Logs:Shibboleth

Shibboleth
Dramatis Personae Desi, Gaétan, Lucien, Sera	2024-05-31 "{Fate can be magic. Just not his.}"
Location <NYC> Ziegfeld Ballroom - Midtown
There's been all kinds of press bustle -- for the movie premiere, sure, but far more so still for the Real Actual Norse God attending it. The red carpet was an epileptic's nightmare, the pre-show interviews focused considerably more on Aliens than on the movie, there was appropriately measured-not-maudlin references to the the catastrophe whose fallout cleanup is still ongoing just outside this venue's doorstep. Now, just downstairs, there is the actual showing of Thor -- so for now in this brief lull in insanity between the show and the afterparty, the actual stars have slipped away to take a few breaths, eat a few bites, without a swarm of cameras watching. Across the way some Very Famous Chris is engaged in conversation with The Actual Thor; the director is just coming in from a smoke break, one of the producers is well on his way to being drunk before the star-studded afterparty even starts. Lucien is tucked into a corner of an upper balcony, currently neglecting his tea and small bowl of watermelon salad. He's dressed in a black tuxedo subtly styled with an eye toward comfort; the satin lapels, the left one graced with a single white poppy flower, have the faintest silver-green sheen in the light, likewise the bow tie and vest, which on closer examination match his understated labradorite cufflinks. He's giving his email a slightly piched look that is only growing more pinched as he tabs between that and his schedule for the upcoming week. There is a cavalcade of Tessiers coming up the stairs, the middle child in the lead. Desi has taken a note or two from her mother's fashion sensibilities for this glamorous evening, though she has wisely kept her cribbing conservative for lack of Elie Tessier's sheer force of presence. Her sea green trumpet dress has ruffled cascades that add the illusion of curves to her slender frame, and in this color she can actually pull off her simple gold jewelry, spindle heels, and even a dusting gold of in her contouring and smokey eye makeup without looking too pale or fouling the dazzling green of her eyes. Those eyes fix on Lucien from across the room and do not waver, though she's hastened her steps until she stops just out of Lucien's reach in a quiet rustle of silk. "Is it really you?" She looks him up and down, her voice tightly controlled.. "Mother said you were dead. We thought you were dead." Gaétan looks positively bland next to his sisters, though his suit is very well tailored and the shade of his tie subtly accents the glimmers of green that are beginning to fleck his dark eyes. "Who says he wasn't." He actually sits at Lucien's table, pulling out a chair catacorner to his brother and pinching a piece of feta from the salad. "Is this just our thing now." Sera is not as eye-catching as Desi, but she looks very grown-up in a slinky empire waist dress that shifts fluidly between emerald and black, her hair starting to grow out and styled into a pert french bob. She trails quietly after her older siblings, her expression carefully neutral, and fetches up beside Gaétan's chair. "Mom and Matt weren't actually dead, though." Her power is faintly sensible to Lucien as a delicate neurochemical palpating. "It is him, though," she reassures Desi. Then, cocking her head at Lucien. "Did you die? Did the aliens resurrect you?" Lucien has frozen before his siblings get quite the whole way to him. "{I truly hope you do not follow in these particular footsteps.}" He's turning his screen off and then, as Gaétan takes a seat, slipping the phone away into a pocket. "I was dead. Someone else resurrected me. I did get taken by aliens. I --" The regimented machinery of his neurochemistry shifts, subtle but distinctive at Sera's faint touch; a small relaxing of his tightly guarded public-appearance mental partitioning. "Am very sorry. About all the upheaval." Desi starts to relax at Sera's reassurance, but only sits, herself, when Lucien starts speaking. "{Too late. I've already started planning my grand exit and reentrance.} You're a tough act to follow." She's studying him intently, something in her carriage still uneasy. "What were you doing, in between the resurrection and the abduction? Why didn't you tell us?" "{I think stacking the alien abduction on top was kind of cheap. Two escalations, one of us could've used that one.}" Gaétan's eyes follow the phone as Lucien puts it away. His brows lift just slightly. "Yeah, well. We're all pretty used to upheaval." "{I think the alien abduction part was a tie-in for the film.}" Sera finally takes the fourth seat. "{But he's right. Whoever does this last is pretty much going to have to end the world or something, at least for a while.} Why didn't you want Mom and Matt to come?" "{I did not plan the alien abduction. A chance of fate. I would never,}" Lucien is assuring his siblings, "{have stolen your potential thunder that way, had I the choice.}" At Desi's question, there's a quiet tightening in Lucien's mind that is soon disrupted at the question of Elie and Matt. The order of his mind tumbles into a brief seize of panic that begins meticulously reorganizing itself a moment later. Lucien rubs the tip of his forefinger slowly against the buffed-smooth surface of his thumbnail. "I never wanted you to be." His voice is soft, and he isn't looking at any of his siblings, now. "Disruption does seem to be a constant with us, all the same." "{Of course you didn't plan it,}" Desi agrees with a mild vicarious affront. "{I doubt we'd have been invaded at all if they'd sent you as an envoy.}" She sets her jaw and looks away. "{If it is because of your relapse.} We're all pretty used to that, too. I expected better of you, but neither Matthieu nor Mother has any stones to throw." She reaches for his hand, then withdraws it, her gaze dipping to the table. "And at the end of the day, you are still our brother." "{Chance. You think --}" Gaétan jerks his chin towards Lucien's abandoned teacup, "{brewing tea is magic but the timing of this whole alien abduction Norse God thing was fate.} Starting to think Mom's right and you are the dumb one." He watches the motion of Lucien's fingers. Just for a moment, before his eyes cut sharply away. He pulls Lucien's salad closer, actually picking up the fork this time to spear a cube of watermelon together with some crumbles of feta. "{Dunno about constant. It never was with you.}" Sera has lapsed into stillness, her expression shuttering further. "{Fate can be magic. Just not his.}" It doesn't really sound like a defense or an argument so much as idle musing. "{I know things weren't great for you -- any of you -- growing up. Maybe I should have asked more. I can't change that, but maybe we can do better. It shouldn't have to take any more of us coming back from the dead.}" She hesitantly offers Lucien her own transparently manufactured calm, the messier noise of her heartbreak and confusion imperfectly excluded. {So then, what now?} Won't you come home? Mom moved into your room, but it's not like there isn't space." "I --" Lucien lifts his hand, pressing brief and small to his lips. "{Wanted to spare you all some of the tumult. I am sorry I did not do a better job.}" The breath he lets out is slow; the repetitive circling of his finger sends out soothing ripples that complement Sera's borrowed calm; between the two it takes the edge off his own spiking upset. When he drops his hand his expression is calm, even if his mind is not. "I don't yet know. I think -- {I will need to talk to them as well. Sort some things out.}" His fingers press flat to the tabletop when his eyes lift back to his siblings. "{I missed you all terribly.}" Desi takes a deep breath, and then another. "{We've all missed you, too. And I'm sorry for--Mother said...}" She shakes her head. "{I don't care about the tumult or expectations--mine, Mother's, or the Daily Bugle's--or how good a job you did to meet them. What's important is you're alive.}" She fishes her phone from her purse and swipes rapidly. "{You don't have to sort everything out right now.}" She slides the phone over with the contact entry for "Lucien Tessier" open, a new blank space for "Phone (mobile) (post-resurrection)". "{And you don't have to sort it out alone.}"