[Sodium_noir] Saturday Evening - En route to the Sinclair Party

[FlameFlash]

> Jack, Aurora, Christine, Mara, Mitsuko
> Temple of the Five Dragons
>
> > Mara felt it. She wasn't sure what she felt but her finely tuned senses and
> > Vampiric instincts were aware of something. Perhaps the stress this young
> > red-haired mortal was putting on her body. Or the way everyone held their
> > breath in anticipation.
>
> Something was happening here.  She could feel it.  There was something, even if she couldn't put her finger on it, but it seemed like at the moment, she wasn't the only one that wasn't breathing.
>
> And Aurora crumples for a moment at Jack's head, laying perpendicular
> to his body, breathing heavily and hard.  She was relieved, but
> winded.
>
> Alarmed by Aurora's collapse, Christine starts forward hastily. She
> finds herself looking down into two faces, Jack and Aurora, almost
> touching heads, making an L shape. Aurora, she is relieved to see, is
> breathing but as though she has just run a marathon. Jack still looks
> ill - pallid, undernourished and covered in wounds, livid against his
> pale skin. Yet, somehow, the edge of desperation has gone, the scent
> of death no longer clinging about him.
>
> Mara doesn't move, because Christine already has, and she has no wish to interfere, or be in the way.  But even so, her vampiric sense tells her that the stranger has improved somewhat, the stench of rot and death that had fiercly clung to him had dissipated now.  Aurora, she could hear her labored breathing, trying desperately to normalize, like a person that had just run a race or just had some serious acrobatic sex.
>
> Christine looks around at the monks, at Mitsuko and at Mara, still
> here, still surveying the scene with iron patience.
>
> As Christine turns to look at her, Mara folds her arms, offering a not so subtle signal that her supply of patience was starting to run out. She looks at her watch.  Five minutes, and she would be out the door, with or without companions.
>
> >Something definitely needs to give, here. Christine hesitates, not sure what to do or suggest next. She's burning to know more about Jack, scared
> too. Maybe, though, her curiosity will have to wait until the guy has
> slept and is more recovered. He may no longer be at death's door but
> he is still very far from 'chipper'. Then, there is the Sinclair
> shindig which also draws Christine strongly; she's Seen Aurora and
> Mara and herself there, after all. It's like a junction, a knot of
> fates where many different threads tangle. Also, thinks Christine
> wistfully, much better chance of getting a drink - or several - at a
> party.
>
> The man was coming to.  With her heightened hearing, she hears him offer his gratitude to the women.  She mentally rolls her eyes.  She'd found the guy, and helped drag him into the temple.  It was an annoyance that he did not acknowledge her, but she wasn't ready to kill him for the slight.  At least, not yet.
>
> "So, what's the plan?" she asks cautiously.
>
> Mara speaks before Aurora does.  "Well, I can't speak for Aurora or Mitsuko, but my plan is that I'm leaving here in five minutes."  Her tone is matter of fact, the flat neutrality of it hiding her growing impatience.

It was an odd feeling having to catch her breath like that, she
normally didn't have to, but the extra raw power of Life was still
coursing through her, and in a moment she allowed the aftereffects of
Life 2 to wash over her, recovering her breath much quicker than
normal, and then sitting up.

"Now that I know for sure he'll heal on his own, I would still like to
accompany Mara," this time she speaks with a newfound confidence, as
though whatever she'd just done and gone through had given her an
extra bit of strength.  Life was most certainly a Sphere she would
have to continue to study.

She rose, brushing herself off as best she could, fortunately the
monks kept the temple, even the floors, nice and pristine.

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