[Manus Celer Dei] There's a place where two trees bow close to the shore of the lagoon as though to offer a chaste kiss, or a respectful greeting, or a final regard to an opponent before the weapons are laid out. It could be any of those. And beneath that arch that frames the Boston skyline, there's a gathering, as though the old gods have gotten together to feast and play and, to the unhappiness of some members of the party, to discuss wedding plans. That's what it might feel like to any Sleeper who happens to walk by.
The grass is dry and brittle from the summer heat and nobody bothered to bring a blanket or the like. That's just as well: there's a German shepherd streaking halfway across the park after a ball, his legs and stomach streaked in mud and water, and he'd likely just make extra cleanup necessary.
Here are the gathered. Hunger, of course: a little too thin, a little too sinewy, a little too hollow, and a little too strong for all of that. Normal people don't always look her way anymore. They treat her like an animal they're afraid of, like something not quite human. But that doesn't matter in present company. She, surprisingly, is not the one who threw the ball. That was Adam, a man with a weak chin and a sweet countenance and who doesn't have as much interest in the difference between pistachio green and a slightly fainter pastel as his soon to be wife does. He doesn't seem to care about the slime that covers the surface of the ball; grinning, he pitches it across the park every time it's returned to him.
Ashley is sitting in the grass next to a man with hair the color of the sunlight that slides its beams through the branches, that reflects off the water's edge in front of them. Justine has a binder, and Justine is flipping through without noticing (or pretending to ignore) the two of them as they poke each other in the ribs with sticks they found at the base of one of the trees. Bran, who has clearly had either some experience with fencing or some other sort of weaponry, seems to be winning - in spite of a reputation for chivalry he's rather adept at taking advantage of Ashley's blind side.
Just them, for now, though perhaps they're waiting for someone. There are containers of food, uneaten; one has to imagine Ashley wouldn't allow for this to stand if someone else weren't supposed to arrive.
[Flock of Nightingales] Boston Common was beautiful this time of year. (Truthfully, it put the parks in Chicago to shame.) The grass was a thick carpet of green, and neatly-manicured patches of tulips and other flowers blossomed below the tall, historic statues. Even on a Tuesday, the park grounds were peppered with visitors, many of them college students or families with small children. Across the bridge that passed over the lagoon in the garden, couples walked hand in hand. And further away, near the frog pond where ice skating took place in the winter months, children shrieked and played together as they waited in line at the concession stand.
Ashley and her party had found a relatively quiet area, setting up their picnic beneath the overhang of two trees. They were not the only ones who'd had such an idea. Soon enough another group began to set up about 75 feet away, claiming a place next to a stand of tall elms. The trees blocked the worst of the sun's rays, and a couple of the women - one young and dark-haired, the other older and platinum-blond - began to unfold large, soft blankets and spread them out in the shaded part of the grass. This group was larger than the one belonging to the Hermetics, and they appeared gradually, gaining in size as more stragglers appeared in groups of two and three. A family, by the looks of it. Or maybe a family plus some friends. Baskets were laid out, and expensive bottles of wine uncorked so that glasses (not plastic cups) could be filled and passed around.
If Ashley looked closely, she'd notice a slight familiarity in the dark-haired woman, whose pretty features and partially asian cast couldn't help but make one think of a certain Chicago Verbena. There was another like her too, taller and more elegant in bearing. This second woman was probably a few years older than the first, and she stood amongst a small group of friends, talking with a glass of white wine in her hand.
And if she kept on looking, that vague sense of familiarity would be met with something much more startlingly obvious as a little girl with flowing dark hair suddenly ran up and tackled the younger of the two sisters, who shrieked in mock-terror and fell to the ground. The little girl looked exactly like Jarod's daughter, dressed in denim shorts and sandals and a pale lilac tank top. And moments later, she was joined by her father, who pulled her off of the woman on the ground and carried her struggling form over to the water as if he meant to toss her in.
Jarod, evidently, was in Boston. And not only Jarod. Dana was there too. She watched them from a few yards away and laughed, depositing her picnic basket on one of the blankets before jogging over to join them.
[Manus Celer Dei] [I'm so excited! +6]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 2
[Flock of Nightingales] [Aw hell naw, you are not jumping on me with muddy paws. Init +7]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 10
[Flock of Nightingales] [Dodge!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 3, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6) [WP]
[Manus Celer Dei] It's a much larger party approaching and setting up, and they aren't too far away - and thus, the four heads currently present turn toward them, and Adam's hand stills mid-toss. The magi aren't being particularly conspicuous, but it's instinctive, the way they size up their environment and evaluate their current conversation, banal as it may be.
Adam recovers quickly, turning a brief smile toward the little girl as she tackles the older one, and then he throws the ball for Zane, who goes dashing off after it, kicking up blades of grass and sending them on a graceful, spinning trajectory to rest again among their fellows.
"Seriously, you two, will you help me?" Justine, who is almost astonishingly average in most ways - weight, height, brown hair, brown eyes - makes up for it in the warmth she seems to exude. Most of the time. A nearing wedding date has apparently not done much for her patience or her nerves, and the looks Ashley and Bran give her are a little long-suffering. "At least with the playlist for - " And she stops, and looks at Ashley. "Or something else," she finishes, with a wince.
Ashley doesn't appear stricken. It's only in her less guarded moments that casual mention bothers her, these days. Still, her eyes wander over toward the people setting up, and that's when they settle on the women who can't help but remind her of someone. She watches them for a few moments, bites the inside of her cheek, and her hands come to fold over her stomach as she runs her thumb absently over her knuckles.
Bran, after watching her for a few seconds, chooses that moment to poke her just beneath her armpit with a stick, and with a squeak of muted rage she snatches up her own once more and swats him with it. Justine rolls her eyes. "Very mature." And Bran just grins.
Zane, returning with the ball, lets it fall from his mouth and then...dashes toward the party, his ears and tail high, his tongue streaming behind him. He's singled out a particular member of the other group, one he hasn't seen in a while. Ashley, alarmed, has already started to get to her feet when she realizes what's going on, and shortly after Jarod dodges the dog she hooks a finger around his collar and tugs him back.
"...Really sorry. Hi," is apparently what she can manage at the moment, and if she's not looking at him, well, she's trying hard not to look at the other people she's ended up in the middle of either. Bran, suddenly alert, gets to his feet to go and follow her over.
[Flock of Nightingales] The dog... he hadn't been expecting. But Jarod's reflexes were as well-honed as one might expect from a Verbena. When he caught the flash of brown and black fur hurtling towards him out of the corner of his eye, he quickly set Ilana on the ground and ducked to one side in a fluid movement, leaving Zane with nothing but the ground to land his muddy paws on. And then Ashley appeared to rescue him, negating the possible need for further avoidance on his part.
Hi, she said. As if this meeting wasn't particularly surprising or eventful to her. Jarod knew, of course, that Ashley was living here (temporarily or otherwise.) He had her number. One might have expected that he'd call. Perhaps he simply hadn't had time. Perhaps he was here for other matters and hadn't really wanted to bother her. It could have been any number of reasons, really, and Jarod's motives had always been a particularly inscrutable enigma to Ashley.
There was a moment of surprise from Ilana as her grey eyes widened in recognition, and then a small, pleased smile painted itself across her pretty face. "Hi Ashley. Hi Zane."
And then, after a pause, Jarod responded as well. His tone was softer, his smile more subdued. "Fancy meeting you here." But there was a warm familiarity to his voice, a hint of that wryly teasing tone he so often used.
Dana glanced between the two of them and laughed, stepping forward to reach out a hand to Zane by way of greeting, letting him sniff her fingers before she crouched down and ruffled his ears. "Why hello there, aren't you a handsome boy," she crooned in her Texan drawl. "Jarod's just a big old stick in the mud, isn't he."
Jarod glanced at Dana and gave an almost imperceptible roll of his eyes, then shot a look over Ashley's shoulder toward the other members of her party. Bran, of course, he recognized. The others he did not. "My sister's getting married this weekend. We just flew out yesterday." And then, after a pause, "how are you?"
[Manus Celer Dei] Ashley has never been an inscrutable enigma, particularly once one gets to know her. She looks at Jarod for a few moments, trying to straighten even though Zane is tugging to try to greet first Jarod, then Ilana, and failing. There's a defiant set to her jaw. No, he didn't call her to let her know he was in town, and he has her number, and the look she's giving him is that of someone who doesn't particularly mind the fact.
Finally, after Ashley says his name once Zane calms, wagging his tail and shooting a pleading look toward Ilana instead. Ashley spares a smile for the girl, who she genuinely does seem happy to see. "Hi, Ilana." Then a look toward the woman with the Texan drawl. "Hi, Dana."
When Zane spins around to pay attention to Dana, Ashley does straighten back up, looking ruefully at a smear of mud on her hand. She casts about for a second as though for a place to wipe it, and finding none and not wanting to bend down to wipe it on the grass, just lets it dangle at her side. She looks up at Jarod, follows his gaze once toward the others, and says, "My friend Justine and her fiancee Adam. And Bran." Who he doubtlessly remembers.
There's a silence that stretches just a beat too long. "I'm all right." Another hesitation. "Getting things back together, mostly." More than that perhaps she isn't willing to say, though whether it's present company or Jarod himself is anyone's guess.
Bran arrives then, coming to stand next to Ashley and giving Jarod a quick smile. Justine and Adam still linger behind talking, occasionally shooting a curious look toward the rest of the group. "I came over to see if everything was okay," he says with gentle humor, glancing briefly toward Ashley and then to Zane, "but it looks like you guys are fine."
[Flock of Nightingales] "We're lovely Bran, thanks for asking." Jarod's tone was a neutral sort of friendly, the kind where it was next to impossible to tell if someone was being genuine or not, or even if they meant to be ever-so-subtly sarcastic (which, knowing Jarod, was entirely possible.)
Dana glanced up from the dog and smiled pleasantly (if she had any idea what the history was between this man and her friend, she didn't indicate it,) rising to her feet. A bit of mud had gotten on her hands as well, but unlike Ashley she seemed to have no particular qualms with simply wiping it off on her jeans. They were snug-fitting and showed off her legs, which were in much better shape now that she'd gotten into running. Once upon a time, she'd been a touch overweight, but you wouldn't know it now. "Nice to see you again, Ashley." There was a nod given to Bran as well, and for a moment her smile widened a little, because he wasn't a bad looking guy and she was usually a pretty friendly sort.
Jarod glanced between the two of them silently before turning his attention back to Ashley. "I'm glad things are going well." She didn't say that they were going well, only all right, but they weren't in private and there was only so much that one could say around strangers, so he said the appropriate thing. "You look good." (That, at least, sounded genuine.)
But if he meant to say anything else just then, he didn't get a chance, because that was when a small bundle of ginger-tawny fur suddenly came bounding over and stopped at Ilana's feet, circling around her with its jaw parted and its delicate tongue lolling as it panted in the heat. The puppy gave a little warble of greeting and its owner bent down and gathered him into her arms, nestling her face into the thick fur on his scruff. "Finnick's here!" she exclaimed delightedly.
And not two seconds later, a young man (or older teen - it was difficult to tell) who Ashley had never seen before jogged up and, giving the assembled group a cursory glance, tapped Jarod playfully in the side. "See? Told you I'd find it." His accent was Southern as well, but lighter and less obvious than Dana's. Not Texan. Somewhere around the mid-South, maybe. "Dude, have you seen the girls here? They are so fucking hot." He was about to say something else, but then something seemed to distract him and he looked back at Ashley and Bran, staring at them for a long moment with his amber/grey eyes. "...Um, whoa. Hi." But what exactly it was that had derailed him so, he didn't say. Nonetheless, one could make a guess. The newcomer flickered with a small, vibrant note of resonance. He felt like a burst of vital energy. Like life. (So more than likely, he could feel them too.)
It seemed to take some willpower to pull his attention away, but he did. "So um... anyway, I sortof might have told these girls over there that I was with you, and they want to say hi."
Jarod gave him a long, silent stare.
"...Please?" The newcomer affected a more-than-a-little-charming smile and put his hands together as if to beg.
"You owe me," Jarod said, and the look he offered Ashley might have been a little apologetic as he left to go follow this unknown Apprentice toward a small group of college girls that were standing by the bridge.
[Manus Celer Dei] Bran's smile is the warm sort of friendly, the sort that couldn't possibly be disingenuous. With a smile like that it would be easy to forget that he'd flown into a rage the last time (the first time) they met each other in a bar. He's not a bad looking guy, after all, and he seems to ooze good nature and goodwill alike. They're not altogether dissimilar, he and Jarod: one could imagine summer and winter with all of their harsh extremes (and their ability to resonate with human beings) meeting each other and swirling into a tempest.
When Dana nods toward him he nods back at her, and there's a quick smile for her too. He even raises his hand to wiggle his fingers at her in a lighthearted sort of wave.
There's a lot going on around the two of them, and Ashley is nowhere near as relaxed about it as Bran is. Ashley, in fact, looks like she'd like nothing more than to crawl into a hole underground and curl into a ball; her cheeks are still reddened, as though from the heat. Gatherings of Sleepers bring that out of her, much moreso than gatherings of their own kind.
Her eyes raise and settle on Jarod and there's something solemn and pensive in them for half a second when he says she looks good. Whatever reply she might have made stills in her throat as Finnick arrives, and the appearance of the puppy doesn't make her melt as it ordinarily might have, though she does let out a frustrated little sigh as Zane makes as though to move over to the other dog and catches him once more.
Then there's Gale. Ashley and Bran both stop and focus on him a moment, even as he looks back at them. It would be difficult to see them as anything other than what they are (a summer knight and his tamed monster, perhaps.) Bran doesn't feel so much like life as potential, something charged and ready and touched with valiance. And Ashley, well. The stare she gives him isn't out of place with the feel she gives off, in the slightest. "Hi," Bran says, for both of them.
They both watch the exchange, and once Jarod walks off Ashley glances at the ground and idly strokes Zane's ears. They're in the middle of a big family gathering and there's the clear sense of having intruded on something, but she glances once at Jarod as he leaves.
Bran gives her a gentle nudge and she looks up at him, then over toward Ilana and Dana. "I, um. Nice seeing you," she manages, unsure of how to part.
[Flock of Nightingales] Ilana, like Ashley, was never entirely comfortable in large social gatherings. She was a quiet girl. Even, at times, shy - though one could never accuse her of being timid or weak-willed. And though she was comfortable with Dana and knew Ashley well enough not to mind hanging around with her alone, this situation she suddenly found herself in - of being out in a foreign city with a lot of people she either didn't know or had only met a few times, and having just been temporarily abandoned by her only parental figure - was enough to send her back into her shell for a moment. The puppy, of course, had distracted her utterly, and so she'd barely registered Jarod and Gale's departure (or the fact that Gale had cursed next to her - had in fact said something that under normal circumstances might have made her slightly uncomfortable,) but now she seemed to realize where she was, and who was standing around her, and she looked up to glance between Dana, Ashley and Bran silently, clutching the puppy to her chest like a kind of living shield.
When Ashley spoke, she just... gave a small, silent nod, and buried her nose in the puppy's neck again as her large, ghostly-pale eyes regarded the adults warily. Dana, on the other hand, didn't miss a beat. She just laughed a little and put a hand out to rest on Ilana's shoulder reassuringly. "Oh you don't need to go. I'm sure Jarod would like to see you. If you guys are hungry, there's plenty of extra food in my basket." This was something she'd learned after all these years of friendship with Jarod - you don't depend on him or his family to remember that ordinary people have to eat more than wine and strawberries for lunch. "You should stay. Hang out."
Just then, the shorter and younger of two black-haired women (the ones who were almost certainly Jarod's sisters) jogged over and began to make delighted little crooning noises at Finnick. "Oh is this the miracle puppy?" Her voice held the kind of high-pitched croon that people usually reserved for babies and small, adorable animals. "Honey, he is absolutely gorgeous. You have to come show him off." And although Ilana looked as though she was decidedly less certain of the merit of this idea, she gave a reluctant nod. Maia could be hard to say no to when she got an idea into her head. Of course, she was also nothing if not a social butterfly, so before the two of them left, she awarded Ashley and Bran with a bright, beautiful smile. And she was beautiful. Her eyes were a paler sort than Jarod's - more crystal blue than ocean blue, and she was of a much more average height, with a heart-shaped face and full, seductive lips (probably the most obvious similarity.) She managed to be both exotic and approachable at the same time.
"It's decided, you will definitely stay. Especially you." And here she winked at Bran. "But first... puppy!" And then she and Ilana, and a slightly squirmy Finnick (who was at present much more curious about Zane than he was about any of the people) retreated to the blankets, followed by a series of delighted coos from the assembled women and one small toddler who seemed to belong to a blond pregnant woman.
And then... Dana, who just laughed. "Ah, sorry. They're a bit much sometimes."
[Manus Celer Dei] There are people who imagine Hermetics to be shy, bookish stereotypes - wizards who stay locked away in their towers, staring down their Romanesque noses at the common folk below and never stooping to interact with them. Ashley and Justine both could be accused of conforming to the stereotype in some ways, until one gets to know them better. Bran, well. No one would ever accuse him. Maya winks at him and tells him he should stay and she doesn't have to tell him twice.
"I'm going to get some wine," he tells Ashley, who gives him a look that manages to be at once sharp and almost plaintive - don't abandon me to them - asshole - which Bran promptly disregards. He sidles into the crowd as though he'd been invited, as though he were already part of the family, turning once to look over his shoulder at Justine and Adam lingering under the arch. He beckons them over and then, true to his word, cheerfully takes some of the food from Dana's basket and assails the first person who happens to glances his way with conversation.
Justine and Adam, too, make their way over, though they stand next to each other, at the edge of the crowd. Less gregarious than Bran, and they don't even have an introduction to Jarod to tie them to the rest. Still, they smile. They wave.
Ashley turns a look upon Dana and shifts from foot to foot, a little awkwardly. She looks toward the basket. Finally her blue eyes flick up toward Dana. She's finally relinquished a hold on Zane, who has calmed down somewhat. The shepherd pads over to Justine and Adam and sprawls in the grass, his tongue lolling.
"Sorry," Ashley finally says. "Things just kind of caught me off guard."
[Flock of Nightingales] "Don't worry about it." Dana smiled. (She seemed to smile a lot.) "Jarod's family seems to have a habit of doing that to people. I probably don't need to tell you that, about him at least." It was an off-hand remark, and one that Ashley could choose to answer or not. Dana knew Jarod, and she knew that anyone who'd spent more than five minutes with him would be hard-pressed not to feel caught off guard by something - his looks, his behavior, his tendency to say borderline-shocking things out of the blue, as if he was talking about the weather.
And then, because she knew exactly how Ashley must be feeling right now, she glanced over at the lagoon and inclined her head toward it. "Want to sneak off while no one's watching?" There was a warm and conspiratorial quality to her voice. "We can save each other from the madness."
[Manus Celer Dei] Ashley...does not smile very frequently, particularly not around people she doesn't know. Even when she does, there's usually something retreating about it; whatever brightness comes into her features rapidly subdues itself, fades out into something less than itself or twists into a sort of amused cynicism. There aren't any smiles right now, regardless. She just looks overwhelmed.
"I just, um. Didn't know he was in Boston," she says. But perhaps Ashley shouldn't be too surprised by it after all. Didn't magi gravitate toward one another in Chicago? Don't they do it sometimes here? It seems only natural after a long string of coincidences that they should have run into each other when they were both in the city, the way Thomas tracked her down. The way she found Rowan and what's-his-name at the docks.
Dana looks toward the lagoon and Ashley nods after a moment. "It's probably quieter, at least." She looks once over her shoulder at Justine and Adam, only to be met with a warm smile from Justine. They don't look nearly so lost or overwhelmed as she does, which steals away any excuse she might have had to retreat. "I, um. Which of his sisters is getting married? He never really told me about them."
Actually, Ashley isn't sure she knew he has sisters.
[Flock of Nightingales] As they walked away from the gathering toward the relative peace and safety of the water, Dana let her hands settle into her pockets and glanced back over her shoulder briefly. Her eyes landed first on Jarod and Gale, who were - as expected - busy chatting with that group of girls, then swung over to take in the large gathering by the picnic blankets. For the moment, they seemed to all be getting along swimmingly. Bran in particular, being the socially adept sort, seemed to have insinuated himself quite comfortably among Violet's friends. Not too small a feat, really, considering how painfully elitist many of them could be. But today was a day for warmth. It was summer, the weather was lovely, the setting was beautiful, and picnics had a way of breaking down class barriers. (It may also have had something to do with the fact that Ashley and her friends were magi, and thus very difficult to ignore.) Maia and Aaron's wife (the one who looked more than a little pregnant) were chatting with Adam and Justine while the former and a little boy (the toddler) played with Finnick.
It was almost too picture-perfect. A part of her half-expected someone to bring up politics or religion and topple the precarious house of cards that any social outing with the Nightingales inevitably became. Dana didn't mention that though. Ashley seemed uncomfortable enough as it was.
When they reached the water's edge, she slid her feet out of her sandals and sat down in the grass, letting her toes dip into the cool water. The wind brushed strands of auburn-brown hair out of the loosely twisted knot she'd clipped it up in earlier, and she absently brushed these strands behind her ear. "Violet. She's the tall, thin one. Not sure if you've met Maia or not. She lives in Madison, so she's closer to you guys. Or, well... was." Glancing back again, she pointed at the group, attempting to fill Ashley in on the identities of everyone present. "His parents are here. That's his Dad and step-mom lying in the sun on that blanket there. And the guy leaning against the tree on his cell phone is Aaron, his half-brother from his Dad's first wife. The pregnant woman is Aaron's wife Liz. The toddler is their son, Danny. And then... I don't really know the rest. They're Violet's friends."
Gale she seemed to have forgotten to introduce, but then she caught herself, "Oh, right..." and gestured toward where he and Jarod stood, in the distance. "That's Gale. Did you meet Gale? He's from Madison too. No relation. I guess he's... well, like you guys. That's what Jarod said, anyway."
[Manus Celer Dei] It never really occurs to Ashley that the magi she meets have families. Sometimes large ones. For much of her growing up, her family consisted of herself and her father; visits to her mother and step-father were rare, and she's met her extended family on her father's side a total of three times in her life. This probably contributes to her discomfort, at least in part. She really has no idea how families behave around each other beyond what she's observed from Justine's family.
"I haven't met Maia," she says. "Or Gale. I'm not...I haven't been up to Madison." And she and Jarod weren't close with each other for that long, all told. It was a scant few months, and that's hardly long enough to get acquainted with the more peripheral aspects of someone's life. Still, she soaks up the names easily, traps them and effortlessly works them into her perception of the world; Names are something she has never had trouble with.
She sits down next to Dana on the shore of the lagoon, pulling the laces of her shoes free and then tugging the legs of her jeans up so that they settle somewhere just below her knee, bunched rather than neatly rolled. Her feet aren't long to join Dana's in the water. It reminds her, briefly, of another day last summer, leaving her shoes in a pile while she hopped into a fountain.
There's a sidelong look toward Dana at the mention of you guys, like you guys: she separates them. "Did he tell you?" she asks, finally. "Or did you just..." Because Sleepers do, sometimes. The perceptive ones.
[Flock of Nightingales] "Well," she paused, contemplative. "I can tell, with you. Now that I've gotten more familiar with that... feeling. But I never really know if it's intuition or just... my imagination filling in the gaps when Jarod tells me who's who." There was a self-deprecating grin, at that. Dana wasn't a Consor, not really. She hadn't been raised around the Awakened world, and still knew painfully little about it. It wasn't something that Jarod talked about much with her, which was at least partly due to the fact that she'd never been entirely comfortable with it. Accepting, yes - after she'd been given proof. Even curious, at times. But it wasn't easy for the average person to wrap their head around this kind of reality, and Dana was a very straight-forward kind of person. Abstract concepts were sometimes lost on her.
It was one of the few things that Ashley knew better about Jarod than she did.
"He told me about Gale, though. I don't really know what their deal is, but I guess he's pretty new to everything. Jarod said that he was helping him learn some stuff. They brought him along to puppy-sit, cause Ilana freaked when Jarod tried to leave Finnick at home. That's about all I got out of them."
[Manus Celer Dei] Jarod is teaching Gale, and as Dana offers forth this bit of information Ashley lets out a little laugh that's sharp, that crackles. Her voice is a high soprano, an echo of the musician she used to be - or would be if it didn't go oddly flat at times - so perhaps she just can't help it, that sharpness. But Dana is likely a bit too insightful for that. "Jarod's actually teaching somebody?"
What Dana offered forth about what she knew about the Awakened world was absorbed in silence, with simply a nod at first. Ashley's eyes have wandered out to skim over the surface of the lagoon. It's a still thing, right now, undisturbed by any wind or...anything, really, except the wake left by a few ducks swimming farther down the shore. Finally she says, "It gets easier when you think about it less in terms of finding something...special or otherwordly or supernatural and more in terms of figuring out what things are. Everybody gives off a feeling like that, just..."
Ashley shrugs her narrow shoulders once, letting one foot linger closer to the shore. She buries her toes in the mud and wiggles them, watching a cloud bloom under the unbroken surface of the water. "Jarod's always been kind of separate from the rest of the community, from what I've seen. I'm surprised he actually picked him up in an official capacity."
[Flock of Nightingales] [Per+Empathy, I sense that I am treading on nails here.]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Manus Celer Dei] Ashley is exceedingly familiar with Jarod's method of teaching people, when he teaches. Moreso than that, she's quite acquainted with the fact that he doesn't like official ties, that he doesn't like commitments or being grouped with someone else or several someone elses. It isn't hard to follow her train of thought: if Dana knows he is teaching Gale he has officially recognized it in some capacity.
What's here is surprise and some resentment, a touch of jealousy and the very immediate sense of being alone. Ashley has a quick temper and the will to make that dangerous, an instability in spite of her strengths: Dana knows that, she's heard stories. Pursuing a given topic is always a little risky, with these sorts of people.
[Flock of Nightingales] Jarod's actually teaching somebody?
Had it not been for that laugh, Dana would have smirked and made some playfully teasing remark of agreement. Instead, there was something about the pitch and the sharpness of Ashley's voice that made her pause and regard the other woman with a slight crease of tension forming between her eyebrows. There was something stubborn in that expression - the kind that one might expect from someone who'd been friends with Jarod for as long as she had been. The man left a lot of hurt and angry people in his wake. Some of them were justified in their judgments, some were not. Ashley was probably the former, but a person could grow defensive after so many years of hearing people make disparaging remarks about someone they cared about.
Still, whatever defensiveness she may have felt, she was honest. And she wasn't the sort of person to get angry quickly or easily. After a long pause, she shrugged. "He's been doing a lot of uncharacteristic things lately. Frankly I was more surprised about the dog. Jarod was about as likely to get a puppy as he is to become a Baptist. I'm still trying to decide if maybe he just got swapped out for an alien that looks like him."
Not really, of course, but she was teasing.
"I really don't know much. He didn't say anything about it being official. Just that the kid needed help and he was helping him. He seems like an alright guy, I think." She wiggled her toes in the water and glanced back over her shoulder to watch the two men for a moment. When she looked back at Ashley, she said, "...You're upset with him." It wasn't a question.
[Manus Celer Dei] Ashley, when upset, is the sort of person who repeats mantras to herself. Believing a thing long enough - particularly about oneself - can make it true. This was how she handled her Jhor, for a long time, or at least how she kept it from getting worse. How she kept herself from focusing on it. She told herself that she was all right, that she wasn't afraid, and a lot of the time she could believe it and act.
The problem with that sort of coping mechanism is that it has fissures, and sooner or later those widen, helped along by reminders. That was the other thing she learned in dealing with Jhor. That was when she learned it wasn't enough just to tell herself that she was strong. Still, there are times when she falls back into it, particularly when she's feeling vulnerable.
She frowns at the still water, wiggling her toes further into the silty bottom of the pond. "I'm not that surprised," she says, of the puppy. "He got it for Ilana, I think." Meaning: she's grasped at least some of the girl's meaning to him, what an exception she is when it comes to other people.
Then Dana's very direct statement. Ashley pulls in a breath and releases it. Then, even, "Yeah. I left Chicago and he just kind of...cut things off. Like nothing mattered. Now he's here." A beat. "He has my fucking phone number."
[Flock of Nightingales] It was true, he had gotten the puppy for Ilana, and Dana knew very well what Ilana meant to him. The argument was a logical one, but she'd made the comment more as a way of lightening the conversation than anything else. There didn't seem to be any desire on her part to debate the matter. Instead she pulled her feet up to rest on the lip of the grass-covered ground and draped her arms across her knees, listening as Ashley talked.
After a bout of silence, she said, "It's generally not a good idea to make assumptions about what's going on in Jarod's head. I've known him seventeen years and I still can't figure him out half the time."
There was a lot more going on beneath the surface here, and you could see Dana begin to form words and then discard them as she weighed in her mind the likely outcomes of each statement or question. None of them were good. Finally she just sighed. "Look, he's... Jarod. He's not very chatty. He likes to sortof come and go through people's lives. He never calls before showing up. It doesn't mean you don't matter to him. He cares about you a lot. That's probably exactly why he didn't call."
[Manus Celer Dei] She and Jarod are so different in how they view some things that it's difficult for Ashley to put herself in his position, or to imagine what he must be thinking in a given situation. Perhaps all it really comes down to is one thing, that Jarod is good at reading other people and Ashley isn't. Unless she chooses to break reality, Ashley relies at mediocre guesswork at best, and her own very twisted idea of how people treat other people. And her own very twisted idea of how people should react or behave toward her.
Many of the things Ashley could say in response sound whiny in her own head or too vulnerable or too revealing to this woman she barely knows. She scrolls though all of them as potential responses as though spinning around a rack of clothing, trying to decide who she wants to be right now. Armor is almost inevitably her costume.
She brings her hands up after a moment and grips either elbow, holding them tightly against her chest, and she looks out over the water. "I've been meaning to go back," she says finally, her feet shuffling against the grass as she adjusts them. "I just never know where I stand. That's all."
[Flock of Nightingales] It could be tricky, these kinds of conversations. Dana was an outside party in this affair, and though she knew Jarod better than most people (probably better than anyone,) she certainly wasn't psychic. What she knew of Ashley, and Jarod's relationship to her, could fit in the palm of her hand. Clearly she felt as though Ashley deserved some kind of friendly gesture, or she wouldn't have tried to talk to her in the first place, but as she'd said herself only a moment ago... it was never a good idea to make assumptions about what was going on in Jarod's head.
And here was this woman who she knew he'd been fairly close to for a few months, at least as much as Jarod ever got close to anyone, and that woman was saying that she didn't know where she stood. Ashley might have meant among the Awakened population in general; among her friends and colleagues, but if so Dana didn't know to interpret it that way. What she heard was: I don't know where I stand with him.
And all she could do in response was to shrug slowly and offer a sympathetic expression. "That's a conversation you need to have with him."
It seemed like that might be it, for awhile, as Dana grew quiet once more and fixed her gaze on a couple who were gliding across the water on one of the rented paddle-boats. But then she stood up and brushed some of the grass from her jeans, picking up her sandals in one hand and letting them hang by the straps from a curled finger. "If you want my advice, though? Do what you want to do. Don't worry about him, and definitely don't wait for him. That's just giving him power that he hasn't earned and responsibility that he doesn't want. Neither of you deserve that."
But she was pulling away now, trotting off through the grass to rejoin the gathering, where she found Ilana and Finnick and rescued them both from the prying hands Aaron's young son.
[Manus Celer Dei] Ashley has spoken very little about this to anyone, not even Kage - the person she is closest to of anyone. That can't even be argued anymore. They cemented what the two of them had been resisting when they came to Boston together, when they chose to Name themselves and set themselves apart. They have an apartment together now in Boston and they scribble messages and leave them for the other to find. But there are certain hurts and conflicts that Ashley will always keep to herself, and she can be certain that Kage is the same way. Solitude is a difficult habit to break.
Ashley makes a noise that is not altogether dissimilar from one her father might make, and if Dana knew Jim at all there might be a grim sort of amusement to be found in that. It surfaces once as Dana says that's a conversation Ashley needs to have with Jarod, and then again when the word deserve passes Dana's lips. It's the kind of noise that says: I don't know anyone who gets what they deserve. It's the kind of noise that says that what people deserve means nothing, and it's the kind of noise that says that this sort of entitlement is an empty thing.
When Dana gets up to go back to the gathering and rescue Ilana and Finnick Ashley doesn't get up to follow. This probably isn't so surprising a thing, particularly since Dana can parse some of her emotional state. She shifts after a few seconds to lean into the trunk of the tree next to her, and she stays there for a while. Far, far away from everything else.
Bran turns another smile on Dana as she comes back to rejoin everyone, but by now the Flambeau is already well embroiled in a conversation. His head lifts after a few seconds when he notices the approach of the last two people who were supposed to join their group - a man, his hulking heavy limbs only just covered by a black T-shirt, and a smaller (and much younger) woman accompanying him. They cut an odd pair, with her round face and her much smaller stature.
Jim stares at the people his daughter's friends have joined, unsure of what to make of them. Or who any of them are. Until his eyes fall on Jarod, and then deep furrows carve themselves into his forehead. He steps close to Justine and Adam, who smile up first at him and then at the woman. With an almost shy smile she moves to sit next to the two of them.
They've been taken care of and so Bran goes back to amusing himself with the guests. Maia did tell him he should stick around, after all.
