King and courtship

[Emily Littleton] Time passes. The morning after becomes Monday, becomes mid-week, becomes easy avoidance, becomes its own brand of never will I ever, but long before there was something to avoid, Emily had sat on Owen's couch and told him softly that there was someplace she wanted him to meet. Which may have sounded like a sleepy slip of grammar, but it was very much what Emily had meant. And so it's later in the week, and the afternoon light is beginning to turn a warmer color, when they journey out of the city toward Tekakwitha Woods. She may have mentioned he might want his sketchbook, or something to read, or nothing at all.

There is a small parking lot, which is where they leave the familiarity of Emily's (hooray it runs today) compact and head off along a well worn path. There are two trailheads here, but the Orphan (for now [Singer soon to be]) sets them off on one of them. It doesn't matter, though. The trails wind through the same woods, up and around; they come back together at the place that Emily is seeking; they kiss and turn back on themselves to make the long trek homeward.

It's a different sort of quiet out here, and with the summer heat edging ever upward there are not too many other hikers. Emily carries her messenger bag (which seems heavier today), but no extra accouterments. Like so many other times, the quiet between them stretches, but it is not unbearable.

Now and again, she glances over at Owen, eyes bright (or either holding back some inward sadness) with some great secret. The song of bird call and buzzing bugs and their foot falls on the path could be cacophonous.

"It's not much further," she says, when the round what seems to be the last of many just one turn furthers. Then, at last, after the better part of an hour's hike, the woods beside the path opens up into a small clearing that overlooks still water. A lightning felled tree (the King) lies across one margin, forming a bench-like seat. One great arm reaches upward, aloft like a seat back or a coat hanger or a mast or even a flagpole.

It is not, itself, majestic, but this place is old. It has a sense of space to it. As Emily moves into it, invites him into it, it takes on an aspect of ritual that calls out something greater, something hidden. It slakes some of the tension from her form, lightens the corners of her smile. Emily slings her messenger bag's strap over her head, nestles its weight against the trunk of the Fallen King, points through the trees to where the other path is visible, curving hither, all black dirt and strewn last-autumn leaves.

"Kage comes up from that way," she explains. There's a lilt to her voice, a something-shared and special. "She says Hail and I say Well met," Emily explains, without any shyness or embarrassment after this tradition of non-Traditionalists.

She rests her weight against the trunk, now. Stills. (Keeping still is harder than keeping quiet.) Tries not to rob him of the quiet with too many explanations. There is a hollow in the heart of the King, a secret hide-away place for notes and for secrets. If Owen explores, looks around, takes his time, then Emily will ease the heart-box out and see what secrets have been left since last she was here.

[Owen Page] Owen didn't speak much about where he'd come from. He didn't tend to talk about South Dakota, or his little town, Pierre, where he'd been born and where his parents still resided. He didn't talk about the pretty little grave they'd erected in Maggie's memory and how it had been Owen who chose the piece of poetry to be etched into it. These were all little details, but they were the sort of things that friends shared, over time.

Friendship [or more, or anything, really] with this young man was not so simple. He had bruises that were still tender to the touch inside him and attempts to know Owen, to really know him were more often than not shrugged off, shied away from. There were only two people in the entire world who could truly speak to knowing what made Owen Page tick, and one of them was walking beside him through the Woods -- the other was Nico Brady. He'd brought a backpack, and inside it stowed away his sketchpad as suggested, along with sandwiches and bottles of water.

Also, a map of the woods, purchased for an ungodly amount by the information stand in the parking lot. Emily had no doubt frowned, or insisted she knew where she was going -- Owen didn't disbelieve her, he simply felt more comfortable with a map in his back pocket, and a compass hung around his neck. Since the last weekend, he's been avoiding her. He can't disguise the fact of it, despite being the one who'd kissed her, the one who had shouted at her -- possibly the one to ruin it all. He had run away, buried himself in work around the Church, fixed things that didn't really need fixing, played ball every night with an unusual amount of focus.

Anything but confront what he'd done.
Anything but say the words he felt like he must say to her.

Of all the hearts in all the world, the last he wanted to cause any more injury to was Emily Littleton's. Still, Owen held off, he kept the awkwardness at bay by embracing the excitement quietly simmering in the woman beside him's eyes when she turned them on him; he returned those looks with his own brand of slight, slanted smiles and fond appreciation in his dark blue gaze as they trekked onwards and upwards.

When finally they come to the Court, and the King; the Chorister stills. He looks over the expanse of the clearing with solemn, silent regard. Some others would be insulted by his lack of clear appreciation, but not Emily. She understood him well enough to read in his stoic stance and taciturn expression that he was rather more absorbing what was around him; allowing it to seep into his skin, through his pores. He steps, carefully, with an odd sort of reverence for the place toward the felled tree and runs his palms over the wood where its roughened and split, right over the smoother section that has become something of a bench.

He does this while Emily checks for secrets.

"It's indescribable." He says eventually, his voice soft, wondering as he stares at the point where mother nature had blasted the Earth.

[Emily Littleton] Emily had not brought him out here with expectations of how he might receive it, or what he might say when he found this place. She brought him out this far, away from the city, with his map-and-compass talismans against getting lost (protection against being found again) simply to greet this bend in the river, this place of quiet and solitude. It seeps into him, slowly at first, the feeling of Sanctuary, and with it a note of loneliness.

Perhaps Owen can imagine why this place has called to her, the Other who stands within its circle with him. The Other who knows, without asking, without pushing, that he holds a sense of Reverence for this place as well.

Owen is greeting the King, perhaps his fingertips are finding the place where the lonely clementine froze into a hard mass over one Winters night, or the soft dirt that will become bedding to the next tumor-white mushroom to grow out of His side. Perhaps Owen has discovered the way the King's ribs splay, the cavernous whole in his torso where Emily's hand reach in -- unafraid of spiders or anything else that might live in the belly of this fallen oak -- and withdraw a sealed box. It is not, immediately, a thing of wonder this. This texture plastic with its creaking hinge. But she treats it with Reverence, she pulls it into her lap and eases it open, brushes fingertips along its margin. Smiles (with Wonder [with Grace]) to find a new note within.

It's from another hiker, not K.R.J. And it's a random poem, just a few lines, scribbled on a page of the spiral notebook they've left in the box. It's haiku, and poorly counted, but heartfelt and Emily skims it with deep fascination. Shakes her head quietly. Folds it back away. There is a pencil tied to a thin red string, and she pulls this and the little notebook out. She makes some notes in her careful script. Signs them EL. Puts these things away.

It's indescribable, Owen says. Emily smiles, but does not nod in agreement.

"This is where I met her," she says, meaning her rowan-haired Other. Meaning the Orphan who has mentored her in almost as many ways as he has (in Wonder [in Steadfastness] in friendship [in Grace]). "This is where we talk. She let me Listen once, when I was very new. Before I knew about the Singers, or even had met you. We come out here, and Hail and Well-Met. We share gifts," Emily says, and now she slides off the trunk to crouch beside her bag.

We share gifts, she has said. This means that Emily must, if the thought follows, be looking for his. But she brings out a metal thermos, and a small tupperware box with fresh grapes. Gifts, it seems, are simple things. Like fresh fruit and good tea. Or friendship. Or even a smile.

"It's a nice place," she says, looking up at him, now.

[Owen Page] Oddly, this causes a knot to form in Owen's throat. Standing here in this place with its reverence and its clear history for the Apprentice retrieving her gifts from her bag, he feels an almost overwhelming urge for a moment to turn and run. To simply run and run and never cease or slow or stop until his lungs are burning in his chest and he cannot, physically, put any more distance between her and this place and himself.

Almost as if he can feel the pulse of his Avatar beside him, grounding him, pushing at the base of his back, the Chorister sits down on the edge of the King and pulls off his backpack, lets it thump to the earth as he reaches down and unzips it, taking out his own paltry offerings of food. He hands Emily a water bottle, looks at their fingers when they briefly touch around the plastic container.

He looks away, clenching his jaw a little, his cheeks flooding with warmth and reaches for another memory, another story or distraction to stay his thoughts; his feelings a little longer -- just a little, just give me today, please -- as if he were some master of Time to distort and manipulate it. "It makes me think about the legends my Mentor told me," Owen sits back, his old leather jacket rustling softly, hanging open over his worn work-shirt. "About the first Singers, the men and women who first heard the Song and carried that knowledge around the world with them."

He smiles, it's honest, boyish and crooked; a true smile, then.

"He said they lived off the earth, made their homes out of trees and dirt. Just ... simple people, with simple values." He gazes off, into the quiet woods. "Sometimes I envy that. The lives they must have led when there was nothing but them. But this." He puts his hand over the bark, meets Emily's eyes.

"You know?"

[Emily Littleton] Emily's fingers wrap around the water bottle he offers. She perches on the King again, in the place where the bench-like seat just starts to trend upward at a slight angle. She sits cross-legged so she can face him, so she can make a space with her legs to harbor (protect) the gifts they've brought to share, a lap (a place that is nothing again when she stands up). Her back is pressed against the upward reaching branch. It is not comfortable, entirely, but it holds her up.

Her knee is close enough for him to touch. The flat of her shin. But Emily is otherwise a safe distance away. He'd have to lean over, overtly, to brush her shoulder with his fingertips or to touch her face. And when his cheeks warm and Owen talks about Singers long before them, the sadness touches Emily's eyes and she looks away. She peels open that small box of grapes, tucks the lid somewhere safe. She peels back the damp paper towel covering them Anything to not meet his eyes for a moment.

Owen is not the only one, here, who would run away, never look back, find safer ground if it were here to be found.

He searches for her eyes, and finds them a bit belatedly. She's pulled back the echo, then, the quiet resignation. There's a smile, soft but uncertain. And what she offers him, instead, is this: "There are places like that, still, in other parts of the world. Monasteries where life is about simple work, honest work, and the foundation of faith. Temples where the holy men live, and serve, and I imagine that they also Sing."

She is remembering, so her voice is softer. It is cautious. The do not talk about the times that came before Chicago very often. Emily has told him less of her past than Owen has shared of his.

"If you wanted that, I'm sure you could find it," she says. And studies, for a moment, the particular hue of his eyes. Then Emily looks away, over the water that is still but not slumbering, far to the other embankment where Summer's relentless green sings out. There is no sign of breaking; Autumn is nowhere in sight.

"I think, perhaps, that it's not that different now. There are simple things now, as there were simple things then. They may even be the same, these things of now and then."

It is not there, whatever she is looking for on the far bank. It is not here, in the whorls and eddies that are closer to this shore. Not in the box of grapes, or the leaf litter around her messenger bag. Not in the shape of the King's bark-skin. Not in her fingerprint as it smooths over her jeans. It is not there, not here, and she is restless with wanting it, but Emily keeps that quiet (if not still).

[Owen Page] "No," he says with some degree of wistfulness about it. "It's not for me," He doesn't eat the sandwiches he'd made somewhat clumsily this morning. He had never been a fantastic chef, he'd admitted as much to her once, months ago, but he did try his best not to utterly shame himself. "I mean," what did he mean? He looks down at the water bottle in his hands and rolls it between his palms, frowning.

"I do want it, or I did," he laughs, then sighs. "But I wouldn't fit in there. The silent contemplation I could handle, but there are too many things," he looks across at her, now, and in the afternoon light she can see most clearly how dark and utterly blue his eyes really are. She can see why his resonance called to him, why it seemed that when he felt things they were so raw and so very alive in his gaze.

"Too many things that I'd miss." A beat, he stares at her, hearing the buzz of insect, the creak of trees overhead, the whisper and sigh of the leaves. The gathering breath of the Universe as he says, "I'd miss you."

There, then.

He looks away, down, raises a hand and rubs at the base of his neck. "The other night, I-I lost control. I shouldn't have yelled at you, I shouldn't have," he breathes out, leans back and shuts his eyes, brow furrowed. "I'm not sorry that I kissed you. I'm just sorry that I'm such a fucking mess."

Quieter, this.

"That I'm just gonna hurt you."

[Emily Littleton] It's not fair. It's not fair to make him wait for the space of so many heartbeats. It isn't, not when he's struggled to put forth so plainly what he has. Emily knows this, and yet it takes her awhile to struggle with her own worries, her own fears. To sort them out, to push them aside. She can't, entirely, put them into their places.

This place with its loneliness; it's all so very familiar.

Emily breathes in, holds it tight in her lungs, holds it in until it starts to burn, until she can't keep from letting it out in a tumble. But it doesn't tumble, no, it's controlled. Because Emily can (because Emily has to). She metes the words out, thoughtful, catious (fearful).

"I'm not sorry I kissed you either," she says. There, then. Some part of her wants to laugh, but it's entirely the wrong reply. There are pinpricks at the corner of her eyes, they sting, she looks away and smiles. It's shaded.

She is still, now. Oh, so very still. As if moving in the slightest would break this tentative peace. This hush.

"Owen," she says, and his name's a precious thing. It's cradled in the curl of her voice. It's uplifted, enfolded. "Love," she names him, and this is softer, it carries a knowing tone and a gentle regret. "If it was about not getting hurt, we would have parted ways a long time ago. When I came home from England, and realized that meant seeing you." She can't, just now, look over. Emily can't, just now, move. This is a terrifying thing, this precipice, and she's only just able to stand at it and look over into the chasm (look out over the water [look over to the far banks]).

Someone always get hurts. And someone always gets left behind. Emily knows this, but it doesn't stop her from trying. From hoping.

"I want you to be happy," she says, and it shapes an echo of a smile. She looks down, now, into her lap. And this is the sadness: She does not think that he would be happy with her.

[Owen Page] Owen's brow darkens as he contemplates her words. He twists, and draws his legs up so he can reach over and grasp her chin between the fingers of his hand; not altogether gently, but far from aggressively. He's never touched her in violence, and he will willingly put himself through the tortures of Hell before that day comes to pass but there is a need in the way he lays his hands on her now.

There's a intense focus so like the taste of his magic yet different again. This does not come from Prime, or Mind or any other Sphere of his learning; rather, it comes from the heart. Where Matter and Entropy had no place, where Life was born, in a manner of speaking.

"Hey," he says in a low murmur, "Emily, look at me. Listen to me." She can sense the earnest resolve in his voice, catch the beseeching warmth in his eyes as they scan her face, will her to believe it. "I don't know what will ever make me whole again. I live each day with the knowledge of what I've done and every day it feels like I'm rediscovering just how bad that can make me feel. I don't seek enlightenment because I think it's my destiny, I seek it because I want to know what happens when we pass on.

I want to know that Maggie went somewhere beautiful. I want to make something of myself because I took that chance away from her. I can't give up, because I haven't earned that right. But you, you have so much warmth, and love and potential. God, you don't even see it but it's there. I want to be the one who makes you happy, who shows you how to tap into that incredible wealth of talent you've got."

He breathes, this is a speech for Owen.
He's not sure he can stop, or the words may never come again.

Perhaps its the magic of the Court, weaving its spell over them both.

"But I'm afraid that I can't. That by being with you," he runs his fingers over her cheek, briefly. "I won't be able to do that. You make me forget, when I'm with you I forget there's anything else." He lets his fingers draw away. "That could be dangerous."

[Emily Littleton] Owen turns her face toward him and there's a bit of resistance. It's an innate thing, a stubbornness. He hasn't seen much of it in her, because it yields, like now, before she digs her heels in too firmly with him. The intensity he shows her is mirrored back, answered with the overtones of her own resonance, with her own drives and certainties. It's gentled by the other note to her pattern, but not excused. He pushes, she pushes back; they are well matched in this way.

His fingers start to slip away and Emily reaches up to catch them before he can withdraw from her. Her eyes never leave his. "I won't let you," she says, with more surety than he's heard in her tone at any time before. "I won't let you fall away from the things that are important to you. You tell me what they are, Owen, and I will keep you to them. I won't get in the way of them.

"I'm not even supposed to be here," she tells him, and the note of incredulity in her voice still aches. "This is my second chance. I begged and I pleaded and I prayed for Him to take me away, and He didn't. And every day that I'm still here it's because I have something left to do, some reason He wouldn't bring me home. I know what it's like to have something you need to figure out; I won't keep you from that."

She lets his hand go, now. She pulls that unrelenting push away. They're no longer eye-to-eye, blue-to-blue. She's looking down.

"You do make me happy," she says. Then frowns a bit and rephrases. "I'm happier when you're near. I don't feel like I have to be one foot out the door all of the time. I feel like it might be okay to stay, here, for awhile. To want to stay here, for awhile." Which is hard, for her, this girl with no true hometown. To put down roots. To think about tomorrow with something other than a vague unsettled-ness and a half-packed suitcase.

[Owen Page] There's a edge of bittersweet sorrow there in his eyes, around his mouth as she speaks of begging and pleading and praying to be let go, to be allowed to die. He's never told her, or anyone, even Nico that he'd tried a few times in those first black days after his sister's death to take his own life. To even the score, as he'd told the Priest who would become his Mentor at the time, his voice fueled with nothing but naked self-hatred.

"Does that mean you'll unpack those boxes?" He says finally, and if she looks up she can glimpse the tiny edge of humor resurfacing in his voice, in his gaze. He shifts his weight, and takes support in the overhanging branch of the King's fallen bulk, then he takes her hand and draws her near; enfolds her in the cradle of his chest, her back to his front. His voice speaking softly into her ear.

"There is something I wanted to tell you." He links his bigger fingers through hers, measures the difference in the span of them; all the scars and rough edges of his own. "I'll be twenty-four next week. On the 29th. I don't usually celebrate birthdays but I was told," there's a measure of fond annoyance when he refers to his once best and still good friend, "that I should start."

[Emily Littleton] When he asks her about the boxes, Emily looks momentarily confused. She looks up and over at him as if she could not possibly be hearing what Owen just said. But there it is, the curls of a smile at the edges of his mouth, the light in those dark blue eyes that she's come to recognize as his quiet sense of humor (and, occasionally, his not-so-quiet sense of humor).

There's a sense of wonder to this too, to the way this conversation has shifted. Owen pulls her closer to him, and Emily shifts -- and the grapes go tumbling (no matter) as they fit themselves together, her back to his front, his voice nestled in the curl of her ear, and the Fallen King bears witness to this all. Holding her, like this, he can feel the press of her heartbeat, know how it must echo in her ears. This is not what Emily had been expecting, and the readiness (the fear [the self-protective fight-or-flight]) has not yet fled. It leaves her slowly, bleeds out, sluices off her skin like water. Slowly. And as it goes she relaxes more into his embraces, lets herself believe for a moment that this might be real.

Her fingers are thinner than his, but still long and agile. They thread through his, hold tight to him, as if at any moment he might slip away -- she is not quite ready for him to slip away, just yet. (Don't go. [I wouldn't.]). A smile curls across her lips, and it shifts the shape of her cheek, the curl of her ear (so close to his mouth).

"I can bake you a cake," she offers, because cakes are for celebrations. For Seekings (I'm an Adept [carrot cake, cream cheese icing]) and birthdays, and the good times in between. Her voice is softer now, less pushing. Still somewhat surprised and unguarded. "I bet Riley'd throw a good party, too, if we asked," she says, not knowing the Vdept is in any way irritated with Owen.

[Owen Page] He doesn't want to think too hard on Riley, or Chuck [though the latter does make him inwardly wince to consider] or any of their Cabal or city Awakened ones. Somehow they seem distant, a faded and fuzzy photograph that cannot be truly focused. For Owen, such a stranger to these things; intimacy, pleasure, smiles -- the notion of asking others for anything makes his expression harden a touch -- though she cannot know it, nor see it -- before it softens.

This is not a defined moment.
He wouldn't know what to define it as, anyway.

"I'd like that," the cake, the baking of one. His chest gently expands and contracts behind her; as surely as he feels her heart through her body, she can feel the steadiness of his own. The warmth generated where their fingers are entwined, interlocked, he folds his palm over her hand after a minute. "I don't know about a party, though," he shifts a little against her; his jacket smelled like leather, his skin faintly of soap and some other undefinable scent.

"I'm not good with crowds."

She already knows that, she's seen him attempt them. Even though Riley and Chuck could hardly be considered one.

[Emily Littleton] "Okay...." She muses, thinking, trying to come up with some other suggestions. She is calmer now. That surety and steadiness he carries is slipping into her skin. It's warming, comforting, like the sound of his voice against her cheek or the feel of his fingers intertwined with hers. Emily leans her head back a bit, finds a comfortable place to rest against him. Her eyes are closed, now. This? This is content. This might even be happy.

"We could play basketball in the park," she offers. She's trying this word out, we. Just to see how it tastes on her tongue, to see whether his arm tenses around her or maybe tightens affectionately. It's just a trial run, this word. She isn't sure about it either. "I could make you dinner. What would you like, Owen? It's your birthday..."

He smelled of leather and soap and skin. She smelled faintly of jasmine tea, and lemon rind, and the air around them smelled of summer greenery and the pervasive humidity. The court was still, and the King was silent, and the little something Emily had hidden away in the box of secrets seemed so small now. So never-you-mind and simple.

[Owen Page] All of this might change when they return to the city. Once they step outside of the tranquility of the Court. This enclosed bubble where they have made statements and pledges and dug out truths from the other may fall away under the slew of things like responsibility, obligation. It may be tested by the thoughts and feelings of the others that surround them.

Owen Page has never much cared for the opinion of others, but he cares for the reputation of those he cares for.

His own would never be so grand or well respected as perhaps hers was shaping up to be. He was too brittle, too full of secrets and chips on shoulder and untapped rage that bubbled over at inopportune times -- Owen had made enemies of some of the Mages in Chicago, or at the very least, made damn certain they would never be close friends -- but Emily was liked, she was respected by some, and trusted by others.

It is all so very possible that after today this will disintegrate, blow away like fine grains of sand beneath the onslaught of the wind. For now, though, they can talk about things like birthday cake, and basketball and the tentative, shy use of themselves as a duo; as we, we can or will we and it's sweet, it's sweet and unblemished by his past or her own. It is a nurtured beginning; cradled and cared for by the Court she'd brought him to see.

"Dinner sounds great," he murmurs against her ear, his warm breath stirring the tendrils. "One of these days," he adds with lazy randomness, brought about by contentment, and the afternoon heat. "I'll bring you another chair."

[Emily Littleton] There is a great deal of responsibility on the shoulders of the girl that Owen holds in his arms just now. He likely doesn't know the whole of it; the weight she carries and the things she shoulders to save the rest of them from carrying it. It is a thing they'll have to sort, in time. It is a thing that could drag them down, pull them apart, and build them back up as separate people again. It will be a struggle, no doubt, but it's neither here nor now.

Emily breathes out as his breath slides over her ear. It is distracting, this nearness, but pleasantly so. The talk about birthday cakes and future chairs and it's all so normal, so simple and urbane that it tickles her. It curls her mouth further into an amused grin, pleased. Emily Littleton, owner of two chairs, she thinks to herself. Now who would have foreseen that?

"Mmmm," she'd meant to start off with some sort of word, but the thoughtful (thoughtless) sound comes out instead. It is the distraction speaking, no doubt, but Emily is less careful to pull that away and hide it from him now. So there is a small (pleased [warm]) sound, and then she tells him, "I'm considering a sofa." As if it is some huge commitment, life shattering, this. "I've blocked off space with painter's tape." She would, too, this planning, thinking, considering woman he's holding. She would block it out in painter's tape and leave it there for weeks, the forlorn outline of a couch-to-be, a space in waiting.

"Gregory's coming to visit," she tells him. Owen is the only person she's told. Perhaps the only person she will tell. And Gregory, the name, is spoken with familiarity beyond simple friendship. The name is not new to him. That night at Riley's, when they'd played monopoly (because Owen and Maggie used to play monopoly) and he'd had to share with them his victory dance -- that night, Emily had said that she and Gregory played chess. Gregory, who plays chess, is coming to visit, and Emily needs a sofa. "I need somewhere to sleep while he's here."

Because she will be giving up her futon. (This from the girl who would not displace him from his bed.)

[Emily Littleton] [... fade ...]