Some things don't change. Despite how she can appear sometimes, Clotho has a long memory, reaching back centuries. She remembers days like this in the old days in Greece. The weather was better, of course, but the sway of people was the same. Old men sitting on benches to read or think. The universal sound of a child laughing. Wind shuddering through trees and the smell of warm bread. These things are all constant
( ... )
Even though she's standing only a few feet away and there's nobody else sitting in the bench beside him, it takes Brendan a moment to realize that the voice he's just heard is talking to him. People, in general, ignore him -- not that he blames them for it. He was, after all, nobody in particular: just a boy who couldn't remember much of anything (a name, sometimes a place, other times even a moth) and what good did that do anybody? When he looks up at her, it's with a start as he scrambles to sit upright in the hopes of looking attentive
( ... )
That smile, itself, is all the answer she might need. It's not the smile she's most used to, but she knows it anyway and understands the uncertainty that lurks behind it. Clotho is very young and very old at the same time. She remembers when, once, there would've been far more Brendans in the world, chosen by a god and then let go again when not needed. It's not so common these days, but she remembers, like she always does.
"It's nice to see you again, Brendan," she says, not waiting for an invitation to sit down on the bench beside him. She's found that it's better to jump ahead of the introduction sometimes. Not so much that it startles him but enough that her certainty that they know each other can serve in place of his for a while. "Are you enjoying the fresh air? I couldn't wait to get out and stretch my legs when I saw the sun out this morning."
It's nice to see you again, Brendan. Oh, what a marvelous sentence, wonderful and reassuring in so many ways. It's amazing, the powers words can have on a person -- even when the words are simple and few and the person is someone as lost and hopeless as Brendan is. She's pleased to see him, she's seen him before; she knows his name. Even if Brendan were aware that such is the way of Clotho with everyone (more or less), it wouldn't change his gratitude for it. His hesitant smile spreads a little wider and settles permanently onto his face. Agreeably, he nods and scoots a little to one side to make more room for her on the bench, sharing some of the heat he's already built up on the cool wooden slats.
An odd sense of deja vu jostles him to ask: "But. Don't you have work to do?" Brendan immediately wonders what sort of work. Perhaps she'll tell him and if she doesn't, perhaps he'll ask.
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"It's nice to see you again, Brendan," she says, not waiting for an invitation to sit down on the bench beside him. She's found that it's better to jump ahead of the introduction sometimes. Not so much that it startles him but enough that her certainty that they know each other can serve in place of his for a while. "Are you enjoying the fresh air? I couldn't wait to get out and stretch my legs when I saw the sun out this morning."
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An odd sense of deja vu jostles him to ask: "But. Don't you have work to do?" Brendan immediately wonders what sort of work. Perhaps she'll tell him and if she doesn't, perhaps he'll ask.
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