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 Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2009 1:02 pm
It was nobody’s secret, but still Vashan felt as though it wasn’t something other people would understand. Suddenly being thrown into an eccentric world far in the mountains where the winters were harsher than anything he had felt was not something he had fully accepted yet.
He had no jacket in his wardrobe. In Jamaica, he hadn’t needed such things, and now suffered for his lack of preparation. Still, if he had been told even a mere month before that time would have shattered like a wine glass in the hands of a buttered-fingered child, that he would run from his own country to an organization dubbed LOTUS with nothing but a small suitcase and no goodbyes, he would have laughed. Despite his circumstances then, he would have laughed Santana’s rollicking laugh with a wave of warmth from his belly, because such ridiculously easy escapes weren’t things that happened in reality.
Refusing to let the discomfort show to anyone passing by, he stood at the edge of the gardens, half humbled, half frustrated at the show of brilliance before him. Color television in every room, this powdery white substance that fell generously from the sky like natural waste from the clouds. The air was merciless on his skin, but he hadn’t been able to sleep well the night before, nor the night before that, so he bore the pain so as to permit the numbness to come- and with it, sleep.
The sky was dreary. As with all months in this season at LOTUS, it was devilishly cold and dry, though the downfall of snow had receded in one of the rare moments of calmness. Vashan shook out his legs, perched himself soundlessly, tight-lipped upon one of the stone outcroppings that would have housed flowers in the spring, though today it was empty as the gardens.
“This is ridiculous,” he spoke aloud, though his voice was cast away by a sudden thieving wind. “What am I doing here?”
He had needed to clear his mind. And he knew he could not escape so easily a second time.
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Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2009 2:56 pm
Asmadai took a sip of his coffee. For once, it was warm enough for him to be outside with a ballpoint pen and a cup of coffee and neither item would freeze, so out he had gone. Cabin fever, it seemed, infected even the most stoic of indoorsmen. He didn't lift the pen to write, though; simply sitting there really was as much as he'd wanted to do for a very long time.
The wind was mild, but biting. He remained convinced his nose had actually fallen off quite some time ago and he hadn't noticed just because his entire face had gone quite numb perhaps four minutes after he had walked out. Carried on the wind, though, was something to chase him out of his apathetic reverie. He crunched through the snow, coffee in one hand and steno pad in the other.
"Presumably," said Asmadai once he had caught sight of Vashan, "You've got some sort of death wish, to come out here with no coat at all."
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Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2009 6:59 pm
Vashan turned at the voice and bit back his protests, studying the man before him. Through the lethargic, cold haze that settled over his eyes he had to blink a few times before his image let itself through- a calm, blond man in a jacket and holding a pad and coffee in his hands. He eyed the coffee for a second, the wisps of warm smoke emanating from the top of it before he let himself respond.
"Not at all," he stated quietly, eyes locked with the other man's. "I needed some air."
Though he hadn't meant it that way, his tone came out a little defensive, and he resisted the urge to stomp on his own foot in disgust. He was not used to being alone, though he was built for it. Even back at home, he would always have Santana to wait for. In the truth that he had abandoned all of them- friends or otherwise- in a rotting, vast wasteland he found himself slowly sinking into guilt.
Guilt that even when he had made the decision himself, he still allowed his heart to be lonely.
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Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2009 11:12 pm
"Of course," said the priest, backing down at the other's tone. "As did I." The other man looked like he didn't want any pity, and the way he spoke definitely backed that conclusion up. Asmadai could understand that- the desire to wallow in guilt without sharing it. There were things he didn't want to look back at, either.
Still, he didn't feel quite at peace with leaving the dark-skinned man alone. He held out the cup of coffee, smiling faintly as he did so. "Would you like this?"
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Posted: Sun Jan 04, 2009 10:57 am
At the way his words changed, Vashan was suddenly glad he had not been harsher to this man, who seemed infinitely wiser than he could have lived up to in his last life. He let the tightness around his lips slacken, and his body relaxed almost immediately, the only visible sign of how he was feeling inside.
When the coffee was offered to him, he blinked in surprise, weighing out the options in his head. On one hand, he barely knew the man, and he also wasn't a fan of coffee, but on the other, he had just submitted himself to some sort of natural glaciation and was beginning to feel the effects.
Wearily, he allowed the weak hint of a smile to creep up to his lips.
"Thank you," he said, almost admitting to the weakness he harbored inside. It felt like this man could see everything that was going on inside his roiling heart, but instead of making him uncomfortable, it calmed him down, like the sky was falling down on two people, now.
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Posted: Sun Jan 04, 2009 4:26 pm
"Of course," said Asmadai. "Think nothing of it." There were always other pots of coffee, after all. He stood there in companionable silence for a short while as he fiddled with the ballpoint pen, uncapping it and recapping it. His fingers were numb, but it was probably nothing compared to what the other man was feeling.
He decided it might be a good time to speak up, and so he said: "My name is Asmadai. May I have yours?"
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Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2009 2:04 pm
With the coffee in his hands, Vashan felt considerably better, though he cursed himself for not bringing along a jacket- even his thoughts, which were supposed to have cleared by now, were beginning to grow sluggish with the temperature, tingling and numb like his forearms.
Unconsciously, he rolled down his sleeves and stepped from one foot to the other, taking a mental snapshot of the sky on the brink of snowfall, thinking it was not something that he could have seen in Jamaica. At the other man's voice, he looked over politely and said the name in his head so as to remember it, though its origin escaped him.
"Vashan," he replied curtly. "I'm a new recruit."
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Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2009 7:53 pm
He nodded. Vashan, that was an interesting name. It wouldn't be too hard to remember it, or the man the name belonged to- he didn't look anything like most of the other recruits hanging about. "If you're cold, there's a portico over that way that is quite shaded from the wind," he said. Not that he thought the man would take the offer. It was just that it was still dreadfully cold, even if it was good writing weather.
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Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2009 7:17 pm
Vashan watched him nod, though the action was just a vague imprint in his mind. Though it was cold, he was beginning to feel as though he was on the verge of something like a new discovery about himself, though he wasn't sure what. He continued to gaze upwards until he felt his companion -Asmadai, he noted again- speak up beside him.
A portico, so it seemed. He craned his neck, but could not see far enough to make it out. Still, the idea of standing shaded from the wind seemed inviting.
"Thank you," he nodded quietly, though made no move to reach it. "I will probably need its shelter soon."
A pin p***k of curiousity surfaced and he looked over suddenly, earnestly wondering,
"What brings you out to the gardens in such cold weather, if I may ask?"
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Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2009 6:47 pm
As expected, Vashan didn't move. Asmadai lifted one shoulder, let it fall; it was, of course, something he should care about- the life of his fellow recruit. But if the younger man didn't feel the need to help himself, how should the priest help him? It seemed rather impossible- or at least, nearly so -to force someone else to care.
He'd tried.
"It's not so cold," he said, "lately, it's been colder. Besides, I recently spent time in Romania." Running from my fears, but that went unsaid. "The weather patterns are similar, worse, in some ways. I am in no hurry to return there."
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