to be better people. [alexander]

Kiara Woolfe
So, here is our scene: it's a motel room. The curtains are mostly drawn but for a gap where they don't quite meet in the middle, a chink where the light spills across the gap between two double beds. Alexander is laid out on one, the other has rumpled sheets as if it had been slept in but its occupants had long since left.

The room smelled faintly the way motels do, like old smoke and detergent and too much starch on the bed sheets. An old TV set in the corner, a fridge and kitchenette, a bathroom with the door half opened and towels on the floor. At some point in the last few hours, somebody had showered. The room clung to the stronger aroma of motel shampoos.

Those ridiculously small, cheap bottles.

What else is felt is: resonance. Serafine's lingers in the walls here and another, too. Fainter, traces of something stoic, psychedelic (Jim). Alexander's rescuers had no idea why Serafine chose this place, why she has a room paid up in cash here - perhaps Alexander does, perhaps he knew the Awakened that would come out here to the outskirts, with nothing but drive through chains and semi trailers in the parking lot.

-

It's late, middling to early, the light that trickles through the window is faint and pale gold. The sort dawn offers. Outside the snow has stopped falling for a moment but there's a crispness to the air; it's cold enough that the figure sleeping in a chair across the room has a blanket curled around her.

That Alexander's still form had been likewise covered.

There's a gurney pushed against a far wall; a black bag (a body bag?) folded over it. A medical kit on the table beside the sleeping woman in the chair.

And her: rejuvenation. Pulsing energy.

-

Wherever Alexander was now, it felt miles from a sterile room in a Union facility.

Alexander Brandt[WP, just because it might make a difference to what I'm writing.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (4, 4, 4, 5, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )

Alexander BrandtAlexander is slow to wake.  It’s not the first time in recent memory that he’s climbed out of a drug-induced unconsciousness, although this one was maybe deeper – harder to pull away from.  For all intents and purposes, he had been dead to anyone who saw him.  Oh, he had been warned that there were plans for his release.  But he had thought there would have been some kind of warning when it finally came down to it.  Some drug slipped into his cell for him to swallow, waiting for him to finally commit to whatever plan had been put together.  But those thoughts were a long way away, just at this moment.

He had been resting on his cot, meditating and daydreaming as his endless amounts of free had allowed him to do, searching for some kind of freedom.

Now, as consciousness approaches in fits and starts, it’s the sounds of the room that come to notice first.  The hum of the fridge, the banging of the pipes from the next room over.  Some vague rumbling, maybe a nearby highway and the flow of traffic along its asphalt surface.  They’re ordinary, mundane, run-of-the-mill sounds.  But they seem important.  Why are they important?

Alexander dips back into unconsciousness again for some amount of time.  How long?  Who the hell knows, he’s lost track of so much over the past months.  But it is a dip, and the curve back up into wakefulness bends a little higher.  This time, there’s more sensation.  There’s something familiar about the beige scrubs he still wears, but the feel of the mattress under him and the blanket over...

He finally tries opening his eyes.  The light is, thankfully, dim.  The light passing through the curtains, an occasional ray of light passing through the chink in the curtains from a nearby neon sign, it isn’t a shock.  Alexander lies motionless, just staring at the curtains.  Thought still feels a little disconnected from body, but it’s slowly coming together...

Memory comes slamming back, and it’s almost a physical thing.  The meeting at his station, his brief waking only to be shot down again...  the repeated counselling, the invasion of his mind... 

There’s a moment of panic when he thinks that this might all be some sort of game.  (Still might be!)  A moment which pushes him up from the bed, pushing the blanket back which bangs against a lamp on the bedside table and knocks it crashing to the floor.  A moment where he almost rushes for the door, breaking for freedom.  He isn’t completely lost to the panic, though.  The window, the crack in the curtains, is enough for right now.  Rather than the door, it’s the rest of the way to the window that Alexander rushes.  He stands there, pulling the curtains back to look out at the world.  Breath catches in his throat, and he doesn’t realise that he’s holding it.

Kiara WoolfeThe lamp crashing to the floor startles the woman in the chair to wakefulness. She'd been dozing, rather fitfully, for the last few hours. She doesn't make any sudden movements, the brunette, but rather watches with a half frozen sort of tension as the Orphan rushes to the window.

Drags the curtains back.

Sees: a Jack in the Box. Semi trailers and trucks and what must have passed for a swimming pool attached to the motel when the weather was warmer. Now, the tarp was covered in a fine layer of snow. The fence around it had a sign that declared it was closed for the winter. The world outside this room seemed: normal. Utterly unchanged. Cars speeding by and the low buzz of a TV in the next room over; footsteps banging overhead.

There's a rustle of clothing and the brunette in the armchair sits forward. The blanket sliding off her shoulders, revealing scrubs not so different to the ones Alexander found himself still wearing - the last vestiges of the disguise Kiara had adopted to rescue the Orphan.

"Welcome back."

There are dark circles beneath the Verbena's eyes; her hair a wild tangle around her features. She looks: drained, the pagan. But alert. If she's some hallucination, if this all was some new trick to beguile him into believing what was happening: it felt very real.

Down to the stale coffee resting on the table beside Kiara. "You're okay, Alexander. We got you out. This place is safe. They can't find us here."

A beat: "How do you feel?"

Alexander Brandt[WP, same reasons]

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (2, 2, 3, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Alexander BrandtThe window reveals that little corner of the world, with its ordinary burger joint and its ordinary trucks and ordinary trailers and its ordinary weather and it’s all perfectly ordinary and mundane.  The sky – god, the sky, the sight of the dawn above this shithole town somewhere on the outskirts of the city... If he hadn’t been holding his breath, still hasn’t realised that he has, it would have caught then.  Both hands resting on the glass, Alexander rests his forehead on the glass and just looks out.

Looks out, at least, until there’s a sound from behind him.  Something soft that, the movement of clothing and the slip of a blanket, but from Alexander’s reaction it would seem like something closer to a gunshot.  He turns, swinging round on the spot, to place the noise.  There’s someone there, a figure dressed in scrubs.  The same scrubs he’d seen after waking the second time, surrounded by guards with a medic disconnecting him from a fluid drip.  There’s tension in his frame, something wild and uncaged and ready to spring.  For Kiara, or for freedom.  Fight or flight.

Welcome back.

There’s some familiarity that halts him.  Some part of his unconscious or subconscious or some other part of him buried beyond his control.  This isn’t some faceless medic, some unknown person sent to repair or monitor or... There was a familiarity in the voice and the movement, in the resonance coming from her and, hell, even from the resonance woven into the walls of the room.  It was all familiar, and it did feel real.

So Alexander doesn’t charge her, doesn’t leap for the door.  There is an exhalation, heavy and sharp, as his body’s need to breathe finally wins out and as it starts to really register through the dregs of whatever substance had been running through his body.  The tension is still there, he’s still prepared, but there’s pause as his eyes dart from her face to the surroundings.  The gurney and the body bag...

“I know you.”  Consideration begins to slip into his eyes, pupils wide and eating in the light.  Alexander hadn’t had a massive amount of contact with Kiara, but there had been some.  “Horse.  Right?”  The tension slips a little more, although the movement of his shoulders gets a little more rapid.  There’s a break in the eye contact as Alexander looks around the room, checking the parts that he hadn’t noticed in the moments since waking, before meeting her gaze again.

“I...”  A simple question, asking how he feels.  Four simple words.  The answer, not as simple.  “...don’t know.”  There’s another break in the eye contact, a studied look down at his hands, which he bunches into fists to check the old scabs on the knuckles.

Kiara WoolfeI know you.

Kiara's dark eyes rove his features, there's a sort of captured tension to the way they do, her body poised there on the edge of the armchair.

Horse, right?

There's a flicker of some quiet release there; a loosening of tension around her mouth; drawn into furrows across her brow. "Right." A smile edges across the female's lips and she rises from the chair, turning to idly fold the blanket over the arm. The pagan's clothing is faintly rumpled and her hair is perhaps a little longer since the last occasion they'd had to meet.

He doesn't know how he feels. Kiara seems to have been expecting about as much, when she straightens and turns back to face him, her expression reads a clear amount of empathy (perhaps too, this was another reason it was her here, now, when he awoke and not her partner in crime for this rescue).

The healer had, among her virtues (depending on who you asked), a good dose of bedside manner.

He's examining the old wounds on his knuckles. Kiara's eyes drop to them, she makes some quiet noise, a hm of recognition. "Right. Your knuckles. We didn't heal them for you. We could have, but - I figured once we knew you were okay, it was better to let you sleep off the drugs in your system."

Softer. "They dosed you up pretty well." Tinged with anger, though. There's a tremor of it that twinges at the edges of Kiara's words. She pushes the fall of her hair over her face. Moves toward the tiny kitchenette and detaches a coffee pot, holds it under the sink and begins to fill it up. Continues to speak, too, as if her voice could fill up the voids in his memory, could coax his lingering uncertainty out and replace it with something rooted in memory; strengthened with familiarity.

"Are you hungry? Serafine set all of this up. There's coffee and - " Kiara sets the pot on, turns and leans into the sink for support. "A lot of alcohol, shockingly." A brief smile. A thread of something perhaps he can catch hold of.

Serafine. Her propensity for everything in abundance. Stocking this room up with what was needed by her estimations. "We weren't absolutely sure how long you'd be out but I wanted to be sure someone was here when you woke up. In case you had questions ... " Kiara's eyes tick back to him.

Alexander BrandtKiara begins to move around, to tidy a little, as Alexander studies his hands.  Nothing had changed, they had been slowly healing since... They had been slowly healing.  As the body does, repairing itself after damage.

We didn’t heal them for you. 

It was no small thing to twist the world to fix the body, he’d seen it often enough to know that it was possible.  But these wounds were small and already well on their way to healing.  He rubs his hands absent-mindedly as he turns back to the window.  The room is cool, given the weather outside and the cheap way the place had been put together, but he still opens the window.  Enough to let the cold air flow through and into the room, and it’s a moment that brings Alexander’s eyes closed again.  Another simple thing, another ordinary sensation, but one that he hadn’t felt in months.

They dosed you up pretty well.

There’s a pause, there.  They’re facing away from each other – him towards the window, her towards some part of the kitchen.  Alexander’s mouth opens, taking a breath as if to speak, but no words follow.  The breath turns into a sigh, and it seems that her words go unremarked.

They had both changed since their last encounter in the park.  Her hair had grown a little, and so had his.  The scruff around his jawline had grown a little – it hadn’t been shaved back too long ago – and his hair had grown out.  A fringe draped down, tucked back behind his ears where it would reach.  But, more noticeable, was how much less of his there was than before.  He had been fairly solid, could have been an imposing figure if he put his mind to it.  But he’d lost weight, that much was obvious under the scrubs.  Alexander turns at the question about whether he’s hungry, and he turns towards the little kitchen.  Resting back on the sill of the window – still content to feel the bracing cold breeze blow over his back – there’s another pause.  Another flash of wariness, but it’s something that subsides again quickly.  She attempts a little humour, but it doesn’t get a reaction from him.  Too soon, maybe.

“Yeah, I’m hungry.”  There’s a glance down at the floor, maybe something unvoiced, before a question does surface.  “How is... everyone?”

Kiara WoolfePerhaps it will seem strange to him, once he's had time to process everything that happened. To hear the story told from varying angles. The rescue. The risks taken. Perhaps the reality that Andrés and Kiara had offered to be the ones to go in and reclaim him. At least, as far as the latter went, there seemed no good reason why she'd have done it.

Put herself into a situation like that for a man she barely knew. Knew enough, maybe. Trusted not to be her enemy.

Maybe it will be enough to convince him that whatever side of whatever sort of war they might have been dragged into fighting, the brunette standing across from him is on the same side. Maybe it will, but - it's too soon for that. The edges are too raw, bruised and tender and sharp-pressed upon.

Her attempt at banter passes over him and she doesn't, for what it's worth, press the issue. Seem offended. Merely waits for a beat, studying him with those fathomless eyes of hers before they too pass away and she nods, once. Breathes out sharply.

Decisively. He was hungry. Appetite was a good sign.

She turns toward the refrigerator and pulls the door open, there's some rummaging around inside; the rustle of a plastic bag and then a small plastic container comes out. One of those take away sandwich kinds with pre-cut triangles of bread inside. There's a handful of candy bars in the Verbena's other hand and she sets it all down for a beat: opens the container and studies the neat little prepackaged triangles.

Turkey and rye and who knew what.

How is ... everyone?

All he can see when he asks is Kiara's back; the set of her shoulders, the line of her neck. Can sense the pause, though. Can likely see it, the way you can sometimes. The natural consideration of a complicated answer: "Everyone is okay. Mostly." She turns with the container in hand, carries it over to him. Some twist of humor when she says: "I can't vouch for the nutritional value in that."

Alexander works for the Department, he's likely seen worse.

"Worried about you, but - they're good. You can ask them yourself soon enough." She folds her hands into the pockets of the scrubs. Hooks her thumbs at the edges. "This motel room is warded, you can stay here as long as you like. If you need time to process everything. I sent word out last night that we had you."

She frowns down at the worn carpet. "We'll probably have to get everyone together, figure out what comes next. But - " She lifts her eyes, gestures at the sandwich. "You should eat. Regain your strength."

Alexander Brandt[Int+Med]

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

Alexander Brandt[Arete, Time 1, sensing Time.  Base diff 4, +2 because meditation is a new instrument for him.  -1 for Flowing resonance, as it fits with his paradigm?  So winging it.  But lookee, new dice!  WP, because.]

Dice: 2 d10 TN5 (5, 7) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Alexander BrandtThe world, with all of its boring mundanity seems somewhat surreal.  Unreal.  Not quite as remembered, maybe.  But it’s something that Alexander seems to cling to, right now.  The simple sensation of flowing air, of the cold – he’s shivering now, but he doesn’t make any move to close the window or grab a blanket to cover himself more – is important.  Not wonderful, although that might be debatable at another time, but certainly grounding.  Little anchors that hold him in place.  In this place.

Kiara works in the kitchen, putting coffee on to brew and fishing through the kitchen for something vaguely edible and nutritious.  Alexander has turned back to the window, looking out of it without really seeing much of anything.  He focuses on the sensation, the flow of air around him.  It’s a tool to clear the mind, as much as clearing the mind is a tool for something else.  There’s one way that Alexander has changed, and it’s one that might not have been noted too strongly by Kiara so far.  It didn’t seem to be any surprise, though – there had been no suspicion that he wasn’t who they (he?) thought that he was.  But that sensation of things being Frozen was no longer there.  No slivers of a moment hanging in the air.  No glacier in the mountains.

No, the glacier had melted.  As Alexander reaches for the first time in way too long, there’s a feeling of reality rearranging itself slightly as his Will pushes against it.  Somewhere alongside the pulsing, rejuvenating landscape of Kiara’s presence, there runs a river.  Something intrinsically elemental and moving and changing and Flowing and ultimately Boundless.  Without beginning.  Without end.  Alexander reaches out, no longer confined by the perfected work of the Union lining the walls and sucking any trace of dynamism and change out of the air.  He reaches out into the flow of Time and stands there, motionless, as he lets it wash over him.  He had been without a specific time for so long.  There had been some hints, towards the end, but now...  Now he knew exactly when he was.  Another anchor cast out.

Alexander stands there motionless, as Kiara gathers her words and begins to speak.  The Work, standing in that flow of Time, is almost overwhelming after so long.  The connection, right now, seemed so much stronger than it had before.  Not, exactly, as if he had more control over it.  More...  More like that very first day awake, when everything had seemed to have a little more colour to it, and a little more depth.

He is listening, though, and feels her approach.  She might notice the shivering, now, the hairs standing up on his bare arms to trap what heat they can there.  Alexander sounds almost distracted – he is distracted – but asks, “Mostly?”  He can imagine who wouldn’t be ok.  Kalen, probably.  Kalen, ready to tear the world apart.  And Grace?  The last time they had spoken, they hadn’t parted on the best of terms.  Now, at least, there was the chance to put that right.

Kiara holds the sandwich out, and a few moments after Alexander notices and turns.  There’s an attempt at a smile, something grateful, but it’s forced.  Something habitual, but not quite empty inside.  The plastic wrapper is taken and one of the triangles pulled out.  Half of it disappears into his mouth, and he turns again to look out of the window as he chews.

There’s a pause, between mouthfuls.  “What comes next?”  There’s another pause, mouth open ready to speak, but the thought is gone again.  Another comes.  “Do I just get on back to my life?”  The rest of the triangle hangs in air, held part way to Alexander’s mouth.

Kiara WoolfeThe Verbena's sensitivity to the energies, to the base elements that made up the Tapestry; wove magicks together has grown stronger over the last several months.

The pagan's affinity for Primal workings have left the traces of her presence as a far more potent thing. The sense of Kiara, the wash of her essence is palatable. They often said it, about those Awakened who trained in the use and manipulation of Quintessential energies - that they began to radiate that very sense of Otherness that separated them from the Sleepers around them.

It had already been there, about the earth witch. That particular sensation she brought with her into a room. The way she stirred the hackles of a neighborhood dog being walked. The turn of those dark eyes of hers toward you.

The curl of blood red lips.

Now, it simply felt a little clearer, she would need to work a little harder to mask herself from those who would be drawn to it (her). Alexander's presence has grown stronger, too. The sense and shape of his Working as it flows out and cascades over the motel room; the tendrils of his casting. The Verbena's head tilts just so.

The hairs on her arms rising.

She moves away, after a moment, fetches two cups of steaming coffee. Makes some brief apology about the lack of milk. She holds her cup between her palms and blows on it to cool the contents before she takes a tip; swallowing and glancing at the Orphan as he asks a question.

The question, really.

There's some flash of empathy, perhaps even pity, there before she replies. Eyes on her coffee, on the heat rising from it. "Do you think you'd be able to? Just - go back to everything. I may hate everything they stand for, but - the Union isn't dumb. They'll figure out what we did, the question is: what will they do about it?

The Police Station, your apartment. They probably aren't safe right now." Kiara's eyes find his. "Ginger's gone. Grace confirmed it. She's covering what needs to be covered, but - anything we had linked to it, has to go.

I'm not going to pretend I have all the answers. We got you out. That was what mattered. Whatever happens next, whatever we have to do. We'll figure it out. For now - " The Verbena breathes out sharply, sets her coffee cup down behind her. "I think you should stay here. At least until I can contact the others. Bring them here.

We can decide what needs to be done." The Verbana reaches out, tentatively, to set a hand on Alexander's arm. Wordless comfort, perhaps, if allowed.

Alexander BrandtAlexander’s push against reality went a little further than he’d hoped.  It was intended to be a momentary thing, something grounding.  The effect lingers, though, the feeling of tide and flow and change clinging on for a while longer.  It’s a reassuring presence in the background.  Like some sort of supernatural comfort blanket.

Coffee is brought over, with a comment about the lack of milk.  It’s something that is waved off, unimportant.  Even if he had been a stranger to black coffee, this isn’t important.  It isn’t a problem.  The plastic packet with its single remaining triangle of industrially-produced sandwich is set on the sill, freeing his hands up to take the cup from Kiara when it’s offered.  The steam rises, curling in the cold draft, and it’s something Alexander watches before taking a sip from it.  It’s something else, something simple, that grabs his attention.

Another pause, as steam rises and time flows and the life of the city continues outside the small motel room.  It’s time to think, to arrange words into something resembling order; time to find something to say that won’t catch.  His reply to the question:  “Maybe.”  There’s doubt in his voice, but there isn’t an automatic rejection of the possibility.  Maybe it was something he could regain: that ordinary part of his life, that something that grounded him.  As to what they will do?  There’s silence there.  A second, two, three and then simply: a shrug.

Kiara tells him that his place, his work, aren’t likely to be safe.  Another shrug.  Ginger is no more, and that gets a curious look.  But, again, nothing more.  There’s nothing more to be said.

Alexander shows some doubt when Kiara says that he should stay here.  There’s a flash of something feral, there; a flash of something that doesn’t – won’t be – caged.  One set of walls won’t be swapped for another; one jailer for another.  This isn’t an instruction, though – something with threat and force behind it – but just a suggestion.  He gives a brief nod as Kiara suggests bringing others here.  It’s probably safer, for the moment.  At least until certain things are a little clearer in his mind.  Certain, large questions that have yet to be asked, let alone answered.  He does make a request, though.  Clothes.  Something he can wear, maybe so these fucking things can be burned.

There’s a touch at his arm, and it draws out another intake of breath.  How long since a touch had been anything other than...  The breath is shuddering, stuttering, as it draws in.  His cup of coffee is clumsily set on the sill, knocking the plastic container and making it fall on its side.  And then?

And then Alexander turns and wraps his arms around her and, eyes closed and clinging onto her as if she were the last person alive, he remembers a fragment of a conversation.

We need other people to be better people.

Kiara Woolfe[Just cuz! Life 2, Coincidental. Base Diff 5, -1 (Resonance), -1 Quint.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (2, 4, 7) ( success x 2 )

Kiara WoolfeThere were questions that still needed answers.

Questions for Alexander that he'd have to find answers for, search his memory for about the facility he'd been taken to; the interrogations and conditioning they'd subjected him to. There would be questions he needed answers for, too. From them. Questions that, right now, the Verbena who stands across from him with her warm dark eyes and gentle touches cannot answer for him.

There were, after all, reassurances that weren't hers to give.

No matter how badly she wishes she could.

Kiara Woolfe was a healer, by calling as much as trade. Fixing and mending what was broken was what she did and she did it, often, without any pretension of gratitude being returned her way. Didn't always expect or necessarily need it. She believed, the pagan, wholeheartedly in the righteousness of the Cycle. In what was natural and needed and balanced in the universe. Life was not made to be lived without risk, without bruising and tearing.

Humanity would never be a creature without flaw. That was the infinite value and heartbreak of them.

And they were, at their core: not so removed from humanity, these Awakened, that they did not break and bend just as surely.

Alexander wraps his arms around her and there is a moment of surprise; a quiet expression; a small, startled noise that rises in the brunette's throat before her arms curl around the Orphan. Before she slides her palms over his back and there's a flood of soothing energy, after a beat. Kiara's touch seeping beneath the scrubs he wears; infusing his bones and muscles and skin with a tingling; spreading warmth.

Soon enough, the chill he'd felt is forgotten.

"It's okay." She murmurs into his shoulder. And, at least in the moment, it's easier to believe it may be. "It's going to be okay."

horse. [grace, alexander, farrah, river, dan]

Kiara Woolfe
[Yay, people! I'm going to go type something.]

Kiara WoolfeFall was settling comfortably into Denver.

The trees beginning to shake off their leaves and leaving drying shells scattered over footpaths and manicured lawns the city over; the mountains turning brilliant shades of honey-gold and deep crimson red on the horizon and the weather starting to subtly shift; breezes bearing the intention of cooler days to come. Thursday afternoon in the city limits had dwindled into a pleasant, breezy affair. It was still warm enough for layers to be disguarded under the warmth of the sun, clouds scattering across its path.

Still the weather for lounging on the grassy expanses Washington Park had to offer; littered as they were of recent days with curling, crumbling leaves. You still found the poets with their heads buried in books, stretched out on the ground with their shoes beside them; feet bare to the world. Still the mothers pushing strollers along the winding pathways, dogs chasing balls and the glinting promise of the lake, birds diving and settling on its surface to glide along, shaking their feathers and dipping their faces into the water.

The face of a city that changed and within it - the ones who saw the other side. The shadows that fell, the noises and the ugly.

Kiara Woolfe wasn't to be found lounging on the grass as late afternoon sunlight slanted across it, she was on one of the park's many basketball courts, seated on the side beside a chainlink fence, tying her dark hair back, a basketball housed between her feet. She was the sole occupant of the court aside from a lone bird; perched high on the fence, watching her progress with tiny, anticipatory movements of its head. When she rose, scooping up the ball, it startled and took flight with a rustle of feathers.

Kiara moved out onto the court, the sound of the ball echoing as she began a slow circuit.

Alexander[Awareness?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Grace[Awareness?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 7, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

GraceThis place, man. This fucking place.

Last time Grace was here it was to inspect the remains of a woman-chimera with four arms who'd put a good friend into... let's say mental distress. Almost getting your face ripped off will do that to you.

Then, there was everything that happened after.

She doesn't even really know why she's here, other than perhaps something in her that wants to show the monsters who's boss. Don't show your face here anymore, right? We live here too, and we like this park.

Well, territorial, tribal ideology never sit well with Grace. She'll make an exception for dead things who like to reshape people into horrified and horrifying monsters. Call it the line beyond which Grace Evans will actually categorize a person.

Anyway, it's with that thought in mind that she's in the park today, dressed in her jeans and bite-proof grey turtleneck jacket, paying a great deal of attention to what's going on around her (while simultaneously shoving her head in her cell phone and walking). She hears the basketball. She feels the pulse of the world. She looks up, and starts toward the court.

Kiara Woolfe[Awareness, perhaps?]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 6, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )

Kiara Woolfe[All of time and space is the Verbena's.]

Alexander[Because I need to know if he fluffs or not for the post...  Arete: Spirit 1, Entropy 1.  Sensing the gauntlet, looking for weakness.  Coincidental, TN4.  +1 for trying something new, -1 for taking his time.]

Dice: 1 d10 TN4 (9) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Kiara Woolfe[Playin' some ball. Dex + Ath.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

AlexanderKiara may not have been drawn here to lounge on the grass, but Alexander?  Well, that’s exactly where he can be found.  Not so far away, at a familiar spot near the lake, he’s lying on the grass.  It’s not particularly uncommon to find him here, although his visits maybe aren’t quite as frequent as they used to be.  There’s still hope in the visits, though.  Hope that he’ll meet someone again, hopefully in better circumstances.  Until he learns how to do more than look into the spirit world, this is the best chance he has for that meeting.

He seems to be watching the lake, but that isn’t really where his attention is at the moment.  The bottle of water that he’s slowly turning over and over in his hand might, to those who know him and how he Works, give the hint that his attention is elsewhere.  There’s also a frigid, frozen chill in the air around him as his will bends reality just a little.  Not enough to do anything obvious to those who aren’t attuned to such things.  Just enough to deepen his awareness of the border of this world and its mirror.  Scratching at the boundaries, looking for areas of strength and weakness.

He’s there for a while before other sensations start to make their selves known.  The pulse of the world not so far away.  The razor edge of fluttering wings.  The gathering of Awakened.  Letting go of the effect, he pushes up from the grass and heads towards the basketball court to meet the familiar – and not as familiar – presences.

DanTall guy in black skinny jeans, a fitted flannel shirt open over a t-shirt.  Blond hair, blond beard, hints of tattooes flashing at cuffs and collar like the evidence of ink on a scrivener's hand.  He has a battered leather bag slung across his tall, spare frame and is walking with a long-haired brunette in a flowing, flowered skirt that billows in the wind.  She, in turn, is walking this bright yellow-and-orange fixed gear bicycle along the path.   Has a basket on the front and paperflowers woven into the weave.

He's smoking a cigarette.  Well, maybe it's a cigarette, except she asks for a drag and he gives it to her while they stand at a cross-roads, looking not-at-all like park-people.  He catches a glimpse of Grace or maybe of Kiara, though.  Takes back the cigarette and touches the brunette's shoulder and says something low by way of farewell.  She climbs on the bicycle, nevermind the way her skirt blows in the high plains wind, and keeps on going.  He turns and lifts a hand toward - well, someone.  Maybe a couple of someones.  Maybe whoever will return it.

"Grace," Dan says, overtaking her with his long strides and lanky frame.  Then, "Kiara," when they reach the basketball court.  Listens to that peculiar ring of the ball against the court - elastic and resonant, all at once.  Taut.
"Fancy a game of HORSE?"
Wry grin at Grace.  Maybe a challenge.



River VasquezRiver doesn't know anyone here except Farrah. They haven't been to the park together but they have gone and gotten a new wardrobe. She's got a couple job applications tucked into her oversized purse and there she is, walking around the park with a pair of awfully high heels thrown into her purse so she can walk around and enjoy the feeling of the ground on her feet. It was starting to get cold, too. Or, at least, colder than the perpetually perfect San Diego.

Her hips swayed when she walked, exaggerated and like she was bopping along to some song that was playing in her head. The strut said it all: River was bouncing along to the Beegees Stayin' Alive. She doesn't really care where she's walking, just that she is walking and then this: she notices the sound of people on the basketball courts. She doesn't know who they are, but she is curious enough that she wouldn't mind seeing what tthey were doing.

A heel turn and redirection later, the dark-haired woman bops down the way to see people. She's got on yoga pants. Yoga pants and an oversized shirt and a sports bra that is more restrictive than a sportsbra has any right to be. No sir, nothing on River Vasquez was moving unless she damned well wanted it to.

And thus, the ball of sunshine bops over to the basketball courts.

Grace"Neiiigh?" Grace says, flashes Dan a smile. "Oh, wait. That sounds like no. I mean, yes. Unless that means you want me to ride you, in which case -- no."

She quirks her head, though not at anything in particular. Maybe analyzing her own speech for its utter strangeness. "How do you play horse? Also, hi Kiara."

Hi, sunshine. Well, that's different. Grace turns away from the court, looks the new one up and down. There, a little tick of the head upwards, like 'hey'.

Kiara WoolfeThe brunette navigates the court at a slow jog, bouncing the ball between her hands. She's a lean creature, the Verbena, with finely shaped features and dark, expressive eyes. She feels a little like a fixed pulse to the world and a lot more like the first flush of exhilaration. Nature in perpetual motion, that's the sense Kiara Woolfe gives as she lobs the ball toward the ring and watches the neat arc it cuts through the air, watches it hit the ring and wobble inside.

There's a flash of teeth at that, a private (or so she believes in the moment) surge of satisfaction.

She's dressed as much for the occasion as the weather, the pagan, in a pair of soft grey sweatpants that are tied loosely at her hips; in a fitted shirt that adheres to the curve of her spine; her middrift is bear where it cuts off and the dark lines of a tattoo are visible, teased at the edges where the hem rises as she reclaims her ball and turns to sight the sensations creeping along her skin.

The bite of Alexander, the shifting, keen sensation of Grace. Others, too. Some Kiara can't instantly place, that has her pause. Raises a hand to cover her eyes and look across the rolling slope of a hill, beyond the fence and the dappling surface of the water. The ball is tucked under an arm and she's still in transit as Dan appears, as they're greeting her.

"Hey Grace, Dan." There's a flush of color in the Verbena's cheeks, it suits her alarmingly well. "Do something fancy, shoot for the hoop. Next in line has to copy you or create their own." She raises her eyebrows in Dan's direction, gently directs her ball his way with a dragging edge of a smile.

"You can lead us off if you want. Show us what you've got."

Dan"I'm not one to insist on universalizing my own experiences," says Dan, and maybe he's smirking a bit behind the shadow of his beard, while also rather precisely pinching off the cherry of his cigarette(?) and then stomping the ember to ash beneath the heel of his Converse All-Stars.  He's wearing them for fashion, not function.  That smirk mingles with a vague, bemused grin.  " - but, you've never played HORSE?"

A lift of his chin, wordlessly returning Kiara's greeting.  Falls silent as she explains then game, then reaches out to take the basketball as Kiara passes it his way.

Those are musician's hands, not a ball handler's, but still.  Can't be a lanky guy from middle-America without playing some basketball, someday, somewhere.

"You do a 'round, repeat the last shot.  If you make it, great.  If you miss it, you get a letter.  Once you've spelled HORSE, you're out.  Last person standing wins."

He takes a minute to lift his leather bag over his body and set it carefully aside, then gives the basketball a few experimental dribbles, hand-to-hand before shaping a drive toward the basket.

First shot is simple: a lay-up.

DanDan retrieves the ball as it comes through the basket and passes it to Grace.

Dan(Lay-ups are easy, dif 4 if you guys wanna roll!)

AlexanderAlexander wanders over with no great rush.  There doesn’t seem to be any great disaster at this exact moment, nothing that needs to be rushed towards or away from.  And let’s be honest here, he is more likely to be rushing towards it – partly in case anyone else is in danger, partly because he’d just want to know what was happening.  Apparently he thinks the cat just got unlucky.

Yes, Alexander heads towards the court.  He’s not dressed particularly differently from the others this afternoon.  He wasn’t unfamiliar with colder climes, so the trousers favoured by the others are replaced by cargo shorts.  The guy seems to like his pockets.  Above that, a black sleeveless tshirt covered by a red flannel shirt, worn open and untucked and drifting vaguely in the breeze.  Some walking boots and a rucksack, now shouldered, completed his attire for the moment.  It wouldn’t be entirely surprising to find him with something tucked away for if the weather changes for the worse, though.  He’s lived here long enough.

He pauses at the gate to the court to watch what’s happening, and to wait to be noticed.  As if they wouldn’t have picked up on his approach any more than he picked up on their presence here.  But he doesn’t want to distract anybody from their shot.

Kiara Woolfe[I just like rolling to see how badly the dice roller crushes my dreams. Hup, hup. Lay up.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN4 (1, 3, 4, 4, 5, 10) ( success x 4 )

River Vasquez[awareness: are these *gasp* unique people?]

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

River VasquezShe is bright, a literal brightness that comes with warmth, that comes with the first rays of the sun that come back and fight their way through the vestiges of winter. There's a sort of determination that comes with those first sprouts of life that poke through the snow, something that is intent on becoming more than just grass.

But the other woman acknowledges her, the one who doesn't quite ping on River's senses as well as one would imagine, but we digress. She runs her hands over the rail, looks back when she feels the pull of something frozen on her senses. She turns around, regards the other stranger in a sea of them. She smiles, something bright and relaxed.

"The game just started," she said in a voice that has a fair bit of an accent. More Cuba than United States, but very familiar with English.

GraceOoh. Game. Some sort of sportsball game. Right. Horse.

Grace bounces the ball on the court, eyes flitting to the cold spire of Alex, and she smiles at him. Then, it's time to earn her letter. Or not. Who knows, she might just do the thing right.

She walks up to the spot where Dan shot from, and peers up at the hoop.

"Well, I didn't spend a lot of time outside when I was a kid. Jumping chollas and oppressive heat will do that to you," Grace says, and she doesn't follow that up with 'oh yeah, and none of the other kids would play with me', but there is that too. She has people to play with now, so. What does it matter?

[Dex + Ath = copying Dan's layup!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN4 (1, 1, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )

GraceNot bad, nope. Went through the hoop at least. Grace assumes that counts, and picks up the ball to throw it to Kiara.

Kiara WoolfeThere are days when Kiara feels acutely connected to the world around her. Feels the way every tiny hair on her body reacts to stimuli: the sun, the gentle, curling breeze, the brush of fingers, the rough give of her basketball. The awareness of others, like her, who were at once a part of and more to all of it. She feels it today, beneath the afternoon light. The prickle of her senses - a hand raising to cup the back of her neck and she twists in a slight, fluid motion to watch Alexander's approach.

The edge of her mouth retains that same smile she'd offered Dan not a few heartbeats ago.

"Hey," she's studying Alexander now, her dark eyes absorbing a hundred tiny details about the man she knew by sight, by sense, but barely at all. The frozen lake in winter. She gestures at his rucksack, resting over a shoulder. "Unburden yourself and come join the game. I'm ambitious enough to want to see how I rank against everyone, today." Her smile widens and a dimple flashes into a cheek. "It's the day for it."

Then, warmth. Inviting and bone deep.

She turns to River, inclines her head. Her hand falling away. "It has," agreement, consideration. "You're welcome to join too, if you want." This briefest tick of eyes over her figure and she turns back in time to catch the ball lobbed her way by Grace. She moves across to take up the other woman's place, canting a little smile sidelong as she does. "Not bad, Evans."

Then, her face adopts a slightly more focused expression, eyes on the hoop, her entire body sings with it. The anticipation of landing the shot. When she makes it, her shirt lifts enough to reveal the full design of that tattoo on her lower back, a spiraling shape with a line cut through it. It gives the impression of something vaguely oriental, some designation or belief inked into the pagan's skin.

Her shot sinks into the hoop neatly and Kiara makes a tiny hop-step of satisfaction.

DanThey're all Special People, resonant, the signature of their magic charging the air around them so distinctly and assuredly.  All Special except for the guy with the roughly worked head of blond hair and the wallet chain and on and on and on.  Him?  He's ordinary.

Gives Grace an ordinary little grin/smirk in response to her ellipses of understanding.  Then gives her a few beats of applause when she makes the lay-up.  Watches the ball as she passes it to Kiara then his eyes cut back to Grace as she walks or maybe-jogs across the court and out of Kiara's way.  Drops his mouth to Grace's ear and mutters something.

(Muttered: "It's all physics, Grace.")

Which he knows would never make sense to Sera, who does not believe in physics.  He figures Grace does, though.

"Game just started," the guy affirms to River, either in echo of overlay of Kiara's statement.  "No one has an H yet."  Is: retrieving the ball from beneath the basket or maybe wherever it rolled after that shot - bending low and scooping it up with long-fingered and rather deft hands, tossing it back and forth like he's deciding whether or where to go when his phone rings.

Or rather: his phone starts playing the opening riff to The Breeders' Cannonball.

Which means: his phone rings.

He has the presence of mind to toss the ball in Alexander's direction (hey! join the game!) even as he's reaching for the phone in his back pocket.  Pulling it out, putting it to his ear.  Maybe he gives them a gotta get this but isn't that obvious?

"Hey.  Where the fuck are you?" He might be overheard saying as he walks off,  pausing only long enough to grab the bag he dropped off when he stepped onto the court.

Alexander[Catch!  Dex/Ath]

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

AlexanderWhen Grace smiles, Alex offers one of his own along with a small wave.  It’s a momentary thing before she turns with the ball and takes her shot.  A shot which flies straight towards the hoop and sinks in without any great drama.  A short round of applause comes from the man leaning against the gate.

“Are you sure you’re not really some kind of hustler?  Trying to persuade us just how bad at this you are before you come up with ways to make it more interesting?”  He’s smiling as he makes the joke – and it is a joke – to take any sting out of the jibing.

River gets some amount of attention.  More attention than the game gets, really.  As if the standard weirdness around the city wasn’t enough, there was also the prospect of Union become more of a feature.  And look, here’s a complete stranger who just happens to wander up to them.  Hmm.

The game’s just starting, and there’s an invitation to join.  Hell, there’s even a ball flying in his direction just as he’s shrugging the back off of his shoulder.  There’s a flurried movement as he brings a hand up to block the ball from hitting him while trying to unravel his shirt from the bag strap, but he gets free just in time to grab the ball with both hands after a near fumble.

Bag sat just inside the gate, Alexander bounces the ball towards the stranger.  “After you.”  If she does have anything untoward planned, there would be four-now-three of them against one.  But that doesn’t necessarily mean that he relaxes just yet.  Not until he gets a better feel for her.

Ahh, paranoia.

River VasquezKiara says she can join, and her face lights up. The young woman, who seems to be very much averse to the idea of shoes, takes the after you offered by Alexander and goes on in. She walks a little more head on, purse soon enough ditched at some location by the fence. She takes a few steps away, holds her hand out as if she was beckoning the purse to stay. Purses tended to get up and walk away in parks, you know, especially if you didn't keep an eye on them. She straightens out her oversized tee shirt (white. She's got a black bra under it but she doesn't seem to care. It matches the yogapants).

Her nails are painted dark blue.

"Thanks," she tells Alexander, and goes on to introduce herself to other people. Offers a hand to Kiara, "I'm River."

Like the water feature. Or the chick from Firefly. She gets both pretty regularly.

GraceGrace bows for Alex, an overly-dramatic affair. However, the ball gets left without an owner, floundering around outside the court into the grass. So, she chases after it, kicks it back onto the court, in the general direction of the new girl (What, you're not supposed to kick basketballs? Whatever.)

The newcomer is named River. Interesting name. Better than Grace, for sure.

"I'm no hustler. I can't play sportsball for anything. Really."

Kiara WoolfeDan's phone starts to ring and he's offering the universal excuse me glances that receive a little nod from the Verbena as she moves out of the road of the approaching newcomer. "Tell Sera I said hey," is the brunette's called farewell, an absent, easy parting before Alexander is issuing accusations about hustling and Kiara's eyes, bright and playful match her glib tone.

"I'm shocked and appalled at the accusation. Now put the ball through the hoop or wear your scarlet letter." There are times when Kiara's native roots emerge, that direct, challenging New Yorker energy thrums from her as she smiles in Alexander's direction, then:

I'm River.

The stranger offers a hand, Kiara's focus shifts, down to that hand and her own clasps it. They're warm, the pagan's. Her fingers long and finely shaped, the nails carefully manicured into short, painted ends that are coated in the faintest pink shade. "Kiara. That's Grace and Alexander and that was Dan." This with a gesture at the tattooed man's departing figure.

"And you're up, River. Show us what you've got."

Alexander“You protest too much!  No doubt you’re forgetting to mention that you used to be captain of the high school team.”  The smile is still there, if a little more guarded.  It’s not Grace, though.  There’s still warmth there for her.  It’s something – someone – else.  Someone apparently called River.

There’s a small nod at the mention of his name.  Thankfully given correctly, to this stranger.  He can be Alex.  To Grace, he is.  To Kiara, who he doesn’t really know yet, and to River who he’s only just met?  There’s some formality in how he prefers to be introduced and in how he prefers to keep the relationship.  Call it a quirk of upbringing.  Duzen.

For now, Alexander remains propped up against the gate post and watches.  Although, again, he’s watching River more than the actual game.  Although he is aware of it enough to follow what’s going on.

River Vasquez[dex+athletics: allyoop!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN4 (1, 2, 2, 3, 8) ( success x 1 )

River VasquezOnce she has the ball, she looks awkwardly at the net. Bounces it a few times and looks downt o roll up her pants legs so she can actually run and dribble with the ball and, you know, actually performa  layup without falling flat on her face. The hispanic woman takes a few steps, gets her run up and then tries to make the shot into the basket.

She was not tyhe captain of her team in high school. She wasn't the captain of her team in anything, in all actuality, and she has her run up, the shot, and the basked ball bounces off the rim a couple times, wiggles and she stops and looks up with quiet schoolgirl terror at the prospect of being the first person to get a letter in the game.

"Nononononono-" aaaaaaand in the net, "yessssss!"

Hands in the air. The young woman goes to pick up the ball and holds it out to whomever is willing to take it.

"I'm better at soccer," she admits.

GraceGrace chuckles a bit at Alex. Let's just say that if she'd known that he liked to keep it formal with his name, he'd be known as 'Al' to her from then on.

She waves at River, little smile. Not her usual exuberant 'I know you're a Mage! Let's be friends!' approach, but they are in the park after all. There's Technocrats in the city, she knows. This might as well be 2 red flags for poor River.

At least River doesn't seem to be a horrorbeast. You can never really tell...

Kiara WoolfeThere's conversations Kiara needs to have with these people. Not strictly are they ones she wants to have, but - there's an awareness there, just beneath the surface as they laugh and throw a ball around and behave, outwardly, just like any other group of young people in a park on a picturesque fall afternoon - there's things she knows that she thinks they have a right to.

The Union closing on their ranks and Alexander is savvy enough to it to keep an eye on River, who they don't know but feels like the unshakable radiance of the dawn. Kiara too, at a point, at another, watches the Hispanic female with a certain consideration. A capture through half veiled lashes, the approximation of how far the edge of the fence is; what cover the benches that dot the edge of the court would offer.

She'd walked the wilds of the Umbra not a handful of days ago but for all of that, she can't look at this stranger and know, unflinchingly, whether she was to be trusted or not.

Still, in the now, in the moment, River connects with the goal post; the ball dancing on a razor's edge around the rim before it tucks down and obediently drops through it. The precision is unsure though, it wobbles as it hits the ground and is reclaimed; Kiara, a hand at her waist, the other pushing the fall of dark bangs over her brow, walks forward to accept it.

Dribbles it a few times. "It's all in the stance. Your body translates the intention. Feet. Back. Wrist. Ball." She catches it up into her hands, the Verbena, her chin lifting a touch. "Slam dunk." She looks at River for a little lingering second, then her eyes tick to Grace. "Grace, you're up.

Time to make the shot your own."

Alexander[Per+Alert - do we notice Kiara's checking out the lay of the land?]

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

AlexanderOf all the times for an Awakened to be arriving in the city, this probably wasn’t one of the most auspicious.  There were strange things going on outside the city – things that he still needed to look more into.  The Union had already been spotted in the city – not by him, but by someone he trusted enough to believe.  It had been a while since things had settled down to what could be called remotely normal.  And who the hell knew when another cannibal, Fallen, Marauder, or some other form of danger would arrive to plague their lives again.

Watching the women move around the court, Alexander takes a breath and tries to mask the sigh that follows.  It wasn’t a good way to live, considering that newcomers could be the next incarnation of city-threatening evil.  But it wasn’t safe to assume the best.  Not any more.  Not if they wanted to survive.

Alexander wonders for a moment if the Verbena was guessing what was passing through his mind as she skips past him and brings Grace’s turn to shoot around again.  His gaze passes over Kiara and there’s a recognition that she isn’t quite as relaxed as she might first appear.  Her gaze wanders too, scanning the court.  Something practiced?  Perhaps.

For now, though?  He’s content to keep watching.  And idly wonder if he should start carrying a weapon off duty too.

River VasquezRiver, for her part, is clueless. She doesn't know what's gone on in this city, only the climate that she left in San Diego. Something balmy with things lurking under the surface. She doesn't know what is going on, doesn't know that the city has seen its fair share of viruses and marauders and cannibal killers- though if she did she might get sick. Though, if she did, she might understand. There's a lot of variables to have.

And River Vasquez is not offering any explanation. River Vasquez, for her part, is content to listen and take in people. Her attention stays with Kiara, takes in what she has to say about shooting a decent basket and, for what it was worth, the dark-haired woman took it at face value. They're just strangers who offered to let her play at the park with them.

They're strangers that all have something very strange in common, but at the end of the day, they're strangers.

"Your body is just an extension of the shot," she says, waits for some kind of confirmation that she understood what the woman was saying, turned her attention to Grace to see what she had up her sleeve.

For her part she seems shy, River. Doesn't seem like she's ready to dive in head first. Doesn't seem like she's going to make the first move with these people. There's a reason they're not talking about that elephant in the room, and for her part she was trying to piece out the why without having to think on it too hard.

GraceOh, shit.

Make it her own? Yeah, that's how the game is supposed to go, right? You get trickier...

She takes the ball from its bouncing trajectory, and ponders. Then, she lifts a leg, and thus unbalanced, tries to do that layup again.

"Then, my shot is wobbly-assed," she says.

[Diff 6 'cause one foot!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )

GraceWobbly, but she sustains it. Huzzah! And upon capturing her wayward ball, throws it to Kiara.

Kiara Woolfe[She shoots and ... ]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 3, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )

Kiara Woolfe[Ooh, just.]

Kiara WoolfeAlexander is a sentry at the gate.

He catches the dark haired Verbena assessing the risks contained about their location with eyes trained to do exactly that; glimpse the nuances of things. See the details that offered tells about a potential threat's next movement. The tick of a eye, the flex of a finger. The tension laced across shoulders. For the most part, Kiara seems at her ease but that tension is there, just beneath the surface.

Scratched aside, there's a particular care to the way she holds herself, with and without the ball in hand.

Weight balanced on her heels, her body never entirely still, moving in a gentle motion that seemed rhythmic, almost idle but for the fact it kept her muscles looser; kept her in a state of readiness for sudden action. She bends forward when Grace lines up her shot, bracing her hands on her knees, smiling with the faintest trace of competitive spark.

"Wobbly assed shot, coming up," She declares, catching the ball when Grace throws it her way. Lifting up a foot and closing one of her eyes.

She does, teeter a little.

It throws her aim a notch to one side and Kiara sets her foot down as the ball collides with the backboard heavily, then rebounds through the hoop, rolling back toward her. She jogs forward to collect it and turns, raising her eyebrows at Alexander.

"C'mon Alexander. You have to try at least one shot. Peer pressure."

Alexander[For when he shoots...]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 5, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )

AlexanderHe considers it for a moment.  The ball has bounced around the group of women but, apart from the brief contact when Dan was leaving, he hasn’t really been involved in the game.  He had been content to watch.  The game.  River.  Both.

He can be playful, though, and it is a temptation to join in.  Kiara seems to be comfortable enough to pull him in from his watchful position – although admittedly he is the weakest magically of all of them there, but being tackled to the ground can be somewhat disruptive to concentration – so he relents.   Maybe for the one shot, maybe for more.  Only time would tell.

So he pushes off from the gatepost and holds his hands up, ready to receive the ball from Kiara.  Expecting it this time, he easily catches it.

“Wobbly assed, gotcha.”    Walking onto the court, he lifts up one leg and closes an eye.  Just as Kiara had.  The ball flies true and, bouncing off the backboard, sinks through the net.



River Vasquez[Can I make this shot?]

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

River VasquezShe claps. Grant you, she claps after every shot, but this time it is mindful applause at what she presumed was probably a pretty hard shot. It's easy to wobble when you don't mean to wobble, but being wobbly on cue is an artform. There is the moment of applause, that passes as quickly as it goes and she does laugh.

"I have been outclassed," she announces. When the ball comes to her she looks at the little orange thing like she might want to relent and take her letter. She shakes her head, because what was the purpose of being endowed with the ability to shape the world if you're going to let a little nervousness at a basketball game define you, "I think I should put my shoes back on at some point, maybe."

But it would seem that being wobbly and off-center is really the way that River was born to play basketball and when she shoots, Miss Sunshine closes one eye and looks like she might fall over for a second but true to form the ball swishes through the net without any real problem.

GraceWhy'd Dan have to make her go first? Now she has to think of something else weird to do.

She takes up the ball, stands on one foot, and closes her eyes. Is that the way it's supposed to go? You keep adding challenges? Or... who knows. She's never played this game.

"Eyes closed. Blind shot. Here goes..."

[Diff 8, cause wobbly and blind!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (1, 2, 3, 6) ( botch x 1 )

Grace[lol]

Kiara Woolfe[The dice gods take their first victim.]

Kiara Woolfe[This might turn into a comedy routine. Blind shot!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (1, 1, 3, 3, 7, 8) ( success x 1 )

GraceThere's just something about the lobbing of the ball that destablilzes her further, and then -- with windmilling arms -- she's down. Okay, so that's an H for Grace. It's also a trip to the ground. It's a good thing she's in jeans and a toughened jacket, right? Otherwise skinned knees might have happened.

Kiara WoolfeThe Verbena is smiling when Alexander accepts her offer. He comes closer and there's a sudden whiplash to the sensations pooling in their midst. The surge of life waging war against the settling freeze of the winter and yet, for all that, she seems genuinely pleased when he makes the shot. There's a low whistle of appreciation and then soft applause for the newcomer.

"Nice."

A beat, as Grace deliberates on a new set up, Kiara's dark eyes shifting to trace over River. She turns her body a little, arms over her chest, hip cocked out. "So, River, been in Denver long?" The afternoon is wearing down, the sun diminishing slowly across the lawn; dipping behind the trees in the distance and sending dappling light dancing across the court; stretching their shadows into long, ambiguous shapes. She asks it lightly enough, the brunette, for it to seem, on the surface, perfectly straight forward.

Polite conversation between relative strangers. Polite, but for the knowledge that lay threaded beneath it. All the unspokens that may, when Grace's shot sends her toppling to the ground, be temporarily forgotten. Kiara makes a quiet noise that is somewhere between amusement and surprise - "You okay, Grace?" - as she reaches to snag the ball when it bounces along to rest near her feet, and the dismantled Disciple. According to the rules, Kiara can create (and shoot) whatever kind of shot she desires but she adopts a similar stance to the other woman and lifts the ball in her hands.

And goes still.

The pagan breathes out, her eyes closing. She lifts her opposing foot up and, after a beat - throws the ball. It's not an altogether elegant shot; the slice of it across the court is jagged but it catches at the back of the board soundly and wobbles; dropping through.

Alexander[Crap, didn’t realise it was my go – sorry!]

Alexander winces a little as Grace goes splatting onto the ground after adding another twist to the shot.  But she seems to be ok, everything appears to still be working and moving the way it should.  Except, perhaps, her pride.  But that heals.  He does make a horse-whinney sound, masking it under a cough.  “You ok?”  He moves over and reaches out, offering a hand to help her up.

The merging and meshing of the many and varied resonances could well be jarring to someone not used to them.  Something like walking into a room with the TV and radio on full blast, with the hoover and washing machine running for added ambiance.  But maybe plenty of contact with others of, well, similar persuasions could blunt the worse of the conflicting sensations.  River doesn’t seem any the worse for it.

Whether or not Grace accepts the help up, Alexander does walk over to where the ball has rolled to a stop and picks it up.  As with Kiara, there’s still some amount of tension in his movements.  But he’s content to take part.  And it is kinda fun.  So he lines up and takes his own blind shot.

Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (1, 4, 7, 7, 7, 7) ( botch x 1 )

River VasquezGRace goes toppling and River pulls her hands to her mouth, gasps like she's surprised and starts on over to try and offer the lady a hand, or at least to figure out whether or not Grace wants a hand up.

"Oh? We just moved here, my room mate Farrah and I still don't have an apartment settled out," she smiles, laughs a little and continues on. Her voice doesn't carry very well. Soft-spoken, perhaps, is the correct word, "we came from San Diego by way of Las Vegas? Bested some one-armed bandits and played a little blackjack before we got here. It was nice."

Fond, that's the way that one could describe the way that she says Farrah's name, like she likes saying it. Like having a friend here is nice because she's aware of how incredibly alone she is at this particular juncture. She then watches as another person takes their shot in quiet schoolyard horror.

"This shot is cursed," she proclaims!

Alexander...and Alex doesn't realise that one of his shoelaces has come undone, lurking menacingly for just the right moment to pounce.  Which, rather poetically, is just as he attempts the same shot that Grace had.  Alexander steps on the lace as he takes the shot, causing him to fall forwards.  Ball forgotten in his sudden need to stop the fall, it goes bouncing off somewhere to the side.  Alex isn't quite as armoured as Grace, so he does finish landing in in a heap with skinned hands and knees.  Rolling onto his back he starts laughing, making another whinny sound.



GraceAlex whinnies at her, and Grace squints at him in mock fury. Then, she takes his hand to get back up again. "Thanks."

Then, Kiara nails it (or at least doesn't fall down) and Alex? Ohh, that elicits a laugh, and a whinny at him in payback.

"Yeah, it's cursed, and it's your turn," Grace says, raising a challenge to River. "Man, winter is going to be murder on you. Was for me. Snow, pleh."

Grace[I have to sleep, guys!]

Farrah EsmailShe could call River's phone or just use her quiet powers of observation and god knows what else to locate her. That would not embarrass River though. And since embarrassing River is synonymous with fun before anyone present sees or even really senses the newcomer's resonance they hear her voice from across the court:

"VASQUEZ, YOU BIG SLUT!"

The voice belongs to a five-foot-five young woman in a sundress and cowboy boots. She is using her hands as a megaphone.

River VasquezNo worries!

River Vasquez[Taking the shot! +1 diff because Farrah is Farrah]

Dice: 5 d10 TN9 (1, 1, 3, 5, 6) ( botch x 2 )

Kiara Woolfe[Grace saw the botch and was like, nope. Also the dice are MEAN tonight.]

Farrah Esmail[HAAAAAHAHAHAHA]

River VasquezShe was lining up to take the shot, basketball in hand and, thus far, the only person to make it was Kiara. She looked at Grace for a moment, bounced the ball a couple times, "I do not think I like snow. I've seen snow. Mmn-mmmn."

She's getting ready to take her shot, closes her eyes and begins the walk up process, starts on with what she thought she'd seen Kiara do, since Kiara was the only one who actually succeeded at not punching herself in the face while she was doing this whole basketball thing, and soon enough she makes for the shot, her pants come rolled down and the tiny Mistress of Entropy channels Murphy's law.

She trips on her pants, yes, which makes her continue forward, trip, hears the back seam rip and she falls, flat on her face and just in time and in just an inconvenient enough way that she rips a pretty substantial hole in her yogapants. They're going to be useless for awhile, that or she's going to have to figure out how to use her oversized tee shirt as a dress.

River just lays there. Lifts an arm and flips Farrah off in the distance.

Kiara Woolfe[Doing a thing. +1 Diff, just because stuff is happening.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (4, 5, 5, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

Alexander“You guys make snow sound like it’s lethal to touch.  Seriously, it’s not like you’re wicked witches of the west.”  Alexander takes a minute to tie the malevolent shoelace before checking the other one.  Once he’s happy that they’re not plotting any further mischief, he pushes up from the ground.  He moves towards his rucksack, grabbing it and heading towards a bench at the side of the court.  Buried somewhere inside is a small first aid kit, with some sort of antiseptic cream.  Wincing and with an occasional inhale of breath, he dabs it on the newly acquired gravel rash.

[And will fade into the background, because Noel isn’t the only one needing sleep.  Thanks for the scene!]

Kiara WoolfeThe earth witch is not unfamiliar with the ways of fate and fortune. A most fickle mistress she, in the brunette's estimation. Not one to be trifled with and rarely mastered. Kiara makes a blind shot, whether precision or fate herself directs the Verbena's hand is unknown - she is, as it turns out - the only one who does this round. Alexander's shoelace is his undoing, River's pants pre-empt any throw she might have attempted and as the ball rolls away in the wake of River's pants rending down the seam - Kiara collects her ball and with a fluid motion; throws it toward the basket en route to check on the stranger's welfare.

The ball rattles the backboard and sinks neatly through the hoop, the reverberation sounding alarmingly like a dull, vibrating mockery.

"Hey," Kiara bends to check on the stranger with a hand resting lightly on the small of her back. "You alive?" Up close, the Verbena has a smattering of faint freckles across her nose, her eyelashes long and lovely and her mouth, at present, bent in a slight expression of mingled amusement and concern. She looks across at the approaching woman and then at Grace and Alexander, both making motions toward departure.

"You guys held your own, I'm impressed."

Her eyes tick back to River, she tilts her head, gauging the damage to her clothing. "I'm not sure your pants are going to make it."

Kiara Woolfe[No worries, thanks for playing!]

Farrah EsmailThis is how good a friend Farrah is: she watches her best friend in the entire world eat shit trying to throw a basketball and almost falls down herself laughing. Wraps her arms around her midsection like she has to keep her guts inside her abdominal cavity lest the force of her laughter actually open up a seam. All that before she even confirms that River isn't seriously hurt. The middle finger is the confirmation she would have needed if she were looking for it.

She comes trotting over after Kiara steps in to make sure River still has a pulse.

"Oh, no," she says. Wipes tears from her eyes with her thumbs. "This is why you're not supposed to touch strangers' balls, dude, we've talked about this."

[perc + aware: SUP STRANGE PERSON I DON'T KNOW.]

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

River VasquezShe laughs. She rolls over onto her back and covers her face with both of her hands and the sound is... brassy. Normally, people think of laughter like the tinkling of bells but River, our little sunbeam, is brassy. It's bright and present and she laughs like she fucking means it. Hands stay on her face but her ears are bright red.

She sits up, wriggles a little in her oversized tee shirt and finally shoves her arms into the arm holes before trying to pull herself through the head hole. There's a rip, too, but that's not surprising. The shirt was already beaten to Hell and back  on account of being a thriftstore find. It was only a matter of time before the tee shirt was being repurposed into a minidress.

"I don't- I mean-" she looks at Kiara and then to Farrah and throws her hands up. She's still blushing bright red. "Gahhhhhh!"

Kiara WoolfeThe woman on her haunches beside Farrah's best friend gives off a soothing, rejuvenating quality.

It's coupled with a gentle pulsing, as if she were some living and breathing manifestation of vitality and she certainly looked the picture of it at present in her grey track pants and sneakers, a tight fitting shirt hanging loose over one shoulder with a black sports bra beneath it. She had the complexion of a woman who saw the sun and the way she runs her eye over the prone woman's form, the awareness of the ways a injury could be sustained precisely the way River had taken a spill.

Dark eyes tick up to greet the stranger and the corner of Kiara's mouth quirks, then.

She withdraws her hand and balances back for a moment, her hands on her knees. "She doesn't seem hurt, for what it's worth. I think my friend Alexander took a worse tumble, if that's any consolation." She pushes up to her full height; stroking the fall of dark hair from her eyes. She's tied it back for the game, but even so, it falls over a shoulder in thick waves and one can imagine loose, it would be an impressive sight. It adds somewhat, to the aura of something a little wild touched she projects.

Farrah gets the benefit of a considering look from the pagan. "You must be the best friend. I'm Kiara." She moves across to the sidelines to reclaim a bottle of water from her bag, nodding at River. "She mentioned you guys just hit town." She uncaps the water, takes a sip and swallowing, adds with a suggestive hook at the edge of her mouth. "I think there was something about gambling in there, too."

Farrah EsmailAfter all that she does go down to one knee to offer River a hand to help her up. Once the other girl is on her feet she'll start to snake out of the denim jacket she's wearing. Someone needs to offer her something to restore her modesty. Or at least cover up her underwear. The three of them may be capable of performing acts nigh unto miraculous but Farrah can only do so much.

"Yeah?" Farrah says. Brief eye contact with the other newcomer. "Fuck, good thing I found you when I did, or you would've told her about the body we buried out in the desert, while you were at it."

That has to be a joke. A bone-dry joke but Farrah seems like the sort of girl who specializes in morbid sarcasm.

River VasquezShe accepts the jacket, tying it around her waist so people don't have to get a look at the bright pink floral number that she's got underneath the yoga pants. Before one gets any ideas, it's not a sexy floral. No, this is Haines 6 pack floral. This is the kind of underwear that you wear for yourself because it is the singlemost comfortable thing you've put on your ass all month.

The look she gives Farrah is one of just utter embarrassment. Her cheeks are still bright red.

"OhmygodIcan'ttakeyouanywhere," says one Euthanatos to the other. "I'm sorry- she's like that."

She smiles one of those please don't hate us, we're no and I want to have friends smiles. Clearly, someone spent a lot of time getting called a nerd in school. Which is sad when you think about it, since River was homeschooled.

Kiara WoolfeThe Verbena's smile doesn't fade at the mention of the dead body. If she's alarmed, she does a rather decent job of masking it. She's smiling around another swallow of water, catching an errant droplet that runs down the slope of her neck with her fingertips and turning to recap the bottle and tuck it back into the vestiges of her bag.

"Oh yeah?"

She pulls a sky blue hoodie out of it in exchange and shrugs it on, zipping it enough to cover her mid-drift where it had been exposed and tugging the hood out with quick, nimble fingers. "There's a body weighted down in the lake over there, for the record." She nods toward it, behind the other women and then moves across the court to stoop and collect the basketball, bouncing it idly as she captures it and turns to glance from Farrah to River, back again.

It's hard to deduce if Kiara Woolfe was joking herself, with the light way she offers her observations and the gleam to her dark eyes. Still, there's a thread of sincerity to the next thing she offers by way of conversation: "This park, it tends to attract all number of things. Torn pants being the least malevolent of them."

She bounces the ball again, rotates it between her palms when it rebounds back up toward her. "If you plan to stick around the city, it's probably not the place to linger long after sunset." Kiara's eyes tick toward the water again, the banking sunshine glinting across its surface.

Farrah EsmailNow that River has her jacket tied around her waist Farrah is left standing with her arms bare but for the cap sleeves on her dress. Horizontal wine-and-white stripes with a hem that stops just above her knees. The more brazen of the two young women has the physique of a former athlete. Someone who still has quick reflexes and the ability to run five miles without stopping but whose strength has gone dormant.

She isn't wearing makeup. Curly hair and an abundance of freckles give her plenty of physical distinction but she is otherwise bland. Farrah prefers it that way. She can't lie worth a damn. She wins poker games due to skill and luck rather than an ability to mind-fuck the other guys at the table.

"There's only one body in the lake?" Farrah asks. "Casuals..."

River VasquezThe embarrassment subsides for a moment when Kiara says that there's only one body weighted down in the lake. River looks from the lake, off in the distance, to her friend, who she leans a little against. She is most assuredly not brazen. Flexible? Yes, she looks like she would be flexible, but she doesn't look like she could run five miles without stopping.

River could, however, hold herself suspended in the air with little more than her thigh muscles and precarious balancing, but very rarely does that come up in an everyday situation. River tries to avoid being in situations where she has to dangle over something.

"Oh, I'm sure there's more than one. Denver is a big city," she says, "but it does have a lot of lakes from what the guidebook said."

A beat.

"If I can be bold, what happens after dark that is so bad?"

Farrah EsmailWhen River leans against her Farrah puts her arm around her friend's waist and pulls her in for a below-the-shoulders side hug. The hand responsible for the holding stays on River's hipbone and the fingers don't move once they're settled. Her other hand plants on her own waist. A skeptical expression comes across her face.

... what hapens after dark that is so bad?

Sotto voce:

"Shakespeare in the park."

River VasquezShe adopts an expression of mock hororr. The expression that comes when a horror movie heroine has seen her end and knows that she's about to get hacked into tiny pieces by some masked som,eone. It's clearly a B film, though, because she looks at Farrah with the over-the-topness that only coves in a B movie.

"Not community theatre! I'll do anything, just save me," she said as she slung an arm over Farrah's shoulders. The posture is comfortable, like the only thing she wanted to do was settle in comfortable with her friend.

Kiara WoolfeThere's the briefest catch of amusement there on the brunette's features at Farrah's offhand response.

Then her companion asks if what happens after dark is so bad and it's somewhere between this and the manner her friends curls an arm around her and draws her in for a hug that something flickers across the Verbena's face; the amusement fading from her eyes and they lower, brows drawn in a touch thoughtfully, the edge of her mouth giving over a smile that seemed caught up in some private sentiment.

(The faintest edge of unarticulated loss, some phantom dancing at the edges of Kiara Woolfe's memory; another place, another time; another arm around another's shoulders)

"I guess that depends on your definition of bad," she moves past the pair en route to her bag and stows her ball inside it with a little handiwork; slinging it over a shoulder after a pause. "But - people have died here, if that's what you mean." There's a beat, Kiara's dark gaze shifts between the women. Her mouth curls up, the smile is welcoming enough but doesn't quite touch her eyes.

There's a flash of teeth, though. Sharp and white.

"That tends to be enough for most." She adjusts her bag, then adds: "That, and the vampires. Those guys are never any fun."

River Vasquez[Not quite meeting her eyes? Per+empathy]

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

Kiara Woolfe[Something about the easy connection between the two of them, the banter, the touches, it seems to have touched on a raw wound in Kiara. River can see the way she's avoiding looking overly long at them, at the way they're leaning into each other, living comfortably in one another's space. Coupled with the discussion (however light they're keeping it) of death, there's a sense that Kiara has lost somebody close to her.

The grief doesn't feel recent, but one that tugs at the sight of the friends.

She can also tell, beneath her easy candor, that her warnings about the park are sincere.]



River Vasquez"Fucking leeches," she says the word with disgust. Genuine, something that creeps through her voice and the lady who is all sunshine could very naturally be the enemy of something that is very much not into sunlight. "Please tell me they aren't a huge problem here?"

She continues along her way, steers the pair of them over so River can pick up her purse. It's a gigantic eyesore, just a little too large to be considered a totebag. The heels in the main compartment click together when she jostles the canvas. It's bright pink and, for the most part, the bag has remained undisturbed.

There is something that she catches, though, something that makes her cock her head to the side slightly before she looks forward again. Pushes it to the side and into the realm of quiet remembrance. River offers Kiara an apologetic smile, "sorry, we're a little morbid, it's kind of a Euthanatoic thing. You end up developing a weird sense of humor."

Farrah Esmail"There is like, zero mystery with you."

River Vasquez"Sorry not sorry."

Kiara Woolfe"They mostly concern themselves with in-fighting, we did briefly get caught in the cross fire, but - " The brunette slides her other arm through a strap on her pack and settles it on her back. "It seems to have resolved itself for now. Still, they're around." Kiara walks a few paces and then turns when the other woman offers an apology, it's greeted with a slight smile, an edge of surprise notching there for beat.

The study she makes of both in turn abruptly more focused.

"In my experience, having a weird sense of humor about everything keeps you alive longer." There's a curl of humor in Kiara's voice before she adds: "Maybe that's the Verbena in me speaking, though." She inclines her face, then. Gesturing beyond the courts, down where a pathway winds itself around the expanse of the lake. "I'm going to head out but if you want, I can give you a ride somewhere?"

Translation, perhaps: now that I know you don't pose a risk.

Farrah Esmail"We're good."

Translation: I'm still not convinced you don't pose a risk.

Sarcasm is supposedly the lowest form of wit but Farrah isn't sarcastic for sarcasm's sake. It's a defense mechanism sure. It's a sign of insecurity. It's this and it's that. The girl accompanying River doesn't give off very many vibes. Her magick is subtle and there's a sense of freedom about her. Other than that the difficulty reading her has less to do with purposeful deception and more to do with unfamiliarity.

Or maybe she's just socially awkward. River did just out the both of them as Euthanatoi.

Farrah says as an aside to River, "I mean, unless you wanna--" Lewd eyebrow waggle. "--take a ride somewhere."

River VasquezThere is the lewd brow wiggling and River turns bright pink again and holds onto her purse like it is a great big security blanket.

"No, no, we're okay. Thank you though," with that sunshine smile again, like this would make everything okay that they were turning down the invitation, "I hope to see you and... who were they, Grace and Alexander? Again?"

Kiara WoolfeThere's a smile at them both and Kiara takes a few steps into the dwindling light. The sun is nearly touching the horizon now, painting the lake into lovely shades of burned ember and gold. Leaves crunch under the Verbena's sneakers as she moves off the court beyond the chainlink fence.

She turns back, once, fleetingly, twisting in motion. She hopes to see her again.

"Oh, you will."

She offers it as a certainty, the dark eyed pagan, before there's a wave and she slips down into the gathering dusk.

Farrah EsmailSo the pagan takes her leave. The death mage lifts a hand in an unenthusiastic wave and then turns to her friend.

What comes out of her mouth next marks the closest Farrah is going to get to confessing to missing Mike and wanting to burn a few minutes thinking about him. Farrah and emotions get along about as well as asphalt and epithelial tissue. Or River's ass and yoga pants.

"I want pie. Let's go get some pie."

River Vasquez"Let's get motherfucking pie," she says, and while it could sound triumphant in the end it sounds a little tender, or as tender as motherfucking pie could get.

"I think there is a place down the street that does homemade blueberry," because of course Mike would have liked something that would stain if he wasn't careful, but he was always careful. The fact that she had never once seen him destroy a shirt thanks to barbecue or pie was beyond her.

She squeezed Farrah's shoulder and, with little fanfare, got on to walking to the car. She doesn't bother putting her shoes back on.

what would make you stay? [alexander, kalen, lucy]

Alexander

Denver has a reputation, for those who look past the city’s marketing, for a somewhat changeable climate.  It may boast a huge number of ‘days of sun’, but that doesn’t account for the other states of the weather that share those days.  Wind, rain, hail, snow: none are exactly rare occurrences.  So the residents of the city adapt, check the forecasts, and often leave the house prepared.
Somewhere downtown is a coffee shop which stays open late into the night and sometimes doesn’t even close.  It’s independent, and serves decent coffee and a reasonable choice of food.  It’s also well located for the pre-and post- club/theatre/pub/cinema crowds, so it tends to be pretty busy through most of the night.  It’s not that late yet, though, but it’s no longer that early either.  Somewhere between nine and ten – the sky is dark and clouded over, but the light generated by the city mask the sky out anyway.

Outside the coffee shop, sat at a table and indulging in the age-old pastime of people-watching is Alexander.  There’s a partially-drunk and still-warm long black coffee on the table and a half-eaten croissant.  He’s dressed like he has plans for the night which may well involve flashing lights, deep bass, and getting lost in a crowd.  Black combats and boots are topped with what looks like a black t-shirt.  It is, until it gets under a UV light and then the wings appear on the back.  Under his chair is a small rucksack with a decent, warm, waterproof coat and a few other bits and pieces.  Alexander left home prepared.

Alexander

[And Awareness, because you never know who's coming.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )

Lucy
[awareness yuss]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

Kiara

(Can I crash the party? :D )

Lucy

[DO EET]

Alexander

[Sure, the more the merrier.]

Kiara

[Mage Spidy Senses Rollin'.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 4, 9) ( success x 1 )

Lucy
Most of the city has been bundled up for days.  Heavy sweaters, heavier coats, gloves, scarves, hats, the works.  The ordinary citizens of Denver need to layer up if they don't want the dry air to slice the warmth from their skin.

And then there are the extraordinary citizens.  A few transplants from even colder climates who bear up well enough in minimal layers, maybe even mere hoodies.

And then there's Lucy.  She was born in a place known for harsh and bitter winters, but that's not why she bears up under the chill better than most.  She bears up because she is frost-touched, cold seeped, frozen from the inside out.  Even on a warm summer day her skin feels like the cold bite of winter's frost.  Her (as she would put it) blessing does not mean that she's immune to terribly low temperatures, but it does mean that she can wander the city for hours in considerably less clothing than the normals.

From a distance Alexander can feel her coming, just a cold tingle at the edge of his senses that brings to mind the threading creep of frost coming closer.  Maybe it's just coincidence that has Lucy stepping through the door of the coffee shop, squeezing through a small crowd of others in their mid-twenties standing with coffee cups in hand as they discuss their options.

Lucy doesn't believe in coincidence.  She enters the shop because as she roamed in search of something or on her way from somewhere else, she sensed someone familiar, someone else who is cold.  The last time she saw Alexander things were not so awesome.  Death lay all around them, and Lucy herself was so preoccupied with comforting Elijah she didn't speak to the others before she eventually left.  This coffee shop is so far removed from a madwoman's slaughterhouse, all warm and cozy with the smell of coffee and sweet pastries filling up her nostrils.

She did not come in for a drink.  Once she's through the little crowd she looks around, running the fingers of one hand through her long, maroon-pink hair.  She does not look like she's dressed for the weather.  No ordinary person would be dressed as she is when temperatures are in the single digits, and yet there she is.  In a black hoodie with pink plaid accents at her hips, black denim cutoffs over a pair of fishnets and her knee-high black boots.  When she finds Alexander at his seat she smiles broadly and lifts her hand in a wave before threading through the other patrons to get to him.
"Hi," she says when she's there.  And then as an afterthought (because look at him, dressed all in black like he's got somewhere to be), "Are you waiting for someone?"

Kiara

A bundled up wave of post cinema-goers are trekking closer to the café as Lucy greets Alexander. He's people watching, perhaps paying attention enough to feel that (not so unfamiliar) stirring of a particular resonance as voices grow nearer, the crowds breaking apart before they quite reach the doors with their inviting aromas, the blend of coffee and baked goods.

On a night like tonight, it's no wonder the store is overflowing with patrons.

Spilling into view from the rear of the crowd is a brunette. Cloaked in white, from the knitted cap to the trenchcoat cinched tight around her waist, Kiara Woolfe is a resplendent sight. Dark waves of hair spill from beneath the cap she's wearing, the touch of the cold present in her pink cheeks, the haste in her footsteps. She's moving with the fluid momentum of the city-goer who wants to be out of the chill.

Are you waiting for someone, the Dreamspeaker wants to know, as the woman who feels like she'll tear you apart only to piece you back together slips through the steady flow of passersby en route for the doors to their café.

Alexander

Certain things are supposed to occur in a particular order.  Heat is supposed to lead to things melting, for example.  So it may seem strange to some nearby that the feeling of being frozen and caught in a sliver of ice or a shard of time precedes that approaching thread of winter.  The drop in temperature should come before the freezing, like the calm before the storm.  And the storm coming before the strangely, deathly quiet that follows.

After that night at the house, Alexander has been pretty scarce around the Awakened scene.  A few messages had been swapped with Kalen, to reassure him that Alex was still alive and doing ok, but other than that he’s been quiet.  If anyone had been interested to follow him, they’ll have found that he disappeared from the city limits and into the mountains for a couple of days with nothing more than the clothes he was wearing and a heft rucksack of camping gear.  It was time away to gather his thoughts, to gather himself again, and to try to work stuff out.  He’s back now, though.  And between the time alone and the time spent with Kalen not so long ago, he’s not doing all that badly.  The aura of coolness that waxes and wanes with his mood isn’t too noticeable.  He’s doing ok.

The problem with going away, though, is working out how to get back in sync with others.  Each of them that night had their own wounds to tend to, and Lucy had been helping Elijah with his. 

Bumping into Ian had felt awkward, because how do you even begin to talk with someone when nearly half the occasions where they had met involved fighting and death.  At least there had been more time shared between Alexander and Lucy.  Enough to make re-breaking that ice easier.
Alexander picks up the mug and sips the coffee as Lucy approaches.  He swallows as she greets him, and offers his own in return.  “Hey.  No, just me.  I’m killing time before the clubs get going.  How are you?”  He nudges the chair opposite away from the table with his foot.

Somewhere in the crowd comes that feeling of consumption and rebirth.  A hunger, but under control.  Even though, tension creeps into Alexander’s shoulders before he realises that it’s the same feeling that he’d felt in the park not so long ago.  He looks around for the source, somewhere in the people.

Lucy

Lucy does not believe in coincidences.  It is therefore no coincidence that she happened along this particular street at this particular time and sensed Alexander.  And it is no coincidence that the woman from the park is not far behind her.  And if others come after that?  It will of course be for some purpose, even if Lucy can't put her finger on what that purpose is until some later time.
It's not that later time, but the present, and they are here and they are coming here.  The winter children and the living embodiment of the turning of the cycle of death and rebirth.  Since that night at the house Lucy has been doing her own things in her own way, spending her spare time mostly with her sister, but sometimes contacting Elijah.  The Dreamspeakers are not known for being cohesive with others, either in their Tradition or outside of it.

That doesn't mean she lets the ice between them stay solid for long.  Her smile for Alexander is just about as friendly and as kind as ever.  There is a darkness shadowing her spring green eyes, dampening the upward curl of her mouth, tempering it.  Lucy is Dusk's child, an oracle of the guardian of the dead who may take up that mantle herself one day.  Death is no stranger to her, nor is dying.  But the horror of the things she's seen and the things she's Seen lingers on her still, making her seem older, or maybe just a little wiser.

"I'm okay," she says, settling into the seat, shifting her slouching canvas bag into her lap before unzipping her jacket.  Beneath it she's wearing a fitted dark grey shirt with an embroidered skull of white flowers.  "It's funny, whenever someone says they're killing time it reminds me of this cartoon I saw when I was a kid.  There was a dog with a," she waves her hand at her torso like the gesture might help jog her flagging memory, "a clock in his chest, a watch dog!" she says, brightening all a hah I remembered!  "He had this whole song about how you shouldn't talk about killing time, but I can't remember how it goes."

Alexander looks around, searching, but Lucy's eyes shift toward the entrance, looking through the windows to the outside.  She is expectant.

Kiara

The first (and last) occasion Kiara had to see Lucy had been in Washington Park, retching after being subjected to the horrifying last moments of a young man's life. Since then, the pagan's encounters with the Awakened of the city had begun to increase. A group on the college quad here, casual encounters at an art gallery there. If she was prone to consideration of such things, she might just theorize she was being slowly drawn down into another city's chaos; an animal sucked deeper into quicksand the harder it fought the inevitable.

Day by day, night by night.

She doesn't know the history. Bare glimpses, sidelong looks or awkward pauses, it's all the epilogues to stories she has no beginnings for. The closer Kiara draws to the café, the stronger comes the impression of something frozen. Of chill that sets deeper into the bones than mere weather can afford; it's tinged with something other, that sense and she emerges into the relative comfort of the café with searching eyes. Uncurling the length of a scarf from her neck and slipping gloves from her fingers into a pocket.

For all that she's sheathed herself in the color of the encroaching season, there are hints, the slip of colored necklaces buried beneath the folds of her coat; the catch and refraction of silver around her wrists when she moves. Dark eyes painted with dramatic flair and lipstick that delivers her mouth a striking crimson red.

She doesn't place the two Awakened directly until she's returned from the counter with a cup of coffee steaming in her hand. Once she sights them, there's a hesitation for a moment. A slight inclination of thin brows upward, vanishing into the bangs beneath her cap before her path deviates to take her closer. "Hello again," this, with a curling smile and dark eyes resting on Alexander's face a beat. Placing him, no doubt.

Kiara's eyes shift to Lucy. "Times two."

Alexander

There are those who believe in fate – that certain things are just bound to happen, in some way or in some form.  This meeting may be one of those things.  But there are others who don’t believe in fate – believe that it takes away the freedom to choose and the responsibility for consequences, passes them onto some unknown, unseen entity who may not even be there.  No, their movements through the fluid form of reality creates ripples which interact and pull each other together, like a strange form of gravity.  It’s simple a matter of probability that brings them all here.

Alexander wraps both hands around his mug and relaxes back on the chair as Lucy talks about the cartoon from her childhood.  He cocks his head as he tries to remember, rolling the idea around to see if it’s familiar in any way.  “About the only dog I remember was Scooby, and I don’t remember him having a clock.”  He shrugs.  “Maybe I should say that I’m waiting for something to happen, then.  Or watching the crowds?  Or just drinking coffee.”  He raises the mug in salute.  “You not having anything?”

Kiara approaches, and spots her.  Watches her approach, although the earlier tension – most of it, at least – has faded away.  He didn’t get a particularly close look at Kiara as she battled Ian for the ball that evening, but the view he had along with that feeling announcing her presence confirmed that she was the woman from the park.  “Evening.  Who won?”

Lucy

"Huh."  Lucy turns thoughtful.  "I don't think he did, either."

The night in Wash Park was not a good one for Lucy.  She was better when she was talking to Oliver in the alley, and she was better even when she was guiding a flock of dead to exact their revenge against the woman responsible for their murders.  But that night in the park she had seen the very worst of humanity and so Kiara had managed to see the very worst state Lucy had been in since...since Lucy can't remember when.

She looks better tonight, though.  Her skin is still bone white, but gone is the ashen cast.  Her smile for the woman is genial.  "Hi," she says, shifting a little in her seat so Kiara won't feel like she's on the outside of something.

"I'm sorry I didn't get your contact info last time.  All that stuff's been," she glances at Alexander before looking back at the woman in white.  "I guess you could say it's been handled."

Kiara

Who won? 

"I did. With a little last minute distraction in the form of Grace's coat." There's a minute shrug, a spark of evident satisfaction in her voice, in the coy light in her dark eyes. He'd glimpsed her the other night in the height of competition, stripped down and casual, pushing back at Ian on the courts as they orchestrated a sort of dance all their own, the exultant manifestation of the students of Life, perhaps. Kiara's right hand is wrapped around her coffee, she hasn't tasted it yet but seems content enough in the moment as people gently extricate themselves around her to hold it.
To enjoy the warmth seeping into her skin.

"I figured it probably would be," there's a knowledgeable twist to her mouth. An easy slip into conversation as if they'd been acquaintances long before they'd glimpsed each other that night in the park. Kiara fishes her free hand from a pocket and extends it. Her eyes slipping between the pair of them, her palm very warm despite the chill. "I'm Kiara Woolfe, to make it official. Newcomer, interloper," decided lilt of Devil may care humor inflected there in the way she says it, the curve and precision of her smile.

All dark eyes and red lips. The rattle of stones gathering and clinking around the fine boned wrist she holds out. "Whatever you prefer." Her attention is captured by Lucy again. "I'm glad you're feeling better, though."

Alexander

“He was better without Scrappy, though.  That guy was just annoying.”  Alexander takes another sip and listens to Kiara announce the winner, and the slightly dirty trick used to do it.  He starts to smile at the thought of Grace trying to distract Ian.

But then there’s a glance, with an explanation that things have been handled and it gets...  well, it gets a reaction.  Or maybe there’s a sudden draft at the coffee shop, but that aura of stasis gets just a little bit cooler.  The black coffee suddenly seems to be so much more interesting than the two women, as his gaze falls along with the smile.  It would be so easy to slide back into the funk that had lingered after things were handled, but he stops himself sliding.  Reminds himself that they did the right thing.  That things could have been so much worse.  Given enough time, he might even believe it.
But instead he coughs, clearing his throat, and looks back up at Kiara as she finishes her greeting and offers her hand.  She might see the edge of the weariness that’s surfaced in his eyes as he releases one of his hands from the mug and extends it in return.  “Alexander Brandt.  New last Thursday.”

Lucy

[because it's Lucy, awarepathy]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 5, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )

Lucy

Lucy mentions the park, meaning more the man missing his dog than anything else.  Because Kiara was there, she saw Jeremy's heart torn out and his spirit consumed in the moments of his death.  She should know that it's over now.  It gets a reaction from Alexander, though, which she notices.  Lucy looks to him a moment and there is regret there.  He's a cop, he's been trained to deal with things Lucy's had to pick up along the way.  And he's older than she is, she can tell.  But he's new to all of this, and Lucy has been seeing and speaking with the dead since she was barely out of high school.
Her gaze drops.  This isn't the place to talk about things like that in detail.  And besides, Kiara offers her name and her hand.  Lucy looks at the outstretched fingers and for a second she hesitates, lips parted like she might say something (beg it off, "No really, you don't-").  But then she smiles a little, gives a small shake of her head to dispell some inner thought.  All these things she could hide if she wanted.  Lucy here, she could sell ice to an Eskimo if she wanted, she can be a smooth talker when it's necessary.  She hasn't made a habit of hiding things, though.

The moment of hesitation passes and Lucy reaches over and she gingerly takes Kiara's hand in hers.  Where Kiara's is warm despite the chill, Lucy's is cold for another reason entirely.  There is a sharpness to her touch as it begins to leech that warmth away, just as surely as the frigid air outside would.  Lucy is cold beyond merely her resonance.  She's frosted straight through to her core.
"Lucy," she says.  "Lucy Simms."  Provided Kiara doesn't recoil (in Lucy's experience most do, but the Awakened of Denver have by and large been an exception so far), she gives her hand a quick squeeze before releasing her.  "And thanks."

Alexander grips Kiara's hand next, which may still be a touch cool from where Lucy's palm pressed.  She looks at him, confusion coloring her expression.  "New last Thursday?"  A beat passes before she smiles.  "I've never heard that before."

Kalen Holliday
[Good for one more?]

Kiara
[Fine by me! :) They're just inside a café chit-chatting.]

Kiara
It's funny the things people's body language can reveal. Tiny tells that more often than not, went unnoticed, uncommented on, filed away perhaps as unusual or uncomfortable but left unturned. Kiara Woolfe was a student of the body. She'd trained in ways to detect and manipulate the flesh, to uncover pain and soothe damaged muscle. She was also a student of energy, a worker in the ways of healing that went behind physical touch.

When you mapped and charted energy, you noticed. It became second nature, like Alexander watching people. You learned to read between the lines, because so very often, it was the darker aspects that bore the most fruitful recompense. She takes Lucy's hand and it's startling. The press of her hands and Lucy leeches the warmth right out of the Verbena's. Kiara's eyes flit to their pressed hands, her thumb curls and touches the edge of the other woman's skin for a minute and she looks curiously at Lucy.

"Hm," Kiara's throat catches on the vocalization, she seems to linger inside the touch of the other woman longer than might be strictly necessary. "My pleasure." Alexander's hand finds hers cooler for the brush of Lucy's. Kiara smiles down at him for a moment, tracing his face for a moment as if to stir loose whatever she's glimpsing there on the surface.
When the handshakes are exchanged, her focus drifts to her coffee, she lifts to her mouth and sips from it almost as an afterthought.

Alexander

A cop he may be, trained he may be.  Trained to protect the innocent, trained to fire arms in defence of himself and others.  Trained to do what needs to be done.  But that training never included acting as judge, jury and executioner.  That seems to be part of this new, wonderful, terrifying life.  Or is the way that he’s been choosing to live it so far.  But then is it really that easy to separate your mundane and Awakened lives when what you were when you were Asleep came to define so much about what you are?

He has doubts and fears and...  For the moment they’re under wraps again.  Secured again under that wall of ice that had cracked and fractured not so long ago, when he finally opened up to Kalen by the campfire.  So that tiredness is all that shows on the surface, all that leaks through.  And Alexander is, more or less, the man he was a month ago.

The smile even makes a reappearance when he explains the Last Thursday thing.  “It’s how I was introduced to Grace when I first..  arrived.”  Arrived on the Awakened scene, rather than arrived in the city.  But that had only been a little longer.  “It literally was that Thursday when it all went sideways.  I think Grace was New Last Wednesday for a while, back when she was newer to everything.  It’s more new a few months ago these days.”  Which is probably as clear a statement that he hasn’t been Awake for more than a year than he’s going to make surrounded by Sleepers.
He nudges a third chair with his foot, hinting that Kiara might want to sit down.  “So what brings you to the pit of terror that is Denver?”  There is, thankfully, a smile to indicate that he’s joking. 

Exaggerating, at least.  But most likely joking.  It hasn’t all been terrifying.

Not quite.

Kalen Holliday

[How awake are we?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )

Kalen Holliday

[And how distracted by Resonance are we?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (4, 8, 9, 9, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 6 )

Kalen Holliday

Kalen must spend only perhaps an hour between cups of coffee.  He's always making it, or carrying it, or buying it, or having it endlessly refilled in diners.  He's dressed warmly, heavy long gray coat, scarf, gloves.  Winter is not precisely his favorite season, but it's growing on him.  Still, he's cold and the Resonance in the air is cold.  It is new life.  It is swallowing him whole.

He has to remind himself that these are not cold and devouring shadows.  Hungry lakes.

Perhaps he wouldn't some other night.  But Alexander is there, Alexander who cannot be entirely at ease with Kiara's Resonance.  And so he walks over to join them.

Kalen does not head inside to get coffee first.  It is cold and he wouldn't mind having something that smells like vanilla and warmth, but that isn't what brought him here.  Instead, he moves to stand behind Alexander, rests one gloved hand on his shoulder.

“Hey, Snowdrop,” he says to Lucy.  She gets a quick, tired smile.  Kiara's greeting is a nod, an even briefer smile.

Lucy

The now-veterans of Denver could tell some stories about the horrors Denver has been witness to.  Terrible things that have twisted and warped them, monsters that would have killed them if they had been a little less on the ball.

Lucy is not one of those people.  To look at her, one wouldn't think her a veteran of anything terrible.  She is cold to the touch but that isn't something that brings her sadness very often or for very long.  She talks to the dead, guides them to the other side, but death is a part of life.  There are shadows to her now, dark lights in her eyes that echo the things she saw when she Saw Jeremy Tran's capture and subsequent death.  There is a somberness that has only just begun to settle into her shoulders, which are held straight.  Though Lucy leans forward in her chair, elbows resting on the table now, her spine is straight, her figure poised.

Her head tilts, like a dog angling for a better listen to some far off sound.  She senses the storm coming from a ways off.  A coincidence maybe, but she doesn't think so.

Then he is there, moving behind Alexander and offering him a comforting hand.  If his quick flash of a smile is out of the ordinary she either doesn't notice or doesn't realize.  Her own smile is wide and friendly.  "Hi Kalen."  And then to Alexander she asks, "It's not really that bad, is it?"

Kiara

Alexander nudges the chair and the brunette concedes to the gesture and sits down. It, the offer, the take-a-seat gesture garners him a curling grin that's hard to ignore as anything less than appreciative. They both feel like the stagnation of the winter; Lucy and Alexander; the frost skirting the top of frozen lakes and it collides here with Kiara's destructive, devouring presence. The splinter that cracks the ice; delivers the thaw before the Spring. The jolt of rejuvenating life.

There are enough reasons plainly to be uneasy with a presence like the one the Verbena offers; with her bright, confident looks and easy, lingering smiles. "Hm, well the terror for one naturally," she hits back lightly, drawing a leg over the other. The boots she favors hit her below the knee. All zips and leather and spiked heels that sink into the snow outside. They're scuffed around the toe.
Kiara jiggles one foot idly as she settles as if she can't quite co-operate with a total lack of motion. "But - I - we, my sister and I -" there's a pause then, a deliberate stop and consider as Kalen appears and Kiara directs him a glance, a brief twitch of her mouth in return, before - "travel a lot. I have I guess you could call it the movement bug. Staying in one place too long ... it's a skill I'm trying to master." She punctuates that with a sip of her coffee, leaving the imprint of her lipstick behind like a forgotten kiss, gifted the rim of the cup.

Alexander

At least two of the Mages in town had discovered what happens if you surprise Alexander from behind.  Kalen’s one of them.  So it is perhaps a good thing that his approach – the sensation of the calm before the storm and the captured glimpse of the man through the milling people – is noted before that hand lands on Alexander’s shoulder.  So rather than grabbing the hand and doing something that would very quickly be embarrassing and potentially painful, he just knocks his head gently against Kalen’s arm as his hand rests on Alexander’s shoulder.    “Hey.  Coffee here’s good, if you want some.”  Silly question?

Lucy’s question gets a few moments of consideration, although the smile doesn’t really fade.  “I guess I’m probably exaggerating some.  It’s just hard to remember the wondrous sometimes, you know?”  What with Awakening painfully, joining in with a fight against a corrupted spirit and its minions, facing up to a cannibalistic Adept and her own creations and converts...  There is still the memory of The Message, the Archmage who created him.  There is still the others in the city who stand against the terrifying.

“Afraid you’ll grow roots and won’t be able to move again?  We’re not such a bad lot, honestly.  There are worse places to plant yourself.”

Kalen Holliday

"Denver," Kalen says quietly to Kiara, "Seems to possess a certain kind of gravity.  Some of us leave, yes, but a lot of us stay."

He squeezes Alexander's shoulder.  "In a minute or three, perhaps."  There are so many things he could say.  About hope or light or triumph.  He picks, perhaps, the most oblique.  "I've been experimenting with cookie recipes.  I have not, yet, set the kitchen on fire.  Alyssa and Grace have an actually betting pool about it though.

"But you should come test the cookies, to figure out which recipe is the best.  So far there are four candidates for gingerbread.  But there are so many recipes for sugar cookies I don't even know how to pick which ones to use as test subjects."  He sounds so very serious.  Perhaps he is.  It is only sometimes easy to be sure.

Lucy
[i promise you this is not important]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (1) ( fail )

Lucy

There are certain things that catch Lucy's attention, hooking it and drawing her focus from one person to the next.  That it's hard sometimes for Alexander to remember the wondrous times.  Lucy's bright green eyes lower thoughtfully before she nods.  She does know.  After that first night in the park she thought she'd never know peace again.  Lucky for her she has Delilah, or maybe she wouldn't.
Next, there is my sister and travel a lot and Lucy's attention tilts to Kiara, chin lifting and head canting to a curious angle.  The corner of her mouth lifts.  "Sounds like me and my sister.  Only I was...hoping for a place to settle into.  When we landed here, Denver seemed as good a place as any to try and end our vagabond wandering.  Which," she says suddenly, eyes widening as she sits up, pulls open the bag in her lap to begin pawing through it, looking for, "Ah," her phone.  Thumbing it to life, the noise she makes next most closely resembles ack.

"Speaking of, if I'm going to meet her even remotely on time I have to go now."  Kalen and Alexander perhaps know by now that Lucy is a slave to the public transportation system.  Slipping her phone into the pocket of her jacket instead of back into her bag, she gathers up her things and rises, adjusting the fall of her bag so that she can zip up her jacket.  Not that she needs it zipped like other people do, but pretending to at least try to conform to standard winter weather protection will lessen how often she's stopped by well meaning (or lascivious) strangers commenting about her attire.  "It was nice to meet you officially, Kiara," she says, and she does not offer her hand to the woman.  "Um, Alexander, have fun at the club," she says, squinting as she points to the Orphan and then the Hermetic, "and Kalen, let me know how the cookies work out."

She hurries off, but stops suddenly just at the door and begins looking through her bag again.  She comes back to the table and puts a business card down in front of Kiara.  At least it looks like a business card.  It's not printed like one, though.  One one side there is Lucy in a silver-inked, looping, handwritten script.  Below her name is only a phone number.  When Kiara sees the other side, she will find a kiss mark in bright red lipstick, only a little faded with time.  "My number," she explains.  "See you around," she says, offering a wave to include all three of them.

Then she's off again.  This time, she slips out into the night unimpeded.

[because it is late and unfortunately i must sleep -_-  good night, and thanks for the scene!]

Kiara

"Plant being the key word, there." Arch, that. The tone, the eyebrow. The blink-and-you'll-miss-it humor about her Tradition, perhaps. About how she views herself in relation to the world; the universe. As widely or narrowly as she means it Kiara doesn't linger on it long. She does, though, throw her attention to Kalen and his quiet assurances on the city.

"I don't doubt that," she offers up honestly, searching his face for a long minute as if she's hoping to pry out secrets much the way she had Alexander, moments ago. Under her winter's cap, with the collar of her coat drawn up, her hair is darker than ever; invoked curls falling around a heart shaped face; she's sharp edged, Kiara, but there's a natural vivacity curled into her presence that tempers it. At least when she applies herself.

"Most cities I've been, there's always reasons to stay." The unspoken in her voice being: but more to run.

Lucy is catching words, framing them into a context perhaps she is familiar with in her head from Kiara's reasoning and there's a returned smile there - quieter, perhaps more tempered, than her usual - before the other woman announces her impending departure and Kiara watches her flight. The return. There's a card.

Laid out in front of the white-clad brunette and she takes it up, studying it and catching Lucy's eye before she's gone, reclaimed by the gusting climate outside. "Thanks. I'll text you mine."

Alexander

More warmth and humour come back into Alexander’s expression as Kalen talks about his adventures in cookie making and the betting going on between the others.  “What are the odds on you opening a gateway into hell in the oven?  Or is that only a thing when you get put pasta in there?”  It looks like someone might have finally done a little catching up with some of the old messages on a certain messaging service.  Alex looks up at Kalen, still smiling, telling him gently, “I’m ok.”  His voice goes back to normal when he continues, “And I’m all up for trying out cookies.  I’ll swing by.”
Lucy’s making a move to head off before the public transport network starts to wind down for the night and she gets stranded or overly delayed.  “Catch you again soon, Lucy.  And tell Delilah I said hi?”

Kiara’s hint at her Tradition is a little too subtle for Alex to catch, especially given his lack of knowledge of some of the groups.  But is it really all that important to know, right now?  Maybe in some cities Traditions are more important and those who aren’t a part of them are pushed apart from them.  But that doesn’t seem to be the case in Denver.  Not at the moment, anyway.  Who knows if and when things will change.  Nothing is pre-determined after all.

“So apart from gingerbread cookies, what else would get you to stay?”

Kalen Holliday

Kalen smiles and nods to Lucy.  He smiles a little at what Kiara doesn't quite say, because Kalen at the center of so many things now and learning to bake cookies and about to decorate three Christmas trees, with one hand still resting on his cabalmate's shoulder still knows more about running than staying.

Denver has him anyway.

Alexander's shoulder gets another squeeze, and then he is released and Kalen settles into one of the chairs.  "I think that's only with the Sumerian mulled wine recipe," he says.  His attention turns to Kiara when Alexander asks her what would make her stay.

Kiara

The Dreamspeaker's contact details are tucked away into her pocket; cushioned between the worn gloves. At some later time, perhaps that night, she'll empty them, turn the card over in her hands and run the tips of her fingers over the sharp edges in consideration of it. The faded lipstick, the implications inherent even in texting another Awakened. The tug at the edges of her world, coaxing it further into Denver's populous of Awakened souls.

It's not fear, per say, that holds her back.

What would keep her here, Alexander wants to know and Kiara's attention refocuses on him; her eyes; dark and framed by long lashes; coated in smokey layers of shadow; her smile. There's a decided tease in the way it hooks in the corner there. Suggestive of a whole array of things she might be holding back, might be deliberating.

"When I know the answer to that, I'll let you know."

There's the quiet hum of something electronic from her pocket that interrupts her before she says more. Her attention is captured by it briefly, she slips a phone out of a pocket; the screen flashes a riot of color against her coat, bathes her skin in the sheen of artificial light for a moment. "I should get going. Appointments to keep." She cradles the phone in one hand, the coffee cup in another and gently scrapes her chair back a little to rise.

The Verbana and her ghostly white ensemble; bracketed by dark hair and that certain sense of visceral inevitability. "It was nice to properly meet you Alexander, Kalen - " She slides gloves from a pocket, pauses as she slides one on. "Good luck with the cooking endeavors. Don't burn anything down."

With that and a pitstop to toss her empty cup into the trash, lip stick stains and all, Kiara's resonance ebbs away as she slips into the crowd heading for the door.

[Eep, I gotta go organize some dinner guys so I shall bow out here. Thank you for RP!]

Alexander
[Thank you!  Glad we got that scene in the end :) ]

Kiara
[Likewise! Hopefully we can do some more with them. :) ]