Silence

[Declan] [Nightmares]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 2, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Declan] [Spirit Sight - diff 4 -1(focus)]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 6 (Success x 1 at target 3)

[Declan] Grant Park was quiet tonight. The hour was late for most of the usual visitors, and a bit early for the less-than-savory ones. Somewhere in the distance, a small group of high school students in the midst of a soft drug deal (scoring for a party later in the week, no doubt) could be spotted, but they had no designs to attract attention, and after a few minutes the anonymous shadows dispersed to make their way home for the night, before their parents missed them. There was also a woman with a large golden retriever jogging around the makeshift baseball field. The light rhythm of her feet against the pavement of the path reached the ears of the drifter, seated as he was on one of the benches by the fountain, but it was nothing more than background noise. Soon enough, she'd be gone too.

It was a rare occasion that Declan was able to achieve a state of both calm and clarity. Rare, but slowly becoming more commonplace. Against all odds, he was healing. Healing in small, delicate increments, and nowhere near the real damage yet, but it was something - moments like these. Something to grasp onto and hold, like it was more precious than diamonds. This was the moment when Declan realized that he wasn't afraid of what he could do. No matter the nightmarish things that the awakened world might contain, because this... this was beautiful. This was something worth living for.

He was sitting on the bench with his legs crossed beneath him, and though the drifter's eyes were open, they had a glassy look... as if they were gazing at something far away. Some dream world that only he could see.

And he was singing. Very softly. Only a gentle murmur of voice on the breeze (should anyone come close enough to hear it.)

Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
'Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turn my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never shared
No one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

[Emily] There's a murmur on the breeze, a sad slow familiar melody, a voice that doesn't quite carry as much as it melts into the marrow of the bones of the people who pass by. There's a slender moon, tucked somewhere behind the clouds, or soft near the horizon, just a tendril, just a sliver, just the hint of something argent and splendid. Just a tease, nothing more.

It's a mild night, not too warm and not too cool, and the park is emptying. Those people with someone to go home to are leaving, those with no reason left to linger are making their goodbyes. It's not yet the bewitching hour, but it's close enough. The small hours are coming, and with them the stillness of contemplation.

She's out here tonight to find some semblence of peace. In the rhythmn of her own stride, in the cadence of her heart beat, in the particular, familiar way that the cracks in the pavement pass at odd intervals, in the thrum of city sounds and people sounds that blur into one resonant background. Emily's hair is pulled back, away from her face, and the hollows of her cheeks seem more pronounced in her exhaustion. There are circles under her eyes. She is tired, bone weary, yet her feet cannot stop, will not hold still, still soldier on.

There is no Reverence to her, not tonight. There's no tinge of active magics as she draws closer to him. If she could go back to being just another girl, tonight Emily would. She'd set this all aside, the horror and the wonder, the radiance and the sorrow. She'd be just Emily, just that girl with no hometown and a deep seated wanderlust. There's part of her, right now, that's thinking of going home, packing her bags, and leaving on whatever train will take her anywhere but here.

Footsteps near the bench where Declan is sitting. They are slow and evenly paced. They are not heavy, but they are not so careful as to be silent.

[Declan] [Per+Alert - Empathy?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 7, 8, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Declan] The world was still and silvery. In this place, the cars didn't exist. Distantly, he could hear them, like something from a dream (as if this was the real world, and the physical plane the false one,) but the notion of things like cars and street lights and trash cans simply didn't exist here. This was a ghost town. The shadows of towering buildings reached into the sky, only an echo of their physical counterparts. The trees felt more real. They glimmered here, alive and awake. When the wind brushed past, it carried with it the swirling tendrils of some spirit, its voice a delicate, twinkling laugh.

"Fools," said I, "you do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you"
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sound of silence."

And then, just like that... it was gone. And Declan, who'd looked as if his spirit were in another place entirely, suddenly blinked and looked at Emily. He hadn't noticed her approach, too absorbed in what he was doing to pay much attention to his more earthly senses. Now he was quiet for a moment as the gears in his head clicked into place, and recognition dawned on him.

"Oh, hello."

His eyes looked wide and thoughtful tonight. Gentle and a little sad (they always looked a little sad.) Sometimes he seemed like he was unreachable (gone, baby, gone)... but other times, like tonight, it was like all the emotion of the world flowed through him like a conduit. Right now, that emotion came from Emily.

"You look lost," he murmured quietly.

[Emily] ((Perception + Awareness))
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 5, 8 (Failure at target 6)

[Emily] She's gone. Emily's body is here, but her mind's far away. It's only tentatively tethered to the progress she makes down the paths in Grant Park. In fact, it takes her a moment to recognize that Declan is speaking to her at all. Emily's feet still, her progress halts, her body stops moving and her mind is slowly reeled back in. She actually looks over her shoulder to see if there might be someone lingering behind her, someone he'd rather talk to.

No, she is not well. And lost, lost is rather too apt to be fair this evening. There's a small smile, shadowed and veiled but obscuring nothing, that speaks to recognition. She knows him, remembers his name, can place their conversation; she is not that far gone.

Lost.

"Hello, Declan." Her voice is still an alto, but it is worn through and no longer mellifluous. His name is a collection of foreign sounding vowels and crisp consonants. Even worn thin, she remains steeped in the Otherness that pervades her language.

If he is the conduit, then perhaps what Emily feels can flow through him without coloring or touching him overmuch. She is sadden, frightened, exhausted, worried; she is running from something that is never further from her than her own fingertips; she is aching, weary, suspicious. These emotions will eat you up from the inside, weather you bone first and then out through your flesh; it will erode any sense of Home or Belonging or Sanctuary you have built.

Lost. The corner of her mouth tweaks upward in a weak acknowledgment. It is apt, if a trifle too close to home.

"What keeps you out so late?" she asks, because she's unable to read him as clearly as he sees into her tonight. She has to rely on her words, fleeting and fickle as they are.

[Declan] She asked him why he was out this late, and Declan shrugged in a manner that suggested not only that he couldn't give her a reason, but that he probably hadn't even considered needing one. When your life was made up of fragments, time was a blur, and sleep was something that crept up on you, rather than something you set out to do. There was an alarming lack of control in Declan's life. Most people would have a difficult time dealing with that, but he seemed to have adapted to it. He'd been lost for so long that he couldn't remember anything else. Maybe that was why he recognized it so easily in the face of another.

"It's a nice night," he finally offered. Though that didn't really explain much. The drifter unfurled his legs and set his feet down on the ground, standing slowly. The cuffs of his jacket were rolled up, leaving bare the skin of his forearms. That was one part of his body which was blessedly free of scarring, but there were other places, even in plain view, that hadn't fared so well: his hands... the side of his neck.

"What about you?"

[Emily] "I don't want to go h--"

Declan doesn't know, yet, what that word means to her: Home. Why she doesn't say it, even when she's wearied like this. Why she doesn't settle down and nest into someplace her own and immoveable. So the hitch, here, when she stumbles over the beginning of that idealized word must seem strange.

"--back to my flat just yet." There's a beat, and a small shrug. "It's lonely," she says, as if this realization somehow surprised her. It hadn't been lonely before, and now it is. Or maybe it had always been lonely, and she'd fooled herself into thinking it was somehow different.

She's thinking about going back, opening a bottle of wine and packing it all up. Everything. Into those three carrier boxes, her cases, stuffing it all into her car. Being gone. Leaving only her bookcases, the IKEA table and Owen's rocking chair behind. She's thinking of running, and it makes her sad this time because it's different from getting called away.

She's wearing a tee shirt and jeans, with a lightweight jacket thrown on mostly for the utility of its pockets. Those pockets have her keys, her phone, whatever identification or money she carries. Emily has no purse or bag with her tonight. Nothing to misshape her shadow, or lend her a little extra bulk.

"You were singing," she mentions, trying to steer the conversation toward gentler topics. "It sounded nice. The part I heard."

[Declan] He had a pleasant singing voice, even when the song could barely be called more than a murmur. Maybe that was just luck, on his part. A naturally sweet voice combined with an acute ear. Declan smiled a little when Emily mentioned this, though he looked like he was thinking about something else.

"It helps. Music. It's how I... tap into things, I guess."

He'd brought his arms to his chest, and the thumb of his right hand touched the soft skin on the underside of his left arm, scratching against it gently. A self-conscious gesture, maybe. Declan tended to fidget when he was talking about himself. Briefly his eyes lowered to the ground before he pulled them back up to Emily's face again.

"I understand where you are. But you're not lost. Not completely. See... I found you." He let his arms drop, then reached out one hand toward Emily hesitantly. It stopped midway. Hovered there, with the tips of his fingers shivering ever-so-subtly. The reason for that pause was unclear. Maybe he was afraid of how Emily would react. Maybe he himself had difficulty in touching others. Either way, he pushed passed it, and eventually his fingers found hers, taking hold of her hand, if she let him.

There was a mark there. She might feel the indentation when their hands touched, or see it if she looked down. Like a nail had been punched through the center of his palm. Work accident, maybe.

[Emily] See... I found you, he says. So simply. As if that's all it might take to pull her back (I found you [I'm lost]). For a moment, Emily really wanted it to just be that simple. Her fingers found his, did not shy away when he reached for her -- the hesitance made that easier, almost sweet, the tremor took the sting out of it, bled out all the worry.

Her fingers are long and thin. They're chilled. They are deft, not clumsy, and had she chosen to learn Emily might have been adept at any of a handful of instruments. Instead she used that dexterity to build and tear down, to troubleshoot and ammend. Her instruments were different, and perhaps it would surprise him that the Singer-to-be had little to no musical experience of her own, however fond she was of the art.

"Yeah," she said, softly still and a bit bemused. "You did." Emily's gaze falls down to their hands, to the wound in one of his. Her brow creases faintly with worry, but it's damped down tonight. Everything a little slower, softer, incomplete. She doesn't push for a why or how, yet, just lets her dark gaze flit back up toward his. Expectant. Waiting.

[Declan] No, it wasn't that simple. Nothing ever was. Least of all this mercurial creature. But Declan had a knack sometimes for pulling small, simple truths out of the chaos. It made the world a little quieter; a little easier to bear - for him, anyway.

The wound on his hand was old. Long-since healed. He didn't remember how he'd gotten it, and often forgot that it was even there until someone else reminded him. There was a matching one on the other palm, but Emily wouldn't be able to see it unless he lifted that one into clear view as well.

"If you want, you can walk with me. I don't sleep much at night."

His hand remained in place for as long as he was able to manage, holding onto the small bit of physical contact (connection) before dropping slowly away.

[Emily] "I think I'd quite like that," she says, the smile on her lips seeming a bit more genuine and less faded just now. She ought to be sleeping, resting up, righting herself for the trials to come, but Emily would rather walk around aimlessly with this peaceful singing drifter for the evening.

It makes her wonder, on some level, why it is they've met each other. Why, in these nights that are filled with Fallen and infernals, angels and demons; when the messengers of the host on high literally come down to earth to speak with mere mortals; why is it the drifter, this similarly untethered soul, that wants to walk beside her in the darkness?

Likely because He works in mysterious ways. Emily does not mistaken Declan for a messenger or a member of the heavenly host, but she doesn't discount what he offers her either. He does not call out her demons, does not demand to bear Witness, offers the simpler blessing of Fellowship: these things she can name, understand and appreciate.

When they do part way, Emily will find her way back to St. James', to sit in the sanctuary for awhile and contemplate whatever thoughts, great and small, have come forward in her rambling evening. From there, she may venture homeward to sleep, or to pack her things, or to set the kettle on a burner and make herself a simple cup of tea.