don't think it's forever. [serafine]

Kiara

Kiara Woolfe lived in a nice apartment complex.

It wasn't outrageously showy but it was evidence enough with its marble foyer and neat row of resident mailboxes that 817 17th street observed inhabitants that enjoyed a comfortable lifestyle, if nothing else. There was a gated underground parking lot and the main elevator was styled to mimic those from another era; the interior of it lined with reflective panels and polished gold handrails, an arrow ticking up floors that announced each with a quiet chime as the doors rolled open on handsome, rose and cream colored corridors.

Each contained a row of dark doors with brass numbers screwed into place and a small end-table at the very furthermost point of the stretch of hallway. It stood before a window overlooking the winding artery of traffic below. A lamp set on it cast a muted golden spill of light over the length of the hall once the sun dwindled down.

The sun had long since set by the time Kiara returned tonight (or was it tomorrow, by the time the elevator doors slid open on the Verbena's slight frame?) and stepped out with a set of keys tucked into her palm and a heavy rucksack toted over one shoulder. She looked uncharacteristically casual, rumpled the way one might after a long car trip; her shirt creased; dark hair wound over one shoulder in a french braid that had seen neater hours before this one, strands escaping as the brunette shuffled out of the elevator and headed toward a door at the end of the fourth floor.

422, it declared itself with as little fanfare as the others in the hallway, save for the fact its owner was returning to it in the darkest hours, smelling like the open road and the pine-riddled stretches of wilderness outside of the city limits.

Serafine

422 with no more fanfare than the others in the hallway except that its owner is returning at some late hour, smelling of more-than-whiskey and smoke, more than the dry brilliance of the city-in-autumn; and - of course - except that there is a certain creature curled up on the floor of the corridor.

Fishnet-clad legs drawn up to her body, arms wound loosely around them, head back against the wall, eyes closed.  Breathing steadily, easily, either stoned or sleeping on perhaps both.  There's a dog curled around her too, resting its head on one of her booted feet.

The dog's awake, eyebrows twitch upward as the elevator sings its muted little notice that someone's home, this alertness knitting itself into its body, the long slow chain reaction of it.    If Kiara's neighbors could see her visitors, they might've been alarmed that a building this fine was being invaded by homeless gutterpunks, right?  That's what Sera looks like, in her Docs and her fishnets, cut-offs, the battered old leather jacket, nevermind the Prada sunglasses perched on the crown of her
head.

Kiara

She'd made the offer without really knowing if Serafine would take her up on it. Would even remember, find that little scribbled address later and remember why she had it stuffed in her bra in the first place, who gave it to her. It was sincere, though. That must have become apparent (or surfaces now, at the very least) as Kiara manifests down into an easy crouch in front of her.

Keys jingle, there's the soft rustle of fabric.

The wash of a familiar energy, notes of rejuvenation, of steady constancy (like a drumbeat). Sid stirs to her first and maybe the tail thumps too, picks up the scent of the brunette as she carefully sets her bag down beside her and reaches out to scritchscritch behind the ears, her eyes on Sera's still form.

"Hey."

It's a quiet little thing, that greeting. Dark eyes searching her face for a long pause. "Why don't you come inside?" She gives Sid another ear scratch and pushes to her feet, the key sliding into the lock a magnified noise after the relative quiet.

-

Lights are off inside when the door swings open but lamps have been left burning. It's a lived in space, this apartment. A tiny little hall that reveals itself to have a joint kitchen and dining area, bedrooms veining off right and left into polar corners, a bathroom tucked into one side. Smells like incense, a corner of the living area by the window has a little table set up on it; there's a jumble of things there (herbs and ornate crystals and what vaguely resembled a knife). Paintings on the walls, too. Big canvases, three of them with figures streaked in reds and blacks and whites, twisting and dancing all tangled together in some abstract orchestration so there's no sense of beginning (or end).
And plants. So many of them.

Two by the door, ferns with long, thin tendrils and a vase of wildflowers on the bench by a bottle of Merlot and two glasses. Another monstrosity of a houseplant with larger, broader fronds in a pot by the window. It overlooks the side of the building but there's a sliver of city, too. Lights flashing by, the intersection below; horns and faint rising reminders of the cityscape.

There's a sofa pressed back against a wall, a laptop left charging on a low coffeetable in front of it, a tiny light blinking on and off as it hibernates. Empty coffee cups and the stray piece of the Verbena's clothing, folded over a chair, left on the arm of the sofa.

Serafine

Sera couldn't've been asleep, she rouses so easily.  This sharp little burst of an inhale, all through her nose.  Eyes opening, pupils huge, so dilated that Kiara could certainly see her own reflection in the dark discs if she looked close.  Still, it is also somehow like surface: from a dream, from an ocean.  That momentary dis-orientation as she searches for some familiar horizon.  Oh, there.

Doesn't even need help up tonight, and she rises quite on-her-own into a long, slow, luxurious stretch that gives Sid the permission she needs to rise too, nails clicking on the polished floors, tail making these long, lazy sweeps.

"I think you're the first person who's spoken to me in thirty-six hours."  Sera says, wry, as she follows Kiara into the apartment and takes a slow circuit of the Verbena's living space.  Pausing in front of what appears to be the altar to take in the things laid out there.  The ritual of it.  Reminds her, for no good reason except that he also had: altars, rituals, an athame that she never saw him use, of Hawksley and that gives her a little twinge that makes her rub the bronze ring on her right index finger with the meat of her right thumb.

"Would've guessed you'd be living somewhere out in the country.  Like Katiana.  Ever meet her?"

Kiara

She's bending low to click on a lamp she'd forgotten to turn on hours ago, it bathes the brunette's features in soft, mellow light. The long thin nose, the dark eyelashes; that lovely, full mouth. It cants into this brief suggestion of a smile at Serafine's words, bag thumps down on the sofa, keys clatter onto a bowl. "My neighbors are mostly assholes so you weren't missing much in the way of stimulating conversation if any of them were around."

Because she has no idea precisely when Sera curled up there in her hallway.

There's a little sympathetic pang in her chest for that, a hint of it in Kiara's eyes as she makes her way around into the kitchen, opens cupboards. Clinks glasses. Allows Serafine (and Sid) a moment to explore, drink in their surroundings. The altar is - well, what it seems. A low table with a small cushion before it, a length of silk set across the width. Large crystals of varying color and kind and a ceremonial knife across the center. There's a mortar and pestle with the remnants of something ground inside it too, the air around the altar feels charged, somehow, Kiara's resonance lingers there the strongest.

She re-appears behind the bar, uncorking a bottle of wine.

"Katiana. I don't think so, what was she like?" She pours out a generous glass, makes the wordless offer of another, if Sera shows interest and carries them around into the living room, settling herself into an armchair; her feet curling up beneath her. "I like the city. For my work, more than anything. There's a lot of reasons for people to need healing in one, but - " She lifts a thin shoulder, sipping from her glass, reaching forward to set the stem down on the table. "I have to go out there sometimes. Back to the trees. The grass. I stay too long here," she gestures, her expression thoughtful. "I start to feel weaker. Like I'm missing part of myself."

She offers the last gently, and then: "How long? Do you think it'll be before - " She hesitates to say it, until the world stops ignoring you. Until Paradox has its fill.

Serafine

Makes some noise, Sera.  Acknowledgment or awareness.  Something low and physical, in-the-throat.  She lingers at the alter but does not touch it.  These are someone’s else’s ritual tools; someone else’s path;  someone else’s work.  This, she is acutely aware of and she feels it both as a connection and a dislocation, a separation, a distance.  How could she feel anything else right now?
Wry little smile.   The ecstasy gives her both a feeling of wellbeing and an awareness within that feeling and she is here and also separate, the euphoria, the intense sense of connectivity transliterates so strangely with her actual imposed isolation that she feels part of the walls, the streets, the buildings, the landscape more than the people inhabiting them.

“I didn’t really know her.”  After that walk-about – lingering at the altar – Sera returns to the couch and flops down in the embrace of the arm.  “First time I met her I was pretty fucked up.   She came to heal Pan when he was in the hospital.”  Still-quiet, distant but very present in her body.  “Picked me up at my house and she had this stuff in these mason jars that tasted like herbs and she gave me some and it made me feel better.  I really, really wanted to go in to the hospital with her but sometimes me and hospitals don’t mix, and she was pretty fucking – I dunno.  Cool about it.  Like aware, empathetic, but cool.

“And she went in alone and healed him.  And I went to her house once, when Pan was recovering.”  Neat little shrug.  “And I was, too.  Was pretty fucked up then so I don’t remember much except it was this big old house in the country, smelled green as fuck and felt like the sort of place that should be home.  Not mine, but maybe Home, like ur-home, the original idea-of-home, warm and rich and settled and intense and a little bit scary.

“And I have no idea how long this is going to last.  Fuck, maybe forever?”

Kiara

Kiara never met the Chorister Sera mentions, but she offers this slight smile of recognition at the name.

She's heard of Pan, of his time in Denver, of the opinions some of the others held about him. Sits there for a moment, leaning forward with her elbows resting on her knees, hands clasped in front of her, watching Serafine as she moves around her apartment; flops down onto the sofa, tucking into the arm. There's a beat before Kiara gets up and joins her, cedes her one side and settles into the other, leaving a cushion between them. Allowing that island of personal space to exist between where the Verbena's drawn up knee rests and Sera's body begins.

One elbow goes to the back of the sofa; sinks in; fingers thread into all that dark hair and she just - resides there, for a while, Kiara. Thoughtful in the quiet, before: "I got hit after I stepped across. Into the Umbra."

She pauses, turns her face to study her coffee table; the profile of the pagan's face is rather lovely, the long nose, the cheekbones; the slant of her jaw; long dark lashes that sweep down when she dips her eyes toward the floor with a momentary frown. "I don't even remember half of it. Just - feeling this sudden disconnection with my body and when I woke up, I was in a bed at the Chantry. Annie found me lying outside."

She turns back, her mouth slanted in this half rueful little smile. "I was actually glowing." There's a certain gleam of dark humor in the Verbena's eyes for it, for what reality had dealt her, the manifestation of her workings in the spiritual dimension. "My whole body had this glimmer, I couldn't step outside the Chantry for a week." She lifts a thin shoulder. "I had no idea if it'd last or if stepping across like that, I'd somehow screwed things up ... it was hard." She sweeps her hand out, drops it down to rest over her ankle. "this - is harder." Quiet. "It's crueler. I'm sorry."

The last a murmur as her expression softens, the edge of her mouth flexing as if unsure about its intent, to smile or twist into some semblance of a frown. "Dan mentioned Thailand, is that where ... ?"

Serafine 

“I turned back time, once.  Not long, but enough, you know?  The universe doesn’t like that shit.  Knocked me out, but there wasn’t anything else.  Took me about a week to get better, gave Dan a goddamned scare.  Plus all the blood he had to clean up.

“He’s pretty good at that though.  You know?  Steady.”

Quick little grin that somehow manages to both: reach her eyes and miss them entirely. 
“I’ve never been to the other side.  Of my own doing, anyway.”  And Sera toes off her boots and pulls her feet up onto the couch.  Wraps her arms around her calves.  Nestles her sharp little chin in the bony prominence of one knee.  Doesn’t seem to react when Kiara tells her she’s sorry, except with a drifting frown that ghosts over her brows and mouth and doesn’t quite reach her eyes, either. 
“Yeah, well.  I was in Thailand.  Woke up in LAX like this, though.  Everything in between is pretty fucking hazy.”

Kiara

There's an answering little smile from the Verbena at that remark about Dan.

"Yeah, he really is. He was worried, though. About you." There's a pause where Kiara doesn't elaborate but just sort of observes the Cultist. The way she draws her feet up, rests her chin on her knee. Kiara's fingers idly carding through her dark hair, tugging at the end of that braid before: "I was too." Soft, that offering. With a smile that curls up the corner of the brunette's lips. Gives some spark back to those dark eyes of hers.

She turns her face away after a minute, the expression fading into something a little more somber.
There's a smudge of dirt that's escaped the Verbena's notice on the edge of her jaw, just this tiny smear, like a finger dipped in soot and touched to the length of it. She hasn't said where she was tonight, what the rucksack had been for; why her clothes look slept in. Why there's shadows under her eyes when they eventually tick back.

"There's too many ways we can be anything but okay, right now." The Verbena's tongue traces the edge of a tooth, she sits back, wineglass in hand and allows a leg to draw up; tilting the rim to her lips. She gestures toward Sid as she swallows, twisting her body a little more, leaning into the edge of a cushion. "That where you found this one? Somewhere in between?"

Serafine

This neat little tick of her dark gaze when Kiara remarks that Dan was worried, that <i>she</i> was worried.  Something strangely sober there, spare and framed with a pregnant awareness that cuts the curve of her straight mouth into something somber and fine.  Sera does not say anything, or perhaps, not <i>precisely</i> anything.  She is reserved in that moment in a way that she rarely seems to be. 
That look lingers, right?  And shifts, almost wholly slant-wise.

“Just okay isn’t ever really a thing I’ve ever wanted to be.  Somehow I don’t think it suits you all that much, either.”

--

Then, a lilt of her chin, attention on Sid who has settled onto the floor, muzzle over her folded paws.  “Naw.  Found her after I got there.  Woke up in LAX and not a goddamned thing worked.  Snuck onto one of the buses.  Is it even sneaking if no on can see you?  Anyway, found her in a back alley, pretty bad-off.  Had this collar all ground into her neck that she had longsince outgrown.  Healed her and calmed her body and mind and she wouldn’t leave me, after. 

“Remembered me of being sixteen, waking up like that.  You remember being sixteen?”

Kiara

She perceives it of course. The sobering expression, that moment where there could be something to say in response to it. Her offering of concern, her awareness of Dan's. Sera's look lingers and the Verbena's eyes cut back to her face long enough to glean some idea from it. Some little crease that edges there between her brows in response to it; the corner of Kiara's mouth hooking downward and pulling into this suggestion of thought.

Of consideration. For what she does offer and for the way the brunette's expression tugs into some dawning little revelation. A little lingering of her own fine, dark eyes before they pull away and she weighs the glass in her hand instead. There's a texture to it, that silence. That build of the sobering unspokens between them.

-

Somewhere floors below, a siren sounds; this distant wailing that rises and falls and then slides away again as the traffic weaves on.

-

You remember being sixteen draws a noise, this little curl of humor reigniting into Kiara's face, her voice. "I remember what a mess I was. I attended this very elite private school in Manhattan," she tugs at her earlobe, idly drawing at the hoop in it. "I used to skip classes in the afternoons. Spend it in the city, my friends and I. Sneak into clubs." The Verbena's shoulder lifts in this simple, unfettered shrug. A little dismissive, a little whimsical. "It was always better than being at home, back then."
She lifts the glass of wine to her lips, uncurls herself to set it back on the table after a beat. Her eyes returning to Sera's face as she settles back; picks one of the smaller cushions up and hugs it to her stomach. "I miss it, sometimes. Not the mess, not exactly, but - " She traces her fingertips along the seam of her sofa. " - feeling that invincible. World at your feet. Like the city was there waiting to be discovered." Kiara's lashes dip against her cheek when she lowers them, they're long and dark, unadorned tonight with anything to dramatize the effect.

"I don't know where exactly I lost that feeling."

Serafine 

Strange how connections happen.  How concordances occur.  How the world arranges itself and rearranges itself in the most remarkable and strange ways.  Sera’s gaze is dark and fine and keen and flashes up from somewhere rather more level, some indoor, ineluctable, thoroughly strange and steady place.

“Have you really lost it?”  This pause not precisely unbending but: strangely steady.  “That feeling?”

Kiara

There's a pause, then: "Maybe. I think after Aisling died," there's this brief touch of her gaze on Sera's face, "after I had to leave New York like that, it changed things. To be honest," she smiles, this flash of teeth and slow, gathering humor, restoring itself after the momentary lapse of it when she mentioned her mentor's name. "I'm not sure it's all bad. Feeling invincible sounds great in theory but in practice - " there's a low, threaded noise. "I don't think it's smart to see the world without both sides. All the mess and chaos.

It's there for a reason."

There's a lot in that, about the way the healer saw the world. A pagan by choice as well as one of the Verbenae, she must have seen it, life, their duration in it, as a cycle. A process that ought to naturally wear down the body, leave the vessel as a tired and broken shell to be given back at the end of things. As the spirit passed on and the cycle began anew. They paid homage to the seasons, those of Kiara's ilk. Saw meaning in the turn of the leaves from verdant green to brilliant wine reds and sunset oranges.

She ticks her eyes over the Cultist's drawn legs, back to her face. "I don't think this is forever." The brunette scoots forward a touch, sets the pillow to one side. "Have you ever had a healing done?"

Serafine 

Kiara doesn't think this is forever.  And Sera - who both believes and does not believe in things like forever - gives her this strange tic of a smile, which seems to be distilled from equal parts of sorrow and grace.  Nudges her chin a bit on the bony part of her knee.  Doesn't say anything.  Doesn't know.  Doesn't quite believe.

Already knows what her next move is.  Has to be: if this is anything close to forever.  Or, hell, even another couple of months.

"I've been healed."  Her dark eyes tick upward.  Touch on these cardinal points, both shadow and skin.  "Somehow I don't think that's what you mean?"

Kiara

There's a little smile that notches into the corner of the Verbena's lip. Somehow she doesn't think that's what she means. "Not exactly, no." Kiara gestures behind them, this absent little flick of her fingers toward one of the bedrooms. It had belonged to Kiara's room mate, not so many months ago. Now it ventured between guest accommodation and Kiara's treatment space. "C'mon, I'll show you."
She pulls herself off the sofa, snagging her wine glass by the stem, careful to avoid stepping on Sid's paws and crosses over to the closed door, flicking a light on inside as she pushes it open. It's of much the same design as the rest of the Verbena's apartment. White washed walls, polished wood floors, wide windows that overlooked the city with blinds that were half drawn against morning sunlight where it would no doubt trickle through. A bed took up residence in one corner, pushed snug against the wall to make room for the only other pieces of furniture.

A large reclining examination chair with arm and head rests and a small side table equipped with a small towel and various tiny bottles. There were a small assortment of candles of varying height and thickness and a collection of crystals, smooth to the touch laid atop it.

The room carried with it the faintest traces of essential oils.

"This is where I do most of my work." She offers quietly, moving to gently perch on the corner most edge of the bed, a knee tucked beneath her body. "I used to run more professional sessions in an office, but - " She considers the chair for a long moment. "This way is easier. I can control who I see, when I see them."

Serafine

Sera follows, of course. Uncurls her body from its neat little knot in the arm of the couch, and rises. Steps around Sid's paws with an uncanny precision, reaching up as she moves to drag back her wealth of hair away from her face. There's nothing to tie it back with, though, so the movement is vestigal, physical, habitual rather than functional. Sid for her part thumps a tail against the floor but doesn't get up. Not quite yet.

And while Kiara makes her way into the room, Sera lingers framed in the door from living room to bedroom. Belongs there, doesn't she? That's part of how she feels: liminal, between, places, definitions, states of being. Hair loose, dark eyes made darker by her too-large pupils, she takes in the space. The bed. The blinds, the glimpses of the city behind the slats like a strangely interrupted nervous system, the firings of the most minor synapses. The examination chair and the evidence of Kiara's practice: the implements, the instruments. This precision again, and very strange reserve, in the way her dark eyes tick over the them each to each, both separate and whole.

Quiet, as Kiara continues. Explains that this is easier. That, here, she has more control.

"What is it you do, for the people you see? Is it confessional? Like a cross between a priest and a psychologist. Empty yourself of your sins, come back clean and new?"

Kiara

"Mm." A quiet, considering noise, that. The Verbena seated there on the edge of her mattress, fingers clasped around that wine glass, steadied on her crossed knee. "Less confessional, more ... re-balancing." She clarifies after a beat, smilingly. Nods toward the chair. "I channel energies. Someone comes in to see me, usually with complaints. Bad knee. Bad dreams. Physical or otherwise. They don't always know where or why they started. I connect with their energy, find the chakra points, find the places where there are blockages."

Kiara slides to her feet, pads over to the chair, sets the glass down on a small side table and takes up a piece of crystal in her hand. It's been polished down to about the size of a pebble and the Verbena sets it in the palm of her hand gently and opens her fingers out, balances it there and raises it to her eye level, then looks over it to Serafine, framed there in the doorway. "I use the stones to help harmonize and balance. They respond to the natural electricity in our bodies.

Quartz is best but, sometimes I use others. Depending on the person."

There's a pause. The brunette's dark eyes hovering there, scoping over the Cultist's face. Searching, perhaps, for some aspect. Some sign that she could help offset the recoil reality had left, the intangible bruising, as if the world needed time to fade the mark before it allowed the female back into its depths entirely. "There's less exact science when you're trying to heal the spirit." Kiara's smile returns, briefly, her eyes dropping to the chair.

Serafine

Kiara says that the science is less exact when you're trying to heal the spirit and Sera understands the word science as a metaphor but it still strikes enough of a chord that it makes her smirk. A small smirk, wry and darting. She thinks science is bullshit, does Sera. Almost says so, but the impulse is a fleeting one and her neat little mouth remains closed and that small smirk slides into a rather strange, rather tender (the wince around an enduring bruise) little smile.

Which is so exquisitely expressive and so utterly private as to be quite nearly naked.

Lasts for no more than a moment, that. The Cultist is not especially given to introspection, and for all her apparent openness is also remarkably private. No calculation in this, precisely. Just that glimpse and then that drawing-back.

"I don't think there's anything you can do about the paradox. I thought about it when Samir was in Quiet. Remember when you called me? He was all fucked up in the alley. I wanted to try to pull the consequences, the madness, some piece of it from him to me, see if I could free him from it?" Shrugs her narrow shoulders, " - couldn't figure it out, though. If it's even possible I don't think I'm powerful enough."

She's walking forward, though. Pushing away from the doorframe and padding toward Kiara.
"I spent alot of time in rehab, though, reform school and psych hospitals when I was a teenager. I was also held in a cell, once. By these rogue technocrats, while I was dying of this disease they created to target us. That's kind of what this feels like, you know? Like I've been locked in solitary confinement. And I - "

Arrest. (Once? More than once.) Something darkens her already bruised, bruising gaze. Sera closes her eyes and for a moment simply: lives within that darkness. Wherever it was born, whatever it contains. Just lives there, whole and entire, then allows it to pass. Takes a deep breath, finds Kiara once again.

"I need to remember that I'm free. That I can be, even in a fucking jail cell. Maybe you can help me remember."

Kiara

Serafine mentions Samir and there's a brief give of remembered empathy that slips into the brunette's gaze, into the edge of her mouth. She drops her chin a little, contemplative perhaps, of the Cultist's thoughts on the nature of paradox. Of the ways reality pushed bruises into flowering in their patterns. When she mentions rehab, reform schools and hospitals and Technocrats there's a neat little snap up of the Verbena's eyes.

Her face tilting to one side in a gesture that almost read as something bird-like. Avian and keenly focused.

"I'm sorry." For what? The past, the confinement. The misery of her, perhaps. It was within the pagan to feel it acutely, the suffering of the people who came and went from this room, a thousand and one echoes of lives and losses and longings - the walls must have resonated even now with it. With them. Kiara's eyes remaining on Serafine's face as she speaks. "I remember the first time I saw Arionna, after she'd gone through ... something." She doesn't presume to name it, the Verbena, just gives it pause and consideration and then plunges on. "The price she paid. Her vision. It seemed harsh to me.
I remember I said as much." She carefully sets the stone back on the table, turns to rest both hands on the chair between them. "I want to believe there's a purpose to it. That nature will restore the balance. I think there's probably a reason why there are some things we can't fix." A little bend of her mouth. "Shouldn't, even if there's a way."

She moves around the chair, then. Comes to stand closer to her, close enough that Serafine can smell the dust and earth and the stronger aroma of the wine that cling to the brunette's skin, her lips. Reaches out, with that polite little hedging for a beat people have before they initiate contact.
The allowance for pulling away, for rejection. Kiara's hand brushing her arm, the flutter of her fingers sliding over fabric.

"Hey, we're always free. I think - as long as we can feel. And choose to." Her touch falls away. "I can help you do that. At the very least."

Serafine

So much wrapped up there. Kiara tells Sera that she's sorry and Sera's response is this ghosting shrug and and the supple resurfacing of that half-banked smirk coupled with a spare and oddly sober look. Acknowledgment of the instinctive, responsive empathy, dismissal of the need for anything like an apology. Some part of her rebels against the words I'm sorry as unreal, unnecessary, fucking inadequate, form over substance, a kind of marking time but she understands, too, that so often there is also: substance in the form.

More than that: Sera does not think that there is a purpose beyond the purposes we give ourselves, does not believe in nature or her balance, in the cyclic cleansings, does not think that anything is a reason (other than bullshit consensual reality or not-bullshit respect for the self-determination of others) that there are things that they cannot or should not change, alter or fix, but she isn't waxing philosophical tonight. Rarely does, really. Lives and breathes that shit more than she ever preaches it and none of that matters.

Sera does not shy from the touch. God, who would expect her to? And how long has it been since someone touched her. Just simply, physically: touched her. She makes this noise in the back of her throat. She is somehow all stiff, all at once. Straight spine, straight shoulders, holding her body so-suddenly-rigid that her knees lock.

"I know that, you know? Always have. Always have. But it's so goddamned hard to remember that right now, because everyone is right there and I'm not. Can't be. Can't be there, can't be seen, can't be fucking heard." Oh fuck, there are tears in her eyes. "And some days it hurts like hell but those are a damned sight better than the days where I just feel numb. Like I'm drowning within sight of shore. I don't - "

One deep breath.

Another.

Kiara

It was like pulling on a piece of a string. Not a single piece but one bound up, knotted and twisted and you found the right angle, the right amount of pressure and it all unwound. All the kinks and masses of it. In a very certain manner of speaking it was where Kiara Woolfe lived and breathed. In those unraveling moments, especially in this room. Especially when she was gently probing and pushing, seeking out the tender points inside a pattern, within muscle and memory and bone.

Her dark eyes settle there, hold steady on Sera's face when she speaks and at some point the Verbena's brow evolves a tiny furrow, a crease of concern and empathy that dips in there. Kiara's mouth twisting into a little schism and her hands move almost without consideration this time - or no, perhaps with too much of it - she puts her hands out as if instinct guides them now and ghosts them over the Cultist's arms. Skimming over the space between, brushing barely against her knuckles.
There's a tidy focus about it, a precision there in the way Kiara's fingers comb through the space around Sera, as if she were drawing through, down, intangible strands.

"Let me?" She rests her palms there, just above her shoulders, asks that in a quiet voice that resonates with their conversation: the choice was still hers. If she lets her, though: Kiara's hands settle against her shoulders, slide up to cup the point where her pulse beats, down her arm with the other, over the point of an elbow, find and hold her wrist. Not so much searching but - experiencing. Attuning.
The pulse of Serafine's heart in time with the one that thrummed through the Verbena (the stabilizing rhythm that curled around the elemental flavor of her essence).

Kiara @ 1:02AM

[Life 1: Just a very basic sensory rote. Coincidental.]
Roll: 3 d10 TN3 (5, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
(Witnessed by Howl)

Serafine

Somewhere in the middle of this Sera closes her eyes.  The dark smudge of her lashes against her skin, the smear of half-smudged away eyeliner which has, perhaps, been there for a day, maybe two.  The tension lashed through her narrow frame does not come from closeness or apprehension, the natural apprehension perhaps of allowing another to work their will close to, on, over, in, but is rather deeper and broader, all at once.  Lingering.

--

She's high, though the traces of MDMA are a loose slurry now in her veins, the last shreds of heightened sensation contributing to the tension in her body.  Hungry, too.  <i>Physically</i>.  Doesn't eat enough in the ordinary course of ordinary life, just burns and burns and burns, and now: well, there's no one to take care of her.  To wake up her hung-over ass and ply her with Darjeeling and croissants or potatoes stir-fried in (local, humane) bacon fat.  Sleep-deprived too, this ache in her back of her throat, in the core of her body that has no evident origin.  The beat of her heart, the warmth of Kiara's hands settled over her shoulders.  The rigidity in the long muscles of her body - flanking her spine, wrapped from hip to thigh to knee.  

--

Doesn't say anything, Sera.  

She just breathes.  

Tries to remember how to take pleasure in that simple act.  

With almost everything she loves denied her, it's fucking hard, and yet -

Kiara

Serafine closes her eyes. The Verbena's remain open, at least for several moments.

She's looking intently at Sera for a long time, her hands resting steady on her until they shift away. Until there's a brush where they resettle against the crown of her head lightly, down again, to her shoulders. Further. The set of her narrow waist. Hips. One sweeps up and finds the point over her chest where beneath layers of clothing her heart beat and the pagan's palm settles there. The pulse of the brunette's rejuvenating energy pouring outward from each point she touches. A tingling, infusing warmth that spreads from her toes to her fingertips, raises the tiny hairs on the nape of her neck.

Every small nerve ending firing in Sera's body (the spark of life, the rejuvenation).

She doesn't speak while this happens, the brunette, but she is so very present throughout. Her hand moving away only after several beats of Sera's heart and there's the subtle brush of Kiara's fingers where they move back to her face, settling the tiny aches and strains beneath the skin, smoothing away the lingering effects of the drugs in her system. When she does talk, it's muted. Quiet for the process, perhaps. There's something intimate to the murmuring, a private offering meant to calm and center as directly as each paced movement, each alignment of her hands. "So we all have seven energy points, seven chakras. They're like the axis points, where all the energy in our bodies circulates from, through.

All I become when I do an attunement is the conduit. The medium to harmonize that energy that passes through the human body at those points." She slides the pads of her thumbs over her brows, gently touches the tips of her fingers to her temples. "A lot of people misunderstand the principles, I think, of what Reiki is. What it can be. It isn't miracle work." Kiara's voice betrays a whisper of humor. "It just helps you find your center of gravity again." The Verbena's fingers lower to Sera's throat and linger there the same way. She passes over each point, her solar plexus, her abdomen, a palm sweeping down and settling gently over the small of her back.

There's a smile, quiet and contemplative that flirts with the corners of the pagan's mouth. "Right here, is your root chakra. The spine. What sustains us. Survival instinct. Safety. Sometimes when your back aches, it's as much that instinct as anything physical." Eventually, gradually, the touch tapers away and Kiara's fingers slide down to encircle both wrists. She holds there last, squeezes down lightly.

"It helps remind us that we're alive. And breathing. And here."

Kiara @ 7:53PM

[Life 2: Balance the Flow. Coincidental. Base Diff 5. -1 Mythic Threads, -1 taking her time, -1 instrument for Life]

Roll: 3 d10 TN3 (2, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )

Kiara @ 7:57PM

[Intel + Medicine, -2 Diff from Magick roll.]

Roll: 7 d10 TN4 (1, 5, 6, 9, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 8 ) [Doubling Tens]

Kiara @ 8:02PM

[Extending effect once. +1 Diff.]

Roll: 3 d10 TN4 (3, 4, 7) ( success x 2 )

(I ran this by Howl since initially I wasn't sure on M20 mechanics on magick fueling mundane abilities (I totally thought it was -1 diff mod per 3 suxx) but apparently the diff mods are -1 per suxx on the magick roll up to -3 now. The things you learn!)

Serafine 

No one has touched her like this since Claire.  The careful, almost pristine focus.  The gentle precision.  The spreading warmth.  The supple, healing clarity. 

Each intonation is: different.  Distinct.  Divine. 

--

She's heard about chakras, of course.  Cultist, she must have.  This is where your heart bursts, this is where your blood sings, this is where your body, and soul, settle.  This is where you open-up, this is where you: rise, rise, rise, as if gravity had been shut down. 

And gravity can be shut down, she knows.  One of her hands always feels lighter than the other, like it is just on the cusp of - something, anything, <i>soaring</i> and earthbound at the self-same time. 

Claire had them tattooed right up her spine.  And if you looked at her just right, eyes slitted, the haze of smoke drifting like fog up from some low-lying river, lungs raw, body lashed, the world opening, opening, opening beneath the focus of your will something like a crown hovering above her head.    Queen of Fucking Heaven.  Saw that the way she saw the sky-god Hawksley is, across a crowded rooftop bar, the sun setting behind him, what feels like a long, long time ago. 

Sera: doesn't have any misconceptions about Reikki because she doesn't know about Reikki.  Hasn't heard the term, perhaps, or has heard it and ignored it the way she ignores so-many-things she is pretty goddamned sure she cannot understand, like phone books and fireflies and multilevel marketing schemes and high ritual and why people choose to be assholes to each other and canned bread and James Joyce and arcane symbols and Why A Car Works or to be more precise: why normal people think a car works but refuse to believe in the simplest acts of transcendance.  Of ascendance. 

So: Kiara Works.  And the creature on whom she works, wound so tightly around these physical points of failure, tension, un-ease, constantly throwing herself against them, into them, because anything is better than numbness, absence, failure, exile: allows it.  Allows herself to feel it, allows herself to open to it, allows all of these small wounds to be healed. Allows herself to be: touched, handled.  Allows this: ritual, which is not her ritual.  Somewhere in the middle of it all, she starts to cry.

And <i>god</i> how she cries: open, agonized, vulnerable.  Ecstatic. 

Alone.  Ablaze, the way we all are.

There's no interruption to the ritual.  Maybe this becomes part-of-it, the opening, the breaking apart, the restoring-of-balance because she was not made to be balanced she was made for extremes, for tearing apart, for rising, for chaos, for change. 

--

It subsides.  Perhaps not as quickly as it arose but: it subsides, and in the moments between she eschews any gesture towards comfort beyond the ritual in which Kiara is engaged.  Maybe she came here to spend the night?  There was an offer, right?  The spare bedroom.   Maybe she came for something else, some other threshold of intimacy.  Maybe - and this is most likely - she doesn't know why the fuck she came. 

But she knows, now, that she has to go, too. 

--

"Thank you," when it's over, when she's done, when she comes to, maybe, when her closed throat opens enough to allow her to speak. Means it, too.  Says it with such presence and feeling and immediacy that the words are imbued with meaning. And that's all, really.  Sera will pull Kiara into an embrace, if Kiara allows it.  Tip-toes, mouth to the other women's temple, spare and graceful and merciless as any member of the seraphim.  "I don't - I think - we're gonna go.  But thank you."

Which is exactly what they do. 

There's no sign of Sera in Denver for almost a month, after that.  No calls, but her phone doesn't work, no sightings.  No glancing-blow of resonance lingering, or felt-from-a-distance.  No texts, no word.

She's just gone. 

-- 

On a certain Tuesday in November, four-and-a-half weeks later, Kiara gets a text that says simply:

<i>I'm home.</i>

That Friday, a bonfire.  An invitation to the afterparty.  Whatever it was that was that was caging her in: gone.