Godspeed, friend, and good night

[Emily] It's a warm night, almost insufferably so. The threat of thunderstorms looms, a promise, a storm as of yet unbroken. It's there in the thrum of electricity in the air, the restlessness of the wind, the directionless tumult. Sodden. Expectant. Anticipatory. There is a storm coming: mark this; know it. There is a storm coming, but it is not here yet.

Emily sits on the sand beside the lake. It is coarse ground, nothing at all like sea-sand. Further down the shore, around a bend and up the way, there's sand that sings beneath one's soles. It's high in quartz and the rubbing, the cajoling, the shifting makes it cry out. This is not that sand; it's not that sort of night. Her toes are buried in the dirt-sand, just up to the knuckle. Her arms are wrapped loosely around her upturned knees. With her hair piled messily atop her head, any passerby could see the shadow of bruises that crept up her back, surfaced from below her halter top. Still angry-dark, but no longer blue. They dapple her arms. She is shadowed, marked. She is darkened, and not only her mood.

The Singer-to-be is quiet, tonight. The water is dark. It swallows up the half-moon light. It gives nothing back, nothing back at all. It takes, takes, takes and gives nothing back. It is relentless, this stand-in sea. She can push against it with everything she is, every qualm she has, and it will remain unmoved and immovable.

The things she cannot give up to God, she can drown in the sea-sway, in the coming rain. She can find hope in the promise of Autumn, in the whisper of turning leaves, in the ruddy gold-brown tinge to the afternoon light. So she is here to pray, as much as she is here to challenge. And she is here to sit, as much as she is here to run.

Emily is here. It's a beginning and an end. She can't draw down the moon and she can't calm the sea, but she can name them both, know them both, and they are the same wherever she may be.

[Declan] Behind Emily, the slight scuff of footsteps could be detected. An approaching figure, and a familiar one by the feel of his fluid resonance. They were both creatures who were drawn to the water during times of introspection (and they both remembered a time in their lives when the ocean was in easy reach - though Declan's ocean was not so picturesque, and did not have such soft sand), but tonight, the drifter hadn't come here on his own. He'd been searching, you see.

They hadn't left things well, last time. The orphan's fractured and unreliable memory didn't tell him much, but he remembered the club and the bright lights and the music, and then he remembered waking up injured in Lincoln Park. Without Emily. Kage had told him that she was alright (as much as could be expected - there'd been an attack on the chantry-house), but he'd needed to see her.

And so here he was, following his own internal compass like a beacon. Like he was being drawn through life by a song only he could hear - which was more accurate than most might guess at. It was the same song that was pulling him inexorably East. Pulling him... home.

He sat down on the shore beside Emily. There was no violin with him today. His eyes trailed along her bruises, and he looked... sad.

"You're hurt."

[Emily] Emily knows what it's like to be pulled. To be lead along through an endless set of cities, comings and goings that never quite felt like home, subways and airports and bus stations and train depots and border crossings and passport stamps and, and, and... It is a lonely life, at times, but never a dull one. It's a sacrifice and an adventure, a blessing and a burden, but most of the time it feels like flying: weightless and untethered, with only the falling to fear.

This being earthbound and stable thing had its detractors. Sticking around long enough to be left behind was, perhaps, the most poignantly uncomfortable of them. And this was another goodbye brewing, just like the storm above, even if Emily doesn't know it yet. It's an ending, but let's not skip ahead too far just yet.

She glances over as he sits beside her. Emily's expression is distant, soft and remote. As if she has been thinking of far away fond-things, reminiscing quietly, not quite sadly. But Declan's sadness touches her eyes, reflects there; it seeps in and bleeds back out.

"They're just for show now," she tells him, but her breath is still held carefully in her chest. He sings: he'll see the shift of it, the way she holds her ribcage still and voices her words from her diaphragm instead. She's untrained, so there's only a few reasons to do this. Pain. Control. Projection.

"The worst is over," she tells him, gently. It sounds a lot like Don't worry, underscored by the gentle flicker of a smile across her lips. She's muted, weighed down, but not tarnished. Dim, but not completely un-shining.

"How are you?" The question turns back to him, seeks but doesn't yet push. She walks the balance better tonight, better here, with a broad body of water to moderate and measure her.

[Declan] [Per+Awareness]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Declan] The worst is over, she said, and although the injuries seemed superficial, he could see that she was in pain. A slight frown gave evidence of his thoughts, eyebrows pressed together in concern. He didn't attempt any interrogation, though. That was never Declan's style. When she asked him how he was, he glanced out across the lake and allowed the muscles in his face to relax.

"I am... coming together," he finally answered, somewhat abstractly. "There are pieces of me, scattered. I think I'm supposed to find them. I think I'm supposed to go home."

When Emily had first met Declan, he didn't think that he had a home. It was lost to him. But really, it had never been lost, just as he himself had never truly been so. (We find the things we need when we're ready to find them.)

"I'm sorry if... if something happened, last time. I don't remember, but I'm glad you're okay."

[Emily] [Last time?]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 6, 6, 7, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Declan] [Yes, last time]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 5, 8, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Emily] When he looked out across the water, her gaze followed his for a moment. It lingered out there fixed on some unknowable point in the inky, undulating darkness, and then traveled back the same path to scrutinize his features, the abstraction there, it's familiarity. Her smile shifted, canted a little toward reminiscing and regret. Emily nodded: understanding.

"Then you should go home," she said, softly. It's not so much that she wanted him to go, or that she needed him to stay. It was understanding, and acceptance. If he felt pulled, then he felt pulled. And if Declan was anything like Emily, the pulling could drag him to quarters, to distraction, and ultimately to leave.

He asked about the last time they'd seen each other, asked without outright asking, and it was Emily's turn to shift her gaze to elsewhere. She stared at the corner of a cigarette pack that peeked out of the sand. She reached down to run her fingertips along the ground, to leave loose grooves behind. Thin and largely parallel tracks. Markings that were neither answers nor idle.

There's an edge to the quiet, here, and only one like Declan might hear it. It's a little burr to her breathing, a gentle scoring to the shape of her words. She exhales and then flicks her gaze up to meet his again. It is steady (but it is not steady enough to fool him).

"I'm alright. Thank you. I'm ... sorry I ran off like that. I should have stayed to make sure you were okay." There's regret here, for leaving him behind; for being selfish. It says nothing of her pain or worries, these things have been overwritten by new concerns by now.

[Declan] Emily hid her emotions well, at times, but tonight, Declan was just a little more intuitive than she was controlled. He glanced at her again, and heard the difficulty in her breath - saw the tightness in her chest. He understood. But again, he didn't pry her open like a locked box. He let it be.

Well, not entirely. She wasn't the only one who felt regret.

With a gentle sigh, Declan leaned in and stretched an arm around her shoulders. It was a delicate thing - conscious of her bruising. He didn't hug her tightly, but the warmth of his presence filled her space, and he leaned his head against her own. It didn't seem to bother him anymore - touching her. "I'm sorry too," he murmured.

After awhile, he lifted his head away and let his arm slide back to his side.

"I'll miss you the most, I think."

[Emily] There's a moment, then, when his arm's around her still, and Emily reaches up to touch his fingertips at her shoulder with her own, slightly sandy fingerprints. When she exhales, as if some things she's carried could finally be set down, set aside, if only for the space of a few scarce heartbeats, if only for the time it takes her to exhale, inhale, and pick it all back up again. There's a warmth between them, a genuine and unwanting good will. She does not expect him to stay, and he does not push her to yield.

They are two halves of one moment, delicate and fleeting: honest. It might be the closest to honesty she's been since Owen left, since his key started burning a hole at the back of her mind. It's the closest to quiet she's been since Daiyu passed. It's the closest to safe she's felt since the club the other night. And it's free, unfettered and unexpectant; it's true, brilliant. He's leaving, so there's nothing to color it, no worries and no hopes. It is. This moment, more than any other in too many days, stands on its own. It is enough. It does not pretend.

Weightless.

His hand slides away, and Emily's silently surprised to feel the prick of dampness at the corners of her eyes. It does not ache, but there is still an emotional weight to goodbyes.

"I'll think of you, often," she tells him. This is deeper than a promise; only a Truth. It is Reverent, full of grace. It is gentle and unwanting. She glances at him out of the corner of her eye, where a wayward curl of hers frames him in stark contrast. It gives him a wavering edge, a place to cut himself out of frame. A whisper to walk out on.

[Declan] It was goodbye without being goodbye. And Emily left it for him to leave - to drift back out on the same breeze that had blown him into town a few months ago. Soon enough, he would do this. The expectation of it weighed in the air.

But first he looked at her and asked, "Can I kiss you?"

And there was so much that one could read into that request, but if Declan had tried to explain the impulse, he wouldn't have been able to. He was, and always would be, a creature that lived on the tides of emotion that ebbed and flowed through his awareness. There was rarely an expectation behind anything that he did. Perhaps, like the Ecstatics who some had attempted to push him toward, he desired only to live in the moment, and to experience a kind of deeper truth through the exploration of experience. More importantly, this was Emily, and he felt safe with her, and he might never see her again, and right now she looked pretty.

[Emily] For Declan, this was a parting with the expectation of returning. Emily never made that assumption. When she closed the door, it was always for the last time. When she left a city, she never expected to return. It wasn't that she denied herself the option, just that it was better to cut the strings and ties she had there. To not hope after definite outcomes in a sea of constant change. When her day to say goodbyes came, she would not be expecting to stand before the Cloud Gate again in anything more than memory. She'd set aside all claim to this stretch of shoreline. She'd leave the directionless and ceaseless winds behind.

For all she knew, these were their last moments together. Declan would leave tonight unfettered by Emily's expectations, unburdened by her hopes or fears. (Godspeed, friend, and good night.) There was a finality to it, but every good story came to an end at some time. Best let it be one of their own choosings. Best let it be resonant, and careful, and weightless. A blessing to carry, not a burden to bear.

She turned her face toward him now, and there was a faint echo of the laughter and playfulness in her eyes. It was gentled, not pushing, but resonant still. Wry. Unaching.

"I don't know," she said, mouth curling into a shadow of her usual wry grin. Maybe this is what he'll remember of her. One last cheshire cat smile. A smirk. A fish hook. A curl. A tangle. A touch. A kiss.

"Can you?"

An invitation.

[Declan] It may have been intended as playful, but the question was a valid one. Declan (not the fractured pieces of Declan, but Declan himself) had not even so much as attempted to kiss someone in a very long time. The thought of physical intimacy made his chest tighten with both longing and anxiety, most days. (Not unlike the way he'd once felt about violins.)

But he felt safe, here. And there was no expectation. There was only a sweet, sad goodbye, and an invitation.

He did not kiss her lips first. It was the corners of her eyes, where the glitter of moonlight tears hung suspended. He leaned forward and let his lips brush butterfly-soft against delicate skin, first one then the other, and tasted a hint of salt. Then he took in a slow breath, and it was not so much working up the nerve as it was merely steadying himself.

He smiled.

Then his eyelashes lowered, and his lips met her own, and it was a soft kiss, but not devoid of feeling. Neither was it unskilled (this was not something one forgot how to do.) There was meaning behind it, and there was soft and supple sensuality (he had been a sensual person, once). There was no hesitance or childish innocence - no suggestion that this was intended to be a chaste moment (because it wasn't.) And at the end, he pushed forward a little (remembering what it was to feel desire, even if just for a moment), and claimed the breath from her lungs. Then he pulled back (reluctant), and breathed, and his eyes shone like music.

A smile, soft and honest.

The shift of dirt and sand beneath his feet as he stood.

(He'd never wanted to stay somewhere so much in his whole life.)

Turning, he walked away.

Goodbye.

[Emily] She hadn't been expecting this. When Declan asked if he could kiss her, Emily hadn't been expecting that the gentleness of his lips against the corners of her eyes would only hasten the growing damp-bright there. She hadn't expected the pull of his breathing mingling with hers to be so magnetic, to pull the very air from her lungs, to lower her lashes in a flutter of something stronger than kinship.

She had thought herself too numb, by now, to be so moved. It catches her off guard, this sudden prick of intimacy, the revelation rushing in that she will miss him, that she will reach for his memory and not find him near. It's the pain of not knowing the bonds that form until they harden, until they shatter or break. There's a sensuality to them both, an unveiled and honesty intimacy. It doesn't borrow on tomorrows that will not come, and has no foundation in a past together to beg memory of.
Nevertheless, her mouth tastes of his when he pulls away. There is a slowness to how her lashes part, a heaviness (headiness) in her eyes when they find his. His shining like music, hers dark and somewhat stormy. There is a storm brewing, and it surely soon will break.

She whets her lips, presses them together.

He stands. Her gaze follows up him, until she has to tip her chin, until the precarious bundle of curls atop her head shifts, breaks free of the thin tie, tumbles down to frame her features.

He'd never wanted to stay somewhere so much in his whole life.

He turned, walked away.

Into the quiet he left behind, she offered up her Good bye. It's spoken, softly. Likely doesn't reach him. Instead it settles into the heel of one of his sandy footprints. It's muddled up with the coarse-ground dirt there. Seeps into the shoreline. Erodes and fades away.

Soon his silhouette is lost to the moon-cast shadows.

A few moments more and there's not even a imagined blur to where his outline was before. The Singer-girl turns back toward the sea, rests her chin on her knees. Her eyes are bright to overfilling; she blinks and sheds new tears to tumble down her cheeks.

She'll stay until her legs go numb, until the moon sets on the western horizon, until the storm breaks, until the winds change, until the wanderlust overtakes her, too. She'll stay, tonight, right here, because this is not her leaving. And when she, too, must rise to leave, she'll walk back to her flat with her arms wrapped around her middle and her chin tipped down to watch the pavement cracks as they pass by.