feeling strong so long ago, I don't remember

[godtooksides]

Today, despite the bitter cold, there are a number of people out and about in Chicago, though not all of them are willingly so. For instance the sudden drop in temperature has quite dismayed one particular angel, who's downtown, huddled in the entranceway of a shop. He's only been there for a few minutes, because he knows before long someone's

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[anjelsword]

Aniki lingers outside of Arlin's door, debating whether or not to knock. She finally grumbles and rolls her eyes, rapping on it and standing back, hands tucked into her pockets.

She's been avoidant lately. It's been annoying her. "Hello, my lad," she calls. "I know you're home."

[kineticmachine]

Arlin scowls at the door at the knock, wondering for a half-second if it could actually be anyone important enough to get up for. But Aniki's voice actually does get him to move away from the machine for long enough to open the door.

And stare at her blankly. What? He opened the door. What more does she want from him?

[anjelsword]

"Hello," she repeats. "Now--the first lesson, you say it back. And then maybe even ask me inside."

She doesn't actually wait for him to let her in, instead sliding past him and into his apartment. "Pretty," she says. "Are you making it for a reason?"

[kineticmachine]

Arlin rolls his eyes when she slips past him, and closes the door. "I figured you'd come inside if you wanted to, regardless," he says, but does add, "And hello," only slightly sarcastically at the end. Of anyone that could have knocked right then, Aniki is the person he minds the least right now, for all that he would like to be alone.

He'd also like to be Not In Chicago. He's learned to deal with not having things he'd like.

"Not any of the right ones," he says, sitting down in front of the half-finished machine again.

[anjelsword]

She flops down across from him, inspecting the thing without touching it. It looks like a mage working, and she knows better than to fiddle with those kinds of things, particularly workings-in-progress. "What're the right ones?"

She sits up, stretching until her back pops.

[kineticmachine]

Arlin watches her stretch in silence, considering his words. As much as he lies easily, he's an honest person as a general rule. But that is something he doesn't really want to talk about. But this is Aniki.

Blah di blah di blah, Arlin fails at communication.

While he's failing, he goes back to latching the balsa bits together. "I haven't heard them for nearly two decades," he says. They used to be orders, needs from things he couldn't necessarily deny; now, they're simply a coping mechanism. Something trite.

[anjelsword]

Not a straight answer, but more than she was expecting. Aniki leans back and props herself up on her hands, watching him work in silence for a moment before she speaks. "I've a friend, where I'm from, who can hear the dead riding pigeons. Voices in dust spinners, too. Part of her magic."

She tilts her head, brushing her hair back. "What is it you hear? Heard? Gods, ghosts?"

[kineticmachine]

Arlin pauses when she speaks, but it's not an annoyed pause, this time. Just a stillness. He's staring at the machine as though he's expecting it to move of its own volition, the way they used to, smoothing a finger down the piece he's holding. "I always used to scorn the word 'magic'," he admits. "Just a talent."

He's not sure why he's admitting this now, when he's been silent for the decades he's been here, for the decades that everything around him has been silent. Perhaps now he just needs to say it, and Aniki is the closest person to him. Other than Babel, but he's not going to talk to her about anything -- she already knew something was wrong, and Babel makes him face the things he's getting along fine not facing. He doesn't have the energy for Babel. He never did.

"Neither," he says, and the sigh that follows is more bitter than he intended it to be. He starts work on the machine again. "More akin to your 'voices in the dust spinners' than anything else."