Arianna: [Chez Giametti]
In 2016, most young people, or even people of a certain age, who are possessed of an inclination to get ahold of one another, rely on the pricking of their thumbs and the promise of technology to bridge the gap. Most people have a smart phone or tablet or other digital device attached to them at all times. Most people, but not Arianna Giametti, who has only mild interest in text messages and absolutely no need for an intelligent telephone of any design.
There are older ways of finding one another. Messages left in common places; haunting of the same; word of mouth -- all vetted, and relatively reliable, but predicated on interlopers. Then there are methods that pull upon the sacred and more perfect truths of the world around them, things submerged beneath the knowable, quantifiable whole.
Of course, as a Hermetic of the most Hermetic House, Arianna chooses to scry for Silas. To throw her voice across the space between them using little more than her Will and her instruments alone. It is not a simple thing, but it is made easier by the bonds between them, by the thin band of silver on the ring finger of her right hand, by the string of syllables spoken in a tumble of tongues (Languages, Invocation) as she sets the incense (Air) to smouldering in the low, shallow basin (Circle) on the broad and covered patio of her now and empty home.
[The Bachelor Pad]
They are bound together, and so it is inevitable that her spell will find him, that it will cause a ripple in the sound-fabric around him, a shared space, a thing that listens as well as speaks. It is possible that Silas feels it, this tugging at the warp and weaving, before a familiar voice disturbs his concentration or relative peace.
What does a Hunter do with hounds and roommates when he is idle, when the Hunt is laid low?
"Silas Owen Arthur." Stated. As if his name were being called at roll in a conclave or classroom. This is the first that comes through on his side, the end of her incantation, the stating of his name (though not the whole and true of it) to let the link between them pass both ways. She is about to say: Robinson. He knows it. But perhaps the space of six-syllables is enough for him to react and stop her.
Silas: [The Bachelor Pad]
He feels it pulling (shining) before sound peals, and it's only by virtue of recognizing the voice that blocks (he's not good enough for wards, but he can manage basic blocks well enough) remain down. That and, "Silas, dude, you butt dialed your mom," paired with music, and the sound of men doing something, keep him from reacting very differently indeed. It's congenial, the response, even jovial.
"And now I'll have to talk to her, too. Be right back, Tone." There is a difference between totally confirming what whoever this 'Tone' is has said and simply rolling with the excuse that's presented itself. One imagines that whatever window Arianna is using to speak to Silas follows him out of the room; there's the near-silence of him walking, and then the soft closing of a door. There's quiet for a moment, and perhaps she can imagine the postures and gestures that come along with Silas gathering himself - goodness knows, his Star has seen them before. There's a fond, canine 'Rarfff!', and then, "Stella. Where are you? Are you alright?" Because of course something must be wrong for her to have contacted him this way rather than by more mundane means.
Perhaps this Hunter has spent to long among Sleepers. Or perhaps Arianna hasn't yet spent long enough.
Arianna: [Chez Giametti]
This is different, this portal tied to his person and not to some familiar thing in his Chantry rooms. It is common enough that they conversed through sendings like this, but in a very different time and place. There is consequence, in the plain and sleeping world, for brazen magics such as these. It will find her shortly after, catch her up in some misfortune for playing fast and loose with the rules of the realm. For now, though, she is quietly immersed in the sense of being half here and half adrift with her extended senses. She has only thrown her voice and not her sight, and thankfully so as her actions have been witnessed, so his postures are left to her imagining.
"I am home," she says, but that is hardly enough to sate him so she says, "More precisely the house that will become my home here, but which now stands empty like a page untouched --" And then, it registers, the concern underlying his second question. It curls her mouth, and perhaps he too can imagine it. "I'm fine, Silas, dude," she cannot shape the word without mild mockery of Tone, the roommate, and perhaps this is why reality will backhand her so thoroughly shortly. For now, though, her voice is unperturbed and resonant, warm and inviting. "Bored, if you must know, and somewhat in want of company.
A pause, in which only silence ripples through the gate between them. It is still and quiet on her end of the connection, unperturbed by hounds or housemates or other noisy things. It is possible, then, that his Star has used this manner of greeting for something for which a text message might have sufficed. If they had exchanged numbers. If they trusted her phone to work long enough for texting.
Silas: [The Bachelor Pad]
Everything about Silas had been prepared to go on a hunt (or a Hunt, as the case may be), so now it's a slow relaxation as he perches on the edge of his bead, a hand reaching down to ruffle the ears of the hound that's followed him to his room. Fainter, further in the background, there's still the sounds of things going on. Strains of music, and other such things that go along with a house occupied.
"Love, you really must be more cautious with that sort of thing here." And then, warm, wry amusement. "Tony thinks I rung up my mother on accident, so we're saved what might have been a very awkward explanation, indeed. Shall I come to you, or would you rather come here?"
Because if she's bored and in want of company, and called him, she must want one or the other, no? In some ways, Silas wants the same. Since they were children, things have often seemed simply (no, nothing is simple between them) better in her company.
Arianna: [Chez Giametti]
It is difficult to remember, when he calls her Stella or he names her Love, that they are so recently returned to one another. That years upon years have passed. It is comfortable, and warm beyond reason. They have the ready excuse of the promises they've made, but this surpasses that easily. Ari's eyes are unfocused as she watches the swirl and feathering of the smoke above the basin, disturbed as it is by the echoes of his voice. This, too, is comforting in a world that is fast forgetting magic. This is a little more like home.
"We both counsel now to caution," she remarks, and there is both surprise and wry amusement to it. She had cautioned him when they first met, and now he warns her. It is not their usual type of push and pull. Time, or age, or experience has made them wary, less wayward and wind-be-damned. It warms her that he worries, but it saddens her that they might be getting older. In the way that older hearts are slow to wonder, quick to judgement, and bound by over many oaths. "How the years have changed us both. And how obviously your Tony has not met the singular entity that inhabits your mother."
Hah, then, amusement abounds. Not that Arianna had been well and truly introduced as a woman whose oath binds the Incendiary's son. No no, well taught is she to avoid such indelicate conversations. Like as not, the Arrow of Artemis is unaware that Silas holds the same over his one and only daughter.
"You are welcome here, but the halls are sparse. No, not sparse: they are empty. I rummaged a few things together to leverage the Passage of Swift Mercury's Message," ah, yes, forever Hermetics and their love of titled things. "Perhaps we would be more comfortable," and, likewise, more entertained, "If I came to you."
Silas: [The Bachelor Pad]
"I do not inflict the pleasure that is my mother on anyone, if it can be avoided. Certainly not on Sleepers." Still, there's amusement, and truth as well. "They have met Father, though. He confuses and delights them. They think him quite the eccentric." As, of course, do many of the Orders members. What Silas' mother, an elite member of an elite House, ever saw in him has often been a matter of gossip and debate - and their union produced Silas himself, who falls somewhere between the two on scales of whimsy, temper, and more.
The way he speaks with her, in private, is very different than what she heard when he was still in the presence of this fellow he's called Tone; this is what feels natural to her, familiar. The other is strange, and so Common.
"Will you find your way to me, or must I provide an address and directions?" This is light, teasing, and yes - he's pleased to have her come. That his roommates will appreciate her as he does seems to be a given in his eyes, though her accepting them similarly? He finds that less likely. "Fair warning, it will be a full house soon. Though we can seek sanctuary in my room if desired." When they spoke at the coffee shop, Silas hadn't indicated how many roommates there were, or how big the house, or anything. As she had, he'd assumed they would find each other when it became a stronger need.
Arianna: [Arianna]
"As I have just be cautioned on the wanton use of household magics," she begins, the note of imperiousness in her tone is wreathed in mischief and merriment. "I suppose you'll have to provide directions." And one supposes that such things are exchanged, and Arianna notates them somehow using the materials she has on hand. Or, perhaps, she commits them to some sort of intractable memory, a tiny spell of mind and memory, a thing for which he will scold her later.
She makes no comment on his colorful and eccentric father. Arianna hasn't had the pleasure, at least not recently, of Malcalypse's company. So she pretends, as does much of the Order most of the time, that no news is good news when it comes to the Xaosian.
"I'll stop at the grocery and pick some things up, in case I decide to stay for dinner." She tells him. Most would ask, but Arianna seems certain that the circle of his invitation extends to however long she wishes to stay this day. It is snowing out, too, so there is likely some point of the evening where it becomes impractical and unwise to travel home in the darkness and storm. "I'll bring enough to feed your soon to be full house."
These are mundane things for them to discuss, the measure and style of which have never come up before them in the past. Usually it was Arianna pulling him away from one gathering or another; or Silas stealing her from symposiums and studies. Appearing together in a crowd is a less practiced thing. Making dinner together, or for one another; visiting one or the other's sovereign demesne. These are all new and untested. The meeting of roommates -- hah. Yes, uncharted waters indeed.
There are parting words, endearments undoubtedly and other gentle things, between them before the portal shifts and thins and disappears and they are left with the stunning silence of their own spaces. The background sounds from hers had been faint, but still it leaves him with a sense of absence. She was close, and is now far again. Their transits shift and stretch and wander.
Silas: And so it is that, after a moment of recovering from the feeling of Arianna's nearness being taken away so abruptly (not that he hadn't had warning), Silas heads from his room to make sure everything's presentable (the men living here are not particularly slob-ish, but are all men who live far away from their families and don't always have girlfriends. So there is some quick neatening while Arianna is at the grocery and on her way.
".....is your mom coming over or something?" This from Tony, though he helps with an easy camaraderie when Silas explains the circumstances. For all that the bro-pack knows Silas as a womanizer, as a magnet for certain types of women, he hasn't brought any home, nor given any indication that he takes any of the ones they've seen him with seriously at all. Clearly something is different about this woman - and she's bringing food, so that's a definite bonus. As the other roommates arrive home, they help as well; even Damon and Pythias get in on it by putting their toys in the box where they belong.
So by the time Arianna arrives from her stop at the store, there are four roommates to help carry in whatever she's bought, and to introduce themselves.
"Hey, you must be Arianna. I'm Mark." "Dante." "Tony." All three offer some sort of handshake or high five, and these introductions are so easy, uncomplicated, and utterly lacking in titles or Words. And she's brought food, so already she's alright in their book. Bottomless stomachs are not a phenomenon unique to adolescent boys, after all.
Arianna: [Arianna]
The grocery store is uneventful. She finds the things she seeks with relative ease, and the thin sheen of resonance that is still wrapped around her causes some others to give her easy passage, wider berth -- Arianna capitalizes on this, and moves through the mundane space without impediment.
When she arrives at Silas's home, it is well and truly snowing out. Just on the walk from wherever she has parked the car to the front stoop of his home, she has acquired a constellation of snowflakes in her hair, slowly melting in her body warmth. Perhaps it is easy for the bro-pack to understand why this woman, of all the women Silas has chased or courted, is different. There is an aire of self-possession to her, evident in the tip of her jaw and the easy posture she adopts among strangers. There is, still, the feeling of starlight, luminous and mercurial, shifting and shining about her, marking her as somehow othered. From the grass green of her eyes to the curl of her mouth in greeting, they are struck with the sense that her presence or absence could launch ships, could beach them in the shoals, that she could be the Lorelei or the Leanansidhe; that epics and tales of older times gave names and cautions to women like this; that she could lead them astray just as easily as she led them home; that for Silas, in so many ways, all of this was true (she leads him home).
Mark is first to introduce himself, so Arianna hands over to him the bag of groceries she has brought -- a loaf of soft, warm Italian bread protrudes from the opening, as does a sheaf of fresh herbs. Inside is meat, and tomatoes, and garlic and mushroom; wine of course, more wine than they strictly need for a gathering of five; the makings for pasta; broccoli raab to go with the same. "It's a pleasure," she tells him. The handshake is returned.
Dante and Tony, the names come almost at the same time. Arianna repeats their names and then says, with hope brimming in her eyes and an accent that can be nothing less than native: Sei italiano? Lo parli? Ho così mancano i suoni della casa.
High fives are less familiar to her than handshakes, but she is clever and cunning and quick on the uptake. She is almost always ready to trade in the coin of the realm, so when fives are extended, they are met with her right hand -- the hand that bears the thin silver ring around her most significant finger. And this is all well and good, this greeting of men and this exchange of names, but Arianna has stopped short of crossing into their home without invitation. Each exchange that draws her close to the boundary tugs at the echoes of bygone eras that she carries in her breast, in her bones, in her blood. There is a thin line, marked by the doorway and threshold of their home. It remains barred to her until someone inevitably and overtly welcomes her in.
This exchange of greeting gives him time to watch and study her. There is, already, the slightest burr to her voice, a harbinger of what is to come. She is less guarded of herself than usual, less pulled back and remote. The truth of her shines more outwardly; she is warm and inviting to his sleeper friends; she is not so careful when they finally reach each other and her hand comes up to cup his cheek, and her mouth seeks his in greeting. It's is a little deeper than a kiss in front of the bro-pack should be; a bit more heady and inviting. Silas can wonder if she's staking claim, or establishing her rank in the pecking order, or any of a thousand more hermetic things than this: she has been adventuring. She is half-spent and still thrumming with the conquest of it. She has come to bask in his warmth and the circle of his safety, but also to gentle that space and to feed his horde of housemates.
"I've missed you," she tells him, when their voices are cast low and intimate and they have not yet pulled back from one another. She could mean over the last few days, but there is a note to it that says her scale is different. She is not talking about a portion of a week; she means in this last chunk of her lifetime.
Silas: The answers from Tony and Dante come quickly, and easily - Tony first, though he seems the most bro-tastic of all of them, and in some ways the least likely to answer so fluently. "Parlo un po 'italiano, imparato da mia nonna. Imparato a fare le polpette, anche - e salsa siciliana! Molto meglio." He could go on more, too, but instead takes in his bags after the tips of his fingers are kissed with a dramatic flourish. Dante's answer is slower and more halting, spoken like someone who took a class once but never solidified the knowledge with true experience. "Ho studiato al liceo, quanto basta per laurearsi." Then he, too, heads inside - though not until he asks, "Want us to start chopping or anything? Tony's the best cook of us."
And with her answer, all three boys are inside while Silas returns her kiss, and holds her close. What a pretty picture the two of them make there, in the snow - the way they fit together, the way they respond to each other on such an instinctive level.
"And I, you. Come in, before your throat gets worse." But not before he kisses her again, long and deep; a claim, an older magic, who knows. Once inside, he points at the dogs, waiting patiently for their own introduction - seated, well behaved. "That's Damon, and that's Pythias. The former is generally aloof, and the latter is usually friendly."
The house is full of sound, of light, of green and growing things that are out of season even for inside, but blooming all the same - and they turn to Silas as though he is their sun. Where the entry way opens up is a living space filled with comfy seating, a large TV, an impressive stereo system, a foosball table, and bookshelves. Through a doorway she can see a large, open kitchen and dining area. Somewhere there is a hallway to bedrooms and a bathroom, and stairs to another bedroom and bathroom. It's neat and clean, but clearly lived in by a handful of bachelors and two large hounds.
"I'm pleased that you've come." And he hasn't let go of her hand; his is warm, and casually possessive.
Arianna: [Arianna]
It was a stretch, of course, asking the bros if they spoke Italian, and asking with such hope so forward in her eyes. But it brings the mellifluous tongue out in Tony, whose fluency brings a pleased and approving curl to the corner of her mouth, and even Dante strings together a passing stab at her native tongue.
"Meraviglioso!" This is for them both, with the sort of warmth that brokers and binds fast friendship. "Herbs and garlic would be the place to start. We'll be generous," she tells him, mischief forward and recipes be damned. "And we should speak, some times," she says, gesturing between them to emphasize the connection. "In italiano... This language is nearer the heart," a smirk, "And also the stomach. Food cooked in Italian tastes better," she tells them, with the certainty and smugness only a daughter of the Romans can manage.
And then they three have tasks that take them away, and she is so overtly pleased with herself for drawing out the language in them, for finding something more than Silas to connect with them on. This satisfaction bleeds into the way they kiss each other, in tangles in her starlight, it swamps her concern over her marred voice and scratchy throat until he remarks upon them and she, with a sort of hapless shrug pushes aside his worries over her well being.
"It's nothing, Si," she says about her throat. Though these words are rougher yet than even a minute ago. "Just the parting gift of some adventure in the local mountains." This, oh, is just a teaser-tell of something greater. Something to share when they are well and truly alone. For a Bonisagus, one of the more bookish Houses of the Order, she has a great and terribly knack for finding mischief of one sort or another.
The slip of her coat is smooth-hushed within the circle of his arms; it is a fluffy thing, stuffed with down and made of pale grey (starlight) fabric. It gives her the illusion of breadth and depth she doesn't have, so when they move inside and she slips out of it, they fit together all the better. Her sweater underneath is pale pink lambswool and cashmere. It is immanently touchable. The perfectly pressed collar of a white dress shirt peeks out of the vee of her sweater; its cuffs extend at her wrists; she wears slacks that are precisely tailored but of a heathered grey so as not to be too formal -- still, it is clear from the silhouette of her style that she does not worry much over the cost of her clothes; she is finely if reservedly attired. There is a significant heel on the boots she wears and one is laced just loosely enough that her wand can rest against the inside of her ankle -- always at the ready; occupational (and hereditary) hazard.
Damon and Pythias are met with the sort of careful regard that Silas would expect her to give His Hounds. This lasts until she has taken her measure of them. Though her thoughts are opaque, she seems to have some immediate fondness for them. While she does not dishonor them by kneeling down and fawning over them, she does extend a hand, low and open as an empty blade, for inspection as they pass.
When Silas does let loose her hand, the same reaches around his waist to settle on his side. She is comfortably snugged in beside him; they fit together just so, it has been noted. The roommates are in the kitchen and already the smell of garlic and fresh herbs rises to compliment the verdant climate of his home. She brightens it, this warm and welcoming place. She brings her other arm across his middle so that, from the side, she is loosely embracing him. Her chin tipped up to rest on the ridge of his shoulder. Her fingers and her face are cold from the short walk in the snow, but they are warming quickly. "Will you help me in the kitchen, too?" she asks, but it is muddled through with seriousness and also daring. Cookery is not their usual sort of ritual and magic, but it an essential thing in binding hearts and minds together. She is already fast winning fealty from his pack of bros; perhaps this, too, is underlaid in the simple question.
Silas: Damon, white with some black markings around his face and head, is quiet and reserved; he studies Arianna as intently as she weighs him, and is unclear about how he finds her after deigning to sniff the offered limb. Pythias is less so, and after sniffing her hand bumps up against her legs, only barely repressing the desire to jump, to lick, to do all the exuberant dog things that dogs do. It's when the hound is about Arianna's legs that Silas notices the wand; his eyebrow raises when he does, and he looks at her questioningly. "Did you truly think you'd need that here, I wonder? And if so, to what purpose?" It's mostly teasing, the question is, and then she's wrapping an arm back around him and he around her. After so long apart - not the recent days, but the months and years leading to them - Silas finds it difficult to not have some level of physical contact when she's near. Thankfully for him, it seems that she has a similar trouble.
Will you help me in the kitchen, too, she asks, and he laughs - a warm, low burr of sound kept quiet and just for them. "I'm not much use in the kitchen beyond cutting things, or sticking them in the microwave. But yes, I'll help - perhaps by keeping the wine flowing, and beers coming."
The kitchen is full of tile and an interesting composite counter that appears to be a mosaic-style thing of colored glass. There is an island, and more counter space than most people might consider a household of four bachelors needing. Here, the music is piped in from the living room, with speakers strategically placed to produce the best sort of environment. Every now and then, one or the other of the bros will sing a line, or a chorus - mostly badly, and for extreme dramatic effect or emphasis of the conversational flow.
But always, Silas is nearest to Arianna - and the bros seem to know on a very base level that that's how it should be. They are friendly, asking about family and what she does for a living, where she's from, where she's been, what she likes, and so on, but all keep a respectful physical difference. Here, perhaps Silas can be considered the alpha.
"Tony knows what to do, for the most part, if you tell him what to make. Dante needs a recipe. Mark and I need better direction than that."
Arianna: [Arianna]
He asks her if she truly felt she needed her wand in his keep, and there is a troubled and thoughtful thing in her eyes when she considers the question. Denver is, after all, at the brink of the kind of war that sundered the Aegis of the Order, the sort of cold and brutal war that took prisoners on both sides to no good ends. They are children of the foremost soldiers from the old and fading fronts. Does she think she'll need it? Only to good ends. Does she hope she'll need it? Only to good ends. Will she be caught without it when the standards rise and war breaks over the mountains? Never, never, never to good ends at all. These things are all caught up in the murkiness of eyes when he mostly teases; closer to the shallower and clearer than they really ought to be. And though she tries to shift them out of focus with the way her nose wrinkles in laughter at his mock-mockery, they remain just below the shallowings. The eyes, see, are portals to the soul.
In the kitchen...
"My native tongue and men who cook?" Faux swoon, back of hand to head, very Scarlett O'Hara. The tuck of something troublesome and taunting just below the shape of her smile. It bolsters them; it lifts them up. "Be still my heart, Silas," she says, though the fondness toward him is far more genuine.
It is clear that he is their alpha, the leader of this unlikely fellowship. As well he should be as their one and only Awakened member. Lesser Wills do not lead; they follow. It is clear the is their alpha, but is equally so that he is not hers for the deference she gives him is measured -- this is his keep -- and in keeping with their etiquette, but she is warm and playful as she engages them, engenders easy conversation and friendship. Tony, an early favorite, gets instructions in Italian; Dante is shown a tip for this or that with gestures and little flourish -- it gives Silas a window into the sort of teacher she will some day be, when the Bonisagus call her home to conclave for longer than a week or month or half-year. When she is possessed of apprentices of her own.
Where is she from? She was born in Italy, and oh how she misses the Mediterranean climate just now. Dramatic wistful far off look. Roguish grin.
Where has she been? Off on adventures. Most recently to the Eastern seaboard. And briefly to the ragged shores of Ireland. But now, here, to the wild west -- Is it truly wild? What wilderness and mischief is there here?
What does she do? She is an Artist. Arianna is a master penman; a calligrapher elite.
Which perhaps does not jive with what the bros have seen of her this far. This tangle of languages -- once it is established that none of the Bros speak German, and that Si still does, this is the lingua franca bewteen them for things said in open confidence. By now she is working on making dough for pasta. She has pushed up the sleeves of her shirt and sweater until they are bunched above her elbows. (There is an angry olive and navy bruise along the outside edge of her left arm, just below the elbow. It does not seem to trouble her as she works.)
"Here. Watch," she tells the disbelieving bros as she spreads the dry pasta flour out on a large cutting board. With nothing more precise than a fingertip, she writes their names, one by one, with uncompromising precision and effortless flourish. There is no nuance of line or nib, no flow of ink, just valleys in shadows and brightness on crests, but it is enough for them to take her measure. Between each name she mercilessly draws the flat of her hand across the board, creating a smooth new surface for the next name.
And now, for her next trick, she will turn them into pasta -- an unsettling thought that might only occur to Silas; that like witches and wise women of old and treacherous stories, she might bake their Name of Names into something and feed it back to them. Which is certainly not the overtone here. She is not that treacherous; not so certain to beach them at the foot of rocky cliffs.
As she works with and around them, her orbit always brings her back to him. Perhaps because her wine glass is there; and she is new enough to Denver that it does not take much to bring pink enough to cheeks to match that of her sweater. Perhaps because the nearness they keep to one another confirms for the bros that, however warm and welcoming and knavish Arianna is with each of them, she is inexorably tied to Silas; that they are paired and partnered in ways that do not surface readily in the shallows of her eyes. By the time the roast is in the oven and the pasta dough has been kneaded and is resting, her voice has roughened to a noticeable rasp. Her spirits do not seem dampened, but it is possible that the storm raging outside of these warm and verdant halls has touched more than her hair with its frozen fingers.
They will settle somewhere, while the meal does not require their collected attention. With wine and music and camaraderie. And Ari will rest on the arm of Silas's chair, or tucked in beside him on the couch, where she can watch the rest of the pack -- both human and canine -- and participate in the revelry, but with an ever-lessening voice. Where she can be close enough to touch, or better yet if she is in the circle of his arm. Outside the snow is piling up, inches upon inches falling fast and white beyond the windows. Inside the smell of roasting meat is paired with garlic and green herbs; is paired with the bouquet of wine against their palates or the prick of hops for those drinking beer. There is merriment and laughter, for she can partake in laughter without a voice; she can be jovial and warm and celebratory without saying much, and she can goad them into foosball sport, or games and mischief from a place on the couch where she can nurse (obscure) her worsening condition.
Silas: Silly games of Trivial Pursuit, or Pictionary, or Taboo, or that sort of pastime are fairly standard in this house; the men banter and bandy easily, and though Silas is the newest addition to this particular pack he rules it well and truly. During their interaction, Arianna learns much about the bros - their occupations, that only one of them (Mark) is a Colorado native, that all have families wherever they're from, that Tony has a fiancee, Mark has a boyfriend, Dante is single, and so on. They, in turn, learn that she is the source of the ring that has moved from Silas' right middle finger to his ring finger, that the two Hermetics have known each other since childhood, and similar details that can be kept fairly superficial. The bros know a lot about their roommate, and everything they know is true? But it's far from the whole truth.
While dinner is cooking and games are afoot, Silas and Arianna share a seat that is larger than a chair but smaller than a loveseat. This allows the cuddling that Arianna seems to crave in the moment, and gives Silas reason to notice that her voice is getting worse and worse. This means that, without asking, she finds a mug of tea with lemon and honey (and just a touch of whiskey - medicinal, of course! Nothing more) at hand before too long. It's a small, subtle thing that's done without drawing the bros' attention to it.
"Are you well, Stella?" This comes while the bros are distracted, paying little attention to the lovers in their throne.
Arianna: [Arianna]
It goes like this, when they are asked how they met, with her voice pitched low to inspire a sense of conspiracy amongst them, and also out of necessity for it is raw and aching now. But there, the light in her eyes gleams like mercury on glass, she is Cunning and oh so adept at bending minds and hearts her way.
"Where we come from," she tells them, drawing them closer over their cups as imparting some great and terrible secrets. Lean in, her body language and smile bids them and like a good audience and to a man, they do. And this next she says with a twist her mouth but the full authority of self-belief, "I am like a princess. And our Silas? He is like a prince. And our houses are great and reach back into the time of myth and mystery and legend. So it was written, when we were children, that we would meet and marry." This, said so matter of factly, so absolutely straight-faced and evenly that the absurdity of it becomes the joke.
"I thought you were from --" one of them starts. And the illusion breaks for the other two. "Hah, fine, then don't tell us." She winks and curls back into the hollow she has left at Silas's side. This may have been the opportunity he takes to bring her tea, doctored as it is, to address the growing issue of her dwindling voice. The bros are distracted, having turned back to their games after Ari's brief game.
His voice is low and kept between the two of them, and her answer is likewise discreet: a brief shake of her head, a hand placed momentarily over her throat, where her larynx is and where the ache seems worst and most localized. "It isn't bad," she tells him,moving her hand away to hold the warmth of the mug, but her voice has lost their warmth and is mostly whisper now. Having no skill in Ars Vitae, she succumbs to cold and over-exertion like any other mortal coil.
Silas: Silas can't help but laugh and shake his head when the story Arianna tells is so close to truth; given their parentage and upbringing, the Hunter and the Star are, indeed, as near to royalty as such things come. They only thing that would bring them closer is parents with more lauded titles. And their meeting and marrying being written somewhere in Hermeticism's annals? Well, it wouldn't make any less sense than what has happened between the two of them. Given what Silas knows of what certain members of the Order in general and House Flambeau in specific wanted of his mother before she chose Malcalypse instead, it wouldn't even be that surprising. At least, he thinks, he is falling (or has fallen) into it willingly, without the drama and troubles Elizabeth faced.
Perhaps this is what is intended.
Perhaps this is what is written.
"Dinner will be ready soon," the Hunter murmurs into his Star's ear, underaroundthrough the raucous hilarity of the bro-pack as they continue drinking and playing their games. "Perhaps after we've eaten, you should rest. Will you stay, or will you brave the roads that take you home through this snow?" He's given her room and ability to move, but there is ever some sort of contact - after so long apart, after all that's happened between them, it may be a matter of needing reassurance that she's truly here, that she's with him. Or maybe it just feels better to have that connection. It's difficult to tell.
Arianna: [Arianna]
It is just a story to tease and torment the bro-pack; Arianna doesn't worry overmuch about whether their fates have been written down together in some great Book of Ages -- partly because they met when they were young, too young to know the truth of their names and to be bent, so completely, by them. Too young, also to have chosen their Houses and lineages like these will not fall to lesser ones. Elizabeth may have chosen Mal, but the son did not follow him into Xaos. Her line continued on in a noble House. These things work out; or they become even more fascinating stories.
The contact is pleasing; it is comforting. It is a balm in the wake of the adventuring and magic she has performed that leave her spent, a little thinner and more open to influence. She has aches and bruises they have not yet touched upon, reminders of her carelessness away up high where the air is thin and bracing, and he is warm, and he is hers and his pack of sleepwalkers are welcoming and amusing. And she wonders, the way every Hermetic ever has wondered, why they Sleep. And if they wouldn't be better in one of the Houses; and to which House they might be assigned. She has as little impetus to leave his side as he has want of her going, but when he asks about her travel home, Arianna raises herself up enough to look out the window at the falling snow.
"If I go," she says, though it already sounds unlikely, "I should probably go soon and not wait on dinner. It's really coming down out there..."
She is still raised away from him, cantilevered on one arm, which presses into the back of the over-sized chair; it lifts her up enough that she can see out of the window. A stitch of concern mars her brow. And it is true that her illness is till getting worse; it has not plateaued, leveled out, come even. He sees it in the light flush of her cheeks; pinked from more than wine and trending toward rosy. Here, voice cast low, low because there is no other volume, now, at which she can speak, she is not directly worried about being overheard (and, besides, Hermeticism is its own secret language): "And I haven't the skills with Ars Fortunae to assure safe passage in the storm."
It is not the first time she has lamented the absence of this education in herself. Not even the first time in the space of the last two days. All of this, of course, leads back to the gentle intimation that she would rather stay. That she would rather indulge in this warmth, in the echoes of their past and future meetings; that after so much first hand experience with Winter, the eddying sense of coming Spring is a thing sought from him, drunk deeply of, and left to burrow into her heart and veins; that it may sluice this weariness and coldness and the chill of long-borne isolation. But tonight, it is a clearer want; and it is a simpler want; and it has less to do with him being one of Pan's right-hand-men. It is everything about him being Silas, and being hers, and being here.
Silas: If I go . . .
"Stay," comes, but not too quickly or too eagerly, not a command or even a request, but a suggestion. "We've plenty of food and drink, and plenty of space. Come, I'll show you."
While dinner cooks and the bros continue their pastimes, Silas gives her a full tour of the house - points out where the bros sleep, where he's already begun preparations for a garden in the back, where various things are done and kept on the main floor, where the basement door leads to storage, and finally where the stairs heading up lead to his room, tucked into the eaves in what was, originally, a simple bonus space and is now a fairly large bedroom with its own en suite and alcoves and so many bookshelves. Downstairs is, for the most part, fiction with a few computer language or medical or physical training books thrown in; the shelves here are different. This could be a small library (though his true Library is tucked away somewhere, not evidenced on these shelves so near to the public). Here there is fiction, yes, but there's so much more variety of everything than downstairs. There is a nook with a divan (of course he has a divan) under a window, clearly a reading area. In two corners are dog beds, and where there are not shelves, there are more plants - including a few orchids, in which he showed such an early interest. None is as vividly Alive as the one he gave her, though. None was so carefully crafted to bring its nurturer to mind.
His bed is large and inviting, and as hedonistic in appearance as one might expect of someone like Silas - though there's no evidence of anyone but him having laid in it. And tonight, he is less the devotee of a god of fertility and virility and more a man in the company of a woman for whom he cares very much.
"There are no extra rooms or beds, but there's this. And you're welcome to it." Again, he's holding Arianna's hand - until she wants her freedom to study his plants or his shelves.
Arianna: [Arianna]
Not long from now they will be touring together her own home, with its library and workspace, with its collection of poetry, philosophy, fiction, mythology, and estoerica spanning multiple languages and ethnographies. It is a very different library than his own, but there are places where they overlap. She looks, of course, for the small volume of stories she had given him when they were children -- checks out of folly more than in expectation of finding it there. It is the truncated version of many adventure stories; the daring sort of derring do that catch the reader up, leave the breathless. She has always liked the heart-in-your-throat stories, the things that stretch the heroes into more than they had seemed in the start. She has always liked the threat of failure. And then, Arianna had also liked the sort of daring that paints emotion into words that ripple like water and fall like rain. When he quotes Whitman to her, she answers in Neruda. And there are things that she keeps in her library simply because they are beautiful; entirely for form over content; because the illumination is stunning or the penmanship is divine and not because they have written the names of the heavens among them.
But there is no science fiction. There is high fantasy, but sparingly and only when it evokes the echoes of some other thing. There is most certainly no computer science or even medical texts -- beyond treatises on the medicinal uses of herbs; things they were required to study as part of their Hermetic education (which is the only education that she has known). The sight of orchids brings a softer smile to her; hers thrives still and will soon be in Denver for his inspection.
She transits briefly, and then comes back to stand beside him, as if she were one of his verdant disciples, basking in his warmth and light. She is more independent than that, but perhaps not so very much so this evening.
"You've quite a Keep," she tells him. Or tries. What was ragged in her voice is raw now; overtly aching. You--and then the croak, that's all that comes. Her hand again alights on her throat; a dismayed look crosses her features, and segues to frustration. She taps her fingers against her throat, twice, and shakes her head. No more. No more tonight. This laryngitis has come on worryingly quickly, deepening over the course of an hour or two to a thing that demands and enforces her silence. There is apology in her eyes, all but willed across the space between them, that he might understand she did not intend to come to him lacking, or broken in this way; that this was not her intent for the evening.
Silas: Automatically, naturally, Silas' hand comes to her forehead to feel for a fever then her throat to feel for issues there; perhaps he's distracted by the feel of Arianna's skin under his hand, or the noise downstairs, or the smell of that delicious roast filling the house. Whatever the reason, it takes him longer than usual to get what he's looking for, and it brings a concerned furrowing of brow. His hand is as warm there as anywhere else, and when it drifts away he leans in to kiss her forehead.
"Maybe you should rest early, after dinner. Extra sleep may heal the damage faster." He can feel her resonance shining, naturally, but not that this is the effect of overexertion of her will. So it is that he offers remedies that would aid her were this a more mundane sort of illness, but probably won't given what it is instead. "Are you up for more time downstairs now?"
This is what his mouth says, not what his mind is thinking. It's been quite some time since the were in a place like this together, after all. But dinner will be soon, and there are the bros downstairs.
Hunter
@ 9:23AM
[sense flaw: Life pattern, Life 1, practiced, coincidental]
Roll: 2 d10 TN4 (3, 3) ( fail )
Hunter
@ 9:24AM
[sense flaw: Life pattern, Life 1, practiced, coincidental]
Roll: 2 d10 TN4 (3, 6) ( success x 1 )
Arianna: [Arianna]
What Silas reads in her pattern is not only the hallmark of an uncompromisingly swift cold, but also the badges of courage and foolhardiness that have blossomed along her left side. Angry olive and navy bruises just below her left elbow, across her ribs of the same side, at her hip and along the outside of her shin, earned by sliding partway down a frozen, rocky precipice. She does not favor them, but they are deep enough to warrant some concern. These are strange decorations for her to wear without explanation. They will open avenues of conversation, surely, once her voice is steadied, and she will tell him with bright and shining eyes the tale of danger and adventure on the mountains. Whether he will be as pleased as she is by the events remains to be seen.
When he tells her she should rest, there is a flash of disbelief and mischief to her eyes, which lock on his then travel, meaningfully, to look over at the bed and back again. It communicates her amusement gently, as she is well accustomed with the thoughts his mouth is not shaping just now. They do not need Ars Mentis to know that they are of a mind after the evening's preferred entertainment and ways to weather winter's last true storm. There is pasta yet to make and a few last touches to put on the meal; likely Tony could handle this without her but she feels better than she sounds; she is not ready to succumb to this weakening yet, but Silas warmth, and nearness, and succor he offers is dreadfully hard to refuse. He will win this point before the night is over; he has already won it.
But dinner, first, and perhaps a movie watched with the bros, where she can enjoy his company and quietly acquiesce to resting, and also watch with amusement the coming-undone of a technical specialist in the circle of the influence of her curse. Oh, does the DVD players simply not work? Is Netflix mysteriously region locked. Is everything, absolutely everything, in need of rebooting? And how, then, do the bros react to the ever more amusing game of charades that surrounds communication with their guest, whose eyes and hands and expression can convey so much; whose silence they are blessed with, truly, as she cannot ruin their movie with her constant interjections or corrections. Maybe Si will tell them later just how very, stupendously lucky they truly were.
Silas: And so when Silas' hand moves away from Arianna's now silent throat, it is to gently smooth over her elbow, her side; not healing, not yet, but his touch feels good. It warms away tension in tight muscles, eases swelling, and perhaps hastens her body's natural process just a little. There are a few small benefits to this manifestation of who and what he is, after all. But so, after this bit of solicitation and a few kisses (with quickly growing heat, one imagines, given those like minds on the subject of beds and what could be done in them), they return downstairs to finish dinner, to eat and enjoy it with the bros.
Then, of course, there is the attempt at some form of media entertainment, at which time they find out that none of their electronics are working properly; Mark, who is the closest they have to that kind of geek, does his best to fix whatever's wrong to no avail, which leads to some light grumbling before settling down to more games. In truth, the roommates don't mind this; they all enjoy different sorts of TV, and given that it's that insane time for college basketball, it wouldn't have been that interesting for at least two of them. So after enjoying the making of pasta and the eating of the meal, it leaves a choice.
"Stay down here, or go upstairs?" Silas is good with either, but there is a preference made clearer by the near-constant physical contact since she arrived. This contact has grown more intimate with the application of food and wine, but has stopped a bit before the border of eliciting exclamations of 'get a room!'. They are adults now, after all, not teenagers.
Arianna: [Arianna]
She is feeling a little under the weather. Surely this is the euphemism they use, given the prodigious storm outside their keep, to explain away her sudden silence. And Arianna does try, here and there, to rustle up enough voice for a sentence or two. It is rough sounding and evokes winces of sympathy when she tries. So she tries less frequently; and the bros get better at reading her nuances -- the ones she shows openly; they are not better at reading her when she wishes not to be read (few are good at that game) -- until it is time to part ways for the evening. At some point in the evening, she does manage to get enough reception to warn Nick and Pen that she is staying 'with a friend' due to the storm, and the rather circuitous drive back to their neighborhood, and the lateness of the hour.
They are adults now, for some value of "adult". And Arianna has forgotten entirely what it is like to be tired, with her will spent low and her body bent to healing, and warm in Silas's company all at the same time. There are echoes here of things she knows well, of wine and him, of want and him, but this sort of connection that starts with something other than a bang, or a shout, or a loud declaration of Scoundrel! or Knave! -- it is new to her. No less fierce in wanting, but gentled in appearances.
Upstairs, then, to where their careful ministrations to one another will have no audience, will need not be so restrained. So that when they finally come to rest against one another, he is as spent and tired and laid bare beside her as she is next to him. So that she can sleep, canted in toward him, hand over his heart and head against his shoulder, and the healing he had hoped for her can finally happen in her rest.
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