[Jarod Nightingale] The sun was going down. Up above, the sky was clouded and slate-blue. Most of the families in the park had gone home for the evening. The worst of the evening traffic had died down. But it wasn't late, yet. Getting there, but not yet arrived.
Two figures crossed the street when the walk signal lit up, passing by the Art Institute on their way to Grant Park. One was tall, male, black-haired, and wearing a light leather jacket. The other was young, short and female, with long brown hair and a black peacoat. These figures entered the park together, and when they reached the fountain (with its towering jets of water and its gleaming underwater lights), the girl pressed herself up against the decorative fence, small hands clinging to the iron bars, and watched the spectacle with a kind of muted wonder.
The weather was beginning to turn. Temperatures had cooled, and leaves had begun to fall. Some of the maple trees were dappled with a handful of early color - leaves of bold red and brilliant gold dotted amidst the sea of green. The man (Jarod) bent down and picked up one of these leaves that was lying on the ground, twirling its stem thoughtfully between his fingers as he contemplated it.
"It's pretty," the girl said, of the fountain. He looked at her and smiled. "Yeah, it is."
[Emily Littleton] [Awareness]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 5, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Emily Littleton] This is the way of things: someone leaves and someone returns. Not that the dark-haired woman on one of the nearby benches would ever broker upon the returnings. She's mastered the Leavings, has them in spades. This past month's been a run of them; four faces lost to the outer reaches of the map. Four here there be dragons or scrolls secreted away in the ironwork of a compass-rose. Gone, like the wind-swept fall leaves. Goldened by memory.
She's not familiar at first, not in his peripheral vision. There were so many girls, and quite a few of them dark-haired, and the expression she wears is too somber and staid. Emily is watching the fountain, watching it like the undulating color and upthrust might offer some understanding, some omen, some oracle. She's watching it with that idle distraction that blurs everything in her peripheral vision in to qualitative movement, into broadly-named colors, into a hush. Unimportant.
Her hands arm in the pockets of a leather jacket that had yet to soften, entirely, had yet to break in. It's still crisp at the collar, still sharp at the cuffs, but it's yielding, quickly, to the warmth. To time. Underneath is a white blouse, blue jeans, plain sneakers. Her messenger bag rests on the seat beside her. She's leaned back, just a little, and her feet are before her. (She's been here awhile. [She's in no hurry to leave.])
But there's something familiar in the air tonight, and it's not just the crispness of Fall comings. There's something remembered in the new moon rise. It stirs the small hairs at the back of her neck and Emily sits up, sits forward, draws her hands from her pockets and rests her elbows on her knees. She presses her eyes shut against the memory -- because that's all it can be. Draws a deep breath and wills it back in its place.
Winter is coming but it isn't here yet. Fall's barely broken. It's too soon to think on snow with that sort of fondness. She breathes out against the ache, blinks open her eyes again. Lifts her chin and settles her gaze on the dance-bright water.
Just an echo, she tells herself.
(Bring me home cold.)
[Jarod Nightingale] [Per+Aware]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 4, 5, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Jarod Nightingale] The timing of it seemed fitting, somehow. As if Jarod was a purely winter, and had no place amidst the verdant green and sun-kissed heat of summer. He'd left just as the ice had begun to melt, as spring was calling quietly from around the corner. And now he'd returned just as the first tentative traces of autumn's breath had touched the air.
It was difficult to tell precisely when he noticed that prickle of familiarity, because he didn't immediately react to it. Nor did he look in Emily's direction. Instead, he looked down as the girl reached out to take the leaf from his hand, and he offered it over like a gift, watching as she traced the pattern of veins with her fingertip.
He said something to her. A gentle murmur. (Wait here.) Then he settled his hands into the pockets of his jacket and began to walk toward a row of benches where a woman sat. His steps were quiet today (he was wearing walking shoes), but the zipper on his jacket jingled faintly as he moved. Underneath the open jacket - a black fitted t-shirt (simple.) Lower, a pair of jeans, also fitted. (Expensive, intentionally faded, frayed just-so along the edge of pockets.) He looked the same. (But he also looked different.)
"Hello, Emily."
[Emily Littleton] As he approached, it became harder and harder to read the familiar resonance as a memory. To place it firmly in the past, with every intention of leaving it so. And yet she doesn't look over, even as that chill sensuality builds against her skin, even as her own unrelenting reverence must brush against his -- which is not how he left her; she is not how he left her.
How far we all come.
How far we all come away from ourselves.
You can never go home again.
It's at the last, then, with the memory of still frozen ground tugging at the edge of her consciousness, with the finality of those words (There's something I have to do) sharp against her mind, that Emily looks over, looks up. Just as he's saying Hello, Emily.
It's a slow thing, the smile, the careful and concealing expression she wears. It takes a moment to get started, to fall so perfectly back in place. It stumbles, just a little, as her brow knits and she studies with him with the weight of that blue-grey stare (it's deepened, since the Winter). She sits up as her mouth curls, pleasantly, and her eyes soften a little too much (a tell [we all have them]).
"Jarod," she names him, as if somewhat uncertain of it. Somehow uncertain of it still, though there's no mistaking him for any other. Just a little bit longer, a fraction of a heartbeat, and then she's standing to greet him. The smile broadens -- just so, it's still wary in some ways.
They both know what comes next. I didn't expect to see you or maybe, Wow, how long has it been? But that's not how they do things; that's not how they danced, however delicately, before.
"You look well," she says, and the wryness is there. It's late in arriving, but it catches up just in time to remind him of how that word was once gorgeous, said with breathless appreciation. Tonight it is well, in her clipped British-and-then-some word-shapes. And there's a moment, but nothing more, where she makes eye contact, seems unafraid. She doesn't let him look in for long, and what glimpse he gets is guarded.
"Are you visiting?" she asks. Her hands go back in her pockets, now. They stand just a little too far apart to be affectionate friends, too close to be strangers.
[Jarod Nightingale] [I know you better than this - Empathy]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 5, 5, 5, 6 (Success x 4 at target 5)
[Emily Littleton] [Maybe. Or maybe you knew me. Things have changed - Subterfuge]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 6, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Emily Littleton] There was a sort of intimacy between them, once, quite some time ago. From Emily's side it feels like lifetimes. But, still, she knows the weight of his gaze as clearly as he knows her covers. Her tells. They were well-matched if not on even footing.
There's no fear to her, now. That thrum of worry, of always being just one critical step behind in everything going on around her has fled. She's not taut to the point of breaking anymore. In its stead there is a sadness that doesn't quite lift, can't quite be hidden away. It settles about her like a mantle, wreathes her like a crown. It's possible that this is just a bad day, a poignant time, and things are otherwise fine. It's possible that a great many things have transpired while he was away.
There's a calmness, too. A deep-seated surety. It's an anchorpoint, a firmity. It does not bubble to the surface or demand his attention, but it's there. A gravity. It anchors her; it settles her. She is more solid than she was when he left, more staid, more confident.
She's not quite happy, yet, to see him. That wariness is sharp, it is self-protective. He's left once before, so perhaps that's deserving. She doesn't push it upon him, but the undercurrent is there.
Whatever they were, that thing they were so slow to name, unwilling to confine by diction and denotation, it's shifted. The fondness is there, but it's not what comes forth first.
to Jarod Nightingale
[Jarod Nightingale] She could have said a number of things. She could have asked him what it was he'd had to do that had kept him away for so many months. She could have asked him why he never called or wrote. She could have been angry. She could have accused. She could have turned away.
But Emily didn't do any of those things, because she was Emily, and she'd never expected him to call or write, and she'd grown used to the idea that she would never see him again. (Because people came and went, like the seasons. They blew hot, and they blew cold, and they drifted away.) Instead, she just said You look well. As if they were casual acquaintances. And he did look well. He looked beautiful, as always. He wore his jacket and his jeans as if they'd been tailor-made for him (and maybe they had been, considering his profession.) His eyes were dark and velvety in this light (ancient, seductive secrets), and a wry smile touched the edge of his lips in response to her own.
Emily was different. So was he, but he didn't wear his changes in his resonance the same way that she did. He'd felt the change when he first sensed her presence, and now that they were close, and he had his attention trained on her, it was all the more obvious. There was still reverence, but there was also drive (unrelenting.) It made her feel a little less soft, a little more forceful. But such was the way of things, with the Awakened. They grew, or they died.
He wasn't displeased.
Are you visiting?
"I just moved back, actually." And then, because sooner or later Emily would notice the little girl by the fountain who watched them from a quiet distance, Jarod stepped to the side and turned his gaze in the girl's direction. Lifting his hand, he gestured for her to approach, and she lifted off the fence and came walking across the expanse of cement toward them, stopping when she reached Jarod's side. She looked at Emily, pale eyes curious.
The girl looked both like Jarod and not like him. The Asian influence in her blood was muted. One might not guess unless they were told that it was there, but there were subtle clues. Almond eyes. Rounded nose. Dark hair. A hint of something exotic. But the tips of her hair held a curl (not the silky texture that Jarod's possessed), and her eyes were silver instead of dark blue. She didn't smile readily, as some children did. She held back a little. Guarded, despite her curiosity. (That was very much like him too.)
"I suppose I should introduce the two of you," Jarod said. "Ilana, this is Emily. She's... a good friend." A glance up to meet Emily's gaze, then. "Emily, this is Ilana. My daughter."
And just like that, the universe shifted.
[Emily Littleton] No, not just like that. The Universe had been steadily shifting, slanting away at an untold angle, since a bit before he'd said goodbye six long months ago. It wasn't just like that for Emily. Not Emily who'd helped bury a girl child, not Emily who'd cradled a boy child to sleep, not Emily who'd been wreathed in hellfire, been down into the Devil's Keep; not Emily who'd taken a life, who'd chosen a path, who'd stepped sideways across the veil; not Emily who'd Sought, who'd found; not Emily who'd loved, more than once, and lost, more than once. All of this and more in six small months.
Not Emily who'd watched a comrade fall. A friend weep. A lover go (... and another go). Not Emily who had gone home, who had buried her (god-)father, who'd confronted the last of her family (fears). Who had found her voice; who was awaiting her place among those who Sang.
Not for Emily, who was once again God's Child, without being innocent. His Instrument, without being blindly Faithful. Reverent without repentence.
Not for Emily. For Emily this is the last -- no, the most recent -- in a long string of things-that-shift and worlds-that-bend. She watches the girl, then, with her hands in her pockets and her gaze canted down ward to meet her face, her features, her eyes.
I'm just moved back, he says. But she doesn't have to answer, doesn't have to acknowledge that with anything more than an archly lifted brow before...
There's a gentling there, a softness for this child to behold. There is warmth, yet, to brighten her smile. To play at the corners of her eyes. There is welcoming here, for the quiet and tentativeness that kept her curiosty in check.
Emily's gaze flicks to Jarod for a moment when he speaks their names, then back.
"It's nice to meet you, Ilana," she says, and draws her hands out of her pockets. Shows there's nothing in them that might do her harm, nothing hidden. "I hope you like Chicago."
Jarod has not seen her with children, has not seen the way that Emily's crisp exterior gentles, has not seen how it slakes even the most pensive expressions away from her features. There is warmth within her, a grace and compassion few see. But for children? For children it is always far closer to the surface. Ilana brings this forward; Jarod bears witness. It is a secret they had not shared before, one she hoped he could keep.
[Jarod Nightingale] This was a secret they shared, and would indeed keep between them. Jarod had never seen Emily with children before, and she had never seen him with one either. It wasn't clear whether the subtle warming of his wintery nature was caused by this child, or children in general, but it was there. It was quiet reverence when he looked at her (like a thing of impossible beauty made of glass - something treasured, something that might easily be broken). It was small moments of honest when he smiled, and occasionally, when she made him laugh.
He didn't tell Emily about Ilana's mother, or how sometimes when he looked at his daughter, he felt things like sadness and regret. They'd each been touched by tragedy. It was a lonely legacy, but still, the days passed, and sometimes they were even good days. More and more often, lately.
The girl looked at Emily, and she nodded. "The park is pretty." And then, after some thought, "Our condo is huge. And it's on top of a big building. I get to ride an elevator." She smiled a little, fascinated in the way that children often are by simple things most adults take for granted.
They could hear something of an accent touching the girl's tongue when she spoke. Similar to, but not quite native. (Further North.) Jarod glanced down and smiled a little (amused), in spite of himself. "We moved into a new building over in Wicker Park." (The last place had been a lease. Temporary, as his living-quarters always were. This one, he owned. It was, in fact, the first home he'd ever actually purchased.) "You should stop by some time."
[Emily Littleton] [Little white lie - Subterfuge]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Jarod Nightingale] [Subterfuge you say?]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Emily Littleton] There had been walls before, and so she expected there to be walls now. Things she wasn't told, wouldn't be told. It's how they kept themselves just distant enough to not get hurt once before, and however warmer they were now (Summer was just fading into Autumn [things were not frozen over just yet]) it wasn't quite enough to break through those old habits.
Ilana tells her about elevators , and Emily's smile broadens into something fully genuine. There's a pleased and laughing brightness to her eyes. She can echo the girl's amazement; meet her toe-to-toe for awe and wonder. It bubbles up and almost breaks free in a low chuckle.
"Have you seen the Cloud Gate yet?" she asks the girl. Then Emily spreads her arms wide and says: "Big, huge silver jelly bean?" There's something of a similar amazement to her smile as the one Ilana wears. Like there might be a secret there, something Emily would tell her but hadn't told her father.
Now... that was going to take some getting used to.
"I think I'd quite like that," she tells him, and the smile doesn't fade away this time as she looks to him. It's different, guarded and a little older than she'd been before, but it's genuine. "I've moved house too," she tells them, offering a bit of a raised brow (conspiring!) when she glanced to Ilana.
"It's not a rooftop anything, but it has a fireplace," she says, as if this is important. Mildly important, but still noteworthy. Considering the last place Jarod had known her to live was in half of a sub-letted room in a college house near the Uni, a fireplace of her own was a step up indeed.
Then there's a pause. This is the but or the if you've a moment, the little intake of breath that leads into something adult and unpleasant. Something that, if Emily were someone else, she'd expect to go over Ilana's head. But Emily knows just how much children catch on to, and so she reaches over to her messenger bag and pulls out her phone while she chats with them.
"Has your number changed?" she asks him. "Let me text you my new one." It's a ploy, a small one, something to keep the moment lighter. She'd moved, so clearly it follows her phone number had changed. But that's not what she types to send to him. Instead it's this:
Found >5 Fallen in past 2 weeks. Be careful.
Which is good enough for we need to talk; it's a prelude to there's a few things I should tell you. But this is Emily, so she sends it off to his phone, or to the new number he's told her, without much more than a, "There we go.
And a smile.
[Jarod Nightingale] The girl's reaction to mention of a huge silver jelly bean was a little understated. Almost thoughtful, when compared with Emily's near-childlike awe. But that was mostly a reflection of a natural shyness. She shook her head no. (She hadn't seen it yet.)
Indeed, Jarod did note the change in Emily's living space as a step in the right direction. His eyebrows lifted, and he smiled (approving.) "No more nosy roommates then?"
But of course, there were other things to talk about. More pressing things. Dangerous things. Jarod shook his head when asked if his number had changed, and he wasn't surprised when the text that Emily sent turned out to be more than her own new phone number. He glanced at the screen on his iPhone, and something brooding seeping into his eyes, but he didn't say anything, or otherwise give indication that he was worried.
Of course, Ilana was her father's daughter. They may not have even known of each other's existence prior to last March, but that didn't seem to matter. She was clever, this girl. And very, very perceptive. (Quiet children often were.) She looked at Emily and saw the carefully hidden tension, and knew that adult matters were being discussed. Things that she wasn't supposed to know. Children were lucky, though, in a way. They lived too much in the here-and-now to spend too much time in a state of anxious foreboding. The look she passed between Emily and Jarod was more bemused than it was concerned.
"Thanks," Jarod said, and he nodded to Emily before putting his phone away. "Do you have time tomorrow afternoon?" The implication there was: during school hours. (When Ilana presumably would not be present.)
[Emily Littleton] Children were lucky, too, in that their expectations of the worst were bounded by their life's experience. And Ilana had, Emily hoped, not lived long enough or dangerously enough to guess at the message she'd sent her father.
"You might like it," Emily tells Ilana, when the girl shakes her head no. "It makes me feel like I might touch the sky." A pause. "Also people look rather odd." Which was a little like silly, but more British.
"No more roommates," she confirms. The smile slips a little, toward something wry-er, toward a pleasant memory or an echo that pains her less than most of the rest. There's a flicker, there, as she glances at Jarod, of the way that things used to be between them.
"I've some time between classes," she says. She names a break in her schedule, lilts the time-frame upward like a question. Waits to see if it meshes with his. It is, squarely, during grade school hours.
[Jarod Nightingale] "That works perfectly," he said (because she'd gotten the hint.) "I'll e-mail you directions to the new building. This one has guest parking, so you won't have to find a paid lot somewhere if you take your car."
As the night encroached, the air had begun to chill, and Jarod zipped up his jacket as a breeze came in off the lake and cut through the light fabric of his t-shirt. It wasn't just the cold (which never really seemed to bother him that much). It was also preparing-for-goodbye. Now was the time when ten-year-old girls must be in bed.
"We should go," he confirmed, though Emily probably suspected as much already. There was a moment of hesitation though, as he looked at her. Then, softly... "It was really nice to see you." And this wasn't just courtesy. There was honesty to it.
[Emily Littleton] [Awareness as Empathy -- we used to know each other well.]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 5, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Jarod Nightingale] It's been a long time, but that time hasn't instilled coldness or indifference. There's a soft fondness there, and a quiet regret. And he is genuinely happy to see her.
He missed her.
to Emily Littleton
[Emily Littleton] Emily looks at him a bit oddly when me mentions guest parking, then that gentles. That's right. He'd last been here in the winter. If she hadn't moved so very recently, she would barely remember where she'd parked her car last. She'd been a proud patron of public transport all through the warmer months.
"Ah, cheers." This is familiar. This too, the way she steps back slightly as he zips up his coat and goodbye becomes imminent. She nods when he says they should go, and offers Ilana one last smile before looking over at him.
Emily catches the hesitation. It's mirrored in her own unsteady moment. As if she isn't quite sure what to say. Then he says, softly, It was really nice to see you and there, for a moment, is the softer smile she used to wear for him.
"I'm glad you've come back."
These aren't words she's used to speaking. It may be the first time, in Emily's entire life, that she's offered them to someone else. They're vulnerable and unhidden, left to linger between them in the moment it takes before Jarod turns Ilana away and Emily gathers her messenger bag up. Before they go back to Wicker Park, and she back to Lake View.
They, too, are honest.
