Participants:
| Scene Title | Fireflies |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Colette and Tamara spend time together in the twilight before the end of the world. |
| Date | January 27, 2009 |
Le Rivage, Judah and Colette's Apartment
The tenant of this small studio could probably afford a larger space on his budget but, judging from the unique style of his decor, seems like the type of person who would rather spend his money on other things. Several Ansel Adams prints in black and white are positioned strategically throughout the room, stark against the studio's walls which have been painted a light beige colour to lend the area just a hint of warmth. Through the use of furniture and built-in shelving units, the apartment has been divided into three distinct sections: one for cooking and eating, one for relaxing, and one for sleeping.
The kitchen is a barebones affair with outdated tile floors that contrast with the stainless steel appliances and glass backsplash. It also contains a tiny eat-in nook with a circular table, two matching chairs and a plain white tablecloth held in place by a potted jade plant at the center of the arrangement.
The living area consists of a dark leather couch, a matching armchair, a zen-style coffee table that sits a mere foot off the ground and — the centerpiece of the apartment — an entire wall of bookshelves that house several hundred different titles ranging from such classics as Crime and Punishment, Heart of Darkness and The Turn of the Screw to more modern titles like Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. More prominent, though, is the tenant's varied collection of nonfiction which includes works on forensic studies, criminal psychology, philosophy and even indoor botany. On the coffee table rests a copy of The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, but why this particular title is on display is anyone's guess.
The bedroom area is separated from the rest of the studio by a low wall and a series of thick black curtains designed to block out the light streaming in from the apartments untreated bay windows. Even at night, the area is unusually bright thanks to the placement of a street lamp directly outside this street-level unit. The bed itself is a twin-sized platform dressed in crisp white sheets and a down comforter for warmth.
The bay windows open out to a small patio completely enclosed by wrought-iron bars designed to prevent and unwanted guests from visiting the premises when the tenant is out, and while this gives it the appearance of a prison, the effect is lessened somewhat by swaths of ivy and a meticulously-cared for succulent garden.
Late afternoon finds Tamara at Le Rivage; of late, her presence has been an unusually frequent thing, the girl more often here than gone. The why of this could be any of several reasons, each one more inscrutable than the last, all of them uniquely Tamara-esque. For the handful of people, each foundlings in their own way, who have become the seeress's ersatz family, it is simply what it is; a gift horse, the state of whose teeth will only be revealed if Tamara so chooses.
The teen presently stands on the small patio, fingers curled around ivy-twined iron bars, face pressed against the gap between them. The door behind her sits ajar with no consideration for winter's chill or the loss of carefully-sustained artificial heat. Her sweater is almost the same darkly verdant hue as the evergreen ivy leaves, blond hair a shock of light against its backdrop.
Colette didn't notice Tamara on the patio on her way down the sidewalk and up the front steps of the apartment, that lack of peripheral vision on her blinded side affording the seer a predicted level of anonymity, while allowing her to observe the young woman's arrival to the building. The sound of closing doors, footsteps fading from one direction and approaching from anothr are all a part of her carefully orchestrated positioning of open doors, comings and goings. Everything laid out in anticipation of what she knows will come, and what does come.
The jingle of keys.
Colette's voice can already be heard in the hall, muffled and conversational as the door is unlocked and nudged open, only to be pushed further ajar as Jupiter comes charging in to the apartment, claws clicking on the hardwood floor as he makes his way on his usual rounds through the kitchen and over to his food bowl, scuffing the metal across tile with his nose. "Alright, alright I'll feed you hold on!" Colette grumbles, juggling her messenger bag, keys, and a rolled up paper bag with a bit of a grease stain on the bottom.
Jupiter circles around the island in the kitchen, and comes trotting back to Colette, now circling her as his nose searches that appear bag again, tail swishing back and forth before he goes to find his way back towards his bowl. "Hold on Jupiter, sheesh!" As she finally throws her keys down on to the table by the door, shrugging the messenger bag off of her shoulder to the floor with a heavy thump, Colette starts to walk through the apartment, leaving little melted ice footprints from her still wet shoes. "God, Judah is so cheap with keeping the heat on, it's freezing in — " Eyes finally catch the open door to the patio, wide, expressive. She spots the figure pressed up to the bars, blonde hair and green sweater. "Tamara!" She chirps out, hurriedly setting down that paper bag on the table by the sofa as she dashes off towards the door to the patio.
A slight smile tugs at Tamara's lips as Colette barges through the apartment in her usual headlong style, more energy than grace, a manner that befits any teenager. Except the one she now approaches. "Don't blame him," the girl says as her companion steps out onto the patio. It's only when Colette is there with her that Tamara finally turns away from the view beyond the balcony's bounds, blue gaze resting heavily upon the younger teen.
That small smile remains, though it does nothing to soften the weight of what the precog perceives — good, ill, she fails to state. She sets it aside instead, visible shift in focus, struggle to shove the knowledge the seeress can't not know to something less than front and center of her awareness. A hand on Colette's arm, guiding her back inside. "Never got warm out here. Except maybe in August. Don't think you could wait that long."
"Don't blame — " A touch to Colette's arm and the guiding inside draws the girl's focus away from the quickly tossed words, though while her mouth doesn't continue what her thoughts circle around, it's shown in the slight frown that she's thinking about the last time she spoke to Judah directly. There's a guilty cant of her head away from Tamara, and a side-long look given with her good eye to the patio, and the thoughts of August. That's when they met. The memory causes the frown to paint itself away, if only slightly.
"I — I'm glad you, um, I'm glad you're here, actually." She nudges the patio doors shut with one foot one inside, quietly locking the door, still dressed in her heavy winter coat. "Um, there's — I… wanted to…" She huffs out a breath when the lock clicks, turning around as she unzips the front of her jacket.
From the kitchen, Jupiter stares up with a disappointed look, then settles down on his blanket. The food isn't going anywhere, he can wait, for now. "I'm sorry." That's not usually the easiest thing for Colette to say, especially without stuttering or looking down at her feet.
"I…" Rolling one shoulder, she sheds her jacket and crosses the living room, draping her coat over the couch as she turns to look back at Tamara. "I've always been afraid. Of — Of what you could do." Her brows knit together, "What you… what we are. I just — " Colette hisses a heavy sigh and covers her face with her hands, slowly settling down on the arm of the sofa. "Even when I said I was okay, I — I wasn't, and — I — I know you know this, but I just — " Pausing to stop fumbling over her own words, Colette moves her hands away from her face, smoothing them over her jeans. "Stuff's been… happening, lately. I — I've been learning? But I — it's made me… the guy who's helping me — " Why can't she ever talk straight when she's around Tamara. Her heart's pounding in her chest, face flushed. She pauses again, rubbing a hand over her mouth. "I've never been fair to you. I wanted you to… change. Be… normal?" She looks away, down to the floor, can't face her own selfishness. "I'm sorry."
As Colette sheds her jacket, stumbling through difficult statements, Tamara crosses the apartment, pausing to run a hand over Jupiter's ears in passing. She pulls a half-can of dog food from where it was waiting in the fridge, scoops up a measure of dry bits to go with it — filling in on the chores while Colette is distracted. She does this upon occasion; other times, she just reminds the younger girl of what should be done.
Today, Colette can be distracted. "You need to say it." The seeress understands this, in an abstract and nonlinear fashion; accepts the fact as she does so many other things that are but are in truth beyond her comprehension. Insight has its side effects. The dog fed, Tamara walks out to join Colette on the couch, though the weight of her slight form is settled upon a more traditional seat. She cants her head, smiling up at the younger girl. "Don't worry." She reaches out for Colette's hands. "You're learning."
Comfort, anxiety; The contact of Tamara's hands has a very strong and contrary effect on the girl, both putting her at ease and causing her to become a bit flustered. The latter, at least, is passing. Looking down to where Tamara sits beside her, though from a higher vantage point perched on the arm of the sofa, Colette turns her hands in the other girl's, squeezing them both gently. "I am — " too vague, "learning." Her head bobs at the statement, lips curling up into a crooked smile as she leans slightly towards the older girl. "I — I've been afraid, to… to really… I've been putting myself at — at a distance to you. Because I was scared, because I… It's not what I want."
"You draw the line. You say, I will be pushed no further."
Colette's smile grows a bit, remembering the words Grace had said to her, ones that put her on this path. "I'm learning," she reiterates, reluctantly letting one hand slip up from within Tamara's, fingers raising as she lets her fingertips move in the air in front of the older teen, tracing thin streaks of light in the air like her finger-painting. "I'm not scared anymore, and… and I want, I — " Why is this always so hard? "I wanted to show you, w-what I can do." She knows, but at the same time, Colette wants to show this, she needs to, it's a part of her growing up. The fingers trace colorful streaks in the air, eventually forming a childish looking and vibrant butterfly of reds, oranges and yellows, which she cradles a hand under, making the luminous wings move up and down slowly.
Her other hand squeezes Tamara's gently, and as she lowers her palm away from the butterfly, it's free to flutter and glide soundlessly through the air around Tamara, like a finger-painting some to life. "What should I do next?" The question is abruptly transitioned to, "You know — better than anyone, I — what do I do next? I want… your help." There's another gentle squeeze, "I need you. Need to understand, and listen… instead of you having to make me listen." Her mismatched eyes drift down to the hand she holds, thumb stroking gently over the back of Tamara's palm, "I want to hear what you have to say."
The illusory butterfly is watched in its fluttering flight with a smile as childlishly pleased as its vibrant, warm colors are childlishly drawn, defined by the coarse strokes of fingers painting the atmosphere. She knew it would (probably) be there. But there is sight, and then there is sight. They are nowhere near equivalent.
Blue eyes are drawn away from the artistic creation only reluctantly, gaze transferring to Colette's expression as the younger girl makes her request. Her demand. "Your shadows are always yours," she reminds Colette softly. "Listen, yes. Learn. Don't let it make you blind." The learning? Perhaps. Perhaps not. It's almost a given that Tamara's meaning is figurative… almost.
She lifts her free hand as if to touch the circling flutterby, watching it now not with wonder, but a more distant contentment. "The river goes on, and everything in the river. Black, white; silver, gray. Apples and oranges. Sometimes eating the apple doesn't fix anything. If it isn't all there, then there's nothing."
Colette's brow furrows, lips pursing as she strains to try and make heads or tails of a sentence that does not have heads or tails. Her nose wrinkles, pushing out a bit of a sigh as she slides her weight down from the arm of the sofa, wedging herself between Tamara and the arm of the couch. Her hips shift, one leg moving and then finally she just lets out a lazy sigh and draws both of her legs up and swings them over Tamara's, reclining back against the arm of the sofa as she idly curls one finger around one of the older teen's, giving it a gently tug.
"So… you're…" Her eyes wander the walls of the apartment, finally finding Tamara again as her lips upturn into a gentle smile. "You're saying it's hard to just tell me what to do, because there's so many choices, or because… there's um, no, like — it might not happen anyway or… something?" Her nose wrinkles slightly, shifting her weight to make herself a bit more comfortable as the glowing butterfly drifts and wanders around the pair, more animate when Colette remembers to make it so.
The younger girl's shift in position is, like much else, accepted without either approval or disapproval; a matter of course, an event that simply is. Tamara folds her hands across Colette's legs, tilting her head and peering over at her companion. Her smile is the kind of soft expression that prefaces a no. "Or something," the seeress allows. "Time tells."
Tamara closes her eyes, listening to Colette. Listening to the whispers of voices distant in time and space, their soft susurrus an eternal counterpoint to the sounds of the present. Distracting, the words shaped on very the edge of hearing — but not, at this moment, too strongly so. "Remember that," the girl says softly. But there isn't much weight to the words; not an instruction, or even a reminder, so much as a simple statement. Perhaps a wish. "But later. There were other times." She looks sidelong at Colette, watching the dark-haired teen from the corner of her eye.
"Here it's just now."
 January 27th: Meet Your Fellow Dinu |
 January 27th: I Will Find You |