Ian
[Awareness]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 4, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Sabine
Our
Guidelines (Like we do!): This scene should be assumed to have some
risk, but the death/dismemberment possibility is relatively low;
regardless, it is nonlethal. If there are any merits flaws you think I
should know about, let me know. I'm not setting time limits, this is,
in fact, a story element that is here by request so please do not rush.
I know we start a bit late, if we must continue we must continue. I am
not sure this scene will actually be that long regardless, but that
will all depend.
This has been your exceptionally formal customary guideline message. :)
Sabine
[Just so we know - Dex + Athletics D=6 (via 8-2)]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 5, 5, 6, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 ) Re-rolls: 1
Sabine
[And one more just so we know roll]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )
Sabine
There is always an energy to crowds. Always.
Tonight
there is something in the air, an expectancy that spills over the crowd
- an understanding that there is something there lurking in the shadows
burning along the edges of their consciousness like an unforgiving sun.
Few of them can escape the knowledge that something is here among
them, know with some primal sense that is dulled and mostly quiescent,
lulled by headphones and artificial lights and various chemicals.
Some
hurry on their way through the square, groups bunching together more
tightly as though there is some safety in that. Some slow and survey
the shadows, the edges of the light; that, too, is instinctive. There
is a sort of unspoken understanding that the monsters lurk in the
shadows and the night and the unknown.
Some of them do.
There
are people gathered in the square, uneasy and anticipatory and
enthralled. Their eyes are on the creature that Ian can sense, a
creature whose mystical sense is similar to his own...feline and
predatory. She is dancing on the outside ring of a marble fountain,
barefoot, hair flying. She must be aware, on some level, of the crowd
gathered to watch her. Of the cell phone cameras pointed at her and the
low murmur as people murmur back and forth between themselves.
She
is more alive than they can understand, and there is something
captivating about that kind of reckless joy. But even they can sense
that the flame that burns in her might consume them if they draw too
close. She is the kind of thing they would feel more comfortable with
having on the other side of shatter-proof glass; but she is here and
they are, just barely, to amazed or too oblivious to run for cover.
Ian
[Mind Shield from this morning. Mind 1, diff 4 -1 (hella practiced)]
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (2, 10, 10) ( success x 2 )
Ian
[extending, +1 -1 (focus)]
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (5, 6, 10) ( success x 3 )
Ian
[We'll stop there. Which makes that a lvl 3 Shield for 24 hours.]
Ian
It
was Friday evening, and one would imagine that most of the crowd
gathered around that fountain were on their way to some variety of
weekend destination. Bars, nightclubs, movie theaters. Ian was making
his way across the street when he noticed the people gathered there,
captivated by a single elegant, primal dancer. From a distance, she was
mostly obscured by bodies, and Ian paused on the sidewalk to tilt his
head and watch, trying to find a better view. There was a cocktail bar
about a block away where Emma was likely already waiting for him, but
she was good at finding ways to keep herself occupied (insinuating
herself into a neighboring conversation, no doubt.) After a few beats,
Ian changed course and headed toward the fountain. He slipped into the
crowd quietly, moving between bodies until he came up close to the lip
of the marble. Here he stopped, eyes tilted up as he watched
the woman dance.
Something about her felt familiar - more than
just the way she moved. Maybe she'd meet his gaze, or maybe she'd
continue on as she was, seemingly lost in her own world. Ian wasn't
quite dressed in the proper attire for dancing. He had on a slim-cut
black suit with a wine-colored shirt and black tie. Still, the urge to
hop up onto the fountain and join her was there.
Sabine
The dancer does stop for a second. Opens her eyes and looks over the crowd and they expect something else
for a second, all of them. The eyes of a cobra or a cat or a dragon.
Instead her eyes are dark like shadows and secrets. Dark with shadows
and secrets.
So many secrets.
She looks at Ian and when she smiles that smile is full of secrets too. And an invitation.
There
is no lingering on that invitation, her pause lasts only for a second.
And then she is moving again, dipping the first few toes of one foot
into that fountain, sending a little playful burst of water splashing
out at the crowd, laughing. And then, again, dancing. The marble is
wet and her feet are wet, but her balance is perfect. There is no fear
and no hesitation, and even when her feet slide she does nothing but
weave a graceful gliding along marble into her dancing.
[If
Ian would like to join her, he will have the same D=6 (by way of 8
(because smooth wet surface about a foot across) -2 for catlike
balance). If he would instead like to go get a cosmo or something, he
can do that too.]
Ian
[Dex+Athletics (and for once his Dex spec actually applies!)]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 4, 4, 6, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 4 )
Ian
[And Dex+Performance, diff 8 -2 (catlike balance) -1 (aptitude)]
Dice: 8 d10 TN5 (1, 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 ) Re-rolls: 1
Ian
He
wasn't dressed for dancing, but when the woman paused and offered him
that brief, enigmatic invitation, there was barely a moment's hesitation
in his response. His smile was slow and lingering, and perhaps there
was a touch of the secret in him as well. (They were, after all, such
similar creatures.)
"Would you mind holding this for me?" He
asked a woman nearby as he slipped his arms out of the sleeves of his
suit-jacket. She seemed distracted, but allowed him to settle the coat
into her arms. Ian followed it up a moment later with his tie, pulling
open the top couple of buttons on his shirt. The sleeves he folded up to
his elbows as he gave a loose roll of his head, stretching out the
muscles in his neck. Finally, he bent down and removed his shoes and
socks. Then he leaped up in a quick, agile motion to join her on the
fountain's perimeter.
The marble was cool and slick beneath
his feet, but he held his balance, and soon he fell easily into her
rhythm, matching her movements as if they'd been dancing together their
whole lives. Gradually, he started to embellish the dance with his own
graceful flourishes. He arced up onto his toes and spun; jumped from one
part of the fountain to another; skimmed his foot daringly over the
edge of the water. The spray of fine droplets left pin-point patterns on
his expensive clothes, but it was only water. (It would dry. Unlike the
blood from his encounter earlier that week.)
Sabine
This
close, Ian can feel power and danger like heat radiating of the woman's
skin. There is the faintest taste of blood on the back of his tongue,
like a memory or a promise. For an exhilarating, impossible second
second, the spray of water from the fountain over his skin carries the
scent of rain instead of chemicals and city dust.
Ian does not
know her secrets and she knows only one of his. His blood remembers,
though he has never consciously known. She can see the stripes lurking
under his skin for what they are and he, protected by their shared blood
and his magic, can stand to be so much closer to her than the people
standing around them can bear.
Even before Ian warms up to
dancing they are awed. They want to be closer to her. They want to
touch her and to understand whatever it is that makes her seem more real
and more vibrant, but they are, all of them, too afraid. Uninvited.
That
desire, soon enough, encompasses both of them. That crowd watches a
lion and a tiger dancing at the edge of a tiny oasis. The two of them
swirling and flowing around each other like trails of dry earth isen up
like serpents on the wind. They are, both of them, captivating.
Dangerous. Intoxicating.
Who can blame those people for how
they stand transfixed? They are, some for the first and only time,
standing at the edges of a kind of light they cannot define. They are
the only ones brave enough to stand even this close.
After a time, she slows. Stops. Leaps down soundlessly onto the brick.
The crowd spills backward a little and starts to disperse at the edges. The woman holding Ian's coat and tie hovers, uncertain.
Ian
He
didn't want it to be over, but it was - all too quickly. These kinds of
moments, balanced on the edge of something great and bright and
beautiful, were always over too quickly. One could not hold them past
their time. It would be like trying to hold onto the moon.
When
the dancer (he still didn't know her name) jumped down from the
fountain, Ian joined her. The woman holding his clothes looked as though
she wanted to step away, so he collected his jacket and tie off of her
arms with a smile. "Thank you."
To the dancer he said, "I never caught your name."
Did
he notice the way the people around them seemed afraid to touch her? Of
course he did. Just as he sensed something of the predator that lived
beneath her human skin. And Ian was as wary as he might have been with
any unknown entity, but it didn't stop his curiosity, and it didn't stop
his blood from recognizing something in the way she moved.
Sabine
Freed from the weight of Ian's coat and tie, the woman melts into the crowd. Vanishes into cover.
"Sabine," the dancer says. She seems like she should sound like she is from somewhere else,
and though she does not sound at all like Denver, a low purr of a
Louisiana drawl isn't quite the kind of somewhere else her presence
calls to mind.
Her eyes stay on his. There is no challenge in
them. No threat. But the intensity in them seems like it could spark
into a wildfire. Like it could consume him. Whole blocks of the city.
Perhaps even her. Burn it to ashes. Burn everything to ashes. Burn
it clean.
Ian
Sabine.
"You're a
beautiful dancer." Ian was standing barefoot on the square with his
jacket and tie slung over one arm, talking to a stranger who might very
well be capable of killing him, but the compliment came out easily
(because it was true, and because - for whatever reason - the fear that
caused their audience to creep back couldn't quite seem to touch him.)
He reached down and picked up his shoes. "I'm Ian. Can I buy you a
drink?"
Sabine
"You're not a terrible dance
partner," she allows, but there is a spark of something playful in her
eyes, but even when she smiles the sense that at any second she might
spill from stillness into movement remains.
"I accept your offer."
Ian
Had
his life been different - had he been raised by a different side of his
family - Ian might have known why Sabine felt the way she did. He might
have known that lions and tigers do not often share space as easily as
the two of them were sharing it now. There were a rather great many
things he might have known. But he didn't. What he did know was that
being near her was like standing next to a node - overwhelming and
revitalizing all at once. She felt more alive (and more dangerous) than
anyone he'd ever met.
You're not a terrible dance partner.
He
smirked at that, sitting down briefly on one of the stone benches so
that he could make himself presentable for wherever they were headed.
When he had his shoes back on, he threaded the tie back through his
collar and stood up. The rest he could do as they walked, but he kept
his eyes on Sabine while he unrolled the cuffs on his shirt.
"There's
a bar about a block that way. I was just on my way there." He started
to walk in that direction, keeping his gaze mostly on Sabine. "You're
not from here." (Neither was he, but his accent was muted enough that
people seldom noticed.) "Somewhere further South, I think?" He cocked
his head, affording her with the kind of alluring smile that usually won
him all kinds of easy information (though he suspected already that
Sabine was not likely to be easily charmed.)
Sabine
It
is not, precisely that Sabine is not swayed by charm. Indeed, Ian's
smile is met with an answering smile. "New Orleans." If she can hear
somewhere else in his voice, she does not ask.
Sabine picks up
only a pair of sandals as they prepare to head to the bar. She does
not put them on, as unconcerned with the broken glass and filth as she
was about dancing on the edge of a fountain.
"I'm travelling
on family business." There is a weight to that statement that Ian can
recognize but not understand. Whatever she is offering must have
meaning, but what that is...had he been raised by a different side of
his family indeed.
And she waits. She is still
gliding, silent and graceful, at Ian's side. There is no pause, no
slowing. All the same, there is a sense of a vast stillness. The
danger and the power are still radiating outward from her skin, the
stillness only transforms the sense of something burning into the sense
of the potential to spring.
Ian
[Life 1, Prime 1 - can I tell what you are? diff 4 -1 (practiced)]
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (1, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )
Ian
[Extending once so it lasts longer]
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (4, 4, 7) ( success x 3 )
Sabine
For
all of the power simmering beneath her skin, there is no active magic
on Sabine. Ian can sense her breathing and her heart rate, senses that
there is something more to her in a way that he cannot really quantify.
But whatever power or magic clings to her, her presence is unlike any
Mage he has encountered. Whatever radiates off of her, whatever about
her both captivated and terrified all of those people, has similarities
of a kind to a Mage's Resonance, but it not so much the same.
Ian
His
pulse was still beating a bit quickly, and it wasn't entirely because
he'd been dancing. As they walked, Ian focused in on it for a few
moments, letting the rhythm of it open his senses. They were standing
close as they walked (or perhaps it only seemed that way because of
Sabine's presence.) Ian glanced over and breathed her in (her skin, her
sweat, her pheromones.) And after a time, he became aware of her pulse
beating strongly beside his own. What he felt in her pattern was... not
precisely like anything he'd felt before. She was alive - but more, somehow.
He didn't quite know what to make of it. Or her.
"The
last time I was in New Orleans was... two years ago? I was there for
work. Didn't get to stay as long as I would have liked. It's a very... resonant city. Lots of memories."
Sabine said that she was traveling on family business, as though the word family had
some kind of special weight. It did have weight for Ian, though likely
not in the same manner it did for her. He pondered that for a moment,
but let the subject rest. "Do you have anywhere to be in the morning?"
It was a leading question. The kind that implied things like: because I might like to take more of your time than just one drink.
Sabine
Ian breathes in the scent of her, the way she
has breathed in the scent of so many others. For both of them their
worlds come down to moments full of instinct and sensations.
Impressions. If she could fight against his attempts to read deeper
into who or what she is, she does not.
Sabine's eyes linger on
him, dark and ancient and blazing. Everything about her says that she
is at home in her skin. At home in this city she does not know and
probably will not stay stay long enough to know. and everything about
her screams that she does not belong in this city, that she has stepped
out of some older, more pure, more dangerous world. That of everything
around them, she is the one thing that could never belong here.
Ian asks if she has anywhere to be and Sabine laughs. There is something heavier beneath that laugh, something hard to place.
"I will go when I want to go." And that may be half-playful, but it is all challenge.
Ian
Ian smiled at that. The expression was quiet, but genuine. "I never expect anything else."
They
were nearly at the bar: an old-fashioned speakeasy-style cocktail joint
that was usually pretty well packed by this hour on a Friday. A low,
muted echo of music filtered out through the door as people came and
went. Ian slid his phone free from his pocket and glanced at it quickly.
He'd meant to text Emma to tell her to go on to the exhibit without him
(that was the plan: drinks and an art gallery) but as it happened, he
needn't bother. The text on his screen contained an apologetic
cancellation. Fate was intervening with both their plans tonight. So Ian
pocketed his phone and pulled open the door, stepping aside to allow
Sabine to enter before him.
Inside, the bar was bustling with
life and activity. Likely, Sabine's presence would quiet it a bit
(perhaps more than a bit.) The lights were soft and warm, and the decor
was polished antique. Upscale and comfortable all at once. (Very
Denver.) The music, despite the retro feel of the place, was modern
arthouse. Indie-folk like the Decemberists.
Chances were good
that they'd find a seat quickly, given the way that people stepped aside
to allow Sabine a healthy bubble of space. Ian took that in stride, and
didn't comment on it. Instead he headed for the bar and sat down,
leaving his jacket folded in his lap.
"What do you like to drink?"
Sabine
Sabine
moves through the crowd, seeming to notice the way the crowd spills
back and away from her like sleeping grass only in that she is aware
that her path is clear. She has terrified humanity for some time. She
will not flinch away from her power the same way that they do.
One cannot imagine she flinches back from much.
She
does blink when Ian asks her what she drinks. Sabine travels a lot,
but almost never into a place like this. She has absolutely no idea
what she drinks. No one takes her out drinking. She almost always
dances alone.
Still, she settles into the seat next to his and
says with perfect assurance, "I don't care. But I want it to have an
umbrella in it."
Ian
Sabine was from another
kind of place: somewhere warm and humid and deep with rich colors.
Denver was not that place, but one could pretend, for a moment. Ian
raised his eyebrows and laughed once, quietly, the way that one does
when they find something charming. He didn't often order drinks with
umbrellas in them, but for her? He could make an exception.
Except
that the bartenders (there were two of them, bustling back and forth at
the other end of the long bar,) didn't seem terribly inclined to
approach them. The two men glanced between each other and Sabine as they
poured their drinks, fascinated and reluctant all at once. (Because she
was too alive, too strong, too beautiful to be near. Like staring at
the sun.) Finally Ian pitched his voice over the crowd and the music,
raising his hand to attract the bartenders' attention.
"Hey, can we order?"
One
of the men - the older one - finally braved closer proximity. He had a
neat beard and a waxed mustache and tattoos covering both arms. He
apologized quickly for the delay, which Ian accepted with a little wave
of his hand. "I'll have a bourbon old-fashioned. She'll have a dark and
stormy, and... put an umbrella in it."
While the bartender
prepared their drinks, Ian leaned an elbow against the bar and propped
his head on the curled knuckles of his hand. "Do you always dance on
fountains in strange cities?"
Sabine
There is a little pleased curl at the corners of Sabine's lips when Ian orders her drink with an umbrella.
"No,"
Sabine says quietly. "I have danced in more forgotten temples than on
city fountains." She sounds serious, and relatively unconcerned about
his response to that news.
The older bartender comes up to
them with the drinks. Sabine watches his every hesitant step. The
umbrella in her glass appears to be caught in an earthquake. It is a
neon tangerine paper thing, and it has tiny magenta flowers printed on
it. Fragile under her fingertips.
Sabine does not entirely
succeed at hiding her delight about it. For a few seconds, Ian is
forgotten. Sabine closes the umbrella, opens it, and then sets it
gently on the table. Just far enough away from her glass to be safe
from condensation.
And then she looks back at Ian. "Where do you dance?"
Ian
Ian's
drink lacked an umbrella, but the lights above the bar made the bourbon
glow like amber. Sabine's dark rum was a richer shade as it mingled
with the lime and ginger beer. Her delicate fascination with the
umbrella was more than a little endearing. (And to think what those
hands were capable of destroying.) She said that she liked to dance in
forgotten temples, and Ian gazed at her as though she'd just said
something fascinating.
Where do you dance?
"In the grass. Under trees. On top of mountains. In my bedroom, naked. And, more often than not, on stage. I am always dancing."
A beat passed, and Ian uncoiled from his pose to lean in and whisper, "Why do I feel like I know you?"
Sabine
Sabine listens to the places that he dances. She is still smiling that tiny, pleased smile. Ian is always
dancing. Sabine understands what is to always be something, though she
does not know what it is to always be dancing. She thinks that always
dancing might be wonderful.
Ian leans closer to her, and her eyes track his movement. Calm, despite the energy that still seems to pour out from her skin.
"For
the same reason," she says, very quietly, "That you are not afraid of
me like they are." But there is a richness to her tone, something that
says she knows what that reason is. Her smile widens, just a little.
"It may be we have met in another life."
Ian
It was not only that (his blood) that made Ian capable of looking at her (of touching her)
without the sensation of being overwhelmed. Though the feeling was
still there, curling at the edge of his senses. (Like a lion at rest.
Calm and docile, but capable of striking at any moment.) But that was a
secret that Sabine had yet to discover.
They were willful creatures, Ian's kind. In all respects.
Ian
tilted his head and regarded her silently. His eyes were dark upon
dark. Finally he leaned back and took a long a drink from his glass.
When he was done he licked his lips. "I don't believe in other lives. I
believe in this one." He leaned in again, close enough that Sabine could smell whiskey and citrus on his breath.
"I want to know who you are."
Something
about the way he said it made it sound like more than that. Like he
wanted to explore her. Wrap himself in her secrets. Peel away the layers
until he found some truth underneath.
Sabine
Sabine
stays still. Her eyes still track Ian's movements, but she doesn't so
much as tilt her head. She is still so vibrant that the colors in
everything around her, even that paper umbrella, seem faded.
"This
one," she allows, "Is really the only one that matters." Ian's breath
smells like whiskey and citrus. Sabine hasn't touched her drink beyond
the umbrella, and when she closes the slight distance between them she
smells like the air just before rain. Like some kind of spices.
Who is she?
Sabine
kisses him. The very first few seconds are soft, as though she is
giving him a chance to pull away. Or perhaps, testing to see if she
will. But after the first few seconds, she is bolder. More aggressive.
One of her hands rises to rest along the edge of his jaw, angled so
that the tips of her nail press against, but do not bite into, his skin.
If he watches her other hand, it is perched on the bar, fingers set at
a similar angle to the slick wooden surface, as though poised to slice
through the thick varnish to dig into the wood beneath.
Ian
Did
she wonder about him? Who was he? Where did he come from? How is it
that the son of a tiger might find his way to Denver, Colorado? Did she
think of the boundaries she was crossing by kissing him? Was that part
of the thrill (claiming something that wasn't hers?) Or did it cease to
matter?
All cats had their secrets.
Ian didn't think
about those things, because he wasn't aware that he ought to. Given his
nature, one might imagine that even if he was, he wouldn't care. It had
been a bit of a dare, you see. The way he leaned in. The way he said: I want to know who you are. Because what he was also saying was: I want to kiss you.
And
Sabine answered it, but she made the dare her own. For all his will,
Ian could be very good at taking suggestion. Dancers had to know how to
read their partners, and how to move with them. So he let the kiss be
gentle; testing. He didn't pull away (as if there was ever a doubt.)
Instead he met her energy, feeling the shape and softness of her lips
between his own. And some half-buried instinct lit up somewhere in his
body - that same recognition he'd felt when he saw her, but stronger.
Like pieces fitting together. (No, not quite. There was a roughness
around the edges, but it was... very close.)
Sabine pushed
forward, deepening the kiss, and her nails were like claws just barely
skirting his jaw. So careful, even while she was being bold. And Ian
responded with a low sound that only she could hear. He slid his hand
into her hair, winding his fingers through the locks, and leaned forward
in his seat to press back just... a little. His teeth dragged over her
lower lip when he pulled away.
"We should have this conversation somewhere else."
Somewhere private. Somewhere safe.
Somewhere with a bed?
Sabine
They should have this conversation somewhere else.
They should not, not really, have this conversation at all. Not either of them.
But
Sabine is used to having what she wants. And she would like to have at
least one of these conversations. She may resign herself to the other.
She may not. But what good does it do either of them, not to tell him
what he is. What she is...perhaps in the course of the telling that must be. But his truths...all cats should know their own truths.
Sabine
leans back and picks up her glass, now wet with condensation, slick
beneath her fingertips like the fountain was beneath her feet. She
lifts the glass to her lips, tilts it so the liquid is in reach of her
tongue, and laps at it once, like a damned cat. Curious.
There is a little startled expression. And then a smile. Sabine takes a real drink of the dark and stormy and nods.
"We should," she says. "But I want to pick where we go this time."
Ian
They
were both used to having what they wanted. (Cats were rather adept at
that, weren't they?) Luckily for them both, at the moment their
interests seemed to align.
So Ian took another sip of his
drink, but... did not finish it. And he pulled out his billfold and
dropped enough cash on the bar to pay for both of their drinks, plus a
tip. Then he stood up.
"Lead the way."
And wherever she led, he would follow.
Sabine
Sabine finishes her drink and then smiles.
"I
have to find it first. You should give me your number so I can call
you when I do." She picks up the umbrella, slides it closed, and then
closes her hand around it.
"If you want to follow me until
then, you may be walking for a very long time." Though, judging by her
tone, she might not try to stop him from following her out of the bar.
Ian
There
was a point in the dance where it was always difficult to back away.
Even with a promise of more. Any number of things might happen to either
of them once Sabine walked out that door. But Ian was prideful (he
would not tag along behind like a pet - not for anyone,) and he was,
despite his drives, patient. Perhaps there was a flash of frustration in
his eyes - just for a moment. But it smoothed away.
"Give me your phone and I'll add it."
Perhaps she wouldn't want to do that. Perhaps she did not, per se, have
a phone. In either of these cases, he'd offer it to her verbally
instead. Otherwise, he'd add his name (but only his first name) and his
cell number to her contacts.
Then he leaned in and kissed her once, softly, on the rise of her cheekbone.
And after that, he let her go.
Sabine
Sabine
does have a phone. It is small and has actual buttons instead of a
touch screen. It may be the least flashy phone in a ten mile radius.
But she lets Ian have it. If he looks at the numbers, there are few.
Home is one, a number that he might recognize as a Louisiana area code
from his time there. Most of the numbers, and there are only perhaps a
dozen, share that same area code.
When she leaves, she takes the little paper umbrella with her.
