Love Defies Death

    Sometimes Yusuf gets distracted and seems to disappear. Every once in a while he’ll stop and look at the sky or leave some half-spoken words of explanation behind as he wanders down an ally he finds interesting. Nicolo follows, he waits, and he watches as Yusuf searches for whatever it is he’s  trying to find. Sometimes while they’re wandering down winding backstreets Nicolo will lose track of where they are because he’s too busy trying to see what Yusuf is following. Yusuf certainly doesn’t know where they are either.

    Nicolo doesn’t like being lost. He’s found that it generally invites unpleasant situations or at the very least unwanted encounters. That’s not to say that he doesn’t like to interact with unexpected people - in fact interactions with strangers are one of Nicolo’s favorite things. The sudden camaraderie of two people sitting next to each other who previously never knew each other, or even the breezy acknowledgement of two pedestrians as they pass each other remind him of the beautiful connection that all humans have. But being lost just leads to confusion and frustration in his experience. He can’t imagine where Yusuf could possibly hope to end up.

    “Where are you going?” Nicolo’s question is matter-of-fact, not stern or pleading. Yusuf turns as if he’s genuinely surprised that time has passed and nods.

    “Oh, I don’t know yet,” The answer only confuses him more. Yusuf’s face brightens with that smile that lights the whole sky, though, and suddenly it doesn’t matter so much where they are.

    The rest of the walk they are silent. Nicolo has no issue with this - he loves quiet. Eventually they stop at a small dock where an old rowboat sits tethered, the rope weathered and fraying. He stands a few paces away and watches as Yusuf sits. The man looks otherworldly, framed by the light of the moon peeking from behind the clouds as familiar scents of the sea tease at Nicolo’s memory. Neither know how much time passes as they remain. Each is lost in his own moment.

    Once they’re finally back in the comfort of their room Nicolo looks at his love curiously.

    “Where were you?” He thanks all the heavens for the laugh lines that appear when Yusuf smiles.

    “Who can be sure?” His tone is sarcastically mystic and it elicits a huff of laughter from the Genoan. 

                                                             ***

    The poem sits on the windowsill by their bed. Nicolo has read it many times. Yusuf is still asleep, but Nicolo woke an hour ago only to find it bathed in the early-morning sunlight by the bedside. 

Every so often

Let me be lost

For there is so much joy in finding

Let me search for words

Live in mistakes

Lurch

Stumble overboard

Give me time to float

Buoyant 

on a moment

Breath hanging

unattended 

Left out to dry

Maybe I’ll find a song

On my way back to you

    “I enjoy being lost sometimes. You don’t have to be lost with me if you don’t, though.” Yusuf has been awake long enough that the sleep has cleared from his eyes. Nicolo must have been so immersed in his words that he hadn’t noticed. There’s a very present edge to Yusuf’s gaze now and Nicolo can’t look away. The kind of smile that spreads slowly across Nicolo’s face washes over him.

Quynh focuses best when she breaks things into small, deliberate actions or tasks. When something is too big it can get muddled in her head and so she puts it all together into a precise order of events instead of one giant task. She glides through these things flexibly and with spontaneity in some instances and with meticulous detail in others. In battle she’s extremely good at quickly altering her motions and changing her plans. If she’s creating something, though, she likes to break it down into small, detailed pieces and take her time making sure the details she set out are fulfilled. Having things broken down like that allows her to choose her words and actions very carefully when she wants to but retaining the flexibility lets her let go and simply have fun when she feels safe to do so. 

Nicolo flirts with hyperfocus. Sometimes he does more than flirt. He focuses best in quiet but is quite capable of tuning out noise to make his own quiet. Whether he’s seated behind a sniper rifle for four hours straight or disappearing into the comfort of a book, he works best when he’s able to deeply dive into the thing he’s focusing on and give it his whole self. In battle it serves him to work with Yusuf and the others because they give him an anchor point for his focus. He very rarely gets into that zone of hyperfocus that’s difficult to break - generally it’s only when he has the family around him and can trust that he’s safe. Yusuf likes to draw him when he’s deeply focused. 

Yusuf focuses best when his senses are stimulated. Scented candles, places to sit with interesting textures around for him to feel, the unobtrusive sounds of traffic or the rain or his family’s idle chit-chat, the tart zing of a sip of juice or the warm spice of tea - these are all his friends. Especially things to feel. In battle the feeling of his weapons in his hands and his feet grounded on the floor help him to zero in on his surroundings and the pain of an injury is more focusing than distracting now that he’s used to it. In drawing the feeling of the paper against his hands is enough of a touchstone to bring him into it. Sometimes Nicolo, who works best in the absence of that stimulus, will joke lovingly that he thrives in chaos.

Booker gets pulled around a little - and that’s what works for him. He applies a sort of devil-may-care kind of focus to the things he does. One moment he’ll be entirely in forging a document and the next all his attention is devoted to the bet he made with Nicolo and then it’s briefly the sound he heard outside before it’s back to the forgery again. It may seem from the outside that he’s multi-tasking like Andromache but in reality he’s just really adept at rapidly switching his focus. This serves him very well in battle, especially with his haphazard sort of fighting style. A good portion of his focus, however, is taken up by avoiding/dwelling in/attempting to process his feelings and sometimes it makes it difficult for him to get things done.