#cole 01

Not quiet for a lack of residents or ambient noise. With every place she’s been to it’s always been a form of chaos, however big or small -- hearts swirling with emotion heard from a respectable distance, insecurities && joy && all forms of sorrow and yet -- there’s nothing. A ball of anxiety clogs her throat up, forcing through breaths more shallow and shaky than normal.

Where a car pulls up, its driver beckoning her in, this is the part where she demands an explanation. It’s the part where she balls up her fist and threatens, pleads or tries to charm her way out of this conundrum -- but Athena says nothing, instead, letting herself be chaperoned to what looks like her new home.

Cotes Ward. Isola. Names bringing a semblance of comfort that directly contradicts her apprehension of being so far from what she considers familiar -- she doesn’t recall that being on the US map.

Athena doesn’t enter the townhouse. Legs move her towards the streets, instead, slow and methodical as if in a trance. There will come the moment where she snaps out, becoming more proactive in her search of truth, but as for now --

  The hat is what draws his attention. Wide-brimmed and almost comically large. Rowen sits, and he stares, and there's something in the back of his mind, the pit of his stomach, that screams there's something familiar about that hat.

 Perhaps his brain is still racing to piece together all the new information he’s learned; and there is an awful lot of it, too, after all. Perhaps it’s because he hadn’t truly expected to run into anyone he knows in this foreign land. But still, it takes him a moment or two longer than he would care to admit, before the pieces finally snap into place.

Of course it is; it can’t be. His hands are slick with mistake around the knob; he digs them into the dirt, wanting to unearth a patch of grass and feel the tangled tendril-root system with his eyes. There is no door. It’s very sunny. The door has embedded itself into the wood of the tree; it sees itself in the twisted, blossoming ridges of the trunk. There is no knob, so it can’t be locked. It is locked, because it can’t be opened. It can’t be opened because there is no door. It can’t be door because he isn’t in the wood of the tree, he is sitting under it. There’s a discarded cluster of torn up grass next to him. The park is empty except for itself; there’s a child crying to its mother a few feet away to be allowed back to the conglomerate of ‘play’. Once it leaves it may never find its way back. If he was a door in a tree, he is certain he could help it find its way somewhere; but he isn’t, because there is no door. And if there was, it wouldn’t open.

He never once closes his eyes. When he opens his eyes, it’s still very sunny, and the sun is invisible below the horizon, leaving the sky a ground of colours multiple inherently. Yes...multiple inherently.

The children are all gone, and it isn’t alone in the park anymore.

He saw him before he saw him; but he speaks first.

“Hello.”

Klavier has come to appreciate early morning walks; the city is quiet when few of its citizens are awake. He doesn’t have to be at work for a while yet, so he takes a detour through the park. No destination in mind; it gives him time to contemplate things.

He’s pulled out of his thoughts when he notices something up ahead. Is there a person sitting in that tree...? His suspicions are confirmed as he approaches, meeting the stranger’s gaze.

“Ah, sorry! I didn’t mean to stare.” He’s seen a lot since arriving in the city; he thought he’d be used to surprises by now.

While they don’t do anything here, she takes pleasure in ritual. Her god cannot hear her here, not when she’s placed so far away, and on what seems to be another plane of existence. However, Requiem is a cleric among other things, and the habits of one stay with her to a near painful degree. 

The edges of the Church of Onoma are an odd place, though they remind her of some of the temples she has seen before. While not the quiet hidden places of Myrkhul’s temples, she can make this work. 

The bone aspergillum rolls in her hands, lacking the holy water or even the corrosive poisons she’d make use of from time to time. For now, it’s empty and a quiet reminder of all the things she can’t hear. There’s some comfort at least, in how this place feels like what she remembers, the larger temples she visited- unlike the basement meetings her parents participated in, pulling her along.

there was something about the great church of onoma that had left you feeling hollow. there were cathedrals in par vaharam, grand structures that soared to the heavens and swallowed up your prayers the moment they left your mouth, but--but those were built to honor the concordant, and you can feel no trace of your god in this place.

still. still. it’s better than being on the street, surrounded by everything you are too stiff and set to understand. if you close your eyes and sink your head down, brow pressed to cool tile, you can almost pretend you are where you’re supposed to be.

Abruptly, Katherine realizes that she may be being watched. It’s an uncomfortable, itching feeling that makes her skin crawl a bit. While used to it, she still doesn’t appreciate it, and fixes a smile that could be classified as kind on the other person. Thankfully, she has some patience in her, a particular mercy that is not always given out by her type. Nevertheless, Katherine is far more used to unwanted attention than she cares to admit. It’s a frustrating thing, the loops over her ears and the tubes in her nose.

“Do you have a question?” Her voice is sweet when she asks, though a glint of exasperation is in her eyes. Katherine intends to be friendly though, to keep herself contained. For now, she plays a charming illness, a patient mentor through most, if not all things. “I can see you staring, you know. It’s much easier to just ask if you don’t understand something about me.” 

fxrgottenboy

The elf made his way to his apartment complex, looking up at the tall buildings. This world was still managing to overwhelm him. It was amazing... Not that he would admit that out loud. He paused, his ears twitching when he heard a somewhat distressed noise.·

He couldn’t keep himself from trying to find the source of the noise. He knew that he had been quite stressed when he first arrived in this world. Perhaps the maker of that noise was in that situation..?

He stopped in front of the other, concluding that it was him. His hat was quiet large, so Fenris couldn’t look him in the eyes, let alone see his face.