Lá Bealtaine [open thread, come one come all]

[errin]

Keisha thinks that was just mean. Sam shrugs a shoulder, grinning to show there's no bad feelings. "I have a bunch of brothers and a baby sister, believe me, I've been subjected to and witnessed much, much worse. Sam," she says when its her turn to shake hands with first one, then the other. "My brother, Reese, is..." she pauses, looking around and then pointing out the man standing away from the crowd, watching the revelers, "there." From a distance it's difficult to see any family resemblance between the two. Reese's face is more angular, Sam's softer. And of course there is a height disparity, Sam is the shortest member of the family. Not that anyone besides Reese would know that, but they could likely guess.

"I just moved to Denver a couple of weeks ago." She fills up her plate with one or two spoonfuls or pieces of everything she doesn't immediately recognize. She still doesn't know which is the haggis, but it's probably made it onto her plate. Judging by Keisha's reaction she'll know it when she tastes sludge? But why would anyone serve something unpalatable to all these guests? Or is that sort of hazing common among the Fianna?

All questions Sam hopes to have answered one way or another before she leaves tonight.

[CourtCat]

Reese is, indeed, over there; catching his sister pointing him out, he waves and saunters over easy as you please. The smile is equal parts smirk and grin, and only grows in its amusement when he sees his sister's plate. "Feeling adventurous today, are we?" comes first, then nods for the two strangers talking to his sister. "Hi - I guess she told you who I am already, but I'm Reese. It's a pleasure."

[Damon]

It's true; from a distance they don't resemble each other at all, Sam and Reese. But as the young man comes closer Calden can pick out an unmistakable familial resemblance. It's something about the shape of their eyebrows, the large eyes, the distinct jawlines. Certainly, they resemble each other a lot more than either of them resemble Calden. Or Keisha.

"Pleasure," Calden replies, setting his mug of ale down to extend his hand. "Calden. You new to Colorado too?"

[CourtCat]

"Relatively, I guess. I've been here more than a year, less than two," replies Reese as he shifts his plate to answer Calden's offered hand; he isn't so young up close as he appears from further away. The corners of his eyes and mouth are lightly lined by both smiles and difficulty in ways that imply he's nearer to thirty than he is to twenty-five. There are hints of being careworn. (It should be said, perhaps, that there's nothing of Breeding about Reese. Any resemblance to family heroes is topical only, though that particular distinct jaw, shape of eyebrows, can be found in far more than just these two Evanses.) At any rate, the shake is firm and warm, comfortable and confident. Reese has an artist's hands with long, thin fingers deceptive in their delicacy.

"You? A transplant, or a lifer?"

[Samael]

Keisha complies with the request from Calden to help fill his mug, then looks over her shoulder when Sam points out her brother. Reese makes his way over and earns a smile of greeting to Keisha; he strikes up a conversation with Calden, which she listens to quietly as she gets herself something to drink. She promised her uncle that she'd tell him how the cinnamon wine was, so that's what she pours herself before turning to stand next to Sam.

"Keisha," she says in greeting to Reese when the opportunity arises, her hand extending. "Nice to meet you."

[errin]

Sam has a smile for her brother when she sees him making his way over. It's not as warm and bright as it could be, but it's not tight or cold, either. The dark cloud that hovers over the siblings is still only just starting to disperse.

"Always," is her response when Reese asks if she's feeling adventurous. He strikes up conversation with Calden and Sam takes the opportunity to step back, giving them space. She doesn't get a drink for herself, she's not planning on sitting just yet and she needs both hands to start working at her food, which she starts poking at experimentally with a plastic fork.

"How is it?" she asks Keisha, nodding toward the cup in the other woman's hand.

[mnemosyne]

Emmett will bet good money that Ellie's feeling pretty grown up. The comment draws a flashing expression from Éva, a sketched suggestion of a laugh she subsumes beneath her skin. "She is," the Shadow Lord confirms, dark eyes lingering on the group of children now, streaking through the dusk after the flower crowns. They practically ambush Étaín and crowd around her in an anxious group, asking her a million questions, chattering in an engaging flow as they claim the best crowns for themselves. "Though, to be fair, I think Ellie's been feeling pretty grown up since the day she was born.

"She has always been a solemn child." Takes after her father that way.

The affection lingers soft in the seams of her eyes, well after the brief sketch of a smile has settled back into her usual wry expression. Emmett tells her that she looks well, and so does Ellie, and Éva flashes him a glance, sidelong and quicksilver, her face cheated into a three-quarter profile. She is dressed casually. Dark jeans, fitted to her frame, a crisp white oxford shirt, menswear-style, over a tank top and under a leather blazer. Hiking boots instead of cowboy boots or thoroughly inappropriate professional heels, all fine and quiet and unremarkable. The blazer is likely thick enough to hide the bulk of her shoulder holster, if she's wearing one.

Even here, she probably is.

"Flatterer," she chides, mock-serious. "I expect it from the Celts, but not you salt-of-the-earth types. Is there something in that ale," a lift of her chin toward the mug of homebrew drawn for him by Nora, "that makes you Irish-for-the-night?"

He's just hoping the weather holds. That line might have done it anyway, but listen: Emmett's laughter draws out her own, brief but bright, and momentarily uninhibited. Éva flashes teeth, her mouth open, eyes shining with humor as he recovers. Her head is tipped upward, face toward the sky. Somewhere above the curling pall of smoke from the fire, early stars are beginning to gleam in the firmament.

"Don't worry, Emmett," the irreverent note lingers in her voice. "Since moving out here, I've become an expert on the weather. I don't mind discussing it at all," then, sobering, "I'm glad to hear it, though. You should come over for dinner, sometime. Or if you ever get in to the city, give me a call. I'll take you to lunch. Technically, you're a client of the firm," another flash of her teeth, " - so I can expense it."

There's a beat, a brief silence before she moves again, her humor dissipating into the quiet energy of her presence. then, a lift of her chin over the gathering, encompassing it all with one neatly sketched gesture. "You staying long, tonight?"

[Damon]

"I'm about as lifer as it gets." Reese wouldn't be mistaken to detect a hint of quiet pride there. "We live up north near the Wyoming border."

He hardly has to explain what he does up there. There are only so many options. Cattle rancher's one. Park ranger's another. Bizarre natureboy hippie secluding himself from civilization is a third ... but Calden just doesn't have that look to him, does he? Plus there's the fact that those cousins of his are all decked out in amusingly stereotypical cowboy gear, announcing their status as a rare and diminishing race so clearly that Calden doesn't have to.

So: cattleman, then. Which explains the rough hands; the sunbeaten, windburnt skin; the sturdy long-boned frame of a man who works primarily with his body and his hands. Rare in this day and age, really, though perhaps a little more common amongst the kin of werewolves. Still, compared to Reese and his sister, who are city folk from a city tribe, Calden is practically a different breed altogether. He picks his ale up again, takes a swig.

"What about you guys? Denver?"

[Samael]

Sam asks her how the wine is, and she smiles a bit. "It's good. I have to admit than I was a bit skeptical; cinnamon is great in certain uses, but I tend to think it's best in really small doses. The cinnamon challenge is the perfect example of that. But I'll give my uncle credit, he did a great job with this."

She looks around a moment, fingers tapping on her leg. Keisha is a woman that does better with people she knows than people she doesn't. Maybe its a side effect from working with spirits; capricious as they may be, you know what you're dealing with based on who what kind of spirit it is. When she's presented with people she doesn't know she starts to talk to make up for potentially-awkward silences, even if they haven't happened yet. Case in point: Three...two...one...

"Have you been here a year or two like your brother said?" She looks back at Sam with a smile. "I'm new myself...just a couple of weeks. I've been busy settling in...I've registered for a couple university classes. I'm from Portland out west before that. Decided to head out away from the nest...find my own path, you know?"

[CourtCat]

"That's where we are now, yeah. My trip to get here was kind of the long way around, though, with lots of stops." This is with a shrug, and though Sam's probably found out some more about what happened in between Vermont and Colorado, Reese doesn't expound upon it now. "Family's back east. There are a lot of cattle and horse ranches around here, aren't there? I've done a couple livestock-centered projects for various clients."

This isn't to say he's ignoring Keisha, mind, just that for the moment Reese is more focused on Calden.