A measure of Oberon

Nicholas

[Ceremonial roll!]

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

Arianna

Longest day, shortest night.
A time for revelry.
Camaraderie.

Drunken dialing of stalwart friend and cabal-mate.

Ring. Ring.

Ari's not completely sure which of her stalwart friends she has drunk dialed until the phone connects.  But, because she does not see either Nicholas nor Penny-Pen-Pen present, she is certain that the stalwart friend and cabal-mate whom she has dialed is not already present, and therefore is in dire need of summoning.  There may have been a brief oration, mostly in Ital-lish-grish, about how perhaps this cell phone thing isn't an entirely shit-ty focus for that Mercur-ee-al Adept -- she can't, even drunk she cannot say Virtual Adept or Mercurial Elite without screwing something up; there's just something about the Convention that rubs her entirely the wrong way -- for summoning, since it effects a sort of here-not-here effect, not entirely unlike --

The call connects.

"Nick?"  Ari pulls the phone away from her ear to consult the name on the screen for confirmation.  It makes for an awkward sort of pause, and she is entirely unable to hear his reply, though he can hear the sounds of the establishment around them clearly, and also a mangle of Spanish, Italian and ... one supposes that was meant to be English. She is saying something very earnestly to Andres, possibly about their dinner options, or the precise time of moon-rise, or... fish. It is very hard to tell.

"It's Midsummer! Whereare you?"  The words spoken into the phone do not follow her usual cadence. They are unbridled by the rhythm and structure of paltry things like grammar and diction.  There is merriment laced all through them, as if she knows a joke and has told him the punchline, but not the body of it and so she is mirth through and through but unpatterned by reason.  The insinuation is that wherever he is, it is not where he ought to be. Hence the phone call summoning. Hence.

"Oh. Are you busyrightnow?"

She presses her fingertip into a little bit of spilled salt on the table, then flicks it over her left shoulder.  The next little fingertip of salt is then pressed into the tip of her tongue.

Andrés

[what else is living on this bar besides salt? life/matter scan for shits.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (1, 4, 8) ( success x 2 )

Nicholas

Just where is Nicholas Hyde on Midsummer?

Wherever he is, there is no interference or background noise on the other end of his phone when he picks up.  He answers with a customary "Hello?" even though he can see her name pop up on the phone, even though he knows it's Ari.  The generation younger than he and Ari probably won't do this, even when they reach the venerable age of thirty that Nick is now (recently).  They'll have grown up without landlines, grown up used to knowing exactly who is calling when they see it appear on a screen.

"I'm - "  He stops; she can hear the pause on the other end perhaps as he tries to piece out her cadence.  Her voice is thick as though she is crying; the mirth in her tone says otherwise.

"Ari, are you drunk?  Do you need me to pick you up?"

Andrés

There comes a night in every career alcoholic's life where he finds himself not only the drunkest person in the room, but well-met by a fellow drunken reveler who thinks that because he, being the setter of the bar in the sense of a track-and-field metaphor and not in the sense of their actually being at a bar, which they are, he's had quite a bit of practice distinguishing sarcasm and metaphors and other literary bullshit from talking to his apprentices who are no longer fledglings but still cause him heartburn when they stray too far from the nest, what the fuck was he just saying--

Oh right. Arianna was trying to keep up with him. He was drinking to forget a conversation he had had with one of her compatriots. Now here they are.

Arianna is on the phone. Andrés is pointedly standing up to move a sufficient distance away from her that his scanner won't stop working for no real apparent reason. Same reason why Star of David necklaces and crucifix earrings make him drop what he's doing and run out of the room, it would seem. Echoes.

Whatever his cobbled-together scanner tells him isn't heartening, and whatever comes out of his mouth next isn't English. The "Uck" with which he prefaces his proclamation is universal, for whatever that's worth.

"Quién es?" he asks as he clambers between the chairs to come back to Arianna. He will not remember this in the morning. "Nicolás? Estás hablando a Nicolás?" No shit, Genius. "Nicolás! Venga acá, tu tequila no beberá si mismo!"

Arianna

"Do I need you to --"

Repeated. Each word. Carefully. She is parsing the query as she replies, and it is harder when she has had exactly this much to drink, to think in a language no her own and so there, too, the accent is more forward than he has heard in a long, long while. And it is canted by Andres's. It is a new thing, this Ari-accent. New and utterly borne of Denver.

"Yes."

"No."

Now a fingertip of salt is rubbed between her index fingertip and the pad of her thumb.  It erodes against the ridges of her fingerprint.

"You should join us," she says, with as much sincerity as she can muster through the mirth tucked all around her words and her eyes.  "Andres and me. That us. You should. It would be fun. Will you come then?"

She looks over to Andres for encouragement, moves the phone away from her head enough to gesture to him with it. There are more words in Ital-glish-grish.  And Nick is rewarded with hearing his name spoken not once, twice, but three times by the Etherite.

"Sì, è Nicholas. Si dovrebbe venire drink con noi."  A pause.  "Shit. How is this in Spanish? Bebe con nosotros-o?"  Eh, close enough.

Nicholas

"Nosotros-o?"  The echo on the other end of the line carries a hint of wry amusement.

"At the rate you're both going it sounds like you're going to be completely insensate by the time I get there," Nick says, with only a moment's hesitation.  "But I'll come join you.  Give me...sixteen minutes and seventeen seconds.  Time me."

Arianna

"He's coming!" she announces to Andres, probably louder than she needs to.  "And he wants you to time him."  This is added so seriously that it cannot be ignored.

All insinuations about their diminished abilities are left unacknowledged.  Instead she tells Nicholas she will see him soon, and then requires three attempts to hang up the call.

Andrés

"Beba con nosotros!"

Like holy shit that is the best idea ever wow he didn't even notice that she totally slew his preferred language.

He's coming and he wants them to time him.

"O--" he says, shucking up the cuff of his right wrist, which is covered not only by a button-down shirt but also a cardigan because somebody didn't get the memo that it was scorchingly hot outside today that would involve going outside occasionally, covered by winter clothing but no sign of a watch. A belch bifurcates his speech. "--kay."

[time 1: i'm so timing you dog]

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (7, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

Arianna

"Beba beba beba," she repeats after him. As if committing the grammar lesson to memory.  Or perhaps testing the rules of three as it pertains to summoning things like bloody maries. (Not that kind. [Oh, sorry, my bad.])  But it is not a bloody mary type of outing with Andres.

Because it is not brunch.
Which makes it a tequila type of outing.  

"Should we wait for Nicholas now?" she asks, as if a sixteen minute and seventeen second caesura in their drinking will really do much in politeness's sake.  Ari's purse is seated on the bar stool next to her, a pale grey pashmina rests over it.  She is wearing something feminine and well-cut, but her shoes are on the floor beneath her and her feet are perched almost daintily on the rung of her bar stool. 

And, intermittently, perhaps in the most annoying way possible, she asks Andres how long has it been now? Now? Now... ? At varying intervals. In the middle of other sentences. Until the Crow appears.

Nicholas

Sixteen minutes and seventeen seconds.

Time probably seems to pass slower, when the two of them are drunk.  If it weren't for Andrés and whatever device he imagines himself looking at when he pulls up his shirt and cardigan, they might think he takes longer; they might lose track of the passage of time entirely and he might appear as though in an eyeblink, a heartbeat.  Time is mutable.

Nevertheless, sixteen minutes and twenty seconds later Nicholas strolls through the door.  This is the longest day and the shortest night of the year, and Nick who is twice-born who is night-illuminating has marked the day.  They caught him either before or after ritual and maybe they can sense it: his hair is tangled and creeps upward like ivy, like a crown of leaves and grasping vines, and the cast of the beam that slants through the door at his entry paints his pale brown skin in light.  He is wearing a white shirt, light grey cotton pants.

To be hallowed is not quite the same as to be holy.  See here: he's come with them to drink.

He sees them easily and finds their table and: appears.  "Hello, Ari," he says, and then there is a longer look at the Etherite.  "Hello, Andrés."

Andrés

[life 2: falling down drunk is not as fun as it sounds, go-go gadget sober upperer!]

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

Andrés

Here's the thing: they are the drunkest it is possible to be drunk without being hospitalized, and even then it's probably not a bad idea because there's the threat of respiratory arrest and aspirating stomach contents and blah blah blah.

But they will not succumb to Dionysian perils, because they are motherfucking reality deviants, they create the nights they want to live in, onward and upward, and so on and so forth.

Really what that means is they're so drunk they can barely walk, so Arianna may or may not have left her shoes behind. Andrés definitely crashed into something and had to get hauled back up onto his feet and that was his cue to whip up a shot of something that tastes like a combination of pocket lint and orange Tang but which has him looking pretty bright-eyed and bushy-tailed by the time Nicholas gets here. Bright-eyed and ready to get drunk all over again.

Arianna is on her own. Which means Arianna won't notice. No harm, no whatever. He obliges her broken-record questioning of time and its passage with the sort of bored patience that betrays his having survived two separate children's toddlerhoods.

And then:

"Nicholas! Sixteen minutes and twenty seconds, my man."

Arianna

"Nicholas!"

She is just enough behind Andres's greeting that it comes as an echo, but the smile across her features is genuinely pleased, and the slop to her movements is entirely and utterly sloshed, and completely and utterly without the sort of magickal out that Andres has just taken.

"That was very, very close," she tells Nick, but she is not brave enough to hop down off her of her bar stool and hug him just now.  Instead she lets the last syllable repeat and blur just enough to become: "Chro. Nos."

The syllables are like separate words, but the allusion is still correct. She is pleased. She verily beams it out like starlight. Undoubtedly, neighboring patrons have noticed that Father Winter, here, and his temporarily earthbound colleague are not your usual sleeper fare.

"But today is for Janus." A little pause. "Two fold. Full faced. Two faced, full."  She nods, having delivered the appropriate level of Hermeticism in her greeting.  And, like any good Hermetic, she does not elaborate on the riddle more than necessary.  Instead she takes up her water.

Tries.

Instead, then, she takes up her water on the second try, and raises it in toast to their addition before drinking from it.

Nicholas

"I forgot where I put my keys, I needed a few extra seconds."  See?  Even predictions aren't always correct, they can't account for everything.  Nick takes comfort in that fact: that there isn't always a way to know which portents come from Ivory and which from Horn.

Their revelry seems to have been going on a while, though - "You seem a lot less drunk than Ari," Nick comments, though he recalls the "science pill" that Andrés used once, used twice in his recollection.  "What are you having?"  He recalls hearing a comment about tequila, the scattered words that Andrés spoke on the other end of the line (it won't drink itself); but instead he looks toward the bar.

To Ari, he just smiles and gives her a little half-hug where she is on the bench, careful not to unbalance her (or cause any rocking movement that might make her vomit or spill anything all over his white shirt.)

His seeking eyes have brought over a waiter, whom Nick greets before requesting a Corona.  He slides into the seat next to Ari.  "How long have you two been here?"

Andrés

[life 3/prime 2: GET SOBER. putting quintessence into it in the hopes it won't explode on him.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (2, 3, 4) ( fail )

Andrés

[WELL AT LEAST IT DIDN'T EXPLODE trying again.]

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

Andrés

The last time Andrés tried to throw together a concoction using his knowledge of human physiology and biochemistry but using instruments outside of his rigid repertoire, the entire affair not only blew up but left him in Quiet.

At least this time he isn't whipping together sanitizing tablets and coconut-flavored rum in the hopes that it will sedate the shit out of a wolfman. He's rummaging through his pockets and finding the same brown mystery vial that he had just used on his own beverage, which rules out rophynol as the substance in question.

Nothing about Andrés suggests he would ever use rophynol on anyone other than himself, for whatever that statement is worth.

So he plops a couple drops of the orange stuff into her drink. There's more method to it than madness. He frowns when it doesn't do what he wanted it to do, gives it a shake, and adds another half-a-drop.

Tada. He slides her water glass back in front of Arianna and lifts his eyebrows at the question.

"What time did I get out of that inquest hearing?" he asks Arianna. "Like six o'clock? Five?" Oh would you look at that. More tequila has arrived. Andrés doles it out and says, "Doesn't matter. Here's to staying here longer."

And down the hatch his goes.

Arianna

[You want me to drink that? (Int + Streetwise) [Clever] + drinking with Andres: diff 8, -1 die, drunkenness]

Dice: 3 d10 TN8 (2, 4, 5) ( fail )

Arianna

So an admittedly strange but familiar man puts a few drops of something from an amber bottle into an obviously intoxicated woman's drink.  Thinks the better of it, and then adds another drop to be sure, and then slides it across the bar to her with a suggestive look.

Campus counselors everywhere already have their whistles in hand are extolling the virtues of responsible partying, the buddy system, and so on.

Hermetic 'counselors'? Are readying their best lectures on loss of control over self and situation, along with a few verbal lashes for being of weak constitution.

Ari's eyes track the progress of her glass across the tabletop, the smudge left by the condensation in its wake, the way that Andres's hand becomes cartoonishly disproportionate if she contemplates it overlong as it moves in her perspective.

"Five-ish," she confirms without confirming anything. Then, despite having her cabal mate beside her, who is still of sound and solid judgment, Ari drinks from the -- poisoned? drugged? worse yet, Scienced?-- glass of water without showing any concern for the consequences of her actions.

(Word was, she'd been a lot of fun at Academy parties.)

Nicholas

"Ari - " he begins to say it, to caution her before she tosses back whatever Andrés slid over toward her.  It isn't that he distrusts the Etherite or believes Andrés would do his cabalmate and longtime friend arm, but, well.  The last time he saw Andrés the man was in the middle of a nasty bout of Quiet.

But what's done is done, and so when his beer arrives he pushes the slice of lime (thoughtfully included) through the mouth and down the neck and then takes a long swallow.  The tequila he has not reached for and perhaps will not.

"How are you feeling, then, Andrés?"

The obvious answer might be "better," but the glance Nick casts over at him implies that the Chakravat is hoping for something more substantial than that.  Something to allay his fears, perhaps.

Arianna

"Ari-" he begins, and so, once she has finished swallowing and is lowering her glass away from her face, Ari tries to meet Nick's eyes.  To divine a little more meaning that the first two syllables of her name can provide.  But whatever caution that would have been is turned away from, as Nick takes up her Corona and Ari continues nursing her water a little longer.

The tequila stands alone.  But only in this pause. Only until they decide whether they are staying or going tonight.  And she hopes for staying, because the coolness of the metal beneath her toes means she has misplaced her shoes.

No matter.  If Nick is close enough -- and perhaps even if his chair is not close enough, and then to disastrous ends -- she leans her shoulder into his.  It is a most tangible way of marking that he is near. And in an aside, completely out of line with the conversation they are having, she remarks:

"There is a measure of Oberon to your curls."  There is a solemnity to her eyes, despite the intoxication to her blood.  Perhaps this idle scrutiny is made more intense because of it.

Arianna

[edit: Nick takes up his Corona. 
Ari is not drinking beer-water.  Which is part of the problem.]

A night out

Stella

They have known each other forever, and been entangled in each other's hearts for half a lifetime, and been off-and-on lovers for almost as long as that, stitched together by time and place here, and then there again, at the intersection of the winding paths their lives have taken, but of all the men with whom Ari has dallied or been set up with by her mother, or feigned interest in to avoid such setting ups, Silas has never taken her out on a proper date.  There have been flowers and long walks in the garden but the sort of adult and mundane practice of dinner, and dancing, and whatever comes next? No.  Not once.

This is part of the travesty of growing up in Chantries or meeting only ever at Conclaves and Symposia.  

And now that they have been within one another's orbit for nearly three months, she has decided that this pattern is long overdue for breaking.  So it's Friday evening, and a little before sundown, as the sun finally sunders at nearly eight o'clock this close to the solstice, and she is wearing a dress that clings in the right places and swirls in the right places and leaves him wondering where she might have concealed her wand -- except that he knows exactly where, as they have been at Symposia and Conclaves together many times before and all of her ready hiding places are known to him, and also it is known that she, a Flambeau's daughter, is nigh on never without her instruments -- when she knocks upon his door.

Once.

Then twice.

A little pause.

Then once, twice again.

"You are taking me out for dinner," she tells him, perhaps as she is helping him with the buttons of his shirt or admiring, openly, the way he cleaned up.  She does not need to tell him in words; Silas knows that he is a handsome man. He knows it even moreso than most handsome men know they are appreciated. So instead of words, she slides her fingers along one cheek and then into his hair and kisses him, just gently, without letting him deepen it, on his mouth.

"And then we are going dancing."  These words are spoken just against his mouth.

She waits until they are in the car, and he has told her or the GPS unit where they must go, to give him the last of the early evening's surprises.  It is a small, velvet bag, with two metal balls inside.  They are weighted, and as he moves them in his palm he can feel the way the small weight inside each shifts in echoes of his movement.  Silas, being far more experienced that his Star, will recognize them for the toys they are almost immediately.  There is a thin slip of paper in the bag as well, as he pulls it out to read it, she tells him:

"These were for your birthday..."  He can imagine why she might not have gotten around to giving him such a present then.  He was well and truly feted with even without them.  The thin slip of paper tells him that the set comes with two pairs...  the look she casts him as they are stopped at a red light leaves no question as to what has been done with the others.

So it is to be a waiting game, then. A drawn out and slow sort of foreplay.  Dinner, at a quiet corner table by the windows, with the toe of her shoe dragged along the outside of his calf as they speak in low tones to one another and indulge in delicately balanced flavors.  A shared dessert and laughter and the sort of obvious intimacy that engenders envy from other tables.  At least one waiter is certain that this dinner is to be a proposal.  Back of the house has a quiet bet on it, even.  No one would even dare to guess it is their first proper dinner date together.

When they do rise to leave, Ari wraps a pashmina the color of moonlight around her shoulders, and it is soft and warm beneath his hand, which alights in the small of her back to guide her through the maze of tables.  The night is warm enough that they might walk between dinner and dancing, with the click of her heels on the Denver pavement to herald them and the spill of their voices kept low and between them.

It has been left to Silas to choose an appropriate club for dancing and after-dinner drinks, and he has had ample time to change his selection based on her belated birthday present and this long, slow waiting game.  But also is he aware how each step and movement must shift the small weights within her, and how the anticipation that she has set to him to manage through their demure dinner is now revisited upon her in even the most subtle of movements.  Even the walk between dinner and dancing requires and hones her attention more than she may have expected.

And all of this is to say that we find them now, on the dance floor, perhaps wreathed in a thin sheen of shared magics -- if they are so brazen and so dare for her to share the emotion of the moment or he to feel the thrumming of her pulse and blood and moving sinews -- in the anonymity of a sea of Sleepers, in the half-dark.  Fully and unrepentantly in the moment.  They are nearing the point where she will need to step away, to get a drink or step outside or somehow let the rise within her settle before it breaks.  But Silas's stamina is far greater than hers and Ari will insist that he stay dancing if he wants -- I like to watch you, she will say, with her best bewitching smile, backed by the knowledge that none of his dancing partners will evolve into anything greater.  Not tonight, while they are within the same circle and space.

Silas

They have known each other forever and have been into and out of each other's orbits for most of their lives, but they've never gone through the mundanities of what most would call a normal date.  Still, Silas cleans up well and even goes so far as to wear a tie for the occasion.  It's warm, and so his sleeves are rolled up enough to display some of the ink on his arms.  His hair is recently trimmed and artfully (but not purposely) disheveled, and his skin is already darkened to a pink-y gold from working in the sun, the same sun which has created a smattering of freckles across his nose and cheeks.  This is what Arianna sees when she knocks on his door, and when he invites her in.

Perhaps there's a glass of wine or a cocktail before they leave, and there's definitely a kiss - while it may not linger, the embrace does.  When they are near, Silas ever craves the feeling of her against him.

But out they go, and in the car she presents him with his gift.  This, of course, gets a wide smile and him leaning over to kiss that space just below her ear, before her neck, lightly.  It's a tease, and it's clear that he greatly approves of this gift, even with the desire for simply heading back home it creates.  He has some control, however, and so they end up at their quiet, intimate dinner where the kitchen's pool may or may not be the only one on whether they end the meal engaged or not.  It's delicious, and then it's to the club - a jazz place that, some nights, has big band music and swing dancing.  This is not one of those nights, but a night for things that sound like Etta James and Louis Armstrong.

After awhile of dancing, Ari is thirsty or hot or ... something ... and before Silas allows her to step away he gives her that long, lingering kiss he'd wanted to before they left his house.  "Don't be too long," he says with a glint in his eye, but he knows as she does that no other will be anything more than a dancing partner.  Not when they're in the same circle and space.

Stella

There was a time in their lives when wearing a tie wasn't considered dressing up.  It was simply dressing appropriately within the Academy walls.  And if he had chosen his House by then, and been accepted, then his tie would have been similar to the colors she often wears.  Tonight, though, he is bound by not such strictures or formalities.  His tie is whatever color he wants it to be, and there is at least once that she fingers the margins of it and looks up at him through her lashes and is some manner of wicked in what she does not say but definitely implies.  It is always like this; there are Echoes between them, and they have the sort of history that folds up on itself almost by happenstance.

Her mouth still carries the taste of his when she makes her way to the bar, which is a Speakeasy sort of place with drink-slingers in braces and page boy hats and bowties.  The fancy of it calls forth the mercury-mischief in her eyes, and it is a slick of something forbidden and dangerous to her otherwise inviting smile.  She orders something fairly light on alcohol, but with muddled herbs and fruit to it, something with flavor that tastes their hand and they are ready to please.  She's leaning then, against the bar, with her drink in one hand and most of her attention for Silas on the dance floor when something catches the corner of her eye.  If he looks over now, her attention is not for him but for a couple a few bar stools down.  And then it is back to him as she sips at her drink, but it is divided and less bent toward mischief.

Even here, where the slide and sway of the music sets the cadence of his steps, a Hunter is aware of his surroundings.  This sort of half-light is not a safe place. There are horned things, and old gods, and big brass and rampant temptations to consider.  There are other Hunters here, those who have lesser or greater goals than he.  When Ari steps away, it does not take long for Silas to avail himself of a new dancing partner.  She is light on her feet and sensuous; the red of her dress and the swirl of her skirt complements the length and litheness of her limbs.  She is a much better dancer than his Star; she keeps him on his toes.

It is unlikely that his attention, even captured as it is by dancing, will stray from Arianna for long.  So when something pricks at the edge of her attention and pull her shoulders back a little tighter, and her stance a little prouder, and then prompts her to push off of her lean against the bar and abandon her drink, it isn't long before he notices her absence and can mark her movement through the crowd toward the narrow, dark corridor that leads toward the washrooms.  He is halfway across the room, so he also has the perspective to see the man falls in step just a few paces behind her.  One of his hands is in his pocket.  He looks around suspiciously before disappearing into the hallway behind the Hermetic woman.

Silas

To be fair, when they are in the same circles and space, some part of Silas' attention rarely strays far from Arianna; the thing between them, whatever it is, demands knowledge of her as intimate (which does not necessarily mean physical, but can) and accurate as can be.  Regardless, of whys and wherefores, Silas knows quite a bit about what's going on with his Star just now, and when that wire snaps through her spine, clearing away her languid watching and wanting, his eyes go to her immediately.  When he sees her heading for the restrooms and someone following her, it's automatic that he cuts the shortest distance between himself and her, making sure that she's not alone.

As has been established, a Hunter is also a Protector.

He is, of course, well aware (and Aware) of his surroundings; it's important to know how many there are, and the mood of the room (though this sort of music and dancing lend themselves well to indolence and excess in most people, as they had in the both of them to this point), and has all but forgotten the woman he was dancing with while Arianna was at the bar.

~.~ @ 4:48AM

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

~.~ @ 4:48AM

(For the record, that was Per+Aware)

Stella

Arianna is not a particularly altruistic soul.  She does not usually go out of her way to intervene in Sleeper matters, or even matters of other Houses and Traditions. The Disparates? Please. She barely acknowledges them as fellows.  This is the careful countenance she has cultured; this is what the rumors say. But there are things she cannot abide: cruelty toward children, victimization of women, wrongs committed within the specific sphere of her influence. So when the very charismatic man a few bar stools down places his hand on his companion's arm and whispers something into her ear, as he slips something into her drink, Arianna is displeased and somewhat watchful.  When that companion, a pretty young woman, rises and weaves her way toward the washroom, the Hermetic woman pushes away from the bar to follow her.  Her drink is left alone and unguarded. She will not be returning to it.

The hallway toward the washroom is dark and closed in.  There is a door for gentlemen and a door for ladies, and slatted door that leads into a store room, and, at the end of the hall, a door that leads out into the alleyway, which is propped open with a brick.  It is toward this last that the woman weaves and stumbles and Arianna is quick to catch up with her.  The charismatic man, displeased by a witness to his planned events, is the length of the hallway behind them.  He is out the door before Silas enters the hallway.

When Silas enters the confined corridor, the slatted door is locked shut.  There is no light coming from between the panels.  The men's room door is likewise shut, but not locked, and the women's room door swings open to allow a trio of no longer college aged women to emerge in a gaggle.  They impede his progress, but also inform it. There is not enough room or stalls glimpsed through the opening and closing door for Arianna to have gone through this portal and disappeared.  The gaggle pushes past him on their way to the dance floor, condensing down to single file and muttering a tangle of Excuse Me's and Why Hello There's.  He's given a couple approving and gratifying looks, despite the sense of predation in the darkness.

But Silas is not the only predator at the back of the house tonight.

Outside, Ari has helped the woman across the alley to a slightly less filthy place to rest.  Her body is interposed between the limp-limbed, glassy-eyed body and the door back into the bar's hallway.  Etta James's voice spills out of the cracked doorway, and then is suddenly louder as the door opens again behind her.  Instinctively, she draws her wand out of its hiding place as she stands.

The man is charismatic, but that only means that he communicates his ire more completely. And finding an added quarry, one intent on resisting, does not please him.  He has withdrawn his hand from his pocket, and it is wrapped around the hilt of a knife.  The blade gleams in the lowlight of the alley.  Arianna's wand is pointed imperiously at his sternum, held at the end of an extended arm -- beautiful form, this, truly -- and the conversation they exchange drips with coercion from both ends.

From the hallway, and even as the trio is passing him, Silas is aware of the fight-or-flight flurry of adrenaline rising within her.  He is also sure that he knows which option she has chosen.  This is only confirmed by the feel of her resonance gathering around her, reaching out to his senses from the opening crack of the door at the end of the hallway.  It cannot fully be a surprise to push out into the alley and see his Stella furious and imperious, wand at the ready and Will rising around her.  Behind her, there is a woman slumped against the wall of the opposing building, whose head lolls to one side and whose limbs are ragdoll-limp.  Between Silas and Arianna is a man, not quite of the same height as the Hunter, but who holds a blade with a significant familiarity and ease.  It is held to the side a bit, not immediately pointed toward her, but one lunging motion and a swing of his arm could bring it against her in less than a heartbeat.

"Seriously... is this some sort of Harry Potter bullshit?"

Arianna knows just enough of Sleeper pop culture to be amused by the allusion.  It is a cruel sort of amusement, though, and she doesn't drop the aggressive stance or lessen the force of her building rote.

"Just put the knife down and go back inside," she tells him.  "I don't want any trouble, and you don't want any trouble. We can still both walk away."  Which is anything but true, but she says it with such confidence and poise.  He is willful enough to resist the compulsion, but it distracts him from Silas's presence in the doorway.

"I don't think that's going to happen..."

Silas has the advantage, and enough experience with violence to recognize how this scene is going to unfold.  The knife will move toward Arianna; her Will will push out against his mind.  Etta James will continue to sing.  The slumped woman will moan something unintelligible and futile at the action, unable to stop her assailant from lashing out at a new target.

Stella @ 7:56AM

[Subterfuge]

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

Stella @ 7:59AM

[Do what I say: Mind 2 + vulgar w/ witness, dif 6, minus instruments & coordinating skill, + fast casting]

Roll: 2 d10 TN5 (1, 5) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Stella @ 8:06AM

[Resist]

Roll: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 7, 7) ( success x 2 )

Stella @ 8:07AM

Next Round Inits:
Man +5
Ari +5
Silas +7
Woman [No action]

Man rolling

Roll: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )

Stella @ 8:07AM

Ari

Roll: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )

Stella @ 8:08AM

Silas

Roll: 1 d10 TN6 (6) ( success x 1 )

Stella @ 8:08AM

No Ties
Man

Roll: 1 d10 TN6 (9) ( success x 1 )

Stella @ 8:08AM

No Ties
Ari

Roll: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )

Stella @ 8:09AM

Next Round Order:
Silas
Man
Ari

Declares:
Ari: Keep persuading to drop knife
Man: Stabbity stabbity at Ari
Silas:

Silas

Silas, too, is not particularly altruistic; the things he does are, for the most part, well serviced to serve him.  If they serve other people at that same time, that's all well and good!  But what he is is someone who doesn't take well to the abuse of the trust of others.  He is a Hunter (and, sometimes, a plain dealing villain) who wears what and who he is on his sleeve, and has little patience for those who do not.

Especially when they interrupt his evening out with his Star.

And so it is that Silas who, for the most part focuses on Hunting and (learning to) Healing, throws the first punch - a one-two, in fact - once he's closed the distance between them.  First goes to the face (preferably the nose, but really anywhere with the sort of force behind it that Silas applies will work well) and second goes to the gut, forcing out air rapidly, and leaving the attacker gasping for breath and quite possibly bleeding.

"If you have to drug your chosen prey, your pursuit is unwanted and unworthy.  Leave, now."

His voice is quiet but intense, and carries quite a bit of command behind it.

[Declare: reflexive close of distance, punch*2!]

Hunter @ 10:55AM

[Dex + Brawl, punch 1!]

Roll: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 6, 7, 7) ( success x 3 )

Hunter @ 10:56AM

[Damage - Str 3 +sux]

Roll: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

Hunter @ 10:57AM

[And . . . never mind that second punch.  A broken nose is sufficient, dude doesn't need to die (I don't think).]

Stella

His nose is bloodied, and the taste pain and copper fills the man's mouth. It ruins his features, this smear of red spreading out of his nostrils.  There will be bruising.  It will be an inconvenience, but his constitution is stronger than Silas may have thought and the corner of his mouth shifts to something sinister and brutal before the knife, which had been aimed at Ari just a moment ago, is thrust into Silas's side.  They are at such close quarters just now that it connects, with a dull and sort of empty thud against his lower ribs.  Where pain should have exploded from the wound, there is little more than the feeling of having been jabbed with its hilt.  Poked.  Inconvenienced.  There are new tears in fabric of his shirt, but no blade biting into meat of him.

The man is still close up against him, having so committed to this stabbing movement and so missed that they are pressed to one another in a very awkward turn of events, when Arianna shapes the singular word of command over her Will and the arch of her magic is merciless and clear as it pushes into the alley assailant's mind.  The syllables do not matter much to the Sleeper man, but Silas recognizes them and the force of Will that comes screaming in behind them.  And it is livid, excoriating and luminous and strikingly present.  It conjures in this mortal's mind the sort of fear that is tasted -- like the blood and pain from his nose in his mouth -- more than named and known.  This woman with her Harry Potter bullshit and her Thug out of Nowhere friend are terrifying.  

Silas is unaffected by her Working, but is privy to its most immediate effects.  The man's fingers release the blade, reflexively, and it drops to the alley floor with a dull clatter.  He steps back from Silas, creating distance and breaking up the awkward closeness.  His hands are held up in front of him, empty so that the two mages can see he is no longer threatening, and then the weight of that fear and the command in Silas's voice and the gravity of the situation are overwhelmingly too much.  Leave, now -- it sounds like the best idea he's heard all night.  And so he turns on one heel and breaks for the open end of the alley, clipping the edge of a dumpster with his shoulder in his haste.

Only once he is beyond sight does the rigidity of Ari's projective arm loosen.  Her hand lowers, and the rush of active magics fades.  She exhales and the proud Hermetic cant of her shoulders rounds just a little.  After another moment of watching the end of the alley, her attention cuts over to him.  They are children of the Ascension War; but it is among the first time outside of any shared training that he has seen her so plainly and definitively act as if she were the Arrow of Artemis's daughter.  

"Are you well?"  It is her turn to ask, as she slides her wand back into its hiding space, with her voice as neutral and level as she can keep it.  There is no faulter to it, no shake to her hands, nothing but the elevation of her heartbeat and the adrenaline he might still sense in her system to give credence to any assertion that she has just been assailed by a strange man with a knife.  This lack of evidence, though, is a stiff Hermetic upper lip. It is willfulness. It addresses the momentary need and pushes repercussions off until the small hours of the morning. 

Are you well?

Because she totally had this handled (did not), and wasn't just about to get stabbed.  

He is not her White Knight, but he does have impeccable timing.

Something like this.

Syll @ 9:01PM

[Man: Soak]

Roll: 3 d10 TN8 (4, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )

Syll @ 9:03PM

[Man: Stab! F you!]

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

Syll @ 9:05PM

[Damage Str +1 L]

Roll: 3 d10 TN6 (1,3, 3) ( botch x 1 )

Syll @ 9:06PM

[Ari: Extending, Mind 2 + vulgar w/ witness, dif 6, minus instruments & coordinating skill, + fast casting +1 diff]

Roll: 2 d10 TN6 (9, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

For later: 

Syll @ 9:36PM

[Ari: Dox]

Roll: 1 d10 TN6 (8) ( success x 1 )

Silas

His Star may or may not have had the situation handled - who is to know these things? - but he is well satisfied that he was here to assist when the situation arose.  The thought of Silas as white night would be nigh laughable to most, but there it is; a man who was bent on attacking has been settled and sent on his way, between the two of them.  It's a good feeling, this sort of partnership, and different than any they've had in the past.

Now, though, he runs his unbruised left hand over Arianna's cheek in a gentle, proud touch.  She is fierce, she is strong, and she is his.  "I am well, yes.  Are you?"  This is the answer to her query, of course, and while he has never seen her act so clearly as who she is, she has certainly seen him angry, commanding, and prone to fisticuffs.  This is a Silas with whom she's quite familiar, though of course the situation has never been quite the same as this.  It's not until he's assured that Arianna is well enough for the moment that he says, "You stay with her, and I'll go get someone.  It would hardly do for me to be the one with her when security arrives."

The knife, untouched, lays where the assailant dropped it; should the drugged young woman feel like pressing charges, it will serve as evidence.  There are prints on it, of course, and who knows what other clues for the mundane authorities to log.  It will tell no tales of Arianna or Silas, or what they did here.  So, as certain as can be that no one is coming back for either woman, Silas rounds the building to alert the authorities of the issue.

"There's a girl in the alley, drugged.  My date is with her, and there was a man with a knife . . ." he plays a shocked witness well enough, does Silas, and the act serves him well when he chooses to use it.

Hunter @ 7:38AM

You need to see to this situation RIGHT NOW. [Straight Manip (or Charisma, same dice either way) because nothing else seems to make sense.  Diff is prob low because common sense of taking care of drugged girl.]

Roll: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )

Stella

Bouncers tend to be fairly adept at reading people, and so this one can tell that Silas is not particularly shaken by finding an unconscious woman in an alley, or by leaving his date there to stand watch while he sought out assistance.  This earns Silas the sort of slant-eyed inspection that sunglasses at night are meant to obscure, and with a brief shuffling of the guard -- someone will phone Denver PD, someone else will stand by the door -- the large-framed and imposing man follows him back toward the alley.

Moments before:

It is totally incongruous to Arianna, in the moment, that Silas would be proud and affectionate.  She is thrumming with anger and adrenaline; her light is too bright even cast shadows and yet the surety in the look she throws him is not entirely certain.  There is the glimmer of something caught in the corner of her eye; sometime later she will realize that the man meant to stab her until Silas interceded.  Sometime later she would realize that it was luck or some Will other than her own that Silas was not bleeding on the alley floor.  For now, though, the anger carries her, and she is proud and haughty and concerned for others over herself.

"I'm fine, Silas," she tells him.  "Ten fingers, ten toes. We're fine," she insists, and wraps him into that statement.  Then he is gone to look for authorities and Ari takes advantage of the quiet to calm the mind of the assailed woman. She is unconscious now, but that does not mean that she is resting quietly.  The Giametti woman takes the Art she has turned toward defense and uses it toward kinder ends, and when that is done, she turns her attention to hiding the hallmarks of the work she has done so far.  When he returns to the alley, the familiar sense of inconstant moonlight has faded.  The threads of her Working seem to have dissipated more quickly than usual.  She is crouched beside the woman, whose head lolls to the side and who gives no signs of wakefulness.

When the bouncer shoos her aside, Ari doesn't have to feign the way her hands shake or the worry in her eyes when she looks at the other woman's ragdoll pose.  And, because Paradox is sometimes cruel and on point in its afflictions, the dark prick of fingerprint and deeper bruises have started to rise on Ari's left forearm.  They appear to be defensive marks to any concerned parties.  With DPD and EMS on the way, that may prove problematic.

The scene moves predictably from here.  After the requisite number of minutes, the flash of police lights is visible.  There are medicos and authority figures. If they are still on site, someone wants Arianna and Silas to give statements. They want to take down names and addresses, where the two might be found for future comment. Would they be willing to testify, if charges are brought and the assailant is found.  Essentially, will they give up the anonymity they have had thus far in Denver, for the sake of this mortal woman they saved in a fit on uncharacteristic good will toward men.  

Stella @ 9:16AM

[Enochian (Clever)]

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

Stella @ 9:17AM

[Mask resonance: Prime/Mind 2 + witness, - Enochian, -Taking Time, +WP (I totally can't remember this roll, but I think this will work)

Roll: 2 d10 TN4 (2, 7) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Stella @ 9:18AM

[Add this to other Ari Dox roll]

Roll: 1 d10 TN6 (9) ( success x 1 )

Stella @ 9:21AM

[This would have come first: Mind2 + witness, -instruments)

Roll: 2 d10 TN5 (9, 10) ( success x 2 )

Stella @ 9:22AM

[Dox, ugh]

Roll: 1 d10 TN6 (8) ( success x 1 )

That's 3 bashing, and -3 WP for Ari for now.

Come to the Edge

evening-star

Come to the edge.
We might fall.
Come to the edge.
It's too high!
COME TO THE EDGE!
And they came,
And we pushed,
And they flew.
- Cristopher Logue

This is the closest their lives in Denver have come to the life that Ari was born to live.  The thin, twisting thread of active magic guiding their advance through the foothills surrounding Denver, the faded colors of twilight painted across a sky that reaches out to the East and onward forever until it is consumed by the deep navy of night. Soon there will be the pricking of starlight; soon Helios will be only a memory; but that thin silvered thread of resonance reaches out before them, like a fishing like trawling through water.  The Tellurian itself is unwound just enough to guide their passage through the warp and weft of the world.

There is only one road.  To take any other would be like swimming upstream.  She has no skill with Time or Entropy, so she does not know if it is fated to have fallen out this way.  Pen was close on the heels of their mystery and also the circle of bones has compelled them -- through either fear or simply the gnawing uneasiness of not knowing -- to adventure out at the first opportunity they have to go together and yet alone.

Here they pass the last gas station, with its overhead lights flickering from age and the weathered, time-pitted metal sign illuminated by one up-cast bulb, which itself is shrouded with dust-dirt and grime.  There are thin bars on the windows, but the proprietor explains that is more for the bears and less about the patrons. He speaks with the sort of slowness one expects from mountain folk; he wears a hat for a now-defunct regional sports team and old denim worn so long that is has gone soft and comfortable in places, nearly threadbare in others.  There is one pump stall.  The last of the daylight pushes through the treetops, sketching long shadows out in the sky and across the ground.

From here, there is only winding roads through the foothills.  The type that hairpin and double-back upon themselves as they slowly climb up the mountainside.  They are paved for awhile, then they are gravel a ways further, and then, the denim-wearing slow-talking man has said they go to dirt alone.

"No one goes up that way much anymore," he tells Nick.

Ari is outside, wrestling a pair of sandwiches out of their box of provisions. There is no use going into the unknown hungry.  Nick has also persuaded her to leave talking with the locals to someone who doesn't scream foreigner and aristocrat from every pore.  Whenever Nick returns, there's a sandwich and glass bottle of some lightly lime-flavored sparkling water for him.  (Because foreigner, and also because aristocrat [Hermetic].)

crow

There are places in the world where the boundaries of reality thin, where a person could question where they are and what year it is and whether this is in fact real or if they've stepped into a novel.  Near brushes with death do that: after an accident, after a gunshot or a head wound or being pulled out of a tangle of metal and wire people will question "Is this real?" and the answer is yes, and.  This place is an and.

Nicholas is proficient in the art of Spirit and growing moreso by the day.  He knows it's the thinning Gauntlet; Sleepers don't.  He knows it's thinning as they draw farther and farther out into the mountains, as they come up to the last gas station which probably looks the same as it has since the 1980s and winding roads that have been there for centuries, were maybe deer or game trails before that.

He'd thanked the man for the information before going back outside.  Nick is suited in some ways to being the face for their little group; he is adept at allowing others to project onto him what they like.  He looks maybe-Mexican-maybe-white-maybe-mixed and his dress is often masculine but nondescript in muted colors and he says little beyond asking questions.  He is an Okay Person To Talk To.

Nick accepts the sandwich and glass of sparkling water from Ari with gratitude.  "The guy in there said that there's not much up there anymore.  I didn't ask too directly about the ruin though.  I wonder what happened."

evening-star

The man is not much used to Thank Yous.  It earns Nick a "Well, you have yourself a good night, then," and a finger touched to the bill of his hat.  As Nick is pushing out of the door, the man is resettling himself on the wooden stool behind the counter and by the time the door closes it is almost as if Nick had never stepped inside.  The man has resumed the same posture he held when Nick pulled the door open; the lights still flicker; the shadows still pull long and thin and are still melting slowly into the broader, overall darkness.

"Most people have a decent sense of self-preservation," she opines, before taking a small sip from a green glass bottle of her own.  The tailgate of her hatchback is open. They can sit on the edge and supper in the growing shadows of the evening.  While Ari does not share Nick's sense of the spiritual realm, there is a prickling awareness to an adventure by any name.  She is excited, and also nervous, and slightly worried, but mostly invigorated by being outside the realm of everyday and routine.  "He's probably never been up there, himself."

Nick can imagine the sort of trouble she caused at Academy.  This need to be anywhere but where she ought to be is not a thing she picked up in her twenties.  It is innate to her, the pushing of boundaries, this standing well beyond the edge of reason and looking back, beckoning others to follow.  Someday, when he is relating this story, all he will have to say to their shared friends is that Ari had thought it would be a good idea to venture out, at nightfall, toward a ruin with an ominous flare for the dramatic and their shared friends will make a knowing face, or nod, or sigh.  They will assume that he had been cajoled.

Had he? Or was he complicit in this madness.

"Might you have a better sense of it, when we're closer?" she asks.  Sometimes proximity removes a layer of abstraction from a riddle. Sometimes it makes it overwhelming. She is not rightly sure what they are wandering into.

The air is thinner up here. It was thin already in the 'low'-lands of Denver proper.

crow

There is only one road, and it has been leading them upward past a place of ruin and death and into the unknown.  Nicholas did not need to be cajoled.  It's a road he has walked before, and before it was alone: it seems far less mad to him now that he has Ari along with him, though Nick has enough self-awareness that he has not fooled himself into thinking it reasonable.

He'd called her in a panic earlier that week: Pen was asking questions, and Nick's lie had been a little too clever.  He'd explained to her that he'd tried to explain away their absence via Rob, that they were making Rob a gift, that he'd hoped it would keep Pen from asking questions.  And it did, after a while.  He is too loyal a friend, too conscientious to not experience some guilt: and so he has resolved to be on the lookout for a gift for their Songrobin, though Rob will be none the wiser.

He's famished and so he is taking quick bites of the sandwich, thoughtful as he glances off along the thread they've both been following.  "I might," he says.  "It depends on what it is, when we come to it.  If there was some sort of tragedy there though, it would be unusual for it to not leave a mark on the site, even if there's no longer any sort of spirit presence.  I heard sirens in the vision I had when looking back after I touched the book, so it can't have been that long ago."

Maybe the man in the gas station remembers.  Maybe he was there when the walls came down.  It's hard to ask without being too obvious, isn't it.

Nick takes a swallow from the green bottle Ari handed him earlier.  "I'm wondering what sort of preparations we should make when we go up the mountain.  Whatever's up there could be dangerous."

evening-star

"Kestrel wants some Broncos 'swag'," she says, with an aire of utter confidence, in response to this matter of righting lies made to Pen. As if she has heard this from his mouth directly.  That is certainly where the slang came from, at least, as Songrobin's are adept at singing in the lingua franca, and little birds like Ari, well, they use terms like lingua franca even with middle-Americans.  "He told me so when I spoke to him at Solstice."

It is not the sort of present that one quests for, though, and Ari has had more productive suggestions on this front as well.  Kestrel once made a borrowed-gift to her of a pen that might write the names of the heavens, and in her hand it has often written the true nature of things so clearly that the speaking of Names and the working of Wills becomes far more trivial. One might argue that he gifted her an instrument; one might argue that Ari loves Kestrel at least as much as she loves Nicholas and Pen and then, truly, one might witness her temper at the insinuation that there might be friends closer to heart than Nicholas or, especially, Pen.  But if there were to be a second circle, Kestrel would clearly stand within that.

"A bell that sounds like twilight," she has said.  "A candle which evokes the sense of fernweh?" Perhaps this is to entice him to move from his roost, to visit far flung friends.  These are idle thoughts that get tossed into the middle of whatever chat they are having when the thought occurs to her.

They would not make for proper preparations.  They must be remarks on the Kestrel-gifting, and not the matter at hand.  Her attention has gone unfocused for a moment, the line of her sight catches up nothing in particular as she thinks.

"We have Zachriel with us," she says, and it is neither too specific for any overhearing sort nor too plain spoken to be mistaken.  "And, if we are truly in trouble I can add to a sword or also to a shield -- in a manner of emphasis," this is more poetical, and she hopes he takes her meaning.  "But these are arts best practiced ahead of time."

She glances up at the thinning light.

"And here we have witnesses."

She glances over to the time-touched building. Then back to Nick.

"If we can keep our minds and wits about us, these are our greatest assets, yes?" Ari quirks a brow, as she takes a bite of her sandwich and lets them both chew on the thought.  Her House is not known for its swashbuckling adventures. She swallows, then asks: "Do you think we'll encounter present danger, or only echoes of it?"

The metal signs creaks and sighs a little in the wind.

crow

Nick polishes off the remainder of his sandwich in a few quick bites, chewing rapidly as he does.  He's tense: it's a way for him to distract himself, to make attempts at soothing whatever worries he has about what they might find, or whatever worries he has that they will end up in over their heads and then Pen will (rightfully) be furious at them for attempting this without her.

She is the more magickally powerful of their cabal, after all, and certainly the most skilled when it comes to handling present dangers.

Ari's musing regarding bells and candles had drawn a sidelong glance, puzzled for all it seemed unrelated to his question.  Once he understood there was a nod, a thoughtful thing.  It's difficult to gift for a man who has enough wealth to buy himself whatever he needs, or for a person who has Robin's prickly nature, and so personal gifts are best.

"I'm not sure," he says, to her second question.  "It seemed like echoes, didn't it, when you looked?  But I think it's better to be prepared regardless."  He drains the rest of the green bottle.

evening-star

"It seemed like Echoes," she agrees.

There is a little hollow in their conversation, then, while she finishes her sandwich without embellishing the thought with more explanation.  Nick cannot know, but Ari is shaping the foundational Enochian words in her mind. The roots of all things; the basis for the off-the-cuff and collaborative magics that Hermetics weild.  They have spoken, at times, about her training and how it differs from his. This is part of it: readiness by rote practice; coming as easy as the conjugation of foreign verbs.

This is what it means to be a child of (the) War.

*** *** ***

"She always had that about her, that look of otherness, of eyes that see things much too far, and of thoughts that wander off the edge of the world."
― Joanne Harris

*** *** ***

"So the possibilities are -- "  she says, pausing just to take a swig of her water, " -- that it is an Echo, and strong enough to touch our minds.  For this we have Zachriel.  Or a rote, some bound compulsion -- again, Zachriel, and one another to keep us steady.  Some bound thing that does us harm: we can look into the Tellurian when we arrive, to see if there are traps laid plain.  A wraith or spectre: this you will know better than I.  Physical harm by magical effects? Countermagic is probably our best best.  Physical harm by plain laid trap: ... this I have little answer for."

She speaks with and easy confidence she cannot rightfully back up. There are many possibilities untouched upon here, but lacking ready answers for them it seems imprudent to welcome in doubt or fear.

"What have I missed?"  This, then, is also an echo of the training she has been through.  Hers less pointed and formalized than Pen's, but similar in structure nonetheless. Ari finishes her water and tucks the green glass bottle back into the bag of their provisions. It will be recycled later.

See how Silas and Denver is rubbing off on her? Eco-friendly Hermeticism.

crow

Ari's easy confidence, even if it can't be rightfully backed up, is reassuring to Nick.  It is a reminder that of all the things that could happen, she is here with him and he will not be alone.  His friend is thorough: she touches on the many things that could be waiting for them up on the mountain.

"If it is some kind of spirit," he says, "I'm less worried about physical harm.  It probably wouldn't attempt those, even if we are flesh and blood."  Even if Ari is flesh and blood, that is; Nicholas has never said so directly but spirits react to him as though he has been wraith-touched.  Perhaps he has, or perhaps an ancestor was, or perhaps an ancestor was something not wholly of this world.

"I can't...think of anything else that you've missed."  Nick leans back against the car, arms folded, his head tilted to the side in thought.  The possibilities are indeed endless, but it will serve them poorly to endlessly consider options.  Sooner or later one must act.

"I suppose there's only one way to find out, isn't there."

evening-star

[Ho-hum, leaving breadcrumbs just in case: Prime 1, coincidental, base + 3; Practiced.]

Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (3, 6) ( success x 2 )

evening-star

I cast my onto the shore of Eternity,
To be washed by the Ocean of Time,
It has shape, form and substance,
It is me.
One day I will be no more,
But my pebble will remain here,
On the shore of Eternity,
Mute witness of the aeons,
That today I came and stood
At the edge of the world.
- Brian Inder

Ari gathers up the papers that they'd wrapped their sandwiches in and crosses to the lone waste basket of the station, a wire cage surrounding a metal can with a thin, billowy plastic liner.  On her transit back, she pauses by the post supporting the swinging metal sign and its one loan lamp.  Placing her hand against the aged upright, she pauses just long enough to push some of her resonance into the signpost.

To Nicholas, who knows her well, it takes on the sense of shifting shadow in the moonlight. It is momentarily brighter at the edges of his senses, and then that blends into the early nightfall.  Above them, the first stars are pricking through the celestial tapestry.  If Pen does need to come looking for them, if they are swallowed up by the rift in the Tellurian that invites them onward, then this crossroads sign will lead her toward them.

Today they came and stood at the edge of the world.

Ari rubs her hands together as she moves back toward the car.  Nick is climbing into the passenger seat as she closes the tailgate and folds herself back into the driver's seat.

There is only one road.  It winds on and upward. 

The dash lights are brighter in the early night.  There is no radio reception up this high, so the quiet classical background sputters, and then fuzzes, and is cut off by the quick press of a button.  The road noise shifts when they meet the end of the pavement.  It shifts again when they lose the gravel.

crow

It has been a long time since Nick has been out this far, since he has walked or driven into a place where the city lights cannot reach and the firmament stretches eternal above.  He spoke of this not long ago to Pen, how his grandmother lived far out on the mesa and told her a story about he and his sisters and finding wonder.  Pen had titled that story "Anna Hyde's Adventure into the Great Dark," and now Nicholas is venturing out on his own without his sister as a guide.

Maybe he's thinking of this now as the radio fizzes out when they lose signal, as Ari cuts the sound short with the press of a button and as they pass onto a dirt road.

Before long it will be so dark out here that the car's lights will give them away as nightfires did in days of old: they could be seen for miles.

"Do you think we should try to find the ruin first?"

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"Definitely."

What type of person isn't afraid of the dark?  Being afraid of the dark is one of the oldest human fears; it is a sort of self-preservation instinct, a last-ditch safety net to keep the curious from wandering off of a cliff or into a den or away from their fellows in the deepest of nights.  What sort of person isn't afraid of the things they cannot known, or see, or sense coming?

Arianna Giametti is not afraid of the dark.  Not specifically of The Dark.  She is not afraid of striding forward into the unknown; it is her profound belief that the unknown was always out there, it was always coming anyway, and meeting it headlong is better than cowering in the background.  When the car stops and the lights are cut out and they are standing in the faint light of stars and whatever warm-light is cast by the rising moon, and the city is a constellation of bright points on the valley floor, nestled up against the immovable and absolute dark of the Rocky Mountains, she steps out onto the red dirt with her chin tipped upward and her expression watchful but untroubled.

She should be troubled.  It would make an awful lot of sense to be troubled.

The path ahead of them is too steep to navigate the car down with any confidence that even this four-wheel drive hatchback would wind its way back up.  It is not exactly narrow, but neither of them can see its width well enough to have confidence that they would be able to turn around if they traveled down it, and Ari's car does not have the sort of massive tire tread that gives them purchase in reverse to climb their way backwards up a mountain.

The road -- let's call it that for convenience -- has been worn unevenly and there are echoes of that sort of monstrous tread in the broad grooves that interlace and erode and turn this red dirt into a riverway more than a driveway.  The air is thin and carries the dust aloft. Every footstep they make pulls it up into the air around their shins, and then their knees, and finally it is stirred up enough for them to taste.  This dust-dirt is not worn down mountain; it is ash and dust and feathered bits of bone.  It tastes of memory.  The path downward is steep and requires steady footing.  It descends in the half light, and follows the curve of the mountain. They must be cautious to keep their footing with the uneven ground and the pitch of the pathway.

Deeper into the night, the crumbled walls and half-roofed structures of the ruins await them.  Ari's car had only one hand torch, and whoever is in front has the use of it.  She has magics that can cast its beam wider or brighter if needed.  Their progress is easily evidenced by the travel of this bright point in the darkness.

Were you there when the walls came down?

Nick can feel the ground shake and tremble beneath his feet, echoes of long-since exploded ordinance, but it does not cause him to stumble. The roar of it rings in his ears, but is not so loud as to stamp out the present.

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[To be continued...]