Boundaries and echoes

[Emily Littleton] The morning light creeps in through soft curtains. They do nothing to keep it out. They soften it, diffuse it, keep the line-of-sight across the street into the neighbor's windows as suggestive rather than intimately detailed. The hardwood floor reflects the morning; the walls repeat it; everything in the simplicity of this place calls out in grace and echoes: The day is come; the sun is risen.

Emily futon has been supportive and comfortable -- odd for a thing that lies on the floor with no frame or supports. It is thick and not meant to be a sometimes-sofa. It folds into thirds and could live in the closet if needs be. This space is utilitarian, functional, clean. It is not fussy or intimate. The Orphan clearly has not designed it for company (the bed is a single width, there is no sofa to crash on).

The night before, Emily had left Lara with clean linens and admonished her to make herself comfortable. Eat anything she found in the fridge or freezer. Make tea. Relax. There is no TV, no stereo, no excess of appliances. When Emily's apartment is quiet, it is still. The scent of fresh flowers (on the center of her table) wafts through it. There is jasmine intertwined with the peonies -- a late season choice, but full and resplendant in their sensuous cream shapes.

It is morning now, and the light has just paled away from rosy. Emily knocks on her own door, just twice, before fitting her key into the lock and opening it. It is her own space, but Lara is in it and the forewarning is polite -- if a little old-fashioned.

When the door opens, the girl enters. She's carrying a brown take away back from a local bakery, and her messenger bag is slung from her shoulder to hip. Emily toes off her shoes in the entryway, closes the door behind her but does not lock it, and heads for the kitchen.

[Lara Wrathburn] The sun may be up, and it may demand that Lara rise and greet the day with it, but in her own way Lara is as stubborn and unyeilding as Emily, and she is still in bed when Emily comes through the door with her brown back of fresh delights. She turns over slightly at the sound, and her eyes widen as she remembers where she is and her body tenses ever so slightly.

She rises from the futon and moves to the doorway, looking out into the room with a wary glance, before she slips out...still in her panties and t-shirt...her sleeping attire when its not her place apparently. And moves towards the Kitchen after the younger woman. She looks about the rest of the apartment, ensuring it is just the pair of them, and Lara looks at Emily with a neutral, maybe confused look before she speaks.

"Morning Emily."

[Emily Littleton] Perhaps remembering Lara's penchant for pantslessness, Emily had pulled all the sheer drapes along her wall of windows shut before she left. Though the manner in which she went about this task suggested for more ritual, rote practice, than any observance of propriety. Emily has customs to keep, and keeping them does not require explaining them.

When Lara emerges, the younger woman has set her messenger bag in one of the dining room chairs. The brown bag now resides on a counter top. She's moved into the kitchen in a fluid and thoughtless way, and already taken the kettle in hand when the Cultist's voice greets her. Emily looks up, and does not seem overly surprised to see Lara half-dressed. She looks away almost as quickly as Owen had, that night in the Chantry, but without the flush staining her cheeks.

"Good morning, Lara," she says, and her voice is gentled and smooth. It is kind. "I'm going to put the kettle on. Would you prefer tea or coffee?" Such a polite and thoughtful hostess. "And I brought some pastries from the bakery nearby; they're quite good, if not entirely authentic."

A smaller smile, now. Small because it is guarded, just hesitatingly wry. She isn't sure what to make of this morning, either. The girl is not wearing what she left in the night before. Her hair is still slightly damp. Wherever she went, she had a place to shower and change. She seems happy, in a muted British sort of way.

"Did you sleep well enough?" Emily asks, as she fills the kettle and places it back on the stove. These motions are practiced. Fluid. There is no wasted movement. She turns the burner on, it clicks until the flame catches, and then she sets it to a medium-high heatpoint.

[Lara Wrathburn] "I did...thanks." She says as she moved into the kitchen proper. Stopping only briefly to look at what was available in the bag full of pastries and selecting something, before tearing pieces off of it with slender fingers before taking those pieces and eating them.

"Coffee...please." She says to the question, the woman's voice is still smokey and sensuous, but it is almost...normal now, like something was missing from it, like something had melted away and left on the bare bones of who Lara was.

[Per+Emp
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 6, 7, 7, 8, 8 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Emily Littleton] Waking up in someone else's home can do that, melt away your natural devices, strip away a bit of comfort or composure. Emily doesn't pry, and perhaps that's to her credit. Lara wants coffee and so the Orphan pulls from her freezer a small bag of deep roasted beans. Even cold, their aroma is strong, pungent and rich. The small paper bag that holds them has been fitted into a plastic one -- she knows how to find fine things, she knows how to keep them.

Emily pulls from a cupboard a french press and a coffee grinder. The beans for Lara's brew are ground, just now, measured with a steady hand and practiced eye. They're placed into the bottom of the french press in a dark, aromatic pile. Emily brushes out the basin of the grinder, stows it back into the cabinet. For herself, she takes a glass canister down, one with a heavy rubber seal to keep out the air. This is set on the counter beside a small tea pot (strainer built in).

There is ritual to all of this. The carefully kept ingredients, the practice, the perfection of it. The pastries are good, too. Just toothy enough to feel satisfying. Buttery and rich without feeling overly heavy. Emily hands her a small plate for her treat, a folded paper towel as a napkin. She does not tell Lara to sit at the table, or chastise her about crumbs.

"I'm glad to hear it," she says, instead. Smiles a bit more warmly.

It isn't just that Emily is happy, it's that she's content. This isn't effusive, the small smile, the gentler tone. It doesn't reach out to enfold Lara in all of her joy. It's not rightfully joy, in and of itself. It is something deeper, something harder to sway and harder yet to settle. Some deep, fundamental moor-point of Emily's life is at rest and it brings her peace, and of that peace there comes compassion -- for Lara, for others -- and warmth. These things had not been present when Lara first met her. They come and go on the sun-tides of the girl's life. They are here, today; she is Home, today. But there's no outward telling of why now, or how this, or what precipitated it.

There's a glint of silver at her neckline (a bauble that beats out the rhythm of Home, home, home) but it's silent, just now. This calm is Emily's own. (Steadfast [remembered]).

The kettle is not yet boiling. They will have to wait on their drinks. She pulls down two mugs. Looks to Lara again.

[Lara Wrathburn] She takes the plate and eats over it, perhaps the only reason she hadnt was because a plate hadn't been there initially, she watches Emily, trying to devise what is going on, what has changed her in this way to make her so happy. Normally she might think the woman had gotten laid...but this was different, something else...something deeper. It made Lara squirm wiht the curiosity of it all.

"I...owe you thanks for letting me stay here Emily...is....is there anything I can do for you?" She asks and can't help herself when she puts just a hint of suggestiveness into her words, when you talk like that so often, some things become habit. She hears it as well,and quickly takes another piece of pastry into her mouth to cover it up, maybe to make herself stop talking.

She waits a moment, her eyes moving from left to right, still examining the space before speaking. "You seem...really happy today."

[Emily Littleton] This space that they're in, the dining area snugged up against the kitchen, this is the part of Emily's flat that almost feels like a home. There's a gentle breeze that comes in in the evenings, through the sheer curtains. It plays with her toes, swirls around the hardwood floors, feels like a dozen other gentle breezes in different cities in far away countries. It feels like Home.

Right now, with where Lara's standing, there's this nexus of settledness, and then the great expanse of the living room. It is all but empty. There is a rocking chair, with a throwblanket in it. It seems lived in, wanted, welcomed, compared to the expanse. The room is ringed with dark picture frames, all hung at or about eye-height for the Orphan. Frame-touching-frame they march and unbroken border around the room, pausing only for bookshelves or the door opening.

The kettle calls, and Emily reaches for it without looking. It is always exactly where she left it. This is a trick of habit, not magic. Then she snaps off the burner flame. First Lara's coffee, wanting hotter water anyway, gets filled. Then Emily's tea. The kettle is all but empty now, and when set back on the hot burner it immediately begins to scream.

Emily replaces it on a cooler part of the stove. They are free to move to the table, if Lara wishes.

"You don't owe me anything," she says, and it's plain spoken. There's no underlying manipulation, no barb. "You needed this and I could offer a quiet place. That's all."

She's watching her tea; not intently, not hawkishly, but with the idle interest of someone who knows exactly what she she wants the water to be when she pours it out. It's peaceful. It is, in and of itself, a quiet place.

"It's like I told you last night," she says, to this comment of being happy. "Things are quieter now. Everything's brighter after a storm. It's been a long and troublesome storm, and I'm pleasantly surprised with where I am ... now that things are quiet, and I can take stock of it all again."

[Lara Wrathburn] Lara shakes her head at that, its not a forceful motion, but it is a certain one. "No....I really do, you did something for me that involved alot of trust...trusting me when you don't really. I know that. So...let me do something for you then. Alright?" She asks with a slight smile on her lips, a certain smile, but for once nothing impish, nothing deviant or dangerous.

"I promise I'll be good...I won't over step or try to get in your head. Just...let me do something for you." She asks, perhaps she needs to repay the favor, or simply feels the need to do so strong enough to insist.

[Emily Littleton] Emily's eyes are a deep shade of blue. They're so dark that they appear almost hue-less in half-light. It's easy to assume her as brown-eyed, if you'd only met in the evening, or to forget exactly how striking that shade could be. Piercing, when paired with her sharp intellect and keen watchfulness. These qualities have only grown in her Awakened year; they would continue to grow as she developed.

There's no malice in how she regards the Cultist. There is surprisingly little judgment. Being watched can bring about an anxiety all its own, so Emily does not stare without breaking that contact. She is, in so many small and almost transparent ways, respectful.

She pours Lara's coffee, then pours her own tea. These are brought to the small table. She moves the flowers back to the counter that divides the kitchen and dining room, so that they can sit across from each other and continue their conversation.

Emily's tea is pale green. It also smells of jasmine.

"In truth, you don't," she says. She is just as certain, as sure, as Lara. There is no suggestion, no rejection to the words either. "Many people have been there for me when I needed it. This isn't about indebtedness or expectations. I would much prefer you were simply open to doing the same -- or to giving of yourself in a way that suits you -- when someone else comes by you, in need, some day."

This is not a virtue so much as a solemn practice. It is something that runs deep, it cuts to Emily's quick. She learned it as surely as she has learned breathing. (pro fide [pro utilitate hominum])

"But if it is that important to you," she says, as she pulls out at chair from the table, sit in it. Her fingers slid around the bowl of her mug, cradle it in a habitual way. Her thumbs smooth along the rim as she thinks. "Then there is something that I would very much appreciate, and you could attempt it. If you wished."

[Lara Wrathburn] Lara listens to the woman's words and through the entire speech, it is obvious that Lara wasn't going to change her mind, she might very well do what Emily suggests, and help those in need when she was able, but she still needed to reciprocate to Emily, here and now.

When the woman at last concedes and stands, Lara watches her with curiosity from behind those bright green eyes as she takes a refreshing sip of that fresh brewed perfect cup of coffee. She waits for a moment, trying to think of what it might be that Emily could want her to do. She had had plans of her own to reciprocate to the woman...but at the same time it might not really have been Emily's thing.

She nods then, setting down her coffee as she remained sitting and looked the woman in the eyes. "Whats that Emily? And am I going to regret having pushed for this?" A joke at last, apparently as she wakes up...she becomes more herself, or more...that other person.

[Emily Littleton] Lara quips a joke, and Emily smiles gently. It touches her eyes; they're brilliant, warm. In another lifetime, Emily might have been charismatic; she might have led by force of personality, or inspired others on to greatness. She might have uplifted, enlightened -- it was in her, somewhere, the power to do such. Though it was not her destiny, but there are vestiges of that someday hidden in the crook of her smile, the genuine laughter in her eyes. She may, yet, grow into that birthright.

"Leave Owen alone," she says, and she says it plainly. There's no push behind it, no urgency, nothing to send Lara into fits of curiosity. Just gentleness and a quiet affection. It runs deep, this protectiveness, this concern. It runs deeper than lust. "He's been through a lot. He's lost a lot. Whatever he's feeling, or struggling with, leave him be. Let him sort it. Please. That's what I want."

[Lara Wrathburn] "Lara heres the request and her pouty lips pull into something of a pout as she is told to leave Owen along. She watches Emily for a long...long moment before huffing and folding her arms across her chest. "I was right...i did regret asking." She says as she looks away towards the photo's that adorn the wall beyond in the living room.

"Tell me why Emily? Why should I? I'm a cultist, sorting through feelings such as pain, sorrow and anger and replacing them with happiness, love, and passion is something we do well....tell me why I should do so, give me a good reason...and I will. I promise."

She says as she crosses her fingers over her heart in a rather childish gesture, but still she seems to mean it.

[Emily Littleton] "Because sometimes that journey isn't yours to make," Emily says, plainly. She sips from her mug and returns it to the table without loosing her fingers from it. There are things that she knows, about this struggle of Owen's, things that she is not saying. They inform her position, as much as her concern does.

"He's a deeply private person. If you are invited in, to bring joy or share passion -- far be it for me to stand in the way of that -- but don't force across the boundaries that are there. Don't call up old hurts; neither of us understand them when we do," and here there is experience, if not regret, in how she talks. It's gentle.

"I cannot compel you to do or not do anything. I can only ask. And if you feel that sorting Owen out is something you must do," there's a purse to her mouth now, disapproving or possibly just deeply concerned over that idea, "Then do so with respect and mindfulness. Don't push just to push, Lara."

[Lara Wrathburn] "Doing anything just to do it is a waste of time Emily, everything I do...there is a reason for it. It might be a small reason, or it might be a grand one...but everything has a reason." Lara says picking up her coffee not looking at Emily as she says so and takes another drink. She seems contemplative, but more and more of the Lara Emily met that first night is coming back, reassuring itself, shes becoming more confident more...potent.

"I'll tell you this Emily." She says as her eyes come back up and she sets the coffee back down on the table and stands, her entire body stretching as she does so a little tiny squeek issuing from her as she reaches the pinnacle of that stretch her arms high in the air above her head. "If I don't see a really good reason to step in...I won't. Whatever there is right now..I don't know about..so fine..I'll leave him be. But if something presents itself, something that I can help with..." She trails off and smiles honestly as she tilts her head to the side.

"Now that that is done....there is one more thing I will do for my hostess." She says as she moves around the table, making for Emily, slowly but surely. "I want to give you a back massage."

[Emily Littleton] [Awareness as Empathy: This is important, I need to know if you have ulterior motives...]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 7, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Emily Littleton] [Subterfuge: Touch isn't a button. No, ma'am.]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 7, 7, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Lara Wrathburn] [Per+Subt]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 7, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Lara Wrathburn] [Lara has her reasons, that is for certain, as she said she never did anything without a purpose, and even this appears in a sense to have a purpose, but what she feels is that there is no malice in this act, no danger....its something at least.]
to Emily Littleton

[Emily Littleton] Lara and Emily likely had differing opinions of what a really good reason might be, but this concession was better than Emily had hoped for. At the very least, perhaps it meant that Lara would not cajole Owen into some corner of the Chantry and tell him that his apprentice has a White Knight (Dame?) complex over protecting him. Maybe Lara would set aside what was so easy for everyone else to read and just let the two Singers sort things out in their own time. Maybe.

The little bit that Emily can read off the Cultist helps; that there is no malice, no danger in whatever she is about to do. Yet this is still Emily's home, a place where she need not (has not) been challenged. A place where most people respected her boundaries. And this, this is a boundary.

There are reasons that she and Owen are not closer. There are reasons that they have not fallen into one another. This, the small (startled, shocked) intake of breath, the tightness to her smile when Lara advances -- these are reasons. They hallmark deeper hurts. She is not always this way, is not this way with everyone. It can be pulled down, as she does now, stored deep away where it cannot conflict.

Lara has said this is important to her; Emily will try. She smiles (it is a different thing, closer to Lara's and further from Emily's own), now and that smile appears to acquiesce.

Instead of answering directly, Emily sips from her tea once more. She sets it aside. "It's been a while since I had a massage," she says, and her gaze flicks upward and to one side -- remembrance.

[Lara Wrathburn] Lara's lips spread wide into a full fledged smile, perfect white teeth showing as she makes her way over to Emily, not encroaching yet...there would be plenty of time for that, plenty of time to feel and touch and learn...and break down barriers as well. She gestures around the flat before speaking.

"Thank you...you won't regret this I promise." She says as she looks about once more. "You choose where, It is possible to do while you are sitting up, but it would be much easier to do it while you are laying down, I would suggest the bed, but that might be....too intimate for you."

She is more herself now, far more...but at the same time there is a softness a more benevolent feel to the woman, as if going along with her...or at least not snubbing her, made it less likely for her malicious and impish side to appear.

[Emily Littleton] "For lying down there is the futon, the floor, and the dining room table," Emily says, perfectly aware of home incomplete her furnishings are. There's no shame or embarrassment in this for her, just acceptance. It's how she lives, if it bothered her she'd have changed it by now. "Of the three, the futon sounds most reasonable, ne?"

Lara is more herself and Emily is more canted toward one of the facets of her personality. This smile protects, it hides, it keeps at arm's length. It is not the same smile her cabalmates would get if they offered the same, but Lara does not know that. She just knows that Emily is more pliant, less skittish. Trusting, even.

[Lara Wrathburn] Lara nods to her suggestion. "I'd say this would be much easier if you took off your top...but I won't press you any further....this time." She says as she guides Emily over to her other room, and onto the futon that awaits her. Lara is smiling, and is happier, someone would actually let her do something for them after that first impression she gave to so many, it was refreshing, at least for now.

"I will state this now Emily, for trust's sake, I often intertwine magic into my massages, things such as feelings of relaxation and calm, I will understand if you don't want them." She says as she herself sits down onto the bed her legs folded beneath her as she looks up at the other woman, and gently pats the bed beside her.

[Emily Littleton] Emily doesn't think of her bedroom as a sanctuary, just as she doesn't think of this flat as Home. It helps, perhaps, to mitigate the uneasiness in all of this. This is not a place to safeguard, to claim as territory, to protect. She is uninvested, emotionally, and that's part of what makes this interlude with Lara tenable.

This is the point where she usually tells herself, it's all a game and what's the worst that could happen -- but that's not working this time. The old standby thought that she'd be out of town before repercussions caught up with her -- also null and void in this city. She's not entirely sure why she's letting Lara do this, but there's a nervousness at the pit of her stomach, a flutter of things unsaid and unseen.

She'd been happier and here, this, this was Emily gambling that all away. "I'd prefer if you didn't," she says, kneeling beside Lara on the futon now. The voice that fills the space between them is softer, almost nervous. She'd rather Lara didn't because clearly someone had, in the past, and it had left her with ungentle feelings. There is a storm in the darkness of Emily's blue eyes, but it is blinked back and away before it can break.

The girl takes a steadying breath and then eases her shirt up and over her head. Emily's arms are pale. There's a network of thin pink lines down her left upper arm that are healed but still angry. In time they will fade, but for now they are a roughened reminder of the past weekend. She is marked, but it does not hinder her movements.

The fabric finds the floor beside the futon, and Emily is easing herself onto her stomach. The band and straps of her bra are a light purple. They're nothing special; they get their job done.

[Lara Wrathburn] Lara can feel the woman's tension...but it doesn't make her stop, infact it seems to make her more determined to do this, she sat up straight, almost regally on that futon as she watched Emily kneel on the bed, and then lay down, after surprisingly enough, removing her shirt.

She nods to the woman, and smiles reassuringly. "I won't then...it is of course...your body, and your choice Emily." She says as she regards the woman, her body, and the lines, the cuts or bruises that her body is still trying to heal. She can't help but reach out and touch those lines, gently running her fingers down them. "You have a lovely body Emily." She says almost tenderly as she moves to sit beside the other woman, her hand reaching out, and begin to slowly kneed and massage at the muscles around her neck and shoulders, skilled fingers making circles and more exotic patterns in the flesh as she seeks to sooth and calm the woman beneath her.

[Emily Littleton] What Lara does not see, as her fingers slide over those thin red lines, is how much deeper the rends had been. She does not know that Emily's body sustained in one night enough damage to end her two times over. She doesn't know that the flesh and bones under her fingertips were knit back together by magic alone, that they might be rent and mended again. Over, and over. This is the darkness that Emily spoke of: the near-Shadow (the Umbra), the Storm, and the Demon who drove them all toward it.

There are thin red lines, now, and soon there will be nothing. Maybe a pale webbing of scars, but likely not even that. There's no method to them, now, that suggests the shape of the Hellhounds' jaws.

There is comfort, in being touched like this. In a smooth and sultry voice. Emily's head turns to one side, so that she is not smothered in the futon. Her eyes are closed. She breathes steadily. There is tension on her back, far more than Lara might even have suspected. Talented as she is, the Cultist can read more into it than Emily assumes. There is tension in her back, because she carries the weight of her emotions there, because she has not vented them (in healthy or unhealthy ways) in far too long. Because she has been hurt, and wounded, and afraid, and overtired and a body takes more than a few days' quiet to unwind from that.

Wherever she went the night before, it was not for physical comfort. She has not sought physical comfort in another in some time.

Emily offers up no small sounds, no murmurs or directions, no Mmmmm, yes or Ouch, no. Lara, like all the others she has shared physical intimacies with, will have to tease those cues out of the shift in her body, in her breathing. She is a jealous person, and she keeps her cues hidden. It is part of her, this guardedness, and it cuts deep down to her quick.

[Lara Wrathburn] [WP!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Lara Wrathburn] Her fingers glide and kneed their way expertly over Emily's back, she feels the tension, feels the pain and the suffering and the lack of and yearning for release of all that emotion, all that feeling. It causes her breath to shudder briefly and her hand still on the other woman's back as she reigns in her own desires, the desire to kneel down and kiss the flesh, to feel the emotion...

Instead her fingers begin to move once more, her hands gliding along, and easily finding those clusters of muscles that most need her attention, she moves south towards the woman's middle back, following the lines of pink and the curve of her back as she applies a little more pressure, working deep, deep into Emilys back.

"Oh Emily..." She says quietly, intimately, almost a sorrow in of itself as the woman continues to work. Particularly hard spots force Lara to form her hands into fists, and circle them into Emily's back until the muscles loosen enough that fingers will do the job once more.

It is an experience and a comfort as much for Lara as it is for Emily, a sharing of intimacy, of trust. It makes Lara more dilligent more thorough she leaves no knot untouched, no bruise or injury uncared for.

[Emily Littleton] There is a reason why some forms of massage fall under the heading of physical therapy. Why they are less about pleasure and more about healing. For all of the intimacy here, implied or otherwise, it is also a painful thing. Emily's fingers tighten on the thin blanket over her futon, grasp and hold tight as Lara works through a particularly painful knot. She does not cry out, or tell the Cultist to stop. Even when her breath shudders, and her eyes sting with tears.

There are things that Lara is unearthing that Emily would prefer to not loose in the company of strangers. It is not unlike the way she cried with Jarod's weight still above her, the night they'd realized that it was more than just play for either of them. It's similar to the way that had happened with Chuck; how she'd found herself in the guest room the next morning, curled up in one of his sweatshirts. Separate.

There are aches and scars that run deep in the Orphan, that are deeper than the places that Lara's fingertips can reach and maybe, just maybe it becomes that much more apparent why she doesn't want help or cajoling with whatever will happen between her and the Initiate Chorister. Maybe.

Lara breathes out her name, and it sounds of Intimacy and Compassion. Emily back arches gently, pulls away from Lara's, her shoulders rise up and back just somewhat. Emily tucks her arms under her, to pick herself up off the futon somewhat.

"Please," she says, seekingly. Her hair obscures her face just now. "It's too much..."

[Lara Wrathburn] "Emily...please...let me help you. You need this, you really do." Lara's own voice aches at the feelings at the sight, her breath had caught in her throat when she had seen those tears trickle down the soft expanse of Emily's cheeks. Lara's own eyes are wet and shiny, as if the emotions being shared are almost to much for her as well to bear.

Emily moves to rise, moves to end it all and Lara's own eyes widen as the woman turns her face away. Lara's hands move to Emily's shoulders, not moving, not fighting her attempt to rise...but for the moment simply holding her form, prividing comfort for the woman as best she can..while respecting her boundaries.

"Let me do this for you Emily...you may bind me to secrecy and swear on my life...but believe me when I say you need this." She says leaning down close to the woman's face even if it were hidden by her hair, her voice quiet, personal and only for Emily, you could have been standing next to the futon and you would not have heard this.

[Lara Wrathburn] [Cha+Expression] WP
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 5, 7, 9, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Emily Littleton] [WP!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 5, 5, 7, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Emily Littleton] Her shoulders shudder under Lara's palm. And then again. Emily's breathing slowly stills, comes to calm. It's an effort of will, pulling herself together like this. There's almost an artistry to how she hides the sudden stuffiness of her sinuses, wipes the tears from her eyes with her thumbs (so her arms don't move over much). He is practiced at pulling herself together, pulling away. Drawing down.

The girl exhales. She inhales. And is calm again.

Emily's boundaries lie in different places than Lara's. It will be difficult for them to understand one another, entirely. It is not so difficult to find compassion for one another, though, even with complete understanding. Lara offers, and Emily must politely decline.

"I'm sorry," she says, and it's genuinely apologetic. "I just can't, right now. It's too much," she says, again, softly. Emily gently pulls free, sits up on her futon, reaches for her shirt. One arms crosses to cover her; she is ultimately a shy and private person. This sharing of flesh, it was not the problem. The feelings beneath that that began to rise, those were more problematic.

"You can stay here," Emily says, even as she's pushing herself to standing. "If you need a place to be, you can stay here tonight as well."

She's holding things back, keeping them close. Lara and Emily are not friends; they have a truce, a quiet agreement. Perhaps its sundered now, for this trying to extend it. Perhaps it's strengthened. Emily runs her fingertips through her hair.

[Lara Wrathburn] Emily clamps down, sealing herself away once more, and there is a gasp as Lara feels the other woman close down her emotions and resists Lara's heart felt desire to help, to let it all out and be free of this terrible, terrible burden she bares.

"Oh Emily...if I I'd known..." She says with a sound of loss and sadness in her voice as her hands are reaching out to the woman, but trying not to touch her, holding back as best as she could from giving the woman what she needed, if not what she wanted.

It is as Emily moves to stand, that Lara's eyes can hold the wetness in no longer, and tears slowly begin to fall, trickling down the smoothness of the Cultist's cheeks as she looks up openly at the woman as she rose. Lara looking sad and alone there on the futon by herself, she looks...vulnerable more then anything else.

She reaches up to the woman, a hand coming to rest on her thigh gently, almost tentatively as if Emily might shatter from the touch. "Don't leave."

[Emily Littleton] [Awareness as Empathy: I'm gonna regret rolling these dice, aren't I?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 4, 6, 6, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Lara Wrathburn] [Lara is crying, because part of her needs the comfort, the closeness, and Emily is destroying the first bit of true closeness she has managed since arriving in Chicago..and a good while before that. She is also crying..because like many people who are good with reading others emotions, they affect her as well, she takes them in, and has little choice but to feel them...and Emily's emotions are strong. It hurts her...but she does not shy way from it.]
to Emily Littleton

[Emily Littleton] Lara's hand finds her and Emily stills. Her initial intent had been to get out of the room, to get away from Lara and everything Lara is bringing forward. And then she catches the grief in the other woman's features; then Emily is reminded that she is not as hard, is not as withdrawn, is not as heartless as she has felt of late.

She sighs, and the look that catches in her eyes is one borne of compassion not contempt. Lara says, Don't leave. Emily can hear her own voice twined with someone else's at the edge of her thoughts.

Don't go...
-I'm not going to.
Don't just up and leave me.
-I wouldn't.

It catches in her throat, and it is everything she has wanted to protect from Lara. (Leave Owen alone.) She shakes her fingers free of her hair. She pushes back the memory of ragged, threadbare voices; of strong arms; of sanctuary found (taken) in one another.

"Come on," she says, offering Lara a hand up. "I'll make something more for breakfast than pastries."

[Lara Wrathburn] Lara looks at that hand that is offered blinking a few times. "You won't stay...." It is a hurt sound that escapes the cultists throat, but at the same time Lara takes the woman's hand, and goes to stand, tears still leaving a clear line down each cheek, almost framing her face.

She rises slowly, almost graceful but still shaky from the emotions that had so thoroughly run their course through her body. She looks into Emily's eyes as they stand there...side by side, Emily still topless, Lara still bottomless, and after a moments eye contact Lara breaks away and looks down.

"Alright..." She answers to breakfast and goes to move forward towards the kitchen.

[Emily Littleton] She doesn't stay; it is not Emily's place to be that person to Lara. Just as it was not Lara's place to be that person for Emily. The Orphan (Singer to be) pulls her shirt back over head head as she moves out of her room. Smooths her hands over the fabric to tease out any wrinkles as she heads for her fridge. There's fixings there for a nice fritata, a mindless thing to make that will give them both sustenance and a stable, full feeling in their centers.

The silver chain had never left her throat, and Emily's fingers find the locket at its nadir. Long fingers wrap around that ovoid, enfold and obscure it. It is a habitual, simple thing; it has not so simple results. There is a thin thrum that spreads out from her, as she contemplates the fridge shelves and worries the silver charm with her thumb. It sings of belonging, of comfort; it calls out the cadence of Home, home, home. It is resonance, thin and steady; it is not of Emily, but it is surely wrapped around her.

They are both hurt. They are both mending. Emily turns on the oven, brings out a selection of leftovers. Soon the kitchen smells of sauteing vegetables and herbs. It mingles with the scent of coffee and jasmine. It obscures the salt of tears.

[Lara Wrathburn] Lara sits there quietly hunched over herself as she watches Emily work, there is sadness in her eyes, but also longing, desire, and pain. She watched the woman for a time, as if watching her could will her to reconsider, to draw them both back into the bedroom and to immerse themselves in those feelings, to almost drown in them until the pain was gone and only joy remained.

But it did not happen, the woman had her protection her shield against such things, the locket around her neck kept her centered and grounded against her emotions, and eventually Lara simply looked down to her coffee, slender fingers slowly wrapping around the still warm mug, seeking the warmth it contained.

The mug was occasionally brought to her lips, a taste of that warmth brought into her..if only briefly before she would set it down once more, waiting...waiting for food, or perhaps for something else that would never come.

[Emily Littleton] There were indulgences to have, here. Rich coffee, warm food, quiet places; succor. It wasn't what Lara sought, but it was more than most might offer. Even the finest things could fail to sate a need, though. There was an ache in offering what could never fill a void; there was an ache to wanting what could not be freely offered.

They are both sore, in their own ways. Laid bare and not yet sated. This friendship, if either would deign to call it such, did not satisify; it did not sate; it was not whole.

When Emily supposed that Lara's cup was getting cold or near empty, she brought the french press to the table. She brought the bag of pastries over. Soon she filled the frying pan with eggs and slid it artfully into her oven, handle and all. The Orphan could cook; she could make fine things of raw materials. She had much to offer, but not what Lara ached for.

Long fingers wrapped around her mug of jasmine tea. She sipped at it, and leaned one hip against the kitchen counter. And there they were, quiet and in the same spaces. There they were, left to stare at each other until someone spoke up.

"After breakfast, I'm going to head out for a little while. I have things I promised to do, today, and places I need to be. Do you want me to bring you back dinner?"

[Lara Wrathburn] "You will be back tonight?" Lara asks with a slight hint of confusion and hope, Emily had not been back at all the previous two nights, she had gone..and not come back. This was something entirely different, and Lara sat up a bit more.

"Please....dinner would be nice." She says with a weak smile appearing behind that red hair, she then looks back to her meal, and her coffee, eating in silence for a time, her thoughts her own at this moment, unshared, and unasked for.

[Emily Littleton] "I'll be back for dinner," she says, feeling somehow quite like her father must have when asked, oh so terribly often, but a blue-eyed daughter when he might be seen again. There's a twinge of guilt, and then of frustration. It's hidden by the small rise of steam that issues forth when Emily opens the oven door.

"Do you have any preferences?" Emily asks, and it's the first time she's asked Lara what she might want to eat rather than just inviting her to share whatever Emily was already making. "I'll go by the market on my way back this afternoon."

[Lara Wrathburn] "If its not to much to ask...I haven't had anything with chicken..real chicken..in it for a long, long time." Lara says as she watches the woman once again. She thought she caught...something in the other woman as she opened that oven, but whatever it was she could not identify it and so for the moment..she let it drop.

"I'm fairly easy for that though.....maybe some peppers...I love sliced peppers." She comments again on food, it was better to stick to light simple things at the moment, the emotional void and vacuum to raw...to rough yet to speak on anything else. With that Lara falls silent again, finishing her meal before she goes to stand and move to take her dishes to the sink, or the dishwasher if Emily so had one.

[Emily Littleton] About half the fritata is left after breakfast, a little more than half. Ample. Emily cuts this into pieces, wraps two heavily in plastic wrap. These she will take with her on her outing, the rest will stay for Lara.

"I can make chicken paella," she offers, as if the dish is as easy to throw together as it sounds. Paella. The Spanish word rolls off her tongue with all the right accents. As if she owns in a way a British brat never should. As if she's known it, loved it, held it close and in her vernacular since forever-and-a-day. It is a curious thing; there are so many curious things; and Emily lets it flow past them like water: a memory tide, lazy and unremarkable.

"And a salad. I like vegetables," Emily says easily. She likes vegetables, fresh herbs, warm spices, she says paella like she owns it. By now Lara has no doubt noticed that every picture on the wall has a city and country written on its matting in a careful script.

"Does that sound okay?" she asks. Lara is putting things in the dishwasher, and rather than counter Emily simply decides she can run it, this once. "Thank you for helping," she says, her voice is sincere.

[Lara Wrathburn] "It sounds lovely Emily, like a feast worth savoring every bite of. I'm sure it will be lovely..if this is how you cook all the time." She says with a small, barely there smile as she stands from the dishwasher, closing it once all the dishes are inside. She turns and runs her hands up and down her own back with a sigh before the smile returns briefly to her lips.

"Your welcome..." She lingers on Emily, watching her, studying her...one last time hoping that just that look..will be enough for her to reconsider, a hopeful wistful look. But it won't, if it had not worked in the height of emotion and passion, it would not work now that they have had time to think, to settle, and for Emily to box herself off tight and secure once more.

Lara moves up to Emily, and even if it is without her consent, gives the woman a brief hug, it is a sensual thing, but Lara is incapable of less it would seem, the hug lingers for only a moment..before Lara separates them once more. "I'm gonna go out as well.." She says with a nod, as she moves past Emily now, heading for the bedroom to gather her clothes, so that she might head out..get some air, and maybe..maybe clear her head.