Housewarming

Arianna
When they had all lived in New England, Arianna had not held property of her own. She had stayed in something akin to a boarding house, rooms letted from a common mistress, with the oversight of some watchful adult with ready access to her parental units. She'd been in her twenties; she hadn't really minded. Most of the young Miss Giametti's time had been spent elsewhere, in Kestrel's study, or wherever Nick and Pen were gathered, or off whatever adventure she had talked Thane into.  That she might have an anchor point as significant as a house and holdings, here in Denver, still feels odd.

It is a low slung thing, with no stairs to thunder up or down.  The roof pitch is high to help slough off the winter snow, and its peaks are guarded by bridgework that lends a sort of grace and arching nature to them.  It casts interlacing shadows; there is a sense of elegance to the columns by the front porch and simple shutters rimming the windows.

It is more house than she needs, being by herself; it is more house than even they would need, all three of them crammed in together.  It leaves room for visitations, for an office, and also for a study; and this room for expansion gives it a sense of hopefulness rather than a sense of being empty: there is potential here, promising more.

It is not a long walk from Nick and Pen's more victorian affair.  Close enough that, in the warmer months, they could be at each other's doorsteps by foot as fast as by car.  If by foot means running, and by car we count parking and yielding to pedestrians. It is near enough for her to borrow -- not sugar, but perhaps some essential herb or other thing from Nick's soon to be budding gardens.

There are plants here, but they are still slumbering.  They are also ornamental. Ari knows nothing about green things that grow until they become green things for eating, or green things for mending, or green things from which dyes are expressed and inks are made.  The grey facade and the grey roof and the grey stonework make the house seem somber; soon it will be wreathed in green and brightened by Spring.  The front door is heavy, wooden, and ringed with tiny panes of glass, through which Pen can glimpse the foyer, its ironwork chandelier, and the great room beyond -- which is sparsely interspersed with boxes in careful towers, never over three tall.

PenPenelope walks over to Arianna's in the bright of the day, the air as limned with radiance as a mound of grave-goods, with everything gentled by an eerie glow; it comes from the memory of rain, from a certain brittle cleanness to the city as Spring and Helios both fight through and claim the streets for their own. The wind just rising is a katabatic wind, and Denver in Spring is not the same as New England in Spring, and the truth of the matter is if Pen took a moment to think about it or herself (she will not) she would realize she is homesick for daffodils and trees budding white and snowy.

No spell keeps her on the threshold but courtesy, learned and abiding, and Pen adjusts the box she has carried over fitting it against the curve of her waist so she can knock on the wood door. When she adjusts it there is a soft and musical clamor, as of elements frozen into metal rubbing one against the other, the backstage hush before the performance, and she leans to the side to peer inquisitively through the panes of glass at the foyer with its labyrinthine boxes and its chandelier and its home-readying, home-making air of a battle tent.

The box may, somebody who is keenly Aware of matters might be able to tell for certain, but, the box may be something which needs a hand on it: else it will untether from gravity all together (who would use a wagon or a trolley or a shopping cart when they can, with a Word, with their own True Will, have convenience with a magickal air?). Pen keeps a firm grasp on it, and knocks again unless she finds a doorbell.

Then she rings it, rings it, rings it, rings it, rings it, rings it, rings it, rings it, rings it. She is not impatient, but it is a doorbell. It wants to be rung.

AriannaIt does have all the makings of a battle-tent, of a place in the midst of making-ready, which may someday become a place of ready making.  It is in the midst of becoming.  It is not yet made whole.  Through the panes of glass, she can see with minimal distortion.

But Pen finds a doorbell. And doorbells are a fascination, aren't they. A little thing to press press press and elsewhere comes a sound.

Arianna is not visible within the sweep of the foyer or the ready-making room beyond, but perhaps Penelope knows already what her friend's reaction will be.  Because Arianna is likely in the middle of something, and everything Arianna does is fiddly in its own way, it is perfectionism, it is perfect-making, it is --

PEN IS HERE! PEN PEN PEN PEN IS! PEN IS HERE! DING DING RING SING CHIME GONG DING!

The Bonisagus tenses and mentally notes: a) that the doorbell works, and b) that Penelope has found it, and c) that the doorbell should best be disconnected and d) that the doorbell is quite loud inside a near empty house.  Instruments of one sort of another are set aside --

DING DINGALINGDINGRING DING

-- and quickly, then, she appears from around one corner or another.  The dark of her slacks and the soft grey of her shirt resolving as she comes nearer, near enough to open the door, pulling it back and open and grinning and welcoming.

"Come in! Come in, come in," a little flourish, a little sweep of hand, a gesture to seal the spell of friendship and hospitality.  Arianna makes no apologies for the disarray of her home while it is a thing in-becoming, instead she finds a way to sweep Pen into a hug, firm though swiftly as she is carrying a package, to bring her across the threshold and swing shut the door behind them. "Benvenuto! Casa mia è casa tua.  I was just putting together some small plates -- are you hungry?  Would you like something to eat?"

And yes, also, what have you brought, and is it a present. But this is not what she says; this is what is implied by the curious look in green-grey eyes, the slick of mischief there which only seems to bow to the formalities of hosting visiting delegations.

PenThere is something that wants to be satisfying about pushing a button. Not as satisfying as pulling a rope, letting some message wing out Echo-laden, bronze-deep or silver-bright over the rolling hills, and imagine that there was a time (Plague) when all the bells rang and rang, and they rang out warnings, and imagine the terror of silence then.

Bells are rung at weddings, at births, bells are rung to scare away the owls and the crows, birds of ill-omen and ill-repute, and bells are rung to gather Court in drowned cities, and bells are rung for treats and bells are rung for memory, bells are rung because hallowed is a name, and there is something satisfying about ringing a bell even if it is this modern-day thing, this button-push bell that isn't really a bell, just a sound repeated over and over and over again.

Here comes Arianna, whisking around a corner and divided into diamonds as far as Penelope can see. Here is Penelope, looking in through the window: gray eyes inquisitive, alight, direct; her eyebrows lofted, but hidden beneath the messy sweep of her ruddy bangs; an omen Penelope, la belle dame sans merci (there is no mercy: there is a doorbell!), and when she sees Arianna resolves behind the glass into less of a spectre she smiles at once and leaves off ringing the bell so that when Arianna opens the door she is standing expectant before it her feet together the box still held neatly against her hip (her muscles must work to do so; the angels would resolve into light in the upper realms if they were allowed, rather than imbue a box with weightlessness), and Come in!

The smile goes bright and reflective; it brings out her dimples.

Come in, [the corners of the smile are gone coy, not sly because Pen can never quite  manage sly, but we might pretend it is sly] come in a little flourish and a sweep of hand [and Pen steps over the threshold and into Arianna's embrace].

Curls her free arm around Arianna, splays her hand against the other woman's back. Releases her and spins around in a tight circle, looking up at the iron chandelier (shouldn't she be diminished by iron, Pen? Shouldn't she be dissolved, or weakened?).

"I am as famished as the arrow which sang before. I would like something to eat, and something to drink; I have brought you a gift, but I need a room to wrestle it into submission. Ari, I do like your foyer; do you think the chandelier swings?"

"I've always had that goal, you know..."

Lead the way, Ari. Pen will follow in your wake.

AriannaWhen Pen asks if it swings, Ari's attention shifts upward -- and yes, if they were well and truly Fae the iron would burn; it would freeze; it would strip the essence of them, but as they are only (are they only) borrowed of that other realm, it is a firm and stalwart thing; it gives gravitas to the light which spills from its bulbs; it casts that light more like the gleaming of firelight, torchiers held aloft.  It is a fitting thing for Arianna's keep.

"I think it might, and if it were to, you should be the one to test it.  It seems a thing befitting of your House," aha, a little smirk then, a curl to her mouth and then, where Arianna might have led her left to progress on to the kitchen, the footfalls shift and take them into the Great Room, with its boxes, with its broad hearth which is currently dark and lifeless, but soon, soon, shall be bright and glimmering with revelry.  Into the Great Room then, quick to the right again, through double-doors thrown wide, into a room ringed in bookshelves with a padded seat before the windows.

This is destined to one day be her study.  For now the dark grained shelves are almost empty, but there are several cases, glass fronted, which are evidently for books and scrolls of a more esoteric flavour.  The light here, is filtered through the palest sheers at the window, diffuse but bright enough for reading in the day time.

"I present to you, the Study.  To the Study, I present the esteemed Penelope Mercury Mars, bewitcher and be-wed of Nicholas, who is Brilliant, Brave and Shining ..." It is knavery, of course, and playful.  "This will be the Library, when my things arrive, so I feel you should be well acquainted, and also that you should visit often."

SilasAt some point after visiting Silas and his roommates at their home, Arianna gave her fellow Bonisagean her address.  it can only have been with the expectation that he arrive at her door at some point, and so here he is - seemingly not far behind Pen.  He does not come empty handed, this Hunter - in one hand, there is a paper bag of groceries (wine and cheese and crackers and fruit and vegetables), and in the other there is a clever cloth bag of other things, which will be revealed later.

Ring, goes the doorbell, or perhaps knockknockknock goes the door.  Lo, there is someone seeking entrance to Arianna's keep.

AriannaRING DING SOMEONE ELSE IS HERE -- goes the doorbell.  In truth, it is more a demure thing than that, but Penelope had so excited it with her pushing and pushing and pushing and so, that it can hardly be expressed in a mere ding-dong any longer. Not for this scene.  For this scene's remainder, it shall be a half-drunk herald which rings with abandon, rings rings rings and, announces, always announces.

There is a limited cast of callers whom the doorbell might announce.  Limited thusly: Penelope, who is present; Nicholas, whose whereabouts Penelope probably knows, and as Penelope does not have that wistful look of near-Nicholas-ness, it is unlikely to be her Crow; and Silas, who was last seen in the Park amongst the Verbaenic others.

"I will let you two get acquainted," she says, to Penelope and the room. With a merry little loft of eyebrows, which almost entirely obscures the curious cant to her eyes, shifted toward the front door and is caller, as if she might observe them through the wall -- she might! but she doesn't; it is a poor use of Will and resources.  "While I see to the door, and also to refreshments."

It is the briefest transit, through the sweep of the double doors, out into the Great Room and now, appearing in Silas's line of sight and he in hers, through the tiny panes of glass, glimpsed for a moment before the door is thrown wide and a more complete measure can be taken.

"Well met and welcome!"  There is warmth in her voice, and something mischief-touched and dancing in her eyes. It is not, perhaps, the greeting he has imagined. "Come in; Penelope is here.  We shall have small plates and wine, and whatever you have brought."

The hug she offers him is neither as deep nor as intimate as either would like, but lingers, just a moment longer than the one offered to Pen.  The door is closed behind him, but not barred.  "You've met Pen, you said." Her voice is loud enough to carry back to the Flambeau.  "I hope you find her smashing, and if you don't then you are wrong."  Aha. A dig, a little teasing thing; it sets the tone between them, it sets the tone for Pen.

SilasBut there's a thing, see, and that clever cloth bag is not so large or so heavy as to get in the way of an embrace or, once said embrace is achieved, a kiss; in short, Arianna is not allowed to escape quite as quickly as she intends, or as untouched by Hunters.  The kiss, see, is a thing that lingers longer than the hug was intended to do, and only with it done - after holding her closer against him than she may have initially thought - does Silas release her.

"Hail and well met, then, my friends - we shall drink and know each other better.  I bring measures of wine, and things to nibble on - and glasses too, since when last we talk there was the echo of empty places.  They're plastic, but they are many - they will do well enough for now.  A pleasure to see you again, Pen."

This last is offered as he and Arianna - separate entities, see, not even the slightest bit of contact between them - step from vestibule to office.

"Was the concert as loud as Sera and Grace led us to believe?"  And then, an aside for Arianna, "We met at a bar.  There was to be a show, which I missed because of the roommates.  Such a tragedy, and one that I'll have to remedy at soonest opportunity."

PenThey shouldn't encourage her. Arianna. Nicholas. They shouldn't encourage Pen to take risks: needless ones, for the sake of (Daring) doing. As they pass by the chandelier, Pen's head falls back and she tracks it until natural laws and anatomy no longer allows her to, but there is a gauging glance cast toward some high thing to leap from. Stairs, perhaps, or a tower of boxes, or if there were a bench here, or if one said a Word just at this particular moment and then: all to say, Pen is considering the logistics of chandelier swinging when Arianna brings her into the Study.

"Such a room," Pen says, who'd quirked her mouth at Arianna's introduction. "Such readiness! My tumultuous and haphazard moving ways are put to to the blush. Are you giving me a new title, Ari? Bewitcher of Crows?"

The quirk to her mouth has become a smirk: good-natured as most smirks are not, but sharp still, sharp as the nib of a fountain-pen and were it pressed in what might it draw what ink would well would it blot or draw fine it is a little smirk and the smirk becomes diffuse soft solemnity as she regards the shelves. The box begins to drift (sh, no it does not, you see nothing Reality, one has already taken her bruises), and she sets it down. Pushes it down?

And a door bell! Pen glances in that direction; continues to lean on the box. It is not quite big enough to sit on but one could place one's boot upon it, and-

And Arianna sweeps through the double doors, out into the Great Room, and Pen turns her attention to the box. "Stay down," she murmurs to it, coaxingly: just as a myth might tell a knight to reach out for a gift. "Stay down right now; why are you so irascible? What did I overdo?"

Ari is greeting Silas; Pen is listening.

(You've met Pen, you said,) "Fine, I cancel you," Pen murmurs, and breathes out a word in Enochian. (She is - ) THUNK. ( - smashing.) Guilty glance cast through the doors; the box is still. And heavy. And no longer wants to reach the Sun. Pen straightens and brushes her hands off on her thighs.

Here comes Silas, and Pen offers him a tempered smile.

"Hello again, Silvanus! I mean Silas. Sorry! The concert was indeed sound and fury, a clamor from the deep, with Serafíne's voice a shining thing cast light above the rest when it was not transformed; she has a voice like light on fog, but the fog was all noise."

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )

Penooc: Those dice were nothing! Ignore. *grin*)

AriannaWas Ari giving her a new title? Was she? Was Naming within Arianna's ready reach.  There is a light in her eyes as she catches Pen's for a just a moment before disappearing through the doors, catches Pen's eye and sight of the irascible box -- which is not an adjective often put to...

... which may explain why she is caught so readily by the Hunter at the doorway of her Keep. Caught and kept close beside him.  Caught with her arms around him and his mouth on hers and her knees, they are like water for a moment; and he calls to her as summer calls to rain; and it is dramatic, this, this recompense he issues for her naming him a 'childhood friend'.  Penelope is just beyond the wall, so perhaps she cannot see how the green of Ari's eyes goes softer; how Silas is a wicked thing. She might see the tailing end of it, as the Bonisagi come through the double-doors together, side-by-side but not quite touching. How they are framed for a moment by its jamb and crossing.

Ari moves to take the grocer's bag from him -- if Silas will relenquish it to her. If. If. If is a strange thing; Ari is used to knowing. She is used to being fully assured, or falsely so; she is rarely on her back foot.

"I am sorry that I missed it!"  Not that she has been invited, but that she is quite sure the thing of it lives almost up to Pen's poetry of it.  "Oh, and you two, you should introduce yourselves."

A beat. A look for Pen. Glancingly amused as it calls back an echo of other homes and other greetings.

"Fully, if you please."  It is her best Pen-impression.  Her gallantry a mimicry of the Flambeau's, because Ari is not quite as Daring, she is not as artfully cavalier, but long association has lent credence to the approximation.  And turn about fun is a pleasing thing. One imagines they have had many turn-abouts like this, a thing said re-echoed.  Her smile is cast wide to welcome Silas in as well, and Ari has given very little thought to what might be included in his Fully...

... a thing she realizes about a minute to late to stop the unfurling of the thing.

SilasThis intimation that he should introduce himself fully gets a raised eyebrow shot Arianna's way . . . and then a slowly birthed smile, a bit sharp around the corners and edges.  The Hunter has claws, of course, and teeth too, and now is a fun time to toy with prey.  He allows Arianna to take the paper bag of food and drink, to do with as she will, but not the cloth bag; that's something different.

"Fully, hmm?  I am Silas Owen Arthur Robinson, Initiate Exemptus bani Bonisagus ordo Hermes."  The look slanted Arianna's direction is sideways and obscure, perhaps a bit left handed in bent.  "In some company, they want to know my parentage - but I suspect this is not that sort of occasion."  There's a wry, sweeping sort of bow from the man who looks and feels as if perhaps he ought to have antlers affixed somewhere to his head, who resonates radiance and tempestuousness.

He does not give titles of any sort, Hermetic or otherwise - but what he does give is more than he's yet given anyone else in Denver.  And the familiar way his words bend around Arianna could mean he is simply a childhood friend, or it could mean more.  Or less.  Or all sorts of things, or nothing at all.

"I am pleased to make your proper acquaintance."

PenPen recognizes herself in Ari's impression, the Echo of herself, and the recognition is visible in Pen's expression: the way she looks at Ari, a beat before Silas raises his eyebrow, because Pen turns her eyes back to Silas just in time to see the raised eyebrow become an angular smile, something more befitting a Hunter's moon than a young man.

Pen keeps her gaze on Silas's face as he introduces himself, her head canted a spare half-inch to the side.

Here's Pen. Pen's hair is getting long, has just reached the small of her back, and will soon be cut. Until then, and today, she bound it in a thick braid. Her bangs are rakish, swept back behind her ears, and it is Rossetti hair, captures the light (yes, captures, puts into thrall) and shadow of this Study with its haze over the window and tarnishes it then lets it burn an ardent ember and why well perhaps because Pen herself is an ardent woman, her magick is seeped in it (and Daring, and Resplendence), and in turn her marrow, and in turn she already a certain kind of Presence becomes ardent in all glint-y facets. Pen's eyes are lake-light, dappling some hero's blade; Pen's eyes are considering, tempered; she seems reserved in a way that is not cautious, but rather self-sustaining. She is only wearing five rings today, one of which is her (Hallowed) wedded band. She is wearing a shirt with a plunge V-neck the color of fog rolling in at twilight and a belt with a buckle that is both arcane and made of metal and fascinating and set with jewels like a reliquary, a pair of laced-up-at-the-side strangely feminine pants which might've been sewn together when somebody held down the moon and skinned him for a lake-witch's dowry. There's a dragonfly's iridescence there. Boots, too. Green. (There's a knife in one, probably; certainly). A lake-green coat, much-worn and somewhat threadbare at the elbows and in one or two places, adventure-tattered, because it might be cold later.

She offers Silas her hand once he has introduced himself, fully.

And then she says, "Penelope Sylvia Katabasis Hilde Nyneve Mercury Mars," and here there is a liquid (Beguiling) measure to the cadence of her Titles: which she, of course!, tells Silas. They are very good titles, too. Very suiting, very poetic, very Hermetic. And perhaps one day the gentle reader will get to know what they are too, but for now characters will have their little secrets. Finishes with: "Adept bani Flambeau."

Pen is not a legacy Hermetic; she had frowned at the thought that some company might ask Silas's parentage. Perhaps someone did that to her once. Perhaps Arianna was there, to hear Pen's answer and see the temper-wicking fall out.

When she is done being courteous, she says, "Yes, well, I hardly feel acquainted with you at all yet. I'm sure that will change. What are you doing here in Denver?"

Arianna[Empathy: Pen-of-many-titles.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 4) ( fail )

AriannaShe is pleased.  Ari hefts the bag against her hip a little and watches the progression of names and titles with a sort of glee that is reserved to Hermetic children of Hermetics through the ages.  There is a sort of dance and weave to it, the cadence of it; it is pleasing.  Some older thing in her approves, and misses entirely whatever other tones there may be in Silas's smile or Penelope's tone.

"I have it on good authority," which is on Pen's authority, which is good enough for Ari, "That no one here cares after our parentage, Si."  Amusement brims in her eyes, perhaps because this place is so unlike the others in which they have met.

"But, come: Pen has said that she is hungry, and Silas has brought food --" she looks to each of them as she says the other's name.  "Perhaps we should adjourn to the kitchen, and I will make us small plates?"

She is watching Pen when she crooks her head toward the doorway, in the universal sign of follow me and shall we walk together, but she is near enough to bump Silas with her hip. And this is how she signals the shift to him. Each in and of their own measure.

Silas"Ah, good, because my parentage has little care for Denver.  I believe the query was, 'you're moving where?  Why would you want to do that?', when I told them I was coming.  Perhaps this means that they'll stay away."  There's a wink here, and when Ari bumps his hip, Silas' free hand comes to just briefly rest in the small of her back.  It's brief, the touch - hardly noticeable, hardly there.

"And I am always hungry.  There are some wines and cheeses and things in that bag, Stella."  She calls him Si, and he calls her the only nickname he's ever called her, the one only he calls her.  "The kitchen seems a fine place to be.  You can put me to cutting things or plating them, if you wish."  He'd said, when she visited his keep, that he wasn't much use for actually cooking things; he'd never had reason to learn beyond the most basic of basics.

So of course he moves into the kitchen, full of casual talk and posture.

Pen"I am still famished," Pen says, solemnly. "Even more so than I was before this moment."

The way to the kitchen is mysterious: she waits for Ari to strike a path, then follows it; considers Silas still as she does, alert and clear-eyed and did we mention alert, a conscious sort of alertness, how it wells - see - like twilight sometimes seems to, from a deep place gathered.

She'd asked him why he was in Denver, and then there was talk of parentage, casual chummery, and Pen -- she likes to be clear, and she is also direct, so:

"So you came to Denver to escape your parentage? Or do you have work here, Silas?"

AriannaThere are nicknames, one more exclusionary than the other, one which claims something that the hand in the small of her back echoes. Something she does not outright deny in her bearing or her movements.  Out, then, they go of the Office and into the Great Room, and once they are there it is easy to see the kitchen off to their left.  There is an island with a counter upon which to casually lean while they continue getting to know each other.

The task Silas is best put to, in Ari's estimate, is the opening and pouring of wine.  She chooses a red from his offering, and pulls a white from the fridge -- chilled, but not too cold.  There are no utensils for eating but there are wine glasses and a corkscrew, this speaks to her priorities quite plainly.  All things presented to that island breakfast-ish bar, for Silas and Pen to sort amongst themselves.

It is easy to see why Ari chose this place.  The ceiling of the Great Room is so lofted that it rides just under the ridgeline of the roof.  There is a feeling of expansiveness, of almost standing out under the sky, but without the bother of the weather.  At the far end of the room, french doors lead out onto a broad patio, with an equally valuted cover.  Fireplaces stand in the inside and outside spaces alike.  In the summer, they will be able to throw wide the doors and unbar the threshold of inner and outer spaces. Move freely between inner and outer worlds.

She is a creature of symbol and ritual: it is now apparent in her home.

And no, Arianna does not spare Silas from Pen's inquiry. Instead she busies herself with readying things to eat. First a plate of cheese, dried fruits and pickled things -- mushrooms marinated until they are bright with vinegar; cornichon; slippery sweet-tart onions.  Then thin slices of bread.  Crisp vegetables in neat and orderly julienne.  Last, thick luscious pieces of fruit: bright oranges, ripe and ruddy strawberries; dried figs and dates to round out the seasons somewhat.  She works quickly, but quietly, and watches them each with equal measure.

Silas"Ahhh, my mistake.  Yes, I came in part to slip the leash of my parentage - but not just those that bore me.  It was time, I thought, to strike out, to make my way from familiar, safe things.  And I've never worked in a climate quite like this one before, so when my finger found this spot on a map, I bought a ticket."  There's a pause as he opens both bottles of wine and lofts eyebrow questioningly at each of the women present - the better to pour them what they'd like to drink.

"I'm a master gardener and landscaper by trade, you see.  I've a specialty in labyrinths, and orchids, and species that people think are lost causes."

This matches the warmth of his hand when it clasped Pen's in greeting, and the feeling of riotous, fertile growth about him that's more subtle, perhaps, than the impression of antlers and hunting horns, but no less there.

"I find it well enough, thus far.  I think it will treat me fair."

Pen"I will have the white, if you please," Pen says when the wines come down, and then adds, "I'm much rather in the mood for apple-light and moon-light," with an air of conscious apology, a gaze that flicks up to the ceiling briefly. Maybe she is hoping for another chandelier to swing from.

In the kitchen, she is curious: pokes around without opening anything, quite, because she is still being courteous, and then finds a spot to settle her back against and keeps her regard (mostly) on Silas still.

See: a vibrant lick of ardent attention, at that job description; a focused curiosity. "How interesting; are you going to build a labyrinth here? Have you contacted the Denver Botanic Gardens, whatever organization maintains them? I bet they would be interested in such a project; if not them, some of the Art Galleries down on Santa Fe have very interesting people in charge of them. You could have help."

"What sort of species in the plant-world do people think are lost causes? I like to garden a bit," this smile, faint, surfacing; a rill of something, just beginning to break through cool water, "but I am no horticulturist."

Enthusiasm, enthusiasm! Directed, swoop, sluice, slice.

Arianna"The white, please," Ari says, at the question of wines. She does not elaborate like Pen does, but she shares the want of something apple-crisp and slightly sweeter.  When it is handed over, she compells them to some small toast before drinking.  Because sharing cups is always fellowship; and glasses are cups and cups are caldrouns between these Hermetic women.

Ari leans against a somewhere nearer to Pen than to Silas; the better to regard him through the veil of her lashes.  The better to tap her glass against Pen's with a To Denver -- a thing they can all agree upon, or possibly only in parts.

"Your orchid will be here soon, should you want to inspect it," she tells Silas.  It is an opening, but perhaps not as much of an opening as it would seem.  "It is, I think, the only plant entrusted to me that has not hastened on to meet its maker."

The curl of her mouth behind her glass is wry; it is playful again.  She is balanced again.  The cup seems made to be paired with her hand; Ari has an ease about alcohol and the social situations they often find it in.  It is why she has taken up Drinking with Andres as a sort of competitive sport; it is why the pale light from outside catches up in the bowl of the glass, where is held by her fingers, and as Pen has spoken -- it is almost like moonlight.

"I should like it if there were a labyrinth in Denver.  Pen, do you truly think some Gallery would back it?  That would be glorious--"

DING DING OMG I AM THE MOST ANNOYING DOORBELL DONG.

We have discussed the doorbell in past paragraphs, dear Reader.  The sound of it is not so jarring as all of this, and would not be to Ari but Penelope, liebe, Penelope, mein hast dingdingringed it to within an inch of it's life.  So the chime sounds and Ari's eyebrows lift and mid-sentence she pauses.

"That's probably Nick."

And then, again, she is moving through the house that will soon be familiar but currently is not. Out of the kitchen and into the foyer, and door thrown wide again in greeting, smile warm and inviting and wine glass held aloft.

"Come in, come in!"  He, too, is welcomed across the threshhold, into the foyer guarded by the iron chandelier.  "Pen is here.  And Silas is here. I hear you three have met before," this all said as she hugs him, of course she hugs him, and before parting to close the door she says, for his ears only: "You missed the introductions. Very Hermetic. Many titles.  Rest assured: Pen wins this round."

Arianna"I think you should with: Nick. Nick Hyde. Chakravanti.  Bringer of wine. Who also knows secrets."  The grin; it is dangerous.

"Very James Bond.  Don't you think?"  The wine is captured easily in her free hand; this is some sort of opulence, to hold a bottle in one hand and a glass in another, but Ari wears it easily.  She guides him back toward the kitchen, where the others are, through the maw of the Great Room, which is not entirely unlike a cathedral with its vaulted roof and empty spaces. There voices are low when they enter; her suggestion goes unheard to the others.

SilasThe white is a bright and summer-sweet-citrus-crisp Sauvignon Blanc, with just a hint of sparkle, while the red (which Silas chooses) is a deeper, darker Pinot Noir.  His is let to sit and breathe, not sipped yet, and then . . . oh, unfortunate then.  In time with the doorbell ringing Silas' phone (miraculously thus far untouched by the gremlins that attend Arianna) chimes.  He frowns, knowing only few here in Denver has his number, and checks it against some potential for emergency.

This leads to a sigh, heavy, as he eyes the glass he's poured himself, and the company.

"I left my hounds in the charge of one of my roommates," he offers by way of explanation, "but he got called into his hospital."  And this is what greets Arianna and Nick as they enter - this statement, and a hint of rue.  "It pains me to leave such esteemed company as that in which I find myself this evening, truly."

And this, this moment?  This is what leads him to Arianna, to wrapping an arm around her waist and placing a kiss on her lips - it lingers just slightly, just enough, and then it's gone.

"I will have to return after I've seen to the keep.  Sorry to say hello and goodbye so quickly, Nick."  That hand, offered for a shake, is as warm as it was when first they met - there is just as much impression of antlers, and growth.

((This is the trouble with having children and needing to be awake during the day - a bed time!  We'll have to have a longer scene soon.))

PenAlas, poor Timing, how ill-used it is, and how ill it uses these characters. Pen had not been at all troubled by newcomer at the door especially not that newcomer; a shadow, when Silas gets his bad news; she watches him get it over the rim of her wine glass. "That sounds most unfortunate," she says.

When Silas kisses Arianna hello and fare well, Penelope's eyebrows are still somewhat drawn together too bad shadow consternation though there's a rill of brightness when she glances at Nicholas and smiles (warmth), then notices something on one of her rings and adjusts it.

What if she took it off and dropped it into her wine cup? She does that, watches the luminous bubbles stream from the ring up and up again. Was it satisfying, Pen?

Yes, it probably was.

AriannaIt turns out that there will be no need for titles after all.  All the titles that need be exchanged are done so in the presumption of how Silas wraps his arm around Arianna's waist and kisses her -- it is a kiss returned, though, perhaps less ardently than it is given.  It is not the three kisses on cheeks, oh, yes, we are European, or anything which could be misconstrued so neatly.  And, of course, with her hands full -- wine glass in one and bottle in another -- there is little she can do to shape the sense of it.

Then he says something into the curl of her ear, and then he is going, then he is gone.  "You may go, but I'm keeping your wine," she tells him; this is the answer to whatever he has said, to the kissing of lips; it is in the crows feet at the corners of her eyes, and the slick of something hidden in the green of them.  It is not given away, this something -- she hopes.

They are childhood friends.  That is clearly not the whole of it.

It is barely a handful of footsteps to the door and back again.  And then there is Nick to fold in to things, and the cabal is made whole again and things move simply:  She finds another wine glass.  He has his choice of red or white (he is asked his preference) for pouring.  She moves Silas's glass from the counter, to beside the sink.  In all of this, Ari has missed Pen's inspection and drowning of her ring.

Pen"The white is very good, Nicholas," Pen says, eyeing Silas's untouched cup before she sets hers down on the island, leaning on the palms of her hands with her chin a notch higher than it is wont to be so she can peer down (Circe, Medea, Lake-Witch) at it. There are still a few pearl-bright bubbles clinging, dogged, to the ring's side: she may be marking how long it takes for them all to flee upward. "The red's all meat gobbets!"

SilasAnd so Silas is gone, to re-meet the Hyde duo on another day.  Exuant, stage left.

AriannaThe red he says, so she takes up the bottle--which Silas has brought, so she takes a minute to study the label, to know what she is pouring and then.

Meat gobbets.
... White, please. Ari.

The white, it is.  One bottle is set down, exchaned handily for the other, which bears a slick of condensation, a sheen; it is chilled, see, as whites want to be. She is not a savage. She pours and hands his glass over; heavy on the pour, light on the flourishes today.

"If it is meat gobbets, then, perhaps it is destined for the soup pot."  Said easily, as she leans a hip into the counter and regards the Mars-Hyde constellation over the brim of her own cup.  "Good thing Nicholas has brought us a replacement.  And welcome, now, well met and welcome in earnest, without titles and all of that after all."


PenHer gaze is quite steadfastly on the wine. Cat at a mouse hole.

She doesn't say anything at all just yet, though her mouth curves in a quick compulsory smile for Ari's welcome now and well met and in earnest and without titles and all of that after all etcetera.

AriannaThere are no barstools just yet.  Just as there are no furnishings in the Great Room.  In the Great Room there stands a sparse number of boxes, clumped here and there, ordered by subject and stacked, where appropriate but never more than three boxes tall.  Through the kitchen and on to the dining room, there he could find chairs.  And a broad table, too wide to be intended for only ever the three of them, and chairs to seat eight at close quarters.

Ari's player is making things up on the spot; one may recognize her own kitchen table in this space.

"Thank you," she says, and her smile is broad and genuine. There is less trickery for just a moment, before talk slides to Silas.  Talk, glances, other's attention -- it all slides to Silas sooner or later.  To this she shrugs. "He makes a certain impression at Conclave; our House is rarely canted toward such green-and-outdoor things."

Mark: she does not say Primal, even where it would be appropriate, because to give that word full due is unfair; it is prejudiced.  But there is not truly a good stand in for it.

Pen[Nothing to see, Nick!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )

Arianna((guys... I am turning into a pumpkin... and Jess distracted me with Verbaenic things... and I cannot focus to write :(  ... Pause/fade/something?))

PenPen straightens, buoyant, and then raises one hand - Nick hip-checks her and she turns her head to glance at him, though her eyes linger on the wine for a heartbeat more - then, savage!, she fishes her ring back out and rests it (communion wafer) on her tongue once it occurs to her that hey now this ring tastes like wine. She hip checks him back, eyebrows lofted smile halved and bright.

"Yes, speak about the last Conclave you were at, Ari. Or tell us of your ideal Conclave. Was there a chandelier at the last one? You never said in your highly amusing letters."

And perhaps talk will turn: it always does, with friends.

PenPen is trying steadfastly to hide Some Thing from Nicholas as pertains to Silas. She doesn't seem thrilled with him.

Arianna[Epic Story? I am too lazy to decide on my own. DICE! Expression +Char (I need to buy this up, as Ari talks all the goddamntime)]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

Arianna[Also epic bullshitting at appropriate points?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10) ( success x 2 )

Arianna"There was a chandelier, in fact..."

And this is how it begins.  They lean against counters and share the spread of small-enough-for-fingers morsels and Arianna tells them of the chandelier which hung in the foyer of the Chantry, which clung to the coastline of the western shore of Ireland, where the sea beat against the shore, rhythmic and savage and never ceasing.  And from the chandelier -- upon which no one to date has ever swung, Pen, can you believe it? -- they move to Conclave as a concept, a meeting of minds assembled as an academic body, of debate and its -- yawn -- structure and rules, which, are, of course, debatably followed.

There are questions asked and answered, and some answers are fanciful, and some answers are true.  Some are both. Some are neither.  Cups are refilled and there is a discussion about whether to stoke a fire in the fireplace -- which fireplace -- oh did I tell you about the fireplace, which was large enough for a soup pot and a spit, because the Chantry is old and the kitchen hearth was a working hearth and -- oh, Nick doesn't believe me? Well, that's because he is sharp, Nick, always thinking.

But there was a great hearth there, and as they move through the shadow spaces of her soon to be home she tells them how, on that broad and covered patio, she plans to cast a circle. To draw it on the stone flooring.  So wide and broad that it swallows up the whole of it. And it will be sacred, and it will be sained, and it will stand there as witness.  With a hearth at its margin; with room for all manner of rites within; where they can be outside but also covered and there can be moonlight as well as comfort.

And at some point, they will have drunk all the wine and eaten her out of house and home -- or whatever meager stores her fridge could offer up so soon in her unpacking.  But before they go, she offers to each of them a single key on a length of twisted silver silk. She repeats what she has told Pen in greeting, that her house is their house; the the Library will be here soon, and it is beside itself with eagerness to meet them properly. And there are goodbyes, but not as final or as solemn as they might be.  As the trek back from Ari's house to the Mars-Hyde home is a matter of minutes. Close without being in each other's pockets.

Pen[yay scene!]