New England, many moons ago.
It is swelteringly hot out of doors and the gloaming is thrumming with the wing beats of millions of tiny insects. The sound rises, like a distant orchestra tuning up their strings, humming and incessant. Twilight brings false hope of relief from the temperature, with the sun below the horizon, now, surely the wind will pick up: but no, the humidity keeps the heat low and heavy against the ground.
He called her, and on the relic of a rotary phone in the hallway of the house in which she lives, because Ari does not play nicely with high-tech solutions like cell phones. Hers flips. Its screen is backlit and simple. Most of the time, it cannot get a signal, or it is mysteriously out of battery despite having just been charged. It provokes swearing in multiple languages; Rob likely imagines she simply does not want to take responsibility for being reliable or dependable. Ari maintains she is well and truly cursed.
She has been sitting in her car for a few minutes now, with the air conditioner turned down as low as it will go; until her fingers feel like maybe the remember what winter was. Steeling herself against the walk across his courtyard / parking lot / pavillion thing to the front door, or the door of his study, when she will have to move through this drowing heat like a boat mired in the low-tide muck. So slowly. So far. Away. She has been sitting long enough for Rob to notice her hesitation, which will not do, so Ari gathers her purse to her and twists back her hair to keep it off the back of her neck and considers the folly of using a Ars Essentiae to keep the heat off of her for the five, ten, fifteen feet between here and his door.
All of this to say she knocks. And Rob is just enough of an ass to make her wait, outside the threshold, in the heat and unable to enter because of rules that are older and deeper and more true than even the Will of Robin Anton can transmute.
She knocks. And she slaps at a mosquito which tries to make a meal of the side of her neck. And she waits.
Robin AntonRobin's Home is large, rambling; many rooms, much space; he allows his cabal mates to come and go as they wish, passcodes for each (tailored to the individual; they cannot be reused or used easily by another) when it comes to what Wards he has, but Arianna is not currently his cabal mate. Arianna stayed with Evelyn and Zelda and whoever else was part of that young Hermetic cabal, while Robin and Pen struck off on their own (with a Chorister, and a Verbena; they've been joined now by a Chakravanti, but Arianna is perhaps already aware, given her best friend's deep enamourment [Enchantment?] with the Chakravanti).
On the old rotary phone, Robin sounded calm and relaxed, and hungry for company. He was in one of those moods. He would never be called genial, but courteous; perhaps that. He could be quite interested in people, liked to have something to clash his wits against, and Ari was always good for that, wasn't she?
Besides, he might miss her.
And so, Arianna waits. The insects hum; the air is wet with heat, slick and jellied with summer; there is no little breeze, or if there is, it is too much too little. Arianna knocks. The knocker on the front door looks like a gryphon embedded in ivy, and one can see where many hands have rubbed it smooth. There is a bell-pull, too, but Arianna probably didn't go to the front door. She probably went to the back door, by the large study with its large windows and its many books, where Robin Anton Kestrel Melchior is usually found at home. That door has no knocker at all; it is unlocked, but what are locks to Arianna?
They're not what keeps her, stays her, on a threshold.
Rob doesn't have a butler or a manservant or a valet. He comes to the door himself, just a little out of breath, his dark hair curling in the humidity, flat on top but around the ears a satyr's dream. "Arianna."
He could invite her in immediately, couldn't he? There's something of a drawl to his voice when, pleasantries, he says, "Pomegranate daiquiri or mint margarita? I have some wild mushroom and sage curdled bourbon, something I was trying out, but," a narrowing, questant look; he is always a creature of scrutiny, even when there's wry amusement behind the scrutiny, "maybe smoky isn't something you're in the mood for right now."
Arianna Fioretta GiamettiHe might miss her. Arianna is fun, and she is mostly light-hearted around him, and she is not usually dragged down in business of a serious sort. It is possible that this new cabal of his and Pen's needs levity of another sort and she is shining, shifting, oh so knave like. Even as she stands on the threshold of his home. She is here, in the twilight, the first of the evening's dawning stars.
"Robin." His name is returned to him with even temperament and timbre to how he tendered her own. The wisps of hair that frame her face have taken to curling wildly in the humidity. This and the light, flowing shift she wears give the impression of gentle femininity; they distract from her quick and sharp-tempered wit. Under his scrutiny and in the pale, borrowed light that spills out of his threshold, the corner of her mouth curls; the light in her eyes is like mercury on glass.
"I have mistrust for bourbon paired with something curdled," she says, though the tip of her head seems to question more than answer. "Though I confess a certain curiosity after it as well. How have you found it?" she asks him, turning the question into more than intimation. "Would you recommend it to a friend?"
Surely they are friends, or something in the neighborhood of it. Her tone is light and casual, as if she doesn't mind at all lingering in his doorway. As if she is here by choice and not rooted by some older ways.
"You look good tonight, Kestrel," she tells him, wielding another of his names to taste the shape of it against her teeth. "I like the curls." A flash of teeth in the low-light darkness; a clever little teasing thing. But she does, like the curls that is; and he does, look good to her this evening. Which may be a dangerous way for them to start things with one another.
Robin AntonHe does not slouch or lean against the doorframe, but he does not seem to need to slouch or lean against the doorframe to be unperturbed and calm (Serene [Shield]), at home in himself and his own skin, young king of where ever he stands. Ari is light and casual, doesn't mind lingering in his doorway at all, and so they linger. Perhaps he is so glad to see her he has forgotten his manners; he does not exude an air of forgetfulness, quite the opposite, but perhaps his mindfulness is so directed that there's no room for come ins.
Besides: Rob bats his lashes at her once, and twice again; dark sooty lashes, Rob, and if even his slender smile seems like a smirk, well, he is wry and he is sharp and Ari knows that. Everybody who knows Rob knows that, if they know more than his watchful interest. "I'll treasure the compliment forever and pass it along to my hairdresser."
He is wearing a teeshirt; it is royal blue. He is also wearing a pair of nice trousers; they are not royal blue, but dark slate gray. His feet are bare, and he always has some jewelry on: a glint of silver at his throat, a glint of silver at his wrist amid the dark hairs there. He wears one ring, always; tonight it feels (consecrated) like him, too.
"And I would recommend it to a friend," a note of warning, there. "Just not many. I only have so much, you see. It's been a while, Ari."
Maybe a month.
"Did I neglect to mention over the phone that Arturo Benedictus sent over a set of fountain pens?" Arturo Benedictus: craftsman, Hermetic, genius: he whose fountain pens would write the word of God and the Heavens into being and those pens, well, they'd just be too good for that work, that's how lovely his pens tend to be. "I already have so many pens; I know you do as well, but I thought..."
Arianna Fioretta GiamettiAri does not believe for even half of a second that Rob has forgotten to invite her in. She knows this to be what it is, the Tytalan setting the pace of the evening, a little show of power over so efforless (and artless)that it is below even his conscious thought. But this is Rob, this is How He Rolls. And Ari, tonight, despite the swelter and despite the bead of sweat that is gathering at the nape of her neck, that is threatening to drip down along her spine.
The batting eyelashes do not move her; she is not some pedestrian girl who falls for trickery such as this. He bats his eyelashes, and he says something wry and almost biting and she laughs. It is low, and short, but the mirth of it touches the quicksilver in her eyes. She wears a ring, too; a slip of silver around the middle finger of her right hand. It never leaves her; it never moves. Perhaps Rob is one of the very few that know it's meaning; probably not, for Rob has not proven himself to be very good with secrets.
It's been awhile, Ari.
"I've been busy," she counters, easily. Hardly more than a feint. He doesn't lean, but now she does. There is some ready surface against which she can lean a shoulder and still banter with him; as it seems he's called her over to stand upon his doorstep. One of her favorite past-times, truly. It gives this sense of nonchalance to her reply about instruments of one sort or another.
"I do think you neglected to mention that," she says, lightly, furrow to brow, as if she had to think to remember whether he hand mentioned that God had sent directly unto him the highest instrument of her chosen Art. But her eyes are locked on the shape of his mouth now, now the corners of his eyes. She studies him, as he has studied her.
"What did you think, Robin?" she prompts, since he'd let the thought fall away into the buzzing twilight.
Robin Anton"That you might like to keep one, or borrow one." Brief pause; think think. "Take it into your keeping," Rob says, finishes, and he is still serene; the smile has fallen away, because it is unnatural to smile and smile and smile. When he is not smiling, he looks aware and readied, which is different from being alert. Alert connotes some wariness, some leap of adrenaline. "I'm not much of a calligrapher."
Arianna Fioretta GiamettiIt is unnatural to smile and smile and smile, which is why there must be nuance to it. The subtle shifts and flex of expression that feign to give away some sort of inward thought. She is studied in the subtle arts of misdirection; not that Rob calls subtlty out of most. But he is serene and she is shining, of course they go about things in their own and separate ways.
When Ari is not smiling, she looks thoughtful. This is fair, as she is more thoughtful than her demeanor implies. She is more reasoned and rational and studied than she would like them to believe.
To keep, to borrow, to take into your keeping -- these are all different, and in ways they are the same. When he settles upon one and shifts down into awareness, her smile blooms more earnestly. It is different somehow; it is a subtle thing.
"I would be honored," she tells him, and the brief incline of her head displays the same. For she well understands the weight of what has been offered, and she is not brazen enough to pretend it matters not. And then, into the the hollow that opened between them, chin still dipped low and eyes cast up to meet his through her lashes, she offers:
"I would be happy to teach you. I know you have the eye for it, Kestrel," she says, because he is ever watchful at the margins of their meetings. He is astute and has a mind for it as well. And Arianna is one of the few who are well and truly trained to take up the mantel of the Scribes of Alexandria, if ever she chooses to so commit herself. It is no small thing, this offering. It is quite like she said: I shall teach you how to write the word of God and the Heavens into being. It is like that, with all the gravitas, but also with the dewy feeling of standing overlong in the heat at sundown; and also with the light tangled up in the wisps that frame her features. And also...
She exhales, and finally yields. Finally, chin up, teeth flash, point given: "But only if you'll welcome me in."
Robin AntonThe small upturn of the corners of his mouth is more of a smirk than anything else; some people just have those faces. Punchable, Jean Martin, Flambeau, has said. Superior, Evelyn has mourned, and Pen back when she first met Robin: and yet still amazingly engaging. The smirk is wry, of course it is, and a mere shadow of some thought. His eyes are steady, thoughtful, even soulful -
"Didn't the offer of booze seal your welcome? Of course you are welcome, Arianna Giammetti, to come into my domecile tonight. What do you want? The mushroom bourbon or one of the more pedestrian offerings?"
He steps back from the threshold so she can come in; he closes the door behind her when she does. The interior of his house is cool-to-warm. Compared to outside, it feels delightful, but this is New England, and central air is a luxury unheard of even in the homes of the very, very wealthy, and somewhere there are air conditioning window units clicking away, moving the air. He leads her through the short hall which leads toward loftier dining halls and kitchens, into his study proper, with its fully stocked bar, its smell of books and ancient leather, of beeswax candles and faint of metal or chemistry - the smells of any Hermetic's study. There's a fire place, dead and cold today, and signs that Rob might have been lying on the hardwood floor earlier, judging by glass and book.
It's cooler on the floor.
There are a couple of candles burning near the windows, because it is evening now - not because this is a seduction (probably not because this is a seduction - not from Rob; he's not a candles sort of man). (This is a seduction. Just not of the kind that candles usually denote.)
"I may have the eye for it, but the hands are not adept with fine things," and he holds his hands out, and it is not self-deprecating, because Rob is not a self-deprecator. He goes to the bar, and his thick dark eyebrows loft. Mute repetition of a question she may have already answered, innocent remind me what you're having...
Arianna Fioretta GiamettiNow, just between you and me, I shall tell you a secret. A very special secret of Arianna's that she rarely lets on to anyone at all. Least of all Robin, who need not know it to, on some frustrating and ineffable level, still freel the truth of it between them. He welcomes her into his study and it smells of all these things, of books and leather, of candles and brass, of chemistry and muddled herbs and alcohol; it smells of a Hermetic's study, yes, but to Arianna it smells most decidedly...
... like home.
Yes, it is missing the scrub of sage and chapparal and the ruddy tones of a Tuscan summer sky, but it smells of the Chantry she grew up in, the most Hermetic place she has ever known, and the way that these things mingle; the wealth of it, the comfort, the structure of it in the suggestable flicker of candlelight -- it calls her home, and there is always, at the edge of her, in the moments when neither Robin nor his guests are marking her, this sense of wistfulness, and longing and also of be-longing. That of all of New England, the Tytalan's study is the place most familiar and resonant to her.
This is the greatest of secrets between them; the thing she has been most careful not to let him see. Because the games of power over or things withheld or any other maddening game between them cannot extend to mar this sense of sanctuary if he does not know that it is, in some small way, precious to her. But neither does she deny it openly, for in denying we define a thing, and in defining open it up to negation. No.
So there is, as always, a moment when her eyes are closed and her senses cast open, and her fingers spread as if she could draw the magics of in it through her fingers -- and it is fleeting, and hidden, a thing indulged in only as his back is to her; occluded by the slip-smile she fixes to her features before he turns to ask without asking, and his dark eyes loft and:
"The mushroom bourbon. Please." It will not do to be pedestrian in any thing; it is not her way; it is clearly not what he expects of her.
(Because this is a seduction. Every time, it is a seduction. Just not the type that candles usually denote.)
So while he fixes her drink, she does the only reasonable thing. She pretends more welcome and comfort here than she deserves and crouches low to inspect the spine of the book he has been reading. She does this, and the hem of her skirt briefly puddles on the floor behind her. She does this without abandoning decorum, or seeming any less like the Legacy he knows her to be. But she borrows intimacy--that he might welcome her inquiry into his studies--where it has not necessarily been given outright. She borrows it, keep it, or takes it into her keeping. These are all different, but in some ways are the same. She looks back to him, the figure he cuts in his own space; the young king in his castle. She looks back before she rises agan, and crosses to the bar to join him.
Arianna Fioretta Giametti[Nothing to see here, Kestrel.]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 4, 6, 7, 7) ( success x 3 )
Robin Anton[Oh really?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 5, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )
Robin AntonHe is a keen-eyed Kestrel, a bright-eyed Robin, but not this evening and not this moment. Ari keeps any and all signs of her secret from her face, posture, voice, gesture, and Robin (if he is not already in half-light) stays in the dark. He would suit the dark, Robin, with his dark hair, and his eyes given to tenebrous darkness as well, and his ready calm and his tempered manner and the sudden sharpness of it which keeps people on their toes and rallies them against him and after all he is more inclined to be an asshole to people than otherwise. He is not kind, and his kindness is meted out, reserved for those he cares enough about to deign be kind to.
"The mushroom bourbon it is," Rob says, and he is already pouring it for her in a crystal tumbler cut in a way which signifies Prohibition Era glassware. These are fine old things, handled not without care, but not with a great deal of care, either. He doesn't bring them out when Elizabeth is here, or doesn't pour Elizabeth anything from his stock in those glasses, because he knows her for a klutz and an agent of chaos; but anybody else, anybody not proven a wreck, they drink from the fine crystal. He borrows some of Pen's directness if ever questioned about it, too: You break things, so you get replaceable glass. If that offends you, break things less, Cookie.
Is he at home here? At home denotes a certain something. Robin is in control here; but at home? That's an excellent question, and one not answered by the figure he cuts.
He is always in control of himself.
And he has poured himself a glass as well, and lifted his glass in casual salute. "Cheers," and he'll clink his glass against hers, having brought them (both her glass, and himself + his glass) over to Ari by his place on the floor, and somwhat awkwardly sit down cross-legged on the floor because Rob isn't very graceful. He pauses before sipping, "What should we cheers?"
Arianna Fioretta GiamettiAri is never quite certain where she falls on Robin's spectrum of people for whom he cares enough about through people for whom he does not care at all, and she does her level best to not let this bit of not knowing bother her. Where she has come from there is an awful lot of not knowing to go 'round; there is likewise quite a bit of not careing enough for. Where Ari is from, Rob and his dark hair and his dark eyes and the way that candlelight catches up in the cut glass in his hands as he walks and makes it almost seem like he is bringing them fire; that he has stolen past Zeus and made off with just two tumblers of it; where Ari is from, Rob would fit in neatly, just so, as if he were always meant to be there.
Because he is crossing to her, she does not cross to meet him. She does not rise from where she has crouched next to his book but rather lowers herself to sitting and in some manner of feminine wiles and ways arranges the length of her legs and the brevity of her skirt in a manner which is not at all scandalous. She has her graces; they do not prevent her for sitting upon his floor, in this summery dress of white and silver, looking every bit his complement and balance for the evening. He is always in control of himself and she seems often careless, as if she always ever just at the brink of something; but it isn't so.
By now, the keen-eyed Kestrel knows it isn't so. That there are games within the games they play and Arianna, for all her idleness, is not so artless at them. So the ease she adopts, this casual warmth and comfortableness around him, he who pushes at everything, he who tests and turns and bends, this is either affected or rooted in some truth, immoveable thing.
The fields of her eyes are not as dark as his, but they can be pressing when they catch his up. There is something in them which she doesn't say (I like your eyes, the dark of them, the way the light cannot help but be swallowed by them. I like the dark of your eyes because they are clever, Kestrel; and uncompromising; they demand cleverness as chiminage. We are better for you.), that is tucked into the moment when she holds her glass aloft, in paired salute, and tips her chin up so that her line of sight moves past him while she considers, carefully, the thing they'll toast to this evening.
"To clever friends, and worthy questions," because, between the two of them, these are vaunted and valued things. A clink, then, and as she lifts her glass toward her lips she smirks, and adds: "And to never quite knowing what stands behinds your smile."
Because it is part of his charm, and part of hers is calling him out on it before taking a taste of the mushroom bourbon and letting the smoke of it roll across her palate. Arianna is not simply a woman who drinks whiskey, scotch or bourbon for appearances; she has a discerning palate; she has a taste for it and the warmth that follows it down into her belly. She delights in it; her delight is a wholly different thing than Liz's. More nuanced; refined.
"This is quite good," she tells him, turning the glass a little as she studies the sway of it. As she exhales to taste the other notes as they eddy in the back of her throat. "As is this," she says, tapping the spine of the book beside them. Showing her House, as it were, though perhaps Rob had a harder time casting her among the bookish of the Bonisagi.
It is an opening, this feint toward the book; if he has called her over to talk of bookish things, they could. She holds her own in metaphysical argument, better, even after the first drinks have gone down. When she has forgotten that she doesn't care; perhaps he has called her here to remind her to forget, again, this pretense of never caring.
Robin AntonRobin has not called her over to talk bookish things nor even metaphysical things although if doing so will get him closer to his ends then he will talk such bookish things and metaphysics that the universe itself will be confused about whether or not it exists or in just what state. He smirks sharp and scimitar slender see before she takes a sip that final sally for her toast he is already sipping and she can just see the sharp movement of his mouth his eyebrows go bouncing upward as though surprised his forehead creasing and he is not surprised. He is serene, he wears an air of serenity, an aura of indefatigable calm as though he could be in the center of a pack of raging rampaging say just for instance Flambeau and still not be so much as moved by their fury at something he just said what did I say it was true that is Robin Anton Kestrel Melchior Solomon in a nutshell. So calmly he smirks, and watchful as she sips, and the feint towards the book is met with: a dismissive flick of his glance, though he seems pleased she likes the mushroom bourbon.
"I will have to make more of it, and yeah, it's not too bad even if it did drive me to drink. Perhaps especially because it drove me to drink. Thane found the mushrooms, growing wild, so - well anybody who wasn't a Verbena, I'd say they might be poisoned. I don't think he's going to poison me." Thoughtful, thoughtful.
"How are the others; the ones Pen and I left behind?" He is actually interested.
And guileless, man. Totally.
Arianna Fioretta GiamettiHer legs are stretched out in front of her now; so she is turned sideways to him; so he takes her in in profile, and how the light cants off her cheeks and chin is shaded differently. Her legs are stretched out in front her of, white of her skirts pooling in her lap, so that the backs of them can be pressed into the floorboards which are cooler than the air around them. And so that, when she puts down her drink, and plants her hands behind her she is that much closer to the elevation which is coolest.
He is guileless, and she takes her time in answering. He can see the corner of her mouth twitch; something thought but not offered past her teeth. And the sweep of her lashes as she studies some detail at the far of the room.
"They are... " It is difficult to make the words coalesce, more difficult so for Rob. Rob, whom she had always liked a little more than maybe she should. "They are not the same since you left us behind," she says. This seems the proper opening salvo somehow. Her shoulders are rounded and lax and give off no hint of injury or agitation. "And yet they are exactly the same as they were before: Evelyn, he is a man with a plan and so sure of the plan and the plan and his Word are going to get him everywhere, see?"
There is a hint of the Fortunae's cadence to her characterization. Ari's eyes are fixed on some fine relief in the moulding where the wall of bookshelves meets the ceiling. "And Zelda is as brilliant as she ever was, a credit to our House, a shining example of Hermeticism."
One hand lifts and gestures, so on and so forth.
"And Xavier, whom you did not leave, but who has joined us after, he is... uncertain. I think he would like to challenge Evelyn on some things, but takes the certainty of failure too much as a deterrent." Because, Eve, man, that man is golden; and lady Luck is often on his side. Here, though, her eyes close a little. The shoulder near him drops a little lower than the other as she turns to look back at him.
"They're well, Kestrel." And she has said all this without truly telling him anything. For it is we when she speaks of them all together, and they when she tells him how they all are. Some part of this perturbs her; that perturbation is kept low and guarded. It makes her restless; it shows in other ways.
"Do you think it's cooler by the water?" she asks. This is seriousness; this is critical. "If we are to talk about the others, then I'd rather do it where it's cooler. And where we might see the moon rise up out of the water. It is the cusp of Cancer, and so it would be fitting, to see her birthed from the element of her own... "
Robin Anton"We can go to the bath house," Rob says, and this is seriousness, too. The bath house will be cooler, and also swimming. It's a roman bath house, small and private but with mosaics and its own echoing beauty casting bends of light around. This house Rob lives in is Rob's family's summer house. They're up in New York. "Sometimes the wind kicks up just by the water and it's warm, but if you want the moon and the water, who am I to deny a mercurial whim?"
"You forgot someone in your 'they,'" he says. "Or you didn't, because I said 'the others. But I also said the ones Pen and I left behind: so how are you, with them? As good as Zelda?"
He seems so curious; like maybe he's been missing some of the rivalries in the old cabal.
Missing not in a sense that he wants them again, but like he can remember the time, childish things, ah, yes, those halcyon safe days of yore let us reminisce oh it is still the same for you well let us reminisce anyway.
Arianna Fioretta GiamettiWho am I to deny a mercurial whim...
Perhaps this is where she should have caught him up, or caught on to him, or noticed that he is being oh so clever. But the shift of her smile is a little less than suspicious just now. Perhaps it is the talk of Evelyn (auspicious [everything that glitters is golden]) and the others; perhaps it is the whispered echoes of times past; or perhaps it is really just a decided need to feel the pull of the sun-tides against her ankles; the swirl of dark sand in water beneath her toes; perhaps it is starlight calling out to starlight, and the need for fellowship of her own; perhaps it is nothing, because Arianna does not mark his cleverness so clearly.
"I do," she says. "I want the moon and water. Kestrel, will you sing them down for me and will you conjure them up?" She teases; she taunts. But only just so much. Ari shifts to push herself to kneeling, hands in lap which is swathed in white, to watch him. "Or shall I drive us to the shore?"
At it lets him study her, properly, for a moment, before addressing his other, more serious of questions. And then her answer is nothing more than the way the quicksilver in her eyes faulters, gaze falls to her hands where they gather in her lap, and then her hands move, and she pulls her purse over beside her to fish out her keys, and when she looks back up at him there is mischief, and it is strained.
Robin AntonRobin finishes his bourbon all at once, and gets up again. These two motions are connected, but also disconnected, because too much bourbon too quick and also rising from one plane to the other so sudden. He sways, Robin Anton Kestrel Melchior Solomon, and he sweeps down to pick up the crystal tumbler, and he misses -- does he miss? He does not miss very much, but he is not as sharp as his new cabal mate, the one who feels consecrated, sanctified, Hallowed, Hallowed, shadowy and creepy; he might miss the look in her eyes at first.
He probably does not miss how the mischief, strained, leaves behind pith; clumps; clots. Maybe that's what he wanted. He offers Arianna his hand to help her to her feet.
"Shall I bring the bourbon; or something else? Take your pick of spirits."
"As for singing, best left to somebody who isn't tone deaf."
He doesn't wink; he should've.
Arianna Fioretta GiamettiShe hadn't expected such a ready acquiescence. Accomodating is not the word she associates with Kestrel in her mind, beside the glimmer-gleam of words that mean Penelope or the gilded ones that call forward thoughts of Eve. But an easy win is a win all the same and she gathers her bourbon glass to her and drinks, not all at once as Robin has, but in a measured sort of way that suggests consideration.
"My pick, he says," and the levity laces through her words again, though beggared or borrowed -- he may be able to sense the same. The hollow to her happiness is fleeting and doesn't seem to last for long; it is swept beneath the neat if shallow curtsey she gives him, chin tipped up, mischief intact for all intents and purposes before wandering over to the bar to select something to bring.
"The bourbon is precious; you've said so. We should not waste such precious things on moonlight and water," she says, as if they were not sacred; as if they were not calling her out into the sweltering night with Robin for some brief adventure. Unlikely follower of mercurial whims as he may be. She sips again from the crystal tumbler, and it is his turn to see her as she had seen him, with the fire of it caught up between her fingertips: Promethian. She considers the bottles, taps a fingernail against them as if sounding them out, until it seems almost at random she picks one out -- of course it isn't.
She has considered all sorts of things that taste like home, Sambuca, Grappa, flavors that are ill paired with the palates of her cabalmates and kith, but settles on pale, spiced rum, with cinnamon and vanilla to it; something jovial and communal; something inclusive rather than nostalgic. It is better paired with moonlight, with the swaying of the sea, with the taste of salt air on their palates; and with the dark in Rob's serenity.
Robin AntonShe picks one out. He looks at it; it gains his approval.
They hie off, Ari and Rob. Their names can be so fore-shortened, fashioned into something so mundane; they cannot be because they are wizards.
Rob is not as fay, not nearly so, as Arianna, or as Pen, or as Nicholas, or even as Thane who Ari does not know well yet though she may have met him. Thane, who feels like Enchantment, but Hearty (Hale), who carries a knife for getting at the viscera of things, Verbena and unrepentant. Rob has his dignity; he has his presence; he has his sharpness, his watchfulness, his general mien; his big head, his big hair, his dark brown eyes, the shadow of which is observant and lofty; he has his pride, his quick mind, his resilient heart. His shadow; he has his shadow. A lordly manner. But all of that could be mundane. He is not like Ari, or Pen, or Nicholas, not in that at least.
But nobody would doubt it if they were told he was a wizard.
To Ari's car. Rob will hold the spirits; he'll bring two glasses (not crystal, just glass), too, wrapped in a towel, and maybe some chocolate covered pretzels which he just happens to have at his bar, some grapes from the mini-fridge or some other cold thing,
and once they're ensconced in the car, he says, "The car is going to work, isn't it?" rather doubtfully, as if sometimes electric computers and machinery just doesn't like to work around Arianna or something.
Arianna Fioretta GiamettiNobody would doubt it if you told them Rob was a wizard, that he could get inside you mind, and make you see things that weren't there; that he was the sort of wizard who could pull swords out of his big hair; that he had secrets upon secrets and locks upon locks guarding all the ancient wisdoms he keeps inside the circle of his serenity. And if Arianna were to tell them so, they'd eat it up with a spoon, they'd call out their questions, they'd need to know more. And once she'd tell them something true, and twice the shadow of its seeming, and thrice a thing quite unlikely to be true, but close enough to be in keeping. And thrice then told, and so caught they be.
Because where Rob is undeniably a wizard, once you've been told to look at him like this; Ari is another thing entirely. Like Pen, and Nicholas, and Thane -- who she has probably not well and truly met --she is a thing apart, inconsistent with her surroundings, a thing of stories that are a little more disturbing that wills that bend the world with a word. A changeling child; a something wicked this way comes; and so the look she throws him is a little shy of withering, and wreathed with a rueful sense that he is often (almost always) right; and hope, see...
Key in the ignition. Twist! (Hope) There is a set of sounds she's still hard pressed to describe in English, and when she tries her brow furrows and the bridge of nose wrinkles in concentration, and when a passingly acceptable collection of consonants emerges as explanation it is like she has won something. HAH! It is like winning here when the withering gives way to triumph.
"Yes!" she says. Relief. "It will work. At least for going out, and maybe also for when coming back. You must be lucky, Kestrel; luckier than Eve," she says, with a flash of teeth as she punches the air conditioning button -- which, thankfully, also works tonight. "It left him stranded the other day, when I coudn't go get him. I thought to be mortified, but, really?"
Parking brake off; car in drive.
"How often does that happen to him. To Evelyn? I confess that I was pleased more than apologetic."
Robin AntonAri must be buttering Rob up. He is sharp enough, shrewd enough to think it or note it. He is also enough himself to not care what purpose she has in doing it, and his smirk rises to the top, the slender razored edge of a bronze leaf that will float instead of sink.
Of absent friends, a side note.
Richard Evelyn Rousseau and Robin Anton Kestrel Melchior Solomon were (are) in many respects opposites and complements. Robin Anton is always in control of himself in a way that is internal, relies on an air of tranquility of unperturbed wryness, while Eve's self-control is often judiciously lowered, for the risk of a thing, for the gamble of the thing, and Eve makes decisions quickly when necessary, driving ever forward, where-as Robin can be quick-witted (Tytalan, of course he can), but without the same ready measure that the Fortunae has. Evelyn has the stars ranged on his side, Robin Anton is a weapon for himself and himself alone. Evelyn is golden and Robin is dark.
They were good friends, but better rivals in many respects, and even better allies. Evelyn is something of a vagabond when he is not heading up some project (equally comfortable alone or with a crowd), one of those who searches out new talent. Evelyn is a teacher. Robin is never a vagabond, and is equally removed from things whether alone or with a crowd, equally entangled too: Robin will get in your head. Robin challenges everything. Evelyn responds.
Rob definitely likes to hear about Eve's luck turning.
He also likes it when Ari's car actually works. So, the edge of a smirk, rising like the razored edge of a bronze leaf that will float instead of sink, and a shadow to it that has nothing to do with real darkness.
"Things are too easy for him; at least you're still around to shake him up... Jove knows Zelda won't, not in any way that might unsettle him."
The beach is not more than ten minutes away, and perhaps they'll spend that time gossiping (as Hermetics - indeed, as any Mages! - will), or simply sharpening their wits once against the other. Robin has a goal this evening; he is patient.
He'll wait to broach that topic until they're on the beach again, by the water, until they've had something to drink and the edges are dulled. Ari is a lot of edges; must come of having a famous Flambeau father, hmm, always having to be ready to carry arms; her mother, too. He's known Ari for a long time.
He's a lot of edges, too. Different ones, different reason.
Arianna Fioretta GiamettiRobin has known Arianna for a long time, long enough to know the sphere of influence that her parents both inhabit. Long enough to have seen the shadow of her father's outline darken a doorway, ominous and looming, his resonance displacing whatever warmth might otherwise be taken from the moment: always the swift and righteous retribution; the hand of the order; the Arrow of Artemis. A mantle so heavy it dims even Arianna's light as she stands beside him. He has seen the weight of it upon her shoulders; he has seen the things she does to wrest free of it in his absence.
"I don't unsettle him much... I don't think he minds the jostling."
So this drive is jovial, and filled with lesser gossip all the same. There is room, then, for his questions about the other cabal. Room, too, for her answers -- which are, to a one, halved and uncommitted things. There is not the sense of camaraderie between her and Evelyn, nothing that resonates and beats and thrums. He is more committed to his brand of knavery than she is to her own, and unlike Rob they do not connect in this place of Air and Darkness.
In the sweep of Eve's shadow, she is only summered and playful. She is shallowed out to naivete, a clever thing, a shining thing: a set piece. Not that Arianna outright minds it, but they do not spar as she does with Robin. He does not pull greatness out of her in fits; he lets it bubble to the surface slowly. He teaches, and uses her advantage to his own gains. She knows it; she doesn't let on that she cares.
She leaves her shoes in the car, and tucks the essentials into the bodice of her dress -- no pockets on a frilly thing like this but there are items that must not be left behind. Her keys, then, nestled up against some unmentionable place about her chest -- if it makes Rob blush, then all the better. (There are things about her that Thane will well admire [enjoy]). Her wand, then, used to indecorously secure the twist of her hair at the back of her head. Sheathed in the most unlikely place. Having to bear arms doesn't always mean having to elevate them.
If she cannot coax Robin into the water -- and all the gods in all the pantheons will know that she has well and truly tried -- then Ari will stand where her feet sink into the damp sand, and the waves lap at her ankles as they rush in. Pale skin and pale dress and pale eyes ready to greet the rising moonlight, made luminous in them, first star of the evening: Make a Wish, Kestrel (make it a good one).
Robin AntonRobin leaves his shoes (if he bothered to put any on) in the car, but not so the pale spice of rum, opened in the car but not poured, and it is hot enough that Robin leaves his trousers off too the cotton boxers beneath an easy stand-in for shorts and Robin a secret dancer eh? so there is no awkwardness. An air of serenity, of power in serenity, has its benefits; he is not easily dismayed, only turned ironic, and should he ever think Ari is wondering over his blushes, how he smiles at her; how smug, how self-sufficient, how knowing and noticing and generally insufferable. Once they've walked a ways on the beach and chosen their spot and the coaxing has well and truly failed,
Rob sits himself down on the sand, just some rich kid he could be any rich kid in his mid-twenties couldn't he, settles the rum in a nest of sand and two glasses maybe he's brought two glasses too. He does begin to busily scrunch the sand into a shape, and maybe that's how he has fun when he goes to beaches. Building things. Maybe that's always his first instinct, given some disparate elements, rock and glass and grit and fragmented shells: scoop them together, give them form. Look forward.
He keeps an eye on Arianna; how could he not keep an eye on Arianna, all made dark and bright at the edge of the sea by the moonlight? And he stays beyond the reach of the waves, and bides.
Arianna Fioretta GiamettiRob's got something -- she has to hand it to him -- gusto, panache, quevos, one of those words that means some tumbling together of Big Brass Ones and je ne sais quoi, that means the composure to be ineffably calm and centered whilst sitting in the sand, in his boxers, building civilizations under the sweep of his thumb. She admires it in him, as much as the smugness sometimes grates and is often insufferable, but it is also a steady thing. Rob and his serenity is steady; stalwart; reliable.
The tide swirls in and all about her ankles. The tide sways out and leaves the bare. Arianna watches Rob and Rob watches her and if they were a different sort of friends this could well and truly be a seducation. It is cooler here, with the breeze off the water, but only by a few precious degrees. Where the salt and sand crusts on her skin in the wake of the water it is cooler. Some part of her wants to put her head under, to float beneath the waves and swim. But Rob will not come into the water, and Ari will not go so far out to sea as to leave him behind.
They are tethered. Faintly. His shadow and her starlight. When he looks to her, she has her face turned to greet the breeze and when she looks to him, he is shaping the walls of his sand-keep. So she stoops low, and the hem of her dress is caught up in the wave water, becomes heavy and transparent, clings to her shins. She stoops low and picks a scallop shell out of the sand, with its shape impeccable and crossed with coral and white, white so clear that in the moonlight it is the blue of the last stretch of a sunlit sky, way up in the heavens; so faint it goes white again.
She rinses the shell off in in the water, bringing it back to him in the palm of her hand, upturned so that it is like a tiny pool, the littlest scrying bowl, captured tide and seafoam. She holds it out for his inspection; it is a fond and gentle thing to do. It is a token between them, wrested from the sea and brought up the shore to his haven safe above the tide-line.
Robin AntonWith the moon full, the tide is violent and dramatic, the churn of foam muddied by darkness a vibrant movement as it slinks up the shore tugs on Ari's dress and calves and knees and maybe occasionally even thighs. The Atlantic is ready always to take people away with it, but especially when the moon is full. This portion of the beach is almost smooth, the stones and shell-pieces which dapple it, are limned as the tide rushes out and moonlight slicks across the wet, are dark drops of radiance.
Rob has made three sand walls, curved as if in guard against the West; that won't help when the tide comes back in up behind them, but he's not there yet. First the West, for reasons symbolic and Saturnine. There's a good word for Rob, sometimes: saturnine. Maybe he's a Capricorn instead of an Aquarius or Gemini. Maybe he's a Virgo. He has the beginnings of a turret but he'd have to get up to get wetter sand to make this proper. The sand he is seated on is damp if you dig deep enough, but only just damp.
He inspects the shell in the palm of her hand with deadpan features, but mellow eyes, and then pours a glass of rum (no pale fire here; there is no light to draw it forth) and offers the glass or the bottle to Ari herself.
He has buried his toes in the sand, gingerly, almost fastidiously, and sand is scraped up his hairy calves.
"Hmm," he says, as if at some thought he wants her to ask him about. It makes him smile sharp and quick and he rubs his forehead with the palm of his hand, sand dusts off to catch on his nose and chest and he leans back. Waits for her to sit -- or maybe to dance off again. Ari is a sylph, isn't she?
Arianna Fioretta GiamettiAri is a Scorpio. She is near the cusp of it, where it dances into Sagittarius. She is a sylph and a satyr both. She loves the water only almost as much as it loves her. The gauzy fabric of her dress is wrapped around her legs, now, clinging and damp. It leaves so little to the imagination, being white and wet and clinging so in the moonlight. But her sense of propriety has always been foreign; and they have been friends for a very long time.
Long enough for the mellow tinge to his eyes to read as gentle to her, and long enough for her to mark the retreat of it behind his sharp, quick smile. She reaches down to take the glass from him, long fingers wrapped around it, no cut crystal here to catch up the moonlight, no promethian echoes. She smooths a space in the sand beside him with her palm, taking care not to disrupt the building of his keep, and then sits beside him. The sand clings fast to the places she is wet, and the dry fabric of her dress wicks some of that dampness higher.
"What are you thinking, Kestrel?" she asks. Taking the bait once she has settled, and once she can rest her elbows on her half-steepled knees. When she can cant her upper body toward him, and tip her head to regard him with seriousness, but a seriousness that is tempered by the honesty of asking. Arianna is more herself in the moonlight; she is warmer and fonder and less caged; she echoes it, and it echoes her. Just like Robin and his darkness. "What are you thinking out here in the moonlight?"
The words are cradled by her tongue. They are shaped and shared and sonorous. Not whispered, but neither shouted. Measured. And while he thinks, or as she falls into his ready trap, either or both, while this happens, she sips at her rum and lets the spices of it trail across her tongue.
Robin Anton"I am thinking of my cabal," Rob says, easily, but after a little hitch of hesitation. "How Thane would react to a shell cupped with water," and Rob sounds almost fond. There's still the ghost of a smirk because that is how Rob (ah, and what is more serene than moonlight? The Sea of Serenity: even the scientists knew to name that dark waterless sea so) is. "How interesting it is Working with the Mystics, and of course it is interesting to watch Pen with them too."
Guileless, guileless, he sounds so serious: as if he is confessing something to Ari. Maybe he is, in part, for somebody with eyes sharp enough to see through Robin Anton Kestrel Melchior Solomon's façade. The façade goes deep.
Arianna Fioretta GiamettiShe only seems to halfway take the bait.
"And how would Thane react, do you think?" she asks, because he has opened this window into the working of the others. The Others that he left Evelyn and Zelda for; these mystics. Though Ari has less outright disdain for them than many in the Order would. "Would he wait here on the shore for me to bring him back a basin of moonlight; the small of scrying pools; this perfectly imperfect round?"
She asks, and there is sing-song to it, like the sway of the tides, like it was something less than absolutely serious. But her eyes, man, Ari's eyes can hold the farce there. She is loyal, despite her wishes or inclinations, and she wants for Rob so much more and better than she wants for herself. She wants this also for Penelope. She would draw down the moon for them, and pay no mind to how pagan and primal it sounds.
"Was is it like, to work with them, with them and Pen?"
Robin Anton"No," Rob says, and there is laughter there, wearing out a hollow in the sound. Thane would most assuredly not wait here on the shore for Arianna to bring him back a basin of moonlight. "He would be knee-deep in the surf with you, running around like a golden retriever," and okay, Rob, he sounds a bit scornful; but still - that hint of fondness. "And coming up with power which he might turn into some interesting insight or other. Don't ask me to explain; I don't have that leaning to true whimsy you know."
"But working with them and with Pen..."
"...Hmm. It's like scribing a circle and feeling, in the moment of its scribing, that sense of divine perfection, attainable at last. It's an active feeling though. Nothing's perfect yet, and there are all manner of forces exerting their influence."
"You can imagine, I hope."
Robin Antonooc: wait, wait, fixing punctuation. "exerting their influence..."
"...but eh. You can imagine I trust."
Arianna Fioretta GiamettiShe likes it when he smiles; it calls something out of her that is similar. His laughter peals, and the edges of her mouth, the places where her smile curls, this is all that shows above the brim of her cup. This and the laughter that touches her eyes. This and the happiness of being at home in her own skin, at home in the moonlight.
"I should like to meet him, I think," she says. The formality and phrasing is how she hides her uncertainty and curiosity from being too fine-pointed and needling. There is sea salt in her lashes; just at the tips. Maybe Thane should like to meet her like this too.
"And I think I know that feeling, or that I have approached now and then. You are clever. Kestrel. You speak to me of circles when we are at the west of the ocean; you tie my heart up in your cups and chalices. You think I don't see you; I do. I do and sometimes I don't even mind."
Robin Anton[Okay, a Manipulation + Subt is in order.]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 5, 5, 7, 10) ( success x 3 ) [Doubling Tens]
Arianna Fioretta Giametti[Per + empathy, because I suspect you are tricksy, because you are Speaking, and you are Rob.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (4, 6, 6, 8) ( success x 3 )
Robin Anton[>.>]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 6 ) [Doubling Tens]
Arianna Fioretta Giametti[I almost had you....this going to be painful]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )
Robin AntonRobin takes another swallow of sweet spiced rum. Perhaps he'll drink enough to become tipsy, but Robin knows his limits; he rarely goes beyond them, and if he tests them, he tests them when it would be most advantageous to him to do so. Robin has learned his lessons well enough. He's still learning. They're all still learning, all potential.
"Of course I speak to you in circles. I am a Magician," Rob says, with another sharp smile; he leans forward, and perhaps he has gone more mellow. Hitch, hesitate. And: "I speak in circles and I know the providence of the every element and can name you any star you please. Arianna, I know you see me."
"I like it when you do," He has a sure, strong voice; he is very lordly, Rob, very confident in who and what he is. He places his glass of rum back down (or the bottle), and goes to his knees, beginning to scoop sand again. Make towers, idly. There's something very satisfying about digging and building. Something serene.
"I like to think I see you, too," a quick look at her. Thick lashes, dark eyes, serious face; his nose looks as though it has been broken once. It has. "Do you think we are stronger for the multitude of Houses in our Order; do you think Ex Misk should be 'disbanded'?"
Arianna Fioretta Giametti"I think the Order cannot stand to lose its fellows in the wake of Doissetep," she says. She watches the walls that he builds with a certain sort of sadness that is reserved for moments when she is well and truly guarded; when she is not laid bare before the sea. This is the sort of sadness that catches in the throat; finds its echoes in its audience. It is a deep thing; deeper than his darkness; deeper than his serenity. But this sadness is not for Rob, only for the things that his Word has touched upon, his Word and his building and his damn serenity.
Ari turns her face away from him; chin up; eyes closed and face raised to greet the moonlight. It washes over the salt cresting in her lashes. It smooths away the things he might have seen. He likes to think he sees her too; Rob probably does, better than the rest of them. Or sees her more completely in her context. He has the mind for it; the associations.
Robin Anton[???? WP, too, because Rob is a Tytalan, damn it. He will totally See Ari.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 3, 6, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Arianna Fioretta Giametti[Manip + subterfuge, but not specialty, because not really being cunning... but not really being forthcoming either. and, because, damn, making things easy on Rob is a no-no. Tytalans like doing things the hard way. but, you know, like honest and connecting scene... and syll may ignore this roll later... but it's 11pm and words are hard and syll is sleepy]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 5 )
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