Hyde and company
Spring finds Nicholas Hyde and Penelope Mars in a different place than winter did. It's early May; they are not so new to each other anymore. It's early May and their cabal has fallen into a sort of rhythm, and perhaps Pen has already been out on her Order business and returned. Perhaps Arianna has made the acquaintance of the rest of the cabal, and perhaps not.
This is a time that also finds Nick much more involved with his new Traditionmates. Infatuation is a word that would be unfair to apply, but it is worthy of note that he is still new to having a Tradition, to being a part of any kind of group at all, and so a considerable amount of his time has gone into visiting with his Traditionmates. There are nights when he'll be out with them and won't come back until late, and the business is always lightly touched upon with everyone who is not Pen, who knows: some of his Traditionmates are increasingly concerned about Nephandic activity in the area.
So maybe it isn't much of a surprise when he tells her he'd like to meet the other Chakravanti, because they've been so much a part of his life recently.
And so here they are. He has pulled up outside Pen's apartment, with his little dark green car that will be replaced within the next year for a newer model. His windows are down, and the bright maple notes of a guitar strumming drifts out the windows and down into the yard. She'll receive a text:
Outside!
which is probably unnecessary, since he still hasn't replaced that muffler.
Mars
Pen respects secrets. She can keep them, too, as long as nobody goes prying for the shape of them, as long as she is not compelled to lie directly to somebody's face. And she is getting a little better at that; better able to wield subterfuge although she will never be good at it, unless the stars decree and she puts her will into it. People as honest as Pen are, as sincere and earnest
(rash; untempered) even in the face of criticism, aren't usually suspected of hiding things.
Pen respects secrets, especially pertaining to Tradition business, for after all she is a Flambeau
(soldier) of the Order of Hermes -- Lysander is particular about showing one's hand.
So anything Nicholas has told her in confidence has not been leaked to the rest of their cabal mates, although Lysander may get a word about the Wheel Tenders concerns (
and may, in turn, slip her a word, which she will slip to Nicholas, and so on and so forth...), and she has mostly been receptive to Nicholas telling her what he wants to tell her without teasing out more details.
But now he wants her to meet his Chakravanti friends. Penelope is game! Of course Penelope is game! Nicholas arrives, heralded by loud and untenable racket, by a snarling, growling, benighted noise; Pen appears just a minute after, looking even more myth-tousled than usual. "Hail!" she says, with the beginning of delight
(yay, Nicholas!) curling through her eyes like smoke curls through the sky above a forest fire. "Did you know, you are the bane of my relationship with my downstairs neighbors? Or more accurately, your car! They have given it a True Name! Where are we headed?"
Door opens; door slams, and Pen's regard of Nicholas is side-long - a hook-and-line sort of look, c'mere.
Hyde and company
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 5, 5, 6) ( success x 1 )
Hyde and company
[Pffft. Rerolling.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 8) ( success x 1 )
Mars
[*squint*]
Dice: 5 d10 TN4 (3, 6, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )
Hyde and company
The sun is high, though today it has hidden itself partially behind a flock of clouds, high and puffy and stark against the fairweather blue of the sky. Despite this, Nicholas is not wearing sunglasses; it is a warm day for early May, what would be a warm and humid room temperature if they were inside, and so he is wearing a short sleeve button down (plaid blue and gray) and a pair of light grey shorts.
As the passenger side door slams shut, he leans over long enough to reach for Pen and embrace her because just now it's difficult for him to go too long in the same place without them touching. He tucks his face in against her collar and presses a kiss to the corner of her jaw before he pulls back long enough to look at her. "What's the True Name they've given my car?" he asks, obviously amused both by her choice of words and perhaps by the frustration of her downstairs neighbors.
He will probably have the muffler fixed soon though. Maybe.
As he begins to back out of the drive, with a careful look spared to his rear view mirrors, Nick says, "One of the Chakravanti I know has a good relationship with the owners of this old mansion out in the country. They let us meet down in the catacombs. We thought it would be a good place for a party." And Pen is perhaps growing used to statements like this when he makes them, and usually he'd be able to deliver this more casually, but there's this little smile he gives her today. He might be nervous about her coming to meet his Traditionmates, or maybe he's just distracted because he's glad to be in her presence.
Mars
Pen leans toward Nicholas; cants her head the other way, exposing more throat and the line of her jaw;
go on, kiss there. Her breath catches; it is a too brief pleasure. Her gaze is still a side-long one, her burnished lashes low, and she says, quite serenely, "'
Asshole's Car.' It is not poetic I know, but it is spoken with much fervency."
And then, Pen rests her elbow on the window sill of the passenger door, elbow near the lock, hand curled by her shoulder and body canted more toward Nicholas than otherwise. She has forgotten to put on her seat belt, though if reminded she will resettle herself and snap it into place.
"Oh! I do like a good catacomb party; we used to have them when I was in high school. If there are any human bones lying around, the eye sockets make good candle holders, and there's the shadowy overhang - as long as it is a catacomb without too much detritus. Why would a mansion have a catacombs beneath it, though? Did it used to be a church or something?"
[Oo, oo, me, me! Manip + Subt. I totally fell for it.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Hyde and company
[Psh, you did not.]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 5, 6, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 5 ) [Doubling Tens]
Hyde and company
Pen pronounces these syllables that Name his car, and Nick gives a solemn pat to the top of the car's dashboard: once, twice, three times, a few little taps as though it were the top of a dog's head. "Well, now that you know it, you can have them summon me anytime you need. Provided I'm in the car at the time, I suppose."
It had been difficult to pull away; something in the lingering look he gives Pen just now suggests that he would have whiled away the afternoon with her if visiting New England's Chakravanti had not been a specific plan of his today. He does remind her of her seatbelt though, even as they are pulling out onto the road.
And, here, more amusement. Nicholas has been caught: mansions and catacombs are merely something like the Old Things he knows exist in this place, and they are foreigners in a sense to where he grew up. Sometimes he can string such things together with enough confidence to make it sound believable, and sometimes not. "It's a church-mansion," he says, "which is a long held Tradition secret."
There is this little smile and sidelong look, then. "It's actually an old country house. I guess it gets used more or less like a chantry up there, though the Node that it was attached to has dried up. May and Ciara and Miles trying to get us all together more regularly."
Mars
A long held Tradition secret. "Stolen from the Chorus?"
Pen feigns surprise, opening her mouth and resting her fingers over it, eyes gone wide. But she can't hold such a faux-pose for long, and anyway, she has to snap the seatbelt into place (
click!), and lean with great languor against the passenger side window again. The window suggests an echo of her burnished curls, her jaw and the contour of her cheekbone; it is more faithful to the bone of her wrist, which is close to it, and the turn of her palm and thumb.
And then her eyes linger the curl of Nicholas's mouth; her regard is intent
(ardent), and she hears what he's saying, she's just not paying much attention to it. Until, a beat afterward, Node attached to dried up, May and Ciara and
(?) Miles, and Pen inhales slow, exhales just after. Looks away from Nicholas's mouth, does not allow herself to be tempted by his eyes or any part of his face; looks out the window, instead.
"Is it basically a mostly Chakravanti-only Chantry House then? Maybe the Node can be convinced to spring up again; wonder shouldn't be finite. Do you know what resonance it had, before?"
Hyde and company
He misses the way in which her eyes are lingering on him, might have been drawn to his eyes or the line of his jaw or who knows what else. His attention is on the road, which all told is something to be grateful for. He does hear her slow inhale and exhale, though without context - well, that could be anything.
"We've generally been keeping it somewhat open. There are a few others who go there. We have a few Akashayana and Kha'vadi who come to practice there. I think there are a few Verbena who have also made use of it in the past." The place in which they're located is in some ways a middle ground between several large cities and New England's woods and hills; it's the ideal place for such mingling.
They are going north, and Pen can tell because these roads are familiar places to her: she has lived here for most of her life (other than her sojourn out to the United Kingdom.) They'll pass fields and woods and old factories, their mouldering brickwork being overtaken at last by nature. That never takes long.
"There's still something that lingers there. Just traces though. Independence, or stand-alone-ness, or...maybe just forlorn, it's hard to say. I've never tried to speak with the spirit that holds the place, but maybe I will someday."
Mars
"I like 'Independence.' That's a very good one," Pen says, approvingly, for after all: like most New Englanders, she is conscious of history; of needing to fight (as though it were yesterday) for this idea of liberty. "When we have our own Node some day," Pen says, liveliness wicking up through her voice, "what resonance shall it have? What about delightful? Or perspicacious?"
Hyde and company
Our own Node some day, Pen says, and this draws another sidelong look from the Chakravanti, and there is again this little smile that tugs on the corner of his mouth. He has to look back to the road after half a second, and yet it persists and becomes this private thing, and he reaches up and shoves a lock of hair away from the space between his eyebrows. It has been recently cut, neatly enough on the back and sides though it retains its wildness up on the top of his head and spills out in front.
"Perspicacious? I like it. I suppose for Nodes only five dollar words will do. What about lambent?"
Mars
"I like lambent," she says. Her own resonance feels similar, sometimes, ardent and resplendent to glowing and shining to radiant to lambent: the wizard's signature is a work of poetry; Pen thinks about it that way, sometimes, privately. "What about echoing? Or mellisonant? Or reverenced; but perhaps reverenced would feel too much like strings attached, and a demand.'" Pause. "What was that smile for, Crow?" And the question has a smile, sheathed, in it; a challenge and a pull.
Hyde and company
"Echoing," he repeats, obviously pleased by the word regardless of whether it's five dollar or not.
Then this glance to her again, and the nickname Pen has gifted him with still amuses him and makes him self-conscious all at once, the way any sort of very apt and intimate observation about a person will, the way especially heartfelt compliments do. He does not answer immediately, and he can attribute this to the fact that he is driving. The answer does come, though, eventually. "I, um. You know. Just talking about somedays." A beat. "We should do that, someday."
Mars
There is a disadvantage to driving somewhere together. It is an obvious disadvantage; Pen cannot touch Nicholas while he's driving, because that would be unsafe and dangerous; Nicholas cannot touch Pen while he's driving, because: you are driving, sir.
And vice versa. She wants to touch his hair, at least, tender a curl away from his temple, something; she stretches her fingers out across the dashboard of his car instead, then gives in to impulse and puts her hand on his knee slides it up the thigh.
"Why don't you pick a someday and make me smile? What should we do, someday?"
Hyde and company
Nicholas cannot take hold of Pen's hand while he's driving, as this would be unsafe and dangerous. He can't even look away from the road as he might like to: an obvious disadvantage indeed. They are passing through sparser country right now, though of course in New England there is very little that remains untouched; along the road there are weeds and yellow flowers that have begun to grow wild and tangle together as it's begun to grow warm.
"We should travel somewhere," he says, and there is this moment to contemplate. "I've never been out of the country before. Someday we should...visit the old Hermetic strongholds in Europe, or places of power out where other people don't go and see what sort of mysteries we can dredge up." A slight smile, only a little wry. "You know. Look for Avalon. Have adventures."
Mars
So her hand stays on his thigh for a while; her thumb draws absent-minded (
musing [contemplative]) circles through the fabric of his trousers.
"
O brave new world, that has such people in it," Pen quotes, but: listen, she does it with such compassionate hope, such fucking passion. "I always liked Miranda from the Tempest All right; let's look for Avalon." She sounds quite serious as she says that; solemn, even. A beat; Nicholas does not, at this point, know her Shadow name, only the part of her Craft name (multi-layered Craft name) that she introduces herself as generally.
"Do you feel at home, when you're at this chantry house that no longer has a node? Do you ever go there by yourself?"
Hyde and company
They've turned down a side road by now, and there are not very many cars that make their way out to these places; there's not much out here, woods and old homes that rest quietly on the same soil they've rested on for hundreds of years. He glances over at Pen as she quotes, and she is solemn, without the sort of smile she'd evoked from him: just hope, just fucking passion, and this stirs something in him as much as a smile would have.
"Sometimes," he says. "I don't know if I feel at home there, but I feel more at home than I've felt in any of the other chantries I've been to. There's possibility there."
He turns again, and they are not that far away now, and there is this pause that passes, the sort that promises further speech. Which happens, after not so long: "Just to warn you, a couple of my Traditionmates are a little out of it. I mean it won't be like a room full of Dianas, but it's...offputting to people who aren't Chakravanti, sometimes."
Mars
"Don't be concerned," Pen says, sincerely. "I do not off-put very easily; not even if," and she pauses there. Then: "I've known off-putting Mages before." The corners of her mouth tighten enough to carve out at least one of her dimples, though her expression is otherwise - what is it? Inquiring would be a good descriptor - the cant of her head, the way her glance leaves the roadside less to focus on one part of Nicholas as to take in the whole of him, the tenor of the way he is holding himself. Her gaze is studious; direct. "What do you mean, or rather, why do you say off-putting to people who aren't Chakravanti?"
Hyde and company
Nicholas seems to be sitting easily enough in the seat, his eyes focused on the road. Perhaps there is a little tension in him: it is not easy to see his Traditionmates in the state that one or two of them are in. He has experienced it himself before, and has said this, and perhaps it is some combination of sympathy and concern and worry over how it will come across to Pen, that she won't understand. Perhaps, perhaps.
"Have you heard of Jhor before? A couple of them are affected by it, right now. I only meant that for us it's...well, expected, I guess. It doesn't happen to everyone, but it happens often enough that I think we treat it differently. Not more casually, just..."
And here he trails off, because there is another turn and here there is an old wooden fence, splintered and chipped, that hems in the field behind. And the house is visible here, perhaps a quarter mile away and drawing closer: old indeed, and sprawling, with sharply pitched roof and peeling white paint and a wraparound veranda. It is the only house for some distance in either direction, and independent indeed.
Mars
The car brushes so close to a snarled magnolia tree, one side blasted, the other side all in bloom, that petals scrape against the car window; Nicholas's voice trails away, Penelope takes her studious gaze from his profile to compass the house ahead, then the land around the house, curious and alert in the way she has of alertness which is conscious but particularly clear once it is conjured up.
"I - hmm." Pen traces her index and middle fingers through her hair, curling over a curling tress above her ear; this is the ear closest to the window, and she is framed by blossom, as they pass that tree and then another, then framed by a tangle of witch hazel, hyacinths burning beneath; then a field, not fallow at all, because this is Spring. "I have heard of Jhor; it is when you skim too often and too near Lethe, and the foam of it fills your mouth and coats your throat and turns your insides into dust and if it is not tended you become other." Pen could say more, but now is not the time to get into her Hermetic-taught perspective on Jhor and the Mages who are afflicted by it. "It's a form of Quiet, right?"
Brief pause. And the thing is, Pen: she wants to help. "Are you telling me because," brief pause; she thinks she knows why he's telling her. "I mean," uncertain, "Do you want me to," another brief pause, and then settles on the frustratingly inadequate, "If I can help in any way, you should let me know."
Hyde and company
Here is another glance toward her as she is curling her hair over her ear, as these spring pastels splash into view behind her and frame her in loveliness, and here his gaze lingers for a split second too long, such that he has to remind himself to look back to the road. He does this, fortunately: no incident to speak of. "Yes, it's a form of Quiet."
They have pulled into the drive, and see here the way the grass is a little overgrown in the backyard leading toward the fence, tending toward wild. There is a blossoming dogwood next to one of the columns that hold up the house's front porch; its petals have scattered on the ground, across the pathway leading up to the front steps and the door. They'll smell it almost immediately after he opens his car door, though he has not done this yet. There is this fond look he is giving Pen just now, because: she wants to help. "They're working through it, and we have some rituals that help. I just wanted you to be aware so that it...I guess so it doesn't surprise you. That's all."
There is this hesitation then, until he finally says, "But someday you may have to help me." He does not linger here, because - as she will say one day later - there is no need to borrow trouble, not today and not ever. He swings his car door open and looks to her again after he has cut the engine. "Ready?"
Mars
"No," Pen says, somber.
And that is true and that is a lie at once. Pen unclips her seatbelt; it is shining, it is armor; it is a shadow on water, on a shield, as it slithers over her shoulder; as she leans over the driver's seat, wheel hard against her shoulder-blade, fist depressed into the seat near the open door. What was somber is dissolved by tender gallantry. Her weight rests there; she cups the back of Nicholas's neck and kisses him on the mouth. She is not aloof; and when she is reserved, it is because she is
keeping in reserve something like whatever that is.
Brief, though, and after she says, "Now I am ready," and traces the line of his jaw as she says so, then climbs backwards back into her own seat, carefully, carefully and opens the door.
She means it, too. Mostly. Now that they're here and there's this space of threshold quiet of just the two, Pen's thoughts are catching up to her and her heart goes all eager and quick. Could be Nicholas's proximity, Spring burning in the blood. A certain slant of reflection seems to suit her; she wears it often. Observe, it is in her eyes now (reflections, see, they lie on the surface; whatever's beneath? Pen is clear as water) as she adjusts her top. The top is: a ridiculously romantic shift-tunic, gauzy and impractical and pale pink, swooping off one shoulder or the other depending on her posture, a Guinevere's belt, something lake-metal silver thing with burnished glints, something that looks archaic and height-of-fashion at once (
modern day Enchantress, thank you). Green shorts beneath; tall combat boots, laced haphazardly, some sigil marked on the side of the rubber sole.
"Are there any house pets?"
Hyde and company
She does not have to reach far to slide her hand around the back of his neck; by the time she has leaned over the driver's seat, he has anticipated her intention and is leaning forward himself. Nick has been called aloof before, more than once and by more than one person; with Pen he never is. This is an effort that he makes, an active striving, because: perhaps in his time as a Disparate or after he picked up just enough from the Hermetics to have absorbed the idea that things worth having take effort.
He has laid a hand over her ribs, and when she says she is ready, before she shifts her tunic, his fingertips linger for a moment on the fabric. Some appreciation for Pen's artistry, perhaps. Nicholas does not dress badly, and yet his clothes have always felt uncomfortable on him, some poor substitute perhaps for what he would have been wearing in times gone by. He has not found a means of integrating the archaic and the modern in himself as Pen has.
"There's a cat - Dragon," and here, some amusement as he steps out of the car, "but he kind of comes and goes. He's probably the fattest farm cat I've ever seen." The car door claps shut, and he glances back toward it once to ensure it is locked; mere habit.
There is a gravel path that curves up from the driveway to the front steps, which have been worn smooth by countless feet and wind and rain; the wood is a faded grey. "Distressed" would be the appropriate term to use, if it were intentional. The front door, a massive thick wood portal with panes of glass embedded, is currently hanging open, and from within they can both hear voices. Lively voices, even, which might surprise anyone coming with some notion of what a Chakravanti gathering would be like. There are cloth prayer flags that hang just over the door and string to one of the porch's pillars, fluttering in the wind, as though someone had caught scraps of Spring and wreathed them to the house. They are faded, a little tattered.
Nicholas takes them past the threshold and into the front door. There is no one in the main room, though the main room is this large hall open to the upper floors, and sunlight beams down from one of the high windows to cast along the floorboards here. It lacks opulence; this is not that sort of house. The rest of the light here comes from the candles that line a table that is tucked away in an alcove just past the entrance, dozens of them, flickering and filling the area with the scent of beeswax and tallow. "I think everyone might be around back."
Mars
"It makes me think of the kind of place I would have broken into when I was younger," Pen tells Nicholas. "A floor that wants to be shipboards."
Pen drifts -- no. Pen doesn't usually drift; that is much too purposeless a word for Pen. Pen is courteous, so tempted as she is to say a word and look to see what magick might be woven into this kind of chantry house, she does not; she does however neatly gather up some of the extra fabric of her sleeve with the sort of careless aplomb one might expect from a wizard who plays with fire and also wears flammable things when she holds her fingers above the tucked-out-of-the-way (not her way; exploratory) row of candles, feeling the edged halo of heat, which is sharp in a way that cold is.
He says everyone might be around back. Pen lifts her eyebrows. She is as happy to be shown around as she is to meet Nicholas's friends: maybe happy isn't the right word; both satisfied and content are also not quite right. Willing, perhaps.
[Awareness, though? Oh no how many people? I should have asked more questions!! Not knowing is a totally awesome test! Does Jhor feel all weird?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )
Hyde and company
There is a sidelong look to her, and see here how his eyebrow lifts just a little, how there's mirth in it: perhaps he is imagining young Pen, breaking into old houses only to describe floors as shipboards. "Do you think you would have recognized the magic in a place like this, back then?"
There is a particular sort of sense that allows one to pick up on resonances. Call it a third eye, or particularly astute senses in other regards, or simply a way of noticing how the landscape seems to take on the characteristics of the Mage as they bend reality. Whatever one calls it, Pen can sense a swirl here; perhaps eight or nine people. She can sense, too, how Independence is built into this house, how it has stood here for over two hundred years, perhaps a homestead once and now as a nod to the Traditionalists who have chosen to skirt the city and its tangled web.
Some will stand out to her, because it pulls, see: does she remember this fall night, burnished fields and drawing down, and this Steadfastness, this Metamorphosis (like one of Ovid's creatures), and Unbroken iron will (iron's this brittle thing, see, and cold, and without mercy, and today: there is a killing edge to it that there was not before, something that has transcended remorse if
transcend is a word that can even be applied here. Can it?)
These she notices first.
And also:
Greening, and Churning [like swirling waters, lively and dangerous], and Heady and Sweet, both separate and complementing each other nonetheless. It's a
Visceral thing, this blend, she can perhaps breathe it in, can taste it: and oh, there's something underlying that there, some sort of sickness, the way nausea will wrap around your guts when you have anger without purpose or target, the way fever will make the mind grow foggy. It's strong, and it's unpleasant, like the heavy animal scent of rotting meat or old blood.
Nicholas leads the two of them past the row of candles, and this house is old and so the passages from one room to the next are narrow and labyrinthine. It's an unadorned house, though the walls have been brightly painted: this stark cherry red here, the windows and the bricked up fireplace lined with crisp white, and in the next room an all told rather lovely shade of turquoise. There are mats stacked outside of one of the rooms, obviously set aside for some sort of service or meditation, and here a gong, polished like a shield and just waiting to be rung again.
Mars
Best to get the impulse to crinkle her nose (
it is not early enough for there to be freckles on it, or she has not spent enough time outside) and frame her mouth into a neat and delicate little grimace out of the way, because she does not like that imaginary (
it isn't imaginary!) taste on her tongue: like biting into fruit that looks good, only to find it mushy and full of rot, a worm wriggling against tongue and catching on canine.
Best to let that impulse neatly slide over a slightly more heart-struck reaction; a jolt of surprise (
Directed Concern) followed by resolve. Resolve is simple; like slipping one's hand into a glove, or taking air into lungs. Air that inhabits you for a moment only; that unnoticed & that necessary. Margaret Atwood, a poet's poet.
"When I was a hooligan?" Flash of a smile; it's radiant, see, shivering on a lake's calm surface -- always beguiling lake-witchery, Pen, when she is Present. And she is! Her steps slowed for a second, but that's done. "I don't know. I think I would have recognized something interesting about it -- something might have lingered in my thoughts. But I wouldn't have named it as I'd name it now. It would be like reading the same book at twice: once when you were young, once after you'd grown up and experienced grief and delight and all that for yourself. It's a different book, but it makes you feel the same in some places."
Hyde and company
As they both draw close enough to sense the resonances that are present a few rooms over, Nick is watching Pen. He is watching because his impression from what she offered regarding Jhor gave him the impression she had not sensed it before, and a person's reaction here will say a lot. He had said:
Someday you may have to help me, and it was because he knows the possibility exists, a possibility that he both fears and has accepted (see, they can coexist, because often resolve is not a consistent thing, it wavers and has to be found again). He is looking for fear in her.
He does not see it. Instead, this little grimace and this intake of breath and slowing of her steps, and these could mean any number of things, and Nick does not know that two of his Traditonmates are known to her already. Not yet.
At what she says, he smiles, and his is a softer thing, more reflective. Whatever radiance Nick holds within him is always subdued. "I think that's a good way to put it."
He might have said more. But there is now a face that pokes around the door then, a young man whose shaved head and dark skin have the healthy sort of vibrance of the season outside. He is flashing a wide smile at both of them, and he is walking toward them now and there's a drink in hand; he's wearing a dark red sweater, which looks good on him. "Hey, Nick! It's good to see you, man."
They don't hug; they aren't those sorts of friends yet. Friends, too, can be new to each other and unsure. The young man looks toward Pen then. Easy smile. "Hello. I'm Jackson. I'm the new guy around here."
Mars
"Hello. Nice to meet you, Jackson." Pen offers Jackson her hand. Sweep! goes the dramatic pink sleeves. Easy smile is met with a smile like a spark touches her eyes with brightness; untarnished silver, or just tarnished slightly around the edges, where there are shadows that have nothing to do with darkness -- just a way to define what is bright. Because she is a Hermetic (Nicholas probably isn't surprised at all), and because she can do it with panache: "Penelope Sylvia Mercury Mars, bani Flambeau. Call me Pen; Nick was telling me a little bit about this house on the way over. How new are you to be the new guy around here?"
Hyde and company
It is not unusual for Nicholas to become quiet once there has been an addition of another person. He is frequently given to observation, to standing back and noting the interplay between other people. He learns much more that way, and he is patient. So he stands next to Pen, close enough to be involved were he so inclined, but watching the other two: pleased, perhaps, that he does not have to help the conversation along.
Jackson takes Pen's hand, his grip light and mindful of the fact that hers is much smaller than his, though the pump he gives it once is enthusiastic. "It's a pleasure. I've only been around for a couple of months, so I kind of officially took the New Guy title from Nick. Flambeau is one of those Hermetic houses, isn't it?"
Mars
"Yes. It is the best of those Hermetic Houses, which you should tell any other Hermetic you meet," Pen says, and see here: it's obvious that (while it totally IS the best of those Hermetic Houses) she is putting Jackson on in a good humoured way. "It will endear you to them," she adds, with evident (nope, nope, evident-the-opposite) sincerity. Subtext of
don't really do it / but you would truly be endeared to me is actually sincere.
"Did you move to the area from far away?" Far away instead of out-of-state: New England is so small. It's not unusual to visit three or four states in a day. Pen does glance at Nicholas, to mark him (and because she likes looking at him
[and because she wants to include him]). "What do you think of it?" Whether he came from far away or not.
Hyde and company
It's not accurate to say Jackson smiles so much as frequently displays this wide-toothed grin; he commits himself fully to emotions when they happen, for all that they can be churning and rapidly shifting. "Well, as far as we are concerned here today it is definitely the best of the Hermetic houses," he says, and does not quite wink but it would not be out of place if he did. "I actually Awoke not very long ago." The word 'Awoke' is spoken with only a slight hesitation, as though he is working his mouth around it.
Nick nods, at this: "Jackson Awoke knowing how to do more than most of us do early on, I think," and then there is this look that passes between the two of them, Jackson to Nick, who raises his eyebrows. Jackson's gaze returns to Pen and he says, "So do you all really have like seven names that you start using when you become Hermetic, and big fortresses? Nick told me that, but I can't ever tell when he's being serious."
A laugh from Nick here, quiet, though he gives Pen the space to respond.
Mars
"He is a piece of trickery," Pen says, and she sounds so (
Ardent) fond; she doesn't mean to sound so fond, but she does not help it either. This is something Pen learned early on, a grace she had even before: she is herself; she is, mostly, comfortable in being herself, mistakes and all. "He told me we were going to party in catacombs." Pen reaches over to pinch the fabric of Nicholas's shirt or sleeve between her fingers; slide them downward because why not she wants to touch him. Anyway, Jackson: solemnity, mingling with archness.
"If I were going to introduce myself
properly properly, I should have said my name is Penelope Sylvia Katabasis Hilde Nyneve Mercury Mars bani Flambeau, ordo Hermes. Alas and alack, no big fortress. Only a little attic apartment, loaned out by a slum lord.."
Mars
ooc: er, wait, >.> also throw in 'Initiate Exemptus' before 'bani Flambeau' >.>
Hyde and company
Pen doesn't mean to sound as fond as she does just now, but she does, and both Jackson and Nick can hear it here; Nick, who smiles and turns his eyes down and away, and Jackson, who is both amused and warm. As Pen's hand slides downward, Nick catches it with his own. "I kind of wish I'd come up with something more creative now," Nick says.
As Pen offers her full name, Jackson's eyebrows loft: impressed. "Katabasis is pretty cool," he says. "Appropriate to the company." And here, he'll beckon them forward and farther into the house, where they can still hear voices.
They'll turn a corner as they pass through the turquoise room, and there is a broad wooden Spanish arch that leads into this next one: a large room that has been arranged with a table (covered in a gauzy, patterned cloth of the sort one might find at new age shops) and on this table are snacks and bottles and glasses. Shelves were built into the walls and they are shuttered with glass doors, lined with books that are eclectic in title and topic. At the far end, a pair of French doors that lead out into an atrium, visible because of the amount of light slanting in past the doors' glass panes.
This room is lit overhead, but there are also candles here: a large red one, and it looks new, only one small rivulet of wax trickling down to puddle on the table where it was set. Two or three older ones, different colors but they've been wicked away over time. They aren't here to provide light so they perhaps serve some purpose.
Pen's guess at the number of people earlier this evening was accurate. See here, they are with Jackson; and there is a small clump of people in a corner, a sharply dressed woman with dark hair and light brown skin who is wearing numerous bangles and rings and has her hat jauntily set on the side of her head. She does not look amused, right this minute, and is holding her drink loosely in hand. With her: another woman, small of stature and also dark of hair, and wearing a black T-shirt that bears a brightly colored (hot pink) skull. She is a few drinks in. And a dark haired young man whose features are hard to pin down, who Pen finds it difficult to look at for very long - the other two just draw the attention more, see.
Jonas, she recognizes, though it might take her a moment; he has grown older since they last met, filled out in the shoulders and his face is no longer such a young callow thing. He is not wearing an overcoat today, and the shorts and T-shirt he wears look awkward on him. His hand is balanced on the arm of his chair as though on the pommel of a sword.
Miles, too, she recognizes, and Miles too has aged though not as much as one might expect. He is with a woman who is much taller than he is, offering her a cup, and the two of them are hovering near the red candle. Her hair is long and grizzled, the brown shot through with grey, and she has it neatly clipped back at the nape of her neck, her dress this gleaming silver thing, something perhaps not too different from a thing Pen herself might wear: fish scale bright, not metal though it could give that impression. She is
visceral, she has this sharp look to her, and her skin is just a little too pale and she looks as though she is trying trying trying to have fun.
And, visible past the French doors, two more shapes, a masculine and a feminine, a young woman in a blue plaid shirt, leaned on the edge of the railing and facing a young man who appears to be telling a very lively story, if his hand motions are any indication.
Nick assesses the room, and draws in a breath, and gives Pen's hand a squeeze. "Anyone you'd like to meet first?" Eyes are drawn toward them upon entrance, because of course; and Miles' surprise is sketched across his face plain to see. Jonas - well, he is deadpan.
Mars
Pen's fingers curl against Nick's the knuckles flex (caught!) and there's a gleam in her eyes a polished up edge coupled with an actual note of apprehension/anticipation. He's already good at tricking her and it's a stereotype isn't it the dumb knight surrounded by clever rogues. Perhaps she is a little more apprehensive about meeting his friends than she'd been letting on (or felt here-to-fore), so the coaxed out gleam has accidentally scraped it visible without meaning to. Other than the finger play, Pen's attention stays on Jackson. Her response is earnest, because Names, and because of course it is.
"Thank you. After Awakening - " - and this is an intimate detail, but offered without ornament or sense of import " - I thought it very likely I would need go to Hell and come back again. One day." How wistful she sounds. "So when I was initiated I chose Katabasis to give me power over the descent, or keep it from having power over me; the cool thing about connotation is it can be both."
And lo, the big room, with people new (and not). The glance she casts about is a questing one, a vigilant one a keep watch a watchword a night's watch a where are the beacon fires sort of fishing for stars in a dark water glance and how interesting that person and there's no one there to hold her attention (even Athena, sometimes) and oh also that (the lady trying trying trying to have fun) and ah there they are. Miles's look of surprise snags snags her a second longer causes her mouth to twist (shh) and the hand Nick isn't holding: well, she lifts the fingers of it, this small little curl. Nicholas squeezes her hand and exhales; Pen's gaze is drawn back to him and it's just as questant, albeit in a different way; softer, too, less sword and chalice, more smoke and silver.
Don't be a coward, Penelope.
"Well." Tempered.
"I wouldn't mind meeting a drink." Nicholas asked her the question but Pen's response is inclusive: Nicholas and Jackson. "Also," 'also' is Pen's version of 'um.' Pen presses her lips to Nick's knuckles and then lets go his hand. "As it turns out, Nicholas, first meeting has already been used up; I recognize a couple of your friends; let's go say hello to that one, with the pale ice water eyes."
beeline. Jonas. Hello Jonas!
Hyde and company
This is an intimate detail that Pen offers to Jackson, who raises his eyebrows at her and lets out a low whistle. Another smile. "Only around our kind do you hear 'need to go to Hell and come back out again' and know that somebody means it almost literally, huh? Well, you seem like a tough lady, Pen."
They are in the large room then, and Jackson takes a swallow from his drink as he stands beside the two of them. Pen includes him when she says let's, and he ambles along after them quite willingly. Jonas creeps him out, so if he fulfills the politeness quota with them and can spend the rest of the evening elsewhere, well, so much the better.
There is a curling of Pen's fingers 'round his own, and the response, which is to tangle them up. Nicholas: he's just uneasy in a room full of a lot of people. This will not change over the years, even when he knows most of them. See, he's so very aware of social dynamics, and who is avoiding talking to who, and he is also very aware of Jonas sitting there by himself. Pen's beelining toward the man with pale icewater eyes takes him aback, in such a way that he is too taken aback to even think to conceal it. He looks toward her with eyes that widen just a touch -
But then recovers, because he is thoughtful of these things. "Well," he says, with a bemused glance toward the drink table, and Miles and Patricia (Miles catches that glance and smiles and nods in his direction, this upward tilt of his chin), "I didn't realize you knew him, but if you want to catch up, I can go get a drink for you."
Jonas lifts his head as they approach, and his eyes don't sweep over the three of them so much as settle on each of them in turn. His expression does not shift: there's no pleasure in it, or displeasure. Simply acknowledgement, as though they are scenery. "Hello, Nicholas. Hello again, Jackson." A murmured greeting from Nick. Jonas had looked at Pen last, and he addresses her last now: "Elaine. You're an unexpected face. Are you here with Nick?"
Note that they are still holding hands. Maybe it's Jonas's idea of smalltalk. Nick, however, has registered surprise for the second time in a very short time, as he looks between the two. He might have interjected: instead there is only this questioning look he is giving Pen just now.
Mars
[Behold, coolness in action.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 5) ( botch x 1 )
Mars
[I hate you, dice.]
Mars
[Okay, okay, re-roll at +1 diff. *grin* Maybe botching is just written in the stars, BUT MAYBE IT'S NOT.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (3, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )
Hyde and company
[Nick: ?????]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 3 ) [Doubling Tens]
Hyde and company
[Jonas: Oh. My pleasant face looks basically the same as my murder face, huh. High levels of Jhor suck.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )
Hyde and company
[Jackson: why is there so much subtext whyyy]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (6, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 4 )
Mars
"I am! Won't you give me your hand, Jonas?" Because he's holding the arm of that chair like the pommel of a sword, and Pen's eyes are lake-light dripping from the edge of a sword, drawn out or accepted back - see? Balladry and myths. Ease up, bro. "You're dressed for a game of frisbee; can I lure you into one?" Suggestive arc of her eyes, and Nicholas is giving her a surprised look for the second time and that look unravels her a little almost does anyway (definitely does), causes the blood to rise, so she explains - hand still held out for Jonas's or still clasping Jonas's - thus: "Jonas met me before I was initiated, Nick. I found him when I was a Disparate and he helped me a little."
Which is true, strictly speaking. If Nicholas gets the sense that she is choosing her words judiciously and not entirely comfortable with exploring, does not wish to dwell, then hey. His senses don't often fail him, do they? He doesn't need to learn Ars Mentis. He can do it naturally. She is not good at subterfuge; she just wants to sail by that point.
Jonas has more context. He knows how they met, after all.
And Jackson, who has absolutely no context at all and has just met Pen, gets the above senses coupled with: Nick's look makes her feel really guilty/bad; she could have told him her other name before this; she just never thought about it. She feels things pretty deeply when she feels them; can't help it, though she tries and tries.
"Maybe hacky sac instead?" See; inquiry.
Hyde and company
Pen is offering her hand, and Jonas: stares at it. He does take it, in this manner that is still removed from natural human impulse. Pen met Jonas before he felt the way he does now, and perhaps it's easy enough to surmise how he wound up in this state, extrapolating from that; it wasn't a far fall, in other words. Sometimes it's like that. Still, he has enough of a sense of what makes other people tick to notice the color that sprung to Pen's cheeks.
He does not apologize, and in fact: "Hacky sack?" He blink blinks. "Here?"
Pen is still clasping Jonas's hand when Nick recovers - Pen does not wish to dwell, just here and now - and there are shades of approval there, if one looks. He comes up on Jonas's other side. Tugs on his other hand. "Come on, Jonas. You're more coordinated than me and someone needs to challenge Pen. She goes by Pen now."
Jonas rises, with this resigned recognition that he has been a group effort lately. Someone put him in a bright blue shirt with a printed smiling orange sun, this morning. That someone was not himself.
Jackson (who, note, had laughed when Pen said hacky sack: he got the joke), adds, his tone affable "I'll go find a frisbee," and wanders out toward the back door.
Nick claps Jonas on the back and is in the process of almost bodily guiding the Adept out the door. The action helps hide how much he is searching for topics. He doesn't need to speak, though, because Jonas says instead, "Nicholas said he was seeing a Hermetic. That's you?" God help Nick if it wasn't. "How do you find the Order?"
Mars
[Wait, wait, are there undercurrents here that aren't mine? *squint* Perception + Empathy!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN4 (2, 2, 3, 3, 10) ( success x 1 )
Hyde and company
[Here is what Pen can piece together: Jonas is putting up with this because other people are doing things like this on a regular basis to try to help him. Nicholas is one of them; Nicholas sees this perhaps as something of his role here, or his responsibility. Jackson is going along with this because he finds it necessary and also: hilarious, in a dark sort of way.]
Mars
[Sigh. Manip Subt.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 10) ( success x 1 )
Hyde and company
[Nick: ?????!!!!]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 4, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 3 ) [Doubling Tens]
Hyde and company
[Jonas: Perc + Subt]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Mars
Jonas stares at Pen's hand before he takes it, and when he does, Pen gazes at him. Her serious eyes skim the surface of his face, skate across the ice water of his eyes, settle there inquisitive and considerate; she misses Nick's approving gaze; does not miss him coming up to Jonas's other side (Jonas: blink blinks; Jackson: laughs); "Hacky sack; why not?" Pen says, and slipping neatly in: "My full craft name is - " and she gives it to him. Elaine is hidden in her craft name, see: Nyneve, Nimue. " - Penelope Sylvia Katabasis Hilde Nyneve Mercury Mars, bani Flambeau."
Nick reaches for Jonas's other hand and see does so while this smile quickens in Pen's eyes, light on the surface of a silver water dark with reflection, that moment see before -
and oh, tug, resigned Jonas is rising; Pen is still clasping his hand and her hand tightens for whatever reason she doesn't tug she does tense her muscles to help if Jonas needs it but releases him just after, and this is when she sweeps a curious glance searching over Nicholas and Jackson and shadow of reaction faint worrying line between her eyebrows chin canted because she is nonplussed by some of the undercurrents she caught (Jackson, Jonas) and absorbing Nick and how Nick is with his brethren and she maybe feels a little bad not regretful but bad no not bad uncertain or no not uncertain she is just given pause because: she didn't ask Jonas to play frisbee to help him (per se), and she didn't ask Jonas to play frisbee to worry at him (per se), or as a joke (no, though that teeshirt is not good), but her feelings toward the Death Mages who knew her back when she was Elaine are complicated and she doesn't particularly want anybody to see how nonplussed is. Her master is the Prince of a Thousand Foes and he will always be disappointed in her glass guile, able to lake-witch somebody ensorcel them with a glance but not to hide what's in the glance: that's not how you'll be successful.
She is pretty self-possessed right now; for now. Runs her fingers through her curls and follows along with, not behind, casting one glance back (toward Miles, it must be said; more in his direction) before they leave the room, and it isn't a guarded gaze; nothing about Pen is guarded, ever, even when she tries: she can be on guard, but not guarded, and it is a fine distinction.
Then: her attention, intent, back to -
"In what sense do you mean? Most of the time, I find it to be what I expected when I chose it. Brim-full of possibility, a chalice full of fire, or a tree, wintering or springing. Even both at the same time. It's good; it's difficult; it's a challenge, a battlefield, a trysting place, an old story about what good heights mankind might dream to reach and daring try to - it's a heart-wrack; I find that I was never well-read after all. There's a lot of diversity of purpose, high-minded ideals, striving." Beat. "You know."
"Do you know? How are you finding ...the cant of your heart... right now? Are you reading much?"
Hyde and company
Pen: she didn't ask Jonas to help him (Nicholas, he expects he may have to kill Jonas one day, see) and she didn't ask him to worry at him (maybe she's past that now), and she didn't ask him as a joke (Jackson, he is still so new and maybe he's the sort of man who laughs at Nothing to force it to have shape). Pen had her own reasons, complicated though they may be, and Pen, she's like this: she makes the Order of Hermes look good, and she can't possibly hide it because it's all in part of how she makes the Order of Hermes look good.
Miles, when she looks back at him, is still talking to the woman who is only Trying, and he has handed her her drink, which she has tried and nodded her approval of. Miles fistpumps, triumphantly. He is not looking at Pen.
She will find him not-looking at her all night.
"When I remember," says Jonas, when she asks him whether he's reading. Then, "Miles brings me books, but Miles has terrible taste." There is something there that might be a smile. It threatens; it promises. "We never think ourselves better read than we do at eighteen or nineteen."
Nicholas, mark, is listening to the two with the quiet air he always has; he catches undercurrents here, because of course he does, but he doesn't have the context to make them out. He is in the process of steering Jonas through the mud room, which is dark and lined with the sort of ugly brown hen's-egg-speckled linoleum common to rooms added on in the midcentury, and also with rakes, and a few shovels, and blankets and buckets and odds and ends.
Through the window panes, the sun slants on the three of them, and Jackson is already outside waiting with frisbee being twirled around one index finger: anticipation. Pen can also see a rock garden (because of course there is a rock garden), a river if rivers could be made of stone, and blooming crocuses and tulips and daffodils sprouted around a small willow.
Mars
This chantry house is very different from the Hermetic chantry houses, even that one low key Hermetic chantry house, belonging to or under the stewardship of mostly Disciples, that Penelope is used to, and when she was a Disparate: well, things are different when one is a Disparate, and a Disparate who wants nothing to do with joining a Tradition because Traditions are so selfish and pointless and turned inward.
"What sorts of books does Miles bring you?" she queries, interested. "And what do you like to read? I will lend you something," said like a promise, because it is, a decision made and not exactly written in Enochian but just as sure.
"Please promise to return it; unless you really like it. Then just tell me, and you can keep it."
She isn't looking at either Nicholas or Jonas now; her chin is lifted and she is looking through the windows at Jackson. She lengthens her stride; hits the door before Nick and Jonas, turns so she is walking backwards, facing them; mild breeze rifles through the delicate pink of her flowing, archaic top - artist's model top, gone sliding off her left shoulder right now, cloth flowers flutter; makes a gesture with her hand: tight query:
"Five minute magick round rules?"
Hyde and company
"Miles brought me Tom Clancy," Jonas says, though his expression remains the same expression he has had this entire time and his tone is...toneless. "And books about airplanes. I like to read about other lives that aren't like mine. I find them interesting."
Nick is listening to this conversation with interest, perhaps framing some way to contribute to the discussion or perhaps simply enjoying the way in which new facets of two people one knows well can be revealed when they meet. He has not talked about books with Jonas before; he would not have thought to.
So he is watching Pen, particularly as she moves around the two of them, and he is smiling at her as she turns to face them as the wind twirls through the petals scattered across her torso. He steps out of the house's shadow, and he and Jonas are both momentarily blinded, evidenced by the way they blink almost in unison.
"What are five minute magick round rules?' Jackson, who has the frisbee in both hands and looks like he might launch it at any moment. "Are there special frisbee rules now for Awakened people too? You've got to be shitting me."
Hyde and company
"Of course there are," Nick says, guiding Jonas around a deck chair. He sounds Very Serious. "Five minutes to a round, of course. The only other rules are that you can't play the same way twice and you have to use magick at least once." A beat. "It's a very old and respected game. They used to use it to settle Council disputes. I know it sounds complicated, but you'll catch on."
Mars[Oh oh oh oh! OH! OH can I totally trick Nick oh oh oh can I can I! Manip + Subt]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 10) ( success x 2 )
Hyde and company
[Eh?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 4 ) [Doubling Tens]
Mars"Very good, Nicholas, and yet also very bad," Penelope says, standing somewhere between Nick&Jonas and Jackson&Frisbee. The light gilds her metal belt, dredging something silvery out of the burnished and just tarnishing squares of metal; of course it gilds her hair, too, plucking vibrant red from bloody, fire fire, and it picks the shape her arms out through the billowing damosel (Wizard) sleeves. Her expression is so serious see she is being so very serious - " - if Zelda told you that, I bet it was in strictest confidence; she is working on a paper about outmoded Council practices."
ISN'T SHE GOOD AT TRICKING? LOOK HOW GOOD SHE IS AT TRICKING, J & J. LOOK HOW TRICKED NICK IS. :D :D
Anyway, she says, "But actually the rules I was thinking of are not too too dissimilar. We just play frisbee; somebody, usually somebody with a good sense of Time, yells: Magick Round! And for the next five minutes, we play using magick as well as the natural athleticism we have honed."
Mars
ooc:*FLAIL* i need to get better at C&Ping
Mars
ooc: actually nah just leave that *g*
Hyde and company
[Jackson: *squint*]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 7) ( success x 1 )
Hyde and company
See, Pen, billowing in the wind, today fire and trickery, at least as far as Jackson is concerned: she is a veritable illusionist, when she, the sole Hermetic at this little gathering, talks about outmoded Council practices and strictest confidences. She's a Hermetic; if anyone knows about these things it's them, right? So Jackson, he looks between Pen and Nick (Pen, whom he trusted) and he says, "Wait, really?"
Nick alone, he could disbelieve; he knows Nicholas is a piece of trickery. But Pen too? "Frisbee? Is there anybody outside of college freshmen and us that plays frisbee?"
"The Union has made us question a lot of the Old Ways over the years," Nick says, and oh, how solemn and wistful this is. "Like wands and crystals."
And this is when Pen says actually the rules I was thinking of, and natural athleticism, and Jonas gives this sidelong look to Nick. It's an eloquent look, or would be were Jonas feeling more himself; it's sass that very much wants to sass, it's fighting to emerge. It likely goes unnoticed.
Jackson has to process this, it is clear. And then, processing done, he hefts the frisbee and says, "Well, okay. Ready?" And sends it cutting a bright red arc toward Pen.
Hyde and company
[Nick: Init +5]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (5) ( fail )
Hyde and company
[Jonas: Init +7]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (8) ( success x 1 )
Hyde and company
[Jackson: Init +6]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (1) ( botch x 1 )
Mars
[ +7]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (3) ( fail )
Hyde and company
Inits:
Jonas - 15
Pen - 10 ++
Nick - 10
Jackson - 7
Hyde and company
[Jackson: Throwing the frisbee at Pen!
Nick: Uh...step away from Jonas. I bet he tackles. And wait.]
Mars
[Split action, baby.
1. Catch frisbee.
2. Whip frisbee toward Jonas, but really just over his shoulder so he has to run because when you play the game of frisbee YOU PLAY IT TO WIN. That's what Lysander says.]
Hyde and company
[Jonas: Bet I can catch it before Pen does and THEN THROW AT HER AGAIN AUGH SURPRISE. She will never expect that.]
Hyde and company
[Jonas: Dex + Athletics to catch!]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 4) ( fail )
Hyde and company
[Try again!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )
Mars
O_O +7
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (1) ( botch x 1 )
Hyde and company
[Nick init! +5]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (10) ( success x 1 )
Hyde and company
[Jonas init +7]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )
Hyde and company
[Jackson init +6]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (4) ( fail )
Hyde and company
Inits:
Nick - 15
Jackson - 10
Jonas - 9
Pen - 8
Mars
[Back up man just in case it gets thrown at her head AND REFLEXIVE WITTY (but good natured, yo, because Pen is actually not a competitive game player) TAUNT OF JONAS.]
Hyde and company
[It might actually get thrown at your head. I will not mean to, but...]
Hyde and company
[Jackson - Taunt! and be ready.
Nick - Uh...dodge dodge dodge.]
Hyde and company
[Jonas: Dex + Athletics]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 2, 5, 9, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )
Mars
[Pen: CATCH ack +1 diff for IT IS COMING AT MY HEAD.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN7 (2, 6, 6, 10, 10) ( success x 2 )
Mars
[Taunt, too! Wits + Expression.]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 7, 7, 7, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 6 )
Mars
FRISBEE WAAAAAAAARS.
A sports announcer would, no doubt, have a field day because here's Nicholas with the avoiding everything surreptitiously, a true sportsman! A true sportsman! There on the outskirts, edging away but not so away it doesn't look like he's part of the game, isn't he a hero guys, isn't he just grand and yet but what's this there are FOUR sportsmen on the field and here's Jackson sending the frisbee sailing in a beautiful arc isn't it a beautiful arc people doesn't it just drift right toward its target but oh the dark horse coming up from the left cutting right in Jonas with a miss and a swing but he's not Jhor'd up for nuttin' folks rumor on the streets is he's Jhor'd up yeah but you'll have to make your own decisions on that point based on the evidence at hand he misses but he is not OUT a little effort and he just barely snags that frisbee good thing looks like Miz Mars was going to hurl that thing over his shoulder what a foul but oh what's this what's this looks like Allard's got some bite of his own because he sends the frisbee whipping right toward her head as Miz Mars, well you know she's a poet, you know she's quick witted, she flashes a sweetheart's smile at Allard and says a line so devastatingly one liner-y so devastatingly destined to be quoted to put all one liners to shame ever Oscar Wilde eat your heart out a line totally made for taunting Jonas that we can't even print it here the rights have already been bought and maybe she shoulda paid a little more attention to the SPORT EH BECAUSE ALLARD WINS the frisbee goes whisking past her fingertips in spite of her best efforts drifting out and over and aaawwwwww one point for the Chakravanti
Hyde and companyNick: from off somewhere near the rock garden (they are very nice rocks): "Magic round!"
Hyde and company[Nick init +5]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (10) ( success x 1 )
Hyde and company[Jonas init +7]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (9) ( success x 1 )
Mars+7
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )
Hyde and company[Jackson init +6]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (8) ( success x 1 )
Hyde and companyInits:
Jonas - 16
Nick - 15
Jackson - 14
Pen - 9
Mars[Declare! Enochian, yo! For some sort of Matters/Corr rote. *grin*]
Hyde and company
Jackson - Declare some Forces rote.
Nick - Uhhh....spirits are useless to me here. Entropy rote to give me a few successes if I try to catch it!
Jonas - Complicated Entropy 4 rote.
Hyde and company[Nevermind, this is only entropy 3. All the good luck to me, bad luck to everybody else. Base diff 6, -1 for focus.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 5, 7) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Hyde and company[Nick - Entropy 1, base diff 4, -1 for focus.]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (1, 3) ( success x 1 )
Hyde and company[Jackson - gust of wind to make it float away! Forces 2, base diff 5, -1 for focus]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (9, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Mars[Char + Enoch Diff 7]
Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (2, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 5 )
Mars[Snatch Frisbee with mad Corr-Matter pocket skillz. Diff 6 + 1 (thanks, Jonas), -3 Enochian (thanks furreal!) + WP. Needs ... 2 successes? 3?]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (3, 5) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Hyde and company
Aaaaaaaaand...magic round!
Jonas speaks some Word, it's not one Pen (in particular) is familiar with, and: maybe she can feel the way Fate shifts around her, maybe it's this slight naggling sense of dismay. It's hard to say. And whatever happens this round, she's less likely to make her throws and her catches and to cast her magick; maybe it's just coincidence. She's among a lot of new people after all.
Nick just worries about precision! He'd like to be able to anticipate where it's going to be, be in the right place at the right time. Who is he kidding though; he's probably going to continue to skirt the edge of the Frisbee Zone.
This round might've gone to Jackson! Because in spite of whatever Allard just did, there's this sudden gust of wind this spring breeze and the disc goes sailing up in to the air only -
as Pen speaks in the language of Gods and angels, it appears there in her hands. Just like that.
Round to Mars, everyone!
And so time will pass, hopefully without Paradox choosing to visit any of them today, until they are breathless and spring grass has left smears behind on an elbow or a knee of more than one of them. Jonas moves beautifully, as if poetry could be lethal, and Pen who is used to magick-as-game is clever and creative, and Jackson is catching on because he's a quick study all told, and Nick just enjoys watching everyone have fun.
Maybe a half hour passes, maybe an hour. That time will have them leaned against the porch, or flopped on the grass. The frisbee, poor thing, ended up warped and melted at some point, from someone; it could have been several people so we needn't say who.
Mars[BOOM, Pen.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 4, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )
Mars[>.>]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (4, 8, 8) ( success x 2 )
Hyde and company[Jonas: Paradox]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 8) ( success x 1 )
Hyde and company[Jackson: Paradox]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 5, 5) ( botch x 1 )
Hyde and company[Jonas soak]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )
Hyde and company
[Nick - I happened to summon a coyote, VULGAR AS SHIT.]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (1) ( botch x 1 )
Mars[Wait. An empathy roll! First on Jonas. Did you have fun/are we enemies now for life you are kind of scary? ... Ehh, wp. >.> Which she probably has very little left of, 'coz magick and INEXPLICABLE DIFFICULTIES. *grin*]
Dice: 5 d10 TN4 (1, 1, 2, 3, 3) ( success x 1 ) [WP]
Mars[Then on Nick!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN4 (2, 6, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )
Mars[Then on Jackson!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN4 (1, 2, 2, 3, 7) ( success x 1 )
Hyde and company
[Here's what Pen can tell, as she looks all of them over. Jonas Allard - isn't emoting much at the moment, but he doesn't seem to have been emoting much at all during the time she's spent with him. He did seem very enthusiastic about playing though, or at least: was dedicated to his choice to play with them. He might have smiled once, maybe.
Jackson she doesn't especially know well yet. This is definitely not how Jackson expected to spend the afternoon, but, well, he's game.
Nick had a lot of fun watching other people have fun. He is a bit unnerved by competitive sports, has a hard time throwing himself into them and prefers to do things that are solo activities that can be done together, hence withdrawing for part of the game. He is pleased with himself for summoning a coyote spirit to steal that frisbee away though. He is also pleased that he perceives Pen to be getting along with his Traditionmates. He is concerned about Jonas: Pen knows that Delilah is not always around, and perhaps Jonas is something of a stand-in acarya, in a sense. He seems to be at ease, and smiling and laughing, which maybe is enough of a tell that he thinks people had fun and Pen has made no enemies today.]
Mars
Pen is not flopped on the grass. Pen is, after the coyote spirit makes off with what is truly a most sorely tried frisbee remnant, settled on the edge of the porch, rubbing her legs, ruddy curls in absolute disarray, cavalier sleeves can't be rolled up to her elbows because they are actually tight around the wrist and forearm going voluminous just after in drapes and billows and folds, but they're pulled off both shoulders because she is hot now and thirsty and she is giving - well no. It isn't a covert look; Pen is absolutely terrible at covert looks. But she gives her fellow sportsmen one of her questant looks, and then, all courteous, "Thanks for the game, guys." Says, musing, "Jonas. Biographies only, or fictional lives unlike your own as well?"
But her eyes are drawn back to Nicholas; where is he? He's close, right? Close enough to reach for, isn't he? She doesn't reach for him but she looks like she's on the verge of doing so, and thoughtlessly; reach for his knee or his thigh; reach for his arm. She is too hot for the impulse to actually burgeon into action. Rakes her hair back, holding it into a high pony-tail, and then:
"Who else should I meet?"
Aka, do you guys want to go in now. It's an impartial question: she includes Jackson and Jonas in this.
Hyde and company
Jonas, who is examining a grass stain on his knee as though he can't imagine how it got there, as though Paradox had planted it. He looks up through a fall of hair at Pen; he was sweating at one point, though he's not showing much sign of thirst or discomfort. Then again, perhaps he needs to be reminded of those things too, right at this moment. "Biographies and fiction both. I find them interesting. Do you have books you can recommend?"
Nick is indeed close enough for Pen to reach for, though the gesture never fully completes itself. He is leaning against the deck, and he is also shoving his hair back, holding it away from his forehead. He exhales, looking over toward Pen when she suggests doesn't suggest offers to meet more people and he says, "There are a few more people in there. I'm surprised Rachel didn't come find us out here."
"Think she had Ciara cornered," Jackson says. He was lying on the grass, red sweater like a dark floral bloom in the waves of green, and now he half raises himself up. "You all can head in, I'm going to stay out here for a while."
"I'm going to go get some water," Nick says, and: "Are you thirsty, Jonas?" Then, more steerage of Jonas, up the stairs to the deck and inside. He catches Pen's hand, or more accurately her fingers, for this moment as he passes, just long enough to clasp them in his own.
Mars
Does Pen have books she can recommend? Pen is from the Order of Hermes. Of course she has books she can recommend. She has a thousand books she can recommend; or she has a thousand books she can muse over. While Nicholas answers her, she is gazing at Jonas, as if by doing so she could scry the best possible book recommendation out of him: as if he were a dark glass, and just by looking a star would turn over, wink; her gaze is distant, see, internalizing. "I think so. I will give you a book next time I see, well, I will find you and give you a book sometime soon, as the moon compasses the sky," a languorous wave of one hand - she means in the next month, setting herself that task: maybe she'll put that task on Nick. "Have you read the Once and Future King? What about Wind Sand and Stars by the guy who wrote the Little Prince?"
She doesn't stand until Nicholas and Jonas have moved past her; then she does - fingers will tangle, she wants to keep (keep keep keep) Nicholas, but she'll glance over her shoulder to offer Jackson a solemn but friendly smile, then: back inside they go.
Hyde and company
Jackson lifts a hand to Pen as she smiles at him, and he seems comfortable in the grass, happy to take a few moments to himself to breathe, perhaps. The gesture is somewhere between a wave and a salute.
Back inside they go. "I've read The Once and Future King," Jonas intones as they move back through the darkened mud room, back back back toward the hall where everyone was congregating. "But not Wind Sand and Stars."
"Pen makes excellent book recommendations," Nick says, and there is this sidelong look to the Hermetic, this crinkling of skin at the corners of his eyes. Affection chooses odd times to well up in a person, sometimes. He is walking with his hands in his pockets now, since Jonas seems inclined to wander back to the main room instead of simply remaining in whatever place he chooses to wander.
Jonas is looking back at Pen again. "What have you been doing since I saw you last? What brought you here today?"
Mars
See, and the introspective air - the distant, over moon and valley, looking inward rather than outward - changes when Nick says her name; she'd rather look outward and notice her name in his mouth than think about books and it polishes up a gleam in her eyes, a vibrant silver; her gaze stays very present (she is an intense young woman, whether she seems distant or not) after, when it is drawn back to Jonas. Jonas who has changed since she last saw him. Since she first saw him, too.
She was going to recommend another book, perhaps, or - see, lively - try to engage him in a discussion of the Once and Future King, but instead.
She considers the Adept for a second before answering; her eyes are very clear, and so is the pressure of her regard. "What do you imagine brought me here today? What do you imagine I've been doing since then?"
Hyde and company
Pen's attention comes back to the here and now, no longer so reserved and so distant, the gleam in her eyes all the siler of a polished looking glass, and Nick drifts in her direction. The movement is as natural and as helpless as the pull of a crow to some scrap of metal sparking sun in the grass, or the way the tides are pulled by the moon. He bumps her hip with his, catches her around the waist, and he listens.
"I hear the life of an Order mage is a very busy one," Jonas says. A lock of his hair has fallen into his eyes; he has made no motion to push it out of the way. "I was wondering your opinion of the Chakravanti as a Tradition. As someone who knew us before, and after."
Nick: quiet, a warm presence at Pen's side, though his attention is fully focused on this conversation instead of darting from object to object as it might ordinarily be as they walk. There are a lot of threads to untangle, here.
Mars
[???????????????????????? what do you hope from me here, bro?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN4 (5, 6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 5 )
Hyde and company
[Wouldn't you like to know.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 4, 9) ( success x 1 )
Hyde and company
[Nick: Actually I am also curious. What is even going on.]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 5 ) [Doubling Tens]
Hyde and company
[Here's what Pen can tell about Jonas. There is some reserve that accompanies his question: Jonas is struggling to feel just about anything at the moment, but that isn't absolute, and he does have at least enough understanding of social dynamics to get that there are things Pen hasn't told Nick and maybe doesn't want to yet. There is maybe some level of curiosity there about their relationship. He feels some sort of obligation to Nick in a sense.
He is also curious about Pen, and how she has fared since - well, we know what happened. It's probably rare that Jonas reconnects with a family member or friend of someone he's had to kill, especially under these circumstances. On some level he may be trying to answer something for himself.]
Mars
[Charisma! Expression! Specialty!]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 7, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 5 ) [Doubling Tens]
Mars
There's a glint of sound from Pen's belt when Nick bumps her hip with his. His arm around her waist and she could easily be drawn; she can practically feel listening seeping from him at her side, or perhaps she is only very aware of Nicholas, present for this conversation, so she imagines his attention seeping like see a river unbounded flooding or a lake it is Spring after all these things happen. She loves Nicholas. She has, perhaps, not told him so aloud quite yet, settling instead on wants and likes, but he would be a fool not to know. Everybody else who is astute in their cabal knows.
"I don't think anything of the Chakravanti as a Tradition," Pen says. "I think only of them individually, and as they come to me." Brief pause. "I couldn't tell you whether or not that is because I knew you before, and after."
And then the impulsive remark she will, later, probably wish she'd never said; the thought she'd rather have not tried to shape out of an unfortunate ineloquence. But Pen is a creature of passion, see; when she beguiles (wins [Enchantress, see, 'Chantress]) it is not at all because is cunning, manipulative, a piece of trickery; it is because of the way she wears her heart, because of the way her moods could be art; because when she says something, or looks something, she means what she says in this particular way - and how many people are like that?
So: "Jonas, I feel very strongly for you;" and she does. Her eyebrows have drawn together. "I should have continued to - I should have sought you out more often. Fortunately, I don't choose to live in the past; there is always the future and all its good hope, and hope is best when acted upon. I will tell you whatever you like about my adventures, as long as it isn't a Tradition secret, and I hope you will tell me about yours; or something you'd like."
There is the future and all its good hope; she says it is so and who could know more than a dark-eyed sword-maiden (Wizard), eh?
With a very strong air of 'new subject please' (she is not looking at Nicholas though she wants him by her still has found his arm and held it to her and she is not aware how tightly she is holding him) Pen says:
"Nick was telling me a little bit about the history of this House; did you know it when the Node was still active? Have you ever thought about how likely it is it could be rekindled?"
Hyde and company
This room again, the red-candle hall with light and shadow pooling along the walls and the dark wood that lines the doors and the floorboards. The groups have shifted, but only somewhat: Miles and the somewhat wan-looking woman with grizzled dark hair have moved to chairs, and they've been joined by the young woman with the pink skull shirt; both have drinks. The older woman still seems to be Trying to enjoy herself, but is maybe a little farther along in that than before. The young woman in the blue plaid shirt has found her way back inside, and is mingling with the young man she was with earlier and the dark fellow, nondescript (does Pen remember him from earlier?).
The young woman with the bangles is on the other side of the French doors this time, and is outside and periodically smoke drifts from her mouth and her hands, makes a dragon of her as she stands out in the mid afternoon light. Miles occasionally shoots these envious glances in her direction from where he sits.
Pen's grip is tight on Nicholas's arm, and he gives her these glances out of the corner of his eye from time to time. New subjects, she's saying very little and also moving the conversation in a different direction, and he is curious. And perhaps he also wonders whether she will actually tell him later. There is some doubt.
"The node became inactive when I was still a child," Jonas says. "I had not been Awake for long. But yes. I was here when it was. I do not have the skill to rekindle it, for my own part. Perhaps Nicholas will, someday."
"I think that's a long way off," Nick says, though there is contemplation in it.
Mars
"Could you not do it together? Perhaps it wouldn't be so long a way off then."
Pen realizes she is holding Nicholas's arm as hard as she is around now; she eases off, a little, smoothing her hand up his forearm with an air of contrition.
Hyde and company
"Perhaps," Jonas says, and here he might have said more. Or maybe Nick would've said more, about the feasibility of them all working together to rekindle the faded Node; what would be involved in doing such a thing.
They both believe that things come back around, though: they are Chakravanti. Why not?
They do not say more just at this moment, though, because the girl in the skull shirt (she'd been a few drinks in, earlier, and evidenced by the rose blush in her cheeks, does not seem to have stopped). "Nick! Are you going to introduce us to your girlfriend?"
Pen, she's the only non Chakravanti here as far as she knows. While it's a multi-Tradition chantry, she still garners some interest; they don't get Hermetics here very often. Nick gently catches the hand that has smoothed over his forearm, and glances over at Pen. "Want to give Jonas a break?"
"I would like to get something to drink," Jonas says, and his movement over toward the table is deliberate and purposeful, and perhaps Nick is even a little pleased because he doesn't seem intent on holding him here. He begins to drift over toward the little group that is there with Miles.
Mars
Her hand is caught; the rings on her fingers are warm; smooth stone and warm metal, metal that feels as though it has been near a fire; left over reaction, perhaps, from the game of frisbee; all that magick thrown around.
Pen is not a drifter; it has already been stated. She does not drift; she chooses to go, and goes. Or chooses not to go, and doesn't. "Get me something, too," Pen tells Jonas, and Jonas goes that way, Nick has her hand and begins to drift toward the little group that is there with Miles.
Maybe she feels, very suddenly, that she wants a break from the Chakravanti she used to know. Maybe this is why, though she sought them out more than once after she'd Awakened and realized she had the names of two Magick people, she didn't seek them out very often, and stopped eventually. It's unfair that she feels it now, but she does. And then she doesn't; it dissipates; settles.
Pen says, "Hey," to the little group, but lets Nicholas conduct the introductions; at least she lets him do it until he doesn't give her full name (if he doesn't give her full name), at which point she cuts in with the graceful and self-possessed archaicism.
Hyde and company
[Miles: Subterfuge? Can I do it?]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 10) ( success x 1 )
Hyde and company
This is a more casual place, as far as chantries go, at least to all outward appearances. Its trappings, between the candles and the warm paint and the rock garden and prayer flags, would seem to lend a relaxed and warm atmosphere, and this is perhaps somewhat reflected in the demeanor of its mages and how they interact. Everyone is on a first name basis here.
So Nick does indeed introduce Pen as, "Hello everyone, this is Pen," at which point Pen cuts in to give her full name with graceful and self-possessed archaicism. And Nick smiles, because he likes this about Pen.
Pen does this, and the mouth of the girl in the skull T-shirt quirks just a little. Nicholas is quick to gesture then to the woman of the grizzled hair and Visceral (rotting) nature, simply offers a wan smile. Her eyes are a green that is pulled out by the flowing dress she is wearing, like the sun through high reaching foliage in summer. "Patricia Tall. And this is Miles Lockbourne," and a gesture to Miles, who gives Pen this look that is a shadowed furtive thing, his chin angled downward as his eyes dart toward Jonas.
"Nice to, uh, to meet you, Pen," Miles says, and then, "I'm sorry to do this, but excuse me, Jonas um, Jonas is a terrible drink-maker," and up and away Miles goes. Patricia: bats one eyelash at him.
Nick watches him go. Before he can introduce her, the woman in the pink skull shirt has extended her hand toward Pen. "I'm Rachel Anne Boussard bani Chakravanti," she says, and very formally extends a hand to Pen to shake. "But you knew that. It's nice to meet you, finally. It's pretty rare that we get a Hermetic in here."
Mars
Pen's gaze is rather solemn when it meets Patricia's; solemn and curious, but not really somber or grave - interested; she will look at Miles in a moment. One moment. Poise is easy for Pen; she is poised right now, centered and self-possessed; composure is not as easy, because she is too ardent for her own good: too easily swept. Another moment, okay, Miles's shadowed furtive look meets Pen's open (but a reserve, see) and still waters gaze; sometimes her eyes are quite bright, the way the light strikes them; sometimes they are dark, as now.
Ack. Ack ack. Pain, agony. Wait, is he trying to pretend they didn't meet before? Is she - should she lie? Go along with - does that mean she's - or is he just - ? Or is this not a lie? Is this just an avoidance? Like, ha ha, later on, no lie, but - why would - is it because -
Her colour is heightened; it makes her eyes even darker, her pale skin paler, her burnished hair redder; it is a piece of art next to that blowsy pink top, both shoulders bare. Pen's lips part, as if she's going to say something; she doesn't know what to say. Pen is not given to hesitation; even back when she was Asleep, she wasn't given to hesitation; she was given to Doing.
Her eyes track him as he hies off -- then flick back to Nicholas, Rachel, Patricia. Fortunately, the pink-cheeked woman in the pink skull shirt extends a hand. Pen takes it and whatever she was going to say to Miles (whatever gracious excuse, before she: went after him; challenge!) can wait.
"It's nice to meet you, Patricia, and you too, Rachel. I'm certain I, at least, would have been curious to know you all had I any idea this house existed; I like the taste of it."
This would normally be followed up by some hie-off-on-this-conversational-road, but she is still a bit dismayed: SHOULD SHE BE LYING? WHY MILES WHY.
Hyde and company
Nick, whatever consternation he is feeling, is doing his best to swallow all of it. Nicholas has picked up on all of the undercurrents present here, and yet has no context for any of it. He knows: Jonas and perhaps Miles met Pen as a Disparate, a long time ago. Beyond this he knows nothing. It is perhaps a reminder that even sometimes people you know well have secrets, or things that have been left unspoken.
Nicholas folds one of his arms across his chest to grip the other arm, at the elbow, watching as the three woman introduce themselves. Perhaps he has had thoughts of following Miles; he certainly wants to. (Jonas, he is sure, will tell him exactly what is going on - but he should really hear it from Pen. He knows this.)
"Oh, that's all Patricia," Rachel says, and takes a swallow from her drink. She has had enough for her words to flow freely, perhaps, though her speech has not yet begun to slur excessively.
"This was the site of an old battlefield, since forgotten," Patricia says. "I've made a study of such places and how they form. I suspected something might be here based on some of my readings, but when I arrived I found it dry."
"Patricia found a Node where a bunch of people were murdered, too," Rachel says. Patricia takes a swallow from her drink. "So you like the taste of the place, huh? What do you like about it?"
Mars
"'I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will,'" Pen quotes. "I like how clear it is; and unrestrained; and on the cusp, while also immanent it is; I like places that," a nod for Patricia, "feel as though they have a sense of history, but are not reliquaries. I like that feeling: self-sustained and present. Do you study such places in the United States only, Patricia, or have you also traveled very far?"
Hyde and company
Pen: quotes poetry, and Rachel's brow furrows, and she takes another swallow from her drink. It is likely that Pen has seen this look before from other people, should she quote in mixed company; it is something that is at once impressed and - well, perhaps resentful is the word. "What's that from?"
Patricia, who had only smiled in this quiet sort of way, swirls the ice in her glass. "I did, when I was younger," she says. "Though not always specifically with finding those places in mind. Many times they're landmarks, and you could stand right on top of one before you realize it's there. Other times it's obvious. Jerusalem, for example. There's a reason it's referred to as the holy land."
Nick, who has always found Patricia's study interesting, has torn his attention from Miles and Jonas (they are indeed making drinks and Miles is indeed attempting to balance out whatever Jonas attempted to make by adding other ingredients) and settled it back on the people he is standing in front of. He has a question, but -
Rachel, then. "So, Penelope, I hear Flambeau are basically the Order's nukes. Any chance you can convince Nick here to pick up a gun? I'll even settle on a sword. Something, y'know?" The smile she gives Nick is a friendly enough one. Nick smiles back, though mark: it's one that's with the mouth only.
Mars
What's that from? "Jane Eyre."
Pen is used, right now, to garnering the sort of reaction Rachel gives her; she is used to it from Sleepers, she is used to it from less educated Magi; she will be used to it in the future, too, and she will not change. The Order of Hermes has a reputation for being proud; its mages, for arrogance. Just like academia.
Pen is very aware of Nicholas but she hasn't actually looked at him since Miles left her in a crisis of indecision, caught and trapped and uncertain and dishonest: anger will flick up once she thinks about it again. Maybe.
So she's about to ask a question of Patricia as well, but So Penelope, I hear the Flambeau, and much like when Anna began to comment on the Order of Hermes and paused for a no offense but Penelope is: attentive, alert, intent; ready, too. Her eyebrows rise, delicate arches, and there is a rake of a glance for Nicholas, but it swings back to Rachel.
"Do you think Nicholas needs convincing? I don't think I am the woman to convince anyone to carry arms just for the weapon's sake; are you wishing for someone to test your aim or arm against?"
Hyde and company
Nick, who is still holding Pen's hand, chooses this moment to wind his fingers around hers; his grip is not tight, precisely, but if there is any tension in him now, this perhaps betrays him to her if to no one else. Perhaps he is also aware of the fact that Pen has not looked at him since Miles left, and if she were to look at him she'd see this little point between his eyebrows, this tiny fold of consternation.
"If I were, it wouldn't be Nick," Rachel says, and she is a little cavalier here, could almost imagine her as the cocky fighter pilot hero of science fiction myth or stepping out of some western, evaluating a potential opponent and finding him wanting. "But to know how to give the Good Death you actually need to know how to give the Good Death. Besides, nobody here carries arms just for the weapon's sake."
"We've had this conversation," Nick says, and if his voice is a little too quiet it is because: he is remembering The Duel. His eyes seek out and find Patricia's -
"I'm sure there are topics we could find that would be more interesting for Pen, Rachel," Patricia says. This side-sweep of her gaze toward Pen then, something apologetic that fights through whatever fog is there. "Did you have a question?"
Mars
Nicholas is remembering The Duel; Pen is not thinking about dueling or duelists. Pen is thinking about that drink; how long does it take Jonas to make a drink? Probably forever and ever and ever since that's where Miles fled; another mark against poor Miles; or a mark in favor of excusing herself to pounce him. Hmm.
But the Flambeau (who is rash and impulsive, who feels deeply but is not quick tempered as these things go) finds this sort of interplay interesting. Patricia interjects, and Pen - who is glass and without guile - says, "Oh. I did; I do. I have many questions now, actually, and I haven't been bored by a topic yet; I am also your guest, so I should entertain you."
"But what I was going to ask you, Patricia, is how you came to be interested in finding Crays and holy places? Where did the choice to pursue it come from?"
Nicholas's fingers tighten; Pen rubs her thumb (caressing, see) in a circle over the side of his hand, or his knuckles, or the back of his palm, or maybe the interior of his wrist. She is trying to consider how to frame a question she wants to ask of Rachel; does she want to ask Rachel? Hmm.
Hyde and company
Were Pen to cast a look back toward Miles and Jonas, she would find them no longer drink making but instead talking to each other, Miles standing in front of Jonas with his hip leaned against the table, his arms folded, the pull of muscle clearly visible beneath the thin fabric of his shirt. She might sincerely doubt whether or not she would actually be getting that drink, if she were to see the two of them talking, because Jonas now has a bottle of water in his hand and is drinking from it.
Pen is rubbing her thumb along the side of Nick's hand or his palm or the interior of his wrist, and this is soothing enough to keep him there; he too is wondering whether he should have a drink. Then he is wondering whether this qualifies as self-medicating with alcohol and whether he ought to do it.
Patricia, who is actually not deaf to the words that have not been said during the course of this conversation but who sails past it with easy Grace, because she is this too, this dichotomy and dissonance, clinks the ice in her glass. It is almost empty. Drinks needed, all around. "It was the easiest way for me to understand magick at first. I briefly entertained the notion of joining the Chorus, in fact. I don't think those places are always holy, though. It's a misconception. They spring up in places that have been desecrated as often as not, however that looks to you. Did you know," click click of ice in glass, "apparently the Union has taken to building shopping malls on them."
Rachel snorts. "Is anybody surprised?"
Nick, here, looks again as though he might say something; perhaps he would have, were he and Patricia talking alone. Such group conversations make him uneasy though, inclined to retreat, and so as he looks for his words the opportunity is lost. He is not the center of everyone's attention here as he was at Lysander's, as the visitor. So Patricia: "What is your area of interest, Pen? How did you choose to pursue that?"
Mars
"The Flambeau are a martial House." Here, a slender (clear and silver and water in a chalice) glance for Rachel. The glance moves past her to Nicholas: it dwells on the whorl of his ear, then contour of his cheekbones, the sweep of his lashes, the pulse at his throat. "And the Order of Hermes is a Tradition with diverse purpose, though always a stress on individual excellence." See here, that tint of - what? Crow's wing blue? - in the shadows of Nicholas's hair. Pen's eye is an artist's, even if turpentine and paint are tools she does not as often wield as as she might a knife and the language of angels.
"Right now I would say: all areas of interest are mine. I don't know enough yet to know what I am not interested in: I cannot compass the idea. But magically speaking, my studies have canted more toward the physical world and how to move it. And my studies cant in that direction, because I want to be able to defend those who might be preyed upon and have their choices taken from them and find themselves unable to live well. I feel I am not being very eloquent," and she sounds apologetic, truly: "But I am only interested in people, and what they might do if they have the chance. Power interests me for that reason; and the Mystery of this world, how it is constantly at war with itself: War interests me. The divinity manifest in all this shadow, that interests me."
"I like all this; I want to give it its due."
Hyde and company
Pen speaks and there is something deeply satisfying in what she says to Patricia. Perhaps she can see it, in how the older woman's chest swells as she draws in a breath, just this once, and looks down at the ice and swirling smoke and amber in her glass. Something deep and visceral within her stirs, perhaps, as much as her Grace, and those people who don't believe the two can coexist - well. Pen knows.
"It sounds as though you do good work for the Order of Hermes, then, Pen," Patricia says. "I hope that interest stays alive within you as you advance in skill and understanding. You'll have time enough to narrow down your interests."
And Nicholas, by the time Pen has finished maybe she's not looking at him anymore, in which case: he is looking at her, his glance more sidelong and shadowed than hers was, not as open in how it traces her profile and eyes of lake light, the burnished red of her hair. His thumb sweeps over her knuckles, in turn. He loves Pen too, maybe has been trying to marshal the courage to say it aloud; but it would take someone with a keener eye to notice.
"So," Rachel says, "what do you actually do?" Her tone is friendly; it is also somewhat pointed, perhaps, and so is the look she gives Pen then.
Mars
It's true that Pen's gaze did not stay on Nicholas that whole time; it bypassed him, obliquely cast (hook, line; thread, needle), then returned to the other two: Pink-cheeked, pink-skulled Rachel, Patricia who is Trying Trying in the green dress.
"I study. What's your deal, Rachel? You told me Patricia's; I know Nicholas's. I feel I have been remiss in asking you questions about yourself: all I know is you wouldn't look at him for a test, and you don't carry a weapon for the weapon's sake."
Hyde and company
Patricia and Nicholas, both of whom perhaps share a sense of Otherness somehow, this preoccupation with things past what the physical eye can see, and who both retain this sort of peacefulness about them: they both had tensed, when Rachel asked Pen that question. In both of them it was subtle, and Pen could feel Nick's only because she is holding his hand, and she could miss Patricia's, which was just a glance that cut to the other woman as Patricia clicked the ice in her glass and took a swallow of whatever is there.
It is the air of people who are humoring their drunk uncle at Christmas, the likable one who still says appalling things. The look Rachel is giving her after Pen says that she studies, it suggests that she might be about to say one of those things, though the conversation turns back around quickly enough.
"My deal?" This slightly puzzled look as she tries to figure out just what it is Pen is asking after. "Well, Nick's probably told you about the Wheel, right? Given you kind of the run down? The short version is that it's not in balance, and some people aren't in balance, and our job is to put it back in balance. So I do that."
"Rachel means she's not a big believer in due process," Nick says. His eyes had wandered away from Pen, and just now he is looking back at Miles and Jonas - probably for that drink.
"I mean that I actually go out there and do something," Rachel says. Then, to Pen, "I was with Patricia when she found that node where the people were murdered. Me and Wes - " Patrica takes another swallow from her glass - "sorry Patricia. Me and Wes were both there tracking down the guy who did it."
Mars
When Rachel apologizes to Patricia, Pen's gaze flicks to her. Back to Rachel. Maybe there's a shadow on her brow, for the whisper of tension gone through Nicholas, for the abridged explanation of the Wheel and balance and putting it back in balance and oh everything that followed.
"Is there only one 'something' to do?" Pen says, after a heartbeat, wondering.
Hyde and company
"Of course not," Rachel says. "Jonas and Miles and Reva all hunt together, but only like Nephandi and Marauders and stuff. But Sleepers need someone to look out for them too."
Patricia, mark, has been watching Pen; there is this sort of understanding there for how such things are often perceived by people who are not Chakravanti. "Some people in our Tradition serve such roles. It's well established within our history." She says this perhaps to pre-empt Nick, who has a tightness there at the corner of his jaw. "It does require a certain self-reflection and strong ethics."
At which Rachel nods, this sharp emphatic gesture. Another glance from Patricia to the younger woman.
Then: there is Jonas, appearing behind Nicholas with a drink he hands to Pen. "Miles had to help," he says, and there is some faint note of apology that can be discerned in his voice. Pen will find, if she looks, that she has been given a Manhattan with a rather copious amount of alcohol in it, likely the effort of Miles to balance whatever horrible thing Jonas had done prior. To Nick, he hands a beer, which Nick takes gratefully, with a murmured thanks, and sips from. "I heard - you are discussing the Wheel?"
Mars
Pen is intent: intense, see, even at her most composed, and her eyebrows draw together at sleepers need someone to etcetera and it is worth noting perhaps that the shadow seems less one of -- well, what? Disapproval? Fear? Caution? It's none of these. More one of: trying to catch at a common thread, to tease it out.
Then: there is Jonas, apparition-like; and a Miles? Pen looks for a Miles as she takes the drink; only looks at it after she has brought it to her lips and the alcoholic fumes hit her; the Flambeau blinks once and peers down into the glass. "Thank you." Beat. Courage: a nonchalant sip.
Whoa.
Okay, okay, where were they. "We are. We were."
Hyde and company
Pen looks for a Miles, and she can find one; he is still by the drink table, taking inventory of it and the food that is left. He is shuffling around bottles and rather quickly, and seems to be casting about for something (a place to hide most of the liquor bottles, in truth; there are enough tipsy people here already for Miles.)
The drink Pen finds strong, but well-balanced enough. Miles appears to have gone to the gay bartender school of drink mixing. Nicholas: appears grateful to have been brought a beer for a reason.
To what Pen says, Jonas only nods. There is a look toward Rachel then, and she gives Jonas this cool look, raises her eyebrows at him. And there is, then, this awkward silence until -
"Patricia, may I borrow you?"
"Of course," she says, at which point she and Jonas shuffle off to the side, closer to one of the corners of the room. Their voices emerge from the corner occasionally, hushed.
Leaving Nick and Pen alone with Rachel, who lets out a little sigh and plays with the straw in her drink. "Patricia seems to be holding up okay," she says, to which Nick makes a murmur of agreement.
Mars
[... eh? Wtf was that awkwardness about? *squint of Perc-Emp @ Rachel/Jonas*]
Dice: 5 d10 TN4 (2, 4, 4, 7, 10) ( success x 4 )
Hyde and company
[It's one of those things that neither party was especially trying to conceal, simply because they expected it to go unnoticed. Pen can certainly catch wind of numerous undercurrents here though. Without context, it is difficult to interpret; bodily cues will only give away so much. But she can perhaps intuit some disapproval there on the part of Jonas, and something perhaps a little defiant from Rachel.
This could be interpreted any number of ways; but tonight Pen's intuition is on point. It would not be a great cognitive leap to assume that there is a reason Jonas has stuck with Nephandi and Marauders, and that he feels cautious when it comes to Rachel. Rachel: feels very passionately about the things she feels passionately about, and perhaps also does not feel that Jonas has strong ground to stand on in terms of disapproval for anyone.]
Mars
"Did she lose somebody at the Wellspring Node where the murdered people were?" Pen asks. Then: "I like her."
Hyde and company
"I do too," Nick says, and perhaps there's some relief here, that Pen has voiced approval of one of his Traditionmates. The evening so far has been somewhat stressful on him, after all; might have been anyway, no matter how things had gone.
"Yeah. That guy I mentioned, Wes, he was her partner," Rachel says. "He got himself killed. And the node itself was...just kind of wrong, and I think she tried to poke around too much. I guess it's all dissipated now. Anyway, it was badness. We've been kind of worried about her. She told me she's never been in Quiet before."
There is this contemplative look that had followed Patricia as she left, and Nick returns it to her now, as he raises his bottle, the neck lightly held between his thumb and the tips of two fingers. He hasn't had anything to drink from it again. "I think she'll be all right," Nick says.
Then Rachel, again: "So Pen, what sorts of things do you study?"
Mars
Nicholas is right there so close and yet he feels not close enough to Pen. Pen isn't holding his hand any more, removed hers in order to take the Manhattan, in order to cast another glance covert over her shoulder toward the drinks table (and the rest of the room; she is clear-eyed, yes, but alertness is a conscious thing; a casting thing, spell-working), but she does list closer to him leans against him and a curl of red falls over her brow all knight errantry; amoral enchantment.
"Like I said before: the physical world, and how to move it. Theory. Practical application of theory. Languages, of course, and symbols; arcane histories and cosmologies; how to construct a riddle using only letters taken from somebody's True Name; how to write properly, and in cypher; how to wield all manner of weapons; how to be one; how to be a shield. The true names of things."
"Have you interacted very often with members of my Tradition?"
Hyde and company
Pen looks back at the room, and she will note that the configurations seem to have changed, to some extent. Miles she will find no longer at the drink table; he has instead moved through the French doors, where he is clutching a pen in his hand and leaned against the railing. The girl in the green plaid shirt and the nondescript man are now sitting on the floor, and in front of them they've spread out what looks like a rather elaborate (and possibly hand drawn) deck of cards.
"A few," Rachel says. "I met that one Alexandra girl. She seemed cool." Pen's explanation of the things she's studied, some of it perhaps drew a little interest; her brow lofted once at practical application of theory, at how to be a weapon and a shield. It seems to predominantly be where her interest lies. "But I'll be the first to say that I don't really understand a lot of what you guys talk about."
Pen had leaned against Nick, and he'd caught her waist as she did so. His hand is lightly resting against her other flank now, and occasionally he catches one of her shirt's petals between his fingers. "We have some roots in common with the order. Certain segments of the Tradition, anyway," Nick says.
Rachel waves this away, literally, and sucks the last of her drink through the tiny stirring straw. It makes an empty rattling sound, there at the end. "What about you, Pen? Have you talked much with members of our Tradition?"
Mars
Isn't it something, how Penelope holds a cup and makes it seem like a Cup (Grail [Treasure])? Her fingers are careful; she has not sipped the drink again, but her arm is a graceful line: strength there, latent. She seems to be considering something.
"Yes," Penelope says. Perhaps she means the one she's taken as a lover; she spends a great deal of time (as much time as she can and still fulfill her obligations to her Master and her Order) in Nicholas's presence. Perhaps she means a scattering of Chakravanti over her years Awake. Penelope's areas of interest intersect with the interests of the Death Mages as often as not, and New England is small, and the only thing smaller is the Awakened World, or at least it seems that way sometimes.
"Excuse me for a moment." Pen pulls away from Nicholas; her hand finds his lower back; lower than; and then it rests on his arm; firm pressure.
Without waiting for a reply, Pen: hies off, pursuit!
Hyde and company
Pen says yes, and it's the sort of statement that asks for more clarification, an explanation; Rachel may be waiting for one. Nick may also be waiting for one - after all, we have established his confusion regarding the subtext between Pen and Jonas already.
As the Hermetic excuses herself, she pulls Nick's eyes after her as her hands trail over his lower back and his arm, pressure just before she hies off in pursuit of - well, who exactly is she pursuing? Nick cannot tell, though he likely will be able to before too long. Miles is all the way through the room and to the back through the doors, and when Pen goes out to see him he'll be able to see her through the glass.
And he'll try not to look too long or too hard.
Miles, when Pen reaches him, is leaned against the railing of what is a small balcony, held over the edge of a hill that pitches sharply downward and into the field below. First floor, but it gives the impression of being higher because the ground after all is still far below them. He has turned away from the railing long enough to pay attention to what is probably the ugliest cat Penelope Mercury Mars will have ever seen. A brown and white tabby, one of his eyes not quite missing but filmed over and clearly blind, grossly fat and missing half of one ear. Miles is rubbing his jaw and he is emitting a rusty purr.
As Pen egresses Miles looks up once, and his glance lingers. But there is nowhere to escape to. "Hello," he says finally, and avoids saying her name because while he did not catch her introduction he heard she was Hermetic, and they go by different names, and Miles: he is mindful of these things, that people don't always stay who they were.
Mars
"Hello. Thank you for the drink." The drink is lofted slightly; topaz, amber, ruby. The drink is not the point. Her strong jaw is set and her eyebrows are drawn together, because there is a shadow, see, an upset, troubled focus. She takes in the cat. She takes in the cat because (Dragon) it is an impressive specimen of monster and its throat is a cutlery drawer. She cannot pretend she has attention for anything or anyone else. "I will soon be, my head will soon be all," and this is a trail away, twice-aborted. Third time's the charm, but she doesn't go by a charm. There is no third time.
Because Pen is direct; to a fault, sometimes. "Why did - " There is no third charmed time, that is. The way a groove will be found in a knife there's something beseeching in her voice, and it catches. "Do you mean me to pretend not to have known you?"
Hyde and company
"You're welcome. Jonas would have poisoned you somehow." A joke. It's a joke. (Truly, it is: it is difficult to imagine Jonas killing anyone with poison.)
There is this stop-start from Pen, during which Miles straightens to his full (unimpressive) height, brushing errant strands of hair from his fingertips. Dragon, who is a healthy specimen of outdoor cat for all of his bumps and scrapes and old wounds, nevertheless has a lot of dead hair coming free from the Chakravanti's ministrations. It drifts there at the hinge of his jaw like a wisp of a cloud, will drift away in the breeze in time. He beelines for Pen and will be winding around her legs soon enough.
"I meant to make things less weird for you and your boyfriend," Miles says. "I don't know what you told Nick or didn't. He's never sounded like he thought we might know each other, when he's talked about you to me before."
Mars
"You think that was less weird?"
Pen avoids looking through the glass back into the room because what if Nicholas is looking at her what might his expression be. However the strong desire to look prickles through her scalp; works on her the way she has imagined certain Atlantic tides might work with inevitability; a pulling. When Dragon bumps against her boots, she glances down to measure him, or just to look away from Miles. It's goes through her like an ache: a strange mixture of panic and exhilaration, a heart-flip, when Miles says when he's talked about you to me before.
Pen does not bend to pet the cat, but she might shift her feet slightly so it can rub against one of the buckles or the almost invisible bump where the knife is sheathed.
"I didn't," pause. "I mean- he's never. I didn't realize that you and Jonas- there aren't always names to the stories and- no, he doesn't- I didn't- I haven't even told him how much you- you both, back when I- well you know what- I didn't say- "
Fuck, Penelope. Were you recruited for your eloquence, or what?
"But now! Do you think he's hurt?"
Hyde and company
"Less weird for him and everyone else there, at least until we could figure shit out," Miles says. "Maybe not for you and me."
He carries himself like a much larger man, Miles. There's this uppercut of his jaw as he speaks to Pen here, this lift; it's a gesture that has its own cool poise. He's not especially quick, and this thing is evident enough to have been noted about him by others, but he can follow her train of thought well enough. Even if it's not Penelope at her most eloquent.
Dragon has indeed found one of the buckles on her boots and he is rubbing the corner of his mouth against it, claiming Pen for his own and rustily purring all the while.
"Do I think Nick is hurt? I haven't had a chance talk to to him tonight." A beat. "Why, do you think he's hurt?" And in more clever people such as Nick himself, this question might be leading; Miles only seems to be genuinely confused. He, after all, does not know what passed between her and Jonas and Nicholas earlier, other than what he read from expression and body language.
Mars
From inside the French doors stage them, so: border them, quarter them, frame them as a picture, a tapestry, some echo of Pre-Raphaelite artistry; Pen has been in profile, albeit one angled away. Now she turns her back to the room cups the glass with both hands (votive [offering]), and cants toward the railing as if she'd lean against it were her hands free.
She gives Miles a side-long, cutting glance at his phrasing, he haven't had a chance to talk to him tonight. He had a fucking chance, but instead: Pursuit. And a balcony.
And no Nicholas.
A beat, during that Look. Then her gaze drops again, lake-light from a sword, see? Dragon is ignored, but not kicked away; she doesn't mind the cat rubbing against these boots. "I am afraid he is."
There is some slight emphasis on the word afraid; it drops from her mouth like a heavy black stone, much-worn by time and water; it is not a word she uses often.
"You're all so important to him."
Mars
ooc: *swap 'hasn't' out for 'haven't' even if it is a half-quote*
Hyde and company
Miles did not bring a drink out here with him. He still has his pen clenched between the index and middle fingers of one of his hands; he has, so far, managed to refrain from lifting it to his mouth. Slightly more knowledge of Mind and this wouldn't even be a problem; but he hasn't learned yet, so it is. Cravings are all mental, see, even once the body has forgotten a need.
He can sense Pen's - irritation? Perhaps. There are so many undercurrents and perhaps so many nuances to the emotions she is experiencing that they are all clustered together into some sort of general Unhappiness. Miles can sense that, at least.
There is a slow exhale through his nostrils at what Pen says. "Nick's a sweet kid. And he's got it bad for you. He probably just wants us to like you, and vice versa. So there's no harm done." Well: he makes an assumption there. Perhaps Pen isn't getting along with his Traditionmates today; Miles admittedly has not been paying much attention.
"Did you chase me out here to talk to me about Nick?"
Mars
Cravings are mental. Pen doesn't take a sip of her drink; then she does. If she is not going to look over her shoulder and into the room, she is going to have some of the drink which is the color of Phobos or Deimos or Mars itself distilled and transfigured.
"I chased you out here because you fled when we were introduced again, and for the first time, and properly," she says, and of course she is impassioned (and angry, just thinking about it, and embarrassed, which just makes her angrier, and see, everything is more awkward now, and later Pen will lie awake and stare at the ceiling and regret), but it is a tempered sort of impassioned: directed, focused.
"And because, Miles - fuck, I know you; don't you think I'd want to speak to you and hear you speak if we are in the same place? Do you think it makes sense, I should just ignore you?"
Hyde and company
The pen finally finds its way up to his mouth; there is a sense of surrender here, as he shoves the end into the corner and his teeth clamp around it. Surrender and relief. It hasn't burst in his mouth yet, and with any luck it won't.
Miles is not impassioned; there is a steady even keel demeanor about him that lingers even now: though perhaps he too, later, will lie awake and stare at the ceiling and regret, for different reasons than Pen though they're all the same in the end. He lowers the pen away from his mouth, exhales, and this purely out of habit, out of muscle memory.
"I don't know you," he says. "It's what, like eight years since I saw you?" He pauses, gestures absently with the hand that is holding the pen between middle and index fingers. "You change your name and a lot of stuff changes. And after what happened I didn't know if you'd want anything to do with me. I wanted you to have an easy out if you didn't."
Mars
"Five, and - " - as he gestures with the chewed-up pen; she quiets to hear the rest.
Pen inhales; it is so quiet there is no sound, the only sign the rise of her shoulders. They are still bare, the soft pink-as-Magnolias top sliding downward. Pen reaches across herself to rub the back of her neck up past the hairline and then pushes her fingers all the way into her bonfire hair; cups the back of her skull, and then she use a finger to hook her sleeve up onto her shoulder proper, where it tries to hang.
When she leans her hip against the rail (forlorn and wistful), the metal belt clinks. The other sleeve slips low enough on her upper arm to show the beginning of her bicep.
"Ah. So that's what you wanted." Resolve, see. "Do you know now what I wanted?"
[>.> Manip Subt, I'm totally cool.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 9) ( success x 1 )
Hyde and company
[I bet you aren't. You're as bad a liar as me.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 5, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )
Mars
[Pen is a really passionate woman. She is not 'cool.' He can easily get a sense that she is wistful, and a touch removed; the touch removed is a lie! Pen is angry with herself and angry with Miles's reasoning, for reasons pertaining to why she is angry at herself.]
Hyde and company
The pen is back in his mouth, and he shifts from foot to foot where he stands. The sun has grown low in the sky, burnished with the day's ending, and some of the light filters through his blond-maybe-brown hair. This little nod as Pen corrects him as to the number of years it's been; he has lost count, and Miles never expected to live as long as he has.
"It sounds like maybe you wanted me to stay," he says. "So you could leave all of that behind you and be re-introduced as you are now. And I took that from you."
Mars
"Of course I wanted you to stay," Pen says. "Yes, perhaps so I could introduce myself as I am now; but also because it's been such a while; even more so I could introduce Nick to - " Pen tips some of the Manhattan over the side of the rail, just to watch the late afternoon turn it into fire; splatter, splotch. Her voice catches in her throat.
"After what happened, and what happened again, I want anything to do with you; I'm not good at it, though; I'm not good enough at - " - a gesture; it is absolutely a compact between air and fire; something that is all balladry. She kicks the side of the railing with her heel; she is careful not to kick the stupid cat.
Hyde and company
Pen is careful not to kick the stupid cat, but Dragon, perhaps picking up on some of the agitation here (cats are intuitive creatures, despite what people say) rolls to his feet and shakes himself and trundles a short distance away. The cat sits then in a patch of sunlight, flicking his tail and blinking at them both through half-lidded yellow eyes, snaggle tooth more evident now that he is looking at them head on.
Pen speaks, and again Miles exhales, and this one she can hear. "I'm sorry I ran then," says Miles, and he closes the pen in his fist now. "Can I make it up to you? Do you want to bring him out here and start over?"
Mars
[Urgh. Are you just humoring me?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN4 (3, 4, 5, 5, 6) ( success x 4 )
Hyde and company
[Miles is not just humoring Pen: he does feel sorry that his good intentions ended up upsetting her. He is completely willing to bring Nick back in and begin again; this is a Tradition of new beginnings, after all.
Pen also has enough insight just now to understand that Miles identifies personally with some aspect of what she is saying. Without context it's hard to know what, but this adds to his sincerity.]
Mars
Penelope (who is still Elaine, after all, Heath Siddal's sister; when she is with her family, or people who have known her for most of her life, she is still called that; or John's daughter; or Jeff's daughter; or that red-headed Siddal girl; the proud one) watches Miles, clear-eyed; there is no lake-light dripping, just water, see, clarity untroubled by reflection; and she puts her weight on the toe of her left shoe. Sweeps her hand up and her fingers into her hair and holds it gathered to the side, leaving one ear and side of her throat bare; she is thinking.
She is facing the window now, but still looking at Miles; does she want to bring Nick out here, the balcony? Pen does not believe in 'starting over,' but Pen does not hold grudges either, and she does believe in moving forward. But she seems a touch quizzical.
"Thank you for saying so," she says. "I do want Nicholas," solemn, somber; that is a complete statement, which can be read in varying ways, many of which are true. "I'd like him with you," with an air of Daring.
"Do you need a vape pen?"
Hyde and company
Pen, as she is thinking, sweeps her hair to the side and Miles for a moment is thinking too, of how different and yet the same she looks. Perhaps he is reflecting on Fate, and how strange it is that it would have their paths diverge and intersect and diverge and intersect again; that Jonas told things true, for all that things in the distance tend to blur together at the horizon line.
Jonas, see, he'd always known that Elaine would Awaken and he likely told her this, when she sought them out afterward. The future doesn't always loom like a thunderhead on the prairie.
He glances to the side at the pen in his hand as Pen asks whether he'd like a vape, as though surprised to find that he'd been distracting himself with it. Then he says, "No. It'd defeat the purpose. This is how I Work, sometimes, or prepare to Work."
At which point he tucks the pen away in one of his pockets and glances back through the doors. Nicholas is not visible, has drifted somewhere to the other side of the wall and past where they can see. There'd been this little smile at Pen as she said she wants Nicholas, that she'd like him with Miles. He only says, "Do you want me to go get him, then?"
Mars
Penelope's expression changes (curiosity); nuances can be expressive and subtle at the same time; this is why some Art is great Art, some Art is merely form with no more than a shadow of soul. She wants to ask more about how Miles Works ore Prepares to Work. She likes to know things, and it occurs to her that, even in a multi-Traditional cabal, even with friends in other Traditions (it's harder, with Lysander as demanding as he is now; she is so behind), she hasn't thought outside for a while.
She is about to say no, she'll go get him or they can go get him together, when she changes her mind last-minute, says instead, "If you want to go inside and find him, I'll follow you in a moment."
Hyde and company
[Hmm. How am I doing? WP 'cause around Traditionmates.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 ) [WP]
Hyde and company
To this, Miles nods. And he's not an especially subtle man, and she can read that his carriage is lighter now than when she came out to the balcony. There is still perhaps something weighing on his mind, though that may only be the circumstances. This conversation may have been less emotionally charged for him than Pen, but emotionally charged nonetheless: and Pen saw true in that her words struck something within him too.
"All right. I'll go look for him." And the Chakravanti turns to go and push his way back through the doors, leaving Pen alone there on the balcony with Dragon.
Mars
Penelope takes her cell phone out and taps a message.
And another, and another. It becomes a brief conversation.
Text: Ariaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnaaaaaaaaa
Arianna
It's a small miracle when Ari's cell phone works. But perhaps, by now, Robin and the others have gotten tired of this and 'fixed' it. Or perhaps this is just one of the lucky lucky days when nothing has gone wrong, yet.
The reply: The one and only. Yes, Pen?
Pen glances through the French door windows; are Miles or Nick visible now? Who is? She kneels carefully, with economy, and reaches one hand out to pet Dragon.
PM
Text: I dread the hour after we leave this place.
Text: Nick and me.
Text: You don't need be for anything Important right now do you?
Pen grimaces.
PM
Text: Oh! Forgive me!
Text: *me
Arianna
Reply: Um.
And more: I think I might be in dreadful need of you.
And more: It may be quite serious. I think I am... perhaps I have gotten stranded somewhere by my notoriously unreliable car.
And yet more: Some place unsavoury. And Kestrel will not come save me. As he is not gallant like that.
Arianna
And then: It is quite serious. You must come. Post haste. And bring Nicholas. The night is dark and full of terrors.
Pen spends some time scritching the cat's chin and cheeks, or coaxing him closer, or gazing meditatively into the cat's golden eye and milky ruined eye.
PM
Text: You are a wonder, Ari!
Text: But you see, if I bring Nicholas, then we will be alone together in the car and saving you will have lost its luster.
Text: In this very particular instance.
Text: Saving you always has a luster.
Text: Ari, woe!
Text: No, I am fine, I am only "considerably rumpled in spirit."
Text: Forward, right?
Arianna
Reply: Rumpled in spirit? LET ME AT THEM! I shall rumple some spirits on your behalf and in your name. (angry face emoji)
PM
Text: The only 'them' to be at is found in the last two letters, only reverse them!
Text: I have been a
Text: (spider emoji)
Arianna
Reply: And should I ever be in truly dire straits, you have my permission to be distracted by the nearness of Nicholas... so long as you eventually remember to see to my timely rescue. ;)
Text: fool. That was supposed to evoke a shudder.
Text: I'm sure I would get around to it eventually, regardless of nearness.
[long pause]
Text: ;)
Arianna's next message is missed, because Pen turns her cell phone back off; it's low on battery, anyway, and seems to be having trouble with its programs. She takes another sip of her Manhattan, and then (having found her resolve, again; having not only found it, donned it, but become it, calmed, composed, centered) Pen returns to the room.
Where is Nicholas and where is Miles? (And where is everybody; her alertness is conscious, watchful; not guarded, but ever clear-eyed.)
Hyde and company
It is easy to coax Dragon closer as Pen taps on her phone, committing to this back-and-forth exchange between herself and her friend (one day cabalmate - or already?) The cat is again purring, a sound so loud that it almost drowns out the chorus of crickets in the field, beginning their nightly dirge as the sun fades. Both the milky ruined eye and the still golden one shut; even the ugliest of cats are still cats, and he absorbs her affection before he takes off to pursue some hapless fieldmouse or bird.
Pen has centered herself, and here returns to the room.
Again, these shifting configurations. Jonas and Patricia are nowhere to be seen now, and Rachel has found her way over to the nondescript man and the girl in the plaid shirt and another man who was behind the doors earlier, tattooed with his beard long and combed out. Nick and Miles appear to have just withdrawn from the young light-skinned woman wearing bangles, and from Jackson, who flashes Pen a smile when he sees her again. He appears to have recovered from the frisbee game. Jackson and Ciara (for that is the woman's name) are resuming their conversation.
Nick, well, he is still sitting on half a beer and appears to have been mingling in her absence. He said a few parting words to Ciara as he was pulled away with Miles, and now he is looking down at the smaller man, wearing the sort of warm smile he often wears when he is of a mind to be social. Pen has seen it before; he used it to good effect at Lysander's party last Christmas.
He notices Pen before Miles does. Miles has pulled them back into a corner, near another set of candles which are beginning to burn low in their sconces, fragrant yellow wax puddled there on the tablecloth. As she makes their way over to them he says, "Hello, Pen." And Miles eyes her here; he is clearly going to be taking his cues from her. "I didn't realize you knew Miles too."
Mars
[*squint at Nick* How ARE you doing?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN4 (1, 2, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )
Hyde and company
[ :D:D:D:D ]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4) ( botch x 2 )
Mars
Nicholas notices Pen before Miles does. Pen crossing the room offers Nicholas a smile that could flip a heart, catch a falling star, neatly hook heart and star and reel them in; and why could it? Usually it would be a flash of a smile; now it is a tender wishfulness and regard.
Notable in its difference from the shining of shook foil Echo Jackson's smile got; that and a small wave. There is still some drink left in Pen's Manhattan - she is not drinking quickly, but nursing instead -- and it is in danger of sloshing when she does what it is she means to do, which is:
slip her arm around Nicholas's shoulders and offer it to him at an angle; she smells a bit like a Manhattan right now.
Which is also: glance at Miles, rest her brow against Nicholas's shoulder (Sorceress, see), and say, "I know. I'm sorry; I didn't think to see Miles and Jonas again for - well, until I looked them up myself, specifically. I met Miles back before I was initiated as well. He was one of the first Traditionalists to try and explain things to me."
Hyde and company
[Let's reroll that botch. WP please.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (3, 4, 6, 6, 6, 7) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Hyde and company
Pen offers Nicholas a smile that could flip a heart, and flip his heart it does. Right up into his mouth.
And it is this moment that almost unravels him, where he comes close to removing himself from the room no matter whether Pen and Miles wanted to talk to him together, because even if he is so frequently modest he too has pride, and he too wants to seem strong. His fingers tighten around the neck of his bottle, and in this and in the way he looks away and sucks in a breath before returning his attention to the two of them, Pen can tell that the absence has been gnawing at him, this on top of the interaction with Jonas earlier.
He has regained his composure by the time Pen slides her arm around his shoulders and tilts her glass toward him. Obligingly, he takes up her glass in one hand and takes a sip, and after he does he wishes he'd inhaled first; he might have realized how strong the drink was if he had.
An arm finds a way around Pen's waist. "Miles is a good person to get things like that from," Nick says, and there is this touch of affection for his Traditionmate, of warm regard.
Miles, for his part, glances between the two of them. "Sorry it was weird there, Nick," he says. "I was just really surprised to see Pen here after all these years."
This, Nick waves away with a flick of a few of the fingers that are wrapped around his beer bottle. "Don't worry about it. Did you have a chance to catch up?"
Mars
"A little bit of one. I was less interested in catching up, and more interested in finding out why the weirdness," Pen says, and she has taken in Nicholas's expression; she has haunted his face, see, with her glance; she has carefully considered the tint to the shadows of his eyelashes, the mathematical principles behind the curve of his mouth in this particular mood; and she feels bad. But it isn't the kind of feeling bad that undoes her; temple against his shoulder, eyes on Miles, and she is an earnest and sincere creature, isn't she? Direct, even now.
"There were a surprising number, well surprising to me number, of Mages who ceased speaking to me once I did choose a Tradition. Perhaps," and - is that mischief, ghosting through her voice like smoke? Not mischief; mischief implies play, and this isn't really play; still, there's some ember-warm edge, "now we will catch up properly. Or start a book club, with Jonas; that would be interesting."
Mars
Addendum: "Perhaps Patricia would join too."
Hyde and company
Here is Pen, earnest and sincere, and here is Miles, making a bit of a face as Pen suggests a book club because he too is a little too sincere to pretend that the idea of a book club with Jonas interests him in the slightest. "I bet they both would join a book club," Miles says. "But Jonas and I have some really different ideas on fun reading, or light reading." This reflection. "Still, I think it would be nice if...well, yeah. I don't think some Traditions mingle often enough."
Nick absorbs this, as well as what Pen said before. "I think I talk to more people now that I'm not a Disparate," he says, though: it is likely that he and Pen were different varieties of Disparate, after all. "Maybe we should start making knowledge of the chantry more public, Miles."
To which Miles laughs. "Book clubs and yoga classes. We'd never hear the end of it from some of the city chantries."
Mars
Here is a good example of Pen and how, though she'll anger, and feel it deeply (passionately), once the storm passes, it passes. Miles's expression makes her laugh; she finishes the rest of the Manhattan; sets the glass down on the table and slides around Nicholas so she can rest her chin on his shoulder and wrap both arms around his ribs and squeeze.
"I agree. I think people of different Traditions should more often work with one another; the world isn't a world for isolation, any longer. If it ever was."
"Why not have book cubs and yoga classes?" Her eyes crinkle. "And drink mixing classes. And archery," here, this is serious. "I don't suppose either of you know an archer who might be willing to give lessons?"
Hyde and company
Their cabal was built around such a principle, that Traditions should more often work with one another. It is perhaps how Rob will lure Arianna in, not too long from now, and it is this which also drew Nick in at first, once they happened across him trying to solve a problem on his own. And of course he does not dispute this. Nor does Miles, who counts a Cultist among his cabal's members. "I guess we should get on that," Miles says.
Pen has wrapped her arms around Nick and squeezed him, and he brings his hand up to rest over one of her arms, folding his own across his chest. There is gratitude here for how easy it feels, for this thought that perhaps something is not actively being kept from him even if that is how it could look. Nick tilts his head in thought as Pen jokes about the classes. "It might actually be a good way to draw people in," he says, and he is thoughtful because Nick is a firm believer in the use of carrots over sticks.
Pen inquires regarding archers, and Miles says, "Funny you should ask. Ciara over there," a nod to the bangled woman, "is pretty good with a bow. Other stuff too. So is Rachel."
Mars
Nicholas might get the feeling that Pen is going to kiss his neck, the way she cants her head once his hand finds her arm while he's tilting his head all thoughtful; Miles might get the feeling too. Ultimately, she does not; Pen can keep her impulses restrained.
Especially when Miles is drawing her attention to Ciara and then back to Rachel. Rachel reminds Penelope of some Flambeaux she knows. Ciara is a mystery. She says, "Do you think her likely to give me a lesson if I asked?"
"Miles, are you the ... leader, as far as there is one ... of this chantry?"
Hyde and company
Nicholas does get the feeling that Pen is going to kiss his neck, and though she keeps her impulse restrained there is still this heart-flopping, and maybe with her arms banded about his chest it's easy for her to tell. Miles, he also gets this feeling, and he breezes on past, because they are young and in his mind still new yet, and because there are people who have opinions about them and as Patricia will say eventually: cynicism is common, and cheap, and easy. Miles believes this too.
"I think she would," Miles said, with a look toward Ciara.
Nick, who'd made a noise of agreement, says now, "Ciara takes a little while to warm up to people, but she'd probably like you."
The question of Pen's that follows seems to take Miles aback. There are two Adepts in this chantry and he is not one of them, and even among Traditions without such a clear cut hierarchy - well, there is still hierarchy. He has to think about it. "I guess I do a lot of the things a chantry leader would do," he says finally.
"Miles is the chantry leader," Nick says.
Mars
His heart flops! or his chest tightens, or some physical sign causes Pen's gray eyes to brighten up, all quicksilver, all mercury glass; for the corners of her mouth to curl; tolerance, at his assessment.
And then they answer her question about leadership.
"Hmm." Nicholas can feel the vibration in her throat when she hums; it's this contemplative little sound, something which alights; is alight. This is to the qualified not-yes that Miles gives her in answer; Nicholas's more definitive opinion.
"How did you all come together? Am I right to have taken the impression that, after the Node dried up, this place was left fallow for a while?"
Beat. And she glances toward Ciara herself, now, the people Ciara is with; maybe she seeks out Rachel, too. "Who is more practiced, Ciara or Rachel?"
Another beat. "Will you guys introduce me to her?"
Hyde and company
"It was," says Miles, of the wayward house. Nick's interest has sharpened now, because there is little of the house's history that he has heard. It is more common for him to hear personal histories than the histories of places or things or groups, if only because he tends to ask certain kinds of questions, and people are inclined to tell him certain kinds of things. "Patricia found the place again. Jonas knew it existed before, but he was brought here a while ago before the war's end, and I think he was probably only eleven or twelve at the time." Beat. "He says he didn't remember its location, at any rate."
There is of course more that Miles could offer of the chantry's history, more that he could say about its founding and the node's rediscovery. He simply does not think to; after all it is old news to him.
Nick might've asked more, perhaps, but there is this turn of the conversation to archery, to Ciara and Rachel. "Rachel might be slightly better with a bow, but Ciara is more likely to teach well," Miles says, and this without hesitation. "I can introduce you, if you like. Or Nick can," and a glance toward the younger Chakravanti here, to the way he is tilted into Pen and has dreamily gazed off into some nonspecific location.
Mars
Penelope Mercury, this is what happens when you impulsively jump to another topic of conversation; you find yourself wanting to continue both, but in the awkward position of having to choose one to cycle back to later.
Archery is a more pressing topic, for reasons that Nicholas might be able to put together, if he thought about it: Pen does not tell him everything that she does when she goes off with other Flambeau, but she has mentioned, and recently, the massassa. Vampires.
"I'd like it if you did introduce me," and the 'you' can be impartial, between Miles and Nicholas. Pen glances sidelong at Nick's profile, marks it for a moment, and then - well. They are young. She makes a throaty sound and play bites the side of his jaw. Then her arms loose Nicholas and she stretches them up, back behind her head, shifting to one side so Nick is no longer between herself and Miles.
"Yes, Jonas said he remembered it from when he was a child. Is he," a pause. "He's okay?"
Hyde and company
Nick has heard Pen mention the massassa. He has listened with interest and curiosity when she has spoken of them, as though it would not have occurred to him before her mentioning that such things are indeed real and real not only as errant spirits or ghosts. They are flesh, even if dead flesh, and creatures of legend, and even if they are terrible this is fascinating to think about.
Pen bites the side of his jaw, and he laughs, and half-turns to include both her and Miles in his stance. He has not yet ventured after Ciara just yet, if only because Pen still has questions.
And at the question she asks there is this look exchanged between Nick and Miles that says: well, no, Jonas is not okay, but they are both perhaps not saying how not-okay he is. Or: there is more to it, but it is awkward to discuss others in a public place. "It's his burden to bear," is what Miles says. And then, "I've seen people recover from worse."
Mars
[Hmm. How's this for a Look? Charisma + Expression.]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 7 ) [Doubling Tens]
Mars
What Penelope is not, and never will be, is deft at manipulating an outcome, at using guile and calculation to control what somebody does or what somebody thinks. She will never be able to wield her understanding of human nature like a sword, which is what her Master does (or like the proverbial stiletto knife made out of ice - which is what her Master really does). She does not have the temperament to try and trick somebody into doing what she wants them to do, even if it is out of concern for the goodness of them.
But she is good at this. This thing, which is compelling without cunning, which is inspiring without thought for what she might get out of it. This, which right now is expressed in how her eyelashes fall and her eyes are hidden, how when her eyelashes rise the troubled gray of her eyes is promise and a balm, and isn't it water which purifies? Isn't water the mirror of heaven, a threshold between here and there? Isn't Penelope, who is also and still Elaine, an incomparable lure -- and if there is a promise it is one of surety, of the culmination of hope as inevitable?
The two Chakravanti exchange a look and Pen, she sets her shoulders. Rubs the side of her neck, fingers curling at her collar. Looks at them like an Enchantress might've looked, see, an unstoppable force and implacable, some Knowing thing, come out've the shining shaped out of some Myth some fall of shadow and light to offer succour. Of course: Pen is not that creature; she is only its Echo. She doesn't 'Know' anything about Jhor yet, doesn't remember if it was a thing she lived with once before (they've been around again and again, haven't they? Been here before, maybe), but she does Know that if she can help she is there.
And people bear their burdens alone, but not without companion.
And everybody can come out of darkness, if they fight.
If they are given the right instrument.
So: that eloquent look. She probably wouldn't feel so strongly, or be so readied, if Miles and Jonas hadn't crossed her path the way they had, if she hadn't crossed their paths after the way she had; if they'd just been two Crows (Owls, wasn't it?) having a conversation outside a cafe, at one of her old watering holes, teasing out details and confessions: but that's not how it went down. They coalesced out of the eldritch strangeness, the beating against her temple of whatever thing it is made her Awaken, and they gave her their names, and Jonas gave her a hint of the future, and they spoke plainly. So.
So. Pen says -- and it's a bit awkward, like a weapon awkward in her hand (or a paintbrush longer than she remembered, a pen of a weight she finds unfamiliar), and it's very young -- "Well. If I, I mean should there be … I will help as far as I can help, even so." (And how not to want her to right now? To feel, for a second, like maybe - ) "I'd like to understand, and… and I don't really like… I feel obligated."
And she flushes, right? Buries her face into Nicholas's shoulder, pulling his arm around her shoulders. (Seriously, come into this oak tree - just for a second. It's fine.) Then she peeks around at Miles, set and ready in case he is offended, stoic even.
"So archery! Ciara." Nudge, nudge. "What are you good at, Miles?" Because he's coming, right. "What are you Working on now, I mean with the... Vape pen defeating the purpose and all."
Hyde and company
Witness: how Penelope Mars is a promise and a lure, how she is fire and water and smoke and steam, and don't they all purify? Witness how she offers to help, as far as she can, the man who killed her brother (the husk that wore her brother's face, as Jonas would say) because he gave her his name, and he spoke plainly even as he stepped out of this Other world in front of her and took shape.
She is eloquent, and her words are Truth, and is it really all that strange that Jonas believed she was destined?
He has not said such a thing about Nicholas Hyde, murky thing that he is. Nicholas is a death omen, a herald of what comes for the great and common alike; Nicholas Hyde is a thing that Jonas reads, a card that he pulls and maybe one day something he would use to great effect. But this is not the same as greatness.
Pen gives the two Chakravanti this look that is layered but at its core is Hope, and then as though she could hide it or take it away again she buries her face in Nick's shoulder. Pulls his arm around hers. And Nick holds her to him, rubs her shoulder once. "He's never not had it," is what Nick says then, "since he Awakened, from what I understand." His voice is quiet, and it could be missed, because Pen is ready to move on.
They take their steps toward Ciara, and when Pen looks back at Miles she will find him pensive, not offended. It could be because what she said of Jonas, or it could be because he heard Nick, or it could be because she has asked him about his Working. Sometimes even Miles can be subtle, given the proper context. And how can he explain the gathering dark, and to the two of them who are so young and so new? "I do it to purify myself as part of a ritual," he says. "To help Jonas when he needs to see ahead, or track."
Mars
Nicholas's comment is not missed and Penelope looks thoughtful, but doesn't remark on it. Maybe (ugh) they'll talk about Jonas in the future (there will be a future, and perhaps it won't be very long, in the end, as immortals reckon time - but it will be theirs).
He does it as part of a ritual, to help Jonas when -
"I see. I hope to be able to support that kind of thing one day: seeing ahead, to track."
Pen can track. Miles knows this. And Pen is sharp of wit, so perfectly capable of conversing as they (three?) head toward Ciara - but if Miles is stopped, Pen is paused too. She isn't rude.
Except maybe when she decides to chase somebody onto a balcony, leaving behind the people she was talking to with the most perfunctory of excuses.
Hyde and company
Ciara has seen them coming, and Ciara seems to intuit that they are headed for her. The look she gives them all is cool and duly unimpressed, though there is also the possibility that it may just be the way her face rests; some people have this curse. She is looking over her shoulder at them, and Jackson is offering all of them a smile as they approach, and a little wave.
"Good to see you guys still kicking," Jackson says. "I was pretty worn out earlier." In fact he may have taken a nap out on the lawn, because naps are what that lawn was made for. What a waste of a rock garden otherwise.
Ciara has not said anything yet; she is still watching them with this little cant of her head, and she is giving Pen in particular a once-over because - well, maybe she just likes her shirt. "Hi Nick. Hi Miles. Who's this?"
Miles stands slightly back and away; perhaps he intends to leave, before long. He has been a sort of host so far, at least as far as he can manage, and Rachel has continued to drink and the possible consequences of that are beginning to concern him. "This is Pen," and he pauses a little after he says it because Nick embarrassingly cannot remember all of Pen's names yet, otherwise he would provide them. "From the Order of Hermes."
Ciara shows no surprise; it is likely that she already knew who Pen was. "Nice to meet you, Pen," she says. "I'm Ciara Rivers." And she holds out a hand for Pen to shake, the bangles on her wrist jangling lightly.
Mars
[*squint* -Do- you just like my shirt?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN4 (3, 3, 4, 5, 10) ( success x 3 )
Hyde and company
[Ciara does just like Pen's shirt.]
Mars
"It was just as well the Coyote spirit came when it did, though I think the frisbee was well-vanquished by that time," is Pen's reply to Jackson's greeting, a side-long glance cast Nicholas as she says it.
Miles might intend to leave, before long.
And: It is a very good shirt. Pen is pleased; she likes clothing, you see, and interesting fabrics, and now that she does not need to go without or to wear hand-me-downs or to only have what desperation can afford, it is an area of her life where-in she splurges (to the detriment of her Fortunae-augmented bank account, and occasionally to Richard Evelyn Rousseau's perplexed frustration).
The framing of the introduction makes it, for once, too awkward even for Pen (who is conscious of language, and how it is shaped) to shoehorn in the full introduction, so after 'From the Order of Hermes,' she says, "House Flambeau."
Takes Ciara's hand when it is offered. "A pleasure to meet you as well. I hope you guys don't mind us coming over and interrupting."
Which is an invitation to carry on as they were, if they want.
Hyde and company
There is this side-long look, to which Pen receives a look in kind, and Nick's eyes crinkle at the corners with amusement; he is still very pleased with his ultimate victory over the frisbee, vanquished though it might have been.
This is the point where Miles does make his exit, gently patting Pen's shoulder and lowering his voice as he says, "It was good talking to you, Pen. I have a couple things to take care of," and then beelines for Rachel and company. It's not an avoidance tactic; the voices over there have gotten a little loud and pitched.
"Not at all," Ciara says, and the little upturn of her mouth is a genial thing, gracious. "I was just answering a few questions of Jackson's. Actually, maybe you have some thoughts on it. He wanted to know the point of - " She stops then, and looks to Jackson. "Well, go ahead. Catch them up."
Jackson, having been put on the spot, looks from Pen to Nick to Ciara and then back to Ciara again. "Uh. Well, my question was just - I mean, if we know it's all magick, why all the runes for some people and the chanting for others and...I mean, it'd be easier just to, you know, smack it all together wouldn't it?"
"Would it?" Nick asks, and he is serious: wry, though. He has leaned into Pen a little since they stopped in front of his friends, his manner easier than earlier.
There is this look from Jackson to Pen, then. "I just wondered, since I got to see you Work earlier. That's why I was asking."
Mars
Miles excuses himself; Pen looks after him, swallows; but then her attention (intense [intent]) is for Ciara and Jackson and Nicholas. Nicholas leans into her a little and Pen leans into him a little and if he's not careful she's going to insinuate herself further into his space. She wouldn't, and wasn't, quite so physically affectionate at Lysander's; but then, that was her teacher's house, and a very different sort of social gathering.
Pen's eyebrows jump up, a surprised and lofty arc; she seems a touch startled by the way Jackson phrased that. "Oh!"
"Well... it's like saying of a piece of visual art, well, we all know it's meant to represent something, why do some people use paint and others sculpture? Why are there abstract expressionists and then also surrealists? Why those old Dutch portraits where they use a lot of shadow and light and why those almost flat and cartoon-like Greek paintings?"
"And ... I don't know if I'd say we all know it's magick; or at least that we can all agree where the ability to use that magick comes from. Different origin stories, different instruments."
Hyde and company
Pen says this and from Ciara, it receives a nod, though she does not concur verbally. She is standing with her arms folded lightly in front of her chest now, and perhaps prompted by Nick and Pen she has cast about for something to lean her hip against, though they are too far away from the furniture.
"I get what you're saying, but like," and here Jackson frowns, and when he frowns he somehow manages to involve his entire face in the expression, every muscle he has put to use. "Ah, nevermind, I guess. I guess it is all just different styles. I was just wondering which one is the right one." Which is common enough, for someone as new as Jackson is.
"I've always wondered whether the Order of Hermes has a - how'd you put it? - origin story," Ciara says. "But I suppose they'd have to. Anyway, Pen, how are you liking the group here so far? I think Nick here wanted to impress you," and there's this flash of a smile toward Nick, something that could border on cutting if it weren't kindly meant. "Anything you need?"
Nick, he just lets out this little sigh - that of someone who might have borne some teasing while Pen was out on the balcony with Miles.
Mars
Jackson is wondering which magickal style is the right one. The Order of Hermes Mage has an answer. Pen, there's this drift of a smile, more in the eyes than on the mouth; this spreading brightness, see, this spark; fortunately, Ciara comments and questions.
Pen chooses to answer the last one first, because that is the most natural thing to do, and because she would have to consider her response to the other. Nicholas sighs and Pen bumps his hip with hers; slips her hand into his back pocket.
"Actually, I asked to be introduced to you specifically, Ciara, for both Miles and Nicholas say you are deft with a bow and arrows, and I am sore in need of a lesson in that art. Would you be willing?"
Direct, baby. It's the only way Pen knows how to roll.
Hyde and company
Pen slips her hand into Nick's back pocket, and the two of them at the moment are like a pair of trees that have grown together and around each other, limbs and trunks intertwined. Ciara has noted this with a gleam, and a promise: there will be more teasing forthcoming. Not yet, not today, but soon.
Jackson: he just looks between all of them. They're talking about weapons, and the need for them, and it's all a little beyond his ken just yet. (Not for long, though; they all know that they have never met a mage who has never had to fight, sooner or later.)
For now, Pen's request has intrigued her, and there is this little cant of her head as she regards the Hermetic. A web of necklaces and tiny fine chains crisscrosses her neck and collarbone, and beneath them her throat pulses for a moment. It is clearly this consideration, this cool level and thoughtful thing. "You'd be the first person I've taught anything to who wasn't Chakravanti, but sure. What's the sore need?"
Mars
Pen considers for a moment before she answers Ciara, not because she needs to think about how to explicate her desire, but because she is a moral young woman and a soldier; soldiers obey orders and do not reveal the movement of their side's troops to the enemy. But she (a disappointment to her Master) does not regard the Chakravanti to be an enemy in this. "Some of my Housemates and I have been gathering intelligence on what appears to be a Massassa infestation, and it seems to me a useful weapon for when we sweep in and deal with them. Of course, I think we will prefer to take them in the day, when they are slow, but if we do not get our preference I would like to be able to stake one from a distance or to shoot one through the eye and then remind the arrow how it is to be fire."
Pen: she looks like such a nice girl, too.
Hyde and company
Massasa: this is a Hermetic word. If Rachel could hear Pen use it, she might (certainly) be looked at askance for using this word that hearkens back to a war that began when the last millennium was young. It might not even strike her that it's not common parlance until the Chakravanti all glance to each other, Ciara to Jackson to Nick, who looks back at the other two and hooks a pair of fangs in front of his mouth. Jackson smiles, and easily; Ciara's mouth bows in just a touch. "Like I said," Jackson says when Pen finishes, "tough lady."
Ciara's smile blossoms, unfurls like new leaves greening for the first time, but it is quick. "Arrows do sound like a good choice then, huh. I use a compound bow so it's not wood or anything, but all you need's the basics."
"Ciara's basically an Amazon," Jackson says, and not without pride.
"Basically," Ciara says, and her smile is a little catlike here, pleased and half-lidded and unapologetic for its lack of modesty. She appraises Pen then, once more. "Y'all think you're going to need any help with the infestation? I've never seen a vampire."
Mars
Penelope is an intense young woman, because of course she is. All her reserve is bent toward keeping herself from doing the impetuous thing, from feeling so hotly that she burns; wait for it; wait for it. She did forget that Massasa is a Hermetic word and looks apologetic when Nicholas, hooking make believe fangs, has to explain it. There's a promising light in her eyes says Jackson that Ciara's an Amazon, and what does it promise? Then Ciara's offer; it does not take Penelope entirely aback, but she still takes pause.
This: steady regard, contemplative; this neat twist of her mouth.
"I'm not calling the shots, but if you're offering, I'll call you up. Do you know much about the heroin trade around here? We think they're connected to that."
There is probably a Pre-Raphaelite painting, something varnished and glossy but with lots of caked on shadow, a glazing that captures the hint of fire and of darkness, called Elayne the Sorcerer Maid, where a young woman with a strong jaw and eyes as clear and bright as a lake under the care of the moon's silvered hand, the early evening's gray auguries, late autumn's smoke and fire - where such a young woman is regarding something (the viewer?) with an air of piercing focus. And Pen could've been the model; where the Hell is her sword?
Hyde and company
Ciara: she's not intense, but she is willful and she follows (is true to) her desires, and sometimes those can look like the same thing. So she, too, is refraining from doing the impetuous thing: there is promise here, too.
Nick isn't a mind reader, as has been said (he doesn't need Mind, after all), but if he could (does he?) he'd be glad that Ciara is refraining. He is only content at the moment, quiet because he likes Ciara and Jackson both and he enjoys their presence, and having Pen here too - well.
"Heroin? No, I don't touch that," Ciara says. "Rachel might know though. She goes and hunts down people like that." A beat. "Who is calling the shots?" There's no indication that she is asking because she is suspicious, or because she is reluctant: this is a curious thing, and bold, and maybe she'd just want to know who she's going in beside if Pen did call her.
Mars
[Odds, lady-Hermetic.]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (9) ( success x 1 )
Mars
[Thank you, dice of indecision breaking.]
Mars
"Catherine Sandrine Astraea Ben bani Flambeau ordo Hermes."
Question gets answer; there is nothing more complicated than that. Pen is hunting Rachel down with her eyes. Rachel and Miles? Rachel and the woman wearing plaid, and the - eh, is that a guy there? Some guy. Weren't they playing with hand-drawn cards at some point? That does spark memory and interest; but she's looking for Rachel.
"Hunts down people who deal drugs?"
Hyde and company
"Yeah," Ciara says. "Well, them and others." And here, Nick grimaces, because he most certainly has a different interpretation of the Wheel than Rachel does, and Jackson looks at Nick and there is a churning behind his eyes, and for now he says nothing.
Rachel, Pen can glimpse there with Miles and the woman wearing plaid and Some Guy, dark of hair and blue of eye and those his sole distinguishing features on a face that is neither really plain nor handsome, but could be either depending on who is looking. Rachel does not look, at the moment, as though she is in a fit state to talk to Pen about heroin dealers. She is leaned into Miles with her face buried in his shoulder, and she is laughing so hard she is shaking. Miles is patting her back, awkwardly.
Some Guy and the woman in plaid were watching her, watching this, and now they have resumed their conversation.
"I work as an EMT," Jackson says, "if you want me to keep an eye out for anything. We see a lot of overdoses." Look at the New Guy, trying to be helpful.
Mars
Well, them and others. Pen makes a light and thoughtful sound, not quite a hum. Whatever undercurrents are passing between and eddying around the men she is oblivious to, because her wit is whetted bent toward at this moment the next thing one step ahead and then and so and okay yes.
"Maybe I'll talk to her later," Pen says, thoughtfully, and then: one of those smiles-to-flip-a-heart for Jackson, this spark-thing, dimples even, "Thank you. There is actually a symbol we're tracking, if you have a scrap of paper or something I can write on? If you see it on any of the overdoses or... well, in any of the places you get called, that would be good to know."
"So, Ciara, when can I meet you for an archery lesson?"
Hyde and company
Pen offers a smile to flip a heart, and Jackson, his return smile is a slice of moonlight, wide and open. Shameless flirt, Jackson; he is lucky Nick is not the sort of man who is inclined to care. Pen mentions a symbol, asks after a scrap of paper, at which point Jackson looks around for such a thing. His movements are lively; he throws his entire body into the hunt, twisting around and then back again.
Ciara observes this, purses her lips for a moment and then reaches into the purse, a shining tasseled thing, hanging off of her shoulder. It's large enough that it seems like she shouldn't be able to find a small notebook with the alacrity that she does, but it takes less than a second, and she flips it open (past the pages that already are written on) and hands it over to Pen. "Why don't you write down your number, too, and we'll figure something out. I'm free later on this week."
Nick is watching whatever symbol Pen writes down with interest. "Maybe Jackson and I can come and watch." Nick: he is a dedicated wingman.
Mars
[Oh man, let's have Dex + Art, can you draw this fucker?]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (5, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )
Mars
Pen takes the notebook and acknowledgment is a silver flame-bent flicker, cloud scudding over moon lake gone dark, of the eyes.
"If you guys came, wouldn't you want to learn, too?" Pen asks, and the question is unfettered by memory of Rachel, earlier, pushing Nicholas to learn how to wield something, anything. Pen simply likes to be hands on. He knows this.
Perhaps because her memory is somewhere else. There is a scrap of pencil or a pen sheathed beside the knife in her boot, remarkably unbroken from the series of misfortunate falls during earlier outdoors games, and she uncaps it or flicks the charcoal with her thumb to make certain it won't break off, and leans not against Nicholas but against a nearby pillar or wall, drawing with care.
While she draws, she doesn't say anything. Draw draw draw. Pay no attention to the Flambeau, talk amongst yourselves.
When she's done, when she hands the notebook back, Ciara will see two symbols, similar in construction but not quite the same, complicated things of many lines which nonetheless could mean something. They seem like they mean something, not quite a pictograph but Egyptian - somehow, Egyptian; Mesopotamian?
Hyde and company
[Ciara: Hmmm. Int + Occult?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 4, 5, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )
Hyde and company
[Nick: ???]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 6) ( success x 1 )
Mars
Nicholas and Ciara know: that they are sister symbols, those two symbols; Nicholas can remember mention hearing about some Cult devoted to raising a God who would devour the stars, the seas, the sands and the people, until there was nothing. The Cult of Mušmaḫḫū.
Ciara knows that the Cult of Mušmaḫḫū was a cult of heart eats; that one symbol shows the heart being transformed into darkness, the other shows it being put into the divine child (as darkness). But it has another name -- something less middle eastern, more near eastern, because it is was taken over and re-risen during the Seventh Dynasty of Egypt, with some priest - something. Some priest involved in the story, maybe.
Mars
ooc: eh, just have it be 'Mušmahhu' in that case. (nod)
Hyde and company
"I'm more of a hands on kind of guy," Jackson says, as Pen suggests that they learn too. Still, there is this sidelong look to Ciara, something thoughtful, and he says, "Maybe I could learn."
"I already know how to shoot a gun," Nick says, and there is this little shrug. Pen too likes to be hands on, and he knows this, and so he does not appear to have taken offense. Still: he is determined that there is more than one way to be Chakravanti.
Pen has started drawing, has gone back to lean against the wall while she sketches out these elaborate symbols in charcoal. She does this, and the Chakravanti go on talking amongst themselves: Nick asks Ciara how her writing is going and there is an eyeroll though not at him, this mutteredjust can't really need to more, and Ciara asks Nick and Jackson about work and about what their jobs have been like because for many people the medical professions are interesting, and they answer. This sort of polite friendly talk that fills up the space while they wait for Pen to return with the symbol.
Which she does. Ciara eyes it for a moment, then tilts the little notebook toward Jackson so he can look at it too. There is no recognition there; such things have never been an interest of his, or were not prior to Awakening. "Mušmahhu?" she asks, with a look up toward Pen, to which Nick nods: agreement and confirmation of his own conclusion. Then to Jackson, as she tears out the page and hands it to him, "It's a symbol for a cult. There's an old story behind it, about some dark priest and the heart of darkness. Keep an eye out on your cardiac patients, I guess."
"Creepy," Jackson says as he takes the little page, squints at the symbols and then folds it up and tucks it away in his pocket. "I'll keep an eye out, Pen."
Mars
And the evening runs its course, fleet of foot, time ever-forward. Maybe the groups change up again, and once more again, but eventually the course is run, is ended, and it's time to leave. And Pen: she will want to say goodbye particularly to Patricia and to Jonas (she meant all of that - that thing that she Looked, for a moment; and she did find Patricia interesting). And maybe she'll be resigned, when she and Nicholas get back into his car for drive back to -- somebody's home. Nick's. Pen's.
And Pen will be: resolved.
