Honey & spices (paused)

[Emily Littleton] There are few things in Emily's life, just now, that take precedence over a phone call or message from Nico saying he's been released, against medical advice or otherwise. Office hours at the very tail end of the semester is not one of them. Much to a few freshmen's dismay, she cancels hers and heads for the Park instead. No doubt her department has noticed that she's not the most diligent about her teaching responsibilities outside of mandated class times, but it hasn't endangered her fellowship. Yet.

She's gotten her winter coat out of the closet now; the first snowfall ushered it back into her rotation. It's heavy, wool, with warm pockets. There's something hidden in one of those pockets, just now, that keeps a corner of her mind pre-occupied.

Emily's messenger bag is slung, shoulder to hip, like aways. Her gate is a little slower, but not overtly burdened. The snow falls, so she bows her head a little to keep it out of her eyes. Her scarf, today, is a pale pink. Her jeans are a dark blue. That's pretty much all he can tell about her when she finally finds him.

"Hey," she says, first, looking him over pointedly. "How are you?"

It's a perfunctory question, but there's warmth behind it. A genuine regard. Some might call it caring. She's no caretaker, but her friendships are meaningful, they're resonant, they're important. There's no crushing hug, not immediately, but if he shows signs of wanting, needing, or even being open to an embrace, she'll hug him. One armed, and not too intimately. But hugs are good. Emily's beginning to recognize their merits. Hugs are rather good things, indeed.

[Nico Brady] According to the text message Emily received at some point in the last seventy-two hours, Nico was released Monday morning [with no mention of whether or not it was with or against medical advice] and returned to work this morning. It's the first of December, an entire month after he was supposed to return to work originally; somehow he wasn't able to do so when he'd been in a motor vehicle crash that left him in the ICU for over a week. Imagine that.

It started snowing today, the vast majority of the Northeast and Midwest thrust into a scene that is either a peaceful winter wonderland or a version of frozen Hell depending on who one decides to ask. Back home in South Dakota they would likely be under two feet of snow already, and the wind that whips across the plains is just as horrible as the wind that comes screeching off the lake at intervals. God knows why Nico wanted to meet at the park. There are restaurants and coffee shops around here, and it's within walking distance from the halfway house that so graciously allowed him to return to his position after being absent for four goddamn months.

Nico's left arm is still in a sling, despite his protests and assurances that he's fine, really, he can move it. This makes wearing a coat somewhat difficult. He has a knit ski cap pulled over his head and a gray parka half-assedly situated on his torso. His right arm is through the sleeve, its hand holding the other half closed across his body. What she can see of his lower half suggests that he is scheduled to work today: he has on sturdy shoes and khakis.

They find each other eventually, snow falling in a hush around them, and Nico smiles. She had noticed this the last time she came to visit, that the pallor and glazed gaze were gone. He looks healthy, even if he has lost some weight over the last month. That smile isn't forced. He hugs her one-armed not out of restraint but because that's all he has at his disposal.

"Compared to last month," he says, "I really can't complain. How are you?"

[Emily Littleton] He's doing better, and not just because he's no longer confined to the same ward, the same grey-shaded walls. Damn the snow and the traffic jams it's causing, Nico is smiling. That's enough to warm up Emily's afternoon, at least by a few degrees. Progress is progress. She'll take what she can get, these days.

"It's good to see you out and about again," she tells him, in the midst of that hug. It's a warm sound, genuine. He can read her well enough to know when she's evading, and when she's not. That it's good to see him is truth.

The rest of this? Well...

"I'm good, thanks." She smiles. It's warm enough, there's even some ember burning at the pit of her stomach that keeps her a little more vibrant than usual. That it's controlled frustration, well, who's really counting just now? "I went home over Thanksgiving. It was good to see family."

When they separate, Emily's hand reaches into her pocket. She wraps her fingers around the small vial there. The Singer swallows back something, not ready to share it just yet. Not sure how to. Thankfully there were customs to keep, helloes and how are yous, polite things, before the quiet descended too clearly.

And she kept looking at him, the way that people look at friends who've been gone too long, or people they didn't expect to get back from death's doorway. With relief and happiness and a little guilt. Emily tries to school this away, but it lingers.

[Nico Brady] If he's processed the fact that he almost died, that if that creature had hit him an inch closer to midline or the swipe had gone horizontally instead of vertically he would have bleed to death or been decapitated, Nico hasn't spoken to anyone about it. Beyond telling Ashley that he was scared, in the midst of a medication haze, he has kept his feelings or his worries to himself. Somehow even though he was the one confined to a hospital bed, he couldn't fall apart in front of Owen. Too many memories and fears were brought up for the Singer. He thought of Maggie nearly every time he saw Nico in that hospital bed, full of tubes and dead-eyed.

(Owen can't stand that Nico keeps things from him, but the counselor can't bring himself to tell his best friend that he keeps things from him because he doesn't believe he can handle them.)

They separate, and when Emily looks at him, Nico can see, even in the gloom and gray of the afternoon, that there was a decent chance he wasn't going to survive in the first place, let alone recover. His eyes search her face, but he comes up with no proof that she is trying to affect an emotion that she doesn't feel. The cold has his cheeks flushed with blood.

Still, he asks, "What?" Prompts her to explain the expression on her face, the guilt that's visible underneath the more positive emotions.

[Emily Littleton] They have something in common, then, in the things they keep from Owen. Emily's lost track of the things she hasn't told the other Singer about; she's stopped expecting that she someday would. The last time they'd really talked had been his birthday, and now hers was only a handful of days away. Things had changed.

Emily rolls her lower lip between her teeth for a moment, then draws a hand out of her pocket. There's something small and red hidden behind her fingers, and this thing is pressed into his good hand. It's a small cut glass vial, with a cork stopper. If he moves it, there's the slosh of a thinly viscous liquid inside. It smells strongly of cinnamon and spices: chai.

"I wanted to get this to you sooner," she says, and that's the guilt in it. The Wonder she's surrendered is nothing more than a healing charm, but it's taken her time and a great many favors to craft it. She'd learned new Arts, to be able to bring this to him. And it is still too late, in Emily's estimate. "I had no idea how long it would take me to make."

She breathes out a little, and her cheeks are faintly pink, from more than just the wind. Emily digs in her messenger bag for a thermos -- it's the only way she's found to keep her drinking water at a comfortable temperature in this cold and with her penchant for being out doors.

"If you focus, not just your will but also part of your essence, it should help with the rest of your hurts. I've water for you, too, since it'll taste a little like tree bark."

Israel used honey. Emily used the spices she associated with warming the body and conviviality. Between the two of them, someone was going to choke on a healing charm one of these days.

[Nico Brady] Nico doesn't react, overtly, to the appearance of the vial. She had mentioned wanting to craft such an artifact the last time she had come to visit, but he had not been banking on it any more than he had been hoping that someone would descend from high above--or make the trip from the Chantry in the North Side to the hospital in the South Side--to mystically heal him of his injuries. It wasn't exactly his fault that he was in this mess to begin with, unless one would care to argue that he and Owen could have run, or that he shouldn't have stood in front of his best friend just because Owen had a broken wrist in a cast, or that there were any number of things he could have done differently.

Hindsight turns out to be more of an annoyance than anything else. Turning back time isn't impossible--just costly, and difficult, and more likely to cause irreparable damage rather than the intended good. He hasn't been dwelling on what happened. It happened, and so far as he's aware the creature is still out there doing Christ knows what. Whether he intends to go after it he hasn't said, but what got them into that mess in the first place was his refusal to just leave it alone.

When it comes to him, Nico takes the vial, tilting it to examine the contents. Emily explains that she didn't know how long it would take, and Nico frowns, more out of sympathy or forgiveness than consternation.

The tourist season is just about over, at least insofar as trips to the park go. There are very few people out here today. It's too damn cold for most hot-blooded creatures. Nico chews the inside of his mouth as he thinks.

"Is this going to get you hit with backlash?" he asks, lifting the vial for demonstrative purposes. The wind tugs at the unsecured half of his jacket.

[Emily Littleton] "Probably," she concedes, but Emily has never crafted a charm herself by now, so she isn't entirely sure. She shrugs a little, as if it's not a thing worth worrying about. "I've already taken some, so don't worry about it."

Nico wasn't there when she pulled herself out of the Node room, still reeling from the bruises that blossomed down her left leg. Thankfully, no one was there to see the Singer hobble-step to her car. And gratefully, she has an automatic and could still get herself home.

Who knew that being His instrument would result in so many purple-blue reminders of her own human frailty? Emily has had her share of Dox this year; backlash no longer frightens her. Not unless she's doing something wildly fantastic; that's largely out of her grasp, just now.

"You may as well, but if it's like what I took before, it'll be bruises and inconvenience. Which is still a step up, right?"

She's encouraging, here, but would understand if he wanted to take it later. Or somewhere less public. Emily has no sanctuary to offer, no way to shelter them from Dox's far-reaching hand.

[Nico Brady] [Pause, yo.]

[Nico Brady] [PARADOX IN YO FACE]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 1, 5, 7 (Failure at target 6)