[Private] A Frog at Denny's

Usually when the two of them had plans to meet up, Lucas was excited to meet up with the Elemental. This time around it was a mixed bag. On the one hand, he was eager to check in with Dani and see how she was holding up. It had been a hell of a Summer for her. On the other hand, he was upset with her. He didn't want to say "I told you so" but damn was the temptation there.

Fortunately, he had managed to reel said temptation in for the time being and he was working on keeping it that way. A drink or two would help keep the edge off of his irritation. He was in luck as this particular Dennys made quite the Paloma.

For this particular outing he opted for a more low-key outfit to avoid drawing attention and make it easier for them to have privacy. He was wearing a backwards Blue Jay's baseball cap, a relaxed fit black hoodie, jeans, and a pair of sunglasses. Since it was Vegas no one bothered to look at him when he kept his sunglasses after stepping inside. It wasn't that uncommon for tourists to get trashed and keep their sunglasses on to help with hangovers.

He weaved past the lobby crowd while letting the hostess know he was meeting up with someone who was already inside. A few moments later and he successfully spotted Dani.

"Hey, how's it going?"

He waved to her on his way to the bar and then sat down next to her.

The temptation to huff and puff and blow the elemental down quickly vanished what the sincerity behind her words and her offering of the tendy.

With an internal sigh, he set aside his negative emotions and greeted the other Lost with a smile. He thanked her for the chicken tender as he sat down and then helped himself to the offered food.
"I've missed you too. It's been a heck of a summer. "

It was strange being around his friend and sending the negative social stigma that the season had slapped on them.
"I've been doing okay, all things considered. How have you been? Given...everything that's happened recently. "

Lucas listened to Dani, frowning to himself as he noticed the lack of flames coming off of her. This was the first time he had ever been around someone who had their mantle stripped from them and it was unsettling to say the last. Their mantles were threads that wove them into the same community and now Dani stood out like a plucked thread.

"I appreciate the apology. The thing is, Dani, it's not just that you ditched me...it's that you ignored my existence all together all because Riley was present and needed to do some Big Dramatic Gesture. Those sort of things sound great on paper but they rarely workout in reality. "

He let out a sigh. His voice was still soft and there wasn't any real edge to it. Dani was beaten down enough as it was. He wasn't going to go to town on her and shove her even further into her despair.

"What you need to do--and Riley needs to do the same--is show that you care about the community. Anyone who has gone rogue recently and put their own desires above the well being of the community has crashed and burned. That's not to say you gotta live and breathe the freehold culture 24/7, but you gotta show that being here means something to you."

He dropped his voice so that only Dani would be able to hear him.

"We can lie to our courts. We can lie to our loved ones. We can lie to ourselves. We can't lie to the Wyrd. The Wyrd knows what's in our hearts and it will act accordingly. It doesn't use human reasoning to guide it's actions. It is an entropic, magical force, that is guided by things like oaths and rites. "

[CW: Non-descript reference to a historic suicide attempt]

Lucas continued to listen without interrupting the Elemental, recognizing that they needed the space to speak. There was a certain amount of power in speaking one's thoughts out loud. Hell, their Arcadian magic was often fueled by the words they spoke. The oaths they made were empowered by the words of truth they spoke. While they were not invoking any kind of magic at the moment, there were so many words that needed to be said to begin healing.

There were words Lucas needed to speak out loud but he wasn't ready to say them yet. Winning the egg had yielded more questions than it had answers. When he was taken to the Underworld with Necropolis, he had always assumed that he had survived his suicide attempt because of whatever magic Necropolis used. Looking back, it was a silly thought now considering how powerful Gentry were. Back then he didn't realize the full scope of a Gentry's powers. Without memories of his time in Arcadia, his mind did it's best to create an abstract version of what had likely happened to him. Then he broke through the barriers of life and death when he used his kith's blessing on Golden Boy and he felt the full power of what a Gentry or a Gentry like being was capable of. Even though he had experienced it his mind wasn't sure how to process the event. How did someone properly process reality unfolding all around them? Then when he held the egg and discovered that there was a ritual that could bring the dead back and well...

It made him realize he had likely died and Necropolis had brought him back. Or maybe he wasn't even brought back to life per say. Maybe he had died and remained dead in the Underworld, which was why he was a Gravewight. He could still technically be dead at this very moment and he was being held together by whatever Necromatic energy Necropolis had infused in him. If that was true then what happened when he died once more?

Did Nohoilpi show Bonnie what horrors awaited her in death before she died?

There was someone who had the answers to his questions; Monarch Nohoilpi.

At this point, Lucas was completely confident that the Winter Monarch was aware of his various activities. It felt like a test at this point. Winter was largely hands off. Unless Lucas did something disruptive, it was unlikely he was going to be interrupted. If he did something disruptive...considering he was a Gravewight, there was a good chance that Roger and Nohoilpi would drag him into Twilight to talk rather than sending someone like Fawkes to knock on his door.

Once he acknowledged to Nohoilpi that he knew--once those words were spoken out loud and he gave power to them--everything would change.

He wasn't ready to set that time off just yet. He wanted to focus on the here and now and what was in front of him. God, he wished there was more time. Not only did the powers of Arcadia allow him to commune with the dead, but  by tapping into Crown magic, he could call upon the Wyrd to alter fate in a positive way. He hadn't mastered the magic to do that yet and he wasn't sure there was enough time to intervene in the ways he wanted.

What he did have time to do was stand up and move his seat so that they were right next to each other. That allowed him to lean over and wrap an arm around her shoulder. He pulled her close to him while he used his freehand to remove his sunglasses. There wasn't anything unusual about his eyes that would suggest he was trying to hide actually being hung over or high.  His eyes were as bright and soulful as ever.

"Whatever it is that happens, I won't leave you, Dani. I promise. We'll figure this out together. You have to promise not to leave me either."

There was an undeniable sadness in his eyes as he thought about what would happen to Dani if she decided to leave the freehold. He didn't try to use his fog to shield his emotions, instead he allowed her to get a full sense of the sorrow that filled him so that she could hopefully see in turn that he genuinely cared for her well being. After a couple of moments had passed he shifted over to an encouraging look.

"I have an idea on what might help but it will require a leap of faith on your part."

Those soulful blue eyes of his were sparkling when she called him her best friend. Few things resonated in the hearts of a Fairest quite like someone affirming that the two of them had a special connection of some kind. It didn't have to be remotely romantic to be meaningful. What countered was that it was a unique, special bond that was shared between the two of them. 

"I want the same thing, Dani. My plan is ambitious but if we pull it off, it could turn into something great."

Lucas continued to lean in towards Dani. What he wanted to share with them was hard to codify. With how loud it was all around them, it would be difficult for others to overhear or for most people to even be able to have a conversation without yelling. However, because of their unique connection to reality and being able to perceive it more keenly than humans, he could speak in a whisper to Dani at this range and she should be able to hear him.

"What if we started off as a work motley with the goal being to get you back into the good graces of the Freehold? We could seal our motley pledge to each other by doing another handfasting rite. The Freehold wants you to honor more of our customs and rites, yeah? A motley is one of them. By doing a handfasting ceremony again we maybe able to invoke the Wyrd and get that extra blessing that we were aiming for back when we did it during the Blood sports competition."

Lucas paused for a moment to let Dani process what he was sharing with her before continuing.

"One of the contracts I have allows me to visit people's dreams and get a glimpse of who they are at their core being. If you give me permission during the oath pledge to visit your dreams for the duration of our mission, then I can work with you on rebuilding your bastion. I imagine it's pretty beat down at this point. We could literally help build you back up from the inside and process all of the different hurt and pain you've been through over these past few months."

One of the advantages of being a Lost was they could use props and other things within a dream to help recover from the various traumas involved with life as a Lost. He studied Dani's face to see what her reaction was to his proposal.