Serafíne
They are in the woods now. The ground is
rougher, these little scrub oaks are much taller when they stand in
their shadows. Cutting past them: a narrow ditch that turns into a
small stream when the snows melt in the spring, and anytime a
gullywasher catches the eastern face of the Rockies unexpectedly in the
summer or fall.
Just now it is choked with nothing more than pine needles and leaves.
"This
is going to sound really fucking weird, Kalen, coming from me." The
way she feels the world. Even what she's doing right now. The shrooms
that enable her Work.
"But I think sometimes you need to do
more than just let magic have you, you know? You need to take it
instead. Write yourself into the world instead of just giving yourself
over to it. Is that a fucked up think for me to say?"
--
They
needn't walk far. Somewhere in the copse of trees, Sera finds a
clearing. And somewhere in the clearing, she shrugs off the blanket and
spread it beneath the limbs of one of the larger trees. The ground's
muddy, damp. It hardly matters to her. Maybe that's why she brought
the blanket. Without it, of course, she's just wearing her stupid
t-shirt and cut-off jeans and fishnets, but at the moment, she also
doesn't seem to feel the cold.
Kalen Holliday
"Some
of it is just how I've always done this. I reach out and brush against
something immense and sublime and everything dissolves for a few
seconds into something...." He searches for a word in a language she
can understand. "Pure. Holy."
There is a pause. "I know
people who want to master their gifts, want to shape them into what they
want them to be. They are not, all of them, terrible. But I have seen
what becomes of us when we twist what are into an abomination. It is
done by inches and degrees.
"There may be a day when I know
myself well enough to judge where the edges are. But so far I have
never needed to command. I just reach out and there is a moment
where...it is transcendent. And that is where magic happens for me,
from that place. I don't doubt that I could command. I just don't.
"But I understand why you would think that I should. And it is not a fucked up thing to say."
Serafíne
"That's
not what I mean, really." It is so hard for her to stay clear, right
now. The edges of her perception are starting to be torn away, and she
can feel her heart beating faster in her chest If she allows herself
to just feel it, she might believe that is could break her ribs, shatter
her sternum. Strange how our bodies rule us. And she feels a bit
like a galaxy though how the hell does she know that word, how can she
begin to imagine what a galaxy feels, all those arms, all that light,
and just what she is, a bit staggered by her perceptions, struggling to
pull back together all the pieces that make up herself. The blanket
spread out and she no longer really feels the cold. Finishes the
remainder of the mushroom and isn't quite sure what to do next.
How the fuck do you start?
She has a moment of remarkable dis-orientation
And then: Kalen. Kalen standing there steady and strange in his own way. Oh,
"I
mean, I think sometimes you just let things happen to you. You know?
Instead of being present for them. Instead of acting. When you have
space to think, you get lost in it. That's what I meant. Though fuck
if I know if I'm right."
Kalen Holliday
Kalen
laughs, and there is something sad in it, maybe. "That is true. But
that's a different thing really. I can't help but be engaged with
magic. I think it is less true than when I first came to Denver, that
paralysis thing that I do. But it will likely still take a bit longer
to break away from that more fully." He notices that Serafine has her
blanket outstretched, but he doesn't try to correct that, at least not
yet.
"Sometimes I feel alarmingly muffled. Like I'm caught in
a chrysalis. Everything about me has always been mutable. When this
is over, I'm not sure I'll really be who any of you know, anymore. I'm
always terrified that...." He pauses. Takes a breath. "I will wake
one day and realize that I gave up on the things that made the parts of
my life here that I love real."
Ian
It was a
long drive to make for something as simple as an outdoor hike. There
was, after all, plenty of picturesque scenery both in and around Denver
proper. Ian had no real reason to be at the Chantry, in particular,
beyond the fact that it was the Chantry. That the place was sprawling and calm and beautiful and resonated with rejuvenating energy.
And if there were other reasons, he kept them to himself.
His
car wound its way up the road, past the field and the trees where Sera and Kalen were
discussing the nature of magic. All the way to the end of the driveway,
where he parked. His first impulse was to make his way into the house,
going around the back way through the patio door. His eyes cast a
surveying glance over the state of the place. Looking, perhaps, for
someone in particular. (Listening, sensing.) Perhaps Dan was there to
greet him. Perhaps no one was. Either way, he made his way into the
kitchen for a glass of water.
Serafíne
Ian
finds Dan in the kitchen, cleaning up the necessaries for Sera's
ritual. By now he has thrown away the spent shrooms and scrubbed the
pot thoroughly so that the first person who decides to make mac'n'cheese
using that little pot will not have an unexpected surprise. The tall
consor greets Ian quietly, lifts his chin toward the front field. That
vague direction. Informs Ian quietly that Sera intends to ward the
place. That Kalen's with her, down at the easternmost edge of the
property, maybe a bit beyond.
That's where she was going to start.
Serafíne
Kalen
considers correcting her - not now, maybe later. There's no bloody
reason she should expose herself to the weather the way she does except
she has a particular sense of fashion, and in moments like this she
doesn't really feel the cold as cold, precisely. Her senses are so
warped that she feels close and she feels warm and she feels pacingly
constrained and she wants her shoes off for both no reason and every reason.
But
something that Kalen says brings her blazingly back into focus, and
what he says brings tears right back to her eyes. Sera breathes out
sharply. She lets go that effect she hardly understands she initiated,
which turned words into - what, something lovely, moving, visible.
Let's go of her sense of place too and is reaching for - what she hardly knows to name. The borders of the place. the boundaries of it.
"Fuck,
Kalen. Why the hell do you think you're going to let go? Please don't
be afraid of that. Just hold on like hell, yeah? That's all you need
to do. And if you let it go - grab like fuck until it's back in your
hands. I swear to god. That's in your power.
"Everything isn't, but that much is. You know?"
Ian
Ian
was dressed in warm athletic clothes and a shiny black and silver
windbreaker. Maybe he meant to go for a run, maybe just a hike. He
greeted Dan with a familiar tip of his head. They spoke briefly while
Ian finished off his drink. When he was done, he moved through the house
and exited the front door, trotting down the stone steps to make his
way into the field.
And out there, in the distance, stood two all-too-familiar figures.
Ian
broke into a jog, moving with quiet agility across the cold and brittle
ground. As he neared, his steps slowed to a more relaxed pace,
approaching with enough caution to be sure he wasn't interrupting Sera's
ritual.
(But no, they were talking.)
"Feel like company?" he asked this of them both, eyes sliding from Sera to hover a moment on Kalen.
Kalen Holliday
Kalen
laughs and there is something wild in it. "You make it sound easy.
Maybe it is. I got Christmas trees. And ornaments. Some with the
year on them. Because then I can do-" The same thing next year, he
doesn't finish because Ian is coming. And he adores Ian; Hell, he's
still in love with Ian. Learning Life magic from Ian was a different
kind of vulnerability. He's not sure about this one.
Grab like fuck until it's back in your hands, Serafine had said. And if it never had been?
He smiles anyway, and he means it, because he does like to see Ian. "Hey. Sure."
Serafíne
Oooh, Perception + Awareness-as-empathy on Kalen.
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )
Serafíne
Then:
Ian, who asks if they feel like company and Sera is smiling, smiling -
her senses blown out, her pupils enormous by now though that may be hard
to see in the failing light. But she smiles at Ian and her gaze slides
from Ian to Kalen and back again and Kalen says, "Hey. Sure."
He's still in love with Ian. Adores him.
Sera still thinks Ian is kind of a jerk.
That's okay. It's all okay.
--
Sera's
dark make-up is smeared from the tears she shed earlier and maybe some
of the tears still in her eyes, but what else could one expect of her?
She is nothing if not messy, and her messy attention is centered
on Kalen more than Ian (even that glance slides back, as if Kalen had
some specific gravity tonight) but she still gives Ian this kind of
smile. "I don't mean that it is easy. I mean it's fucking not.
It's exactly the opposite of it. But you don't spare yourself - or
anyone else - by waiting for it. By expecting it.
"Fuck."
Another glance at Ian, still half-smiling. "We were talking about
magic, and letting it happen to you, and then I think we started talking
about something else entirely. Making other shit happen instead of
just waiting. Kalen, I know this sounds weird.
"But I care
about you. I know you care about me. I just want you to be present in
your life. I know you've lost a fuckin hell of a lot - but we're all
here now. And maybe you've lost pieces of that, and maybe you'll lose
more later - but right now, right here. You know? I want you to be
here, instead of being afraid of yesterday or tomorrow, of hubris or
vanity.
"I sound like an asshole. But I fucking mean it."
Ian
It
was, actually, a very similar speech to the one that Ian himself had
given Kalen. Only Sera knew how to make it feel poignant. And in that
moment, Ian felt very much as though he had interrupted. Maybe
because it wasn't really his place any longer to judge Kalen on how he
lived his life. Maybe it never had been.
He let his hands
slide into the pockets of his jacket, angling his gaze toward the sky
for a moment - as though suddenly aware of the stars. When his attention
refocused (it never really left,) he fell into place near Kalen's side,
splaying a hand against the small of Kalen's back. Gentle and
grounding. Affectionate, even.
"Don't worry Sera, you'll never sound like a bigger asshole than me. And, for the record, I agree with you."
Kalen Holliday
Be here. Right now. It what all of your friends tell you.
He
relaxes a little when Ian reaches out him. "For the record, as neither
of you has thrown anything at me and then threatened me, you are not
even in the running for most abrasive version of this conversation.
Alyssa threw a boot at my head. Right after I got out of the fucking
hospital and couldn't dodge." There is only affection in his tone
though. Boot-throwing is within the threshold of things Kalen will
interpret as love.
Serafíne
Somehow, beneath
all that, Kalen's affection (over post-hospital boot-throwing and
whatever else is beneath that that Sera does not know or understand)
seems as if it is constructed of -
Wait. No. She breathes
out. Watching Kalen relax into Ian's touch. Is aware, also, of Ian's
touch. The affection. The support. She smiles.
The world is
starting to spin again and she gives herself over to that. Sera takes
another breath in that feels spiked and entangled and some part of her
wants to pull everything - everything - right back into herself.
"You
guys should go make out or something," she mururs, lifting her hands to
her golden curls, pushing her fingers through the mass. Reaching,
reaching.
Reaching.
"I need to Work."
Ian
You guys should go make out or something.
Ian smirked, but the expression lacked bite. He let his hand fall away from Kalen's back. "Sure you'll be okay?"
He'd
seen Sera work before. Knew full well how powerful she could be. But he
asked anyway, because she was high, and because the forces they worked
with were not always forgiving. Because he didn't like leaving people
alone when they were vulnerable.
"I can send Dan out."
He
didn't respond to the suggestion of intimacy between himself and Kalen.
Maybe he didn't feel like it needed a response. But either way, if Sera
confirmed that she did, in fact, wish them to go, then he would -
placing a light touch to Kalen's shoulder to indicate that he should
follow.
Kalen Holliday
Regardless of what
Serafine says, Kalen promised Dan earlier about what he would do if he
left her. One way or another, Dan will know.
He follows after
Ian easily enough; for all that he can be protective as he can be of
Serafine, he reserves that for mostly different situations. Tonight,
she gets to Work.
Serafíne
Ian offers to send Dan out
and Sera - who is now wearing denim cut-offs and a t-shirt and fishnets
and combat boots on a night when the low is expectto be below freezing,
makes this lovely dismissive sound. She's an adult. She's a Disciple. She can totally take care of herself.
And yet, somehow, everyone who has ever met her knows that for a lie.
There's
enough awareness there, though, that Ian might well be confident in the
thought that Sera requires no one. He doesn't know how powerful the
hallucinogen she ingested was. He may not even understand (though
perhaps he does) how thoroughly feckless he is. But Kalen does - or at the very lease, Kalen made a promise to the consor that he wouldn't leave Sera alone.
So
they leave her. And they - at some point - inform Dan that they have
left her, and where. And she gives herself over to her high. Sinks to
her knees on the blanket, then back to her haunches. Sags back for a
time, and just allows herself to feel. The space around her. This
great abiding sense of it.
She has no idea how long that lasts. How long it takes her to gather herself to herself, until she starts to -
Oh - the first piece is exquisite, somehow both piercing and hidden but the second piece comes up so wrong
it leaves her retching. And maybe that's what she needs - to drive
strangers away. That wrongness not just the rightess. So she works:
alll night and perhaps alll day, until she has spent herself, whole and
entire. Until she is done.
