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."