[Emily Littleton] The rains have returned, forced bright splotches of green-yellow-red across the Illinois Doppler. It's humid but breaking, damp but rain-bright. The rain falls down on the asphalt, on the pavement, on the store faces and people faces alike; it falls down in the gutters, the sidewalks, the spaces between parked cars; it sounds out like a tympani on metal trash can lids, tap dances over soot-stained brickwork, crescendos against broken down cardboard boxes, fades away. It comes in swells, in sweeping phrases; it leaves vast silences behind to get swallowed up by the sounds of wet tires on wet pavement and wet shoes in deep puddles and all of this, all of this noise is the symphony of summer in Chicago.
Inside a store front on the Mile, visible through the broad plate window, a pair of too-tall-to-be-children are huddled over a half-height desk. One is rowan-haired, brilliant, lyrical and capricious. One is raven-haired, reverent, structured and sonorous. There is laughter between them, it crinkles their eyes, it ties up the secrets they must share with little bits of whispered wonder. This is conspiracy, mark it! Something devious is afoot.
A collection of grey blocks assaults the green-grass table top. Slowly they order the grey into lines, into walls and windows and turrets and gangways. Disembodied yellow heads lie in a ruinous pile, collected at one corner, divested of the primary-colored block-bodies. Abandoned heraldry lies, too, on the field of battle and ruin. Lost flags, forgotten, with no country to call forward in the minds of mortal men.
And there, a white horse, all rudimentary in its shape, trots across table. Frozen in tableau. Stands guardian over the wasteland that these two are rebuilding with such attention to detail.
"It has to have a moat," she says, imperiously, as if this is a matter of grave import. "It's not a proper castle without a moat, Kage."
Emily digs through the box for blue pieces, pulls them out, starts a pixelated tidal-wave-pile beside the collected skulls.
There they are, in the Lego store, acting like children half their age or younger. Arguing over the improbable blue print of a castle that would never be. Emily reaches up to push a rain-heavy curl behind her ear, tosses the other Orphan a broad and wryly canted smirk.
Outside the rain begins to fade again. She looks up, looks out, and then continues digging up water-blocks for the man-made-moat.
[K. R. Jakes] The brace of (awakened [Others]) too-tall-to-be-children -- both alike in dignity -- have been at the table in the window for a time. That time has been a long time. This can be deduced not just by standing to the side and marking the passage of time while they plot and plan and bicker and diplomatically decide that, no, the highest tower shall be here, and it isn't feasible to build an entire lego catacomb beneath the table, howsoever cool it would be, and maybe focus first on aboveground, and then if there are any legos left over and noone's kicked them out for hogging all the pieces - okay, then, that's when, they will begin building the catacombs, but the passage of time can also be marked by the dizzying ascent of the castle. It isn't just an ascent the turrets and towers and walls make; it is a crescendo (which is to say, it doesn't end; shows no sign of ending).
The red-haired woman (girl [lego-lover]) rests her chin on the too-small table for a moment. She is crouched on her knees and her arms are folded (sphinx) in her lap (prayer) while she gazes up at their Working. Contemplative, considering. Slowly, Kage tilts her head to the side so her temple is kissing a green lego piece and her cheek is pressing into the green lego grass (always greener). Her fingers taptap against one of the table's legs.
"You know," she replies, after a beat. "I think we should make monsters and angels. A castle needs monsters and angels, don't you think? Or what kind of sorry castle will it be? A very sorry one indeed. We can have a moat; that's proper." A concession, an amiable agreement. "There needs to be a moat for swimming and escaping in secret over. But let's make monsters and angels too. Big ones! With many wings and fire. And a sorcerer's tower, all lonely over here,"
and she lifts a hand, to move some potential-sorcerer's-lonely-tower pieces all lonely over here on this side of the table,
"with the skulls of those who've been too bold,"
and thus, some little lego-people heads, added to the pile,
"ringing its base. That's as important as the moat, Emily, and I'd argue more important than the secret exit in the back."
[Quentin Doyle] Monday is the only day that the pub is closed, every other day the doors are thrown open at 1pm and shut at various late hours depending on the day of the week/weekend. This is meant to be Quentin's day off, but he doesn't just work the one job, he has a second on the side that is far more draining then running a brand new business in the Mag Mile of as big a city as Chicago - which is saying something. It's the sort of job that leaves him lost in thought, in memories that are rarely his own but haunts him in such a way that he lays awake at night thinking about them. How can he not?
Today is the same. He had left the office and instead of going directly home, had taken to foot, walking the strip of sidewalk. It had rained on and off, leaving his hair darkly wet, the curls heavier with it, dripping droplets down the back of his neck. The shirt he wore under his jacket had its collar soaked and the jacket itself, a ruined open blazer, hadn't fared any better with the onslaught from the heavens, gathering dampness across the broad shoulders and the upper portion of a well defined back and chest. While the sleeves, rolled up to the top of his forearms, give the air of looking comfortable, he is far from it. Denim jeans may look good, but they do not favour the rain when warm skin is beneath.
The lego store has him stopping. He's gazing at the display in the front window of the store, green-blue eyes drifting over the colours and designs that someone had taken hours to painstakingly put together, piece by piece, like the two women over by the table. He remembers, fresh enough that it feels raw and cutting to the bone. Absently, his hand wipes across the back pocket of his jeans, as if ridding of an itch or dirt, fingers finding the denim dry there. After, the hand reaches for the cigarette in his mouth and takes it out. An exhale of smoke drifts from his nose in a sigh. Fingers flick the filter off towards the side, without looking away from the window front.
He debates going in.
[K. R. Jakes] [And this means an Awareness roll, right?]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Emily Littleton] [Awareness: Because Kage started it.]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 6, 7, 7, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Emily Littleton] Somewhere, behind them, on a half-height chair, Emily's jacket is draped so that it covers her messenger bag from wandering eyes, from grubby little (curious) hands. She's cross legged, on the floor, with the table sitting low to her chest. They are giants in this world of lego-men; demagogues and demi-gods.
"Definitely monsters," she agrees, placing the brick-blue margin of a moat out while Kage imagines the exact dimensions of the sorceror's aerie. "But I've had my fill of Angels for awhile. How about monsters and Fair Folk?" Shining Host, Sidhe. She counters with the names of creatures of fairy tales, things that come readily to mind when she's keeping company (keeping Court) with Kage.
Kage adds skulls to the pile, drips them out of her fingertips, rains down death. Emily laughs (heartless! cruel!) and agrees to the carnage, the ring-around-the-rosie, posie, carapace of skull-bones, possibly also of knuckle bones, undoubtedly with a few femurs for structural support.
And then, all of a sudden, her spine straightens. Stiffens. The Other, for that's what she is (and now they both know it) stills. There is a moment where the laughter drains from her eyes, all at once, snap-cold and clear and she turns toward the window, peers out it intently. Seeking. Seeking something already found.
She is looking directly at Quentin, and the hawkish note softens, the keen watchfulness yields (but only so much) before she smiles, and it is warm enough and welcoming if different (They are all three Different [Other]). It is eerie, this, because he has not so much as made a sound that might carry through the glass. Has not blocked out what little light comes streaming in to bless their castle grounds.
Her mouth forms a little [/i]Oh[/i]. It is surprised. This expression is surprise. And an odd sort of recognition. When she looks away, back to Kage, with that imperiousness and reverence all tangled up in the this-block-goes-here feigned decisiveness of moat-building, all she says is: "Incoming."
[K. R. Jakes] "You've had your fill of angels," Kage says, the cant of her mouth sardonic; "But not of monsters? I make note of this. In my book of 'later, this will come back to haunt you.' And I - "
A beat. Look. Kage's spine doesn't stiffen and Kage's shoulders don't rise. She certainly doesn't sit up (immediately [yet]). But there's a caesura; a pause; a natural (oddity) skip in language, and Emily says, Incoming, but Kage already knew that. The particular brand (fierce [dynamism]) of a New presence is already an ache in Kage's bones is a finger held against her pulse is a new tangle in her hair.
" - don't know if I approve," she finishes, sea-murmur, whimsy, and then lifts her head from the lego table, dropping her chin in the waiting cup of her palm and fingers. She turns her head, too; looks out the window. The window is still rain-rivulated, is still water-witched; there is a man standing outside, looking at the displays, and Emily is looking directly at him, smiling, and Kage is looking at him too for a second, studious.
A line appears between her eyebrows for a second, because he doesn't feel quite Awake, he feels like some Thing that is New and Different, but Kage is just an ignorant Orphan, so what does she know, anyway? Her expression isn't surprised. It's curious, and distant.
"Do you know him, Em?"
[K. R. Jakes] ooc: ack! that should read 'In my book of 'later, this sentence will come back to haunt you.' And I - ' etcetera.
[Quentin Doyle] He runs his hands through his hair, flicks water from his fingertips after and steps back from the window. Now he looks up, into the store proper, looking to see if it's crowded and populated with small children or spoiling parents. There are not many in there, though he spots two that are far too big to be considered children, crouched down by a table. He caught a glimpse of one as she turned away and he knows her hair, her posture, the way she carries herself, but the other is looking at him directly.
Through the window he holds Kage's gaze; for a heart beat and a bit longer. Then he's glancing away as he begins towards the door. It's pushed open to admit the tall and broad man, wet from the walk in a rain that fell, stops and falls again relentlessly. Without heading directly towards them he was taking in the store from his new angle, inside the air conditioned cool, where it's dry and makes him feel even more out of place. He was never a fan of Lego, not really. But plenty of young boys are. He liked tools and trucks and running around the street on bikes, like hooligans.
The blazer comes off, he slides his arms out of it so that he resembles something better then a drowned pitbull left out in the yard, tethered to some stake while a storm raged over head. He feels that way, it shows in the way he looks more weary then when he had last saw Emily; more like the time in the park around the time of a heated phone call. But he folds the jacket over his arm, loosens the collar of his shirt and begins towards those building castles.
[Emily Littleton] Do you know him, Em? Kage asks, and Emily's expression is fleetingly thoughtful.
"More or less," she answers, which is telling enough between these two. It's mused, as if this bit of resonant newcoming has her mildly perplexed. His difference is showing, it's rucked up and presented, all out in the open like plumage. Like hers had been at the park the other night, but only Owen had truly taken notice.
If Kage and Emily are out of proportion here, then Quentin hulks, looms large and ominous. They are speaking of monsters, and angels, and Fair Folk, of things Emily has had enough of for now, of thing she knows better than to bother wishing away.
Her curls are unruly. They're damp and broadened. Some have dried and wormed ringlets around the curve of her ear, through the links of the chain that she wears at her neck. The door swings open, ushers in the scent of ozone and wet pavement, the warm air eddies in around his feet, clung to his shoulders. The door swings shut.
When he reaches them, Emily looks up, all that very far way up to where he looms (because he is too tall to merely stand from her floor-bound perspective), to offer him a smile. It is playful again, but riddled through with serious things.
"Kage, this is Quentin. Quentin, Kage," she says. There are no titles or last names or Traditions exchanged, here, in the children's toy store.
[K. R. Jakes] More or less, Emily answers, and there is a brief and resonant hm sound, something kept (locked) in the back of Kage's throat. A bookmark laid on a page of a subject to open up at a later date, something full of muserie and reve; a beat. And Kage is kneeling, sits back on her calves, her ankles crossed, dainty, careless, bracing herself with one hand on her thigh (jeans [dark, water-splotched still; cartography of a storm, of a walk in the rain, of a mad dash from point A to point Zither], and she carefully pushes the pieces of legos into the table, the ones which will construct the base of the sorcerer's tower ringed in skulls, moving a little yellow head away with her thumb.
When Quentin reaches them, he has Kage's attention again. Which is, indeed, direct. Not bold and not challenging. Just direct, and thoughtful; even grave, but unreflective. Here, by the rainwashed windows; here, inside - her eyes are the colour of smoke; of gravemoss behind smoke. They're reflective. Her mouth quirks, welcome. She offers a hand.
"Hi, Quentin."
[Quentin Doyle] "Hello Emily," he greets her with an easy smile, however small tonight. This shows, also, in the light of his eyes.
He looks from one young woman to the next, and as she offers out a hand he carefully steps around to take it from her and shake lightly. His hand engulfs, it's warm, damp, but lightly gripped. "It's a pleasure te meet you Kage." It sounds like he means it, pleasant and polite.
Releasing her hand he takes a step back and glances over the castle that they had been working on, noting the particular details and how morbid it looks. "Wha' are you ladies buildin' 'ere?" Moving into a crouch that threatens to make his knees creak and pop, he's careful of where blocks and containers are or any other belongings.
"Whare's the barbarian hoard?" He see's knights and dead ones, but he doesn't see any band of rebels or the sorts. His mouth quirks as he looks between the both of them. The rain that has wet his shirt, his hair, makes him smell like water and cologne. He smells, also, of cigarette.
[Emily Littleton] What are you ladies building?"
"A castle." So helpful. Emily shifts around the table, so that her cross-legged stance is threaded around one of its legs. This makes more room for Quentin to settle where there are not sharp-cornered blocks, where there aren't baskets to up-end or skull-piles to disturb.
"He's a point," she says, eyeing Kage with mock-seriousness. "We are short on hoardes, and disgruntled populaces in general." Emily casts a look to the pile of skulls. "Live ones, any way."
She has not gone back to her moat-building, just yet. Instead she looks up at the man who has just joined them. That seriousness lingers, it is not pushed out by the warmth in her smile. Not just yet. It's as if she's studying him again, in some new, at it is not so well-veiled or carefully kept this rainy afternoon.
"How's things?" she asks, with a gentle note to that candor. It pushes, but just enough to let him know she's noticed. This weariness, this fray: she sees it. She doesn't call it forward. There is familiarity here, Kage might note, but not the same easy-friendship she has with her Other. It's uncertain, still growing, becoming. "Long day?"
[K. R. Jakes] "Give it time," Kage says, mouth quirking again; but then she adds, "Likewise, Quentin." Because she is a courteous creature, above all things, and courtesy lends her more poise -- or she lends courtesy poise. It's difficult to say.
And this is true about K. R. Jakes (Kage [Cage?]). She isn't shy. Maybe she was, once, but she isn't now. A castle, Emily says, and Kage adds, with a look for the dark-curled woman, "It may become a doomsday fortress, later on. A fortress against doomsday, rather than a purveyor of armageddon; it's an important distinction - yeah?" Her voice is easy; there's a note of wryness; not self-deprecation, but - sure - call it playfulness; call it irreverence (self-directed [and it's just a note: salt, to meat]). "Do you want to play?"
They aren't five years old. Kage doesn't sound like a five year old; she doesn't sound like she's full of nostalgia. She asks Quentin if he'd like to play legos with Emily and herself in pretty much the same tone of voice that she'd ask him to join them if they were at a coffee shop. "You can be the barbarian hoarde guy."
Now, Kage has never seen Quentin before. She notes that he seems weary, that he seems slow; she does not know if this is unusual (we're either born laughing or we're born crying [usually, the latter]), but she knows Emily's voice, the warp and weft of it, by now, and takes what clues she cannot take from the unknown (fierce [resonant not-Awake slumbering potential]) man from her.
Which is to say she lets conversation flow onto how-Quentin's-day-was, and she listens with the same courtesy she said Likewise with.
[Quentin Doyle] Tsking softly, and just the once, he shook his head a littlew as Emily references the dead populace sitting in the mass grave that they have built. He shook his head and informed her: "Ye know tha' the population 'as numbers on their sides. You gotta have more'n that." Glancing across the lego board that they're building on and nods towards the area. "A forest or somethin', let's go Braveheart an' Robin Hood." Typical Irish bloodied, playing on it, in fact.
Then, to Kage: "You betcha." The mass of his hulk shifts as he moves from a crouch down to sit on the ground. He folds his legs and feels rather awkward for it, denim sticking and he's much too tall and broad to fit here with the girls at the table, conscious of it as he settles down. "Fortress it is. I'm guessin' the barbarians aren't the ones bringin' the end o' days, they never are. By the looks o' it," this as he notes the dead lego men again, "the folks in the castle aren't lookin' to share refuge."
Emily asks him how he's doing, brings note to the way his eyes are pinched with dark shadows under. The tiredness is the sort after long nights and days, sleepless hours, draining of energy, of will. They both know it, can feel the lingering around him, not dampened by the fact that the man himself needs to rest, only heightened by the use throughout the day and the last week especially. "I'm doin' alright, lass," he reassures her, offers a smile with a gaze that tells her not to worry. "Just a long day an' cuttin' short on sleep is all."
Rubbing his hands together, he leaves his jacket to lay over his lap and searches for the spare blocks. His men. He can play this game with them. It gets his mind off some other things that make his heart heavy, fore it is. "How are the both of ye?"
[Emily Littleton] Not worrying does not happent to be among Emily's strongest suits. She is observant, at least on most days, and with that perceptiveness comes an engrained sense of responsibility to be gentle of what she finds, to treat it with grace and compassion. This is a goal, on her better days. Today is a better day, all things considered: It is brilliant in contrast to the month of nights that has come before it.
Quentin remarks that they have killed off too few of the commoners, and Emily, (cruelty [Grace] imperiousness) informs him, with nonchalance, that, "Oh, we're only just getting started." It's dangerous, the lilt that underscores that voicing. It's harmless, too, for Quentin is joining their play.
Play is a symbol. The lesson Ashley was trying to drive home on the previous afternoon comes forward. This castle, fortress, doomsday defense. These angels and monsters. The lives strewn beside it. It's a symbol, it's too close, it calls up echoes and she goes back to building her moat (for swimming through [for escaping over]) while they talk.
"Well enough," Emily answers. It is an answer-that-doesn't, just another step in their dance. After all, there's usually a reason for full grown adults to indulge in building block play, and that's usually not because they are masters of it, or employed to do so. "It's a Monday," she adds, as if that explains it all away, and it might. Given that Quentin has had what looks like a Monday. And Emily likes to imagine that Kage's Mondays are just that much more awesome than anyone else's, and yet Kage is rain-damp and smudge-streaked and block-building as well.
"We need Defenders, Kage, to keep out his hoarde. To sound the alarm. Readied, waiting." There were only so many little men in the box, enough for a hoarde, for the heads that rolled and would ring the sorceror's keep. Were there enough left to defend the fortress, though, was the question?
A question that, yet again, trended back toward things that she'd rather not face. All this talk of Symbols. Ashley had gotten into her head, muddled it up, made her pensive again. Emily frowns a little.
[K. R. Jakes] Physically, of the three, Kage is the smallest (slenderest [delicatest]), even with that burning red head of hair, waving as what was claimed by water is reclaimed by air, and fire breathes again. She is twisting a lock of hair around one finger, while she (apparently [seemings]) contemplates the castle and the yellow people heads and the half-finished moat. Apparently is not always true; what seems true is often a lie.
It is a lie; Kage is paying attention to Emily, to her moods, and to Quentin, to his moods. She may seem mercurial, Kage, but she has also been called steady, steadying, and - see? She never changes. "Excellent," she says, when Quentin agrees to join them. And also, "Don't let appearances deceive, Quentin; the folks in the castle are stodgy traditionalists, sure, but they might not even know the skulls are there. Not if they're all staying inside; maybe the barbarian hoardes put them there to gain sympathy from the undecided masses. Could happen. A forest would be nice."
And, Emily. To her, this: "We shall be the Defenders," Kage decrees, "And our Name shall be Deus Ex Machina. But only to use in an emergency, yeah? The hoarde should have its chance, shouldn't it? And I'll make a guardian Monster, something fierce and friendly, sarcastic and melancholy." With that, Kage starts to work, intent.
...But it's all seemings, again. She's still paying attention, for all she has the ability to multitask (grace [elegance]). "It is Monday; my eyes hurt from looking at work. You guys know how it is. But now I am meeting a new person, an aquaintance of Emily's, and that hasn't gone terribly wrong before."
[Quentin Doyle] "I don' think the hoarde would cull their own kind fer sympathy. They're hard workin' people, close, fiercely protective," he tells Kage with a little flare of passion behind the way he says it, with the way his mouth quirks into a momentary grin before he looks down to the buckets of Lego.
Large hands with careful fingers pluck out the new band of men, the blocks rustling softly as he digs through them to find what he can. Eyes downcast, searching, he listens them devise their plan. Only part of him is here. He's thinking back on somewhere else. Yellow men gather in the palm of his hand, cradled there as the pile of them grows. Symbols, all of it, when he glances down to his hand, ready to put his people on the table, it's a shocking visual reminder that threatens to split apart this facade.
He pushes past the way it unsettles him, and quiet as he is, he starts to set the band of men together with a leader just a pace in front. Lego is depressing, he decides. He never was one to play like this, sitting inside out of the rain, setting up little scenario's. It feels strange to do so now and not entirely pleasant either.
Changing subjects: "So are ye lookin' for some gifts for some kids ye know?" This seems like a reasonable question, and the most likely possibility of why they were in here in the first place. He could be very well off base and probably is. Then, with a back track to the conversation, he glances over to Kage. "Wha' sort o' work are ye lookin' fer, love?"
[Emily Littleton] It is something the rowan-haired Other says that lofts Emily's eyebrow and stays her moat-building. Pulls her away from whatever thoughts she is having (whisper symbol searching) in favor of pursuing the pointed not-barbs from the Orphan across from her.
We shall be the Defenders, Kage says.
"Well now doesn't that sound familiar?" Emily asks, lilted tone just short of sarcastic. It is knowing. She knows. (I see what you did there. Snarky. Sneaky.)
"Some of the stodgy Traditionalists look out their windows, Kage," Emily says. "True story. I've seen it." This double-speak dances is not quite so light but remains friendly. But she understands Kage's perspective; they are friends; they are playing.
But this is also a symbol. One she can change. She can build out differently. So the pile of skulls is collected in the palm of her hand, swept off the map while they're talking about Mondays.
"Mmm, Quentin, that's a good idea. Kage -- do you think Marcelle is too young for legos?" Emily asks Kage, clearly referencing a child they both know. There's a little pause, then a knowing frown. "Nevermind. She'll just pitch them," like everything else the toddler's hands find fast.
This talking around talking is wearying her today. Emily drops the collection of skulls back into the lego people bin. The heads roll past her fingertips like marbles. It's a little upsetting, as far as symbols go.
[K. R. Jakes] "Do you believe - or think - that the idea of 'fierce' is ever uncoupled from 'protective'?" Kage asks, of Quentin. He is speaking to an Academic, after all. They talk like this. In story, allegory; Kage more than most. Perhaps that's why the symbols (and, oh: symbols are true [they don't lie]) don't bother her. They don't strike a minor chord against and then all through and resonant within her muscle, sinew, bone, blood. They are; she notices them; she plays with them. They change; they mean more than they mean.
"And Marcelle would turn the legos into a weapon; I don't think she's quite ready. But I was initially looking for my niece," here, a rueful glance toward Emily, because let's dart into the lego store to avoid the rain and hey, Michaela might like some legos, turned into fantasy play at a table, while children wandered by, watched them build a castle out of plastic (rather than sand [it'll stand]). "At least, that was the excuse to escape the storm gods."
Some of the stodgy Traditionalists look out their windows, Kage, Emily says, and True story. Kage raises both eyebrows, surprised, and says, "When they build windows; I think we forgot to give them some. Luckily the castle isn't finished, hm?" A beat, and, Kage: she rubs the side of her neck, thoughtful, finds her pulse, presses. Says, "I just realized how sad I am that we can't build a burger out of legos and eat it."
A beat, and - backtracking, too. Quentin asks Kage what sort of work she's looking for, and calls her love, in that accent. That's whence the beat; a touch of nostalgia (of memory [other accents]). "I'm not. I meant I'd been staring at the computer screen too much; work, you know. It's a lot of words." Humor, gentle - but curiousity, true: "Why; are you a boss, looking for workers?"
[Quentin Doyle] "I think it's possible," just that. Nothing more is offered, just an acceptance of a possibility. Quentin is more then protective, less at times too. It comes in many forms. It changes. But he does his best to drive it to something productive and positive.
He looks between them as they talk of Marcelle and nieces, chuckling quietly at the mention of legos used as weapons, which he can see all too clearly, too. There's nothing for him to offer that conversation and so he doesn't. But this crossed leg position really isn't working for him, so he shifts a leg so his knee is raised and his arm is dropped over it, comfortable, manly. It squishes less, gives room where he needs it.
"At work." He had missed that crucial definition, and he nods as though apologizing before he continued on; gaze steady on the red head woman sitting over the other side of the table, smaller and more delicate than Emily but with similarities in the way she spoke, moved. Kage looks like a friend, more than Ashley appeared to be - he finds it hard to believe they are friends, Henri too - that strange woman clinking around his pub. "I am," he tells her, "I just opened up a pub. Always willin' to help someone tha' wants to 'elp themselves with honest work."
[Emily Littleton] Of the people Quentin has met that Emily knows, there is not a readily assessed common theme. Kage, Ashley, Owen, Daiyu, Molly, Henri, that guy at the end of the Bar that one night (he may have been blonde). The theme, perhaps, is that Emily knows quite a lot of people and those people, on a whole (Henri excluded), find the girl tolerable.
"Maybe I should give up babysitting militant toddlers and work at the pub," Emily muses, though babysitting was not one of the things she'd listed in her things I do introit when first they met. Neither was Defending, or hanging about with stodgy Traditionalists. (Lies of omission [Still lies, Little])
"And I don't," she says, chiming into the conversation, pulling it back to the undertones that spoke to the aura he carried. ""Think you can separate the two, I mean. It's a drive, like any other, deeply felt, primal. It's here," she said, pointing to her middle with the hand that is no longer filled with roly-poly heads. "Like Hunger," she adds, oh the double entendres.
(Like Her. [I'm Hungry; let's eat!])
"You said Burgers, Kage, that isn't nice. All I've had is coffee and some bagel leftover from lab meeting." Where there were meetings, there was also food. She places the flat of her hand on her stomach now, frowns a little. It is overplayed.
[K. R. Jakes] Kage does not know whether or not Quentin knows what he is (or what he can do [or what the world can look like]). Kage does not know if he is affiliated with a Tradition; if he is a craft sorcerer - if he is one of the sparks; the bright ones that do not burn; a flake of fire. Kage does not even know if Emily and Quentin have spoken about supernatural abilities or whether or not belief is true; what they are, what they might do. Emily might remember that Kage, of all the magi she first ran into, when she was new, just waking, did not immediately question her on when or why or how or what. Kage is a cautious creature, truly; and also incautious. It's one of those paradoxes she is very good at. It's one of those paradoxes that gets her in trouble, but also gives people the impression that she knows what she is talking about.
"I don't know if I do," Kage says, after Emily has chimed in; she is speaking to them both, equally. "Because at some point can't you forget? The original point; the origin? And if you forget," a pause, a beat, and courtesy again - "Sorry, Quentin; I like philosophy and tend to wander that-a-way if there's half-a-chance, whether or not it's given. Why do you think it's possible?"
That isn't nice, Emily says, and Kage shakes her head, mock woefully. "But Em, dear Em, I believe we have the power to find food. It is in our grasp; or at least, within our reach. Speaking of food, what is your pub named? Do you offer wages in pub fries? Because I would consider, seriously, leaving behind research for pub fries. Especially if there is vinegar to dip them in."
[Quentin Doyle] Emily disagrees with him and that's perfectly alright. They're all different. He knows all too well he can feel all of that without feeling protective, he can be destructive just as easily and worse. But he's grown up, matured, became wiser - or so he hopes.
With the talk of food, he's glancing over them both, brows raise as he considers being somewhere other then a child's toy store. If he really thinks about it, it's rather creepy. Sobering, thought, this. The barbarians are left on the edge of the grass, where he has stood them all up in a gathered group, and he drops his arm back over his knee, paused or finished playing.
"Why?" He focuses on Kage, watching her with a quiet seriousness in him. He's not always smiles and warmth. This weariness makes him older, like that fighting dog that still prowls his territory but with a bad ache of arthritis in a hind limp. For now though, he's still sated, and is thinking about steak rather then burgers. "Protection comes from a good place, fierce is neither o' those. It's just a drive, a hard, unrelenting drive tha' doesn't care which way it goes. It can be used fer harmin' or protectin' just as easily. It's an intensity, primal as it is," nodding to Emily, agreeing on that, "it still needs direction. An' so, I think it ye need to 'ave it to be protective, or tha' having it means tha' ye are either."
The mention of his pub has his mouth quirk, his sharper gaze soften. "Why don't ye come on by and 'ave a peek yerself. Tha' way you'll know if its to yer likin'. I'm na the cook, just the owner." He winks at her, sliding into a thread of that wamrth and humour again.
Shifting then, he seeks to get up from the ground, taking his jacket from his lap and tossing it over his arm. "C'mon then. A man can't stand idle while there's lasses tha' need te be fed. I can hear yer bellies growlin' from 'ere."
[Emily Littleton] It is time to go. Emily is unwinding herself from the play table, standing and making sure that no lost blocks are clinging or stuck to her jeans. All of them, then, had wet-and-drying denim to contend with. She gathers her jacket (a replacement [not yet worn in]) and her messenger bag. There is, likely, an unamused look from the store-keeper -- unless it is an adult, touched as these two are, with a penchant for playing in the middle of the day.
"One could argue, too, that Fierocity is a tool, and Protection the end to which it is harnessed. Harming or harboring -- that is a choice, the judgment call that makes it good or bad, assign morality and meaning."
There's a pause. She's checking her pockets for something (her phone [her keys] all accounted for), when Emily says, "Like Violence, it has appropriate applications and those that are worrisome as well."
Emily slings the strap of her messenger bag over her head, wraps her fingers around it. She looks between them, notices the banter that's slipped into their demeanors but passed her by this time around the table.
"Hmm." Just a small sound, then Emily shrugs. It is a thoughtful thing, but she doesn't linger. "Right, then, to the pub!" She'll catch up with them, soon enough, on the shift in mood and smiles. It's just been a thoughtful weekend for Emily, and there are more thoughtful days to come. She has a lot on her mind (like Mind, itself) and it clutters her up, leaves little room for clarity.
[K. R. Jakes] Quentin plays Echo. Unlike Narcissus, Kage is listening to his answer. Protection comes from a good place, he says, (love [ardor]) and fierce is neither. Ferocity does not care. Emily expands; says it isn't for ferocity to care -- it is for them that wield it to care or not; to use it for good or bad, right or wrong, and this is how Kage hears this conversation. This argument that isn't an argument; all just philosophy, all just shadows. Kage listens to Emily, too, and it is her turn to become pensive and grave, to become moonlight and vines. See? She pulls her hair, the waves, the unplanned curls, foam-coiled, back away from her face and her neck, gathers them at the base. A lock of what was bangs once frees itself, rebel, revolutionary, and falls across her left eye, bounces at her jawline, dances at her mouth, itches her nose, and she releases her hair to patiently smooth that one back behind her ear instead. Sacrifice all to get at the one. Or something.
Like Violence, Emily said.
Like Violence.
"We'd be poor, if it weren't for heart - and heart is passion directed; ferocity, a form of passion; intensity, a nuance - etcetera. We'd be poor things, I think; and all our choices would be very little." Then the red-haired woman, who is still on the ground by the table, has yet to make a move to stand, rests her chin on her knees. She's rocked back so she's sitting on her tailbone, so that she can hug her knees, all preparation for the move. "Well," she says, "If that's the best way to learn its name, I'm game. Lead on, MacDuff."
With that, she stands. Collects her bag, too. "To the pub," she echoes Emily, smiling at the Chorister.
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