Continued

[Emily Littleton] ((Reposting from last session: ))

[Kage]
The sudden scrape of the other (for how much longer?) Orphan's breath causes Kage to raise both eyebrows, her hand to still on her mug of milk (warm [honey]). There's nothing so obvious as a headtilt, but she is watching Emily just a little more closely, just a little more carefully, why, ah, oh.

"Well. He could just be proud. Some people are too stubborn to accept help when it's offered just because of who it comes from." A beat. "It would be just as presumptuous to think he does have other options; especially if they called you to pick them up from the airport. Poor Austin," Kage adds, and if Austin were around, he probably would not appreciate the half-absent tone or the sentiment.

The same and yet different, Emily says, and Kage's mouth crooks. Easy. "Show, anyway, whatever it is; I'll use my own eyes to watch. Are these Jarod-taught tricks?"

[Emily Littleton]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4 (Success x 1 at target 4)
((Oh say can you see..., Arete 1, extending to next round))

[Emily Littleton]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4 (Success x 1 at target 4)
((Extending ... Arete 1))

[Emily Littleton]
Poor Austin.

Emily nodded. There was not much to do beyond that, not now. And Kage is asking for her to share, for her to conjure up that gathering sense of Reverence and to spin it into soemthing shared. This is new, for Emily, extending her senses beyond herself. It is not quite defying gravity, not yet, but it is growth of an unplanned and organic sort.

She pushes the sleeve of her sweater up so that her fingertips can find purchase on the pulse point in her wrist. The younger Orphan stills her body, quiets her mind, and lets the rhymthm of her own life crowd out the other details that press in on her awareness. Slowly, she goes slowly, because this is all still new and because this is the first time she has tried without Jarod nearby.

It is imagined, perhaps, how the table falls into a hushed calm. How the half-dark around them deepens, thickens, only to shimmer faintly with something. Kage knows that something, and it burns brightly within Emily (in a place she cannot yet touch [cannot yet see]).

The ba-dump thump beat threads through everything, and broadens, slowly, spreading out to be an awareness of so many smaller sub-patterns. There is less here than in the garden, so Emily and Kage stand out like densely woven tapestries. There are other lives here to sense, but they are less patterned, less vibrant.

When she had this Sight tethered firmly to her own consciousness, then she reached out to welcome Kage into it. To touch the other Orphan the way Kage had opened her eyes to Grace (longing). Even though, in doing so, Emily opened herself up to scrutiny. Kage would see her pattern as Jarod had, with the scars and reminders of past hurts indelibly carved on the shape of her bones, the stretch of her sinews. They could also see in each other the vibrancy, dynamism of unbridled hope (Creation).

[K. R. Jakes] I'll watch with my own eyes, she'd said, and meant it. So while Emily, challenged to share (return [favor]) concentrates, steadies herself using the thread of her own pulse, opens her eyes to the calligraphy of vitality, the alphabet of flesh and bone, Kage considers a word, holds it in her mind, closes her eyes [..brush of burnished lashes 'gainst pale cheekbone, whisper, another word] and then opens them narrowly, watchfully.

Emily is different now. She is using a knack that Kage does not possess and Kage watches the flow of quintessence as she does. Kage marks that Emily's magick is changing, that it is now flavored (spiced) with Reverence, O. And sacred, hushed, holy: revere this. Kage would be surprised if she knew when that change began to occur, and why. But she doesn't.

(This is what Emily sees, looking at her redhaired friend:

Kage is healthy -- not preternaturally so; there are traces. A broken wrist (once upon a time), a hairline fissure in bone (weakness, calcified over with strength), bloodpressure (temperate), heart (steady, but picking up), muscles (tense), lungs (clouds [occluded], coated; the casual smoker's lungs; she should quit totally while she's still ahead), bruises, broken blood vessels, all along her hips, her back, her right shoulderblade, a lot of bruises. There is no shadow over her head, no knot of tissue that shouldn't be knotting, tying up possibilities, a cold (brewing [tempest in a teapot]), but healthy. Someone who keeps herself fit, strength in the hands, surety there; someone who, really, is alive, Emily, completely alive, alive in a way you can feel, and isn't that -- ?)

She is, however, surprised when [the heart, that drum, drumdrum drumdrumming now so quick] Emily shares her vision, her ability to see, and she sucks in a breath, holds it, holds it, sitting up straight, her palm flat on her table's top, and so swift was the breath of air she took that some candle's flames dipped and wavered in their purpose, bowed, should we keep eating the air, when it's needed elsewhere?

She looks at Emily, and commits to memory what she can. She doesn't blink. Just says: " - wow." A rush of air, that exhale.

[Emily Littleton] She looks to Emily, and what does she see? That Emily is hale but wearied, thinner in places than she should be. Building back, slowly, from a lack of sleep that touched her pattern in ways only (soul weary) exhaustion could. Old hurts : broken ribs, mended : unforgotten. The tendency to stand on her tip toes when stocking-footed is nature, not nuture (short tendons). A plethora of tiny transgressions, now mended. What she doesn't see: a scar, on the left wrist, healed by magical means, last December. There is no marking of this; it has never been.

Emily is healthy, and balanced. Most people favor one side, unconsciously, build different patterns of muscles here or there. Not so, the other Orphan. Her heart beats soundly; her breath is measured and not shallow; they are alive. They are living. They are. Life.

They see each other, then, and in a way it is more intimate than lovers touching. They know histories unwritten, untold, because the body cannot lie in the same way as tongues. The stories carved into bones cannot go unsung. It is humbling. (Eyes averted [hallowed]).

Wow, says Kage. "Yeah..." says Emily. And it fades away, falls away from the two of them like the soot rising from a blown-out candle. Wisps. Shreds. Fading. Fading. Gone.

And there is only, now, the shared sounds of each other's breathing. And it is enough to know the other is there. But it is not the same, and the quiet could stretch onward for miles and miles.

"It's... overwhelming, sometimes," she adds, to break up that (reverence) quiet. Then reaches for her juice, takes a sip, sets it aside. These are grounding things -- speach, sustinence -- and they help with the afterglow.

[K. R. Jakes] The Orphan is a little envious. Because the ability to touch living things and change [re-arrange, re-make, un-shape] them is one that she covets, craves, has not yet been able to even touch. And she's had wouldbe teachers, and she's a stubborn creature herself, but whatever the reason, nothing. She can't even see, not like Emily just has, not like Emily's just shared. Her vision clears, no more looking into the true heart of life, and no more reading the scrawl of luminous essentia [prime] in Emily's pattern, so bright in reverence, so bright now that it is naming itself, so bright. Just Emily, dark haired and quiet, Emily who she met as winter was setting in, as ice was touching the lake and turning it solid, a mirror, something to hold weight. Just Emily.

"Did Jarod teach you that?" she asks, smiling rueful after a second, and touching her palm to her forehead, tucking a lock of red hair behind her ear. It dislodged, when she shifted -- she shifted, at some point. Kage probably does not strike Emily as a restless person, but some things get into your bones, get into your blood, make you tidal, make you moonmad. "It's a pretty good trick."

[Emily Littleton] What Kage had shown her, all that time ago, on the edge of the winter-bitten lake, had left Emily envious (longing) in the keenest way. These wants, they were mirrored, strangely, imperfectly. Kage had a sight that Emily ached after, and Emily could see into things that Kage hoped for. Perhaps, in time, they would remedy the lackings in one another; share, teach, grow.

"Yes," she said, and her voice was still soft. Heavy with the appreciation that this, this was the work of something greater (larger [wider-reaching]). Her Awakening had not left her with that sense of purpose, of reverence. That had grown in the weeks (days [months]) following.

"We worked on it for awhile, and nothing came. Then just this past week: a rush. I'm still wrapping my head around it," she admits. "And I've never... shared?... before."

[K. R. Jakes] That gives Kage pause, and then, well, she smiles at Emily. Without rue. The sort've smile that transfigures her, touches her dark (they're hazel. That's the indescribable, changeling colour: just hazel, just mud and light) eyes with quiet (mundane) radiance. "Really? I wouldn't be able to keep myself from using it," she says, "All the time. Actually, when I first started seeing things, even when they were horrifying, I'd find myself using it more, tapping into the trick of it. I got a couple of nasty surprises, but," a pause, pensive. And then: "How does it work for you? Why do you think you can see like that?"

((...paused...))