Twelve names in total - witches, old and young. Gone but not forgotten. There was a pause at the end, as Annie began to withdraw her hand - but stopped. Blood began to run down her arm. Finally she stretched it out again and let three more drops hit the wood.

"Sarah Pierce. Roland Pierce. Jack Pierce."

Then he stepped away and looked at Kiara. "They didn't die here, but I suppose I can honor them too.

"Anyway, I thought you should know what happened."

Kiara WoolfeKiara looks back when Annie speaks, when she withdraws her knife and slices the tip into her skin. She watches the blood well to the surface and start to run. Stands and bears witness to the remembrance of those that had died. It was an empty graveyard, this. Not even the spirits lingered here on the other side. The reflection a dull, empty echo. The sight of it as Annie gives her blood over to it; the eerie nothingness, draws Kiara's shoulders back.

Her spine straightens and she lifts her chin, her face upward, toward the late afternoon sunshine for a moment, as if somehow it had been absent and forgotten, in the stark reality of what they were looking at. She lets her senses shift, draws back from the other side and when Annie steps back finally - when she adds the last three names - Kiara's mouth suggests a tiny smile. Not quite pained but - sympathetic. But understanding.

She hesitates for a moment, the brunette and then makes a wordless gesture for Annie's knife, if she'll tender it to her. To slice a line down her own hand and flex her fingers against the sting of it; folding her fingers around the cut and holding it out to let a few drops hit the wizened, twisted trunk, to run and mix with the other Verbena's.

"Aisling Callahan."

A beat, Kiara rubs a thumb over the wound in her hand, looks up. "I'll remember them too, now."

Annie PierceWhen Kiara gestured for the knife, Annie hesitated a moment. As she passed it over, offering it to Kiara hilt-first, there was a sense of ritual about it. Sharing tools (and mixing blood) was not a thing done lightly. Annie watched as Kiara made her own small sacrifice; as she spoke the name of her mentor and remembered the life that had been lost.

When she said, I'll remember then too, Annie nodded once, very subtly, in acknowledgment. She took the knife back when Kiara was finished with it, wiping the blade clean on her shirt before sliding it back into its sheath.

"They took the Chantry in the city, too. I guess they thought they could wipe us out." She smirked bitterly. "And yet... here we are."

Annie reached across with her unwounded hand to touch Kiara's arm. Just this simple, human bit of contact (a gesture of connection and support.) Then she turned and began to walk back into the woods. "Come on, let's leave this place."

virtual crash course, P1 [samir]

Samir

By "later" he appears to have meant "later tonight." Or else he keeps the same weird hours as their ilk are wont to do. Kiara received her first email from Samir at 4:42am the day after they met.

Hey Kiara: This is Sam Lakhani. We met at the gallery opening tonight. I enjoyed talking to you, and am glad you gave me your email address.

You mentioned the possibility of arranging contact with other people, and I appreciate that. This has been kind of a strange week. I met someone who I suspect belongs to the same group I do, but you know how our lot are.

To be honest, it's pretty easy to find out information about other hackers if you put a bit of time in, but people who live and practice in the physical world are trickier. This is the first city I've been to where the second I've shown up up a herd of Hermetics hasn't knocked on my door to ask me who the hell I am, so this is a new experience for me.

I'm not the most memorable person in the world, so if you need to give anyone a physical description I'm 5'10" and have black hair and brown eyes and am really ridiculously good-looking.

(That last part is a joke. But I am actually 5'10" and half-Indian so the rest of it is true.)

Thank you again for giving me your contact information, and I hope to hear from you again soon.

-S.L.

Kiara

He doesn't get a reply right away. At least, not in the hours following but to be fair, given the hour he contacts her he's probably not that surprised that he doesn't hear back from the striking brunette until the following evening. A little after 8PM his inbox alerts him to a new message.

There's a title attached: Color me impressed

And then below his response reads:

Sam -

I have to admit I really didn't think I'd hear from you so soon. Dare I be bold enough to suggest I made an impression? (that was rhetorical, I am, in case that wasn't already obvious, very much bold enough to). 
 
There's a flicker of a smile as she types, intent via textual communication was challenging at the best of times, but the mind's eye conjures the idea of the woman at the computer; the neon glow reflected on her skin; the curve of a supple mouth; the dark fall of hair over a shoulder. 
 
I'm glad you contacted me. I spoke to a friend today who I believe you might have met, blonde hair, striking eyes, feels a little like being around some kind of psychedelic otherworldly entity, or a really impressive trip. He'd have introduced himself as Kalen (he is, in fact, one of those Hermetics but I don't think you're in any danger of him breaking down your door unless you're really his type). 

If you want to meet some of the others in town I can probably figure something out. Arrange a meeting somewhere neutral. Some of us are a little harder to coax out than others. To say we're paranoid isn't strictly an exaggeration, I just prefer to think of it as smart, savvy and still alive. 

The woman you're probably talking about is Grace. She's good people and definitely one of yours. You just have to prove you can be trusted before you crack her. If she doesn't want to be known to you, she won't be. That's sort of her style. 

Talk soon, tall, dark and good looking.

-K.W

 Samir

She must have embarrassed him a little. If not embarrassed then at least made him nervous enough that he wanted to think before he sent his next message. If not any of that then he was busy or something happened or he just didn't go near a computer for a couple of days. Given how connected their lot are and how difficult it is for someone with a smartphone and access to wireless Internet to claim connectivity issues it's more likely he just wanted to think good and hard before he hit Send.

Kiara: I'm sure you get this a lot, but you did, in fact, make an impression.

Unless there are two Kalens with the Order of Hermes in Colorado, I'm pretty sure I've met him. He mentioned robot battles and laser tag and other things that involve leaving the house occasionally and interacting with other people, so I've got a bet going with myself that he isn't really with the Order, he just tells people that to fuck with them.

You don't have to confirm or deny the allegation. A little mystery now and then never hurt anything.

Based on my own experience, a unified front is better than a bunch of traditionalists and disparates doing their own thing, so to speak, but if SOP here is to stay out of each others' business I don't want to disrupt that.

-S.L. 

Kiara

The response comes through after about a day. Maybe she's been busy, she was a professional of some kind, right? At least, that's what the card she gave him would lead one to believe. She has a virtual footprint, if a minimal one. Not too much turns up that isn't on the card she passed him, if he does decide to check. Her age, her DOB seem accurate and her birth place is most assuredly New York.

Or so the Government has been lead to believe.

There isn't much else, though. Perhaps like so many other Awakened souls, Kiara Woolfe has buried much of herself away from prying eyes.

Sam -

I usually do.

That was Kalen all right but I won't destroy his mystique and give away all the answers. Where would the fun be in that, anyway? ;) I don't know if I'd say it's SOP but I'm probably also not the best to advise if it's not. Based on what I know, people hang out, it's just that experiences have made some of them a little gun shy. Vampires in Washington Park will do that for you. 

Don't worry, most of that seems to have resolved itself for the moment but it doesn't hurt to be aware they're around. The more distance between them and us, the better. 

We do have our means of staying in touch though. Grace or Kalen can probably hook you up with Ginger. Not a hot date, unless you consider technology sexy which, come to think of it, you just might. It's how we alert everyone if there's something big going down. Or if you ordered too much pizza and need company. You get the gist. Grace can wire your phone up. 

I'd offer to myself but I don't have that kind of mad power yet. I'm working on it, though (that was a joke). If you've got questions or anything, you can always hit me up. 

Kiara 

Samir

Given how acquaintances and even friendships tend to pass around here when hours slide into days Kiara may very well think something has happened to the young man whose face no one would blame her for having let fade from her memory already.

Or maybe time just works differently for people who tend to tell the passage of it by what their bladder is telling them and not what the sun or the stars have to say about it.

At any rate she doesn't receive another message from him for over a week. This is the beautiful of email. It's like modern-day letter-writing. You can just pick right up where you left off without having to explain yourself overmuch.

Kiara,

Not gonna lie, I haven't encountered anything more frightening than a herd of college kids playing hackey sack in Washington Park yet. I'm starting to think this vampire problem is an urban legend your lot concocted to spook the new guys.

(Joke. I've never met a vampire and I never want to.)

On the Ginger front, Grace has wired me up. Success!

Speaking of questions or anything: she and I were discussing realms (long story) and the thought occurred to me that I don't know the first thing about the Umbra or Digital Loa (tech spirits?) or anything of that nature. Apparently Grace doesn't either. Mercurial Elite problems.

You seem like you're pretty attuned to the non-physical aspects of the Tellurian. Is there anything I can offer besides pizza in exchange for a crash course in otherworldly... stuff?

- S.

Kiara
 
It takes a while for the pagan to respond. The wonderful thing about this method of communication (and sometimes, the drawback) was the lack of physical cues that Kiara's presence would offer. The expression on her face as she draws back from the screen, the frown as she considers her response; fingers poised over the keys.

Sam -

You want to know about the spirit world? The other side is a pretty complicated subject to navigate. I can definitely try and translate it, though. I should probably warn you that the way I look at it won't necessarily compute with what you do know - or the way you probably think of it. My understanding of it comes from a pretty different place than yours and Grace's. At least, if what I know of Grace's way of thinking extends to yours, too. That being said - I've never been a girl afraid of challenges so if you want to try - it might be easiest for me to show you.

At least, to begin with. Seeing is believing, right?

As for what I want in exchange - hold onto that thought. I'm sure I'll think of something. Have you been out to Red Rocks, yet? They have concerts out there all the time at the amphitheater - it's also great for Umbral gazing. Less interference.

Kiara

 

Samir

Kiara -

Red Rocks is outside Morrison, right? I haven't been there yet. I don't drive so that tends to keep me downtown. I do have a bicycle, though. The Internet says it's only a 20-mile ride and other than thunderstorms the end of the week we're supposed to have decent weather going into next weekend.

Shall we?

-S.

 

impress me. [elijah]

ElijahThere was a phone call.

It was of a reasonable hour to have phone calls, some time after nine in the evening. Some time when people were no doubt getting ready to go out for the evening or closing up shop or any number of things that someone does in the early evening. The early evening that is only the early evening for people who have active and vibrant social lives. Active and vibrant lives that one Elijah Poirot does live from time to time, plays along and parties long and hard and strong until his body aches and he's got nothing left and he wakes up the next morning to do it again.

You don't know what you're made of until you push. Someday, he'll use that logic to do something more than party his ass off.

He couldn't do that right now, so instead of doing, he was in bed and finding that the recommended dosage of his pills wasn't exactly getting the job done. The dose that gets the job done gets him absolutely lit.

Ring ring.

KiaraIt's a Friday night and for once, the Verbena is minus any inclination to head out into the night. Rather, at this hour, she's curled up on her sofa with a thin blanket drawn over her legs; chin resting on a palm, watching TV. There's a steaming cup of something in the brunette's other hand where it rests against her knee and when her phone lights up and trills --

She reaches over to set it down; flicks her thumb over the screen and with a brief, twitching smile lifts it to her ear.

"Elijah, what's up?"

Elijah"-eeeeaaaaraaaaaaa-oh!" he raises his brows, sits up a little and makes a little whimper voice because he realized if he laughs too hard his stomach still hurts and his ribs aren't feeling too great but they're on the mend. "Hi."

No words there. He looks up at the ceiling where he's got stars stuck to the ceiling like he's twelve and mapping constellations and he has most assuredly mapped them correctly. He knew he had to, knew that it was important. He sounds fuzzy and pleased, oh heavenly pleased. So happy, like he radiates it.

"I had a car accident a few days ago."

KiaraHer eyebrows knit together, a hand reaching for the remote to mute the TV as she shifts the phone against her ear and straightens; back against the sofa. I had a car accident a few days ago and he can hear her startled breath; feel the confusion and the concern as she punctuates the exhale with a "Jesus" and then:

"Are you okay? Was anyone hurt? Where are you now? Are you - " A beat. "Elijah, are you high right now?"

She'd spent too many nights in clubs not to read the signs; even across a phone connection.

Elijah"Someone told me a rolled the car," he says, starts, and his voice dips into concern, "Ari and me- Ari and I? Me?"

There's this moment where his voice lilts and he tries, she can tell he's trying, like he's forgotten how English works and he's focusing really hard on his grammar but he just wants to ditch his English entirely but then Kiara won't talk to him and that would be horrible because he called her.

Are you high right now?
"I took a lot of oxycodone. They don't give you nearly as much as you need by the way."

A beat again.

"What question do I answer?" like a confused second grader.


KiaraThere's a pause and it could be construed as so many things. Concern, bewilderment, anger. Worry. It's difficult to deduce without the prompts of physical presence and the ability to glimpse someone's face what a silence could translate to.

He rolled the car. With Arionna. "You and Arionna were in an accident." She says eventually, parroting it back to him in slow, steady phrasing. "Are you still in hospital? Do you need me to come patch you up?"

Another pause; he can hear the rustling of her movement. Clothes against her skin. "You weren't being pursued or anything, were you?" More questions, it won't help Elijah to focus, the peppering of them.

Elijah"Kalen brought me home," he told her, "I got stitches and I broke that little-" she can hear him probably attempting to draw something in the air so it would make sense, completely oblivious to the fact that Kiara is completely incapable of seeing him. She then hears a clunk and a thump and a little merde! And then him scrambling to pick up his phone, "you know the ribs you have that are kinda hanging out there? I broke one of those, and another one but I forget which one it is."

He gingerly settles back in bed. She's getting dressed, "I'm mostly just vain. I got stitches and I think I'm gonna get a scar on my diaphragm." Which bothers him. the scar and the word diaphragm. It trips him up, that much is for sure.

"We were alone, I just blew a tire on a curve and I was stupid." Like it's an apology, like he's trying to convince her not to worry, that oh don't worry, I did something stupid. I do this all the time. Which stung a little. :You can get naked again if you were naked. Or just stop wearing pants... that sounded like pants."

Kiara"One of your false ribs. Or - maybe a vertebral rib. Floating rib." She offers easily, Kiara, as if the reference he was trying to make made total sense to her. And in all likelihood, it probably did. She reaches for her tea and takes a sip from it while he informs her that he's just vain and will have a scar and there's a huff of laughter from her at that.

The quiet clunk of her cup being set back down on the side table. "I hope that wasn't your best phone sex opening, kid," Her voice is warmer, now. The fact he's clearly not in any sudden and great peril has settled the edge of anxiety in her voice. That and perhaps, the knowledge Kalen had seen him and brought him home and if there had been an emergency, she was fairly certain the alarm would have been raised by the Hermatic.

"My night hasn't been that exciting unfortunately, my pants never came off. I'm hoping to rally before midnight, though." Wry, that.

"So I'm guessing a car crash put the damper on your date?"

Elijah"I am fantastic at phone sex, thank you very much," he says, almost indignant- oh darling, but he isn't. He laughs and it's little, restrained because he knows that laughing hurts. "And I will probably trade favors for my vanity. I'd play harp for you if you fixed iiiiiit. I promise I don't need a permanent reminder to pay attention to road signs."

She can hear him scoff, lay back on the table and he looks back at the ceiling. "Ari hasn't seen the chantry, right? So I was like Oh, I should introduce her to the people who run the place because they seem really cool. Because, you know, she needs to be involved. So, people!"

Kiara"I can't believe you play the harp." There's the suggestion of movement again, on Kiara's side. She's cast the blanket aside in favor of padding into her kitchen; rinsing her cup out; Elijah can hear the facet running; the muted clinking of dishes in the background.

"You can save your musical stylings for the ladies, though. I don't mind fixing it. If you're sure you don't want the scar. It could make for impressive dinner party conversations," she finishes; turning to lean against her counter with a hip pressed into it; wiping her hands on a dishtowel and cradling her phone between her shoulder and cheek.

"Annie is pretty chill. I don't know her sisters as well as I do her but they're good people." A beat. "So, you're going to take Arionna out there, huh?" Kiara makes a quiet noise. "That should make for an interesting evening." Quieter. "How's she doing with the whole lack of vision thing?"

Elijah"And the piano," he clarified, "but I got tired of the piano because I'm never gonna be as good as an eleven year old with a Tiger mom." He takes a second to muse over it, "I kinda want a piano again, though… but I'm taking harp for non-majors and piano for non majors and kinda wanting to see what it takes to be a harp major. Like, I could get a dual degree in french and harp and be, like, the most uselessly unemployable millennial ever. Achievement."

He listens to what she's saying, "I was going to sing to your voicemail, too. I might still do that."

Elijah mused, pursed his lips and it was a little quiet, a little concerned because he could wear concern openly. He was quite an emotional creature to say the least. "I think she's okay, but… I think it's hard on her, finding new things she can't do."

Kiara"I don't know Arionna well enough to say but - brief encounters would lead me to agree with that." She sounds, if not easily sympathetic, to some degree willing to attempt understanding. There was a fundamental fracture between the way she saw and Arionna saw (literally and in other ways) the world. The way they opened themselves to magic was worlds apart and yet - there was a core likeness, buried deep.

A drive to discover and understand.

"It's harsh." She'd said as much to Ian, the night she'd first learned of what had become of the Orphan. "But maybe that's what she needs to push past her own limitations. God only knows we all have something." The Verbena's tone lightens.

"You can sing into my voicemail any time you like. Though I may just hold the right to set it as my ringtone over you for the next twenty years." The warmth fades a little as she adds, after a beat. "Elijah? I'm glad you guys are okay. You being dead would be sort of a drag."

ElijahHe liked her. Perhaps in a romantic sense, perhaps not. Perhaps Elijah enjoyed most people in a sense that he may enjoy some sort of physical communion with them, might try and engage in some sort of emotional connection because he doesn't believe in the separation of self and other.  "I hope it is as big as she hopes it is. I want her to be happy, and she's so committed to being unhappy. And that must feel awful, and be exhausting."

He does listen to Kiara though, listens to talk of limitations and he starts to space out for a moment. the world spins, there's the edges of euphoria tingling there that will come down with a crash when he wakes up at five in the morning because things hurt again and maybe, for a second, he'll just sit with it and revel in the fact that he was still here. He's seen pictures of the car but he hasn't internalized it.

Her tone lightens, and she can feel something pull him back.

"It's okay, you can keep it. You would be the first person I've sung to on the phone, I don't even sing to Ian. Which I think he's probably pretty glad for," punctuated with a nod.

"Being dead isn't so bad," he tells Kiara, though it's gentle. Like an assurance, "it's hard for other people, but usually you don't stick around. Sometimes it's awful, but mostly people move on. As above, so below, and people move on."

Kiara"If you hung around, I'd reach across and slap you." That, the light retort to his assurance that usually spirits don't stick around, that being dead isn't so bad. It's on her tip of her tongue to add something more to it, his statement; his beliefs but she doesn't.

Perhaps it doesn't feel like the moment, with him addled by the drugs in his system.

He mentions that he doesn't even sing to Ian and what a blessing he likely considers that and there's a huff of laughter breathed out against the receiver; the sound of Kiara moving again; the rustle as she re-situates herself on her sofa.

"That might depend on a few things, like if you're any good at singing. You can call back and leave a message and I'll text you a score out of ten if you like."

Elijah"Aw, yay, thank you," he says, a tiny assurance.

She resituates and he nods along, and there is the sound of him sitting up- a lot slower. A little whoa sound because the world was moving not quite at the pace that he was and it was so freaking fantastic and he could feel his cheeks get warm.

"Kiara-Kiara-Kiara hang up, you can be my own Simon Cowell. You can even do the dismissive bemused British voice, I promise I won't get butthurt."

A beat.

"PromisehangingupnowI'mgonnasingtoyou."

Kiara"You're suggesting I become Simon Cowell?"

There's a trace of wry amusement back again in the brunette's voice; she makes a derisive noise. "I'm hanging up on you purely for making that suggestion."

A beat, he can hear the way she's smiling, envision the way it tips her supple mouth into something inviting; the edge of a dimple depressing each cheek; the ever present gleam to Kiara's eyes that toyed with the notion she was inwardly amused by some aspect of the goings on. She stretches and reclines herself along her sofa; rests her head on a hand and lifts the speaker to her mouth.

"Okay, impress me."

There's a click. She'd disconnected the call and stared down at the phone for a beat; expression twisting somewhere shy of bemused. When (if) he calls back, she lets it go through to her voicemail; lets her voice greet him; some pre-recorded version of Kiara Woolfe.

Hi, you've reached Kiara Woolfe. If you're calling to arrange a consultation, please leave your details after the beep.

BEEP.

It was his time to shine, for the tiny measure of seconds her voicemail allowed.

Elijah[OMG I AM ON STAGE (thank god I am medicated as fuck and really trying)]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 5 ) [WP]

Elijah
He is listening to her message and it's making his heart beat and the only thing his nerves are telling him to do is think of something and he doesn't… panic. He just kind of looks around the room. And it is only kind of looking because the lights were dim so he could look at his false constellations in the room. He's standing up, he's meandering, glad in a pair of athletic pants and a v-neck shirt that has, thankfully, the common decency to be a dark color so in the event that anything that he's bandaged up starts leaking (and that was a gross thought. He didn't like the idea that some part of him could be retaining particularly unpleasant fluid things. He did not envy Kalen. He is halfway expecting him to bow out in a couple of days and say we are fucking fixing this, your continued care is really stressful. And not in a cruel way, in that strange detached Kalen Holliday way wherein he muses over something and nonchalantly comes up with a solution to it. Or not. Eh. He might shrug and go back to his book, then.)

He's got his phone in one hand and a turquoise juice cup in the other.

"She had hair the color of an ugly bridesmaid's dress

and eyes like the earth beneath my back

She sat up as the sprinklers struck shameless then slick

Walked away, walked away, walked away.

You wait for the moment that you will feel different

you wait for the moment that you don't feel the same

You wait for the moment that you will feel different.

I waited for that moment, but that moment never came.

And so I waited by your porch swing,

Waited, watched the entry window hoping

You would come about but it was always just the same.

And I just walked away, walked away, walked away.

I waited for the moment hoping that you would feel different

I waited for the moment thinking "Things are not the same"

I waited for the moment hoping that you would feel different.

I just keep waiting for moments, but those moments never came."

He's fucking around while he's singing this. And his heart is in it, it's there and there is something personal, something aching, something offered up to whomever might listen that they would hear it and tread softly lest they tread upon his dreams but these aren't dreams. These are real. His voice is clear, he has a tone quality that is neither brassy nor brash. Not breathy or breathless despite the fact that he is breathless. Despite the fact that halfway through he has to put a hand on the counter and feels like his head is swimming because he has stitches in his fucking diaphragm and it's really hard to have any sense of breath control when your primary muscle for regulating that is just a liiiiiiittle torn. He finally gets through a phrase, and she can hear him opening the fridge at the line about the porch swing. Can hear him pouring some kind of something into a glass and then him carefully rummaging through cabinets for-

"And then I got lost inside the warehouse

and I couldn't find the whiskey

and I'm pretty sure my mentor knows me better than I think

Because I had half a bottle and I'm taking fucking pain pills

And these things do not mix as well as I think, as I think

And I think that perhaps I'll just deal for now, but for now

Fucking Kaleeeeen mooooved my vodka

Or maybe Grace hid the tequila-" he's actually belting at this point, like it's a hardcore ballad, like he's laid himself bare and he's standing at the edge of something big.

"And I can't think straight but I'm thinking of you

About you

And I wish I'd kept my bottles, and I wish I had thought better

but tonight I can't keep drinking about you."

Kiara
She'd opened a bottle of wine between hanging up on him and his return call going through to voicemail. Her phone vibrates across the sofa and then stills and Kiara; casting it a briefly amused look; had unearthed a clean glass and cranked the top open on a bottle of Merlot.

She's standing in the kitchen; one bare foot tucked against the heel of the other for a few moments after her phone grows still; the screen darkens. Stands there taking a deeper swallow of the wine than was polite (but who was there to keep watch these days, anyway and there's a second bedroom standing empty and dim that she's told nobody but Ian about). Perhaps she's doing it deliberately, letting Elijah sweat about his performance; about Kiara's thoughts on his offering.

Perhaps the conversation and the underlining unspokens to it; that he's injured; that he could have died; that Arionna could have; that it would have been another two people she knew dead before she'd even had the capacity or awareness to try and fix it.

Elijah wants superficial, scar fading healing from her and she stares down at her phone when she does move to collect it; gleans her own reflection in the screen; all that dark hair; those briefly haunted eyes before she taps into her messages and lets it play; settles back with one hand around that wine glass; half raised to her mouth; expression drawn in; somber before -

Kaleeeeen mooooved my vodka

Her lips compress and she turns her face; laughing; a resigned; affectionate hiss. Sets the glass down and taps out a message:

Eat your heart out, Simon Cowell. -K.

Then, a moment later:

Stay away from the tequila. -K.

ElijahHe stops his searching for something harder to go into his system because for the first time in awhile his body hurts and it actually reminds him of something. That he is mortal, that he is not indestructible, and it's the first time it's been proven to him in a fashion that wasn't of his own volition. He takes the glass of orange juice and takes a drink.

It's just orange juice.

As it turns out, he kinda likes just orange juice.

Kiara gets a picture soon enough. He's giving a thumbs up but he's a bit (a lot) bruised up. He's lucky he didn't break his nose. He's lucky that the gash on the side of his forehead only needed butterfly bandaids and not stitches. They're healing, but things that are healing don't always look the best. But, he has orange juice.

First Solo Glass of OJ since 2011

KiaraHe gets a picture in return. It may well prove to be the first (and who knew, only) image of Kiara that's ever saved to it. She's seated on her sofa; a dark purple affair; the wall behind her bare but for the edges of a picture framing it; a potted fern to her right; there's the tinges of artificial blue light hitting the Verbena's face on one side; the flash from the camera; her TV set beyond the scope of the shot, who knew.

She looks relaxed, smiling into the shot with a thumb lifted in response. Her dark hair loose around her shoulders; a hoodie half zipped. It's the glimpse of Kiara beneath the glamor she adorns like her own personal armor against the world. No make up, no adornments; just her face and her smile and the hints of that same gleaming stare she often dealt out.

There's a caption that comes after it.

Good boy. You've earned yourself a healing. Next time we'll take care of the scars. Sleep tight, kid. -K.

nature in motion. [sam]

Kiara

[I just want to roll my new shiny stats. Awareness.]

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

Kiara

The gallery in question was hardly the most impressive of the selection on offer for Santa Fe.

Packed into what felt like free space between an overflowing café and a tattoo parlor with an impressive selection of blazing skulls and fiery hearts (dedicated to anyone for a low price but altered for the slightly more impressive price-tag as all regretted body art seemed to go for) hanging in its window, it was a narrow opening in the sidewalk that sprawled back from the street; the interior riddled with exposed piping and low hanging lights; casting bright contrast against the prints on the walls.

The exhibition was a celebration of movement in nature; there were sculptures and large, looming canvases with broad, aggressive brushstrokes; flurries of color and texture; lush, verdant landscapes and dark, moody captures of woods; storms over a savannah somewhere far, far away. A stand was set up by the door; a replica of that you'd rather more expect to greet you before setting foot inside some farmer's remote barn; old, polished wood that slid across to offer access; programs for the evening's event printed on glossy paper with informative blurbs about each piece.

There was an impressive turn out; enough bodies to make milling around any one artwork complicated; a myriad of dresscodes and lifestyles on display and housed back from much of it toward the far wall where she was scrutinizing what, on surface view, seemed like nothing more than frantic sweeps of a brush in blacks and bold, dramatic crimson - stood Kiara. There was a wineglass wrapped in one of her hands; her fingers painted a red a few shades darker than that of the canvas in front of her and her mouth colored to match.

Dark waves of hair were plied on top of her head and the effect was; in conjunction with the black cocktail dress unearthed for the occasion; quite striking.

SamSomeone at the back of the gallery has bolstered his thoughts against intrusion.

With so many bodies in the room and so many auras and thoughts and humming notes of conversation it would be easy enough to lose track of a friend with whom she had arrived. But the Verbena is learning to expand her consciousness and open herself to the world around her. She is a quick study.

Plenty of other people may forget the young man as soon as he steps back out of the gallery again but Kiara is not so easily swayed. She does not overlook him. Not when his presence is a piercing thing like a needle or a knowing gaze.

At the back of the gallery he is in conversation with another young man.

The Sleeper is dressed in black slacks and a burgundy turtleneck underneath a blazer. He's holding a bottle of beer in one hand. He is relaxed and animated and just killing time before some transaction or another occurs. He looks as if he belongs here.

His companion though. The one who has Worked to keep his mind secure. Nothing about him is relaxed. He stands at average height for an American male and has skin the color of good earth and wears his black hair in a knot at the nape of his neck. He's somewhere in his early twenties and is dressed as if he just stumbled out of a college exhibit opening and into this higher-end one. Like someone let him in through a side door. Gray jeans and a white t-shirt and a black leather jacket with a fucking red handkerchief shoved into a back pocket. Nothing elegant about him. He keeps his back to the wall and he holds nothing in his hands and he keeps nodding to whatever it is the Sleeper is saying but it's hard to tell if he's listening.

A new arrival. Excellent. He won't see her coming.

KiaraThat's the thing about the Verbena. A woman like Kiara in and of herself was difficult to overlook; not simply for physical reasons (though she was, by many standards, a beautiful woman) but due to the way she held herself; there was a self possession and confidence to her person that enticed the eye; drew lingering, perhaps admiring glances. Still, there were those who knew her (or of her) in the city who would suggest (not entirely without accuracy) she rather enjoyed it.

The idea of attention; eyes on her form as she strolled the gallery in black pumps. There's a jewel around her neck; cinched with a silver chain that gleams with the movement; at the right vantage point it becomes apparent it's some sort of impressive stone; a ruby; judging by the hue.

She pauses to sample a tray of delicate looking appetizers doing the rounds and at some point between sipping from her wineglass and letting her gaze skim across those gathered - she finds him. The source of that sensation prickling under her skin; like that of a knife's point; pressing in against her. Kiara's eyes settle there for a beat; on Sam; on his Sleeper companion and her attention feels - weighted; for a moment. As if he were being turned over and scrutinized as intently as the works of art hanging on the walls around them.

She does approach but it's indirect; a slow; almost predatory circuit of the gallery; slipping amongst the gathered like the proverbial (but so fitting) wolf amongst the sheep before she's apparent, there, standing in front of a small canvas with her eyes roving the scope and shape of a dark, atmospheric depiction of a storm lashing a tiny farm; horses drawn in reared up; nickering panic.

He won't see her coming.

He might, at some point, feel her. Not a piercing thing but a rush; like breaking the surface of the water; the brunette feels like a subtle, thrumming energy. One that, after a pause; sets her eyes on him and smiles over the rim of her glass of wine.

SamBravery comes in different forms. Sometimes a person has to be brave to even step foot outside of his house. Has to stay brave to talk to a bus driver or a cashier. To breathe in and out and stay in the present moment when he looks as if the present moment terrifies him.

Hard to tell from watching someone if he is brave or anxious or hopped up on enough pharmaceuticals to keep a blossoming rock and roll band awake for an entire weekend. Kiara does watch. As she watches the young man removes the handkerchief from his pocket and reverses the fold quick before putting it back. It seems like a thoughtless gesture. The Sleeper does not notice it.

His hands remain in the pockets of his jacket afterwards. Even as that push hits him. She can see when he registers her presence. He inhales deep and a faint stitch pulls between his brows. If he is nervous in such a social setting it has nothing to do with his physical appearance. Ill-dressed or no he is an striking young man.

Low murmuring as they bid each other farewell and slap palms to seal it. The Sleeper holds up his fist to pound with his and after a pause to register what the hell he's supposed to do the young willworker laughs an uneasy laugh and taps his own fist to the other man's.

"Take it easy," says the Sleeper as he slips his free hand into his pocket and walks away.

A held-breath exhale and he turns away from the exchange in time to catch Kiara's eye. A subtler inhale this time. Whoa say his eyes though the rest of his face remains placid. They tick off to one side like she could be smiling at someone else. He's got the immediate space just about to himself now.

Okay. She's not. Shit.

Now he glances around and finds her eyes like to confer from a distance who is going to approach who. His would be so much easier with a drink in his hand.

KiaraHer smile widens a little at the way he checks around himself as if to ask the immediate space around him (empty now his friend has drifted away) if she was in fact, smiling in his direction.

She is; his eyes betray momentary surprise but he seems, overall, rather contained about the realization. The brunette apparently has decided its on her to make the initial approach and she does; Kiara; after a protracted moment where her eyes flit away to gauge the crowds and then return to Sam. Does drift over with what must be to some extent practiced ease.

One would not imagine on the surface they were warily sizing one another up. For all the fact the Verbena's mouth is tipped in a subtle expression of mirth, there's an certain awareness to how she holds herself; even the way she keeps that glass held in front of her body; that speaks to polite caution.

"Is this your favorite?"

She tips her head toward the canvas across from him; it's another abstract; something with slashes of bright orange, earthy browns and white; zig-zagging across a frame half the size of the wall with splashes of green thrown in to signify some facet of nature's changeability; or so its artist would have the world believe. The brunette adopts a casual stance a little nearer than was quite comfortable for strangers and makes a convincing display of admiring it.

"I've always had the impression half of art is a mistake and the other a lucky coincidence." Her mouth strikes a sharper smile; eyes canting to him. "What do you think?"

SamReally what they look like is one young person alone finding the only other young person alone in the room and deciding they may as well be alone together for a time. A sea of turtlenecks and pencil skirts swirls behind the Verbena. He glances over her shoulder once just to assure himself it's still there and then she's beside him.

As if for the first time he looks at the painting. His eyes are brown and keen and do nothing to bely the intelligence he carries with him. They move across the canvas as if reading script scrawled in a language he does not speak and as it registers that she is standing rather inside his personal space the young man takes another deep breath.

He does not step away from her. He puts his hands in his pockets and accepts it.

When he speaks it is with an accent difficult to identify. He must have moved around quite a bit not just in this country but abroad. Plenty of people in Denver are nomads. Mountains are logical places to hide.

"I always thought you needed a combination of imagination and technical skill," he says. Canadian. That's the easiest guess for where he's from. After a beat he meets her canting gaze and goes on, "But I don't know shit about art."

KiaraShe doesn't make any moves to invade his space further; though at this close proximity to her he can smell the traces of wine in her glass; the perfume on her skin and beneath it something vaguely aromatic. It's like a near extinguished hint of incense; as if her clothing had been hanging somewhere infused with it.

Or perhaps that was just her.

"Maybe you need a little of all of them," she offers back with a smile staining her words; her accent bleeds that of a city upbringing; the wealthy Inner West Side Manhattanite; a child of private schools and trust fund parents. There's a frankness too, that speaks of it. A certain way she doesn't hold back from pressing, just so, against the boundaries of impropriety; stepping over the mark.

He doesn't know shit about art, she makes a noise; a quiet, sub-vocal hm and takes another sip from her wineglass; turns to face him now; her eyes bright; perhaps a little playful. "Ignorance isn't the worst sin, refusing to adapt or learn on the other hand - " She twists that glass a little; eyes skipping over his features.

A hand is offered; it's long fingered; the wrist deceivingly fine boned. "I'm Kiara. Woolfe." A flash of white teeth; she flicks dark bangs from her eyes; the lashes that adorn them are thick; her eyes painted in as dramatic a fashion as her mouth in black. "And you're - new."

Not a question and she doesn't pose it as such, but rather measures him before turning her attention to the gallery; the art work in front of them.

SamLike plenty of others with youthful features persisting into adulthood he appears harmless enough as she considers him in profile. His eyes return to the canvas as if it's going to change on him and then she's offering her hand. It's a necessary next step in making another person's acquaintance but she startles him out of thought.

Must be the wisdom she just dropped on him.

This isn't his first time out in public ever in his life. As long as she has had her eyes open and as many other Awakened as she has met in her life this one is not the jumpiest. A little overstimulated maybe but with even everything to take in the stimuli does not present a threat. A beautiful woman coming over to talk to him could be a trap but once he realizes her intention something melts out of his shoulders. Some tension that had threatened to set itself into his bones.

Now he's looking at her face instead of at the painting. His smile in response to hers is slow like he is not used to wearing the expression and then it's quick to fall away again.

He takes her hand. She can feel the anxiety humming through him. Jangling electricity where sweat or coolness would be in a normal person.

"I... yeah. I am." A huff of laughter and he gives her back her hand. "To town, anyway. Are you... do you know the artist, or..."

KiaraHer hand is warm around his where she takes it; fingers curl around his palm for a beat and her eyes drop to it; their linked hands; as if in consideration for that edge of electricity sparking. She doesn't linger on in some teasing pretense; though she does return his smile after a beat with a little curl of her lip; a subtle; sure sign she's pleased with his agreement to meet her half way and acknowledge the handshake.

"Not really," she offers idly, pausing as a cluster of viewers move past; swallowing around a mouthful of alcohol and waiting a beat before continuing as if weighing the certainty of them being out of earshot. "I guess you could say the subject matter appealed to me." Nature in motion, indeed. She slides him another look, this one perhaps a little furtive; a thin eyebrow winging upward in silent commentary before she continues, flicks a wrist out dismissively.

"I tend to find too many of these events depress me. Less artistry and more - society types mingling for the benefit of being seen. Still," a beat, she hooks another little suggestive smile. "Sometimes they're worth it just for who shows up.

Have you met anyone else, yet or am I lucky number one?"

SamNow: she had been watching him while he spoke to the Sleeper and while one could deduce from their interaction that the two were friends the entire affair had more of a businesslike tone to it than one tends to witness in those who are comfortable around each other.

Though she offered her name first he has not yet returned the favor. Already though he is paying her more mind than he had paid the Sleeper. Attending to what it is she's saying and not just nodding along and making noncommittal noises in the hopes he is passing himself off as an active listener.

He could say the subject matter appealed to her. That single eyebrow is met with a suspended expression for a second and then the subtext dawns on him. She can see it spread across his features as the sun would in the morning. Ohhh he does not say.

Her suggestive smile meets a shy one as they pass between the two Awakened. The nameless man lifts his eyebrows at her question and then swallows as if his throat is drying up on him. Something about the question itself has him laughing a small laugh in prelude and rubbing the back of his neck with the name further from her.

"I don't, uh..." He clears his throat and puts his hand back in his jacket pocket. "I don't believe in luck. Spiritual cause, sure, I can get behind a spiritual cause for, ah, things that seem like they happen at random. One is lucky, in number theory, but you're... ah... the second. So far." A brief tick to check her facial expression. "And two is a magic number, so..."

Sam[... that should be "with the hand further from her," not the whatever the hell I actually typed in the second-to-last paragraph.]

KiaraTwo is a magic number, he says and the Pagan's eyes tick back to his face with sudden; sharp focus. There's something just this side of uncomfortable, the way Kiara does that. The way her expression can shift in tiny, nuances from open, friendly banter to abrupt, total concentration. Her dark eyes feel like a brand for the moment she makes a focus of his words; his smile; that nervous hitch to his voice.

It belies a sort of social uncertainty that Kiara doesn't possess herself but there are other ways to which she doesn't quite fit, here. She's too detached; too coolly unperturbed by the surroundings and the artwork and the vibe. She feels like a layer of something applied but not quite adhered; an artificial decoration; as much an interloper in many ways, as he was.

"I'd counter that three was, but that's just me." She considers him for a moment, then: "Did number one attach a name?" Beat. "And what's yours?" She holds her wine glass aloft; closer to that glittering stone set against her throat; the cut of it striking where it lay against her skin.

She's smiling again, but there's that lingering sense that she's pressing into his personal space once more; verbally this time, rather than physically. "Unless you'd prefer I not know."

SamThat searing turn her gaze takes does not startle him the way her initial interest and the ensuing handshake had. Maybe this is what he's more used to when he's dealing with other willworkers in the meatspace. A sense of circling each other.

Witches and technomancers have not had much luck in dealing with each other throughout history.

For all she knows he could talk for an hour on the significance of the number three. If the chance presents itself he does not take it. They've moved onto names.

Give him this much credit: he maintains eye contact so much as she will allow him to. A certain slash of light across her jewelry or a minuscule change in the musculature around her eyes and mouth will drag it away but he can center himself quick enough.

"I, ah..." Heh. "I don't... that's not a preference, that I would..." Shit, dude. Try that one again. He offers her his hand as if they didn't already perform that particular ritual. "Sam. Samir. Whichever one that you'd..."

Whether or not she takes his hand some internal sensor warns him that he's about to reach critical mass. Sam frowns a self-depreciating frown and indicates the door with his thumb.

"You wanna go for a walk? Get some air, or..." Strange man. Woman he just met. He shows the palm of that gesturing hand when he realizes a second later how that offer might present itself. "I mean if you want to stay here, that's... there's no pressure, I just... there's not as many people. Outside."

Social interaction. Nailing it.

Kiara

Her eyes tick down to the proffered hand; there's a spark of amusement in her eyes but it's not a cruelty; the way she looks at it; back to him. Rather the look of someone in the process of assessing and comprehending a puzzle presented to them. The pieces before her but the overall impression - uncertain.

"Samir, Sam. It's a pleasure to meet you."

There's something a little perfunctory to that, at least.

As if the effort to play at social graces grated at the Verbena (and given her earlier commentary, perhaps it did). "Sure, let's ditch." She tilts her head; beckoning him to follow with a universal sort of this way gesture and sets her wineglass on an offered tray en route; there's a collection of jackets hung from wooden pegs near the door and Kiara collects one as she passes; wrapping it around herself and turning to wait for her newly designated companion for the evening before sliding out into the Santa Fe street-side.

It's cooler, as soon as they're freed of the press of bodies and harsh lighting; pedestrian traffic weaving around them like water navigating a pathway around a stone.

"Better?" She asks softly, mouth quirking. "So other than art exhibitions, what brings you to the fair city of Denver?"

It's cooler and just so soon as they've breached the threshold the sound of strangers' conversations and the press of their energy dies away. A closed door swallows it up and distance digests it. Samir puts both hands into his jacket pockets and sighs as if he had been holding his breath this entire time.

Sam

 

Better?

No change comes over him. Blame it on the environment. Too much noise and too much for him to attend to maybe. Nothing about him would have stricken Kiara as suggesting an individual comfortable with any sort of social interaction but he does relax a bit to have the night air around him and not a horde of people he can feel but for whom he feels nothing.

He doesn't give her a proper verbal answer but he does meet her gaze and smile a shy smile in response. Yes. Better.

What brings him to Denver.

"I think it was a Boeing 737." He pauses for effect and laughs that nervous laugh of his whether or not she finds that funny. "No, ah... I actually... don't know. I don't have an  answer ready. Are you from here, originally, or...?"

 

Kiara

He thinks it was a Boeing 737.

The brunette's eyebrows wing upward, a smile teasing the corner of her mouth. "Behold, a sense of humor emerges. We're making progress." She tucks her coat around her body, inclining it so they drift easily out of the direct stream of traffic meandering their way along; the neon glow from the tattoo parlor pressed in beside the gallery casts the Verbena in stark white and red; painting her some disarming canvas all her own as the colors dance and warp cross her features; it speaks of what she may just be beneath the flesh and bone. Some physical manifestation of nature and its capacity to change and alter to suit its location.

It's something in the wildness to the woman beside him; the near reckless way she weaves between milling strangers until they've found a pocket just shy of the parlor; a tiny alleyway arrowing down into inky uncertainty behind them. There are trashcans overflowing by a door; scents heavy on the air; they're facing down the kitchens of various restaurants. Kiara gives Sam a glimpse of her profile for a moment as she ties the sash on her coat; draws it tight and cinches it around a narrow waist.

His question about whether or not she's native to the city doesn't instantly pull a response from her and the silence may speak volumes. The eventual return of her eyes to his face; a relaxation of her stance; hands journeying to pockets brings his answer; Kiara's chin lifting just so. "Originally, no. I'm a New Yorker at heart but - circumstances made it impossible to stay there."

She doesn't expand on what those circumstances were but Sam can likely deduce by the way she shifts her eyes from his face and narrows her attention out beyond him for a moment what they could have been.

"So," dark eyes tick back, "here I am."

 

Sam

 

At the teasing the young man flicks his eyebrows just as thoughtless as he would flick the ash from the end of a cigarette. No small amount of self-depreciation in it. He knows he acts like a crazy person when he's out in public. That's why he avoids it if he can.

This darkness though seems to call to him more than the bright white lighting of the gallery. Like he could just as easily step out of this world and into some grittier future where everything is metal and fiber optics and cyberware and fit right in. Leather doesn't just lend his lanky build an edgy appearance. It helps in the event of a knife fight or an unexpected exit from a moving vehicle.

Again: why he avoids going out in public if he can.

Walking the streets after dark with a wild woman doesn't have Sam dissolving into schoolboy self-consciousness. He can breathe easier out here even if the breaths bring with them the smell of hot garbage or cigarette smoke. He doesn't feel compelled to manipulate his surroundings so much when he's moving.

His gaze is softer on her profile than the hue of his Work would suggest he's capable of gazing at a person. He worries his lower lip as she stares off into the distance like she can still see New York there.

"There's worse places to be. I hear mountain air's supposed to be good for you. ... well, okay, I heard that about tuberculosis, that they used to send patients off to sanatariums, and a lot of sanatarium patients, you know, died. And we have antibiotics now." Jesus Christ, Samir. "But there's more outdoors... green... type stuff here than there is in New York. Right? And fresh air? That's... nature. I've never been to New York. Is it..." He clears his throat. "Do you like it here, so far?"

 

Kiara

 

Kiara is looking at his face (and looking at his face in that deeper way that only the aware could really muster) as if she's scanning for some indication of what his make up were; as if she were a heartbeat away from invoking her own working to peel away the layers and feel around within his pattern, find the edges and surety of it. There's a smile that grows in substance the longer he talks of disease and sanitariums and nature; the presence of it being good; for her; for them, it stretches across lips painted a glossy, brassy red and the color of it seems almost a dare itself.

She smiles easily, this woman. Though they are contained and not always easily deciphered things. Sharp little edged smiles; broader, brighter smiles; the curl of a lip; subtle, suggestive things that offered contemplation as easily as words did. Her shoulders lift as she shrugs; both at once in a fluid movement. "Depends on where in New York you are. And, a little, on how you define nature. On a fundamental scale, she's everywhere."

There's the faintest stir of wind around them as if in response to the Verbena's decree; it sends a can rolling along the alleyway; sets an awning half drawn down from them snapping and tugging at the ropes binding it to the ground out front of a restaurant; whines and rattles screen doors and windows. The Pagan's expression shifts; her attention straying outward again to a couple walking by them; tugging their jackets closer to their bodies. "But - yes. I like it here just fine. I wasn't sure I'd stay at first, but - " Kiara's tongue runs along her teeth, she draws a hand from a pocket to tender back strands of hair from her eyes.

"There's some compelling reasons to stick around, I've discovered." Her fingers slip back into the folds of her jacket; re-emerge with a bundle of cards; they're glossy little white squares with green leaves decorating the corner. Tiny black printing identifies them as business cards of some order. The brunette slips one free and holds it out to Sam.

It's hard to glimpse too much of what it says in the semi-darkness but it would appear to house an email address and cellphone number. It also identifies Kiara as a healer and qualified massage therapist. She taps the edge of it with a nail. "If you intend to stick around and need to meet the right people," her eyes gleam; dark and settled on his features, "I can probably arrange that. Get word out to - " a beat, she looks him over a touch more thoughtfully. "Whoever the right people are for you."

 

Sam

 

In a few weeks or months or whenever it is their paths cross again all Kiara is going to have to go by is the sharpness of his resonance to recognize him. Here now in this moment when she's looking at him in a way he comes to notice as he rambles on she can be sure of his realness. That he exists.

But Sam fades from Sleepers' memories so quickly. It isn't as if he never existed in the first place so much as he exists and people see him but they can never agree on what he looks like. Tracking him down is a difficult endeavor and calling upon the powers of bureaucracy and paper trails don't help.

So far as the government can tell he doesn't exist. So soon as they part from each other Kiara may not be able to distinguish him from any other tall-ish dark handsome man she's met recently. So Sam lets her look at him. If she were to Look at him he would have let her do that too.

And then that breeze picks up and it nudges at the physical world around them and his eyes bright in the dark leave her face to glance around them. One eyebrow lifted in curiosity but not suspicion. The ghost of a smile traipses across the corner of his mouth and escapes on his breath and then she wasn't sure she'd stay at first.

He takes the card when she hands it to him. Without looking at the sidewalk before them he continues on reading but not colliding with anything. Aware of his position in space without attending to it. His ilk are like that. He has never been to Denver before and he is sure he won't ever get lost here either.

"That would, ah..."

She's looking at him again. He looks back and taps the glossy little square against the palm of his opposite hand a couple times. His eyes flick down to it like to make sure it's still there. Really he's counting how many times he tapped the card and catching himself counting and corralling the compulsion to keep on doing both. Into his pocket goes the card.

"That would be great. I'll send you an email later."

 

Kiara

"You do that."

There's a measure of challenge to it, the way she offers it, the way she turns her body half away from him but keeps her eyes on him for a measured beat. Samir has the same talent that others in this city do, that one the brunette might call a friend had. The ability to be invisible in mind, if not by physical sight. To fade into the background of a moment, of a crowd. To be the face skirted over and unconsidered; forgotten. There's every chance that once they part ways tonight they might never meet again.

He wouldn't be the first such Kiara had met, only to hear after the fact had departed the city - or simply vanished without a trace.

It's there buried deep in the words she offers to him, the way she says them with a certain demand underlying them, an honest hope that she will, at some point, hear from him or at the very least that their chance encounter tonight isn't the sole occasion she glimpses his face in a crowd. "It's not so bad here." She offers as a secondary aside, a seemingly careless, idle afterthought; the cant of her eyes is away from him finally, out into the crowds milling past them, ignoring them as surely as if they were nothing but shadows and dust.

"If you're looking for a place to hang out for a while. It's not so bad." Kiara mouth curves into a brief, quick smile. "But don't take my word for that, stick around and find out."

She steps forward then and cuts him a parting look as if to steep the memory of his presence into her bones; to keep it present til the last moment in her eyes. Until she loses sight of him and it's the last glimpse he has of her - this wild woman with her presence like rejuvenating, eternal life, like the heartbeat of the city; the earth beneath it - the red lipped quicksilver grin thrown his way; her eyes gleaming; bright in the night.

"See you soon, Samir."

Another step and she's sliding into the crowd and he's left with no reminder of her save the card, pressed into his pocket.