Autumn stillness

[Emily Littleton] It was well into late Autumn, and only a few stubborn leaves still cling to wind-whipped branches. The rest littered the forest floor in varying stages of dead, dry, and decaying. The air was brisk, cold enough to pink her cheeks and nose but warm enough to leave outdoor activities tenable for awhile longer. The year had not year fallen completely into shadow.

Emily needed to get out of the city. She needed to get away from everything routine and jog her brain out of its infinite loop of questioning, rationalizing, rebuttals, and rehashing. She ditched her afternoon class, left no note in the lab, and drove out to the woods. Emily picked a trail at random and just started walking.

The pathways were dark auburn, worn down by walkers and mostly bereft of fallen leaves. Here a fallen tree hemmed in one edge and there the dense carpet of leaves simply gave way to a clear cut path. In some places she had to step over an encumbrance, or aroung a outcropped rock. Mostly, though, she just walked. The woods were relatively empty, and the sound of her footfalls rang loudly in her ears. The wind tousled and teased her hair.

The path wound further into the woods, finding a natural break at a plateau that overlooked the water. Emily pulled up a place on a fallen tree trunk, rested her elbows on her knees, and waited. Not for anyone, perse, or any particular revelation. She waited for the quiet life to catch up with her, find her here, and chase away the nonsense of the past week, the holiday weekend, and a million lesser things that were slowly driving her mad.

[K. R. Jakes] Every path has two directions. Forward and backward, beginning and end. They may as well be interchangeable. The trail that Emily Littleton decided to take today leads her over bank and over brier, past cold black leaf-rot and the last russet of Autumn's spilling blood. The trail that Kage R. Jakes decided to take today leads her over black water, under cold ash and regal elm, until at last and not long after Emily has settled herself on a fallen (king) tree, Kage's footsteps echo too. Let it begin with symmetry, then: each path has two directions. Those directions are back-to-back and mouth-to-mouth. They kiss, and they turn away from one another, at the very same time.

This little point with a view of the water is a good number of miles down the trail. The two women are probably parked near each other in the lot, next to the closed Nature Center, and they may very well be the only people in the woods tonight. And maybe there is no such thing as wolves. Solitude, always precious to Kage, is what she drove out to Tekakwitha hoping for. Solitude, and a place to Work her craft without her guest to worry about, without the crush of people. A place where the cold would seep into her bones, where the water was thick on the surface like a mirror.

Where she wasn't surrounded by heat. No work to be done. Less stress, no worry, less trouble, no toil. Well, maybe toil. He would appear if he wanted to appear. He always did, and she couldn't ask him not to; she'd tried that before. But she -- oh, she wanted to collect herself.

A similarity, then. When Kage notices Emily, she pauses. Then approaches slowly, choosing whether or not she'd speak.

[Emily Littleton] Kage need not decide whether to speak or not. The choice has been made. Her voice, tonight, is the sound of footfalls on a forest path. The crunch of dessicated leaves, the sound of gravel giving way, the little tells of human movement in a place overwrought with silence.

Emily stirs, pushes up (slightly) from her pensive position to stretch a little, and then looks over her shoulder toward the other. The girl's features are pleasant, relaxed from thought and slow to warm into a welcoming smile. Slow because it is colder here than in the city, and languid thoughts move like molasses. Slow because the tangled cobwebbed thoughts she mused took time to brush aside, roll up for further contemplation.

In the late afternoon or early evening light, Emily's eyes are merely dark. Their hue is lost to the lack of contrast. Her hair is likewise dark, deeply brown and loosely tied at the nape of her neck. She has mastered the art of layering, and those layers come in suitably appropriate autumnal hues--creams, browns, russets, and a pair of blue jeans to boot.

"Hey..." Emily said. The word curled oddly across the space, nestled in Kage's ear with an unfamiliar shape. The girl's eyes were warm with welcome. Her hands were still clasped near her lap.

"Plenty of room, if you'd like to sit..." she gestured, belatedly, at the remained of the fallen log. Words piled oddly ontop of other words, but Emily's accent remained strange, muddled, and difficult to place.

[K. R. Jakes] "Thank you," Kage says, and her voice is even in pitch but low.

Emily looks innocuous enough and Kage's mouth twitches upward in an (echo) answer. When Kage smiles, it touches her eyes. They're likewise dark in the uncertain fugue of rainwashed sky, and the red of her hair is darkened too, but still bright; still vivid enough to hurt the teeth. "Hi." In the moment's pause between when she says hi and when she claims her own side of the tree, near Emily, but not too near - they are, after all, perfect strangers, Kage sweeps the lonely (sacred) windswept space with a cool and assessing glance. The echo of her smile is still in the righthand corner of her mouth, much like Mrs. Darling's kiss.

"I didn't think anybody else would be up here," she says, after she's settled. "It's not the time for it." The tree is solid, and does not bow, and Kage scoots up so that she can rest her left foot against a branch that thrusts from the trunk and into the earth. Blackened, that. Maybe. Maybe lightning-struck, this tree, not just blighted. Maybe. "I'm Kage," she says, and her bag bumps against the calf of her other foot. And Emily may, or may not, feel the slightest tickle -- something she may, or may not, be beginning to associate with how she sees [mad? No. Think of Jarod] the world.

[Emily Littleton] It is a restful place, overlooking the glassy calm of the water which reflected the deepening colors of the late afternoon sky. Sunlight streamed between the barren trees, casting a network of long slender shadows across everything that was not gilded with amber light. It is calm here, and the cold of near-winter seeps up through the ground, slowly permeating everything. The fallen king. The two visitors, whose breath tickles the still air, stirs old sounds, disturbs sleeping thoughts.

There is a preternatural calm around the younger woman, at odds with her age and her place in life. It resonates deeply with belonging, with acceptance. It speaks to Home. This resonance clings to her, rides along her skin and envelopes her without being of her. She wears it like a talisman, like a trinket strung from the delicate silver chain that Kage can just now notice encircling her neck.

"Emily," she offers, in that same wrong-but-right accent. To Kage, and those like her with opened eyes and carefully honed senses, there is a brightness to the other girl. Twined with the very sense of her, the tangible and ethereal threads of what made her real, this quintessential something burned brightly against the autumn background. It was pure, unattuned to any particular flavor or persuasion.

In response to that faintest tickle, Emily shifted a bit. Rolled her shoulders lazily. Resettled her feet. She did not yet possess words to name the sense of sameness she felt with Kage. For what it was worth, she wasn't quite assured of the sameness itself.

"Mmmm, me either," she responded to Kage's observation. "Though sometimes it's nice to have a little... room to breathe." Emily's smile twisted slight, still warm but slightly wry. It then gave way to a brighter expression. There was kinship in the coincidence that brought them both out this far (that was a sameness she could accept). "What brings you out this far?"

[K. R. Jakes] There are unscrupulous people out there.

These people, would they perceive what Emily had on a silver chain around her throat, would likely try to buy that trinket from her; say it was a bauble, nothing. Undervalue it. Or would she not sell -- they might try and take it. There are unscrupulous people out there, but fortunately for Emily, Kage is not really unscrupulous. Not unless the chips are down. And here, out in Tekakwitha, by the dark water: Kage refuses to accept that they might even be at a betting table. She demands some tranquility, some mystery without restlessness. Kage hears a dark chuckle in her ear, familiar and as tangible as a stone -- to her. Emily will hear nothing, and when Kage turns her head, just as the wind kicks up into a quick waltz, not even Kage will see (want/terror) Him lurking in the trees. The rattle of branches sweeps away the possibility, patter of oracles that Kage cannot quite hear.

This is the thing about Kage. Kage is very assured woman. She has poise, and it does not come with effort. She is even demure, and that does not come with effort, either. She is not dressed entirely appropriately for a hike, in a long-skirted dress and boots, stockings underneath, a collared sweater, over that a larger still sweater: nappy moss greens, grays, mellow colors, smoke colors.

And Kage is also, more often than not, cautious and solitary. Witness now: no, SO, wellp, looks like you're magic too, huh? Or are you new and shining? No, none of that. Just, feelingly: "I know exactly what you mean. That's why I walked the trail," and Kage pats the wood of the trunk, strokes her palm along its rougher surface. "To meet here with the king and his court. It's been an interesting week, in the sense of the Chinese saying." There, a wry smile. "From what you just said, I'm going to assume your answer would be the same. Unless you want to correct me."

[Emily Littleton] Emily's eyes widened slightly in curiosity (Interesting you say...) and confirmation (Interesting indeed...). She chuckled, and it was a low, resonant, almost regretful sound that rolled against the back of her teeth and spilled out into the deepening dusk.

"Indeed," she replied, and the word was heavy with unnamed intimations. They are cut of similar cloth, Emily and Kage. The younger is collected, moreso than she ought to be at the age of college crushes and midterm meltdowns. There is (usually) a sense of confidence to her that often develops later in life. She has lived (too) many places, lost (too) many friends, given up too much to circumstance to be overly bothered by fitting in or measuring up to anyone else's standards. What Kage sees is what she gets, and perhaps that is refreshing in this oh so interesting times.

"You want to talk about it?" she offers. A stranger holding out the olive branch. A tete-a-tete by the waterside, intrinsically bound to secrecy by the quiet of the woods. The wind picks up, and somewhere a gathering of birds rustles, takes to wing, settles again. Emily breathes deeply, draws the quiet into her very center, expells the worries and misgivings of other days. She is renewed.

"Or is it all too interesting to recount?" A possibility, offered plainly. An out. Emily looks over to Kage, quirks and eyebrow, offers a smile.

[K. R. Jakes] Does she want to talk about it.

The question is given due consideration, as is the young(er) woman on the trunk next to her. The woman who wears Home around her neck on a silver chain. The woman who is resonant, but without distinction; without flavor. Yet. Her glance grows cool and distant, occluded with thoughts. Dreaming Kage. She is thinking about Thanksgiving, about the cemetery after she dropped Julian off. About ...

"Actually, yes. Very likely to both questions." Kage's mouth quirks again, and it's still wry, this smile. "But you're only supposed to get in trouble when you step off the path and talk to strangers, right? The king and his court," she thumps the tree, lightly. Sound, echo. "They're on the path. Technically." A brief pause, beeswing fine. Then: "I learned that an old boss of mine died, and I don't think," brief hesitation, "he's at rest. We weren't great friends, but it wears on me. And there's this liar (lawyer? Mrrwhatdidshesay?). An unexpected houseguest."

Kage makes an unnecessary gesture in the air. "They're all ... Well, a step back. What about you?"

And she's not just asking to redirect the flow of conversation away from her interesting week. Not just asking, mind.

[Emily Littleton] Emily listened without reacting overmuch. She was tired, but that weariness was easily converted to stillness. She was through, for now, with being overly excitable. It would take time before she could work herself up into that sort of tizzy again. So Kage got her at a lull, a low point, where the tide could wash over her without pulling her out to sea.

"I met a lawyer recently..." she chimed in gently, taking a light tanget to Kage's tale. Responding without replying directly. No judgement. No need to pry deeper.

And then Kage turned things around, volleyed the conversation back to Emily, and it was Emily's turn to tell without telling, to share without giving up too much at all, and to make it seem effortless and without evasion.

"I think the trouble started with the rockstar at the soup kitchen," she proffered, shaking her head a bit, saying (almost) plainly what she meant. "That was never meant to end well," she added.

[K. R. Jakes] This is a rare day for Kage. The kind of day that is beginning to seem rare. A well-rested day, a day that doesn't begin in a cold sweat. A day that doesn't start with blood in her mouth, and eyes so wide they hurt. Kage likes these days, and for all she is seeking tranquility here, is even managing tranquility [a note of darkness, when she mentioned Wellington; a lacery of ash], she is feeling whole and well.

The redhead's mouth curves up, a generous sort've smile that does, again, touch her dark eyes. Both of her eyebrows rise. "I didn't think anything ever started with a rockstar at a soupkitchen. All, lo! I am here. Bask. Might I hold this spoon? Ca-click, photo-op done. A couple of hands shaken, and away it goes."

[Emily Littleton] She smirked, and the dark humor touched her eyes and made them dance in the dying light. "More 'I am here!' followed by a lesser mobbing, some running in and out of doorways, an argument, and then late evening tea. But yes, you quite have it."

Emily knew she'd unfairly characterized the memory, but Kage had set the pattern for story-telling and Emily had only replied in kind. Keeping a layer of levity to it made it less disruptive, less real. Tea, as Emily had so simply summed it up, had been the far more ... active... portion of the evening.

[K. R. Jakes] "Were you involved in the arguement?" Quiet, that, but also clear. It is a probing question, and Kage knows it. "Because that sounds like it ended very well indeed. All evenings should end with tea."

[Emily Littleton] "Merely an innocent bystander," Emily retorted, holding her hands up to illustrate her innocence. "But yes it was, and yes they should."

For a moment, something about the younger mage's expression suggested it had been a very good cup of tea. Perhaps, even, surprisingly good. And quite, ahem, hot.

[K. R. Jakes] For a moment, Emily's expression was suggestive of, ah, well, benefits to the evening that do not usually come with a cup of tea. Kage's left eyebrow crawls up, rather elegant. Kage is not a gorgeous woman by any means, and is usually relegated to the realm of plain -- loveliness is fleeting. Stronger, today, perhaps by dint of a good night's rest. Kage looks like a real person, with all the flaws, all the perfections that entails. This does not mean there isn't a certain -- style -- to the willworker. "Oh ho, I see," she says, and smiles. "That is one of my complaints about the woods," she adds, not lingering over a topic that might cause Emily embarrassment. "That there are no outlets to plug in a kettle. Yes, I know: fire. But I'm just no good at fire."

[Emily Littleton] "I've found some of the newer thermoses work quite well. They keep warm enough for long walks, if not all day hikes." Emily segued to something safer in lockstep with Kage, offering an observation without lingering overmuch on the question of the proper pluralization of thermos.

It was most definitely not thermii, but that would have rolled off her tongue far more cleanly. Precisely.

"Did your weekend at least resolve nicely?" she asked, winding the conversation back to Kage's tale. "Have you divested yourself of your houseguest? Or, better yet, was it a welcome intrusion?"

[K. R. Jakes] Emily turns the conversation back on Kage, and Kage holds her breath for a moment. And then, soft release. She shakes her head, and her (fine) jaw tightens for a moment. The ghost of lines appears on her forehead, shadows, shadows, everywhere and not a drop to - wait. "Resolution continues to be elusive," she says. "But I have hope. Speaking of resolution, I'm supposed to meet with the lawyer in . . . oh," and she glances at her wristwatch. Yes, Kage still, occasionally, wears a wristwatch. She likes the gears, the fabled complexity of a watch that is not digital. "An hour, two. I should leave," and there is no hiding the wistfulness in her voice, there. "But," and this is said as she hops back to earth. "It was very nice talking to you, Emily. I'd like it if -- and I hope this doesn't come across as weird -- we could meet up and chat again. A sympathetic female ear is nothing to sneer at. Maybe we could meet back here in a week?"

[Emily Littleton] Emily occasionally wore a wrist watch. Or she had, in the not too distant past, and would likely again had not the oddest things happened (perhaps not the oddest): it stopped dead at eleven forty-three one evening. And she hadn't worn one since.

"I think that I would like that," Emily replied, her smile softening into something... honest. "Very much so."

There was something old world to her tone, the implied but rarely actualized grace hidden away in the subtle avoidance of contractions.

"Besides," she added, with a little more levity. "You're the first person who hasn't tried to sell me on something all week."