The weather was pleasantly warm today, the sun beating down upon his bare arms as he leaned against the railing that circled the walkway outside the rotating beacon. His lanky frame was only slightly contorted, forearms against the hot metal, chin resting on his forearms, legs peeking out from underneath the lowest rail and dangling over the edge. He was in a hoodie from which the sleeves had been removed, the hood drawn up to help trap the sun against his neck where the warmth was comforting. Like a hug. The Scot looked like he could use one of those as he stared, squinting, across the water. Though dry-eyed and humming softly to himself (sometimes singing), there was a melancholy air about him as evidenced in the occasional sigh and the passing shadow of sorrow that would darken his features briefly like clouds crossing the sun. A silver cigarette case caught the light and tossed a beam against the wall of the lighthouse in a fanciful shape; a lighter lay next to the case and his phone next to that - all evicted temporarily from their homes in his jeans pockets.
There's no warning when a star decides to stroll during the tides of daylight. These hours were traditionally meant to keep her in lockdown beneath a stretch of sheets. Anxiety broke into her bonework when Helios was so very adamant about showing that he ruled at dawn till dusk. He looks more like a silhouette of jagged edges from behind, the sun scolding his face to bring thick shadow along a vulture hunched spine. Hiding the warmth in that hood, sacrificing his arms to bathe beneath the yellow and orange rays. It's a contrast that drapes beside him; she's quiet as a wraith but doesn't bring an ounce of despair with her opal skin, the bleach white of hair, or a shocking pair of Alice blue that are hidden behind wide sunglasses. When she descends to settle near him it's with some uncommon grace not often seen at this time, like she was out of her element but braving the hour to just see him. For a minute, maybe two, she doesn't look and doesn't speak but just tries to line up where he had been focused on. Legs dangled in the second skin of her jeans over the ledge; she wasn't afraid of heights. "What song is that?" And her voice isn't smooth like silk, doesn't capture like a siren's would, but it's sultry, a timbre you can lounge to before finding that it ignited some wild streak in your fate.
Fin didn't hear the door open on the other side of the cylindrical building - the wind carried it away from him and toward the harbor and city beyond. Maybe someone there would hear the star opening the lighthouse door and peer around, expecting to see her tumble out of their cupboard? The Scot was not alerted to her presence until she glided into his periphery and then he blinked and lifted his head, nearly scraping his nose against the railing just above his face, so hasty was his movement. A wee slip of a thing was there, almost reminding him of a certain songbird in the way she carried herself - here but maybe also somewhere else at the same time and Fin could only imagine what they might be seeing. Double vision? Two worlds that overlapped? Maybe something he couldn't even imagine. Canting his head, he studied her a moment and became lost in it, all his attention focused on observing and not on listening. Two heartbeats later, he responded. "Hm? Oh, ye heard tha'? A song I learned to play on m'guitar," his burr unmistakable but not too thick that his words were beyond kenning. They traipsed and tumbled in a rough roll off his tongue as shoulders pitched forward in a shrug. "Called 'I'll Follow You Into The Dark'. Have ye heard it?"
Possibly alike, but in the long run, there would be nothing similar between her or any other being that would grace through this realm. One in a million had a different meaning when it was structured to actually be one in one hundred billion. The wind enjoyed toying with the bonebleach of her hair, pushing it along the sharp artistry of her features but never once did the blue beyond all blue's peer from beyond the sun glasses. At this point they were nothing but two miniscule things watching a wide circus of clear skies and a very stubborn sun. "Love of mine, someday you will die, but I'll be close behind.", she started, but didn't sing as she was wanton to do. Mouth wasn't dressed in the circus sideshow of ruby red tonight; there is pink, a neutrality to it, where it seems to go a bit pale in color when she smiles aside to him. "I'll follow you into the dark, no blinding light or tunnels to gates of white. Just our hands clasped so tight --", and it continued, recital of a poem that she did not write but could pronounce as if she had spoken it hundreds of times before. "-- waiting for the hint of a spark." Trailing the last bit when her skin of her teeth claimed the bottom pulp of her lip. "I think I've heard it once or twice." Humored, still the shade of an accent never heard. Melting pot of murmurs, slurs, croons, and divine hymns all hunched in her throat when she spoke. Her hand soon came out to be offered to him, contorting herself to bend her ribs along the railing that helped keep her secure a top that towering light house. "I'm Lyra."
The world did seem to open up in front of them, the hustle and bustle of people and the noise of their living left behind, blotted out by the wind and the water and the lighthouse that stood sentinel over them all. The air tasted clean out here, purified by salt and light, and it made Fin feel cleaner when he could come out here to get away from the dirt and the traffic and the million things he would never understand. Sun, water, breeze - these were primal, simple, and did not tax his uneducated brain or his frayed psyche. A smile spread slowly as she spit the words back out at him, just not in the way he expected. Like poetry but void of the emotion that he knew rested within the song, waiting to be heard and unlocked in his mind and heart. "Lyra," he murmured after she extended his hand, the Y sharp and the R rolled softly. His hand was warm and callused, nails short but always managed to have something lining the miniscule crevice, whether it be ash or pigment or bits of wood fiber from lifting crates on the docks. "Finlay Mackenzie." He pulled his hand away, fingertips trailing. "I ha' been comin' out here a few weeks, ha' no' seen anyone else. Though I ha' been told tha' others do like to haunt this place, as I do," flashing a warm smile. "Wha' brings ye up here?"
Their meeting could be called happenstance, kismet, the forewarned tale of serendipity but it was not. There was little of fate where this woman was concerned; she had a habit of toeing the line before going over it such as enchanting him not with a roll of her shoulder, or the sleekness of any coy behavior, but just the resemblance to a memory. Deja vu, maybe. Their hands connected briefly but in that moment sealed an unspoken deal that may have been written in the stars since his birth. His question is what gets her to shrug back, nonchalant, reaching to pull down the sun glasses enough to garner some attention at those blue eyes. Blue, ice blue, cosmic white blue. "Would you believe me if I said you?" She teases, humming her amusement which is either infectious or cryptic. Hands spread wide to showcase the yonder paint of the world before them. "Why else come up here? Sight seeing. I also like that it's empty, the light house. Makes me feel better knowing that I'm filling it with something."
Fate was an old woman in rags poking a finger at your face and telling you not to hop on one foot on a Tuesday during a month beginning with J. Fate was missing the train by mere seconds and your spouse having time to get their lover out of the house so that your ignorance remains blissful. Fate was a child giving a cryptic message with no knowledge as to the meaning or its origin. It was not a wisp of a blonde woman sitting next to him at the lighthouse, these were not the things Fin had ever been led to believe when hearing stories of fate and destiny. The color of her eyes was rather arresting, one her shades were removed, and he blamed the light off the water for making them seem to glow with a soft luminescence. Brows rose a moment and then he pushed out a stuttered breath, chuckling while shaking his head. "No, I would no'," grinning and settling his forearms on the railing again. "We are no' fillin' it," he pointed out. "We be clingin' to the outside. But I like tha' it be empty, aye. Means tha' I will no' be bothered or chased out when I come here. Unless ye have a powerful desire to be alone, in which case, I could find another place to be?" giving her a curious sideways glance.
"I think ... we're filling it. Even though we're outside, we're apart of it. Right this moment. It's not forgotten, it has more purpose than doing what it was constructed to do. No one wants to feel like they were made for one thing and only one thing." Not so much rambling as it was just speaking to the breeze, hitching her face a long the fat of her bicep when glimpsing over the horizon of her arm to him. She was not known for silence; she could turn waspish if it suited her but the trick of her remaining with her feet firmly here was to just keep blending in. And to do that, talking was needed as if she had no care in the world aside from sharing intimate details of philosophy with a Scot who wore the youth well when paired with rusting fingers. "Not really. I'm not big on being alone." Confessing with no bizarre innuendo hooking into the sides of her speech. Sensuality was present but never stifling, never enough to drown in -- always just out of reach. "I can go though, if you want to be alone?" Turning the question to him when digging through her pockets with a stretch back of her torso. Fingers curling through the denim when fishing for cigarettes.
Fin took her words to heart, mulling over the twists and turns of her poetic bint. The Celts had always spoken that way, masking knowledge and wisdom in vivid tales and nonsensical verse. Sometimes, it was nice to meet others whose words required careful regard without the threat of harm. Gazing upon the line of horizon where water and sky kissed gently, he asked with a solemn countenance, "But wha' if it was forgotten? Wha' if we are only made for one thing? Feelin' somethin, feelin' tha' ye want to do somethin' greater does no' mean tha' ye should be doin' somethin' greater, does it?" He was honestly asking her opinion on the matter, obviously having taken away some sort of personal meaning. "I sometimes feel tha' I do no' even fill m'self, tha' I need others to help but...I do no' think tha' be workin'." A light frown puckered his brow and then he sighed to himself and turned his face to lay his cheek upon his arm and look at her. "No, I do no' mind ye here," his smile a small thing but no less genuine. " 'Times I like to be alone but I do no' think it always be so good for me." The sight of her cigarettes made his own mouth water but the case of hand rolled smokes was left alone for now. Drawing out the anticipation.
The fables and tales and stories she could spin on the wheel of her tongue could go till the end of time; he was lucky that he filled the gap with his own insight, his own inquiry even though their meeting happened only moments ago. Again, that feeling. That haze that rested in the lucid dreaming state of knowing and not knowing. Smoke didn't last long up here and skirted across any wind that laughed past them. "I'll remember you. This light house. This cigarette. This sun." Almost wincing at the mention of it; she was a pale pearl out in the open, easily annoyed at the glory of it. And then she laughed and it was hard to tell if she was making a joke or her sincerity was always with a touch of otherworldly charm. "So, what do you think you were made for, Fin?" She shortened it as if she knew he wouldn't mind his title cut to a pet name. "And is it too much to ask for you to dream a little bigger?" Brushing fingers, cigarette filter, and her teeth across her girlish smile. "If mankind felt that they were meant for one thing, and never acted on any other impulse, we would be boring. Producing like rabbits, fucking like beasts, still stuck in some stone age." Ashes fell away into the breeze, circling around to do a double take at both of them, all before dissolving into the distance. His uttering after that, the curiosity of his words, got her to side eye him. It made her fingers twitch, made the cards burn, and had her tongue stalling out behind her docile seeming smile. "Maybe you just haven't found you yet."
Fallen into a rut somewhere between melancholic and whimsical, one corner of his mouth hooked upward in a lopsided smile which might have seemed even more so from the horizontal perch of his head on his arm. "Will ye? I would thank ye for it but I canno' until I know how ye will remember me." Would it be fondly? With detachment? Would he be distorted by time, would it be a hazy recollection? Fin had been pale when he first reached RhyDin but that had been mostly due to malnutrition and being locked away in a cage under the ground. Manual labor and hours spent in the sun (combined with a general dislike of clothing when it didn't have to be enforced) had given him a light golden dusting, turning some of his honeyed hair a lighter shade. Words wove between them seamlessly, each parsing a different meaning though their words could be compared, line by line. "I sometimes wonder if I was made for anythin'. 'Haps to be a smith but I am no' anymore. I think I dream too big for the reality I be in an' when I fall short, it leaves me...empty. Feelin' I am fated to want wha' always be out o' reach." The smell of her cigarettes was soothing the itch in the back of his throat but still he wanted another, or maybe something stronger. Just wanted the familiar motion of keeping hands and lips busy. "Aye, well...tha' would make sense for I have felt well an' truly lost since arrivin' here."
Trapped souls are doomed to repeat their penance over and over, till the etchings of their own mental purgatory drag them too far down. Breathing with your head above water suddenly seemed like a heavy task when there were so many hands attempting to drown you, snuff you out, leave you lost amid your own theories. Lyra hummed a small sound akin to amusement but it was empathy that could be found in the cracks of her lips, between the lines of her words. "I will remember you as being alone until you saw me, and realized you're not alone." Curving the cigarette along the groove of her pursing mouth before it was flicked further out, to fly until it fell beyond their recollection of sight. "People sometimes look a little to hard for a reason. An explanation. Anything to help cope with how they feel. And sometimes, you need a fresh pair of eyes to help you search. Get used to seeing the same thing, over and over, and soon you can't see that there are actually new pieces to be found." Fingers twitched again but this time they took flight on their own and reset the sunglasses over her eyes, saving them from the angry glare of the sun. "We're all made for something. No one is immune to that."
Fin felt as if he'd been doing nothing but struggling to keep his head above water, the hands belonging to a different person (usually himself) but always present, always wrapping an ankle with bone-cold fingers and tugging sharply just when he thought he was free. A slow nod showed he was absorbing what she said, taking it in and washing it through the filter of his own perspective before offering back the repurposed, recycled ideas. A full smile bloomed for her double edged description, knowing it could be interpreted as simply or as deeply as one chose to take it. The smiled was curbed, however, as she went on. "But how are ye supposed to know the difference between a true reason an' one tha' be in yer head? They all feel the same, come from the same place, aye?" His head had a way of tricking him down the darkest, most difficult path even when a better offer lay plainly in view. It was a daily struggle and even still, he wondered if perhaps he wasn't still with Stefin, all this around him a wisp of a dream, another herb-induced hallucination that tricked his tortured body from remembering where it really was. "How d'ye know wha' be real?" Finally, the Scot straightened from his slump against the warm wrought iron (he could have done a better job) and reached for his cigarette case. It was popped open and out of habit, he nearly held it out for her in silent offer but remembered at the last moment that she'd just finished one. With a taste for more than tobacco, he pulled a joint from the left side of the case (it looked no different than its nicotine brethren on the right side) and set it to his lips, cupping carefully with scarred and rough fingers to protect from the strong wind that caressed their forms on the promenade. It took him a few tries, but finally it was lit and he puffed miniature clouds. "Wha' are ye made for?"
He was beginning to regurgitate questions that would destroy the well stitched veil of her girlskin but she was a hybrid being that enjoyed the way he formulated his own thoughts while sipping down her own with a smile. Fingers tipped down the boney avenue of the railing they were leaning forward against, feeling the rust, the wear and tear, the knots of metal. "You don't. That's why you never stop trying to figure it out. Take one step forward, three steps back, but at some moment you'll waltz all those paces without slipping." Her fingers became a decoy for attention when prowling along that railing with her description of dancing. "I know it's real because it hurts." That was a soulwell of an admission that opened up her smile in a different light. A natural disaster or a force of nature, no one would be able to tell. "What am I made for ...", she repeated it in her own timbre while clucking her tongue to the backs of her teeth, smoothing out her palms across the tops of her thighs while pretending to be lost in the magic of the daylight. "I asked myself that a lot, in the beginning. I was a little scared of the truth. I wanted to be made for something else entirely. So, I changed. I rebelled against what I was supposed to be made for. Decided to make my own destination rather than fall knee deep in the muck of what had been laid out for me." Not much of an answer but she wasn't about to tear away the mask and expose herself. She knew him, knew him well enough, but things like a stars secrets were to be kept -- for her safety, and others.
If he could, the Scot would formulate someone else's thoughts and not be plagued with his seam-ripping questions for the space of a day. A bliss he would never taste, unfortunately, not without magics that he couldn't bring himself to trust. The fabric of his mind was paper thin as it was, light shining through it most days; he was afraid to have anything else done that would rip it asunder in a very permanent way. "So wha' ye be sayin' is tha' there is no true reason, we just keep guessin' until...until we have less troubles?" He frowned because...it was a realistic answer but not one that made him feel better. "Sounds like a rather pointless life," he murmured, the sorrow welling in his voice and in his blue blue eyes again, spilling over to give her just a taste. It oozed slowly from him, thick and hugging the walkway between them. "It all hurts, is it all real? Even wha' I know canno' be real?" That was a very sad answer and he didn't want to think on the dismal future that painted for him so instead, let her story distract him. And then begged the obvious question, "Wha' were ye made for initially?"
It wasn't the beginning of his words, it was the ending, that churned enough of her expression into an austere mask that didn't flinch through the emotion of it. "Pointless life?" Questioning him, letting her features unravel into a brief ripple of disbelief. "A pointless life." Again, recycling it and letting it seep between her teeth when they clicked together. "You shouldn't say that." Drawing fingers up to sink them through the bleach of her hair, the white and yellow of it, pushing it till the majority fell behind her ear and over her shoulder. "Would you say life was pointless to someone dying, dying for just one more day? Would you tell a child that life is pointless just because they were dealt a bad hand but had their entire future to make it better?" Easing these scenarios out on the breathy way her voice had turned; it was never volatile, never void of anything, but it felt a thousand years old in that second. "Life, is never pointless. Life is everything. Experiences that only people who live can have? Love, hate, fights and fucking, watching this ugly sun or being allowed to glimpse at the moon smiling at you? Touching, hurting, crying, laughing. Never pointless." Expelling a long sigh while molding her hands along the bars to start pulling away from the lean a long them. "To be a watcher." A vague answer but she let it hang there till her smile fit back against the smooth district of her lips. "And I watched for a long, long time."
A hard edge slowly formed to her presence, sharp and brittle though there was a hot passion that ran a river underneath, pushing out her rebuke with the force of a current, with direction and purpose. But Fin took it without rancor - instead, he gave a soft smile and let the weed seep into him slowly, like the sun and the wind. A force of nature in the form of a natural herb, the patience and calmness of Earth filling in all the holes he feared he had so that the black dirt inside him took in her words and turned them to nourishing ash, swallowed them whole. "I would no' say those things, I merely asked if tha' was wha' ye were sayin' to me," his tone slightly mollifying. "I fear tha' it be pointless, fear it so much tha' I refuse to believe it is. But...I have no' found anythin' to replace tha' fear yet," shrugging his shoulders, as if this were a normal conversation he might have with anyone. Knowing Fin, that could well be true. "So ye were no' allowed to take part? From where did ye watch?" That certainly explained a lot about her little speech just now.
"You will." From one point to the next, her dissection between sharp and soft came with the blink of an eye. Quickened was the pace of her smile even if it draped as syrup would to her lips. "At least, I think you will." Which was to help solve the riddle, if there was one in the first place; she wasn't inhuman at this moment but just another pile of bones and blood. That's what she wanted people to see, to suspect, and keep her out of the limelight of direct questioning. She laughed, openly and loud enough to let it echo out beyond the reach of the salt water below. "From where did I watch? All over." Still not giving enough to grow any suspicion. She hadn't threatened him, hadn't played out as a threat, and seemed just as lively as the first flicker of stars when dusk would come crawling. Standing with her hands sifting through the material of her ensemble, a thin cotton t-shirt that was almost translucent with the old pair of jeans that hooked at her hips. "You're cute." Genuine in that when passing through the vapor left thin at their altitude. Smell of earth mixing oddly with the aroma she wore on her skin. "Meet you next time?" As if setting up some casual get together between a man that couldn't remember her and a celestial playing pretend once again. Gesturing her departure rather than speaking it; she knew they would see one another again. Gone through the door to begin the winding stairs of the circuitry the lighthouse afforded. Sooner or later he would have to check that cigarette case again, to either feed his growing appetite to be just as doused in dreamland herbs or to quell his thirst for cancer, but at some point it would happen -- and at that point, he would find The Sun card, wrinkled at the edges and folded a few times to imprint lines along its thick shell.
There's no warning when a star decides to stroll during the tides of daylight. These hours were traditionally meant to keep her in lockdown beneath a stretch of sheets. Anxiety broke into her bonework when Helios was so very adamant about showing that he ruled at dawn till dusk. He looks more like a silhouette of jagged edges from behind, the sun scolding his face to bring thick shadow along a vulture hunched spine. Hiding the warmth in that hood, sacrificing his arms to bathe beneath the yellow and orange rays. It's a contrast that drapes beside him; she's quiet as a wraith but doesn't bring an ounce of despair with her opal skin, the bleach white of hair, or a shocking pair of Alice blue that are hidden behind wide sunglasses. When she descends to settle near him it's with some uncommon grace not often seen at this time, like she was out of her element but braving the hour to just see him. For a minute, maybe two, she doesn't look and doesn't speak but just tries to line up where he had been focused on. Legs dangled in the second skin of her jeans over the ledge; she wasn't afraid of heights. "What song is that?" And her voice isn't smooth like silk, doesn't capture like a siren's would, but it's sultry, a timbre you can lounge to before finding that it ignited some wild streak in your fate.
Fin didn't hear the door open on the other side of the cylindrical building - the wind carried it away from him and toward the harbor and city beyond. Maybe someone there would hear the star opening the lighthouse door and peer around, expecting to see her tumble out of their cupboard? The Scot was not alerted to her presence until she glided into his periphery and then he blinked and lifted his head, nearly scraping his nose against the railing just above his face, so hasty was his movement. A wee slip of a thing was there, almost reminding him of a certain songbird in the way she carried herself - here but maybe also somewhere else at the same time and Fin could only imagine what they might be seeing. Double vision? Two worlds that overlapped? Maybe something he couldn't even imagine. Canting his head, he studied her a moment and became lost in it, all his attention focused on observing and not on listening. Two heartbeats later, he responded. "Hm? Oh, ye heard tha'? A song I learned to play on m'guitar," his burr unmistakable but not too thick that his words were beyond kenning. They traipsed and tumbled in a rough roll off his tongue as shoulders pitched forward in a shrug. "Called 'I'll Follow You Into The Dark'. Have ye heard it?"
Possibly alike, but in the long run, there would be nothing similar between her or any other being that would grace through this realm. One in a million had a different meaning when it was structured to actually be one in one hundred billion. The wind enjoyed toying with the bonebleach of her hair, pushing it along the sharp artistry of her features but never once did the blue beyond all blue's peer from beyond the sun glasses. At this point they were nothing but two miniscule things watching a wide circus of clear skies and a very stubborn sun. "Love of mine, someday you will die, but I'll be close behind.", she started, but didn't sing as she was wanton to do. Mouth wasn't dressed in the circus sideshow of ruby red tonight; there is pink, a neutrality to it, where it seems to go a bit pale in color when she smiles aside to him. "I'll follow you into the dark, no blinding light or tunnels to gates of white. Just our hands clasped so tight --", and it continued, recital of a poem that she did not write but could pronounce as if she had spoken it hundreds of times before. "-- waiting for the hint of a spark." Trailing the last bit when her skin of her teeth claimed the bottom pulp of her lip. "I think I've heard it once or twice." Humored, still the shade of an accent never heard. Melting pot of murmurs, slurs, croons, and divine hymns all hunched in her throat when she spoke. Her hand soon came out to be offered to him, contorting herself to bend her ribs along the railing that helped keep her secure a top that towering light house. "I'm Lyra."
The world did seem to open up in front of them, the hustle and bustle of people and the noise of their living left behind, blotted out by the wind and the water and the lighthouse that stood sentinel over them all. The air tasted clean out here, purified by salt and light, and it made Fin feel cleaner when he could come out here to get away from the dirt and the traffic and the million things he would never understand. Sun, water, breeze - these were primal, simple, and did not tax his uneducated brain or his frayed psyche. A smile spread slowly as she spit the words back out at him, just not in the way he expected. Like poetry but void of the emotion that he knew rested within the song, waiting to be heard and unlocked in his mind and heart. "Lyra," he murmured after she extended his hand, the Y sharp and the R rolled softly. His hand was warm and callused, nails short but always managed to have something lining the miniscule crevice, whether it be ash or pigment or bits of wood fiber from lifting crates on the docks. "Finlay Mackenzie." He pulled his hand away, fingertips trailing. "I ha' been comin' out here a few weeks, ha' no' seen anyone else. Though I ha' been told tha' others do like to haunt this place, as I do," flashing a warm smile. "Wha' brings ye up here?"
Their meeting could be called happenstance, kismet, the forewarned tale of serendipity but it was not. There was little of fate where this woman was concerned; she had a habit of toeing the line before going over it such as enchanting him not with a roll of her shoulder, or the sleekness of any coy behavior, but just the resemblance to a memory. Deja vu, maybe. Their hands connected briefly but in that moment sealed an unspoken deal that may have been written in the stars since his birth. His question is what gets her to shrug back, nonchalant, reaching to pull down the sun glasses enough to garner some attention at those blue eyes. Blue, ice blue, cosmic white blue. "Would you believe me if I said you?" She teases, humming her amusement which is either infectious or cryptic. Hands spread wide to showcase the yonder paint of the world before them. "Why else come up here? Sight seeing. I also like that it's empty, the light house. Makes me feel better knowing that I'm filling it with something."
Fate was an old woman in rags poking a finger at your face and telling you not to hop on one foot on a Tuesday during a month beginning with J. Fate was missing the train by mere seconds and your spouse having time to get their lover out of the house so that your ignorance remains blissful. Fate was a child giving a cryptic message with no knowledge as to the meaning or its origin. It was not a wisp of a blonde woman sitting next to him at the lighthouse, these were not the things Fin had ever been led to believe when hearing stories of fate and destiny. The color of her eyes was rather arresting, one her shades were removed, and he blamed the light off the water for making them seem to glow with a soft luminescence. Brows rose a moment and then he pushed out a stuttered breath, chuckling while shaking his head. "No, I would no'," grinning and settling his forearms on the railing again. "We are no' fillin' it," he pointed out. "We be clingin' to the outside. But I like tha' it be empty, aye. Means tha' I will no' be bothered or chased out when I come here. Unless ye have a powerful desire to be alone, in which case, I could find another place to be?" giving her a curious sideways glance.
"I think ... we're filling it. Even though we're outside, we're apart of it. Right this moment. It's not forgotten, it has more purpose than doing what it was constructed to do. No one wants to feel like they were made for one thing and only one thing." Not so much rambling as it was just speaking to the breeze, hitching her face a long the fat of her bicep when glimpsing over the horizon of her arm to him. She was not known for silence; she could turn waspish if it suited her but the trick of her remaining with her feet firmly here was to just keep blending in. And to do that, talking was needed as if she had no care in the world aside from sharing intimate details of philosophy with a Scot who wore the youth well when paired with rusting fingers. "Not really. I'm not big on being alone." Confessing with no bizarre innuendo hooking into the sides of her speech. Sensuality was present but never stifling, never enough to drown in -- always just out of reach. "I can go though, if you want to be alone?" Turning the question to him when digging through her pockets with a stretch back of her torso. Fingers curling through the denim when fishing for cigarettes.
Fin took her words to heart, mulling over the twists and turns of her poetic bint. The Celts had always spoken that way, masking knowledge and wisdom in vivid tales and nonsensical verse. Sometimes, it was nice to meet others whose words required careful regard without the threat of harm. Gazing upon the line of horizon where water and sky kissed gently, he asked with a solemn countenance, "But wha' if it was forgotten? Wha' if we are only made for one thing? Feelin' somethin, feelin' tha' ye want to do somethin' greater does no' mean tha' ye should be doin' somethin' greater, does it?" He was honestly asking her opinion on the matter, obviously having taken away some sort of personal meaning. "I sometimes feel tha' I do no' even fill m'self, tha' I need others to help but...I do no' think tha' be workin'." A light frown puckered his brow and then he sighed to himself and turned his face to lay his cheek upon his arm and look at her. "No, I do no' mind ye here," his smile a small thing but no less genuine. " 'Times I like to be alone but I do no' think it always be so good for me." The sight of her cigarettes made his own mouth water but the case of hand rolled smokes was left alone for now. Drawing out the anticipation.
The fables and tales and stories she could spin on the wheel of her tongue could go till the end of time; he was lucky that he filled the gap with his own insight, his own inquiry even though their meeting happened only moments ago. Again, that feeling. That haze that rested in the lucid dreaming state of knowing and not knowing. Smoke didn't last long up here and skirted across any wind that laughed past them. "I'll remember you. This light house. This cigarette. This sun." Almost wincing at the mention of it; she was a pale pearl out in the open, easily annoyed at the glory of it. And then she laughed and it was hard to tell if she was making a joke or her sincerity was always with a touch of otherworldly charm. "So, what do you think you were made for, Fin?" She shortened it as if she knew he wouldn't mind his title cut to a pet name. "And is it too much to ask for you to dream a little bigger?" Brushing fingers, cigarette filter, and her teeth across her girlish smile. "If mankind felt that they were meant for one thing, and never acted on any other impulse, we would be boring. Producing like rabbits, fucking like beasts, still stuck in some stone age." Ashes fell away into the breeze, circling around to do a double take at both of them, all before dissolving into the distance. His uttering after that, the curiosity of his words, got her to side eye him. It made her fingers twitch, made the cards burn, and had her tongue stalling out behind her docile seeming smile. "Maybe you just haven't found you yet."
Fallen into a rut somewhere between melancholic and whimsical, one corner of his mouth hooked upward in a lopsided smile which might have seemed even more so from the horizontal perch of his head on his arm. "Will ye? I would thank ye for it but I canno' until I know how ye will remember me." Would it be fondly? With detachment? Would he be distorted by time, would it be a hazy recollection? Fin had been pale when he first reached RhyDin but that had been mostly due to malnutrition and being locked away in a cage under the ground. Manual labor and hours spent in the sun (combined with a general dislike of clothing when it didn't have to be enforced) had given him a light golden dusting, turning some of his honeyed hair a lighter shade. Words wove between them seamlessly, each parsing a different meaning though their words could be compared, line by line. "I sometimes wonder if I was made for anythin'. 'Haps to be a smith but I am no' anymore. I think I dream too big for the reality I be in an' when I fall short, it leaves me...empty. Feelin' I am fated to want wha' always be out o' reach." The smell of her cigarettes was soothing the itch in the back of his throat but still he wanted another, or maybe something stronger. Just wanted the familiar motion of keeping hands and lips busy. "Aye, well...tha' would make sense for I have felt well an' truly lost since arrivin' here."
Trapped souls are doomed to repeat their penance over and over, till the etchings of their own mental purgatory drag them too far down. Breathing with your head above water suddenly seemed like a heavy task when there were so many hands attempting to drown you, snuff you out, leave you lost amid your own theories. Lyra hummed a small sound akin to amusement but it was empathy that could be found in the cracks of her lips, between the lines of her words. "I will remember you as being alone until you saw me, and realized you're not alone." Curving the cigarette along the groove of her pursing mouth before it was flicked further out, to fly until it fell beyond their recollection of sight. "People sometimes look a little to hard for a reason. An explanation. Anything to help cope with how they feel. And sometimes, you need a fresh pair of eyes to help you search. Get used to seeing the same thing, over and over, and soon you can't see that there are actually new pieces to be found." Fingers twitched again but this time they took flight on their own and reset the sunglasses over her eyes, saving them from the angry glare of the sun. "We're all made for something. No one is immune to that."
Fin felt as if he'd been doing nothing but struggling to keep his head above water, the hands belonging to a different person (usually himself) but always present, always wrapping an ankle with bone-cold fingers and tugging sharply just when he thought he was free. A slow nod showed he was absorbing what she said, taking it in and washing it through the filter of his own perspective before offering back the repurposed, recycled ideas. A full smile bloomed for her double edged description, knowing it could be interpreted as simply or as deeply as one chose to take it. The smiled was curbed, however, as she went on. "But how are ye supposed to know the difference between a true reason an' one tha' be in yer head? They all feel the same, come from the same place, aye?" His head had a way of tricking him down the darkest, most difficult path even when a better offer lay plainly in view. It was a daily struggle and even still, he wondered if perhaps he wasn't still with Stefin, all this around him a wisp of a dream, another herb-induced hallucination that tricked his tortured body from remembering where it really was. "How d'ye know wha' be real?" Finally, the Scot straightened from his slump against the warm wrought iron (he could have done a better job) and reached for his cigarette case. It was popped open and out of habit, he nearly held it out for her in silent offer but remembered at the last moment that she'd just finished one. With a taste for more than tobacco, he pulled a joint from the left side of the case (it looked no different than its nicotine brethren on the right side) and set it to his lips, cupping carefully with scarred and rough fingers to protect from the strong wind that caressed their forms on the promenade. It took him a few tries, but finally it was lit and he puffed miniature clouds. "Wha' are ye made for?"
He was beginning to regurgitate questions that would destroy the well stitched veil of her girlskin but she was a hybrid being that enjoyed the way he formulated his own thoughts while sipping down her own with a smile. Fingers tipped down the boney avenue of the railing they were leaning forward against, feeling the rust, the wear and tear, the knots of metal. "You don't. That's why you never stop trying to figure it out. Take one step forward, three steps back, but at some moment you'll waltz all those paces without slipping." Her fingers became a decoy for attention when prowling along that railing with her description of dancing. "I know it's real because it hurts." That was a soulwell of an admission that opened up her smile in a different light. A natural disaster or a force of nature, no one would be able to tell. "What am I made for ...", she repeated it in her own timbre while clucking her tongue to the backs of her teeth, smoothing out her palms across the tops of her thighs while pretending to be lost in the magic of the daylight. "I asked myself that a lot, in the beginning. I was a little scared of the truth. I wanted to be made for something else entirely. So, I changed. I rebelled against what I was supposed to be made for. Decided to make my own destination rather than fall knee deep in the muck of what had been laid out for me." Not much of an answer but she wasn't about to tear away the mask and expose herself. She knew him, knew him well enough, but things like a stars secrets were to be kept -- for her safety, and others.
If he could, the Scot would formulate someone else's thoughts and not be plagued with his seam-ripping questions for the space of a day. A bliss he would never taste, unfortunately, not without magics that he couldn't bring himself to trust. The fabric of his mind was paper thin as it was, light shining through it most days; he was afraid to have anything else done that would rip it asunder in a very permanent way. "So wha' ye be sayin' is tha' there is no true reason, we just keep guessin' until...until we have less troubles?" He frowned because...it was a realistic answer but not one that made him feel better. "Sounds like a rather pointless life," he murmured, the sorrow welling in his voice and in his blue blue eyes again, spilling over to give her just a taste. It oozed slowly from him, thick and hugging the walkway between them. "It all hurts, is it all real? Even wha' I know canno' be real?" That was a very sad answer and he didn't want to think on the dismal future that painted for him so instead, let her story distract him. And then begged the obvious question, "Wha' were ye made for initially?"
It wasn't the beginning of his words, it was the ending, that churned enough of her expression into an austere mask that didn't flinch through the emotion of it. "Pointless life?" Questioning him, letting her features unravel into a brief ripple of disbelief. "A pointless life." Again, recycling it and letting it seep between her teeth when they clicked together. "You shouldn't say that." Drawing fingers up to sink them through the bleach of her hair, the white and yellow of it, pushing it till the majority fell behind her ear and over her shoulder. "Would you say life was pointless to someone dying, dying for just one more day? Would you tell a child that life is pointless just because they were dealt a bad hand but had their entire future to make it better?" Easing these scenarios out on the breathy way her voice had turned; it was never volatile, never void of anything, but it felt a thousand years old in that second. "Life, is never pointless. Life is everything. Experiences that only people who live can have? Love, hate, fights and fucking, watching this ugly sun or being allowed to glimpse at the moon smiling at you? Touching, hurting, crying, laughing. Never pointless." Expelling a long sigh while molding her hands along the bars to start pulling away from the lean a long them. "To be a watcher." A vague answer but she let it hang there till her smile fit back against the smooth district of her lips. "And I watched for a long, long time."
A hard edge slowly formed to her presence, sharp and brittle though there was a hot passion that ran a river underneath, pushing out her rebuke with the force of a current, with direction and purpose. But Fin took it without rancor - instead, he gave a soft smile and let the weed seep into him slowly, like the sun and the wind. A force of nature in the form of a natural herb, the patience and calmness of Earth filling in all the holes he feared he had so that the black dirt inside him took in her words and turned them to nourishing ash, swallowed them whole. "I would no' say those things, I merely asked if tha' was wha' ye were sayin' to me," his tone slightly mollifying. "I fear tha' it be pointless, fear it so much tha' I refuse to believe it is. But...I have no' found anythin' to replace tha' fear yet," shrugging his shoulders, as if this were a normal conversation he might have with anyone. Knowing Fin, that could well be true. "So ye were no' allowed to take part? From where did ye watch?" That certainly explained a lot about her little speech just now.
"You will." From one point to the next, her dissection between sharp and soft came with the blink of an eye. Quickened was the pace of her smile even if it draped as syrup would to her lips. "At least, I think you will." Which was to help solve the riddle, if there was one in the first place; she wasn't inhuman at this moment but just another pile of bones and blood. That's what she wanted people to see, to suspect, and keep her out of the limelight of direct questioning. She laughed, openly and loud enough to let it echo out beyond the reach of the salt water below. "From where did I watch? All over." Still not giving enough to grow any suspicion. She hadn't threatened him, hadn't played out as a threat, and seemed just as lively as the first flicker of stars when dusk would come crawling. Standing with her hands sifting through the material of her ensemble, a thin cotton t-shirt that was almost translucent with the old pair of jeans that hooked at her hips. "You're cute." Genuine in that when passing through the vapor left thin at their altitude. Smell of earth mixing oddly with the aroma she wore on her skin. "Meet you next time?" As if setting up some casual get together between a man that couldn't remember her and a celestial playing pretend once again. Gesturing her departure rather than speaking it; she knew they would see one another again. Gone through the door to begin the winding stairs of the circuitry the lighthouse afforded. Sooner or later he would have to check that cigarette case again, to either feed his growing appetite to be just as doused in dreamland herbs or to quell his thirst for cancer, but at some point it would happen -- and at that point, he would find The Sun card, wrinkled at the edges and folded a few times to imprint lines along its thick shell.