Housemates

Arianna Fioretta Giametti

[Manip + Politics: How prepared am I for House shit today? Because Syll & Jamie scenes always start with dice. Also, Cunning.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 2, 4, 9, 9) ( success x 2 ) [Doubling Tens]

Arianna Fioretta Giametti

It's abso-fucking-lutely beautiful in Denver today. Because of course it is. Because there wasn't just a threat of snow, in fucking May, just a few days ago. But Arianna is not about to quarrel with the weather when it is behaving itself. This is weather more becoming of the period between Beltane and Midsummer, and she is dressed finally in clothing more becoming of her figure. A summery dress, cut impeccably to her figure, with the sweep of its skirt swirling just at her knees. Open toed and strappy heels that loft her to nearly five-foot-ten. She is beautiful in the way that Italian women are rumored to be.

It is a good palette from which to address the politics at hand. The House, which is not a Chantry -- but which will have to do, as Denver does things in ways the Order would find strange -- is her destination. She has a messenger bag with her, no doubt filled with bookish things and also with mischeif. The keys for her blue-as-night hatchback are caught up in one hand, and the other carries a metal thermos of cold-brew coffee.

She is not quite at home in this communal space, but it serves as a fitting meeting ground when one is not certain of the tenor of a new acquaintance.

For Neith: Arianna's family names preceed her. Her mother, Isla Fioretta, is well known within the House. A renowned ritualist, a gifted teacher, an Adept of Ars Potentiae. Her Father is the Arrow of Artemis, Adept Major of House Flambeau. Their daughter, Arianna, is a mere Initiate Exemptus though a gifted artist. Her artwork and illumination often grace House documents or teaching materials.

Ari stands in the front room of the Chantry house, sipping at her coffee. She is five minutes early for their agreed meeting -- a rarity. Usually she might be five minutes late. Time is not a speciality of hers.

Neith al-Khaled

Neith's story is not quite spread enough to have her reputation arrive ahead of her, but for she Awakened while the Technocracy was in the act of capturing her father, a time traveler. They did not capture him that time. When they did, he told her to run, and she ran.

She does not have a gymnast's body anymore. Nor a runner's. A fighter, sure. Kickboxing was a pastime she took up while studying esoterica and history in Boston. Kickboxing doesn't stop her from wearing flowing skirts and high heels.

All this to say: they have heard of each other. They have not met, yet. Someone told one or the other that what a coincidence. They reached out.

Being an initiate of Time, Neith turns the doorknob precisely on the hour. Sweeps inside wearing aviator shades and a sheer yellow scarf over her shoulders. Even wearing stiletto heels, the girl is below average height.

"Hey!" she says, as if they're old friends. "You're here!"

Arianna Fioretta Giametti

Let the Informal Meeting of the female contigency of House Bonisagus in Denver commence. Stilleto heels, time travelers and foreign nationals. What the hell could go wrong?

"You're here! And you look marvelous," she says, returning the greeting as if they were old friends. If Neith follows in her father's footsteps, its possible that they will actually become the fast friends that they pretend just now. Echoes, after all, they flow in many directions and time is less like a river than it is a --

"That yellow really works for you." A compliment. Admiring. The same cannot be said of Arianna. Yellow makes her eyes too green, it eats up the slip of mercury in them. She crosses to Neith to kiss cheeks, because the other Bonisagus seems the sort who might appreciate the European customs that Arianna has had to set aside in these more heathen western climes.

"I have coffee..." she says, after greetings, which implies a certain quality given her collection of surnames. If Neith shows interest, then Arianna tucks her keys into a pocket of her bag and pulls out another thermos, chill to the touch, of potent brew.

Neith al-Khaled

So far as she could tell, her father made friends in every year in which he stepped. Other Etherites know Dr. Khaled Abandonato as a bold mind, a pioneer in the fields of Entropy and Time, and they know it is hard as hell to get ahold of him because of the way his paradox converter works.

Her father hasn't been born yet, and people know who he is, enough that his first name is enough to spark a hint of recognition.

"Thank you," Neith says with a brimming of pride in her tone, accepting both the compliment and the European greeting.

Then comes the matter of coffee.

"I think I love you already. Is that cold brew?"

Arianna Fioretta Giametti

"It is," confirms Arianna, who then goes on to say something serious about how it is unseeming to carry around thermos of aged brewed coffee. Something about sacrilege. Something about spoiled offerings. All in the sort of companionable and judgmental way that becomes Hermetics everywhere.

"This is what passes as a Chantry here," she says, keeping her voice low enough that any of the proper guardians of the house might miss the disappointment in it. Arianna knows proper Chantries, of which this is clearly not one. "The grounds are lovely, the Library is suspiciously cross-pollinated with popular belief and yet sufficient for the study of new pursuits. The locals are..."

A meaningful pause. She lifts her eyebrows toward Neith and crooks the corner of her mouth in a wicked smile.

"Intriguing."

A little pause, then: "What brings you to Denver?"

Neith al-Khaled

"The locals."

This, with a touch of chagrin. As if the answer is one she would only utter with a pen, commit to her diary and then never show anyone. It might come out in her behavior but she would never give the thing a Name. Used to be she thought names were just words for objects but she knows now what it is to Name something.

"One, in particular." As if she knows the other gal will needle if she does not complete the thread herself. Neith removes her sunglasses though the place does still let in a lot of light, hangs them from the bosom of her sundress by an earpiece. "William Holmes and I, we're friends from when we were both still Disparates, and I ran into him again, recently."

Arianna Fioretta Giametti

She is sipping from her coffee when the name is loosed, and so at first all Neith gets is the glint of recognition in her eye and slightly raised brows. Then the thermos lowers and Ari's smile confirms it.

"William is such fun company," says the Giametti woman, who has a decade on the Jerbiton in age but perhaps not entirely in restraint or wisdom. Ari gestures to a chair, magnanimously, as if this sitting room were quite her own. If Neith sits, then she will as well, tucking the messenger bag up against the chair leg, crossing her own demurely but more out of habit than out of any desire for propriety.

The typical Hermetic introductions have not come into play yet. No bani this ordo that titles for days and begats and whatnot. They have a common point of connection here, and someone in Boston to drop names of one to the other, and that is enough for Ari. For now. They are not stitching their family lines together; this is coffee klatsch at most. Right?

"I am trying to goad him into teaching me French." This is offered, but the other woman will know that William Holmes needs very little goading to assist a pretty and attentive woman with any of her requests. Jerbitons are a delight in that fashion.

Neith al-Khaled

That gesture provokes a response, and the younger woman gathers up her skirts that they won't tangle her legs when she stands later before sitting herself down. This sitting room has multiple points of entry, a lot of open space around the furniture, and while Neith seems aware of her surroundings, she does not seem skittish.

Confidence will take anyone far. She is growing into a confident young woman. One can read it in the way she sits up but without worrying things with her fingers.

"That shouldn't take too much effort." The goading, or the French, she does not say. She does say it with a touch of a laugh. "Get him drunk enough, you'll have to learn French just to understand him."

Arianna Fioretta Giametti

"That sounds like an idea," she says, with a wickedness in her smile echoing Neith's laugh. Ari leans forward just enough to make her posture seem conspiratorial, it inspires a sort of impishness in the right sort of companions.

"We should get him drunk and see how many languages come out. It's a bona fide Hermetic Drinking Game, you know?" Smirk. No mention of how many tongues she might lapse into. "I think four... no, five. What would be your wager?"

Neith al-Khaled

Ari leans forward and finds Neith mirroring her posture. Bracelets and charms rattle on her wrists as she rests her elbows on her knees. Really leans in. That smirk is met by a grin, a shimmy of eyebrows.

"Four," she says. Leans back now that that bit of damage is done. "One of which is Enochian. If we're wagering."

Arianna Fioretta Giametti

"Oh, of course," she says, with a flourish and gesture, when Neith mentions Enochian. Because every Hermetic worth their salt speaks Enochian, though perhaps not loosely when they are drunk. But it does amount to great fun when someone's creepy Uncle gets sloshed at Yule and accidentally speaks the words of power that set the curtains on fire.

Not in Arianna's very well bred family. But in others. Or perhaps only in rumor and innuendo, which is far more fun to trade than truths.

"I wonder what he's up to this evening," she says, with a leading tone, though she does not move to investigate the matter immediately.

Neith al-Khaled

"I'm not sure. When I left the apartment this morning, he was still asleep."

Oh well isn't that a bit of business. She says it offhand, as if there is nothing more to glean from it than what she said. They're living together, temporary on account of she not planning on staying here in Denver past the summer. It's cheaper than renting a motel. Less chance of bedbugs.

Like those of her generation, the cellphone seems to materialize in her hand when it's needed, when it doesn't seem as if the user glued it to their palm. She recites as she types.

"Do... you... have... time.... for... a... drinking... contest... against... Arianna... tonight... question mark."

Bloop.

Arianna Fioretta Giametti

"Oh, don't leave yourself out of the fun," she says, looping Neith right back into the fray. Arianna doesn't pull out her cellphone, mostly because there is no guarantee that it will work today, but also because Neith has this handled.

"I would not be surprised if you bested us both in tongues," she adds. And on the matter of where Neith is sleeping, or with whom: not a peep. If she was expecting any clutching of pearls or mutterings under her breath, then Ari was the wrong Hermetic to seek them from. If anything, Neith gets a subtle raise of her coffee on its next transit. Not quite a fistbump, but definitely not puritanical either.

Neith al-Khaled

To the matter of tongues, Neith trills hers, making a low suggestive purring sound and waggling her eyebrows again before taking a demure swallow of coffee. Sweet, sweet nectar.

Her lipstick is matte and the color of wine. It is designed not to smudge or smear but it does stain on the rim of the thermos where contact happens, as if to demarcate. To keep the germs from contacting each other directly.

"I speak Spanish," she says, "and read Latin, and know a little bit of Arabic. I stay out of--" Her phone buzzes, and she looks down, and she laughs. Recites, "'Already drunk, will come for round two if sober. Let Arianna know the gauntlet is Thrown! I won't lose my title of King of Patrón to a Bonisagus.' Whoa-oh."

Arianna Fioretta Giametti

Whoa-oh.

This brings laughter out of the elder Bonisagus, and some sotto voce murmur in Italian. There is a joke to be made about how the romance languages make for cunning linguists, but what Ari says instead is laced with something darkly amused.

"He forgets, I think, that I have been training in the ways of tequila with our resident expert."

Lose to a Bonisagus? The gauntlet has indeed been thrown. It is possible that her cabalmates or their House's black sheep might have to come scrape her off William's floor before this over, but Ari will not let the challenge go unanswered.

Neith al-Khaled

"Yeah, Dad mentioned in one of his last letters that he thought your name sounded familiar."

Implication: Tales of Giametti and Sepúlveda's exploits are still floating around in the 2060s, long after they've both died, and when Abandonato is finally old enough to join a tradition.

Reality: Neith is joking.

As she types, she adds, "I'm reminding him that he is an initiate of Life and he should sober the fuck up so we can do this. Pardon my French."

Arianna Fioretta Giametti

"Truly. I thought that was the whole point of learning that much life in Academy was the instant-sober, plausibly deniability rotes," she says. Though, there are other direct applications in Academy of having such control over one's anatomy.

It pleases Arianna, in some small way, that perhaps there would be a Giametti legacy floating around out there that was about revelry and not about war. It would be a fitting use of her misspent twenties and early thirties.

"Shall we investigate the stores? If there's nothing here that suits Mr. Patron, we'll have to run out the market." Which would not be such a bad thing; Ari could put them together some fantastic and quirky spread of delicious things to nosh whilst tormenting William.

Neith al-Khaled

"We shall."

With that, Neith finds her feet and returns her sunglasses to her face, though they're only going further into the house to take inventory of the half-bottles of whatever Serafíne has left lying around, and whatever the Verbena and the Chakravat to whom the place technically belongs have under lock and key.

She offers her elbow to her newfound Bonisagus sister and adds, "We're going to have to stop at Walmart so I can buy a bathing suit. I heard this place has a hot spring out back."

Arianna Fioretta Giametti

It takes very little encouragement for Ari to slip her arm into Neiths, for them to be co-conspirators and new-found sisters, especially in the name of mocking and gently ribbing the good Magus Holmes bani Jerbiton. She floats a question, true curiosity, about whether Neith wonders too if swimsuits were optional in the hotspring. Ultimately, they must decide that it would be an unfair distraction for William were there nudity in addition to drunkness in the linguistic battle to come.

Which means that Neith will be party to Arianna's first trip ever to Walmart. Which is eye-opening, for everyone involved.