Open hours at the bar from whenever to whenever, so Margot showed up in the early evening while the sun was still bright and hot outside. She was dressed in a pair of denim shorts and a light gray long-sleeved tee with the sleeves pushed up to her elbows (walking from wherever she'd parked to here was warm). She was rolling her sleeves down against the burst of air-conditioned cold when she entered the lobby, and had the self-conscious impression of being underdressed for a place with such high ceilings and white decorum.
There, at the bar-- Sepúlveda. With her head down and her steps small and hurried, she made her way across the lobby to stand at the stool beside him. Not climbing up immediately, but placing a hand upon its seat as though to reserve it for herself, or maybe request invitation.
"Hey, Doc," she greeted with the apology bleeding into her greeting already.
Her cheeks were pink from the sun, and hair twisted and pinned back from her face and off her neck. She was wearing sneakers and socks on her feet instead of flip-flops, contrary to the rest of her attire. Knowing her and her counterpart, it probably had something to do with wanting to be able to sprint at a moment's notice if need be. Paranoid assholes.
"I'm not killing your game if I join you, am I?" The humor fell flat but hey, she tried.
SepúlvedaFor all Margot knows, based on the sparseness of his responses and the lack of emojis, she is still on Dr. Sepúlveda's shit list. Today is the day she's chosen to reach out to him, and from a distance, nothing seems any different than usual. He's wearing a cardigan overtop a button-down shirt and glasses, and is downing beer like he's just crawled in out of the desert and not like he's waiting for someone to come join him.
She approaches him, contrition in her tone, and he knocks back the tequila shot the bartender was in the midst of pouring when she arrived.
Then comes the question.
"You two," he says, scratching his beard with his left hand, "killed my entire season. What'd you want?"
MargotThat sounded enough like an invitation to sit as any, so Margot climbed up onto the stool. Asked the bartender for a glass of water and nothing more, and when it arrived she drank it as thirstily as Doc had been chugging his beer before.
"To tell you I'm sorry," she said simply, and looked at her glass of water and her hands (no nail polish, no rings, nothing but the sharp edges of recently clipped nails, like she was getting ready for some kind of labor).
"And to say bye, for now."
GiamettiIt's a warm day, which means that Arianna is wearing a spring-appropriate dress, still in greys and silvers and whites, and hemmed precisely at her knee. It fits her so well that Margot may wonder if the Hermetic woman has a haberdashery staff on retainer, at her beck and call to suitably bend her attire to her will. Money is a simpler instrument, here, than Magic to employ, and it is unlikely that Arianna does such work herself. Her hair is pinned up in a loose chignon at the base of her neck. Her heels loft her a little higher; she dwarfs the scientist by five or more inches when she comes back to join him.
And she does come back to join him, despite seeing his Apprentice tucked in beside him on a barstool. Arianna is graceful as she takes up a collegial lean against the bar on his other side -- he is stuck between them now, the Apprentice and the Order mage -- and smiles across to Margot in greeting.
"Are you leaving already?" she asks, filing the thought in just after Margot's attempt at a goodbye. "You've only just gotten here. And it is good to see you again, Margot."
Which implies that she has already exchanged greetings with Andres. Earlier. Before a trip to the restroom drew her away from the bar momentarily.
Giametti((Aha. Math fail. She is about 4" taller than Andres, not 5". ... I'm off to a great start!))
SepúlvedaIf Arianna had not come back within a reasonable amount of time, he might have started firing off text messages, not out of concern for some strange fate having befallen her in the ladies' room but because he himself is now beset by a tenacious former student who wants to talk about her feelings.
When the Hermetic returns unharmed from the restroom, Sepúlveda turns his head in recognition of her resonance.
"Margot here," he says as if in aside, though his eyes remain on the Disparate, "is going on a field trip to--I don't know, actually. Edward didn't say. At any rate, I'm not invited because she thinks I'll kill her brother."
Giametti"Is her brother deserving of death, then?" Arianna asks, seemingly unperturbed by Andres's bluntness on the matter. Her eyes flick from the Scientist to his former student and back in quick succession. She is bright, if not always that perceptive. "Or is this some sort of misunderstanding?"
A beat. Then, almost reluctantly. "Are you in some sort of trouble, Margot?" Damn. The words are out before she remembers that showing concern is quite like volunteering to help. The bartender gets a sort of universally understood signal -- she now requires a drink.
SepúlvedaOr is this some sort of misunderstanding?
He lifts his shoulders in a shrug, eyes still on Margot. Though not exactly the best with words, he has an expressive enough face and his body language always gives him away. If Margot would care to elaborate as to why she's sorry, she's more than welcome to, but he has a Corona to drink while she answers Arianna's question(s).
As if they're impeding his progress, Sepúlveda yanks off his eyeglasses and clips one arm to the breast pocket of his shirt. Why yes, Bartender, they would like another round.
Everyone is getting tequila this time.
MargotA click-click of heels drew Margot's attention first, for how they resonated with ceilings like this. She looked at first like she wasn't sure of how she felt about having somebody else around, given what conversation she was trying to have, but Arianna smiled and greeted Margot and the little witch couldn't help but return the gesture.
"Hey Arianna, how--"
There went Doc. Margot turned her head to look at him with naturally large eyes widened even further, jaw only slightly slack but not entirely agape just yet. It was a somewhat familiar expression, Doc may or may not remember it from when he induced her and Ned's Seeking, how she'd turned her head to gawp at her fellow (at the time) Apprentice when he blurted out something about Luke. Now it wasn't clouded with the haze of a Magickally-imbued sleep(?). It looked pretty disbelieving.
Then, instead, it looked like a more annoyed version of pissed off than what genuine (read: justified) offense would appear as. A knit in her brow and a pout-purse to her mouth as lips pressed together to hold back scoldings and tempers.
"Thank you, Doc," she ground out through clenched teeth, then, finally, settled her eyes squarely upon Arianna to address the woman's curiosity-- concern, also, but let's face it, curiosity was strong there too.
"I'm leaving to make sure that I'm not going to be in some kind of trouble. I'll be back in a couple of days. I just....," she paused, scowling even harder, and looked at the side of Doc's face. Reached out and wrapped a petite hand around the tequila shot that was placed in front of her. "I left on a bad finger-pointing note with Doc and wanted to make up for it before... well...."
She concluded on a sigh and tipped her head back to take the shot.
Sepúlveda[let's play the empathy game!]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 8) ( success x 1 )
Giametti[Empathy... because I do care. I'm just not particularly good at it.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
SepúlvedaGlug.
"She thinks she hurt my feelings," he says, still in Aside Mode, his breath gone to fire, this time taking his eyes off Margot. "Which is--" Cough. "--laughable, being as the only feeling she and Edward ever induce in me is pain, in my ass."
MargotFor Arianna, this may be a moment of some kind of clarity or awakening to the human soul and heart. She might really feel for Margot and the plight that's clearly sitting upon her. She might not have noticed before, but now that she really looked the petite girl's shoulders seemed to sag under the weight of what rested upon them.
She was worried about not coming back from this trip. She wanted to say sorry to Doc but she wanted to say goodbye too because she cared about Doc, and that showed plainly too. She was angry at him, presently, for bringing up the subject and that was clear in the magenta patches of blush on her cheeks but even if she was mad at him she was worried about saying something to crack their alliance entirely.
GiamettiThere is this: a small stich in Arianna's brow as she looks toward Andres. The slightest rumple of disapproval, well schooled and disciplined and all that, but displeased nonetheless. She ponders this as she takes her shot, and lets the fire play out down her throat. She is less practiced in this, but her acquaintance with the Scientist has gifted her amply opportunity to make a quick study of it. Tequila is now in Ari's drinking repertoire, world be warned.
"That's mature of you," she says, when the burn has faded. "Wanting to make ammends before departing. I was not as disciplined at your age." Faint praise, perhaps, except it is too gentled to be exultation. The Hermetic woman taps her finger against the rim of her shotglass a few times, then stills.
"Would you allow me to make a gift to you before you go?" she asks Margot. It is a mused sort of half-thought, not quite as well thought out as it out to be. Ideally she should discuss this with Nick and Pen, but no. She is impulsive, and the Silver Bough would likely back her either way. "Something to help you find your way back here, or perhaps to help us find you if your path takes you astray?"
WilliamAt 7:33 last Tuesday, William Holmes decided that he wanted a piano. Not an upright, and not a keyboard. No, he wanted a baby grand piano. He determined that there were two ways in which he could actually go about this- transporting an existing baby grand piano into his living room or simply creating one with little more than intention and poetry. He decided, of course, to go with the latter and the last few working days were spent learning how precisely to make this a reality.
And, well, learning to read efficiently backwards.
After that stopped being a problem, he had to reacclimate himself to reading in English forwards. Concludes he prefers reading backwards because it makes him pay attention to what is in front of him, but he doesn't seem too bent out of shape either way.
William is out tonight to get a break from trying to learn to write objects into existence, and to celebrate... uh... something. Who knew, who really cared. He could find something to celebrate, could be celebrating something already, but he figures it's been awhile since he's had a few shots and drops by the nearest bar he's pretty sure he won't get shot at.
So, there he is, there's the motivation- all tall and blond and walking through the door and looking a cross between a member of Mumford and Sons and a sexy Mennonite- what with the button down shirt and the vest and (arguably) suspenders and pants. No beard, though, so very clearly he is neither a Mennonite nor a member of Mumford and Sons.
MargotMargot was Doc's apprentice for several months, which really isn't much time at all, but rest assured it was plenty of time to learn how and when to ignore quips about how inconvenient she and Ned's roles in his life were for him. Instead she shook her head and closed her eyes to the burn of the drink, then settled for looking slightly bleary over toward Arianna.
The offer of a gift, a guiding gift, was met with a curious and surprised lift of eyebrows.
"Uhh.." A glance briefly to Doc, then back to Arianna. "Yeah. Um, yeah, thank you. I appreciate it."
Somewhere over and behind Arianna's shoulder Will was approaching the bar, and some combination of blond hair and resonance distracted her eye away, caught her attention and had an expression of conflict arising on her face. On one hand, she liked Will and Arianna and Doc all but on the other hand she had only really been planning on speaking with one of them.
If he spied her like she spied him, she'd wave in greeting and acknowledgement, but be sure to hide her mouth behind a drink of water all the same.
Sepúlveda"Margot..."
The man has enough trouble in one-on-one situations. It's worse when he has an audience. Everyone knows he's full of shit when he says he doesn't have feelings. Of course he has feelings. He has hot blood, he has lacrimal glands, he has a brain that is for all intents and purposes still human.
It's the too many feelings that presents itself as a problem. That unimaginable loss that not only left his imagination but wrecked the life he had built with the person he lost. Margot's former mentor is not a complicated man. He's an asshole, sure, but it doesn't take too much work to figure out why he says the things he says or does the things he does.
"You're doing the right thing, confronting your past before it can catch up with you. And you don't owe me an apology." She knows how he feels about apologies. "Don't make me hug you in front of all these people."
GiamettiThere's this: Arianna is only altruistic to a point. She likes Margot, and her gift to Margot is mostly for the girl's sake but also significantly to ease Arianna's own effort expended if something goes sideways. If something bad befalls Margot, she reasons that the local Traditionalists will band together to rescue yet another Disparate.
But one that Arianna likes, and who seems interested in choosing. So. There's a difference. And Nick likes the girl, too, so that's practically a majority vote within their cabal.
"Are you leaving soon, then?" the Hermetic woman asks, gauging how crafty-on-the-spot she will have to be with this semi-charmed gift. There is still seriousness weighting down the usual levity in her eyes, though responsibility does chafe. It is unfamiliar in her to her current companions. William's advance is not noted, as he is coming up behind her, but will be met with a smile -- a little less expansive than usual -- when he arrives.
WilliamThere is a wave that he does catch, oddly enough because he isn't paying attention. So long as he isn't paying attention, he can notice any number of things. So, he notices Margot without intending to notice, concludes that talking to people before drinking is slightly better than drinking alone (and decidedly less suspicious) and he heads on over.
"Hey Margot-" and he rounds the table, notices- "and Arianna-" and some other guy "-and-" fuck I don't think I know his name "-hi, I'm Will."
KiaraHard to say, really, whether or not the brunette that appears there not long after William does was invited or not.
Kiara Woolfe was contrary in this sense - when you least suspected there was any calling for the pagan to surface - it tended to be precisely when she did. With little fanfare and with a mass of dark hair pinned up and negotiated into some notion of order, the Verbena looked every inch the cosmopolitan child she actually was, at heart.
Spring was come (spring was here) and Kiara's outfit for the evening reflected a certain recognition in the long skirt and glittering top she wore; the lights dancing in a myriad of red and black sequins. Yet - boots persisted beneath it all; a jacket was draped over one arm - Spring was proving a tease and the weather still danced along the precipice of a chill factor.
She enters, Ms Woolfe and makes a beeline for the bar. If she's here to meet anyone, she's not in a particular frenzy about it.
MargotHer name spoken by the most familiar voice present drew Margot's attention back once more, and she looked at Andrés with a small aggravated crease still hovering between her brows at first. But when he continued on that smoothed away and a dab of relief replaced it instead. She smiled, just a little, and held the glass of water in both hands.
"It wasn't my idea," she said softly in the tone of someone who couldn't accept another person's credit. "But it was a good one, so I'm sticking with it." To Arianna next, she glanced and nodded. "Yeah, I was originally planning to leave this morning but things came up so we pushed back to leaving tomorrow instead."
By this point William had reached them, and she smiled back to him. "Hey Will."
Attention caught by blacks and whites and another strong presence. A familiar face, one she immediately (like a lesson drilled into her mind) placed as Verbena. Eyes hovered on Kiara only long enough for the recognition to settle in before she was looking back to Will again. Making no gesture to invite him to sit on the stool beside her (Doc was on her left, nobody to her right yet), but no indication that she was saving the space either.
"You look nice." A glance around. "Meeting people?" She certainly hoped not.
Kiara[Pagan-dar, activate?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6) ( success x 1 )
Kiara[Oh I see how it is, Denver.]
Giametti"Oh! William. What a pleasant surprise," she says, and it is clear that she had not entirely been expecting him. But also that he is welcome to stand beside her, if he so chooses. And she stands beside Sepulveda, still leaning against the bar or table where they stand. Still looking across the Scientist to Margot, whilst paying the sort of intense attention to the Disparate that William has only seen her apply to less animate studies.
"Do you know Andres?" she asks, polite introductions apparently on auto pilot tonight. She gestures between them and makes the appropriate smiles, but her mind is chewing over something else.
"We have become fast friends," she assures the other Hermetic, and there is a glimmer of amusement to her eyes for just a moment.
Then for Margot: "If you must away so soon, then, I apologize, I will have to give you a beggared gift. Do you have at least a few minutes more?" she asks, whilst pulling her small clutch purse toward her so that she can root around for an appropriate implement -- a small chunk of polished hematite, which is in her purse because: Hermetic Mage -- and fastens in her mind a possible ward against attenuation, and the general shape of appropriate sympathetic magics for sendings and findings and what not. Magic on the Spot is not really her forte, but years of practice and wizarding education give her enough grounding to make do.
SepúlvedaDo you know Andrés?
The Scientist scratches the corner of his eye but doesn't extend his hand to shake. All William gets for a proper introduction is "Hello." He's considering the fact that Margot has said her piece, or appears to have said her piece, and that Will is one of Arianna's people, and he's typing both-thumbs on his phone for a second. Sighing as he leaves the thing on the bar top.
"Come here," he says to Margot.
Like that day at the coffeehouse, the hug is awkward. He's a bony, strange little man, but he rare moments of paternal giving-of-shits. Margot is not delicate, but she is young. He doesn't know how to be warm or gentle or any of the things she might need from him.
She doesn't have to accept the hug, but he's got an arm out in offer, like he's about to leave her here with these two. Three. However many it is now Christ they're coming out of the walls.
William[Do I actually notice people? Per+aware?}
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 7, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 6 ) [Doubling Tens]
KiaraThe creature at the bar (placed by Margot as a Verbena and yes, she did feel as if that suited, somehow, did look the part with those dark eyes of hers and that generous mouth painted red) leans in to order a drink and engages the bartender in conversation while he sets a glass down, tips ice into it and unearths a sprig of mint from somewhere.
A bottle of vodka appears and generously coats the ice and herb.
The brunette's glittering top was some overtly intricate thing with lacing up the side and a triangular shaped cut; it rose slightly up on either side and gifted the world with a slither of skin beneath. When the pagan leaned into the bar to intercept her drink - the shirt slid up past the hem of her skirt and the dark ink of her tattoo flirted with the universe at large.
There's a brief catch of fine dark brows - they draw together and the female reaches, one handed, to extricate a phone from the jacket draped over her arm; balancing her drink in one hand; hip against the bar her thumb flicks across the screen.
Eyes tick upward - across the crowd.
Kiara's mouth curls, she sets her coat down. Hops onto a stool and crosses her legs; sipping at the concoction in her hand. Taps out a reply and hits send and, rather demurely, turns her face and watches the crowds: a booted heel rapping against the leg of the barstool.
William[manip+sub: totally fine here]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 9) ( success x 1 ) [Doubling Tens]
Sepúlveda[perception: bullshit?]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 6) ( success x 1 )
WilliamMargot says that he looks nice, and he smiles because goddamnit William likes compliments because what self- respecting Leo doesn't like compliments?
"Thanks," he replies, "and nah, I just decided to come out. I've been on my ass for a week reading so I was like hey, time to join the rest of humanity."
Pleasantries have been traded between the doctor and the not-doctor, Will nods with Arianna gives her introduction, gives the references for how they know each other and uses the term friends, she and the Etherite are friends and it is good enough for him. Gives a thumbs up.
Opens his mouth to say something to Margot and Arianna, and it really does look like he was going to say something, but his thought process seems to immediately derail and he closes his mouth. Stops for a second, looks in Kiara's direction and then past Kiara at something that most assured isn't there. Exhales. Waves hi to Kiara, looks back to the ladies he is currently with and contineus on the train of thoguht he was originally on.
Supposedly.
Probably.
"You two down for one more drink, or am I doomed to do shots by my lonesome?"
Margot[Perception + Empathy: Sup Will?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 10, 10) ( success x 2 )
MargotThe open armed offer for a hug was accepted without much in the way of hesitation. One arm hooped around his back and she tucked into his side, flank to flank, to squeeze a side hug in return. She didn't slip down off her bar stool for it, though-- even though Sepúlveda was not a large man, Margot was much smaller still. The stool helped, if anything at all.
She was kind enough to end the hug quickly-- Doc had a reputation to keep, sort of, and there were a lot of people around to witness the tender moment. Hands back at her water glass, she glanced from her teacher and cabalmate (she was pretty sure of both parts being true, at least) who appeared to readying himself to leave to Will instead, speaking of how he'd only intended to come out and blow the smell of being stuck indoors off his shoulders.
Spied something that raised a look of suspicion and question on her face, glanced toward and beyond Kiara as well, but then found herself distracted from what she'd spied for the time being, because Arianna was pulling something that looked special and full of potential and importance out of her purse.
This answer could be for Arianna and Will both: "I don't have to leave right now..." Truthfully, she'd packed and repacked her small travel bag three times already, and lost track of the number of times she organized and secured the messenger bag that she'd placed her Supplies with a capital S in. If she went back to her apartment now she may well end up scrubbing baseboards with her need to spend anxious energy.
Plus she was rather curious to see what Arianna had pulled from her possibly actual magic bag of tricks.
GiamettiShe has stepped back enough that Margot and her former mentor can hug it out -- if mutually desired -- and it gives her opportunity to follow Will's glance over to Kiara, who is familiar, but just barely, from a walk in the park one evening. Arianna smiles, and lifts her chin slightly in greeting. The Hermetic woman does not wave or bound over to say hi. It is more like this: Hey, I remember you; you seemed cool.
"I couldn't possibly condemn you drink alone, " Arianna says, with faux dismay at the very concept but the warmth of her smile is dimmed a little. She glances from him back to the Disparate and again back to her Tradition mate.
"Say, William," she says. It sounds somewhat coaxing. Just a little cajoling. And then she lapses into Hermetic speak. "Might you assist me in a trifling matter? I would so like to make Margot a sending stone -- not in truth, for I have neither the time nor the materials to trap the rote for her completely before she goes away -- but a seeming of one. I thought I might imbue this with my own Essentiae..." The little hematite is tucked into her Tradition-mate's hand. It is heavy. It would hold the pattern of her resonance well.
"Lodestones are good for finding one's way home, aren't they?" They are also good for finding ones who have lost their way. Their aside is clear-spoken enough for Margot, ever-curious, ever-quick on her feet, to overhear.
SepúlvedaThe side hug is less awkward than a front-to-front one might have been, Margot seated and Andrés standing. His fingers are icy even through her blouse, but the cardigan gives his trunk some measure of warmth, and she can feel the sigh as it leaves his chest. Theirs were fraught paths what brought them together.
He doesn't say it. He doesn't have to. Yeah okay sure she's a pain in the ass but if he didn't care, he had ways of making her and Ned leave him the fuck alone.
As all things do, the hug ends, and when it does the Scientist picks up his cellphone, its notification light throbbing green.
He doesn't excuse himself. He just wanders around the bar to take up a position beside Kiara, then returns his cellphone to the ass pocket of his slacks.
"Put her drinks on my tab," he tells the bartender. "Please."
"More tequila?" the young bartender asks.
"Por todos." A swirling motion with his hand to include the miscreants he left on the other side of the bar and the immediate vicinity at once. "Yes. Please. You're a good man."
WilliamThere's a little bit of explanation being flung around, He settles into a seat next to Margot- she hasn't forbidden it but hasn't expressly said that he could sit there, either. His attention is on the piece of hematite, the way it feels in his palm and the weight that it as against everything around them. It seems good enough, seems solid. Seems to have-
"Certainly a better choice than quartz," he says, more to himself than anything. gives it a good squeeze, nods, and hands it back to Arianna.
"I wouldn't be averse to being of assistance, but what's our timeline? And, more appropriately," he looks at her, grins bright and playful, "do you really want to trust me casting while drunk? Could make it more fun-"
"Are you going on vacation, Margot? Or are you going on some giant epic quest that shan't ever be spoken of? It determines whether or not I get shitfaced before helping Arianna with your going away present."
GiamettiShe accepts the stone back from him, pausing just long enough to rub her thumb over it thoughtfully before offering it to Margot for inspection. It is a rock. A shiny rock. A heavy-for-its-size and shiny rock. If you cut it, though, the iron in it makes the dust red like blood sluicing from a wound. It has a bit of Arianna to it, and, by happenstance, a bit of Margot as well.
"Our timeline is 'now' as she might leave presently, and with no present, and that simply will not do."
"So I was thinking that you might second me, as far as watching perhaps who else was watching, whilst I casted while tipsy." She says this plainly. As if she might have some strong accquaintance with drunken magic. They have established she went to Hermetic Academy, so, perhaps it is possible. "Which is fun -- but contraindicated by official sources."
A wink for Margot, here. Rules bending is one of Ari's favourite past times.
MargotIt ought to be noted by the Mages in the immediate vicinity, by the way-- Arianna and William in particular, as they were familiar with Margot and to a degree (William more than Arianna here) her resonance as well. Her magickal presense was stronger now, heavier, more pronounced and easier to pick up on altogether. Still carnage soaked, but now with a particular assurance to it as well, like a steady beat of a war drum carrying the pace of a victory march.
An Apprentice no more, it seemed. And just in time, for Margot was going on a journey, one epic enough that Arianna wanted to bestow a hastily-crafted lodestone upon her before she left. William was up to the task, curious of where she was headed. She smiled a little, but it was a sad little thing because of what truth lay behind the answer to come.
"I'm going to confront some ghost from the past over the weekend, to make it stop haunting me."
The shiny bit of rock was offered and accepted in an upturned palm. She bounced it gently to get a feel for its weight and flecked at a little of the iron dust upon it with a blunt thumbnail. Looking all the more intrigued by the rite to come she handed it back, but paused and looked nervously around the bar as something occurred to her. True to Margot form, obvious worry crept into her voice once again as she said quietly: "Wait, where people can see, here? Isn't that going to lash back on you?"
KiaraAndrés wanders over and the Verbena turns toward him as he puts her drink on his tab. Arianna and William both signal their greetings in Kiara's general direction and both receive the female's undivided attention for a beat: a crooked slide of her mouth; the nod of her chin.
"I was intending to come over eventually and play at good manners, you realize."
This, Kiara's brand of greeting for the older man as her eyes settle on his face as he tucks his phone away. She takes another sip of her drink, the ice clinking together. Shifts her weight slightly so that her body is facing toward him, rather than idly tipped toward the bar at large. "Is everything okay? I assume I'm not timely for another pending city disaster, am I?" A droll little inflection, there.
"If so, I'm going home to change."
William"Only if we fuck up spectacularly," he tells Margot, "if you keep things low key enough that it looks normal? Reality doesn't care.
"We're just two weirdos with a rock."
Giametti"Or fantastically eclectic foreigners," she offers, her grin widening a bit. It is the first time since she's sensed the tension in Margot that Arianna has seemed more like herself tonight. "I worry more about attracting the wrong sort of attention than I do about backlash."
These words may well snap back to bite her in the ass. It would not be the first time.
"Tell me, Margot: Do you know how to scry? Or has the doctor introduced you to the concept of sympathetic magic at least?" This is not apprentice-level conversation outside of the Order. Perhaps she is unwittingly testing the new note in Margot's resonance.
SepúlvedaWith a deep breath he takes in what the filthy pagan has on right now, eying her not with lewdness but with practical consideration, then flicks his eyebrows and settles in for a few more minutes of keeping her company.
"Nah, don't do that," he says. "If a kraken bursts out of the sewers, you'll be alright in what you've got on."
He's heard stories, see. The reiki healer has a reputation.
Margot"Sympathetic magic, yes, I think... Scrying...?" She made a face and shook her head. There was still the nervous glance about that somebody might be leaning in eavesdropping, but a second solid sweep about the bar settled whatever nerves she might have. She hadn't seen anything a second time and Doc and Kiara were watching on the other side of the bar. Still speaking quietly, though, she stopped looking so damn suspicious and settled back into the discussion.
"I don't know. I haven't really had time to test my mettle yet, so to speak. It's been a very.... busy week."
GiamettiArianna could fashion them a forces ward, to keep their conversation well and truly private, but that sort of extravagance over terms that might be over-heard in your friendly neighborhood occult bookstore is more trouble than it is worth. That might well and truly incur paradox and backlash and the utter and complete absence of a thing is often more conspicuous than quiet dissonance. So she leaves it; sometimes it is best to leave things.
"Scrying is simple. You exploit the connections between things to draw them closer together than they really are. Like this," she says, slipping the thin silver band she wears around her left ring finger off and holding it in her palm. "If I so needed to contact the person who gave me this band, I could use it as a focus to find him. With more practice I might throw my voice, or compell an emotion, or whichever of my Arts is most applicable. But the simplest use of scrying is in finding things."
Arianna slips the band back over her finger, and it settles into near anonymity at the base of her finger. Just a glimmer of moonlight and nothing more. She leaves a little pause, in case William wishes to embellish here.
"I will make you a sending stone--not a true one, but an echo of it--an anchor point between you and me. If you have need of me, and the proper arts, you can use it as a focus to find me. If I have need of you, I can use it as an anchor to find you. Other things can find me through it, though, so you must guard it carefully." This is a grave warning. But the next thing she says may be the more serious implication.
"People familiar with my resonance can also use it to find you in my stead."
KiaraIn truth: if he had eyed her with lewdness, the Verbena likely wouldn't have provided much more in way of response than to raise a dark eyebrow and allow her mouth to portray her amusement. Across the room, there is a gathering of potent magickal signatures; some, arguably, more than others but none the less, it would be hard for those like Kiara not to feel the tug in their direction.
Her eyes drift there, every so often as she speaks with the good Doctor.
One can only speculate what a witch and a Scientist could have to discuss at length but then again: the pair of them had somehow managed to function successfully enough as a unit to rescue another of their midst so perhaps there was something to that, after all. "Mm," she does offer eventually, Kiara, with a sip of vodka and soda. "Well, I am partial to seafood, at the very least."
The Reiki Healer has a reputation. Kiara would be the very least surprised to learn that. One might even suggest she encouraged aspects of it.
"Come on, Doc," the female slides off her stool in a glitter of black and red, her fingers idly brushing his shoulder as she passes. "Let's work on our people skills."
SepúlvedaFolks can speculate all they want. The Scientist tends to operate under the assumption that no one is paying attention to what he's doing or saying, and has devices to ensure that this remains the case. He is very much in charge of his own circumstances.
And the woman with whom he would have been content to shoot shit all night wants to go work on their manners. Which involves talking to two kids and another gal he has been content in the past to shoot shit with. He and Arianna get to talking in the language Spantalian more often than not. People skills, they do not have.
"Groan," he says as he places his hand at the small of Kiara's back, brief, in a gesture of acquiescence. "Whine." The bartender is pouring all of the tequila shots in front of the trio at the other end of the bar. "Complain."
MargotThe weight of the offer was considered. A useful tool to call for help, but it created a tie to the woman that could potentially prove problematic later. There was the responsibility of guarding it, too, and Margot glanced briefly to Will, who perhaps somehow indicated that he was waiting on her answer, she had the floor here. Then back to the stone in question, meant to be turned, meant to be binding.
"....You know, Arianna, it's a really nice thing to offer. I'm... kind of honored, I guess, that you'd want to help me on that level, and that you'd trust me to guard something like that. It'd be a big responsibility, and frankly I don't know what kind of enemies or old classmates you might have that'd come looking for you and crash in on my life to find you."
It was around this time that three tequila shots appeared before them-- Doc's order just arrived. Margot glanced up the bar to him and Kiara. Maybe found eye contact with either or both? Maybe not, one way or the other she looked back to Arianna with surprisingly mellow resolve in her demeanor and voice.
"While it's appreciated, I'm going to decline as graciously as someone can turn down a gesture like that. Not just because of who might come knocking, nor because it can track me down, but... Well, I'm supposed to be stepping out of the nest and stretching my wings, metaphorically speaking, right? I'm going to do this without my Mentor--" she still said this with a capital M, utlized the present tense even as she was explaining that the Apprentice/Mentor relationship was withering away as one season passed and changing to something different as the next season came into play. "Then I don't want to go creating another magickal umbilical cord of accountability, so to speak."
She smiled a less-than-confident and somewhat apologetic smile and picked up her shot glass. "Hope that doesn't make me a dick." And moved the shot over to Will instead. She'd already had one and that was plenty enough for a pixie-sized girl with no intentions of getting drunk. Besides, he had catching up to Ari to do.
GiamettiThe idea that old enemies or classmates would come looking for Arianna and find Margot in her stead, through the wee bit of resonance trapped in a scrap of hematite, raises her brows a bit. But just that. She listens to Margot's refusal without any outward offense taken or perturbation. At the end of it, the Hermetic woman merely extended her hand, palm up, to have the stone returned to her.
"As you wish."
It is a poignantly formal and ancient-feeling thing, and Margot may have the fleeting sense that there was more exchanged in this moment than words and a shiny rock, but that is surely only because Arianna ocassionally gives the impression of far Older Ways and seemings than her present one. The stone, once retrieved, is returned to her small bag without much ado.
When Margot hands her shot over to William, Arianna does not move to pick up her own. There is something shifting to the green-grey of her eyes, hidden, mercurial.
"It doesn't make you a dick," she confirms. It is not warm enough or resonant enough to be the whole of what she is thinking. "Go well, Margot. And come back if you Will."
WilliamRaises the shot when he gets it, and doesn't press. Takes what she says at face value, that she needs to do this thing on her own and looks over whatever is there. Doesn't care what he's drinking, truth be told, but he does think for a second.
"Be careful," he says, "ghosts are fueled by passion and memory- it's the only thing they've got left and sometimes it's easier to hold on to something damaging than to pass into something else that may or may not exist."
He knows she's not talking abouty actual ghosts. The statement stands.
MargotThere was a small but distinguished shift in demeanor between when working up toward a ritual to help Margot and when she accepted the stone back with no imbuements bestowed. Apology was a habit that Doc had tried to break in her and if he was chipping away at it in any effacacious manner it sure wasn't showing yet. Apology still showed in Margot's eyes when she handed the stone back, but that was where it stayed.
Kiara and Doc were on the move, approaching, and the witch watched them for a moment before looking to Will, who now spoke his words of warning. The words held accuracy, clearly, because she considered him seriously for a moment.
"That's why I'm not expecting him to 'pass on' gently."
Giametti[Manip + Expression for The Look. Which I will write into the next post. Dear Will, there are things afoot. Margot is about to do something actually dangerous and also ill advised.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 7, 7, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 5 ) [Doubling Tens]
Kiara"It'll be good for you."
The brunette chides absently, leading the way across toward the others. Margot and Arianna and William - three she knows, one far better than the others. The Verbena doesn't come to any precise halt when they draw upon the gathering but rather she slips in a wash of perfume and spices into William's personal space with one hand sliding around his waist.
"Hey, handsome. Got room at the inn for a lady?"
Easy, idle flirtation in lieu of any other greeting. Kiara's dark eyes slipping to Margot and Arianna. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything important." She sounds rather hopeful, just a touch, that she might have been. Though that could have simply been the way the pagan was.
Subtle provocation seemed to come as easily to the witch as breathing.
GiamettiThere is this: a small touch, Arianna's hand to the Will's shoulder, or the small of his back, or his arm. Something just long enough to garner his attention. A thing in passing that gives them an opportunity to meet eyes for the first true time that evening. And she smiles, which is a little thinner and less infectious than he is used to in her.
"I'm going to get some water," she tells him. "Would you like some?" she asks.
Because he was going to get shitfaced. And hangovers are a bitch. Not because Kiara has just insinuated herself into his personal space. Kiara gets the same slightly-less than radiant smile, but they do not know each other well and Arianna is warm enough for one of Andres's friends.
"Just a gathering of like minds. It is good to see you again," she tells the Verbena, with perhaps a little quirk of amusement (approval) of her unorthodox style of greeting. Then Ari's attention is turned to securing that aforementioned glass of water. And then, belatedly, to the tequila shot, which she raises in Andres's direction before downing it.
WilliamThere is a look traded betwixt the Hermetics, a sort of familiar touch and a look and words unspoken between people who have such use for Words. He is accustomed to finding meaning in small things, searches her expression for a second before he nods, "yeah, water seems like it would be smart."
Just because you can destroy a hangover doesn't mean you should. Kiara's in his space and he shoots a look her way, raises a brow and grins at her, like he is delighted to see her- seems almost like he was derailed in his thought process (notices things, still feels some tingle of past castings lest in the air. Hears an argument that hasn't happened yet, chitterings and rattlings and colors bright and light and dark and shining- auras that don't come from drinking and, instead, come inherent in a creature's existence. Things he notices by not noticing. Things that are still lingering from earlier in the day)
"Always room for you," he says, "I was about to tell a story about the last couple of weeks and my abysmal failure-at-reading the signs."
"Shouldn't take more than a minute, if you're down and have a couple, Margot, should be a pretty quick one." Looks at the smaller young woman, looks like she'd be doing him a favor if she listened.
William(faaaaak, I read that wrong, I need to readjust the post)
MargotThe appearance of Kiara, or more specifically the manner of her entrance, corelated to the smaller younger witch rearing back only the smallest bit (for she'd been leaned in conversationally with the Hermetics). Apparently she felt herself suddenly much too close to much too much waist-touching-and-flirting.
Arianna had arisen to go fetch water after closed smiles all around, and Margot watched her go only a little remorsefully. Will had a story to tell and was wondering if Margot could hear him out-- she'd looked like she was about to get ready to stand as well, after the rear-back, started to slip down off her stool, but paused with his request.
"It does sound like a story with a good moral," she conceded with a small grin. She still finished the slide down from the stool and stood by the bar instead of sitting any longer. Leaned on the counter and offered Kiara a small wave.
"Hey." Socially adept as ever.
GiamettiA glass of water is passed toward William as well, and Ari resumes her lean at the bar near her small purse. The closedness of her smile is not so grim and permanent as Margot may feel just now. It is a thoughtful thing, and one that strives not to overstep the way that Hermetics often do whilst also very much wishing to over step, step step step, tell tell tell, lecture, point, cajole.
It is difficult to silence one's inward nature, when one's inward nature is to draw things out of and push others toward. It is hard to not cast so harsh a light when one is made of starstuff and bereft of shadows. So she sips her water, and she is quietly concerned, and against her better Hermetic teachings, she allows the Apprentice-not-Apprentice this folly and adventure. She is flipping magnanimous in her lack of lecturing.
Behold.
Such restraint.
Even in the face of tequila.
Kiara"Likewise." Dark eyes ghost over the Hermetic and the pagan's smile lingers in its state of playfulness even as Margot rears back a little - the Verbena does not seem offended by it, if she takes any particular note of it at all, which, with the brunette - was anyone's guess.
Hey, the other potential Verbena offers. "Hey, yourself. I heard from a little bird," a shift of Kiara's weight, her eyes don't touch on Andrés but the implication seems clear enough: "We might share a common interest or two. If you ever want to hang out and discuss," Kiara's shoulder lifts in an easy, unfettered shrug, "anything. I'm around.
I can't make any grand designs on being a proficient teacher but if you need someone to talk to about things. The offer's there." There's sincerity enough in that, the pagan's attention briefly re-captured by the young man she's draped herself against. Her chin finding a prop on William's shoulder. The closeness there and easy camaraderie almost feels familial.
"Do tell, I'll award you bonus points if it involves a thrilling car chase or feats of seduction."
Giametti((Please assume Ari listens totally rapt to William's story, and make a round of polite and totally convincingly warm goodbyes.... because I have turned into a pumpkin *hugs* Thanks for the RP guys!))
