Meet Me By The Swingset

Lux

At the swingset. That's the information that Summer's ghoulish secretary and go-to man has to give his domitor.

At the swingset at X and X. An address.

This is what Summer Barrett finds waiting for her. This is what Summer Barrett's ghoul finds out in advance for her (if she is that kind of forward-thinker). X and X is a school. An elementary school, once upon a time: Three stories of laid brick and mortar with imposing turrets and crosses that say it was part of Roman Catholic academia. The school's bulk takes up most of a block, the rest of the acreage packed with smaller facilities that once supported it. A center of learning, of growing-up, of discovery: of despair, and angst, and imaginary friends. Temporary fencing is everywhere with signs for DiNapoli Construction and notices of imminent demolition (run [nobody cares about learning any longer]), though close inspection will show: those dates have come and gone. Like the end of the world: delayed, always. The world just keeps on going: there will be no devastation.

The place has many entrances. One for each side of the block, each with a large stone stairway one can just imagine children playing on in bygone days (falling on [chipping their teeth on]), and go ahead, look close: some grafitti may yet remain, some sign of life other than bird droppings, than the ruin and decay of time gone by.

There is also, around 'back,' a playground with a swingset, though it is not immediately visible from the street. Not visible from the street at all unless one knows to look for it and has circled and circled: not the way the additions grow, have spread, expanded -

- like the playground is a secret. Abandoned relic. The saddest godamn thing.

When Summer arrives, Lux - let's not be coy and say 'there is a figure,' because who else would it be? - is already there: on one of the swings. Reading a book.

Summer Barrett

Lux may be struck by how friendly, polite and professional her agent (not a secretary; an agent) is. When he contacts her--which of course, he waits until after the sun has set to do, no voice mails or the like--he is very warm and respectful, introducing himself as Roderick in his rich, honeyed baritone and asking if he should call her Ms. Lux or just Lux. He tells her that he represents Summer Barrett, and that their mutual acquaintance Mr. Andrassy has made it known that they should meet and that he would like to arrange a time, whenever and wherever is good for her and would that be all right? Well then, lovely, and he even asks about her name; he knows the meaning of it, hopes that some day he can see her brilliance for himself and that Miss Barrett is certainly looking forward to meeting her.

It isn't that other people aren't friendly, polite and professional on the phone. But it may strike her depending on what Istvan has told her, or at least once she actually sees Summer's 2013 harbor gray Hyundai Sonata pull up to the elementar school. The engine, humming like a cat and indeed, it would appear that Roderick has done a little examination of the place...Google Maps perhaps, if nothing else. She slips out of the car, the alarm chirping into place, and looks around to specific places that are likely to hide potential ambushes. She plucks the Bluetooth earpiece from her ear, putting it in the pocket dark navy blue suit jacket that goes with the almost-knee-length skirt. A white men's dress shirt is underneath, and very short heels complete the look.

She makes her way around onto the sidewalk and begins walking directly toward the back. She's already been given directions. The woman is a blank slate, emotionally; an expression as lukewarm as her body is etched on her face as she walks along. If she suspects an ambush, she doesn't worry about it. She shows neither anxiety nor excitement; no warmth, no chill. She passes her vision over the playground, pausing when she sees Lux on the swings. It's only a half-an-instant's pause and then she makes her way over.

Lux

By the time Summer has crossed the playground to reach the swingset Lux has abandoned the swing in favor of standing. The swing: it swings forlornly; it creaks. The sound's interesting to auspex-enhanced ears, isn't it? There's something more complicated in the echo of it something of grease and rust in the sound something melodic and sea-echo-y.

But she didn't stand immediately, no. There: Summer appeared. Approached. Summer in her neat-navy skirt and her neat-navy suit-jacket and white men's shirt. Blonde Summer whose name is the warmest and maddest season: the season of storms and tempers of anything but ice and calm and cool and pallor. Lux looked up and her thumb was pressed neatly on the spine-crack of the book which she let drift toward her knees. Lux is in jeans tonight and ankle boots black leather with silver stars and planets en-crusted all along the heel a veritable Celestial gathering, but these are subtle shoes, for Lux, have more of darkness to them than they do of light and her hair is a careless pompadour, and her eyes are at least at first hidden by the jealous darkness of sunglasses (because why not go-for-broke eh? Vampires in sunglasses at night). The sunglasses are: lovely things, ornate, gold-roses clambering about the frame, vines, the baroque collection.

And Lux, well.

Lux is a heart-break of a thing, isn't she? For Summer the heart-break's different than for others, however, isn't it? For Summer the heart-break's what she doesn't get to see or what she sees instead. Lux: loveliest thing, such a creature -- even the way she fucking moves is a love poem, yo. Love poem when she leans forward, insouciant slouch getting a little slouchier, to watch Summer, and then love poem when she rests her temple against one of the swing's rusty gray chains, and love poem of a motion when she all unsheathes herself from the damned swing to stand and

and now Summer has crossed the playground, or nearly. Lux: her hands have come together, book moved from her knees to abandonment on the seat. Holy palmer's kiss, palm-to-palm:

"Summer, yes?"

Lux pushes the sunglasses up on her forehead.

"Tell me true, do you have any idea how glad I am to meet you tonight?"

Summer Barrett

Do you have any idea how glad I am to meet you tonight, Lux asks. The answer would require too much explanation for honesty. Summer is someone who understands how emotion works. There are times, occassionally, when she approximates it on her features, to fool others. Usually this is to facilitate her work, though there are occasions that she will allow it to creep onto her face because she knows how her lack of emotion makes the occasional bursts that much more signficant. Anyone who said that you need to be charming to be manipulative is dead wrong.

So yes, in a fashion she has an idea of how glad Lux is to meet her. She knows little of the other, but she cam make some assumptions. While her own vision of Lux would probably horrify the Toreador, she can still recognize the finery of the (to her) decaying theads, see the quality in those cracked and falling apart sunglasses. She can tell that Lux is a creature of finery, and her behavior makes certain assumptions safe. Intellectually, it makes sense that a meeting between two Anarchs would be something to anticipate, and also how much it would be appropriate to suggest such even if it were not the case. That's what pleasantries are, after all.

But she doesn't have an idea on another level. Because to have a real idea of that, you would have to understand what it means to be glad. And that is something that only comes with experience, and that is an experience Summer lacks. There is also the possibility that these are just pleasantries, and that Lux really isn't glad to meet her.

As we said, it is too much of an answer to properly explain. So instead she simply nods, acknowledging the compliment. and after a moment's paise she extends her hand. "Thank you. I appreciate you arranging the details and apologize for the middle person. Roderick arranges my schedule and work, and is much better in conversation than I. Until I meet with others of our persuasion, I prefer to have arrangements made through him to filter out potential problems."

Lux

- the edge of a lovely smile. This surprisingly sharp thing, the smile: compressed mouth, sudden snick of a corner. Yes. Lux does carry herself like a creature used to finery - like something fine herself. How poised, you know, how carelessly poised, like she made a devil's pact with gravity, and ever since it's grace, and grace, and perilous grace: forever and always - for eternity. That's Lux, no matter how less-than-completely ridiculous her heels tonight.

"Oh, apology appreciated but not necessary. Your middleman has a voice like a swallow of whiskey, like I imagine a swallow of whiskey might sound if it weren't a taste, so that was pleasant." Off-hand, Lux.

When Summer extends her hand, Lux takes it. Her handshake is an academic's: to the point - pensive. Her expression is pensive, at least. "Take a swing, let's talk," Lux, with the hand she hadn't used to shake Summer's, reaches for the chain of her swing, to draw it closer and then to lean against it, let it take her, and see? This is where pacts with gravity come in handy.

"You got questions for me? I've got them for you. What brings you to Denver?"

Summer Barrett

Where Lux's handshake is pensive, Summer's is firm and businesslike. All business, all the time. She doesn't force Lux to adapt though, instead allowing the mish-mash to stand as is. She looks over at the free swing and then back.

"I do not swing. However, I will take a seat." Which she does, settling with a grace that belies her mechanical demeanor. She tilts her head in acknowledgement of Lux's compliments to Roderick.

"He is quite skilled at what he does, and makes my existence simpler. I am glad that he appeals to you. As to what brings me to Denver...I have been working out of Los Angeles for the past two decades. I had gone there and joined the Anarch cause after I had the opportunity to get away from my progenitor in San Francisco. Five months ago I came through Denver on a job." She pauses there; that bears explaining. "I am an assassin and cleaner for hire among the kine world. At any rate, I found that the more centrally-located vicinity was better for my travels, and there is--to be frank--less competition for my services in a city like Denver than one like Los Angeles."

She looks over at Lux with that dead gaze, watching her for a moment. "I had also heard to tell that the Anarch cause here could use some aid numerically."

Lux

Summer'll take a seat. Lux waits for her to do so before she swings again. Yes: she does swing, too. The book finds itself at last relegated to the ground as was always its fate and Lux kicks back with one long leg so that she is suspended up up at the moment before fall fall fall wrapping one hand (another love poem: that interaction - hand and chain; delicate bones and translucent skin) around the swing's chain and then catching herself on the sand with her other heel. The stars on the back of her heel: glitter. Except perhaps in Summer's world which is anything but summery: in that world maybe they're cracked-off tarnished-up corroded falling apart suggestions of stars in leather that is twisted-up rotten.

Lux. Lux is leaning her shoulder against the chain she does not have her hand wrapped around. That way she can better cheat her body toward Summer; better look at the Malkavian Anarch. Sect-mate. How pleasant. How pleasing: and look, Lux is willing to be pleased - is pleased, and pensive, and curious, and interested. The interest's a sharp subliminated thing, a shadow.

"Yes. It could. Fucking Tower casting its Shadow so long, so lean, though Rasmussen's always been kind to us - always given the Anarchs his shadow to use a blanket, you know, to cuddle down into, always looked the other way, spoken well for us - but eh. He is still what he is, you know? And now he's got a crown, so we'll see if that changes him at all: I hear that crowns always change people once they're wearing them. And the Sabbat - "

Lux pauses. Perhaps there's not much to say about the Sabbat other than 'damn.'

"Your sire; they belonged to the Camarilla, then? Why did you join the cause?" Curious, curious, curious; Lux, she is not anything near emotionless. There's passion, there, see? Hear? Passion to know.

Summer Barrett

Lux is willing to be pleased; Summer is unable to be. But neither is she dissatisfied; she seems to be accepting of this situation. A swing is not somewhere you might expect to see someone of her demeanor, her dress, her formality. Only the shadows around them seem to fit the Malkavian, sitting there impassively as she watches Lux go back and forth suspended on the swing. There's not even the cock of her head to indicate curiosity.

There is, however, a bit of a nod when Lux talks about Rasmussen and the Camarilla. "I had heard such suggested in Los Angeles. I did some brief scouting of this city before I decided to make my move." Summer doesn't do anything without knowing what she's getting into, it seems. As to the other question...

That one she answers without hesitation. It isn't an uncommon question: Why are you an Anarch? That's a decision that all Anarchs are compelled to answer eventually, and often. If they don't know the answer, they aren't real Anarchs. And so, while her answer comes without hesitation and may even seem a bit practiced, it doesn't ring falsely.

"I was Camarilla only because my Sire was. I have never had any appreciation of what they offer. They want me to pretend I am not who I am. I have to pretend to smile, to have...feelings. I have none of these things. And I have no desire to pretend such among them; I disdain the prancing and pretension of Tower politics, the cowtowing and the needing to be friendly and warm when I am neither. And yet, the Sabbat try too hard to reject it. They are play actors in Grand Guignol. I also am not a sadist and I have no time for their pseudo-religion.

"The Anarchs are free. And they allow me to be as I am, without pretense. It was only logical I end up with them."

Lux

There is little light on the elementary school's playground. The school itself is not lit at all: most of the windows are boarded up, are glass dusty with shadows and occasionally striped by bars and the moulder-mulch of past-seasons and past-damps. The playground is desolate. Their voices need not ring, and why should they? Lux herself is keeping her voice pitched low - a slip of shadow on silk, intimate and confessional and, oh yes, expressive where Summer's is perhaps not. They are very different.

They would be: wouldn't they? Anarchs. You never know what you're going to get with an Anarch and there are still some members of the Camarilla who believe that Lux will return to the Tower because really. That this thing with the Anarch Sect is an ill-advised flirtation because of her relative youth (relative to centuries [ages]). Fuck those people, Lux says.

But in the gloom, the desolate playground, her own voice a low, assured shadowling thing, and Summer's voice Summer's own true thing, Lux considers her fellow.

"I confess, Summer: confess to you. Indeed, I cannot imagine feeling nothing at all! What do you want if you don't feel a want? What is there to do night after night? Is it, and oh you know, tell me to shut up if I upset you though I suppose I shouldn't fear doing that, but is it logic you are interested in, which keeps you interested enough to get up and - do?"

"Why the Anarch Sect instead of simply declaring yourself Independent?"

Summer Barrett

Lux has no idea how it is to feel nothing at all, and it has been so very long since Summer felt anything that it is a distant memory, no closer than the memory of being fed as a (kine) infant. The things that she could explain to Lux, about what she does and how she thinks and what it's like to be completely desensitized to the world in every capacity. But she doesn't, because she now lacks the perspective. It's like asking a person who was blind from birth what it's like to not be able to feel. And so she gives a little shrug.

"I simply do what I do. Work. Hunt. Exist." She shrugs a little. "I am what I am and nothing more or less.

"But that is also," she adds, "why I have taken in with the Anarchs. Being an independent is sitting on the sidelines and putting your head in the sand. I have no desire to do that. The Anarchs espouse freedom, and I support that notion." She pauses then, turns her stare onto Lux. The Malkavian doesn't waste blood on appearing lifelike and occasionally she forgets to do things like blink or breathe. She's not blinking now.

"Besides, Lux. You know as well as I that an independent vampire from a Camarilla clan is painting a target on their forehead. It is not something that would concern me, but it would be an inconvenience in my work."

Lux

The suggestion of a smile again -- the edge of one, oh, knife's edge of radiance, sublimated and contained. Lux. Tarnished-up Lux: she seems pleased by Summer's rationale for not sitting on the sidelines and for not putting her head in the sand. Makes her push on the swing again and let it rock her back-and-forth and back-and-forth. Not too high, not too exuberant: but just enough to feel pleasure in the movement - in the cold-bite tension of the chain, in leaving the ground for a moment. The new perspective.

"Well I like the cut of your jib, at least from one angle. But here in Denver, every Lick's got a target on their forehead. They're all so busy and concerned with one another, those big brother organizations, all so fucking serious all the time."

Like: that's a sin.

"What else did you hear about the scene in Denver? I'd like to give you some intelligence but I don't want to repeat what you already found on your scouting trip, or, oh, I don't know, maybe I just want some guidance, something that makes me go oh! Oh you know that already? Well let me tell you..."

Lux is a Toreador. Of course, of course, she is social, and of course, of course, she is willing to gossip.

Summer Barrett

[[PAUSE]]

Summer Barrett

If Lux considers seriousness a sin, there is a chance she may come to consider the Malkavian she sits on this swings with a virtual Antichrist. There is never anything of mirth in her, but the difference is that it isn't self-importance. There's an absence of ego just as much as there is an absence of joy. In Summer, one does not leave only so the other can enter; she is not a pool to be poured full of emotion but a void that could never be filled so much that it causes so much as a tic to her face.

She nods a little bit about the situation in Denver, taking in the information that Lux provides and collating it in her mind. "That sounds like many cities under seige, from what I have heard. And those which are not. San Francisco was full of little but the Camarilla courtiers plotting against each other in the most insignificant ways that they could. Only to satisfy their own egos, nothing more in their minds. The Tower is small-minded and petty."

She cocks her head slightly to the right when the bright Toreador asks what she knows about Denver, and lifts her shoulders in an impassive shrug. "I know of the seige, of course. I have heard that Rasumussen is Prince, a Brujah. I heard vagueries about the Sabbat assault on the Elysium. I know that there is a ghoul mercenary company operating out of here; I have met their leader. I had heard of him before; we sometimes work in the same circles."

She pauses there, looks at Lux with that dead stare. "That is all that I know to date of the Kindred aspects of things."

Lux

The initial push has diminished so: the swing's an echo, and a tinier echo, and a tinier echo of that movement. Now it has almost ceased. Now, when Summer comes to the end of her emotionless and even-handed recitation of what she knows, and Lux puts out a toe and pushes herself back again. There is something dreaming, to the cant of her temple against the chain - a contained vibrance. Energy. Liveliness. All sheathed within a more languid poise, you see? More carelessness. There is no place to be except on this swing, with the Malkavian who will not swing, who speaks as if she has no heart - and like all heartless things, cares not. Lux is all heart: or behaves as if she is.

Her nose crinkles at mention of the ghoul mercenary company. "Dogwood," she breathes - or perhaps scoffs. No: it was not a scoff. Too quiet: too full of dislike. "You've met Mr. Kingsmith then? What do you think of him?"

"Back in August when the Blue-bloods, oh," a casual wave of one hand, "their veins so royal, how is it they fail to bleed gold? Well, when they descended en masse to take credit, Here You Go Mister Rasmussen, Here Are Your Feet, Oh What Were They Fucking Attached To You This Whole Time?" A pause. Where was she going with - ? Right: "When they descended, there was a kiss-the-ring party, you know, I went to see what they were going to do - me and Everett Stone. I don't know if you ever heard the name. It's a name that should be remembered, though: He was one of ours."

"He died there. You know: one of the wouldn't types instead of couldn't. You should know Ezra and Timothy and Andre and Johnny, Johnny being the best of the lot, oh, and this school, Timothy hangs here sometimes. They're all darling revolutionaries -- freedom on their tongues and between their teeth, heads tucked down."

Summer Barrett

This is where Summer has the hardest time with people. When people talk about people who are dead, she consciously recognizes that she should react. She knows that it is customary to give looks of sympathy and feel bad--or at least, pretend to feel bad. There was a point when Summer would play the part and give that sad look, offer the words of solace. However, that time ended many years ago. The only time that she tries to show emotion is when she is manipulating someone, and she has no desire to manipulate Lux now. As she said, she appreciates the Anarchs because she's allowed to be what she is. It's free.

And such, she gives no reaction to the deaths. Wouldn't even if she knew them. And some people hate her for things like that. She doesn't care about their hate. It means nothing to her. "Many die." That is the most that she can offer.

Dogwood, on the other hand. That she can offer opinion on. "I think that he will be a potential ally in my work. And that at some point I will end up needing to kill him. I don't think he knows what to do with me. He is a man and he presents himself as a man in all aspects. When someone doesn't respond to that in a way he expects, he is thrown off of his game. I will use that against him some day."

Lux

Lux is a passionate creature. See? Her heart she may wear inside her chest where God intended and not on her sleeve (tacky [vulgar]), but her passion: even contained as it is - lode-star, compass-North, easy to read or to guess at if one must guess the world into a logical shape all cool and cold and puzzle-piece fit. But she does not appear upset that Summer cannot or does not pretend to offer words of solace.

Give Lux this: she takes Summer at her word. Summer says she feels nothing, does not wish to pretend to be other than what she is: Lux won't require that he does.

She finds it refreshing.

So, Many Die: "Sure, but why? Fuck: you'd think one could control the why." Swing, and swing, and see she is not resting her temple against the swing's chain any longer, but locking both arms around the swing's chains, leaning back so she can see Summer that-a-way, pupils large and dark as they drink in the fall of the Malkavian's hair, the interlacery of shadow on her navy jacket where shadow becomes cloth the precise hue that isn't quite a hue one would normally notice and -

- listens. Listens, then says, "Why did you decide to pursue the work you do? Is it an inheritance from Sunny Days or a skill you found after?"

Summer Barrett

She has to think about the reference...Sunny Days. Of course the term means "Happier Days" and thus she doesn't fall upon the immediate, obvious answer; the days when she could be in the sun. She was a night person even when she was breathing, after all.

"Ah, yes." She says it with a nod, acknowledging what she means. "This is work I did before I was Embraced, yes. I did assassinations and cleaning work for one of the larger crime families in San Francisco. Once I crossed path the threshold of death, it only made sense to continue the work. It is what I know to do."

She looks around the darkened playground then, considering the first question. "There is no why. People die. Death is a natural course of life, even for us who are beyond the boundaries of it. The reasons that people have for killing each other; it matters not. It simply facilitates the cycle. Everything dies eventually, falling apart bit by bit."

Bet she's great at dinner parties.

Lux

Lux raises an eyebrow (fine-thing, too-fine). Does this, too: decides to shift position without leaving the swing's cradle - pulls her legs up, turns, and now she is facing Summer instead of Summer and Lux side-by-side two creatures with bright names given to the dark. The chain barely rattles; so smooth. Then she rests her temple against the chain again, locking her arms around them both, so the cold bites into her elbows, or would were she not wearing long-sleeves. That energy: just contained - barely. Do you see?

It's not the same as restlessness. Lux is not restless. They aren't the restless dead: they're the conditionally immortal.

"Have you ever considered trying something else; learning something new? I hear that doing the same thing night after night after night after night wears on a person, diminishes them, oppresses their soul." Lux: she uses the word 'soul,' ardent gleam in her eyes, fall of dark lashes, side-long, to see if Summer has a reaction to it: will say there is no soul, and if so, why not. "And I hear also that it's not very nice to be diminished and oppressed and well-worn."

"Was it difficult for you to adjust, after you crossed over the threshold of death and became kindred?"

Summer Barrett

The first question there from Lux--have you ever considered trying anything else--draws a look from the undead cleaner. It's calm, impassive as ever, though there is a discerning edge to them as she looks the Toreador over. And then Lux explains why...the endless cycle diminishes people. She seems to consider that for a moment and then shakes her head.

"I have never felt diminished. But then, I don't believe I have had a soul in many, many years. If one ever did exist, which there is no evidence--even in our undead state--to suggest such that I have seen. Therefore it would be impossible to wear it down.

"As to the second, not at all." She doesn't pause for reminiscence here; there is no thinking back to that time. It was what it was and now it is gone. She does not dwell on the memories, though she has as easy access as anyone. "Crossing that barrier was exactly what I expected it would be. There was, of course, an adjustment. That is to be expected, of course. But I did not consider it particularly difficult outside of learning what I must and must not do in this new state."

Lux

"You don't find yourself losing your sense of self to repetition; don't find yourself more shadowed by the Beast? Or perhaps your job has too much variety for such a thing to occur," Lux says, and her tone doesn't quite undo, unlock, negate her question - oh no. Lux is curious: she enjoys enjoying people; she enjoys listening, when she chooses to, to their thoughts about the universe and how it works etcetera etcetera. What is art if not a conversation? A vision of the world as it might be but isn't but might be?

Summer Barrett

"What is the Beast but our instinct, magnified a thousand times?" She shakes her head. Many people try to fight their Beast, and make no mistake: Summer Barrett holds hers at bay, without question. She is not that much of a monster and her intellect keeps her fighting for control because she must be. She is the master of this vehicle called flesh, not it. But she is also one who knows her instincts well and has gained a measure of control over them.

"My work does have its variance, it is true. It has its insights as well. In the end, there is little in the way of drudgery though. Allowing my work to become routine would make me complacent. A complacent hunter winds up hunting no more. Thus, I use the details of the hunt to keep me sharp, forego any ruts that I may risk falling into."

Lux

"Speaking of hunters," Lux says, with the kissing curl of a little grin. Swing forward, then back, then back, then back, then release: wee! "What did you think of István? I'm afraid, Summer, darling, I'm going to probably ask your opinion very often, because it isn't every night one runs across someone with eyes like yours, you know?"

Brief pause; circle back. Speaking of circles, the swing is making little circles now instead of just back-and-forth, and Lux's legs are far too long for the swing, her boots have trailed runes into the sand. "But as for the Beast: I have heard that it isn't our instinct magnified at all - but an Other. An Other's sentience caught in our blood, you know, and it's when we get emotional or, ah, are instincts would be roused I suppose in your case, that the Other sees a crack to slip through and try and devastate the world. I don't know what I think about it. I suppose the 'Other' is Caine or something."

Summer Barrett

It isn't every night one runs across someone with eyes like yours. If Summer could, she would smile at that comment. But she does not, merely nods when Lux says she'll be asking her opinion.

"Istvan is not the most unpleasant Tremere I have ever seen. I do not hold any specific ill will toward him yet. He called me in to ask my aid in breaking into the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. I suspect he did so in the hopes that it would ingratiate himself to me, that we committed even as insigificant a crime as that together. It did not, of course. It would be typical behavior from someone of his ilk. I do not know him quite well enough beyond that to venture much of an opinion. He is coy, using leading phrases often. That speaks toward manipulation."

The second part, about the nature of the Beast, draws an eyebrow raise. It is purposeful, calculated of course because she does not have such reactions naturally. "Is there evidence to support this theory? Or just guess work?"

Lux

[Hmm. A manip + subt + wp, because no I do not want my new emotionless friend to see the WTFery.]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 5 ) [WP]

Summer Barrett

[[Per+Subt]]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 6, 6, 9) ( success x 3 )

Lux

Here: cant of her head - her gaze steady, interested; isn't it a glut of darkness, a tarnishment of light-contained? Indeed: submerged, sublimated consideration - knife's edge of thoughtfulness. How dreamy is Lux's temple against the swing's chain, how careless and casual the way she's just letting the swing rock now, circle now, only occasionally pushing it on its way, barely giving it a thought. Lux reaches into her jacket for a pack of cigarettes and when she finds them: instead look she has found her phone. Not cigarettes at all.

"Evidence. Mm. Mostly first person accounts -- if you count that as evidence?" That query is narrow: is echoed in her expression, the lift of her chin. Touch of the tip of her tongue to her canine, just so. "I'm told that it's very obvious. The first-person accounts all being along the line of 'I was suddenly not myself,' or 'afterward I knew things,' etcetera, etcetera, but frenzy: it can be so terrible, can't it? Perhaps one just wishes not to think that whatever one did was one's own…"

"Oh." The phone, right? She was thumbing through it in order to get a number, but now she sees the time. "I apologize Summer, but I need to go. Before I do, wouldja like a phone number for another like-minded creature of the night?"

Summer Barrett

"Hmm." It's all she says, and it's not quite thoughtful. More a sound of acknowledgement of the accounts. For Summer, her few frenzies--and she's had her frenzies of course, because haven't they all--have felt very different. But she doesn't know everything, and she is not so egotistical to think that she is.

And then it's time to go. Summer rises then, and nods. "No apology needed. Thank you for the meeting, Lux. I anticipate us speaking often, if that is acceptable. Good evening." And she takes the offered number with a nod, and puts it in her head where it will later be transcribed into her phone. Then she turns and goes, back to her car. Always work to be done in her world.