Opened eyes

[Jarod Nightingale] The trouble with trying to teach someone to sense life patterns during the winter was that most of those patterns were asleep. During their earlier sessions, Jarod had been slightly at a loss as to how exactly he was meant to pass on this ability to another person, and more importantly... a person who did not necessarily understand or look at the world in the same way that he did. When he'd been newly awakened himself, the method by which he'd learned this had mostly involved an acute focus on other people. Even before he knew he was doing it, he'd been able to draw near someone and feel their physical reaction to him. It was an innate understanding. Instinctual. But simply providing Emily with his own pattern to read had not yet proved effective in her own case. This was all as much a learning experience for him as it was for her, and in the end, the Disciple had finally come to the conclusion that significantly increasing the level of surrounding input might make the initial sensing easier.

It was a leap of logic that he probably should have made weeks ago, but sometimes it could be difficult to remove oneself from their own point of view and look at the world through another's. To that end, he'd called her up and asked her to meet him at the Chicago Botanic Garden, where he was currently waiting in the parking lot, listening to music in his car. Bach's cello suites, because it fit his current mood.

[Emily Littleton] Speaking of life patterns that ought to be sleeping...

She had elected, for one reason or another, to travel via public transport this evening. Perhaps because she recognized a reasonable limitation in her own awareness, or perhaps because her usual mode of personal transport was being cantankerous and required more tinkering than she had time for, or perhaps because it gave her a chance to practice, practice, practice before she got to the Botanic Gardens in hopes of being a more successful student this time around.

So far, Emily had sensed great fatigue, mild annoyance, and the frustrating realization that being aware of one's own thoughts (and by logical extension their physical evidence) was not the same of being enlightened unto the underlying pattern of one's life.

She's a little late, and arriving on foot, but the walk has done her well. Moving has left her feeling a little more certain, more grounded. She and Jarod had not seen much of each other of late, so it would be easier for him to see the fatigue (exhaustion) in her if she let her attention slip.

The messenger bag, slung from one shoulder to the opposite hip, is a constant fixture now that she is mid-term. And Winter has not thawed into Spring, so she wears the same overcoat as before. Emily stops under a streetlight in the parking lot and looks around for Jarod's car. Like him, it is terribly distinctive and not hard to pick out in a crowd. This late, the lot is thinly populated and he is even easier to find. So she makes her way over, with her hands in her pockets to keep them out of the cold.

[Jarod Nightingale] This late, the greenhouses were already closed, and only the information center and its attached event spaces were still open to the public. One of the conference rooms had booked a meeting for some local businesses, which accounted for the majority of the non-employee vehicles still in the parking lot. When Emily first approached the all-too-familiar black sheen of Jarod's M3, she'd be greeted with the muffled hum of cello music, and the sight of Jarod leaned back in the driver's seat with his eyes closed. He wasn't asleep. Unlike Emily, he wasn't even tired. This was merely a relaxed, meditative state. She'd probably have to rap lightly against the window to get his attention.

Once he realized she was there, he opened his eyes and looked at her, smiling in an understated way. (His smiles tended not to be broad things unless he was feeling unusually enthusiastic.) He had on a pair of jeans and dark purple buttoned shirt, and when he opened the door and stepped out into the cold, he didn't bother to grab his coat. The first thing he did, by way of greeting, was to lean over and place a soft kiss next to the corner of Emily's eye. Then he gestured into the open (now silent) car. "May as well put your coat and bag in here. You won't need them."

Whether or not Emily chose to take his advice, he locked up the car before leading them inside. Pulling the glass door open, they were greeted by a rush of warm air, and Jarod approached the woman behind the information desk with a smile that was all charm and courtesy. "I believe you have the subtropical greenhouse on reserve for me." And indeed, they did, though it was not the usual protocol to put any of the greenhouses on reserve, after hours or otherwise. Money and social skills could accomplish a great deal in this world.

A girl about Emily's age in a gardener's uniform came around to lead them to the greenhouse and unlock the door for them. She smiled at the two of them in a friendly way, then left so they could have their privacy. (And passing back by the information clerk, she might be heard to say, a little wistfully, "I wish my boyfriend would do stuff like this for me.")

Inside the greenhouse, the two awakened individuals would be enveloped in warm humidity and surrounded on all sides by the ever-constant bloom of green. Subtropical temperate plants of all varieties grew here, lush and thriving in the perfect, controlled environment. In the distance, the bubbling flow of a small waterfall could be detected, and if the two of them followed the brick path around to the back, they'd find a small koi pond underneath a bridge. That was the direction that Jarod began to walk, now. Away from the doors. Away from any chance of prying eyes.

"Better than my apartment, hmm?"

[Emily Littleton] She is changed, somehow. Emily has diverged in many small ways from the Emily she was when last they met. This Emily, the Emily of now, makes no hesitation in snaking an arm around him to hug him (hold him) for a moment when he kisses her temple. She does not ask permission, or think to pause demurely. It is thoughtless, but retains its sentiment and meaning.

This Emily does not argue, or try to read more into his meaning when he tells her to leave her coat and bag behind. And while she is still wearing jeans and a somewhat generic top, this one is at least flatteringly feminine.

Jarod's socio-economic strata had different options and problem-solving skills than the mere mortals in Emily's corner of life. When he asks at the desk after the greenhouse he has on hold, she barely blinks back her surprise. (It is harder, today, to hide things [harder than most days] even from mere mortals.) When the girl at the desk whispers, loudly, in envious shades of green... Emily is quiet. Quietly pleased, quietly humbled, quietly appreciative... but above all, quiet.

It is almost unfair to submerge someone in the warm, humid depths of a tropical summer when the snow still fell in the outside world. If they lingered here long enough, the warmth would sink down into her skin, unfurl carefully hidden (clenched [protected]) places, secrets, that Emily could not bear (bare) in colder climes.

She stretched a little, moving a bit less carefully as her body began to register the warmth as something more than fleeting. As the sounds, and smells, and sights of the simulated world lifted her eyes (her spirits) and tugged upward on the corners of her mouth: it elevates her.

"Different..." she says, but yes, she means better. The whisper-fine curls around her hair line have already begun to tighten, to stand out like a faint halo around her features.

This was not the frozen woods (reflection [counsel] Court) or the careful construct of his home (solace [refuge] serenity). The gardens were very much alive, overwhelmingly so, and she could borrow (beg [barter]) some of its ineffable energy to bolster her own mood.

"How have I lived her for two years and never visited?" she marveled, letting the appreciative and pleased note in her voice stand unmitigated, unocculted. (No lies [not yet]).

[Jarod Nightingale] "You weren't looking?" he offered by way of a logical explanation. It was surprising how much one could miss about their own home (or, rather, the place they lived) sometimes. That was easy to do when you were a student, though. Studies took up the majority of one's time and attention.

Jarod stepped up onto the small wooden bridge that arched over the koi pond, leaning back against the red-painted railing. Behind him, the miniature waterfall tossed an ever-constant flow of current downward, and it was close enough to toss the occasional tiny droplet in their direction. A few of them left pin-point dots of moisture on Jarod's shirt, but for once he didn't seem to care. He aura felt... very relaxed. Reaching down, he unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt and rolled them up to his elbows (it was warm in here - summery), leaving the swirling tattoo on his right forearm visible.

"I stop by now and then, when I'm in the mood. There isn't much of this kind of life in the city. Kind of makes me want to get my own greenhouse. A smaller one, of course. Not that I'd really have time for it." Which was the reason he'd never bothered with that sort of project to begin with. No, for now he could be content with the large fish-tank he'd just set up in his office (one that Emily hadn't seen yet), and the elegant new creations that it housed - aquatic creatures brought to life by sheer imagination.

"Anyway, I thought... maybe it would help. If we came here. You seem more relaxed already." And this was a slightly teasing thing, but it was accompanied by a light brush of the backs of fingers down her arm, and that felt more like reassurance. "There's a bench over there, so we can sit down." And then he was moving again, across the bridge and around to where the path bordered the pond. A wooden bench did indeed rest there, positioned at an optimal angle so that lovers could sit and take in the view.

[Jarod Nightingale] [He=his - sheesh]

[Jarod Nightingale] [Per+Empathy]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 7, 10 (Success x 1 at target 5)

[Jarod Nightingale] [Trying again at +1 and tempting fate]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 6, 9 (Failure at target 6)

[Emily Littleton] "Of course..." she says, softly, when he presents her with a perfectly reasonable reason she'd never been to the gardens. Her tone isn't lightly wry or vaguely unamused. Like so many other things about Emily tonight, it is unveiled and simple.

She walks more slowly than he does, looking around her as she moves. Many of the plants here are new to her, or only partially remembered from far away places. Without her messenger bag or coat, she has no natural idle place for her hands to be. Intermittently, she hooks her thumbs into her back pockets, or slides her hands into her front pockets, or reaches out to touch something that has strayed near enough to the path to be examined, noticed, catalogued in more senses than one.

There is a quieter smile, tonight, when his fingers slide down her arm. It is a secretive thing, glimpsed sidelong and curiously: a half seen reflection, a thing implied but not outright said: warmth. And this is the difference, she knows, between his touching her and another's. There is warmth, and it comes from a place deep within her, untouched as of yet by the psuedo-summer. There is a word for this feeling, Emily knows, that is neither friendship nor familiarity (nor is it fearful).

These are the thoughts that come, unconjured and unrequested, to her too tired mind. They cannot be put away once they have been found, noticed, and named.

Then he was moving again, and Emily was following. Moving gave her a chance to step away from the unnamed thought, to focus on the lesson intended rather than the one that had found her unaware and unguarded (rather unsportsmanlike, that was). She is trying, and failing, to school the fondness in her features. Failing spectacularly enough to dispense with trying all together.

She settled on the bench, folded her restless hands into her lap. If this place existed apart from winter, then perhaps it was okay for her frame of mind to be likewise shifted. "I like it here..." she said, and it was clear that she'd meant it. Slowly, slowly, Emily reeled her focus back in. The openness faded, only because it was eroded in places by the keen attention she could pay to a subject when she put her mind to it.

[Jarod Nightingale] [Life 1 - diff 4, +2, -1, -1]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 8, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 4) [WP]

[Jarod Nightingale] He was not tired. And there was nothing so unguarded or warm in his features or in his countenance as there may have been in hers. That did not mean that it was a perfect reflection of what lay beneath, but this was not a mask. This was not cold and controlled (glassy like an ice sculpture.) The ever-shifting tide of his emotions was simply very calm, today. Reflective and almost zen-like. This was preferable to some of the less placid moments he'd been having of late, and was due in large part to their current surroundings.

But he wasn't focused in so keenly on Emily's emotional state. He was thinking about what they'd come here to do (responsible, for once - being useful to someone other than himself, for once.) And that meant that he missed things that might otherwise have been more obvious to him. (And it was possible that in some subconscious recess of his mind, he was intentionally not looking. Looking would mean over-complication of what needed to be a focused and uncomplicated evening.)

I like it here, she said, and Jarod smiled as he looked out ahead of them, at the water and the fish and the green. He liked it here too.

"There is life here. If you open up, you can feel it. Every single plant has a pattern and an energy. Organic material... it feels different from anything else. It speaks. Even a flower or a tree. Each one is unique. Each one has its own story to tell." He paused for a moment and closed his eyes, focusing. "There's a tree there..." and he gestured back in the direction of the doors, "that's been pruned. It hurts, and pieces of it are missing. And the orchids there, by the waterfall... they're going to bloom tomorrow."

He could have told her the story of every single life force in this room, but that was unnecessary to the lesson, and Emily needed not to think, but to feel.

"When you listen, and you let them speak as one, it's like... feeling the pulse, not just of these lives, but of all life: wild, adaptable, dynamic creation. That is what makes it different from every other kind of pattern. Life struggles. Life fights. Life wants to exist. It's so easy to tap into, because when you touch it, it responds. When you manipulate it, it re-routes itself to flow along new channels. And when you just... feel it, it touches you in return. This is not passive observance. This is a connection. You have to open yourself up to it, or it won't let you in."

[Emily Littleton] Exhaustion brought a certain simplicity (urgency [clarity]) to existence. Her thoughts were less cluttered, less capable of racing off in too many directions at once. Emily was less capable of sorting inputs, filtering out things by priority levels, constraining her awareness of the world around her. In a few circumstances, this could be a blessing. In this case, it was quite possibly paramount to enlightenment.

She let her eyes close as she listened to what Jarod was saying. He spoke clearly in the role of her mentor, now, and his voice rose and fell accordingly. The sound of falling water flowed in and out of focus, threading between the shape of his words. It was difficult to concentrate on the sounds, but somehow that didn't seem to matter.

At some point, the fingers of Emily's left hand reached over to find her pulse at her right wrist. She could feel the thrum of her heartbeat there, and how it threaded through the sounds and warmth and scents of the pseudo-summer.

At some point there was a shift. When the rhythmn of her pulse was no longer intertwined between the other sensory inputs, but became central to her understanding of all of them instead. Emily gasped, and her body tightened in surprise as the new awareness rushed over (through her), married with the sensation of a cool rush of air (rustle of something unseen). Jarod would not have felt the breeze.

Not just her heartbeat now, no. Emily could feel the patterns of his heartbeat, of the phloem and xylem of the plants that surrounded them. Unlike the patterns she was more used to working with, Life was chaotic. Seemingly so disorderly. Her eyes blinked open, but that did nothing to simplify matters.

She struggled to pull her awareness in to a single pattern, something she could observe without feeling lost in a rush of extraneous data. The easiest, her own, was riddled with markers she would come to know as signs of neglect, coming illness. Perhaps the slightest transgression to find there was the angry place at her right wrist where she had inadvertantly dug half-moons from her fingernails (so keen was her surprise).

Soon, too soon, this new sight began to dissipate. It left in its wake only the growing sense of awe, and a thin taste of her still-tremulous resonance (Reverence). Emily released her own wrist, rubbed at the little half-moons there.

And she was absolutely silent. No witty remark. No exuberance. Just that lingering sense of grace and respect, and her uncharacteristic and complete quiet.

[Jarod Nightingale] He was a contradiction, at times. All at once a creature of control, and yet so completely in tune with this force that was anything but. Maybe it seemed to make little sense on the outside, but reality seldom placed people so neatly into categories. And maybe that outward control was merely a coping mechanism evolved in order to maintain his sense of self.

Somewhere in the midst of his lesson... something happened. And Jarod opened his eyes and looked over to watch Emily as she felt, for a few seconds, the same explosion of input that he was currently caught up in. He felt the shock that her body registered before even that gasp had time to make its audible escape, and then, slowly... a smile spread across his face.

"Well that happened more quickly than I thought it would. Try again? Focus on something specific and see what you can pick up from it. Don't rush things, and don't drop your concentration until you feel like you've built a strong connection, otherwise it'll fade." His words were encouraging, pleased despite himself. They had something now that they could share. A perspective that previously only he had been able to achieve.

[Emily Littleton] Maybe it was because of this close connection he felt to the chaotic forces of life, growth, and change that Jarod had developed such a rigid system of self-control. Emily was not sure at all how to parse this new layer of information; it did not fit neatly into any of her usual categories. And while she could explain it, in some respects, in terms of patterns she'd learned and known through biology class or simple observation... it was not at all what she had expected.

Jarod seemed pleased and, when Emily recovered from her surprise, she was quietly pleased as well. He asked her to try again, gave her clear parameters, and Emily nodded. Her fingertips strayed back to find her pulse again; this time she was careful not to wrap her hand around her wrist, not to give herself leverage to dig her nails in again. She looked up to him for a moment (am I doing this right?) and then took a small, steadying breath and closed her eyes.

This time it was not as alarming to feel the cacaphony of patterns rush in. Emily held on to the feeling of her heartbeat beneath her fingertips. Focused in on it, like a lifeline. She used it to measure the passing of time, and this was not new. She used it as a metric to measure other patterns by, and this was new.

He'd told her to focus on something specific, and the most obvious something (to Emily) was Jarod himself. Later, it would occur to her that it might be rude (or even unethical) to read into someone's person (pattern) without permission. Now, though, she was merely trying to complete her given assignment. (Assuming, of course, that inspecting her own pattern would be cheating...)

The feeling of her resonance deepened, gathered around her in a sense of calm. It touched her features as she studied his pattern: this Reverence, lightened the weight of weariness and wariness on her features : painted her momentarily, fleetingly beatific.

[Jarod Nightingale] [Per+Awareness]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 6, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Jarod Nightingale] Reverence. It was a different sort of resonance from his own. For Jarod, magic happened out of instinct. For Emily, it was a nigh-religious experience. He both saw and felt that awe as it reached out to slowly wrap around him, and for a moment, that reverence infected him. Jarod had never paid such close attention before to someone who was learning to work an effect for the first time, and it was an almost enraptured moment. This... this had been the point. To see this. To experience this with her.

Comparisons could be made to other firsts, in the best possible sense.

He knew she was reading him. And though this was in some ways disconcerting, it had also been the inevitable result from the beginning. Jarod was something familiar. Something human. Something close. And they had been wrapped up in each other before, in the more literal sense. He had felt her own pattern countless times now. Was, in fact, feeling it right now. So they were the same, in this, for these few moments. They felt each other. And it was not the same as being inside someone's mind and thoughts. Neither of them knew what the other one was thinking or feeling. But a body could tell many, many stories in its own right.

Jarod's body told this story:

Three of his ribs had been broken once, a long time ago. There was a healed fracture along his skull where it had been cracked. He was not flawless; not completely free of scars after all. But unlike Emily, today he was in perfect health. His immune system was not called upon to work in overdrive, and his muscles were not sore and weakened from lack of rest. (Yes Doctor, everything here is in very good working order.) His energy was calm, his pulse a slow, steady thing. Stable. Strong. Hypnotic.

"You look beautiful," he said quietly, and leaned across the small space to kiss her.

(The rhythm of his heart-beat changed then, in subtle degrees. It sped up just a fraction.)

[Emily Littleton] He had known, then, from the first time he had spent any extended time with her (I can feel your heartbeat from across the room), that her past had not been kind or gentle. Along with the stories that Jarod's pattern tells, this truth sweeps in with an absolution and anxiety that riddles her expression. Oh, but that expression is a complicated thing.

Without thinking, Emily's fingertips reach for the place on his ribs that have been fractured and mended. One hand to find his hurts, another to find hers that mirror them. (This we share [And, dear God, I hope we do not share the story behind them]). There is pain in her face, in the corners of her still closed eyes, but her touch is feather soft, intimate and gentle. She is not surprised, not dismayed, to find he is less than perfect. This is a secret to guard, safekeep, keep silent.

Soon, though, her hands must pull away, come together again so she can regain her grounding in her own heartbeat. Beyond the old hurts, which are faint in comparison to the vibrancy of the present, Jarod's pattern is stable, strong, and soothing. Compared to her own, which must seem quite disheveled.

He had seen her, like this, unable to hide the old scars and intimations of her earlier life (struggles [failures]), and Jarod had chosen to see the vibrancy there instead. He'd called her beautiful (not just now).

This was a curious thing, much like the effusive warmth she'd discovered earlier within an unguarded moment. And so her pattern was tangled up in the struggle of assimilating all of this when his lips found hers, and her heartbeat skipped a little. The swell in her pattern just then was not only a response to what he had said, to the heady intensity of being tangled up in him (tangled up in her) perceptively.

It is somehow more. And that pushes her past what she can juggle, what she can hold on to in the way of perceiving and experiencing and processing all at once. Emily's breathing faulters (as much because of the kiss as because of her fast receding awareness). Her eyelashes pull apart, baring unusually clear grey-blue eyes. (Unguarded [unclouded]).

In these places, these deeply personal and intimate moments, she is so often wordless. Wordlessness is insufficient now, somehow, and she struggles to find something (anything) appropriate to say. True to form, all Emily manages is a very soft (and quite endearing): Hey...