you were a kindness ;

There are spring mornings, and then there are Spring mornings - less sedate than the former, more lurid in color and vibrant in air, certainly drier; these are mornings when the sky laps against your cracked window like a sea, and although you're not so fortunate as to be able to swim in it - well, there are other ways to drink it in, swinging legs over the right sides of beds, pacing steps down to the grass finally a nearly constant green...and, at the end, breathing deep and baring limbs to sun and the goosebumps of any sudden April breeze.

In Kairos, mornings like this (bright and early, or later but no less bright) tend to herald everything Paralia welcomes more bombastically (more festively, rather), explaining to urban wayfarers something dormant in them is waking as much as in their environment, their familiarly trod streets. The very tint of the sea always etched in the distance shivers off austere ice for an achingly arresting new indigo: for some time now, slowly at first and now with something like playful swiftness, green and blue have replaced grey as the hue of the season - and, taking her own apartment stairs back up one at a time only because she must, Lenalee matches in a sundress that wouldn't look out of place knee-deep off-shore.

The slight pink to Lena's cheeks is just another bloom among many.

Saturday's a rare day off for Lenalee, not so coarsely mundane as Sunday. It's a day more likely to see her at the cafe downtown rather than in civilian clothes, a light, charming presence leaning over tables the same way she now peers over the rail of her second-floor apartment. Uncertainty, mild if keen, outlines the path of her gaze to the apartment just below: sound travels up as easily as it does down, especially when it's of voices, furniture, where there formerly had been neither.

If Lenalee disappears into her home again, dropping off the mail she'd just picked up, door just barely swinging shut in the breeze, it's no permanent departure from the warmth of the day outside. If she emerges later, a little more flushed, carrying a basket in her arms that wouldn't look out of place at a picnic table, the ruddy hue fades fast as she takes the stairs back down.

The doorbell gives under her finger with a two-tone peal.

The traditions of Paralia come and go with the steadiness of the seasons, but rarely are they forgotten by the ones who practice them, who have had them passed down, gently, from cupped palm to careful hand much like Lenalee has helped pass out boats since nightfall - volunteer work she gladly takes on, if it will give others the chance to spread fortune and hope the way she feels like she does every year, on this very night, saying farewell to a solstice with a cast-off of her own.

Lena's day has been a tumble of hours, been a blur of color and sensation, dance and conversation - exactly the qualities which make the chance to rest her feet, kneeling as close to the water as she can get without tumbling straight in, a serendipitous respite. The water on the coast is clear, glistens even at night, with the moon to whisper along the waves like a mother watching over a child, for once, at peace. What tide might normally rise this close to the shore has chosen to lay low - something Lenalee, looking up from her work every few minutes or so, hopes will continue at least for a little while - so they can watch the vessels move towards the horizon, even if it will take far longer for them to reach it.

Every time she bends over her boat, a roughly made thing with just enough room (she's gauged, at least) for all the blossoms she intends to lay to rest inside, Lenalee takes a moment to examine (smile over) the memory she associates with her crown, her wristlets, her anklets, even the daisy tucked into her lapel. She lets further moments slip away glancing over the people around her, veritable clusters all displaying the same attentive perseverance (some of them, anyway) to their boats as she wants to lavish on hers.

Lenalee's limbs are slow, fingers tremendously careful, as she twines a last wildflower along the helm of the humbly slim, even awfully delicate, craft cradled in her lap. Her gaze turns, along with her torso.

"It's almost time...have you finished your boat yet?"

There's a hunger rolling out onto the concrete of the city, a carpet marked in red that doesn't call for velvet or for stardom - but for a different kind of sheen, the sort that comes along the edges of blades and bullets, and for a different shade of red, dyed in something no thread can create half so well as a sharp needle. There's a craving, an unsavory one, and only the unlucky (or the looking) find it underfoot.

Lenalee is more the former than the latter, a girl with bones bent to dance that doesn't involve weapons (not in this lifetime), when she steps out onto the threshold of her workplace and rounds the corner, collar turned up against a remarkably cool spring day and umbrella at the ready should the afternoon turn even more sour. She's had something crawling under her skin since the morning rolled over the mountains and into the city like a stranger from out of town, something that's restless, but not bristling enough to pierce through her normally calm, and certainly laidback demeanor. Her hands have lingered on every drink she's poured, as though it takes her more time today than any other day to take in the faces of the patrons she greets and serves, to read them for expression and for history the likes of which Lena is particularly fond of - because both remind her why it is she keeps her heart unlocked, like a mountain spring or sieve, ready for an outpouring of whatever it is her companions need. Lenalee is a responsive, empathetic girl, as they go, and to add pensive to the mix makes for a slower, maybe even somewhat serious three o'clock walk to the park than expected.

Most things are a little serious, of course, with bomb threats one day and gang violence the next; if Lena smiles through most of it, it's only partly because neither explosive nor criminal has sunk their teeth into her. A direct encounter with either would only give her more reason to continue, stubbornly, awfully stubbornly, just the same way.

So Lenalee curls her fingers loosely around the loop of her knapsack as her other hand trails along the flowers, prints left on petals as sweet as pollen if her temperament's anything to go by; she lets herself get distracted, walking the trail about the park's shallow glistening pond, her slim shoulders winding down like records after a long night spinning or the gears of a clock finally coming to rest. She allows this - draws down her guard, trades in her distraction for blind ease - just long enough for someone to take advantage of the opportunity, plowing into her side and relieving her of her possessions with what she senses is more cockiness than fear. It makes sense, considering how light and small and harmless Lenalee can appear, but -

Well, she isn't. Isn't harmless, won't just stand by.

"Come back here!"

Her exhale is harsh and quite displeased - a little frantic - as she braces, tightens, starts to sprint.

Cloudless morning. A blur of dark hair, brightly lined cloth, and a few flowers already pressing their scent to pale wrists all whirl through the milling paths of Paralia's spring festival with hardly a sound, darting between clusters of friends and more solitary explorers alike - the paths between booths are no challenge for such light feet, although they do nearly stumble once, to their owner's dismay. They at least pick themselves back up just as quickly, with a bit of a stubbornness added to the gait as Lenalee flicks her gaze to her watch one more time.

She hates to break promises; she hates even more to fail to be there, even for a casual meeting. It's more than that - it's an occasion to make good on all the hard work they've put in, to enjoy themselves doing what they love in a place and at a time where no one will question it. Lenalee would be lying if she didn't say she wasn't looking forward to it...and if anything says it so clearly as she wants it to, it's the way she moves through and around the crowd, dark eyes darting about looking for someone who stands out among the rest.

Her shoulders perk up after just a sweep of the square.

"Oh, I'm so late," she frets, at least a few yards before she actually reaches Brady - but by then she has a smile to offer, and a blush that's only half the exertion of jogging the last few minutes, as she touches Brady's arm and bows, posture utterly contrite.

"Have you been waiting long...?"

The clock makes clicks in time with her breathing. The clouds come and go in tune with the rise and fall of her chest.

Daylight glimmers across rows of four and five, flat cedar and cheap oak lit up in golds and brassy browns from one end of the classroom to the other, as Lena shifts in her sleep, hair sprawled equally as finely as the sun across her desk. Highlighted so, her skin looks pale, her hair almost more blue or green than inkwash black - and yet in spite of both features, Lenalee looks peaceful, feet crossed at the ankles, and so much of her skin warmed by the light.

Perhaps that's why no one had woken her up to leave after she'd finished her exam...only wheedled the sheafs of questions and answers from underneath her curls and crossed arms, and not even roughly at that. Perhaps they'd assumed she'd wake on her own, and that she was a harmless enough girl to let be; perhaps they'd taken pity on her, or someone had mentioned she'd had a very busy night studying for that very test. But at the click of a door across the hall, or perhaps even the one belonging to this very classroom, Lenalee finally stirs, one dark eye peeking out as she turns her face to the side rather than lift it from the cradle of her arms.

Spring's arrival bears down on the cities by the sea with the charisma of a society debut, dazzling and remarkable in spite of all the times a thing just like it, swathed in green and fickle gaiety, has sashayed through urban streets. Each wind unfurls like the hand of an eager partner - each whistle of birdcall deems the rise of warmth, the stirring of flora and fauna, and the disappearance of snow and hard slick ice all an occasion to celebrate. And if Kairos as well as Paralia calls for festivity, sprawled along the grass and glistening beach like yet another laughing girl met by her vivacious debutante companion, well - who is Lena to still her feet in the midst of what feels like every other person leaving their home behind to admire the light, the air, the vibrant color and life? On her way to school, on her way to work, her steps have an extra swing to them, a budding energy only somewhat sated by a job spent constantly on her feet. Most people at school she knows at school like to walk or bike instead of taking a train. More and more people fill the sidewalks, clusters of life murmuring and milling around one another under a benevolent sky. When spring heaves itself onto land, hungry and pliant at the same time, when it comes after its cold sisters fall and winter with a light dance already in mind, as it passes from tree to tree, bloom to bloom, Lenalee answers...although, she admits, even she tires a little of the pollen. This day, however, is kinder, a blessing for a girl just dismissed from work early, urged as she'd passed through the door to enjoy the daylight while it still lingered. A breeze rises occasionally, sometimes tempting Lena to stop to enjoy it, and even when the air is still it's clear. Her walk home is mundane, with only a detour through one of Kairos' many parks detracting from her normal route. Only about fifteen minutes from her apartment does a noise cut through the air and the low, ever-present thrum of Kairos proper, prompting the swift turn of Lena's head. A surprised exhale, a galvanizing inhale, and Lenalee draws closer to the tree at the edge of the lawn proper, chin tipped down and then up in the same direction as her gaze. She squints, puts a hand to her brow to block out a suddenly too-bright sun. "Oh," Lenalee says, in a way that would be followed by "no" from any other person. But Lena isn't one to keep "no" in her vocabulary, not normally, and not when some poor thing seems to be very nervous about making it back to its nest on its own wings and talons. Lenalee's expression is nervous, questioning, although not quite hesitant as she whips her gaze to the street, to the house closest to the tree.

The change in season always seems to bloom overnight, much like Lenalee's simultaneous longing for her lazy, loving hometown

Paralia's treated her kindly in the years past, a mundane haven far enough from the sharp roar of Kairos' tightly wound boulevards that she feels rocked rather than jostled by the city's sedate rhythm; Lenalee recalls childhood summers at the water (or in it) in the same sweep she can imagine, fingers lacing into a curve the same angle as her mouth, the harsh chortle of cloudbursts and the running steps of other children. Every time Lena comes down from Kairos, all she needs to do to shed her city girl gait is pass by her old house - still empty, she notes each spring, although not yet due to be torn down - roof half red and half rust brown, depending on where the sun's eaten away the paint. It's on the way, always has been, to where the bulk of the Spring Festival sprawls and curls along the coast.

It's on the way, and this morning, so is Lenalee.

The traffic in the direction of the coast ebbs and flows as men, women, children, and quite a few others all move towards the festivities or away, depending on their mood. Lenalee's first ten minutes walking grants her several companions, two of which she promises enthusiastically to meet later at the celebration proper - perhaps with enough time to trade flowers, if their heads and wrists and necks aren't all terribly burdened by their second communion. After that, the number of people taking the footpath slowly lessens, at one point leaving her the only content face peering about, drinking in every visible inch of Paralia's countryside. Lena's pace adjusts accordingly, slowing to a rambling meander, willingly stopping often to take in scents and run her fingers over petals, and even gently plucking one or two to give away if she can later.

Soon, however, both her pace and the number of others on the trail pick up; she nods at a few she knows, even ones she doesn't - and it's then, tipping an invisible hat towards someone she recognizes from school (only by face, and he's not alone, otherwise she might strike up a conversation), that her shoulder collides solidly with someone she hadn't taken notice of at all.

"Oof," a stumble that Lenalee only barely manages to prevent from becoming a fall, and Lenalee is steady again, having tried to grab at the other person (to support them both) in the process.

"Are you okay?" she asks, fingers perhaps still curled around the other person's elbow. She almost makes it to another apology - but that's before Lena's dark eyes cast downward, and subsequently widen at the same rate as the soft 'O' of her mouth. A sound of distress peals out.

"Your flowers!"

Lenalee wastes little time in falling to her knees, doing her best to salvage what's left of her companion's lovely petaled crown. Stems capped with the same hue of red as her cheeks bunch up in her hands, even breaking the skin of her left hand - but the Lee girl hardly seems to notice.

✔: What got me into roleplaying