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.