[Emily Littleton] Tucked away, just off the Mile, stands a small tea shop. It is an island apart from the hustle and bustle, the build up to holiday cheer, the back-to-school excitement, the midday rush, the nine-to-five shuffle, the work day commute, and all the other strangely cadenced dances that Chicagoans put themselves up to week in and week out. Ritualists, all of them are, and they don't even know it.
The girl at one of the tables in this shop is a ritualist herself, not that she would name herself such or even admit to it were it pointed out to her. There's a rigidity in adopting ritual, a trap to forming habits, a heaviness to staying in one place too long. It's the sort of trapping that erodes the soul without causing any notice. Ails the body. Deadens the eyes (windows to the soul). Weighs down a smile. She has stayed in this city since mid-April without reprieve. All Emily has left are the little rituals.
She's reading from a book, The Winner Stands Alone, a novel about passions, obsessions and desires, and how far away from oneself they can take a person. She's reading about a woman who would give anything for fame, a man who would destroy worlds to win back a lost love, the spirals and whirlwinds they whip up around them but she can't identify with them at all. Instead Emily's empathy is for the shop girl, who sits down beside a seemingly nice old man, chats about her wares and his life and is found, chapters later, dead and forgotten.
She's a transitory character; the sort that enters in one section and departs in another with little fanfare. Emily doesn't remember the girl's name just a few pages later, only that she haunts the man who suffocated her without leaving much of a mark.
She hasn't done much reading, see, since she Awakened. Not free reading; things to broaden her soul without a directed purpose toward the Awakened sector of the same. Not things that bring her back to an understanding of Humanity, or of her own humanity, or frame the losses and fears she's struggling with in another light.
It's freeing, in many ways, to sit in this place apart and read. To empathize with a character that is there and gone, and then float tetherless through the remainder of the text. There's less ritual to that than the carefully steeped pot of Jasmine Green at her table, to the way she breaks small bites off of her scone to lift to her lips so that she never has to bite into it. In her messenger bag are other books, things of directed learning that point to a particular subject or sphere, things that are more about Knowledge and less about Experience; less human: rote.
Her hair falls down, spilling over her shoulders and framing her face. It's been more than a month since she wore it this way; and today, today Emily is wearing a skirt instead of jeans, and a softer sweater rather than a tee. She's dabbling in being the Diplomat's Daughter again, and not in ways that make her tell off a hooligan on a Chinatown street corner. There's repose to this, purpose, a way of appearing to be calm and collected until she achieves that state for herself.
She's been at the table for some time without looking up and around her. It's in a corner near the window, but she's given up on watching people pass by. It was about this time of year, in a place not far from here, at a table near the window when all this madness in her life began. When Wharil walked through the door, dripping wet from the rain, and Adam and Jarod sauntered in (not together) not long after.
There is an echo here, but not one she's listening for. Emily doesn't hear it.
[Jarod Nightingale] Jarod read more frequently than many people probably suspected. Part of this was due to his work (not his career), which required hours of pouring over various foreign (but not foreign to him) texts. That wasn't the only reading that he did, though. He read books on philosophy and on history. He read articles and essays in academic journals. He even read fiction novels, on occasion. The bulk of the volumes in his study, though, were of poetry. There was a kind of honest to poetry. A clarity of purpose that appealed to him. Poets cut away at needless exposition. Their singular focus was on the heart of an experience - the feeling, and the meaning derived from it.
If only life were that easily broken down.
It was hardly surprising to find him in a tea shop. He visited them frequently - on the mile and elsewhere. Jarod had been to this one before, a few times. He'd never seen Emily here, but the fact that he did now, as he walked in through the door and paused to let his wandering gaze fix and hover on her position, was hardly a surprise. They had some similar tastes.
After a moment of consideration, he approached her table, pulled out an empty chair, and sat down. The warmth in the air outside had negated any need for a jacket, so he was dressed simply, in a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt. (Dressed down more than she was, today.) His left wrist (the one that was free of tattoos) sported a simple bracelet - a braided bit of blue and black string. The kind of thing that a child might make.
As a form of greeting, he reached across the table and let the tips of his fingers crawl up onto the back of Emily's hand. Then he fixed her with a playfully pleading expression (something she probably thought she'd never see on him - when did people like Jarod ever beg for anything?) and asked, "May I steal your tea?"
He could have gotten his own, of course, but it wouldn't have been as cute.
[Emily Littleton] [Aware: +1dif, distraction]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 7, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 7)
[Emily Littleton] They have a sort of awareness of each other that, at times, could seem preternatural even to other magi. Perhaps it's because his is one of the first resonances she learned to pick out in a crowd, or because of the closeness they used to keep. It's likely that Emily felt him enter the room well before he took a seat at her table. Perhaps the prose (not poetry [never poetry in public]) she was studying was so engrossing that she had to finish the line, this paragraph, this page, oh just another til this chapter is through before she looks up.
Perhaps the reticence (no, hesitance? [no, coquetry]) is part of the dance they both know well. One they used to dance together. One they might have still, had things been different.
His fingertips trail over the back of her hand and there are only two people who would attempt such tender hellos with Emily Littleton. One of them was not here, and one of them spoke softly of Winter.
She glances up from her book to investigate the touch, then trails the lazy blue gaze toward his pleading expression. Which quirks a small smile at ther corner of her mouth, wry but not displeased, in a place where studious attention had been moments before.
"Help yourself," she invites, shifting in her seat a little as she slips a thin metal bookmark between the pages before she folds the book closed and sets it on the table beside her. She catches sight of the thin bracelet, but doesn't remark on it just yet.
"I'm surprised you'll be seen with me," she chides, lightly. "After yesterday afternoon." A little raise of her brow, but that fades quickly as she collects her tea to sip from it once more before he steals it away for good.
[Jarod Nightingale] They'd left things off on a less-than-pleasant note yesterday. Perhaps that was why his demeanor was so consciously endearing when he'd greeted her. It was meant to soften and disarm. He could have been angry. In fact, he had been, a little, when he'd walked away from her that afternoon without so much as a word of goodbye - slipping icily away to leave her to fend for herself against the brash and grating Hollower. This was a habit of his, and one that Ashley could well attest to. When displeased, he flicked his proverbial tail and padded away.
But that was yesterday. And as far as he was concerned, it needn't be mentioned unless Emily herself wanted to talk about it.
Besides, there was tea. And as soon as Emily had her fill of what was left in the cup, he claimed it for his own, topping it off from the little pot on the table. There was a lingering smile of the cat-who-got-its-milk variety as he took a sip.
"I considered blacklisting you from all future appearances, but I suppose everyone deserves a second chance."
[Emily Littleton] There was a Chorister somewhere who would likely not approve of this. Little touches to the back of her hand, the endearing interplay, the word games, sharing a cup -- it was Fellowship, of a sort. It danced along a line that Emily didn't quite trust herself to keep.
Jarod had walked away before Emily had called that Hollower an ignorant little shite. He'd left before the same Hollower had told her, more or less, to get herself laid and get over herself. In hindsight, it was likely better he'd left when he did, icily or otherwise. Her temper was a bitter hotter than it ought to have been.
And there was tea, now, and apparent second chances.
"I appreciate your magnanimousness," she said, without tripping over the vocabulary word. These things, the play with language, was easy between them. It always had been. It was something she had missed.
"Still, I apologize for my part of it." Her part, and only her part. There's no overt change to her tone or demeanor that signifies it, but Emily refuses to take on even an ounce of Thomas's culpability for the same.
"Is today not an office day?" she asks, reaching back to a conversation a little before the street corner shouting match. Perhaps giving a subtle nod to his dressed down appearance. Though Jarod's dressing down still commanded a higher monetary investment than most of Emily's dressings up.
[Jarod Nightingale] He accepted the apology without criticism. Emily's anger hadn't been directed at him, in any case, so there wasn't any offense to be appeased. Though he did suspect that she and Thomas were not likely to become drinking buddies anytime soon.
She asked about his clothes, and he shook his head. "I'm having a day of willful irresponsibility."
Though, to be fair, what amounted to irresponsibility today would have made past versions of himself roll their eyes in disgust. Of course, there was still this - that flirtation that came far too easily to both of them. In truth, this was often how Jarod behaved with people he liked. As if he didn't really understand another way to have a relationship. (And maybe he didn't, or maybe he just liked it better this way.) One might argue that all it really amounted to was an extremely pleasurable way to keep people from getting to know him. Or (even less flatteringly) that it made him a bit of a tease.
Well, he'd have openly admitted to that last part.
"I am, of course, always looking for partners-in-crime, if you're interested."
[Emily Littleton] If this was all just a pleasant way to keep Emily from getting to know him, than Jarod had missed his mark months before. He was a little more human around her than most, a little more open. The flirtation (temptation) was a part of their friendship, had been a definite part of when they were more than mentor-and-student or just-friends.
There's a danger in revisiting that, just now. It's something she keeps quietly in mind; it's something she thinks of often in the quiet moments that find her while they are apart. Emily isn't quite sure what to make of it, or to make of his return. It puzzles her, confuses.
"Elevated from potential black-listee to prospective accomplice, am I?" The curl of her mouth suggests she's pleased at this turn of events. Emily leans back in her chair a little, pretends at relaxing. Thomas pointed out that she was wound a little tight; he wasn't wrong.
"I'll consider your offer," she says, and it's playful. Non-committal. Easy, but not effortless. Emily is out of practice at this game; she has more to lose than she did before. "What sort of willful irresponsibility do you have on the docket for today? I've a collection of discussion sections to lead, but no one shows -- my department mostly relies on email for communication, even the undergrads."
[Jarod Nightingale] [WP - Come on now, you said you'd respect her decision, remember?]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Jarod Nightingale] There was a moment there, during the brief stretch of silence that followed Emily's question (and oh - what a potentially dangerous and leading question it was), where the possibility of a thoroughly bold and inappropriate response seemed imminently plausible. (Well, inappropriate from Emily's point of view, at least.) It was, after all, exactly the kind of thing that Jarod would do.
He looked at her, took a sip of his (her) tea, licked his lips unobtrusively (in the way that people often did while eating or drinking), and finally said, with a completely straight face: "I was thinking of going to the Art Museum."
And that was all. The punchline, the flirtation, the innuendo, the temptation... it never materialized.
[Emily Littleton] [Aware as Empathy: The Art Museum... as mischief?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 6, 7, 8, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Jarod Nightingale] [Subterfuge, because I'm being good, see?]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 8 (Failure at target 6)
[Jarod Nightingale] Contrary to the manner in which Jarod often acted, he was actually more than capable of controlling his behavior. Like all Awakened, he had Will, and just now... he'd used it. Emily could make what she would of that, whether the knowledge might instill relief or disappointment (or perhaps a bit of both.) By all accounts, he seemed entirely genuine in his suggestion. He thought they might go to the Art Museum. Chicago's Art Institute was huge, and pretty, and intellectually engaging in all kinds of ways. It was an easy way to distract oneself for an afternoon.
But Emily knew him well, and Jarod... could not be innocent if he tried. It simply wasn't in his DNA structure. So when she looked at him, she'd see the way that his eyes focused on her - the single-minded intensity (and the enlarged pupils) that came when gazing at something that one wanted. And of course, touching one's lips was always telling. Especially with him. Jarod always played with his mouth in some way when he was thinking about sex. (Oral fixation.)
to Emily Littleton
[Emily Littleton] [Subterfuge]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 5, 10, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Jarod Nightingale] [Anti-subterfuge]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 2, 4, 4, 5, 5 (Failure at target 6)
[Jarod Nightingale] [+1]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 2, 2, 7, 8, 8 (Success x 3 at target 7)
[Emily Littleton] [+1?]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 7, 7, 7, 10 (Success x 3 at target 7)
[Emily Littleton] She realized it was a leading question about halfway into the silence that superseded it, in a moment where that bold and unrealized response was still a very real possibility; a probability, if one knew Jarod as well as she once had. But it doesn't come.
He mentions the Art Museum and she doesn't have a teacup to hold to, some little thing to smooth the pads of her fingertips over in idle distraction, some little tactile cue to draw her eyes away from the intensity in his, from his mouth. No ready excuse, likely alibi -- but she glances down, with an odd smile twisting her lips, instead of holding his gaze. There's no push, just now : politely demurring. Grace.
It's not something he's seen much of in her before. There was an echo, faintly, the first time he brought her home for tea. (A euphemism? [Might as well have been.]) Things have shifted between them, and not just because he's found his daughter or they've been apart.
He knows her well, and if he wants to he can read the tells of longing and desire that she holds back, keeps shuttered and cloistered behind the sweep of her lashes, the cant of her chin, the curl of her smile. He can see them lurking at the corner of her eyes when they find his again, calm blue fields flecked through with slate grey.
"The Museum would be nice," she acquiesces, agreeing to the more reasonable want that is present between them. There's a line drawn in the shape of that sentence; it's subtle but clear. It, too, is an act of Will. This waiting. The unknowing faith in something (someone) beyond herself. It's tremulous and terrifying; she guards it imperfectly, but keeps it all the same.
