AliciaThe bell rings the same for Alicia as it would ring for anyone else. Their meeting was arranged in the loosest of terms and if Adam had given up the thought of her ever appearing if he had ever had the thought to begin with no one would blame him. Alicia does not smack of flightiness but she also doesn't give off the impression that she means the things she says. Like maybe she's learned it's easier just to say she'll do something and then not do it.
First impressions are often wrong. So are the second and the third impressions. People are rarely so honest as they wish others would be and those who are honest are unsettling in their honesty. Alicia is not an honest sort.
She wasn't lying when she told Adam she would stop by sometime. Hard to tell if she would be a liar if she had never shown up but she does show up. The bell rings. She steps inside wearing sandals that clap against the floor and a backpack slung over her shoulder. Yellow sundress drapes to her knees and her hair is unrestrained. Even if she was up late the night before drinking and smoking and talking philosophy at a volume meant to compete with music she doesn't look tired.
Now where is Adam?
AdamHe's at his desk.
He's not always at his desk but he is often at his desk. Night Owl has strange hours and it was closed for most of the day, so it must be later in the evening now, after most Mom & Pop-type stores have locked up. The evening is gray, the twilight is gray, the city is in gloaming, is in summer mourning, and the bookshop smells of books and books and books, paper and glue and leather.
He's at his desk and -- is it a surprise? He's so easy to forget about and fail to notice. He's sitting at his desk with the chair pushed out (a different chair than the last time she was in), a wheeled wooden deal, leaning back with one ankle on his knee, holding a book that is falling apart carefully balanced on his fingertips. Each page is as thin as a beeswing, so he will be turning the page carefully.
There's a plate of cold pizza on the desk, and maybe it wasn't cold when he put it there. The strings of cheese indicate (oracles!) that once upon a time that pizza was delicious and cheesy and wonderful but he's since forgotten it. Rest assured: there's a clump of napkins, too. He doesn't look up immediately when the bell rings.
Ruse is out, too, curled up on one of the business bookshelves behind Adam's desk, between books wrapped in paper and meant to be picked up by other people. The ferret practically disappears into the shadows.
The store is otherwise empty.
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 4, 5, 5, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )
AliciaThat's something Alicia is too young to understand or if she isn't too young then she hasn't found some calling in her life that would make her ignore pizza long enough that it would congeal and become less delicious. That alone may not be the greatest difference between them but it is a visible difference and one she has not yet noticed because she is wandering through the bookstore in search of a bookseller.
Is it late enough that she can call out and not disturb the other customers? Are there other customers? Does she dare?
They can kick her out if she isn't supposed to speak above a whisper.
"Adam?" she says. Like a kid jumped into a pool eyes closed calling out for Marco.
AdamHe's used to going undisturbed. It's an advantage in libraries staffed by sleepers -- by anyone whose perceptions haven't yet been honed enough to see. Alicia could wander and wander through the stacks, lose herself around this corner or that, down in the gloomy forest of antiquarian works or maybe even upstairs, further and further from the Hermetic at study, as much engaged in the world as any of the books settled on a shelf, books which contain their own worlds, books which are scribed with words and ink is a spell and knowledge is held-fast is fast-held and --
Except Alicia calls Adam's name. Adam, not Kit or Christopher, which he would continue to ignore. Not Dominic or Julian either, which would have him looking up somewhat sooner, but Adam never gave the Orphan a proper introduction now, did he.
So: Adam?
"Yes?" Alicia is just wandering toward the stairs when he blinks and looks up. Leans forward on the desk, hard on his forearms, to peer over at where she should be. She's awfully short; she might have just disappeared. He sounds bemused: "Who was that?"
Resonance. Ah. Right. "Alicia?"
Alicia[note to self: buy a dot of awareness]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (8, 9) ( success x 2 )
Alicia[and another bc i should have rolled once per round]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (6, 9) ( success x 2 )
Alicia[Arcane is stupid and I hope M20 gets rid of it ignore those dice]
AliciaIf Alicia were a more orderly sort of girl she might have gone so far in her silence but she doesn't have the sort of decorum necessary to traverse another's space without making herself known. He can feel her moving besides because he can feel the magick she's wrought recently. That same spatial pinging out into the aether like she needs to know where she is. A culmination of Spheres like to spot trouble before trouble spots her and pages his buddies and cuts her down the way they cut down her father.
Nothing active now. She's here on a peaceful mission. She's nearly at the stairs when her source blinks and peers.
He calls her name and she thinks that's his voice but how the hell would she know. Her memory is terrible.
"Adam?" she says. Can she see him? Where the hell is his desk. "Where are you?"
AdamThey usually look. Engage, but then can't keep features in mind one second to the next, and before say the clerk at a store has given Adam his change she's already forgotten him; sometimes he has to remind the clerk of his exact change; sometimes it is even less consequential than that.
Alicia can see him once she moves one aisle over, back in the direction of the front door, or in the direction of the back of the store. His desk: if you enter the store and keep going back, it's right there; a good place to keep an eye on the entire shop. A little cleared area. The desk is the counter.
The desk is books and books and books.
(He flings that natural sense of Mystery, of Obfuscation [once she gets to know him, it will fade; like a first impression] back away.)
"Oy," he says, leaning further. "At the desk." His hair looks like he put his finger in an electrical socket or just hasn't washed it for a while. Look how fucking wild it is. He puts an elbow on the plate of pizza then goes, "Bugger," though he is not British (it whispers sometimes in his voice, a foreignness; but it isn't British; only company kept, habits accrued), taking his elbow off of the plate in order to stand.
At least cold pizza grease is less greasy. He's wiping it off with one of those crumpled up napkins and standing by the time Alicia's fought her way out've the stacks and found her way to the desk (the same place one purchases things, when one purchases them from Night Owl Books or An Arch Key Books).
"Erm, good evening, or is it... what time is it?"
AliciaOh shit there he is. Alicia was looking the other way or looking inward or who even knows what she was looking at but now she's looking at him and the details start to coalesce and she doesn't take the time to school her expression. Her eyebrows lift. Wow. This is the guy she's brought one of the only possessions of her father's now in her possession.
Booksellers are supposed to be eccentric. Stands to reason his hair is fucking wild and his elbow gets more action from the pizza than does his stomach. Alicia and her sandals clap that way.
What time is it.
"Like..." Even though she wears a neon green plastic watch strapped to one wrist she slides a phone from her ass pocket to check the time. "Seven-thirty. Should I come back tomorrow?"
Adam"We're open until three in the morning tonight, erm, well, and tomorrow night," Adam replies. "The hours are rather irregular. I expect a couple of the regulars to wander in around one and use the desk upstairs."
The crumpled napkins find their way to the bin under his desk. He retreats behind it again, no longer leaning across it like a librarian who has heard somebody needing shushing across the long (and stately [and cold]) hall.
"So no, feel free to stay as long as you like. Pull up a chair, or, ah, if you'd like pizza," bemused. He's so bemused right now: he blinks at Alicia a couple of times as if it's been a while since he remembered people exist, which is, in fact, the case. He stood; right? Now he frowns down at the old book he was reading with such care, its pages brittle enough that the light might eat them if one is not careful, and the open journal beside him with notes.
"Here, would you like to take a look?" Adam offers, before closing it.
AliciaMaybe she would like pizza but it's cold and she'd like to think she isn't that desperate. Maybe she's been taught it's polite to refuse hospitality at least once before accepting it. Maybe more than once. One can't tell by looking at her what her upbringing must have been like. It's not important. The past is in the past et cetera et cetera and Alicia suppresses the urge to laugh at his bemusement.
All of the people in this city act like they've lived their lives in an underground bunker. Would she like to take a look. They were just talking about pizza. That is not pizza.
"What is it?" she asks. Maybe she does want to take a look but answers like that are binding contracts with some people.
Adam"A book. An old book." He could leave it there. He would, some other time: he'd even couple it with a faint smirk. But this is a time when he is fresh from the world of ideas and thoughts and the bemusement is still fresh; it makes him mild and interested and when he is interested he is limned by it (made valiant and relentless, both, and those things needn't be bright), and though it gives him those sleepless shadows around his eyes, that vampire waxiness to his skin, that of course you're not eating Adam you should fucking eat thinness to his shoulders, he wouldn't have it any other way.
"It belonged to Phoebe Featherstonshaw-Travers, the American linguist and ex-pat who disappeared during the interwar, this copy did that is, and erm, but this copy was bound in early nineteen-hundreds or perhaps older, that page is missing, but it is a copy of a copy of a copy of a bestiary said to have inspired the Physiologus. She has added some notes of her own and there are misprints but it's very interesting."
AliciaThat does sound interesting. Alicia stands frowning before his desk as he goes on about the American linguist and copies of copies of copies and the Physiologus she might know the Physiologus but she doesn't let on if she does or if she doesn't and then there's the matter of the notes and the misprints.
Her frown persists but she does glance down. Pocketbook capable of carrying half her weight in alcohol slung over one shoulder and she adjusts the weight of it because the book she brought is heavy but it doesn't distract her. Alicia glances down and steps closer to the desk and cants her head to see the page.
"What's the interwar?" she asks.
AdamThis is not an illuminated manuscript. No monk labored, in a cloister, with brushes of ermine and paints made of crushed gem and rarest inks, and it does not gleam with gold-leaf hammered in and dissolved into thin cured skin of an animal or the hard-woven pulp of a plant that will last forever (or until the light dissolves it; untl it becomes too brittle; until it goes at last to dust as soon as it meets the open air). But it is an illustrated book, and though the book is written in a [Ancient] Greek, the illustration requires no knowledge of language to enjoy.
A female face and curls of cinnabar, of rust, of blood. High breasts, round in the way artists sometimes drew them in woodcuts of earlier centuries or made them on statues--as if a dream of plastic surgery was always a vision men had. Chest which becomes a feline torso, a feline body, powerful haunches and most vicious claws, narrow pantherine waist to help puff out the chest like a regal leonine thing, right, a whisk of a tail, which scorpions are hanging from, seven scorpions, one of which seems to be bleeding, a crushed scorpion under one of her paws, and her mouth is open with three different sets of teeth troubling what would otherwise be a madonna's face. The landscape is without depth but the scorpions litter the ground and also something which looks very like an ibis or a stork.
The ibis is holding a pen and hiding beside a low bush or tree or something. The creature with the female face and breasts is higher than the bird and tree and there are five stars in the sky and another bird looking down with its wings aloft.
Something that might be a rat or a camel occupies the very furthest righthandest corner and seems to be contemplating stepping on a little scarab.
"The interwar is the period of time between World War I and World War II."
AliciaEasy enough to underestimate the mental capacity of the girl stood in front of his desk when she presents herself to the world as she does but the frown fades as she asks her question and hovers her fingertips over the book's face without allowing the oil from her skin to stain the ink.
"It's beautiful," she says. She looks like she wants to flip through the book but she doesn't want to touch it. She looks back up at him. "Can you read Greek?"
Adam"In this case, yes," Adam replies. "Although it isn't as simple as it could be. The author or copyist appears to have used a form of Mycenaean Greek, but just occasionally," a sigh, "a passage will come up, or a phrase, written in a bastardized version of a later form of the language, something notably different from the medieval form which hadn't changed all that much from the -- erm, well, it is occasionally a puzzle. And I don't yet speak or read modern Greek. I suspect the copyist wanted to embellish certain tales with his or her own imaginative flights or -- " and he smiles, a poised and unselfconscious thing, which gives him a dreaming cast and brings furrows into his cheeks that could be dimples if his beard wasn't doing its level best to give him some dignity.
" -- their own ideas about what these beasts meant and what those meanings could be coaxed to do, if one had the proper command of the various facets of, erm. But Ms. Featherstonshaw-Travers's insights are interesting as well."
Now, Adam, Adam gives Alicia a look now to see whether she is actually interested or just being polite. If she is one, then he'll start turning the pages carefully. If she is the other, he won't.
AliciaCapricious though she is Alicia does know how to behave in mixed company. But Adam wouldn't know that. Adam has seen her scamper about the store enthralled by the presence of so many unread books and yet mistrustful of the people she'd met. Happy to talk to them but wary of them at once. That day in the corner store she'd nearly cried talking about her kidnapped father. They don't know each other at all.
She thinks he's a nerd and he can see on her face that she thinks he's a nerd but she's a nerd too. This isn't polite feigning of interest in front of his desk.
Alicia adjusts the weight of her handbag again and lets him turn the pages.
"Was she Awake, too?"
Adam"How would it influence your opinion of her if she was?" he asks, and his tone is one of mild curiosity; mild curiosity also informs the tint of his eyes, the shadow of them, when he glances at her in that way people glance at one another during a conversation, as if line of sight was important. His eyes are mostly on the book as he (carefully) tries to find the page of Featherstonshaw-Travers's scribblings he has decided to show her.
Alicia"It wouldn't, I guess."
The bestiary has creatures in it that look as if they could have come up out of a dream. Most of them are real. But they live in a world of impossible things made so. It might be nice to know that phoenixes and griffins and dragons were real once if they aren't still. That the woman went on this quest because she knew reality wasn't so static as the Sleepers believed it to be.
"You don't have to be Awake to be..." She doesn't know what this is. This is wonderful but she isn't insightful enough herself to recognize insight in another. So she jumps the tracks. "There are way more people in the world who aren't Awake than people who are. Right?" Rhetorical. "I was just wondering."
AdamHe rubs his jaw (scritch, scritch goes his beard) absently. He's tired, Adam. He really should sleep. It hits him all at once, when going past a page depicting a headless woman with eyes where her nipples should be and a page depicting something that looks like a vulture with snakes for wings. Almost there.
She was just wondering. Adam seems to accept it. Says, "Do you think that anybody can Awaken?" And he's as curious about this as he was about the other, so that it makes him more alert. He does choose to answer her: "I think she was Awake. Erm, Featherstonshaugh-Travers, that is. But I don't know enough about her to track down her personal history and find out."
AliciaAlicia doesn't even flinch at the next few pictures. Woman with eyes for areolae. That isn't the weirdest thing she's ever seen. She doesn't giggle or say something blasé. They move on. He asks a question but doesn't wait for an answer. That doesn't mean she'll let it go.
They aren't the first Awakened individuals she's ever met in her life. She knows how weird these people can be.
"Well I mean she's probably dead now. And even if she's not..." Age doesn't mean any more than anything else does. Alicia rakes her hand through her hair. "I don't know. Maybe super old people can't Awaken, but... maybe anybody can. Shit, I did."
AdamHe may be (arrogant) self-possessed, but his expressions are mobile things. When he speaks, he is animated, but no gesture is without a sense of being economical, part of whatever it is he is saying. His hands don't fly all over the place, but neither is he utter in his stillness. Both of his eyebrows leap upward as if they're chasing a thought trying to snag it and keep it back here please no not out there, and he offers, "I personally think anybody can, regardless of age. What does age have to do with thought, except that those who are more used to thinking in a certain way are less likely to change their minds. I rather think it's important to think that anybody can. Otherwise, one starts to think one is special just by birth instead of by choice. Here we go."
He turns the page towards her.
It depicts a creature with the head of a stag and the mane of a lion, its mane trailing out and full of stars, a raven nesting in the waves of its hair. Its front two feet are hooved; its chest is grandiose; curls and curls. At its waist, it becomes an eagle, and it appears to be sitting on the sunburst (heraldic), surrounded by genuflecting creatures one at each point of the sunburst (there are seven). The colors tend to golds and purples and reds, regal colors, sharp enough to sink one's teeth into, and beside that is written in faded ink words in English all in the margins.
Featherstoneshaugh-Travers made a comment to the effect that a) if the hotel manager thinks she is going to believe he managed to attain powdered (what this creature is called; some name she doesn't translate) and that it is used as an aphrodisiac after listening to him complain when he thought she couldn't understand him about his wife than he is as moronic as the hotel food is bad, and b) something about the star and the creature's parts which could indeed be the beginning of a ritual for an Awakened rote dealing with the sphere of Entropy. Nothing so obvious: but it's there, for anybody aware to suspect.
AliciaAlicia doesn't have to bend to get her eyes closer to the printed words. Weight on one hip and a hand on the strap of the bag she anchors herself anyway and reads what the linguist had to say about the creature.
And Adam can tell she's reading not because her eyes move but because she laughs when she reads what the woman had to say about the hotel manager or maybe the quality of the hotel food. She laughs and then she stops laughing and becomes quiet and pensive she sees the note about the star.
The frown returns. She looks up again and gives Adam a triumphant little smile. Hah. She was totally Awakened.
"Do you have anything else she's written?"
Alyssa Solomon[[Magedar]]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 5, 8, 8) ( success x 2 )
Alyssa SolomonAlyssa has been meaning to stop by Adam's book store ever since they first met. And the fact that she hasn't...well, it's not a purposeful or procrastination thing. The Hollower doesn't procrastinate as a rule; if she wants something done, she does it. If there's something that catches her eye, she makes moves to acquire it. That's just the way she is. But she's also busy and there have been a lot of things here and there which have taken her attention. It's not easy, avoiding beating up on Kalen as much as she has. You need to be come down from that as a rule.
But here she is, at least, making her way down the street. The goth girl has been eschewing her most of her theatrical look as of late because she's had a lot on her plate and just hasn't been in the mood. This is Friday night and she's eschewing nothing. But she's not so far made up as to seem like she's about to go out Trick or Treating; its just the translucent paleness to her skin, with black-and-red striped lips and an extra flair to the side of her eyeshadow. Her hair is black and cut to let twin shards go down either side while she's dressed in a black tank top and jeans with a little silver ankh around her neck. Yep...she's Death this evening.
And that's the look she's carrying as the door opens and she slips inside the place. There's a little sideways smile on her face as she lets the door shut behind her, looks around curiously. Her eyes fall on the Bonisagus and the young woman by her side, someone Alyssa doesn't know but who obviously has a the Touch, so to speak. Alyssa's Resonant wings flutter and drip red on the other's minds as she makes her way over.
"So this is your place, eh?" She's adressing Adam, obviously. "Yeah, seems about what I might expect. Hey." The latter is to both of them.
Adam"Hmm." Does he have anything else she has written? The exhausted Hermetic combs his fingers absently through his hair now, wilding it up still further (more than ever he looks like Dream; it's just a byproduct of his absolute lack of care), then folds his arms and glances upwards toward the second floor.
The loft hangs over the desk; metaphorical hill-roof for a hermit, because in a way, isn't that what Adam's desk in Night Owl Books is? His little hermitage: a cave away from home; a place to light a candle; to be unbothered (except by the occasional customer or employee or loiterer or Awakened Individual).
"I don't think so. Not here. I do however have a travelogue written by one of her traveling companions which I think gives her a mention, if you're interested in that sort of, erm, thing. It's,"
the bells ring ring ring and here's Alyssa, looking like Death (but is she as warm-hearted?). The Hermetic blinks at her, sleepily, the bemusement Alicia inspired not present. Instead of bemusement, befuddlement and then amusement.
"Well well well," he says. Then, for Alicia's benefit, "Have you two met?"
Alicia[every time an apprentice botches an awareness roll an angel gets its wings]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (1, 5) ( fail )
Alicia[... oh my god i have the Bard's Tongue]
AliciaStaying in one place is enough to make a person let their guard down but Alicia was never a trauma-shaken thing. Her legs are slender because she has a fast metabolism and not because she runs for practice. Most of her running away has been metaphorical. Vehicular. She's not too hot at running away in a literal sense.
She feels Alyssa before she sees her and she can hear the woman coming but it isn't until her resonance hits her that the girl's skin loses a tone of liveliness. Her eyes widen and her throat goes dry and she gasps before whirling to see what it is that's coming towards them.
Oh. It's a Goth. In another universe Alicia sees her makeup and her outfit and she becomes instantly smitten. In this universe though Alicia is backed against Adam's desk as far as she can go without climbing on top of it and she looks as if she's about to move behind it to put some distance between herself and what feels like an angel fresh from the battlefield.
Have you two met?
"No!" she says. Louder than she means to.
Alyssa SolomonFor her part, Alyssa echoes Alicia's assertion that they haven't met, although not as vehemently. "Not until this moment," she says with a shrug. She notes that Alicia has backed her ass up to the desk and she doesn't look entirely surprised by that fact. Let's face it; when you feel like a bloody angel you're bound to get some very hesitant people. Add that into the fact that if Alicia looks at a reflective surface she doesn't see Alyssa and...well, it could be understandable however she reacts. So the Hollow One doesn't take anything bad from the reaction because it could be worse. After all, Alicia hasn't tried to shoot her or carve her heart out. Those would be worse.
"It's okay," she says to the newly-Awakened (or newer-Awakened) one. "Promise, I'm not as bad as I feel. Or at least that's what they tell me. A couple people have said I'm worse, but they had issues. If I'm interrupting anything I can go, though..."
Not that she's rushing to get out, but she's not here to be disruptive. She has to be in a different mood for that.
AdamHe also notices that Alicia is practically crawling over the desk, backed hard against it, and he moves the book. The book is rare; an antiquarian piece. The book is delicate. He closes it gently.
"Just shoptalk," Adam says, to Alyssa. He isn't rushing her out the door either. He likes her well enough; or maybe he just likes the banter, testing to see how long it's going to take before the rage in him roars up cold and furious and mean. A test of his will, although it hasn't yet happened.
He doesn't smile because the texture of his glance is troubled, on Alicia. Alicia has room to maneuveur around the desk if she'd like: it's a writing desk, there's no door separating what's behind it from the front of the store. It's just a heavy, broad writing desk.
"What's wrong?"
AliciaShe is trying very hard not to be rude. The fact that the woman reassures her and cracks a joke about the fright her presence gave the girl seems to have the intended effect. She eases her ass off the desk and though she's standing beside it [and Adam] she isn't hiding behind either of them.
What's wrong?
"Nothing!" Nervous laugh. "It's fine. I'm sorry." Thick swallow. She hates how her mouth goes dry when shit like this happens. "You're not interrupting anything, I just stopped by to give Adam a book." Pop! goes the clasp on her handbag. She reaches in. Assorted plastic and glass objects dance around as she digs and then she produces a small yet thick volume.
Kitab al-Alacir is the title. No author. The contents have been translated from Arabic but the title hasn't.
Alyssa Solomon"Don't be sorry," she says with a little shrug. She's easy going about the whole thing. "It happens. And I hear that if you want to give someone a book, Adam's the guy to do it to." She grins a little and walks over to where they are, casting her gaze around the room as she does.
"One of these days I'm going to show him my personal Book of Shadows and it's going to make his brain explode. I'm not totally sure whether that will be because of pure rage at its contents or new levels of enlightment. Although I'm excited to find out which." She waggles her painted-on eyebrows and grins, before she turns her attention to the book. Alyssa, sadly, does not read Arabic and thus doesn't know the meaning. She stays quiet at this point though. The gifting of knowledge from one to another, despite her quips about her Book of Shadows, is a sacred thing and she respects that.
Adam"Are you going to let me keep it overnight?" Adam asks, curiously, of Alicia. His sea-change colored eyes have lit up (see, he can be a thing-of-light, if not ever of radiance; he can be a moved, not touched by the trust inherent in say a precious object being shown, but moved by pleasure at getting to see or handle something which might contain knowledge for its own sake. He is not very sentimental; at least not where people are likely to see it).
He takes the book carefully, judging it by the spine and the binding and you see there are signs that a bookseller in the business Adam is in learns to look for. He looks for them, before opening it as well.
"It's rather a pity Shoshannah is so solitary these days -- or is she?" He sounds bemused again. Perhaps she is more social than ever, and he simply doesn't know. Adam is hardly the social director of fun in Denver's mage scene. God help everybody: maybe that distinction belongs, not to Serafíne or one of the Cultists, but to Kalen.
He's looking at the book when what Alyssa said causes him to give her a little double-take. Or no, he'd glanced at her when she spoke blah blah Book of Shadows looked at Alicia's book and then a big double-take activates and he grins at the Hollower. An unabashed grin, too.
"Are you just putting me on or do you mean it? Because I'd like to take a gander at a Hollower's magickal tome. Crucial component, music by the Sisters of Mercy or the Cure?"
AliciaIs she going to let him keep it overnight.
"Just don't try and sell it," she says. It's a joke but a joke with a tinge of truth to it. She doesn't need to spell out it's one of the only things she has left of her father's. Not in front of a stranger anyway.
Strangers stay strangers so long as you make no effort to get to know them. Her father taught her how to be paranoid but her mother taught her how to smile and extend a hand and introduce herself. Paranoia tends to trump everything else though.
She isn't paranoid now. Maybe a little embarrassed. The grownups are talking so Alicia adjusts the new lightness of her bag on her shoulder and gives Alyssa a smile. It turns into a small laugh when Adam says something funny.
Alyssa Solomon"Shoshanna skipped town a little while back," she says. Alyssa doesn't know the details and that may well be readable in her expression; she has things she hides but news on other mages isn't generally one of them. She's only around the chantry a little more than Adam is, after all.
She grins a little bit when Adam cracks his joke at her Tradition (or "Tradition," depending on who you are)'s expense. She can take it as well as she dishes it out. "Mmm, I'm pretty sure you don't wanna know what my required components are." She throws Alicia a good-natured wink, even though she's totally serious. Of course, that's assuming Adam hasn't figured it out. "But I'll bet yours involves language of some kind and ink. Us Hollowers may be walking cliches, but at least I'm flexible."
A pause, and then she adds, "Oh, and I've got a versatile set of tools for the Arts as well." Because it's Alyssa.
LucyThose with a sense for it may notice that a cold front is coming, and it is coming toward the bookstore. Frost. Something stitching, weaving, threading, drawing a body closer to the entrance door.
That door opens a little bit later, door chiming (slightly off-tune) and everything, and in comes that sweep of cold. It belongs to a tall woman with maroon red (dyed) hair twisted into a topnot, tendrils and wisps falling all around her face and down her neck. Lucy. They've all met her by now. Only one of them has held a conversation with her. The other two have seen her in passing or sat with her on a quiet evening while she ate a pastry.
The Dreamspeaker does not look to be in the best condition. She does not look ill, and she certainly doesn't look harmed, they would all be able to see any injuries she sports. Her attire is a cropped grey tank top with a low scooping neck and a logo that reads NORMAL IS BORING. There are shorts. They sit low on her hips and high on her thighs, exposing the pale expanse of her flat stomach. It means they can see her tattoos. An intricate tattoo of a swan amidst roses that takes up almost the entirety of her right thigh. A girl with sugar-skull face paint amidst roses and butterflies that takes up so much real estate on her right side it disappears beneath her shirt and below the waistband of her shorts. Sneakers and her slouchy canvas bag complete the outfit.
And still, with so much skin exposed, she is sweeting terribly. Summer is not Lucy's season. She is very obviously retreating inside with a hope for air conditioning (and also to see the bookshop owner, maybe have another conversation about mythology). What she finds are three mages, not just the one, hanging around Adam's desk. One of whom had been quiet and perhaps a bit moody last time Lucy saw her.
"What about flexible?" she asks, because of course that's the line she walked in on.
AdamHe doesn't say that he won't try to sell it, but the conversation flows on. Perhaps he is the kind of terrible antiquarian bookdealer who tricks young teenage girls into giving up one of their most precious possessions and then, having determined its value, turns around and sells it immediately, or at least as soon as an unscrupulous buyer can be coaxed out of the shadows --
But that's probably not likely. Probably far too sensational a thing for a shadowless creature like Dominic Adam Julian Gallowglass. Hermetics are all honorable creatures of their word (Word), aren't they?
He doesn't set the book down on the desk nor put it on any of the bookshelves behind the desk (where the other Not For Sale or On Hold books are kept). He keeps the book in his hands, because he likes holding books, and he smirks at Alyssa when begs his crucial components involves etcetera etcetera, but his expression is beginning to grow dreamy, far-off-and-away the way it sometimes goes, misleadingly soft, and then --
More chimes. And Lucy, and winter, frost-creeping, white lace gleaming from a black bough or a red maple with her hair.
"What about a versatile set of tools?" Hard on the heel of Lucy's question; and then a nod for the dreamspeaker, a faint smile of acknowledgment.
He looks at Alicia to guage whether or not she knows Lucy.
He's backing away toward the staff door as he speaks and looks and takes things in. Because he's guaging his moment to real-world brb, find a place for Alicia's book in back where one of his employees won't try to sell it.
AliciaThe concentration gradient of people to solitude has to be getting to Adam by now but Alicia can't read people worth a damn. The paradigm of the book she's entrusted to this Hermetic creature she barely knows might suit her better than the paradigms of the more communal traditions but Alicia knows no more about them than she does about the paradigm of the Scientists.
Orphans aren't solitary creatures. Hard to label them as anything. Alicia has only met one other Orphan and she isn't talking to him right now because he's a jerk.
What about flexible?
What about a versatile set of tools?
"Hey, Lucy," says Alicia. "How's August?"
Because let's be real here: after their introduction in the park she now knows more about that fluff beast than she knows about Lucy.
LucyFor a Time mage, Lucy has impeccably terrible timing sometimes. Like that time Kalen made her choke on her coffee. And like now. Whatever about flexible, she doesn't get to find out. At least not at this juncture. The Hollow One's cell phone chimes or whatever. Perhaps she recognizes the number because then she's off out the door, Lucy stepping aside to make room for her.
She is attempting to fan herself with her hand, is Lucy. It is not working. The cold that radiates from her skin cannot be blown back into her face because, at least from her perspective, she is actually, literally melting. Summer's heat makes her chest tight and her body perspire like a tall cold glass of water left out in the sun. It is not enough to incapacitate her, but it is enough to make her consider asking Delilah if they can't move on again to someplace cold.
She won't ask, of course. This is their place, for now anyway.
Her timing is all the better for Adam slipping off into the staff room, leaving her alone with Alicia. This does not seem to bother her. At least, she does not hesitate to wander closer to Alicia, and she does not hesitate to smile at mention of her monstrous sized calico. When last Alicia and August met, the cat had tried so hard to get to the pastry left behind for the Orphan. When at least it was obvious she would not be allowed to investigate she laid across the girl's lap as though that had been her intention all along. Because cats never do anything they did not intend to do, and they are never really thrown off course.
"Good," she says. "I made a killing at work today, so she's going to get a visit to the vet soon to make absolutely sure, but yeah. Good. How're you?" she asks, finding and pulling closer one of Adam's chairs so that she can sit for a little while and hope whatever coolness in this place will make the frost beneath her skin feel frozen again.
AdamBefore he disappears into the back room, he says: "It's nice to see you again, Lucy. Who's August, erm, or what?" Answer received (or not?), he's backing through the door. "I'll be back in short order. There's more comfortable seating upstairs."
But they can both glimpse in the backroom when he goes there an older man (late thirties, early forties? Not that much older) with blue hair and a lot of piercings, and hear the murmuring rise of the conversation which follows.
Shop talk. Business. How trusting Adam is: nothing will get stolen.
Alicia"August is a cat," Alicia calls after Adam as he ducks through the door. Like they're going to have a conversation hollering across the space at each other. "She's pretty awesome."
Okay that's enough hollering. She turns back to Lucy and frowns.
"Why's she going to the vet? Is she okay?"
Lucy"Oh yeah," she says, slumping into a chair - or rather alighting rather quickly into a chair. Lucy is a long-limbed, willowy creature with a grace that turns even something so unseemly as a slump appear delicate and deliberate.
"But you know," she says, adjusting her bag to rest in her lap. "The life of a traveling performer slash barista doesn't really allow for regular check-ups. And she's an outdoor cat, so she needs her shots."
Adam[Okay, yes, I am too tired. Adam is totally getting swapped out by blue-haired guy. I am so sorry! Better swap-out post at later date for transcript purity! *zip*]
AliciaShe can't imagine discussing sex with a lot of people because she hasn't had a lot of people with whom to discuss sex who weren't old enough for the discussion to veer into illegal territory since her father pulled her out of school. Hasn't had a lot of people with whom to discuss anything period but she definitely didn't want to discuss sex with someone who could go back in time and prevent her current suitor from ever having been born.
If it moves you it counts.
"I like the sounds of that," she says. Takes another swig off the bottle before passing it back. "Is dancing a..." She licks her lips to taste the vanilla on them and changes tracks. Keeps her voice down because she doesn't know who in here is Awake and who is Asleep. "I'm still kind of figuring out how all this works. Could you, um..." She doesn't know the common parlance. "... my dad called it 'experimenting,' but it doesn't sound like that's what everyone else does, when they change things. He had these devices, like if he wanted to do something all he had to do was push a button and it would happen. And I'm trying to figure out how to do it my way, you know, because that's not how it works? For me?"
Get to the point you chaotic mess of a witch.
"Is dancing magic for you?"
LucyAlicia likes the sounds of that and Lucy smiles, and accepts the bottle back. Takes a swig of it herself. Sucks in her lower lip and listens while Alicia tries to get around to her question. Lucy runs her thumb and forefinger from the corners of her mouth inward, concealing a smile. Not that what she's asking is particularly funny. She doesn't know about Alicia's father or their circumstance and she's not going to ask. But it seems she's finding herself discussing this a lot these days, and with younger mages, too. That...actually makes it easier for her to talk about how she performs magic. Or rather, how magic is performed through her.
She shakes her head. "No. Dancing is..." she trails, thinking how best to contain the swell of emotion, feeling, history, pride that rises into a few succinct words. It's impossible, though, which she expresses with a shrug, handing the bottle back. "Dancing is the same to me as breathing. I don't know who I'd be without it.
"Magic for me is different from what it is for everyone else. My relationship with my Avatar is different. I'm her servant. I perform rituals to prepare myself for her power so that she can work through me."
AliciaThe fact that the girl is adrift is an evidence housed in the light of her eyes but Alicia takes no comfort in being adrift. No comfort but she isn't scrabbling for rescue either. She sees an opportunity and she tries it. One cannot learn in a vacuum.
Scrape of the cap against the bottle as she sets it back on for a moment. Like she knows they're about to be interrupted or she wants to give her stomach a chance to absorb the alcohol.
This is interesting to her. A stitch between her brows doesn't mean she's judging Lucy but Lucy can tell this is a far stretch for the Orphan to make anyway.
"Rituals?" she asks, and then: "Am I being rude, or can I ask you more questions?"
Lucy"You're not being rude at all," she assures. And it's true. She is not fidgeting or looking at Alicia suspiciously or otherwise expression discomfort in the conversation. The only people who make her wary of discussing her paradigm are those intent on changing her mind about it. She's met a lot of those people over the last few years. People who think that her understanding is wrong or incomplete or skewed and seek to teach her the "right" way to Work.
Whatever that is. Everyone is different. Everyone shapes the world the way they understand it. But tell someone you're an oracle and for some reason you need to be reconditioned.
Alicia doesn't seem like she's interested in reconditioning Lucy. Lucy's not sure her paradigm will help the Orphan figure out her own way, in fact she's mostly certain that it won't. But she enjoys teaching. If nothing else, maybe there'll be one more mage loose in the world with an open mind about the ways other Awakened work.
"You've heard of the Oracle of Delphi?"
Alicia[int + academics: IDK HAVE I]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )
Alicia"The Pythia," she says. "She was a priestess at the Temple of Apollo."
Nerd alert. She could probably keep talking about this topic but all Lucy had wanted to know was if she had heard of the Oracle not if she could deliver an impromptu lecture on the topic. Does nothing to keep the brief glimmer of excitement out of her eyes. Like this is the first time in a while she's understood anything that anyone was talking about.
Lucy"Yes," Lucy says, grinning widely. She used the common name because if anyone has heard of the Oracle at all, it's as the Oracle of Delphi. Fewer know she was an oracle of Apollo. Fewer still would know the name Pythia.
"I'm like her. Except I don't operate out of a temple and I'm not an agent of Apollo."
Alicia"So..."
That light of wonder doesn't fade even as she quietly makes sense of the analogy.
"... okay, I think I get what you're saying. But if it isn't Apollo you're channeling, then who...?"
LucyLucy's shoulders rise and fall in another shrug. This time the light of her green eyes seems darker. Dusk falling. Or Dusk rising, depending on one's perspective.
"Unfortunately, I don't think she has a name anymore. I've never been able to find much of anything about her. All I know is she was a handmaiden of Persephone. And because she's guardian and gatekeeper of the realm of the dead, so am I.
"Or I will be, eventually," she amends with a sigh that is just shy of wistful. "Right now the best I can do for the dead is finish any last business and encourage them to continue on their way."
AliciaThat metal whisper as she unscrews the cap again. A warmth gone through her from the vodka but she is still in control of her faculties. She takes a more demure sip than the last one and passes the bottle to Lucy.
"I dunno, that sounds pretty important. All I can do is tell if they're around, I can't even talk to them or anything."
Lucy"It is," she agrees. Important. To be able to speak to and touch and appease and help. "But it's just one step on the road, you know."
This is not a question. Lucy is not looking, even out of courtesy or politeness, for Alicia's approval of consent. The way she Works may be outside of the real of what most Awakened consider ordinary, but the truth is it's a path for all of them. And Lucy is very much aware of the path that she walks, even if she might not know precisely what awaits her at the end.
"What about you?" she asks, shaking her head to the offer of more vodka. She enjoys the effects of alcohol just as much as the next person, but it's making her warm on a day when she's already too warm. "I know you said you're still figuring it out. What've you figured out so far? If you don't mind my asking."
AliciaShe shakes her head no she doesn't mind and puts the cap back on the bottle again. A finality about it. It's going back in her handbag in a moment though Alicia shows no signs of wanting to get off the floor.
"I'm not really sure? The basics, I think. That there are a lot of different models for how reality works and nobody's a hundred percent right because everybody can do the same things they just do it differently. I figured out how to tell time without using a watch by talking about it for a while with another person who doesn't know what's going on, so that was kind of neat."
LucyLucy nods. And then she grins. "It's a bit like religion that way. Everyone has a different belief with different strictures and guidelines or lack thereof. But we all have faith.
"Timetelling's a useful skill, I've heard. So is knowing that ghosts and spirits are nearby, but then I'm biased.
"So," she says, running her palms over her thighs to end with fingers curling over her bent knees. "A time-telling ghost noticer who likes to dance on X. I don't suppose you'd be interested in hitting a club later."
AdamThe door to the employees only room opens again and Adam's shadow does not fall long across the desk to trouble the two young women sipping vodka and dishing about ancient Gods and the things they do or do not tell them to do. He doesn't have a shadow. The bookstore is dim, too. And also, and perhaps most importantly, his shadow is not supernatural (or if it is, it is being supernatural elsewhere: so many clauses; maybe a devil is wearing it as a suit, and a smart suit it is), so it wouldn't stretch that unnatural way if it were here to fall. He doesn't have Alicia's book on his person any more and if they look over at the door, look between the desk's legs, look beyond the boxes of stuff, they'll see the blue-haired man's legs (another pair of legs that are not Adam's, Adam who is wearing a pair of red star converse sneakers grimy and grungy in need of a clean) and what looks like manual labor or the beginning there-of before Adam shuts the door again.
On the bookshelf behind the desk, Ruse wakes up, arching his slinky of a back up into a cathedral arch, stiffening his tail and staying in that position before sniffing hopefully toward Adam as if to say:
feed
me
Which Adam does, in fact, leaving a ferret treat pellet right under his bright little jaw, and Adam is of course just in time to look vaguely pained (reserved [contained]).
He is a guy with a lot of bias. He mostly keeps it to himself but everybody knows it's there.
"Sorry about that. Did I miss anything interesting?" He pets Ruse's head and then rests his skinny lanky nothing hip against the desk, rubbing his hand through his hair -- oh good, it is even messier. "Who's telling what time when?"
AliciaLucy doesn't suppose she'd be interested in hitting a club later.
"Interested?" Do bears shit in the woods, Lucy? "Hell yeah, I'm interested."
And then here comes Adam. He has nothing to say about the fact that the two young women are sitting on his floor or that the dark-haired one still has a fifth of vodka in her hand. She turns her head to see behind her and catches both that the ferret has picked itself up from its resting place and that Adam is chilling out with a good line of sight on them.
She plunges the bottle back into her handbag and scoots so she's angled to include Adam in their circle.
"Spheres, man," she says. "I learned a new one." She holds up the wrist that houses the neon green plastic watch with a dead battery. "Don't need this anymore."
LucyLucy's smile returns, stretching wide to take up much of the lower half of her face. "Great. So far I've only met two people remotely interested in the club scene and one of them isn't talking to me anymore." She has no idea that Lena's spent the better half of a month in a coma. She knows Kalen did and that he's out of the hospital. That other mages were even involved or that their minds went elsewhere for a time would be news to her.
And then there's the employee only door swinging open and the Hermetic returns, disheveling himself further only after feeding the animal Lucy didn't realize was back there resting on a shelf. Her green eyes brighten at sight of Ruse, but she does not rise. She remains where she's seated as Alicia shifts a little closer so as to include Adam in their little circle.
"And sex and dancing and gods," Lucy adds. Adam does not cast a shadow throughout the room, a fact that Lucy noticed the last time she was here. It's okay, though. She checked to make sure he was not a haunt stuck in this place.
Adam"Oh yes?" Adam. When Alicia holds up her watch. He seems interested; intrigued, really. Alicia adjusts the circle to include him and so does Lucy, the refugee daughter of a madman exiled from her life and Persephone's handmaiden whose skin is winter, and he remembers about the cold pizza on his desk and reaches over for it. It is no longer appetizing but he is suddenly really hungry. Ruse wants more pellets and is looking at Adam who is not looking at Ruse and Ruse's eyes are very calculating. Watch the furry ferret reach off the shelf like a snake, undulating. Prepare to jump, and -
And sex and dancing and gods. "Would one of those--did you say you've met two people who--erm, is one of them Serafíne? Do you believe in gods, Alicia?'" You can hear the hipster airquotes. He doesn't do it on purpose; he's just absentminded enough that it bleeds through.
Alicia"Do I?"
Maybe she does hear the hipster airquotes. She wears a lopsided smile for a moment as she considers both the question and her own answer. Maybe she's never thought about it before. Part of assimilating herself into this city without a solidified worldview is she has to think about things she has never thought about before.
But she does think about it. For a few seconds she sits in silence and considers whether or not she does. Whether or not she wants to just answer the question or actually explain her answer. Maybe she's thinking back to other encounters she's had with Adam and is anticipating a followup question or five.
"I don't think so. Not really."
LucyLucy is watching Ruse as the ferret prepares to make a daring leap. But her attention is pulled away to the man when he starts a couple of questions but finishes up with a third. She wonders at the others and what they might have been, but doesn't ask. Maybe Adam will revisit them, or maybe this is the only question he intends to ask.
She shakes her head, no, because she doesn't know she's met a Serafíne. She didn't get the name of the woman in the park or her handsome companion before hurrying off to rejoin her companions. "One's a dj and one's this really tall guy I met once."
There are hipster airquotes in the question of the belief in gods. Whether Adam intended them or not, Lucy is quiet as she watches first the Hermetic and then the Orphan. The corners of her mouth lift slightly. If she's annoyed or fussed that Alicia doesn't believe in gods despite Lucy telling her that she's an agent of one she doesn't show it.
Alicia[perc + awarepathy: BUT ARE YOU ANNOYED]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (2, 7) ( success x 1 )
Lucy[oh crap i didn't see that you rolled! manip+subt]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Adam[Ruse Dex+Ath!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )
AdamThe pizza slice begins to disappear pretty darned quickly. Is he inhaling it? He is hungry. Now it's gone except the crust, somehow, while they were both answering him. Perhaps that is a rote only hungry Hermetics who haven't done anything but read books for 48-hours (including sleep? Perhaps he napped, at one point) become adept at.
"But you do believe in," he glances at Lucy, as if to make sure he has this right. Didn't she say something about timetelling, ghosts, etc? Was that her and not Alicia? "spirits and ghosts, correct?"
He doesn't sound judgmental, for all Adam is very set in his ways (relentless [valiant]). He sounds curious.
Ruse makes a very daring (sPROINg) leap from the bookshelf onto Adam's shoulder and from Adam's shoulder to the desk, swiping the pizza crust on the way.
Adam is startled. Does Adam yell or jump or flail?
[Wits.]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (1, 1) ( fail )
Adam[Adam: Dex + Ath]
Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (5, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )
Adam[Adam: Be intelligible as you yell. Char + Exp.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (4, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )
Alicia"Well... wait, I'm not trying to say--"
But Adam is startled a moment later because the ferret bounds from the bookshelf. That he is startled startles Alicia into abandoning her answer.
AdamA. Yes.
Adam does yell. He also jumps, and he flails. He yells with a certain gutter eloquence. He doesn't curse like a sailor because he doesn't know any sailors, but he says something very (furious) evil about Ruse's fate and he says this with his eyes wide wide wide and very young and he jumps too, he SPROINGS, sure, while he startles/jumps onto the desk and then turns/slams his hip (and, erm) against the desk's corner and then gasps and grabs for Ruse who has wisely decided to
hop onto another bookshelf
and hold the pizza crust
and stare at Adam with bright eyes.
Adamooc: pft, ONTO the desk? I did not mean that. I meant: while he startles/jumps up and Ruse is on the desk, he then turns/slams his hip, etc, etc.
LucyLucy is unreadable, but that hardly means she's become stoic, a block of ice carved into the cold and impassive countenance of a young woman. She is bemused. Unlike the Hermetic, though, she is capable of keeping her thoughts and judgments to herself.
Adam looks to her as he asks about spirits and ghosts and she starts to nod her head once, yes, that's right, though there's not much to believe in. There is belief, and faith, which tend to concern things unknown. And then there are Spirit mages who know. Lucy and Alicia both know that there are shades, spectres, shadows, haunts. They have heard them, or felt them, or in Lucy's case she's spoken to them and helped them on their way (or fended them off as the case may be).
She tips her chin down, but before she lifts it again to complete the motion, there is a motion of a different sort. It's slight at first. Lucy notices it far too late to give warning (would she have given a warning even if she'd noticed sooner?). Then there's a bonafide commotion. A ferret darting for a bit of leftover crust. A Hermetic hopping up and cursing. A startled Orphan. And Lucy. Who is trying valiantly to keep from laughing.
And failing. Sometimes she can keep her thoughts and judgments to herself, but this is so familiar to her. The only difference is that Ruse is a mere fraction of August's size and so does far less damage to the shelves. Lucy at least manages to cover her mouth with the back of her hand, but the crinkle of her eyes is telling. The shaking of her shoulders is telling. But Adam is obviously irate and she is trying to keep from adding fuel to that fire.
"You should see August when it's bath time," she says in an undertone to Alicia. "Need some help, Adam?"
AliciaOnce the initial jolt of nerves wears off Alicia isn't sure if she ought to join Lucy in laughing or not. But she's had a few snootfuls and her inhibitions are lowered. She manages a throaty I'm-so-sorry-for-laughing laugh and glances back at Lucy at the undertone.
She doesn't think she wants to see August when it's bath time. That cat looks like she could break a grown woman's neck with her tail if she were to get pissed off enough. No cat looks anything other than pathetically murderous when its fur is wet.
Now she gets to her feet. A bit unsteady but she doesn't topple over before she can rise to her towering sixty-one inches of height. Once there she dusts off the backs of her thighs.
"I'm gonna take off," she says. To Lucy: "You wanna text me when you're ready to go out?"
Because she has no idea what Lucy thought about her aligning herself on the side of the atheists which means their plans haven't changed right? right.
AdamThe Hermetic's eyes are luminous. His knuckles are white and his fingers splayed on the desk where he slammed his hand down; his hand is stinging. Alicia and Lucy are well-amused, but Ruse, fucking Ruse, delicately takes a bite from the pizza crust, and Adam's fingers scrape into a fist on the table. His other hand is against his hip and the bruise that is beginning to form there. At least: Alyssa didn't stay for this portion of the evening's entertainment.
He blinks once and then twice. His lashes, when wet, gunk together, look like he's wearing mascara, and he looks at Alicia first and then realizes that Lucy said something and what she said was -
"You hold him down, I'll get my skinning knife," and a glower for Ruse, who is now playing with the crust.
Fucking playing with it like it's a ball.
Oh, wait. Alicia's going to take off. Adam, regretfully, says: "I was going to ask you for a demonstration. Will you show me how you keep time some, erm, time?"
LucyLucy is still watching Adam and Ruse when Alicia starts to rise, but the change does catch her attention. Alicia seems unstead, but so long as she doesn't start to topple over or veer sharply to one side or the other, Lucy does not rush to her own feet. No, she rises a moment after, shifting the fall of her bag so that she can start digging through the mess contained within the canvas.
"Oh hold on," she says to Alicia. "I...have..." Alicia can hear things rattling around as Lucy sweeps one way and then the other. "Aha," she says, straightening, a business card brandished between the middle and index fingers of her right hand. Her expression is triumphant as she holds the card out.
Several things that Alicia will note about the card are: it is not the finest or heaviest grade of card stock, it is not professionally printed upon but there is a phone number with a non-Denver area code handwritten in ballpoint pen, Lucy is written in a fanciful, artsy script in silver ink, and there is a lipstick kiss-mark on the back. Not all of Lucy's 'business' cards have these, but there are a few left that Lucy pulls out at random. Or seeming random.
"And yes, absowait," she stops midsentence, looking at Adam. "You have a skinning knife?" The question is asked less out of disbelief and more from curiosity.
AliciaAdam asks her to provide a demonstration sometime and she smiles. Her smiles don't balk much these days but neither of them have spent much time around her. Difficult to tell if it's because of the alcohol or because she's growing comfortable in their presence.
Out comes the business card and Alicia laughs another quiet charmed laugh at the triumph with which Lucy produces it. She takes it and glances first at the phone number and then back at the lipstick mark. Interesting. She opens her handbag to dedicate the little card to the same inner pocket where her ID and her debit card stay.
He has a skinning knife?
"Oh hell no," she says. She's out of here. Flashes a peace sign at the two of them if they catch that she's beelining it towards the front door. To Lucy: "I'll call you!"
And then she's gone.
[thanks for the scene, ladies!]
Lucy[thank YOU!]
AdamYou have a skinning knife?
Oh hell no.
"I have a knife that could be used for skinning, if it were put to the, erm, purpose," Adam says. "Shouldn't peg a thing just because it was made a certain way."
He is still simmering; fucking ferret. But Alicia's ungainly doe-legged exit does bring him back to courteousness. He waves before she hits the door and exits.
And then it's the Dreamspeaker and the Hermetic again. Adam runs both hands through his hair, less absentminded and more to get unruffled. Naturally: his hair is only ruffled further. He says, with a faint smile, "I, ah, don't remember- have you met the little beast before?"
LucyAlicia makes a hasty exit, to get away from talk of sharp implements (or potentially not-sharp-enough instruments being put to a more delicate task) or away from the commotion or maybe even off toward something. Lucy doesn't know that sometimes Alicia bolts without warning, or that sometimes when given a number she doesn't call it. Or rather, she doesn't know that Alicia might do these things any more than any other person. She flashes a peace sign wich Lucy returns with a wave and a smile.
Then it is the Hermetic and the Dreamspeaker and the blue-haired man in the back. And Ruse. Playing with a piece of crust, taunting the Hermetic. Lucy is more than well amused, but she does try to at least tamp it down. She likes Adam well enough to not want to be rude about his frustrations.
She shakes her head as she crosses toward the shelf where Ruse is, sufficiently cooled to start feeling more herself again. Less melty.
"What's his name?" she asks. Looking at the ferret, she holds out her hand so that he can investigate her cold fingertips.
