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leila and eve's room

It was comfortably cool and dark, but unnervingly quiet in the space Leila and Eve had been led to. They spent a good hour or two just sitting together on the bed, saying nothing, not ready to sleep but also too fatigued to do anything else. Without Clover around Eve felt a little constrained, even after the newly repaired chair had been politely brought up to her.

Eventually the silence was broken by the gentle domestic clattering of Eve making a fresh pot of white tea. Leila sat across from her, summoning up a pile of Jenga blocks and setting them up. The familiarity of their space-sharing helped ease off a layer of stress, but there were still many more to account for.

it never ends

Eve was warm and receptive as always, but Leila froze. The first thing she had seen was the silhouette of the Burning Man around their guest -- which was the last thing she expected from a friendly visit, and the absolute last thing she wanted to see at all. She turned pale and part of her Jenga tower clattered to the table and the floor as her hands shot down to grip the table's edge.

Thank goodness Eve was there to gently inform her it was only Jeremiah.

Biscuit stirred and croaked amicably from her resting spot in the middle of the bed as Leila borrowed the hen's eyes to verify. She relaxed, her mind returning to the present.

"Oh God, I'm sorry," she said. "Hi, Jer."

Magical Jitters

There was a moment of shuffling from the inside of the room, and then the door opened: it was Eve. She moved out and closed it behind her with an apologetic look.

"Leila needs some time to herself," she said. "Meditation for tomorrow. You can try a little later, or I could take a message for you?"

Magical Jitters

Eve's extreme emotional fatigue did not stop her from arcing a brow. "Tomorrow will be busy. You were at our house some time ago, right?"

Magical Jitters

Kaleb nodded, avoiding eye contact.

"Yes, with America... for the binding magic-" His voice broke slightly, touching on the current source of his worries. For a time he had felt almost sure of himself, but everything that had happened since presenting their methods to Silk had eroded that confidence. Even time on it's own had a way of instilling doubt, but that afternoon had greatly sped up Kaleb's emotional unravelling.

tea cup for your thoughts?

She was surprised to find herself able to make a pot of tea. Why this surprised her, when she could quite literally make things appear out of thin air here, and had just fought a man who was on fire, made little sense to Erin. Yet it was what it was. She quietly sipped her tea, lost in thought.

Her hands still hurt, from where the flames had burned her skin and tried to char her flesh. It was more of an ache than sharp pain, but it reminded her that she had very little idea about magic. She was more practiced at it, more able to accept at face value her abilities, yes. But in the grand scheme of things, she knew little else about the Charter, the differentiated, the Court.

Sigh

Check-up

"Oh no," she waved off the offer of tea. "I'm fine. I actually came to check that you were alright." Temperance leaned tiredly against the wall. "You seemed a little out of it, at the end."

magical jitters

"I was... weak today," he murmured unhappily. "I could barely do anything, there was so much pain... and I couldn't... I couldn't even look..."

Although the horror that was the Burning Man was still fresh in his mind, the more personal failings revolved around the encounter with Pride. In the end it was something as small as blood on his clothes that had incapacitated him while others were still trying to put out flames and tend to others.

"I could barely focus enough to do anything, I'm..." Kaleb seemed to wilt further, the shame weighing heavily on his shoulders. He had a sense of how important the separated Ezra was to the woman he stood in front of. "I'm sorry I couldn't do more to help..."