Faith remembered

[Emily Littleton] The moon is full and hangs high overhead, broad faced and beautiful. It casts long shadows from the spire of the Church out across the grounds. Now is the season of reflection, of Lent, and the faithful gather at their masses and sermons. Emily, however, comes in the evening, and she comes alone.

The young woman that enters the church wears slacks and a sweater. Her coat is left in the car outside. She's wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and it covers her head as well, in a style much more Old World than American. She pauses at the doorway, lifts her eyes to the rear of the sanctuary, draws a deep breath, and continues.

Emily finds her way down one of the side aisles, slipping into a pew near the front third of the sanctuary. There she bows her head -- one might assume to pray -- and sits quietly for a moment.

The room is nearly empty. This is a quiet, more personal time. She does not come for Fellowship, which begs the question of why she might be here. And Owen, sensitive to these things, can likely feel the thin thrum of Reverence around her. Steady. Unchanging. Even as she lifts the Bible from the pew back, turns to the Psalms, and begins to read.

[Owen Page] [Perception + Awareness, ya'll. (-2 Diff, Acute Senses)]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 6 (Success x 2 at target 4)

[Emily Littleton] And there is something more... The bowed head, the prayer book in her hands, the covering, these are all outward markings of faith observed. But something deep within Emily remembers. The Reverence is folded around and through her, tied to something welling up from within. She is a bright spot against a drab, if sanctified, background. The stuff of creation is concentrated in her pattern, bright like a candle flame against the dark. Wavering and unsteady, but growing.

((Emily has 6 quint in her pattern, which is a noticeable amount!))

[Owen Page] St James' was typically quiet on week-nights but for the faithful, or the suffering who came to both pray and to sit for a turn in the hard-backed pews and stare at the carved statue hung high on the wall before stained glass windows and pull some measure of comfort, of strength, from the crucifix. Tonight there are only two others in the great Church when Emily sets foot inside it -- an elderly woman wearing a black shawl with salt and peppered hair, her face bent downward, fingers slipping over rosary beads in her lap and another young woman who sat in a corner, staring [seemingly] sightlessly ahead of herself.

There is soft, almost hypnotic chanting being pumped through speakers modestly hidden from church-goers and a row of candles flicker from the front-most alter; all set atop a red cloth with gold weaving interlaced to it. All in all, the atmosphere is one of great reverence, and tranquility. As Emily comes and takes a pew and bows her head -- for a moment, or perhaps longer -- she perhaps senses that she's being observed. That someone else is present in the ancient walls of St James that was not visible when she entered.

Not visible, perhaps, because he was standing, very deliberately in the shadowy nook offered by an enclave set into the stone walls. Owen Page was tall, with broad shoulders and dark clothing; it's about all that can be deduced about the figure without delving deeper, past that niggling sense of normalcy that cloaks him, and his movements -- for he's moving now -- out of the shadow and toward the alter with a bucket and mop in hand -- as he keeps his head down, and his eyes firmly fixed ahead of him.

[Emily Littleton] (( Seeking things unseen... Per + Aware ))
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 2, 7, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Emily Littleton] Lo, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil: for Thou art with me. Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.

Emily read the words over and over again, turning them in her mind like well-tumbled stones until the edges and jagged bits broke away and they were only worn : polished. Here, she closes the book and her eyes, rests the former in her lap and folds her hands above it. She appears the faithful follower, but she has come in search of something greater.

Inevitably, her attention strays. Her eyes lift to the dark figure moving toward the altar. Emily watches with a solemn detachment, because she does not recognize Owen. Not yet. The night they met, he had reminded shrouded in shadows by the tree before the Chantry. She had been out in the moonlight, at least until they were scolded to take cover.

[Owen Page] There's something more to the young man crossing the Church, that's for sure. Okay, yes, on the surface he seems harmless enough, just the yard boy, just the janitor, right? But beneath the lowered head as he sets the mop against the wall and begins to sweep it across the polished wooden floor; beneath the slightly slumped shoulders sits a well of power, of crackling energy. There's something just... more, to him.

Something intense.
Something even ... corrosive. As if standing too near him might eat away at your very spirit. Might crumble it down.

Certainly, when Emily's eyes follow him, and he straightens briefly, as if aware of the scrutiny, she can sense that there's a certain clarity about him that the others present lack. They don't seem to notice anything unusual about the young man with the dark hair, and the dark [midnight] blue gaze. Those eyes turn on her suddenly, without even the hesitation of someone aware of being watched and curious about the source.

This guy just knew.

The last time she'd seen him, or rather, the fleeting impression of him, he'd beaten a man senseless with his fists as if it weren't a challenge at all. Those same hands are curled around different weapons now, around the tools of labor. He takes the measure of Emily's interest, and then averts his gaze as if abashed by it.

[Emily Littleton] There is something more to both of them, and like calls to like in mysterious ways. While Emily's will is new, largely untinged (untainted) and pure, Owen's has found a destructive edge. Corrosive. This is new to her, and her brow knits gently just before he turns away. Emily looks after him for a few moments longer, then averts her eyes as well.

There is a silence between them, then, that builds. It builds as she sits, chin up, eyes raised to the altar, proud and unbroken. It builds as she runs her fingertips along the cover of the prayer book, and then settles it back into the nook on the pew back. It is thick enough to roil, to congeal, even as she starts to stand. For a moment, he may think that she is moving away. Leaving. But Emily walks up to him, touches his shoulder gently, and speaks to him in a hushed tone accented heavily with the sounds of far away places.

"Excuse me," she says, waiting until she's caught his attention to speak further. "Do you know where I might leave an offering?" This close, he can feel the pull of something else, so other bright spot on her pattern that speaks to another resonance. That of belonging. A heartbeat that calls out home, home, home.

[Owen Page] He stiffens a little when Emily approaches, but it is not her that does it to him but the presence she brings with her, wrapped around her shoulders like the shawl she wears. This young man had spent a long time running from, and punishing himself for his very existance, and her reaching out to him, however innocently -- drove a spear of pain right down to his burdened soul. He turns, leaning against the handle of the mop when she touches his shoulder.

It sends a little zap of exhilaration ricocheting down his body, down hers, too, probably. Maybe. They all felt it differently, in the end.

"There's a collection box," the young man says, his accent one of a boy born and bred in South Dakota, but soft, and almost reluctant to be put to good use. There's nothing rude about him, nothing that suggests he wishes she would leave him be, but an almost animal instinct in the keen way he observes her, edgy, uncertain, as if he assumes she's about to attack him.

"It's over by the alter, I'll show you."

He stows his mop for a minute, resting it against a row of pews and wipes off his fingers as he walks; occasionally glancing at her in profile. "I remember you," he notes quietly, as if it were a remark about the unseasonable weather. "You were there that night." He doesn't clarify what night that might be.

[Emily Littleton] "Cheers," she said, softly. Let her hand fall away. Emily's dark eyes were troubled tonight, but not overbrimming with it. She had come here to find something (solace [sanctuary]), and instead she had found Owen. It was a curious trade, and not one she was entirely pleased with. But that was not his fault, and this was a House of the Lord, and she kept to older customs. So here, she was gentle. Here, she was kind.

Owen would know, too, that in the face of danger (death [adversity]), Emily had ducked and run. She was no threat to him, physically. She didn't even look like she could throw a decently weighted punch.

His comment drew a bit more scrutiny, and she canted her head slightly to one side as she considered it. "At the old house?" she asked, being nondescript and circumspect. "Yes, I was there," she confirmed, as easily as he'd asked. But the corners of her mouth tightened in soemthing akin to sadness, or possibly regret. Then her chin dipped down for a moment, eyes closed. Yes. She remembered.

[Owen Page] They were both here for the same reasons, then.

What Owen Page sought in the walls of the Church was a sense of belonging, of Kinship. He felt closer to the reason for it all, for everything and everyone when he worked inside the stark, reverberating walls. When he toiled in the hard, snow-packed dirt in the yards. When his knuckles grew dry and cracked, and bled and his muscles screamed in protest as he drove himself onward and onward, hour after hour.

There was something almost cathartic in it for him, and, as a result, while Emily did not appear to pose a threat to him physically, the man beside her looked as if he could, and had, posed one before. His arms were muscular, and his build, while lean was not in the slightest skinny. Owen's occupation had lended to him an athlete's body, but there was nothing in the manner he dressed, or presented himself that suggested he knew it. As a matter of fact, he seemed to almost draw in on himself around others as if to [laughably] make his 6'1 frame less than it were.

He stops before a small mounted donation bin with a large padlock affixed to it that had, above a slit for coin and note donations written in large white paint YOUR PLEDGE IS RECEIVED WITH HIS ETERNAL THANKS AND BLESSING and gestures to it with a small suggestion of a smile. Then, as she admits she was there and lowers her chin, her eyes, the Singer frowns.

"Sorry, it was a bad night. I shouldn't have brought it up, you just reminded me." A beat, his eyes, almost black in the soft light, track over her features. "I don't usually see many others like you around." There's some schism of regret, possibly, or hesitation in his voice. "I try not to."

[Emily Littleton] Emily slipped a small denomination note out of her pocket and into the box, still folded. It is a small distraction from their conversation, one that lets her find her footing a little better. She is unnerved, yes, by what they had both experienced there. Perhaps regretful. But that is pushed aside, carefully tamped down. This is a place of reflection, forgiveness; it does not do to linger on regrets.

Her eyes are dark, here, in the half light. He's never seen her in brighter surroundings, so he cannot judge if they are deeply blue or brown or near-black. "It is a shame," she says, when he remarks that he tries to isolate himself. "Though given some of those I've met, I admit that it is understandable."

She speaks as if this is all still new to her. Strange, still. "I'm Emily," she offers, with a small nod and a somewhat guarded smile. No Traditional ties are offered, but perhaps she had none yet to give.

[Owen Page] "Not always," the isolation, "Not so long ago I was ..." Owen seems almost flummoxed for a minute, trying to work out the best means of saying what he means. His hands wedge themselves into his pockets, and he stands easily, without slumping or leaning on anything to assist him. Clearly, this was a man who was used to spending countless hours on his feet without protest. "Drawn into a dinner with some others. Wharil, Kaya, Kage," he says first names, but without a sense of familiarity to them, as if they were, as he says them, just names for faces he's met.

His shoulders lift in a light shrug. "There were some Operatives there, wanting to discuss a Marauder who'd been killed. None of it meant much to me, honestly." I'm Emily, she offers, finally, and a muscle works in his jaw, before it relaxed, and he smiles, somewhat reluctantly at her.

"Owen, I work here in the Church," that seems as close a suggestion of his Tradition as he's likely to give. "I live here, too. Downstairs." In the basement. With the cleaning supplies.

A true spartan.

[Emily Littleton] "Kage is..." there is a pause here, and Emily considers carefully what she wants to say about the other Orphan, "Good people." There is a pause. "We're becoming friends," she adds. There is a note of Hope underlying the simple words.

"The others I do not know as well," she admits. And lets it go. Lets it wash past them like the mumbled prayes of so many sinners/saints.

"Things here have been unwell," she says, and here she is unable to meet his eyes. She looks past him, somewhat sadly (tensely), and the tightness at her mouth and eyes deepens. She closes her eyes for a moment, and then lets this go, too. Perhaps this is why she is here : seeking absolution.

"The winter has been difficult, but I remain hopeful for Spring." Here her eyes and mouth are touched by a smile, and it is a pretty thing (a hopeful thing). "If I am not to forward in asking... are you a member of the Chorus?" she asks, but the word is foreign on her tongue in this usage. She is not asking him if he sings, perse, but perhaps if he lends his voice to a celestial choir.

[Owen Page] "So I've noted," he murmurs, looking past her, beyond her, as she does him for a moment. The young man's brow draws in, furrows as he makes a study of the young woman who had been sitting, still as a carving and staring sightlessly forward. Another Sleeper, so lost and so far from the light of the One, yet that she sat in his presence she felt not his touch. It was enough to make the Monist openly despair.

He didn't, though.
He just looked after her for a beat before turning his attention back on Emily.

"I am," he confirms in his quiet, taciturn way, his eyes abruptly warmer, his presence strangely comforting. "I'm a Singer, as is the Priest who conducts many of the services here." A beat, a corner of the boy's mouth quirks a little as he speaks of the older man who had somewhat naively taken in this stray wanderer. "He found me hiding in the basement one night, and decided that as long as I was sleeping with the mops, I might as well make use of them during the day, so.

Here I am."

[Emily Littleton] Her own expression borrows from the warmth in his as he explains how he came to be with his Tradition. Acceptance. It broadens, though, as she takes it for her own, as it lifts the corners of her mouth and eyes, softens them. There is comfort here, in the circle of their hushed voices, in the space between their thoughts. It is like remembering something long lost.

"It is good to hear that there are still those who will offer sanctuary without too many questions," Emily says, and though it is light there is also a sense of knowing underlying the words. Like the elder Singer, she does not ask questions. She is content to let Owen's story stand for itself.

For a moment, Emily lifts her gaze upward, up to the roof and rafters of the Great Church. She does not compare it to the other Houses of the Lord in which she has prayed, in which she has sought forgiveness or faith renewed. This is its own place, and is holy in its own ways. But there is a longing (Do you remember me, still?). It is difficult to miss.

[Owen Page] The curiosity is there in him to question what, exactly, she is. He wants to know, but at the same time he doesn't. He feels more at ease here, within the Church walls than he ever does elsewhere. It was as if the world had carved him out of its natural progress and every time he attempted to fit himself back within it he was spat out -- turned away. He knew, inwardly he knew that he could be more in touch with the others like them in the city if he tried harder.

Certainly He [ the inner, the angel, the guardian ] deemed it a cause worthy enough, and tried to prompt interaction where it was feasible, but the dark-eyed boy standing with her was stubborn, and still too full of his regrets to truly attempt anything more than what he could currently offer. A kind word, a quiet discussion in a shadowy nook of a holy place, the comfort of a stranger's empathy.

"You don't attend Churches a lot." It isn't a question, the way he asks it, but a certainty. "You have that look, I noticed it," among other things, "when you came in." It's hard to know how to take it, really, when its said so honestly, without any trace of condemnation.

[Emily Littleton] "I used to," she says, easily but with a wistful undertone. No, perhaps not easily. The dark-eyed boy was perceptive enough to notice the ache, the aftermath of Faith lost and not yet regained. Hope held out, interminably, for a return to His good graces. Owen could only wonder what it was that Emily had done that left her believing she'd been forsaken by their maker. "Though perhaps not churches like this..."

Her voice trailed off a bit. Touched as it was by shapes and sounds of not-here, it was easy to imagine that she might have frequented another denomination (or perhaps she was thinking of the Cathedrals and gothic churches of Europe). It was difficult to place, her accent, beyond somewhat British.

"It has been a long time," she says, as her own dark eyes (blue [but here they are only dar) lower to meet his again. "Years. Since His home was my own."

There is a pause here, and it serves as a pivot point to bring the conversation back around to that question (who are you?) on both of their minds. Emily draws a little breath, almost as a warning, and then speaks again: "Another like us has asked, more than once, if I have met any of your Tradition. I think she means it as a gentle suggestion that we might talk."

(Is there, perhaps, room at the inn?)

"I am..." a pause (leave it there [it was good enough for God] I am... I am), "Still seeking home. Orphaned, if you will."

[Owen Page] He was only perceptive because, the further he drew away from people, from humanity as a whole, the easier it was to see them, to actually view them as they were. Awakened or not, the human race was infinitely capable of dizzying heights and incomprehensible evils -- one didn't need any type of magic at all to see that. He considers, has considered before reaching out to people lost in the dark and showing them [and bearing his own sins to light] how wrong they are about being unloved, or unwanted by Him.

It is never him, to a man such as Owen, but Him. The One.

He who this boy is attempting to atone to, because he thinks he must offer that much for what he has taken, whether or not he should. Whether or not he actually needs to. Owen watches Emily closely as she speaks, and for much of it his features are impassive, they do not give or take any indication of his thoughts on her words -- there's only the barest flicker of reaction when she reveals she is an Orphan.

Then, silence for a few minutes interrupted only by the soft humming, replaying from speakers high above them; all around them. "His home wasn't always mine, either," he says eventually, choosing them with care. "I don't," here he lowers his face, frowning. "I'm not good with people, generally. But if you want to talk, I mean to say." He breathes out, sharply, frustrated by his own balking.

"I'd be willing to share what I know, if it helps you... choose."

[Emily Littleton] It is always Him to Emily as well. She may have strayed off the path, she may feel forgotten or unloved, but He has never fallen to a him in her eyes. Still, she holds out hope that she will return to the Church, find sanctuary there again. Faith. It is on the tip of her tongue, but remains unspoken. It underlies every action, but remains unrecognized. If Owen had only known her when she was younger, he would understand why standing here was both comforting and deeply painful for her.

"I would appreciate that, but only if you are comfortable with it." There is a pause here, bated, but she thinks the better of her next statement and rephrases it to: "Even within the Church, Faith is a deeply personal matter. I will understand, completely, if it is better left unspoken of."

Here, perhaps, the surety of her younger self comes forward. Twined around her resonance (Reverence [Home]) is an understanding of things, a sense of Grace that belies a deeper strength. Someday she will find her way home, to Him, and Emily will be made whole again.

"I wonder, at times, if all of this," Awakening, she means, "Is a calling to come back to Him. Is it too unhumble of me to ponder this?" she asks, concerned with what it might mean as much as what it might imply. And a secret: this thought she has voiced to no one else, not even truly herself, until it escapes into the sanctuary of the Great Church and cannot be stolen away, taken back.

[Owen Page] He's not, comfortable with it, that is.

The last occasion he'd had to really speak with another Mage had been after a pair of Operatives tried to convince them that they should leave clean up to them -- to the Pros, right. None of it had really concerned him personally, but had been some vague reminder that no matter how far he ran from his own mottled past, he could not escape them, it.

Awakening.
Knowing.

Emily speaks of wonder, and callings and the young man she stands with shifts his weight on the balls of his feet and moves, to take up residence in one of the pews. It's an unspoken invitation to her to sit beside him, if she so chooses. Near to the young Singer there is the very masculine scents of sweat and cologne; the vague hint of outdoors work clinging to his skin still. His hands, when they emerge from his pockets to be clasped or used as he speaks are rough, dirt-stained.

Worker's hands.
[Penance.]

"No," he says plainly at first, looking at the floor, his hands, the wooden pew in front of him. "It's not a bad thing to wonder. I think, though, that the only person who can tell you if you're meant to be here is you. I think you'll find you know, where it counts, how you feel when you're ready to."

[Emily Littleton] She follows. It is a well-practiced thing. He shifts and steps away, she turns and steps forward to follow. They are never more than an arm's length apart. Emily settles on the pew beside him, and adjusts the scarf about her head and shoulders. Her hands come to rest in her lap, and they are smooth. Unworn but for a prominent writer's callous and few rougher spots along her thumb, her palms (she is no stranger to working with her hands, but it is not how she makes her ends meet).

"I..." Another pause, hesitant now. Careful. Considering. "I have not felt that surety, not yet," she confides. It is not a sad thing, but it does speak to longing. Months have passed, and she has had many conversations such as this. Many opened doors, but none yet leading homeward.

"I am learning from a few -- but that is of how and what. I cannot shake the feeling that I am missing out on why. I cannot help but believe that we Awaken unto something greater," again, here, the inner reverence comes forward, it pours out of her like water from a spring. She believes herself unfaithful, but listen! This is a not a lost or shadowed soul's speach. "Though I know not to what purpose, or what ends."

Perhaps that, itself, is why : to Seek. To reach ever onward, ever upward, yet remain grounded, somehow. To stretch, to grow.

[Owen Page] He watches her closely. It might almost be intrusive, his eyes on her face. It might almost, for a split-second be too much. For as soft-spoken as Owen Page was, the Initiate was still keenly aware of what he could do, and what she, herself, was beginning to recognize that she could do, too.

There was great temptation in that.
He had not always been fantastic at refusing such temptations.

He tried hard, now. He looks down, his expression hinged on her words, in the [insurmountable, endless, without boundary or true answer] question that she puts before him. She knows the how and the what but she doesn't understand the why. "I'm not sure I can answer that for you. I know that I answered it for myself, and I can tell you what I feel is the reason behind it.

Behind why we are what we are.
Why we can do the things we do."

He looks toward the alter; then breathes out, slow and steady and considering. He is not used to talking so much; his voice hitches and slows and retains a low, terse quality. "It's --," He struggles, Owen, he takes his hands and opens the palms flat.

"To find ourselves. To find the part that needs more. We learn of a great song, here, a sort of symphony that everyone, Awakened or not has the potential to hear, and feel. But it's as changeable as the ways we create, are." Owen casts her a tiny smile, the muscles around his eyes crinkle as if uncertain, unused to be being put to the task.

"You can hear the music playing from the speakers, but the words are lost to the acoustics in here. We have to listen hard so that the words become clear, and we can hear the harmony as its meant to be heard." He falls silent, then abruptly, laughs, a soft expulsion of noise. "I don't usually talk so much, sorry."

[Emily Littleton] At some point, though Owen likely will not remember when, Emily's eyes close. Her lashses just kiss one another, her eyes are not pressed shut. It is a delicate thing, a quiet thing. Veiled, for a moment, her thoughts are hidden from him. Save that they are written anew in the lineaments of her face. Her eyes are closed, but there is a softness to the features that surround them. (Home.) She has a deep, visceral knowledge of something he has touched upon, alit upon in the space of sentences and he may have to rummage back through them to place that.

He apologizes, and her mouth twitches. One side hitches up a little, wryly, a faint smile at his gentle self-derision. Her eyes open and they are bright, slightly damp. She looks down at her hands, which have reflexively separated to rest, palms up, in her lap. Those hands come together now. Gather and enshroud whatever secrets have come to lay bare between them. (Home.)

"You remind me of my godfather," she says, gently, at last. It is a deep compliment; this he can read off her features easily, even though her eyes do not meet his. They look down into her now-clasped hands. Thoughtful. Remembering. "Once, long ago, he taught me to listen." But then she was young and her mind was uncluttered; then she had not been battered or broken; she had not turned away from Him; known loneliness, fear.

"Kage..." she speaks the other Orphan's name as if it is just now remembered. "Kage knows how to listen, and she showed me once. Out in the woods." Emily blinked back against the damp in her eyes.

"I," Emily says, and her voice is more grounded now. Less gentle and remembering, "Have forgotten how." And that is the crux of it, her problem with Him. She has forgotten.

"Do you only listen?" she asks, now looking over to him. Curious. For he had called himself a Singer, "Or do you lend your voice to the Choir, become part of the harmony?" She cants her head slightly to one side, reaches up to pull the shawl away from her head and wrap it more around her shoulders. Cold. Comfort. It is difficult to say what motivates her to bare her dark-haired head in the Church now. Perhaps she has just now realized that the Old World customs are not kept here, that it is no disgrace to God.

[priest]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 1, 6 (Success x 1 at target 6) [WP]

[priest] ack! (steals back)

[Owen Page] He reminds her of her Godfather, and that, apparently is a good thing. He cants her some half-formed smile that is at once rueful and comprehending and for a few moments as she speaks, he falls back into his own pattern of silence. He can hold his piece, his words inside for days, weeks, sometimes, at his worst, and when he needs to hear it the most, the Song, the universal Aum that strikes the whole of the world, he remains barely breathing for months.

Tonight he has let them loose, and they have broken away, run merry like a dam burst free of its restraints.

"First we learn how to listen to the world around us, which, isn't easy," Owen's dark eyes crease a little at the corners in acknowledgment of the pace of the modern day. "Then we get in tune with it, and yeah, we lend our voices to the song. It's not a sudden thing. It takes practice." He admits, after she confesses she has forgotten how to pay attention to the world.

Glancing around, he nods toward the single, solitary figure further up, praying, her eyes sightless but for God.

"Think about it like Prayer, it only works because you believe it works, but to believe you have to allow yourself to. Part of hearing the Song is letting yourself. That part took me a while." He admits.

[Emily Littleton] But to believe, you have to allow yourself to...

Owen is straying dangerously close to topics Emily has kept carefully to one side for the last half-decade. Things she has kept away, out of sight, out of reach. Conversations avoided, unspoken, unheard. It is not comfortable, now, to hear these things from him but it is easier, in many ways, as he is mostly a stranger. Easier because the world has been remade, anew, and she is a stranger. Everything is stranger.

The dark-haired Orphan has nothing to say. Her voice stills in her throat. Eyes cast downward again, away from him, to look into empty hands. (I have nothing to give [to offer]). Humbled. Or perhaps embarassed.

This stillness cannot be taken as repose. It is far too thoughtful, too gravid. It wears between them for a long moment, before she moves -- reaches up to tuck a broad curl behind her ear, to obscure for a brief moment her features from him. Distance. Safety. Emily looks up, now, to let her gaze rest on the woman who is lost to any word but His. Then down again.

Empty.

"Thank you," she says. The words are light, lowly voiced but still somewhat resolute. They say enough, now and place a gentle obstruction before him, should he choose to pursue these thoughts further. It is like a hand left just a moment on another's shoulder (Stay [go no further]). Just two words, and that interminable quiet.

Her quiet is different. It does not seek to hear, but rather to forget. His leaves him open, hers draws close (closed) around her the things she knows. It had not always been this way, but it has been this way for awhile now.

[Owen Page] He knows, or he decides it is enough, now for them both. He has nothing more to offer to Emily freely that does not come with some remorse, or reaction attached. She is still seeking, still questing, still yearning to know the hows and the whys and whens and he, he has already found them, crude and carved from his own relatively young life as they may be and he cannot offer them up to her and say here, this is what you need.

Not without the right need driving it.
Not after one conversation where he shared, and she opened [listen] to what he was trying to show [sing] to her.

Thank you.

"You're welcome." He says, and means it, he finds. They remain there, side by side for some time, or is it only seconds, only minutes that feel far longer, before he rises to his feet, and moves away to attend once again to his tasks -- whenever she decides she's had enough, spent enough time trying to remember how, he'll watch her go, his expression secreted away once again behind that inscrutable mask.