Guardian [unfinished]

Lukas
[Walk up to the club like, what up, we're doing some Mind magick. Diff 6, -1 (Using Foci when don't need to, etc.), -1 Taking his Time, -1 Quint.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (1, 1, 9) ( success x 1 )

Lukas
[C'mon now, dice. I'm not even trying to be mean to another PC. Extending.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (3, 4, 5) ( success x 2 )

Lukas
Midweek evenings in Washington Park had a particular sort of atmosphere to them.

Just past dusk and there's the usual assortment of joggers traversing the trails that are etched out around the lake; rising and falling as they weave past the fountain; the flower gardens carefully attended by council recruited gardeners; the tennis and basketball courts; couples pushing strollers; couples walking dogs. There's lingering crowds on the slopes of grass; soaking in the last traces of warmth from the afternoon sun.

There's a sense of purpose to others, though.

To the trickle of after dusk travelers that appear; many of them in suits; ties; carrying suitcases or handbags; some on bicycles; cruising across the expanse of parkland en route to their high rise apartments; to homes and families and whatever else lured them from their office blocks every night. Among the littering of visitors; a petite brunette with long, dark hair and torn tights tucked into boots was approaching the edge of the fountain; her shoulders hunched forward.

She greeted another man, tall; scrawny; with a dark hood drawn forward over his face.

The pair moved off together.

-

Beneath a nearby tree, from over a gentle rise; another figure appeared. This one far taller than the female who'd appeared from the same rise earlier. This figure was a man - young, by most standards, hardly older than his mid to late twenties if that - dark haired, dark eyed and broad shouldered. He leaned his weight against the tree and crossed his arms over his chest, watching the distant figures.

The lights in the park flickered once as they came to life with the sun's setting; casting dull orange patches of illumination along the pathways.

The young man against the tree's eyes lifted, just the once, before they ticked back to focus on the pair in the distance. A sensation pulled at the air; a determined, resolute drive before there was a shriek and heads turned, briefly, in the direction of the pair by the fountain. The brunette had her hands cupped over her mouth; she shook her head at the hooded man she was with, turned - and abruptly took off running.

The dark figure by the tree observed her departure, his arms slowly uncrossing; he tucked his hands into the pockets of a jacket and slipped around the tree.

Nicholas
[Uhhh...resonance!]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

Lukas
[Lukas, is your Death Mage sense tingling, buddy?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )

Lukas
It's a potent sense of dauntless, steel-edged determination Nicholas can feel flooding the park for a few moments. As if the air itself vibrated with some ancient knight's quest for glory. It's not any presence he's likely felt before but the one responsible is hardly concealing himself in the moment.

The way the lights seem to flicker in tandem with that casting and the way the shadows seemed to draw longer toward the figure against a tree as if comprehending that he was something other; something that didn't quite belong.

There was subtle manipulation at play; flavored with a resolute signature.

Nicholas
It has become Nick's custom to wander through the park when he leaves work on many weeknights.  Not all of them: he is generally happy when he gets to return home, but the walk is a welcome respite after some days, a chance to empty his mind of the day's thoughts in order to allow the new ones to take root.

There is something meditative, too, about walking the same trail as before because the mind has a tendency to become disengaged when coming across the same sights, the same stones and the same shrubs and the same flowers, in a different state of growth and decay than before.  It's second nature to start to miss those things, when the scenery becomes familiar; this is precisely why it is meditative.  There are always new changes to be noticed, and so he tries to pay attention now that the novelty is gone.  It's grounding, this, or could be.

So that is how the eve will find him, walking along with his hands in his pockets. He no longer needs his heavy coat, and he is wearing now a checked pink and blue button down shirt with light cotton dress pants.  Nick manages to become scenery when he is downtown and dressed as though he just came out of work.  His clothing constrains him, makes him mundane.

There is something off, though, as he makes his rounds today.  That would not have been the first thought to enter his mind except: Jonas.  He thinks of Jonas, unbidden.  For a moment he does not know why.

Except here: the shriek catches his attention and so does the sudden movement near the fountain.  And Nicholas is no ancient knight, he is barely anything resembling a knight at all (another epithet that can go to his wife) and yet he tenses and starts in that direction.  He is not moving quickly; time spent as a crisis counselor, perhaps even moreso than any experience he has had while Awake, has at the very least taught him to assess a situation before charging in.

That is when he sees Lukas, and then his attention is divided.

Nicholas
Is it Lukas's Death Mage sense that registers when Nicholas draws near enough?  Perhaps.  Were it not for the fact that they're in the middle of a city, his resonance is the kind of thing that could creep up on a person in certain settings.  He is hallowed and this is a strange place to find a creature like him, some sense of highland barrows and churchyards, some sort of deeply felt gravitas.  It will be new to Lukas; Nick has some talent at blending into the background but there's no concealing this.

Lukas
That resolute, dauntless energy traced back to a tall man standing now with his back toward Nicholas, hands buried in the pockets of a denim jacket. He had broad shoulders and dark hair that, as his head turned briefly on the other Chakravanti's approach, was growing long enough that without product to control it, would likely fall over his eyes.

If the sense of Lukas Ashford were not enough to merit investigation alone; that manner that shadows seemed to stretch toward the young man; crawling and lengthening certainly would.

(If he spends too long there, lingering, surrounded by growth and grass and the traces of Spring; he'll leave another trace behind; the withering patches; the subtle encroach of decay). To say he carried the imprint of their Tradition was to put things lightly - Keepers of the Wheel they both were but the man Nicholas approaches now, as dusk settled in, feels like it.

Feels like some watchful Guardian.

He doesn't quite turn all the way to observe the hallowed creature that draws up on him; but there's a clear sense that Nicholas has been noticed. "I was wondering when I'd run into someone." The hands don't venture from the pockets yet, but the greeting seems implicit in the way he waits for Nicholas to draw up to him and then casts a look across.

In the gathering shadows it's a handsome face; a little solemn perhaps and drawn toward frowning into the distance but the dark eyes that find his face are alert, expectant, almost.

Nicholas
They are Tenders of the Wheel, and what that sometimes means is that they cleave to different places on that Wheel as it finds its way back around: see here, Nicholas is has been called the quiet hush of first Spring, and Lukas is deep autumn edging into winter, a drawing down, a time of endings.  That mark can be felt on him, indelible.

Nick's curly hair paired with his sharp features give him something of a fey mien, made all the more salient in how cautious he is as he approaches Lukas: he resembles some retreating woodland creature.  He's been given a few reasons to be cautious lately.

"Are you new?"  He asks because he can't tell; there are people he still hasn't met in Denver in all this time which all told isn't that much time at all.  Denver is a large city, and its Awakened population is more sparse than what he found back east; there are a lot of independent spirits here and perhaps the countryside draws them there, out of the city.  Perhaps it is still more a realm of spirits and nightfolk than magi, after all.

Nick still has half an eye for the people that were by the fountain.  He's good at contextual clues, but could piece together little enough that he still finds himself concerned.

Lukas
The figure by the fountain had yelled something after the young woman when she took off, thrown his arms in the air and then thrown his hood back, scowling. He'd slouched his way over to the lip of the fountain, pulled a cellphone from his pocket and begun texting. He remained there as Nicholas drew up alongside Lukas.

If the latter's magick had been intended for the hooded youth, it didn't appear to have manifested any results. The young woman hadn't reappeared, though. Whatever the context of the meeting and the reason for her sudden retreat - it remains a vague uncertainty. But the hints are there around the youth at the fountain. His torn jeans; the way he lights a cigarette and absently stares at passing women with little inclination toward masking his interest.

The cigarette gets dropped into the fountain and another takes its place (the nervous chain smoking of an addict).

The stranger beside Nicholas has his eyes focused on the fountain, there's a sense of distrust worn into the young man's gaze; a particular fixed intent there that wavers when the other speaks. Asks if he's new to the city. "Not entirely." Quiet spoken, he seemed, the Chakravanti. The man's eyes pulling from the distance eventually, he turns toward Nicholas.

Offers a hand.

"Lukas Ashford. I work at the Phoenix Shelter over in East Colfax." That hand returns to its pocket once its been grasped (or ignored). The name, perhaps, might register faint connotations for Nicholas. A shelter for boys in one of Denver's rougher neighborhoods.

Nicholas
He can read the interest with which the youth is staring at the passing young women, and it gives him pause.  It makes him reflect on his responsibilities here and now.  He's not an avenger: he has known Chakravanti who were.  He has known Chakravanti who hunted down criminals and killers to return them to the Wheel to begin again.

There were arguments, in fact, back in the house on a hill in a rural Connecticut town.

When Lukas offers his hand Nick takes it easily; there's warmth in how he makes contact because he's a warm man, howsoever it may be obfuscated or layered or simply too subtle for some people to read.  His eyes are the same light brown as his skin, an amber cast to them in the dimming light now that the sun is starting to sink behind the distant mountains.

"Nick Hyde," he says, and if there is a pause it is only because Lukas is the first mage he has met in some time who introduced himself with his Sleeper profession first.  It gnaws at his brainstem with sharp little teeth, worries at it and worries him because in some particular lines of work there is always risk of running into a Conventionalist.  He works in one of those lines of work.  "I work at Denver General.  I'm a hospice counselor."

That's only polite, right?  Nick, unusually for Nick though Lukas cannot know that yet, turns his eyes and further inquiry away; his gaze flicks sidelong toward the young man by the fountain.  "Have you been watching him?"