Gates of Ivory

Nick
The dark is greedy tonight.  The day was pleasant but overcast and it turned into an evening which was the same, which by turn became a night in which dark clouds scudded over the moon and stars and blew them out, however temporarily.  And so the dark, hungry thing, has taken its due: outside tonight it's black as the farthest reaches of space and time.  Not long ago there was howling, and they are still inside the city however they are at its limits, and so it must have been someone's dog.
When Nicholas finally deigns to commit to anything rather than remaining an in-between, he commits: see his marriage, his devotion to the Wheel, and how heavily he sleeps.  He spends enough time around the dying that maybe they see him as an honorary.

So here they are, and he is tangled in blankets so that it's hard to tell where his limbs begin or end and he is sound asleep.  He does not snore and his breathing is so slow and quiet that she'd have to lean in to hear, or perhaps she's close enough to hear already.  Dawn hasn't broken yet, but it might soon, or perhaps it's still a few hours off.  Pen doesn't know; she hasn't yet learned to grasp Time.

She: wakes.  The house is silent, save for the occasional creak as it settles.  Old floorboards, old foundation, old old old.

Pen
Pen wakes all at once, her heart a stuttering trap inside her chest and her mouth dry. The house is silent, the room is dark, there is wild darkness outside pressing at the windows as the tamed darkness the manmade darkness inside presses out at the night, and Pen swallows once or twice. Sometimes she sleeps fitfully, and this was one of those nights; one leg is flung over Nick, or trapped beneath his, and she is otherwise perpendicular, arms flung out and one hanging over the edge of the bed and her pillows on the floor, and whatever part of her is connected to Nicholas: he's too too too warm and she wriggles free, and then she is too too too cold, and she sits up.

Pen wears often wears fancy things to bed: this is established. Last night was less fancy than usual: no bottoms at all and a Robby Burns Heartthrob wife beater tank top which she pulled over her head before collapsing into what was, for a little while, a very deep sleep, one which began: tucked in against Nick's side.

Now one sleeve hangs low off her shoulder, and she rests her elbows on her knees and her face in her hands.

Then she glances over toward: the lump.

Then she reaches over and shakes Nick's shoulder. Shake shake shake. Shake shake shake. Shake shake shake. If and when that doesn't work, she slow-ly steals his pillow, pulling it away subtly as the serpent whispering to Eve.

Nick
There are many nights when Nick prefers not to sleep in clothes at all, and so if he does it is usually only a pair of boxers or sometimes a pair of lounge pants as a concession to the cold.  It is one reason for the many blankets.

He has always been difficult to wake up.  It was very much a point of contention between him and his long-suffering mother when he was a teenager and would not get up to go to school.  There were days when she physically picked up his mattress and rolled him out of his bed, bearing the slings and arrows he cast in her direction all the while, and in silence because: they are not very different people.

Shaking is fruitless, and so Pen begins the slow stealing of his pillow.  She is being more careful than she needs to be, which will be borne out when she finally pulls it free of his head and his head falls to the bed in a tumble of tangled curls.

And then!  Quick as a diving bird his hand snaps out and clasps onto the pillow to try to bring it back to him.  She can't see his face well, but his eyes are squeezed shut.  The noises he makes might be something akin to "Pen?  It's still dark."

Pen
Pen lets him pull the pillow a few inches; then she pulls again. This is how one plays with a dog, this oh you've got it you've got it tug tug tug gentle tug let them worry at it; or this is how one might play with a dog and a rope.

"Nick, I want to tell you awake." I want to tell you awake: like telling the bees? She might let it go, some time and some times, but her heart is still beating so quickly she can hear the thud of her pulse in her temple. "I want to tell you about my dream."

Nick
It's how one plays with a dog, and it seems to work here: he cannot let her have his pillow, see, so he tugs back, and tugs back again, and it naturally makes his heart beat a little faster quickens the rush of his blood and breath, and this is how one wakens.  He makes a frustrated groan at some point, and Nick forced to wake up before he is ready: possibly the only time he could rightfully be called a drama queen (or king, let us not be gender biased.)

Pen says she wants to tell him awake and maybe he can catch some urgency in her voice, some sign of how quickly her heart is beating, and so his eyes pop open.  His head lifts, just a little, and he relinquishes his hold on the pillow so he can reach for her instead.  "What kind of dream was it?"  The sounds coming from his mouth are still a little unintelligible, but Pen knows him well.

Pen
Pen lifts the pillow high just in case what will drag Nicholas from Death's brother's grasp is an intimation of Death (!), and in this (Medea, Circe, be ware) pose Nick easily finds her waist and can just as easily tug on her instead of the pillow. She does not move appreciably or ease. She does drop the pillow back behind her.
"It was a bad one."

Her mouth is dry and so is her throat, even though she has tried to force herself to swallow a couple of times now; it clicks like a latch. "I hope it is not from the gate of κέρας, but comes to me from ἐλέφας. No κραίνω, only ἐλεφαίρομαι." Pen scoots closer. "Are you awake now, Nicholas?"


Nick
His eyes follow the pillow as it is lifted: he is wary.  Still, they are cautious in their tracking, and aware, and so wakefulness too would be a reasonable assumption.  As Pen scoots closer he scoots closer too, bringing his body flush up against her own and tightening his arm around her waist.  "I'm awake," he confirms, with a little more clarity now than before.

There is a beat, this little hesitation in case she expected him to be able to provide some insight into what she said.  "I can't tell what you're saying."

Pen
"I'm sorry. Gates of ivory, I want my dreams to come to me through ivory, not through horn, because the ivory gates are the gates that false dreams come through and horn are the gates that true dreams come through."

Pen is still sitting up; she is tempted to ease back down, get further under the covers, let Nicholas's heat bake her into serenity: but she still can't stand more heat than his arm provides, than his body pressed as it is.

She reaches out to measure his arm, and then to pinch him, not hard, but enough to pull at his skin -- just a little -- meditatively.

Nick
Sleep is an oppressive weight just now, pressing into his chest and over his mouth and nose and threatening to slow his breath and weigh down his eyelids again.  He lifts himself on an elbow next to her, rocking a half-inch back on a hip once he has sensed that the touch is too overwhelming just now.  He keeps a hand on her thigh instead.

He glances down at her pinching fingers, still blinking sleep from his eyes.  "It must have been a bad one."  His hand shifts to her other thigh, runs up to her hip as he glances up at her.  "Do you want to tell me about it?"

Pen
"Somebody broke the mirrors," Pen says, distant, and she presses into his arm: against his skin, making it wrinkle, and her eyebrows quiver together - as intent, as ardently focused, as any boy ever looking at bugs crawl on the sidewalk, as any nature girl scout looking through pebbles and river-slag for a dark garnet. "Somebody broke them in the dream, so they didn't always show the right person, and there was this dark-clad man who kept showing up in our mirror sometimes instead of me, sometimes instead of you, but you were gone. I don't know where you were, but I knew I didn't know where you were and I wasn't supposed to so..."

"I don't know I was worried for the man and then one day he was in the mirror instead of you, well you were there so he could be there in the mirror instead of you, well... I don't know, you left again, but the man kept trying to say something but he couldn't use your jaw well enough and he couldn't use mine either except afterward you vomited up this half-formed baby bird and then I did too except they were half-alive so they were trying to move even though they didn't have much life to them, and we had to kill them. And their eyes were gold and I cracked one eye and then the dead bird asked for my help and that happened a couple times for the same thing so... well, I went out and saw our neighbors, and the funny older one with the mustache, his mustache fell off. But it pulled his lip off, too, and his face peeled off just the skin, and then his neck peeled off and his shoulders, and I don't know any Life so I didn't know what to do and I didn't know what was happening and he died and then his skin got up off the ground. But it kept slurping downward, like gravity kept pulling at it, and it left these bloody wet prints on the sidewalk and it came over toward me so I set it on fire."

Nick
Nick is quiet as she recounts this strangeness to him, this horror, and maybe as he's listening to her he remembers another time, something which snags at him because it is familiar.  His eyes are distant with the memory, not with sleep, though one could be confused for the other.

It would be easy to dismiss it all as a bad dream, except that they are magi and sometimes bad dreams become reality, they're a portent of what's to come, a veiled message out of Time or Dream or from one's Avatar.  "Setting it on fire sounds like the best response possible," he says.  "I'm glad your dream-self knows that."

Pen
"Yes fire is a good weapon; others mock I think, how quick the Flambeau, I mean it is even in the name, god, that one jackass who kept making flambe jokes and, mm it doesn't matter, but fire - not much impervious to it; and if you lace it with essentiae, even spirits will feel its bite. But Nick so after that, there's more," and she sounds apologetic, and her voice is a cricket's wing, crackling.

"After that ... things happened, I don't really remember. But I went to see Ari and," see, Pen's chest works once, "and she was just like herself but there was a clicking whenever she spoke and I realized that she didn't have anything in her, right, she was the skin but it was somehow still Ari-shaped and had Arianna's mossy eyes and everything, it had everything, it even had her Avatar, and then after that I was trying to find the real Ari... except I knew she was dead, and I was worried about you I think, and the guy from the mirror, he was helping. Anyway, somehow..."

Pen's brow furrows. "We were downstairs. I mean down below. Below in a cave, kind of like the one ..." She trails away. Doesn't want to say.

"Well it was a cave, sort of familiar, and I was talking to this owl and the owl showed me this lake, this huge lake that was as big as an ocean, and then ... there were things floating on the lake, Nicholas, and it was all people's skins, layered thick on top of one another, but moist and wet and curling and not dissolving, just sort of staying in stasis, and the owl- it wasn't an owl, I can't remember- it said this word I don't know, and one of the skins pulled itself out of the lake and drifted closer and it was dripping, and it hit the rock with that wet sound again."

"I tried to move or - something, but I couldn't do anything. I was just frozen."

"And the skin turned around so I could see its back, and it was all bloody and... it wasn't neatly skinned, there were chunks, but dripping chunks right because of the lake, and when it came close I could hear this imprint of a scream and I knew that the skins had all been taken from living victims right. They'd all been flayed, Nicholas, I could see the butcher's marks, and the skin was really hungry for meat and- "

Pen shudders.

Nick
Nick tries to listen, unflinching, as Pen recounts this horror, flayed skins hungry for meat, floating over top of a lake.  He cannot quite; Pen's shudder transfers to him even though he resists it, sends a rill up his spine.  He nestles closer to her, resting his head against her hip.

"That is a terrible dream," he agrees, quietly.  And then, "Have you had true dreams before?  How were they different from your ivory dreams?"

Pen
"They happen, or explain what happened." Pen strokes her fingers up his arm (reassuring herself, perhaps, that is skin will not loosen - will not slough off slowly, as the skins of people did in her dream, and reveal there is nothing inside at all; and that the skin is hungry for more meat; maybe there was meat at first but - ) and her throat clicks. She buries her fingers in his hair, ungentle; maybe she pulls without meaning to. "I'm no natural oracle. I don't have that sort of talent or knack. But I do... I can dream, sometimes I can control it, to learn something for a little while, or to find out something that is true. I don't ... They're not different, though. Dreams are dreams; they're always different one from the other."

Nick
Nick's skin is warm, and solid, and dry, and without any indication it will slough away into lakewater and go hungering after meat.  "So there's no way to know," he says.  He smooths his hand down over the top of her thigh again.  "Do you think it explains something that already happened?"

Pen
Pen shake shake shakes her head. "No."

And that syllable is scraped up, forlorn; she shivers again and watches Nick's hand smoothing over her thigh, and this time the reassurance must come from the other direction: that her skin won't loosen; that her skin wasn't replaced while she slept; that she isn't being eaten now, and just doesn't know it yet.

"The sound of the house settling frightened me though, like what if it was the sound of the mirrors getting broken," Pen sniffs, but leans back at last: the curve of her shoulders hits their headboard.

Nick
"The mirror over there by the door doesn't look broken," Nick says, though mark that he does lift his head to look over and confirm.  His eyes have adjusted to the dark now, this man-made dark that surrounds them and keeps out the night.  He slides his hand under the hem of her shirt, over her stomach and her skin which is still very much whole, and lets it rest there.

"It seems like it all began with the mustache.  Maybe we should convince Bob to shave off his mustache."

Pen
Here is one tremor, and then another, as his hand slides and then settles, as she looks off toward the mirror. In this sort of dark, her hair does not gleam and neither do her eyes; everything is dark, is metal colors, tarnished colors with only suggestions of anything else. There are goosebumps up and down her upper arms; she can feel them rising; she can see his hand if she cared to look down, the way the wife beater has draped. "He would never," she says, faintly. "He is proud of his mustache." Beat. "Perhaps you could grow a mustache, one which could fight his off." Here: he can't see the smile, but he can probably hear the faint lift in tone.

Beat. "Do you ever have true things come from your dreams, Nicholas?"

Nick
"What I can grow can only be defined as a mustache in the narrowest sense," Nick says, his voice wry.  "I suppose we'll just have to keep a careful eye on the mirrors, then."  And here, his voice could sound as though it is merely joking, as though he is ready to laugh away the nightmare.  It isn't; he isn't.  Not that he necessarily expects one thing or another, but just that: he doesn't expect safety, either.

Her question draws his eyes up to hers, which are gunmetal, which have gone matte and lost their luster in this sort of dark.  "I'm not an oracle either," he says.  "But sometimes I...I don't know.  I've had those sorts of clear dreams, like you've had.  One where a white crow led me through barren fields to a cliff's edge, and it was so far to fall that I couldn't see the bottom and I had to jump anyway to move forward because there was nothing left back the way I'd come.  Dreams like that."

Pen
"My lover followed the snow white crow

hum diddy hum dee dee

Over fallow field, and gray rock road,

to a cliff where he could see...

He could see the wide wide..."

Here is where Pen gives up trying to make a ballad on the spot; she shivers again and pulls her knees up to her chest, trapping Nick's hand between her thighs the fabric of her shirt her stomach.

"That sort of clear dream is, I think, like a letter from your avatar; or a letter to your avatar. It's your Self communicating with its Self - I have those too, sometimes. They're different from my ... learning dreams, but they are another form of horn-sent dream, that is true."

"What other sorts of true dreams have you had?"

Nick
She cannot see his smile as she begins a ballad, and he slides down a little farther and then finally gives up on uprightness.  The arm he was leaning on curves around her instead, even as his other hand is trapped in against her.

"Hm.  I..."  Maybe she can picture the look on his face just now, the way his eyes grow distant and turn inward, just by the tone of his voice, the trailing ends.  "I used to have a lot of dreams like that when I was a kid.  Sometimes about my past selves.  I had one once about receiving a visitor in this ancient Chakravanti temple, with incense and gold and carved stone, and meditating with him there.  About a lover she had once and about the end.  I also dreamed once that I...was combing through a field of bones, finding the worthy dead for burial."

A beat.  "I had a dream when I was fourteen about hanging, only I was in a different place, like I was in this open field in the only tree around for miles and the flock of ravens that settled on the branches became a woman.  Things like that."

Pen
"Did your sisters have dreams about that kind of thing, too?"

Nick
Nick tilts his head, at that.  "I think theirs have been similar, but different.  Viv's said she's had dreams about being sought out, not seeking like me, and that she's walked over battlefields of the dead and dying and chosen which ones to take with her.  Anna has never talked much about her dreams.  I don't know if she really has true dreams like both of us do or not."

Pen
"I wonder," Pen says, the inflection dark and thoughtful, because the dream of flayed skins hungry for meat has made her morbid. She looks down at Nick's wrist, where she has trapped it, then lets stretches her legs out and slides downward. His arm behind her, his pillow behind her too (she stole it, remember), and she digs her heels into the mattress until she is at new optimum comfort level: which is to say, lying down again, languishment wrapped around a hard knot of stillness. "If you can say my full name."

Nick
[It is late!  Wits!]

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

Nick
Nick is now well and truly trapped, with his arm lying beneath Pen's back.  He scoots closer to her now, his arm sliding forward if only so he can free his elbow to curve it back around her.  He is about to ask what she wonders, and then she asks him about her name, and see here: he pronounces each syllable with gravity, as though the words are precious.  "Penelope Sylvia Katabasis Hilde Niniane Mercury Mars," he says, and then, "I didn't leave one out, did I?"

Pen
"You did actually. One you know. Two you know. Three, no, I think you know four other names you have forgotten to tack-on. You named me well enough for polite society however," Pen says, and this is the kind of trick she will play: archaic, arcane, fairy tale. Low: "I like your voice on all of my names." She is regarding his arm again, with suspicion. She knows his skin is not going to slough off, but - well: her mind has a morbid bent just now; it travels toward darker roads.

Nick
"Elaine," he says first, and "Hilde, I forgot that one."  Four names, though?  It is so many names.

"Miranda and Beatriz!" he adds finally, crows almost.  The hand that is resting on her stomach lifts slightly so that he can scritch her stomach with his fingertips as he says, "I should take a few more names on."  A beat.  "What do you wonder?"

Pen
"Craft Names and Shadow Names are useful; they keep our True names safer and lend our Workings greater power and more presence in this world."

"You didn't forget Hilde. If I had found you already, I might have asked you for a name, when I was constructing mine." Her tone is a mix of fond and blank; sheet metal; she inhales; his fingertips are in danger of tickling her, and she turns slightly toward him to dislodge the thought.

Beat. "I wonder what my brother dreamed when that fucking - toward the end. If his dreams changed."

Nick
"Our True Names aren't our given names, though.  Are they?"  And here Nick's brow furrows, because it has always been a point of interest for him and yet he knows little.  Who better to ask than a Hermetic?

His fingertips, in danger of tickling her, still and smooth flat once more.  There is still this little point of tension between his brows that deepens when she mentions her brother.  "Why do you wonder that?"

Pen
"I don't know. I just do. I wonder if he would have had true dreams."

"As for true names... Sometimes they are just our given names with nicknames included. The nicknames that stick, not 'honey' or anything like that. It is different in the Order; you ... It is different. Were I to use your true name against you, I would use Nicholas Augusto Crow Hyde bani Chakravanti, but there might be a truer name - it's also like alchemy or like hitting every point on the - " Pen takes especial care to pronounce this. " - Etz haChayim."

Nick
The casual way in which Pen names things in other languages has always been a wonder to Nick, and this in the truest sense of the word.  Perhaps he can hear some magick in it when she speaks them.  "So yours would be all of your names that I just named, then?"

His eyes rove over her face as she wonders this about Heath, and thoughtful things they are just now, noting the tarnish there in her eyes and hair.  "What else do you wonder about him?"

Mars
The (ancient) Greek was more casual than this. See how she tries the words again, once and then once more again, trying to get the scrape in the back of her throat just right: " - Etz haChayim - Etz haChayim."

There is certain kind of stillness comes all at once to take possession - it is a wakeful stillness, a vibrant stillness, something lived in; it is the stillness that comes from a crawl of awareness, a precipice moment, suspended - suspension -

Beat. Swallow; Pen's shoulder muscles seize; her back tenses, just a little: maybe he won't even notice. "Oh. Different things." Pause. Inadequate, Pen, and also: cowardice. "I wonder why he met the thing he dealt with; why in an abstract sense, I suppose, I mean why it was drawn to him of all unhappy people. I wonder - you know," soft, even low: bleached-out, blanched voice. "Whether."

Nick
Of course Nick notices: her back muscles tense, and his arm is beneath them and so he cannot miss it.  The hand that is still on her stomach caresses, eventually moves around to find her flank instead.  This comes after her stillness, and his brows are still stitched together at the middle, almost meeting but never quite.

"I can see why you would wonder that," he says.  "You wonder whether what?"

Mars
Inhale; exhale. Her (musing) voice has ground to cinders - it's as thin as a hair, shining in last light; she turns her head to give him a look, up from under her eye-lashes. It's a certain kind of look, perhaps: but it's dark. "What would you wonder?"

Nick
It is dark, and so this look she gives him is opaque as well.  We have mentioned this sort of dark is hungry, and so it takes its tithe in this.  The way Nick's gaze wanders off again is less so, but only because Pen knows him, and because this conversation is not emotionally wrought, not for him.  "I would...I don't know," he says.  "I would wonder whether he had true dreams, and if he tried to change what he did because of what he dreamed, and if it helped anything."

His tone is careful.  "I would wonder what he was thinking when he chose.  Or how much of a real choice it was."

Mars
"So you already know," Pen says, still in that low tone of voice - a voice which is all the scent of fires blown-out. She worms closer to Nicholas, rests the back of one hand on her forehead. "Tell me about the seventh spirit you ever bargained with, Nicholai, or kiss me like it's another bargain, and let's not talk about skin monsters or siblings."

Nick
This low voice, still, and his eyes return to her, flick in her direction, and he knows he does not know - but one would have to be far more tone deaf than he is to not take the hint.  He adjusts as she moves closer to him so that she can fit neatly in against him.  "The seventh spirit," he says, and he has to think; can he recall it?  How many people can recall the seventh of anything?  (Though well they should; it's a significant number.)

Maybe he is counting backward, or forward.  "The seventh must have been a...no, it was a house spirit, the spirit of someone's home.  The first three were ghosts, and then there was a raven and a river, and another ghost...but the seventh was the house.  It was one of the old ones back closer to the water's edge, near where the river meets the ocean, and it told me about how it liked to watch the ships come and go and how different the ships were now than then.  And the people who had lived in it over the years."

He leans his chin against Pen's shoulder, even as his eyes fix somewhere beyond, somewhere in the darkness.  "It had been empty and for sale for months at the time and I offered to fix one of its broken shutters so that it would tell me what it knew.  Some bargains are small like that."

Mars
"Who lived in the house right before you talked to the house spirit?"

Pause. "You wandered more, didn't you? Before. In the past. I don't know before what, just in the past. Through broken things, I mean - through forlorn places."

Nick
"Immediately before, it was an older woman.  She moved out.  The house didn't know where, but my guess was a nursing home since the house was being sold a little while after that.  It said other people came in to move her things out.  The spirits don't always know those things.  But she lived there with her husband for a long time, it said."  A beat.  "I think it missed her, in its way."

Pen asks about his wanderings, whether he wandered, and here he looks at her again.  His eyes are clear, now, however dark; it cannot quite mask the liveliness in them.  "I did.  The Veil is thinner in those places, so it was easier to break through.  Sometimes you find places where there's barely any separation at all, especially during times of year where it's thin."

Mars
Pen traces the line of Nicholas's arm. First: the bones of his hand splayed out against her; then the line of his wrist. Then the arm: see where it connects? An elbow, and then the upper arm: shoulder. How strange it is, the architecture of the human body: nonsensical. Perfect sense. How warm he is no longer makes her shudder, and she seems to have forgotten to check whether or not his skin is about to peel from his flesh and try to eat her. So: his yes are clear, and lively, and there's liveliness (waked, woken) there, and Pen: makes an inquiring noise. Mmmm?

Nick
Some of the chill in the ambient air has settled on his arm like dew, though he does not seem to have noticed it just now.  Most of him is still tucked snugly under the blankets, though he's no longer dozing, though Pen has stolen his pillow.  This inquiring noise, and he says, "Well, some places look completely different on the other side of the Veil.  You'll find a place that looks forlorn here, and empty, and on the other side you'll see...well, like for some of the old factories or buildings here, you'll see the way they used to look, the way they're remembered.  Sometimes it changes though.  Sometimes it'll look one way, and then as you round the corner you'll look back and the floorboards are decaying or the windows are shattered.  The same rules don't apply there as here."

He lifts his head on his elbow once more, drawing his hand back around to her stomach again.  His fingers arch, stretch and splay thoughtfully before they ease flat once more.

"I've found houses where the Veil is just thin that way.  Sleepers think of them like haunted houses. Like...I found this old building once that used to be a Girl Scout lodge, I think, and places like that sometimes just look off or you can sense a presence around them.  Sometimes even Sleepers can.  But it's easier to look through there, or to speak to things on the other side.  Sometimes even to step through, if you have the skill."

Mars
This time the small sound she makes (hum, really; a hum) is not actively inquiring so much as it is: acknowledgment, absorption, intrigued - her eyes are open and Penelope shifts again. This time only to let her hand slide from her forehead, let her fingers bury in her own hair, then stretch out to touch the headboard. This isn't restlessness: it's settling into her skin and into the moment.

Nick
"Anyway, in the lodge that house spirit itself was restless.  It remembered what it used to be and sometimes the act of letting a memory decay that way alters it.  They want to be fixed, they want to be relevant.  So it would try to shift itself, to better align with memory."

Nick slides out a little farther on his elbow, holding the stretch for a moment as he settles farther into the mattress.  "I still...I still like to go find things like that, now.  But I always feel like there's less time to just explore.  And I'm more conscious of the danger now than I think I was then."

Mars
"Why?" Pen doesn't pull away, necessarily, but she wants to see half-light Nicholas better, and if he is still tucked in at her shoulder: she needs must draw back, no? Nicholas with a half-light smile Nicholas with half-light eyes Nicholas river-crow Nicholas silver-gilt charcoal-burnished Nicholas sharply defined by fingertips if she presses them here or draws them down here that is the shape Nicholas makes in the dark Nicholas is in the dark. "Why is there less time to just explore; what do you mean, 'more conscious' of the danger? Were you not, back before?"

Nick
"I was," and this is not uncertain, the way he says this; reflective, though, and maybe sometimes they can be confused one for the other.  "I feel like I'm studying more now, between work, and I have Tradition obligations, so...there's just less time for that.  I was still conscious of the danger but...more heedless, maybe.  I felt less like I had something to lose."

They've spoken of this before, responsibility and of how quickly he went to having none to shouldering the Vrata.  Maybe the distance here is in that he is remembering those conversations, those other times.  "I know Denver less, too.  There's that."

Mars
"I can vouch that you are studying more," Pen says, her mouth curving; it's a sweet expression and almost secret. Her gaze does not turn inward, but she does look through Nicholas, or becomes water and lets him be a sieve; catching the heart of her attention, but the spirit of it: it is fluid; it sluices right through.

Nick
The corner of his mouth lifts, but the smile is more present in his eyes and his cheeks and just this something in the way the shape of his face changes.  His smiles soften him, make him human: it's that.  "I should explore again, though, here," he says.

Her eyes look through him, and after she speaks he lets his head drop back down to the bed, extends his hand instead to trace the ridge of her cheekbone with the back of his knuckle.  "Hmm?"

Mars
"I do think that you know something less is a poor reason to explore less," Pen says. "Although I would be desolate if you did wander through a place where the veil between the worlds was thin as the skin on old milk," oh, look: wracked; a shiver, "and I could not find you after."

The nightmare remains, understand, although Nicholas's voice has finally lulled her heart into a more steady (want-want and want-want) beat. "Of course then I would finally have motivation to learn Ars Spiritus."

"There are some interesting ghost towns around Denver. I did some research before we moved here."

Nick
"It is a poor reason," he agrees.  Her nightmare remains, and he sees it in how she shivers and perhaps it has some residual effect on him in how he suddenly feels the cold on his arms and shrugs his blanket up over his shoulders.  Perhaps this is due to the idea that he could be lost beyond the Veil, that Pen would go looking for him -

He does not say anything.  Not to this.  He knows he would not be found, and this too: he knows that there will always be a risk.

"Would you like to come explore a ghost town with me?"

Mars
Pen is a clear-eyed woman: her gaze lingers on (haunts) the shape of Nick's features, the dark suggestion of his eye-lashes. He asks her something and she hears the words but she isn't quite listening; she is half-light herself, with her voice ground down to cinders, with a shudder or a tremor dredged still from her: tiend to a demanding demon. Up go the covers, over his cool arms, and Pen: slips her leg between his knees and presses herself flat against him and takes a kiss instead of giving any sort of answer.

"I'll be your map," she says, after, with this precise arrogance: this ardent breath hitched to the promise of it. "But I'd rather, right now, be what you map Crow. Come closer: I'm cold."

And soon enough, neither of them will be. 

Plans

Nick
It's Friday morning and Nicholas struggles to get out of bed on time: Fridays are like this.  He clings, he turns his head away from dawn as it pats soft hands over his face and eyes and mouth, he sighs and turns over once or twice.  But eventually, wakefulness comes and he rises to shower and dress himself, the way acceptable adults do.

This morning will find him bleary-eyed and shuffling though their cabinet for a suitably wakeful tea.  It would be difficult to be less awake and alert than he, and so Pen is probably here now, already ready to start the day.

As the kettle whistles he reaches for it, flips the cap and begins to slowly filter water into the teapot.  "What's on your agenda today?"

Mars
[Decisions about relative brightness and alertness given to stamina.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 8) ( success x 1 )

Mars
It's Friday morning and Pen is lounging against the counter, yoga pants (leggings) and a sports bra on beneath her pink silk robe. She is awake and alert, or at least conscious of a desire to be alert, and she has been awake for a little while now.

He doesn't need to find tea to make; Pen will make it for him. Here is his mug, set out just so, here is the tea pot, here are some bags of PG Tips, or perhaps Earl Grey, Lavender Earl Grey, or - something bracing: some very black, very bracing tea.

"What's on your agenda today; are there any omens or portents?"

Nick
"Today seems quiet, but I doubt that one of my clients is going to live out the weekend," he says, from where he is standing near the refrigerator.  Breakfast, perhaps, except he has forgotten what he was about to open the refrigerator to look for.

It is still dark outside.

Regardless, he means: Monday omens, portents.  He is not distressed; in the sort of work he does, clients dying on a regular basis is the reality.  The nature of the work, even.  "What's on your...wait, I asked you that."

Mars
"Would you like an omelette, Nick-knack? I believe that number one - well, number four or five - on my agenda was make your husband consort lover who is beloved to you a healthful meal which will give him zazzle. I will make it spicy if you wish."

"What will you do for the client?" Pen: has streeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetched her arms up above her head, reachreachreach, and then planted her hands on Nicholas's shoulders, only to steer him toward the door and the dining room and chairs. Little push: that direction, go go.

Nick
Nicholas can be steered, and is, toward the dining room, where he wanders over to a chair.  Drifts, really, more of a slow haphazard movement in that general direction before he collapses into a seat.  He'd nodded once, twice, in regard to her mention of an omelette, and once more when she offered to make it spicy.  Maybe there's a flicker once of envy for Pen's ability to be effortlessly awake.

"Probably push a little harder when it comes to asking questions and staying focused on topic.  Usually they know they aren't doing well though, so they're ready to...be ready.  She'll probably want to tell me stories, so I'll listen."

Mars
Pen takes some things out of the refrigerator: a jalapeno pepper, half a green pepper, a red pepper, onion, garlic, cilantro, ghost pepper sauce, butter, sharp cheddar, eggs, milk.

She makes an inquiring noise, not quite a hmm but almost, an invitation to say more; and that's all she makes as she starts dicing fairly quickly, choppity chopchop chop, veggies first spare nothing sizzle butter.

From the dining one cannot see the stove, but one can hear, right?

Nick
Nick scrubs his hands over his face, pulling at his skin perhaps in an effort to get it to bunch up less and contour to his muscles more.  It appears unsuccessful; his cheeks and forehead only sag into something like the position they were in before.  "I try to help them come to something like acceptance and finish the things they want to do so that they can move on more smoothly," he says.

Mars
"Will you make me breakfast tomorrow?"

Sizzle sizzle sizzle, rattle dink dink dink clink dink sound, punctuated by noislessness except for the simmer sizzle, and then:

ffffffshhhhhhhhhhhh. Cooking!

Nick
Nick smiles at that; it's a sweet thing, still hazy at the edges with the residue of sleep, and so almost uninhibited in its way.  "Of course.  What would you like?  I think we still have some cornmeal and blueberries if you want pancakes."

Nick leans his chin onto his fist.  He can't see her, but he can hear, and he likes this game - imagining Pen as she goes about slicing things and dropping things into the pan, her easy warrior's grace in every movement, quieted for now and directed toward another task.  "What are you doing today?" he prompts, again.

Mars
"Pancakes sound delightful; with some cardamom whipped cream?"

Ffffshhhhhhhh clink clink clink scrape scrape. Louder clatter, as of a plate set down on a counter, then a porcelain scrape as of a plate dragged across a counter.

Drawer opening, low rumble. Closed, tinny metallic dance-sound plink.

Humming, just as water: running.

Nick
This thoughtful noise.  "I can make that."  By the time he has heard the scrape he is looking around the corner into the kitchen, his eyes seeking Pen; he's like a hungry cat or dog.

There is silence.  He is leaning his elbow onto the table and himself on it, now.  His voice, perhaps more fogged with sleep now than moments ago, asks, "I'm sorry.  Did I ask you what you're doing?"

Mars
Pen is a glimmer of elegant pink at the sink, rinsing off the whisk; the edge of her robe unfurls, swirls around her calves as she steps back over and quickly to the stove, the better to scrape the omelette out onto the plate.

Sound of refrigerator opening;

closing. A glass clink, and then

glug, glug, glug.

Pen pads into the dining room with Nick's plate balanced on her forearm, his tea mug in one hand along (perhaps) with cream or honey or sugar, a glass of orange juice (for herself) in the other. Waitressing skills: coming in handy.

"I could wake you up earlier, you know; you could come for a run with me."

Nick
"That sounds like the surest way I've ever heard to break an ankle."

He has perked up somewhat at the sight of her coming into the dining room, and Pen manages to make anything look cool, doesn't she, even skills she picked up as a waitress: this graceful way she has everything balanced between both her arms.  Nick is watching her, and Nick is admiring to himself because his thoughts wander when he's sleepy, they're still half dreams.

"I should try to practice things like that more.  Especially if...I mean, it's been quiet lately, but..."  He hasn't yet forgotten that the Order declared a state of war.

Mars
"Practice things like what; breaking your bones?" Pen says, quirking an eyebrow.

Plate of omelette: slides in front of him. Mug follows, and cream or sugar or both. Then Pen sits in the chair next to Nicholas's and sips her orange juice.

Nick
"Are you not eating?  Thank you," and the two statements merge together almost without missing a beat.  Before he adds honey and cream to his tea he reaches over and smooths his hand over the top of her thigh, and it curves around until it meets the spot just above her knee.  An affectionate squeeze, and then he adds here and there and stirs and picks up his fork to eat the omelette.

"Like running or shooting or something," he says.  "Things so I'm better prepared and don't need to burden you."

Mars
"How would you need to burden me?" Pen says, the inflection of her voice this cat-tongue lap thing, amusement unearthed like a trinket a polished dark stone: goes sk-skipping. "And I already had toast, and fully intend on stealing from your plate."

Nick
"Well, when we need to fight, or if the Order declaring war ends up boiling over here," he says, carving out a chunk of omelette with his fork and transferring it to his mouth.  He nudges his plate a little closer to her, then separates another piece using his fork and holds it out to her as he chews.

Once he has swallowed, "I don't want you to have to take all the risk, if we get involved in something like that."

Mars
"It sounds more as if I am the burden in this scenario," Pen says. As she speaks, she eyes the omelette piece on his fork, and then she leans forward and (chomp!) takes it between her teeth. Swallow. Yum. Spicy. Too spicy, in fact, for her: that piece had hidden ghost pepper. Her lake eyes water and she blinks once twice rapidly as moth wings in contact with an electric light and she takes refuge in her orange juice, and then (disgusting) in a sip of cream from the creamer. Better.

Nick
As her eyes water there is amusement there in his own, and sympathy.  "How does it make you sound like the burden?" he asks, as he chews on another piece of the omelette.  Ghost pepper does not faze him.

Mars
"It sounds as though you believe you need to run or shoot in order to be useful in a fight, which we both know -- or knew -- isn't true," Pen says. She gives Nicholas a sidelong look. "If you are reasoning this because otherwise you will be a burden to me, then the shadow of that thought is a burden I have cast on you, however unintentionally."

Nick
His hand reaches for her knee again, and gives it another squeeze.  "You haven't cast that on me," he says.  "I've just been thinking.  That's all.  About how to be better, or how to be more, so that I can move forward with you."

Mars
"Morning runs are fun," Pen says, and she is a terrible liar, but does not seem to be lying right now. Such is the cult of morning runners.

The terrible, terrible cult. "I would count you among the valiant if you came with me once or twice," and she smiles, a sweet-struck expression, putting her hand over his hand in order to play with his fingers. "I would like it dearly."

"But I know you don't enjoy shooting; if you want to be more physically martial, well, fine, or if you want to take from those exercises useful disciplines, also fine ... well and good, even. But Crow, that needn't be what you do to hone yourself."

Nick
And he is lost: her sweet-struck expression, the way her fingers splay over his own, that she would like it dearly.  He is lost even though he would have laughed five years ago at anyone who would have told him he would be going out for morning runs with his wife one day, and he is lost as he says, "I'll come out with you tomorrow."

It's a weekend.  He can go back home and sleep.  (Poor Nick.  He thinks he's going to go back home and sleep.)

He takes a swallow of tea to cool some of the fire in his gums and lips.  "It was just a thought.  I've been more focused on learning more magick recently, anyway."  A beat.  "So what are you doing today?"

Mars
"I know. I can't wait until we can do Gate-hopping races! Which I will win, of course," and she is teasing him, for although she has been ambitious, is ambitious, she is not necessarily competitive. "After all, my name is Mercury," and Pen stretches out one leg, and examines her ankles, as if she might see gold-fleet wings glittering there. "So... I know you've been working out more magick but what else have you been learning? Are there skills which help? I would help you, if I could." This is not that downward lilt many people imbue 'if I could with.' She means it: frankly, forthrightly; if she could, if she can, she will help; she is of a mind to do it.

Nick
Another squeeze of her knee before he withdraws his hand, as she offers to help, because: he knows that she means it frankly, and forthrightly.  "I'm beginning to study Life, so I think having a better grounding in medicine and anatomy might help with that," he says.  "I've been thinking about asking Kiara for help, too.  She knows a lot about that kind of thing."

Mars
"Mmmm." Neutral sound, re: grounding in medicine and anatomy. He might read it as doubtful, although it is not necessarily doubtful. "It cannot hurt," and her mouth curves, pleased with a certain connotation here, "to ask one of the Verbenae for a grounding in Life; they hold that Seat for a reason." Beat. "You could train as a massage therapist, like that friend of Thane's."

Nick
Pen's careful neutrality draws his eyes, and when she suggests that he train as a massage therapist a corner of his mouth quirks.  "I don't really see myself taking that route," he says, "as disappointing as that is.  I was talking more about traditional medicine and herbalism.  Delilah used to use those to Work."

He scrapes up the last few bits of egg and pepper on his plate.  "You sound skeptical."

Mars
"At a certain point, learning Physics to help figure out Forces just isn't helpful; it's the opposite. I wonder what at what point medical knowledge might be the same sort of weight. I suppose it wouldn't have to be, but it's something I think about sometimes. But there, you mean traditional medicine; Western medicine is already a weight around that type's neck; how could it be a weight, too? And knowledge is important, and," Pen waves a hand. "I don't know, my thoughts are without order."

Nick
Now it is Nick's turn to say "Hmm," as he swallows the last crumbs that were remaining on his plate and settles against the back of his chair.  His fingertips curve around the handle of his mug, though he doesn't pick it up to drink from just yet.  "That's good to think about.  I think it might be part of the trouble I have with learning Mind," he says.  "You think things have to be done a certain way, or fit a certain framework."

Mars
A moment of silence. Pen rests her chin, delicately, on her fist.

"You ate so quickly," she says, with an air of marveling. "How can you be so famished in the morning, and yet also so honey-slow? What did you dream of doing?"

Nick
"Staying in bed with you all day," he says, and languishes against the back of his chair, letting his head fall back against the headrest.  Very dramatic, Nicholas.  He straightens after only a moment, bringing his mug to his lips.  "I had a weird dream about taming a velociraptor with Rob, actually."  A quirk of his mouth.  "What about you?"

Mars
Pen smiles at Nicholas, and certainly her glance is steady, even as it burnishes a brighter silver; even as she pulls his empty plate closer to her, then sets her glass and the creamer atop it. There is pulp caught at the rim of her glass; her chin is still on her fist. "I'll tell you if you can answer a riddle. It is medieval." She clears her throat. "I have heard of a something-or-other, growing in its nook, swelling and rising, pushing up its covering. Upon that boneless thing a cocky-minded young woman took a grip with her hands; with her apron a lord’s daughter covered the tumescent thing."

Nick
Nick clutches at his chest as Pen recites the riddle in mock-horror, as though scandalized.  Then his eyes drift toward the ceiling as he considers the words.  "Is it a mushroom?"

Mars
[Shhh willpower not to laugh]

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

Mars
Pen looks most solemn. "No, the cocky-minded woman does not grip with her hands a mushroom. I suppose you will never know what I dreamed now."

Nick
"But you should at least tell me the answer to the riddle," Nick says, with a sidelong look toward her and a smile.

Mars
"Dough," she says. "For bread."

Nick
"But you don't grip dough!  You knead it," he says, with a wave of his hand and this little sigh of resignation.  He takes another swallow of his tea.  "Are you going to come visit me at work today?"

You should come visit him at work, Pen.  Hint hint.

Mars
Her mouth curves. "You are being very narrow minded about the meaning of words," Pen says, "or the treatment of dough; I do not know which."

She pushes her chair back. Sets one hand on Nick's right knee and one hand on Nick's left knee and pushes, stretching her back and bowing with languorous aplomb. "Would you like me to bring you a musician and a serenade?"

Nick
Nick laughs and reaches down to cover her hands with his own, trailing them up her forearms.  "I think the hospital might have rules against serenades.  But maybe we can play some music."  A beat.  "I wouldn't be interrupting something you're doing today, would I?"

Mars
"How could you interrupt something I am doing if you are at your work?" Pen says, letting her back un-arc go slack. The pink robe has shadows that are a dee blush, but also shadows that seem almost silver; it's a dawn lake sort of robe. "Does the hospital truly have rules against serenades?"

Nick
"I doubt against serenades specifically," he says as his fingers reach the sleeve of her robe and run over the crease of fabric there at the end, "but as a general rule, loud noise is frowned upon."  His eyebrows have slackened as his expression has turned thoughtful.  "Maybe a few more years and I can start a private practice.  The environment would be less sterile.  Anyway, I just don't want to pull you away from anything important."

Mars
"The rocks are as important to the sailors as the siren," Pen says, "And the siren as important as the sea." The chair legs drag thumpa drag drag closer because she braces herself and drags the chair near, again. "Would you really like a private practice? What would you need to make that happen, if you would?"

Nick
"Money," he says, with a sigh.  "Always the hangup. I think I would like one.  It would let me worry less about running into a Conventionalist throughout the day, at the very least."  As she moves closer his hand slides further up her arm, beneath the sleeve of her robe.  "Maybe if we ever move back to New England.  Do you think we will?"

Mars
"Yes. I do not want to be forever gone from those green lands," Pen says, also solemn and archaic at once. "But if it is only a matter of money," and see, there is never any 'only' about the matter of money; Pen is very careful with what she has, although what she has is often mysteriously steady. Not so mysterious: somebody from House Fortunae who owed her a favor. "That isn't so hard. I'm sure we might attract wealth one way or another. Do you want to go back to New England?"

Nick
"Yes," he says, and without hesitation.  "Not right away, but eventually.  I...think of it like home, now, more than any place I've ever been."  He Awakened there, and it is where he met Pen and joined a cabal for the first time; perhaps it's not all that strange or unexpected, in its way.

"We probably could find a way to attract wealth.  It'd take more studying on my part though."

Mars
"Mine too." These two words are so: thoughtful, and her gaze gone distant (aloof [reserved]), a poet's gaze maybe. You'd think she'd walk into a wall, look in her eyes like that, except Pen seems so assured of herself, so present in her body and the space around her: a correspondence Mage; there is a compact made with grace.

Nick
Her gaze has gone: aloof, distant, and Nick studies this expression she has and this sort of gravitas, and he cannot help himself.  He leans forward (they're already leaned forward, he doesn't have to lean far) and kisses her, perhaps bringing her back to just where he is: they are Correspondence mages, both.  The kiss tastes like fire and it might even burn like it too; he was just eating ghost peppers.

"Maybe you can ask Eve for notes on whatever he did for you."

Mars
It does bring her back to just where he is. Pen is leaning forward when he breaks the kiss to suggest she ask Eve for notes, her lips parted, her pupils large; they'd drown the tarnished silver water of her clear eyes; he shifts her balance. He has always done this: since they met, before any moves were made, he has shifted her balance; she shakes her head and a loose lock of hair falls over her ear; her gaze goes to the side, to the table, and then back, "I believe," and her nose crinkles, and she cants her head, squinting one eye more than the other. She doesn't like to admit this, isn't certain it is true or untrue. "I believe I ask for help too often; I should be more self sufficient in my craft. I should learn Ars Mentis, but I do not have it scheduled for at least another year, perhaps more."

Nick
The laugh he emits is a gentle sound.  He catches the lock of hair that's fallen over her ear and brushes it back, tucking it behind once more.  His eyes are dark; it's hard to tell what's in them, sometimes.  "You keep a schedule of when you're going to learn?"

Mars
"Yes," Pen says, gravely. "Of course, it is flexible, and sometimes dependent on the materials I have, but there are so many things to learn; if I don't force myself to focus, I'd learn nothing at all."

Nick
"I don't believe that for a minute," he says, and amusement is in his eyes and in the corners of his mouth and in the lift of his cheeks.  "Pen, you're one of the most driven people I know.  You can't be only forcing yourself to focus."

Mars
"I didn't mean to say that's the only reason I focus; once I am focused, I find it quite easy to concentrate. But there are just so many interesting things, Crow, so many things I want to know how to do or to learn about, and only so many hours in the day to devote."

Nick
He lifts one of his arms to the table, leans his cheek on his palm as he watches her.  "What do you want to be, eventually?  What do you want to learn how to do the most, or what do you want to master first?"

Mars
"Right now, I am focusing my passions on Ars Essentiae; Prime. I want to master everything at once, my handsome lover. I've always felt quite attracted to that Art; it came quickly to me. But it was much more important that I learn how to wield elemental forces first. Otherwise, how would I make you happy on a cold night?" Glint, in the eyes; suggestion of a smile, or.

Nick
"I would have to learn to start my own fires if you didn't know it," he agrees, and his smile is one part indulgent and two parts playful.  His gaze sweeps her face, a rake of affection moreso than because he is looking for anything specific.  "Tell me about what you're learning with Prime.  I like to listen to you talk about magick."

Mars
"Mm. I won't this morning; it is not a propitious hour for it." Pen is frank and forthright; she also manages to be occulted, elusive, at the same time: sometimes. Likenow. "Later," she says, and she looks at his lap like she's thinking about crawling into it.  "You are going to work very soon, and my thoughts are in disorder yet on that subject."

Nick
There is a glance toward the clock and he finds that she is right: he should be leaving for work soon, even if his dream did involve staying in bed all day.  "I'll ask you later, then," he says, with the sort of smile that makes this a guarantee.  Then, noticing her look, "Come here," and he gives her hand a tug to pull her over into his lap.

"I know I've asked you already what you're going to do today.  Is it very mysterious?  Should I stop asking?"

Mars
Come here: so she does, with a bright and ardent flick of her eyes from under her lashes, fitting herself as neatly against him as the teeth of a key into its lock. Both arms circle his neck, and perhaps someone somewhen, one of those people who told him he shouldn't marry Pen, someone called her arms chains: why wouldn't they. The metaphor is good.

"No." - contrition. But he has asked her seven times. The bet is won - or near enough. "And no, it is not very mysterious. When you leave, I am going to do housework. Then I am going to go down to the forge for a while, then to the gym to swim, then languages for two hours, then I think the library," and there's an ache, still, in her voice: something raw, just unearthed, mention of a library goes down, "out in Morrison, where I will take copious notes. Then, if it is not too late, I am going to scope out the security on this junkyard, and then I am going to spend another hour on languages, and I think after that I am going to check the wards on our home, and from there practice some practical application of my knowledge, so I am ready should I need to be practiced in an Art. I would like to have time to sketch, but I just do not think there will be time."

Nick
His arms circle her waist as she fits herself against him, and his eyes are shut; this is a meditative thing, almost.  They pop open again as he listens to her describe her day, all the things she hopes to do, and he laughs once.  "Is that all?"  One of his hands spreads against the small of her back, over muscle and bone.  "Which languages?"

Nick
His arms circle her waist as she fits herself against him, and his eyes are shut; this is a meditative thing, almost.  They pop open again as he listens to her describe her day, all the things she hopes to do, and he laughs once.  "Is that all?"  One of his hands spreads against the small of her back, over muscle and bone.  "Which languages?"

Mars
"Today, it is Hebrew," Pen says. "Though I will do some translation work in Ancient Greek, just to stay polished. I may try to write poetry during Ancient Greek time."

"And of course, I will come to see you, and then later, when you come home, when I am done with my other studies, I will try to lure you somewhere. I could take you to work and pick you up, if you don't mind the 'cycle."

Mars
ooc: ahem. "I will try to lure you somewhere, and make you my study; you are my study, handsome omen." etc etc.

Nick
"I don't mind," he says, "especially now that it's warmer."  His hand ascends to her upper back, her shoulderblades, and this is a sort of study too perhaps, a memory of her bones and her solid weight beneath his hand to carry with him to work.

He smiles up at her.  "Where do you think you'll lure me to, today?"

Mars
"I don't know. The hot spring in Morrison, perhaps," by which she means: the Node, the well-spring, which: she's told him filthy things she wants to do to him in the Node-spring, because why the heck not! Pen is a menace. "Or perhaps out for a quiet bite to eat; perhaps simply somebody else's home; maybe out to the mountains, to the observatory. You'll have to wait and see."

Nick
"One of these days I'll have to surprise you," he muses, and though his eyes are thoughtful this is a means of distracting himself because: hot springs in Morrison, the mountains, the observatory.  He is quiet as he considers, and then: it is obvious that his thoughts changed, that there was another thought that butted in and took up the room, and he says, "If I teach you Time magick, are you going to use it to make more time in the day to study more things?"

Mars
"I might use it to become more efficient, but no. I want to use Time in order to move through it more quickly than my enemies, to track things through Time and know exactly when, the best moment to, you know. I want Time for the future, not for the present." Beat. "'If'? Do you doubt your ability as a teacher or my ability as a student?"

Nick
"My ability as a teacher, mostly," he says, and his smile has turned rueful.  "I have no doubt about your ability to learn it.  I only...well, I want to make sure I can teach it in a way that makes sense to you.  We should...I'll have to think of some actual exercises we can do."

Mars
Pen unwinds one arm from around Nicholas's neck. She traces the curve of his ear, and then makes a hook of her (mercury) index finger, catches one of his curls and moves it: just so.

"I hope I am a flexible woman. So far, when you have talked to me about Time, I have listened and not felt as though you were speaking a quaint language that has naught to do with my practice. Teach in any way you want to teach. I'll try to follow."

Nick
"Maybe I'll take you somewhere this weekend to start," he says, as she shifts one of his curls.  There is a playful quirk of his mouth, a glint.  "If you can make the time."  A beat.  "I would like you to teach me more about the Ars Essentiae, someday."

Mars
"Nicholas Augusto Hyde," Pen says, her voice pitched low, clear and ardent and she is quite close to giving him - deliberately - a hickey, for no other reason than she wants to give him something to carry through the day.

"I will teach you whatever I can about Ars Essentiae, if I ever learn more about it myself; the library is so - it lacks, Nickolai, it is - it is not sufficient or satisfying, although at least it is something." She sighs; a deep inhale, toe-to-chest, chest-to-toe. "We should hunt down a library, better than any we've ever yet known."

Nick
"It does lack," he agrees, and he too has felt the absence of Pen's old library, though it would be unwise to say so just now.  "Where would we even begin library hunting?  I'm hardly opposed."

Mars
"We will have to be birds of ill omen; crows at a cradle; death watchers," Pen says, solemnly, and she traces a line from Nicholas's curl, down the side of his neck to the ridge of his shoulder, and then she sighs: softly. "It is time for you to get ready; past time for me to get ready, if I am going to take you and sneak a shower in. Never fear; I will be quick."

Nick
"All right."  His arms tighten around her even as she sighs; he too has been watching the clock, knowing that sooner or later he'll have to rise out of the chair and get ready to be engaging, and yet.  They slacken again and fall away to give her space to get up.  "I'll be ready when you get back."

Pen
He doesn’t need to watch the clock: Does he? Conversant with the sphere of Time as he is? Pen has probably asked him about Timing and the applications there-of since he has begun trying to teach her about Time. When you’re late, are you late on purpose? Are you actually arriving precisely on time? Or do you just feel time lengthening, getting away from you, you getting lost in time like time is a labyrinth, unable to effect the things which keep you from point A and point B? What I mean, Nicholas, is that time we met up at the Drawn & Quartered to hear Penny Dreadful play and you didn’t show up until halfway through the set, was that on purpose? Did you time yourself precisely? Can you time yourself exactly so you step into the hall just when I do? Temporis and Fortunae. Can you delay an Effect until hours later?

His arms slacken and fall away to give her space to get up; she does not linger, as one might expect her to. She ruffles Nicholas’s hair and shucks her robe in one quick gesture, lets it fall on Nicholas matter of fact and leaves the tiny pile of dirty dishes where they stand on the dining room table. Can she be quick? Pen can be quick. She takes a cold shower, gasping when the water hits her needles and pins and pins and needles, rinses her hair and then cheats with a practiced rote that will (mostly) dry her off conjures up a zephyr. One of the first things her mentor ever had her practice, futilely because she had not the understanding yet, nor the grasp on her own power, was to conjure up a wind without moving so much as a single blade of grass. That exercise continued over the years with variations: conjure up a wind without moving so much as one piece of paper; the papers were invariably notes for an assignment that she had to complete within a tight time limit, and if she failed, if she failed — there were never any consequences except to her pride, except to knowing that someone else was doing better than she was doing, that she had disappointed herself and her master.

Pen can name a number of winds, can even remember sometimes the promises one owes to the Order of Hermes because of some great mage many years ago, can remember hearing about this barter-system of master-and-slave of Prosperos and Ariels and can remember wondering at it thinking hard about it. Conjure up a wind with such force that it will bruise flesh, will batter a bird to the ground, will turn a car over on its side, will suck away all breath and blind one’s enemies and strangle them with their own hair.

Conjure up a wind with such care that it will provide the right ambiance to a swirl of a robe or a cape. Conjure up a wind which will erase tracks and bury the site of a duel.

Conjure up the wind which eats all crossbow bolts.

When she meets Nicholas downstairs — or maybe she meets him in the hall; maybe he times it just right! —  she is trailing that sense of Ardent Daring, Resplendent. Penelope Mercury Mars, ready to study: she is wearing dark indigo pants which lace up at the sides, tall boots with a pattern on them subtle and difficult to make out, and inside them a sigil of mercury drawn in ink dusted with gold because gold is pure and pure swiftness is what she wants when she wears these boots, a leather jacket which is silver-studded a line of studs along the bottom along the shoulders along the motorcycle roguish unzipped lapels and which has flowers painted on the back (armor [mail] water-drops, dew-drops transfigured) and bees on the upper arms. Her bangs have been brushed; her hair has been braided, quickly and without frills, into a coronet high on the crown of her head, a halo that will be squashed under her helmet. Rings on three fingers today, only. A series of necklaces moving at her collar, compass needles pointing downward. She zips the jacket up and gives Nick a smile like a suggestion to follow her (into this tree — this one right here; or maybe this crystal cave, where we will be unmoored from Time), like a promise.

---

And she will come see him around his lunch hour, although her timing isn’t perfect and they won’t have much time at all in the end before he has to get back to work, and if her eyes are weary: well. She’ll come, bearing gifts (hipster gifts) culled from who knows where: a tiny shadow box, backed by the page out a book on which someone has painted a hooded figure, standing above a misty shore; green and blues and purples in the dark smudged shadows, the frame made of found-wood, a bone hidden inside and a stone with a figure inside it, dyed and colored fabric (paper? difficult to tell without Matter) hardened stiffened glinting somehow with something wrapped so that it looks like a river or like metal or like both : washing it all away.

And look, a little cross-stitch still in its embroidery hoop of a frog in a frock coat playing a penny whistle with a fly tied up in a pot in front of it.

And look, a little violin made of cardboard, which has been painted a bright cerulean blue by whoever it is painted it, and has a sticker of Frida Kahlo's face near the scroll and a sticker of a medieval dolphin by the base.

As Cupcakes

Serafíne
The bright washing sun competes with scudding clouds for dominance in the April sky and you'd never guess from the raucous game of ultimate frisbee on one of the big grassy swaths of greening lawn that there's a winter storm watch currently looming over Denver and its environs, that spring ski enthusiasts will have another foot or so of fresh snowfall if they go high enough into the mountains.

Right now: shorts and t-shirts and a frisbee that looks like a pink-frosted donut with a bite taken out.  Fringe and beads and bare feet and painted toes and gladiator sandals and the musky scent of marijuana in the air and it's too early (she just woke up an hour or so ago and she's still nursing a particularly intense acid hangover) for a certain Cultist to join her friends chasing around the donut-frisbee, but hey, she can watch.  Or pretend to watch?  Who fucking knows, her glasses are both ridiculously dark and remarkably large and she could very well be napping behind them.

There's a big bottle of orange juice parked in the cool grass beside her.  It is early evening.  The sun is only just starting to fall.

Grace
Ahh, Denver. It'll be warm today, sure. Then, the weekend brings a high temp in the 30s and more snow. This is Spring, for you. It can never make up its mind.

Grace has dressed herself in jeans, sneakers, a t-shirt, and her bite-proof grey jacket today, although the jacket is unzipped to let the air in -- so one can see the giraffe wearing ten neckties on her tee, with the text "Trust me, I'm super professional".

There is, perhaps, more of a spring to her step than there has been, of late. Winter's melting, for now. Water's flowing in rivers. Things are breaking free, and soon Summer will make that a little more permanent. It's a good day. One that has Grace walking the trails here where monsters tread, with her attentions place firmly into the trees and sky, and not, apparently at her surroundings. Monsters should be afraid of her, not the other way around.

[Awareness?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

Nicholas
It's become a habit, walking in the park after work while he tries to process and decompress from the day.  Nick finds his home to be a pleasant place, somewhere he looks forward to going to at the end of the day, but settling into his office or having dinner isn't a substitute for taking a few moments of silence where he doesn't have to listen to anybody else or try to project this air of detached competence or quiet empathy.

There aren't any winter storm clouds looming on the horizon, just the soft wash of sunlight that speaks to approaching summer.  That, and the smell of marijuana that usually lingers around places like this, in Denver.  He still isn't fully accustomed to walking out in public and seeking people smoke; and it doesn't bother him - it just is, and does.

The sailing frisbee catches his eye as he makes his way down the path.  No shorts and T-shirts for him, just light gray pants and a pale pink shirt, the color of a first blush or of a drop of blood in a puddle, slight intimations of color.  His hair was cut recently, which is to say that it's no longer as wild and overgrown as it had threatened to become last month.  As is the style at present, the back and sides are shorn more tightly than the top, which spills out in front of him.

He watches people throw the frisbee back and forth as he walks, and he would have nearly passed them by had a familiar face not caught his attention next.  Sera is behind a pair of sunglasses, but he makes note of her nonetheless and his trajectory changes.  He lifts a hand as he approaches.

Serafíne
Well: see? Her eyes must be open behind the dark glasses, because the creature lounging on the plaid picnic blanket lifts a hand to return Nicholas' wave.  There is a hint of a smirk in the curve of her mouth, or maybe that is simply a grimace.  Some little protest against the movement required.

She is as she always is: or at least as she always seems.  Long and lean and lovely.    Or: the intimation if not the fact of length; the suggestion of hunger, of desire, of want in both the concave curve of her bare stomach; and - well.  Not lovely.  Arresting perhaps, in that way that Grace, and even some of the sleepers around them, must certainly feel.  What else can Grace sense?  That sun-drenched, soaring resonance that that eminates from old bronze ring that Sera always wears on her right index finger.  Nicholas, of course.  And no suggestion of monsters.

Other than that wave, Sera doesn't much move or acknowledge Nicholas' approach until he is within actual hailing distance.  Then she turns her head - gingerly, gingerly.  This is the day-after.  Every part of her aches.  Every part of her welcomes the ache.  The spread of her neat little mouth beneath her glasses: a wide flat smirk and Nicholas mirrored in the convex surface of her dark glasses.

"You look like you're about to sell someone some goddamned insurance."

So says the creature resplendent in British-flag bikini top beneath a faded black hoodie over denim cut-offs and torn fishnets.  She has, at some point, taken off her battered combat boots and her almost-bare feet rest in the grass.

Grace
Mmm. Sera. That gut-wrenching feeling has her attention now, drawing her sight, making her change course. The trees, no longer the source of her fascination, don't honestly care.

Sera might.

"Sera!" she says, strolling up, sitting down next to her on the grass. There is also a wave to Nick somewhere in there.

"Do insurance salesmen wear pink shirts?" she says, honestly curious.

"I've been meaning to talk to you," she adds, quieter.

Nicholas
Nicholas has a talent for mirroring other peoples' expressions, for picking up on their moods and reflecting them back and sometimes twisting them just so.  He makes use of it in his job: it's how children learn to identify what they're feeling, having an adult frown when they are saying something sad or smile back when they are happy.  It's equally important for adults.

So: he sees Sera, and there is this quick cut of his mouth, this way in which the corner snicks upward as though hooked.  "That's because I am.  Have you heard about our new life insurance policy?"  A thought, a beat.  "...I might actually consider that if I were terrible.  I'd make a fortune."

He has stopped in front of her, though always always with an eye on the frisbee as it cuts the air.  Nick got a black eye from a frisbee once, years ago.

Grace catches his attention next when she comes up on the two of them, and almost without thinking he shifts his stance to allow her space into the conversation and also to face her, or at least pull her into his line of sight.  His brow furrows at what she says.  "To me?"

Serafíne
Oh, here's Grace.  Asking a very honest question about a very wry quip tossed off by a very hungover Cultist and again that sensation of arrest, of cessation as she shifts the direction of her dark, reflective glasses from Nicholas to Grace.  A: very slow lift of one of her flat blond brows, expressive enough that it rises above the curving frame of the glasses.  And lingers, because she's not really quite sure how to take Grace's question about insurance salesmen.  For example: is it the sort of question that requires an answer?

Something in her decides that it is not the sort of question that requires an answer.  Or: that she is too something-something-something after last-night and this-morning and hell, the last few weeks, the last few months, the last few years to have to answer if it does.

Her attention cuts back to Nicholas.  Something about the cant of her head suggests that she catches the hint of that smirk carved back to her.  And he cannot see her eyes but he can still somehow almost feel that flick of her attention: minute and precise and animal: to his mouth, then back to his eyes.  The gleam of the dying sun in her glasses, his shadow long over the blanket, the grass.  Might make another quip in that moment, but no.   Sera mirrors Nicholas' question, though she does so wordlessly.  Inquiry stitched into the lift of her chin.

Grace
"Well, not... I mean, sure I could talk to you, but I don't have anything specific in mind," she says, to Nick, as though that question caught her off guard. It can be rather hard to tell who Grace is talking to, considering she so rarely makes eye contact.

"Sera. I had a run-in with a sysadmin. I got traced, but I'm not sure how bad. I'm no good at looking back in time to figure out what happened, you know? But you..."

Are totally unaware of what a sysadmin is, or why one would trace her... Right. Grace frowns, tries to figure out a better way to say this. "I felt something. Subtle. A hint of resonance."

Nicholas
Nick shifts his weight to his other foot as he glances between the two women.  He, too, is rather unaware in any specific sense of what a sysadmin is, other than what conclusions he can draw from the words themselves, and so: he listens.

Serafíne
And here is Sera who can very well unhinge time.  Pull it apart.  Reel it backwards.  Create within it currents as slow as molasses or as rippling-fast as some ever-accelerating black and white montage of a movie-bender and who does not know what a sysadmin is and who, on some deep and really rather important level, does not even believe in them.

When her iPhone works, it works by magick.

Sometimes, some nights, it does not seem to want to work at all.

Her attention hangs on Grace.  She has been leaning back on her elbows, but now - a ripple of her flexible frame - sits closer-to-upright.  Ow.  Her head hurts.

"Like - "  here a furrowed V of thought appears between the enormous discs of her glasses.  " - yesterday?  Someone was spying on you?"

Grace
"No. It was a while ago. Month or so. When I was trying to figure out what happened to Alex," she explains, hopefully that's enough. Not going to go into specifics here in the park, is she.

She seems strangely okay with this -- accepting of the fact. What's done is done, and all. But what was done?

"But yeah. Possibly spying on me. I fought it off, but..." she trails off, waves an arm in the air.

Nicholas
Nick looks between the two of them again, his eyebrows cutting a delicate arch as he listens to the talk of spying and figuring out what happened to Alex.  It occurs to him that he has not yet met the man.

"Should I give the two of you some time?"

Grace
"Why?" she asks Nick. "I don't mind you knowing. You're as welcome here as cupcakes, man. Stay. If you want."

Kiara
Washington Park was a sort of nexus for the athletically inclined in Denver, as it happened. There were no small number of them tonight as the sun began to dwindle and sink into the horizon, cutting pathways around the lake and appearing only to weave a steady track over inclines and down again; vanishing into the distance.

Joggers. There was something so mundane and expected to them.

Amidst a world of chaos and uncertainty, lying on the grass surrounded by Frisbees and dogs being walked and the occasional carrying cry of laughter or the smack of a ball hitting the backside of a distant basketball court - there was an easy comfort in the banality.

Breaking away from behind a young couple pushing a stroller down by the glinting lakeside is a familiar figure; tall and lean with long dark hair sailing out behind her. Another runner by any other name but also - a Witch. The pagan known to some here as anything but a nameless addition to the Sleepers. She's slowing to a clipped walk, the Verbena; breathing hard and holding her hands against her side; her pace directing her toward a bench to warm down her muscles.

She's a surge of the Springtime Kiara, as she sets her leg up and stretches it out; a sweatshirt laced around a narrow waist; navy workout gear encasing her form. If she notes the presence of the others up on a shallow rise of grass, she's yet to make it clear.

Though the presence of earbuds and a small MP3 taped to her arm would suggest she's unaware - yet. Here then, was one half of their rescue team that had extricated Alexander from the Union. Nicholas alone perhaps knew the current condition of the other half - for her part, physically at least, the brunette seemed to be coping with the aftermath reasonably well.

Serafíne
There is rhythm behind them.  The slap of plastic against strangers' palms.  Bare feet against that solid spring grass, the cold soil beneath, warming yeah but still somehow in the grip of winter.  The whir of the discs through the air: the twin miracles of propulsion and flight.  Aerodynamics or what the fuck ever.

By now Sera is sitting forward, legs crossed beneath her, the picnic blanket rucked up beneath "them from the movement.  Golden curls a messy tangle in the failing light.  She takes off her sunglasses here and gives Nicholas a brief, apologetic flash of a glance.  Neat little compression of her mouth.  Her eyes are a little bit bloodshot and her pupils are still rather-too-large.  This hint of bruising beneath them: dark circles, something.  That ache more evident without the shield of the glasses, but what the fuck does one expect?  She's hung-over.

Breathes out here, Sera.  Tried to order her thoughts for Grace and then: a flicker of something else.    "You asked to talk to me," Sera reminds Grace, though there is something gentle in her tone.  The bravado of her greeting to Nick earlier is long-since drained away.  " - remember?  Not him.  So, you haven't made him feel quite as welcome as cupcakes, Grace.  You know?  Nick may not want to be a spectator to our conversation.  He might even need to get home to start dinner."

Brief curve of her mouth here: the lilt of her chin, this neat, apologetic little gesture toward Nicholas before her attention cuts back to and rests wholly on Grace.

"Have you felt the resonance since then?"

Kiara
[Oh yeah, we should do this for our next post. Mage-dar.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 6, 7, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )

Grace
"Oh," Grace says. It honestly hadn't occurred to her that she might be edging someone out. "I'm sorry. I'll just..."

She takes a breath. Sera asks her something. "No."

But, she's distracted, giving that no to Nick's face, as she radiates confusion with hers. This is one of those times, right? When the rules of social interaction seem to have been missed. It makes her uncomfortable. Makes her want to...

"I should go. You think about it, okay, Sera?" she stands up, gets the attention toward the trees again. Trees are easier to understand.

Nicholas
It doesn't take an especially perceptive person to note the confusion, as boldly as it has been sketched across Grace's features.  Nick reaches out toward her as she stands up, motions for her elbow and ends up not grabbing hold just letting his fingertips rest there on the back of her arm.  It's meant to catch her attention; little more.  "Don't leave, Grace.  I just stopped to say hello to Sera.  You two should talk."

Kiara
It's a slow progression up the hill when she does notice the others gathered.

The earphones curled around her neck; her face flushed with recent exertion. Kiara Woolfe approaches feeling like the whirl of energy she is, at her core. Thriving, pulsing with life and the promise of vitality and renewal. She smells like sunshine and sweat, the Verbena and somehow; the sheen of it; the essence of that - absolutely feels at home on her.

She makes a slight outward arc to avoid collision with the game at play nearby and approaches from behind a tree; her fingers chasing over the bark.

"Hey."

A breathless greeting that seems to encapsulate them all from the dark eyed female; her mouth bent into a small match for it. The corner curled upward. She settles back against the tree and resumes stretching.

Serafíne
Sera's quiet, as Nick stops Grace.  Doesn't pull her dark eyes with the too-large pupils from Grace except briefly, to greet Kiara with a wordless touch of her gaze as the Verbena approaches.  A flicker back, and the Cultist slides her dark glasses back over her eyes and rises.

"C'mon Grace, we'll go talk."  Except for the fishnets, her feet are bare.  Damp grass clings to her skin.  Tomorrow, they say, it will snow.  Tonight, the Cultist starts to walk, barefoot in the cool spring grass, ambling pass the ultimate frisbee game in the warm spring park.  She leaves behind: everything.  The orange juice and the plaid blanket and her favorite Doc Martens and her pack of unopened kreteks and her favorite lighter lost somewhere on the blanket, everything.

Maybe she plans to return.

Maybe she assumes: effortlessly, naturally, that someone will always be trailing behind her to clean that shit up.

Serafíne
(I am really sorry but as usual it is my bed time and I have to go to bed.  Sera will go off with Grace and talk.  Noel: IM me sometime and we can continue the scene.  Andrew and Jacqui: I want a real scene sometime soon!)

Grace
She doesn't tense up and tell him off, at least. There was a time when she would. But she does look down at her arm, still woefully unsteady about what's going on. Why is he touching her? Oh. He wants her to stay.

Well, right now, she just wants to get as far away from the awkwardness that is her attempting to interact with people and failing. These things have a tendency to snowball.

Then, Sera gets up to leave. Asks her to come with. No, no, no, this isn't right. Ugh, do they not understand at all? This is exactly what she wanted to avoid. Her hand goes up to her hair, like she's going to pull it out.

"Hi, Kiara. Bye, Kiara," Grace says, looking gut-punched. And yet, she follows behind Sera.

Nicholas
Tomorrow, it's supposed to snow; tonight, here is Kiara running into them while jogging.  Is there a chill in the air just yet, the way arctic winds will sweep down out of the north, a precursor to the gale?  Perhaps.  If so, Nick in the clothes he's wearing is probably better prepared than most of them.

His eyes trail Grace and Sera as they get up to go.  Nick: he can't imagine just getting up and leaving a pair of boots behind, in particular.  He'd caught that look Grace had flicked at him, read into it perhaps her uncertainty, whatever anger or irritation or frustration may be there to read, and his hand is quick to drop back to his side.

It is followed by a sigh, a furrow of the brow, a mouth that thins for a moment in what could be either concern or any number of other more subtle things.

"Hello, Kiara," he says, as the other two are departing.

Kiara
The Verbena, for her part, does not seem particularly distressed by any of these things: climate or otherwise. Of course, Kiara was a Life Mage so chances were reasonably high that even had she begun to feel the dip in temperature as the winds gathered momentum; she'd simply have regulated her body temperature to acclimatize to the changing weather.

Being a healer did, apparently, carry with it some benefits.

Grace trails after Serafine looking utterly dejected and Kiara's dark brows carry the unvoiced query as she glances at the pair of women, then back to Nicholas. "Was that me or you this time?" Her voice (and gleaming eyes) carry humor as she presses off her vantage point and takes up semi-residence on the ground where the Cultist's belongings still litter it.

"I wouldn't worry, chances are high that had nothing to do with you. Grace hasn't exactly had an easy time of things lately." Kiara sets the tips of her fingers behind the toe of her sneaker and arches her body forward; it's evident the female was no stranger to her athletic pursuits tonight.

Nicholas
"I don't think it had much to do with me or you, except tangentially," Nick says, and even though he says it with this ease of assessment, with this thoughtfulness, there's some sympathy there in his voice too, an undercurrent.  "I think she just focuses more on ideas and goals than on people."

It's difficult to look at athletic people without a sense of one's own lack of athleticism dawning, something which Nick would admit to with humor were he to comment on it now.  He does not, only tucking his hands away in the pockets of his trousers.

"How have you been?"  This is asked with curiosity; Nick has a way of being genuine about what for many people would be polite smalltalk or a veneer of social consciousness.

Kiara
Here was a fact to note about the brunette: she was not well versed in concealing her thoughts.

Partially, this was a result of the beliefs that Kiara held dear; the fundamental tenets of what she was and who she paid homage to. The Verbenae were not big believers in holding back from embracing every aspect of what it meant to be alive: the harsher and more violent sides of living were, to most of Kiara's sisters-in-arms and the creature in front of Nicholas now, every bit as important to experience as the dizzying highs and gentler, comforting lulls.

So: Kiara did not tend to try and avoid facing truths. Which was not to say she always spoke her mind (not at all) but rather: her emotions were worn there, on the surface. There's the flicker of one, now, as he asks how she's been.

This half-conceived little shrug of narrow shoulders as she leans back on her hands, one knee bent. Her mouth canted in a brief little inclination of a smile. Something fleeting and uncertain. "Somewhere between okay and entirely not." She brushes grass off one of her palms. "Comparatively to what Alexander went through, though, I'd say I'm just peachy."

A bright flash of teeth; that veneer of Kiara's reasserting itself with easy candor.

Nicholas
There's a lot to read in Kiara's body language at the moment: her half-shrug and the way her smile melts away half-formed before it reappears, the use of 'comparatively.'  Up until now Nick hasn't seated himself, because he really was just coming over to say hello to Sera before he became party to her conversation and Grace's.

Now, though, he lowers himself to the ground on the edge of the blanket Sera recently vacated, folding his legs underneath him.  Might've been the grass, if he weren't in dress pants.

"Comparatively?"  And he lets his arms fold themselves over his lap, his elbows resting on either thigh.  It's comfortable, languid almost.

Kiara
There's this little pause, there.

This beat where the brunette studies his features for a long moment then sits up; curls her arms around her drawn up knees; there's something almost vulnerable to it. The manner she does this; the way Kiara can somehow manage to delicately traverse the line between contrary and controlled; this creature balancing her whims with her desire to present a certain front to the world at large.

"My track record with losing people I'm close to lately hasn't been the best." Kiara's eyes tick beyond Nicholas to the lake; the setting sun catching the surface of the water and dancing a myriad of glinting diamonds back at them. "Alexander is probably the exception to that."

She glances back.

"But it's - " Kiara's eyebrows lift; her mouth producing a sliver of a smile. " - not exactly in the same arena as spending time in a sterile examination room with the Technocracy."