abraxaslogs | [ CATCH-ALL ] look at me, look at me

He studies her in stunned silence longer than the question's likely rote responses might need, and Sabine understands all too well. Though unsaid, she's not surprised that he seems to see more of her than almost everyone here. So far, it's only been the prickly, childish fallen angel (whom she had denied an answer to while also deigning not to deny there was one, that he was not wrong about the maddening impossibility of translating her fully in his current state) but was well aware she was so much more than she appeared.

Not human. Not mortal. And, nowhere near the small size, her appearance belied.

If there's a part of her quietly chiding that she will have to figure out when to tell Jack (again for her; the first time for him), she looks more amused than anything at the incident. It is, thus far, vastly different circumstances than any of her first three interactions with Lucifer.

"I think the second. I'd like something a little stronger rather than sweeter today. Bolstering." As to the rest, and this by, in particular, Sabine's smile shifted a little like a shared amusement, a not-quite secret. It's so rare that those she finds who can are human, or even part-human, and not of the million varieties of parasitically cruel appetite that flocked to The Rift's malevolent chaos energy. "I guess I'll just have to come again to try the other if this goes well."

"Bolstering?" Kell raises an eyebrow, then shares the conspiratorial smile of hers. "One moment. I'll bring you something else. You might find it more appealing."

He leaves the seasonal menu with her and disappears behind the counter for longer while to the accompaniment of much paper being shuffled. He comes back with single sheet. Nothing so ornate as the menu she has on the table. It's a simple list. No fancy names or pretty pictures. Each blend labelled with a number, list of ingredients and sometimes a description. He puts the list in front of her.

"Take a look at number 37. Maybe you'd like this one better."

Kell is not very good with people, but he is very good with tea. The list is his work in progress. Some of the items have notes or name ideas scribbled on the side in Mildred's scratchy handwriting. The one he pointed to is heavily annotated.

It's a blend of black tea, almonds, orange blossom has been crossed over and replaced with jasmine, some mysterious ingredient described only as 'spices from nocwich' with Mildred's comments 'damned hot' and 'are you mad?' written over it in bold letters. But it's the last comment that's most revealing on what the shop's proprietress thinks of Kell's idea. 'tastes like old magic'

This wasn't the weirdest comment she even made to him, but it sure was the weirdest she made while being completely serious.

Sabine almost gives a laugh, all alone and to herself, when the man suddenly turns away, taking his sudden inspiration and something of a sudden semi-promised better option surprise with him. It's a strange and interesting addition to the afternoon she had not expected, and it's in the middle of that thought she stops, breathing in.

In the air lingers the scent of flowers. Not one specific one. Or a few. Or many. The electrically delicate tracery of something broader, grander, encompassing all that flowers are, could be, then aren't, always cycling. From inception to full bloom, spark-laden, life-laden, death-laden; like a moniker of the magic interwoven of him. How interesting.

He returns and proffers a paper that looks far more like a student's shared note sheet—especially with the different handwriting and little notes back and forth—than the immaculately artsy menu list still lying on the table before her. Sabine follows instruction dutifully, emerald gaze skimming down the list, across the name, the first notes—including a faint snort that makes her mouth curl—before getting to the end.

There's a moment's pause. Not rereading, just a pause. Before her gaze raises back to him, intrigue a quieter note across her features but no less interested than her animate amusement earlier. "Why not. That sounds like it could be interesting."

Edited 2023-05-27 19:11 (UTC)

Kell is not even remotely aware how much of his actions are motivated by his magic, like an entity within himself, like a different being he's in constant wordless conversation with. The very reason he found Holland's opinion on magic so shocking. He's too much in tune with his own for having ever considered trying to bend it to his will, to bring it to heel like a captured and trained animal. And for that he's been called weak by the only other Antari he's ever known.

So when it reaches out now, deeply fascinated by the other creature in the room, the force it feels under its woman-shaped exterior, Kell reads the fascination as his own. So deeply it is enmeshed with his thoughts and feelings that it's sometimes difficult to tell their sources apart. He smiles at her answer and bows. Maybe too theatrically for her being his only audience. The older gentleman having left while he was ruffling through his papers. Only later on Kell will realize that the man might have gotten a wrong impression he's intruding on something private, even if the teashop is a public place. To the untrained eye one magic meeting another might an awful lot resemble flirting. Not one primordial being recognizing its faraway counterpart.

Fully oblivious to this, Kell takes both menus with him, as he goes back behind the counter to prepare his newest creation. Over time, he had elevated this practice to almost a ritual. They have people who come to the Winking Cauldron less for the tea or the company and more for the spectacle. Kell finds the structure of his work soothing. It's the reason he stayed at this job for so long. It manages to do what he struggles to achieve through formal meditation, it calms his inner turmoil down, slows the barrage of his thoughts and lets his keep his focus unfaltering on a very well defined sequence of steps. The process has its variations depending on what he's exactly brewing, but there's as much comfort in the stability of the overall structure as it's novelty in the variation that keeps him from getting bored and ditching the thing.

The resulting concoction gives of an impression of lush a jasmine bush in the full bloom on a night under starry skies. There are earthy undertone that call images of a recent rain, with drops still glistening on the leaves. It's strong without being overpowering, refreshing for a drink with a subtle kick of spice. Hard to tell how much of the impression is the tea itself, and how much magic of the person preparing it that slipped in unnoticed.

Kell brings the steaming cup to Sabine's table, puts it in front of her with gracefully practiced move. He places a silver spoon above the cup.

"Enjoy," he wishes straightening up. "Please let me know if you'd like anything else. We have a selection of pastries to go with tea."

He retreats to his place behind the counter, takes out his notes and tries not to stare at her. It's rude, but he can't help a curious glance once in a while. They are the only people here.

There's a lightness and a frankness to him—them?; singular, plural, singular-plural—even beyond the p's and q's of professional politeness only very barely having toes pressed over it. Like they haven't quite broken the box this play began in, and yet somehow they've shifted the stage, turned it the barest, just unmissable, tilt—two sides of a mirror's consideration, a child's-like intrigue.

He flourishes a bow, more pronounced—and maybe the word isn't child-like, maybe it's playful?—and Sabine does laugh this time, lifting her hands from the table so they aren't in the way as he's picking up menus. He leaves behind the counter to turn to his craft, and Sabine rests against the back of the chair, considering the now-empty room. She could read her book, there in the sunshine through the window...

But there was a part of her mind toying with the finite reexamination of the room around her; tracing the echo of that new feeling, flavor. Places took on the echoes of their people as much as people took on the echoes of where they were for extended periods. The teashop might not be anything like the gas station, but people like him—like the people she watched over back home before the coma—left a wake where they walked and even more where they chose to stay, put their time, and especially their effort.

Maybe Sabine's even a little too far into it because she blinks back to when he's suddenly walking back again. There's a soft thank you for the deposited cup and spoon, fancier than she's ever really had, definitely compared to a tea bag in a coffee cup warmed up in a microwave in the house (the dream one, or the apartment). She means to start, but the prickle at the edge of her awareness stays there. Present. Persistent. Returns. Again.

The longing curiosity kept to a leash's length, but only that.

After a sip of tea, she said, "You could come join me if you'd like."

"If you have anything like a cookie here, I might even tell you my name first."

The amount of time Kell spends lost in thought with a deep frown on his face, not because he's particularly annoyed by anything, just concentrating on a problem, itself lends to his reputation as an incurable grump. A reputation he's completely fine with. It means people are less likely to interrupt him whenever he's on lectures or in the library. It even adds to his mysterious aura whenever he is in the teashop. The same mysterious aura that draws some of their most loyal customers.

He's doesn't even know how much his demeanour changes when he is interested in someone for a change. Rhy always said he has different faces for different people, and it couldn't have been more true that it's now. If only indicated by the ease with which he smiles, as compared to practically any other situation whenever he's in a room with a complete stranger.

"Sure we do," he replies with a smile.

Kell ducks in the back for brief moment, coming with a wicker basket lined and covered with a cloth, and a small plate. He picks up a pair of thongs from behind the counter and brings it all with him to set on the table.

"We get all our pastry from the bakery down the street, but not the cookies. Cookies are our own."

He explains while he sets a plate for her, uncovers the basket and places two cookies on it. Well, to be honest those are not his, but Mildred's. She would never have let him near an oven.

Once he's done he moves to the opposite side of the table and pulls out a chair for himself.

"So, about names. I'm Kell."

He brought his own cup with him too. It's not one of Mildred's fancy ones, all in delicate, white porcelain. No, his is sturdy ceramic, dark brown with one red stripe around its edge, tall and narrow. One of his first purchases from Nocwich. The spell weaved around it keeps the beverage inside just the right temperature. He could have used an Abraxan one. The spells for that purpose are common and childishly easy to learn. Even people with little talent know them. But this is his cup, so it is his magic.

( ooc: you can totally ignore it if it's too forever ago, too. )

The acceptance comes as quickly as was expected, and Sabine's smile stays, scrunching her nose a bit as she leans back and sips at more tea. It does have an interesting flavor the longer it settles, and she focuses on it. It's been such a very, very long time since she felt light, truly light, without the nagging weight, the always knowledge, that dream-joy was only that at its root: a dream, sometimes shared, but a dream nonetheless. Better than nothing but built on moonlight and spider-silk, and less than one breath could banish the house of the cards.

(And would, and did, eventually.)

But now it's not. Now she's here, and Jack is here, and K'Ron gone.
And there's this. It's new and surprising, in a good way, too.

"Thank you."

She took one of the cookies, but instead of tasting it, she pointed at him with it mischievously. "You aren't so good at barter tactics and rules, are you? I got my cookie, and I didn't even have to give up what I offered as payment for it first." She pulled the cookie back and went to take a bite but paused just before she actually would have put it in her mouth:

"I'm Sabine."

Kell bites his lower lip as he bows his head acknowledging his defeat, fingers fiddling with his cup, but a smile stays in place. Any other day he'd be bummed for getting bested. Here and now, in this company. He's already got what he wanted. Everything else is just pretext.

"I guess I've never been particularly good with rules."

It's an off-hand comment. The words are not really important. They are having a conversation as people. This what anyone coming in would notice. What they would not, is how at ease and focused Kell is on this small section of space that contains the table and her. Though, it does not really contain anything. The magic in him vibrating with joy for finally being able to put name to the sun.

Sabine

It knows nothing can contain her. Not the space, not the name. But it is useful label. It likes labels. They makes otherwise amorphous pools of feeling more concrete.

"Nice to meet you Sabine."

Kell's tea is a rose one, its scent rising from the cup, feeling so very right, he couldn't have possibly picked any other one for this moment. Seamlessly integrating into swirling magic around him that weaves its strands into images before dissolving them back to the free current again. The warm stone, red glow of a river and blooming of flowers.

He's young and sweet—that much is true—but there's something about him. The makeup of him, his magic, doesn't seem to be that. Too. The longer she can study him (listening to him cobble together an answer while finally trying that cookie that is no longer a pointer), the more she's certain of it. Unlike Jack, Kel is very meant—a universal manifest-made.

This place was such a mystery and a wonder,
and it drew so much to itself.

"It's nice to meet you, too." Sabine took a sip of her tea. "As we've covered names, and that I'm shiny cellophane, brand new basically, how long have you been here?"

Eager and excited are rarely the words to describe him, but Kell doesn't notice the change in his own behavior, and there's no one in here to point it out to him. He shrugs, counting months in his head, finding to his own surprise that more time has passed than he's been aware of and yet it feels like too little when he thinks about everything that happened. How all of it managed to squeeze into mere thirteen months. A year has passed and yet he feels as if he grew older by at least three.

"About a year. Doesn't sound long now that I say it, but a lot happens here. There's not a boring day. Even if sometimes I'd wish for one."

He's not the first to mention having been here a long time, nor the first to seem surprised they'd lost track of the time. Sabine isn't sure she can do the second—not after losing the last six years of her life to an extended nap—but would gladly take whatever this place wants to dish out toward her if it means she gets to be at Jack's side again.

"What kinds of things fall under 'a lot?'"

Especially for someone like him. She's still working out the shape of those edges, the flow of the magic, red and black. The river, the scent of the flowers that seems to linger beyond and before, and much more than just from the tea he's drinking. It's an interesting little facet.

"Assassinations attempts, kidnappings, weird visions sent by the Singularity."

Kell shakes his head.

"Sorry, I'm coming at this wrong." He pauses, thinking where to start. "There's a general assumption that we - and in we I mean all the Summoned - are going to fix this world. That's at least the reason for the ritual. Why and how? My guess is as good as any. We have a unique connection to Singularity, so that's no an unreasonable conclusion. For that, I think, and for the fact that we're a bit of a wild card. Nominally, residing on territory of whatever faction has dragged us here, but we're not part of them. Not subjects, citizens nor whatever they have in Solvunn."

Thorne's crown provides for them, so they naturally expect something in return, but neither Thornean royals nor Free Cities government can say Summoned are their subjects.

"So we get a lot of interest, both good and bad, from all directions."

He shoots her a worried look suddenly aware of the possibility she might be more interested in simple answer and a detailed analysis of political situation of the Summoned. He's been thinking about this a lot.

"Sorry, it's not a more concise answer. I hope I didn't bore you with all the details."

"It's an honest one; that's always better."
Sabine's answer is forthright but calm.

It's not often she can't tell if a baseline human is lying. They aren't as complicated as they think they are, especially to those whose perceptions are made in such a completely different way. Sabine turns over the words.

"It's best to know what I might be facing and what Jack did before I arrived." It's best to know what he needs watching over, how he's been handling it, and what might be needed of her. Especially with his not remembering what she can do, what she is, and whether she wants to keep that going until the proper memory or rewrite all of it here, again.

He'd taken it as well as she'd ever hoped, but he was in the middle of thinking she wasn't quite dead, and the world was ending in only a handful of days. Not at the best time for either of them and still, it'd changed absolutely nothing.

When the world changed, you wanted it to stay changed.

Yet he was earlier, in a place and memories she didn't know until coming here.

"Do you think they're right? That those pulled here might be able to fix this world?" The words are utterly serious. The mathematic tone of a 'girl' who spent the last centuries planning how to save a different world and every being upon its skin had succeeded before coming here.

"Yes."

For someone who almost broke his own world, Kell is very sure of his opinion. Mostly, because he's been of a completely opposite one at the start.

"Either fix it or break it permanently, but given what I've seen until now, I'd say fixing is more probable. At least the people I know really want to help."

He shudders. Now he's going fully into speculation territory, but it's actually something he had time to think a lot about. He knows too little about the Summoning ritual. It's not like Ambrose or any other mages are exactly forthcoming how is works. So he doesn't know how the Summoned are chosen, but most of the people he knows are definitely able to make a difference.

And then there is Wilhelm... ruining his pretty theory. Kell has a hunch Wille just hasn't got his great chance to shine yet. At some point he will, and they all will be surprised.

"Looking at who gets here, most are people capable of inciting change. Even if no one, not even they themselves, can predict what that change would be."

No one predicted Nocwich, and then the werewolves were instrumental in helping the rescued Summoned. Small changes cause bigger ones down the stream.

As much as Sabine doesn't want to think about it—alive and awake, here with Jack—Kell's words do make her have to consider deeper contexts. Have to consider a fact she's not sure she wants to turn over. If she knew the omniversal context of this world, would there be a way she'd suddenly agree with all of it? Understand the choices being made, the scope of the acceptable losses, and the sacrifices needed to pave the path.

Had she and her parents not made deals with similar devils, would they not, upon many counts, be counted as devils, too, both in being and in action? Especially if they were put to the decision of those who'd worked upon the Rift. Except. Except she was the outlier, wasn't she? The 'girl' who broke the rules, the pacts, the plans; who dared to take the one piece of the board that was the least and most sacrificable, but only in that order, and only the second on the last day of the world's last chance against an eternity of agonized subjugation.

It had cost her everything and set off a line of dominoes no one expected.

Sabine realizes she's been silent a little too long—a faint crease in her brow.

"Do you?" It's a piqued acquisitive. "Want to save this world? Its people?"

Kell shrugs. It's a straightforward question, with an unstraightforward answer.

"I guess," he replies, then adds. "I don't like what they did. I don't like that they continue doing it. But they are desperate, and I understand desperation."

He might disagree, or even outright hate how Thorne in particular approaches the issue. He emphatically disagrees with Free Cities government approach to Singularity. But he's here, and if he can help, he doesn't see reason why not to. Not the rulers of Thorne, or rulers of any other faction, but people? Like in Nott? People he can and want to help.

Sabine is pondering the words and the vastly unknown motives when he gets to those last three words, and she considers him over her tea cup. It could be considered impolite and impertinent, but they've started off on the oddest of feet already, far into the more intimate of details people usually cannot see at a first look and is usually only given after so much longer a knowing.

"Do you? Why?"

Kell looks away. Darkness crawls, staining the bright red of his magic. Staining it black, like ink spilled. An accident, but impossible to hide.

"Personal history. A long one. Not exactly flattering."

He's been there. Full of pain and anger. Willing to do anything, and everything, to stop the catastrophe from happening. A consequence of one, grievous mistake. Just because he got played. They both got played. Then there was blood and death at the end of it, and Kell was ready, desperate enough, to try anything to fix it.

He looks back, smiles, bows his head slightly in apology.

"Sorry, I didn't want to drag the conversation down."

[ CATCH-ALL ] look at me, look at me

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But what if I came back to this utter cuteness, now that I'm not heartbroken? <3

I shamelessly hoard all Sabine tags

yes, good, she needs that

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