Wandering the stacks

Caleb
Bookstores are not, in fact, libraries. Sure, they encourage you to actually enjoy the books before you buy them but they don't actually ever really intend someone to finish the whole book before they purchase it. It doesn't seem like the best idea. It doesn't seem like a good business model but nobody would sell any books at all if they were shrink wrapped and kept on shelves like they were there just to be protected from dust, like all of them held pornographic ideas that shouldn't be given to people who aren't truly capable of understanding them.

No, who decides what we should be able to handle in our books? Who decides but those who manufacture, but those who bring out the product and sell it to the consumers, because even in information there is consumerism. There is a trade of something monetary for something intangible- the story. The idea. Something that you can't really return, and in effect reading a book in the book store was theft because you took what was truly of value and left its husk; it was peeling the banana, eating it, and then leaving the peel behind. You took its substance and left only the means that it was used to trasport the best parts to you.

Caleb, you see, had a concept of theft. You don't take something that isn't yours but information, but the words, the things that make up books don't really belong to anyone. So, he didn't seem to have a real problem with them. So there he is, forgettable but sprawled out in the aisle of some indie bookstore with aisles as thin and lacking in personal space as a piece of Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture. The books are in some particular order, not arranged in the traditional way but in another traditional way- this particular place decided to play with the Dewey Decimal system instead of the standard layout of a place that has the fiction dominating a place.

He's in the eight hundreds. Somewhere between 820 and 830 in a dingy drab olive Army surplus jacket and a pair of tennis shoes that look like they've seen a couple marathons and survived to tell the tale. The staff leaves him alone.

Grace
The mall is not Grace's cup of tea.

It is a temple. A bastion of hyperreality, dedicated to the gods of consumerism. As if churches weren't already bad enough, these things show off what they're really about. Money. Buying. Selling.

Of course, they do try to hide that, a little. Everywhere, there are pictures of happy, beautiful people. If only one consumes enough, one might become like them. Nice, sunlit, happy. It makes Grace want to puke.

About the only thing this place has to offer her is the bookstore, which if any other place in town were selling "Structures: Why Things Don't Fall Down", then she would have gone there. Sometimes, you have to grit your teeth and participate in the fallen world, just to get what you need.

First thing she's going to do is scan this text and upload it somewhere, because fuck having to pay for information...

Grace
[Awareness!]

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

Caleb
[Do I feel a people? Per+aware, -2 because arcane]

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

Caleb
There is a feeling of something. Something that makes him look up from the books that he may or may not (definitely not) be purchasing. A feeling that makes the wind blow without it actually blowing. A feeling that is slight, a wrongness or a rightness but nothing strong enough to be felt beyond being off. And yes, there is something off in the air. He looks up from English literature and poetry and words, words, words to feel a shift in the winds.

Ultimately, the stag concudes that the snap in the branches is not enough to warrant him looking around too far for too long. There is a spark of creativity, a spark of something that has a keen edged mind and an ear for change. Something that glides along the cutting edge like a whet stone and rolls away the layers of dust and grime to peel back into something new. Not a literal peel. Nothing painful save for the pain that comes with change, with seeing the world grow and blossom outside of yourself.

Olive
[ah, what the hell.]

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

Olive
This bookstore may as well be a library, as far as its layout is concerned. As far as its patrons are concerned, it is a little slice of heaven that smells like binding paste and leather. The occasional waft of secondhand smoke clinging to a flannel shirt or perfume on a stranger's wrist.

She is not far from the 800s herself, having sat herself down cross-legged in a corner. Small space like that almost makes the girl invisible. She is short and her braids make a curtain if she tilts her head the right way and she is reading through a stack of poetry volumes trying to decide which one she wants to take home with her and read until it falls apart.

Grace can tell she's there, still as a fasting nun and as peaceful besides. She looks up at the tennis shoes' passage and lets her nostrils flare though her physical senses are of no use here. For now the slim volume stays open.

Grace
Shit. It's happening again, isn't it? Confluence. She looks up at the ceiling, and glares at it. Universe, you can be creepy sometimes. For fuck's sake.

They aren't people she knows, the resonance isn't familiar. But it's there.

Where once she might have turned tail and fled due to the danger of Technocrats (and there is a danger) now, she wants to stay. At the very least, figure out what these people are about.

There are people here. More people than Mages. Who is who? She looks around, eyes not lingering on any one person for too long, lest they actually look back at her.

Caleb
(Do I physically notice Grace? Per+alert -2 (arcane), wearing glasses so diff 6)

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

Nicholas
Nick is here looking for a present.  Nick has been trawling bookstores looking for a present for months, and none has yet happened upon him.

He is not here, as one might expect, for his wife.  If he were here for Pen it would not have taken him months.  His Hermetic sister (he has two of them see) is the one who is very difficult to buy for.

And normally he probably wouldn't be setting foot in a mall except maybe to try to find a new pair of shoes or a belt, and he probably wouldn't be looking in a bookstore in one, but: desperate times.  (One of his old mentors has told him, often, how the Technocracy has taken to building shopping malls on wellsprings and nodes, and Patricia often spoke of these things with distaste.  Perhaps he might have some bias.)  And so here we are.  The place had come recommended by people who are more knowledgeable about such things than Nicholas Hyde.

He's not there yet, but still walking down one of the aisles with his head down and his hands in his pockets, his thoughts elsewhere.  Sooner or later he'll turn into the bookstore, once he finds it.

Caleb
pokepoke

There is a person on the other side of the shelf, and he isn't meaning to poke her but the book shelves are hollowed things and double sided, so pushing a longer book back to be flush will, in turn, cause another book to be shoved backwards. He pushes again, not quite noticing the place of poking until he realizs he's prodding some be-braided person in the shoulder with a book about... uh... something.

The poking ceases. "Sorry," he whispers, and sounds like an announcer at a golf tournament.

And looking up from that poke he notices a singularly normal and unremarkable piece of wall furniture like himself... but this one is staring at the ceiling. His brows knit together and a frown comes across his face. He looks up at the ceiling, and then back at Grace-

"... what's wrong on the ceiling?"

Olive
Were Grace to have looked at her for very long she would have seen Olive looking right back at her. But Grace decides to look at the ceiling instead and Olive decides well maybe she ought to stand up but then a book comes tumbling off the shelf and bounces off the faux-leather shoulder of her jacket and onto the floor.

Sorry.

She whispers back, "No worries."

And, on knees and one hand, reaches out to rescue the book. A glance at the spine and a glance up at the place from whence it fell. Up onto her knees. She starts to shuffle-walk on her knees around the bookshelf without getting to her feet, which are clad in black Converse sneakers, because of course they are.

Grace
When looking for the weird, don't worry. The weird will come to you. Someone talks to her, asks her what is wrong with the ceiling, and it's...

"The universe. It's wrong."

Way to inspire confidence in people, Grace. Bravo.

"I was just telling it off."

Caleb
"Why do you think the universe is wrong? That seems like a bold statement," he asks this, not in an accusatory way, but rather like someone who was seeking information, like he may well have been holding a notebook instead of a lap full of English literature.

He looks back at the shelf- from the shelf to Grace and back at the shelf. He leans a little to the side, trying to get a better look through the shelf and concludes that this isn't working. Caleb then decides to scoot to the other side to get a better look at people whilst still talking to Grace.

It's not Graceful, though. He doesn't get far with his butt-scooting.

Grace
"Because. I never come here. It's slimy in malls. But every time I do, I run into somebody."

Well, yeah. It's not that uncommon to run into people in malls. Malls are typically full of people. But not Mages.

"What's your name, Mystery Man?"

Nicholas
Nick rounds a corner.  Nick passes the bookstore, in spite of the fact that the windows are lined with bookshelves and old pulp advertisements; this is how deep in thought he is.  Or how distracted by something else he is.  You decide.

Nick ends up somewhere far down the way and realizes he has no idea where the bookstore is.  He consults one of the floorplan maps available of the mall stores, and tracks his path back to the place with a fingertip.

Back he comes.

And then, finally here he is, passing through the front archway.

Caleb
"... if you didn't run into anyone at the mall, I think it would be because the mall is closed."

His brows knit together again. He scoots over again and again before finally deciding to give up on that, get to his knees, and meander to the other aisle where the woman he poked with the book was. He keeps talking to Grace.

"I'm Caleb, what's your name?"

Grace
"Grace," she says. Her mouth curves up a bit when he calls her on the absurdity of what she's saying.

"Well. I run into people all the time. But few who resonate."

She doesn't quite stop saying the absurd, but yes. There is a point to this. The average person overhearing their conversation might come to the conclusion that Grace has a few marbles missing, but she's okay with carrying that burden. She follows along as Caleb walks.

Nicholas
[Alertness?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )

Nicholas
There's a voice that is beginning to become familiar; many of Denver's voices are, finally.  Regardless: Nick hears Grace, and he hears Grace talking to someone he doesn't know.  By the time she and Caleb are nearing Nick he is at one of the bookshelves in the metaphysics section, arms folded as his eyes scan the titles.

He is not content with whatever he sees, apparently.

Nevertheless, he hears them and so he pokes his head over the top of the nearby shelves to look for them and determine whether Grace is in the mood to be interrupted, and for how long.  Not every social outing welcomes add-ons, after all.

Caleb
"... is everyone else inaudible?"

He... does not get what she is saying. It's clear on his face and he shifts awkwardly from one side to the next, off in his own little bubble of being vaguely oblivious and having, well, missed.

Grace
Grace notices Nick hanging out there. She doesn't understand why he might be hanging back. At the most, she attributes his reticence to something that makes sense to her. The last time they talked, she had to get away before starting a fight. Maybe he just doesn't want to poke a bear.

But Caleb, he is a mystery. A new thing to turn over and see if it is a threat.

"Inaudible to the sixth sense? Yes."

Caleb
[Do I notice Nick as a human person?]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 4 )

Grace
[He is not a human. He is a meat popsicle.]

Caleb
"All people resonate in their own way in both a mundane and metaphysical way, they just don't know it yet. They're just not loud enough yet," he says, muses over it and seems like a thoughtful baritone instead of a stern and dismissive one. He doesn't seem to be a dismissive sort. Caleb takes a look around again, past Grace to Nick to Grace noticing Nick.

Nick gets a smile, and a wave. Obviously, Nick and Grace know each other, so they should want to be together and talk, right? Of course right. He smiles like a pleased golden retriever.

Nicholas
Resonance.  Sixth sense.  Nick can catch those words from where he's standing.  And he does indeed remember how things left off last time with Grace; he of course knows that Grace and Pen had a conversation outside the bar, because there is little he and his wife don't share with each other.

Nonetheless, Grace's friend gives him a smile and a wave and Nick, too, smiles and waves at the two of them.  "Hello, Grace," he says, and takes a few steps so that he can find himself on the conversation's periphery.  There is a glance toward Caleb, a friendly incline of his head, a once or twice-over.

Grace
Ahh, good. Caleb is not a complete newbie. She was beginning to wonder.

"Nick. Hello. This is Caleb. I found him just now, wandering the stacks."

There is no friendly smile to greet him, not anymore. Just sticking to the facts for now, because that's how things go. There is more to discuss than just Caleb, but perhaps it's best not to do that in front of someone who might be a Technocratic plant, for all his talk about metaphysics.

Caleb
He leans forward, puts a hand on the ground, and stands up to his rather impressive height of... average. He's a couple inches over five and a half feet tall. Dark hair, dark eyes, and of an indeterminate ethnic origin.

There is a strange sort of tension, though, or rather he does notice the lack of smile from Grace.

"... you're not friends, are you?"

There's always a delay in his voice, a delay when the baritone is talking because it seems like he's taking the time to process what is going around, as though the world is full of data. As though everything is worth noticing and everything is worth latching on to.

Nicholas
"Nice to meet you, Caleb," Nick says, and he extends a hand toward the other man.  "I'm Nick Hyde."

He is not as suspicious of Technocratic plants: at least if one takes him at face value.  His regard for Caleb seems warm enough, at this point.

That is, until Caleb asks a very direct question and Nick's brows furrow in a wince.  He glances sidelong at Grace.  "We're on the same side and everything," he says, "but there's been a little tension recently, yeah.  It's nothing you have to worry about, Caleb."  When talking to people with observation skill but little tact, sometimes honesty is best.

Grace
"What Nick said," she says, because he's better at explaining things by far.

Then, she pulls out her cell phone. Types away at it for a bit.

Grace
Nick's phone alerts him however it is set to, with the following text messages.

Some shit's gone down. I need to tell you about it.

Meet me at Auraria Student Lofts, apartment 203, after the bookstore?

Caleb
There is a hand to shake! Ah, he knows what to do with this, and he reaches forward to take the hand offered and he grasps- firm and comfortable with work. His hands aren't soft. Up down. Up down. Stop. He nods once it's done, a confirmation to himself. Aha! Done right!

"Oh," he says once Nick gives his appraisal of the situation, and there is a lag in that moment before he replies, "I'm sorry that happened, I hope things get better." It's a genuine statement, devoid of all things resembling sarcasm not unlike when you're talking to a four year old. It's rare to have that lack of guile.

Grace isn't saying much, just three words and then whips out her phone.

"Oh! Where did you get that?"

Surprise, delight.

Nicholas
It's rare to have that lack of guile, and the slight curl at the corner of Nick's mouth indicates that he might appreciate it, even.  "I hope they do too," he says.

There is a vibration there in his pocket, and Nick after a moment pulls his phone out of his own pocket and glances at the screen.  He tucks it away again moments later, glancing amused between Caleb and Grace.  "I was here to get a present for my sister, actually, so I can't really stick around.  I'll hopefully see you around though, Caleb," he says.

Grace
He's getting a present for his sister, can't stick around. Sounds like an excuse, maybe, but whatever. That's not important at all. His knowing what she's discovered, that matters.

Caleb asks where she got her phone, and she says: "Online. Amazon."

Amazon has everything, and despite it being a similar interface with consumerist religious practices? At least you don't have to deal with actual people.

"It's a OnePlus Three."

Caleb
"That would be cool, I hope to see you around too, Nick Hyde," all one name. "There's some cool books here, there is probably one she'll like."

Grace tells him it's a OnePLus three... which makes Caleb's brows knit together and makes a frown cross his face.

"So... it's... a four?"

Nicholas
"Hope you both enjoy your day."  Nick waves at the two of them and then circles back around to the other end of the stacks, wandering farther into the bookstore.

Nicholas
Once Nick has left, Grace receives a reply text:

Another day, maybe.  Don't have long today.  I'll text you later and we can meet up in a couple of days.

The greatest lie

Nick
[Stamina?]

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

Nick
Pen asked him for a wonder of breakfasts, a culinary delight.

Pen also asked him to get up before she usually gets up to make it.

Last night he stayed up with her later than he usually does, at first reading and then tucking himself in close to hold her while she fell asleep.  His eyelids grew heavy while he waited; he kept himself awake only by imagining skin monsters and any number of horrors Pen has described to him following one of her nightmares.

He leaves their bed long after Pen has fallen asleep so that he can read for a while in order to keep himself awake.

Somehow, he keeps himself awake.

It is almost three when he sneaks down to the kitchen, setting his feet carefully in spite of the fact that they are soundless.  Habits gained in childhood and adolescence die hard.

And so it is that when Pen wakes howeverlong later, before the dawn, she will find his spot in bed empty and cold, without any lingering warmth from his body that might indicate he had just risen.  There is a smell permeating the house, buttery and warm.

Pen
This is how Pen wakes. At once, and with only a change to her breathing to indicate that slumber has given her up; then her eyes open, and she props herself up on one elbow. Nicholas's side of the bed (there are no true sides, with how willing to sprawl and entangle Penelope is) is empty and grave-cold and Pen smooths her hand over his usual spot. Then she rolls over to her other side and closes her eyes again. It is only one moment. Pen is not by nature a morning person, though through determination she has made it so. Pen cuddles into her pillow in lieu of Nicholas and then she opens her eyes again and rises.

When she comes down the stairs, it is in a pale pink satin robe, unbelted, and beneath the robe a pair of lacy briefs she went to bed with, naught else, and her face glowing with that just-washed radiance only a just-washed face can have. The only jewelry is a ring on her left finger, and when she finds Nick she peers at him from behind the tangle of her bright hair. Her bangs are still doing strange things.

Nick
When Pen looks, she will find Nick in the kitchen.  If she had come around the corner and into the dining room first she would have seen plates laid out, with silverware to the side and small cocktail glasses accompanying.  The light was left dim; outside it is still dark.

Her husband is at the counter and taking two grapefruit halves from a pan, carefully gripping them between thumb and forefinger as he does and setting them down rather quickly.  They appear to have been broiled; atop them is a broiled dusting of cinnamon sugar.

Nick glances over his shoulder at her, and as he makes eye contact she can see his eyes are a little bleary and red.  It's to be expected, perhaps, if he woke up this early.  "Good morning," he says, even though it does not feel like a good morning to him: and there is an affectionate curl of a smile as he takes in her bangs, twisted off to the side.  "Go sit down.  I'll be in in a minute."

Pen
Penelope gazes at Nicholas for a moment; she presses her cheek against the side of the door, for she stopped there, in order to give the whole of the kitchen this sweeping look - clarity might break its heart before that look; it might fall before; and then as she gazes there's this spark-flick of a smile, more in the eyes than on the mouth, and she drifts away from the kitchen and takes in the dining room table with its unusual formality, dishes set, cocktail glasses accompanying, and she takes a candle beeswax it was once an owl but its head has melted away into the feathers takes this candle down from one of the bookshelves and lights it with a match and sets the candle near where she takes a seat and she doesn't yet speak a word. When Nick does check in the dining room, Pen has taken down a small clothbound book from a shelf and is reading a page.

Nick
Nicholas does not take long to wander into the dining room, with its unusually formal setup.  He cannot suppress a flicker of a smile when he sees the owl perched there between the plates, with a bright column of flame in place of its head.  Nick is carrying a small tray, on which he has the grapefruit and a small pitcher full of what looks like (is) mimosa, and a large plate.

Once arranged carefully on the plate (though less artfully than he might have liked), breakfast turns out to be poached egg, slivers of parmesan, and prosciutto and a biscuit, accompanied by slices of tomato and of course the grapefruit.  Nick leans down to kiss the top of her head before he seats himself.  "Good enough for a victory breakfast?"

Pen
He sets the tray down and Pen lets her hands and the book fall gently to her lap, one finger holding her place, her chin lofted as she looks over the spread; when Nick kisses the top of her head, she reaches up to catch him there, an arm (Medea [mythic], lake-lady) loose around his neck; tilts her head back, lets it fall, for a kiss on the mouth.

"Did you sleep at all?" Her tone is conspiratorial; so is the look in her eyes.

Nick
Perhaps Nick had been intending to deny having stayed up all night: even if he were so inclined, Pen is sharp enough to notice that he is still wearing yesterday's grey pants and light sweater.  He didn't even think to change before rising back out of bed last night to find ways to keep himself awake.

When he draws back after kissing her he lingers there for a moment with his hand cupped around her shoulder, and there is a returning glint of conspiracy.  "How would I have been down here to make you breakfast, if I'd slept?"  He circles around behind her chair so that he can take his seat across from her.  His smile is tinged with rue, now.  "I don't think today is going to be the day that I also go running with you."

Pen
"Of course it isn't," Pen says, looking (bemused, musing) down at the food. Her profile is a cameo's, a Renaissance lady's; her hair is still a hopeless tangle and it falls across her cheek when she takes her hand from her lap and rests her elbow on the table, her chin on her fist, cants her head. Beat. "That was another prize. This one included -- mm," and she curls her tongue behind her teeth. "What was it?" Opens her fist so she can stroke her chin, her jaw, her throat, one long fluid gesture. "It was something about lying, no? About the best lie. Nicholas, this does all look like a fine feast. Let's hope one bite doesn't strike me with yearning for this to be a habit, hmm?" Mischief, again.

Nick
He likes to watch her profile, likes to imagine her against a backdrop, a splash of lake and light or perhaps reinterpret her image as stained glass.  He is watching her now as she lets her jaw rest on her fist, though his reddened eyes and glazed expression could give the impression that he is staring at her simply for lack of anything better to stare at.  It would be the wrong impression, but.

She mentions a story about the best lie, and there is a little grin that appears, a caught-out thing, as he splashes drink into both his glass and Pen's and then reaches for his fork.  "Maybe I haven't told any big lies to tell you."  He, too, is mischievous, though his smile wavers as she mentions yearning to habit.  "We can make it a daylight-hours habit," he says.

Pen
Pen laughs, softly. The sound is a clot of candle smoke, a suggestion of brightness somewhere. "Daylight hours are still mine before they are yours," and this, this is a tease, and Pen leans forward and her robe gapes and the rose-pink of it gleams like the edge of a (strawberry) moon, luminous where the candle's light dredges such limned edges out; when she leans forward she also scoots her chair back so her naked collar is touching the table's edge and she can reach and reach for Nick's hand; cover it with hers; squeeze. Her hair threatens to trail through her plate, but she saves it with her other hand, drawing it over her head and exposing the side of her neck when she twists the ruddy mass of it; then she straightens; scoots the chair in; lifts her glass and takes a happy sip of it, eyes drifting closed as she does, and then fork: to dig in. "And that does not count as a big lie, Nicholai; it must be - shoot what must it be? Give me a moment; I'll remember."

This is what it's like when Pen is not wholly awake; she must have slept very deeply last night indeed not to be ready as soon as she pushes herself out of bed. She hums with pleasure after she takes a bite of the poached egg, hums deep in her throat, thrums, and then, "We need too to decide how to decide where we're going that is new." Firm.

Nick
She does not have to reach far; as she leans forward and her hand extends for his he scoots his chair in and forward and reaches for her, tangles his fingers in between hers and squeezes back, his thumb caressing her knuckles.  He takes up his fork and cleaves it through the poached egg, sending yolk running across his plate like a splash of sunlight, and breaks a fragment of biscuit off with his thumb and forefinger.  "Let me know when you remember," he says, and his eyes glint as he glances back at her.

He dredges the biscuit fragment through the egg yolk and pops it into his mouth.  "Where would you most like to go?  I've never really been out of the country, other than for work."

Pen
"There are so many places I'd like to go," Pen says, considering. Her lashes drift low again, shadow her cheekbones, and her gaze stays down: and pensive. "How long will you take off work for our adventure?"

Nick
"That depends on where we go," he says.  "I have a couple of weeks saved up, so we could probably go somewhere like Europe.  Or Turkey, maybe, or Korea."  Evidently there are a lot of places he would like to go, too.

Pen
"Would you use your weeks up now? Do you want to go to a city or to a country? An island, or a place bounded by rivers?" Pen smiles at Nicholas; it is once again a smile more in the eyes, for her mouth is a solemn little thing in the morning. "We could write the names of such places on scraps of paper and put them in a hat. I could hide them," Pen grins. "And the first you find, that's where we go."

Nick
"I like the hat idea," Nick says, and he too smiles and here more in the eyes: he is growing too tired for it to reach his mouth.  He will likely be in bed after breakfast is over, despite his most valiant attempts.  "I'm all right with using most of them up.  It would be worth it, to go somewhere for a little while.  Maybe just a week, depending on where we pick," and here a little tilt of his head.

"I want to go to a place bounded by rivers.  Or maybe to a place on a lake," he says.  "I'd like to see Europe.  I haven't been.  Or somewhere in the Carribean.  Or...well.  Let's just put a lot of things in the hat."

Pen
"Why don't you get a hat? I want to watch you walk away," Pen says, with such simplicity of tone, such purity of expression, that just how rogueish the remark is might take a moment or two to sink in.

"This is so delicious, Nicholas," she also says, earnest, after another few bites of breakfast, after she takes a sip of mimosa, watches the man opposite of her over the rim of her glass.

Nick
She compliments the breakfast, and the smile it earns is unusually wide for him, particularly given his exhaustion.  Past the curtains it is still dark, though they are beginning to hear the occasional bird or cricket if they listen; the days are growing shorter and it will not be dawn yet for a while.

"I'll go get a hat," he says, and his fingers trial up over her shoulder as he walks past her and around into the other room.  She'll have to twist her head around to watch him walk away, but it can be done.  He retrieves a deep purple knit cap, which he is holding in both of his hands as he returns to the room and to her.  "We'll throw things in after breakfast," he says, taking up his fork again.

Pen
Pen does twist her head to look over her shoulder, watch Nick walk away from her. But only for a moment; he disappears from sight. He disappears behind the edge of a wall, and Pen glances down at her breakfast plate, and smiles a little private smile, meant for no one, and then she pushes the tangle of her red hair out of her face and lends her will to eating more of what's in front of her. She does not begin reading the little book in her lap again, and he isn't gone so long as all that. When he returns, her gaze finds him, follows him back to his chair.

"I had a dream about you last night. You were the moon's man, and you could occupy every glint of light on anything that was the moon's color, and that's how we met. Secretly."

Nick
The cap he'd set on the table between the two of them, open like a mouth to receive whatever scraps of paper and whatever places and names they will put into it.  He wraps a slice of prosciutto around a bit of biscuit and pops it into his mouth as he redirects his eyes toward her, to hear about her dream.  He smiles at her, once he has finished chewing.  "What did we do, once we met?  Did I occupy anything of yours?"

Pen
Pen nodnodnods and scrapes her finger through some of the golden yolk parmesan flecked and sucks on it with an air so self-possessed and courteous that she could perhaps get away with the appalling manners in front of somebody's grandmother, and still be thought a very appealing girl (woman). "One time my necklace and one time the buckle of my shoes. Another time this cup I had, I left it out on the windowsill so it would glint and you could come."

Nick
Nick smiles; he does not appear offput by her manners.  Nicholas grew up in the same household as Anna Hyde, who would have done as much and worse (though in fairness she is often not thought to be a courteous young woman, you see.)  "I would have come down out of the sky to see you," he says: and indeed he must have, in her dream.

He digs his spoon into his grapefruit, wiggles it about and frees a wedge, which he transfers to his mouth.  "So I owe you a lie."

Pen
"Even if you could see me better from the sky?" Here, a quick smile, audacious, solemn. Another sip of her mimosa, and Pen rests the flat of one knee against the edge of the dining room table, bare toes curling around the chair's seat, and she leaning forward. She rests her elbow on her knee, cups her jaw in the palm of her hand. "The most outrageous."

Nick
"It's not the same as seeing you this close," he says, and his hand breaches the short distance between them to rest on her knee, to trace the shape of it with his fingertips.

Nick furrows his brows and works another wedge of grapefruit out of its casing.  "I think the most outrageous might have been one I told Rob.  He made me swear I wouldn't tell you, back when we were all cabaled together."

Pen
"That's not seeing," Pen says, glance dipping to skim the shape of Nick's fingers, the back of his hand, his wrist and his arm before finding his eyes again; there her glance sets anchor.

The power of suggestion: Nick works on his grapefruit half. Pen works on hers. Pen likes eating disgusting healthy things and doing horrifying to sane people healthy things in the morning, so she quite enjoys this grapefruit drenched in sugar Nick has provided for their feast.

Look how wide her eyes go; how clear their color, quartz-light, mercury glass; "He made you swear? How long did he believe it for?"

Nick
"Longer than he will admit to," Nick says.  "A little while after I first joined the cabal, he was curious about the Chakravanti initiation process.  We were still getting to know each other - it started a little that Christmas Eve before we had to go find you at Liz's.  I realized after I told him a little that he didn't know much."

Nicholas, who does not really enjoy doing healthy things in the morning, is still very much enjoying the grapefruit.  It isn't that healthy, after all.  "At first I didn't tell him much because I was trying to come up with a good lie to tell him, which made him persist in trying to get it out of me - you know how he does.  I eventually told him that our death rituals during initiation are presided over by a grandmaester whose location and identity we keep very quiet, for obvious reasons.  The maester was ancient and had completed the ritual death over and over to the extent that he or she was barely human anymore.  I hinted that I believed it was maybe a vampire.  Anyway, I had him convinced that there was a Chakravanti archmaester who might actually be a vampire for a solid week before I started to get worried that he might take it too much to to heart."

Pen
"I understand why he didn't want you to tell me. That's an appalling lack of information on a subject House Tytalus is, alas, too familiar with," Pen says, virtuously and very Flambeauishly. Her eyes are no longer quite as wide, but the look she gives Nick is one up from beneath her lashes, and there's a smile still playing around her mouth, balanced against a certain thoughtfulness. "What do you think the most outrageous lie you ever told me is?"

Nick
"Probably a few months ago when you believed that I'd been a Hollow One once," Nick says, and there is a flash of a smile here, a devilish curl there at the edge.  He recalls well her reaction.

Pen
"Hmf. Perhaps not that outrageous," Pen says, and then takes a very precise bite of a very precisely torn piece of biscuit, mopped up in egg, with a slice of tomato. Her chin lofts, see, and then she swallows. Says, bright-eyed, "What is the most outrageous true thing you have ever told me?"

Nick
"Hm," Nick says, his fingertips again tracing the shape of her knee.  He tilts his head and a curl flips to the other side of his forehead, where it dangles like a party ribbon.  "Probably about the poison at the Chakravanti parties.  I still can't really believe that people actually do that, myself."  He dabs up the last few bits of yolk with a piece of biscuit.

Pen
[Should I be having empathy?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN4 (4, 5, 6, 7, 7) ( success x 5 )

Nick
[Subterfuge!]

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

Nick
[Nick is lying.  In fact Pen can't recall Nick telling her about this before, but she is familiar enough with the subject matter that she knows he is lying.  In fact he is half-hopeful she will catch him in the lie and get the joke, and half-hopeful that she won't.]

Pen
"Meticulous Nicholas was pretty," a melting glance - her tone a rake of pleased fondness, "ridiculous
When ridiculous Nicholas decided to lie.
But Penelope, splendidly, expectantly, and incredibly,"
A bite of her biscuit, and a sip of her mimosa.
"Unambivalently chivalrous asked Nicholas: Why?
Why, Nicholas, mischievous, with great sinfulness lie?
When Penelope lamentably falls for..."

Pen pauses; grins, this little crooked half-grin, shying toward abashed; she can't think of a good rhyming way to end it. "I mean, what a guy," and see, she takes another sip of her drink, to cool the flush that's come to her cheeks.

Nick
There is a sidelong glance toward her, a half-lashed thing, as he eats the last shred of prosciutto on his plate.  There is another smile there, caught out as he had suspected and half-hoped he might be, because he knew the lie was ridiculous even if it was convincingly told.

She finishes her rhyme and he laughs.  There's warmth in it, and he turns away from his plate so that he can place both of his hands just above her knees and look across at her.  "I don't recall my most outrageous truth being part of our bargain, anyway.  Were there other things I'm forgetting?"

Pen
"Ah. But there was another part of that win; don't you remember? Breakfast ready before I woke; the most outrageous lie you've ever told; and your tongue, all mine, for three days," and Pen: look at her, both solemn and mischievous, there across the table, his hands warm above her knee, the pink flush of her robe an afterthought. Pen rests a hand over one of his, then slides it up his wrist. Are his sleeves long? She pushes it up to expose bare skin, at least a little ways. "And among the very, very many things I plan on asking it to do for me, this: the most outrageous true thing you have ever told me."

Nick
He is wearing long sleeves, a sweater: the sleeves came down once he had finished cooking, once his hands were no longer covered in biscuit dough.  They are stretched from the time they spent around his elbows, and so it is not easy to push them aside and expose his forearm.  There is another laugh from Nick, a glance down at their joined hands.  "What do you think the most outrageous true thing I've ever told you is?  You're the better judge."

Pen
Pen's gaze goes distant, slants off to the side and upward; she is still near dreaming, and this is nothing like her usual morning ritual, which she is so strict about keeping; even the variations are just another strictly kept schedule; Pen is not naturally someone who sticks to schedules, but her will is strong. All to say: she feels close to dreaming, and she is perhaps silent longer than one would think, if she were going to follow with an answer.

"I don't know," she says, simply. "When you tell me what you think it is, perhaps I will remember because I won't agree with you."

Nick
Nick's hands curve around the sides of her knee as he waits for her response.  His gaze is expectant, and clearer than one would expect for the late-earliness of the hour, depending on how one were to choose to wrap their mind around this point in time.  "I think being Awakened with two Awakened sisters as a set of triplets is pretty outrageous," he says.  "That we all Awakened at the same time.  I don't know if I would believe things could be Fated, otherwise."

Pen
The shape of her mouth is touched by rue; concession. He has a point. Pen traces the ridge of his knuckles with her middle finger. "But you do believe things can be Fated because of that; your sisters, your tripartite Awakenings?"

Nick
"I'm not entirely sure," he says, "but I think some things might be."  He is leaning forward, partially out of a desire to be closer to her and partially because he is so tired.  "I think we're probably fated to do only things we would have chosen for ourselves anyway.  Or to...well.  I don't know."

A corner of his mouth lifts.  "Were you looking for something more outrageous than that?"

Pen
"I'm not looking for anything specific. Only an answer, which is true, to balance out the lie." Pen reaches over and tweaks Nick's chin, and then finishes off her egg, forking it onto the last of her biscuit, finishing it off with a strip of prosciutto, and: mm; salt; tart. "What's the most outrageous true thing I've ever told you?"

Nick
Nick's gaze is wandering toward the kitchen, a more directed thing than his wanderings generally are: he wants another biscuit.  He is thinking of putting butter and jam on it or maybe butter and honey or maybe just another poached egg even though there aren't any more poached eggs are there.  He would have to make them and he's not going to make them.  He's not hungry and it will not do anything to make him less tired, fresh biscuits are just that good.

"That you and Rob used to date," and here his eyes return to her and there is a quirk of his mouth.  "I'm not jealous, I just can't imagine it."

Pen
Pen's nose crinkles, and she sips the rest of her mimosa in one long and long and shouldn't she and no not breathing because one long sip, then sets it down again. "Hmmmmmmmm," she says, and it is her attempting to be neutral and aloof, while being grumpy, annoyed, and doubtful. But look how good the 'hmmm' is. Explicate the low cadence of it, the sonorous gentility of the sound. It is not a word, but it is not quite a lack of word; it is invitational, while at the same time also being a finisher; a considerate engaging snippet of aloofness. The perfect response. Pen's eyes hood, and glance cast down at her knee and-or Nick's hand.

Nick
The perfect response, but it still holds his eyes there a second too long, asks them to linger and sweep over her face.  It is aloof.  It is a topic he knows she does not especially like, and yet: she did ask him for a bit of truth, when sometimes it is better to lie.

He gives her a little smile that has a whisper of apology in it and rubs his hands over her knees.  "Do you want anything else to eat?"

Pen
"I want an apple cooked in honey and clove, sliced on a toast smeared with goat cheese, if not a sliver of the golden sun himself," Pen says, still aloofly, and see she flicks a glance up at Nick like a whip or a thorn, some delicate lash, some lovely sharpness, and: how clear the gray of her eyes. They mark how weary he is, poor Nicholas.

She brushes past his hands on her knees, only so she can run her hands up his thighs beginning at his knees, lean forward. "What's the happiest order you ever obeyed?"

Pen does not like to lie herself; she tries never to do so. Lying and misdirection are not quite the same thing.

Nick
Nick's eyelashes flutter at her request, bat against his cheeks in gentle protest because he would very much like to close them, to nestle in his blankets and maybe talk Pen into joining him.  "I'll make it for you," he says.  "If we still have goat cheese.  I think we still have goat cheese."

Will she ask him to run to the store?  He hopes they still have goat cheese.

The happiest order, she asks after, and he does not move back when she leans forward.  He could kiss her now, if this were the moment he were so inclined.  His eyebrows tilt in amusement.  "What does 'order' mean, here?  Are Mom's requests to clean my room lumped in?"

Pen
"Mmhmm."

Pen folds her arms over his lap and rests her head in the cradle she has made, and looks up at this new-perspective, different-perspective dark Nick thoughtfully. The robe's satin is gracious in how it catches the light; traps it; bends it into a current, a suggestion of movement; of glamour, of illusion; illusive, elusive; a warm glow, the roundness of her shoulders, the flex of her spine and its curve, when draped so by rose. Dawn-light, bent to a purpose.

Nick
His hands leave her knees and slide all the way up the outside of her thighs to her hips, and here they curve around and settle on her back.  The robe is satiny soft beneath his fingertips, slides against his hands like water.  It helps him imagine soft blankets.  A pile of very soft blankets.  Blankets tucked between his toes and beneath his chin.

There is a ruminative noise in the back of his throat.  "When my sixth grade civics teacher asked me to come in for an extra assignment so that I didn't have to play football.  I complained about the extra work, but it was for this honors society thing she thought I'd be good at."  He tilts his head.  "That, or when Anna told me to shut up and ask you to hang out alone."

Pen
"So definitely not when your Mom told you to clean your room then?"

Pen says, with a sly quirk of her mouth; she hides it behind her wrist - easy enough. "And not when I told you to leave the dishes for me to do?"

"Did Anna truly tell you to shut up? What would you ask me to say, if you'd won a bet and had control of my tongue for an entire three days?"

Nick
Nick has begun a slow slide forward: sooner or later he's going to be lying across her back with his cheek against the back of her shoulderblades, if he keeps going at this rate.  "No.  Though my room probably did need to be cleaned on all of the occasions."  A thoughtful pause.  "I do like when you offer to do the dishes."

Sliiiiiiiide.  His cheek finally does come to rest against the softness of her robe.  "She did tell me to shut up.  In her defense, I was nervous about spending time with you and I kept talking about it."  There is another pause.  She can hear, if she listens, the faint rasp of his eyelashes as they sweep against cloth.  "I would ask you what lie you always wish you could tell, if you could lie perfectly.  And I would ask you for stories, and for poems.  I would want to know what Working you did that you've been the happiest with."

Pen
"You were silly to be nervous; it concerns me - that I wasn't easy to approach, especially when I would have welcomed the approach," Pen says, and bent as she is, and with Nick's cheek against her shoulder blades, her voice is constrained - pressure on her diaphragm. Her voice is a tarnished version of itself; see the smoke in it, the reflective quality gone to rust; blood and ozone; the taste of lightning, licking a silver spoon; metal. "You really think dating Robin was the most outrageous thing of all outrageous things? It is more outrageous than when I told you about the swan curse, with the feathers? More outrageous than when I told you about the priest and the Thin Mints? I'll give you one of yours, in a slant-wise fashion, or at least contest the premise of part of it: I can lie perfectly. I simply haven't done it yet, but when I do, nobody will suspect it of me, since I am not that great at -- well. You know."

Nick
Nick's fingertips run down over her spine, and he tilts his head a fraction so that he can watch them curve over each ridge and dip, watch the play of light along her robe as it shifts against her skin.  "The priest with the Thin Mints was pretty outrageous.  So was the time you and that Chakravanti you knew found the talking book.  Maybe I want to change my answer," he says.

His hand stills, flattens against the hollow of her back, and he nuzzles his cheek in, presses his mouth against the sharp edge of her shoulder.  "When you can lie perfectly, what will the lie be?"

Pen
"I cannot tell you without compromising the perfection of the lie; you would know it was a lie then, and be prepared; and see through it; and it would be as gauze; the sun shining behind it, brilliant and blinding; and all you would see would be the lie, because the rest faded, and that is not the way to lie perfectly. The perfect lie is an invisible stitch which holds the entire thing together."

Pen: like the sea, she shifts; not restless, but always in motion; motion is poetry: it is the crash and the clamor, the stillness and the gleaming; it is the shadow, too, and the delicacy of salt-spray; and Pen shifting only makes her arms into a more comfortable cradle, turns her head so she - not see Nick. He is resting on her back; but she can see the general direction he is in; his forehead; his eyelashes, maybe, one eye; one eyebrow. The shadow beneath his curls.

"The talking book was not outrageous," and she is, dismissive. "It was only uncanny. Do you want to change your answer? Why'd you say that one?"

Nick
"Would it have to be a lie to me?" he asks, and his voice is beginning to sound faraway even though she shifts beneath him.  His body sways with her, and it is becoming heavy.  "I just liked the talking book story.  I can't remember what it said to you, just that I thought it was really weird and strange at the time."

Pen
"No, I meant - " Pen stops. She closes her eyes because they are what she is sharpest with, what she is extraordinarily perceptive with, and it is good to do without one's edge. Every edge becomes blunted eventually: she remembers being told that. Then, "Crow, you should make me that golden sliver of the sun now."

Nick
There is an inquiring noise, a soft thing that curls at the edge see, the way a sliver of wood will curl in flame and turn to smoke and ash.  He would like to stay exactly where he is; Pen's back is comfortable.  "What did you mean?"  His hand stirs against her back again, and she can hear a soft little exhale as he reluctantly draws himself up and away from her.

Pen
"I meant to ask why'd you say your first answer - dating Rob," Pen says, and she nestles deeper into Nick's lap. Now that he isn't resting on her back, she is cold; he is warm; and so it is. She only nestles for a moment before it becomes this fierce thing; before the ferocity dissolves; she recedes and lets him stand, sitting up and raking he fingers through her still-tangled hair, drawing the robe closed with a sharp gesture.

Nick
"Because I just thought it was funny and found it difficult to wrap my head around now," Nick says, and there is a shrug of his shoulders as he rests his fingertips on the table and pushes himself to his feet.  There is a glance down toward her once he is vertical, an searching thing, and he reaches out to catch a curl and brush it back to the correct side of her part.  "Did I upset you?"

Pen
Medusa curls in the morning, before he is usually awake to see them. They have a life of their own, crackle and hiss should a brush come near, and cling to his fingers, wrap around, constrict, tangle; it is not so easy to brush one away. "I just want to know; sometimes I am curious about how you see me." Pen smiles faintly. "Often it is clear in a way I can't reach; sometimes it seems as if you know me better than I do. But sometimes not."

Nick
"Well, I didn't always know you," he says, and when it becomes clear that the curl will snag and pull if he should shift it too far, he lets it fall back and gently sweeps a hand over her head instead.  "I see you as the bravest, most generous and most loving person I've ever known," he says.  There is a beat; there is a smile.  "Should I tell you that more often?"

Pen
"No," Pen says. "I don't need you to tell me that."

Nick
"Well, that's how I see you," he says.  He is still watching her, and gently brushes his thumb over her jaw.  There is a foot that is tilted toward the kitchen, and another that remains firmly in place.  He is awake, now, and watchful.  "Do you still want more breakfast?"

Pen
"I know it is," Pen replies. In the chair she stretches, arcing her back as if she wanted it to crack, then sinking in languor against the chair's back, crossing one leg over the next. She has long legs; there is a small scar on the back of one leg, right by her achilles tendon. Nick knows its story. "Sometimes I am curious situationally. I know how you -- you burn in my chest; and of course I do. A golden sliver of the sun, for my consumption. You furnish that dish, and I'll take my shower." Pen, she stands and wraps her arms around Nick's waist, holding him while she's telling him to go: of course. "Will you be able to make it?" A bit of mockery there, even- light-heated, light-handed, a wry curl to the tilt of her mouth.

Nick
Nick nestles his face in against her neck, against her shoulder, and in that moment she might begin to more seriously doubt that he is going to make it.  Then he says, "Yes, I can make it.  I will make it."  He sounds as though he is convincing himself.  Because he is.

When he pulls away it's after he places a kiss there on her collarbone, and it's to shuffle his way back to the kitchen so that he can peel and slice an apple, cut a slice of bread (or two) for the toaster.  The smell of honey and clove will reach her, upstairs after she steps out of the shower.  When she returns later she will find two plates laid out, and fresh toast that is just beginning to cool, smeared with goat cheese.

So she has her sliver of the sun, and Nick manages to stay up just long enough to eat it with her.  She has the sun, and soon enough he has his blankets, and curtains that make their bedroom as dark as a moonless night.

Colorado Springs Politics

Nicholas Hyde
A few weeks ago, Nick was able to obtain Angela Avella's number from Grace.  The Mercurial Elite has been in town for years and commands an almost terrifying amount of information: if anyone was likely to know anyone, it was her, and his supposition was a correct one.

Texting first is for people who are five to ten years younger than Nick.  Now that her number is in his phone, he simply calls her.  If necessary, he leaves a voice message first: that he is Nicholas Hyde, that he is Chakravanti and that he would like to meet if she is agreeable.  He mentions Grant.  He mentions that they probably ought to get acquainted, anyway.

Then he offers to meet her wherever she'd like in order to talk face to face.  He'll have someone with him: a Hermetic, his wife, and she is welcome to bring her Chorister friend if she would like.

A cast of thousands
It was a little offputting to know precisely how much information Grace could weild at any given time. If people understood the sheer volume of it, the sheer risk involved with knowing the loads of details logged away in her brain, they would be terrified. By all means, if the city had or needed a leader one would look to Grace.

But, like an encyclopedia, Grace Evans holds no allegiances or ambitions to be someone's rock. Just a source of information, perhaps. Or perhaps she does, but the nature of Grace was not there to be debated. No, insterad, they were put in contact with a Euthanatos who, it would seem, was more than ha[py to text Nicholas about the various and sundry things that they may discuss-

Those sundries, it would seem, involved tea at her partner's apartment. The Hermetic and the Chakravanti came to meet another with her own personal Chorister in tow. Angela looked forward to speaking with him in person, and gave good instructions on how to get to where they needed to go. Not supernatural instructions, but rather, the kinds of instructions that come from giving them so regularly that they are as natural as sighing at a tired joke.

Nicholas Hyde
And so, having gotten directions, Nick arrives at the Chorister's apartment with Pen.  (It is entirely possible that this visit was precluded by a scolding about giving his Tradition out on someone's voice mail.  Nevertheless: here they are.)

The two of them arrive at the apartment very nearly on time, and as Nick reaches it he first texts Angela to let them know that they have arrived.  He takes inventory of the outside of the building first, but he doesn't look too closely.  When it comes to this sort of thing, any tactical thinking, he generally leaves that to his wife.  He's not very good at it.

Penelope Mars
They take the car so Nick can drive. Pen wants her hands free during the ride over and she spends much of it drawing in a little hand-sewn journal of no particular loveliness or resting her temple against the window, gazing out beyond the pale omen of her reflection.

Because Pen is Pen she has indeed already put her mind to what her husband would call 'tactical thinking,' which is to say she has looked the building up on google earth and examined city maps, just to get a feel for space in the mundane way; it will serve her, just in case.

Because Pen is Pen, Nick did indeed receive a scolding. Imagine this: Nick leaving a message just prior to receiving a text back; Pen walking by the open door of his study; a stray word catches her attention; she reappears framed, at the threshold, leaning with her shoulder against the wood; he hangs up. She says, Did you just leave a voice mail in which you identified your Tradition by name? With your full name?

Because Pen is Pen, she looks like a painting.

The name of the painting, and its exact measure of moody loveliness, to be determined at a later date; something with smolder, of course.

"What was the apartment number?"

She buzzes for entry, or knocks on the door, or Nick's texts summon the buzzer or Angela herself before either willworker gets to it. Either way: no delay; there is elegance in action.

A cast of thousands
There was elegance in action, yes, and the grounds for the complex are neat if not a little mundane. Two story buildings connected by paths among a series of two story buildings and a set of trash cans at the four corners of the complex. They do not recycle here. The laundromat and the pool appear to be in the middle of the complex. The apartment in question is right across from the pool and conspicuously far away from the leasing office.

The person who opens the door is neither tall nor short with square shoulders and a straight posture. Her hair is back in a ponytail- held high but with the curl to it that suggests it had previously been in a bun earlier and she had not actually shaken it out. She's wearing basketball shorts and a tank top/sports bra combination. Comfy clothes, or clothes that you wear right before you're going to work out in.

"Nicholas Hyde, right?" she says when she looks at him. Offers a hand and eye contact. She talks like a cop. Talks like a detective, but the kind of detective that's used to being the good cop in the equasion. "Angela Avella."

She steps aside to let people in The room is set up like there was a twelve step meeting here. A reasonable sleeper sofa, an abundance of fold out chairs. A dining room table pushed back to the wall filled with coffee pots and plastic cups and sugar in one of those pour out containers that only come in diners because nobody actually uses them at home unless they need to pour large volumes of sugar into something but not enough of a volume to warrant a quarter cup measure. The faucet is running in the bathroom- clearly, the other person expected is here.

Nicholas Hyde
Nicholas notices that they do not recycle at the complex, in his sweeping glance to the area around him.  Nicholas perhaps judges, a little bit.  (He and Pen, meanwhile, have been talking about keeping bees.)

He is not as picturesque as his wife by nature, or at least not in the same manner: Nick is a dark sonnet, some swirling charcoal sketch given shape in a particularly somber mood.  He wasn't sure how to dress to meet Angela and so he has come in a pair of grey corduroys and a pale pink shirt.  His hair was tamed today, at least in moderation.

"Yeah," he says, and he reaches to shake her hand once it is offered to him.  "Nice to meet you.  This is Penelope."  He gives Pen space to offer her full name, as she would like: he suspects she would like to.

As he steps inside, Nick takes inventory of the space.  "Is your place where you all usually gather out here?"

Penelope Mars
Pen offers her hand, too. And part of her craft name, see, without missing a beat " - Penelope Sylvia Mercury Mars bani Flambeau ordo Hermes. I go by Pen; how good to meet you. We brought cookies."

They did, too. A bag of chocolate chip and early grey cookies, which she hands off.

Her sleeves cuff at the elbows and are diaphanous, voluminous; they suggest the shape of her arms beneath, and see, around her wrist a silver bracelet and a large semi-precious stone (a strike of midnight's blue). The sleeves belong to a blouse of interesting, artsy cut; a V neckline which plunges down and down again to the cage of her ribs, of some fragile and iridescent fabric which seems like the river; it should be fire. It is pale silver; her eyes are a purer color. Her trousers are cut dashingly, very Romantic poet, with double buttons and embroidery down the leg, disappearing into her boots.

The boots are oxblood, much-scuffed, and painted on: a design of occult significance, though it only looks like a flower garden. Over her other arm she has her coat, which is the same midnight blue as the stone at her wrist; as the pin in her hair, which has been braided, fashioned into a bright coronet.

A cast of thousands
It's about the time when someone small and severe is coming out of the bathroom. She's dressed comfortably, but professionally. Jeans, yes, but still wearing shoes and it's her apartment. Button down shirt. Hair still in a bun and some kind of necklace stuffed deep within her shirt. It's a two bedroom. There's a small cabinet in the corner that is closed. There's a picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe on the wall.

Betwixt the two HIspanic women in the room, there is a very distinct feeling of the fanaticism that comes with pledging one's life to a cause and the hope that comes when you believe that it will end well. The determination that things Will Be.

The small woman is severe, but lights up immediately when she sees cookies.

"Oh! Let me take those," she looks pleased. Delighted

"This is Isolde Martinez-" of the Celestial Chorus, she calls from the kitchen. She's getting plates and raiding the pantry. "You and I share a tradition, Mister Hyde, but... I think you alreqady knew that."

She steps into the room.

"You can take a seat wherever. Get comfortable before we get to business?"

Nicholas Hyde
When invited, Nick moves to take a seat at one of the ends of the couch, and wedges himself back into the cushion.  He'd paused a moment to shake Isolde's hand as well ("Good to meet you too, Isolde,") and leave the handing of the cookies over to Pen.

Nick flings an ankle over his knee in a way that almost appears haphazard.  His eyes flick, once, to the picture of Our Lady on the wall.

"That sounds good to me," he says, of getting comfortable.  "Sera told me both of your Traditions back when she told me about Grant and asked me to speak with him.  She said you both initially made contact with her."

Penelope Mars
Isolde lights up when she sees cookies; Pen, who is reserved, self-possessed, and clearly passionately invested in the present (Big Personalities), smiles; it touches her eyes. "I hope you like them." When Isolde disappears back into the kitchen, "Can I help?"

And if it seems like she can help, the next paragraph is a lie, because Pen will follow into the kitchen and make herself useful carrying milk and honey and tea or platters or what-the-heck ever she can.

Nick takes the couch. Pen sits on one of the folding chairs; kitty corner to the couch, leaving it or some other folding chair for the hosts. Her posture is languid; she rests her elbow on the back of her chair, simply being aware and attentive.

A cast of thousands
"I know I talked to her," Isolde called back, pokes her head back into the living room, "and yes, I would love help."

She meanders to the middle of the room, trying to get things together as best she could for guests. She has tea cups down, but no saucers. Isolde looks at Pen desperately as she gives a quick look up to the top shelf.

"Well," Angela said to Nick. She meanders over to one of the folding chairs and takes a seat comfortably there, "we had originally tried to contact Annie about all of this- the woman who runs the chantry in Morrison? If I understood Isolde correctly, she went to talk to Annie, ended up talking to Sera, and they made arrangements to come here.

"We would have loved for him to stay but... well... the powers that be in this city aren't very understanding."
"They would have used him as a scapegoat at the first opportunity," Isolde snorted from the kitchen.

It's not a large apartment, you see.

Nicholas Hyde
It's not a large apartment, which allows their hosts to banter back and forth and also keeps Pen within sight of Nick, which is as he prefers around strangers.  If there ever were any hostilities, Pen is likely all standing between him and untimely death, save whatever clever trick he could produce on the spot.

"I've actually never met Annie," he says, and then falls quiet to listen to the rest of what the two of them have to say.  He glances back, once, toward Isolde as she cuts in.  "Sera told me you both didn't think you really had the means to keep him safe," he says.  "He's doing all right, at this point.  He's safe up in Sera's cabin.  He and I have been talking pretty regularly."

A beat.  "I'm not sure how involved you'd both like to stay with him at this point, but I'd like to have him released into my care once we've assured his safety from his father.  It'll be easier for me to help him have a life he actually wants if he lives in the city."

Penelope Mars
The look of desperation is eloquent enough. Pen, who is taller than Isolde, goes on her tiptoes and brings down whatever is to be found there.

She has an ear on the conversation in the other room just as Isolde does and she says, "Pardon me, but safe from who or what? Which 'powers that be' do you mean? A scapegoat for what sort of thing?"

A cast of thousands
[Isolde: I. Am. Not. Angry]

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

A cast of thousands
"Evelyn Murray," Isolde all but spits. It's about as much as Angela can do to wince and stay completely impartial, or at least stay informative but the inhalation of breath and the careful tension says that they've had conversations about this.

"The heads of our current chantry, Evelyn and Landon, are pretty wary of outsiders. There was... an incident a couple years back that ended with our previous leaders, Melissa and James Ivy, dying in a technocratic ambush. It was before my time," she says apologetically, "but since then Evelyn and Landon have ben really wary of newcomers in the city. We have a few now and then- maybe more than our fair share, but they never seem to stay long."

"I just don't want to see a kid with as much riding against him as Grant did getting thrown under the bus, that's all," Isolde clarifies. She presses the pedal on the electric tea kettle. Down.

"We'd love to stay in contact if he wants to keep in touch," Angela replies.

Nicholas Hyde
[I'm sensing some layers here.  Perception + Empathy.]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9) ( success x 2 ) [Doubling Tens]

A cast of thousands
Oh no. Evelyn is not a topic that Isolde likes. Nope. Nope nope.

Penelope Mars
[:D Do Iiii get to be more full of empathy here? -2 'coz eyesight and I'm lookin' at you IS-OL-DE.]

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

Penelope Mars
[Damn it!]

Nicholas Hyde
[Oh Pen.  You had your chance.]

Penelope Mars
[Pen: I'll have it again. :< ]

Nicholas Hyde
A few days ago, Grace told Nicholas about Evelyn too: he was drunk or well on his way to it, and drawing information out of Grace is a long process that requires untangling all the information she presents, but he knows enough to let it inform Isolde's reaction.  There is a smooth arch to his brows which appears as Isolde says her name.

"He doesn't know very many people so he'd probably be happy to stay in contact with you," Nick says.

There is a look cast from his Traditionmate back toward the Chorister in the kitchen, a thoughtful thing.  "Another Denverite told me you both have had some trouble with disappearing apprentices," he says.  "Was that what your concern was for, regarding his safety?"

Penelope Mars
"Your current chantry?" Pen asks, with subtle (curious) emphasis on 'current.' Is there a refrigerator, and in that refrigerator, milk? Let us say there is. Is there a ubiquitous cow creamer? Perhaps; Pen handles the milk. It's the ballad thing to handle. "Do you mean to say you might leave it; or it is rather newer, built on the foundations of some other?"

That plus Nick's question re: apprentices is enough for now; Pen is attentive! She is so (ardently) attentive. Mr. Darcy has nothing on Penelope Mars.

A cast of thousands
"When Melissa and James went, most of the actual resources we have went with it," Angela clarifies.

Sure enough, there is cow creamer. Cow creamer and an actual glass bottle of milk. She probably bought it from an actual dairy farmer, too. Isolde Martinez doesn't seem to mess around when it comes to produce and dairy.

"Until we can figure out precisely what is doing it and why the newest of us are being picked off, we tried to keep people in different places. I have someone sleeping on my couch right now that apparently survived the shit show of an experience that was going on in Montana-"

"Wyoming?" Isolde called back, like she wasn't sure which it was.

"One of those. I get them mixed up. Big place, lots of space... anyway, since Grant and Lydiahave something in common we weren't sure if they should meet each other or if they should be in the same city... She asked about him, but..." Angela looked confused, uncertain. She gave a raise of her shoulders, eaches back to tighten her ponytail. "It's... I feel like I'm floudering. I don't know what to do for both of them at the same time so Isolde and I decided to figuratively divide and consquer."

She makes a face, knows it isn't the right word.

Nicholas Hyde
Nick watches the tea and milk as they emerge from the kitchen, glancing from time to time toward Angela as she speaks.  "What happened with Lydia?  If she knew about Grant, did they have some sort of connection to each other beforehand?"

He is biting the inside of his lower lip; a little divet has appeared there below where it swells.  His gaze wanders out and back toward: the room, the picture of the Virgin, the kitchen.  Wherever it goes.  "Is there anyone else at the chantry who is doing much about the missing apprentices, or is it mainly just the two of you who seem concerned?"

Penelope Mars
Pen does not add anything after Nick's questions. Pen helps bring tea out, not for Nicholas, Isolde can give Nicholas his tea, but for herself and for Angela.

"Montana?" The state's name finds an echo; Pen's eyebrows have drawn together, sharp, but other than that implicit question (what the fuck happened in - Wyoming?), she doesn't pile any questions on top of Nicholas's, for now.

She drinks her tea with a tiny, tiny bit of sugar, and a tiny, tiny bit of milk; fortify.

A cast of thousands
"Lydia... there is- or rather, was, a video of Lydia floating around the internet of her awakening which, had she not done so, she would have been the next moneymaking star on the Mortis Cafe website," Angela says. Honest and direct and to-the-point, "she said that she had a few meals with a kid named Grant. She was worried about him."

"Grant said he had a few friends online, it turns out he and Lydia's boyfriend did a few hacking endeavors online together," Isolde shrugged and carried the cup over to Nick. It's a small cup with a smaller chip inlaid with gold across the rim. There are flowers in the cup, on the cup, flowers at the base inside like roses but not quite. Not real roses. Not real anything, those flowers.

Isolde takes a seat on the couch, doesn't prop her feet up there.

"Mostly, we're a two woman team. Since Angela and I are on the force we're the missing person's unit, usually... not that anyone really gives a care."

Nicholas Hyde
"Ah," Nick says, and up until now he had not known the name of the website.  "Thank you," he says as he accepts the cup of tea from Isolde.

Nick then leans forward to take up a spoon so that he can add to his tea a liberal amount of sugar and milk.  Not to the point of making it cloying, but: evident that he likes it sweeter than Pen does.  "Now that I've talked to Grant more he seems a lot less interested in doing hacking-type stuff anymore," he offers.

"Gives a care?  Have you not seen a lot of help?"

Penelope Mars
Pen listens, see, is a good listener, even, with her air of reserve, her self-possession: as if where ever she is, she is home; even though the world doesn't quite suit; she suits the world. See? Pen does sit in one of the folding chairs; fills out the square so they're as neat as red diamonds at the corners of a playing card.

"You said Melissa and James were killed in an attack made by the Union? Were Evelyn and Landon caballed with Melissa and James? Do either of you share Tradition with them?"

A cast of thousands
"Good," Isolde says, a little like an irritable mother, "that boy needs to go outside more. He's like a ghost, sunshine is a blessing. I was lucky to get him to come out on the porch, though."

"James was Isolde's mentor," the taller woman informs them, "his wife Melissa was an Ecstatic. It was James and Melissa in a cabal with a Hermetic named Odhrain along with Evelyn and Landon. They... it was a big divide in the city. Evelyn and Landon said it was Odhrain's fault-"
"But Odhrain wouldn't do that because I knew him and he wouldn't betray his cabal-" Isolde spoke quickly, exasperated at what seemed like a raw nerve. A fresh memory.
"Whatever the case, Evelyn and Landon had a lot of evidence on their side. Odhrain's gone, Evelyn and Landon are holding the city together now..."

Isolde took a moment after listening to what it was Angela said. They were both quiet for a moment. Both women measured but one of them visibly shaken, visibly passionate. It was Isolde, though, the chorister with the bright and devoted and final feeling about her that was so invested here.

"You have to understand, you have to- people? People have a lot of bias against the Chorus, the fact that James was able to lead the city at all was a big deal. In order to gain trust you have to be beyond reproach and... well, you get it-" she gestured to Pen, Penelope the Hermetic. Penelope who shared a tradition with the man who sounds like he got run out of town on a rail.

Nicholas Hyde
Nick furrows his brow as he listens.  Part of the appeal of Denver to Nick has been that the community is smaller, more intimate, less structured than the one they left; in New England there had been a sprawling community and the Hermetics and Choristers had a tight hold on many of the chantries.  This is the other side of having a small community: the divide, the infighting, the pick-your-sides.

"I understand that," he says to Isolde.  "So it sounds like neither of you trust Evelyn and Landon very much, especially not after this happened."

Penelope Mars
"Odhrain, hmm? What was the rest of his name?"

A cast of thousands
[1-2-3: Tytalus, 4-5-6: Fortunae, 7-8-9: Bonisagus, 10: Flambeau)

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (10) ( success x 1 )

A cast of thousands
"My vote is still out on them," Angela informed Nick, "the data doesn't make her look good, but I don't have anything solid. You can't act on a feeling, especially when it could be wrong and you uproot a whole city."

Though, there was the question of Odhrain's name, and Isolde looks like she really has to think of it, "Odhrain Arthur Reinhardt, house Flambeau."

Dance Ninja

Pen
[Let's see... Wits (Specialty) + Enigmas for starters.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5) ( fail ) [Doubling Tens]

Pen
[TEMPER.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Pen
When Nick finally gets to the 1-Up at Colfax he finds the most dashing, the most elegant Penelope Mercury Mars in the back of the arcade room, beyond the long bar with its dim atmosphere enlivened by luminous colored neon, with its deep and water-color shadowy lacquer, its very cheap beer. Marvel at the wood ceiling which looks like it should be the floor, exposed brick walls, stone arches leading toward a patio. Ooh and ahh over the smell of something frying, onions maybe, a simmer-sizzle which snakes through the air like a trick of a brush-stroke, like that shivery shaky feeling that comes of hunger. Listen close to the sound of people, mostly adult people (definitely only adult people), playing games.

Nick has been treated to a number of recent texts -- he was driving, so perhaps he did not check them -- on the theme of:

This game, Nick, is trying my patience!
I know I could, in theory, do certain things which would make certain balls only do what I wished them to do, but should I do that???
It would be good practice
It would not be good practice
I am practicing patience
I am so very patient. Don't you think I am? I think I failing at patience. I wish that I knew already whether I'd been patient or not!
I want to
Wait ignore that
Nick, why must you be so important to your work? I miss your eyes!
I would never blow up a pinball machine. It is a work of miniature art.
Repeat, repeat, ad infinitum.
Someone just attempted to show me up at this game, Nicholas!!
I am going to drink more beer!

She has attracted a friend. A female around their age with dark hair and a lumberjack flannel and a very green tshirt for some kickstartered boardgame, who is drunkenly and subtly trying to flirt and also get some quarters from Pen.

Pen has the air of a cat watching a red laser, her gray eyes wide; from a profile, they'd be a pale and luminous gray instead of the dark they sometimes come - a light-shot gray, illumined by the arcade. Toggle-jerk toggle-yank full-body-leeeeean and, "Hell and the Devil's gilded acorns on a silver stick carved by Houdini's shoemaker," Pen swears.

Nick
When Nicholas arrives in Colfax, he is already pulling at his tie and at the buttons on his button-down shirt to loosen them.  He arrives in the parking lot and pulls his shirt off, tugging a T-shirt on as he makes his way to the bar, bare chested in the parking lot and disregarding: men can do these things.

He arrives and Pen will find her husband weary today (a Monday) but dressed in an orange T-shirt with a sun and happy chicken printed across the front, topping the chinos and somewhat fashionable sneakers he wore to work.  He had taken a moment to read her texts, not without amusement, before entering the 1-Up.

Nicholas spies his wife and her new friend and walks over toward the two of them.  Held between his hands are three glasses of beer: Pen's preference, and a Corona for himself, and whatever he had managed to get out of the bartender for the third.  He steps up behind Pen, who seems so intent that he does not want to disturb her as she leans over the console.  Nevertheless, "Hello.  Are you laying waste to your enemies?"

Pen
"I am not." Pen drops (flash of silver) one quarter and then another into the coin slot. She answers easily enough but gaze does not lift from the pinball machine: the canvas of her battle-field, her game. Her concentration is undiluted; her focus is total. "There are no enemies. Only - "

Start. And the ball drops, and Pen -

We'll revisit.

Meanwhile, Pen's new friend examines Nick and then smiles at him. "You shoulda heard her swear though. I think I shoulda copied some of those swears down for later. Hey, I'm Roscoe."

Pen
[And Wits again, c'mon!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 4, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 3 ) [Doubling Tens]

Pen
[And follow up.... Dex + ... eh, Athletics, I suppose.]

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

Nick
Nick watches Pen add another quarter into the machine.  His eyes are hooded, and amusement is pulling at one corner of his mouth as he sets the three beers down on a nearby table.  "Only what?"

This is before the ball has dropped and Pen is lost again in a whirl of spinning metal bits and flapping paddles.

And so Nick turns his attention to Roscoe, recently introduced as Roscoe, and he wipes a streak of beer off of the muscle bunched between thumb and forefinger on his pants and extends a hand to her.  "Hi. I'm Nick," he says.  "I brought you a beer, the bartender said it was your last one."  A glance toward Pen.  "She gets very into ga...everything."

Pen
"I do not get very into everything. Only interesting things, worth getting into," Pen says, because of course, in one of those obnoxious 'unfair' twists of fate, she is very good at multi-tasking in this way: paying attention, or half attention, to a conversation and slipping in a remark at just the right  moment. She is very into the game of pinball, though, and fast this time; as fast as she needs to be, as quick as, but not too quick, the right balance of - and by the end, she is smiling this neat pleased-with-herself smile that threatens to dredge out her dimples but isn't quite doing it.

"Yeah, it was. Thanks, man." Roscoe, who has a streak in her hair of that trendy silver storm cloud gray, very obviously an affectation rather than a natural streak of gray, flips said gray-streaked lock of hair out of her face and takes the beer and is still figuring Nick and Pen out a little but in a quiet and watchful way. "What's your deal?"

Nick
Nick is watching over his shoulder as the light above the pinball machine flashes quickly enough to send anyone epileptic into a seizure, as the chime sounds several times and the ball bounces around between the rubber barriers.  His smile is still there; Pen is good at multitasking but is very obviously focused and pleased with herself.

He is standing so that he includes Pen's new friend, and with his beer in hand he glances back at her and meets her eyes once.  There is a furrowing of his brows at her question.  "My deal?  She and I are just here to hang out for the evening."  He takes a swallow from his glass. "She's going to probably kick my ass at pinball though.  Why?"

Pen
[Dex + Stealth!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 10) ( success x 1 )

Nick
[Perception + Alertness]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

Pen
"I was trying to be cooler than 'what do you do?'" Roscoe says. "You bought me a beer so, uh, yeah, friendliness, mayhem, whatever," and there's a wave of her hand; the one with the beer. "Yeh-hah there you go," because Pen has won! As much as one wins at pin ball!

Tickets slip out of the ticket slot, an inviting snake of fuschia, and Pen turns around to look at Nicholas for a moment. Not to smile at Nicholas, mind you, only to look. Her smile remains the same, but is the look in her eyes brighter does it reflect (hallowed) light or shadow back. She very sneakily slips one hand behind her back and makes some gesture there; Nick can spy it reflected in the pinball's glass.

"His deal is modesty, and a certain frustrating ability to speak of himself as if he is smoke and mirrors; five seconds ago I'd have said he'd beat me handily at pinball, but now - his deal is probably also that I am going to win him a super soaker. After I win you that frisbee!"

[I AM DOING MAGICK, YAY. Time, blah, things, diff 3 in the end, wee.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (3, 5, 9) ( success x 4 ) [WP]

Nick
"I'm a hospice counselor at the hospital," Nick says, and though it does not show in his face he is steeling himself for the inevitable questions and comments: How did you get interested in that work, doesn't it depress you, I don't think I could do that, you are a special person.  He has privately made a game of guessing who will respond with which comment or question when he tells other people.  "What about y - "  And he stops, glancing back over his shoulder at Pen as Roscoe cheers.

He can see her hand in the glass, and there is a flicker of ardor there in the depths of his eyes (which Pen has missed) which she can readily see.  "It's no fun to only have one super soaker," he says.

[Awareness?  What are you doing, Pen?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 6, 6, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )

Pen
"Agreed," Roscoe says. And then to carry on the polite part of the conversation, "Is that a nine-to-five job or an on-call-whenever job? It sounds dull for someone who self-describes as 'smoke and mirrors' however, uh, unintentionally?" A half-glance at Pen. And then, "I should get back to my friends, but you guys are welcome to join us when you've had your fill of arcade games."

Pen doesn't stop looking at Nick. But she holds a couple quarters out to Roscoe, who takes them with a grin. Pen is still pleased with herself; the dimples are still threatening; her eyes are such a color. But here she is multitasking again: "One super soaker can work just fine. Swell. Dandy! I hope we can play again later, Roscoe. It was very nice to meet you."

"Yeah," Roscoe says, pocketing the quarters. And Pen offers another pair of quarters to Nick and sliiiiiiiiiiiides dramatically to the side, a showman's sense of a crowd, and with one hand gestures sweepingly toward the machine. All the machines.

Nick is very attuned, just now, to anything uncanny; anything which tickles the senses, prick prick pricks at them; and he can tell that Pen is doing some Work; it tastes like the ardor (speaking of) behind a kiss; it tastes like fervency, like passion wedded to resplendence something shivering bright on clouds Monet's water lilies copper something; it tastes of a Dare You To. Dare Me To? This measurement of Time, the conjuring up scraping into being of another sense--or at least something involving that Art.

Nick
"Nine-to-five," is Nick's answer, and there is a half smile when Roscoe comments that it sounds dull: he, after all, does not describe himself as smoke and mirrors; that was all his wife.  She offers to let them drop by her friends and he smiles.  "Thanks.  Maybe we will."

Pen gives Roscoe some quarters, and Nick holds out his hand as the quarters clink into his palm.  There is a flash of a smile as he meets her eyes again, as her dimples are threatening.  "You seem like your timing is on point today, Pen."

He clinks the quarters in his palm and looks between the other games laid out before them and throughout the arcade.

Pen
Exit Roscoe, pursued by a bear.

You seem like your timing is on point today, Pen, does this to her smile: turns up the corners of her mouth just a little more, warms her eyes; there are the dimples, long and unaffected. "Do I? But how can you know for certain, Crow?"

Nick
Pen's dimples appear, and Nick ducks his head forward so he can place his lips over one of them, and he lets it linger there warm against her cheek.  "I suppose I could work on my own," he says, extending an arm so that he can set his beer down.

A moment later it becomes evident that he has done this because he is reaching beneath his collar with that hand for one of the bags that hangs there.  He comes free a moment later with a fingerful of ash, which he smudges across his forehead with a thumb, with such grace that it appears almost careless.  So he looks.

[Time 1, -1 for instrument!]

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (3, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

Pen
Pen tips her head to the side when Nick kisses her cheek. Nick sets his beer down and Pen picks her beer up and sips it, coy but without guile. Nick reaches beneath his collar for one of the bags which hangs there, Pen sets her beer down again, lips shining like sugar, and her eyebrows quiver together, strikes a knowing light look how much they know, how clear they are, and Nick has a fingerful of ash he draws across his forehead as if it were nothing, and as the line of ash is drawn Pen is drawn to, too cup his cheeks in both her hands and bump her forehead against his and not kiss him no not right now but to at least share the same breath for a moment and another and just make out already kids - " - that is one way to know. What would it look like, if I were? How would you know? Tell me about it," and a solemn tint to this, because Nick is the one who has taught her this Art, and she does not know how to wield it quite yet, though she finally has found the shape of it in her hand (so to speak).

"But we're here for games, Crow, I want to beat you. Or I want you to beat me," she adds this part, generously, and it is the truth.

And he is looking -

Nick
"I can tell that you're connected to the flow of it," he says.  "That you know what moment is going to come after this one because you know what's come before, and those things are cyclic and come back around."  Though perhaps Pen will interpret it differently; his own eyes when he looks back into hers know, there is this gleam to them.

He smells like beer, and there is a flash of teeth as she suggests games.  "What would you like to play next, then?"

Pen
"I am measuring," Pen says, and falls to musing, with a little crinkle of her forehead. "Learning the room with a measuring tape. It's interesting, isn't it, how an hour glass isn't an hour glass unless it can be turned. Even when it isn't turned and the sand's still, it can be turned or it has been turned. The verb's the thing. Verb you big much, thou riddle-scout." Pen's hands drop from Nick's jaw; they seem reluctant even though they fill up with a beer next. Instead, Pen stares at Nick and considers. Then, all generosity, "Fresh meat's choice."

Nick
Nick makes a thoughtful sound at what Pen says, as she offers her own perspective on a Sphere that came rather naturally to him upon Awakening.  "So what follows, if you can't measure without the turn?"

She takes her hands away from his jaw, and there is this slight tipping forward of his head, as though he too is reluctant to part.  At what she says next, there is a sudden laugh, one of the ones that rings: surprised and amused.  "So I'm fresh meat now?"  And his head was already leaned forward, so he doesn't have to lean much farther at all to kiss her.

They are in public and Nick is not quite as shameless as Pen, so it's a brief thing.  "I saw Soul Calibur over there.  I bet I can take you."

Pen
"Then you don't have an hour glass. You just have a glass - that'd be something different, wouldn't it? The turn is the hour. The turning." This strike of a clear and cool grey look - lambent; light shivering on a storm cloud; autumn, coming; except the way Pen looks at Nicholas there's always warmth in it. Verb in it. She doesn't at this moment in time try to lure Nick into acts which might get them talked about if not arrested. She closes her eyes and then opens them to glance in whatever direction his body language indicated Soul Caliber awaits, resting her brow against his to do so. Her eyes flick back; she says, "I bet you can't. What are you putting on the table?"

Nick
"So are you planning to learn to turn it, next?"  He meets her eyes, and there are hearthfires there in his, in their depths.  He reaches over her shoulder for his beer, hooks his chin over her collar so that he can take a swallow from the glass.  There is another laugh, a quieter one this time.  "If I win best three of five, then...hm.  We sleep in, peacefully, both days this weekend.  No waking at dawn."

Pen
"Are you implying 'no waking at dawn' is foreign to your policy?" Pen rests her cheek (lightly; just skimming) on Nick's crown when he leans over her shoulder. "Very well. If I win, then you will wake up before dawn and watch the sun rise over the city from the top of a hill we have just jogged up. Deal?"

Nick
"Not quite foreign, but you usually don't stay in bed with me," Nick says, and she can feel the pull of his cheek muscles against the side of her neck when he smiles.  He takes another swallow of beer and straightens, then takes her hand so that he can lead her over to the console.  "Your deal doesn't sound completely equitable, Mrs. Mars."

Pen
"I usually come back for you."

To the Soulcalibur arcade game they go. The console with its industrial silver control pad and its bright red and bright blue cartoon colors slick as slick is slick buttons and joystick its inviting coin slots the tinny music ready to burst into an atmospheric cheer just for them. While he's maligning her deal, Pen takes another swig of beer, and then says, "What will you do about it, Mr. Mars?"

"Would you rather be Mr. Mars or Mr. Mercury?" Here, this half-light smile; self-contained, self-possessed; deeply felt - vibrant.

Nick
There is a thoughtful noise in the back of his throat and Nick tilts his head as he considers her question.  "I think Mr. Mercury.  I can't see Mr. Mars suiting me," he says, and his fingers thread through hers even as they arrive at the machine.  They tighten briefly, because they will soon have to part in the name of button mashing.

"I think instead we should sleep in and then we can stay in bed and you can tell me three stories you haven't told me before," he says.

Pen
"Why not?" The half-light smile is in her eyes, though it leaves her mouth. Pen is fishing in her satchel for another scoopful of quarters, but not before Nick's fingers tighten and hers tighten too in echo hello.

"Hmmmmmm." She lets the mm go on longer than she might if she hadn't been drinking before Nick arrived, but she isn't tipsy yet quite. Still: early signs. "I think it sounds like the deal isn't very equitable in the other direction, Nicholas. You'd get to keep those stories forever, or until you lost them, as well as the memory of staying in bed. What would I get to keep? Add two stories, I'm generous, you haven't told me to my pile of wants, and you've got yourself a deal."

Nick
"I'm not very Mars-like," he says, with a sidelong glance in her direction.  There is the telltale narrowing there at the corners, even though he is not smiling precisely.  "But being quick and clever I can get behind."

He releases her hand and sets his beer down on a nearby table, after he has taken another swallow.  "You get to keep the memory of the sunrise, and the memory of having me there with you.  And you get the satisfaction of having me run up the hill with you," he says.  "One story I haven't told you, though, I'll agree to."

Pen
He's not very Mars-like. Pen hmms again, quite reflective, and raises an eyebrow, arch in the way of a knowing literary so-and-so of the early 21st century, and she also sets her beer down and nods toward the coin slots. Fresh meat's choice translates to fresh meat first, too.

"The memory of the sunrise and you there with me are the same memory; the satisfaction is another. And one story. Inequitable, if you're getting bed, memory of bed, then three stories. One story and a favor to be redeemed the next time we're in bed together."

Nick
"All right," Nick says, quite readily: though perhaps it will occur to him after that favor is a vague term, after all.

He steps over toward the coin slots and flicks a few quarters in with his thumb, then takes her hand once more and draws her over to the other side of the console.  A series of characters and faces present themselves for selection.  "Ready?"

Nick
[Wits!]

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

Nick
[Dex + Alertness!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN4 (4, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 4 )

Pen
[Ugh.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (5, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 4 ) [Doubling Tens]

Pen
[Ughugh.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN2 (1, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )

Pen
[Round 1, Nick!

Commencing round 2...]

Nick
[Wits, go!]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 8) ( success x 1 )

Nick
[Dex + Alertness, go!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN5 (5, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 4 )

Pen
[Aaaack.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (5, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 3 ) [Doubling Tens]

Pen
[Aaaaack.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN3 (1, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Pen
[Damn it, Nick. 2 for the trickster!]

Nick
[Wits?]

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

Nick
[Annnnnnnnd again...]

Dice: 4 d10 TN5 (1, 4, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )

Pen
[Nooo]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (6, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 5 ) [Doubling Tens]

Pen
[oooo...]

Dice: 4 d10 TN1 (6, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )

Nick
[Catching up, Pen.  Nick 2, Pen 1!]

Nick
[Wits!]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 10) ( success x 1 )

Nick
[And button mashing!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN5 (3, 5, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )

Pen
[Niiiiick nooo you want to get up at dawn it is true stop being good at the gaaame]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 6, 10) ( success x 3 ) [Doubling Tens]

Pen
[Before dawn to see dawn it's so good]

Dice: 4 d10 TN3 (3, 4, 6, 7) ( success x 4 )

Pen
[2 to 2. Dice, c'mon.]

Nick
[Wits! Come on, dice...]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 5) ( botch x 2 )

Nick
[Noooo]

Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (3, 5, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )

Pen
[:D :D :D]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (4, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 4 ) [Doubling Tens]

Pen
[:D :D :D :D :D]

Dice: 4 d10 TN1 (6, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

Pen
As Pen's many brothers might have occasion to tell Nick, Pen is good at predicting their moves, or ruining their moves by being just in the wrong place when they're ready to deploy those moves and win whatever game of the video they were playing together. Charles may have bemoaned. The younger ones, the half-siblings and step-siblings, may also have bemoaned. It isn't that Pen's great at these sorts of games; she's just quick.

So is Nick. Mercury, indeed. Clever, cunning, and on top of it. He defeats Pen so handily the first time that she freezes for an instant the hour glass unturned and rests her forearm on his shoulder and hides her face in it. But then she's ready to go again and mashmashmashbuttonhitpushtwist close but Nick is still:

clever

quick.

"Good job, Crow," Pen says, and she sounds impressed.

He's a Wheel Turner. He's used to reversals of fortune, right? The next game is close - very close - and long too, minute after minute after minute, dragging on and on, but Pen just manages to get the kill shot in. Rather than any vocal expression of triumph, for in truth she is not competitive in a way that glories in victory in any serious way, she casts Nick a sidelong look from underneath her lashes. Pause. Coins go in.

Fall of silver, click, are you ready?

Again. This time the battle is more quickly won; to Pen, again.

She doesn't give Nick a sidelong look this time, but lifts her hands up over her head, then presses both of her hands into her back, arcing her spine and stretching, followed up by reaching her hands forward lacing the fingers together and stretching and stretching. She bites the inside of her lip, a gesture she is not at all aware of, and...

The game starts before Nick knows it. Maybe something else caught his eye. He got distracted. It took a moment. Another. And by then he was just off his game. Defeat is quick.

Game over, bro.

Nick
Nicholas is indeed used to reversals of fortune.  He kisses the top of her head after the first round when he beats her handily, a gesture that somehow manages to communicate affection and amusement and sympathy all at once.  The second round: this he also wins, and as he begins the third he is certain that he is about to get three stories he hasn't heard before.

But, oh, this game goes on for a while, and when Pen gives him that sidelong look he grins.  He lost: he was still having fun.  Then she wins again, and she stretches, and:

The game starts before Nick knows it.  Nick was not watching the game; he was watching Pen bite the inside of her lip, the deep concentration on her face as she went back to the console.  It took a moment, and another.  Defeat is quick.

There is a long groan of despair that ends in laughter as he lets his head fall down to the console, against the buttons.  Already his vision of a weekend in bed is dissipating, is dissolving like sugar in coffee except that is far too pleasant a simile for what it will actually be like to wake up before dawn and run uphill.  "Well done, Pen," he says.  His face is still against the console, his hair flopped out before him.

Pen
One of the staff whisks by. "Sir you can't put your face on the console."

And whisks toward the kitchens.

Pen, her face alight, her hand having crept up the line of Nick's spine tracing it through his hideous orange tshirt up to the base of his neck says, "Ooooo somebody's in trouble," all sing-song, votaress, 'chantress, conjuring steeds out of the foam and turning men into pigs.

"What shall we play next? And for what?"

Nick
Nicholas obediently lifts his face away from the console, and takes a consolatory drink of his beer.  "Victor gets to pick," he says.  "And you can name your terms."

Pen
Pen loops an arm through Nick's and tugs him back toward the pinball machines. "Lord of the Rings pinball it is, Crow. Whoever scores the most tickets wins. Best out of three. And if I win, you take a day off work to do an errand of my choosing, and you tell me a secret you got from a spirit."

Nick
Nick follows her back toward the pinball machines, though he reaches behind him before they wander away for his glass of beer, which he drains and sets back on the table.  "All right.  If I win, we go to the shelter to look at puppies."

Pen
[Charisma and Expression for Melodrama!]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 3, 5, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )

Pen
Pen cannot restrain the deep from the tips of her toes to the chamber of her heart deep did we mention deep sigh at the thought of going to the shelter to look at puppies with Nicholas.

"As you wish," she says, sounding quite depressed, though the corners of her mouth lift after and she takes another sip of her beer.

Nick
Pen cannot restrain her sigh, and Nick looks sidelong toward her and: he places a kiss on the upturned corner of her mouth, at that hint of a smile.  "All right.  Want to trade off, or should I heckle you while you play three times?"

Pen
"Crow," Pen says, a rake of a thing, fondness welling up like blood might well in the silence left behind; she slips her hand into Nick's back pocket. "Caa. Caa." And her eyes half-close, hood; only this moon-sliver glint, mercury glass, molten, of the water-gray lake-light of her eyes, the pupils dark as a well. "We'll trade off; that's much more fun. But you're welcome to try and heckle me; it only means I'll," wickedness, wickedness in the smile, the generous curve of her eyebrows, "heckle you right back."

Nick
There's her hand in his back pocket, there's his arm around her as they reach the pinball machine.  The machine's backsplash is pure pulp fantasy, close ups of hobbit faces and a grey-bearded Gandalf, accompanied inexplicably by lightning and the eye of Sauron behind it.  Nick hands Pen one of the quarters she gave him earlier.  "What makes Lord of the Rings pinball different from other pinball?" he asks, as he leans over the glass to peer down into the machine's innards.

"Clearly what I should have done is brought you some whiskey.  Throw off your reflexes."

Pen
Pen laughs. "Whisky does not imperil my reflexes; nothing can do that except for - " A beat. Pen: she drops a quarter in, and lets her fingers hover over the game button. Lights gleam. The innards of the machine are all on a theme: a complicated, complex theme. Lights flash. "Well perhaps you can get it out of me if you win some other game - "

zip zip goes the ball and Pen

hitsthebuttonhitsthebutton

upupupnointothathole

notthat

thatotheroneohnonotyetack

plays the game.

Pen
[Moosh, moosh, pinball, moosh!]

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

Nick
[Hitting buttons!  Go!]

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

Pen
[Nonono. No sheltervisit no.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )

Nick
[Whaaaaaat.]

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

Pen
[:(]

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

Nick
[Must win!]

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

Nick
The two of them seem evenly matched, tonight.  It helps that these games are partially luck: not much to be done when the ball launches straight out and down into the center between the paddles, as happens from time to time.  The truth is that Pen, with her quick reflexes and her warrior's instinct and eyes, is better suited to this sort of game than Nick is.

Luck isn't on her side though, at least today.  The heavens seem to be conspiring to bring her to the shelter to look at puppies with Nicholas.  The first game he wins handily, keeps the ball bouncing for quite some time and gleefully.  And so she redoubles her efforts, and the ringing noises resound for even longer than they did in Nick's last round.

In the end, though, Nick is the one to ultimately win the most points between the three games: and so when the ball finally falls between the paddles at the end and his final score flashes up on the screen below Gandalf's beard, he glances Pen's way and brushes his hands off.  He looks very much like the cat that ate the canary.

Or the puppy that stole the roast off the counter moments before it is scolded.  As might happen to them one day in the near future.

Pen
Pen leans on the pinball machine one over from the Lord of the Rings pinball game, bracing herself against its sides, her balance dependent and her head bowed. She inhales slow, see, as she slides her hands down the pinball machine's edge, tracing its shape until she is standing upright again instead of leaning, and then she flicks her bangs out of her face. Nicholas looks so pleased with herself that after she has inhaled so slow, she smiles like a flicker of radiance in the clouds; lightning; Venus in the clouds, or Mercury, or Icarus. And she wraps one arm around his waist, and she rests her chin on his shoulder as she catches one of his hands with her other, lacing her fingers through his and pulling his hand over to her heart. "I guess we're going to look, with our eyes, at some puppies," Pen says. "Now what game do you want to play with me next?"

Nick
His fingers curl just slightly over her heart as she places his palm there, and his smile widens here.  There are times when the smile he wears blooms into something without reserve, becomes something clear and radiant: her influence, perhaps.  His other hand walks up the length of her spine and to her shoulderblades.  "We could play one of the dancing games," he says, and his tone has an air of fairness here: she has a definite advantage on him in games like that.

Pen
Pen doesn't quite laugh, but the promise of laughter is in her breathing: another slow exhale, after a quick inhale. Her mouth curls up; it is not against her will, but it is independent of its attention; this smile is what happens when her heart gets to operate independent of her mind; this smile is what happens when possessed she falls in love; or love possesses her; decides it wants her to be aware of its edge. This gleaming, this bright awareness: except not for the smile; all her attention is absorbed in the watching.

"Is that a pity pick?" Pen asks, while her thumb traces light the back of his middle finger, first knuckle to third. "Because I don't need your pity, Hyde."

Nick
"That's Mr. Mercury, to you," he says, and he leans his head over her shoulder to take inventory of the other games that there are around the arcade.  "You might need the pity pick, or next time I might make you come look at kittens, too."

Pen
"I'll look at all the 'cute' baby animals you want... provided I must because I lost a bet," here, curl of a grin; mischief surfacing in her eyes, see, like some luminous thing rising from the depths of a still pond. "Dance Ninja Battlefield Earth it is."

Nick
"They'll be sad and in need of homes," Nick says: clearly this evil plan had a fragment or two of thought included, even if founded on the incorrect premise that sad puppies and kittens will make his wife cave.  He pulls a few inches away from her so that he can begin to walk them near Dance Ninja Battlefield Earth, with twin platforms that lie in wait for them.

As they reach it, Nick springs up onto one of the platforms: evidence, if she needed it, that his feet have finally healed.

Pen
Pen finishes off her beer, and hands it to a passing staffer. How convenient, these passing staffers. When Nick disengages to spring, so agile, up onto one of the platforms, there's a needle of pleasure tucked away in her expression, not secret but small and sharp and keenly felt, to see him so well again. Pen does not spring; Pen affects a graceful languor, and strolls up onto the platform. "When I win this one, you need to give me your tongue for an entire three days, and you must tell me the most outrageous lie you ever have, and then get up early enough to wake me up. With breakfast, if you please."

Nick
Nick leans back against the railing on one side of the platform so that he can look across it and over at her.  He looks very devil-may-care that way, as though he were leaning on a ship overlooking the ocean.  "How good would you want the breakfast to be?" he asks, and there is another smile that curls there at the corner of his mouth.

"If I win, I don't want to do dishes for a week, Sunday to Sunday, and you'll owe me a new story or poem every day of that week."

Pen
"The breakfast must be a culinary delight, a wonder of breakfasts."

Duh, Nick. Pen: she bites the inside of her lip, subtle, subtle, for half-a-second, sweeping Nick with a look of the less easy to read than usual variety; complex; lake-light mystery. Then she flashes an audacious dimple and says, "You're going down, Nicholas. Not getting down."

Coins go clink clink clink, and on that bad 80s movie one-liner which she is very pleased with, the game begins!

Go go go! Ninja Dance Battlefield Earth! Save Earth from the aliens by dancing the dance of ninjas! Ninjas who can hip, hop, and groove, baby, groove.

Nick
[Dance dance ninja!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 6, 8) ( success x 3 )

Nick
[Stamina!]

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

Pen
[-_-]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )

Pen
[-_-]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 8) ( success x 1 )

Nick
[Hahahahaha]

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

Nick
[Stamina!]

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

Pen
[omg, what is this crazy mirror world]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Pen
[where Nick is better at physical things than me!]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (4, 8, 8) ( success x 2 )

Nick
[Do not jinx yourself Hyde]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 4) ( botch x 3 )

Nick
Luck is on Nick's side tonight.  While no one would look at him askance when he is in the middle of some physical undertaking, Pen definitely has the advantage on him there: has, ever since they met.  (Nick's athletic abilities deteriorated somewhat back in college, when reading and sitting in a counselor's seat took up most of his day.)  Still, he is giving a good accounting of himself.  His feet are quick and though his breaths are coming hard and fast, he is not showing any signs that he will flag or slow down.

He's doing so well, see, that maybe he's getting a little overconfident.  It works in his favor at first: he is jumping from side to side, moving his feet rapidly between the pads on the platform, and things are looking grim for Penelope Mercury Mars.

Nick is so focused that he hasn't yet noticed that loosening the belt on his pants might have been a mistake.  They have been finding their way lower and lower around his hips with each jump and spring and wiggle.  By the time he notices, it is too late to slow down; by the time he notices, they have slid down just far enough that -

And then they are down far enough to tangle his legs, haven't quite fallen down off his hips but -

His foot catches behind his knee because he cannot quite extend his leg far enough with them down that far.  It catches, and he goes spinning, overcompensates, tangles his legs in his already twisted pants which have fallen far enough that the mouth of one leg threatens to engulf a shoe -

Smack.  Against the ground, flat on his chest.  Hard.  The culprit thankfully left his underwear in place.

Pen
Pen does not see the peril Nick is in. After all: their are lights to pay mind to, patterns to follow, aliens to defeat with the power of dance.

The sound he makes when he hits the ground earns a negligent and quick glance; then her focus is back on - but no, then her gaze snaps back and she stops playing the game, both hands cupped over her mouth.

G A M E  O V E R. Earth has been overrun!

Pen swings down from her platform on over to Nick's.

"Are you all right?"

Nick
Nick is taking a moment to soak in the defeat; he leaves his face against the floor for a moment more before lifting a hand and giving Pen a thumbs up.  His hand wanders back to grip at the back of his waistband, perhaps fearing that along the way he'll find that he has ripped his underwear or something that would compound upon the humiliation and snatched victory.

Fortunately he has not.  He gives his pants a tug, though they have worked their way so far down that he might have to unbuckle his belt and unbutton them in order to get them back up to where they should sit.  He lifts himself on his elbows.  "I'm fine," he says.  There is a wry smile in her direction.  "I guess I'm making you breakfast."

Pen
Pen stays crouched near Nick while he regathers his dignity, concern only dissolving as Nick proves he is okay by being okay. Another sweep of a glance, measured, as the pants return to their rightful place at his hips; see, her lashes are low, a dark fringe, the gray of her eyes obscured by the shadow they sweep. The particular observer might notice this: how the shadow her eyelashes cast is spiky; how it only makes the gray clearer; brighter.

And then, irrepressible, Pen says, "I didn't think you'd take my threat so to heart, Crow. You didn't have to go this down. How about I get you another beer and we play giant Jenga?"

Beat. "Are you certain you're okay?"

Does his pride smart? Maybe no one saw!

Oh, people saw. Somebody calls out some encouragement. Another person comments on his derriere and another some comment about men's rights. Pen gives them a look like a fish-hook through an open eye;

Nick
Nick has arched his hips so that he can unwork his belt buckle and button more subtly than if he had to do it while standing up, and manages to wiggle his pants back up and around his hips.  He buttons and rebuckles and pushes himself back to his feet, with only a slight wince as he does so.  He might have a good bruise or two later tonight.

"Let's do beer and Jenga," he says, with a sidelong look toward her.  A moment later, her comment earns her a gentle pinch or two in the ribs, in the sensitive spot just below her armpit.  "I'm all right."

Nick is very pointedly not looking toward the commentators, either his admirers or his detractors.

Pen
And so the evening goes, until eventually they arrive back home, each with multiple prizes under their belt (and some belts better than others). They are prizes ephemeral until they resolve into shape over the next few weeks and they are prizes physical because Pen used her tickets to buy Nicholas a silly stuffed anthropomorphic corn on the cob keychain, as scarecrows keep crows away from corn, and this way he can be either, the crow too smart for a scarecrow, or the scarecrow itself!

And after they have been home for a while, and after they are even wearier, after the constellations move, Pen - with this secret smile lifting the corners of her mouth, this pleased-with-herself yearning curve, this aloof air which is really the opposite of 'aloof,' this Pen - tells Nick a number. A high number. Clarifies it into minutes. Minutes become seconds. These are the seconds spent, tonight, in physical contact; this is how long their longest kiss was; this is how long she gazed at him; this is exactly how long the happiest part of her day was; this is how long she had the pleasure of being in his company. She tells him she likes it because she feels less lonely; she'll remember tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.

These aren't abstractions; she seems pleased reciting them for him, as if they're some kind of poem, as if they're a secret he could turn into some solid thing, a comb, a shell, a ring. Pen traces Nick's wedding ring and asks him if he's proud.

I'm timing your answer, she says, and she's laughing - see.