Listen to yourself.

Kalen Holliday

[Things I forget! Nightmares!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (2, 3, 4, 4, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )

Kalen Holliday

[How distracted are we by Resonance?]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 6, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )

Kalen Holliday

Kalen gives Gallowglass the address for a place that turns out to be about ten minutes from the chantry. There is a new fence around the property, enclosing two buildings, a parking lot, and a bit of ground. The gate is open when Gallowglass arrives. What exactly these buildings were used for before is anyone's guess. They're hardly ancient, but they are old enough Kalen could not have had them built. The biometric locks, like the gate, are clearly new additions.

They aren't much for obstacles to Gallowglass though, because Kalen is outside, leaned back on the wall of one of the buildings, smoking a cigarette when Gallowglass arrives. The a considerable portion of the populace of Denver may be embracing spring with tee-shirts and tank tops, but Kalen is still in long sleeves, though the tawny gold fabric is certainly not the warmest of fabrics.

Kalen waves, but lets Gallowglass come to him, rather than limping out to meet him and then forcing him to walk back to the building at a snail's pace. Gallowglass is in for enough of that already. He is smiling, that is clear enough, but he is (as he almost always seems to be) tired; there are smudges under eyes and while he is always pale...Gallowglass has seen him healthy - without the bruised-looking hollows of his eyes and not quite so ghost-pale and at a weight that isn't best described as 'scarecrow.' This...this is not Kalen looking precisely well.

Adam Gallowglass

[Just for fun, let's have a Short Fuse roll to see how the drive over went.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 9) ( success x 1 )

Adam Gallowglass

[Angrily.]

Adam Gallowglass

The chantry is not precisely close to Adam's home or Adam's shop; it involves a lot of driving, and the problem with driving is most drivers are fucking idiots and Adam's patience with idiots, especially when they're playing like they know how to drive, gets very, very short indeed. The drive over involved quite a bit of cursing, of white-knuckled grips on the wheel, but only once or twice did he almost give into the urge to ride somebody's tail or honk like a maniac, and the point is here is Adam now at the warehouse library.

He parks. Kalen waves. Adam closes the distance between them, and no shadow falls where a shadow should fall; Adam is not delineated by light, leaves no dark mark on the world. He's nothing and nobody in that respect. Kalen waves, and Adam looks as he always looks, like a vampire, pale and hollow-eyed, bruises beneath his eyes but this is normal for Adam.

For Kalen, it is not normal. "You look like shit," Adam tells him. "You sick?"

Kalen Holliday

That gets a soft amused huff as Kalen puts out the cigarette. "No. I'm fine. Tired, maybe, but fine. Assuming that trying to put up with me flailing in space because I was ill wouldn't likely set anyone into a rage, it would seem ridiculous to invite you to come catch whatever." He smiles a little, less cynical amusement and more affection. More affection and less health seems be Kalen in Denver.

"You should come in, I got curry. Here. We'll introduce you to the nice security system. I think we should name her Leona. All the servers have names, I don't see why she shouldn't." She, he says. As if the the security system is going to feel left out.

"How are you?"

Adam Gallowglass

"Hmm," is what Kalen's 'no I'm fine' etcetera gets.

He frowns when Kalen asks him how he is. The frown is absent; abstracted. It matches the look that creeps into his eyes, or rather is seen in his eyes when focus creeps away, because that absent-minded sense of abstraction has been there all this time. "Slow and impatient," he says, which is to say frustrated. Kalen has seen Adam get like this when he doesn't find what he's looking for quickly enough; when he is momentarily caught.

But he is not absent or abstracted when the word curry snags him back and he grins. Self-possessed, Adam; self-assured, nothing about him bashful. "Why 'Leona'? Does she look like a lion? Lions do make quite excellent protectors of books and knowledge, though not necessarily those who'd seek to partake."

Kalen Holliday

"I imagine she looks like electricity and wires. Maybe we can get her a lion form." His eyes fucking light up. "Perhaps Grace can learn to make her a robot lion and she can walk around." He goes through the process of setting up the locks so that Gallowglass can get in without him easily enough. He is not a Virtual Adept, but he isn't at a loss with technology. "Probably not though. She seems more interested in information than robots. Still, it would be amazing."

He opens the door and grins. "I sometimes wish the animate marble statue days were not quite so far behind us." He waves Gallowglass through the door and then leads him to where the library is being set up. Well, the part of the library he and Gallowglass will most appreciate. It is a large room, originally set up to be a conference room, now converted to a library. There is no main conference area, instead small clusters of furniture around coffee tables, here and there an armchair tucked into a little sheltering alcove of bookshelves.

And there are books. Kalen brought the library he's working on here, and though the shelves are largely empty now, Kalen clearly has some plans for this place. The walls are hung with framed maps, much as at his house, but the frames and gilding on these is in better shape. There is a single large statue of a lion in the library. Also two half grown bengal cats. And a number of takeout containers of curry and things for coffee and tea.

"Make yourself at home. Mi casa es su casa." Yeah. Compared to Flagstaff...maybe also check for possession. Alien brain parasites. Something.

Adam Gallowglass

He pays attention while Kalen goes through the process of setting Adam up with access and he offers a faint smirk when Kalen conjures up the idea of Grace working on a robot. The smirk deepens briefly, and it is as much a shadow as anything, when Kalen finishes that thought with a probably not though, and listen. While Kalen was going through that process, Adam leaned up against the wall, his shoulder and upperarm firm against the brickwork or stucco or whatever it is the wall is made of, and although Adam is a very deliberate young man, reserved, there is no reserve in the way he leans against the wall. Flops against the wall.

Then the door is open, and they're going inside. Adam pays attention to this as well, though he says over his shoulder and then to his side because he pauses once inside to let Kalen catch up and lead,

"The animate marble statue days do not need to be far behind us; why not try and see what happens? Unless you're planning on opening this place to the sleeping."

Adam's sea-glass eyes darken up with pleasure, then go lucent, when they go into the part of the library that Adam and Kalen will most appreciate, because there are books. Empty shelves, that wounds him, but it's a start. He forgets the food because his impulse is to investigate the shelves, which is what he begins to do. He ignores the living cats, but pets the statue.

"At least a basilisk."

Kalen Holliday

Kalen fixes a cup of coffee and sinks into one of the couches to watch Gallowglass explore the library. He hasn't had time to pull together anything impressive, at least not by Adam's standards, but he started only a few months ago. "Mmmmmmmm...perhaps. I think it will be some time before I can coax a statue into motion, but I suppose it could roam withing these walls easily enough."

He sets his coffee mug down and arches backward over the arm of the couch to regard the lion upside down. "Would you like that? Wandering the halls and guarding the books?" He pats the statue lightly on the snout and settles back in a more normal careless sprawl and picks up his coffee again.

"Work to be done. But you knew that."

Adam Gallowglass

"Hmm." He has picked out one of the books and carefully begun to leaf through it, holding the edges so they lightly almost-cut the pad of his thumbs. Glances over his shoulder at Kalen, after a minute has gone by, a full minute, because he is occasionally unintentionally rude, and he grins again. Adam: one would expect a dark-haired, serious creature such as he is to smile less, but that is not his way. The grin cuts long dimples into his cheeks and creases the skin around his eyes.

"What? Oh," remember, people are important too. (He remembers.) "When I find myself able to animate statues, I know just the one I want to animate. Can you guess what it is of, Kal?"

He keeps the book but circles back to the couch and all those takeout containers of curry. His stomach urges him on: yes, remember Adam, remember! We desire food!

Kalen Holliday

A little of the tension eases out of his shoulders at that smile. "Yeah, this is why you can get in here," Kalen says softly, drawing his knees up a little and cradling his coffee mug in both hands. There is the ghost of a fond, amused smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, though he's too tired for it to make a proper appearance.

"Galatea?" He offers. No. He does not know. He will reference myths, but he does not know. He watches Gallowglass as he remembers he wants food and heads back over toward him, still holding the book. He observes, Kalen. He watches which dishes of the as yet untouched containers of food Gallowglass inspects, which he takes. Curious, sure; but, also...this information he will file away for later. At least the systematic testing of dishes through various kinds of food the Grace went through isn't Gallowglass' fate. Kalen knows about the curry, he brought mostly curry. A surprising number of vegetarian dishes in this lot, too.

Adam Gallowglass

He is discriminating, but not right now. Adam reaches for the first container, opens it, dishes out some of that sweet, sweet green curry, then reaches for something else, judges by the weight that it is not rice, reaches for another container, then dumps the rice out too onto a plate. Paper plates; there are plates, right? And if there are samosas, Adam's all over those as well. Then he plops the plate onto Kalen's lap or into his hands, and starts to make another plate of pretty much the same stuff, except he hunts through the containers for something spicier than the curry he gave Kalen, and some naan bread.

"No. Having a sea-nymph, even a statuesque one, wandering throughout my stacks would be distracting. I've already had too many sea-nymphs in my life. Guess again."

Adam eats. YUM. Uses the naan bread to scoop rice and curry. He is very neat about it, but not dainty or delicate, just: neat. And if Kalen isn't eating too by this time, an eyebrow quirk.

"What is why I can get in here; my mysterious but excellent taste in statuary guardians?"

Kalen Holliday

There are all kinds of traces of things that swim beneath Kalen's expression. Half surface, and you're left to guess from a twitch at the corner of his mouth or a frown that lasts barely long enough to register it what he's thinking, the way you judge a dolphin from a whale by the flash of a distant fin. There are hints of annoyance and amusement and warmth when he presses a plate into Kalen's hands. Kalen doesn't want to eat but even today when he won't come and lay his head on Gallowglass' shoulder and drift into something that is not quite awake and not quite asleep, some in between space where he can rest a bit without dreaming, he wants to be taken care of. It is unfamiliar and slightly infuriating and so very reassuring. He grew up so wild, and now he'll stay still and quiet and let himself be petted. Has Gallowglass seen Sera ruffle his hair? Seen him lean into her fingertips and let his eyes half close?

Kalen is tired for guessing games but he takes a bite of a samosa and considers the question anyway. "Lions?" He murmurs. "Cars?" He leans sideways into the back of the couch, rests his head against it. "Do you think animate statues of lamps have djinn inside them?"

Adam Gallowglass

"Who would make a statue of a lamp? You could just have the lamp," Adam says, but his tone is musing, as if that question Kalen asked is a real question. "I think it would depend on the Word you used to animate it; and what the statue was best-shaped to be. Perhaps there would be a djinn inside."

Kalen Holliday

Kalen just watches Gallowglass for a moment. It is an odd thing, Kalen's attention in this moment. Near infinite possibilities hanging suspended in the air between them. Possible answers to what Gallowglass would animate. Answers to other questions that haven't been asked. More questions. And he is trying. He is. He is tired and he is tired of masks and he would just use words to do something that is not lie.

But here is the one truth that colors the outcome of everything.

Kalen doesn't know how to frame any of those things into words. Not out loud. He never talks about things that are real. Not unless they're academic. This is how he has known Gallowglass and Garrett. Garrett can read those microexpressions, can and does, like Kharisma, just dive into all those tangled up thoughts and sift through them. When the people closest to you are telepathic you don't precisely need to articulate anything.

"I'm glad you came," he says finally. And that is true. Which is something.

Adam Gallowglass

He would disagree. Of course he would. He would disagree and he would argue. When the people closest to you are telepathic, you need to articulate everything for yourself, or else they'll read the potential shapes inside you and do it for you. Adam is guilty of this; he has done it before.

Adam's mouth is full when Kalen says that he's glad Adam came, so Adam opens his mouth to say something, half-chokes, remembers to finish chewing and swallow.

His beard is trimmed neat and very short today, a shadow on his jaw, around his mouth, darker than his hair.

"Cheers; you would have trouble with this lot," gesture toward all the food, "without me."

Kalen Holliday

"I could have fed it to Grace. Or conned Ryne into coming over here. Has he come by? I gave him the address for your shop. If you have any food, he will devour it all. If you have any answers, he will devour them all. He wants to know everything. He's so...joyful about having Awakened. So many of the other new Magi are all, 'terrible scary world' and 'just want a normal life' but Ryne thinks it is fantastic.

"I'm not trying to snatch him up for the Order, but you can give it a go. He's definitely not meant for my House.You'll have competition though. because I'm introducing him to Lena." Kalen smiles faintly. "But you love a good challenge, no?"

Adam Gallowglass

"He hasn't yet, or if he has it wasn't while I was in or the shop was open." Those irregular hours; sometimes it makes dropping by difficult.

"And I do," and on that note, a faint smile. Absence, again. Abstraction; Adam is fixed, in the pursuit of some Thing, and it occupies his mind always. Always has occupied his mind. There's a certain measured attention while Kalen speaks of new Magi and their fears; a certain sublimated arrogance, as well, because that was not Adam's way.

"I do enjoy a challenge, but dare I ask why you don't think your view of the world is right for the boy?"

Kalen Holliday

"He's happy. He sees a beautiful world." Kalen sighs. "I do too. But mine has much sharper edges and...." And I can't sleep. I get to tired that I call you to come meet me in bars so I can lean into and let your Resonance wash over me. I slept with someone last week because I wanted to be held. I have seen so much death I don't even know how to begin to comprehend it. "I think he has lovely eyes. I would hate to ruin them."

He sets the food down, reaches for the coffee. He makes a little face when it is cold and sets it back down too, then curls up against the side of the couch.

Adam Gallowglass

"You would hate to ruin them with a Hermetic world-view or you would hate to ruin them with your own darkness?"

He uses 'own darkness' without irony; Adam doesn't tell Kalen to eat more at this time. He puts his own plate down, stubbornly, and leans forward, resting his forearms across his thighs, fingers lacing together to hang betwen his knees, and there's a lot Kalen isn't saying. Adam is good at reading people; perhaps he sees it. Perhaps he sees something.

His eyebrows are up. "What, your edges are going to poke his lovely eyes out?"

Kalen Holliday

"Mine? No." Kalen sighs. "I just think, I don't want to try to pull him to focus on monsters and fighting them. There are other Houses. I think...I think he's not likely to want the structure, but that is different. I did give him your card. It isn't my choice. I'll show him choices, and he can choose. I'll be perfectly happy if he joins the Order, but I can't see him in House Adrenaline Junkie, and I'm not going to press for that.

"I do have one I'm trying for though. Lest you think I will never, ever find an apprentice who is a real apprentice and not Grace." Kalen smiles a little. "I want him to see how fucking beautiful this can be before he has to watch people he has come to love die. He's-"

Kalen swallows. "He's a lot like me, with what bits of the Ars he can use from Awakening. Fate mage. I don't-"

Adam Gallowglass

[Perception (People) + Awarepathy! You don't what? He's eh? Anything going on under the surface besides what I already see/intuit?]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 3 ) Re-rolls: 1

Kalen Holliday

[Ix: What he already sees is likely mostly correct. He may not know one key thing that he might figure out here, or at least suspect. And that is that Kalen predicted what happened in Flagstaff. He KNEW that was going to happen. That insane survivor's guilt he has going on...largely comes from there. But as far as Ryne goes, he just doesn't want to drag him into monsters. Not yet at least.

Ix: If Ryne finds another House...Kalen will actually be pleased. Surprised. But pleased.]

Adam Gallowglass

The quiet (he is quiet; his mannerisms are quiet, even though they are animated; it has to do with how measured he is) Hermetic listens, and observes. His face is well-suited to listening, and how he listens now, an invitation to keep speaking, his gaze not quite present because he seems to be thinking about what Kalen says and the gaze needn't be present for that. That last sentence cut-off gets a different kind of look, and Adam says, "Would this be Alexander or is there another freshie running around?"

Kalen Holliday

"Alexander," Kalen confirms quietly. "Though there is, but she bolted."

Adam Gallowglass

He looks a question at Kalen but doesn't interrupt what has become storytime.

Kalen Holliday

"Patience found her. And we were talking for a minute. And then Sera tried to tell her and she panicked and she ran. I think I might be able to do something like I did for tracking where the film might be, but I am already so tired and that was so much. Or maybe she'll come back. Maybe she'll be drawn to us.

"Do you think Denver is cursed?" He asks this as though one thought flows naturally into the other.

Adam Gallowglass

"No. Erm, at least not literally." He has to correct his initial negation, in the interest of truth. He looks thoughtful in regards to this strange just-Awakened girl, but doesn't try to glean more from what turns out to have been a very short tale. "Have you told Alexander you'd like to take him on as an apprentice?"

A pause, a beat. "Kalen, you know you needn't take in strays only if you think they'd be suited to your House. The basics are the same in every House, and the world isn't as it was back in those days Proclus remembers so well. I remember Arethusa talking about them; Lucius, too, though not as often."

"They'd talk like we're living in the beginning of a new dark ages."

Kalen Holliday

Gallowglass is leaning forward and Kalen shifts closer. He does not curl up against him, just moves closer and breathes in like maybe he will breathe in stability or certainty. "Does it really strike you I have much else to give to anyone right now? Even if I wanted to?"

He smiles a little. "Besides which, all that ridiculous hope will be good for Lena. And I'm...he's not really into crazy mystical things. Lena's a little more practical, I think at least right now he'll be best with her. It's not like I'm leaving him on anyone's doorstep and never talking to him again. I'll still be around. I mean, look at Grace."

Adam Gallowglass

"Alexander or Ryne?" Adam asks, seeking confirmation, after that besides which. Look at Grace, Kalen says, and Adam takes another bite of rice and curry, swallows. Then he frowns at the plate; he'd put it down so as not to eat.

Only then does he answer Kalen's first question, going back in the conversation in order to do so: "I don't understand what you mean. 'Much else to give anyone right now.' Much else of what? Do you mean do I think you could be more than what you are yourself? Erm, yes of course I do. You came back from the dead, after all."

Kalen Holliday

"Ryne. Alexander...Alexander is not so young and he is very self contained. He needs instruction, but not...he knows how to take care of himself. He needs more information to do that effectively now, but basically his instincts and prior training is all good. He's...I don't worry as much about him being blindsided. Ryne's...innocent. And not...not suited to the kind of dark the world can be. You don't need magic to see the world get dark. But...I just want to-"

Kalen laughs. "I mean I am so tired I can barely manage not falling over. I think I'd be a pretty awful mentor right now. Hell, the night I met Ryne and told him he was a Mage I think we were like ten seconds from him deciding actually he should be trying to figure out if I was okay. I completely collapsed on Pan the other night, and it helped, he helped, but...I'm kind of not in the best shape at the moment."

Adam Gallowglass

"I think if you're always waiting to be in your best shape, you're never going to do anything," Adam says. He is relentless, after all, and valiant; that's what shapes his Will, his Workings, that's why other willworkers associate him with knights, with shining armor, though there's nothing technically bright about his resonance. All connotation, all stirrings; all feelings. The you Adam was speaking of is a general you, but also a specific you. "Of course I do think you look like shit. What can I do to help you figure yourself out?"

"As for Ryne and Alexander, if you don't think you'd be good for Ryne or Ryne would be good for you, I understand. You should offer Alexander your services and see if he's got what it takes. Harder, sometimes, to come into the Order at a later age, but - " - a shrug.

Kalen Holliday

[Can you do this? WP]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 6, 6, 7, 7) ( success x 5 )

Kalen Holliday

One of those things is easy to address. One of those things is not. "I've talked to Alexander. He's curious, but not sold on Traditions. Or cabals. I'm working on it."

Kalen sighs. "I don't know. I can't...." He looks at Gallowglass with slightly wide eyes. "I don't know how to get over Flagstaff. I've had nightmares since it happened and they're the same really. People I know all dying. I'm almost always there and I can't ever stop it. It's worse now, after Thakinyan and the-" He visibly shudders and curls up tighter.

"It almost killed me. Did I tell you that? I may have. Sid saved me with healing charms. That's the only part of the story I really tell. But it reached out from that horrible nightmare plane of madness with tentacles made of shadow it very nearly devoured my soul." And he is shaking now, although he keeps talking and his voice stays steady.

"So now that thing is infesting the shadows some nights. And we try to get away and then somehow I'm always not fast enough and it captures someone. And then they half dissolve and turn into a mass of writhing nightmare tentacles but still kind of almost human. And then they devour my soul."

Adam Gallowglass

He doesn't know.

His eyes are wide. He shudders. He curls up. Traumatized, Kalen. Unable to move forward, that's Kalen. He manages to speak with a voice as steady as he is not; look at Kalen, shaking like a leaf in the wind. The dark-haired Hermetic watches him, forehead creased, no trace of a grin or a smile, just absorbed attention.

Kalen dreams about being unable to stop the people he loves from dying.

What does Adam dream about? He doesn't talk of his dreams.

He doesn't have nightmares like that.

Adam puts his hand on Kalen's shoulder. He does it like this: so he has to put his arm around both of Kalen's shoulders to do so. It's steadying, bracing, or is meant to be. He is frowning over what to tell Kalen, so for now what he tells him is just that bracing hand on his shoulderblade and the warmth of his arm around Kalen's shoulders.

Kalen Holliday

Kalen leans into the contact and the warmth. In the bar Kalen leaned into him and relaxed almost instantly, but he does not relax like that now. He is still shaking.

"I have to remember them. Because of the omens. I have to remember them and look for patterns and symbols to be sure they're just dreams and not Dreams. I know so many ways you could die. I just-"

Adam Gallowglass

He doesn't take his arm away; leaves it there. He's still frowning. Kalen's voice breaks off, just breaks, last word hanging there in the air, drifting like a split-end or a cob-web.

I just-

"You've lost perspective. Listen. It is not your responsibility to read every omen and every portent; if you're dwelling on nightmares, just in case, then you're only going to make yourself mad and any nightmare you have which is a true-dream will mean nothing when you have it."

"Listen to yourself. You can't be sure. I understand why Flagstaff is difficult. Why you have those dreams."

What does Adam dream?

Shh.

"But you are not responsible for our deaths any more than you are for our lives. The only way I know how to get over something is by moving forward. By saying," he seems uncomfortable, saying this aloud, and yet quite sincere, "that I am my own master, not these shadows. If you believe you have nothing in you to give..."

"Erm, well. Just remember that you're here. You're not in your dreams or the past."

Kalen Holliday

And there is Gallowglass. Reasonable and calm and Kalen calms too, the shaking lessening and then ceasing. He doesn't pull away when the shaking stops, just rests against Gallowglass. He listens until Gallowglass stops speaking and then he laughs, shaky perhaps.

"Don't misunderstand. I mean right now. I don't think I'm going to be much good to anyone if I don't get some rest. I'm not having a crisis about what I could offer in general. I'm just worried about practical limitations imposed because I can't just get real sleep.

"Ian did this Effect and it was so good. I mean, Effects to wake me up are just patching over something already broken, but for a little while I was really awake and it was so good. I didn't even realize until then how bad this had gotten.

"It's okay. I'll be okay. I'll just figure out how to sleep and how to walk and then I think everything will be okay again. It'll all be fine." He sighs heavily and closes his eyes. "It'll all be fine."