Gryffindor? Sigh.

D. Gallowglass

[The Setting.]

There is a bookstore which has two names. Night Owl Books is one name. An Arch Key Books is another. This is the same bookstore. (But they are also two very different bookstores. It is just as it is with your high school love. They will always be your high school love but they are also not your high school love. Even in high school, they are something else too. Two things. Same time. Many things. At once. Once is a good word for a bookstore because Once upon a time.) It is located on a street corner or near a street corner and there is an old library cart parked outside in spite of Weather, spiteful of Weather, weathering Weather, and a collection of one dollar books. A narrow and very threadbare oriental rug lies across threshold of the door to this two-named bookstore, part of it outside beneath the overhang, the rest of it inside for muddy boots to be wiped on. Bells ring when the door opens. There is no chime. It is bells, ringing, because it is that kind of bookstore regardless of its name.

The windows that look out on the street are full of such things as: a clothing line above books chosen for display, pinned to which are advertisements for art shows or writer's workshops or retreats or concerts, some of which have come and gone and are faded with time, others of which are a shock of new ink. Buttons of satirical or political nature. A little brass lion, some book-ends: old, musty looking stuff that matches 'antiquarian.' Fascimile pages from 17th century folios next to a picture of Che Gueverra riding a my little pony.

Through the door:

Almost straight ahead toward the back is a desk. The desk has a register and a typewriter and a computer and books and boxes and a bell and it is - at present - devoid of presence. Behind the desk is a door with a brown sign curly gold lettering which says: employees only. And a thick museum poster from some 1970s exhibition on Alchemy in Italian Renaissance Painting, or maybe Symbolism in the French Romantic Tradition, or - well. There is a door and a poster of that sort on the door and it is for employees only and it is closed. To the left of the space behind the desk and before the door there is a wall which has a couple of tall bookshelves stuffed with papers and other such things and also a window which peeks at --

The furthermost back of the left half of the store. Get it? There is a room there. Take a step down. No door, but still: it is a room. And the room is full of cloth-bound books, the kind that are thick, are reference, are rare. Much rarer than anything found to the right of the store. It is dimmer in that room, in there are five aisles, and gloom behind. Take a step up (because we are going widdershins from the desk to explore Night Owl Books, first floor), and one is in the section of the store that is to the immediate left of whoever opened the door. That section has middling high shelves some of which are locked and glass-doored and those books look expensive but the ones that aren't looked up look like the ones that have to do with natural philosophy or maybe poetry or ghosts and hauntings and there is a low low shelf right next to the door (well, left next to the door) that is filled with children's books and - deep breath.

There is also a staircase which leads up to a second level. Loft-level, peer up and see the railing for it. There is a huge table with a big messy pyramid of books on it. Art and photography and how to build a bomb and Anais Nin's memoirs and a Polish grafitti artist's suicide letter and a little box of zines by local artists or not local artists whoever brought them and maybe a gardening book or two anyway cool art books something called birdwives and fishwomen and a bench someone draggged there at some point and

That is to the left. Skip over to the right and: windows.

Also: more books. And it is necessary to 'step down' a step again, although there's a do-it-yourself (probably twelve years ago: it looks like the foundation has settled) wheelchair accessible ramp-thing, another oriental rug. And - paperbacks. Science Fiction. Fantasy. Oddments on some of the shelves. A display of local talent and a few new books, more art books (allegorical criticism, feminist commentary), some of which are new, some of which are not, some of which have been autographed! and there is a ladder and and and

this is the bookshop that has two names.

The first floor, anyway.

[The Principals.]

Look. Or don't look. No: look. Adam is not wearing his general Mysteriousness today, has damped it down following a meeting with an antiquarian dealer who is leaving the shop. The antiquarian dealer looks like sparrow made into a man: tall, thin, sharp delicate cheekbones, big watery eyes, neat hair and neat suit. In the wake of the antiquarian dealer's absence, Adam is at his desk

the desk with the register, a den, a lair

frowning over a bill and a box of book-repair tools. Riders on the Storm is playing through the bookshop's sound system.

A. Romero

A girl comes in out of the rain. She wears her hair pulled back into a ponytail and the top layer of strands that caught the water turn to frizz near to soon as the assault has stopped. She runs her palm overtop of it to smooth it down and then wipes her palm on the thigh of her leggings so she does not get the books damp.

Whatever jacket the pale man saw her in earlier has been swapped out for a hooded pullover. Nondescript. It came from a secondhand store. Belonged to a cheerleader once. She did not go to its school and that is not her name on the back but the hood conceals it anyway. She didn't put it up when the sunshower started.

Soon as the door starts to swing shut she takes in a breath. This place does not look so vast on the outside as it does stepping in. No bookstore does. Words have a way of fitting themselves into small spaces.

By all appearances this is just a bored student ducking away from an outing with her family for a few minutes. But she does drift away from the door and look around to orientate herself as if she intends to stay long enough to participate in the free market at least.

D. Gallowglass

Exit antiquarian dealer, enter by all appearances a bored student. The bells above the front door ring like the good little heralds they are. They're old-fashioned bells because this is an old-fashioned place, all that paper-pulp and ink-dye from plant or mineral.

The bookshop clerk's gaze flicks up and over at the sound. Let's take a look at our bookshop clerk, since we can look at him today, fix his features in mind which is so rarely the case. His eyes are a color that can be striking in certain lights, but in the bookstore's light is an inscrutable sort of shade, not this and not that. His hair needs a comb, stat. Wild muck of dark brown, he could be posing for Dream. His facial hair is a small and neat beard, dark as a shadow. He's scrawny, thin, with a tall man's or bookworm's habitual slouch, a long neck and thin shoulders.

He doesn't ask her if she needs help yet, setting the bill down and closing the box of book-repair tools.

[Perception + Awareness said the spider to the possibly magical fly.]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 4, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Richard

Once upon a time, before the advent of Borders and Barnes and Noble and -- later still -- Amazon.com, all bookstores were like this. Cramped, smelling of old paper and leather bindings, tall-shelved, narrow-storefronted, deep. These days bookstores like these are rarities, either dying breeds or hipster revivals.

Richard hasn't quite made up his mind yet on which this one is. But then, that hardly concerns him. At present, he is up the stairs -- up in the loft, leafing through the pages of a secondhand volume. There's little seating in here, it seems, and certainly no in-house cafes. He is leaning against the railing of the loft. Everything about his position seems precarious: so tall that the top of his head seems in danger of smashing into the rafters; the center of his balance so far over the railing that one worries whenever he leans back.

Richard has not lived nearly thirty years in his frame, however, without gaining a nearly subconscious awareness of his dimensions. He shifts his weight as he sinks deeper into his book; sits one hip up on the top of the railing. Quite balanced, but damned if he doesn't look ready to topple. Something in the pages perplexes him. He frowns and hrrms.

A. Romero

This customer appears to be just a customer. Maybe other folks can read the lazy bohemian flavor of her clothing and take it to mean her entire life is some uncoordinated thing. That whatever structure is placed before her she acknowledges but that doesn't mean she knows what she's doing. Anyone her age who claims they know what they're doing is full of shit anyway.

The clerk though with his mop of hair and his thistle of beard can hear it though and he can feel the dark paranoia and the Working of the paranoia and the pinging of her senses as she tries to draw a map of where she's been and where she's going. Scrambling to make sense of a wreckage maybe. Organized chaos in machinery blown apart and strewn across the road and what is she supposed to do with it. She doesn't know what the hell she's doing.

As she wanders the clerk can see she has a backpack draped over one shoulder. She doesn't look like she'd steal anything.

Her fingertips dance over the spines of the books as she finds herself in the room with the natural philosophy or the poetry. Ghosts and hauntings. She keeps looking.

Weston

[awareness]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 8) ( success x 1 )

D. Gallowglass

There aren't any other customers. Just the tall man in the loft and the young woman on the first floor.The tall man in the loft -- where the only seating of note is a lovesac which would certainly seem to point the finger at hipster revival, Night Owl Books being manned by a twenty-something with a mop of dark hair who has been accused of being a hipster (generally when he is in the vicinity of his typewriter and grousing about technology, we must confess) -- feels to the Hermetic like a tessellation of brine sea a patterned oceanic surface depths beneath. The young woman who just entered feels like a pain in the ass teenager mad scientist agent of Loki. An interesting mélange and one which Adam considers.

Adam. He glances upward, following the evocative of the sea pattern repetition signature and stares for a second at his perspective skewed because that man seems too tall to believe. When Adam was busy with the antiquarian, he was busy and hadn't carefully noted Richard.

All right. Time for Adam to do what Adam does, keeper of books as he is. First he calls up: "Oy. Careful up there, man. The just rail's waiting for its chance." Then bringing his voice back down to a more ordinary level he rounds his desk and approaches Alicia Romero. "May I help you, miss?"

Weston

Shortly after the one, another female comes in from the rain. This one is hooded, her sweatshirt bland and ordinary, a forgettable dark grey. A slender, fine-boned hand comes up and pushes the hood back and a face is revealed. Though there is an agelessness to her quiet beauty, this female is no girl. There are lines at the corners of her eyes and her small mouth shaped like Cupid's bow. Her eyes are dark behind a pair of black-rimmed, narrow and square glasses. These eyes seem old. Older than thirty, older than this bookstore, older than the world. Her long red hair has been pulled back and plaited into a thick, loose braid, the weight of which she pulls over her shoulder as she reaches and unzips the bland and ordinary sweatshirt.

Enter Sid Rhodes, née Amelia Weston, scientest and wild pagan witch of the Verbena. She doesn't look very wild, though, does she? Even though when the door opens and she enters she brings with her a sense not of the rainy day outside, but of spring. Wild and desperate, euphoric. Verdant and empowered. These are how she feels, but how she looks is tired. Dark shadows beneath her dark eyes, a tension in her mouth and a slope to her shoulders. Must be why, even though she knows the owner of this place, the touch of resonance comes to her so faintly. The girl, chaos, Sid's eyes go to her and linger there a moment before lifting up. Something patterened and wet rests up against the railing. Strangers both of them. Sid's eyes lower to the girl again before sliding away to Adam. Adam with his mop of dark hair and the faint thatch of a beard on his boyish face. She would go up to him but he is doing his Thing, approaching the girl who could be a customer or could be hiding in the bookshop about to open a book and discover an adventure or she could be trouble. Or she could be all of these things and more.

Sid finishes unzipping her sweatshirt and pushes the panels back to reveal: dark blue button-down shirt and a pair of denim jeans that fit close to athletic legs and ending in a pair of black-and-white sneakers. Accessories include: Brown fabric-and-leather messenger bag with strap barely holding onto her right shoulder, a necklace with delicate silver chain, a stain of unknown origin on the upper outside of her right thigh.

"Adam," she greets him quietly. Then she makes her way in the direction of his desk, where she might see what's stacked there, and if it's of any interest to her.

Richard

Roused abruptly from his frowning, hrrming and reading, Richard raises his head sharply -- does not in fact smash into a rafter -- and looks down over that low low low rail. Well; it's not actually that low, but Richard is so tall, and so lean, and so lean that he looks so much taller still. Suffice to say: the railing comes up to mid-thigh on him.

"Thanks for the heads up," he calls down. And he is about to say more, but then the shopkeeper is greeting a new customer, and Richard closes that book he'd picked out around his finger. He comes down those narrow, winding stairs, politely taking a spot in line behind Alicia.

[passive awareness!]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (3, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )

D. Gallowglass

Adam. His resonance feels to Richard like something valiant, something relentless; something suggestive of the bright flash of shield and armor and sword against a foe, but without any actual brightness. Metaphors suggest. All that valiance, that bravery; knotted up with an unyielding press forward.

A. Romero

The girl is frowning at the titles or at the niggling at the back of her mind that there's something wrong with this situation she's walked into but either way she's frowning when Adam hollers up at the tall fellow leaned against the railing and she's frowning still when he creaks across the floor to speak to her.

That gets her to look up. She smiles a smile that has more confidence than she is capable of fitting inside her spine but so long as one pretends long enough one will become. Maybe she read that somewhere. Her fingertips are still on the spines of the books. Barely visible are the fingertips of the other hand. Whoever owned this sweatshirt before her was taller. No monumental feat seeing as she stands a couple inches above five feet with her shoes on.

Must be he feels like a knight-errant to her. Someone she can trust even for a few minutes.

"I..." She turns away from the shelf. Full of nervous habits. Tucking hair and ticking eyes before she deigns to meet his gaze. "Don't really know what I'm looking for."

D. Gallowglass

He doesn't say Sid! but his eyebrows leap up like that slender bow of light a mirror will flash suddenly up across a wall, surprised at having caught at the sun; by which we mean, he's surprised as Hell to see her, whether or not he knew she was getting in yesterday or no. He offers her a spare nod, marks that she doesn't appear to know the girl, and dear god Richard is tall. There's no way not to notice him. The bookclerk's eyes pass over him too as he politely falls in behind Alicia.

First things first. "Do your interests tend to the esoteric or to the, erm, cultural? I'd guess the first but I never won a prize for guesses. Perhaps mythology," he suggests to Alicia. That's what most (not all) the strange mages who come into his bookshop search out. Mythology, or older linguistic texts. He's guaging her, see. So many magi are paranoid, and really: rightfully so. Isn't he helpful? He is helpful and attentive.

And he waits politely for an answer, not cutting her off, before he says to Richard, "Did you have a specific question, sir?"

D. Gallowglass

What new books does Adam have on his desk!

BEHOLD, treasures! Some books in other languages, French and Latin and Arabic, a beautifully illustrated copy of Rumi's poetry, a couple of books that are falling apart and that box of book-binding and book-fixing tools, panels and thread and silks and needles and special glues.

Weston

Adam's surprise is met with the slightest upturn at the corner's of Sid's mouth. She hadn't told many (any) people that she was returning to the city earlier than intended. It had been a fairly sudden change in plans, but that's no excuse. It took her almost an entire day to get from Sydney Australia back to Denver International and home. There was time to send off notes.

Which she did. But again, not to too many people. When she got in on Thursday night she fired off one request that culminated in last night's adventure. And now it's time to make the rounds.

But of course, surprising Adam at his place of business comes with the added problem (?) of waiting on him to help out his customers. Sid does not interrupt him, though, not even considering the fact the two strangers in the store also come with a tingle of something Other. The ability to reshape reality, for good or for bad. Sid wanders to the desk and she glances not at the girl again, but to the tall young man making his creaky way down the stairs, and oh, is he tall. He has easily a foot over Sid, and even disguised by clothing as he is she can tell that he's muscular.

There was a time when she would have warily watched him in particular. He is bigger than her he could overpower her so easily he could- Those are not the thoughts that run through Sid's mind when she sees the Olympian Adonis (or Poseidon himself?) gain the lower level. No, what runs through her mind is-

Was that a Latin title?

Her gaze drops away to the books on Adam's desk, and she, too, runs her fingertips over the spines. Careful, careful. She doesn't want to accidentally cause the older books to crumble into dust before Adam can repair them. She finds the one from the stack that caught her eye and lets it fall open in her hand.

Richard

There is magic afoot here. Richard can nearly taste it in the air. He is reminded of springtime and he is reminded of knights-in-a-storybook; he is reminded briefly and fascinatingly of those patterns and charts in some of his more advanced textbooks. Lorenz attractors. Bifurcation graphs. Chaos, though perhaps not as your average bystander would conceive of it.

While the storekeeper is tending to his customer, Richard plays a little game. He looks about, trying to decide for himself who is, who isn't. Who is special, who is other, who is awake -- and who isn't. He looks at Gallowglass. He looks at Romero. He looks at Weston. He looks out the window at the people passing on the sidewalk; he looks down the narrow book-stuffed aisles to see if there was anyone else hiding in the corners.

"What?" -- he is startled when he is asked a question. Then he recovers, quickly. Smiles. "Oh." He holds up the book: early-20th-century, Hemingway or Stein or Eliot or Fitzgerald. "Just wondering if you have a newer reprint of this? It's nice but I can't afford the early-edition pricetag. Just need it for class."

Ah. College kid, then. Though he looks a bit -- quite a bit -- older than most.

A. Romero

Adam waits for an answer. She smiles an insecure smile and it's a bright smile. Her eyes are bright. Her skin is healthy and her hair is healthy and she looks like she got enough sleep last night. Still some baby fat on her face and hands.

"I was reading this book about black holes, but it got lost," she says. "It was kind of stupid, but it referenced a lot of other books that looked... if I could get near the science section, I thought something would just call to me, you know? Hmm."

It takes the girl a moment to realize she's standing in the shadow of someone a foot and a half taller than her. It's not polite to stare but she does have to crane her neck quite a ways to see who's come up behind her.

This must be what the hobbits felt like standing next to Gandalf.

She takes some steps back maybe so she doesn't wrench her spine bones. Now the door is at her back and she's slinking back to her browsing. Chewing her lip in the wake of that hmm. Not because of him. Just because small space. Many bodies. Where's the door.

D. Gallowglass

He doesn't look as if he got enough sleep last night. His skin's vampire pale and he looks like he doesn't get out very often. He couldn't be more clearly desk-bound and academic if he had a sign. He sort of does have a sign: the bookstore is his sign. Word-forest with its page-leaves, its wands hidden in the shape of other objects, fountain pens and tapestry bars. Alicia answers. Moves back. Back. Back.

"The science section is small, unless you're interested in a more, erm, historical perspective," Adam says. "Natural philosophy is upstairs, just by the window with the Anarchy sign. Other scientific texts are over there," and he points with two fingers, gesturing with the easy thoughtlessness of someone who was told that pointing is rude and is often in command of directing people. Over there is the open part of the store where all the shelves are short. "The corner. You'll also find some star charts, although astrology and astronomy are also both upstairs."

He pauses; watchful, observant. Decides to handle her carefully, kid gloves. He isn't renowned for his sensitivity, Adam, but so what?

Watchful, observant, and Richard gets a serious-eyed nod and a flick of his eyes toward the cover of the book. "Yes." Fitzgerald. Adam recently scored a signed first edition of a Fitzgerald, inscribed to Mencken. He doesn't keep that one out. Gatsby. Everybody's trying to pawn off Gatsby lately, but Richard's holding Tender is the Night.

"This way." This way isn't far and is also the part of the store where the shelves are low and there are some, gasp, new books as well as paperbacks. They are in order, but barely so. Adam knows where everything is because this is his place. Whoever owns it must be independently wealthy, not need to actually make money. Or they do a rousing business online. Once he finds a creased paperback version of the book in question, hands it over, he says, "Do we have some of the same friends in common?"

An innocuous and easily covered question.

D. Gallowglass

The Latin title could be - is, if Sid knows Latin - translated as: Being a History of the Metaphysical World & its Daemons as Interpreted by the Solemn Jew.

Weston

Did somebody say science?

At mention of black holes Sid's attention slides back toward the trio - they are a trio now, right? One small girl near to two tall men. Sid's chin lifts. She knows Adam well enough by now to know the gallant knight is not going to hurt the girl, and she doesn't know Richard at all but she has a sense he's the gentle sort of giant.

The girl, though. She looks young and she looks like she's looking for the exit and so Sid closes the book in her hand. Holding it against the side of her chest (yes, she will definitely be keeping this one, and perhaps come back for one or two of the others), she leaves the desk and approaches. She comes a few feet away from them, not trying to add to the crowd. Adam isn't the only one who has decided to tread carefully.

But then, careful is the only way this woman treads, or so it would appear. "I can help. I'm sort of a regular." Her eyes lift to Richard as Adam guides him off to look for a newer copy of Fitzgerald, then lower to the girl again. When they're away but not out of earshot, something in Sid's expression changes, but the change is so slight. Something seems to soften, but it's the sort of softening that's felt or sensed more than it's seen.

"Come on." She tips her head in the direction of the science section and takes a step in that direction but waits to see if that's the direction Alicia's interested in. "Sometimes it's easier to meet people one at a time. I'm Amelia, but everyone calls me Sid."

Richard

Black holes, the confused-seeming girl in front of him says. Richard's interest piques. He fucking loves black holes. Seriously: he loves them. He loves astrophysics, he loves quantum mechanics; he loves thinking about the very small and very large and very distant and very ancient. He loves thinking about the ultimate fate of the universe. The arrow of time. Entropy. He is that rarest of breeds: a true athlete-geek.

"Sorry, couldn't help overhearing," seeing as how he was standing right behind the conversation, "but -- was it a textbook, or was it a pop science Brief-History-of-Time-type thing? The black hole book you were reading, I mean."

But then -- he is guided along. This way. More Fitzgerald. Tender is the Night, which he has not read; college professors like to do that. Assign books that skirt the mainstream. The original hipsters, them. They are in a part of the store that is a little more secluded, then: it feels a little secretive, a little speakeasy-ish almost. Richard half expects one of the shelves to turn out to be a secret panel.

"We might," Richard says, open enough, friendly enough. He peers at Gallowglass. "You go to DU?"

Then, he peers at Gallowglass.

[MOAR AWARENESS. active this time.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 5, 5, 7, 7) ( success x 2 )

A. Romero

[oh yeah i haven't rolled awareness yet. BEHOLD THE MIGHT OF ALICIA'S PERCEPTION POOL.]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (3, 4) ( fail )

A. Romero

Try very hard as she does to retain what the clerk says about where everything is she's also trying not to run into anything as she backs away. Okay. Great.

And then the student couldn't help overhearing and she gives a smile. Maybe it's polite or genuine or just as disorganized as her being feels. This situation isn't making her uncomfortable because there are people she loves people people are great but she is nonetheless uncomfortable. Not because they're men either or because they're big. Half the world is men. Half the world is big.

She's opening her mouth to answer Richard when here comes a woman who looks like she lives in the middle of the woods and sells hemp clothes and jewelry for a living. She's a regular.

The girl glances back at the clerk and the student and then glances at the door. It's close enough that she thinks she could run if she had to and Sid can maybe see her calculating if she had to run. Like if she absolutely had to. Before she decides okay. She'll stay a minute.

A tip of the older woman's head and the girl reshoulders her bag and goes with her.

"Should I call you Sid now, or wait until I'm an everyone?"

D. Gallowglass

Divide and conquer. There's nothing to be conquered here (just geekery, just the Pogrom and excavation of Fate-lines and riddles given language by whoever is sanctioned to explore them). Divide and conquer, Sid the regular sweeping in to caretake the fawn-startle of scattered teenager and Adam the regular bookshop clerk showing Richard this-a-way. His eyes go briefly to the mirror, round as the full-bellied moon, and its attendant satellite mirror, both of which are above the door and give him a good look at the rest of the store. He wants to get them set up so that he can speak a word at opening and for the rest of the day they'll show him anybody who is doing something mischievous or malicious anywhere in his shop as soon as those malicious thoughts take hold and start to become an action, and that regardless and where in Night Owl Books they are. He just needs to find an elegant way to make it so, and for now, mundane reflections are all they show him.

Does Adam go to DU?

That was where Garrett (the bastard) was a professor. Is a professor, perhaps. "Only when my research takes me there," Adam tells Richard. He's younger than Richard and looks it, but Richard looks old for a student, unless perhaps he's one of those graduate students. "My field is esoterics, so my research takes me all over the place."

The mages of Denver really just need a password they can pass to new people so that password can be passed along. He hmms.

Ruse

**scuttles through the shop with a hunch-backed run**

Richard

"All over the place," Richard echoes, and in the dim narrow confines of the shelves he is looking quite intently at Gallowglass, looking and looking and stretching out that sixth-sense of his until he's reasonably sure,

until he's quite sure of -- well. He's quite sure, let's just say.

"Ever been up to Morrison?" he says. "I have some friends that own a house up there. Big. Has this sort of ... pool-slash-hot spring in the back?"

Weston

Richard's interest is also piqued by the mention of celestial bodies, and don't think Sid hasn't noticed it. Don't think the quiet woman with the long, dark red hair and the quiet, ageless brown eyes won't circle back around to that. But first. Adam leads one person one way and Sid waits to see if Alicia will be guided in another.

She knows that look, she's had that look. She will have that look on her own face again sometime. Alicia calculates the distance to the door and her top speed and her walking speed and all the speeds in between, gauges the likelihood of her getting away before someone stops her. And Sid?

Sid may seem tired and worn today (not from lack of sleep but from exertion and from wringing out her Will), but she is patient. She waits in a way that seems like she could wait there forever for Alicia, could wait for Alicia to decide if she's going to stay or she's going to run until the sun burns out and the galaxy spirals and splits apart and dissolves. When Alicia reshoulders her bag and prepares to come with, Sid seems like she's about to smile. Except the smile does not resolve into a visible expression.

Should the girl call her Sid now, or wait until she's an everyone? Interesting question.

Sid's shoulder lifts and falls in a slight shrug, and her bag begins to slide from her arm because of it. She catches the strap before it can reach her elbow and lifts it back onto her shoulder. If Alicia looks, she might see the image inside the pendant of Sid's necklace. And she might see that the buttons of her shirt are buttoned all wrong, that there is a loop of fabric bulging out beneath the swell of her breasts and that her collar is uneven because of it.

"You can be an everyone now if you want," she says. "I answer to a lot of names." She is leading Alicia to the spot in the corner, the place where the science books are supposed to be when a sleek, furry shape darts across the floor in front of them. That. For the first time since entering the shop the corners of Sid's mouth actually quirk upward into a faint smile.

"And that's Rue." Her quiet voice does not carry across the room to the gentlemen trying to suss each other out.

A. Romero

Is it rude to tell someone they messed up all the buttons on their shirt? It's probably just as rude to stare at a stranger's breasts while debating whether or not it's rude. Before she can come to a decision either way there's a fur-streak running across the room.

At least she isn't afraid of rodents. Or if she is afraid of rodents she doesn't shriek and leap up onto the nearest high surface. Alicia does startle because what the fuck she wasn't expecting that and okay maybe she does take a step back like to hide behind this patient person who's decided to physically take her over to the science shelves. But she's not afraid once the creature has a name.

"Does she bite?"

D. Gallowglass

The gentlemen have sussed.

They've outted. They're on the same page. They're in an understanding. The dark-haired Hermetic watches Richard look at him intently, intently, intently, and he is so accompanied by that air of the relentless, which sounds a note through all that he does, that we may as well say there is something intent about his gaze too; it is serious and contemplative and yes, intent, although he already believes he knows something of the mystery of Richard. Is he one of - ? Yes he is.

Ever been up to Morrison? Adam's expression shifts and so does his stance. A subtle thing, but Morrison will do for a watchword, or at least the pool-slash-hot-spring will.

"Yes. Crazy drivers on the way," a lick of remembered irritation; he is not patient with traffic. "There's a bear hangs around the grounds, though I've never seen her. I'm Adam," and now he offers Richard his hand, a faint smile in his eyes if not on his mouth.

Ruse knows all the hideyholes of Night Owl Books by now, the little beast. The owners are definitely not concerned about customers if they're letting the ferret run loose. Or maybe they're just not concerned about the ferret, who has scuttled himself right behind a stack of books.

Richard

"Richard," and there is a handshake, all firm-grip and solid-pump.

"I've only seen the outside," Richard admits then. "Haven't been inside yet. Going this weekend, actually -- with my thesis advisor. Dr. Eleanor Yates?" Beat. "Those two out there your friends too?"

D. Gallowglass

The firm-grip and solid-pump startles Adam's grip into becoming firmer. He isn't a loose handshaker (no, not with that valiance), but he's become used to brevity. Handshake achievement unlocked.

"I know the name, but I haven't had the pleasure," Adam says, keenly. Eleanor Yates. But Richard asked something else, and Adam's gaze switches over to Sid and Alicia before returning to Richard. His voice doesn't carry very far either. Everybody can see each other if they look or crane but nobody can hear each other unless they try very, very hard. Riders on the Storm has become People Are Strange and is about to be Light My Fire.

When his gaze returns: "Well I hope your visit is pleasant. The first time I went I was overwhelmed with food." He sounds not nostalgic but surprised, as if the thought of food isn't one he's had for a while. Surprised, and perhaps fond. To business: "The redhead, yes. That's Sid; the other, a stranger. But Sid is good to know."

Adam is direct. A pause, and then, "Do you follow your thesis advisor's traditions?"

Weston

[please to be correcting my thing to say RUSE, i am all about the typos tonight]

"He," and there is no note of correction, Sid's voice is quiet as she states, "only bites if you're rough with him." Isn't that true of all these wild creatures, though? Here they all are, carefully measuring each other up in their own ways. Watching out for traps, maybe, those little spring-loaded triggers that could accidentally have magic zinging this way and that between the books.

Except not really. Probably it's just Sid being careful with a girl who reminds her a bit of herself when she was new to all of this. Years ago, when everything was dangerous and no one could be trusted.

"He's kind of sweet sometimes, for a ferret. Adam takes good care of him."

Is it rude to tell someone that their shirt's buttoned all wrong? Or to stare at their chest? Alicia's about to find out if it is in thise case, because Sid catches sight of where the girl's eyes are pointed and she looks down. Thinking that maybe she has a stain where she dropped her lunch onto the shelf of her chest. And do you want to know what sucks about having large breasts? The wrongly done buttons are beneath the swell and so are hidden from Sid's gaze completely. She frowns, though, because she sees the wrong edge of her collar. Tucking her chin a little lower, she runs her fingers along one edge of that collar until she finds the empty button hole. Her fingers continue along the line to find...no matching button on the other side, waiting to slide through the fabric of its intended.

Sid sighs, and without offering an explanation for her disheveled appearance, quietly begins working through the buttons, trying to correct her mistake. "So this book on black holes," she begins, like she's not unbuttoning and redoing her buttons, like a ferret didn't just streak across their paths, like there isn't a giant and a knight errant in the other room getting to know one another.

Like all of this is perfectly normal. How new are you, fresh-faced young girl with the touch of baby fat in your cheeks and the youthful cast of your eyes?

"What was it that you liked most about it? That might help. Finding these other books, that is."

Richard

"I do," says Richard.

He's not so new to the Awakened world that he doesn't know the reputation -- the notoriety and stigma, in some cases -- that his Tradition carries. Still, the admission is open, unapologetic, and unreserved. He doesn't make the obvious cracks either: about his appearance, about the lack of morbid tattoos or all-black clothing, about the presence or absence of deadly weapons; the sort.

Just that. He does. He is: Euthanatos, Wheel-Turner. Same as his thesis advisor.

"And yourself? Though, with all the books, I have to say I'm hazarding a guess already."

A. Romero

Another startle-flinch when she realizes Sid caught her staring not at her breasts so much as the fact that the buttons on her sweater were all jumbled up. Like calls to like, though. Disorder calls to disorder. Alicia clears her throat in apology and tucks that same disobedient lock of hair behind her ear before finding the books' spines.

She must really think something will just leap out at her. All these wizards and enchanted things and a freaking ferret and there aren't any telepathic books that can just jut themselves out of order and into her hand. Magic is bullshit.

With the question she has to think about what the actual answer is and then what answer she's going to give to Sid and as she considers this she breathes in and crosses her arms over her ribs and breathes out again.

"I don't know," she says. Not despondent yet but it sounds like she can veer that way real quick. "Just... how the universe goes on and on forever but nobody knows what's inside a black hole. That's as far as I got. About how if you get too close to a black hole you start to stretch out and then it sucks you in and it's awful."

She starts to sound less despondent the more she talks. Even if it's about something gruesome like spaghettification. Teenagers are morbid and young adults aren't much better.

"I never got to take physics because I got yanked out of high school halfway through. I took bio and earth science but I didn't take anything else. I've just been reading and talking to people. I want to know what else is out there, or know what other people know is out there. It's just... it's cool, and I have a lot of time to read right now, and the only thing there is to read where I'm staying is this book that's like a thousand years old..."

D. Gallowglass

"Ah. No, I don't practice in your traditional style, although I do find some of your research fascinating. A more complete version of my name is Dominic Adam Julian Gallowglass bani Bonisagus," Adam says, a formality instilled in him by his training, though the introduction is truncated. The Order of Hermes has its reputation too; how many Harry Potter jokes has Adam had to endure? How many ranting and raving rebels? How many who've been offended at one point or another by an Order mage meet Adam with dislike? Probably a fair number. Bani Bonisagus. Order of Hermes. Maybe Richard doesn't know the Houses. A moment's consideration has him adding: "Of the Order. Is that what you would have guessed?"

Richard

"Yes," replies Richard, lips quirking,

and oh no here comes the Harry Potter joke,

"though I would've guessed House Gryffindor. Or maybe Ravenclaw."

Weston

Sid is not exactly careless as she fixes her shirt. At least, she doesn't twist away from Alicia to give herself some privacy - or protect Alicia from parts of a stranger she might not want to see. Even so, it's not like she's flashing anyone. As her fingers undo a button and find the correct hole again, her hands hide the notch of pale skin, the hint of a bra, and so on until she reaches the hem.

And she is listening to Alicia talk about science quietly, her expression softening again. This is not the pitying look that a lot of young mages seem to get around Denver, all aw how cute I used to be like you, no. It is a genuine fondness for a young mind interested in science.

"My thing is mostly biology," she admits. "But I have an interest in the universe," she goes on to explain. "You might start with this." The books might not jump out to Alicia, but Sid knows this place. Not nearly as well as Adam of course, but she's been here enough that she's created her own little library. She pulls from the shelf a large hard cover book, its jacket a little battered, with tiny tears at the corners. It is Carl Sagan's Cosmos. An obvious choice, maybe, and an older edition.

"Sagan said he didn't have the patience for hard science, so he wrote his books for a more general audience. He wanted to teach whoever wanted to learn, not just the people with their advanced degrees. He's a good place to start. And." Her expression turns thoughtful. "You can learn a lot from thousand year old books. It's always fascinating to me. To see what people thought before. What they knew to be true before someone else came along and proved that what they knew to be true was false."

D. Gallowglass

The Hermetic looks as if he licked a block of salt. House Gryffindor? He knows why they do persist in making that joke and guessing at it (valiant, valiant, valiant, valiant), but really. The house of forced protaganism and ill-organized disrespectful fools, the best of which can be said they've really got heart? They're pretty good at mischief? The heroes all conveniently congregate in said house? Gryffindor probably got to choose what the Sorting Hat would give him first. I WANT ALL THE HEROES AND IMPORTANT PEOPLE, he said, and the others scowled at him, but it was too late. And Ravenclaw? Hmf. Almost as bad.

So. The Hermetic looks as if he licked a block of salt; that same weary tolerance that cashiers give people who make the joke I guess it's free ha ha if something doesn't scan.

"Thanks, though if Hogwarts were real, I think I'd place myself in Slytherin and reform it. At least they tried to change their world." A pause; and now a frown. "You do look a bit familiar. How long have you been in Denver? Long enough to get hooked-up with Ginger?"

See, Grace. He spreads the word, though Eleanor probably has already.

A. Romero

The last coat of polish Alicia put on her nails was slowly flaking off. Most of the spring-orange paint has come off of her left hand and only her right thumb and pinkie are still completely covered. When she releases her ribcage and reaches out to take the book she does so with interest in her eyes.

A new book after however long she hasn't had one is a gift in its own right. Ignore the fact that she's going to take it over to the register and exchange money for the right to walk into the rain with it. Alicia is happy and visibly so even if the book has taken some abuse.

As Sid talks she opens the front cover to read the flap and when her tone goes thoughtful she looks up and over at her. Claps the thing shut again. Nods even though she doesn't have anything brilliant or insightful to add to that.

If she can hear the conversation the men is having it makes like no sense and she isn't paying attention to it. It's just noise to her.

"Thank you," she says like she could hug Sid right now if that wouldn't be weird. Hugs the book to her chest instead. Thinks a moment and then extends her right hand to shake hands farewell. "Maybe when I finish this I'll start the other one."

The other one. The Bible in the bedside table at the motel. It's a good story but she's not looking for stories.

When she has her hand back she points in the general direction of the register. "I pay over there, right?"

Richard

Not the laugh he'd hoped for. Not even a smile! A salt-licking sour look instead, which makes Richard instantly remorseful. "Sorry," he says, and he does sound it. "Guess you must hear that one all the time. Tell you what. Next time you see me, you can make a Russian roulette joke."

And the rest:

"Two years -- but I spent the last semester abroad, and before that I pretty much spent all my time on campus or working on my project with Dr. Yates. Haven't really been networking with the rest of the field until recently. So no, I'm not hooked-up with Ginger yet. Dr. Yates mentioned it though. I just haven't gotten around to it.

"As for looking familiar, maybe I just have one of those faces. Unless you follow competitive swim?"

D. Gallowglass

[Swim. DOES HE REMEMBER A NAME? Intelligence, 'coz I can't decide.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 5, 7) ( success x 1 )

Weston

Even Bibles can be interesting, though. There are people who have scoured that thing looking for its dietary tidbits hoping to find the next miracle cure for obesity or constipation or gout. There are mentions of astrological events. According to Joshua the sun stood still for about a full day. Or something.

These days there are people who can explain that phenomenon. Maybe it was a Mage that did it, some ancient Master of Forces that could stop the giant ball of fire in the sky, or stop the rotation of the earth beneath their feet. Maybe it can be explained with science alone, but isn't science a sort of magic? Sid thinks so.

Sid does not know that the other book Alicia is referring to is the old thumbed-through Bible left in her night stand. What she does know - or believes at least - is that here is a girl interested in learning about the universe. A girl who might think her incomplete formal education means she's limited in what she can learn going forward. Here is a girl who looks like she could read this whole shelf of books but who is prepared to take only the one away with her.

A hand is offered. Sid's eyes lower to it, the tilt of her head thoughtful and a little curious before she looks up again. The corners of her mouth work themselves up into a slight smile. Shifting her book to her other hand, she accepts that offered hand. Wraps her warm fingers around it and grips it, her touch firm without crushing. Her own hand is warm, and dry, and comfortable. Like stones of a hearth warmed by a friendly fire. Pleasant and a bit amiable.

"You do," she answers. "When you're done with that one, come back here and look for another. This place is...well it's Adam's. But it's a good place for people like us to, to hang out."

D. Gallowglass

Competitive swim. His frown grows a bit more; his gaze is guaging, contemplative; and then his expression clears, balances between recognition and a name, stays poised right there like the name's on the tip of his tongue and he snaps his fingers. They're long fingers with broad tips and short short nails. "Ah hah. Levasseur? What was your stroke, the," and his memory doesn't quite stretch that far.

Pause; and the clear expression becomes a smile. The smile carves lines into his cheeks and around his eyes. Animate, even though Alicia's gesture toward the register has him on alert. There's nobody else in the shop; certainly no more staff.

"And s'allright. Deal about the Russian roulette joke though. Is that what you," plural, "hear all the time?" Rhetorical question becomes a less rhetorical question. He's still watching to see if he's going to be needed at the register, but if there's one thing Adam is good at its multitasking. "Funny thing about stereotypes." A beat.

"The shop isn't exactly an official spot, but people in the field do wander through frequently enough; feel free to come by any time you want some peace and quiet. The hours on the door are suggestions. Shall I introduce you?"

To Sid, he means. Not the other girl, who has not ceased to be a stranger in the last few minutes.

Richard

"Freestyle," says Richard, pleased nonetheless -- Gallowglass can see that -- that his career, never quite so glorious as the other great names of his day, has some echo in the popular memory. "And backstroke too."

That's it; he doesn't begin boasting of his victories, his best times, that one year -- a very long time ago, it seems -- that he set a short-lived national record. He had a good career. World class. Better than most. But it's over now, and like all other better-than-mosts but not best-of-alls, it'll leave little enough mark in the future. That's fine with Richard. He never competed for fame and fortune, anyway.

"You know," he says, wry, "I've only been formally inducted for the past six months or so, and I've already heard enough Russian roulette jokes to last me a lifetime. And god, the grim reaper jokes -- I'm afraid to wear a hoodie these days."

Richard nods, then, glancing over his shoulder at the redhead, the girl who liked black holes. "Yeah, please." He reaches up -- fetches down the book Gallowglass had pointed out. "I should get going after I say hi, though. Gotta get through this book by Monday; assignment. Here," the other, more expensive volume, "should I give this to you, or just leave it on the reshelving rack?"

A. Romero

A good place for people like us.

Noncommittal nod. Girls her age don't want to admit to being nerds or having more interest in books than boys. There's a sea change come their way though. Books are fashionable now. Reading isn't something sociopaths and shooters do in between plastering their walls with newspaper cutouts and apocrypha pages.

They aren't talking about bookworms as people though. Sid is talking about magic. And Alicia is oblivious. She doesn't realize that she's been talking to a witch this whole time.

Ignorance is bliss sure but it's a real bitch when the light hits you.

"I will," she says. "This seems like a cool place."

A glance back towards the men and it looks like the clerk noticed her pointing and the men noticed Sid. She said she was a regular so Alicia nods her head and then ducks it. With her arms wrapped around the book again she drifts over to the register. She takes her time so she can look at everything she hasn't journeyed past yet.

Weston

Alicia doesn't know what Sid means. She doesn't notice that the light around the Verbena seems different, seems greener somehow. She doesn't notice despite her quiet attitude there is a feeling of boundless joy mingled with a quiet desperation. Or maybe she does but her mind simply isn't registering it.

Whether Sid notices and realizes this or not doesn't matter. That she hasn't gotten Alicia's name doesn't matter, either. They'll run into each other again if Fate wishes it. Things will be figured out eventually, they usually are.

Sid is a slow, patient, ancient thing. The sort of wild creature that was in the primordial forest before a line of apes evolved into Men.

Alicia does not look like she's in a hurry to get to the register. Sid watches her a moment before looking away to the bookshelves. She picks out a few that seem interesting enough, and moves slightly more briskly toward the register, hopefully beating Alicia to it. There are two other books besides the one with the Latin inscription on the side. Then she twists at the waist to reach into her bag for her wallet. From it she pulls two cards. One is plastic. One is smaller, white, and paper. She slips this into one of the books like a bookmark. Then she arranges her trio of books into two small piles. Well, one a pile of two books, one a singular, lonely little history book.

D. Gallowglass

The wrinkles around his eyes deepen; the lines around his mouth carving into an actual dimple. He even deigns to hah at that grim reaper thing. "I should say I'm surprised that people dare," but he isn't is the implication, not upon any real thought. Mages are all arrogant. Reputation only goes so far. "Only the past six months. May I ask -- ah, well." He restrains himself, but the curiousity in his eyes is no secret. "If you should get going, maybe another time?"

Let's be bros. And he does take the pricey edition Fitzgerald.

Alicia: is mosying, and everybody's getting sucked in by the gravitational pull of the register anyway. Sara would be pleased. Not as pleased as she would be (was) at Hawksley's purchase, but still: a day when three people all buy something is a good day for the shop.

"Hey, Sid," Adam says, and his tone voice isn't a hello Sid, but a hey Sid I claim your attention. "This is Richard. He's Eleanor's student; going to House Ursa soon. Richard, this is Sid. She's got a green thumb."

Name-dropping; it's almost as good as inscrutable passwords. "Richard, this is Sid."

Who gets, now that Adam's seen the two piles, raised eyebrows and a querying look. Night Owl Books isn't the kind of place with its own bags. It has bags from motley and sundry and paper to wrap the books in.

Richard

"Another time," Richard says, which sounds more like a promise than a deferral.

They mosey toward the cash register. Everyone is buying; Richard is buying the least. But then, Richard is also a new customer. Baby steps.

"Hi, Sid," to the introductions. "I sort of guessed about the green thumb. The gardens around the house were something of your doing, weren't they?"

And also, a hand, a shake. He glances past Sid, at black-holes-girl, who is now hugging a book to her chest like a long-lost friend. Must be the one she was looking for, Richard thinks, and then says it aloud: "Glad you found what you were looking for."

Weston

"Adam," she returns, and look, she cannot help the way her expression brightens once he has claimed her attention. It is hard for her to stay in a foul spirit when Adam is around, goodness knows why. Perhaps it is the youthfulness of him, or the earnestness that she sees.

Perhaps it's the memory of asking him about Time and watching him transform with interest.

But here, now. She looks at him, and then she turns her head to look over and up! to Richard. "Hi," she says. "They are." Present tense because she checked. Her Working is still going strong. And doesn't she seem pleased at the mention? No, not quite? Well she is. And she does not mean to be impolite by leaving it at that, it's just that Alicia is making her way to the register which means that Alicia is getting ready to take off and Sid has something for her.

Two somethings.

Her attention turns to them, and it turns to Adam. "I'll take these and that Rumi I saw, please. These are for her." She rests her fingertips lightly on the stack of merely two books, and she tips her head toward Alicia. "I told her she could come back here. If she picks out any books, ah. I don't know if you do tabs, but I'd like to cover them."

While Adam tallies up her purchases her attention returns to Richard. "Eleanor's student. If you see her, tell her she still owes me a rematch in Wii Bowling."

A. Romero

Sid does beat Alicia to the cash register. Ahead of her as she is Sid buys herself a head start whereby the girl can't argue her out of buying her anything. The need to leave as soon as possible disappears as the others head towards the door. Some small amount of relief in knowing her head will stop swimming soon.

Something on a nearby shelf has caught her attention. An invitation and a promise to come back so she doesn't have to shell out funds now. Truth be told she could live in a place like this but who wouldn't want to live in a library. You'd never need a television or the Internet. An entire lifetime could pass reading and you'd never reach the end of all of it.

With her back to the others the girl looks pensive and hopeful and lonely the way all young people look when they're by themselves. Nothing but their thoughts and the yawning expanse of their futures. They need other people to haul them out of themselves. Some part of her must recognize she can't survive on her own even if she doesn't know what she's supposed to do next.

She looks back when the swimmer reaches out to her and she smiles a warmer smile than the one she gave him earlier. Distance helps. Maybe she isn't straining her neck to look up at him anymore or Sid has made the door feel closer and not so necessary at once.

She tilts her chin towards the Verbena and says, "She helped."

Richard

"Nice," Richard approves -- the book, the help, all of the above. Something. And a nod Sid's way, "I'll pass the word on. But she's been practicing, you know. I haven't beaten her since I got back from my semester abroad."

Then it's his turn at the cash register. While Gallowglass rings him up, Richard digs in his wallet for cash; knows enough about credit cards and credit card companies to know that insisting on Visa/Mastercard will deprive his new friend of what little he was going to earn off that inexpensive Fitzgerald.

"You run a nice shop," he says as books and money change hands. "I'll drop by again sometime. And maybe I'll see you guys up in Morrison."

D. Gallowglass

Do they do tabs?

"As a matter of fact," and the pale Hermetic sounds surprised that Sid would want to open 'a tab,' but amused as well. "Certain individuals and organizations do have accounts with Night Owl. If you want to truly open one just write your name and the names of those you empower to you draw on your account here," here being a - wait for it - pad of yellow legal paper. He'll put the information into the real book later, but handwriting does seem to be a must. "If it's just for today, I can handle it. Whihc card?"

He rings up (uses a calculator just to check his math) and write a receipt for the two books Sid is going to give the Agent of Chaos / Teenage Girl first, wraps them in paper, puts them in a plastic bag for a clothing shop down the way. The Rumi is the most expensive of the books Sid has chosen, but it's also the nicest and the most rare. He lingers over it before it too goes into paper and then into plastic so the rain won't touch it.

He doesn't feel the need to break into the conversation web that's going on. Spider-Adam, and the web's his bookshop, and their voices are little moth-legs or fly-legs - or something.

Until he rings Richard up, and the Euthanatos takes his leave. "Enjoy the rest of your day and the FitzGerald," Adam says by way of farewell. "It was nice meeting you."

Weston

Sid's mouth sort of quirks into a vague but amused and accepting look. One shoulder lifts slightly before falling down again.

"She'll beat me again. She has faster reflexes." Has Richard ever seen Eleanor with a gun? Probably. Sid has, too. So she understands where the ability to beat the pants off the competition in a game of pretend bowling really comes from. Anyway, Sid does not seem upset that she's been beaten or terribly resigned to the fact that Eleanor will beat her again.

She slides the legal pad to the side, because it will take a moment to fill it out and she can do that while Adam is ringing out the others. First things first. "Today it'll be this card. Well. Today and always, I guess."

And Alicia, aw, Alicia. You're not alone anymore. Sid may not be overflowing with warm gooshy friendliness, but she's left a means of contact inside one of those books. A card with a company logo on it, and the name Amelia Weston in a nice little block of lettering.

"I left my card inside," she says, picking up the purchases and holding the two free-for-Alicia books. "You can call me if you need anything. Richard, it was nice meeting you." Then she steps aside to start filling out the information Adam needs for her to open up an account. But she pauses. Looks at Alicia before the girl can get away. "What's your name?" she asks. "So I can add it."

Richard

"You too," Richard says to one, to all, picking his book up bagless and wrapping-less. He intends to start reading it pronto, anyway; hardly needs a bag for that. "Night," he adds, and on that note, heads on out.

[thanks for the invite and the scene, guys! i am off!]

A. Romero

[Thanks, Damon!]

A. Romero

"Add it to what?"

She had been turned towards the stacks during the discussion about tabs and corporate accounts and blah blah boring stuff she probably should have been listening to. Isn't turned anymore because she had to answer Richard and now that Sid is talking to her she doesn't want to be rude so the girl puts her back to the shelf. Still has her arms around the Cosmos.

Either a delayed subconscious recollection fires or Sid answers. Either way:

"Oh! Oh, you don't have to... um..." Flinch. Accept the hospitality, dumbass. "Alicia. My name's Alicia." Deep breath. Let it out again. She tightens her hold on the book. "Thank you, so much."

Weston

Sid's answer comes in the form of her tapping a pen against a yellow legal pad. It's not meant to be rude, the woman is simply (usually) of few words. The come from her sparingly. Maybe they have more weight that way. Truthfully, it's a holdover from her years when she was in hiding, too scared of strangers and the dangers they posed to her to speak much.

She opens her mouth for a verbal answer, because she realizes that maybe Alicia wasn't paying attention when Sid asked about tabs and opening up an account, or if she was she didn't realize Sid meant it for her.

Alicia reacts, and Sid smiles this slight thing at her, a pale ghost of warmth she wants to feel but which has seemed just out of reach these last few months. For what it's worth, though, it's genuine.

"It's fine," she says. "I like to encourage people who like to learn however I can." She looks at Adam, red brows lifting. "Is that enough?" Whatever his answer, Sid looks down at the legal pad where she's written her name in neat, precise, yet sharply angling letters. The end of the pen starts to make its way toward her mouth - Sid is a pen chewer, that's right, she chews on things like writing utensils or her lips when she's thinking - but catches herself before she can taint the thing with her Verbena cooties. She decides to write down a second name. Shoshannah Mitchell. Sid isn't exactly flush, not at the moment, but she knows that soon she will be. And if she can do nothing else for the young learners of this city that she takes beneath her wings, she can make sure that they can read and learn and grow their minds.

She takes the books wrapped up in plastic, and she turns that sort-of smile at Adam before she lifts the flap of her messenger bag and carefully slips them inside.

D. Gallowglass

Bemusement. That's what his expression is touched by; mild bemusement. He does what he does with plastic and with paper. The pen Sid is using isn't, thankfully, one of Adam's good pens, so the Hermetic doesn't stiffen with a presentiment of rage (get better at holding your temper, Adam) as it moves toward her mouth. Phew. Is that enough?

"As long as you don't get upset on the off-chance someone else named Alicia knows you've an account and asks for a book on it."

How much could somebody spend at a bookstore? It would probably be fine.

Then again: some of the price tags are -

The price of some of the books in Night Owl Books could be saved to help a downpayment on a house. Those books aren't kept where anybody could grab them, of course...

"You're out and about earlier than I expected," he adds, once thank yous have been thanked, to Sid clearly. He's not staring at Alicia, but she's new and she's Chaotic and he's considering her.

A. Romero

And with that Alicia senses she's free to go. The grownups aren't looking at her and she wants to get through the rain and back to the motel so she can start this sordid love affair with her new book.

Zip! goes the wee agent of chaos. No proper farewell. Only the jingling of the bell to sound her flight.

Weston

[flavor-ish roll, hup!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 7, 7, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )

Weston

Sid fills out the rest of the requested information. She finds the thought that someone would rip her off for books genuinely amusing. "I don't know that I'd mind that so much." She knows that there are books in here that cost a substantial amount. The card number that she provides him with has a very finite limit, however. It's not like someone could buy the whole card on her account. Still. Next to 'Alicia' she writes 'Vigilō.' Does Adam know Latin? Of course he must.

Alicia is free to go and she takes her leave quickly, zip zip! Out the door, with a jingle in her wake and rain ahead of her. Sid turns her head to watch her go. "I am," she answers Adam. Rather than turning back to look at him she leans back, shifts her bag and puts her hands deliberately on the edge of the counter. Last night she altered her body, changed her muscles so that she was quicker, more agile, a swifter thing. She's let that feeling go and returned to her own abilities, which are nothing to turn ones nose at. Sid may be quiet and studious, something of an academic, but truth is Richard isn't the only athlete-geek in the neighborhood. Sid braces herself and (don't worry Adam, she made sure the coast (the counter) was clear first) lifts herself up to perch on the edge of the counter. That's when she turns a little, angles her body so that she can look over at Adam.

And doesn't she look a little more comfortable now? A little more present in her own skin. A little less like the ghost of herself that she appears to be. Still tired, though. Still wan.

"Work needed me here," she says. Then, "Have you seen her before?" Her being Alicia of course.

Weston

Sid fills out the rest of the requested information. She finds the thought that someone would rip her off for books genuinely amusing. "I don't know that I'd mind that so much." She knows that there are books in here that cost a substantial amount. The card number that she provides him with has a very finite limit, however. It's not like someone could buy the whole card on her account. Still. Next to 'Alicia' she writes 'Vigilo.' (imagine there is a line over that o!) Does Adam know Latin? Of course he must.

Alicia is free to go and she takes her leave quickly, zip zip! Out the door, with a jingle in her wake and rain ahead of her. Sid turns her head to watch her go. "I am," she answers Adam. Rather than turning back to look at him she leans back, shifts her bag and puts her hands deliberately on the edge of the counter. Last night she altered her body, changed her muscles so that she was quicker, more agile, a swifter thing. She's let that feeling go and returned to her own abilities, which are nothing to turn ones nose at. Sid may be quiet and studious, something of an academic, but truth is Richard isn't the only athlete-geek in the neighborhood. Sid braces herself and (don't worry Adam, she made sure the coast (the counter) was clear first) lifts herself up to perch on the edge of the counter. That's when she turns a little, angles her body so that she can look over at Adam.

And doesn't she look a little more comfortable now? A little more present in her own skin. A little less like the ghost of herself that she appears to be. Still tired, though. Still wan.

"Work needed me here," she says. Then, "Have you seen her before?"

D. Gallowglass

He watches Alicia leave. His eyes are thoughtful, of course; his expression pensive, restrained, reserved. He is a reserved young man, as if in inverse proportion to the wildness of his hair - yes? Sid and Adam match today, sleepless shadows around both their eyes, although he doesn't have the excuse she does of hard travel and time zones. He doesn't have a flight spent (hopefully) in a stupor.

He doesn't have giant attack spiders in his recent history.

He turns his attention back to Sid once Alicia is gone. She settles on the counter (it's his desk's top, but nothing's on it that he's working on right now; there's no fear of his temper sparking, blackening - not right at this moment) and he takes a seat in his chair, ungainly enough that he rolls back a foot from the natural force, steepling his fingers.

"Erm, your work certainly seems to send you, ah, all over the place. Does it feel like a perk or an obligation?" Eyes drifting to the door again, he shakes his head.

"I haven't. She seems jumpy. And science? Perhaps a Son."

He does stereotype. Chaos = Sons of Ether. Science = Bad sign usually. But when not TERRIBLE, perhaps a Son of Ether.

Weston

At least the trip home was only two flights, with a (relatively) short two hour layover between them. And she arrived on Thursday evening so there has been a little time for her to rest. There was a little time for her to rest before the giant attack spiders were a thing that happened, and she's slept since, but even so. She wore herself out yesterday, and there is still a matter of jet lag. So yes, she does match Adam today for exhaustion and paleness of skin (though there is the slightest smattering of freckles on her face now, someone got some sun recently).

"It's supposed to be temporary," she says. "Meeting people working on things and putting faces with the names I'll be working with. Learning their languages and figuring out how to communicate. That sorta thing." Ordinarily she might not sit on the edge of Adam's desk but today? Today she is not entirely thinking clearly. Not that she wouldn't have helped out Alicia as she has, and as she will in the future if she were better rested. But she might not have sat on Adam's desk when she knows how territorial he is about it.

Maybe he realizes she's a little less herself, because he doesn't tell her not to sit there, Sid, I mean come one there is a perfectly serviceable floor for you to, to sit or stand on.

"I might have to go back to Sydney. I hope I don't. I'm tired of going from winter to winter. I'm ready for spring."

Adam takes a guess at Alicia's possible tradition and Sid can't help but shift her mouth into something like a smile. "I'm science," she reminds him. "And I'm not a Son. I met one, though, when I was in Moscow."

D. Gallowglass

"You touch seeds and they think that spring is already here, blooming into the green season," Adam says, imperturbable. Sid is science, but she's not Science. Just imagine that word in one of those old school blood-dripping fonts. Bemused. Touch of a chuckle to his voice, the easy crease of a smile, his hands are folded over his torso now he's leaning back so comfortably.

"Of course," his eyes to the door again, his tone-of-voice musing, "I have met willworkers with similar resonances before in other traditions." From the door, back to Sid. Tired Sid on his desk. Ready for spring. "Was he - " - he's assuming a he; they're called the Sons for a reason, even if he just pegged Alicia as a maybe - " - part of the people you'll be working with?"

Curious.

Weston

There was a time when what Sid says next would have been spoken in an extra quiet voice, with her eyes downcast, and a note of loss like a death knell ringing through her words. They are still spoken quietly, but there is the hint of something else in them. Thoughtfulness. "I was a scientist before all of that."

Before the touch that causes flowers to blossom for joy of coming into contact with her fingers. Before she started leaving trails of blooms springing up in the wake of her bare feet.

But the other. The Etherite. Sid shakes her head. "No. It was a," she pauses, about to say random encounter. After all she's been through, though? After all she's learned and come to understand about fate and its workings? And in particular, after what just happened, here in this shop? "An unexpected encounter," she says instead. "I went for a walk and we just sort of ran into each other. Like the universe knew I was starting to feel homesick," she muses, the barest flicker of a smile edging into her lips, "and sent me someone to talk to."

She blinks her dark, ancient-seeming eyes and looks at Adam. Adam leaning in his chair, so comfortable. So comfortable to be around. "Did I miss anything while I was gone?"

D. Gallowglass

"Erm." Sid strikes Adam (or has struck Adam) as one who is more aware of the movement of the dangerous tides which sweep across Denver's Awakened population than he. Most of their mutual aquaintances the Verbena knew first (as far as he is aware), so he thinks back to the last time they spoke (something casual, coffee perhaps, tea - maybe a run-in at the House's library or maybe right here in this very shop). He unfolds his hands, raking at his forelock which has flopped like it wants to get in his eyes. "Let me see. Nothing unusual in the past week as far as I'm aware. Mummy at the rectory, bones laid to rest, erm, some sort of 'weird green guy' - I do quote ' chasing that Alexander fellow. I rather think that began before you hied yourself off. Ah."

Think think think think. Has he heard anything else recently? He has not. "I tried to convince Grace to put Ginger on my typewriter," a grin, creases his cheeks and around his eyes. "Said it wouldn't work. Maybe your Son friend could Macguyver something for me."

Sid feels now more like a stag, somehow; he can practically imagine the crown of antlers, moss-laden, heavy.

He's considering this. "So you were homesick for Awakened company."

Weston

Ordinarily, Sid is the one in this city the most in the know about goings on and whatnot. At least she used to be. Used to be she was one of the first faces newcomers met. And she was Ginger before Ginger was Ginger - and isn't that ironic. But before the advent of the secure communication service Sid did things the old fashioned way. Messaged all the Awakened people that she knew in the city regardless of her feelings about those people, because whether she liked them or not had no bearing on their continued survival. Had to be cryptic about it, too, because she was afraid to be too open in a text.

Lately, though, even before she left she was a little left of the loop. Things happened and she was not informed. Alexander was chased by a weird green guy before she left. Sid's expression darkens. These things should not be kept secret, not from the whole.

"I didn't hear about that." She's not allowed to be too thoughtful or too quiet for long, though. He tried to convince Grace to put Ginger on his typewriter and she can't help the sound that escapes her lips. It is a huff, the slightest puff, like the last little bit of air in her lungs was suddenly forced out of them. It is as close to a laugh as she gets anymore.

"I can't imagine that went well. If Ralph shows up around here we can always ask him if there's something he can do. Give your typewriter an upgrade. That would." She pauses, thoughtful. "That would actually be really cool." This while he's considering the look of her, the way he can almost see the antlers sprung from her skull, rising up above her ears in a heavy branching. Broken grass caught up in the mane of her hair.

"Not exactly. It was nice, though. We talked about rocket ships and getting past the Avatar Storms. It was my first week, though. Mostly I just wanted someone who spoke English fluently. I would've been happy talking about, about men losing their rights to feminism, or listening to someone try to convince me to come to Jesus."

D. Gallowglass

He hahs. He is one of those individuals who actually hahs, a breathy sort of sound, a crackle of amusement, eyes squinting with the bare touch of it, half-moons. "Has anyone tried to convince you before to come to Jesus? The Padre," syllables dropped carefully, with-care, because that's what he's heard other people call Pan, "perhaps?"

The humor doesn't leave, but it does recede. Go back in time. Not literally, but go back to Sid not hearing about:

"As for Alexander and the green man, I haven't heard anything since. Certainly has to do with the spirit world somehow; he was apparently warned off by a ghost and the green man was preceded by a sense of rot. I want to say Alyssa's involved."

Weston

"Yes," is her first answer, but her smile is too nostalgic to be for anything recent. "When I was younger I was a heathen sinner." Her expression falls and her eyes lower to the desk. "I'm still a heathen." Selfish. She is a selfish, thoughtless thing.

"No one's tried to add me to their flock lately, though. Pan's never bothered. I think he's old enough to know. It's pointless to try. With me, at least."

Conversation turns to the green man and things of a spirit nature. There's not much Sid could do about that - hadn't she and Kalen had their biggest misunderstanding about her lack of insight into the spirit world? They made amends, but still.

"I'll call her." A sense of rot. That sounds troubling.

"And what about you?" she asks, looking at his face, the tiredness of it. "How have you been? You look tired."

D. Gallowglass

He looks tired. As if the words summon up some of that weariness, he lifts his hand and rubs his eyes. They are tired, now that he thinks about it. So is he. After the rub, his eyes are hooded and his brow crinkled like he's waking up. "That's just my face," he says. Then, seriously, "With me, some things never will change. I've been doing nothing but working."

He doesn't mean at the bookshop. This is a hobby; this is something to force him to occasionally interact with people instead of holing up in a tower somewhere, guarded from distraction while he works on his rituals and his cantrips.

"I feel like I'm on the cusp of a breakthrough with Ars Temporis," says he. Or Tempis. Tempus. Whatever the Hermetic name for Time is. "Leonhard is a good teacher, but he'd almost have to be, wouldn't he, with the way his Workings feel, but what I've been thinking about recently is constructing a golem or a fetch to help with the simple tasks."

A beat. Then: "Had I met you earlier, I would have tried to add you to my flock. I still don't think it would be a bad idea for you to consider it."

Shame? What shame? People dual tradition.

Weston

They all need distractions like this, don't they? Sid with her work. Adam with the shop. Grace with- wait. Grace said she dropped out of school, and Sid hadn't said anything in response to that. She makes a mental note to talk to the girl, reach out to her. Maybe apologize for being so...Sid doesn't know what. Uninvolved?

Selfish. If she looks back over last night and examines her behavior Sid will determine that she was being selfish. But she won't feel awful about it, not if she's reached out to Grace first.

"You have to sleep sometime," she says. Tilts her head and considers. "If I were a different kind of Verbena I'd offer you a potion. But I'm not. So I will say this. Zzquil is very helpful." What else would he expect her to offer? Sid has yet to claim allegience to a faction within her tradition, but her mentor is a Moon-Seeker. They look for ways to bring modern medicine practices to the tradition.

"I haven't had a chance to study it lately. I've been thinking a lot about fate. Entropy. Ars," she pauses, considering. "Sortis? No wait. Fortuna?"

There is that ghost of a smile again. Sid in the Order. Well, she would probably fit there, somewhere. She is studious and she has a sharp mind. Hm. "It would've been frustrating for you to try, I think. Before I moved here I...I wouldn't stay still. And I never stayed anywhere long enough for anyone to try to," she pauses, about to say catch me. Nobody can catch her still. "Teach me. Or convince me to join anything."

D. Gallowglass

He quotes with a pensive and academic air the great Calvin and Hobbes. "'Life is like topography, Hobbes. There are summits of happiness and success, flat stretches of boring routine and valleys of frustration and failure.'" A beat. "The frustration may have been worth it. The frustration may still be worth it; the Order has a lot to offer. I've never once regretted my allegiance, in spite of the politics."

His smile is spare now, and as pensive as his tone. Not dreamy, because Adam is not dreamy. But pensive, restrained, reserved; not drawing away, but collected: that might be a better word. He's a collection of thoughts and he knows just what page each thought is on.

"Why have you been thinking a lot lately about fate? Ars Fortunae." or whatever the Hermetic word for Entropy is. Player will totally fix this in post. "Dissatisfied with yours or wondering what it is?"

Weston

"I've only recently joined the Verbena, Adam. I feel like I should at least let the blood dry on the contract before I start looking elsewhere." It's a joke, see? But with the way Sid speaks it comes out dry, perhaps authentic. Perhaps she sounds serious? She does not know.

"Wondering how much it can be affected," she says after a few moments contemplation. "How many of our choices are ours, how many are out of our control. What is chance, really? What is luck. What might be preordained."

Quiet again, and then. "I guess I'm. I can't say I'm terribly satisifed with mine."

D. Gallowglass

Let the blood dry on the contract. He smirks. He doesn't have a shadow and some people have posited that he gave it away in some bloody contract; they're fools. He smirks because he appreciates the wordplay, Verbena and blood and contracts, although he also raises his eyebrows, mild surprise because Sid has never not been a Verbena to Adam.

Sid isn't satisfied with her fate and Adam's expression is not as complicated as it may seem on the surface of things, where one has the color of his eyes and his reserve to contend with. His expression is an echo of sympathy, of fellow feeling or at least an understanding of its application here.

"What conclusions have you come to so far?"

He sounds interested. He has a definite opinion on how many choices (how many permutations of fate) are out of their control, truly, after all; it's the shape his bones make under his skin and meat and muscle.

Weston

Recently, in this case at least, is a little bit relative. Compared to her time Awake she hasn't been in the Verbena for very long. Months. Since just before she met the Hermetic in fact. She almost could have gone another way, too. There was a time when she kept company with a bunch of Ecstatics. They've all but trickled out of her life now. She has come to the understanding that she will never see Jim again, and that she will only see Sera in fits and for short periods of time and in those times she will be ignored. This is just how things are now.

This is her fate. This is her punishment for the things she's done, for her selfishness. But how far will this fate stretch? Will she lose Lena, too? And Adam and Grace and everyone else?

Probably. Maybe.

"I don't know. I feel like I'm really close to understanding it, too, and it's. It's weird. The last time I had, well no. The first time I felt a greater understanding of Life, my understanding of Entropy was right there with it. The two of them together. You can't know about life and growing and health without also knowing how it can degrade or be taken away. Or at least, I couldn't. That's not how it was this time."

D. Gallowglass

He watches her thoughtfully. Control over one's fate: isn't that one of the things a classic wizard wishes to uncover; that man always tries to wrest from the gods in every story ever told about men and gods? Isn't that the theme of the godforsaken and soulless travesty of a remake of Clash of the Titans?

"How was it this time?"

[Do you think you're selfish? Do I detect a hint of self-loathing or anything? Awareness-as-Empathy + Perception (PEOPLE).]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 3, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 ) Re-rolls: 1

Weston

[manip+subt (HIDDEN EMOTIONS YOU DON'T KNOW MY LIFE)]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 7) ( success x 3 )

Weston

Control over one's fate is one of the classic struggles of mankind. It has certainly been a dominant thought in Sid's mind. What would her life be like if she'd made a different choice at this or that juncture?

Is there some self-loathing to her? Yes, though at the moment it does not appear to be something she's drowning in. Not like she was before she left. It is not a flood that threatens to wash over her and sweep her away to somewhere else. There is a sorrow to her now that wasn't there before, too. A sense of loss greater than she can easily manage.

Sid's fate has been a difficult one, but could it have been changed? Is there a 'right' track her life was supposed to be on before it was derailed, or was it always meant to be derailed?

Her head dips to the other side and her mouth quirks as she chews (yes chews) her lower lip. Thinking. "I think that...I don't know how to explain," she says, but it's a warning, dark eyes alighting on him, taking in the thoughtfulness. And see, she is trying. Trying to dampen the appearance of that sorrow. She is interested in this conversation, she is invested in it, but when Adam looks at her like that. Adam with his relentless valiance, she wonders, will he make her into a quest? Will he make delving into her mind and into her heart (not like that, not for romance) a mission? So she draws the shutters of her eyes but she's so tired. She does not draw them terribly tight.

"Before, I understood better that with good things there will be bad things. With choices there'll be times there is no choice. Where there's life, joy, there's also death, sadness. This time." Her eyes lower, lashes casting a shadow on her pale cheeks. "This time, I wonder if maybe what's holding me back is. I don't really want to know. Part of me doesn't really want to know. There are things I don't think could have been done differently, but what if I'm wrong? What if." And here her voice shifts, drops, softens. "What if I could've gone a different way? But I was too self-involved to see there was an option."

She shakes her head. She is not exactly asking Adam because she hopes that Adam has an answer. He asked, she answered. And in answering she knows a little more about herself.

Weston

[percept (she's never paranoid anymore that specialty is stupid) + awareness-as-empatchee]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

D. Gallowglass

He listens. He is interested and watchful (pensive [mused]) and he listens. He's sprawled in his chair or as near a sprawl as a young man like Adam ever sprawls when outside of the confines of his own home. He sometimes seems like he sprung out've a book but he doesn't live here. Not as most people define 'living' somewhere: though he does sleep and eat and spend at least half his hours among these spines these covers these words.

"As above, so below," he says, with a faint crook of his mouth. But Sid understands this (has plucked this from his tone of voice, from the warp and weft of silence as he listened, from some little gesture of his long-fingered hands and some little cant of his just a touch too long throat or the touch of the side of his thumb to the skin above his eyebrows which he rubs palm facing upward), and this is:

There's a shadow below the surface; it's a driven thing, fixed and more relentless than relentless. This particular subject, fate, what ifs; oh, doesn't Adam have a What If? Many mages do, but Adam: he has a What If working under his skin, wearing him not down but as if he were its jacket.

Maybe it's a sorrow. Maybe it's not. He doesn't seem sad.

Focused. And it's just a suggestion; just intuition, saying so much. Sid's eyes are downcast and she shakes her head and feels like she knows a little more about herself, having struggled with that answer.

Adam says, "I don't believe that one, once on a particular path, cannot later choose to step off that path or turn back and find the fork in the road. But I don't believe turning back or stepping off a path is for everybody; the path is there to be travelled. What if you do turn back? What if you do step off? Another what if." Slender pause. "I believe in fate, but I believe we shape our fate and make a compact with it. I hope that makes sense."

Weston

To look at Dominic Adam Julian Gallowglass, to look at merely the physical aspect of him, one will see that he casts no shadow.

Sid looks at him, and she realizes that no. It's not that Adam does not cast a shadow. It's that he does not cast a shadow outward. It's still there sliding beneath the surface of his skin. Shifting and moving within him and moving him. Most people have What Ifs. Sid has her own.

What if she hadn't run away from home?

What if she hadn't gone to Jim's that night?

What if she'd taken a different route home five years ago?

There are things that can be changed, she knows. Hell, is that not her purpose? To look back to the point of origin for the wrong path and set things right gain? That's why she went back to Pittsburgh. That's what her Avatar drew her toward when she Sought him out. It's what she does.

But.

She listens to Adam now, and as she does her eyes lower once more. But the corners of her mouth twitch like they want to lift. "For the most part I agree with you." Shrug. "I didn't say it was a rational thought. Fear usually isn't. And it's fear that helps me bend those threads." She straightens. "I think, maybe. To gain a greater understanding I need to feel a greater fear. Except. Greater fears are harder to overcome. So the understanding, it's fallen behind the rest a little."

And the look on her face then. Her looks changes to sorrow and sadness and loss. It is not so great as it might seem on the surface, but Sid is so still, and they say still waters run so deep.

"Besides. Not all choices that we make are entirely our own. If the other. Others. Whoever might be involved. If they don't want to go back." Sid shrugs, what can you do?, as she braces her hands against the desk's surface and slides her feet onto the floor, sliding off the desk as nimbly as she hopped upon it.

D. Gallowglass

How many shrugs does it take to deflect a sorrow, or loss, or fear? He listens of course because Adam often listens. He doesn't seem like the kind of man with insight into his fellow men, but he often understands what they're feeling or where they're coming from. Arrogant and selfish, but that doesn't matter.

Sid hops off of his desk and his chair creaks when he also gets up. He says, "Come here," as if a thought has just occured to him, as if he's a hum of compassion and you can't have compassion without passion. He's such a quiet young man even with his come here as he rounds the desk Watchful when he says it, but he has no reason to suspect that Sid might not welcome a hug. He's never known her not to initiate touch.

And if she doesn't recoil, he'll wrap her in a hug. Brief as far as hugs go, but long for an Adam hug.

And if she does recoil, the aborted gesture will be his arms falling at his sides, that keen and watchful look sharping up in his eyes before a ghost of a smile and a rub of the back of his head, twitchy.

Weston

There is a time when Sid would have recoiled, but that time is a dim memory to most. Sid had let go those fears a little while before she met Adam. A little while before she met most, actually. The first time she let it go, well. The first time she really let it go was beside a fire pit outside a cabin out away from everything. The person was someone that she cared for a little bit, someone who was her friend and who would come to mean the world to her. Someone she knows (thinks (believes)) she'll never see again even though he's not that far away from here. Or is he? Sid hasn't checked to see if he's still in town. Seemed better not to pry.

Anyway.

She hops down off the desk, that athletic woman who seems so pale now, the darkness beneath her eyes almost stark against the white of her skin. Tired, yes. Worn out from Willworking, yes. But hollowed out as well. She looks at Adam when he says Come here like the thought's only just occurred to him. Sid looks at him and her own brows lift. They have not hugged before, but then Sid has never seemed even the slightest bit inclined to shy away from contact before. Not with him. Not with most, anymore. Because the truth of it is, she needs contact. She needs touch. Not of a terribly intimate kind. A hand held, or a thigh pressed against a thigh. Some physical reminder that no, lady, you are not alone in the universe. It's how she always was before. It's a part of her that found itself locked away from fear, and finally released again.

Her brows lower only because after they've lifted they must. She can't very well walk around looking mildly surprised all the time, can she?

Anyway, no, Sid does not recoil from the hug. In fact she welcomes it. Wraps her arms around his torso and leans in against him. Sets her chin on his shoulder and breathes in deep, lets that breath out on a sigh. A month ago she would've burst into tears and blathered on about everything. Today, when Adam starts to relax his grip Sid holds on a beat longer before releasing him. Long for an Adam hug. Short for a Sid hug.

"Thanks," she says when she does release him, poor fellow. And what excellent timing, too. The bell above the door jingles to announce the arrival of a new customer. This one is older but stately, a woman with her grey hair twisted into a bun on the back of her head, her bangs shaped into perfect waves. She peers around, searching for something. Sid glances back at her, then looks at Adam. "I should get going, but I'll come back again soon." Perhaps when she's better rested, and a little less prone to showing such melancholy.

And thus do the mages Gallowglass of the Order of Hermes and Weston of the Verbena part ways. Don't worry, though. This isn't some dramatic Harry Potter thing, earlier references to Houses not withstanding. This is only a temporary thing.

D. Gallowglass

[CREDITS.]