Different Tools

Participants:

eve2_icon.gif tamara_icon.gif

Scene Title Different Tools
Synopsis Cookies and dresses with a hard pass on genocide.
Date June 29, 2018

Satoru Memorial Garden


The sun had begun to dip behind the buildings of the Safe Zone not too long ago, people still milling about. Running their errands, rushing to dinner. There's a normalcy to the hustle and bustle that is the New York Safe Zone. In the Satoru Memorial Garden the place is quiet, peaceful. Few people working on their plots, tending to their fruits and vegetables.

Among them sitting on the bench is not a farmer, a trail of smoke wafts away from her and she snuffs the cigarette out on the heel of her black scuffed boot. Tucking the end into her pocket so as to not litter in the space. Shoulders covered by a black shawl as she sits and waits, her steel metal bo staff rests next to her, collapsed in on itself. A gentle breeze ruffles the ends of her midnight blue dress, spaghetti straps.

Eve’s battered messenger bag sat unceremoniously on the ground next to her. Wine colored lips pursed as she emits a low whistle tone. Her pale skin shines with oils and lotions she had put on before leaving her place, lavender. Dark hair braided into a single thick plait.

The blonde woman who meanders amongst the plots as if she has nowhere particular to be does garden — but none of the plots she surveys in passing are hers. The air has started to cool with impending sunset, though only by a matter of a few degrees; it's still more than warm enough to justify the sundress she wears, not quite knee-length, white with a geometric pattern in navy blue with accents in rust. She wears a straw hat, too, a gauzy blue ribbon tied around its crown, loose ends trailing down with her hair, flirted with by the breeze. The white satchel at her side is unassuming, and seems not particularly burdened.

Eventually, inevitably, Tamara's weaving takes her in the direction of the one who waits; she at last approaches from the upwind side, making futile attempt to corral her hair behind her ears even as she casts a cheerful smile the older woman's way. "The plants are happy," she says, with no concern for context. "They like all the attention."

“Lots of love makes them grow real big. Abundance, overflow.” If the Safe Zone had a wish it would be for an overflow of food. Brown eyes gaze still ahead of her and at the plots around them with a smile on her lips before turning that gaze towards Tamara. “You look dreamy as always Sister Seer,” the draw of being around the men and women who understand her gift from personal experience with something similar is strong for the woman and her expression shows how excited she is to see the blonde woman. “That hat,” a snap snap of her fingers in approval. “You glow.”

Throwing the single braid over her shoulder to lean forward as she rubs her knees Eve tilts her head licking her lips, “This is really beautiful.” Looking around the garden, “It has to be protected.” If that were entirely possible. Too many different paths, too many shortcuts. “I meant to see you sooner. Being blind made me run into walls.” All better now, for now. For forever? She hoped so.

Tamara plops herself down on the bench, her back to its end, one foot on the seat and knee drawn up to her chest. The snap of Eve's fingers elicits a sidelong look, a quicksilver smile — and a flicker of motion that has the hat off her head and on Eve's in an eyeblink, blue ribbon trailing across the space in between. Lips pursed, Tamara contemplates its presence for a moment. "Blue is maybe less your color," she remarks.

To the older woman's statements and apologies, the blonde seer merely offers a small shrug. "You're here now," is all the reassurance she can really offer. Before must not have been important, or she would have been there; and if meeting sooner would have had different outcome, Tamara cannot now say. "Where will you go next?"

When the hat is plopped on her head she snickers and clutches it to her head, “A makeover! Nobody can tell it’s me, excellent idea!” Adopting a nonchalant pose that isn't very nonchalant Eve looks over at the sibyl with a tilt of her head, “Maybe not. Gray and red though, mmm.” Her brown hair peeking out in tufts of the hat.

She is here now and that's all that matters, “We are.” Gaze passes over to a tomato plant growing and lingers.

“I think I have to go on a trip,” the darker haired woman remarks running a hand up and down on her arm biting the corner of her lip. “Gotta grab someone important. They’re lost.” She was too and Eve didn't know that it would take her confessing that to be able to see the chaos around her clearly. “After that?” Brown eyes crinkle at the corners corner, “…there are two. Gold eyes and an immortal,” the chill at her neck causes goosebumps and Eve shudders, her latest vision and the one before haunting her. She looks hurriedly over her shoulder but sees nothing, no hands. “I've been dancing in a circle with Adam.”

Thoughtfully, “Where will you go?”

"Red," Tamara agrees. "Bright red, like cherries. It's hard to go wrong with cherries, as long as you don't swallow the pit." Somewhere in there, the subject of conversation probably drifted. Probably.

The patter of her words, though, is at odds with the seer's expression, the sidelong look she levels at her companion. There's a beat of quiet, a moment filled by nothing but the rustle of the breeze through verdant foliage. "Be careful," she says, "but the ripples are already spreading. I'm not sure they ever didn't, really." Diffident, that last statement, and doubtful, the seer speaking of something outside her scope of vision.

She smiles again at Eve's prompt, lopsided, rueful. "Home," Tamara replies without hesitation. "All the wheels in motion, still a while to turn."

Mmm cherries. Eve licks her lips with a smile and she kicks her foot out in front of her, “Unless you get swallowed up by the pit.” A tapping of her heel on the earth emphasizes her statement. Her eyes going to Tamara’s eyes as she speaks. “One way or another..” she trails off in answer to the inevitability of those ripples. Spreading.

“Home, there's always good cookies at home! Chocolate chip! Sugar cookies mmm.” She smiles because she misses her mother’s cookies. Or Grandma Helga’s. There are loved ones at home too. Most times. “Still they will turn, no dust to collect hmm?” Unless you were Hiro or one of the other time fairies Eve had met.

Her eyes twinkle in the light as Eve bends to slide her hand into her messenger bag before pulling out a piece of paper to pass over to the younger woman. It's a drawing of Tamara behind some triangle of light pounding on the surface with a bloodied hand. The red flags bearing the seal of the Department of Evolved Affairs hang like a warning behind the sibyl on paper. “Another river, hello you.” Said to the drawing in Tamara’s hand with a weak smile.

Accepting the paper, Tamara flattens it out on her thigh, running her hand over the image's surface. Head canted, she regards it quizzically, like a bird presented with a novel object. A finger idly traces the triangle's outline, but what the seer reads into it remains inscrutable.

"No rocks here," she comments at last. "Pretty colors, though." A contemplative glance is given to the older woman before the blonde carefully tucks the drawing away in her bag.

"You should leave them all alone but nobody ever did," is stated without rancor, a statement of fact tinged with resignation and not exactly graced with context. "No rivers either," Tamara continues, emphatically leaving whatever that subject was behind, hopping up to her feet and extending a hand to Eve. "We can go find cookies, though. There are good cookies in other places, too."

“If echoes didn't vibrate so loud..” she trails off as Tamara hops to her feet and Eve’s grin is friendly as she takes the woman’s hand to get to her feet after slinging her messenger bag over her shoulder, “Green for you.” An afterthought to a color for Tamara. There is no pretense with the other seer, no need to clarify or make herself make more sense. She can be herself. For someone who many might say walks her own way this relationship was solace for Eve. “Cookies are tasty. Other cookies can be good.”

Just like Other Otters. “I was thinking about your other half. Your other other half.” More stable with Tamara's support and the staff than on her own. “Went on a ride to her father. Adam rather they not be here. The Giftless.”

There are many in her life without gifts of Eve or Tamara’s nature. A thought gone to Teo as they walk through the garden. Pale skin on pale skin and Eve turns to look at her Sister Seer, “Even seeing the echoes doesn't hide away.. my worry.

The voices in her head had dwindled, one.. by one.. intermingling into one. That was Eve’s thought anyway. One voice. One sound. The muscles in her jaw twitch and she shrugs. “An old kook with old spooks.”

"Blue," Tamara demurs. "Because it's pretty. And red, for reminder." Colors that happen to be represented in the tattoo that peeks around the neckline of her dress.

Linking arms with the other woman, blowing the stray ribbon from Eve's hat out of her face, Tamara turns them towards the street and proceeds in that direction. "The swan," the blonde supplies amiably, "although she always thinks she's a duckling."

No comment on Adam seems to be forthcoming from the younger seer.

"Worry passes the time," Tamara remarks in a tone that seems intended to reassure, even if its content… probably doesn't. "It's okay to worry. A little bit sharpens the mind. Too much is a sinker."

A tilt of her head and expression as if to say Ahhh haaa. But there is something particularly alluring to seeing Tamara surrounded by green. Eve squints at her but imagines Tamara in a elegant gown of a deep red. “We should shop.” Because who doesn't love a nice new dress, “I see the shoes.” Looking down at Tamara’s feet, “Mind the sinking sand, it's hungry.” She had fallen into the sinking sands all the way to the bottom, confronted by golden eyes.

“Aww! But she's such a swan. There are no ducks!” a declaration that seems relevant but also not as she turns her gaze to the sky with a squint. “No ducks.” Eve whispers again more quietly.

“Worry but not worry wart,” nodding feverrently her hair bouncing under the hat. “A sharp mind, that's what I need!” That’s what they all needed. “The echoes changed. Like everything does, symbols and things. The real world. The echoes aren't only in my dreams. Not anymore.” The darker haired seer looks pensive, confuses. She hasn't been to Julie to ask. A question hangs in the balance. The pause is just a pause. Her gaze locks on a pigeon flying by.

Tamara gives Eve a distinctly sidelong look at the mention of shopping. It seems she's not prepared to commit to that endeavor. Rather, she seems content to continue along in synchronous step with the other woman, accepting the meandering of subjects with equanimity. When Eve falls quiet, Tamara remains so for a while, the two of them pacing down the walk, watching the pigeon in its flight.

"Questions can't be answered if they aren't asked," she ventures at last, nonchalant, no particular emphasis or inflection to the statement.

“Closed mouths don't get fed.” Eve agrees and it seems to be something she doesn't want to just ask. “White to Black.” Shifts in the wind, shifts in the currents. Her gaze leaves the pigeons to stare at the ground they walk over. “What has happened to my gift? To my sight?” The urge to look over her shoulder is strong but Eve holds herself steady.

The answers are necessary, she feels still lost though her ability had returned. “I don't always feel sharp. Like the rest of you,” her sister and brother seers, “Maybe that's just me. The limits placed on me are of my own doing. Afraid to be good enough.” Was she? Something the seer struggled with, her erratic behavior. She didn't always have doubts about herself but when she did, it was heavy.

Tamara puffs out a breath, blowing stray hair back from her face. "Why sharp?" she casts back in the inflection of a rhetorical question, one that is merely a preface. "It's hard to eat ice cream with knives. Different problems, different tools." She pauses momentarily, lips pursing thoughtfully. "Also, sharp is thin, and thin things break."

Then her free hand jabs at Eve's nearer shoulder, signaling a tone less rhetorical and more exasperated. "Perfect never happens." The seer turns her attention forward again, expression sobering in profile. "Good enough keeps walking. That's all there really is for it."

“More like clay,” Eve sighs softly with her head down, flexible.. Eve wouldn't break. She couldn't afford too, not again. “Thin things do break, thicker things can be wedges.” Wedges can be good if used in the right way.

Good enough keeps walking. And so do the pair of seers. “I don't always listen to the.. complaints of others. Lately, I'm swayed by the opinion.” Not something she particularly is proud of. Attachments, her friendships. Having as many friends as Eve does, not all of them getting along. Complicated relationships arise when you've been in the situations she's been in for years. Tamara would probably be able to relate to that.

“Not perfect is good for me.” Coming to a decision and looking over at Tamara’s fingers that poked her. “Sometimes a poke, to get you out from yourself.” A hand on the hat as they walk, keeping it in place before withdrawing it to continue walking arm in arm. “Different tools..” Eve grins at that moment. “When the last sand drops will you help me?” This time Eve does look over her shoulder and she shudders at the feeling. The malice, as if someone was going to grab her right from behind. “Rather not do it without you.”

Clasping hands with Eve, Tamara smiles at her. "Different tools, similar ends," she echoes absently, elaborates upon, the blonde turning to watch a biker pedal past. "The mirror may not be with you — but with you, yes," she asserts, looking back to her companion and giving a firm nod.

"But no worries today," she insists, giving Eve's shoulder another poke with her free hand. "Just cookies." And maybe a dress, if the older woman chooses to be persistent about it.

“Just cookies.” The darker haired woman agrees and allows herself a smile.

And yes, Eve is persistent. New dresses it is.


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