[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/nCrgYpV.png[/img][/center][indent][indent][center][sup][color=#ce5836][b]DATE AND TIME:[/b][/color] Handover Ceremony ~ Evening[color=2c2c2c]______________________[/color][color=#ce5836][b]LOCATION:[/b][/color] Coven House[color=2c2c2c]______________________[/color][color=#ce5836][b]INTERACTIONS:[/b][/color] None [/sup][/center][hr]Eleni and Karl had long since left for the shindig. The Greek woman wasn’t there to make sparkling conversation, smile, and drink. She was there to do her due diligence and leave. She was tired and had a migraine that came from stretching her face into something that wasn’t malicious. Her long, gray hair hung around her face, her eyelids were painted a glittering emerald, and [url=https://i.imgur.com/tOP7Jqw.jpg]her long black dress with vibrant green flowers[/url] complimented her tall and athletic form. She held a glass of wine in one hand that was growing warm with her palm resting against the bottom. Despite the Xenakis name being linked to divination and the like, Eleni was much more talented in transmutation magics—druidic in nature but not in practice. She was the most at peace in a garden, which was why the Timeless Taverna had such immaculate landscaping. 

In direct contrast to his wife, Karl was much more content in the busy setting. This might have been especially strange since he’d taken her name and moved to Tanner for her. He was just in a [url=https://i.imgur.com/nykUqKs.jpg]simple gray suit top and bottom with a white undershirt[/url]. The thing that made it stand out was the fact that was bespoke and fit his short and squat frame very well. He laughed and mingled, having already made friends with these folks ten times over. He was a warlock, and as such had power over one style of magic—enchantment. He used it in a way to inflate the value of small things, but one had to admit that the furnishing around the Taverna sparkled. If Karl handed you a piece of jewelry, it was fair to say that he found it at a consignment shop and applied a liberal dose of magic to look like royalty should be wearing it. 

The Xenakis matron looped her arm around her husband’s waist and pulled him away from a small gathering he was chatting up. She couldn’t tell if they were relieved or disappointed to see him go. She also didn’t care. [color=#36CE58] “Have you seen Pallas?” [/color] she asked, finally taking a sip of her room-temperature wine.

[color=#36ACCE] “I have not and believe me I’ve seen a lot of faces. Some of them quite unfamiliar,” [/color] he said with a wry smile. [color=#36ACCE] “And, you may have missed it, but there was quite the spat—ah, my love you aren’t listening.” [/color] He patted her arm, gently. [color=#36ACCE] “Don’t worry about him. He wouldn’t dare show us up now, show you up. You’ve extended quite the olive branch to him. You need to have faith. He’ll be here.” [/color]

[color=#36CE58] “Well, when he arrives, he better be wearing pants.” [/color]
[center]- - -[/center]
Karl had tapped gently on the door like a father, not wanting to walk in on his teenage daughter giving Pallas around fifteen minutes to get ready. The older Swedish man saw that Pallas was mostly dressed and figured it wouldn’t be an issue for the “younger” Xenakis to be downstairs soon.

When Eleni came in, she’d make a rhinoceros blush with her mannerisms. Pallas was in something entirely different, and Eleni would have dragged him out of that attic room had it not been for the fact that while he was content with the top half of him, the bottom half was standing in hot pink underwear.  Eleni bit off something quick, and angry, in Greek before slamming the door. It was more or less, [i]“You better have some pants on if you dare show your face at the gathering.”[/i] That was the polite interpretation anyway. 

So, they’d left without him. 

The unfortunate part of them leaving was the fact that they had one vehicle between the three of them. Pallas had never made it to the coven when he’d headed out previously. He’d hit a rock, sent the bicycle swerving, and then crashed in the ditch. A car drove by and honked at him. At that moment, the embarrassment filled him with such an urge to [i]leave[/i] that he left the bicycle in the ditch and stomped back home. He was older than a hundred years but still had his petulant moments. Yet, that had blocked him from having any more “bicycle privileges” meaning it was walking or nothing. Of course, he couldn’t [i]not[/i] show up. 

So, he’d dusted off his Uber app and stared at it as if it was an ancient tablet written in an ancient dialect and fumbled through it. Finding someone driving in Tanner was—not easy—and the times were atrocious. But it was all better than walking.[url=https://i.imgur.com/EcsJVog.jpg] He hadn’t worn varying shades of white[/url], just to get a stain on them. 

When the pumpkin-colored Chevy Corsica rolled up, Pallas tried not to make too big a face. Though he did grab a towel and sat it on the seat as he entered. His knees crunched against the back seat and his perfectly coifed hair tickled the ceiling. To the driver’s credit, it did smell like a forest—a forest made of tree-shaped air fresheners—but nothing too egregious. 

Surely there were eyes on him when he did pull up to the Coven House, but he didn’t pay them any heed as he handed the driver a tip for how wildly embarrassing this entire thing felt. [color=#ce5836] “Keep the towel,” [/color] Pallas said. The driver eyed him, took the tip, and drove off. At about that time, he flashed a smile to everyone and pulled the white jacket of his ensemble tighter around his chest.

When he entered, there was the steady hum of conversation followed by a couple of glances his way before they returned to their business. Pallas felt he was far down on the list of “Interesting People” at the party. What he was able to pull out of the chatter was that there had been a bit of a showdown between some of the older—in a figurative sense—members of the Coven. He waited to hear if Eleni was mentioned, but she was not. Pallas did not doubt that Karl would never be in the same sentence as something negative unless someone was complimenting on how [i]“no one is nicer than Mister Xenakis. No… not that one… the older one.”[/i]

Pallas made his way toward the liquor and poured four fingers worth of stout bourbon. He’d need it tonight. Quickly he downed it like an alcoholic outside an AA meeting, before pouring himself another one.  As he did that, the shark-like shadow of Eleni passed by. She looked over his outfit before making a face. Karl gave him a polite wave, and Pallas could have sworn that he overheard the man say, [color=#36ACCE] “Look, he has pants.” [/color] Had there really been a concern?

A thought occurred to Pallas as he glanced through the mingling of older and younger members of the coven, alike. John Montgomery was probably here. There was a sudden regret that shot through his spine as he thought of that.  Surely the man wouldn’t shoot him again. There was a crowd here. Still, he needed to practice ducking and weaving through the crowd to avoid a bullet.[/indent][/indent]