Whatareyouevendoinghere?

Hyde

The house of Mars and Hyde stands not quite alone on its street, but apart, on a gentle incline with trees boughing in on either side, buttressed over the sharp peaks of the little Victorian style house on the hill.  It is a little weathered, this house: could use a new coat of paint, shows its age in a couple of spots, but the jagged wooden frills that line the roof and the overhanging porch and the windows still give it elegance.  It's evening, and the curtains are drawn over all the windows, though through one of the upstairs ones (two neat half moons that sit together like a pair of stone rimmed eyes), their visitor can see candlelight through the gauze.

On the peak that forms at the center of the porch roof, a metal rooster is perched, and it is a fiercer thing than most metal roosters: it has spurs, see, and a hood of sharp feathers, and one of its claws is raised like it'd gut every other metal rooster that ever perched on a soft country house.

Denver is middling warm today, and the ground is mush in a way that indicates that spring might just be around the corner (though the wise know that this never indicates that winter is over; it never is, until it's over.)  There's a car parked in front of the garage, which is open, which looks rather empty inside other than a bike chained to the wall, a Canon the color of gunmetal, aged but still untarnished in a way that means it has been lovingly taken apart and reassembled.

Brick frames a few dirt plots in front of the house.  They show signs of having been worked recently.

Two beer bottles, empty, sit on the porch table, beside which are two lone chairs.  It's too cold to sit out today; a few days ago it was warmer.  Here, there's a brass knocker (plain, no rooster or gargoyle shapes here), and the door is painted a sharp red, newer than the rest of the house's paint.  There is a mat in front of the door.  It does not say welcome.

Giametti

Denver is middling warm, for Denver, which is to say that it is on the tolerable side of cold for anyone who was born or raised in more temperate climes.  A hired car stops, a little away from the house on the hill.  It is a dark sedan of a particular stature, and the woman who climbs out of the back seat -- door held open for her by an anonymous driver -- seems quite familiar with this arrangement.  As the driver moves to open the trunk and hand over her satchel, Arianna smooths and resettles the woolen fabric of her coat.  It is a deep colour, aubergine, rich enough to play up the light grass-green of her eyes.

Some words are exchanged, but from this distance they remain equally unfathomable to the esteemed investigators of Hyde and Mars.  The driver climbs back in; the car moves away.  It has rounded the corner at the edge of the street before she turns and begins her ascent. 

She has not been followed.

The details of their home -- plots in the front yard, a truly fearsome guardian Chicken-beast, the bric-a-brac ornamentation -- bring a curl to her mouth and a gladness to her heart.  Ari mounts the steps quickly; ignores the lack of welcome to the mat and raps, clearly (resoundingly) upon the front door.

Surely there is a "No Solicitors" sign. "Be ware of ____", perhaps, where the specifics of the warning have been lost to the fickle hands of time.  Neither of these would apply.  She has not (quite yet) been invited, but she is (likely) always welcome.

Ari resettles the strap of her bag on her shoulder. She shifts a little from foot to foot.  Resists the overwhelming urge to peek through windows. And, belatedly, remembers that failing to call ahead might win her a long, cold wait in one of the porch chairs.

She knocks again.  For good measure.

Hyde

There is a knock.

There are two knocks.

"Is it an abuse of power to Ward against the Mormons?"  It would be the second time this week.  It's getting late in the night, but it wouldn't be the first time he has seen the fresh faced white boys with their military style haircuts appear on the porch after dusk.

He does not wait for an answer from Pen, who is in her study just next door to his.  There is the roll and rattle of Nick's office chair being pushed back, and he curves around the narrow (old) hallway, down the narrow (old) stair, and to the front door.  He's familiar enough to Arianna that perhaps she can feel his approach even before he answers, because his sanctity has seeped into the floorboards of the house and bled into the paint, and Nicholas is in the church steeple bow of the tree limbs over the house, and in the hushed quiet of the fields beyond.

Nick answers the door - he doesn't quite fling it open, but it is opened with purpose, because he is expecting to have to usher someone off of his front porch in about thirty seconds.  His hair has grown wild since Ari saw him last, dark spirals that curl and twist over his forehead and around his ears and at the base of his neck.  The thick knit dark gray sweater he is wearing seems to lend him more bulk than he actually has: appropriate, for scaring kids off his steps.

He freezes when he sees Ari, and blinks with his hand still on the doorknob, and seconds later his laughter carries up the stairs to Pen.  "Whatareyouevendoinghere?"  Ari probably doesn't get a chance to reply; she is being crushed into his fluffy sweater for a few seconds before he draws back, his hand still on her shoulder, and yells back, "Pen!  Come downstairs!"

Mars

Pen does not answer Nicholas. Her study door has been closed this last hour and she herself esconced. Music was playing, for a time, but she forgot to put the playlist on repeat and it has dwindled. The study is a work in progress: a broad table, with three braziers of varying metals, an old mailing room's desk turned curio cabinet little glass-set wooden doors here and there heavy against the wall with books shoved in some of the squares and in others objects worthy of curiosity. The broad table is a craftsman's table and it can be used as a desk. Pen has a laptop because everybody has a laptop this isn't the dark ages. Pen is not good with her laptop, but she went to university and she knows how to use it to connect to the internet and write. The laptop is underneath a pile of turpentine-stained, fire-scorched towels, just beside a smear of coal. There are an alarming number of coal smears on the floor right now, crumbs of broken things. A rug, too. A glass book open on the floor about brewing one's own mead. A sword, carelessly unsheathed, right where careless somebody's might trip on it, and a dummy overturned.

Pen is bathed in light. The kind of light which has been conjured from the Sun, see: which kicks right up off her messy muddled mop of red red red dragon's heart hair, which gives her flowy knee-length white -- gown? Dress? Boho-as-Hell-Renaissance-faire thing? Robe? -- article of clothing something of a radiant halo. It is a threadbare article of clothing, which some neatly mended tears and some gone unmended. She is bathed in light because:

three artist's lamps, beaming down on her craftstable. Pen has a stool. Pen has a comfortable chair, too, there in the corner. But Pen is standing, eyebrows lowered a slash of intense concentration, and carefully, carefully, oh so so carefully, she is tweezing out a square of gold foil while doing careful work with a tinytiny miniver brush on this piece of wood. The liquid (eggy) concoction she is brushing out is the consistency of the center of a Cadbury egg, and close to it in color. How it damps the shine of the gold is remarkable, and then: then -

(Nicholas's laughter reaches her. Focus, focus.)

- there. Lay it down.

"What? Yes. Whither. Soon! Subscriptions, certainly!"

Giametti

In that brief, frozen moment while Nicholas parses the absurdity of her re-entry into their lives, Arianna's smile broadens and becomes a luminous thing.  There is mischeif in the glint of her eyes, but the kind of mischeif that pulls one in in confidence and fellowship.  Together, they three are never far from an adventure, or a clever turn of phrase, or glorious tales of bygone times retold in expansive embellishment with merciless ribbing for those absent and (or) dear.

He crushes her in; her arms enfold him.  She laughs and manages, "I bring glad tidings and presents!" before she is released.  In this nearness, and in the hollow (hallowed) of his call and response with Penelope, the echo of his resonance washes over her.  He is here in the floorboards; he has seeped into the paint; he is in the steepling of limbs over head and the expanse of frozen land surrounding them.

And, well, she brings a present. The others have been sent ahead.  Letters for Pen, and something more substantial for Nick. The last gift that she carries with her, secreted in her pack, is a very nice (old) bottle of single malt scotch.

"Your hair; it's so long!"  She hush-exclaims into the quiet as they wait for Pen's reply.  She ruffles it with her fingertips; scrunches her nose with amusement.  She is ever the same: the sense of shifting starlight; of something brilliant that cannot be caught fast or held; like a clever wonder wrapped in riddles. (Sphynx-like. [Shifty.])

"I love the house," she tells him.  She hasn't even seen it.  "It's perfect.  So you, and yet so Pen --" a pause, here, and then she pitches her voice louder.  Repeats the name: "Pen! Halloo.  Are you in there?  Has the house swallowed you whole?  Are you in desperate need of rescuing?"  She mock-calls into the entryway; voice carrying up the stairs on the heels of Nick's laughter.  It, too, rings with merriment.

Hyde

It may strike Ari the longer the Chakravanti stands in front of her how much better he looks, as compared to the man he was for the greater part of last year: there is a flush of color along his high cheekbones and his eyes are the lively, expressive things they were before he returned from oversea at around this time last winter verging into spring.  Right now the skin around the corners of his eyes is crinkled; he is amused (beyond amused: overwhelmed with joy at his friend's sudden appearance, though this is less apparent) and has caught a whiff of her sense of mischief.

She touches his hair, and Nick glances up at one of the rings that hangs just above his eyebrows.  He has grown it out partly because there is less risk that one of his clients will try to grab it in his current job, and it is fully his to do with as he wishes now.  "I haven't felt like cutting it."

Ari tells him that she loves the house and he steps aside as she calls in, up the stairs to Pen.  Nick laughs again, then.  "She's been pretty hard at work upstairs lately."  Then, again up the stairs, "Pen!  Ari is here!"

He gently ushers Ari inside with one hand on the small of her back, stepping to the side to allow her to step past him through the doorway and into the main room.  The lights are mostly off, other than the one right here at the doorway: still, it reflects off the burnt orange of the walls, the warm dark wood of the floorboards, and it glows, the color resplendent.  To Ari: "What made you decide that today was the day?"  Beat.  "I'm so happy to see you."

Mars

Silence from above.

And, listen, it is as of the silence between one movement (Symphonic) and the next, the hush before the --

Here it is. Pen is often a creature of composure, gloaming settling on a witchery of water, intent and intensely drawn young woman who might conjure fire or men into pigs or; Pen. They both know Pen to respond to a surprise with quiet pleasure (or displeasure; reserve goes both ways), keeping herself in check and restrained. Tonight: well. Here it is.

One does not crash when one is not wearing shoes, although one should, given one's predilection for naked melée weaponry, burnishing stones (hematite is the best, and she dropped one earlier), charcoal crumbs and Pen comes bounding down the stairs, practically falling down them really thanks a lot gravity oh there's an idea for an Effect must find the right ritual or make it up, bound bound bound oh hello Nicholas she she places her hands one on either of his shoulders and bounces twice up behind Nick -

"Arianna, Arianna! Delight, my heart!" - she is pleased and laughing, of course and then a third time for good measure - "Come in! Come in come in!" -  and then uses him as a springboard to fling herself onto Arianna, wrapping her up immediately into a (passionate [lakes are deep, see: they do lead to fairyland]) HUG.

Mine! Yes! Yay!

Giametti

There are old laws, old old older than the dirt beneath this house, older than the words that shape the languages they speak, old old old as time (and possibly older) laws that bind some segment of her Awakened soul to etiquettes long since abandoned and rarely, these days, understood.  Nicholas places his hand in the small of her back; he leads her across the threshold.  There is a bargaining here, an evaluating of the finer strictures of a rule.  Hush, hush -- she holds her breath as they step across the threshold; she hopes. 

Come in come in come in -- Pen spares her, at the very last moment, thrice-spoken and thus wrought.  She exhales when they both make through the gateway. She is unprepared for an incoming Pen.

Some alarmed and off-guard sound erupts from the slightly smaller woman, sequeing immediately into more laughter. She crushes Penelope in an equally tight hug; holding her tightly.  When one arm does break free, it is only to reach over and pull Nick into the fray by one arm, until they are a still-standing (for now) tangle of limbs and reunion.  From the middle of this, muffled by the proximity of Penelope's shoulder to Arianna's mouth, eventually comes:

"I've missed you two, like a moon misses the stars.  Say you are well; truly?"

This is kept quieter, in counterpoint to the raucous greeting she has received. Spoken carefully. With warmth and concern; with love, as well as Arianna knows it. This place already feels strongly of home.  She does not yet release them, or seek to wriggle free.

Hyde

It's not difficult to pull Nick back into the tangle of limbs; he was already hovering there, just past the two of them as they embraced, and he easily encircles the both of them, tilting his head against Pen's even as he pulls Ari into his side.

There are reunions that, even when they come after only a few months, feel somehow longer than that; time is an odd thing, in that human experience and emotion can alter its perception, to the point it's little wonder how people like the three of them are able to push and pull and manipulate its patterns.  Time seems to move more quickly when people who are dear are also far away and beyond reach.

"Truly," Nick says, and if he has taken half a step back it's only so he can look at Ari as he speaks with her, though he still keeps his hands there, one on the side of Ari's shoulder and one arm around Pen.  "Everything is bigger here except for the chantry."

Nick is not disapproving.  Perhaps a smaller Awakened community, more closely knit, is something he has wanted all this time.

Mars

Pen will never be satisfied. But:

there is something satisfying, bone deep, about one of one's best friends returning, successfully pouncing them, and being enfolded see by that best friend and the other most best beloved. Paint this picture with poignancy and reverence, make them glow, burnished in the burnt orange room just touched by one light and the shadows all around -- they aren't frightening shadows. They're mysterious, dark night of the soul shadows. They're the kind that exist only to highlight.

So: ee, Arianna is hugging her too, Arianna is real, right here, real and here, and wouldn't it be fun to sway this way, and then that way, and see if they'll all be overbalanced? Wouldn't that be the best expression of adoration and pleasure? Of devotion to the quicksilver flick-flame of excitement? Why yes it would. "Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm."  Arianna is real and Nicholas too and Ari at her shoulder and Pen burying herself so and dear god she really is going to knock them all three over with the recklessness of how firmly she has abandoned her restraint. Dig-in chin, and then she kisses Ari's cheek.

Would Arianna like to breathe, perchance?

Pen looses her hold at long last; it has not been so long, but it feels it. She tugs on Nicholas's sleeve (DO YOU SEE THAT ARIANNA IS HERE NICHOLAS) and keeps her hand on Arianna's shoulder no lets her hand slide down Arianna's arm so she can take her hand instead and twine fingers and smile. Broad. Pleased. Pleased as punch where punch is just about the pleasedest anything has ever been. 

Nick is not disapproving; Nick is also informative. "How could we be anything but well when Arianna has surprised us on our doorstep and likened us to starlight; and when," here, a quick grin for Nick; somewhat arch, "everything is bigger. Except for the scotch glasses; those remain, alas, the exact same size. Are you staying with us?" 

Giametti

So it begins: the Denver chronicle.  Nick's hand on her shoulder, Pen's fingers twined with hers; the knot of her hair beginning to unspiral and tumble, the watchful reverence of the house around them.  It is a good beginning, quite possibly the best as far as beginnings go.  Enfolded in warmth; welcomed.

"Everything is bigger... except the Chantry?" Oh, ever the Hermetic she is. This is as if Nick has said that everything is bigger, except the Every Thing That Matters.  As if the words might curlicue up to mark their own punctuation. But, never mind that, that is a tomorrow problem, a not now thing a --

"I brought scotch," she announces but makes no move just yet to pull the cylindrical sleeve and its precious contents from her bag, which has survived the hugging and squishing quite respectably (might be enchanted [may be practiced]).  "And I might," she answers without answering. "Or I mightn't.  I didn't know -- I have a room, somewhere. Ah," her free hand digs into the pocket of her coat, pulls out a slip of paper, torn so that the hotel name and address are all that show. It is most notably not of her own writing, scrawled, indelicate (sloppy). "Here." This is handed to Pen, or to Nick -- held out. Whomever claims it first gets it.

"I didn't want to impose."  She explained, leveraging manners of a sort.  They are odd and misplaced to the times.  "But then I couldn't wait to see you."

Hyde

"I'm glad you came here without worrying about the room first," Nick says, and his tone is warm as he straightens back.  The scotch, he will allow Pen to take, and if he suspects he is about to spend the second night in a row drunk, well, at least he will be with these two.  "We have a spare."

Which they do: the rueful tilt of his brow as he glances up the stairwell indicates that the orderliness of such a room may be in doubt, however.

Nick is drawing the other two farther into the house, half a foot by half a foot.  Then, "Pen!  We should have a fire," and Nick is still very enchanted by the idea of having fires, and by having people over in a house that they have together to have a fire.  And he looks back at Ari again, his eyebrows and mouth touched with dry amusement. "And maybe show Ari around, I guess."

Mars

Pen accepts the scotch with all due gravity, circling the neck of the bottle with her thumb and forefinger, allowing its weight to rest against her palm and wrist. The paper with the hotel writ on it; well, she'll tilt her head to read it still in Arianna's hand (or in Nick's) rather than take it, the reading cursory. Her pale half-gown half-smock diaphanous Romantic robe-thing doesn't have pockets.

"Do you want to be shown around the heap of mess and disorganization, Ari; or would you rather cosy in around a fire, speaking to Nicholas and myself of adventures great and adventures small, sharing news of those to the East? Whilst drinking scotch?"

"Crow," and she is so fond: it's a sharp swipe of fondness in her voice, something that could draw blood not on purpose but she just loves Nicholas so much you see finds his enchantment enchanting and amusing; "you should learn how to conjure fire." And it seems she is going to expand on that thought, when -

Nope. "Oh! Oh, Ari. I do want to hear about the Convocation; surely it wasn't all boring tedium? Would you like to see the kitchen? The kitchen is where we eat since the dining area is ... well it is for books, not for eating. One can eat there, but the table is books right now. I would apologize in another universe, one in which I apologize for stupid things, but as we are in this universe, I can only shrug. Like so."

Shrug, shrug. Flick-fire switch: "Oh, are you hungry?"

Because she's been traveling.

And timezones.

And and -

Giametti

"One must never apologize for having many books," she says.  Not too many books, though, because too many books is a ridiculous thing to say. There is simply no thing as too many when it comes to books.  Or tomes. But scrolls -- they are finnicky to store, so, one could have too many scrolls, in theory, but in practice it wasn't all that likely.

"I would --"  Nicholas had suggested something, which had slid into Penelope asking her a question which had resolved itself, without her input, in half-foot-by-half-foot wanderings into and through their home.

"It's beautiful," she tells them, in response to exactly nothing. About the house, or maybe specifically the kitchen, though now again more likely of the library to dine by. Unclear, the specifics of it hardly matter.  "A fire sounds lovely. I would, I would really like a fire and I do not mind who conjures it..."

The smile hasn't faded, hasn't budged an inch. The laughter still clings to the faint crows-feet creases around her eyes.  Its tucked into the wrinkling of the bridge of her nose.

"And a sandwich, and likewise I do not mind who conjures that -- or I can cook," she adds, which is less of an active threat that it might seem.  Of all the domestic arts, cooking seems the only one that has stuck in the slightest, and possibly only because it involved fire, and food, and occasionally wine.

The Convocation is left for another moment, or possibly another day.  Word from the East -- snowing; cold; tempestuous (Why, yes, I do mean Rob) -- shall be delivered in due time, with apt imitations and the careful pitching of her voice in ways that might some most irked or irksome (knave! [rogue!]).

And-- and-- At long last, she breathes in again.  It feels like the first time since she crossed their threshold and got crushed into an embrace.  When Arianna breathes out, something in her shoulders settles.  She is real, as Pen has observed and insisted, and ever more present.  She has not fallen away to smoke and silences.

"Ah--no! I know! Let's make popcorn!" The quest for sandwich is forgotten in favor of a treat unbecoming of Hermetics cloistered away for convocation. "The better for stories..."

Giametti

[Edit: .... pitching of her voice that might *seem most ...]

Hyde

"I should learn to conjure fire spirits," Nick says, and his voice too is fond, though perhaps also contemplative; this, the conjuring, is a pursuit that has been absorbing him lately.  It was something of an oversight in his training.

And and and.  Nicholas listens to the two of them, their back and forth, and the expression on his face is far away and it carries this very specific kind of serenity: the kind when you pass the threshold into your home after a long time away and breathe in all of those familiar smells again for the first time in a long time.

Words swirl around the three of them: Convocation, talk of books and stories and food.  "We have popcorn," he says, and because stories seem to have been what was decided on, he leans over to turn on one of the lamps in this main room - behold, light!

The main room, once more fully revealed, is also for books, but also for people, particularly while they sit there reading books.  The furniture is not especially new, the fabric not especially rich, but it has good bones and it's comfortable.  Paintings of red and gold and brown are hung on the walls; on one of the opposite walls: a photo of a tree in a field, captured at a point where morning fog was thickest; it is stark and black and white and seems ethereal.  Below that, there is a small fountain which is off at the moment, water that would usually be whispering in and amongst the rocks.  The stone hearth is on the far end.

Nick disappears into the kitchen, then, for popcorn.  And for scotch glasses.

Nick

[wait.  the naming needs to be consistent, we used last names last time]

Mars

I should learn to conjure fire spirits. "Or - and!" The and is the concession. " - to conjure golden flame itself," Pen slips in, neatly: quick as a fin, rilling the surface of a river, a kingfisher darting in and no more fin.

Now, inside main room (and it will have a name, knowing Pen. Robin Anton was the one who couldn't keep from nicknaming everybody, everything. But Pen likes names for places, names for home. Her apartment back in New London or whatever Connecticut city she'd roosted was called the Rookery, which was shortened from the Rookery by Crookery, in a nod to the somewhat shady fashion she came to be a tenant in that place. Thanks, Evelyn. Without a favor or three from him, rent would be so much more difficult) the stone hearth is an iron woodstove of elegant lines a black little thing with a twelve-petaled flower at the center of the door. Penelope opens it and this is a House of Wizards. She invokes (commands), twisting Enochian around Ancient Greek, a phrase as spare as any fragment of Sappho -

and there is fire. There is already wood; she checked. Poke, poke. Glow, glow. Embers, burn, ardent, resplendent.

The picture above the hearthplace is a print by Remedios Varo. Beside that, in a silver gilt frame (constructed by hand, of course), a painting Penelope did of Nick. You wouldn't know it if you didn't know him or them. There's a feather, stuck to it. Somewhere in the house is an illustration she did of the old cabal, some surrealist's representation of them. Maybe it is hanging, maybe it is not. There's also a framed poem.

No photographs of people. Not in the main room: not that she put there, at any rate. A hand-cast statue, maybe five inches tall, of a stag; silver. To hold a pair of pokers obviously there is a fireplace knight, about yea high.

After the fire is conjured, Pen turns on the (dirty; yeah, this place could use a scrubbing) soles of her feet, then comes out of the crouch and where is Arianna is Arianna already sitting on the couch is Arianna looking at the books or some of the art is Arianna in the kitchen here is where Arianna is:

being, much less dramatically but still, pounced by a Penelope Sylvia Mercury Mars (and various other names, not to mention titles), who hooks her arm through Arianna's and has her sit then rests her head on her shoulder and closes her eyes and hums. Affection, affection. 

Giametti

They move through the house in eddies and whorls of movements. Nick splits off to head for the kitchen.  Penelope flings her Will across the room; fire is born.  All the while Ari is undoing the buttons of her coat and smiling, taking in the broad strokes of the settings as they pass through.  She rests her bag against one foot of an armchair, shrugs out of the coat and drapes it over one arm.  One cuff hangs low to drag against the dirty floor; she doesn't seem to notice or care.

When Pen turns to find her, here is where Arianna is: seated on the sofa, one foot tucked under her knee, leaned against the couch arm, cavalierly, comfortably, as if she were quiet already at home. Head in hand, elbow on the back of the couch, watching but still not yet quite parsing the pouncing until it is upon her.

Laughter, again, comes from her in ripples.  An overloud (dramatic [for show]) buss placed on Penelope's crown -- affection, affection -- as they settle to something quieter and tumbled together. 

"So... Denver?" she asks, into the ruddy locks of Penelope's hair, watching the ardent dance of Penelope's fire-work.  Ari lifts her chin enough to look over, toward the kitchen, from whence Nick must soon enter.

Hyde

Nick is perhaps taking a bit longer than expected in the kitchen; he is still figuring out the layout of the kitchen and where everything is stored away.  Pen got to the house before he did and had the opportunity to place everything in the cabinets first, and it is not where Nick would have placed it, and so it is likely that things will be moved and shuffled around for some time until the two of them can settle on some sort of compromise, some place where things fit and ought to be.

The oil is heating the kernels when Nick emerges, briefly, to hand both Ari and Pen each a tumbler of the scotch that Ari brought for them.  He stops as he passes through the archway, one foot past the threshold, and smiles at the sight of the two of them there together on the couch.

His steps barely give him away as he passes over the floorboards; his feet too are bare, and soft-soled, and so quiet it may sometimes be hard to believe he touches the floor.  He leans over the back of the couch to hold the tumblers in front of each of them.  "I'll be right back," he says again once they have taken their glasses, and he takes this moment too to ruffle a hand over Ari's hair even as he leans around to Pen's side to place a kiss on her cheek.

Then, back into the kitchen, and he hurries now because there is the pang-pang-pang gunrattle sound of corn popping.

Mars

"Denver. The Mile High City. An Ys, forever triumphal and undrowned. Old West Denver. All cowboys, all the hard left-behinds and wake-dragged wonderers of a gold rush," Penelope says, and her head is still on Arianna's shoulder. It is just comfortable, in a way she has missed. Penelope is a warm-hearted young woman, but physical affection like this is reserved (always, this reserve; this steadying control to counterbalance the overwhelming impulsive sensibility that would guide her to dare-to-much) for only those few.

Her eyes are still closed. Nicholas is good at whispering in and whispering out again. After she opens her eyes to take her tumbler of scotch, after he kisses her cheek, she looks over her shoulder and reaches for him, but he's already back to tend the popcorn. Good man. Penelope would burn the popcorn and then be distressed. She is often distressed by waste and many of her habits were formed with an eye to reuse to cut down on to scrimp to save to make last etcetera. "Ari, it is certainly an interesting city."

Honesty compels her. Like usual. "I don't know whether you'll loathe it or like it a lot."

Giametti

"Grazie."  This is for Nick, whose eyes Arianna meets just long enough to pass along some less tangible expression of her affection than that which Penelope Mercury Mars is enveloped in.  The fingers of one hand wrap around the tumble, securing its precious cargo with well-practiced ease.  The fingers of her other hand thread through Penelope's hair in the wake of Nick's retreat.

And yes, the bridge of her nose wrinkles in pleased appreciation of the ruffling of her own.  This sort of tangible, palpable friendship is not something Arianna enjoyed in her youth.  This puppy pile approach to kinship came later, much later; it is treasured, even prized.

When Pen runs herself out on historical facts-and-fictions and declares Denver to be an interesting city, Ari's eyebrows arch up -- disbelievingly -- only to drop again with the next assertion.

"Probably more than a little of both,"  she cedes, fairly. Ari rolls one shoulder into a small shrug.  Eyes the tumbler, amber gleaming in the firelight but still left un-drunk.  She is waiting for Nicholas; formalities, see! She is waiting to toast to togetherness! frienship! even To Denver! 

Hyde

From the kitchen, there is more clattering and shuffling: the rattle of a bowl being set down on the counter, the rainfall pattering sound of popcorn hitting the inside, and then whatever Nick is doing as he moves around in the kitchen before bringing it back out.  The popcorn that is in the bowl is reddish from some concoction that is more sriracha than butter, dotted with spice.

Nick, who cast aside his old man sweater while handling hot oil, leans between the two of them, far far over, to place the bowl on the coffee table in front of them.  He has his tumbler in his other hand, and he is expert here at balancing them while not falling over the other two.

As soon as he has done this, he eyes the two of them for a moment, then pushes himself up and over the back of the couch to collapse onto the cushion at Pen's side.  Somehow scotch does not go everywhere, and Nick takes a triumphant sip as soon as he has landed, his hair thick and shining as a crow's wing as it obscures part of his face when he dips his head.  He tucks his knees in against his stomach, leaning into Pen.  Beneath the sweater he has only an unadorned light blue T-shirt, and he wants the warmth of both Pen and the fire (one and the same.)

"There aren't many Adepts here to hang over your head.  Very little of chantry politics, from what I can see.  It's kind of refreshing," is Nick's contribution.

Giametti

[secret popcorn dice...because...whynot?]

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

Mars

Ari's fingers threading through Pen's hair is another pleasure. Pen likes it when (select few) people play with her hair. She goes very still, and there's practically no chance that she'll move from Ari's shoulder now.

Practically no chance, thy name is Nicholas Hyde. Pen straightens (somewhat, not much; she is still leaned, just not languishing) her head, careful of the scotch which must tremble at the addition of another person to the couch, and then Penelope twists herself so she has one leg behind Nicholas one leg under his and she is lying 'cross Arianna's lap. There.

But wait; does she want to lie across Nick's lap and put her legs on Ari's, the better to see Ari's face? These are considerations to mull, but for now: so she is, stretched and cuddled and pleased with herself for having masterfully executed the stretch which has brought her so.

She regards the popcorn with interest, of course. But not that much interest, not yet.

"It's not that different," Pen says, the implication being there are still politics. "At least I have not found it to be so. More wanh wanh wanhhh," that old familiar Old West refrain, high noon, long shadows; desert, wilderness, individuals pitting against other individuals, lawlessness, etcetera; she echoes it almost lazily. The hand not holding the tumbler of Scotch sketches some crazy spider ballet in the air.

A tumbleweed, naturally.

Giametti

First Nick comes bearing scotch, and then Nick comes bearing popcorn, and all of this reminds her why Nick and Pen are among her most favourite people.  There are so few Awakened with whom she might tumble on the couch and share stories with over the pairing of popcorn and very expensive alcohol.

He's no more set down the bowl when her hand darts forward, captures a handful of the spice-laced kernels and they are almost thoughtlessly crammed into her mouth, post-haste, no manners when it comes to popcorn, when -- the progress of her hand halts and she peers into its grasp with a curious expression.  There is... there is something odd about this popcorn, even in the light of the fire.  But it is forgotten as he sticks the landing, spares the scotch and settles against Pen.  She lifts her tumbler and also her chin toward him in salute.

Re: popcorn -- No matter! Onward! Into her mouth the popcorn goes.  Predictably, the Sriracha catches her off guard and "Hah--" eyes widen, "Hmmm" then press shut.  A little cough; a smirk; a nod of approval.  Snacks that fight back are fitting; it's only fair.

Re: Denver, and Penelope strewn across her lap and, and, and...

"Is that the technical term for it?" she inquires. Repeats the sound that Penelope has sung (wanh wanh waaannnhhh, was it?).  "How do you spell it? You know... for my notes." This offhand remark is punctuated by a clever glance thrown to Nick, and then, finally, a sip of her scotch.

Hyde

Ari has seen this look before, the glint of conspiracy in Nick's eyes.  His sense of humor is still quite intact after this time gone by.  Ari perhaps understands this: there are few circumstances that he does not bring some element of playfulness to, and few subjects outside the bounds of acceptable material to joke about in one way or another.  Most people would miss it, but not Ari.

He shifts as Pen adjusts herself, drapes an arm and hand over the leg she has thrown around him, and balances his scotch on his knee.  He also has not yet reached for the popcorn (though the slight redness there around his mouth, where the skin is probably still tingling, indicates that perhaps he was already doing a sample test before he brought it out from the kitchen).

"Well, you had a more political meeting than I did," Nick points out to Pen, even as Ari teases her about her choice of words.  "We do have plenty of cowboys set to ride off into the sunset though.  Less intrigue.  And the dinner parties are calmer."

Mars

"You use musical notation." Pen says this firmly, tongue in cheek. Her eyes have closed again; her eyelashes are dark. Upstairs, her gesso is drying in the chalice, clumping in a way that will be difficult to thin.

Having the scotch in hand is enough right now for Pen and she doesn't yet take a sip. "And my more political meeting is nothing to do with it, Nick! The politics are there, strong as ever. They are just taken from the scaffolding which chantry houses and a historical presence lend them, so it seems ... looser, but even loose the thread's there just the same."

"There isn't a great deal of resource swiping, I'll admit."

Giametti

They have all grown up in very different ways and Ari, see, Ari is the child of Great Hermetics, who has grown up in their cloistered halls and railed against the rigidity thereof.  But she is aware, in some small and growing ways, that the rigidity is form which facilitates function.  She rebells and she needles and she eeks out exceptions but that only ever goes so far -- see, she is the child of Great Hermetics; she is steeped deeply in their ways; its dyed into her whole-cloth, like breathing. She knows no other way. 

"So, cowboys and sunsets, and a small Chantry," she catalogs what they've told her, pausing to let Pen's thoughts slip through --

There isn't a great deal of resource swiping

-- "Well, at least there's that. Though I'd imagine," she says, full calm and centered, all seriousness, no bluff, "That your Deacon would put a stop to it if there were."  Because structure. Because Chantries have Deacons. Because assumptions (because Hermetic [because because]).

She takes a sip of her scotch again, holds it for a moment, swallows.  "I've a letter of introduction, of course," she says, again, off-hand, expecting that Penelope will point her in the appropriate direction for handing such things off. Usually it would have been sent ahead, but Denver being the wild west and all -- wanh wanh waaaaanhhh, and all -- she'd hand carried it instead.

Hyde

Nick listens to Pen's thoughts, processes them, and then he nods, and this could be an agree-to-disagree thing or it could be a weighted consideration of what he has observed so far.  Smaller chantries: the politics just feel more like closeness, the human relationships more palpable in some ways.

"I think there are enough resources to go around here, which is part of it," Nick says, and his voice is quiet, and there's some gravity here which - 

Well, nevermind.

Ari mentions their deacon, and there is this way Nick's glance cuts over to her, and it is sharply humorous, and he says, "I was actually told that there isn't a deacon here.  I don't even think there's a council."  A beat.  "You could probably tack the letter of introduction to the corkboard that's up in the chantry hall, though."

Giametti

[Subterfuge:  This laissez faire political system does not surprise me in the least]

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

Hyde

[Are you sure about that?]

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

Giametti

[Yes, dearheart. I am well and truely sure.  Also, Lysander adored me -- when he wasn't busy hating me. *curtseys* ]

Mars

[But fine, how close do I come to seeing through your tricksy Unseelie face, Ari?!]

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

Giametti

There is this way that Nick's glance cuts over to her, to Ari, who has Penelope lounging in her lap; Ari, who has the slightly touch of red beside her mouth, burning, no doubt, thanks to the danger-popcorn that he has crafted. Ari, who has traveled many leagues today, and come from stranger places than most men might dream. He looks at her like that, and tells her that there is no deacon, and not even the basic political unit (a Council) and she...

... considers this for a singular moment, rolling the thought around in her head as if she were spreading her scotch across her palate.

"Oh," she says, hanging the single syllable out there in the comfortable warmth of their living room. It's bell like, tonal; it probably also should be transcribed on a musical stave, like Penelope's wanhh waaanh waaaaanh. But this sound, which is so often a precursor (warning) to a more vibrantly eloquent opinion, hangs and then passes.

"Okay then." This sounds more sorted. Ari tips her scotch to one corner of her glass, stares at the firelight streaming through in. Shrugs once.

"But no corkboards." She cuts a look back, grin flashing; untroubled. "Even I won't publish my credentials with stick pins -- it's so vulgar..."

Mars

"But Arianna, stick pins are merely miniature staves, with a very long and storeyed past; can you truly deny the mythic antecedents of the stick pin? When they're not miniature staves, they are miniature swords, the very needling handmaidens and pages of the Air and of Intellect. For shame, that you should malign their use as a means to communicate your credentials, for shame!"

There is a thoughtful pause from Pen, in which she (languorous, see) lets her hand hover over the popcorn bowl, quite as if she is going to pick up a great handful. Instead she is finicky, only liberates one popped kernel; regards it with criticism, as if it failed to live up to her desire for fluffiness (it does) and offers it instead first to Nicholas and then to Arianna. Hand hovers again, searching for that perfect pop.

"Ari? Are you looking forward to the adventure of being far, far from the East coast, and other halls hallowed by ages of experience?"

(Earnest.)

Hyde

Pen offers Nick the failed kernel of popcorn, which he takes from her and pops into his own mouth. There is this amused lilt to his eyebrows as he watches her quest for a piece that meets her expectations, something with a perfectly round and fluffy crown without the pits or dents carved into it by melted butter. She has an entire bowl; perhaps she'll find it.

In the meantime, he will happily eat the castoffs.

He is quiet as Pen and Ari share this exchange, these questions. Still entirely content. He has pulled one of Pen's feet into his lap and has cupped his hands around her cold toes to lend warmth to them, still as a glowing cinder, his hair dark as the ash that has already begun to pile up beneath the logs.

Giametti

Nick is quiet, perhaps because he knows what follows. Her eyes are bright and filled with mischeif; the counterbalance to Pen's languid lady-of-the-lake allure.

To Pen, then: "Oh, so you defend the pins and not the cork? When cork is derived from the steadfast trees, if pins be the handmaidens of Air and Intellect, then cork must be taken as a hallmark of the Earth itself -- and pentacles and therefore coins, as circles are the coin of the realm and Circles, Pen, Circles are the beginning and the ending of everything that matters. You've taken sides; it's plain to see. Tell me, whatever has ever been done to you by trees?"

They can go on like this for hours, likely often have and often will. This doesn't answer Penelope's earnest question, doesn't even touch on it. Arianna reaches past Pen to capture a small handful of popcorn. It is well and truly possible that the perfectly popped kernel resides in the crush of that handful she's taken. Unappreciated. Unmarked. Too bad! They all go to their fate at once, into the maw of the gaping Ari-beast. Perfection is no match for hungry, hungry Hermetics.

Mars

"They gave my dear friend Arianna an excuse not to answer my more important question, the one less flippantly spoken," Pen says, still earnest. One cannot dissuade her just with poetry.

This is a lie. One can often dissuade Pen, set her on some other track, with judicious use of metaphor and nonsense; she likes high language so much!

She buries her hand in the popcorn bowl because perhaps she'll find the perfect kernel toward the bottom; comes up with a handful she lets scatter along the surface, and then - this one? Nope; another cast-off for Nick. This one? Her nose wrinkles, but she deigns to pop it in her mouth. Sucks the fluff out of the popcorn before swallowing, and then -

Then a sip of scotch, the better to look at Arianna beguilingly up from under her eyelashes. Quite an accomplishment, given that she is in Arianna's lap! In two laps at once: it is good to be Penelope, human bridge and threshold.

Hyde

There is this point during which the Hermetics talk about mythic antecedents of the stick pin, and coin of the realm and Circles and Nick cannot begin to fathom what the fuck they are talking about. That's all right: he's good natured, Nick, and he's entirely used to not always understanding Hermetics when they go on about mythic signs and symbols. He has his own mythic signs and symbols to get lost in.

He takes more kernels of popcorn and eats them one by one, watching the other two with this earnest expression. The poetry, he appreciates.

"Have you ever lived outside the east coast, Ari?" He has always gotten the impression that she has not: still, Nick has now crossed the continent twice, and he finds this a little hard to imagine.

Giametti

"In truth, that wasn't the forest's fault," Arianna cautions. So Pen is not to be dissuaded, tonight, or Ari was not clever enough on her verbal toes tonight. So she answers, in sort, in a sort of earnest half-way:

"I am always looking forward to adventure," and this is true, a ready conspirator she has always been. "Doubly, no!, triply so when it comes with you, two."

There. Beguilingly has been answered. And to seal it as such she presses the tip of one finger eversogently against the tip of Pen's nose.

Nick's question, then, is mulled a little more carefully, as if it is translated first to a foreign tongue and answered and then translated back again.

"Ah, yes. But I think not quite as you're asking," she answers. Arianna sips at her scotch again, thoughtfully. It takes a moment to organize her thoughts.

"The East Coast is the only place I've lived outside of living in a Chantry." Ho hum. No, that's not a strange thing to say at all. Arianna is studious in her carefully nonchalant unmeeting of eyes after this.

Hyde

Arianna is studiously nonchalant; Nicholas is only curious. He has his scotch glass raised to his mouth, and he is taking a slow swallow from it, then another. It does nothing to quench the burn of the popcorn Pen has been handing him all this while.

"We'll have to show you around Denver, then," he says, because Nick has already made several forays out into the wilds beyond the city. For another, soon, he will be accompanied by one of the Verbena, and he will marvel at how foreign the rock swept landscape and the cliffs and boulders feel to him after years on the coast.

"Which chantry did you live in? Not the one in Boston?"

Mars

Pen looks pensive, pen sieve, a sieve to catch ink-chained words, Words, a sieve to sift stars from ink dark eyes from ink black hair black is the color of my true love's, and so Pen looks pensive. Just the sort of answer she wants from Arianna; Arianna, ready for Adventure. Arianna, who Pen admires and does indeed look up to (Robin always disagreed but Robin disagreed out of spite with everything, or so Pen would say). This smoulder warmth begins to seep into the pensive, spreading just like the burn when she takes a (big) mouthful of scotch and lets it go down slow; it puts a dragon in her chest, the dragon is made of smoke and fire and it spreads its wings and spreads its wings, and then it burnishes her thoughts and when she closes her eyes (content [but never satisfied]) burnishes the backs of her eyelids and her toes curl in Nick's hand or lap and she doesn't say a thing though she does lower her standards enough to pick another popcorn kernel out of the mess and drop it into her mouth from high above once the scotch has burned away and nope no choking not this time. Listens for now, that's all.

Giametti

She captures the corner of her mouth with her teeth and worries it a bit. There is a bit of delicacy to his question, whether Nick knows it or not. This is a question she has clever and artful dodges for, when she is asked within the formal company of the Order of Hermes -- but Nick is neither a fellow of the Order, nor is he particularly subject to feints and ripostes.

"How much do you know about the losses we suffered in the War?" she asks, and looks to Nick for the shape of his answer. It is enough to raise an eyebrow, or tilt his head -- this is not a specific thing she's asking for, just the magnitude of its weight and measure. "I lived in Italy when I was young -- the Chantry there stands; it is one of the few."

"And when I say Chantry, I do not mean a stylish manse or repurposed community center. Bigger, even, than Boston. It's more like a University, or a small town -- a whole community built up around this central authority. A fortress, sometimes; a cathedral others. And everyone is Hermetic, from a mixture of Houses. It's all very formal, and strictured," she breathes out a little. It's burdened. She does not share why.

"There will be more of them again," she shares, strangely sure of this somehow. "Maybe not here, but over in Europe. Here is it harder -- there are fewer derelict castles to scoop up off repossession." She's kidding -- surely, she's kidding.

Hyde

[Ari, are you for real?]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 6, 9, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 7 ) [Doubling Tens]

Giametti

Strangely, yes, Ari is 'for real.' There is no hint of trickery to her boastful and wild imaginings. In fact, they are so sincere that it is unlikely even Ari could steep herself this completely in lies.

Additionally, there is a muddled sense of nostalgia and anxiety about her time in Chantries. She is hopeful when she tells them that there will be others again, and soon. Certain in a way that speaks to some insider knowledge. But she is also strangely and seriously concerned by it, as if something hangs above her head.

It may occur to Nick that Ari has said very little about her family to them, in all the years they've known each other. There is something weighty and disconcerting hidden there -- and hiding now just beneath the surface of her smile. It is obligation, and a sense of never measuring up sure or strong enough to expectations.

So yes -- these fanciful Chantries are real and yes -- she's been more than a casual party therin. There's something beautiful about building back the Order; and something sad in knowing her place within it.

Hyde

The losses suffered in the War: Nick has heard tell, and he has read, and in a way these sorts of losses carry stronger spiritual signatures than the physical world itself bears. He does not answer her, because he senses that she has more to say, that this is a leading question, and so Nick raises his eyebrows in response and allows her to carry on. A sort of: I do not know, but perhaps you'll tell me.

And it is clear as Ari tells them about where she grew up that Nick is trying not to be impressed, and yet he is impressed. See, there's this way in which his eyes fix on her, in which he hangs on her words and tries to imagine that sort of life, and the buried secrets and stories he'd find in a fortress-cathedral-chantry. "Derelict...castles? People in the Order just buy them?"

Then: there is a little shift in his expression to something almost suspicious. He looks for the little tells, the shifting eyes or the little movements that might give her away: but none of these. Either Ari has become a better liar in the past few months, or she is not in fact shitting him. And whatever he sees in Ari then shifts his demeanor ever so slightly. "It must be pretty amazing to see one of them be reclaimed that way, and turned into something new."

Mars

Let's not put to fine a point on it:

Pen was wildly jealous when she learned that places (magic places, of learning and wonder and fucking magic all the time and the libraries and how could one not dream of places) like the one Arianna grew up within existed, and somebody (somebodies) she knew had not only been there but belonged there.

Pen is not wildly jealous any longer, has not been for some years, but the thought of such a bastion still dredges wistfulness from her; it seeps up, wells clear-tumbled water from a spring under moonlight the sort of secret well fairy ladies would bathe their feet in pilgrims would travel far to find.

Another sip of scotch, judicious.

And then a popcorn kernel, added to the scotch.

She holds the glass up to watch the kernel drown from the bottom.

Giametti

"Not people in the Order, so much as the Order through proxies which may happen to be people," Ari explains. This probably sounds just as ludicrous to Nick but Ari could, and doesn't, remind him that this country has declared that Corporations are People... why not the Order, then?

"The Fortunae are very, very good with money," she cedes, with a little shrug. "And it is. It's good to see the past brought forward; and the strongholds we have lost renewed. Someday, maybe, they will be havens and academies in their own right."

"I wish you two had had a chance to study at one. The Libraries," she says, waxing wistful and longing. "I only have leave to bring a tiny one of my own here, which is -- it pales in comparison; doesn't even rise to paling, really." Rue. "But the Libraries alone are almost worth the rest of it."

She breathes out a little, pushing away the wistfulness and replacing it with a borrowed sense of surety. (And this confidence, good sir Nicholas, this is most certainly bordering on lying [to herself]).

"Someday, when I have standing befitting my family names, I'll bring you two myself." This warrants a deeper pull from her scotch. Which is dwindling.

Hyde

Libraries are a sensitive topic around here. Nicholas takes a long swallow of his scotch, meeting Ari's eyes over the rim of the glass; he is interested, and wondering, and perhaps even a little full of wonder at the thought of an academy like the one she is describing.

He is also certain he would not fit there. He does not say so. Perhaps this conversation makes him think of another one, a long time ago, very different in tone and scope.

"When you're ready to bring us," and certainty in his tone here, because he is confident that Ari will have anything she wants, "I would like to go and see it." A beat. "Why doesn't the Order do anything like that here? I mean, the lack of castles aside."

Mars

Pen breaks in with: "Perhaps it does, and is, Nick. America is funny-strange, all those dying towns and secret roadside attractions; all those Mystery houses," somewhat archly. Like many New Englanders, she is burdened with an overabundance of patriotism. Like many Hermetics, she has learned how to be proud. "I just know there must be something going on, if not now then years and years ago, with the Denver airport; it has gargoyles. Did you see the gargoyles, Ari?"

Giametti

"I did see them. And the demon horse. This is a strange city you've found us, Pen," Ari says, making no objections to the mystery houses and dying towns.

"If the Order isn't building strongholds here, then maybe we should start one of our own," she hazards, and this is the sort of idle boast made when one is tired, and when one's mind is filled with far off and long ago things -- and also troubled by the lack of Deacons and Councils and anything that passes as a familiar fixture in the landscape.

"This whole city's like a threshold, bent between the plains and mountains and the sky -- there's got to be a ley line somewhere."

And so it goes. Idle talk like this and that. Hermetic poeticisms and plainer facts. The blending and re-telling of the threads of their friendship until Ari has to set her glass aside. Until, later yet, she tips her head into her hand and the warm weight of Pen in her lap draws heavy the lids of her eyes. Until it is time to make excuses and head for bed -- but not before each friend is well and truly hugged again. Because the things that divide and differentiate them have nothing on the things that bind them; of this, at least, Ari is sure and certain.