Before the Quickening [ritual]

Hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark.
-George Iles
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The Singer girl is a profoundly private person, one who keeps the windows to her soul shaded, one who keeps the garden gate locked down tight.  At times it seems there are opened doors, outstretched hands, offers of kinship -- but there is always some thing she keeps back for herself.  It will surprise no one at all when Emily lays the armband across her upturned palm, closes her eyes and bows her head in silence.

She is the least of them, in years served and battles won.  She is still new, rough-hewn from her Sleeper self and imperfectly formed.  God is still refining her into her new and argent self, shining and brilliant, like a silversmith mid-process, bent to His work.  And yet...

And yet.

There is a Reverence that stirs around her, that clings to her curves and softens her silence.  It stirs the vestigial faith that they all must carry: Faith in something higher; Faith in their own Wills.  Belief of the highest order.  It builds, consuming the stillness, the apparent inaction of what working she manages.

Emily is not able to draw down the essence of the moon, or pull unseen spiritual strength from the world around her.  She has to give only what she can carry, what last bit she has drawn in from the Node before being stricken from its access list.  She is like a beggar before a Prince: unburdened yet by too much majesty, too many trappings of ritual and ceremony.

There is joy in what they are gathered to do but Emily is not in a joyful place this year.  Perhaps that lends a necessity and a sense of immanence to the art.  She knows these dark depths intimately and how even the smallest spark of Faith, of Hope can hasten the journey back to someplace hale and whole.

And because this feeling is universal, because the ache is poignant for all of them, it is a thing that ties them together in their humanity. It is no different from the need for love, or shelter, or food.  Hope is essential, in the same way that happiness is.  Even a small measure can sustain them through great trials.

These are the things she thinks about while she holds that small strip of handiwork aloft and unmoving, the small things that call her back, that make her remember: the whisper of wind through autumn leaves, the chill of snowflakes on her eyelashes, daybreak, a blue-eyed Singer boy, the Manchester House, the way gravity seems to shift when a plane takes flight, a candle flame, laughter, coming Home.  And this is what she repeats, over and over to herself, while she weaves these small and oh-so-simple things as much into her own thoughts as the bracelet: just open your eyes. It's right there in front of you. Just open them, look around, remember. There's always something, right there, to hold on to.

When Emily raises her head and passes the bracelet on, when she opens her eyes and looks around, there is indeed something worth holding on to before her.  Her eyes are bright and somewhat damp, and she excuses herself before long to regain her composure.  The Singer girl is deeply private, and keeps the pathways to her heart like secrets, warded shut.  

She cannot stay too long, and does not wish to discuss her offering with others, but it has been given freely and of her own will.  She has a westward plane to catch, you see.  New horizons to explore and friendships for her future to cement.  Part of rising up above the conflict and the sorrow is keeping busy, and never keeping still too long.  She will move forward, and in moving forward she will move past this.  This perseverance is part of what makes her also Unrelenting.