(Untitled)

[edgar_huntly]

Edgar has been sleeping poorly of late--he often wakes at noon to discover that he has undone all but one of the locks on his door, and that his things are not where he had left them in the evening. He seldom presents himself for meals, instead creeping into the kitchen afterward (as though he is ashamed) to take a plate of leftovers back to his

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[russet_goddess]

Zara watches him, standing in her heavy boots in snow past her ankles, the coarse cloth of her black dress blown against her. Her arms are folded, but after a moment she says,--

"Y'need a hand?"

[edgar_huntly]

He turns to her--recognizing her voice before he sees her face, and thinking that in this grey light, her angles are softened and made more beautiful. "I would be glad of it," he answers, and offers her a sanding block from the box by his feet.

[russet_goddess]

She takes it and chooses a place next to him to start sanding. Her thin hands are hard with work.

[edgar_huntly]

Edgar can't help but watch her thin, hard hands, particularly as the light begins to touch them--she's beautiful at dawn, as well, with the red sun caught in her hair.

But he was sanding. He turns away from her, focusing on smoothing out a curve he had carved until the entire arc of it is smooth.

[russet_goddess]

After a while she says, gruffly, "Didn't figure there was enough folks'd want a church."

[edgar_huntly]

Only thoughtful, his eyes still upon his work, "Why not?"

[russet_goddess]

"Don't seem like they care, does it?" She glances over her shoulder back towards the Mansion. "Not about that kind of thing."

[edgar_huntly]

"So few of them care for anything, and I cannot say that I blame them for their low spirits," he says. "All of the old purposes for which we once lived--they are denied to us, here. I am myself not a man of right faith ... and yet I would do what kindnesses I can for those who still let faith guide their steps."

[russet_goddess]

"Huh." Sands, roughly, up and down. "So it don't mean anything t'you?"

[edgar_huntly]

"Something ... a hope of forgiveness, perhaps." Now on to a strip of sandpaper, for the fiddly detailing.

[russet_goddess]

"Y'think people get forgiven?" Her mouth tightens.

[edgar_huntly]

"I must believe that they are," he answers, without even a pause for thought--as though he were reciting a multiplication table, an idea that has passed beyond mere unthinking rote and into unshakable truth.

[russet_goddess]

"Mebbe." Zara's hands move more quickly, more firmly. Otherwise she's fairly still.

[edgar_huntly]

There will be companionable silence for a time, then, while their breath hangs chill on the air and the only sound is the scrape of sandpaper on wood. Eventually, Edgar straightens and knocks wood-dust from his hands. "Thank you," softly.

[russet_goddess]

She turns to him, her mouth tucking again. "Sorry." It comes out blunt and sudden.

[edgar_huntly]

"Sorry?"