Friday, July 27
Old Market, RhyDin
Jay spent a great deal of his waking hours now in New Haven, but it still didn't feel like home. He spent much of his time eating, sleeping, and training at the AMD Training Academy, and it felt walled off from the glitz and glamour of Benson Boulevard. He dressed in workout clothes while exercising or sparring, and in his skater clothes other times. On the rare occasions that he left the campus, he could feel the keen, judging eyes of the rich and powerful wondering how this scarred and poorly dressed man had gotten into their neighborhood.
Today was one of those times, but he didn't mind it much. Today, he was heading to a neighborhood he was more familiar with, more comfortable with, nearer and dearer to his heart. It was technically the Old Market, but it was so close to the WestEnd that it frequently got lumped in with that. That dividing line between neighborhoods, that space in between, was where the Kesey Apartment Complex was.
In all the years he had been in RhyDin, in all the years he had known Lizzie and Kazzy and Samiyah, he had never visited them there. There were a lot of reasons for that, some good, some bad, some just...circumstance. Whatever the reason for his past avoidance of the building, today, he was going to stop by and visit. Being on more familiar ground - and preparing to see a friendly face - quickened his steps, and before he knew it he had entered the building, climbed the steps, and found himself outside apartment 2E. He knocked on the door and waited for it to open.
The door swung open and the friendly face was on the other side. It was familiar ground for Sami as well. After all, the dark, nameless pit of a bar in WestEnd that she'd grown up in was only a seventeen minute walk from the border with Old Market. But it was a seventeen minute walk that she tried to avoid both mentally as well as physically.
Khaki shorts and a tank top were already splattered with the bright orange paint she'd chosen -- Kumquat or so it had been called by the paint store. Her smile brightened her face further and she opened the door wider so that he could step in. "I couldn't wait. I taped off last night and I had to get started. I wanted to see what it was going to look like."
The wispy white curtains that usually separated the bedroom nook from the rest of the studio apartment had been removed and were lying over the back of the couch. The bed that took up much of the bedroom area had been shoved forward into the living room and only the bedroom nook had been taped off. One wall was now the rich burnt orange while the three remaining were still the base white. Somehow, despite having lived in the apartment for two years, those walls had remained white, as did the rest of the apartment. It was a failure to commit, a failure to sink in roots. And, even now, it seemed she was only ready for that small nook. The rest of the studio apartment would stay that base white.
Jay stepped in, taking a look around the apartment, at the wall that had already been painted its new orange hue, and the walls in white that would soon be orange as well. Jay had taken a trip to a thrift shop - Cheeky's, perhaps - and bought some jeans that had already been stained with white paint. He had on a beat-up pair of tennis shoes and an old white tank-top. "So far, so...good?"
"It goes well." Her tone was bright and she swept her hand towards the wall with a paint brush in hand after shutting the door behind him. "Shouldn't take long. And you can catch me up on all the things I should know about you. You know, considering we've been dating for four years."
"What sorts of things?" Jay felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck, like hackles, and he ran a hand over the back of his head as if to smooth it down. He thought of all the things that someone would find out about somebody after dating for four years, and he realized that he had never made it anywhere near that long with a relationship. Probably in part because the secrets he kept had to remain deep, dark, and buried. He sniffed at the room briefly, his nose slightly lifted as he did so.
The apartment smelled faintly of takeout Indian, the herbs growing in a series of pots against the window sill, and the pizza that was already waiting for him on the center of the small mosaic garden table. "Have some pizza. There's Silvermark in the fridge."
She had picked that piece of business before handling his question not just to be a good host. His question gave her pause for the same reason that he was asking it. After the debacle of the year prior, she wasn't allowed to date. Her secrets were far more important than a relationship. But he felt safe. The fantasy felt safe. Maybe she would feel a little more normal for a little while. And it was that sense of safety that had her wearing a tank top that she never would have worn in public. At least not without a sweater. The entire reddish head of the horned beast that sat on top of the Bhavacakra tattoo on her back was visible. The rest of the wheel of life, though, lay hidden beneath the white tank top.
"Let's start with where you grew up. Your family. That sort of thing."
Jay took note of the tattoo on her back, but didn't say anything about it right away. He had been asked a question, and answer it he would. After he had taken a slice of pizza, of course. He picked up a piece of pepperoni, murmured a "thank you", and took a few bites before launching into a response.
The information passed freely over breaks of pizza and through the easy labor. His family. Her life growing up with Harris and Stick. His skateboarding and the accident that had ended it. The summer she spent interning with Koy much to Stick?s dismay. The soothing sound of wet paint rolling against the wall provided a relaxing backdrop for the conversation. Eventually, Sami left Jay to the roller and dropped with a paint brush in hand to a seat to carefully edge around the baseboards.
A laugh suddenly died from Jay as they built the story to explain away the time he had spent with Candy and as the sound ebbed Sami lifted her dark eyes to him, feeling the mood shift in the room.
"You probably need to know that I was in jail from late April of 2009 until...I am really bad with time, there. I think...September of 2009 I got out? And then...I went missing from June of 2010 until April of last year." Jay made no further attempt to explain the gaps in time, and the way his jaw was set, trying to question him any further seemed like a fool's errand.
There were no super powers to keep her or her secrets safe. Well, besides the way the ink on her back prickled and twisted and writhed when it perceived danger. Instead, she had to be keenly observant to keep herself out of trouble. In profile from her seat on the floor, the hard set lines of his jaw were even easier to see.
A wave of guilt boiled up inside of her. There were so many truths to spill and she could possibly be complicating his life with her story rather than simplifying it. But clearly he had his own secrets. Maybe he would understand. For now, though, all she could give him was a piece -- and even that wrapped up in a lie -- with the hopes that it would pacify the guilt eating away at her stomach lining. "You, Stick, and Harris convinced me to come back to RhyDin right before the dojo where I was working, training and living at in Icecrest was destroyed. A lot... of people died." The final three words were expelled forcefully from her throat.
"I'm sorry to hear that." His hardened stance eased, and he too set aside his roller as he looked at her. Whether he detected the deceit that had slipped its way into her tone and simply chose not to pursue it any further, or whether he had been genuinely fooled by the lie wasn't immediately clear on his face. "And this was...when, remind me?" He laughed an embarrassed laugh at not remembering the detail.
"It was attacked in February. Two years ago." Her lips pursed into a thin, hard set line. The cheerful young woman was suddenly gone. Even now as she closed in on the details that led up to the ink on her back, the tattoo remained dormant. Maybe it didn't feel there was danger or maybe it was linked to what she thought was dangerous. There were so many questions that she never had a chance to ask. "The emperor was killed in August of the year prior. It was six months of anarchy."
Jay busied himself by putting more paint on his roller, heading back to where he had left his beer and taking a sip while he was at it. When he stepped back into the room, he had a solemn look on his face as well. He caught the fact that what had happened in Icecrest was painful, and he didn't push any further. "So..a lot of gaps and things like that. At least it's easy enough to explain away the time I'd spent with Candy over the last year. We were just friends. Were." It was probably selfish, in the face of all Samiyah had dealt with, for him to cling stubbornly to his personal pain, but those wounds were raw, and Candy seemed to have a way of reopening them in new and freshly painful ways each time they ran into each other.
?How old are you?? The subject was tilted away from Candy. The subject was painful to Jay and it drudged up fresh guilt for Sami. Every step she took deeper into this adventure with Jay was a step further away from her own responsibilities, her own vows.
"I'm 26."
"So you were 22 and I was 18. It's no wonder you didn't want Harris to find out." She shook her head slowly and playfully, unable to keep her smile from growing as she broke her concentration to shoot a look up at him again. "We're gonna make this work. It's going to be too easy."
She had an infectious smile, and although Jay couldn't fully match its warmth and brightness, he did smile back. It seemed an odd fit, the small smile on his face contrasted with his fierce blue eyes. "That's why I eventually stopped dying my hair blue. There's all sorts of...well, you know. And yeah. I think this'll work."
How long did it really need to work? A month, maybe two. And then they could easily say that the strain of his training caused them to break up. But she wanted to focus on anything but that at this point. His company was the perfect distraction and with a glance around the small apartment, she made up her mind.
?You know, I think the rest of this place could use some paint too.?
((Taken from live play with Jay.))
Old Market, RhyDin
Jay spent a great deal of his waking hours now in New Haven, but it still didn't feel like home. He spent much of his time eating, sleeping, and training at the AMD Training Academy, and it felt walled off from the glitz and glamour of Benson Boulevard. He dressed in workout clothes while exercising or sparring, and in his skater clothes other times. On the rare occasions that he left the campus, he could feel the keen, judging eyes of the rich and powerful wondering how this scarred and poorly dressed man had gotten into their neighborhood.
Today was one of those times, but he didn't mind it much. Today, he was heading to a neighborhood he was more familiar with, more comfortable with, nearer and dearer to his heart. It was technically the Old Market, but it was so close to the WestEnd that it frequently got lumped in with that. That dividing line between neighborhoods, that space in between, was where the Kesey Apartment Complex was.
In all the years he had been in RhyDin, in all the years he had known Lizzie and Kazzy and Samiyah, he had never visited them there. There were a lot of reasons for that, some good, some bad, some just...circumstance. Whatever the reason for his past avoidance of the building, today, he was going to stop by and visit. Being on more familiar ground - and preparing to see a friendly face - quickened his steps, and before he knew it he had entered the building, climbed the steps, and found himself outside apartment 2E. He knocked on the door and waited for it to open.
The door swung open and the friendly face was on the other side. It was familiar ground for Sami as well. After all, the dark, nameless pit of a bar in WestEnd that she'd grown up in was only a seventeen minute walk from the border with Old Market. But it was a seventeen minute walk that she tried to avoid both mentally as well as physically.
Khaki shorts and a tank top were already splattered with the bright orange paint she'd chosen -- Kumquat or so it had been called by the paint store. Her smile brightened her face further and she opened the door wider so that he could step in. "I couldn't wait. I taped off last night and I had to get started. I wanted to see what it was going to look like."
The wispy white curtains that usually separated the bedroom nook from the rest of the studio apartment had been removed and were lying over the back of the couch. The bed that took up much of the bedroom area had been shoved forward into the living room and only the bedroom nook had been taped off. One wall was now the rich burnt orange while the three remaining were still the base white. Somehow, despite having lived in the apartment for two years, those walls had remained white, as did the rest of the apartment. It was a failure to commit, a failure to sink in roots. And, even now, it seemed she was only ready for that small nook. The rest of the studio apartment would stay that base white.
Jay stepped in, taking a look around the apartment, at the wall that had already been painted its new orange hue, and the walls in white that would soon be orange as well. Jay had taken a trip to a thrift shop - Cheeky's, perhaps - and bought some jeans that had already been stained with white paint. He had on a beat-up pair of tennis shoes and an old white tank-top. "So far, so...good?"
"It goes well." Her tone was bright and she swept her hand towards the wall with a paint brush in hand after shutting the door behind him. "Shouldn't take long. And you can catch me up on all the things I should know about you. You know, considering we've been dating for four years."
"What sorts of things?" Jay felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck, like hackles, and he ran a hand over the back of his head as if to smooth it down. He thought of all the things that someone would find out about somebody after dating for four years, and he realized that he had never made it anywhere near that long with a relationship. Probably in part because the secrets he kept had to remain deep, dark, and buried. He sniffed at the room briefly, his nose slightly lifted as he did so.
The apartment smelled faintly of takeout Indian, the herbs growing in a series of pots against the window sill, and the pizza that was already waiting for him on the center of the small mosaic garden table. "Have some pizza. There's Silvermark in the fridge."
She had picked that piece of business before handling his question not just to be a good host. His question gave her pause for the same reason that he was asking it. After the debacle of the year prior, she wasn't allowed to date. Her secrets were far more important than a relationship. But he felt safe. The fantasy felt safe. Maybe she would feel a little more normal for a little while. And it was that sense of safety that had her wearing a tank top that she never would have worn in public. At least not without a sweater. The entire reddish head of the horned beast that sat on top of the Bhavacakra tattoo on her back was visible. The rest of the wheel of life, though, lay hidden beneath the white tank top.
"Let's start with where you grew up. Your family. That sort of thing."
Jay took note of the tattoo on her back, but didn't say anything about it right away. He had been asked a question, and answer it he would. After he had taken a slice of pizza, of course. He picked up a piece of pepperoni, murmured a "thank you", and took a few bites before launching into a response.
The information passed freely over breaks of pizza and through the easy labor. His family. Her life growing up with Harris and Stick. His skateboarding and the accident that had ended it. The summer she spent interning with Koy much to Stick?s dismay. The soothing sound of wet paint rolling against the wall provided a relaxing backdrop for the conversation. Eventually, Sami left Jay to the roller and dropped with a paint brush in hand to a seat to carefully edge around the baseboards.
A laugh suddenly died from Jay as they built the story to explain away the time he had spent with Candy and as the sound ebbed Sami lifted her dark eyes to him, feeling the mood shift in the room.
"You probably need to know that I was in jail from late April of 2009 until...I am really bad with time, there. I think...September of 2009 I got out? And then...I went missing from June of 2010 until April of last year." Jay made no further attempt to explain the gaps in time, and the way his jaw was set, trying to question him any further seemed like a fool's errand.
There were no super powers to keep her or her secrets safe. Well, besides the way the ink on her back prickled and twisted and writhed when it perceived danger. Instead, she had to be keenly observant to keep herself out of trouble. In profile from her seat on the floor, the hard set lines of his jaw were even easier to see.
A wave of guilt boiled up inside of her. There were so many truths to spill and she could possibly be complicating his life with her story rather than simplifying it. But clearly he had his own secrets. Maybe he would understand. For now, though, all she could give him was a piece -- and even that wrapped up in a lie -- with the hopes that it would pacify the guilt eating away at her stomach lining. "You, Stick, and Harris convinced me to come back to RhyDin right before the dojo where I was working, training and living at in Icecrest was destroyed. A lot... of people died." The final three words were expelled forcefully from her throat.
"I'm sorry to hear that." His hardened stance eased, and he too set aside his roller as he looked at her. Whether he detected the deceit that had slipped its way into her tone and simply chose not to pursue it any further, or whether he had been genuinely fooled by the lie wasn't immediately clear on his face. "And this was...when, remind me?" He laughed an embarrassed laugh at not remembering the detail.
"It was attacked in February. Two years ago." Her lips pursed into a thin, hard set line. The cheerful young woman was suddenly gone. Even now as she closed in on the details that led up to the ink on her back, the tattoo remained dormant. Maybe it didn't feel there was danger or maybe it was linked to what she thought was dangerous. There were so many questions that she never had a chance to ask. "The emperor was killed in August of the year prior. It was six months of anarchy."
Jay busied himself by putting more paint on his roller, heading back to where he had left his beer and taking a sip while he was at it. When he stepped back into the room, he had a solemn look on his face as well. He caught the fact that what had happened in Icecrest was painful, and he didn't push any further. "So..a lot of gaps and things like that. At least it's easy enough to explain away the time I'd spent with Candy over the last year. We were just friends. Were." It was probably selfish, in the face of all Samiyah had dealt with, for him to cling stubbornly to his personal pain, but those wounds were raw, and Candy seemed to have a way of reopening them in new and freshly painful ways each time they ran into each other.
?How old are you?? The subject was tilted away from Candy. The subject was painful to Jay and it drudged up fresh guilt for Sami. Every step she took deeper into this adventure with Jay was a step further away from her own responsibilities, her own vows.
"I'm 26."
"So you were 22 and I was 18. It's no wonder you didn't want Harris to find out." She shook her head slowly and playfully, unable to keep her smile from growing as she broke her concentration to shoot a look up at him again. "We're gonna make this work. It's going to be too easy."
She had an infectious smile, and although Jay couldn't fully match its warmth and brightness, he did smile back. It seemed an odd fit, the small smile on his face contrasted with his fierce blue eyes. "That's why I eventually stopped dying my hair blue. There's all sorts of...well, you know. And yeah. I think this'll work."
How long did it really need to work? A month, maybe two. And then they could easily say that the strain of his training caused them to break up. But she wanted to focus on anything but that at this point. His company was the perfect distraction and with a glance around the small apartment, she made up her mind.
?You know, I think the rest of this place could use some paint too.?
((Taken from live play with Jay.))